"Button" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... young men, lost to everything but their passionate admiration for the unique and beautiful dancing of their Favorita, and when Sturgis, after wildly searching in his pockets, tore a large pearl from the lace of his stock, he doubted no longer—nor hesitated. Fastened by a blue ribbon to the fourth button of his closely fitting coat was a golden key, the outward symbol of his rank at court. He detached it, then made a sudden gesture that caught her attention. For a moment their eyes met. He tossed her the bauble, and mechanically she lifted her hand and caught it. Then ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... humbler articles; and as every part of dress should have a function, and fulfil it, and seem to do so, and should not seem to do that which it does not, these should never be worn unless they serve a useful purpose,—as a brooch, a button, a chain, a signet or guard ring,—or have significance,—as a wedding-ring, an epaulet, or an order. [Footnote: Thus, it is the office of a bonnet or a hat to protect the head and face; and so a sun-shade carried by the wearer of a bonnet is a confession that the bonnet is a worthless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... were a keeper," said Tom, "to live in such a beautiful place, and wear green velveteens, and have a real dog-whistle at my button, like you." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... with three ranges, and write upon a little bar which shifts their eyepieces, 'Theatre,' 'Field,' 'Marine.' Which of the three is your glass set to? The turn of a button determines its range. You can either look at the things close at hand, or, if you set the eyepiece right and use the strongest, you can see the stars. Which is it to be? The shorter range shows you possibilities; ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Manchester. Eager faces, with keen eyes and sharp features, look out upon you from amid the bundles of clothes and piles of all kinds of articles which darken the doors and windows of their shops. Scarce have you crossed the threshold of the Ghetto when you are seized by the button, dragged helplessly into a small hole stuffed with every imaginable sort of merchandise, and invited to buy a dozen things at once. No sooner have you been let go than you are seized by another and another. The women were seated in the doors of their shops and ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... explosions followed, but when the smoke was gone the gang still beheld the terrible woman beating away at their unhappy comrade, too absorbed in a congenial occupation to care a solitary button for the fire of the outlaws. This was too much for Jacker. The brothers were always ready to fight each other's battles, let the odds be what they might, and the elder rushed to the rescue. The onslaught did not seem to make the least difference, however; the woman simply dropped Ted and grasped ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... into the late autumn, Martha slowly—oh, so slowly!—began to realize that there was importance to getting things right. She continued to tease. But she did her teasing before James closed the "Run" button. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... hopscotch around his button nose, so I can tell he does not think I solve all his troubles ...
— The Flying Cuspidors • V. R. Francis
... given Tom cause to think unjustly of her guardians, she would try harder than ever to please her aunt; and the small personal services she had been in the way of rendering to Godfrey were now ministered with the care of a devotee. Not once should he miss a button from a shirt or find a sock insufficiently darned! But even this conscience of service did not make her happy. Duty itself could not, where faith was wanting, where the heart was not at one with those to whom the hands were servants. She would ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... new characters in this book that ought to win your love. I'm very fond of the shaggy man myself, and I think you will like him, too. As for Polychrome—the Rainbow's Daughter—and stupid little Button-Bright, they seem to have brought a new element of fun into these Oz stories, and I am glad I discovered them. Yet I am anxious to have you write and tell me how ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... now with a growing curiosity. Strange as it all was, she felt that she could trust this man who had plucked her from death, who had worked over her with so much of tender kindliness. So, she waited patiently; only, watched with intentness as he pressed the button of a flat number. She observed with interest the thick, wavy gray of his hair, which contradicted pleasantly the youthfulness of his clean-shaven, resolute face, and the ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... planted stillness, his vivid truth, his grizzled bent head and white masking hands, his queer actuality of evening-dress, of dangling double eye-glass, of gleaming silk lappet and white linen, of pearl button and gold watch-guard and polished shoe. No portrait by a great modern master could have presented him with more intensity, thrust him out of his frame with more art, as if there had been "treatment," of the consummate sort, in his every shade and salience. The revulsion, for our friend, had become, ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... as owls. It is no trouble to them to master geology, mineralogy, anatomy, and other things, the very name of which gives me a headache. They can see through politics, mature mighty water reservoir schemes, and manage five stations at once, but they couldn't sew on a button or fix one's hair ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... Tony between his teeth. He hit up with his left at the keeper's wrist. The hand on his collar loosed its grip. Its owner rushed, and as he came, Tony hit him in the parts about the third waistcoat-button with his right. He staggered and fell. Tony hit very hard when the ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... The gentleman in brown-holland casts a look of suspicion at us, and directs a couple of policemen to search us, 'registrar' us, as he calls it, which they accordingly do; but nothing that we could dispense with is found on our persons, except the grime upon our hands and faces, and a pearl button, which has strayed during the journey, and somehow found its ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... face without speech, his hand still on the button of the bell-rope, his eyes in mine; this was the decisive heat. My face seemed to myself to dislimn under his gaze, my expression to change, the smile (with which I had began) to degenerate into the grin of the man upon the rack. I was besides harassed with doubts. An innocent man, ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rose-coloured damask, brocaded with silver flowers. My shoes are of white kid leather, embroidered with gold. Over this hangs my smock, of a fine white silk gauze, edged with embroidery. This smock has wide sleeves hanging half way down the arm, and is closed at the neck with a diamond button; but the shape and colour of the bosom is very well to be distinguished through it.—The antery is a waistcoat, made close to the shape, of white and gold damask, with very long sleeves falling back, and fringed with deep gold fringe, and should have diamond ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... always at the top,[53] nor could I with all my efforts supplant him. {p.081} Day came after day, and still he kept his place, do what I would; till at length I observed that, when a question was asked him, he always fumbled with his fingers at a particular button in the lower part of his waistcoat. To remove it, therefore, became expedient in my eyes; and in an evil moment it was removed with a knife. Great was my anxiety to know the success of my measure; and it succeeded ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... faces. But Tuesday dawned brilliantly; and when after a hasty breakfast I walked over to Kirris-vean, I found Sir Felix waiting for me at the top of the hill in his open landau, with a smile on his face, a rose in his button-hole, and a white waistcoat that put all misgivings to shame. 'A perfect day!' he called out with ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the early year, and mourned over their absence. But Mary preferred Autumn, and would not agree with him. She was enthusiastic for ferns and heather. He gathered some sprigs of the latter for her, from a little sandy patch which they passed, and some more for his own button-hole, and then they engaged in the absorbing pursuit of nutting, and the talk almost ceased. He caught the higher branches, and bent them down to her, and watched her as she gathered them, and wondered at the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... interval they stood motionless. They came to life when Harleston, reaching up, pushed the electric button. ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... its deliverance—his puny frame convulsed, and face reddening all over at an unfairness in the logic which he wanted articulation to expose, it has moved our gall to see a smooth portly fellow of an adversary, that cared not a button for the merits of the question, by merely laying his hand upon the head of the stationer, and desiring him to be calm (your tall disputants have always the advantage), with a provoking sneer carry the argument clean from him in the opinion of all the bystanders, who ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... buttons they sew on fly off on the mildest provocation; there are other women who use the same needle and thread, and you may tug away at their work on your coat, or waistcoat, and you can't start a button in ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... critics, who, possibly, have as many living friends as any modern characters can claim. A very large company of Christian people are fond of Lord Welter, Charles Ravenshoe, Flora and Gus, Lady Ascot, the boy who played fives with a brass button, and a dozen others of Henry Kingsley's men, women, and children, whom we have laughed with often, and very nearly cried with. For Henry Kingsley had humour, and his children are dear to us; while which of Charles Kingsley's far more famous offspring would be welcome— unless ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... attempt at more coolness could seem to prevent. In the meantime the casual manner of the little grey horse struck Coleman with maddening vividness. If the blank darkness was simply filled with ferocious Albanians, the horse did not care a button; he leisurely put his feet down with a resounding ring. Coleman whispered hastily to the dragoman. " If they rush us, jump down the bank, no matter how deep it is. That's our only chance. And ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... strong before—in a man. We all talked him over but couldn't make head or tail of him, and Red Jacket come out to walk with me to the French quarter where I was due to fiddle at a party. Passing Drinker's Alley again we saw a naked window with a light in it, and there sat our button-selling Monsieur Peringuey throwing dice all alone, right hand ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... employed by the Zoological world, and who appeared to have recommended him to Monsieur Mutuel), the old gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was to be had—of course, at the same time sunning a red ribbon at his button-hole; for was ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... her lips. She flushed, then started to rise, but Susie Sharp gently pushed her back into her seat, then crossed to an electric button in the frame of ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... regiment. The members of the clique supported one another against all opposition, particularly in the face of the enemy. They called themselves the Jokers, and recognised one another by a notch cut into the metal of the first button on the right hand row of the pelisse and dolman. The officers were aware of the existence of the clique, but as its worst crimes were limited to the adroit theft of chickens or sheep, or some trick played on the local inhabitants, and as the Jokers were always at the forefront in any action, they ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... portal guard. Quillan laid Kinmarten on the carpet before the portal, hauled the guard off into the room, and pulled the door to the room shut behind him as he came out. Picking up Kinmarten, he stepped into the portal with him and jabbed the fifth level button. A moment later, he moved out into the small dim entry hall on the fifth level, the gun in his right ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... as if drawn by the point of a very small needle.[I-20] His dress was a blue coat and buff waistcoat, half boots remarkably well blacked, and a silk handkerchief tied with military precision. The only antiquated part of his dress was a cocked hat of equilateral dimensions, in the button-hole of which he wore a very small cockade. Mrs. Dods, accustomed to judge of persons by their first appearance, said, that in the three steps which he made from the door to the tea-table, she recognised, without the possibility of mistake, the gait ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Martin: A button and buttonhole. For one is something and the other nothing, and what in the very nature of things could be more antagonistic ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Phillis, will want a regular bloomer to use when you are scrambling over the mountains on foot. Indeed, on the White Mountains now, the ladies best equipped ride up those steep pulls on men's saddles. For that work this is much the safest. Have a simple skirt to button round your waist while you are riding. It should be of waterproof,—the English is the best. Besides this, have a short waterproof sack with a hood, which you can put on easily if a shower comes. Be careful that it has a hood. Any crevice between the head cover and the back cover ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... Bartonia Aurea, Calendula Prince of Orange, Calliopsis Mixed, Canary Bird Flower, Candytuft (White, Mixed), Canna Mixed, Carnation Mixed, Celosia Dwarf Mixed Cockscomb, Centanrea, Cyanns Bachelor Button, Cobaea Scandens Purple, Cosmos Mixed, Cypress Vine Mixed, Double Daisy Mixed, Eschscholtzia Californica, Gaillardia Lorensiana, Gomphrena Globosa, Gourd (Apple Shaped, Bottle Shaped, Dipper Shaped, Egg White, Hercules Club, Mock Orange, Pear Shape, ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... He pressed a button near the switch. A portiere rustled, and a young man approached his bed—a short, thin, pale, fair young man, active ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... strikes the part, and by practising intelligent methods of shoeing. Slight injuries should be treated by the application of antiseptic powders. The treatment for injuries to the periosteum is the same as that recommended for splints. As a last resort boots and button rings may be used for the purpose of preventing serious injury to that part which ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... button that summoned the elevators. Down below, in the elevator shafts, could be heard the roar and crackle ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... back toward the village. The Germans pursued them with shouts of victory. Soon the last Frenchman had emerged from the trees, but the French commander waited until the Germans were all in the mined area. They were just beginning to debouch on the other side when he pressed the button. There was a tremendous roar, drowning for a moment even the boom of the cannon. The wood was covered with a cloud of smoke, and even on the French trenches in Beaumont "there rained a ghastly dew." When the French re-entered the wood, unopposed, they found not a single ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... that swells, the skin cleaves, and at length falls off, with its thorny top and all (which is a part of it) and leaves the seed Case to ripen, and by degrees, to shatter out its seed at a place underneath this cap, B, which before the seed is ripe, appears like a flat barr'd button, without any hole in the middle; but as it ripens, the button grows bigger, and a hole appears in the middle of it, E, out of which, in all probability, the seed falls: For as it ripens by a provision of Nature, that end of this Case turns ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... get my skirt shut!" "Why, I can't either! Not by two inches!" "Oh, fudge! There goes the button!" From every side came the same wail. Not a girl there who had not gained from five to fifteen pounds, and the tight skirts, made to fit in their slenderer days, were a sorry sight. "What will we do, Nyoda?" they ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... first actions will be the adjustment of the two pieces of stuff in such a way that the edges to be fastened together touch one another from top to bottom. Then, if it is a buttoning-frame, the teacher will show the child the different stages of the action. She will take hold of the button, set it opposite the buttonhole, make it enter the buttonhole completely, and adjust it carefully in its place above. In the same way, to teach a child to tie a bow, she will separate the stage in which he ties the ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... since heard is called "blackberry pudding." Another of the tribe was bawling out, with a loud, hungry tone—"A tatoe, pa!" The father himself was carving for the little group, with a napkin stuffed into the top button-hole of his waistcoat, and the mother, with a long bib, plentifully bespattered with congealing gravy, and the nectarean liquor of the "blackberry pudding," was sitting, with a sort of presiding complacency, on a high stool, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... corresponding button, and, her hand shaking so much that she could scarcely hold the receiver ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... looking particularly smart and lively, with a large flower in his button-hole, and leaning on the arm of a friend. "How do you do, Pendennis?" he says, with a peculiarly dandified air. "Did you dine here? You look as if you dined here" (and Barnes, certainly, as if he had dined elsewhere). "I was only asked to the cold soiree. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... don't wish to get away from me! I am your garland, Chevalier, and you shall wear me to-day. As for the tall Swede, he has no idea of a fair flower of our sex except to wear it in his button-hole,—this way!" added she, pulling a rose out of a vase and archly adorning the Chevalier's vest ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Lathrop alone, Billy had started to carry out his determination to take some pictures. The first subject he selected was a serious-faced little baby, innocent of any clothing, that sat playing with a ragged dog at, the entrance of one of the beehive huts. He had just clicked the button and exclaimed: ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... "Add a thrill!" Mr. Button sniffed. "Add a thrill! Well, I will tell you right now that when you feel a desire for a thrill like that coming on, you can go straight to the movies and indulge it. You shall have no such thrills at my expense," and without more ado Christopher Mark Antony Burton, ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... Tom's torch about and, discovering a wall switch, had pressed a button. At once an electric light in the ceiling flashed on, revealing that they were in a large pantry. Bottles of liquor stood about and, on a tray, were a number ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... many-coloured stripes fitted closely on her hips, and fell to her ankles, where two tin rings clashed together. Her somewhat flat face was yellow like her tunic. Silver bodkins of great length formed a sun behind her head. She wore a coral button on the nostril, and she stood beside the bed more erect than a Hermes, and ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... I give you a kiss?' and she replied with a slight primness, 'If you please.' She made herself rather cheap by inclining her face toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button into her hand; so she slowly returned her face to where it had been before, and said nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain round her neck. It was lucky that she did put it on that chain, for it was ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... kitchen. 'You'll hev to be extry spry to make up. There's pertaters to be fried, an' the children's lunches to put up, an' John Alexander's lost his jography—I believe that boy'd lose his head if it twarn't glued to his shoulders. There's a button off Stephen's collar, an' Susan Ann wants her hair curled, an' Polly's frettin' to be taken up. It beats me how that child does fret—I believe I'll put her to sleep with you after this—I'm that beat out I ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... her away) a marvellous little band of light, of the colour of heliotrope, spread over the lawn like a carpet on which I could not tire of treading to and fro with lingering feet, nostalgic and profane, while Francoise shouted: "Come on, button up your coat, look, and let's get away!" and I remarked for the first time how common her speech was, and that she had, alas, no blue ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... garden behind, is the first thing I ever remember. The good sisters were very kind to us. They taught all the older girls to read and write, and sew and knit, not only plain sewing, but fine stitching, and open-work, and fine darning, and button-holes, and lace-work, and so on. They also taught them to make beds, and sweep, and dust, and cook a little,—that is, how to make broth, and pappa, and such simple things. From twelve to two every day there was recreation. At twelve all the children, big and little, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... Fontaine—who forgave everyone—is bound to forgive me. The most good-humored Frenchmen, he could condone all faults but dullness. That offense against French fundamental principles invariably put him to sleep—whether the bore who button-holed him was a savant of the Sorbonne or just ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... large party it is very disagreeable to find a button giving way, with no studs at hand to fall back upon; but it is worse still in a large company to be conscious that your wife and mother-in-law are talking nonsense, and that you cannot depend upon ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... toil hard to gain her three-and-six a week. The unfortunate girl, having been taught sewing by Frances, made coarse shirts for the common people and the army. For these she received half-a-crown a dozen. They had to be hemmed, stitched, provided with collars and wristbands, buttons, and button holes; and at the most, when at work twelve and fifteen hours a day, she rarely succeeded in turning out more than fourteen or sixteen shirts a week—an excessive amount of toil that brought her in about ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... resigned expression upon a kindly face that years and care had lined before its time: old-fashioned rather, with soft, grey whiskers belonging to an earlier day. A black tail-coat adorned it, and the neck-tie was crooked in the turned-down collar. The watch-chain went from the waist-coat button to one pocket only, instead of right across, and one finger wore a heavy signet-ring that bore the family crest. It was obviously the figure of an overworked official in the Civil Service who had returned from its daily routine in London to the evening routine of its family in ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... in life seems to be to catch up any needed trifle—a suddenly dropped needle, the very leaf in the morning paper that the reader held a moment ago and that holds "continuations," the scissors just now at his elbow, his collar button—and to hide it until the loser swears his ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... court dresses. Mr. Goodrich, as is the custom in most cases, hired his; I had a full suit made for me. A chapeau bras, with gold lace loop, a blue coat, with standing collar, single breasted, richly embroidered with gold lace, the American eagle button, white silk lining, vest light cashmere with gilt buttons, pantaloons with a broad stripe of gold lace on the outside seams, a small sword, and patent-leather shoes or boots completed the dress ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... having allowed a minute or two to pass, I retraced my steps. The figure was no longer anywhere in sight. Holding my hat so that the ugly gusts of cold wind would not blow it away, I walked up the white steps of the Estabrook home and pressed the electric button which projected from a bronze disk. This disk, so the sense of touch indicated, had at one time been one of those Chinese carved metal mirrors and was now set into the stone. I remember how it spoke to me of the extents ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... ceased, and two tears which had gathered in the czarina's eyes stole down her cheeks. As if drawn by an invisible hand, she crossed the room, and, stooping down, pressed a tiny golden button which was fastened to the floor. A whirr was heard, the floor opened and revealed a winding staircase which led from her cabinet to the room ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell. A devil in an everlasting garment hath him; One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel; A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough; A wolf—nay worse, a fellow all in buff; A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands; A hound that runs counter, and yet ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... now an opportunity to witness the actual firing of a torpedo at an enemy vessel at close range. Directly in front of the Dewey's commander, just above the electric rudder button, glowed four little light bulbs in bright red—-one for each of the torpedo tubes in the bow bulkhead. When they were lighted thus it indicated that every chamber was loaded. As soon as a torpedo ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... Foo Chow, Mr. Gouverneur was fortunate in securing the services of a Chinese interpreter named Ling Kein, a mandarin of high order, who wore the "blue button," significant of his rank. In addition to this distinction he wore on his hat the peacock feather, an official reward of merit. He was a Chinese of remarkable intelligence, well versed in English as well as in the Chinese vernacular, and was also ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... little butt of rain to-night, but my lawn is far from being drunk yet. Did not you find the Vine in great beauty? My compliments to it, and to your society. I only write to enclose the enclosed. I have consigned your button ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... explaining to the others, "Oui, mes cheris, je garde Adelaide, car savez-vous bien, c'est elle qui me donne des idees; je prends toujours conseil avec elle. Alors, n'est ce pas?" Then, carrying the dolls in her petticoat, she solemnly undid the button, let it slip down with the dolls inside, and placed it resolutely in the basket, saying: "J'y mets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... indicated precisely the spot where their victims would be found, and the exact position of the bullet-holes which had caused their death; for with the telescope-rifle the question is not, whether an enemy shall be hit, but what particular feature of his face, or which button of his coat shall be the target. That this is no exaggeration may be easily proved by the indisputable evidence of hundreds of targets, every shot in which may be covered by the palm of the hand, though fired from a distance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... more grievous oversights in his business than ever. Sometimes he sent home to one person a coat with the legs of a pair of trousers attached to it for sleeves, and despatched to another the arms of the aforesaid coat tacked together as a pair of trousers. Sometimes the coat was made to button behind instead of before; and he frequently placed the pockets in the lower part of the skirts, as if he had been in ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... classified as "what women marry." They have two feet, two hands and sometimes two wives—but never more than one collar-button or ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... fruitless. One night a dark and hostile throng emerged from the wood and moved toward the blockhouse, where twenty musketeers were keeping guard. "If you be ghosts or devils I will foil you," cried the captain, and tearing a silver button from his doublet he rammed it into his gun and fired on the advancing host. Even as the smoke of his musket was blown on the wind, so did the beleaguering army vanish, the silver bullet proving that they were not ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... wedding-favor in his button-hole opened to her, and, while he went to deliver her urgent message, she peered in wistfully from the dreary world without, catching glimpses of home-love and happiness that made her heart ache for very pity of ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... Tom; and then and there he pulled off his great, greasy leather apron and soapy white slop, and fetched his shiny jacket out of the boiling-house. "I'm ready, Mas'r Harry," he exclaimed, as he fought hard to get one arm properly into his sleeve, but had to try again and again, because the button was off the wristband of his shirt, and the sleeve kept slipping up to his ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... brows. "You have observed, then, that I am patient? But yes, my dear, God help the wife of an artist if she is not! He is terrible, my man, at times, but luckily I was born long-suffering. He has, too, a way of wrenching at button-holes in collars that tears them ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... as you care to remain in your prison," returned Count Vavel. "No one can lift the screen from this side; but if you will press your foot on the little brass button in the floor at the foot of the column to your left, you will be ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... push-button was only a touch, and there was no answering skirl of the bell in the adjoining room. But, as if the intention had evoked it, a shadow crossed behind the superintendent's chair and came to rest at the end of the roll-top desk. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... rapidly before, they went like lightning then. It was as if he had touched a spring or pressed a button, setting vast machinery in motion. Even as he reeled back stunned at his audacity, the room became suddenly full of Coppins of every variety known to science. Through a mist he was aware of Mrs. Coppin crying in a corner, of Mr. Coppin ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... with some reason, a pride among the boys on their appearance on certain occasions. It went by the name of "good form." Thus on Sundays at morning chapel, we always wore a button-hole flower if we could. My dear mother used to post me along a little box of flowers every week—nor was it by any means wasted energy, for not only did the love for flowers become a hobby and a custom with many ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... (Gallice) aiguillettes. Thus, Falstaff says, "Their points being cut, down fell their hose." From this French word aiguillette was derived the term nouer aiguillette (to tie up the points), equivalent to—button up the flap, to express the rendering, by enchantment, a husband incapable of performing the conjugal rite. The whole secret of this charm consisted in the impostor choosing for his victim an individual whose youth, inexperience, or superstition presented him with a fit subject to work upon. The ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... there that night, and such bare necks and arms, with a man at the door, a man at the head of the stairs to tell 'em where to go, and one in the gentlemen's room, and two girls in the ladies' rooms to button their gloves and put on their dancing pumps. The carousin' lasted till daylight, and a tireder, more worn-out lot of folks than we was you never seen. ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... and gazed about us in awe. No hotel had ever affected any of us like this before. At first we talked in whispers; then as our courage revived, we became critical. Then somebody thought of having a "Scoot"; tremulously he pressed the button for the waiter. The waiter came and they had two "Scoots" each. Then somebody made a funny remark and one of us laughed out loud. Suddenly the laugher stopped and said, "I feel as if I ought not to laugh; I feel that nobody ever ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... or a heathen. But if you venture to wonder how Christ would have looked if he had shaved and had his hair cut, or what size in shoes he took, or whether he swore when he stood on a nail in the carpenter's shop, or could not button his robe when he was in a hurry, or whether he laughed over the repartees by which he baffled the priests when they tried to trap him into sedition and blasphemy, or even if you tell any part of his story in the vivid terms of modern colloquial slang, you will produce an extraordinary ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... mind the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt, At the edge of the pathless wood, And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs, Which nigh by the door step stood? The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt, The tree you would seek in vain; And where once the lords of the forest waved, Grow grass and the ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... soft hand taking hers firmly, and she touched with her lips a white forehead, over which was beautiful light-brown hair smelling of pomade. When she looked up at him she was struck by his beauty. Anatole stood with his right thumb under a button of his uniform, his chest expanded and his back drawn in, slightly swinging one foot, and, with his head a little bent, looked with beaming face at the princess without speaking and evidently not thinking about her at all. Anatole was not quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... as immoral, by his family. Comely indeed he was, especially on state occasions, when he appeared in all the radiance of rosy health, overflowing spirits, and the richest crapes and satins,—decorated with the high order of the peacock's feather, the red button, and numberless glittering ornaments of ivory and lapis-lazuli. Beloved or envied by all the men, and with all the women dying for him, he was fully able to appreciate the comforts of existence. Considering the homage universally accorded him, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... the receiver on the hook, stared at the instrument again in a perplexed way; then, called the garage on the private house wire. There was no answer. He walked quickly then across the room and pushed an electric button. ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his button-hole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... evoked by words being independent of their sense, they vary from age to age and from people to people, the formulas remaining identical. Certain transitory images are attached to certain words: the word is merely as it were the button of an electric bell that ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... is dead, that good old man We never shall see more: He used to wear a long black coat All button'd down before. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... contrary, Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on you. If it rested anywhere, it was always on some insignificant object in the vicinity, some vase, inkstand, book, or button. These things he would seem to take into his confidence, make the repositories of his conclusions; but as for you—you might as well be the steeple on Trinity Church, for all connection you ever appeared to have with ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... water. There's lots of water. You push that button again, Margy, and let some more ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... affair with his son.—In a very angry tone he said, I thought, Edmund, you was to assist me, knowing how much I had on my hands, before Lord Darcey sets out;—but I find business is not your pursuit:—I believe I must consent to your going into the army, after all.—On which he button'd up his coat, and went towards the Abbey, leaving me quite thunderstruck. Poor Edmund was as much chagrined as myself.—A moment after I saw Mr. Jenkings returning with a countenance very different,—and ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... she thought she would see Miss Heath sitting as she usually was at this hour, either reading or answering letters. She was not in the room. Priscilla felt too wild and impetuous to consider any action carefully just then. She ran up at once to the electric bell and pressed the button for quite a quarter of a minute. A maid servant came quickly to answer the summons. She thought Miss Heath had sent for her and stared at ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... relations of the chains. The timber found here is pitch-pine, shrub oaks, cedar, &c., indicative of the poverty of the soil; in the uplands of the rest of the state, hickory, post-oak, and white oaks, &c., are the prevailing growth; and in river-bottoms, the cotton-tree, sycamore, or button-wood, maple, ash, walnut, &c., predominate. The south-eastern corner of the state, below Cape Girardeau, and east of the Black River, is a portion of the immense inundated region which borders the Arkansas. A considerable part of this tract ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... above, but use white stock, no beef, and only pheasant or fowl trimmings, button mushrooms, cream instead of ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... adage, which made a tailor the ninth part of a man, has been completely reversed by the subdivision of work in modern industry. It now takes more than nine men to make a tailor. We have foremen or cutters, basters, machinists, fellers, button-holers, pressers, general workers, &c. No fewer than twenty-five such subdivisions have been marked in the trade. Since the so-called tailor is no tailor at all, but a "button-holer" or "baster," it is obvious ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... would ill become a poor priest like me to go a-glitter with things like those." Now, Danny had already bought his buttons, and had them at that moment in his pocket. So, pulling a woful face, he said, "Mercy me, my lord, what would happen to the poor button-makers, if everybody was of your opinion?" "Button it all over, Danny," said the Bishop. A coat of Bishop Wilson's still exists. Would that we had that one of the numerous buttons, and could get a few more made of the same pattern! ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... anyway, for us to have a talk with an older classman," argued Dave. "Button your blouse, straighten your hair and ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... voices of the girls, assisted with combs covered with paper, or the shrill notes of some expert at whistling. It often happened that the old people objected to dancing, and then the company resorted to plays, of which there was a great variety: "Button, button, who's got the button;" "Measuring Tape;" "Going to Rome;" "Ladies Slipper;" all pretty much of the same character, and much appreciated by the boys, because they afforded a chance to ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... I know all about it, because when my regiment was ordered to the front, my old colored Mammy—Ma'm Judy—who nursed me, sewed one just like that, inside the lining of my coat skirt. But, Dyce, that rabbit's foot was not worth a button; for the very first battle I was in, a cannon ball killed my horse under me, and carried away my coat tail—rabbit's foot and all. Don't pin your faith to left hind feet, they are fatal frauds. You ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... than the men who had it not. He had been willing to admit this poor perpetual curate, who had so long been kept out in the cold, within the pleasant circle which was warm with ecclesiastical good things, and the man hesitated,—because of scruples, as the dean told him! "I always button up my pocket when I hear of scruples," ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... speak, to run wild, and start up the coast on their tangled course of a hundred miles of deserted loveliness, and it was in the very heart of this delightful confusion that we pitched our tents for a summer holiday. A veritable wilderness of islands lay about us: from the mere round button of a rock that bore a single fir, to the mountainous stretch of a square mile, densely wooded, and bounded by precipitous cliffs; so close together often that a strip of water ran between no wider than a country lane, or, again, so far that ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Button is made to pin on your breast, Fine ebony finish with white button sure to induce a push, which never fails to produce a shock with "Hail Columbia," and variations. *A Full Charge* of electricity every time. The old joker is told "*That is Good! Ring the Bell.*" The *Best Selling Article* ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... England—but was not contented with the usual ornament of the double tuft. The cap was small, and jaunty; trimmed with silk velvet—as is common here with men careful to adorn their persons; but this man's cap was finished off with a jewelled button and golden filigree work. He was dressed in a short jacket with a stand up collar; and that also was covered with golden buttons and with golden button-holes. It was all gilt down the front, and ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... led her to regret the necessity for leaving him to spend a lonely morning in the cloak room. With Sarah to think was to act, and she popped the snake into the pocket of her middy blouse, pinning it with a safety pin in lieu of a button and button hole. When the class returned from the auditorium, she was sitting sedately in her seat and appeared only mildly interested in the lecture on tardiness ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... latter, according to fashion, were so long that they trailed on the ground. The inconvenience of the tail is so great that the women, while travelling on a journey, get rid of it by drawing it between their legs, and, lifting up the end, fastening it in front to a button sewed to their frock for the purpose. In travelling, therefore, Esquimau women seem to be destitute of this appendage; but, on arriving at camp, they undo the fastening, and walk about with flowing ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... the boys, the captain lumbered towards them, waving a dirty piece of paper. "Read that," he roared, "just brought in by that copper-faced, shoe-button-eyed son ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... door, he went up to the bed and tried to move it; but it was fixed to the wall, and had not been moved for more than half a century, apparently. Then the brigadier stooped, and made his uniform crack. A button had ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... falling on the shoulders. A small piece of cotton reaching from the waist to the knee is generally the only garment of the poorest. Those better off wear also a piece of plaid thrown gracefully across the shoulders. The right nostril is ornamented with a small copper ring; as a substitute, a shirt-button is much esteemed, and during our stay our buttons ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... friend who would give him the very latest news respecting a certain horse; and Esther, Sarah, and Journeyman wandered along the course in search of William. Along the rails strangely-dressed men stood on stools, satchels and race-glasses slung over their shoulders, great bouquets in their button-holes. Each stood between two poles on which was stretched a piece of white-coloured linen, on which was inscribed their name in large gold letters. Sarah read some of these names out: "Jack Hooper, Marylebone. All ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... are two pan-arrests operated by a button from the front of the case. These arrests exert a very slight upward pressure upon the pans and minimize the displacement of the beam when objects or weights are being ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... Three Josephs, the Saint and his two proteges. It was known generally that the adherents of the Liberal party would muster, as usual, on the Porta Pia road, and that the more courageous partizans of the popular cause would be distinguished by wearing a violet in their button-holes. ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... a button, and Miss Joyce came in. "Take the testimony of the man who is coming in, Miss Joyce," I directed. "Take everything we say, any of us. Can you ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... were three of these guys. One was a hell of a looking fellow: his face was piebald, with purple spots. His skin was bleached and withered, and one eye looked like a pearl collar button! They called him Professor, too, Professor Gurlone. Well, he takes out this damn cricket thing and it was sort of reddish purple but alive, and as long as your forearm. This professor guy says his son had taken an ordinary cricket and made it grow ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... in order, and also to make the winter clothes for the farm hands. The madam and I had cut out these clothes before she left, and it was my principal duty to run the sewing machine in their manufacture. Many whole days I spent in this work. My wife made the button holes and sewed on the buttons. I made hundreds of sacks for use in picking cotton. This work was always done in summer. When the garments were all finished they were shipped to the farm at Bolivar, to be ready for the fall and winter wear. In like manner the clothes for summer ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... up, and her nostrils dilated a little. "Billy went to Pete the other day to have him button her shirt-waist up in the back; and yesterday I found her down-stairs in the kitchen instructing Dong Ling ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... at the bottom of the steps, her foot upon the lowest one, her hand clasping the heavy bronze rail. There was no going back now. She went up and pushed the button of the electric bell, and then, the step once taken, the irrevocable once dared, something like the calmness of resignation came to her. There was no help for it. Now for the ordeal. Rownie opened the door for her with a cheery welcome. Lloyd was dimly conscious that the girl said something ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... with our conversation. In view of the attentions which his Lordship has been paying you, his cousin felt it a duty, he intimated, to make inquiries. He did not care a button, I inferred, for your position here, as it could not affect Lord Strathay's in England; but he had read the newspapers with pardonable perplexity, and asked if you were really the only daughter of a bonanza farmer. I did not feel it necessary to enter into particulars, but informed him that your ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... ruining the melodious swan-song of Cleopatra, is postponed till after the final curtain. Then it takes the form of a duel. The composer manages at last to elude the parry of the conductor; he throws all his weight and venom into a lunge that must prove fatal,—but a large brass button sheds the point of the sword and saves its wearer ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... indicated renewed brain compression, I again cleared the opening of clotted blood and pushed forward the button of bone, which acted as a valve, permitted an oozing of blood and relieved pressure on the brain. I again saw good ...
— Lincoln's Last Hours • Charles A. Leale
... old button-covered uniform," said Charlie, "and I won't wear it, neither! And as for aunt Rachel, I don't care how much she is hurt—I'm only sorry I didn't smash her other toe; and I'll see her skinned, and be skinned myself, before I'll ask ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... and bridesmaids. Behind these were the members of the families and the invited relatives, so that the cortege stretched to a considerable length. Each of the groomsmen wore a bow of colored ribbon on his left arm and a smaller one in the button hole. The children of the families—quite a troop of juveniles—brought up ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... your best coat. That coat you have on has a frayed button. I saw it yesterday, and I cannot bear to have you wear ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... and when they rose, were all evidently making for the vessel, and within some eighty yards. I then learnt a new advantage of the electric machinery, as compared with the most powerful steam-engine. A pressure upon a button, and a few seconds sufficed to exchange a speed of four for one of twenty miles an hour; while, instead of sinking the vessel below the surface, the master directed the engine to pump out all the liquid ballast ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... he is put rather upon his gallantry. He commonly passes some time, therefore, at his toilet, and takes the field at a late hour every morning, with his hair dressed out and powdered, and a rose in his button-hole. After he has breakfasted, he walks up and down the terrace in the sunshine, humming an air, and hemming between every stave, carrying one hand behind his back, and with the other touching his cane to the ground, and then raising it up to ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... now?" Harrison wasn't fooling. I looked at Sol, on the seat next to me; I thought I had heard him snicker. He began to fiddle with his camera without looking at me. I pushed the "talk" button and told Harrison where I was. It pleased him very much; I wasn't more than six blocks from where this big rumble was going on, he told me, and he made it very clear that I was to get on ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... to walk back, and Charlie, saying he had to dine with Victor Button, made an appointment to see Taylor again, and left him, striking across the Row. Taylor strolled on, and, finding Mrs. Marland still in her seat, sat down by her. She was surprised and pleased to hear that ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... many and many a year to English children. A broad and shallow bowl or dish half-filled with blazing brandy, at the bottom of which lay numerous toothsome raisins—a rare tidbit in those days—and one of these, pierced with a gold button, was known as the "lucky raisin." Then, as the flaming brandy flickered and darted from the yawning bowl, even as did the flaming poison tongues of the cruel dragon that St. George of England conquered so valiantly, each one of the revellers sought to ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... mind telling you. You know I tried to mark Merriwell for life by punching my foil through the mask that protected his face while we were engaged in a fencing bout. I had prepared my foil for that in advance by fixing the button so I could remove it, and by sharpening the point of the foil. I wanted to ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... Perhaps I ought rather to say Button's axiom. For that great naturalist and writer embodied the principles of sound geology in a pithy phrase of the Theoris de la Terre: 'Pour juger de ce qui est arrive, et meme de ce qui arrivera, nous n'avons qu'a ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... world instantly"—said Wildrake; "I have had a weary time in't for one.—Ha, noble Sir Henry, I kiss your hand—I tell thee, knight, the point of my Toledo was near Cromwell's heart last night, as ever a button on the breast of his doublet. Rat him, he wears secret armour.—He a soldier! Had it not been for a cursed steel shirt, I would have spitted him like a lark.—Ha, Doctor Rochecliffe!—thou knowest I can ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... at the tamasha yesterday. He was dressed very unlike a minister—more like a post-captain or admiral. He wore a blue dress-coat, trimmed with lace, and bearing a Government gilt button. In his hand he carried a cocked hat. At the Communion on Sunday (he sat on Dr. Wilson's right hand, who sat on my right) he wore a blue surtout, with Government gilt buttons, and shepherd-tartan trousers; ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... of all that. The elevator is an electric one and any person can run it by pushing the button. All you have to do then is to unpack the wireless instrument here in your room, and after you have adjusted it you can certainly arrange in some way to get it on top of the ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... invitation of Pope Clement VII. I retired from Florence, and repaired to Rome. His holiness commissioned me to execute a button for the pontifical cope, and to set into it the jewels which I had taken out of the two crowns in the Castle of St. Angelo. The design was most beautiful, and so pleased and astonished was the Pope that he employed me to make new coinage, and appointed me stamp-master of the mint. My ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... escaped." He glanced sidelong at Orne. "The Rah&Rah boys couldn't make sense out of the records. No surprise. They called in an I-A crypt-analyst. He broke a complicated substitution cipher. When the stuff started making sense he pushed the panic button." ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... them out again and examined more minutely the condition of their sockets, with the happy result of discovering at last, in the place into which the third on the left-hand row was fitted, a small sliding panel. Behind the panel was a spring, like a flat button, which yielded with a click when he pressed it and which instantly produced a loosening of one of the pieces of the shelf forming the highest part of the davenport—pieces adjusted to each other with ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... the button. There was a second shirt underneath, and to that on the left breast were pinned two ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... will be fine! Annie Bouman told me what grand times they will have in the big houses tonight. But we will be merry too. Hans will have beautiful new skates—and then there'll be the waffles! Oh! Don't break them, brother Hans. Wrap them well, and button them ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... o' his jokin' spells again. I won't have to go an' twist off a button, I c'n tell you. Things can't get that way with me.—But tell me this: whose turn is it goin' to be now? It's about time for somebody, you know. Somethin's got to burn pretty ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... gold and be dressed like a prince. And then I took your little blouse that was just made of green wool and held it in front of you and said: "In with both arms," and then I said, "Now sit nice and still while I button it down the back," [She puts the straightjacket on] and then I said, "Get up now, and walk across the floor like a good boy so I can see how it fits." [She leads him to the sofa.] And then I said, "Now you must ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... for a seal?" They looked about. Mac's eye fell on a metal button that hung by a thread from the old militia jacket he was wearing. He put his hand up to it, paused, glanced hurriedly at the Colonel, and let ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... made me what I am. I hate the name, and my blood boils beyond all restraint when my eye falls upon a uniform. Rightly have the Sioux called me the "Soldier Killer," for never do I let one who wears the button escape if he comes within my reach. But you must not stay too long. Good-night—I will not say good-by, ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... they had to show. It is a great deal better to boast of what they could not show, and, strange as it may seem, there is a certain satisfaction in it. In these days of electric lighting, when you have only to touch a button and your parlor or bedroom is instantly flooded with light, it is a pleasure to revert to the era of the tinder-box, the flint and steel, and the brimstone match. It gives me an almost proud satisfaction to tell how we used, when those implements were not at hand or not employed, to light ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... rain-beaten glass front she recognized a face—Kendal's. His head was thrown back to speak to the driver through the roof. In the instant of her glance Elfrida saw that he wore a bunch of violets in his button-hole, and that he was looking splendidly well. Then, with a smile that recognized the dramatic value of his appearance at the moment, she lowered her ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... been suggested to the Mandarin Li Keen that the bestowal of the Crystal Button would only be a fit and graceful reward for his indefatigable efforts to uphold the dignity of the sublime Emperor; but to all such persons the Mandarin has sternly replied that such a proposal would more fitly originate ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... but I am not a spaceman trained to react automatically to emergencies. Neither am I a navigator or a pilot, although I can fly in an emergency. I am a biologist, a specialist member of the scientific staff—essentially an individualist. I knew enough to seal myself in, push the eject button and energize the drive. However, I did not know that a lifeboat had no acceleration compensators, and by the time the drive lever returned to neutral, I was far out in space and thoroughly lost. I could detect no lifeboats in the vicinity nor could I ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... to leave, according to my plan? Wrap the muffler well around the lower part of your face, button this second overcoat closely about your neck, and enter the private carriage which I ordered for 'Mr. Lee,' waiting now at the Forty-fifth Street Side. Then drive leisurely to the West Forty-second Street ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... on Uncle Wiggily, with a smile that made his pink nose twinkle and his whiskers sort of chase themselves around the back of his neck, as though they were playing tag with his collar button. "I just ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... cap at one end of the tube, inserted the note and closed it. Then he pushed a button on his desk. A panel in the wall opened and one of the men who had played policeman once for him stepped ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... some with silk and some with cashmere, some with tent drapery, with end ottomans, and lamps in profusion. These rooms, with busts and pictures of kings, swarmed with old nobility, with historic names, stars, red ribbons, and silver bells at their button-holes: ladies in little white satin hats and toques, with a profusion of ostrich or, still better, marabout powder-puff feathers; and the roofs were too low for ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... legal term for a man dying. Call it Fate, and that's philosophy; call me Providence, and you talk religion. Die? Why, that is what man is made for; we are full of mortal parts; we are all as good as dead already, we hang so close upon the brink: touch a button, and the strongest falls in dissolution. Now, see how easy: I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... coxswain, who had charge of it, and was answerable for the order and cleanness of it. The rest of the cleaning was divided among the crew; one having the brass and composition work about the capstan; another the bell, which was of brass, and kept as bright as a gilt button; a third, the harness-cask; another, the man-rope stanchions; others, the steps of the forecastle and hatchways, which were hauled up and holystoned. Each of these jobs must be finished before breakfast; and, in the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... She touched the button, turned on the electric lights, and noticed the letter lying in the girl's hand. Her glance passed swiftly to Sylvia's face and as swiftly passed away. She knew instinctively the writer of the letter, but she said nothing, waiting for ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... justify the curious epithet which he applies to it; but the cavalcade of noble names continued to "prance" for some considerable time without advancing. Yet he had good reasons, according to his own account, for wishing to push on their publication. His parsonage-house at Button had just been burnt down through the carelessness of one of his curate's household, with a loss to Sterne of some 350l. "As soon as I can," he says, "I must rebuild it, but I lack the means at present." ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill |
