"Chattering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Whig opinions of his father. He talked with the dogmatism of the traveller of the glories of Louis XIV, and broadly avowed his views that the grandeur of the nation was best established under a king who asked no questions of people or Parliament, 'that senseless set of chattering pies,' as he was reported to have ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... colonnades, under which beautifully dressed signori and signore sat drinking at little tables, and listening to men in red with great black cockades in their hats who were ranged on a central platform, blowing large shining horns; a square so vast and so crowded with happy chattering people and fluttering pigeons that he gazed about in blinking bewilderment. And then, uplifting his eyes, he saw a sight that took his breath away—a glorious building like his dream of the Temple of Zion, glowing with gold ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... has sounded the signal for release from the day's toil. The workers in the factory, a small army of men and women, boys and girls, poured forth from the doorways of the huge buildings, swarmed up the street, laughing and chattering, and dispersed to their several homes. The buzz and jarring of the machinery have ceased and silence fills the place. Even the offices are deserted, with the exception of one from which issues the steady click, ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... The chattering had ceased, although there were several attempts to break that uncomfortable silence with inane remarks. His ravenish, unpleasant voice seemed to act on the company like a chill wind, depriving treason of its warm sociableness but ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... shoulders and muttered: "Patience, patience," several times. Thereupon, without regarding the copious dinner which Sansovino had given me, I took the part of my comrade Tribolo, for he was in the right. All the while at table Sansovino had never stopped chattering about his great achievements, abusing Michel Agnolo and the rest of his fellow-sculptors, while he bragged and vaunted himself to the skies. This had so annoyed me that not a single mouthful which I ate had tasted well; but I refrained from saying more than these ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... stand here and talk about it," said Tom. "We've got to have a fire, or we'll freeze. Look at the way Joe's teeth are chattering. The blankets and clothes are all wet, and the sooner we dry ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... were all taking in with us as much food as we decently could. We were none of us allowed on the bridge until an officer and a few men had come down to meet us on the Russian side. Only little Nina, Vorovskv's daughter, about ten years old, chattering Swedish with the Finns, got leave from them, and shyly, step by step, went down the other side of the bridge and struck up acquaintance with the soldier of the Red Army who stood there, gun in hand, and obligingly bent to show her the sign, set in his ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... Woman. "You men will always be chattering, as though pots need never be stewed nor cobwebs swept." So saying, she went into the Hovel ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... illustration lies in the strong contrast between the chattering, tale-bearing crow and the wise, silent owl sacred to the goddess of wisdom. Two such opposites, under the spell of Arion's music, forget to quarrel, though for the time ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... was infectious. Cuthbert felt more like a light-hearted boy than ever he had done in his life before. His lively little companion, clinging to his arm and chattering like a magpie, effectually drove away all grave thoughts. The sun shone brightly in the steely-blue sky; the frost had made the streets absolutely clean and dry. Walking, even in the most trodden places, was ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the dinner bell, and Ruth still chattering with old nurse. That is the climax of our argument. I dare say no more, you are so terribly in earnest, Miss Cameron, and so evidently believe all you say; but all the same, mothers part with their daughters ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... utilitarian duties. His going out was an euthanasia, for he was in love and heard nothing. Out in the clearing the blackcocks with their wide-spread spotted tails were fighting, while the hens strutting near, craning and chattering, probably some gossip about their fighting swains, watched and were delighted with them. From the distance flowed in a stern and deep roar, yet full of tenderness and love, the mating call of the deer; while from the crags above came down the short ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... corner in Oxford Street, he was always too late to find Winny there. He gave that up, and began to haunt the door in Starker's iron shutter at closing-time. He had found out that girl clerks, what with chattering and putting on their hats and things, were always a good ten minutes later than the men. He had seen fellows (fellows from Woolridge's, some of them) hanging round the shutters of the big draperies to meet the girls. By making a dash for it from ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... very little wit myself," Razumihin cut in sharply, "and so let us drop it. I began this discussion with an object, but I've grown so sick during the last three years of this chattering to amuse oneself, of this incessant flow of commonplaces, always the same, that, by Jove, I blush even when other people talk like that. You are in a hurry, no doubt, to exhibit your acquirements; ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... reiterated it without request, and was lifted out upon the mud for a brief respite. The men of the bunk-house were succeeding better than the Presbytery back in the East had been able to do. The conceit was no longer visible in the face of the Reverend Frederick. His teeth were chattering, and he was beginning to see one really needed to believe in something when one came as near ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... corners of the sky were brightening into blue and silver; the birds were chattering in the tiny garden trees; so loud it seemed as if the trees themselves were talking. But the ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... cheek of her mother, anxious to comfort her. Ah! the hard hand of poverty has been upon her through life, and stubbornly refuses to relax its grip, even in her old age. An organ forms here and there a division between the sleepers; two grave-visaged monkeys sit chattering in the fireplace, then crouch down on the few charred sticks. A picture of the crucifix is seen conspicuous over the dingy fireplace, while from the slanting roof hang several leathern girdles. Oh, what a struggle for life is their's! Mothers, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Nothing was heard but the chattering of birds, as they flitted from limb to limb, and the whispering of the wind among the trees; all else was tranquil and still. But this did not last long. The noise of advancing footsteps gave evidence of the approach of ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... at the Palace!—he had forgotten it. Flare of lights, wail of violins, a painted, silken crowd, laughter, whispers, magpie chattering, wine, and the weariness of the dance, when his soul would long to be with the night outside, with the rising wind and the shining stars. He half determined not to go. What mattered the offense that would be taken? Did he go he would repent, wearied and ennuye, watching Evelyn, ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... him how not fulfil the spring in her heart and his! And torn between these two emotions he clasped her close, and kissed her hair. How long they stood there without speaking he knew not. The stream went on chattering, the owls hooting, the moon kept stealing up and growing whiter; the blossom all round them and above brightened in suspense of living beauty. Their lips had sought each other's, and they did not speak. The moment speech began all would be unreal! Spring has ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... great progress in 'climbing trees and talking nonsense:' 'I have the honour to tell you that our Charles is the sweetest boy in the world. He is perfectly naturalised in his new situation; and if I should make any blunders in my letter, I must beg you to impute it to his standing by me and chattering all the time.' And how pleasant a record exists of Charles's chatter in that most charming little book written for him and for the babies of babies to come! There is a sweet instructive grace in it and appreciation of childhood which cannot ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... throwing over their work, the girls trooped off, and after chattering in groups outside the factory gates for a while, made their way in different directions to their respective homes. Liza and Sally went ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... time, probably because my system was deprived of all elasticity and power of reaction by being so thoroughly chilled. Hastily donning in the dark what was absolutely necessary, my poor wife and myself, with chattering teeth and prickly bodies, the most thoroughly demoralized couple in history, ...
— The Cold Snap - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... when he was at the Mission, so why now? But for once it did not succeed. The fearsome hour of midnight passed, then the gray dawn, the hour of dull despair, was near. Tampico felt it, and a long groan vibrated through his chattering teeth. His dog leaped up, barked savagely, the sheep began to stir, then went backing into the gloom; there was a rushing of stampeding sheep and a huge, dark form loomed up. Tampico grasped his gun and ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sat and trembled. Her sheepskin coat was worn through, and in her blue bridal dress she sat, while fits of shivering shook her whole body. She wanted to run away; but she had not strength to move, or even to keep her little white teeth from chattering between ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... was a rustling that seemed like a bustling Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling; Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering, And, like fowls in a farmyard when barley is scattering, Out came all the children running. All the little boys and girls, With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... and Miss Celia seeing that the ice was broken, wheeled him to his place at the foot of the table. Then, seating the little girls on one side, Ben and the dog on the other, took the head herself and told her guests to begin. Bab and Betty were soon chattering away to their pleasant hostess as freely as if they had known her for months; but the boys were still rather shy, and made Sancho the medium through which they addressed one another. The excellent beast behaved with wonderful propriety, sitting upon his ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... ready for departure, but old Rahel objected to travelling further. She was sitting on a stone before the hut, for the smoke in the narrow room oppressed her breathing, and it seemed as if terror had robbed her of her senses. Gazing into vacancy with wild eyes and chattering teeth, she tried to make cakes and mould dumplings out of the snow, which she probably took for flour. She neither heard the doctor's call nor saw his wife beckon, and when the former grasped her to compel her to rise, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... our sailor awakened to the consciousness of the fact that the sun was shining brightly, that paroquets were chattering gaily, that Cuffy was still sleeping soundly, and that the subjects of Big Chief were making ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... designing young person, and she immediately reminded him that she had an engagement to give him a tennis lesson every day. There was still time for a set before dinner. Also, far be it from her to be so forward as to call him Sam, or to annoy him with silly chattering. She was serious-minded, was Miss Westlake, and sweet and helpful; any man could see that; and she fairly adored business. It was ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... whispered, "for, mind, we'll also induce them to start chattering." After this, they at last went ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... trembling violently; they heard the light, continuous chattering of her teeth. After her many hours under the merciless sun, this sudden change of temperature might bring on the fever against which they could not fight. They stripped off their shirts and wound them ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... this eulogistic strain that the worthy couple were very prone to fall into in speaking of Harry to Rose was this morning most especially annoying to her; and she turned the subject at once, by chattering so fluently, and with such minute details of description, about the arrangements of the rooms and the flowers and the lamps and the fountains and the cascades, and all the fairy-land wonders of the Follingsbee party, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... it was not because of her husband's failures, his follies,—not the money mistakes. It was himself,—the petty nature he revealed in every act. For women like Margaret Pole can endure vice and folly and disappointment, but not a petty, trivial, chattering biped ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... old county jail, off Broadway. Here one had to depend entirely upon sentiment, or rather sentimentality, to be pleased. The cooking was truly Mexican for it included the usual Mexican disregard for dirt. Chattering monkeys and parrots were hanging around the kitchen, peering into pots and fingering viands, and they served to attract attention from myriads of cockroaches that swarmed about the walls. One could go to this place just on the theory that ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... of it," said Sir John, who was staring at the broken picture with chattering teeth, and his eyes almost starting out of his head; "but if I were you, I should get him to drive me ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... something that looked in the darkness like a great ball of fluff came rapidly along the passage toward me. Just at my feet the thing stopped and I made it out for a small animal. The tiny, gleaming eyes looked up at me, and, chattering wickedly, the creature bounded past ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... what I have done for them. Where are the treasures of Genoa, the pictures and statues of Venice and of the Vatican? They are in the Louvre. The spoils of my victories have gone to decorate her. But they must always be changing, always chattering. They wave their hats at me now, but they would soon be waving their fists if I did not give them something to talk over and to wonder at. When other things are quiet, I have the dome of the Invalides regilded to keep their thoughts from ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was all out! Shillitoe must have been chattering. Denry remembered that the classic established tailor of the town, Hatterton, whose trade Shillitoe was getting, was a particular friend of Mr Duncalf's. He ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... to receive Rebecca's answer, he observed, that during his chattering with Gurth, she had ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... retorted Kate. "How can I think with you chattering? I've got to find you an excuse for going across to Charlie's place. Now what shall it be? I know," she cried, suddenly darting across the room, followed by the ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Scaur looked down on such a gathering as it had never seen. The paddock at the back of the Dalesman's Daughter was packed with a clammering, chattering multitude: animated groups of farmers; bevies of solid rustics; sharp-faced townsmen; loud-voiced bookmakers; giggling girls; amorous boys,—thrown together like toys in a sawdust bath; whilst here ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... to clothe, to deck, to dress, to undress, to redress, to teach, scold a little, to rock, to dandle, to lull to sleep, to imagine that something is some one,—therein lies the whole woman's future. While dreaming and chattering, making tiny outfits, and baby clothes, while sewing little gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the young girl into a big girl, the big girl into a woman. The first child is the continuation of the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... daily of Tom Towers but they read The Jupiter, and acknowledged that without The Jupiter life was not worth having. This kind of hidden but still conscious glory suited the nature of the man. He loved to sit silent in a corner of his club and listen to the loud chattering of politicians, and to think how they all were in his power;—how he could smite the loudest of them, were it worth his while to raise his pen for such a purpose. He loved to watch the great men of whom he daily wrote, and flatter himself that he ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... and hurried nimbly out of the room so that she would not hear the chattering of his teeth. Mrs. Single was enjoying the paroxysm of a luxurious, comfortable yawn when she heard a shout of alarm from the sitting-room. She sat ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... in the dead Grass or Fog under Hedges, among Mole-hills; or under the Roots of Trees, &c. Various and uncertain are their Haunts. And tho' some by the Eye, by distinguishing their Colour from the Ground, others by the Ear, by hearing the Cock call earnestly the Hen, and the Hens answering, and chattering with Joy at meeting, do find Partridge; yet the best, easiest and safest way of finding them is (as you do the Pheasant) by the Call or Pipe: Notes seasonable, as before prescribed, and they will come near to you, and you may count their ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... contemplated it long and bitterly, when Arlee had gone back to her compartment and he sat silent in his beside the chattering Copts while the train rattled on and on. There would be three days at Luxor before the boat proceeded upon ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... of the window, poured out a stream of blasphemy from between his chattering teeth. Then the hubbub rose suddenly near at hand. The neighbourhood of the Louvre was populous with Huguenots, and into it now poured the excited Catholic citizens and soldiers. Soon the quay beneath the palace windows presented the fiercest spectacle ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... themselves comfortable and sit down, whispering perhaps business affairs with a friend, or go out into the court to get a little fresh air. Small boys take the liberty of visiting their mothers in the women's balcony; and here worship is still more loosely observed, as there is gossiping, chattering, and laughing, while, as always happens, the young quizz the old, and the latter censure the light-headedness of the girls and the general degeneracy of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... ran up and down to dry 'imself, and finished off on 'is pocket-'andkerchief, and then with 'is teeth chattering 'e began to dress 'imself. He got 'is shirt on, and then 'e stood turning over 'is clothes as if 'e was ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... we see most often are the little chattering red squirrel, and the gray squirrel, which is about twice as large. In the West and South, a large squirrel, that is partly red and partly gray, is called a fox-squirrel. All these squirrels have ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... below the window, looked down at them, and saw Harry standing at Miss Hoyden's head, with docile Brownie's bridle on his left arm, and Bessie, with the fine end of her slender whip, teasing the dark fuzz of his hair. They made a pretty picture at the gate, laughing and chattering their ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... peculiarly soft and melodious, but distinguishable at a great distance: this is analogous to the trumpet-call, "halt and rally," of cavalry, serving to collect the scattered pack when broken in hot chase. A second cry, which has been compared to the chattering of monkeys, is emitted at night when the dogs are excited; and the third note is described as a sharp, angry bark, usually uttered when they behold an object they can not make out, but which differs from the true, well-known bark of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... horny-handed farmers with long shaggy beards and unkempt hair, dressed in ill-fitting black suits; matronly looking farmers' wives in their Sunday best; rosy-cheeked daughters full of fun and vivacity and chattering like magpies; tall, lank, awkward, bashful sons, and red-haired, black-haired, and tow-headed urchins of both sexes, the latter awaiting the events of the evening with the wild anticipations that are usually called forth only by the advent ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... was accustomed to reside and demanded admission. The door was opened by my Moorish Servant, Hayim Ben-Attar, whom he commanded instantly to show the way to my apartments. On the Servant's demanding by what authority he came, he said, "Cease chattering" (Deje cuentos), "I shall give no account to you; show me the way; if not, I will take you to prison as I did your master: I come to search for prohibited books." The Moor, who being in a strange land was somewhat intimidated, complied and led him to the rooms occupied by me, when the Alcalde flung ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... his working-girls' classes; and thereupon the sharks poked their heads out of the water and began, in a deafening chorus, to cry, "Feet, feet, feet!" And Billy then woke with a start, and found it was only the birds chattering in the ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... hair of her, th' old stoat! Soon as I heard the note of she, the heat bubbled up in I, though 'twas chattering in the cold as I had been but a moment afore. "One of they dirty roadsters—I'll learn you to come disturbing of a wedding party, I will." [Shaking her fist towards the ceiling.] No, you bain't changed, ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... weary days I stood again And waited at the Parting of the Ways; Again the figure of a woman veiled 70 Stood forth and beckoned, and I followed now: Down to no bower of roses led the path, But through the streets of towns where chattering Cold Hewed wood for fires whose glow was owned and fenced, Where Nakedness wove garments of warm wool Not for itself;—or through the fields it led Where Hunger reaped the unattainable grain, Where idleness enforced saw ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to drink, and gifted with a more serious turn of mind, such a bubbling, chattering, glittering chamber must ever seem an anomaly, a strange commentary on nature and life. Here come the moths, in endless procession, to bask in the light of the flame. Such conversation as one may hear would not warrant a commendation of the scene upon ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... in one place, sometimes in another. Hay-mows, river-banks, threshing-floors, these were the old places of resort for country boys. And nothing was so sweet to me, when I was a boy, as the newly cut clover-hay where I sat with two or three companions, watching the barn swallows chattering their incomprehensible gabble and gossip from the doors of their mud houses in the rafters. And what stories we told and what talks we had. In the city who does not remember the old-fashioned cellar-door, sloping down ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... called 'fair,' and unpolitely termed by Cato the 'chattering, finery-loving, ungovernable sex,' I despair to depict it. When returning north in the A.S.S. Winnebah, we carried on board a dark novice of the Lyons sisterhood. She looked perfectly ladylike in her long black dress and the white ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... by little knots of influential persons meeting quietly of a morning in the back room of some inconspicuous lodging-house, by a sunset rendezvous in the Borghese Gardens between a Cardinal and a Diplomatist by a whispered conference in an alcove at a Princess's evening party, with the gay world chattering all about. And, of course, on such momentous occasions as these, Manning was in his element. None knew those difficult ropes better than he; none used them with a more serviceable and yet discreet alacrity. In every juncture he had the right word, or the right silence; his influence ramified ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... it all for myself," remarked Daisy, and she went on chattering to the other two, who were ready to talk over every incident of the meeting, as people who have been to meetings ever are. On they went, reminding one another of the bald man in the third row who cheered so lustily, ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... held for safe return at Blanc Sablon,—port of the white, white sand,—and by September 5 Cartier is {12} home in St. Malo, a rabble of grizzled sailor folk chattering a welcome from ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Bagby, read us his lecture on these cheerful comestibles. We were the first to see the frost that "lies heavy on the palings and tips with silver the tops of the butter-bean poles, where the sere and yellow pods are chattering in the chilly breeze." ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... head of the stairway a door stood open. This she entered, and found herself in the general editorial room, ankle-deep with dirt and paper. The air of the place told that the day's work was done. In one corner a telegraph sounder was chattering its tardy world-gossip to unheeding ears. In the centre at a long table, typewriters before them, three shirt-sleeved young men sprawled at ease reading the Express, which the "devil" had just brought them from the nether regions, moist with ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... roly-poly boy With rosy cheeks, and a jacket blue, Laughing and chattering full of joy, And here's what he said—I ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... feet away I was conscious that Hawkins was chattering volubly to a crowd of eager faces. His own features were bruised almost beyond recognition, but he, too, was evidently on this side of the River Jordan, and I felt a faint sense of irritation that the Auto-aero-mobile hadn't ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... it's cooler here than among all those chattering women; and if you want any tea, I can bring ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... movement occurred among our captors quickly challenging my attention. Fresh shouts and cries evidenced new arrivals. These came swarming down the ravine, and in another moment began crawling noisily about us, chattering with our surly captors, or scowling into our faces with savage eyes boding no good. It would be unjust were I to write that these fellows were a brutal lot, as such words would be void of that truth I seek to convey. I lived to learn that many among them had the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... of the hut, his teeth chattering with the rawness of the morning; and made a general survey of ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... one final effort, and came down hard upon the middle of the floor. Rough it was, uncarpeted, cold with the damp chill of early morning. He groped for a match, and dressed rapidly in the dim light, his teeth chattering a diminishing accompaniment until ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... him ashore, and he fell down, shaking and chattering, on the edge of the creek. He was none too warmly dressed at the best; the water now fast congealed upon his clothing. His garments would soon be as stiff ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... Accetosa, considered a good aperient, and which is drank before breakfast. Also a voice crying out, 'Acqua-vi-ta!' or spirits, drank by the workmen and others at an expense of a baioccho or two the table-spoonful, for that is all the small glasses hold. In the early morning, too, you hear the chattering jackdaws on the roofs; and then, more distinctly than later in the day, the clocks striking their odd way. The Roman clocks ring from one to six strokes four times during the twenty-four hours, and not from one to twelve strokes, as with us. Sunset is twenty-four o'clock, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... rolled under the stool, without her seeing it, for she was looking towards the supper-table: without being observed by Mat, for his eyes were following the direction of her's: without being heard by Mr. Blyth, for Zack was, as usual, chattering and ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... for some time they were too tired even to notice anything; but by-and-by they saw that under the tiles of the roof a number of swallows were sitting, chattering merrily to each other. Of course the swallows had no idea that the children understood their language, or they would not have talked so freely; but, as it was, they said whatever came into ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... councils. "Under Cardinal Mazarin, there was literally nothing but disorder and confusion; he had the council held whilst he was being shaved and dressed, without ever giving anybody a seat, not even the chancellor or Marshal Villeroy, and he was often chattering with his linnet and his monkey all the time he was being talked to about business. After Mazarin's death the king's council assumed a more decent form. The king alone was seated, all the others ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and Harvey and Tim dragged him to safety, chilled, and his teeth chattering. Then the four grasped the rope and held hard. George Warren, with a sailor's instinct, had found a stout bush by the bank and taken a few turns of ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... mist ought to do when the sun grows hot, this one became denser as the day went on, half veiling the sun itself. And we soon found that things—unusual things—were going on in the mountains. The birds were flying excitedly about, and the squirrels chattering, and everything was travelling from west to east, and on all sides we ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... was in order. The ingle-nook was a blaze of light and cosiness. The boys and girls were chattering as they had never chattered before; and Duncan, assisted by a boy of the name of Rob, who wore the Lennox livery, brought in ponderous trays, which were laid on great tables. These trays contained tea and coffee, scones ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... the animals gave up chattering and sat around silent, anxious and miserable. The little boy again grew sad. And on Jip's face there was ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... that was their goal. A dozen other guests and their servants and baggage crowded the platform, and half-a-dozen carriages and luggage-brakes the yard behind; and Deb was at once in charge of a tall footman, Rosalie struggling through the press with jewel-case and dressing-bag, chattering French to one of her familiars in the rear. Distracted stationmaster and porters uncovered to the stately woman as she passed. It was all a matter of course to ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... the window chattering to his birds when Cleek entered, and a glance at him was sufficient to decide two points: first he was not disguised, nor was his partial blindness in any way a sham, for an idiot could have seen that the droop of the left eyelid over the staring, palpably artificial eye which glazed over the ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... for a while she ceased her chattering and walked along quietly by her companion's side. At length they came to a place where the road left the path and ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... afternoon in 1751, towards half-past five, about a score of small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a covey of partridges, issued from one of the religious schools of Chartres. The joy of the little troop just escaped from a long and wearisome captivity was doubly great: a slight accident to one of the teachers had caused the class to be dismissed half ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... alarmed by the cry of "Bajak! bajak!" (Pirates!) The men all seized their bows and spears, and rushed down to the beach; we got hold of our guns and prepared for action, but in a few minutes all came back laughing and chattering, for it had proved to be only a small boat and some of their own comrades returned from fishing. When all was quiet again, one of the men, who could speak a little Malay, came to me and begged me not to sleep too hard. "Why?" said I. "Perhaps the pirates may really come," said he very seriously, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... greatest purity; and it is this type which the Ibans most closely reproduce. The near resemblance of facial type between the Malays and the Ibans is apt to be obscured for the casual visitor by the fact that the Iban puts little or no restraint upon his expressions and is constantly chattering, laughing, and smiling; whereas the Malay is taught from childhood to restrain his expressions and to preserve a severe and grave demeanour in the presence of strangers. But in private the Malay relaxes, and then ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... the echo across the gorge and let out a yell that split the welkin—A thousand—ten thousand—multitudinous eldritch laughing echoes came jibbering and mumbling and giggling and shrilling back from the rock, filling the Pass with chattering, knocking sounds that ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... this, in the country, must be better for working them up. Does he get many of his impressions in London, should you say?" I proceeded from point to point in this malign inquiry simply because my hostess, who probably thought me an odious chattering person, gave me time; for when I paused—I've not represented my pauses—she simply continued to let her eyes wander while her long fair fingers played with the medallion on her neck. When I stopped altogether, however, she was obliged to say something, and what she said was that she ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... black kitten when the alarm came and he joined the fugitives just as he was, in his white tunic with the kitten in his arms and a comb stuck in his bushy hair. And there came a troop of old women, chattering and shuffling along and understanding no more about it all than I should have understood if I had not had my buffo, my programme raisonne, ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... was now calling a friend, with a final bark. I ran across a field with the water pouring from me. I did not think one could be so cold, an icicle was warm in comparison! With numb fingers I wrung some of the water out of my clothes, and with chattering teeth considered the situation. Here I was, still on the wrong side—the only thing left to try was a village bridge. Again following the tow-path I neared some lights, which proved to be a hospital, ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... was scarcely acquainted, or who had, till now, hardly deigned to acknowledge her acquaintance, accosted her with an air of intimacy. Lady Stock, in particular, recovered, upon this occasion, both her sight and speech: she took Almeria's hand most graciously, and went on chattering with the greatest volubility, as they stood at the door of the court-house. Her ladyship's handsome equipage had drawn up, and she offered to carry Miss Turnbull home: Almeria excused herself, but felt ashamed, when ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... was unluckily to make her more or less of a prey later on. She had been in particular, at school, dazzlingly, though quite booklessly, clever; as polyglot as a little Jewess (which she wasn't, oh no!) and chattering French, English, German, Italian, anything one would, in a way that made a clean sweep, if not of prizes and parchments, at least of every "part," whether memorised or improvised, in the curtained costumed school repertory, and in especial of all mysteries of race and vagueness of ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... the fidus Achates of the host, had the power to reveal the inner mysteries of this place to me, and on one or two occasions when there were not so many present and while the others were chattering in the various rooms—music-, dining-, ball-, library and so forth—I was being shown the kitchen, pantry, wine cellar, and also various secret doors and passages whereby mine host by pressing a flower on a wall or a spring behind a picture could cause a door to fly open or close ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... he was too. I tried to make a fire out of the wet willow wood there, but could not and he got bluer and bluer. We used all the blankets we had. Finally I said, "You lie down on one side of him and I on the other." After some time his teeth stopped chattering and his color returned. I think it would have been the last of him if I had not found them ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... got to Barnes's place he and the old woman seemed ever so glad to see us. Bella and Maddie rushed out, making a great row, and chattering both ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... resist a chocolate," she said. She took a very little one and nibbled at it daintily, flitting about the room meanwhile and chattering away in the friendliest fashion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... assembled, debating on the progress of the plague. Other parts of the building were enveloped in the thickest darkness, illumined at intervals by flashes of lightning, which allowed him to distinguish a number of gibing and chattering skeletons, running about and pursuing each other, or playing at leap-frog over one another's backs. At the rear of the mansion was a wild, uncultivated plot of ground, in the midst of which arose a black rock. Down its sides rushed with fearful noise a torrent of poisonous water, which, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the Aristophanic type. 'Like a fantastically ironical magic tree, the world-subversive idea which lies at the root of it springs up with blooming ornament of thoughts, with singing nightingales and climbing chattering apes.'[202] To seek a central motive or a sober meaning in this caprice of the satirical imagination would be idle. Tassoni had no intention, as some critics have pretended, to exhibit the folly of those party wars ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... theirs may be? There are more things in London, as well as in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in our philosophy. If you but knew the secret history of that dull gentleman opposite whom you sat at dinner yesterday!—the real thoughts of that chattering girl whom you took down!—'Omnia exeunt in mysterium,' I say again. Every human being is a romance, a miracle to himself now; and will appear as one to all the ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... him huddled into one corner of the room. The chattering face, the wild eyes that looked up at ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... with his voice, and any form with his pen or pencil. Now, we promise you, he was one man under his father's eye, and another down at Oxford; so, one night, this gentleman, being warm with wine, opens his window, and, seeing a group of undergraduates chattering and smoking in the quadrangle, imitates the peculiar grating tones of Mr. Champion, vice-president of the college, and gives them various reasons why they ought to disperse to their rooms and study. "But, perhaps," says he, in conclusion, "you are too blind drunk to ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade |
