"Bungle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saying, "Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a precious old chap you are!" But the trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. "Would any one believe this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. "I am so out of sorts that I bungle at ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... viewed both Augustus approach and the man stop at the hospital, and having expected a bungle, sat to hear; but at Albumblatt's mottled face he stood up quickly and said, "What's the matter?" And hearing, burst out: "Casey! Why, he was worth fifty of—Go on, Mr. Albumblatt. What next did you achieve, sir?" And as the tale was told ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... often, I believe, among the unimaginative and the uneducated, who are apt to ridicule the organs or to be repelled by them. Many women confess that they are revolted by the sight of even a husband's complete nudity, though they have no indifference for sexual embraces. I think that the stupid bungle of Nature in making the generative organs serve as means of relieving the bladder has much to do with this revulsion. But some women of erotic temperament find pleasure in looking at the penis of a husband or lover, in handling it, and kissing it. Prostitutes do this in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... I wonder who told him about the two thousand." He scratched his head in sudden perplexity. "I wonder what's got into Dick Cronk. He's too blamed good, all of a sudden. That brother of his might try the job, but—no, he'd bungle it. Besides, he'd probably stick a knife into Davy if the kid made a motion." He began chewing a fresh cigar; his pop-eyes were leveled with unseeing fierceness at a certain patch in the "main top"; his brain was seeing nothing but that packet ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... any rehearsal of this," Burns stated at last, stepping back. "When it's done, if you don't bungle the scene, it'll be done. You stand here, Jean, and kind of lean against the rock as if you're all in from that chase. You hear Gil coming, and you start forward and listen, and look,—how far can she turn, Pete; without showing too much ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... us he was down for "mention" in the next despatch. We have all admired, and often spoken about, the good work and earnest devotion of Pirie, and are delighted these are to be recognised, even in this small way. We were talking about the huge bungle of the landing at Suvla. It seems agreed had it not been that two Territorial Battalions turned tail when faced by a handful of Turks things here would have been totally different, and the ridges ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... matter. Whereas an omnipotent moving power, as it could dispatch its work in a moment, so would it always do it infallibly and irresistibly, no ineptitude and stubbornness of matter being ever able to hinder such a one, or make him bungle or fumble in anything. ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... tigers creeping Through the glade Where our prey lay sleeping, Unafraid, In some Eastern jungle? Better so. I am sure the snarling Beasts could never bungle Life as men do, darling, Who ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... burst out. "Look at him! When the leader broke I thought he was lost. I'm sick yet. Didn't you almost bungle that?" ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... overhead; then the furious shouts of the soldiers, and, finally, the mad cries of the crowd. "Damn it—they've given us the slip." "Yes; they've crawled off like rats from a sinking ship." "Curse it all, it's only a bungle." This in the Spanish tongue, and then in the tongue of his own country Ben Aboo heard the guttural shouts of his own people: "Sidi, try the palace." "Try the apartments of his women, Sidi." "Abd er-Rahman's gone, but Ben Aboo's hiding." "Death to the tyrant!" "Down ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... understand each other, lest we bungle. As the plan was mine, I take the choice of parts. There is a stain upon my conscience, M'sieu." McElroy spoke simply from his heart, as was his wont. "Throughout this long journey it has lain heavy. Though I hold against you ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... I said, before I had a chance to bungle it worse, "quite willing to exchange information on your people for the same about my own. However, I doubt that your people will find this planet congenial to an invader who ignores the ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah! Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again; I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir. Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises. —How long before this leg is done? Perhaps an hour, sir. Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go). Oh, Life! Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... of glory," said the other doctor gravely, "and Christ's glory was his usefulness and gift for helping others; I believe there's less quackery in our profession than any other, but it is amazing how we bungle at it. I wonder how you will get on with your little girl? If people didn't have theories of life of their own, or wouldn't go exactly the wrong way, it would be easier to offer assistance; but where one person takes a right direction of his own accord, there ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... o' your mother that's Lady Gloster still. I'm going to up and see her, without it's hurting the will. Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you, If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do. They'll try to prove me a loony, and, if you bungle, they can; And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why ain't he a man?) There's some waste money on marbles, the same as McCullough tried— Marbles and mausoleums—but I call that sinful pride. There's some ship bodies for burial—we've carried 'em, soldered and packed; ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... favourable impression on Shelley by being himself pleased with Mary. She in return found him amusing when he jested, but far astray in his opinions when discussing serious matters—in fact, on a later visit of his, she finds Hogg makes a sad bungle, quite muddled on the point when in an argument on virtue. In spite of being shocked by Hogg in matters of philosophy and ethics, she gets to like him better daily, and he helps them to pass the long November and December evenings with his lively ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... out,' he thought to himself. 'Even damnation may be finely imagined for me in the night. I have come so far. Now I must get clarity and courage to follow out the theme. I don't want to botch and bungle even damnation.' ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... and butcher their patients, because they are not willing to take time for thorough preparation. Half-trained lawyers stumble through their cases, and make their clients pay for experience which the law school should have given. Half-trained clergymen bungle away in the pulpit, and disgust their intelligent and cultured parishioners. Many an American youth is willing to stumble through life half prepared for his work, and then blame society ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Muro is such an innocent old love," she went on, "that he did it badly. He had been told to do it by the Jesuits and he made a bungle of it. He thought that he could make a schoolgirl answer a question if she did not want to. And no one was afraid of him. He is a dear, good, old saint, and will assuredly go to Heaven. He is not a Jesuit, you know, but he is afraid of them, ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... What makes you so white and queer?" his mother asked, trying to pull on her stockings, and in her trepidation jamming her toes into the heel, and drawing her shoe over the bungle thus made at ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... must act, and speedily too, or the resultant mischief cannot be undone. I appeal to you because you are a woman, and we men are prone to bungle ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... like to use a piece of string, marked with knots, by which I can measure the exact places in which the tent-pegs should be struck, for the eye is a deceitful guide in estimating squareness. (See "Squaring.") It is wonderful how men will bungle with a tent, when they are not ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... upon a rock and watched Casey distractedly bungle his cooking. She must have had a great deal of initiative for a squaw, for she plunged straight into the subject which most nearly concerned Casey, and she was frank to the point of appalling him with her bluntness. Casey is a rather case-hardened bachelor, but I suspect that Lucy Lily ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... permit him to snub YOU, in my presence, and then accept his invitation to take a glass of champagne with you, and you don't limit yourself to one glass. You then offer this vulgar man, who made a bungle of repairing our scraper, a seat in our cab on the way home. I say nothing about his tearing my dress in getting in the cab, nor of treading on Mrs. James's expensive fan, which you knocked out of my hand, and for which he never even apologised; but you smoked all the way home without ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... Isoult was able to feed herself and her husband, and keep both from exhaustion, without suspicion from him or much cost to herself. The second time of doing it, it is true, she went tremblingly to work, and was like to bungle it. What one may do on the flood one may easily miss on the ebb; moreover, it was night-time, she was tired, and not sure of herself. Nevertheless, she was fed, and Prosper was fed. Next morning she was as cool as you choose, singled out her ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... our heroine under the knife, the second executioner is slow and awkward. He has seen butchery come quite too close to his own flesh! Still somewhat unnerved, he prepares himself for the task with clumsy movements and halting fingers. The master bids him hurry—Jean takes his time, he's not going to bungle the job.... ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... good time. There's Blue Bonnet. I hear her voice. She's early, isn't she? Amanda, take a peek at the favors, will you, and tell Sarah not to get them mixed. I have explained it all to her a dozen times, but when one doesn't dance, one is apt to bungle." ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... into Burma; so that the mysterious epidemic in Rangoon was really an outbreak of thuggee—on slightly improved lines! I had suspected something of the kind but, naturally, I had not looked for Thugs near Rangoon. My unexpected resistance led the strangler to bungle the rope. You have seen how it was fastened about my throat? That was unscientific. The true method, as practiced by the group operating in Burma, was to throw the line about the victim's neck and jerk him from the window. A man leaning from an open window is very nicely poised: it requires ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... What a bungle those boatmen are making of the steamer-ropes! They'll have that four-inch hawser chafed through in a minute. I told you so—there she goes! White foam on green water, and the steamer slewing round. How good that looks! I'll sketch it. No, ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... We need not bungle over the word "normal," in any attempt to meet the academic objection that it implies conformity to type. In this connection, the gifted possessor of normal sight is differentiated from his million neighbours by the fact that he wears no glasses; and if a few ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... turn up and down in silence, and then the Boy began again, boyishly: "I say, do you suffer from nerves? You made rather a bungle of it the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... he said. "There's been a bungle, and the sooner we are rid of it the better. There's a boat at ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... think I bungle everything in that manner," he said, "for I don't. I want to work with you, and I want to ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... solution. Let us now take that flask from Mr. Andersen's hands, and see what we can draw out of that. This, you know, is a liquid which we have just made up from copper and nitric acid, whilst our other experiments were in hand; and though I am making this experiment very hastily, and may bungle a little, yet I prefer to let you see what I do ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... I turned the garment That no rent should be left behind, My eye caught an odd little bungle Of mending ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... yet quite ready to spring my trap," she replied. "When the time comes, I must have assistance, but I want to get all my evidence shipshape before I call on the Secret Service to make the capture. I can't afford to bungle so important a thing, you know, and this ten dollar bill, so carelessly given the storekeeper, is going to put one powerful bit of evidence in my hands. That was a bad slip on old Cragg's part, for he has been very cautious in covering his tracks, until now. ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... went on, fingering his wineglass. "I have always looked upon Oscar Fischer as a brilliant and far-seeing man. He was one of those who set themselves deliberately to win America for the Germans. A more idiotic bungle than he has made of things I could scarcely conceive. He has reproduced the diplomatic methods which have made Germany unpopular throughout the world. He has tried bullying, cajolery, and false-hood, and last of all he has plunged into crime. No German-American will henceforth ever have weight ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it's hurting the will. Here! Take your hand off the bell-pull. Five thousand's waiting for you, If you'll only listen a minute, and do as I bid you do. They'll try to prove me crazy, and, if you bungle, they can; And I've only you to trust to! (O God, why ain't he a man?) There's some waste money on marbles, the same as M'Cullough tried — Marbles and mausoleums — but I call that sinful pride. There's some ship bodies for burial ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... my ear, "when that woman comes down, follow her! I'm afraid you will bungle the business, and I would not ask you to attempt it if big things were not at stake. Return here; I ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... this time with Renton in company, and Renton mad as fire. It all turned out to be a bungle by some clerk that had taken to drink and forgetfulness; but it cost us a month or two before the Government of Senor Orrego, having no case, decided to do us justice without troubling the Courts. Renton and I returned in triumph ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... T. A. Buck. "You've rubbed up against life, and you know. They've always been sheltered, but now they want to know. Well, naturally they're going to bungle and bump their heads a good many times before they ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... "How many did ye bungle?" she chuckled, leaning over and looking furtively up and down the room, as if afraid of being caught talking to me. I blushed in confusion that was half fright, and she ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... a girl loves a man she ought to be willing to trust him over a dreadful bungle until he could straighten things out and make ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... always horribly frightened at singing before my mother; I cannot bear to distress her accurate ear with my unsteady intonation, and the more I think of it, the colder my hands grow and the hotter my face, the huskier my voice and the flatter my notes; I bungle over accompaniments that I have at my fingers' ends, and forget words I know as well as my alphabet; in short, I feel like a wretch, and I sing like a wretch, and I make wretched all my hearers. My mother's own nervous terror when she had to sing on the stage, as a young woman, was excessive, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... becoming incompatible. He and his wife were also becoming incompatible. The laws of science demanded that he seek the common factor, as source of the whole trouble. Therefore, he himself must be the sole cause of the wretched bungle Fate was making of his well-intentioned life. Was he so malevolent, or just futile? And which was the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... there; but it was just like me to bungle," continued Gaston. "I knew that the Jew, Henriques, often had transactions with the Marquis de Fleury. I took the diamonds to another Jew from whom I concealed my name, and suggested his taking them to Henriques, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... in his published letters, (he then commanded a Brigade in McCall's Division), writes October 24th, "Regarding Ball's Bluff, as far as I can gather, the whole affair was a bungle from beginning to end. The worst part of the business is that at the very time our people were contending against such odds, the advance of McCall's division was only 10 miles off and had we been ordered forward instead of back, we could have ...
— Ball's Bluff - An Episode and its Consequences to some of us • Charles Lawrence Peirson
... what would the world be without us women?" thought Janice—and gave up all idea of running away and leaving Frank to bungle ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... while the vessel jerked so that you might have fancied she must send his ribs through the skin. I say it was nothing, because he performed this feat nearly every winter night, after the midnight haul, and the spectacle grew common. I never knew him bungle over a rope or make a bad slip, and it was simply a pleasure to see him steer. He never threw away an inch, and his way of stealing foot by foot was worthy of any jockey. Sometimes when I was at the wheel and running a little to leeward ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... They seemed somehow to have missed a trail that was to have cut the distance greatly. Billy clung breathlessly to his cramped position and waited. He hoped they wouldn't get out and try to find the way, for then some of them might see him, and he was so stiff he was sure he would bungle getting out of the way. But after a breathless moment the car started on more slowly, and finally turned down a steep rough place, scarcely a trail, into the deeper woods. For a long time they went along, slower and slower, into the blackness of night it seemed. ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... sand spit, drawn out to a fine point, was just the spot where a piccaninny might be easily rounded up, if it were detected in a preoccupied mood. I suggested that I might be at hand to encounter any untoward results in case of a bungle, but was met with the positive assertion that no "debil-debil," however young and unsophisticated, would "come out" if ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... had used the blue kerchief at her neck for a tourniquet and had checked the hemorrhage, he was still patiently awaiting a better opportunity to employ his knife. It would not do to bungle the affair. And he thought he knew how it could be properly done—if he could get her head in the crook of his ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... a chopper. "The conditions say with steel," he said; "only with steel, and I should bungle with a knife. You must look the other way. Now ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... indeed a bungle of a camp but if the single occupant realized it he did not seem to care a whit for he sat serenely in the doorway of the tent so interested in a book that he did not hear Paul Nez and his ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... rural, saw the head of a horse top the rise. In the saddle sat Ramon, hatless, his black hair flung back from his forehead, a gun in his hand. Waring drew a deep breath. Would Ramon bungle it by calling out, or would he have nerve enough to make an end of it on ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... past week had so managed to bungle the slinging in of a small torpedo-boat on the "Vortigern", that the boat had broken the crutches in which she rested, and was herself being repaired in the dockyard under the ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... something else that drew her to Joe. Almost every evening he would sit down at his piano and start playing idly. As a rule he played dance music, popular songs from Broadway. But sometimes leaning back he would drift into other music. And though his hand would bungle and only sketch it, so to speak—in his black eyes, scowling slightly over the smoke of his cigar, would come a look which Ethel liked. But vaguely she felt that Amy did not, that it even made her uneasy. For almost invariably at such ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... enough in most places for three boats to row abreast. I expect I will take to boating furiously: I have been down the river three or four times already with some other freshmen, and it is glorious exercise; that I can see, though we bungle and cut ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... uncomfortably—"well, you see, she seems to be right. I did bungle it, didn't I? It was Hartley who came and pulled us ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... of 'the vermin' by one or two hotheaded guesses of his own. But I am sure, both from the general matter of the letters, and from Squire's own bodily presence, that he did not forge them. Carlyle has made a bungle of the whole business; and is fairly twitted by the Athenaeum for talking so loud about his veneration for Cromwell, etc., and yet not stirring himself to travel a hundred miles to see and save such memorials as he ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... Billy Bungle (that was his name) was not by any means an idiot. He knew perfectly well that two and two made four, and yet, such a queer chap as he was, he would take any amount of pains to make five ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Vauquelin was a patriot hero, who had done well at Louisbourg the year before, and who was to do well at Quebec the year after. But, of course, he was not a member of the Bigot gang. So he was set aside in favour of a parasite, who made a hopeless bungle of the whole affair. ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... all proportion, didst bring in Wonder to wait on treason and on murder; And whatsoever cunning fiend it was That wrought upon thee so preposterously Hath got the voice in hell for excellence; And other devils that suggest by treasons Do botch and bungle up damnation With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd From glist'ring semblances of piety. But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up, Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason, Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor. If that same demon that hath gull'd thee ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... were afraid the police would bungle the job. Between you and Mr. Theydon, you have exhibited remarkable skill in heading us off the scent. Fortunately, we were able to dispense with your assistance, having other matters to occupy our brains. You two were ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... engaged in the trade, and as I had, with the inquisitiveness of youth, observed the process, I could bungle at it. ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... was one of extraordinary risk; the two guards or someone else behind them might wake up—for such people, like dogs, mostly sleep with one eye open, especially when they knew that they are being pursued. Or if they did not we might bungle the business so that they raised an outcry before they grew silent for ever, in which case both of us and perhaps Inez also would probably pay the penalty before we could ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... of the counter-revolution have the bourgeois state generally on their side and enjoy the backing of the bourgeois establishment, its organizations and its facilities. Since their object is defense, they have no constructive program. Instead they stumble, fumble and bungle as their system flounders into one disastrous ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... struggle to live, or who exist in dreadful poverty and sometimes starve, instead of trying to understand the causes of their misery and to find out a remedy themselves, spend all their time applauding the Practical, Sensible, Level-headed Business-men, who bungle and mismanage their affairs, and pay them huge salaries for doing so. Sir Graball D'Encloseland, for instance, was a 'Secretary of State' and was paid L5,000 a year. When he first got the job the wages were only a beggarly L2,000, but as he found it ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... said Stirling to Haines. He had been ordered to take two troops and arrest the unoffending visitors on their way. "The Sioux will be mad, and the Crows will be madder. What a bungle! and how like the way we manage Indian affairs!" And so ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... then, as soon as I'm through I shall get on a dry rock and signal to you to come. Then you'll slip in and swim to the rock again, and take a header off it. Don't bungle it this time, and when you feel my touch at the rope, mind it's not meant to haul, only to guide ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... Jack! Yellow Jack! hie thee hack! hie thee back! To thy damp, drear abode in the jungle; I'll be sober and staid, And drink lemonade, Try and catch me—you'll make a sad bungle, Yellow Jack! ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... journeyman been preparing these staves for his 'mastership,' or a stupid apprentice who only put his nose into the workshop three days ago? Pull yourself together, lad: what devil has entered into you that you are making a bungle of things like this? My good oak wood,—and this your masterpiece! Oh! you awkward, imprudent boy!" Overmastered by the torture and agony which raged within him, Frederick was unable to contain himself any longer; so, throwing ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... We manage to keep him out of the weeds and land him—a silvery "Loch Leven," about three-quarters of a pound, and in excellent condition. Only two years ago he was put into the stream with five hundred others as a yearling. The next two rising fish are too much for us, and we bungle them. One sees the line, owing to our throwing too far above him, and the other is frightened out of his life by a bit of weed or grass which gets hitched on to the barb of the hook, and lands bang on to his nose. These accidents will happen, so we do not swear, but pass on up stream, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... fingers too canny to bungle, With footsteps too cunning to swerve, They swing through the heights of the jungle, These stalwarts of infinite nerve; Blithe sailors who heed not the breezes Which play round their riggings and spars, Lithe gymnasts who live on ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... the midst of his berry-cake, by way of diversion, to lift the cat up by her tail. "I'm going to holler awful, and make you sit up and tell me about that little boy that ate the giant, and Cinderella,—how she lived in the stove-pipe,—and that man that builded his house out of a bungle of straws: and—well, there's some more, but I don't remember ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... person could find a companion, impressed me now so painfully that I felt it must be plainly visible; that the visitor must see and be scornfully amused by it. Yet, with really extraordinary cordiality, he was holding out his right hand in salutation. Here again my awkwardness made me bungle. What he meant by his gesture I could not think. Some amusing trick, perhaps. It did not occur to me in that moment of self-abasement that he wished to shake an ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... night, a match at Cricket was played between the gentlemen of Saffron Walden and Stanstead Abbots, for 44 guineas, when the latter were bungle beat, that is, 51 ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... hers. And you thought you was safe, I cal'late. And then Bos'n turns up right in your own town, right acrost the road from you! By the big dipper! it's enough to make a feller believe that the Almighty does take a hand in straightenin' out such things, when us humans bungle 'em—it is so! ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... mug you are to be trusted with a job like this," said Braddle. "I did think Potter was better up in his work, I did. A pretty bungle he'll make of it!" ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... being young, however, managed to bungle his pounce for the fraction of a second, and that is long enough for most of the wild-folk. Came a mad fluttering, a beating of wings, a quick mix-up, and, before he knew, that cat found himself frantically chasing that thrush across the orchard, striking wildly always at a thrush ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... head screwed on the right way; he knows a mortal sight of things as I don't understand, and I'd ha' been glad to ha' had his help and adwice like in many a little job, as I'm afeared we'll make a bit of a bungle ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... same compulsive prod of mastery. He wanted to tell her that he loved her and that there was nothing else for her to do but marry him. And yet he did not obey the prod. Women were fluttery creatures, and here mere mastery would prove a bungle. He remembered all his hunting guile, the long patience of shooting meat in famine when a hit or a miss meant life or death. Truly, though this girl did not yet mean quite that, nevertheless she meant much to him—more, now, than ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... stupid plan that fools project, Not only will not take effect, But proves destructive in the end To those that bungle and pretend. Some hungry Dogs beheld an hide Deep sunk beneath the crystal tide, Which, that they might extract for food, They strove to drink up all the flood; But bursten in the desp'rate deed, They perish'd, ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... Manifesto; and immediately after it, the Prince, who had the reputation of being one of the most tactful of men-of- the-world, took a step which hinted that the Royal House, as often before, meant to come to the rescue of the country which loved it however the politicians might bungle: Hogarth was invited ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... Naarboveck's about a quarter past eleven. It would be impossible for me to arrest him just then; but at a quarter to twelve, midnight at latest, it will be quite easy for me to put my hand on the collar of de Naarboveck—Fantomas! I shall not bungle it!" ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... be only native copper, but for the moment neither Tony nor Murray doubted the opinion of Peters. There was a scurry and a confused bungle as each tried to get what was wanted, while Palmer Billy stood by, trying to light his pipe, and muttering uncomplimentary ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... me long to see I made an awful bungle of things," he confessed, half-shy and hesitant. "And it got worse and worse as I saw what I had done to you people. Yet I'd given my word. I guess you'll understand a lot more than I can say; as Allan will understand, now, ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... through regions in which there were neither roads, provisions, towns, nor navigable rivers. Armies were maneuvered and victories won upon the maps in the office of the Secretary of War. Generals were selected by some inscrutable process which decreed that dull-witted, pompous incapables should bungle campaigns ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... predict just what another person will do. However, I feel sure you can trust O'Connel. I never knew him to bungle anything yet." ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... as if you could! What a bungle it would be. Why, I never saw you with a piece of work in your hand in my life. I dare say you could not even ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... Marquis is sceptical. I'll admit that I'm pitiably foolish, but I don't want Mrs. Durrand to know how I've bungled her matter until the bungle ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... had nothing to do with Desdemona's death (he seems to be preparing for this at 285). His buying poison might wreck this plan. But it may be that his objection to poison springs merely from contempt for Othello's intellect. He can trust him to use violence, but thinks he may bungle anything ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... managed to obey. But his nerve was gone for the afternoon. He made a sad bungle of all the work, though he was ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... dust that—. (Begins to rake the paper towards him with his stick.) And here am I, sitting here raking more of it towards me!—No, let the thing lie! I won't soil my wings any more.—Poor Harald! He has to take up the burden now! What a horrible bungle it is, that we should be brought into the world to give each other as much pain as possible! (Decidedly.) Well, I am going to see what legacy of unhappiness I am leaving him! I want to have a vivid impression of the misery I am escaping from. There is a certain comfort ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... of Evil smiled sardonically when they noted that the light which she evoked for her pious exercise lit the hand of Moussa Isa to murder, providing opportunity. Moussa Isa weighed chances and considered. He did not want to bungle it and lose his revenge and his life too. Would he be seen if he struck now? The light fell on the very spot for the true infallible death-stroke. Should he strike now, here, in the midst of ...
— 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
... if it will strike the reader that I am setting out to discuss the queer, unwise love relationship and my bungle of a marriage with excessive solemnity. But to me it seems to reach out to vastly wider issues than our little personal affair. I've thought over my life. In these last few years I've tried to get at least a little wisdom out of it. And in particular I've thought over ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... considering only the desire to remain undisturbed of those who are decayed and petrified. I do not know if I make my meaning clear. As our habit, we ignore or minimize all sex difficulties as much as we can; we hesitate and compromise and bungle over every reform because we are afraid of what may happen if we probe down to the real bottom of what needs to be done. We have neither the courage of our bodies or of our souls. This is why so often our attitude becomes false and our thoughts entangled, so that our moral life is corrupt ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... was watching Jimmy and me at the station that night was probably acting on his own initiative. It was the same detective who had made such a bungle of following Jimmy in the afternoon and I guess it nearly cost him his job. He must have been feeling pretty well worked up at the way things turned out. If it hadn't been for Mr. Wade's timely arrival there's no ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... yon corner, huddled chin to knees, Like some old lion sore and ill at ease Left foodless in the jungle, Sits GRUMPER, growling oaths beneath his breath At CLEON, who—to him—sums party-death And diplomatic bungle. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... causes of Froude's Disease be what they may, another point claims our attention. The man of the sanest and best-balanced mind is liable to bungle the simplest kinds of critical work if he does not allow them the necessary time. In these matters precipitancy is the source of innumerable errors. It is rightly said that patience is the cardinal virtue ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... have his first sight of hero and room simultaneously. The room must, as it were, be an anteroom, anon converted into a presence-chamber by the hero's entry. And let not the hero be in any fear that he will bungle his entry. He has but to make it. The effect is automatic. He will stand out by merely coming in. I would but suggest that he must not, be he never so hale and hearty, bounce in. The young man must not be startled. If the mountain had come to Mahomet, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... he determined on a diversion. He felt morally certain that the only "confidential" communication the veteran post commander had received from any superior in a week was the stinging rap from division headquarters anent the bungle he had made in Ray's affair, and on general principles he felt that he ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... bad job, sad work. sprat sent out to catch a whale, much ado about nothing, wild-goose chase. bungler &c. 701; fool &c. 501. V. be unskillful &c. adj.; not see an inch beyond one's nose; blunder, bungle, boggle, fumble, botch, bitch, flounder, stumble, trip; hobble &c. 275; put one's foot in it; make a mess of, make hash of, make sad work of; overshoot the mark. play tricks with, play Puck, mismanage, misconduct, misdirect, misapply, missend. stultify oneself, make a fool of oneself, commit ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... do," retorted Jack. "And if you want to know, I'm kinda proud of it; it was a long shot—to clean the town of two such blackguards. And right here I want to apologize to the town for making a bungle of killing Swift!" ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... had better dwell on that hypothesis at all; it's all very well to talk of facing the worst; but in a case of this kind a man's first duty is to his own nerve. Is there any answer to No. 3? Is there any possible good side to such a beastly bungle? There must be, of course, or where would be the use of this double-entry business? And—by George, I have it!' he exclaimed; 'it's exactly the same as the last!' And he hastily ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... anyone can get a matter tangled up the way you have. There was never a question of your becoming one of my companions. What I want is a man to go out to the Philippines and write a series of vigorous articles showing the bungle we've made of that business, and paving the way for an agitation in favor of giving the Islands their independence. There'll be a chance of getting that done if we elect a Democratic ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... men carried off the first brigade along with it in hopeless rout. Ramses and Menna were left with only a few picked chariots of the household troops, and the whole Hittite army was coming on. But though King Ramses had made a terrible bungle of his generalship, he was at least a brave man. Leaping into his chariot, and calling to the handful of faithful soldiers to follow him, he bade Menna lash his horses and charge the advancing Hittites. Menna was no coward, but when he saw the thin line of Egyptian troops, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... the light will open it in some way: either by striking on some substance, sensitive in a peculiar way to its effect, or in releasing some greater power. I only trust that in our ignorance we may not so bungle things as to do harm to its mechanism; and so deprive the knowledge of our time of a lesson handed down, as by a miracle, through ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... notice of the joking, but acted, after the manner of greenhorns, as though the Coal Tar Maggie required our undivided attention. I rounded her well to windward of the Ghost, and Nicholas ran for'ard to drop the anchor. To all appearances it was a bungle, the way the chain tangled and kept the anchor from reaching the bottom. And to all appearances Nicholas and I were terribly excited as we strove to clear it. At any rate, we quite deceived the pirates, who took huge delight in ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... he said firmly, "we're going to move. I'll have enough to buy a young bungle-house up on the hill, even if I don't get anything from Archer. And then I'm going to make up to you for this year—see ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... a Caesarian section," said one of them; "he is getting out of date. Hope he doesn't bungle it." ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... of Fardale. Hans Dunnerwust returned with a stock of tales of astounding adventures, which he managed to bungle badly in the telling. And now I suppose Barney Mulloy will take his turn. Between them they will make you out one of the most remarkable ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... men, and gave convincing reasons that they were needed, that the country responded. Day by day the newspapers made the best of bad news from the front, and day by day did the readers thereof conclude that England was doing well, and they "supposed that she would bungle through." No man of prophetic foresight had yet risen to say "This is a life and death struggle for us; we need every man in the country, and every shilling to win the war." The common talk was that we had stepped in to keep our treaty with France and to ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... hip pocket, he suddenly heard Thorpe's horrid whisper telling him to wait, and turning, he saw that the head cashier had entered the room noiselessly without his noticing it. Thorpe evidently knew what he was about, and did not intend to let the clerk bungle ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... being conscious of it. Simply because the matter concerns the theft of a pearl, or the betraying of a business or professional secret, or the disappearance of a friend, the opinion of a stranger becomes no more valuable. And the chances are equal that the stranger will make a bungle ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... accident in the Park, the man said. The pony had swerved and thrown little Lord Elster: thrown him right under the other pony's feet, as it seemed. The servant made rather a bungle over his news, but this was ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... appear in society. The diplomatic impolitely dub them fools. Be they that or no, they augment the number of those mediocrities beneath the yoke of which France is bowed down. They are always there, always ready to bungle public or private concerns with the dull trowel of their mediocrity, bragging of their impotence, which they count for conduct and integrity. This sort of social prizemen infests the administration, the ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... friends will let him forget it. They will find it hard to forgive a bungle that leaves a first-class munition factory absolutely undamaged in the hands of their enemies. I don't envy Schenk his job of persuading them ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... of his experience with her, arranged a course of conduct. " If I just leave her to herself she will come around all right, but if I go 'striking while the iron is hot,' or any of those things, I'll bungle ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... know," Reade confessed. "I never heard of any such bungle as this before by an engineer. Why, Harry, this hillside averages an eight and a third grade, yet Black's field notes show it to be only a three per cent. grade. Hang it, the fellow must have ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... suspense and almost panicky apprehension, he was not going to act impulsively or thoughtlessly. He knew that if he could only present a convincing case to his superiors, they would forgive him his presumption. If he made a bungle it might go hard with him. Anyway, he could not, or would not, ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... nothing more delightful than to have one's head "done" by a Celestial executioner. The Coreans, on the contrary, have not developed the same skill in these difficult matters; and, what with their blunt and short swords, what with their misjudgment of distances, they bungle matters most cruelly. Of course, they are, nevertheless, supposed to kill their victims with single blows, instead of raining them down by the dozen, hacking the unfortunate creatures in a most fearful manner, and lopping off their arms or gashing ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... said, "but you will have to be very careful and not overdo the matter, for she isn't the kind that is easily fooled. She's had to keep her eyes and wits sharpened, else she wouldn't be on a newspaper, so I want you to be very careful and not bungle. Make ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... despatched him in the doorway. But now that my own position was easier, I saw that such a manoeuvre, first contemplated when only a desperate stroke seemed possible, was full of danger to mademoiselle. I might bungle it, whereupon Montignac would certainly attempt one blow against her, though it were his last. I must, therefore, use the governor to release her from her perilous situation; but first I must use him for another purpose, which the presence ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... having a wife and ten children; he withdraws the job from sober, plainly competent, and meritorious Mr. Sparrowbill, generally short of work too; discourages Sparrowbill; teaches him that he too may as well drink and loiter and bungle; that this is not a scene for merit and demerit at all, but for dupery, and whining flattery, and incompetent cobbling of every description;—clearly tending to the ruin of poor Sparrowbill! What harm had Sparrowbill done me that I ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... eloquent beyond my best previous effort, there was little or no chance that anything I might say would avail to placate either magnate or to abate either's hostility toward me. And I knew that, in my dazed condition, the chances were that I would bungle the simplest mental task. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... The Public-house Compensation Bill shall be hereafter known and alluded to as the Bung Bungle'd Bill. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... thou (gainst all proportion) didst bring in Wonder to waite on treason, and on murther: And whatsoeuer cunning fiend it was That wrought vpon thee so preposterously, Hath got the voyce in hell for excellence: And other diuels that suggest by treasons, Do botch and bungle vp damnation, With patches, colours, and with formes being fetcht From glist'ring semblances of piety: But he that temper'd thee, bad thee stand vp, Gaue thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason, Vnlesse ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... without a bit; This backs the sluggish ass, or bullock slow; These mounted on the croup of centaur sit: Those perched on eagle, crane, or estridge, go. Some male, some female, some hermaphrodit, These drain the cup and those the bungle blow. One bore a corded ladder, one a book; One a dull file, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... underlings on the stage went through the little they had to say and do: there seemed no reason why the "sticks" should be so provokingly sticky; and it surprised me that a man who could accost one fluently enough at the stage door, should make such a bungle as some of them did in a message of some half dozen words "in character." But when I first became initiated into the mysteries of amateur performances, and saw how entirely destitute some men were of any notion of natural acting, and how they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... I have remarked," said the monk, "I could not order my speech to propose anything of this kind to a young maid; I should so bungle that I might spoil all. You must even propose ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... used no slang, and retained scarcely a word of his boyhood's vernacular. The only emotional expression he permitted himself was a chuckle of glee over an intellectual misstatement or a historical bungle. Novels, theaters, music possessed no ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... see distinctly the handiwork of the Diamond Coterie, and I saw another thing; it was the first piece of work I had known them to bungle. And they had ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... and took his leave. As he reached the door, his lordship stayed him. "If thou bungle, do not look to me. The court goes to Windsor to-morrow. Bring me word there within the week." He rose, magnificently tall and stately, in his bedgown of embroidered yellow satin, his handsome head thrown back, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... write her name upon the page with these—it were a shame to cheat of beauty by any bungle of description. Is not a fair spirit predestined conqueror of flesh and blood? Have we not read of the noble lady whose loveliness a painter's eye was the very first to discover? Where the likeness? The soul saw it, not the eye; and he understood, who, seeing it, exclaimed, "Our friend—in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... a son who declined to play cricket, (Supposing him sound and sufficient in thews,) I'd larrup him well with the third of a wicket, Selecting safe parts of his body to bruise. In his mind such an urchin King Solomon had When he said, Spare the stump, and you bungle the lad! ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... dress yourself as quietly as you can and come into the turret-room. I am going out, and I do not want to wake anybody, and you understand the fastenings of the front door. I am afraid I should only bungle at them.' ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... During that period London revolved in its usual course, reproducing its annual number of events—its births, deaths, and marriages; its plans, plots, and pleasures; its business, bustle, and bungle; its successes, sentiments, and sensations; its facts, fancies, and failures—also its fires; which last had increased steadily, until they reached the imposing number of about twelve hundred ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... it? Suppose we get Fritz on the hop, as they have near Peronne. Where are the most covered approaches to the slopes of that hill? Shall we carry the thing off as splendidly as those squadrons did before Peronne, or shall we bungle ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... happened was this: Marmont, impatient at the delay of his two brigades of infantry (which by some bungle in the starting did not reach the foot of the mountain before daylight), had pushed his horsemen up the hill and managed to cut off and silence the outposts without their firing a shot. Encouraged by this he pressed ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... one, and another, and another. The prominence remains, you see; the evil is as great as ever, greater, indeed. But this is not all. Look at the warp which the plate has got near the opposite edge. Where it was flat before it is now curved. A pretty bungle we have made of it! Instead of curing the original defect, we have produced a second. Had we asked an artisan practised in 'planishing,' as it is called, he would have told us that no good was to be done, but only mischief, by hitting down on the projecting ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... general. 'Don't talk to me of fuses; I'm too old for that rubbish! Isn't it enough for you to bungle your work, but you must tell me a lie into ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... sometimes they did. His spirit was that of the Elizabethan admirals; he belonged to a century not his own. As for the crime for which he was to suffer, it had been the work of another hand, and very bad work it was, to try and steal Jean Touzel's Hardi Biaou, and then bungle it. He had had nothing to do with it, for he and Jean Touzel were the best of friends, as was proved by the fact that while he lay in his dungeon, Jean wandered the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... eager lad had finished, Fritz Braun growled under his breath, "You are sure you made no bungle?" ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... his cousin, "be careful you don't do more mischief than young Houghton can possibly accomplish. How men do bungle in these matters! Hough-ton hasn't bungled, though. His making you his messenger strikes me as the shrewdest Yankee trick I ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... first, as being rustic or dialectal. I have nowhere seen it remarked, and I therefore call attention to the fact, that a certain note of rustic origin still clings to many words of this class; and I would instance such as these: bawl, bloated, blunder, bungle, clog, clown, clumsy, to cow, to craze, dowdy, dregs, dump, and many more of a like character. I do not say that such words cannot be employed in serious literature; but they ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... once complimentary and scathing, Mr. Stafford," he said; "but I do recognize the force of what you say. Scotland Yard is beneath contempt. I know of cases—but I will not detain you with them now. They bungle their work terribly at Scotland Yard. A detective should be a man of imagination, of initiative, of deep knowledge of human nature. In the presence of a mystery he should be ready to find motives, to construct ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had many ways to blind, but he was never clever at it, by making a shew of Religion, (though he cheated his wife therewith:) for he was, especially by those that dwelt near him, too well known to do that, though he would bungle at it as well as he could. But there are some that are arch villains this way; they shall to view live a whole life Religiously, and yet shall be guilty of these most horrible sins: And yet Religion in it self is never the worse, nor ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... be expected to like. You must introduce me to Douglas Dale as your cousin, and by the name of Carton. It is sufficiently like my real name to prevent the servants knowing my name is changed, since they always bungle over the 'Carrington.' As Victor Carrington, Dale might refuse to know me, and certainly would not form any intimacy with me, and that he should form an intimacy with me is essential to ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon |
