"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 keep ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... went out that night to stand his shift, he found Weary at his side instead of Cal. Weary explained that Cal was feeling pretty bum on account of that fall he had got, and, as Weary couldn't sleep, anyway, he had offered to stand in Cal's place. Pink ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... 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 ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have been counted on both to keep the secret and to help him. They always stuck together, he and Cathy, until she had changed. Now half the time she acted as if she were against him. Look at the way she had snooped around the attic like a bum detective. If she had found the money she would have very likely said it was her duty to tell on him. Jerry almost never could know in advance how she was going to act. Almost he did not like her ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... told you I tried to get across to France at the very start—and I was barred because I am past forty and because I have a bum heart and several other defects that a soldier isn't supposed to have. My wife and I have tried to do what little we can for the Cause, on this side of the ocean. But it has seemed woefully little, when we remember what others are doing. And we have ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... dust-covered crown and torn rim. He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat, and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City Hall Park he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection. The sifting rain saturated the old velvet collar of his overcoat, and as the wet cloth pressed against his neck, he felt ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... one egg beaten, and four ounces of butter, in a quart of flour—make it into a paste with new milk, beat it for half an hour with a pestle, roll the paste thin, and cut it into round cakes; bake them on a gridiron, and be careful not to bum them. ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... 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
... many and many a time she came, and always it was good advice she was giving to my mother, and warning her what not to do if she would have good luck. There was none of the other children of us ever seen her unless me; but I used to be glad when I seen her coming up the bum, and would run out and catch her by the hand and the cloak, and call to my mother, 'Here's the Wee Woman!' No man body ever seen her. My father used to be wanting to, and was angry with my mother and me, thinking we were telling lies and talking foolish like. And so one day when she had ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... 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 have got ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... STEVENSON: If you know when you are well off you won't have much to do with Jack Rover or his cousins. They are a bum lot and some day you will be ashamed of every one of them. Jack Rover never treated anybody square, and some day you can take it from me that I intend to pound his handsome face into a jelly. Better listen ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... the stews, wretched servants of the bagnios, whose lives seem sweet and decorous when compared with those of a Sandwich or a Dashwood or a Duke of Grafton. Yet these men, whose companionship might be rejected by Jack Sheppard, and whose example might be avoided by Pompey Bum, are the men whose names are ceaselessly prominent in the early story of the reign, and to whose power and influence much of its calamities are ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... from 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
... here a bum shell fell right in the yard. It was big around as this stovepipe and was all full of chains ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... 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
... grievous to the Jews, who always 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 ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... bum dope, as usual," Scotty added. "He hasn't even read the letter." He grinned widely. "But I have. And he'll eat his words before ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... good, and I heard 'em saying how many hours' work they'd do a day and how much they wanted for it, and most of 'em was saying about how they showed their other bosses what's what. So I knew they didn't want a job; they just wanted a place to bum in. You should'er heard me shooing 'em away. I told 'em you had made your selection and ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... policemen, and new chums.... At twelve years of age, having passed through every phase of probationary shrewdness, he is qualified to act as a full-blown bus conductor. In the purlieus of the theatres are supper-rooms (lavish of gas and free-mannered waitresses), and bum-boat shops where they sell play-bills, whelks, oranges, cheroots, and ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Kelly broke the hostile silence. "He ought to be here. I've sent for him. Sit down and wait, though f rom the looks of you, you haven't got a chance. I can't throw the public down with a bum fight. Ringside seats are selling at fifteen dollars, you ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... days, surrounded by bum-boats filled with picturesque natives of all colours, chattering like parrots, and almost as gaudy in their plumage. Meanwhile the crew were hard at work replenishing the coal-bunkers, filling up wood and water, taking in ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... the bills I send in," was the answer. "And seems to keep this bum detective pretty ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... 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, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... 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 and several other rovers and stowaways ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... TO BUM. To arrest a debtor. The gill bummed the swell for a thimble; the tradesman arrested ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... they could look down and see everything, you know. They could see the big ponds up in the sky where the rain is made, and the awful big windmills up there where the wind blows from, and the cannons that bum the thunder down." ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... 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 ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... for 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 for L. ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... 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
... 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
... Get to hell out of here. You'll be hung yet, you loafer. A good-for-nothing bum, that's what. Get out ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... plenty o' brass! To be able to set daan yor fooit Withaat ivver thinkin—bi'th' mass! 'At yo're wearin' soa much off yor booit. To be able to walk along th' street, An stand at shop windows to stare, An net ha to beat a retreat If yo scent a "bum ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... 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 ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... I'm here to-day. I knew you were thinking that. I knew it all the time I was in Colorado, growing up from a sickly kid, with a bum lung, to a heap big strong man. It forced me to do things I was afraid to do. It goaded me on to stunts at the very thought of which I'd break out in a clammy sweat. Don't you see how I'll have to turn handsprings in front of you, like the school-boy ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... 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 ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... poisoned through and through, a soul turned rancid with envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness. But now the tears came into his eyes, and he put his arm over Jimmie's shoulder. "Say, old pal, that's bum luck! By God, I'm sorry!" And Jimmie, who wanted nothing so much as somebody to be sorry with, clasped Bill in his arms, and burst into tears, and told over and over again how he had gone to what had been his home, and found only a huge crater blown out by the explosion, and how he had ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... to think 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? He must ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... Characters appeared in 1675; "A Whip for a Jockey, or a Character of an Horse-Courser," in 1677; "Four for 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," appeared in 1678; and in the same year the Duke of Buckingham's "Character of an Ugly Woman." In 1681 appeared the "Character of a Disbanded Courtier," and in 1684 Oldham's "Character of a certain ugly old P——." In 1686 followed "Twelve ingenious ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... 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 ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... 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
... 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 ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... twist together with its whiskers, And twine so close, that time should never, In life or death, their fortunes sever; But with his rusty sickle mow Both down together at a blow. 280 So learned TALIACOTIUS from The brawny part of porter's bum Cut supplemental noses, which Wou'd last as long as parent breech; But when the date of NOCK was out, 285 Off drop'd ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... course, another category of girl, who goes brutally into passionate pleasures, follows the shows, drinks and knocks about town with the boys. She is known as a "bum," has sacrificed name and reputation and cannot ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Umpth' was changed over into the Steenhundred and Umpty-umpth, wasn't it? The last that was heard from them they were at Blankville-sur-Bum. Now they've moved to Bingville-le-somethingorother. Clerk! Shove this in ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... Understand, this was the first time we went into Loando. I have learned that wretched hole well enough since. And it was as we were running out of Loando, that, in reversing the engine too suddenly, lest we should smash up an old Portuguese woman's bum-boat, that the slides or supports of the piston-rod just shot out of the grooves they run in on the top, came cleverly down on the outside of the carriage, gave that odious g-r-r-r, which I can hear now, and then, dump,—down came the whole weight of the walking-beam, bent rod and ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... 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
... and dramatic descriptions of things which I cannot but recognise. M. S—-, with his pince- nez, the Doctor, and, above all, the rapids of the Ogowe, rolling his hands round and round each other and clashing them forward with a descriptive ejaculation of "Whish, flash, bum, bum, bump," and then comes what evidently represents a terrific fight for life against terrific odds. Wish to goodness I knew French, for wishing to see these rapids, I cannot help feeling anxious and worried ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... 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, or you'll ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... customer," he cried, "and a bum waiter comes along and beats him up just when he is trying to have a little innocent sport on Christmas Eve. You take off your apron, young man, and get your time. I won't have ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... all was sayin'," went on Van. "While we was watchin' the awful flood an' listenin' to the deep bum—bum—bum of rollin' rocks some one seen Creech an' two Piutes leadin' the hosses up thet trail where the slide was. We counted the hosses—nine. An' we saw the roan ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... forget how much we who deal chiefly in new books are at the mercy of the publishers. We have to stock the new stuff, a large proportion of which is always punk. Why it is punk, goodness knows, because most of the bum books don't sell. ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... means," said Waymark, smiling, as he lit his cigar. The result was that, in a quarter of an hour Sally had related her whole history. As Ida had said, she came from Weymouth, where her father was a fisherman, and owner of bum-boats. Her mother kept a laundry, and the family had all lived together in easy circumstances. She herself had come to London—well, just for a change. And what was she doing? Oh, getting her living as best she could. In the day-time she worked ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... 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 drain-pipe mounted on a bullock-cart ...
— 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
... 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 to ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— The Road • Jack London
... 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 tent round him in sulky wrath, and, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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
... Shadwell's coronation though the Town. Rouz'd by report of fame, the nations meet, From near Bunhill, and distant Watling-street. No Persian carpets spread th' imperial way, But scatter'd limbs of mangled poets lay; From dusty shops neglected authors come, Martyrs of pies, and reliques of the bum. Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby, there lay, But loads of Shadwell almost chok'd the way. Bilk'd stationers, for yeomen, stood prepar'd, And Herringman was captain of the guard. The hoary prince in majesty appear'd, High on a throne of his own labours rear'd; At his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... "Art's a bum mistress if she makes you hustle like that!" commented Ogilvy. "Shake her, Kelly. She's a wampire mit a ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... 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 and your whale-bone bodice. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... 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, then ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... was illuminated in the evening, and the cannons went off with a bum! bum! and the soldiers presented arms. That was a marriage! The princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to show themselves, ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... much of a bunch like that," Dickie commented. "A man that can't get a job to-day is a bum. And the fellow doesn't live that ever gets through knocking around. That is if he's ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... o'clock Bud 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 ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... 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 in ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... "Were he a man of family I should say nothing, of course; but he is, sir, a mere adventurer. His father is a common boatswain—a warrant officer—not a gentleman even by courtesy, and his mother, for what I know to the contrary, might have been a bum-boat woman, and his relations, if he had any, are probably all of the ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... rascals of ten a twain, Who care not a rush for hail nor rain, Messages swiftly to go or to come, Or duck a taxman or harry a bum,[7] Or "clip a server,"[8] did blithely lie In the stable parlour next to the sky[9] Dinners, save chance ones, seldom had they, Unless they could nibble their beds of hay; But the less they got, they were hardier all— 'T was the custom of ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Bobs o' vinegar, gentleman, Kiss, toss, mouse, fat, Bore a needle, bum a fiddle, Jink ma jeerie, jink ma jye, Stand you there, ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... vicissitudes, its partings and its meetings, its inquietudes and its persecutions!—that mistaken zeal should follow them down to the very tomb—as if earthly passion could glimmer, like a funeral lamp, amid the damps of the charnel-house, and "even in their ashes bum ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... your money, you're a grouch; if you spend it, you're a loafer; if you get it, you're a grafter, and if you don't get it, you're a bum. ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... bum rap they were trying to pin on Mary as soon as I heard about it," I explained. "This business about Mary having HC. There just isn't any such Psi power as hallucination, and every one of you knows it—it's an old wives' tale. ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... brought his bum up here and they sat and guzzled. Well, you're wrong, my son. Come, let's go down, and though I don't know whether it'll mean anything to you, you shall have ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... bad dreams, that's all," said Overland, grinning. "Fifteen a month and found ain't bad for a bum, is it?" ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... red 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
... the way it throws light on the lives of the younger boarding-school boys and girls of the nineteenth century, particularly eight to thirteen year-old boys. I can tell you that not a lot had changed by the time I was at such a school, less than fifty years later. Even the Eton collar and the bum-freezer jacket was familiar to ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... 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 that 'ere rainbow—nothing ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... greybeard "full of excellent Glenlivat from the Cross Keys on Wednesday. Above them both the Reverend Erasmus Teends droned and drowsed, as Jess Kissock said with her faculty for expression, "bummelin' awa like a bubbly-Jock or a bum-bee in ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... couldn't see. I asked what I could do. He kind of braced up then. 'That you, kid?' he says. 'They didn't get you?' I told him no. 'Then I reckon we're square,' he says. I thought he was gone, but he reached out his hand. Seems he couldn't see. 'Would you mind shakin' hands with a bum?' he says. I did. And then he let go my hand. He ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... make highly efficient, either in time or space, often at the expense of clarity. "I managed to bum three more instructions out of that code." "I spent half the night bumming the interrupt code." In 1996, this term and the practice it describes are semi-obsolete. In {elder days}, John McCarthy (inventor of {LISP}) used to compare some efficiency-obsessed hackers among ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... at the paralyzed Ramsey—"you pick out a boob like that for the Choimun side, a poor fish that gits stagefright so bad he don't know whether he's talkin' or dead; or else he fakes it; because he's a speaker so bum it looks more to me like he was faking. You get this big stiff to fake the Choimun side, and then you go and stick up a goil agains' him that's got brains and makes a pacifis' argument that wins the case agains' the Choimuns like cuttin' through hog lard! But you ain't a-gunna git away with ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... what though you have a Coach lined through with velvet, and four fair Flanders mares, why should the streets be troubled continually with you, till Carmen curse you? can there be ought in this but pride of shew Lady, and pride of bum-beating, till the learned lawyers with their fat bags, are thrust against the bulks till all their causes crack? why should this Lady, and t'other Lady, and the third sweet Lady, and Madam at Mile-end, be daily visited, and your poorer neighbours, with ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... 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 ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... that brier thy tender leg shall rake: (I spare the thistles for Sir Arthur's[2] sake) Sharp are the stones; take thou this rushy mat; The hardest bum ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... Witherspoon would call, "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 ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... 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
... 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
... Canturburie (vnmanerlie inough indeed) swasht him downe, meaning to thrust 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 to saue him from their hands. Thus was verified in him that ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... 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 ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... here, Grand, I don't know just what your plan is, but I'll tell you this: I'll blow on you as sure as I'm alive if you try to carry it out. Tom Braddock is an honest man these days. He's not a whiskey- soaked bum any longer. He cracked me over the head this morning—you can see the plaster there—but I don't hold it up against him. He considers me his friend because I swore I'd stand by him if he'd hold ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... would always desert the office if there's a plausible excuse to bum about the waterfront. Is there any passion in the breast of mankind more absorbing than the love of ships? A tall Cunarder putting out to sea gives me a keener thrill than anything the Polo Grounds or the Metropolitan Opera can show. Of what avail a meeting of ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... herself saying: "I'll get Chuck Mory after you—you drunken bum, you! He'll lick you black and ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... a sorcerer, and frightened us out of our boots, and we loved it. And then it came in my mind how the master had once flogged that boy, and the surprise we were all in to see the sorcerer catch it and bum like anybody else. Thinks I to myself, "I must find some way of fixing it so for Master Case." And the next moment I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and turned out the cow, and off to the fair he went with her; and when Jack came into the fair, he saw a great crowd gathered in a ring in the street. He went into the crowd to see what they were looking at, and there in the middle of them he saw a man with a wee, wee Harp, a Mouse, and a Bum-clock (Cockroach), and a Bee to play the harp. And when the man put them down on the ground and whistled, the Bee began to play the Harp, and the Mouse and the Bum-clock stood up on their hind legs and got hold of each other and began ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... he likes the 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
... she said softly. "I don't know why I snapped out that way. I'm in a bum humor to-night for ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... twist-paw out in the brush with nothing but a bum trolley car between him and a long walk," ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... got 'em going,' said the bar-keep to the bum. 'But cheer up And beer up. The worst is yet ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... we turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for false arrest and put the whole administration on the bum," snarled O'Brien. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... scout me for him at the corner of the orchard, like a bum-baily. So soon as ever thou see'st him, draw; and as thou drawest, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... beating his way three hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at the finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I manage for "kipping"?—which means sleeping. Did I know the rounds yet? He was getting on, though the country was "horstyl" and the cities were "bum." Fierce, wasn't it? Couldn't "batter" (beg) anywhere without being "pinched." But he wasn't going to quit it. Buffalo Bill's Show was coming over soon, and a man who could drive eight horses was sure of a job any time. These mugs over here didn't know beans about driving anything ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... hacks, two-horse wagons, with wives, mothers, sisters, sweethearts, in white dresses, flowered hats, and many ribbons, and with dinner-baskets stuffed with good things to eat—old ham, young chicken, angel-cake and blackberry wine—to be spread in the sunless shade of great poplar and oak. From Bum Hollow and Wildcat Valley and from up the slopes that lead to Cracker's Neck came smaller tillers of the soil—as yet but faintly marked by the gewgaw trappings of the outer world; while from beyond High Knob, whose crown is in cloud-land, and through the Gap, came the mountaineer ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... fine it 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 ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... Picard bumped the pave, he saw squatting opposite him a figure whose gleaming eyes, ferocious whiskerage and lean-wiry frame suggested the canine rather than the human species. The Jolly Baker was a bum werewolf, but ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... black eye. She had the name of a thief wished on her until she got to be one. She was expelled from school; put in a reformatory; ran away; stole to keep herself alive. Then they all took a hand at her—ministers, society girls, charitable associations; they gave her a bum steer and made her feel she was a hopeless outcast, so she felt more at home with the vagrant class. The only person who had ever made her feel she wanted to be straight was a Salvation Army woman, but she had gone away and no one was ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... but because the cotton does not need continual watching to save it from the dogs. Of the fifty teepees at Fort Chipewyan, one or two only were of caribou but many had caribou-skin tops, as these are less likely to bum than ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... cosmetic, We may take our beauty sleep; We may rub and punch and powder But the claws go deep and deep; And before we understand it All our beauty's on the bum For the years are turning yellow When ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... ever put over. Joe, 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 ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... anarchism is to be excluded as much as possible, but what cannot be excluded is to be subdued. If this is impossible, it shall be expelled. All illustrious lights will speak there. Terry has been invited, but has refused on democratic grounds, and sticks to that 'bum' society, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood |
