"Bungle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 trapezes And ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... a false step 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, hinting that the marquis would ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... 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 crabs ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... 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 ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... me altogether was who you were. I naturally couldn't place you at all. I saw that you recognized one of us when you came in, and that you were watching our table pretty attentively in the glass. I had a horrible suspicion for a moment that you were a Scotland Yard man, and were going to bungle the whole business by arresting Hoffman. That was why I sent you my card; I knew if you were at the Yard you'd recognize ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... to 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 help me ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... 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 ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... This amusing bungle of the French brother fairly represents my condition during the past few weeks. I have not been altogether sure that I was even "somewheres." Preaching one Sunday in Dover, N.H., the next in Talladega, Ala., the next at Santee ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 9, September, 1889 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... 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
... sounds of the night. First the galloping of horses on the courtyard 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 ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... "It is such a bungle that I fear!" cried Max. "Ah! how this looped-up lip annoys me!" He adjusted the ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... stormily. "I wanted us both to win! What does Muriel know about a decent game of hockey, or how to conduct a society, or run a school magazine? It's idiotic that she should be chosen. Neither she nor Iva nor Nesta has ever been at a big school. A precious bungle they'll make of their meetings. I know you'll be there—but you're so gentle you'll never stand up against them, and they'll have everything their own silly way. 'The Moorings' won't be very much changed if it's just to be run upon the same old lines. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... through the jungle; They swim through a network of leaves; They clamber with never a bungle To ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... 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 in ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... ARROWSMITH in No. 189., where, with little modesty, and less courtesy, he styles the commentators on Shakspeare—naming in particular, KNIGHT, COLLIER, and DYCE, and including SINGER and all of the present day—criticasters who "stumble and bungle in sentences of that simplicity and grammatical clearness as not to tax the powers of a third-form schoolboy to explain." In order to bring me "within his danger," he actually transposes two lines of Shakspeare; and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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 ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... 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 telling what might have happened. Can—can we—sit down for a ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... 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 ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... 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 ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... 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 on to the very gates ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... 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 ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... if the 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 is corrected." ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... which his skill may fail to do justice. Here is no apology for neglecting to do many things from a sense of our incapacity,—for what deed does not fall maimed and imperfect from our hands?—but only a warning to bungle less. ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... bungle things by getting excited, Mary V. I'll send the cook after the boys while I fix this brake and fill up the gas tank. You go get some clothes on, and tell your mother to get the emergency box ready, in case he's hurt. And if you can be calm enough, you 'phone ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... believe it is moral to regulate life by fear, 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 ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... That it is not the sort of thing that an affianced lover could 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 ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... her. So of any other ordinary business. Yet when it comes to teaching, anything like definite study or observation of the mode of doing it, is almost unknown! It is really no exaggeration to say that many teachers bungle in their work as egregiously as would a woman who should put yarn into a churn, and expect, after a proper amount of churning, ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... Still no effect. Another stroke. Well, there is 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 ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... on a horse 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
... the first place she'll be sorry for you, because you will make such a bungle of it. Trial is your ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... 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 through the grilling heats of July, and reached ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... greatcoat and hat. Then, having trundled me to the front gate, he picked me up—luckily I have always been a small spare man—and deposited me in the car. I am always nervous of anyone but Marigold trying to carry me. They seem to stagger and fumble and bungle. Marigold's arms close round me like an iron clamp and they lift me with the mechanical ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... be influenced by Mrs. Whaling's statements), and 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 couldn't let ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... 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
... his German 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 that he ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... to fear lest Nature bungle, That in certain ways she errs: The cobra in the jungle, The crotalus in the sod, Evil and good are hers;— Murderers and torturers! Ye, too, were made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... Powers 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
... 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 rather ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... "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 ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... noise from an opened dam, a torrent of commonplace things. He praised Scribe's works, which they had put on the stage again; he announced that the famous Guillery, his senior in the comedy line, would be execrable in this performance, and would make a bungle of it. He complained of being worried to death by the pursuit of a great lady—"You know, stage box Number Six," and showed, with a conceited gesture, a letter, tossed in among the jars of paint and pomade, ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... 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 ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... That would be the end of you, for those police would bungle everything. You need clever fellows with you if you go to sup with ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... heart to refuse it, the poor drunken wretch 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 ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... afterwards, one might have been able to help, to do this and that. It's a mistake. People don't want help; and they don't give you a thank-you for offering it. All they ask is to be let alone, to muddle and bungle their ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... 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 ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... me to-night, Lang, keep all this business to yourself until my son comes home. Tell him. No one else. We want to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves without any one else butting in to bungle the job. Do ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... his last difficulty safely removed. He could rely on Grey not to bungle that matter of roll-call. Grey had been ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... question or two about the catastrophe. "Scandalous sort of bungle," he pronounced it, being alike ignorant of the strength of the rapids, and fain, as an honest soldier of Haviland's army, to take a discrediting view of anything done by Amherst's. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the hope 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, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... next lesson he began to put his plan into execution. He set himself conscientiously to hit the notes awry, or to bungle every touch. Melchior cried out, then roared, and blows began to rain. He had a heavy ruler. At every false note he struck the boy's fingers, and at the same time shouted in his ears, so that he was like to deafen him. Jean-Christophe's face twitched ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... 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 ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... 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, why I couldn't help knocking down that tramp ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... my wife's servant maid," he said. "When she is alive she will do all our work and mind the house. But you are not to order her around, Bungle, as you do us. You must treat the Patchwork ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... 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
... "I bungle not," answered Achmet, sternly. "Forty years ago, on the third of next month, you, Jasper Southdown Kingsland, were ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... beyond the 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 ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... 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 ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... food more solid than milk. There were deer in plenty. 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 hind as she walked ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... 495; etourderie gaucherie[Fr], act of folly, balourdise[obs3]; botch, botchery[obs3]; 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 oneself; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... do mean, Toc," returned Adams, with a grim smile. "Moreover, I want you to make no bungle of it. Don't let your narves come into play. Just take a grip like a brave man, heave away wi' the force of a windlass, an' don't ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... I know every idea I have would desert me directly I faced an audience. I'm all right with a definite part that I've got into my head, but I can't make up as I go along, and it's no use asking me. I'd only bungle and stammer, and make an utter goose of myself, and spoil the whole thing. Hallo! There's ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... 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
... her airy way and 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 an easy ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... say you didn't bungle," said the older man. "I never witnessed a finer—ahem! In fact, we all agree on that. My boy, you have a great future before you. You are one of the ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... almost his usual self as he rose and came towards Caffyn; his hand, however, still trembled a little, causing him to bungle in replacing the letter and drop the envelope, which the other obligingly picked up and ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... but she said seriously, "Yes; he must go away. And I don't envy you having to tell him. I suppose you will bungle it, of course." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... call this? What work is this, Frederick? Has a 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 the adze from him he said, "Master, it's ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... swear to you that, given a man clear-eyed enough to see that a woman by ordinary is nourished much as he is nourished, and is subjected to every bodily infirmity which he endures and frets beneath, I do not often bungle matters. But when a fool begins to flounder about the world, dead-drunk with adoration of an immaculate woman—a monster which, as even the man's own judgment assures him, does not exist and never will exist—why, he becomes as unmanageable ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... or hung along the cliffside by the wooded windings of the Susquehanna. When he had ended it, he smiled languidly, and, showing me his still-mutilated hand, said that the old doctor's job had been a sad bungle, after all. In fact, the only physical proof that remained to verify his story, was a curved blue spot where the ingoing current from the magnet had carried particles from the carbon point and lodged them beneath the skin. Psychologically, he was sadly mixed up, he said; for, since that time, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... away. 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 ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... been in the best of health, even if I should be 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
... Morris. "Indeed, I don't know that I 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 and ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... that cussed husband of 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 ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... out an unmistakable farce, if not a disastrous break down. Even the government journals themselves, without waiting for "Scene II.," (though coming off immediately) raised a shout of condemnation of the discreditable bungle, and demanded that it should be forthwith abandoned. Considering the course ultimately taken by the government, these utterances of the government organs themselves, have a serious meaning and are of peculiar importance. The ultra-orange ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... 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 ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... 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 them and put them into play, as though they were real—work till ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... reefing 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 of ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... 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 ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... 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
... not hoope at them. But 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 to dub thee with the name of Traitor. If that same ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... other devils that suggest by treasons Do botch and bungle up damnation With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... 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 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
... difference," said 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 ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... 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; Down in ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... easily acquire one for himself. "My legs," he said frankly, "are too short to get up without a footstool." Amilcare was to have been the footstool. But then Molly came into play. At first she seemed to make the simple thing simpler. Amilcare was a strong man, but stiff. Grifone was sure he would bungle in his handling of Molly; this truth-telling beauty, this flawless jewel in a cup, would baffle him; he would neither see it the fine nor the delicate tool it was. He worked best with a bludgeon which, as it did brute's work, might be brutishly handled. So far well—he might trust Amilcare ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... 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
... you court at all, court scientifically. Bungle whatever else you will, but do not bungle courtship. A failure in this may mean more than a loss of wealth or public honors; it may mean ruin, or a life often worse than death. The world is full of wretched and ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... 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 ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... 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 made a point of repeating two lines of familiar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... night and wonder what I shall do with my naked life sheltered only by the garment of this woman's love, which I have accepted and cannot repay. I groan aloud when I reflect on the irremediable mess, hash, bungle I have made of things. Did ever sick man wake up to such a hopeless welter? Can you be surprised that I regarded it with dismay? Of course, there is a simple way out of it, and into the shadowy world which I contemplated so long, at ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... the ledge; went down with a cat-jump and landed with all four feet planted close together. He had no mind to go on sliding in spite of himself, and the bluff was certainly steep enough to excuse a bungle. ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... know 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
... 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 natives as ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... 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
... also far from it as well as far from yours, a pitch shot seems very often to be either inadequate or impossible. Usually it will be better to aim at going very near to the stymie with the object of getting up dead, making quite certain at the same time that you do not bungle the whole thing by hitting the other ball, or else to play to the left with much cut, so that with a little luck you may circle into the hole. Evidently the latter would be a somewhat ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... smoothing down his filthy tattered shirt with the finger of his mutilated left hand, "how nervous I am! But what a bungle Pedillo made of that marriage! And my good Ricardo, too! What a feast the sharks must have had on his oily, well-fed carcass! Misericordia! Ho, ho! I believe ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... something! After professing to snub Mr. Farmerson, you 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 ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... was stately, formal and precise. He 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
... Marie, uncomfortably—"well, you see, she seems to be right. I did bungle it, didn't I? It was Hartley who came and pulled us out of ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... country without plan, preparation, or vocation, to make a living. They usually start to build a bungalow but seldom get further than the bungle. Don't build anything without plan. Get a comfortable house proof against cold and heat as soon as possible and, above all, well ventilated. At present the air in the country is good, because the farmers shut all the bad ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... 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 ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... 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 young ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... climbed the altitudes of life; the cracksman still stumbled in the valleys. If he had a ready cunning in the planning of an enterprise, he must needs bungle at the execution; and had he not been associated with George Smith, a king of scoundrels, there would be few exploits to record. And yet for the craft of housebreaker he had one solid advantage: he knew the locks and bolts ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... "Bungle, my dear! You are too little to recollect—in fact, you weren't there. But the furniture was actually in the vans and on the move before the lease for Wickham Place was signed, and Emily took train with baby—who was Margaret then—and the smaller luggage for London, without so much as knowing ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... must be in a warm cot, in a warm, well-aired, darkened, and silent room, and the necessary handling must be reduced to a minimum. Sometimes sound sleep will come for the first time if he is placed gently in his mother's bed, close to her warm body. If he is apt to bungle at the breast from eagerness and restlessness, it is not wise always to choose the moment when he has roused himself into a passion of crying to attempt the difficult task. So far as is possible he should be ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... turned the garment That no rent should be left behind, My eye caught an odd little bungle Of ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... long green he's after. 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 of banknotes. How to get it into his possession: that ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... interfere, where even parents may not. Make your own matches, and let others make theirs; especially if you have bungled your own. One such bungle is one too many. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... displeased, that she might refuse to admit there was anything wrong and forbid him to refer to the matter again or even send him away altogether. And he felt he was not strong enough to risk that. No, he must know where he stood first. He must understand his position, so as not to bungle the thing. Hilliard was right. They must find out what the syndicate was doing. There was no ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... of the Royals looked us up, and told 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 which are not yet ours should have been taken and held ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... he shouted. Yet once more, in some unaccountable way, the younger man on the capsized boat managed to bungle so with the line that it ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... 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 ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... of terrified 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 ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... some 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 ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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 properly ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... before the soul can get quite away from the 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 ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... patient. I have always had a weakness for official detectives, and have resented the term "Scotland Yard bungler" almost as if it were a personal affront; and now I feel that my resentment is justified. Scotland Yard does not bungle; and the advice I shall give for the future to any eager-eyed, enthusiastic young murderer burning to embark on his professional career is, don't practise in London. I would not lightly steal a penny toy in the Metropolitan area. There ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 16, 1914 • Various
... a scout and notwithstanding his 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 ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the Cob, where I sat down. I was excited. Deeds of great import must shortly be done. I felt a little nervous. It would never do to bungle the thing. Suppose by some accident I were to drown the professor, or suppose that, after all, he contented himself with a mere formal expression of thanks and refused to let bygones be bygones. These things did not bear ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... many instructions,' said Kendal, returning the letter with a smile, 'I shall bungle it. Don't make me nervous. I can't promise you to succeed, and you mustn't bear me a grudge if ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
