"Buttonhole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... waistcoat of his evening livery, he freed the heavy silver watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an old-fashioned silver watch of that obese style which first earned the portable timepiece its nickname of "turnip," and opening its back inserted a key attached to the other end of the chain. Its winding ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... great-coat, only half buttoned up, nipped in his waist and disclosed a cashmere waistcoat crossed in front, beneath which was another waistcoat of white material. His watch, negligently slipped into a pocket, was fastened by a short gold chain to a buttonhole. His gray trousers, buttoned up at the sides, were set off at the seams with patterns of black silk embroidery. He gracefully twirled a cane, whose chased gold knob did not mar the freshness of his gray gloves. And to complete all, his ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... the candle. What they add to their incomes I do not know, but it cannot be very much, and the trouble they have to take is colossal. Nobody loves them, and they must see it; yet they persevere. Glossop, for instance, had been trying to buttonhole me every time there was a five minutes' break ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... by dint of arms? If ever they do regain Venetia it will be through the blood of our Brandenburghers and Pomeranians, and not their own.' During this tirade a little old Belgian in black, with the chain of St. Peter at his buttonhole by way of watchguard, capered off to communicate the grateful news to a group of his ecclesiastical fellow-travellers, shrieking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... poems, tucked it under his arm, and they trotted off. In Madison Square they saw a gallant and courtly old man with military shoulders and pink cheeks, a debonair gray mustache, and a smile of unquenchable youth, greeting April with a narcissus in his buttonhole. He was feeding the sparrows with crumbs and smiled to see one of them fly off, carrying a long wisp of hay, bustling away to build for himself and his sparrow bride a bungalow in the foot-hills of the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... in Paris; you might as well tell me, that the Swiss will abjure the money which makes a part of his distinction, as the Frenchman give up the laced coat, the powdered queue, and the order of St Louis at his buttonhole. Those things are the man, they are his mind, his senses, himself. He is a creation of monarchy—a clever, amusing, ingenious, and brave one; but rely upon my knowledge of human nature—if French nature ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... smiling. "When, five years ago, Kosorotov received the order of St. Anna of the second grade, and went to thank His Excellency, His Excellency expressed himself as follows: 'So now you have three Annas: one in your buttonhole and two on your neck.' And it must be explained that at that time Kosorotov's wife, a quarrelsome and frivolous person, had just returned to him, and that her name was Anna. I trust that when I receive the Anna of the ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... happened by the merest chance to be sauntering along the Station Road this morning, in his best blue frock-coat with a flower in the buttonhole, corrected some of the rumours, but without much success. Finding the throng so thick, he held a long debate between curiosity and dignity. The latter won, and he returned to No. 2, Alma Villas, in a flutter, some ten minutes before ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... blew the lapel of his light coat out a little way and there his eye caught the glint of a pin-head. He remembered that Marguerite Delarue had pinned a rose in his buttonhole the day before he left Las Plumas. He had been saying pretty, half-loverlike nothings to her about her hair and her eyes, and to conceal her embarrassed pleasure she had turned away and plucked a rosebud from the vine that clambered over the ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... and she pointed dramatically to the life-size head and shoulders of a burly man with a dead white rose in the buttonhole of his coat that made you think of a curl of cold mutting fat. Just below, in silver letters on a red cardboard ground, were the words, "Be not ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... religious convictions. These, I venture to say, are grave omissions. The picture is sadly wanting in suitable accessories. If I had been painting it I should have put a simple yellow daffodil in the MINISTER'S buttonhole, and pictured through an open window a sunlit bed of leeks, with perhaps a goat gambolling among them. I should have represented the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS in his study practising putting with a small bomb. And on the wall should have been a life-size portrait of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... many blisters would you have if you did not mend it, pray? May I suggest that you make the experiment and see? No marks at all for that answer! Question number four is, Work a buttonhole on ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... gone toward certain debts. His clothes, save what were upon him, had descended to his man-servant for back wages. As he sat there was not in the whole city for him a bed or a broiled lobster or a street-car fare or a carnation for buttonhole unless he should obtain them by sponging on his friends or by false pretenses. Therefore he had chosen ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... emotion, and see whether it would probably take the form of poetry or prose. You are suddenly informed that your house is on fire, and have to scramble out of it, without stopping to tie your neck-cloth neatly or to put a flower in your buttonhole. Do you think a poet turning out in his night-dress, and looking on while the flames were swallowing his home and all its contents, would ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... deemed a most suspicious manner. Both were Frenchmen evidently; they wore billycock hats and carried stout sticks; and one of them, swarthy and almost brigandish of aspect, had the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole. It was easy to take these individuals for French detectives, and I hastily jumped to the conclusion that they ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... he was finishing dressing it came to me that his clothes had undergone much the same change as his dwelling. In his golden days in London he had been a good deal of a dandy; he usually wore white waistcoats at night; was particular about the flowers in his buttonhole, his gloves and cane. Now he was decently dressed and that was all; as far below the average as he had been above it. Clearly, he had let go of himself and no longer took pleasure in the vanities: it seemed ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... up, and there stood in the doorway a rubicund-nosed gentleman, in a green coat and huge wonderfully gay coloured cravat, leather breeches, and top-boots, with a hunting-whip under his arm, a peony in his buttonhole, and a white hat which he flourished in his right hand, while he kept scraping with his feet, making his ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... to answer. It was the Hotel de Belleville at Paris. He was sitting opposite to me at table-d'hote, and his clothes were so new and glossy that I contemplated them with admiration, not unmixed with awe. He had a valuable ring on his finger, and a superb orchid in his buttonhole, and looked like a millionaire himself; things had improved with him, and the billiard-marker and valet were safely shunted. Miss Jacobi was with him"—and here Hugh paused a moment—"and she was handsomer ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Madame Joubert came over and stood beside him, looking at him and at the rosier, "Oui, c'est joli, n'est-ce pas?" She took the scissors that hung by a ribbon from her belt, cut one of the flowers and stuck it in his buttonhole. "Voila." She made a little ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... leave, "to look sharp if you see a forty-five-year-old damsel, with a little bright red face, all ears an' no chin, like the ace o' hearts. That'll be Miss Pickett. She'll have with her, like as not, a stout married lady, all gab an' gizzard, like a crow, an' a mouth like a new buttonhole. That'll be Mrs. Pennycook. Look out for 'em ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... mechanical drudgery took its place. An hour later someone knocked at an inner door which led to steep side stairs connecting with a side street entrance. Wondering who it was Mary opened it, to find Steve, very flushed and handsome, a flower in his buttonhole yet no ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... The bridegroom receives a buttonhole, but no one sings him a song. In the opera he is not on the stage during the bridesmaids' chorus. I have not been able to find out whether the quaint pretty verses are by Friedrich Kind, who founded the libretto of the opera on a story ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... he was surrounded by an excited knot of people who wished to know how he had extracted the amazing confession from Riley Sinclair. The sheriff tore himself away from a dozen hands who wished to buttonhole ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Stem stitch contour: Maidenhair in buttonhole stitch. Star in buttonhole stitch on background ...
— Jacobean Embroidery - Its Forms and Fillings Including Late Tudor • Ada Wentworth Fitzwilliam and A. F. Morris Hands
... Calendar. The newspapers employed watchers, who picketed the block where Parnell and his wife lived, and telegraphed to Christendom the time the lights were out, and whether Mr. Parnell appeared with a shamrock or a rose in his buttonhole. The facts that Mrs. Parnell wore her hair in curls, and smilingly hummed a tune as she walked to the corner, were construed into proof of brazen guilt and a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... too dark to see, Mrs. Carr rolled the thread back on the spool, stuck the needle into the last buttonhole, and folding the infant's dress on which she was working, laid it away in her ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... me of a fighting-cock. He is a little man, much the height and build of the late General Funston, with hair cropped close to the skull, after the Russian fashion; through a buttonhole of his green service tunic was drawn the orange-and-black ribbon of the Order of St. George. He can best be described as "a live wire." His staff-officers impressed me as being as efficient and razor-keen as their chief. The ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... enters briskly, some leafy twigs bearing different sorts of nuts in one hand, and a long ripe hop-bine trailing after him from the other. A dahlia is stuck in his buttonhole.] ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... assure you, my dear children, kept up most carefully. There was always a button to sew on, a buttonhole to remake, or a tear to be mended. Thus constantly in touch with the household Madame Hen soon thought she belonged to it. Indeed, worn out by the teasing of her companions, by the constant arguments she had with them, and touched on the ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... on the lawn, and played at ball; they wandered among the flowers, and each of the young girls broke off a flower, and fastened it in a young gentleman's buttonhole. But the young Scotch lady looked round, for a long time, in an undecided way. None of the flowers seemed to suit her taste. Then her eye glanced across the paling—outside stood the great thistle bush, with the reddish-blue, sturdy flowers; she saw them, she smiled, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... place. If it is in the evening, the conventional evening dress is imperative. Black suit, dress coat, low-cut waistcoat, white tie, white or pale pearl-colored gloves, thin patent leather shoes and possibly a white flower in the buttonhole, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... know how that ancient profession may be divided up? May you not have sadly to tell him: 'My poor boy, it is impossible to make you that—for there are no longer any whole-tailors. You may, if you like, be a thread-waxer or a needle-threader; you may be one of the thirty men it takes to make a buttonhole, but a ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... had been too engrossed in the surgical profession to observe much apart. "I believe I'm going to decorate you." And she dimpled up at the Senior Surgeon, coquettishly. Selecting one of the blossoms with great care, she drew it through the buttonhole in his lapel. "See, I'm decorating you with the Order of the Golden Primrose—for brilliancy." Whereupon she ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... heroism that couldn't be uttered, staggered month after month among ruins, and found America untouched, comfortable, fat, still with time to worry over the suspected amorousness of the rich, still putting people into uniforms in order to buttonhole a man on landing and cross-question him as to ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... putting on my spectacles, I saw that I was fondling a snake, or smelling at a bud with a worm in it, I sprang up in horror and ran away; or, if it seemed to me through the glasses that a cherub smiled upon me, or a rose was blooming in my buttonhole, then I felt myself imperfect and impure, not fit to be leading and training what was so essentially superior in quality to myself, and I kissed the children and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... hair was tied up in new ribbons, and as Dave looked at her he thought she looked as sweet as might a fairy from fairyland. He could not help smiling at her, and when she came and pinned on his coat a buttonhole bouquet he thought he was the happiest ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... their pasteboard countenances close to the sculptor's with an unchangeable grin, that gave still more ludicrous effect to the comic alarm and sorrow of their gestures. Just then, a figure came by, in a gray wig and rusty gown, with an inkhorn at his buttonhole and a pen behind his ear; he announced himself as a notary, and offered to make the last will and testament of the assassinated man. This solemn duty, however, was interrupted by a surgeon, who brandished a ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... full of the spirit of adventure, and looked forward to that spring Wednesday when he should leave for Queenstown, his mother made up for his heartless joy by her lugubriousness. As the time drew near she would buttonhole all and sundry whom she could catch to pour out her sorrows. The trailing gown and ragged lace shawl became a danger signal which we would all flee from, an it were not sprung upon us too suddenly. We had a shrewd suspicion that the tears Mrs. ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... the ally of a boy named Aubrey Mills and founded with him a gang of adventurers in the avenue. Aubrey carried a whistle dangling from his buttonhole and a bicycle lamp attached to his belt while the others had short sticks thrust daggerwise through theirs. Stephen, who had read of Napoleon's plain style of dress, chose to remain unadorned and thereby heightened for himself the pleasure of taking counsel with his lieutenant before ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... was the following day: how fearful, when the morning broke grey and lowering: how grateful, when the benignant sun shone out later, and promised a brilliant afternoon: how carefully I dressed, and what a price I paid for the flower for my buttonhole! ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... about the usual business of his toilet. In taking off his dress-coat he noticed the Legion of Honor which Miss Talcott had given him at the ball. He pulled it out of his buttonhole and tossed it into the fire-place. When he had finished dressing he saw with surprise that it was nearly ten o'clock. Ruby Glenn was ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... said, attaching herself affectionately to his buttonhole, "I went round the links in eighty-three this morning. I did the long hole in four. One under par, a thing I've never done before in my life." ("Bless my soul," said Lord Marshmoreton weakly, as, with an apprehensive eye on his sister, he patted his daughter's ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... voice here added in my ear, "that if he wishes to effect an entrance into the gambling den which his son haunts, he must take the precaution of tying a bit of blue ribbon in his buttonhole. It is a signal meaning business, and must not be forgotten," chuckled the old fellow, evidently deceived at last into thinking I was really one ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... going?" demanded Patricia, but Arabella put her left hand over her lips, while with her right she slipped another button into its buttonhole, and sidled ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... castle, and I did not know what I should do, as I was most anxious Matthias should have his bouquet, apart from all consideration of his prophecy. Suddenly, an excellent idea occurred to me; I divided my own bouquet, tied up the half of it with a white ribbon, and fastened it to his buttonhole by a gold pin, keeping a common one for myself. Matthias was charmed with this ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the arm of our dear Prince?" asked a little fat man, girt in a white satin waistcoat, and a spray of white lilac in his buttonhole. ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... will say, art thou a magician, Spiegelberg? 'Tis a pity, the king will say, that thou wert not made a general, Spiegelberg, thou wouldst have thrust the Austrians through a buttonhole. Yes, I hear the doctors lamenting, 'tis a crying shame that he was not bred to medicine, he would have discovered the elixir vitae. Ay, and that he did not take to financiering, the Sullys will deplore in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... said the other. "You did a thousand things which no one else did. First, when you sat down at the table, what did you do with your napkin?" "My napkin? Why just what every body else did with theirs. I unfolded it entire]y, and fastened it to my buttonhole." "Well, my dear friend," said Delille, "you were the only one that did that, at all events. No one hangs up his napkin in that style; they are contented with placing it on their knees. And what did you, do when you took your soup?" ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... Henry, settling his buttonhole in his coat; "and when they grow older they know it. But I don't want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... growing dawn which now vied with the flickering light of the overhead lamp in their compartment. The stranger was a very tall man in dark clothes, who gave an instant impression of long rectangularity. He had a long nose, a long upper lip which hung over a thin slit of a mouth which resembled a buttonhole slightly frayed by wear. His chin was long and square and, like his upper lip, blue, as though a stiff black beard were in constant battle with a razor. His eyes were large and regarded Renwick with a mild melancholy ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... (as they were called at that time) in light silk gowns, covered with diamonds and precious stones, in carriages decorated with flowers. Coachmen and footmen wore powdered wigs, white or grey, silk stockings and knee-breeches and a flower in the buttonhole matching the colour of their livery and the flowers which hung about the horses' ears. Some of the carriages had no coachman's box or driver, but were harnessed to four horses ridden by postillions in green satin or scarlet velvet, with ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... did by standing up gallantly for the Censor, to whose support the Opposition was in no way committed, and by visibly defying the most cherished conventions of the average man with a bunch of carnations in his buttonhole as large as a dinner-plate, which would have made a Bunthorne blench, and which very nearly did make Mr Granville Barker (who has an antipathy to the ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... simply must promise to come before he went away; she insisted. And she asked suddenly: "When I saw you on the seventeenth, didn't you have a bow in your buttonhole?" ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... rarely to be conceded. Much that he has learned from Shelley he passes on to his readers, but before they receive it, it has become, not Shelley's, but Francis Thompson's. To stick a lotos-flower in our buttonhole—harris-cloth or broadcloth, it does not matter—is an impertinent folly that makes a guy of the wearer. But this man's raiment is his own, not that of other men, and Shelley himself would willingly have put his ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... walk in the woods. He expected that a renewal of the attack would be necessary before the sacrifice of the yellow locks could be accomplished, and he stood on the steps of the hotel, clad in the most exquisite of grays, tapering down to the most brilliant of boots. He had a white rose in his buttonhole, and his great black dog was lying at his feet, having for a wonder found his master, for the beast was given to roaming, or to the plebeian society of Barker's servant. The American's careful attire contrasted rather oddly with his sallow face, and with the bony hand that rested against ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... straight down his face, like a finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been drinking, I could see that. And what queer talk they used! Mr. Holmes inspected this cabin, then he took me by the buttonhole, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... her head on one side, and a finger hooked confidentially through the Captain's buttonhole. "Well," she said, "I've had a very interesting time, Daddy Captain. First I cleaned the lamps, of course, and filled and trimmed them. And then I played Samson ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... some excuse of putting away designs, but presently peeped from the window, and Gillian, with excited curiosity, imitated her, and beheld, lingering about, a young man in the pink of fashion, with a tea-rose in his buttonhole and a ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of trusty she had constrained herself to civility. She had taken Mrs. Carder the flowers last night, and Rufus had put some tiny blooms in his buttonhole and caressed them at supper-time with significant glances ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... feature in the day's programme was the exhibition of articles made in the sewing department. Hundreds of specimens were effectively displayed against the walls of the large office. There were nicely made garments, bright patchwork quilts, dressed dolls illustrating hygienic styles of dress, buttonhole work and neat patches. Much of the work done won warm commendation from the visitors present, and that by the boys of the third grade received a full share of praise. In many cases it was difficult to believe that the specimens ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various
... nothing could turn him from this folly; he became daily younger and faster. He wore the most eccentric hats on one ear. He ordered his coats to be made in the very last fashion; and never went out without a camellia or a rosebud in his buttonhole. He no longer contented himself with dyeing his hair, but actually began to rouge, and used such strong perfumes, that one might have followed his track through the streets by the odors ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... talked with great volubility, showing that once embarked upon this theme, he felt himself in his proper element. Now and then he paused to buttonhole me or press me against the rocks. When he had said something he thought very convincing, he swiftly screwed his eyeglass into his eye and scrutinized my face to see what impression he had made upon me. This, added to ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a soft "Good-morning," and walked with him into the garden, among the roses and sweet-smelling things of summer. And then—oh, wonderful, exquisite marvel!—plucked a sprig of mignonette, smelled it, and placed it in his buttonhole. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... he interrupted, as he drew it through his buttonhole, "but it will assuredly bring me ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... those invited a small cross, made of blue and rose coloured ribbon—the rose for the bride, the blue for the bridegroom; and the guests had to keep this token—the women to deck their head-dress, and the men their buttonhole, on the day of the wedding. This is their ticket of admission to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... him once at the Alhambra—poetry in a top hat! He wore evening clothes that were a little too elaborate, a white camellia in his buttonhole, and a thick-lensed monocle on a black ribbon. During the entr'acte he stood up and surveyed the house from pit to gallery, as if he wanted to be seen. He was very tall and the ugliest man in England. Imagine the body of a Lincoln, the hands of a woman, the jaw and mouth of Disraeli, an aristocratic ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... in, my dear, you know y' way, I guess," sighed Mrs. Bowker, passing a small, worn hand across her faded eyes. "There's five dozen more collar-bands I must stitch an' buttonhole t'night—so go your ways, my dear." So saying, Mrs. Bowker went back to her labour, which was very hard labour indeed, while Hermione led the way into a tiny room, where, on a small, neat truckle-bed covered by a faded quilt, a ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... would be occupied—and, in one month from to-day, our warships will have Constantinople under their guns. If K. won't listen to me, then, having been officially mis-informed that the War Council wish to see me (the last thing they do wish), I will take them at their word. I will buttonhole every Minister from McKenna and Lloyd George to Asquith and Bonar Law,—and grovel at their feet if by doing so I can hold them on to this, the biggest scoop that is, or ever has ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... very pleased. I am afraid, after all, you ought to have asked Lady Fitzroy," she said, in a low voice; but Dick turned a deaf ear. He showed her the rose in his buttonhole; and when Nan told him it was withered, and wanted him to take it out, he gave her a reproachful look that made ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... treat to see the Major stroll down Main Street to the post office every pleasant spring morning. Coat buttoned tight, silk hat the veriest trifle on one side, one glove on and its mate carried with the cane in the other hand, and the buttonhole bouquet—always the bouquet—as fresh and bright and ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... garden of the palace just then, and they turned with disappointment to obey Glinda's command. But before they left the garden the Tin Woodman, who was fond of flowers, chanced to espy a big red rose growing upon a bush; so he plucked the flower and fastened it securely in the tin buttonhole of his ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the bench near the end of the lane. By his side was a basin tied up in a cotton handkerchief; in the buttonhole of his coat there was a sprig of sweet-william. The girls from the big house came and stood still in front of him, staring at him rudely, ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... man, gazing in upon the scene before him with an expression of distinct aversion, mingled with indifference. He was dressed just like the other men, in a long frock coat, and he had a white gardenia in his buttonhole. But there was something about him distinct and noticeable—something in the quiet easy manner with which he at last moved forward to greet his hostess, which seemed to thrill her through and through with a sense of sweet ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... elegantly dressed, with his legs crossed in that indolent way, observing the clothes the ladies wear, so that he can describe them for his paper and make them out finer than they are and get bribes for it and become wealthy. That flower which he is wearing in his buttonhole is a rose—a white rose, a York rose—and will serve to remind us of the War of the Roses, and that the white one was the winning color when Edward got the throne and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... had tattled about. Mr. Burrage was successful, he could see that in the turn of an eye; not perhaps as having a commanding intellect or a very strong character, but as being rich, polite, handsome, happy, amiable, and as wearing a splendid camellia in his buttonhole. And that he, at any rate, thought Verena had succeeded was proved by the casual, civil tone, and the contented distraction of eye, with which he exclaimed, "You don't mean to say you were not moved by that! It's my opinion that Miss Tarrant will carry everything before ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of the green tabs will make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... clothes—his distinguished manners and grand seigneur air carried it off. One saw it was not the over-dressing of the nouveau riche, but the rather old-world dandyism of a past generation. This was the odder as the year was 1913, and he was exactly thirty. He always wore a buttonhole—to-day it was made of violets to match his violet socks—and invariably carried a black ebony stick, with an ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... all over indeed when I ought to be plucking nosegays of Lysimachia clethroides and Pyrethrum uliginosum to put in my buttonhole! I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... decorated to the horns with flowers and coloured ribbons harmoniously blended. And last of all came the exhibitor who was to receive the first prize—a slouching man, plainly dressed, with a pair of farmer's gaiters on, and without even a flower in his buttonhole. "Who is he?" asked the spectators. "Why, he is the Englishman," was the reply. "The Englishman!—that the representative of a great country!" was the general exclamation. But it was the Englishman all over. He was sent there, not to exhibit himself, but to show "the best beast," and he did it, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... day when they had parted, and now on this first occasion of her freedom she felt it again. What did he think of her? Did he suppose that she could transfer her love in that way, as a flower may be taken from one buttonhole and placed in another? He read it all, and knew that he was hurrying on too quickly. "I can understand well," he said in a whisper, "what your present feelings are; but I do not think you will be really angry ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... his grandfather. "The first man you'll meet in the legislative lobby next winter, sugar on his speech and alum on his finger, so that he can get a good firm grip of your buttonhole, will be Arba Spinney, drawing his salary as the paid agent of half-a-dozen schemers. He may seem a little wilted just now, but he's a hardy perennial—you needn't ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... you, for Toby had a red feather-duster in his head, two remarkable flags waved over the carriage, Kit had a blue bow on his neck, which nearly drove him wild, Demi wore a nosegay of dandelions in his buttonhole, and Mrs. Jo carried the queer Japanese umbrella in ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... your telegram and here I am," said a gentleman with a grey moustache, who entered my study, dressed in a dark-brown frock-coat and a wide-brimmed hat, with a red ribbon in his buttonhole. "What's the matter?" ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... covered with violets and her cap a tiny lace affair with a violet border. In her case she was able to use many real violets and to carry a basket of the fresh flowers. The contents was made up of small bunches of buttonhole size and she stepped from the procession at almost every table to sell a bunch to some gentleman sitting there. A scout kept the basket ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... swinging his stick and composing snatches not unworthy of her of whom they treated, his face towards the magic Schloss and its enchanted princess, and his pockets full of her letters! Herr Klutz's coat was clerical, but his brown felt hat and the flower in his buttonhole were typical of the worldliness within. "A poet," he assured himself often, "is a citizen of the world, and is not to be narrowed down to any one circle or creed." But he did not expound this view to the good man who was helping him to prepare for the examination ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... saw a thick-set figure approaching her across the square; and a moment later she was shaking hands with Elmer Moffatt. In the bright spring air he looked seasonably glossy and prosperous; and she noticed that he wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. His small black eyes twinkled with approval as they rested on her, and Undine reflected that, with Paul's arms about her neck, and his little flushed face against her own, she must present a not unpleasing image ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... contrary; but as it is like the Legion of Honor in color, he is prohibited from wearing it in his buttonhole without displaying the small gold cross—And I see ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... was not disappointed of his walk. He appeared dressed in his best, with a large bunch of primroses, bought in the market the day before in his hand, and two or three in his buttonhole. ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... narrow stone stairway somewhere at the back of New Scotland Yard, and so came to the inspector's room. Bray was waiting for us, smiling and confident. I remember—silly as the detail is—that he wore in his buttonhole a white rose. His manner of greeting me was more genial than usual. He began by informing me that the police had apprehended the man who, they believed, was ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... a sprig in not quite the right direction, and the Maestro stepped forward and stooped to him, while Kirk's fingers found the buttonhole. ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... Torkleson, condemning Towne and his followers for "flagrant violation of management contracts and illegal fouling of managerial processes." Ben Starkey, President of the Board of American Steel, expressed "shock and regret"; the Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers held a mass meeting in protest, demanding that "the instigators of this unprecedented crime be permanently barred from positions ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... cried, with enthusiasm. "You are, Dawson, the perfect detective. As a criminal I should be mightily afraid of you. But, as in my buttonhole I always wear the white flower which proclaims to the world my blameless life, I am thoroughly enjoying this visit and our cosy chat beside the fire. Shall I telephone to my office and say that I shall be unavoidably detained from ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... forest made up of immense trees with luxuriant foliage, overladen with parasitic orchids—eternally in bloom, of course, in the dreamy minds of the untravelled, and just waiting to be picked and to be placed in one's buttonhole. The sky, naturally, over such a forest, could only be swarming with birds of all sizes, with plumage of the richest colours and hues; and what else could such a luxuriant country have in the way of butterflies and insects than some which resemble precious gems in the iridescent tones ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... sound reached me to make discord; so quiet, indeed, was all the earth that I became startled by the sudden chatter of a squirrel disturbed at my approach, and unthinkingly I stooped to pluck a delicate pink flower blooming in the grass, and placed it in a ragged buttonhole of my old ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... have the reader by the "introduction" buttonhole, I want to make a suggestion or two about using a book like this. Do not, on the one hand, read it through and then put it away with the dictionary and the family Bible, and trust to memory for the ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... her; he was absorbed in watching Connie who stood on tiptoe, pinning a flower in Don Morley's buttonhole. ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... hers fluttered down; but she raised them suddenly and put the flower in his buttonhole, her face so close that he felt her breath on ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... he is sensitive about his personal appearance, and will not use a trumpet, which I consider weak. But we get on very well. He smells my flowers, and smiles and nods to me, and says something in a voice so low that I can't hear it; and I stick a posy in his buttonhole, and smile and nod to him, and say something in a voice so loud that he can't hear it; and so we go on. One day in each year we always spend together, and go to church. ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... what is given or achieved. He already not only regretted giving the ten thousand francs to Jenny, but the two hundred francs to the servants—nay the six sous given to the waiter at the restaurant, even the money he had spent on the bunch of violets. The bouquet still hung in his buttonhole, faded and shrivelled. What good did it do him? While the sous which he had paid for it—! He did not think of his wasted millions, but could not drive away the thought of that ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... sprays set ready for them, and putting one in his own buttonhole, fastened the other in her bodice with ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... where she found Ross and Elinor in front of a gloriously burning wood fire. But they were both garbed in what to her inexperienced eyes seemed the most pronounced party garments. Ross had donned a Tuxedo and pinned a tiny, pink rose in his buttonhole. Elinor wore a black gown that was very low in the neck to Arethusa, although in reality it was the most modest of decolletage, and a few of the same pink roses ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... his way to class he plucked up courage to purchase a small buttonhole for her, and blushed a very warm red when Joan took his offering with a smile and ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... as well as before the rulers. But what a curious choice of men! It would be called even an unhappy one. Thurlow Weed, with his offhand, apparently sincere, if not polished ways, may not be too repulsive to English refinement, provided he does not buttonhole his interlocutionists, or does not pat them on the shoulder. So Thurlow Weed will be dined, wined, etc. But doubtless the London press will show him up, or some "Secesh" in London will do it. I am sure that Lord Lyons, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... Lord Reggie alone in the room reading his letters. He was dressed in loose white flannel, and in the buttonhole of his thin jacket a big green carnation was ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... sensation which roused me up as I endeavored in imagination to swallow at one draught the contents of a metal tankard of half-and-half—half laurel-water, and half decoction of henbane—handed to me on a leaden salver by a demon-waiter, with a sprig of hemlock in the third buttonhole of his coat. This Lethean influence could hardly be that of the ailantus-tree alone. What of the plants on the balcony beneath,—the strange, rooty coilers which the mysterious planter sedulously fosters at the glooming of dusk, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... men—the few Who wish they could be ladies too— Display a sprig of yellow Conspicuous in their buttonhole, To captivate a maiden soul Or vex ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... had made it, but deceivingly unconventional to the eye of the uninitiated. This he put on, taking particular pains to select a very plain cravat, and to fasten in it with care the scarf-pin bestowed upon him by old Benson, the little watchmaker on the corner below. Through the buttonhole in the lapel of his coat he drew a spicy-smelling sprig of ground-pine, chanting whimsically as he did so a ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... — " began the other stiffly, but broke down, shook his seal ring at Rex, and walking over to the glass, rearranged the bit of wild hyacinth in his buttonhole with care. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... his mother's sitting-room way up in the country. He had not thought, for a long time before, of the dear old woman who supposed her son was turning his wits to good account in the city. But Miss Sydney did not know how much he wished for a bit to put in his buttonhole when she indignantly went back to the dining-room to wait until that impertinent fellow stopped ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... you both. We have had quite enough of it. We shall always have the satisfaction that we did our duty to France, and our rank; and these ribbons,"—and he touched the rosette of the legion of honor, in his buttonhole—"will prove that we have distinguished ourselves. We have had great good fortune, hitherto; it ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... open. A man stood upon the threshold—a tall, fair man of middle age, with a small blond mustache, and a monocle dangling from a narrow black ribbon about his neck. From the very correct gardenia in his buttonhole to the very immaculate spats upon his feet, he was a careful prototype of the Piccadilly exquisite—a little faded, perhaps, slightly effete, but perfect in detail. He halted for a moment, as if he, too, were blinded by the swift change ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... journey with greater swagger, but he never brought more than a few dollars at a time. He grew maudlin, familiar, could hardly see the cards or sit upright. As a preliminary to another journey to his bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsen's buttonhole with a greasy forefinger and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, "I got money, I got money, I tell yer, an' I'm a ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... as close as a scabbard to his thin legs. He wore a high silk hat and a white carnation in his buttonhole. He looked neither to the right nor to the left. Apparently he was the one man in sight who was not concerned about the question of what had become or would become of the ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... been kept at home by a little dancing-party to-night.... I write this arrayed in my dress-coat with a rose in my buttonhole, a circumstance, I think, worth mentioning. It reminds me of Buffon, who used to array himself in his full dress for writing 'Natural History.' Why should we not always do it when we write letters? We should, no doubt, be more courtly and polite, and perhaps ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... not indifferent—it was excited: when first the Comte de Cambray and Crystal arrived on the Place du Carrousel, a number of white cockades could be picked out in the throng, either worn on a hat or fixed to a buttonhole, but as the afternoon wore on there were fewer and fewer of these small white stars to be seen: the temper of the crowd did not brook this mute reproach upon its enthusiasm. One or two cockades had been roughly torn and thrown into the mud, and the wearer unpleasantly ill-used if he persisted ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... something move on the far side of the wall: he paused to make sure, and then he whistled, the sounds outside ceased, and in a moment something fell softly behind him. He turned quickly and snatched up a little buttonhole of flowers with a still smaller ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... hat set rather jauntily on his head, a short, drab-coloured overcoat of horsy cut, black and white check trousers, red-skin riding gloves, square-toed walking shoes, a light cane, and a rose in his buttonhole; you would have taken him at first sight for a sporting tipster. Matthieu, who had stopped short at this sudden apparition, and Bonafede, both stood staring in amazement. The new-comer looked at them with a wicked twinkle in his eye, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... 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 ribbons together from that in ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... saying was found, or else confess himself beaten. Mackay thought it might be a good habit for the graduates of his own alma mater across the wide sea to adopt. He wondered what some of his old college chums would think, if, when he got back to Canada, he should buttonhole one on the street some day, recite a quotation from Shakespeare or Macaulay, and demand from his friend where it could be found. He had a suspicion that the old friend would be afraid that the Oriental sun had touched George ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... with the flowing white locks and the white rose in his buttonhole bore down upon Quin and enveloped his hand ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... to reward him for his honesty that I gave him the fur coat and looped the big brass baggage check in his buttonhole. Voila!" ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... comes the Commissioner and his friends, very grand indeed, all dressed like swells always do in the evening, I believe, black all over, white tie, shining boots, white kid gloves, flower in their buttonhole, all regular. People may laugh, but they did look different from the others—showed more blood like. I don't care what they say, there is such ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... Dr. Dudley appeared, and Polly and Elsie hurried to pin a posy in his buttonhole. Elsie had chosen a pink and Polly a blue blossom, and one little girl held them in place while the other pinned them fast, the Doctor sending telegraphic messages over their heads to ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... own name, you know," he observed lightly, at last laying down his bow, and replacing the dainty white rose in his left top buttonhole. "Not official for a bank EMPLOYE to operate on the Stock Exchange. The chiefs object to it. So I do my little ventures in Tom's name instead, my brother-in-law, Tom Whitley's. Those Cedulas went up another ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Only—and I have never given you bad advice, Abel— don't let that thing hang any longer from your buttonhole. Put it into an envelope and keep it, and if you don't hear from me again in regard to it, write me out a fool and forget we were ever ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... mass she chose a spray, and set it in the bosom of her dress, then got to her feet and moved slowly toward him. "You're not wearing my colors to-night." This was directed to the white rose in his buttonhole. He took it out and tossed ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Snuffin!" said the big man, mopping his face with a large silk handkerchief, which, even at that distance, gave out a powerful perfume. "Go ahead, Snuffin, and we will settle this matter later," and, adjusting a large rose in his buttonhole, the self-important individual took his place on the cushioned seat at the wheel, while the big red motor boat ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... friends knew him as a butterfly hunter, a searcher for beetles and scarabs, who, indeed, was one of the first authorities in France on the subjects: Anatole Ferraud, who went about, hither and thither, with a little red button in his buttonhole and a tongue ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... It was a new method of shouting out the odds, attracting attention to an exceedingly well-got-up gentleman in a grey frock suit, patent leather boots, white spats, grey gloves, tall white hat, and a flower in his buttonhole. A new bookmaker had made his appearance. He informed the crowds in song that he betted "only for cash," not "on the nod"—"I pay on the winner, immediately after the race." It only wanted an organ to accompany him. It was quite amusing to watch the remainder of his ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... in under the lap covers. His umbrella was a dainty en-tout-cas with a mother-of-pearl handle, that had answered well enough in heavy mist or soft drizzle. His hat of fine straw was tied with a neat cord to his buttonhole; but although that precaution insured its ultimate safety, it did not prevent its soaring from his head and descending on Mrs. Shamrock's bonnet. He conscientiously tried holding it on with one hand, but was then reproved by both neighbours because his macintosh ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wrinkled her nose. Then she flushed, conscious that he was a bit surprised at her tone of disdain. "Why, he will wear a frock-coat and a flower in the buttonhole and will bow in my customers. You didn't think my young man ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... one on earth for thousands of years has longed to witness, still remains a theory, and Adrian Brownwell traipsed up and down the earth, in his lavender gloves, his long coat and mouse-coloured trousers, his high hat, with his twirling cane, and the everlasting red carnation in his buttonhole. His absence made it necessary for Molly Brownwell to leave the sacred precincts of the home many and many a Saturday afternoon, to go over the books at the Banner office, make out bills, take them out, and collect the money due upon them and pay off the ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... slipped a finger into a buttonhole of the good parson's, (the only man in the parish who would have ventured upon such familiarity,)—"I think we've been a little strict with Reuben,—a little strict. He's a fine, frank, straight-for'ard lad, but impulsive,—impulsive, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London's best tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... beginning.] The Professors, being busy and important men, lecture from their particular standpoints, and having lectured, bolt; there is no provision whatever for the intelligent discussion of knotty points, and the only way to get it is to buttonhole a demonstrator and induce him to neglect his task of supervising prescribed "practical" work in favour of educational talk. Let us, therefore, in view of this state of affairs, deal with the general question how a branch of thought and knowledge ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... afraid. I thought of something you told me when I was quite small, Padre: how the Romans of old used to send packets of good news bound with laurel, or of bad news, tied with the plumes of ravens. I stared into Julian O'Farrell's stare, and wished that he'd stuck a green leaf or a black feather in his buttonhole ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... state on paper what I have to say. I can readily appreciate that the encounter is disagreeable. To meet one who has made a thing impossible to you sets the nerves on edge." He caught up his opera hat, his cane and gloves. He raised the lapel of his coat and sniffed at the orchid in the buttonhole. ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... but I've got two buttons left over, and there's only one buttonhole to put 'em in! What'll I ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... it is turned at right angles to the cutter, and then slid down the slot until the cap-screw unbuttons from the cutter. The object in sliding the cap up the slot before turning it, is to prevent the danger of injuring the edge. Some caps are now made with the buttonhole at the upper ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... leather boots, yellow gloves, handsome studs, and a very pretty gold chain passed through the buttonhole of his waistcoat of black silk with blue flowers. Madame de la Chanterie took a little silver whistle from her pocket and blew it. The ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... April 6.—Met again after so-called Easter Holidays. Mr. G. early in his place, looking as blooming as the Spring flower in his buttonhole. "The BRIGHT 'UN from Brighton," was MARJORIBANKS'S way of announcing the Chief, as he entered from behind SPEAKER'S Chair. Spoke for hour-and-half on moving Second Reading of Home-Rule Bill. General impression is everything ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... book; this time I find only the blue and gold thing which, such as it is, I send you, you are to take from me. I could not even put in what I pleased but I have said all about it in the word or two of preface, as also that I beg leave to stick the bunch in your buttonhole. May I beg that Mrs. Tennyson ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... to Solly, with a wink at myself, 'here's the first dinner-station we've struck where we can get a real good plate of beans.' And while he was up in his room trying to draw water out of the gas-pipe, I got one finger in the buttonhole of the head waiter's Tuxedo, drew him apart, inserted a two-dollar bill, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... was the cry that went from mouth to mouth. The Emperor gave each of the rogues a royal ribbon to wear in his buttonhole, and called ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... glass of old Madeira, he beheld three figures entering the room. These were Fancy, who had assumed the garb and aspect of an itinerant showman, with a box of pictures on her back; and Memory, in the likeness of a clerk, with a pen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her buttonhole and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm; and lastly, behind the other two, a person shrouded in a dusky mantle which concealed both face and form. But Mr. Smith had a shrewd idea that it was Conscience. How kind of Fancy, Memory and ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... experiences, after being given a compartment all to myself by men who glanced at me with eyes of hate and passed on to another compartment which was already crowded or stood up in the aisle of the car, I made a point of buying an American flag for my buttonhole. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... slowly, and looking about him with his rather pathetic eyes. He saw Jacob Crayford, smartly dressed, a white flower in his buttonhole, standing in a group of pressmen, went up to him and gently took him by ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... writes a very good hand. Her husband is also one of the highest chiefs in Fiji, and speaks good English. They proved most hospitable, and presented me with some Fijian fans when I left the next morning, and the Princess gave me a buttonhole of flowers out of her garden. Dick Seddon, the Premier of New Zealand, had once visited them, and I noticed his portrait that he had given them fastened to a post in their hut. I left Navuso by steam launch which called at the large sugar-mills a little ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... also bore fleurs-de-lis; on the shoulders a pair of straps cried out for useless epaulettes; these military appendages were there like a petition without a recommendation. This old gentleman's coat was of dark blue cloth, and the buttonhole had blossomed into many colored ribbons. He, no doubt, always carried his hat in his hand—a three cornered cocked hat, with a gold cord—for the snowy wings of his powdered hair showed not a trace of its pressure. He might ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... him and dropped the curtain immediately, a speck of colour in his buttonhole catching my eye as ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... too glad to hear you speak! You put ideas into my poor head, and my poor head lets them out, and then you put them in again. What noble perseverance! If I live a while longer I do really think you will make a clever man of me. Let me put the rose in your buttonhole for you. And I say, I wish you would allow me to go on with ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... He is brilliantly dressed in a new fashionable frock-coat, with white waistcoat and grey trousers. A flower in his buttonhole, a dazzling silk hat, and patent leather shoes complete the effect. He is too concerned with the business he has come on to notice Mrs. Higgins. He walks straight to Higgins, and accosts ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... the whole a most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman. He is very young, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient, as it should seem, for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he suspended from his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, the dogs barked, puss scampered, the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... symbolic title of a book is worn by each guest, and a prize is given to the person who guesses most, and to the person whose title is considered the best. Thus, a person wearing a card having the letter R represented Middlemarch, and a person with catkins in his buttonhole, Hazell's Annual. But simpler devices are ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Princes' garments, or the exquisite harmonies and simplicity of shape of the Princesses. The willowy emerald-green Princess, who came from Fairyland, I am sure, shook hands with us and gave us tea and sugar and cream and a buttonhole, heavily scented, likewise a cigar, and if I hadn't had fever and could have spoken her language I'd have been enchanted. But first I should have described the wonderful umbrellas that ornamented the camp. When we got out of our carriage ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... value. Each button of his coat and low-cut vest was a diamond, and from the front of his rimless cap waved a plume of diamonds. On his wrists were heavy gold bracelets of Malayan workmanship, and his fingers were cramped with almost priceless rings. In his buttonhole blazed a diamond orchid. The handle and scabbard of his sword were a solid mass of precious stones. Altogether this little known Oriental potentate possessed $10,000,000 worth of diamonds, the second largest ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... Michaelmas once a year. His master had absolute control of his life and actions, and sometimes would enforce it with the whip-stock. But now the farm lad has the hardihood and the right to summon his employer before a magistrate, goes to "Lunnon" at holiday time, walks with a stick, wears a buttonhole in his coat, and, mirabile dictu! has been seen to ride home from his work on a "bone-shaker"! In place of the old bent figures in smock-frocks, there are spruce young fellows in black coats; in place of the old indoor farm service, its hearty living, ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... to one side," said his niece, sternly, "and the stud's out of your buttonhole. I wish you'd be a little tidier when you come here, uncle; it looks ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... corsage of narcissus. But the corsage was now smaller, by one flower, than it had been before, for, as I sighted them, she was in the act of placing one of the blooms from her bouquet in my companion's buttonhole. Her hands looked very white and small against his dark coat, and I recall that he was gazing down at them, and that his features were distorted ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... except the expression of Noble's face and the somewhat ill-chosen pansy in his buttonhole hinted of the remarkable. Yet even here was a thing for which he was not responsible himself; it was altogether the work of Julia. What her work was, in the case of Noble Dill, may be expressed in a word—a word used not only by the whole Atwater family connection, in completely expressing Noble's ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... principles of sewing were shown on neat little squares of cloth—running, hemming, stitching, gathering, and buttonhole-making. Then there were garments in which all these first steps ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... no head-covering. She wore one glove (wrong side out), and was carrying the other one. Her dress, evidently donned hastily for the street, was unevenly fastened, showing the topmost button without a buttonhole. ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient as it should seem for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he wore suspended by a riband from his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, the dogs barked, Puss scampered, the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, never probably to be thus interrupted more. I ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... and happy muss of after-the-party. A white-taffeta dress with a whisper of real lace at the neck, almost stiffishly seated, as if with Marcia's trimness, on a chair. A steam of white tulle on the dressing table. A buttonhole gardenia in a tumbler of water. One long white-kid glove on the table beside the night light. A naked cherub in a high hat, holding a pink umbrella for ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... find anything you wanted quickly, and he pointed the column where events are listed; and when I found the third page there was your face so splendidly reproduced, and you seemed so fine and noble to me I forgot about the dress suit and the badge in your buttonhole, or to wonder when or how or why it could have happened. I just sat there shouting in my soul, 'David! David! Medicine Man! Harvester Man!' again ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... even more wickedly—"and Mrs. MacSpadden had put the flower there for him." This implied snub to his vanity was, however, more than compensated by his wicked anticipation of the pretty perplexity of his fair friend when HE should appear at dinner with the flower in his own buttonhole. It would serve her right, the arrant flirt! But here he was interrupted by the entrance of a tall ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the box to my pocket I passed the chain through the buttonhole of my cloak and let it dangle on my breast as an ornament. When the cigarette was smoked, I cleared my throat in the orthodox manner and fixed my eyes on Runi, who, on his part, made a slight movement to indicate that he was ready to listen to ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... eloquence of a revivalist preacher would suffice to divert the story into absolutely different channels, make him a white-soured hero, a man still pure, walking untainted and brave and helpful through miry ways. The appearance of some daintily gloved frockcoated gentleman with buttonhole and eyeglass complete, gallantly attendant in the rear of customers, served again to start visions of a simplicity essentially Cromwell-like, of sturdy plainness, of a strong, silent man going righteously through the world. This day there had predominated a fine leisurely person immaculately ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... Ralph was a man of importance that evening; first, because he belonged to a great family; secondly, because he was the handsomest man of his year. He wore a large golden star on his breast (for his fellow-students had made him a Knight of the Golden Boar) and a badge of colored ribbons in his buttonhole. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various |
