"Jerky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appeared to have been bitten off round the edge here and there, just at the stiffest zigs and zags of the nightmare road. And far down the mountain the way went winding under our eyes, like the loops of a lasso; short, jerky loops, as we came to each new turn, to which the length of our chassis forced us to bow and curtsey on our slippery, sliding skates. Forward the Aigle had to go until her bonnet hung over the precipice, then to be cautiously backed ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... not hear a word he was saying, after those first jerky sentences. He stood looking past Bill at a drunken Irishman who was making erratic progress up the street; and he was no more conscious of the Irishman than he was of Bill's scorching condemnation of the town which could ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... fast!" panted Bunny, in a sort of jerky way, for the cart rattled over some bumps just then, and if Bunny had not been careful how he spoke he might have bitten his tongue ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... had already climbed upon a low projection in the wall of one of the houses opposite. From this point of vantage he could more easily observe what went on inside the cabaret, and in short, jerky sentences he gave a description of what he ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... MS. itself—You must picture me, when first it was given into my care, turning it over, curiously, and making a swift, jerky examination. A small book it is; but thick, and all, save the last few pages, filled with a quaint but legible handwriting, and writ very close. I have the queer, faint, pit-water smell of it in my nostrils now as I write, and my ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... was staring rather pensively at the second button from the top of Poopendyke's coat, and so prolonged and earnest was her gaze that I looked down in some concern, at the same time permitting myself to make a nervous, jerky and quite involuntary digital examination of the aforesaid button. She looked up ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... is, of course, easily recognized. He has broad, square shoulders, and is well muscled. He is either of the wiry, elastic, exceedingly energetic type, with muscles like steel springs and sinews like steel wire—very agile, very skillful, very quick, and somewhat jerky in his movements—or he is tall, raw-boned, strong, enduring, graceful, easy in his movements rather than quick, and yet with considerable manual skill. Or he may be of the short, stocky type, with ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... making molasses candy for her because they happened to be born on the same day of the month. And then he played the fiddle until almost one o'clock. He played all the simple, sweet, old-time pieces, in rather a squeaky, jerky way, I am afraid, but the music suited the time and ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... miles from camp, and Faye met me there with an ambulance. I was glad enough to get away from that old stage. It was one of the jerky, bob-back-and-forth kind that pitches you off the seat every five minutes. The first two or three times you bump heads with the passenger sitting opposite, you can smile and apologize with some grace, but after a while your ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... time the mechanical soldier had returned to the slope, and was parading his beat in a somewhat jerky manner. ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... first. The psychology of that is interesting. Hortense knew that by nine-thirty Mrs. McChesney's desk would be clear and that the buzzer would summon her. Hortense didn't mind taking dictation from T. A. Buck, though his method was hesitating and jerky, and he was likely to employ quite casually a baffling and unaccustomed word, over which Hortense's scampering pencil would pause, struggle desperately, then race on. Hortense often was in for a quick, furtive session ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... littered about the square and heaped thick under the trees. The brick walls of many of the houses round were pitted and pocked and scarred by the shell fragments. The face of one house was marked by a huge splash, with solid center and a ragged-edged outline of radiating jerky rays, reminding one immediately of a famous ink-maker's advertisement. The bricks had taken the impression of the explosion's splash exactly as paper would take the ink's. Practically every window in the square had been broken, and ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... herself a naked soul, alone on a wide sea, with shapes of pain and agony and revolt. She looked at the sleeping wife. "He, too, is probably asleep," she thought, remembering some information which a kindly warder had given her in a few jerky, well-meant sentences, while she was waiting downstairs in the gaol for Minta Hurd. "Incredible! only so many hours, minutes left—so far as any mortal knows—of living, thinking, recollecting, of ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... boy! You head that pony for camp mighty quick. Ride for it! You will have no difficulty in following my trail back. Don't drink much at a time. Take it in little sips," commanded the foreman in short, jerky sentences. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... argument should not have an abrupt and jerky ending. It is not uncommon especially in class room debate, to hear a student at the close of his discussion say, "This is my proof; I leave the decision to the judges"; or "Thus you see I have established my proposition." Such ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... said a jerky little voice in answer, "your aunts, remember, were all young once, and considered great beauties in their day." There was a world of gentle pride in Aunt Matilda's voice as she said this, and it sounded so well that she said it over again. "Great beauties in their ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... down in two minutes, Syd, I'm off," said I, pulling out my watch, and nervously noting the jerky springs of the spidery second-hand that seemed to be in a ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... no obvious practical purpose; but, from the slight sketches of the manners of the times in which he lived given above, it will be apparent that he was a practical man with a definite object in view, and that both his barebones history and his jerky moral teachings were the best he could do with sorry material, and in the face of inveterate corruption and tyranny. It has been explained how the Warrior King who conquered China for the Chou family in 1122, about a dozen years later enfeoffed the ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... always found the little dame in possession, and generally the lord and master gleaning food in redstart fashion; flitting around a branch, darting behind a leaf, over and under a twig, tail spread to keep his balance during these jerky movements, his bright oriole colors flashing as he dashed through a patch of sunlight,—a beautiful object, but a perfectly silent one. When his happiness demanded expression he flew to a maple-tree, and poured out his soul in the quaint though not very musical ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... that owing to the thank-you-ma'am which they reached simultaneously with the word "suddenly" that when Mr. Logan got that note he thought it was "severely," and that the bad penmanship and generally disgraceful appearance of the loose-leaf sheet, the jerky hand, and the rather elderly envelope which was all Francis could find—it had been living in a pocket with many other things for some time—gave him a wrong idea. Mr. Logan, to anticipate a little, by this ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... died in a French military hospital of the effects of exposure in the last fierce fighting that broke the Prussian power over Christendom; fighting for which he had volunteered after being invalided home. Any notes I can jot down about him must necessarily seem jerky and incongruous; for in such a relation memory is a medley of generalisation and detail, not to be uttered in words. One thing at least may fitly be said here. Before he died he did at least two ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... he ate, he could not withdraw his eyes. The suffering passivity of the woman, the sly, sinister humor in Tom Mowbray's heavy, grey face, the livid and impotent hate that frothed in the crippled man, and his strange jerky gestures, the atmosphere of nightmare cruelty and suffering that enveloped them like a miasma these bit themselves into his imagination and left it sore. He saw and tasted nothing of what he ate and drank; he was ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... of Carlylites at Oxford and elsewhere might have been justified in describing the imperative duty of work as the theme of many an hour of strenuous idleness, and the superiority of golden silence over silver speech as the text of endless bursts of jerky rapture, while a too constant invective against cant had its usual effect of developing cant with a difference. To the incorrigibly sentimental all this was sheer poison, which continues tenaciously in the system. Others of robuster ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... was the Farmer Boy going away with a clatter over the snow-crust; but who were these coming through the air, with jerky flight, and with a jerky note something like "Twitterty-twit-twitterty-twit-twitterty-twitterty-twitterty-twit"? They flew like goldfinches, and they sounded like goldfinches, both in the twitterty song of their flight and their "Tweeet" as they called ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... She came down the path with long strides, her garments blowing back. At three paces from the sleigh she halted and called to him in a voice so clear and unrestrained that Raven thought Tenney, coming on with his jerky action, might ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... believe. He, too, spoke to me that evening about Rosalind's engagement. I remember how he walked up and down the dining-room, with his hands behind him and his head bent forward, and his quick, nervous, jerky movements. ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... as it has escaped the eye of the English adapter, it would be useless to draw his attention; yet, had he seen it, he might therefrom have developed a really original sequence of perplexing situations. The dialogue is not particularly brilliant; jerky, not crisp. But such is the "go" of the principals, and especially of Mr. HAWTREY, who is the life and soul of the farce, that the laughter is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... upon the cove, where a few men in dories were engaged in jigging for squid, pulling in the wriggling things which had been attracted by a piece of red rag, their tentacles caught upon the upturned needles of the jig. They were dropped with a sharp, jerky motion on the slimy mass of their fellows, all blotched with the inky discharge. Out beyond the rocky headlands, in the open sea, the little two-masted smacks were hurrying to anchor or already bobbing up and down with furled canvas, rising, ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... "Whew!" of surprise, the "Hem!" of annoyance or perplexity, the moan of pain, a scream, a whisper, a rasp, a sob, a choke, and a gasp. The utterances of animals, though wordless, are eloquent to me—the cat's purr, its mew, its angry, jerky, scolding spit; the dog's bow-wow of warning or of joyous welcome, its yelp of despair, and its contented snore; the cow's moo; a monkey's chatter; the snort of a horse; the lion's roar, and the terrible snarl of the tiger. Perhaps I ought to add, for the benefit of the critics and doubters ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... with, and looked at, each. Case had small but marked features—was too light, but his eyes redeemed his face; and his features improved on acquaintance. Ransom was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, of heavy build, dark, and with a quick, sharp eye, and jerky positive way. Kennedy was sandy—hair, face, eyebrows and skin, ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... one direction, then in another, until in the end the little hillock of sand is crossed. Now we are free of the brick and on excellent soil. Little by little the load advances. This is no cartage by a team hauling in the open, but a jerky displacement, the work of invisible levers. The body seems to move ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... handclappings. A few persons whispered: "Why is he late?" "Why doesn't he come?" "I wonder where Diotti is," and then came unmistakable signs of impatience. At its height Perkins appeared, hesitatingly. Nervous and jerky he walked to the center of the stage, and raised his hand begging silence. The audience ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... dose, so as to secure immobility. The question now was, would she recover at all from it? Hour after hour we waited and watched; and not a sign of movement! Only the same deep, slow, hampered breathing, the same feeble, jerky pulse, the same deathly pallor on the dark cheeks, the same corpse-like rigidity of ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... whose name sounds like a sneezin' fit. But, take it from me, that sharp-faced little wisp could do things to a violin! Zowie! He could just naturally make it sing, with weeps and laughs, and moans and giggles, and groans and cusswords, all strung along a jumpy, jerky little air that sort of played hide and seek with itself. Music? I should quiver! He had us all sittin' up with our ears stretched, and when he finishes and the applause starts in like a sudden shower on a tin roof what does he do but turn away with a bored look and shoot some spicy remark at the ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... nearly coincident that when reproduced before the eye an impression of smooth, continuous movement is secured. If, however, the object is moving rapidly across the field of view, one picture will be separated from its successor to a marked extent, and the resulting impression will be jerky and unnatural. Recognizing this fact, Edison always sought for a very high speed, so as to give smooth and natural reproductions, and even with his experimental apparatus obtained upward of forty-eight pictures per second, whereas, in practice, at the present time, the accepted ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... a party happened to be on board. The dancing, however, had not the cadence of "a wave of the sea," nor was there the harmony of double rotation circling in a series of graceful curves to strains like those of Strauss or Gungl. On the contrary, there was something saltatorial and jerky about all the dancing I saw both among the men and women. It is the custom at some of their gatherings, after the hunting season is over, for the men to indulge in a kind of terpsichorean performance, at the same time relating in Homeric ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... he joined Bob at one side of the little bay and looked through the bushes at the shore beyond, he understood. For there was a long stretch of mingled coral and sand exposed by the low tide, and perhaps fifty yards distant were two birds—curlews—running toward the boys with nervous, jerky motions. They were furtively picking up crabs, and Mart quickly set up his camera and focused it. But the instant he began to turn the crank, the two birds ceased their antics. With an inquiring pipe, they looked toward the slight click; then one of them desperately snatched ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... he's not very light, or very dark, but I think he'll be tall and SOME stout. Don't you know how the lawyer that lives on our street looks? Just as if he owned all the houses on the avenue. I think he'll give us a teenty little bow like this," and she gave a jerky little nod, "but I think he'll be quite nice to us ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... not sure," said Elizabeth Eliza, "but it would be less dangerous to keep the cow in the lot behind the house, because she would not be coming and going, morning and night, in that jerky way the Larkins' cows come home. They don't mind which gate they rush in at. I should hate to have our cow dash into our front yard just as I was ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... running off the wind, and the quick, jerky motions of the schooner had given place to a series of long, easy, buoyant, floating movements, much more conducive to accurate shooting than those which had preceded them. I therefore resolved ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... like a cat, or she'll get away from you. When she fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky, greasy sort of way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you at night that the water is too shoal; but keep edging her up, little by little, toward the point. You are well up on the bar, now; there ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... at the same time pale, a thing which always displeased me and which is, in fact, unpleasant; it impresses one as a sort of diseased healthfulness. Moreover, he had the slow yet jerky way of speaking that characterizes the pedant. Even his manner of walking, which was not that of youth and health, repelled me; as for his glance, it might be said that he had none. I do not know what ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... Mr. Roberts, "ye know nothin' of love, Mister Bobo, an' ye never will. I'm sorry for ye, too. Life without love is like eatin' bull-beef jerky without salsa!" ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... only four blocks to the temple. But they were late, and so they hurried, and there was little conversation. Fanny's arm was tucked comfortably in his. It felt, somehow, startlingly thin, that arm. And as they hurried along there was a jerky feebleness about his gait. It was with difficulty that Fanny restrained herself from supporting him when they came to a rough bit of walk or a sudden step. Something fine in her prompted her not to. But the alert mind in that ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... which the motorman ran the car, and the jerky way in which he stopped and started it, did not bother Nan Sherwood much, for she was not nervous. Miss March, however, began to stare ahead apprehensively, and the way in which she twisted her pocket-handkerchief in her ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... selection, he knocked violently at any house that he happened to pass. His blows, on which he was expending his last energies, were jerky and without aim; now ceasing altogether for a time, now renewed as if in irritation. It was the violence of his fever striking ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... desert. Dimly, in the dusk, he could see Lawler riding near the herd. For an instant Antrim hesitated, plainly debating the wisdom of leaving his men; then he smiled with whimsical recklessness. And his movements became rapid, jerky. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... felt instinctively, were the "new" woman and the "new" man, if there are such things. I wondered just how they would hit it off together. For the moment, at least, Clare Kendall was an absorbing study, as she greeted us with a frank, jerky straight-arm handshake. ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... deep gulping sigh of relief, flashed across the room on tiptoe, and went down on his knees beside the monstrous thing, moving the candle this way and that along the length of it, as if searching for something, and laughing in little jerky gasps of relief when he found nothing that was not as it had been—as it should be—as he wanted it to be. And then, as he rose and patted the clay, and laughed aloud as he realised how hard it had set, then, at that instant, a white shape lurched forward ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... dismay that Bud was not responding very well, his feeble strokes were jerky and uncoordinated. "Must've lost pressure too fast when his tank was hit," ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... it essential to get rid of the girl entirely?" Holliday asked in a jerky fashion. "Isn't there any other ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... tell me about them," replied Anthony pertly, "I guess I know how to paddle as well as you do. You don't always need to be handing me directions how to do things." And he started off with a series of jerky dips, which set the canoe swaying from side to side so that Migwan had an effort to keep it straight in the line ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... composition, I was reading good literature. In the former case the language is apt to be full and harmonious, and sprinkled over with gay flowers of maxim and illustration, whereas in the latter the style of the performance is apt to be bald and jerky.[35] ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... Varin, in a rough, jerky voice that reminded me of his brother, "on the contrary, it was your letter that brought ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... had settled over the land, Eben left the boat and made his way slowly up the track. Reaching the main highway, he moved forward with a long jerky stride until he came to the little clearing where the Dobbins' shack was situated. He stopped and peered cautiously around. A light shone from the one window facing the road, and toward this Eben stealthily moved. There was no blind to the window, so when ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... the night; but they have no sandals. The dance is performed by the shaman's assistants, and consists of a peculiar, quick, jumping march, with short steps, the dancers moving forward one after another, on their toes, and making sharp, jerky movements, without, however, turning around. They dance in the space between the fire and the cross, and move in a direction opposite to the sun's apparent movement. Nobody present is allowed to walk in contra-direction to the dancers. After six ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... week: indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl, the post came in but once a month;—but letters were letters then; and we made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like books. Now the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky notes, some without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence, which well- bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. Well, well! they may all be improvements,—I dare say they are; but you will never meet with a Lady ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Audubon's warblers kept themselves for the most part among the pines on the slopes and acclivities, the little black-caps preferred the lower ground. Their songs were not brilliant performances, though rather pleasing, being short, jerky trills, somewhat lower in the scale than those ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... if she was about the house," Henley made reply, in a jerky sort of fashion. "There is a little matter I wanted ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... quick resolution. She hurried to the little town to seek her queen. The matter was not easy, for suspicion rested heavily upon her; but her determination removed all obstacles, and the queen, profoundly moved by Walpurga's jerky explanation and passionate appeal, and stirred to the very depths of her soul by Irma's heroism, demanded to be led at once to her. She was followed in a short while by the king, to whom the whole ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... the pressure of pride upon her throat. There was no dribble of emotion. Only the facts popped out—hard and dry, and to Miss Ram intensely illuminative. Mary did not mention George's name. She concluded her narrative with jerky facts relative to the scene in the Park. "Then I ran away," she said, "and a friend of mine came up. He had seen. And he thrashed him. When I got back to Mrs. Chater's her son had arrived—battered. He told his mother that he had seen me with a man and had ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... the reader. They adopt as their motto multum in parvo (much in little) and endeavor to pack a great deal in small space. Of course the extreme of brevity is to be avoided. Sentences can be too short, too jerky, too brittle to withstand the test of criticism. The long sentence has its place and a very important one. It is indispensable in argument and often is very necessary to description and also in introducing general principles ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... sideways on, so as to keep his charge under constant survey. Even in that moment of acute despair he arrested Robert's attention. There was something odd about him—something distressful and indignant. Whilst he prayed he made jerky, irritable movements which fluttered out the wings of his gown, so that with his sleek black hair and pointed face he looked like a large angry blackbird, trapped and tied by ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... glass with a jerky motion and downed the contents; the chaser stood disregarded before him and O'Brien regarded his patron with ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... connection between the various singsongs and their respective performers. I would be aware that the bass voice with the flourishes in front of me belonged to the stuttering widower from Vitebsk, that the squeaky, jerky intonation to the right came from the red-headed fellow whom I loathed for his thick lips, or that the sweet, unassertive cadences that came floating from the east wall were being uttered by Reb Rachmiel, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... as he finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence which was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like distance ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... beastly place? What was that? It sounded like a startled cry; it came from the tower. Tom shivered. He wasn't going in there to look for Carl Meason, not for any money. The smoke came from his pipe in jerky whiffs. ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... to happen!" exclaimed the Clown, as he brought his queer, jerky dance to an end. "If you'd rather, I could ...
— The Story of Calico Clown • Laura Lee Hope
... Cantonese, and Whiteside was able from time to time to interject a word, or correct some little slip on Tarling's part. The Chinaman listened without comment and when Tarling had finished he made one of his queer jerky bows and went out ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... only message-torps do travel. It hopped half a light-year in overdrive, and came back to normality long enough for its photocells to inspect the star-filled universe all about. Then it hopped another half light-year, and so on. For a long, long time it traveled in this jerky fashion. ...
— A Matter of Importance • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... opinion. When a man is absolutely alone in a Station he runs a certain risk of falling into evil ways. The risk is multiplied by every addition to the population up to twelve- -the Jury-number. After that, fear and consequent restraint begin, and human action becomes less grotesquely jerky. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the pavilion door with a false key, and, having groped his way up the stairs; he went to listen at Darnley's door. Darnley, hearing no further noise, had ended by going to sleep; but he slept with a jerky breathing which pointed to his agitation. Little mattered it to Bothwell what kind of sleep it was, provided that he was really in his room. He went down again in silence, then, as he had come up, and taking a lantern from one of the conspirators, he went ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... went downward by a sharper grade than that by which we had ascended; and we descended it joyfully at a swinging trot, with a new life in us that made us break out into lively talk and laughter that set the echoes to ringing. And presently, in a very jerky fashion because of his rapid motion, Pablo piped away on his mouth-organ with "Yankee Doodle"—and this was the first time that he had had the heart to play upon his beloved "instrumentito" since our passage of the lake beneath which lay the city ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... some obstacle grazing against or bumping the side of the yacht. He looked, and saw, to his surprise, a small rowing boat close under the gunwale, so close indeed that the slow motion of the tide heaved it every now and then into a jerky collision with the lower framework of the Eulalie—a circumstance which explained the sound which had attracted his attention. The boat was not unoccupied—there was some one in it lying straight across the seats, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... he walks about the room, sometimes excitedly, his mind engrossed with his subject, until he has composed an entire paragraph, when he sits down and writes it, never retouching, nor composing sentence by sentence, which he thinks has a tendency to give an abrupt and jerky effect to what is written. Traces of this, he thinks, may be found ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... playing with her scarf, twisting it and pulling it to pieces, with jerky, impatient movements that seemed to tell of ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... his characteristic habit of phrase making and became more jerky and real. "I respected you, Alice," he went on. "I didn't love you but I hoped I might, and I played the game. I liked to see you in my house. You fitted in and made it more of a home than that barrack had ever been. I began to collect prints and ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... frock, and went down into the drawing-room, where she found him striding restlessly in bespattered boots and moist overcoat. When he became aware of her presence, he went towards her eagerly, and shook her hand with jerky awkwardness. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... sitting-room of the suite, a young woman rose gracefully from the desk at which she had been writing. With perfect composure she smiled and extended her slim hand to the American as he crossed the room with Medcroft's jerky introduction ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... You read blunt, jerky sentences that told you Mark had died suddenly, in the mess room, of heart failure. Captain Symonds said he thought you would want to know exactly how it happened.... "Well, we were 'cock-fighting,' if you know what that is, after ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... became even livelier in their effort to take down the hungry guests for breakfast and the day's business. The corridors and the lobbies and the foyer were thronged with the same people, freshly dressed for the day, fat or lean, heavy eyed or alert, pale, nervous, with quick tones and jerky movements. And there was a line of new arrivals before a fresh row of pale clerks. The prominent people of the city, especially the women, had already left town for the Springs or Florida or Paris or the Mediterranean, anywhere but here! Their flitting, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... wooden bench covered with leather; and the old servant got in beside her, wrapped her up with a big cloak, and holding an umbrella over her head, cried: "Quick, Denis, let us be off." The young man climbed up beside his mother and whipped up the horse, whose jerky pace made the two ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... very quick and abrupt in their actions, and their speech, in moments of hot discussion over the allotment of the choicer teeth, was truly a gabble. They spoke in monosyllables and short jerky sentences that was more a gibberish than a language. And yet, through it ran hints of grammatical construction, and appeared vestiges of the conjugation of some superior culture. Even the speech of Granser was so corrupt that were it put down literally it would be almost so much nonsense ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... furiously, skidded, was pulled sharply round and righted itself. The conversation went on. No one appeared to notice that we had been on the edge of eternity, and it was not for me to mention it. But I made a jerky entry ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... short, jerky sentences, related what had been done and said. Phil leaned against the rail ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... dark-skinned individual had at first betrayed abyssmal ignorance of all save the virtues of stuffed crocodiles, but convinced at last that this was no trap, but a genuine situation from which he could profit, his greed overcame his native caution, and through the aid of his jerky English and Billy's jagged Arabic a certain ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... crucial instant what had been a gliding flight of the automobile became, suddenly, a more or less uneven and jerky progress, accompanied by violent explosions. At the first of these Honora, in alarm, leaped to her feet. And the machine, after what seemed an heroic attempt to continue, came to a dead stop. They were on the outskirts of a village; children coming home from school surrounded ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... had blue eyes and a heavy moustache just tinged with red. His hair was close-cut and dark; his forehead, nose and chin wore large and strong; his lips were strangely like a woman's. He walked with short jerky steps, swinging himself awkwardly as men do who have been much in the saddle. He wore a white shirt, as being holiday-making, but had not managed a collar; his pants were dark-blue, slightly belled; his coat, dark-brown; ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... a sparely built, muscular man, of medium size, quick and jerky in his movements, and springy in his gait. His face is broad and tanned, his cheek bones high, and his nose a snub. His beard is short and thin and grizzled, and his gray hair, curling at the ends, hangs ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... Iris recognized the voluble, jerky speech. A wild foreboding gripped her heart until she was like to shudder under its ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Coryndon with light, pointless conversation, leaving Heath to his meditations for the moment. Hartley would have enjoyed a private talk with his hostess because he loved her platonically, and because it was impossible he was distrait and jerky, trying to appear cordial towards Heath. It was one of those evenings that make everyone concerned wonder why they ever began it, and though Coryndon was of all the invited guests the one who found least favour in the eyes of his hostess, ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... them, and at the same time told the chief engineer secretly to put the engines easy ahead. She was brought head on to the sea, and the wind having risen, a nasty swell came with it, which caused the lighters to jump and put jerky strains on their moorings. A few of their crew jumped aboard, and were trying to pass additional ropes around the rigging of the steamer when the captain blew his whistle. In an instant the tow-rope of the forward lighter was cut; then it was that the Spaniards realized what was happening. ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Three, and at once the copper man in a somewhat stiff and jerky fashion walked out of the rocky cavern, took off his copper hat and bowed politely, and then ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... sudden my line cut through the water and fairly whistled. I wound in the slack and then felt a heavy fish. He made a short plunge and then a longer one, straight out, making my reel scream. I was afraid to thumb the line, so I let him go. With these jerky plunges he ran about three hundred feet. Then I felt my line get fast, and, handing my rod to R. C., I slipped off my shoes and went overboard. I waded out, winding as I went, to find that the bonefish had fouled the line on a sponge ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... utterly impossible, Hamilton," I cried, when in short jerky sentences, as if afraid to give thought rein, he had answered my uncle's questioning. "Impossible! ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... frightened, Mrs. Marshall. The bod—I mean Mrs. Selim isn't here now.... And you shan't have to scream. I'll give the signal myself. I just want you to go through the same motions you did before." On jerky feet the girl advanced to Nita's ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... pardner!" returned Boyle with that jerky insolence which men of his kind assume when they realize that they have been called, and called hard. He buttoned ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the voice is silent; but in speaking and singing both inspiration and expiration have to be regulated according to the nature of the phrases to be spoken or sung. If the speaker does not know how to take breath and how to control the expiration, his delivery will of necessity be jerky and uncertain. But in the singer it is even more important that he should be able to fill his lungs well, and, having done this, to have absolute command over his expiration; because while the speaker can arrange his sentences, his speed, and his breathing-places very much ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... a jerky sort of torrent from the second man, one of whose peculiarities was that his arms above the elbow were lashed with leather thongs to his body. There were leather hobbles about his ankles, and on the ground near ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... be bygones, that get the good checks at the end of the week. Some of them fight more 'n they work, but I guess you won't be that kind," she concluded, with an unctuous smile, displaying two rows of false teeth. Then, with a quick, nervous, jerky gait, she hopped up the flight of rough plank stairs, threw open a door, and ushered me into the bedlam noises of the "loft," where, amid the roar of machinery and the hum of innumerable voices, I was to meet my ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... a jerky little laugh. "Assuredly not! H'm! I judge the persecution has come from the other side, has ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... water and close to the sides. This done, the feet are drawn up together, as in breast swimming, and then kicked out together. As the arms are the chief driving power, swimming on the back is at best but a slow, jerky method of proceeding, but if one has not learned to float, it is a good way to rest for a bit ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... triumphantly wealthy and perilously poor, and in the midst of these dissertations he stopped his car, rushed into a small news-and-miscellany shop, and bought the electric cigar-lighter which he had coveted for a week. He dodged his conscience by being jerky and noisy, and by shouting at the clerk, "Guess this will prett' near pay for itself in ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... the Rochester stage must have been rather low, when we find two such persons as Jingle and Dismal Jemmy members of the corps. Jingle's jerky system of elocution would seem a complete disqualification. From sheer habit, it would have been impossible for him to say his lines in any other fashion—which in all the round of light "touch and go" comedy, would ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... them, though in a very jerky fashion, showing how unskilled the rower was, till, unhappily, glancing over his shoulder, he caught sight of the group awaiting them, and raised his oars by way of salute. But, in lowering them, one fell from his hand, tired with the unusual exertion; he leaned over too far to reach it, and ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... passed in 1850 to provide for the sanitary supervision of this class of property; but in Paris the law is a dead letter, and, although it is now active in the provinces and in places like Marseilles, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Nantes, it is applied, even there, in a jerky and intermittent manner. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... Mattie: she generally prefaced her remarks by an "Oh, dear!" ("That was one of her jerky ways," as Archie said.) "I could not help coming straight to you, for Archie would not talk, and I felt I must tell somebody. Oh, dear, Miss Middleton! What do you think? We have just called at the Friary—and——" but here Colonel Middleton's countenance relaxed, and ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... curious jerky movement—as if he strove against invisible bonds. "So," he said, "you are ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... is something about machinery," admitted Russ. "It is something new to go on moving picture machines, to steady the film as it moves behind the lens. You've often noticed how jerky the pictures are at times?" ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... was fitful—as wild as the breeze - It wandered about into several keys; It was jerky, spasmodic, and harsh, I'm aware; But still ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... barber and manicurist; but his colour was peculiar, being almost unhumanly florid, and, as Mrs. Schofield afterward claimed to have noticed, his eyes "wore a nervous, apprehensive look", his hands were tremulous, and his manner was "queer and jerky"—at least, that is how ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... doubts before these same tenants whether they should pay or not before Moll's succession is made sure. And I have good reason to fear they will not, for I observed yesterday when I called upon Farmer Giles to invite him to our feast, he seemed very jerky and ill at ease, which perplexed me greatly, until, on quitting, I perceived through a door that stood ajar old Simon seated in a side room. And 'tis but natural that if they find prudent excuse ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... Church music as good as you like, but lively at all costs, and the royal mind speedily wearying of all things in turn, he wished the numbers that made up an anthem to be short. So Purcell wasted his time and magnificent thematic material on mere strings of scrappy, jerky sections. The true Purcell touch is on them all, but no sooner has one entered fairly into the spirit of a passage than it is finished. Instrumental interludes—if, indeed, they can be called interludes, for they are as important as the vocal sections—abound, and might almost be curtain-tunes ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... good deal of church music. Some of his religious works were really beautiful, but he had strange obsessions. Berlioz greatly admired his master and could not help showing, especially in his earlier works, traces of this admiration. That is the reason for the syncopated and jerky passages without rhyme or reason and which can only be explained by his unconscious imitation of Leuseur's faults. In imitating a model the resemblances occur in the faults and not in the excellences, for the latter are inimitable. So the ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... interesting and unique as the most skilful farmer among the animals in his preparation of his winter supply of fodder. During the weeks when the grass is most succulent he actually mows it down with swift jerky swings of his head, cutting about twenty or thirty stalks with his sharp long front teeth. Then he allows his grass to cure and later puts up his prepared hay in a most scientific manner. First he makes a mound about a foot high. Through this he pushes down into the ground four slanting stakes, ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... curtain, the light; and, on the stage, the Roofers were glittering with gold and silver and their boyish voices came in gusts, punctuated by the jerky flights of ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... A jerky buzz at the telephone behind the superintendent's desk interrupted any reply that Fairfield might have made. With a muttered "Good-day" the baronet moved across the carpeted floor out of the room. As he closed the door Foyle put ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... away with that, and turned again, with his jerky suddenness, to his telegrams and letters. The colonel had not meant for Macdonald to pass out of the door through which he had entered. That was the military portal; the other one, opening into the ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... imparted this in jerky whispers, listening with one ear all the time to a sound which stirred Katherine, the voice which she had heard yesterday in the church at St. George's. The Englishman's spasmodic growl stopped, and she drifted a step nearer, listening. As she caught the words, her brows drew together ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... to Parmalee's talk, which was thrown at me in jerky, desultory sentences, and interested me not at all. I went on with my work of investigation, and though I did not get down on my knees and examine every square inch of the carpet with a lens, yet I thoroughly examined all of the contents of the room. I regret to say, however, ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... way. Whenever he had any business on hand that kept him from his ship, he invariably spoke in short, jerky sentences. Ross knew his ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... cradle. Over the back end was a sieve or hopper, and immediately beneath slanted a frame covered with blanket cloth. The pay-dirt was to be poured into the hopper and running water turned in on it. While the cradle was rocked with a jerky movement the sand sifted down through the hopper to the slanting apron. Much of the gold, Boreland explained, would be caught in the nap of the apron, and in the little sag at the bottom of it, but the sand would flow on out over the bottom of the rocker which was also lined with blanket ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... the feeling of the speaker behind the phrase makes him enforce his meaning by a suitable movement. In speaking today fewer gestures are indulged in than years ago. There should never be many. Senseless, jerky, agitated pokings and twitchings should be eradicated completely. Insincere flourishes should be inhibited. Beginners should beware of gestures until they become such practised masters of their minds and bodies that physical emphasis may be added to ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... His fingers, tight-gripping, are buried inside my collar. My coat is tightly buttoned. Did you ever see a tourniquet? Well, this is one. All I have to do is to duck my head under his arm and begin to twist. I must twist rapidly—very rapidly. I know how to do it; twisting in a violent, jerky way, ducking my head under his arm with each revolution. Before he knows it, those detaining fingers of his will be detained. He will be unable to withdraw them. It is a powerful leverage. Twenty seconds after I have started revolving, the blood will be bursting out of his finger-ends, the delicate ...
— The Road • Jack London
... forelock being soaped, rolled and brushed up into that approved tonsorial ornament known in barrack-room parlance as a "quiff." His complexion was of that peculiar olive-brown shade especially noticeable in most Anglo-Indians. In his smart, soldierly aspect, biting, jerky Cockney speech and clipped, wax-pointed moustache he betrayed ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... three, sharp, jerky taps. Madge Steele quickened her pace along the path and the newcomers followed her. Other girls were pouring into the building nearest to the main structure of Briarwood. A broad stairway led up to assembly rooms; but out of the lower hall opened a large dining room, in which were ten or twelve ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... webs. Being rich in spiders, it was a favourite hunting-ground of those insect desperadoes, the mason-wasps, that flew about loudly buzzing in their splendid gold and scarlet uniform. There were also many little shy birds here, and my favourite was the wren, for in its appearance and its scolding, jerky, gesticulating ways it is precisely like our house-wren, though it has a richer and more powerful song than the English bird. On the other side of the hedge was the potrero, or paddock, where a milch-cow with two or ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... coming through," replied the other without moving, "but in the same jerky fashion. Every time I get it, it seems to have gone back to ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... poking it as far as he could into the water, and immersing the whole length of his arm besides. Hollingsworth at first sat motionless, with the hooked pole elevated in the air. But, by and by, with a nervous and jerky movement, he began to plunge it into the blackness that upbore us, setting his teeth, and making precisely such thrusts, methought, as if he were stabbing at a deadly enemy. I bent over the side of the ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he brought out a bit of dried beef, the "jerky" of the southwest. He held it out arm's length, sending his horse racing forward with a sudden touch of his spur. The big dog barked eagerly and launched his sinewy body into the air; the sunlight flashed back a moment from the bared sharp teeth; Monarch dropped softly ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... with that strange dynamic energy, sparing of words except that now and then he would talk to Hollister in brief jerky sentences, in a manner which implied much and revealed nothing. Mills always seemed on the point of crying out some deep woe that burned within him, of seeking relief in some outpouring of speech,—but he ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of delivery, it should be remembered that the easiest movement is the best. A long, free sweep of the arm, aided by a swing of the body, will give more speed, be more deceiving to the batter, and allow of more work than any possible snap or jerky motion. Facing the striker before pitching, the arm should be swung well back and the body around so as almost to face second base in the act of delivery; this has an intimidating effect on weak-nerved batters; besides, not knowing from what point the ball will start, it seems ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... all very dream-like and strange: the awful, overwhelming, crushing sound of the wind seemed to press upon my brain so that I could not for a long time think, only lie and try to breathe without catching each inspiration in a jerky, ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... me in a second that that thing was a Rebel flag. It was not more than sixty yards to the right. The smoke around it was low and dense and kept me from seeing the man who was carrying it, but I plainly saw the banner. It was going fast, with a jerky motion, which told me that the bearer was on a double-quick. About that time we left. We observed no kind of order in leaving; the main thing was to get out of there as quick as we could. I ran down our ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... envelope Bobby kept his eyes in mild speculation, while he leisurely laid aside his cane and removed his gloves and coat and hat; next he sat down in his father's jerky old swivel chair and lit a cigarette; then he opened the ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... the railroad washouts had been repaired, so she had only to cross two mountain ridges and take the jerky little train from a point ten miles distant to ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... thicker than a man's finger. From a safe distance on the running-board, he flourished this, whooping the while in a shrill and dissuasive manner. Somewhere down the street was heard a responsive yell, and a small, jerky, olive-green policia pranced ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... unsparing vengeance. The three apprentices promptly obeyed the command given to them, and were ushered into the presence of their infuriated captain. They were each handsome, broad-shouldered athletes, with keen, sparkling, fearless eyes that indicated fearlessness. He made a short, jerky, almost inarticulate speech on the wickedness and indecency of committing an act of gross disrespect to the vessel, the owner and himself, all of whom should have ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... exactly know what she wished. She was fretted at the poor show a King's man had made before a Puritan; if Sir Blaise could do something to humble the Puritan it might not be wholly amiss. So much Halfman gathered from her jerky scraps of sentences; also, that on no account must the disputants be permitted to come to swords. Halfman nodded, caught up a staff, and ran full tilt to the pleasaunce. The moment his back was turned Brilliana, instead of remaining in the house, came out again, doubled ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... just at St. Sylvester's, and Bertie ran up panting, waving his music. "Lucky I've not got to sing," said the young fellow in a jerky voice, and rushed to the vestry-door, where Mr. Clifton fidgeted, watch in hand. After such a race it was natural enough that the young organist should be somewhat flushed as he went up the aisle with a surpliced boy at his heels. But Judith had not hurried—had rather lingered, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... ancestry and unable to forget it, especially when Charlie's adventures in the Green River under-world cheated it of exercise too long, was remembering it now, and bolting down the hilly little street, settled at last into a jerky and tentative gait with the air of accepting their guidance until it could arrange further plans, but remembering ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... von Aurnhammer's after dinner nearly every day. The young woman is a fright, but she plays ravishingly, though she lacks the true singing style in the cantabile; she is too jerky." ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... this jerky to-night?" said somebody, as I climbed the wheel. "Well, we'll give thanks for not havin' eight," he added cheerfully. "Clamp your mind on to that, Shorty." And he slapped the shoulder of his neighbor. Naturally ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... place in the cage a bluebottle, one only, to avoid confusion. Her fat belly proclaims the advent of a laying time. An hour later, when the excitement of being put in prison is allayed, my captive is in labor. With eager, jerky steps, she explores the morsel of game, goes from the head to the tail, returns from the tail to the head, repeats the action several times and at last settles near an eye, a dimmed eye sunk into ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... of yellow and bluish nimbus I see men encircling the flashing machine and closing in on it. Near to me I make out the silhouette of Mesnil Joseph, who is steering straight and with no effort of concealment for the spot whence the barking explosions come in jerky sequence. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... slips of printer's proofs at a desk by the window, came forward and welcomed him. Glory held his hand with her long hand-clasp and looked steadfastly into his eyes. His face twitched and her own blushed deeply, and then she talked in a nervous and jerky way, reproaching him for his neglect ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... of this jerky letter. Soon I shall proceed to make my contention good. I shall show the higher part intellect plays in conjugal love, the control, restraint, forbearance, sacrifice. And I shall show that conjugal love is higher and finer than ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... minute...." You do not understand even now, gentlemen? No, it seems our development and our consciousness must go further to understand all the intricacies of this pleasure. You laugh? Delighted. My jests, gentlemen, are of course in bad taste, jerky, involved, lacking self-confidence. But of course that is because I do not respect myself. Can a man of perception ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... raise a golf club with a jerky, uneven stroke, and come down on the helpless turf with the head of it, as if beating a carpet, has always given me a chill and a sensation of wild rage, but there is something about the way Miss Harding does this which is actually artistic. There are combinations of discords which ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... on his feet, uttering low, jerky barks. Dot put aside her saucepan and began to wash her hands. She did not hasten to obey Jack's call, but when she turned to collect glasses on a tray she was trembling and her breath came quickly, as if ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... apprehensions, every fiber of you is tense with a watchful strain, you start a cautious and gradual curve, but your squirmy nerves are all full of electric anxieties, so the curve is quickly demoralized into a jerky and perilous zigzag; then suddenly the nickel-clad horse takes the bit in its mouth and goes slanting for the curbstone, defying all prayers and all your powers to change its mind—your heart stands still, your breath hangs fire, your legs forget to work, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... him go. Charlotte looked round the corner of the hood and saw him running with brief, jerky strides. ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... Tenby, and about twenty minutes past the hour wheels rattled on the gravel of the short carriage-drive, and the General drove up to the door. He was a tall, soldierly-looking man of between fifty and sixty, with a red face and a keen blue eye, and a precise, jerky manner. ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... to descend the ladder-like steps—and abruptly Rhoda Gray, too, moved forward. It wasn't Danglar. That was what had instantly taken hold of her mind, and she knew a sudden relief now. The man on the stairs—she could see that it was a man now—though he moved silently, swayed in a grotesquely jerky way as though he were lame. It wasn't Danglar! She would go to any length to track Danglar to his lair; but not here—here in the darkness—here in the garret. Here she was afraid of him with a deadly fear; here alone with him there would be a thousand chances of exposure incident to the slightest ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... before the eyes of the men, all of whom he knew by sight or by name, and not one of whom he had ever met before. But they all shook hands after it was over, and the assistant organist played the Wedding March, and one of the club men insisted in pulling a cheerful and jerky peal on the church bell in the absence of the janitor, and then Van Bibber hurled an old shoe and a handful of rice—which he had thoughtfully collected from the chef at the club—after them as they drove ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... both in appearance and in guilt, was the formidable Boss. Harraway, the secretary, was a lean, bitter man with a long, scraggy neck and nervous, jerky limbs, a man of incorruptible fidelity where the finances of the order were concerned, and with no notion of justice or honesty to anyone beyond. The treasurer, Carter, was a middle-aged man, with an ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of somewhat jerky, contradictory information, had gleaned that the new leading part at the London theatre had been gained through the middle-aged bridegroom's influence, her ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... excitement had lighted a heavy cigar and was consuming it with jerky puffs, a bit of thoughtlessness rather pardonable under the stress of the moment. For he was beginning to entertain doubts. It was not impossible for this Napoleonic chap to have a chart, to know of the treasure's existence. He wished he had heard ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... than any of the company. His scant hair hung in thin and long white locks, and his tall, slender figure had gained a still more meagre effect from his dress, while his shoulders were bowed in a marked stoop; his gait was rigid and jerky. He assisted himself with a gold-headed cane, and sat in his chair ...
— The Old Folks' Party - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... Ratcliffe Highway was the rendezvous of seafaring men. It provided them with a wealth of facilities for the expeditious disposal of money that had been earned at great hazard, and not infrequently by the sweat of anguish. One chilly November morning a sailor was walking down the Highway. His step was jerky and uncertain, for his feet were bare; his sole articles of dress consisted of a cotton shirt and a pair of trousers that seemed large enough to take another person inside of them. These were kept from dropping off by what is known as a soul-and-body ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... me one day—he called me Punch because in early life I had a squeaky voice and a jerky manner—"Punch, my boy, get into a habit of looking up, if you can, as you trot along through this world. If you keep your head down and your eyes on the ground, you'll see nothing of what's going on around you—consequently you'll know nothing; moreover, you'll get a bad habit of turning ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... fence. It was while she was so looking that the car behind shot suddenly past and ahead, and she saw its tail lights moving away with a pang of hopelessness. Then, before she realised what had happened, the big car ahead slowed and swung sideways, blocking the road, and the cab came to a jerky stop that flung her against the window. She saw two figures in the dim light of the taxi's head lamps, heard somebody speak, and the ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... the energy he could into a series of short jerky strokes, using the muscles of his arms, failing altogether to get the weight of his body on the oar. At the end of twenty minutes Priscilla ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... dropped from her nose and swayed dizzily on their slender chain. Her gloves split across the back and showed the white, tense knuckles. Her breath came in gasps, and only a moaning "whoa—whoa" fell in jerky rhythm from her white lips. Ashamed, frightened, and dismayed, Miss Prue clung to the reins and kept her straining eyes ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter |
