"Buttonhole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... little sprays set ready for them, and putting one in his own buttonhole, fastened the other in her bodice with a loving, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... say it is for the good sense of the public to distinguish true remedies from false, pure wine from adulterated; or, it is for the good sense of the public to distinguish in a buttonhole the decoration awarded to merit from that prostituted to mediocrity and intrigue. Why, then, do you call yourselves the State, Power, Authority, Police, if the work of Police must be performed by the ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... that for?" she asked, staring at me as I placed it in my buttonhole. "What do you want of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... "I've yet all these sleeves to set, and stitch in, and the fronts to finish off; and a buttonhole to ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... Turning the corner of the street leading to his Bloomsbury attic, the author was tapped on the shoulder by a resplendent Bond Street being. That is, the said being wore a perfectly-fitting frock-coat, a silk hat, trousers with the regulation fold back and front, an orchid buttonhole, grey gloves, boots that glittered, and carried a gold-topped cane. The fact that Paul wheeled without wincing showed that he was not yet in debt. Your Grub Street old-time author would have leaped his own length at the touch. But ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... 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
... There is perhaps no other instance so remarkable of the desire of man for publicity and an enduring name. The greatness of his life was open, yet he longed to communicate its smallness also; and, while contemporaries bowed before him, he must buttonhole posterity with the news that his periwig was once alive with nits. But this thought, although I cannot doubt he had it, was neither his first nor his deepest; it did not colour one word that he wrote; and the Diary, for as long as he kept it, remained what it was when he began, a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in colour than the clay wall behind them. 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 flourish with ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... said I, as long as you see me dressed like a gentleman. I shall not, Jack said, and with his girls took his departure, while George N., who interpreted all this merriment, took a fresh white rose and put it in my buttonhole. Let us go for lunch, said he and I followed gladly for I felt it ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... get used to it," Joey told him; "eight o'clock, then, on Sunday; plain evening dress. If you like to wear a bit of red ribbon in your buttonhole, why, do so. You can get it at Evans', in ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... dressed,—at least that was the first impression,—though, as a matter of fact, the clothes were of the cheapest ready-made variety. But nothing could look cheap or ill made on those splendid muscles. He wore a silk shirt, a flower in his buttonhole, a gray tie in which was a pearl as big as a pea, long patent-leather shoes with elaborate buff-colored tops; he carried a thin stick and a pair of new gloves in one hand, but the most conspicuous object in his dress was a brand-new, gray felt hat, with a rather wide brim, ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... tooth. He quite ceased going out, and gave up the reception-days he had established for the peasants, without the assistance of the priest, sans le concours du clerg. On such days Ivan Matveitch had been in the habit of going in to the peasants in the hall or on the balcony, with a rose in his buttonhole, and putting his lips to a silver goblet of vodka, he would make them a speech something like this: 'You are content with my actions, even as I am content with your zeal, whereat I rejoice truly. We are all brothers; at our birth we are equal; I ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... in pen and ink, indoors and out—he used at one time to carry a little ink-bottle at his buttonhole, and steel pens in his waistcoat-pocket, and thus equipped he would sketch whatever took his fancy in his walks abroad—houses, 'busses, cabs, people—bits of street and square, scaffoldings, hoardings with ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... "Gawd's frightful hard on women," and fight her way to Margarita—who has been favoured beyond most women, and knows not God—at least, not that implacable deity of the London slum! Whenever I hear or read the phrase "Salvation Army" then do I see a young exquisite with a white camellia in his buttonhole, gazing like a hypnotised Indian Seer at a crude transparency blotted with unconvincing texts, then rushing off to found a celibate order—from Margarita, who was no more celibate that ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... until the thing is cleared up and the danger past. To-morrow about dusk, however, you, personally, take him for a walk near the Park, and if, among the other Cingalese you may meet, you should see one dressed as an Englishman, and wearing a scarlet flower in his buttonhole, take no notice of how often you see him nor of ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... like one that bloomed in 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
... students at the table were interrupted by the approach of a tall, dudish-looking individual, who wore a reddish-brown suit, cut in the most up-to-date fashion, and who sported patent-leather shoes, and a white carnation in his buttonhole. The newcomer took a vacant chair, ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... elegant, a rose in his buttonhole, had entered the room, their manner stiff-starched, showing no surprise, accustomed as they were to receive visitors of all sorts and kinds: they were ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... indeed when I ought to be plucking nosegays of Lysimachia clethroides and Pyrethrum uliginosum to put in my buttonhole! I prefer to dream ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... Mr. Magnus harnessed his forefinger to Mr. Pickwick's buttonhole, and, drawing him to ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... little pile of reviews, several volumes of poetry, and a couple of library books. In the centre of the mantelpiece was a photograph, the photograph of a man a little older, perhaps, than this newly-arrived visitor, with rounder face, dressed in country tweeds, a flower in his buttonhole, the picture of a prosperous man, yet with a curious, almost disturbing likeness to the pale, over-nervous, loose-framed youth whose eye had been attracted by its presence, and who was gazing at ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with 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
... down while he put off his fine broadcloth coat and lace ruffles and assumed the long vest and silk skull cap, which was his home dress; then he put it in a buttonhole of his vest, and seemed to joy himself in its delicate fragrance. With these preliminaries neither Joris nor Lysbet interfered; but when he had lit his long pipe and seated himself comfortably in his chair, ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... being unpunctual. She came in, cool, slim, electric. Then she hesitated. For the fraction of a second she hesitated. Then Sam Klein greeted her: "Company's waiting, Miss Fuller, if you're ready." And the leading man came forward, a flower in his buttonhole, carefully tailored and slightly yellow as a leading man of forty should be at 10:30 A. M. "How wonderful ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... hypocritical world worked overtime trying to rival the Billingsgate 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
... displaying a crimson—velvet facing, also richly embroidered, and an embroidered scarlet waistcoat; a large solitary star glittered on his breast, and the grand cross of the Legion of Honour sparkled at his buttonhole; his black neckerchief had been taken off; and his cocked hat lay beside him on a sofa, massively laced, the edges richly ornamented with ostrich down; his head was covered with a red velvet cap, with a thick gold cord twisted two or three turns round it, and ending in two large tassels of ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... 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
... in the eyes of my client when he first beheld this novel effect. And yet when we were once more in the street I could not but admit that the change was worth all that it had cost him in suffering. Strangely, he now looked like some one, especially after I had persuaded him to a carnation for his buttonhole. I cannot say that his carriage was all that it should have been, and he was still conscious of his smart attire, but I nevertheless felt a distinct thrill of pride in my own work, and was eager to reveal him to Mrs. Effie ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... with a huge rose in his buttonhole and another bunch of flowers—carnations this time—in his hands. He made his way to the little round table where Julia ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 pinned ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... Descoings, he wore a hat that was greasy, with the nap rubbed off at the edges, patched boots, a shabby overcoat, on which the red ribbon scarcely showed so discolored and dirty was it by long service at the buttonhole and by the spatterings of coffee and liquors. His buckskin gloves, of a greenish tinge, lasted him a long while; and he only gave up his satin neckcloth when it was ragged enough to look like wadding. Mariette was the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to his other hand. His collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The blooming stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming end to it. He met schoolboys with satchels. I'm not going tomorrow either, stay away till Monday. He met other schoolboys. Do they notice I'm in mourning? Uncle Barney said he'd get it into the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... at my buttonhole when I reached the second niche. There was a black varnished wicker tray heaped with fruit and a Brittany platter filled with ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... 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 ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... medium of his 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 Conscience to visit the old gentleman just ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a quick glance around, and was a trifle upset by seeing Mr. Marrin coming straight toward her. He came with his easy, tripping stride, self-satisfied, red-faced, tastefully dressed, an orchid in his buttonhole. ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... the Haverly Mastodon Minstrels headed the third division of the Garfield inaugural parade. Ever mindful and proud of his men, Frohman, at his personal expense, bought a buttonhole bouquet for every member for the occasion and fastened it on their coats himself. On the sidewalk he followed with admiring eye and flushed face the progress ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Not an unwonted 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 ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... among the street venders. They sell matches, tooth-picks, cigars, newspapers, songs and flowers. The flower-girls are hideous little creatures, but their wares are beautiful and command a ready sale. These are made into hand bouquets, and buttonhole bouquets, and command from ten cents to several dollars each. When the day is wet and gloomy, and the slush and the mud of Broadway are thick over everything animate and inanimate, and the sensitive soul shrinks within itself at the sight of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the clock. A dull impatience of this large, bland, prosperous personage was growing in him. From the rim the top-hat had left upon his shining forehead to the tightly-screwed eyeglass that assisted his left eye; from the pink Malmaison carnation in the buttonhole of his frock-coat to the buff spats that matched his expansive waistcoat in shade, the large Major was the personification of luxurious, pampered, West End swelldom, the type of a class Saxham abhorred. He had seen the heavy dandy under other ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a young, pretty Aunt Maria, Molly would never have known her but for the portrait—kissed her uncle, and then she took a Christmas rose out of her dress and put it in Mr. Sheldon's buttonhole, and put up her face to him and said, 'Good-night, James.' He kissed her; Molly heard the loud, jolly sound of the kiss, and Aunt ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... the buttonhole parts, $60. This last is beyond all question the simplest, easiest to manage and to keep in order, of any machine in the market. Machines warranted, and full instruction ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... photograph of the "A Class" of 1870: eight pretty girls in white, smiling among five solemn boys in black, and Tommy himself, as the valedictorian, occupying the centre of the picture in his new suit of broadcloth, with a rose in his buttonhole and his hair cut by a professional ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... ways, too; still, as Zinariola was a seaport, it was very cosmopolitan, and one saw all sorts of people on its streets. Many were just natural-looking people, like Pirlaps and Avrillia; but some were of chocolate, like Yassuh, and some were Chinese, with long pigtails of black buttonhole-twist; and some were Parisians, with hats exactly like the one that the Japanese doll wore so unbecomingly. (Yes, Sara knew in her heart that it was unbecoming, though she would not have admitted it, even to you.) On the gay Parisian lady-fairies, however, these hats were charming—but ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... excitement died down and the round of 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
... skillets hung on the barrels of their rifles, simple kitchen utensils which constituted almost the whole of their cooking equipment. Their blankets and rubber sheets for sleeping were carried in light rolls on their backs. A toothbrush was stuck in a buttonhole. On their flanks or in front rode the cavalry, led by the redoubtable Turner Ashby, and there was in all their number scarcely a single horseman who did not ride like the Comanche Indian, as if he were born in the saddle. Ashby was a host in himself. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... himself, since they were about it. It is true that the best of congratulations awaits him on the 16th March on the front page of the Official Journal in a decree which flames in advance before his eyes and makes him glance every now and then at his buttonhole. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... many and what delectable enticements. Opposite the Tree, his back against the wall, sat old Bob, clad in a dress of state, part of which consisted of a swallow-tail coat (with an overgrown chrysanthemum in the buttonhole), a red necktie, and a pink-and-silver liberty cap of tissue-paper. He was scraping a fiddle "like old times come again," and the tune he played was, "Oh, my Liza, po' gal!" My feet shuffled to ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... child replied; "I'm going to try to sell some. Will you have one?—as a present, I mean." Mr. Codlin stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency, and ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to be alone in the National Gallery in the dead of the night with a tiny electric lamp in one's buttonhole and a sponge of alcohol and turpentine in one's hand. While he worked the little Madonna's eyes rested upon him and it could hardly have been mere fancy that made him believe they were full of gratitude and trust. At the end of an hour the outline of a child, faint and misty, appeared in her ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... them at the back of the loom, to head, foot, and sides, as in the illustration. One must then decide how close the warp is to be strung. Measure the string, which should be continuous, allowing enough to go to the rings at the back and make a buttonhole stitch each time. Then wind on a long thin stick or dress steel, in such a way that it will pass easily through the rings. In stringing the hammock in the illustration, a penholder was used. The rings are tied, with white cord, to ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... flowers, and recognizing many favorites that recalled the hothouse at Le Bocage, her eyes filled with tears, and she hastily put her lips to the snowy cups of an oxalis. How often she had seen just such fragile petals nestling in the buttonhole of ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... as you say. Holidays are not in the least wearisome any more. Plague on it! When a man tells me now that he hates holidays, I find myself getting very wroth. I pin him by the buttonhole at once, and tell him my experience. The fact is, if I were at dinner on a holiday, and anybody should ask me for a sentiment, I should say, 'God bless ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... skill of its making. It was a construction of blocks, according to patchwork law, every alternate block of the border having an applied rose cut from printed calico in alternate colors of yellow, red, and blue. These roses were carefully applied with buttonhole stitch, and the cotton ground underneath cut away to give uniform thickness for quilting. The main body of the quilt was unnoticeably good, being a collection of faintly colored patches of correct construction. The quilting was a marvel—a large carefully drawn ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... Marlowe was a 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. Horace ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... he had risked his life vainly to save the aged Colonel Delavigne from a furious mob, for the red rosette in the old officer's buttonhole had cost him his life in an awkward promenade, and this sent the orphans, Valerie and Alixe Delavigne, adrift upon the mad maelstrom of Paris incendie. While Ram Lal glowered in his dissatisfaction, Madame Berthe Louison complacently regarded her two secret protectors on guard in the special ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... skirts. The gilt buttons 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 have been taken for not ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... war With GLADSTONE and his Items. Faith, JOE has travelled far! The Primrose Dames shall teach him True patriot "form" to know. He is leal, and will kneel To the "Lilies" in fair row; To the pretty, winsome Primrose girls, Who buttonhole Brum JOE. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... 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, I always deal with Dartmoor's tradesmen, and ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... had departed, and Hans found himself alone, he dressed, put a flower in his buttonhole, and walked over to the Counselor's house; for now the moment had arrived when he ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... from the dairy window, which, overgrown with creepers, made a dark frame for the brightly-coloured picture. There was Mr Buckle, a young farmer of the neighbourhood, in a light-grey suit with a blue satin tie and a rose in his buttonhole. There was Bella, her face covered with self-satisfied smiles, mounting to his side. There was Agnetta carrying the new parasol high in the air with all its lace fluttering. How gay and happy they all looked! Mrs Greenways stood nodding at the window. She had meant to go out to ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... risen to receive it, but the child hurried towards him and placed it in his hand. He stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, 'Tom Codlin's ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... there was a hearing before the General Assembly. The opponents had rushed into town every farmer and small politician they could secure and the women "antis" pinned a red rose in his buttonhole. The suffragists had given a yellow jonquil to every friend. Behind the Speaker's desk hung a huge yellow banner inscribed "Votes for Women," and so crowded was the room with determined men and eager women that the sergeant-at-arms had to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... 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 ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... 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
... of the town held him prisoner and he sought in his muddling, gentle way to find out where the mystery lay, and what it was all about. But his limited French and his constitutional hatred of active investigation made it hard for him to buttonhole anybody and ask questions. He was content to observe, and watch, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... upon the little brass knocker brought him to himself, and, after a glance at the closet door, he opened that of the entry, and then the outer door, to admit a good looking, fair-haired young fellow of about five-and-twenty, most scrupulously dressed, a creamy rose in his buttonhole, and a look of vexation in his merry face as he stood looking at his ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... that could be easily remedied," she added, with a touch of archness. Then Mr. Iglesias thought it time to depart. In the hall his host held him, literally by the buttonhole, looking up with squinting ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... continued the first voice. "French Pete and that thar feller that keeps the Dutch grocery hev hed a row over it; emptied their six-shooters into each other. The Dutchman's got two balls in his leg, and the Frenchman's got an onnessary buttonhole in his shirt-buzzum, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... put an unbiased opinion into a man's house each day for less than he now pays for gas. Just before election you could go into your private office, throw in a large dose of campaign whisky, light a campaign cigar, fasten your buttonhole to the wall by an elastic band, so that there would be a gentle pull on it, and turn the electricity on your mechanical thought supply. It would save time and money, and the result would be the same as it is now. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... an actress than a writer. Wouldn't you like me to leave college and go into a dramatic school? And then I'll send you a box for all my performances, and smile at you across the footlights. Only wear a red rose in your buttonhole, please, so I'll surely smile at the right man. It would be an awfully embarrassing mistake if I picked out ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... an attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like a smart, sensible little man, as he was, putting it gallantly and nattily into his buttonhole. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... over the chair of the visitor, and later, played billiards with her, a game at which Matilda did not excel. At family prayers next morning (the service was conducted by Mrs. Malory) the Vidame appeared with a white rosebud in his buttonhole, Mrs. Brown-Smith wearing its twin sister. He took her to the stream in the park where she fished, Matilda following in a drooping manner. The Vidame was much occupied in extracting the flies from the hair of Mrs. Brown-Smith, in which ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... clothes, with a rose from the Dovecot hot-house for buttonhole (which he slipped into his pocket when he saw other boys approaching), delivered them at the doors of the aristocracy, where, by the way, he had been a few ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... and pretty in her morning dresses, ensconced herself each day on the big couch hammock of the front porch to wave to Martin Landis as he passed on his way to the trolley that took him to his studies in the city. Sometimes she ran to the gate and tossed him a rose for his buttonhole. Later in the day she was at her post again, ready to ask pleasantly as he passed, "Well, how did school go to-day?" Such seemingly spontaneous interest spurred the young man to ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... role 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
... laced waist, the hips of a woman, the bust of a Prussian officer, the murmur of admiration from the boulevard wenches surrounding him, his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole; such was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... only a fawn Nimble became very fond of water lilies. But he didn't carry them as a bouquet, nor wear one in his buttonhole. He was fond of lilies in a different way: he liked to eat them, and their flat, round, glossy pads. At night his mother often led him to the edge of the lake on the other side of Blue ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Deulin quitted the little shop. It was still early in the day, and he hurried to Cartoner's rooms in the Jasna. He bought a flower at the corner of the Jerozolimska as he went along, and placed it in his buttonhole. He wore his soft felt hat at a gay angle, and walked the pavement at a pace and with an air ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... surprising and unexpected individuals filed into the foyer. First appeared a full-grown, confident man in a smart suit, of the colour of dry sea-sand, in a magnificent pink shirt with white stripes and a crimson rose in his buttonhole. From the front his head looked like an upright bean, from the side like a horizontal bean. His face was adorned with a strong, bushy, martial moustache. He wore dark blue pince-nez on his nose, on his hands straw-coloured gloves. In his left hand ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... elicit my admiration! In either case, I resolved upon a revanche. By its wound, the bignonia smelt sweeter than ever; and though I could not restore the pretty blossom to its graceful campanulate shape, from that time forward it appeared in my buttonhole—to the slight torture, I fancied, of the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... presented himself to Madame Beauvisage as a suitor for her daughter's hand. No step of that nature is ever taken secretly in the provinces. The procureur-du-roi, Frederic Marest, whose fortune, buttonhole, and position were about on a par with those of Antonin Goulard, had received a like refusal, three years earlier, based on the difference of ages. Consequently, the two officials were on terms of strict politeness with the Beauvisage family, and laughed at ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... strands across the shiny bald pate. A low collar of enormous circumference encircled his short neck and his tie was drawn through a Zodiac ring. His clothes were ill-fitting—shapeless trousers and a voluminous morning coat, in the buttonhole of which was a pink carnation with a silver papered stem, an immense watch-chain spread across a coarsely knitted waistcoat of Berlin wool. And he seemed out of breath. The pistol in his extended hand vibrated in sympathy ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... seemed as if 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 he ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... his dreams of happiness, the superlative of his hopes—do you know what it was? To enter the Institute and obtain the grade of officer of the Legion of honor; to side down beside Schinner and Leon de Lora, to reach the Academy before Bridau, to wear a rosette in his buttonhole! What a dream! It is only commonplace men who ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... buttonhole bouquets at the theater door could have seen that Charlie was handsome, with his pale brown smoothness and regularity of feature; the pretty mustache accentuating and not concealing the neat and agreeable mold of his ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... buttonhole. For one is something and the other nothing, and what in the very nature of things could be more ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... 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 been, open ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... gentleman,—either because the Squire desired it, or because the other Squire was tired of his companion and wanted to be off—which he was, as soon as the introduction was over. For in Mr. Stoutenburgh's eyes the buttonhole of Dr. Harrison's soft coat was no more precious (to say the least) than that of his own ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... shook and bowed continually. Probably he was the husband whom in a bitter mood at Talta she had called a lackey. And, indeed, in his long figure, his side-whiskers, the little bald patch on the top of his head, there was something of the lackey; he had a modest sugary smile and in his buttonhole he wore a University badge exactly ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... on a new habit, and a gardenia in her buttonhole, and she gave Nikky her hand to kiss, but only ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to live out here all alone under this terribly big sky. I wouldn't like it even if I were only a weed," and she looked around and shivered with the thought of her fearful ride alone in the night. But she tucked the little spray of brave green into the buttonhole of her riding habit and it looked of prouder lineage than any weed as it rested against the handsome darkness of the rich green cloth. For an instant the missionary studied the picture of the lovely girl on the horse and forgot that ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... honesty and loyalty, is he not the chosen dragoman of kings and princes when they journey into far distant lands (he speaks seven languages and many tribal dialects), and is he not today wearing in his buttonhole the ribbon of the order of the Mejidieh, bestowed upon him by his Imperial Highness the Sultan, in reward for his ability ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... 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 to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... 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 ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... through his buttonhole. Conrad twisted his in his strong yellow teeth, turned it over, and then spat it out. The action, though of doubtful taste in itself, was ennobled by his perfect rendering of it. He brought it, so to speak, forever within the ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... wary and sophisticated eye on the Manufacturers' Association and a finger in the buttonhole of every legislator, the socially awake of St. Louis have secured more humane child labor legislation, and the Nine-Hour Day for women and children with no ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... indeed, seen from this distance, she did not look a day more than thirty-five—an age when beauty possesses all the alluring charm of the luscious fruit of autumn. She was giving orders for the drive, and her coachman, with a rose in his buttonhole, listened while he reined in the spirited horse. "The weather's superb," added Chupin. "She'll no doubt drive round the lakes in the Bois ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... sewing were shown on neat little squares of cloth—running, hemming, stitching, gathering, and buttonhole-making. Then there were garments in which all ...
— 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
... surprise that would be distinctly pleasant, though," said Wade, giving a great deal of attention to the selection of a match from his silver case. "For instance, if you were to give me a small piece of that lilac for my buttonhole." ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of his arrondissement and judge in the Court of Commerce. He kept a carriage, had a country-place near Lagny; his wife wore diamonds at the court balls, and he prided himself on the rosette of an officer of the Legion of honor in his buttonhole. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... toppled, where deadly misery, deadly bravery, 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 ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... have had his nap by that time," she said, with a saucy glance in his direction, "and he will be as sweet and lovely as a May mawning. And he'll have on a fresh white suit for the evening, and a cah'nation in his buttonhole." Then she gave her ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... 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 Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... constantly on the outlook for a kind of tourist who had been described to me frequently and at great length by more seasoned travelers—the kind who wore his country's flag as a buttonhole emblem, or as a shirtfront decoration; and regarded every gathering and every halting place as providing suitable opportunity to state for the benefit of all who might be concerned, how immensely and overpoweringly superior in all particulars was the land from which he hailed as compared with ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... I—a 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 guilty ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... finger in his buttonhole, and stood looking in his face with a saucy gaze. Clarence yielded at once. His small despot knew very well how to rule him and to put down such short-lived attempts at insubordination as he occasionally ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... an old man, who looked about eighty, with perfectly white hair, and a nose reddened by the cold, and a pale, wrinkled face like an old woman's, came shuffling slowly along in list slippers, a shiny alpaca overcoat hanging on his stooping shoulders, no ribbon at his buttonhole, the sleeves of an under-vest showing below his coat-cuffs, and his shirt-front unpleasantly dingy. He approached timidly, looked at the coach, recognized Lisbeth, and came to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... 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 |
