"Plumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... melt lead or pewter. But he succeeded at last, melting down all his spare change to make the small, shining bullet. This was rammed down his gun, a deliberate aim taken, and Dick announced that it had struck the mark plumb in the center. The charm ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... same period as the Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some of them are perilously out of plumb. There is much ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... each time we got through. Twice I almost had reason to reverse my impression of the power of water. First the stern rose up in front of me, as if squaring off at the tops of the cliffs, then descended, until it seemed to be trying to plumb the depths of the river. The waves, rolling over me, almost knocked me out of the boat, I lost my hold on the oars and grabbed the sides of the boat; then, regaining the oars, I finished the run by pulling with the bow headed downstream, for the boat had "swapped ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... "Hello, dere, foolish! What yo' think Ah am anyhow? To' must think Ah'm plumb crazy," and Sam looked pityingly at George. "Ob co'se Ah wouldn't nebber lif' mah ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... Miss Snowden and Mrs. Chase. Nor did he notice individual peculiarities except that something, excitement or a sudden jostle or something, had pushed Aurora's rippling black locks to one side, with the result that the part which divided the ripples, instead of descending plumb-line fashion from the crown of the head to a point directly in the center of the forehead, now had a diagonal twist and ended over the left eye. The effect was rather astonishing, as if the upper section of the lady's head ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... a man might do worse than locate that Native Son for a silver mine," Cal began, eyeing the interloper scornfully. "It's plumb wicked to ride around with all that wealth and fussy stuff. He must 'a' robbed a bank and put the money all ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... get out of here, Allen. If you think you can marry Morton Bassett's daughter with that kind of a scandal in your pocket, I tell you you're mad—you've plumb gone insane! Great God, boy, you don't know the meaning of the words you use. You handle that thing like a child with a loaded pistol. Don't you see what that would mean—to Marian, to Blackford, ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... on end upon the hero's cranium, with its mighty mane of blue wool bristling out in the spray and breeze. Position Fourth: at six in the afternoon, with the Corsican coast in view; the unfortunate chechia hangs over the ship's side, and lamentably stares down as though to plumb the depths of ocean. Finally and lastly, the Fifth Position: at the back of a narrow state-room, in a box-bed so small it seemed one drawer in a nest of them, something shapeless rolled on the pillow with moans of desolation. This was the fez—the fez so defiant ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... in vain. He could see a long way, and sometimes it almost seemed as if he saw farther than at others; but lower down there was always that purply transparent blackness into which his eyesight plunged, but could not quite plumb. ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... her strange Nesta, one thing was clear: she did not love the man: and Nataly tasted gladness in that, from the cup of poisonous regrets at the thought. Her girl's heart would not be broken. But if he so strongly loved her, as to hold to this engagement? . . . It might then be worse. She dropped a plumb-line into the young man, sounding him by what she knew of him and judged. She had to revert to Nesta's charm, for the assurance of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... interiors of these buildings arrests the observer's attention, and, indeed, fills him with amazement, as does their construction in general. What instruments of precision did a rude people possess who could raise such walls, angles, monoliths, true and plumb as the work of ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... give her the name, myself," he observed, at last. "Seein' I just got her a week ago last Saturday. I ASKED Casper Hoyt what under the canopy possessed him to give her a name like that. Said his father named her. Well, I thought his father must be plumb foolish, or something, but I didn't like to say so to HIM. Seems too bad to waste them gilt letters, or I'd a-had another name on her 'fore this. I wanted to use as many of them letters as I could, an' I thought of callin' her for my aunt, ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... than most humans," said Mary Vance. "Well, did we any of us ever think we'd live to see this day? I bawled all night to think of Jem and Jerry going like this. I think they're plumb deranged. Miller got a maggot in his head about going but I soon talked him out of it—likewise his aunt said a few touching things. For once in our lives Kitty Alec and I agree. It's a miracle that isn't likely to ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... site this morning, eh? Wish it well for me. If I've got to be civilized I'm going to be plumb civilized. ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... clearly conscious of his love for Katiousha; especially if it were sought to persuade him that he could and must not link his fate to that of the girl, he would very likely have decided in his plumb-line mind that there was no reason why he should not marry her, no matter who she was, provided he loved her. But the aunts did not speak of their fears, and he departed without knowing that he was enamored ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... the floor carpet to assist him in his explanations. Master to the candidate, "Brother, as you are dressed, it is necessary you should have tools to work with; I will, therefore, present you with the tools of a Fellow Craft Mason. They are the Plumb, Square, and Level. The Plumb is an instrument made use of by operative masons to raise perpendiculars; the Square, to square their work; and the Level, to lay horizontals; but we, as Free and Accepted Masons, are taught ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... Grade, a mile and a half from the summit: Black as your hat was the night, and never a star in the heavens. Thundering down the grade, the gravel and stones we sent flying Over the precipice side,—a thousand feet plumb to the bottom. ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... warned Dextry. "I've seen men get plumb drunk on mountain air. Don't expand too strong in one spot." He went back abruptly to his pipe, its villanous fumes promptly averting any danger of the air's too ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... seed a man 'at went so plumb dumb crazy over a few gold nuggets as him. 'T was here at the old cabin he met his pard, an' they made plans fer a great minin' company. Of all the fellers they was settin' up machinery in the mines a dozen years ago, this feller was the best o' the lot. Why, oncet he ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... "Let it go plumb to hell!" returned Judith. "Scott's the one should have been shot, for sending you out ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... bein' sent for a killing to-day," said Old Man Curry. "Well, she'll have 'Lisha to beat, I reckon. And all he's runnin' for is the purse, Frank, like you said. I did my best to bet 'em until the price got too plumb ridiculous, but the children of Israel wouldn't ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... vertical plane which contains the style; and the most simple way of drawing it on the dial will be by suspending a plummet from some point of the style whence it may hang freely, and waiting until the shadows of both style and plumb-line coincide on the dial. This single shadow will be the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... about your adventures, and watch out, because the first lie you tell—" The justice held up a warning finger. "Now answer me this, never mind anything else; we'll drop a plumb-line right down to the bottom of this thing and have no ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Vannes He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoak Uplifted spurns the ground, thence many a League As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides 930 Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets A vast vacuitie: all unawares Fluttring his pennons vain plumb down he drops Ten thousand fadom deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not by ill chance The strong rebuff of som tumultuous cloud Instinct with Fire and Nitre hurried him As many miles aloft: that furie stay'd, Quencht in a Boggie ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... to himself, with a slight duck of the head of careless acknowledgment. Then he glanced with slumbering anger at the stove. "Smoke, we'll have to dig up a new stove. That fire-box is burned plumb into the oven so ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... appreciation, believe me. But I've a young lady here who is 'plumb crazy' over posies and, coming along on the steamer, I promised her a glimpse of some of Yarmouth's garden 'cosy corners.' I know none lovelier than your own; and as for your window-plants—I'm afraid if we don't take her away from temptation ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... "It's been a shy kind o' moon to-night, an' it's a gittin' so much shyer that it's plumb afraid to show its face. In three minutes it will hide behind a big cloud that's edgin' up over thar, an' we won't see it no ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... round to see him close. He was plumb sober, and his face was solemn, like it was the time I caught ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... walls here were lined completely with small flat bricks, and looked much the same all round. I examined these bricks as closely as I might, and took course by course, looking first at the north side where the plumb-line hung, and afterwards turning round in the bucket till I was afraid of getting giddy; but to little purpose. They could see my candle moving round and round from the well-top, and knew no doubt ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... Jake retorted with vigor. "Usedn't you to keep me awake praying for her—hollerin' at God to forgive her? Didn't you, or did you?" No answer. "And you think this is her!" The ridiculousness of the fantasy smote him. "Say, you must 'a' went plumb nutty! Bendin' over that tub must 'a' gave you a rush of brains to ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... straighten the axle, while you see what ails that cussed motor. Good golly! We'll be here all night at this rate. And if we keep on hopping over this field like a lame crow, we'll be plumb outa gas. For a mechanic that can make a motor, Bland, you sure ain't making ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... he said. There was laughter in his eyes but not in his tone. "We got him plumb at the game. He was chock full of kerosene and tinder, and he'd fired the patch in several places. We were on it quick. We beat the fire in seconds. As for him, why, I guess his Ma's going to forget him right away. Leastways I hope so. He went out like the snuff of a lucifer, and his body's likely ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... If he dare venture; hang him, plumb porredge, He wrastle? he rost eggs! Come, lets ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... guard! if thou hadst life like me, What pleasure would thy toils reward beneath the deep-green sea! O deep sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou?— The hoary monster's palaces!—Methinks what joy 'twere now To go plumb-plunging down, amid the assembly of the whales, And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails! Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... Captain Wass. "She's a-going to tramp him plumb underfoot—unless she's going to get up a little more speed and jump over him!" he added, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... worldly matters that it was pleasant to me to have the right to pay a woman's bills; I enjoyed seeing her garments lying about on my chairs. In time that exultation wore off. But I was not unhappy, I didn't expect much, I was always so sure that no woman could ever plumb the well of ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... head, two of them white and the other of a rusty red. The air was full of flying metal, and the road, as we were told afterwards by an observer, was all churned up by it. The metal base of one of the shells was found plumb in the middle of the road just where our motor had been. There is no use telling me Austrian gunners can't ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spirits winged their way down into those dark and intuitive depths of her mind she had never found time to plumb. She knew that the hour of dawn was always still, but she had never imagined a stillness so complete, so final as this. Nor was there any fresh lightness in the morning air. It seemed to press downward like an enormous invisible bat; or like the shade of buried cities, vain ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... from the butt of his ivory-handled gun. The Texan had pulled his other revolver with the bewildering speed of a magician. Goliday was covered, "plumb center." ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... her to spell words of one syllable, and she soon set up pear, plumb, top, ball, pin, puss, dog, hog, fawn, buck, doe, lamb, sheep, ram, cow, bull, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... laughed, saying, "I cannot fight a monk," and sheathed his sword. He did not love monks, none of his house did. He had seen the new gallows, could measure the build of the fellow in the quarry; and though he could not plumb the girl's soul through her misty eyes, he could read her shaking lips and clinging hands; he could see, and be shocked to see, how young she was to be acquainted with grief, and with sin how likely familiar. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... curiosity Waldemar watched Average Jones place the ladder against the outside of the pole, mount, nail up the sign, drop a plumb-line, improvised from a key and a length of string, to the ground, set a careful knot in the ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... out of the woods. The path now led along the edge of a precipice descending sheer to the uppermost terrace of the valley he had left. The valley was but a cleft in the mass of the mountain: a little way over sank its other wall, steep as a plumb-line could have made it, of solid rock. On his right lay green fields of clover and strange grasses. Ever and anon from the cleft steamed up great blinding clouds of mist, which now wandered about over the nations of rocks on ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... for some time he continued: "The door jamb is built in vertically; that is sure. A string, or piece of thread will make a plumb-bob; here it is: now let us see; according to the plumb line the boat is at an angle of 33 degrees, as nearly as our imperfect device indicates. There, now this line A shows the top of the boat and B the base of ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... killed th' man, an' so it might prove nuthin'; but, right whar th' grass was tread up th' worst on th' spot whar we saw th' man killed, I found this—" and the hand came out of the pocket and was extended toward the alcalde, holding on its palm a button. "Now I'd plumb forgot all about th' findin' of this button, not settin' any store on it, when, jest as I was a-leavin' th' witness stand, th' thought popped intew my head, that, if th' prisoners happened tew have on th' same clothes they ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... Say, didn't I tell you I shook hands with this boy an' was plumb glad to meet him?" demanded Laddy, with considerable heat. Manifestly he had been affronted. "Tom Beldin', he's a gentleman, an' he could lick you in—in half a second. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... big lumber-mill that had once kept it busy was burned down, and the business had slipped away to the prosperous neighbouring town of Machias. There were nice old houses with tall pillars in front of them, now falling into decay and slipping out of plumb. There were shops that had evidently been closed for years, with not even a sign "To Let" in the windows. Our dinner was cooked for us in a boarding-house, by a brisk young lady of about fifteen years, whose mother ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... guest's susceptibilities than he had been before the quarrel and its reconciliation, did not seem to feel for Lionel the active interest which Lionel felt for him. He did not, as most clever men are apt to do in their intercourse with youth, attempt to draw him out, plumb his intellect, or guide his tastes. If he was at times instructive, it was because talk fell on subjects on which it pleased himself to touch, and in which he could not speak without involuntarily instructing. Nor did he ever allure the boy to talk of his ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sun was the matter with that kid, and advised his frantic parents to throw water in his face. Chip told her exactly what he had told the Old Man, in exactly the same tone; so the Countess retreated, declaring that he wouldn't be let to act that way if he was her kid, and that he was plumb ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... Nicolai, whose name the maire had written in my note-book, that there might be no mistake, appeared to be of that peculiar mental calibre which warrants Yorkshire peasants in describing a man as 'half-rocked,' or 'not plumb.' His wife, on the other hand, was one of those neat, gentle, sensible women, of whom one wonders how they ever came to marry such thick-lipped and blear-eyed men. Between them they informed me that if I did not object to share a room, I could be ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... the little procession set off. Mr. Poyser was in his Sunday suit of drab, with a red-and-green waistcoat and a green watch-ribbon having a large cornelian seal attached, pendant like a plumb-line from that promontory where his watch-pocket was situated; a silk handkerchief of a yellow tone round his neck; and excellent grey ribbed stockings, knitted by Mrs. Poyser's own hand, setting off ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... shine out, when thought is sharply stirred; How the mind works, when once the wheels are loosed, How nimbly, with what swift activity. I think, 'tis strange that men should ever sleep, There are so many things to think upon, So many deeds, so many thoughts to weigh, To pierce, and plumb them to the silent depth. Yet in that thought I do rebuke myself, Too little given to probe the inner heart, But rather wont, with the luxurious eye, To catch from life it's outer loveliness, Such things as do ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... a foundation of stones or a series of stone piles, but if you use stones and expect your house to remain plumb where the winters are severe you must dig holes for them at least three feet deep in order to go below the frost-line. Fill these holes with broken stone, on top of which you can make your pile of stones to act as support for ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... reckon,' he went on, 'that it wants a good old-fashioned copper-bottomed miracle to get us out of this fix. It's plumb against all my principles. I've spent my life using the talents God gave me to keep things from getting to the point of rude violence, and so far I've succeeded. But now you come along, Major, and you hustle a respectable middle-aged citizen into an aboriginal mix-up. It's mighty indelicate. I ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... like a hot corn pone. He'd take Nella-Rose quick enough if she'd have him, but barrin' her, he hangs to Marg so as ter be nigh Nella-Rose in any case. And right here Burke Lawson figgers. Burke's got two naturs, same as old Satan. Marg can play on one and get him plumb riled up to anythin'; Nella-Rose can twist him around her finger and make him act like ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... plumb broken-hearted, aren't you?" asked "Boots" with bitter sarcasm. As a relief to his feelings, he shouted pungent criticism at Quarter-back Hinton. "Well," he said finally, "which do you want and when do you ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... we saw an aeroplane falling. At first it was hard to believe it was not doing some patent stunt. Instead of coming down plumb as one would imagine, it fell first this way and then that, like a piece of paper fluttering down from a window. As it got nearer the earth though where the currents of air were not so powerful, it plunged straight downwards. Crowds witnessed the ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... used—and placed in position on the top forms, their bottom edges being carefully set flush with the top edge of the form already in position, and then bolted to it. On the outside, the column forms, and on the inside, the wedge and key sections were set last. A 3-lb. plumb-bob on a fine line was suspended from the inner scaffold and carefully centered over a point set in the rock at the base. This line was in the exact center of the tower, and the tops of all the forms, after each shift, were carefully set ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 - A Concrete Water Tower, Paper No. 1173 • A. Kempkey
... twenty-four stanzas to it; an' while these interlopin' selectmen sets thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said recitations with sech a multitood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the room. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... flame did they go plunging down the depths, gyrating like mad comets with long smoke-trailers and redly licking manes of fire. Not in shattered fragments did they burst and plumb the abyss. No; quite intact, unharmed, but ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... and must be carried on with as much care as a mason would give to the laying of the walls of a structure designed to stand for years. The mason knows that if he does not lay his foundations deep and firm, that if the walls are not kept straight and plumb, that if he puts faulty bricks or stones in the walls, the building will not be a success. The work at every stage must be a success or the completed structure must ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... arrangements for a prolonged absence, as also to communicate with Mr. Campbell, who was still at his home in Hamilton, Ohio. By correspondence we agreed to meet in New York, November 8th, he accompanied by Mr. Plumb, secretary of legation, and I ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... in too much o' a hurry," said Mr. Dillon. "That mine ain't goin' to walk away, and Abe Blower an' those with him ain't goin' to find it right plumb to onct, believe me! I guess the only reason those others hurried so was because they feared you would come along and queer their ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... she insists. "I'm plumb scared at the thought of mixin' with folks like that—just plumb scared. And, as you know, Mr. Leavitt, it's the first time in my life I've ever ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... right, all right," murmured Cousin Egbert in a sort of ecstasy, as we drew up at the Floud home. "And yet one of them guys back there called him a typical Britisher. You bet I shut him up quick—saying a thing like that about a plumb stranger. I'd 'a' mixed it with him right there except I thought it was better to have things nice and not start something the minute the Judge ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... shoot straight while you're about it," she continued. "It comes plumb from the roots, and I don't want to have to look at a wild-growing vine right here under my window for all my eighty-second ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... quit pesterin' 'bout thet. Them young-uns 'druther sleep out'n in, any time. Ef I'd let 'em they'd grow up plumb wild. When yo've got worshed up come on right in the kitchen an' set by. Us Wattses is plain folks an' don't pile on no dog. We've et an' got through, but yo' take all the time yo're a mind to, an' me an' Microby Dandeline 'll set by an' yo' c'n tell us who yo' be, ef yo're a mind to, ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... Polly Ann had seed him in Hazlan (which she hadn't, of co'se), an' had said p'int-blank that he was the likeliest feller she'd seed in them mountains. An' he tol' Polly Ann that Jeb was ravin' crazy 'bout her. The pure misery of it jes made him plumb delirious, Abe said; an' 'f Polly Ann wanted to find her match fer languige an' talkin' out peert—well, she jes ought to strike Jeb Somers. Fact is, stranger, Jeb Somers air might' nigh a idgit; but Jeb 'lowed he'd rack right over ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... my reasons, George. But I don't mean to go into 'em. All that's dead and gone. There was a pack of fellows then on my shoulders—I was plumb tired of 'em. I had to get rid of—I did get rid of 'em—and you, too. I knew you were inquiring after me, and I didn't want inquiries. They didn't suit me. You may conclude what you like. I tell you ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... do something beneficial for the cavalry, in which he felt much the same special interest that I did in the artillery. So a sort of alliance, offensive and defensive, was formed, which included as its most active and influential member Senator Plumb of Kansas, to obtain the necessary funds and build a suitable post and establish at Fort Riley a school of cavalry and light artillery. The result finally attained, when I was in command of the army, is well known, and is an honor to ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... free stepper in the mazes of the dance, and once, when she was balancing partners with Doodums, she kicked out sort of playful to give him a love pat and fetched him a clip with her tootsey that gave him water on the kneepan. It ought to have been a warning to Doodums, but he was plumb infatuated, and went around pretending that he'd been kicked by a horse. After that the boys used to make Honeybunch mighty mad when she came out of dark corners with Doodums, by feeling him to see if any of his ribs were broken. ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... is Boone Island light; You might mistake it for a ship, Only it stands too plumb upright, And like the others does not slip Behind the sea's unsteady brink; Though, if a cloud-shade chance to dip Upon it a moment, 'twill suddenly sink, Levelled and lost in the darkened main, Till the sun builds ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... mother-in-law come t' see 'em and staid a long time and was awful cross and Uncle Billy got tired of it and took and put a wad of cotton in her ear trumpet so she couldn't hear a thing, and she thought she was goin' plumb deef and left that day fer home to see her doctor. Wasn't that cute ...
— The Fotygraft Album - Shown to the New Neighbor by Rebecca Sparks Peters Aged Eleven • Frank Wing
... conical forms, and built one upon another to a prodigious height. Upon a nearer view, each cone appeared of itself a mountain; and the tout ensemble compose an enormous mass of the Lundus Helmonti, or plumb-pudding stone, fourteen miles in circumference, and what the Spaniards call two leagues in height. As it is like unto no other mountain, so it stands quite unconnected with any, though not very distant from some very lofty ones. Near the base of it, on the south side, are two villages, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... drive her. I took particular pains to get the measurements of her mainmast while it lay on the dock under the shears. It was eighty-seven feet—and she only a hundred and ten feet over all—and it stepped plumb in the middle of her, further forward than a mainmast was generally put in a fisherman. To that was shackled a seventy-five foot boom, and eighty-odd tons of pig-iron were cemented close down to her keel, and that floored over and stanchioned snug. For the rest, she was very ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... any picnic, boys," he said. "We've got to take our time and keep our eyes open. Dakota ain't no spring chicken, and if he don't want to come with us peaceable, he'll make things plumb lively." ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... mildness of the last question had been merely the cover for a bursting wrath that now sent his voice booming, "maybe you know a whole pile, boy—I hear Jasper has give you consid'able education—but what you know is plumb wasted on me. Understand? As for lookin' up another blacksmith, you ought to know they ain't another shop in ten miles. You'll do this job, and you'll do it my way. Maybe you got another way ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... the train was held up, robbed, and burned by a band of Sioux. Bradford and the train crew were rescued by General Dodge himself, who happened to be following them with his "arsenal" car, and who heard at Plumb Creek of the fight and of the last stand that Bradford and his handful of men were making in the way car, which they had detached and pushed back from the burning train. Such cool heroism as Bradford ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... was named Luvenia Polk. She got plumb away and stayed away. On account of that, I was raised by my mother. She went to Atchison, Kansas—rode all through them woods on that cow. Tore her clothes all off on ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... kill't. Just hidin' out in the woods, and mostly from each other. It's a turrible thing." He looked down at himself with a wry grimace. "Not outta shame," he added. "We've seen naked bodies before. Just plumb scared, I guess." ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... might slip around and gather up their guns," said Pringle. "Pick out one for yourself. I left yours where I threw it when I picked it out of your belt. I meant to knock you out, Chris—there wasn't any other way; but I didn't mean to plumb kill you. You hit your head on a rock when you fell. It wouldn't have done any good to have got the drop on you. You had made up your mind not to surrender. You would have shot anyhow; and, of course, I couldn't shoot. I'd just have got myself ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... mortar from between two big stones with his knife. In five minutes he had it loose, and, grasping it with both hands, he pushed it close to the edge, and then peeped over. The soldier was some yards from the plumb. Jack looked down at the shrubbery for guidance. The smith raised his hand to signify patience. Jack waited. Breathlessly the ambushed party watched the two soldiers, who were now talking together. Would they never return to their doors? ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... gloves, And all the et cetera which crown people's loves; A magnificent bride-cake comes home from the baker. And lastly appears, from the German Long Acre, That shaft which, the sharpest in all Cupid's quiver is, A plumb-color'd coach, and ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... wouldn't wonder if 'twas account of you, Imogene. Hannah knows I—I like you fust rate, that we're good friends, I mean. She's—well, consarn it all!—she's jealous, that's what's the matter. She's awful silly that way. I can't so much as look at a woman, but she acts like a plumb idiot. Take that Abbie Larkin, for instance. One time she—ho, ho! I did kind of get ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hit them. But, this is goin' to get monotonous sometime an' I'll want to leave here. They've got my horse, an' it's a cinch I ain't goin' away afoot. Guess I'll have to borrow one like Ol' Bat did down to Las Vegas an' get plumb out of the country. An' there's another reason I can't linger to get venerable amongst my present peaceful surroundin's. When Ol' Bat finds I've quit the outfit he'll trail me down, just as sure as I'm goin' to take another drink, ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... "I plumb forgot what I come over here for. They's goin' to be a dance over to town, an' I come to tell you about it. O' course ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... heavy trench-mortar work by the Hun, and "minnies" were constantly stealing over with evil intent to batter down our flimsy breastworks. Battalion H.Q. and the signallers will probably not easily forget the morning when they found themselves the objective in this kind of work. One shot dropped plumb on the H.Q. concrete shelter, half removing the roof and scattering the contents of the orderly room in a disrespectful manner, whilst the next one pushed in the signaller's dug-out, wounding L.-Cpl. Wild. It was the sang-froid of a/R.S.M. Clough on this occasion, ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... I put it? That willing lad of yours has plumb knocked the answer out of my noodle. Maybe you're thinking of some one else, Buck." Dingwell looked up at him with an ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... I killed him," continued Mrs. Wiggs, calmly. "The doctor an' ever'body said so. He was jes' gitten over typhoid, an' I give him pork an' beans. He was a wonderful man! Kept his senses plumb to the end. I remember his very las' words. I was settin' by him, waitin' fer the doctor to git there, an' I kep' saying 'Oh, Mr. Wiggs! You don't think you are dying do you?' an' he answered up jes' as natural an' fretful-like, 'Good lan', Nancy! How do I know? I ain't never died before.' ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... by a shot, broke off near the head, the bow lifted from the waves, and then came the end. Suddenly assuming a perpendicular position, caused by the falling aft of the battery and stores, straight as a plumb-line, stern first, she went down, the jibboom being the last to appear above water. Down sank the terror of merchantmen, riddled through and through, and as she disappeared to her last resting place, not a cheer arose from the victors. To borrow the language of the ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... the British prisoners; such is the difference in the two countries in point of cheap food. On thanksgiving days, and on Christmas days, and such like holy days, we, in America, used to treat these European prisoners with geese, turkies, and plumb pudding. Many of these fellows declared that they never in their lives sat down to a table to a roasted turkey, or even a roasted goose. It is a fact, that when the time approached for drafting the British prisoners ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... about it; he must unravel Rabbinical and Talmudic tendencies; he must acquaint himself with the heretical leanings of a certain era, and the shadow cast upon the page by apocryphal tradition. In philosophy he is still worse off, because he must plumb the depths of metaphysical jargon and master the criticism ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... down to this office and informed me he was, plumb weary of the life of a bon vivant and was anxious to get to sea again. So I made him master of a new steamer we acquired recently, and he's gone out to Vladivostok with munitions ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... hundred tailors were employed in the same manner to make me clothes; but they had another contrivance for taking my measure. I kneeled down, and they raised a ladder from the ground to my neck; upon this ladder one of them mounted, and let fall a plumb-line from my collar to the floor, which just answered the length of my coat: but my waist and arms I measured myself. When my clothes were finished, which was done in my house (for the largest of theirs would ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... grave To wear his purple. And the night disgorged Its empires, till, O, like the swirl of dust Around their marching legions, that dim cloud Of doubt closed round him. Was there any man So sure of heart and brain as to record The simple truth of things himself had seen? Then who could plumb that night? The work broke off! He knew that he was wrong. I knew it, too! Once more that stately structure of his dreams Melted like mist. His eagles perished like clouds. Death wound a thin horn through the centuries. The grave resumed his forlorn emperors. His empires crumbled back to a little ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... to trace the ledge up and down the gulch and to estimate the probable extent of that pay streak. Then he gave it up in self-defense. "I've got to watch my dodgers," he admonished himself, "or I'll go plumb loco and imagine I'm a millionaire. I'll pan what I can get at and let it go at that. And I've got to count what gold shows up in the sack—and no more. Good Lord! I can't afford to make a fool of myself at this stage of the game! I've got to sit right down on my imagination ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... pleaded, "you've drubbed him enough. Shake me if you ain't through yet. You'll have him plumb addled! Really, we were just in for some fun. We never dreamed the kids would scare so easy. That's only vegetable dye on Rosslyn's head. He thought we had scalped him, but we ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... what it is given to very few men to see. From horizon to horizon, as if built by plumb, line and square, stretched a glittering wall, reaching from the forest to the sky. The base of this wall was lost in snow-white billows of ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... more uncertain quantity. Sometimes he could get it at the expense of pitch, sometimes at the expense of pace. Some days he could get all three, and then he was an uncommonly bad man to face on anything but a plumb wicket. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... with a gun, and nobody knows what'll happen when it goes off. If he can't find Reddy Fox, just as likely as not he'll point it at somebody else just fo' fun. Ah hope he doan meet up with mah ol' woman or any of mah li'l' pickaninnies. Ah'm plumb afraid of a boy with a gun, Ah am. 'Pears like he doan have any sense. Ah reckon Ah better be moving along right smart and tell mah family to stay right close in the ol' hollow tree," muttered Unc' Billy Possum, slipping out from his ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... and were very tempting to the eye. George loved plumbs above all other fruit, and he walked very slowly from the parlour with his eyes fixed on the basket. The longer he looked, the more he wished to taste them. One plumb, he thought, would not be missed; and as he put his hand in to take that one, two others lay close under his fingers. It was as easy to take three as one, and the three plumbs were taken and put into his pocket. When he reached the hall door and gave the basket ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... cross foaming burns, level enough for a hundred yards canter, then down, and up, hill sides in zigzags, here and there wet and muddy with uncertain footing, through groves of bamboos and under splendid forest trees, some creepers hanging a hundred feet straight as plumb lines, others twisted like wrecked ships' cables, and flowering trees, with delicious scent every hundred yards or so. We felt inclined to stop and look, and sketch vistas of sunlit foliage through shadowy aisles of ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... unless officially authorized or personally desirous of visiting the silver-mines of Siberia. Crack! thug! The smoke clears away. By Jove! his imperial majesty has done it cleverly; hit the brute plumb on the os frontis, or through the heart, it makes no difference which. Down drops Bruin, kicking and tearing up the earth at a dreadful rate; cheers rend the welkin; pots, pans, and kettles are banged. High above all rises the ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... with their old world musical taste, would consider the musical gymnastics of the demented drummer in the orchestra, then survey the swaying Americans and come to the conclusion that the world had gone plumb ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... a lot in a hundred years and I don't know just where we are. I'm only guessing, doing dead reckoning on our motor speed. But we ought to see the place I've got in mind, before plumb dark." ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... wouldn't a made this trip for money if I wasn't so plumb anxious to see how Dubois saves that flour gold. You take one of these here 'canucks' and he's blamed near as good if not a better placer miner than a Chink; more ingenious and just as savin'. Say, Baldy, will you keep off my heels? If I have to tell you again ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... rather alarming theory, particularly if it be true, as it is said to be, that since 1880 the towers have perceptibly come out of plumb. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... she had willed it so, and so it had been. Now, in his own poor scrawl, the ghost of a lover too roughly discarded rose and walked again. And beneath the cheap writing and the unrestrained self-pity, she seemed to plumb for the first time the depths of the boy's present misery. The old story, having struck him down once, had hunted him out and struck him down again. Where now ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... always passes through it. These are resultants of the relative moments of the molecules. If a body is suspended, as by a string, the centre of gravity always lies vertically under its point of suspension. By two trials the point of intersection of plumb lines from the point of suspension being determined the centre of gravity is known. The vertical from the point of support coincides with ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... the speediest girl on the main floor, and now that she's come into those five hundred, instead of planting it for a rainy day, she's quit work and gone plumb crazy with it." ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... of you and me, As the two gifts they want, Say Classic lore and Cookery Are things for which they pant; Believe me, my dear Heptarchy, They plumb profoundest Cant!" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various
... the school question, anyway. My woman says she sha'n't let our Helen go ter school again this winter, for she's got one cold right on top of another las' year. It's a plumb shame." ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... face again. Chances are he'll stick to his house all day Saturday and Sunday; and when school opens on Monday prepare to listen to a tough story of how he got up in the night and in the dark ran plumb up against a half-open door, which would account for his black eye and swollen face. Oh! I know, because I've spun that ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... the original old homestead of the family. It was unspeakably decrepit and fallen from a former high estate. The old house presented to Maria's fancy something in itself degraded and loathsome. It seemed to partake actually of the character of its inmates—to be stained and swollen and out of plumb with unmentionable sins of degeneration. It was a very poisonous fungus of a house, with blotches of paint here and there, with its front portico supported drunkenly on swaying pillars, with its roof hollowed about the chimney, with great stains here and there upon the walls, which seemed ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Cole, between disgust and embarrassment. "I always claimed to be a white man, didn't I? You can't give a fellow credit for doin' the thing he'd rather do than anything else. But prod a peg in this. I'm gonna make that li'l' girl plumb happy. She thinks she won't be, that she's lost the right to be. She's 'way off, I can see her perkin' up already. I got a real honest-to-God laugh outa ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... you're durned if you care. And all the time you feel so bad about it that you must go and do something wicked right away. And taking off your hat to me was your idea of just about the razzlingest, dazzlingest, plumb wickedest thing you could ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... jus' plumb broke Old Marse up. It wasn't long till he moved into Tyler and left my paw runnin' the farm on a halfance with him and the niggers workers. He didn't live long, but I forgits jus' how long. But when Mr. Bob heired the old place, he 'lowed ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... had hitherto escaped her notice. She was at last convinced that she had to contend with a man, a man who had dealt with both men and women. How deep was he? Could honors, such as she could give, and money plumb the depths?... He was an American. She ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... longer ate snails, they were quite extinct; but the burdocks were not extinct, they grew and grew all over the walks and all the beds; they could not get the mastery over them—it was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there stood an apple and a plumb-tree, or else one never would have thought that it was a garden; all was burdocks, and there lived the ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... got to be as hard and tough as leather, to be able to go for days without food or drink, to know the country well, to sleep when he does sleep with his ears open, to be up to every red skin trick, to be able to shoot straight enough to hit a man plumb centre at three hundred yards at least, and to hit a dollar at twenty yards sartin with his six-shooter. If you feel as you have got all them qualifications you can start off as soon as you like, and the chances aren't more'n twenty to one agin your ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... likely to know; for the Master of Saint Bede's was a person, the depth of whose nature could not be fathomed easily with any line. Possibly because, old as he was, it happened, as does happen in some lives, that the right plumb-line, by the right hand, ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... that the Senate was becoming less and less desirable each year, and began to lose interest in it. He did not like the rough-and-tumble methods of debate of a number of Western Senators who were coming to take a more prominent place in the Senate. On one occasion Senator Plumb, of Kansas, attacked Senator Edmunds most violently, and without any ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... but I was plumb mad. I pulled a San Augustine paper out of my hip-pocket, and showed him an item. It was a half a column about the marriage of Myra ...
— Options • O. Henry
... retorted Furlong. "He's above such jobs. No, sir! This afternoon Jessup ran plumb into Mr. Ellis when that little beast bunkie of the other beast, Mr. Briggs, was just in the act of dropping soft soap into the shoes that Aldrich will ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... thereabouts; this is filled with stiff, well-worked mud, which is dumped in by bucketsful and continually tramped by barefooted laborers; harder bricks are used for the doorways and windows. The bricklayer uses mud for mortar and his hands for a trowel; he works without either level or plumb-line, and keeps up a doleful, melancholy chant from morning to night. The mortar is handed to him by an assistant by handsful; every workman is smeared and spattered with mud from head to foot, as though glorying in covering themselves ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... scaffolding to buttress up one of the walls of the old manse. The heritors marvelled a little at the strange request, but, glad of being saved from the cost of a new building, authorised the buying of some sturdy joists to prop up a wall that the minister averred was off the plumb. No sooner was the buttressing timber in position than Mr. Rogers appeared with a violent complaint in the Sheriff Court, declaring that the manse was like to fall about his ears, and that the heritors had palpably ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... This muchacho evidently had spirit. Pete's invention, made on the spur of the moment, had hit "plumb center," as he told himself. For Montoya immediately became gracious, proffered Pete tobacco and papers, and suggested coffee, which the young Mexican made while Pete and the old man chatted. Pete was deeply impressed by his reception. He felt that he had made a hit with Montoya—and that the ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Joe, catching the boy's arm in a friendly grip, with an odd respect in his touch, which marked the admission of young Farrar into the brotherhood of hunters. "I hadn't a charge left, an' not even my hunting-knife. Lots o' city swells 'u'd have been plumb scared before a growler like that,"—touching Bruin's carcass with his foot,—"even if they had a small arsenal to back 'em up. They'd have dropped rifle and cartridges, and hugged the nearest trunk. I've seen fellers do it scores o' times, bless ye! after they came out here rigged ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... teeth, if you please, and dragged far out on the giddiest of yards, and after being wormed and twisted about through all sorts of intricacies—turning abrupt corners at the abruptest of angles—is to be dropped, clear of all obstructions, in a straight plumb-line right down to the deck. In the course of this business, there is a multitude of sheeve-holes and blocks, through which you must pass it; often the rope is a very tight fit, so as to make it like threading a fine cambric needle with rather coarse thread. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... N. 80 W. 3 ms to a pt. on S. S. passed a Isd. Called Sheeco Islan wind from the N W Camped in a Prarie on the L. S., Capt Lewis & my Self Walked out 3 ms. found the Country roleing open & rich, with plenty of water, great qts of Deer I discovered a Plumb which grows on bushes the hight of Hasle, those plumbs are in great numbers, the bushes beare Verry full, about double the Sise of the wild plumb Called the Osage Plumb & am told they ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... you teches him, we's gone—we's gone sho'! I ain't gwine anear him, not for nothin' in dis worl'. Mars Tom, he's plumb crazy." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... talking rapidly of data which he had derived from his metric photograph, from plumb line, level, compass, and tape, astronomical triangle, vertices, zenith, pole and sun, declination, azimuth, solar time, parallactic angles, refraction, and a ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... faine this womans secretarie knowe, Lett him attend the markes that I shall showe: He is a youth almost two handfulls highe, Streight, round, and plumb, yett ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash
... front wheel and prodigious feats of balancing, squeezing out of the machine's momentum the last possible fraction of an inch. There was a magnificent distance record when, on one single occasion only, he had been deposited plumb in line with his own gate; and there was a divertingly lamentable shortage record, touched on more than one occasion, when he had come to ground plumb in line with the gate of Mr. Fargus, his ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... he at last understood the character of this funereal, termite-like labour—these chance burrowings continued according to requirements, without art, method, or symmetry. The rugged soil was ever ascending and descending, the sides of the gallery snaked: neither plumb-line nor square had been used. All this, indeed, had simply been a work of charity and necessity, wrought by simple, willing grave-diggers, illiterate craftsmen, with the clumsy handiwork of the decline and fall. Proof thereof was furnished by the inscriptions and ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... popped off the crackers and dropped my cigar into Vesuvius. I tell you he was worth four and eightpence, and the man was right when he said there wasn't his match in London. I doubt if there was his match anywhere for being plumb- full of red balls and green balls and blue balls and crimson stars and fizzlegigs and whole torrents of tiny crackers and chase-me- quicks, and when you about thought he was never going to stop he shot up a silver spray and a gold spray ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... funny thing," said Shoop as he mounted. "Now, if I was to tell that dog he was gettin' too old to ramble with me, he'd feel plumb sick and no account. But when I tell him he's got to do somethin'—like watchin' the house—he thinks it's a reg'lar job. He's gettin' old, but, just like folks, he wants to think he's some use. You can't tell me dogs don't know. Why, I've seen ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... beauty is no chance of hit or miss—it is inevitable as life—it is exact and plumb as gravitation. From the eyesight proceeds another eyesight, and from the hearing proceeds another hearing, and from the voice proceeds another voice, eternally curious of the harmony of things with man. To these respond perfections, not only in the committees that were supposed ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... nodded with satisfaction when he looked up at the rear facade of Miller's Folly. Near the edge of the roof, was a chimney. A plumb line dropped from the center of the chimney would drop about three feet to the right of the only window ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... that on Monday next, at the Theatre Royal, Drury-Lane, will be performed The Lying Valet, and that Mr. Steevens, at the particular desire of some persons of quality, is to act the part of Justice Guttle; in which character he will devour twelve pounds of plumb cake at three mouthfuls." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... flight, by means of which he could shoot, meteor-like, across the sky, and pass swiftly from place to place, and with it such perfect control over all his organs, such marvellous certitude in all his motions, as to be able to drop himself plumb down from the tallest tree-top or out of the void air, on to a slender spray, and scarcely cause its leaves to tremble. Now, on this morning, he lies stiff and motionless; if you were to take him up and drop him from your hand, he would fall to the ground like a stone or a lump of ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... place, seven great roads go out like the seven rays of a star, plumb straight, darting along the line, across the vast, bare fields of Flanders, past and along the many isolated woods of the provinces, and making to great capitals far off—to Cologne, to Paris, to Treves, and to the ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... much wheat, an' had to carry it on horses over into Ohio to get it milled. Took Pa five days to make the trip; an' then the blame old squaws 'ud come, an' Ma 'ud be compelled to hand over to 'em her big white loaves. Jest about set her plumb crazy. Used to get up in the night, an' fix her yeast, an' bake, an' let the oven cool, an' hide the bread out in the wheat bin, an' get the smell of it all out o' the house by good daylight, so's ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... herself, old Suffolk would have rung with the marvels that were thus revealed. Not only would an unknown sealing-island been laid before the East-enders, but twenty such islands, and keys without number, each of which contained more hidden treasure than 'Gar'ner's Island,' Oyster Pond, the Plumb and Fisher's, and all the coasts of the Sound put together; enriched as each and all of these places were thought to be, by the hidden ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... we call it," he said presently. Then he shook his head. The smile had passed out of his eyes. "No. It's a dandy notion. But—it's not true. They'd starve plumb to death. You see, Julyman, they're human folks—the ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... coach," said Cowan, "and a nice chap when you get to know him; no frills on him, you know. And he's plumb full of pluck. They say that once when he played here at half-back he got the ball on Robinson's forty yards and walked down the field and over the line for a touch-down with half the Robinson team hanging on to his legs, ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... he'd be hailing us, and ask 'what brig's that?' But none of these tricks will answer with t'other, who misses the whipping off the end of a gasket, as soon as any first luff of us all. And so I'll just go about the business in earnest; get the carpenter up with his plumb-bob, and set every thing as straight up-and-down as the back of ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that the water was dripping from it. Imagining that it must have been wet from the quantity of water shipped over all, the carpenter disengaged the rope-yarn from the rule, drew another from the junk lying on the deck, which the seamen were working up, and then carefully proceeded to plumb the well. He hauled it up, and, looking at it for some moments aghast, exclaimed, 'Seven feet water in the ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... "because already the sun is setting, and before long it'll be getting plumb dark. Luckily enough we thought to fetch that lantern along with us, though, and a supply ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... "Plumb lazy, I call it," grumbled Jack, "to cart away the worms a fellow breaks his back digging. Some worthless tramp is catching fish with my worms and I intend ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... of Olympus' crest at the temple of Pythian Apollo consists of (measured by the plumb line) ten stades, and besides a hundred feet all but four. It was Xenagoras, the son of Eumelus, who discovered its height. King Apollo, hail to thee; be ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... and to cover a wide area. As the rotary motion of the arrows increases during the fall, the direct line of flight becomes more pronounced until at last they assume a vertical direction free from all wobbling, so that when they alight upon the target they are quite plumb. ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... she allus was. She hadn't shifted but very little. The brook had gulled out the bank a piece under one eend o' the plank, so's she was liable to tilt ye sideways if you wasn't careful. But I pooked three-four bricks under her, an' she was all plumb again.' ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... drank his liquor and refilled the glass. "Most fat men," he imparted irrelevantly, "are plumb mindful that they're easy hit, an' consequent they're cheerful-hearted an' friendly. Likewise, they mind their own business, which is also why they've be'n let grow to onhuman proportions. But, not to seem oncivil to a stranger, an' by way of gettin' acquainted, I'll leak it out that it ain't no ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx |
