"Shuffling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sacristy, where they waited till the singing ceased. The priest's deep voice spoke a few words alone, the nuns and pupils answered, and so again, through the short Responsory; and after a moment the soft shuffling of many felt-shod feet on the stone pavement was heard as the sisters and girls left the ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... for the first and last time he touched lightly with his cold lips the forehead of her he loved so well. They mounted the steps, she leaning on his arm, and entered the rose-coloured boudoir where the marchioness was seated, impatiently shuffling the cards, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... off the table and began shuffling them. "Exactly. As long as Snookums gets his questions answered, he keeps himself busy. Our young boot ensign has been assigned to the duty of keeping that mechanical Peeping Tom out of our hair for an hour. By then, it will be lunch time." He cleared ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... it; but I do not think it could have been later than the 20th. It had been four months since the day of arrival, a long, marvelous summer such as I would hardly know again. When I think of that time I shall always hear the ceaseless slippered, shuffling walk, and see the white figure with its rocking, rolling movement passing up and down the long gallery, with that preternaturally beautiful landscape behind, and I shall hear his deliberate speech—always deliberate, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... No shuffling, no evasion, no embarrassment, even under this crucial test. The Colonel was nonplussed. He led Tracy to a chromo which had suffered damage in a former owner's hands through being used as a lamp mat, and said, with a flourish of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... reason. Either they are irresponsible vagabonds who take this way of shuffling off their responsibilities, or they are men who have been caught in a net of distasteful circumstances. For instance, a civil servant or a solicitor or a tradesman finds himself bound for life to a locality and an occupation of intolerable monotony. Perhaps he has an ill-tempered wife, who, ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... the title of this chapter, that I shall introduce a set of ruffians armed with missive weapons; or, having named a trump, a set of gamblers shuffling and dealing out the cards: But whatever veneration I may entertain for these two fag ends of our species, I shall certainly introduce a class of people, which, though of the lower orders, are ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... for a quick shuffling of paws, there was no sound at first—Sheila chose her weapon of defense. She took down from its place the Eskimo ivory spear, and, holding it short in her hand, she put herself behind the great elk-horn chair. Her Celtic blood was pounding gloriously now. She was not afraid; though if ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... and they straightened, and one man answered. Kendric could not understand a word. Then, shuffling their sandaled feet, the six went out through ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... might still have to bear. It seemed to her that the murmur of their harsh voices went up in a great protest, an inarticulate cry of sorrow. While she looked on the doctor held back a long-haired man who was following a haggard woman shuffling in broken boots. He drew him aside, and when, after he had apparently consulted with the other official, two seamen hustled the man towards a second gangway that led to the tug, the woman raised a wild, despairing cry. It, however, seemed that she blocked ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... strange that I should have thought and speculated much about madness.—What does its frequent impulse to suicide indicate? May it not be its main instinct to destroy itself as an evil thing? May not the impulse arise from some unconscious conviction that there is for it no remedy but the shuffling off of this mortal coil—nature herself dimly urging through the fumes of the madness to the one blow which lets in the light and air? Doubtless, if in the mind so sadly unhinged, the sense of a holy presence could be developed—the ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... impatient slurring over of the most sinister riddle in the morality of Frederick the Great—these passages are, one must frankly say, disingenuous. But it is, so to speak, a generous disingenuousness; the heat and momentum of sincere admirations, not the shuffling fear and flattery of the constitutional or patriotic historian. It bears most resemblance to the incurable ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... shuffling his weight from one foot to the other. "Even if yours were the last word in this world, sir, there's another to ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... one might travel the length and breadth of the land and never find his match, or run across his equal. Imagine a medium-sized, chicken-headed, tow-haired sort of man with mild blue eyes, and a mouth nearly from ear to ear, who walked with a shuffling, half-apologetic sort of a gait, and who, when his countenance was in repose, resembled an idiot. For hours he would sit in his chair, twisting his hair in little ringlets. Then I used to say, "Bill is studying up some new devilment." His clothes were ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... for a time and then went shuffling off down Park Row. In the sudden descent in style of the dress of the crowd he felt relief, and as if he were at last in his own country. He began to see tatters that matched his tatters. In Chatham Square there were aimless men strewn in front of saloons ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... get his battery into position and to visit upon the President for particular acts, such as the revocation of anti-slavery orders by sundry of his generals in the field, and upon particular members of his Cabinet who were understood to be responsible for the shuffling, hesitating action of the Government in its relation to slavery, an effective fire of ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... large stories just for the fun of it and, I think, told them well. But somehow I got the reputation of not being strictly definite, and when it was meant to indicate this belief they had an ill-mannered way of informing you. This consisted in two or three fellows standing up and shuffling noisily with their feet on the floor. When first I heard this I asked innocently what it meant, and was told it was the noise of the bearers' feet coming to take away Ananias. This was considered a ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... buildings quietly and no one saw him go. He followed the map to the nearest barracks, shuffling tiredly through the dusty streets. It was a hot, quiet afternoon, broken only by rumblings from the distance, and the ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... scrutinizing the numbers until he paused in front of a house with a basement kitchen and snow-covered, sandstone steps. Climbing these, he pulled the bell, and they stood waiting in the twilight of a half-closed vestibule until presently shuffling steps were heard within; the door was cautiously opened, not more than a foot, but enough to reveal a woman in a loose wrapper, with an untidy mass of bleached hair and a puffy face like ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... close of the last verse of the psalm, when Hughie, whose eyes never wandered long from Ranald's direction, uttered a sharp "Oh, my!" There was a shuffling confusion under the gallery, and when Maimie and her aunt looked, Peter Ruagh's place ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... scattered people to condense. Starboard gangway, there! side away to larboard—larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships! There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quiet again, and every eye on the preacher. He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, .. and offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... I mus' be gwine back agin," responded Uncle Isam, shuffling to his feet, "en ef you don' min', Marse Christopher, I'd like a wud ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... among them, crying to them, touching them, caressing them. Love invaded his spirit and made his body tingle. He thought of the workers in the Chicago warehouse and of the millions of others workers who in that great city, in all cities, everywhere, went at the end of the day shuffling off along the streets to their houses carrying with them no song, no hope, nothing but a few paltry dollars with which to buy food and keep the endless hurtful scheme of things alive. "There is a curse on ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... must have the regular stunts," said Eleanor. There was a shuffling of chairs and she and Betty and the people who had had toasts slipped back to their own particular crowds, leaving the top of the table for the stunt-doers. It was shockingly late, but they wanted all the old favorites. ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... A shuffling of feet on the stairs told that she had been heard, and presently the not unkindly face of Samanthy Hobbs made its ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... the light grew, and the gas-lamps of Tyre beaconed with fading gleam. Overhead began a restlessness in the clouds, as of a giant drowsily shuffling off some of his bedclothes; but as yet he slept, and only the silver bosom of his ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... who weaves at her own door, Pillow and bobbins all her little store; Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shuffling her threads about the live-long day, Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night, Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light; She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, Has little understanding, and no wit, Receives no praise; but, though her lot be such, (Toilsome and indigent) ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... thrilling silence, during which one might almost have heard the boys' hearts beat as the doctor paused, and with his piercing eyes glanced up and down the long rows of awe-stricken boys. For a moment no one moved. Then there was a stir, a shuffling of feet, and Regie Selwyn, with cheeks aflame, rose slowly in his seat, and said in ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... raised himself to one knee and looked intently over the ground. The last of the climbing dacoits was vanishing through the window, high above his head, and one stood motionless below. He, clearly, had been left on guard to keep the foot of the ladder. Now Jack heard plainly a shuffling and creaking and straining above. The Kachins were trying to force the door which he ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... going down the steps again. There was a moon clear in a frosty sky. How white the steps shone! For all her life she remembered the big, unwieldy figure of her husband shuffling down them. ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... the hall, old Aulus Fulvius striding with martial steps and a resolute yet solemn brow toward the chair of judgment, like to some warlike Flamen about to execute the wrath of the Gods upon his fated victim; the son shuffling along, with downcast eyes and an irregular pace, supported on one hand by his detested cousin, and on the other by an aged ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... Mr. Gregory pointed across the road and said, "The 'Little England' farm lies over there, but produces less and less every year. The land is exhausted," Sir Robert thought, "The fellow is either quixotic or doesn't wish to sell. I rather think the first: there has certainly been no shuffling and pretending." Aloud he said, "The soil can't be exhausted. It is virgin still compared to that of England, and all that it needs is careful cultivation. It seems to me that what ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... and then Mrs. Jakes, now the only servant in the house, was heard shuffling along the passage, followed by a ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... the enemy too confident. Then I held out the palm of my hand for inspection and tried to look like a man pretending he does not believe in magic. Whatever Maga thought, the old hag was delighted. She began to croak an incantation, shuffling first with one foot, then with the other, and finally with both together in a weird dance that almost shook her old frame apart. Then she went through a pantomime of finger-pointing, as if transferring from herself to Maga the gift of ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... went cautiously; Maria and the others took the opportunity for a grand slide, and ran and slipped and slid and sailed away homewards, like mad things. One after another, they passed her and rushed along, till Matilda was left the last, slowly shuffling her little feet over the track the feet of the others had made doubly slippery; when quick steps came up behind her, and a ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... When Andrew came shuffling wearily up from the orchard, Fanny met him at the corner of the house, out of sight from the windows. She was flushed and perspiring, clad in a coarse cotton wrapper, revealing all her unkempt curves. She went close to ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... interminable. Henrietta Vance chose a card and put it back into the deck. Then the deck was shuffled and divided into three piles. After this Geary made a mental calculation, selected one of these piles, shuffled it, and gave it back to her, asking her if she saw her card in it; then more shuffling and dividing until their interest and patience were quite exhausted. When Geary finally produced a jack of hearts and demanded triumphantly if that was her card, Henrietta began to laugh and declared ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... on deck!" and the shuffling feet of men moving up the fore hatch intimated the promptitude with which the command was treated. R—— and P—— had already returned to the deck; but I remained below doing what little offices I could to assuage the anguish of King; and he seemed to desire my presence ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... to say at once do you hear me? and spare neither for Ransom nor yourself. Tell all there is to be told, without any shuffling." ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... destination. In five minutes the horses dashed into a wide clearing. An immense log fire burned in front of a two-story structure. Streams of light poured from the small windows; the squeaking of fiddles, the shuffling of many feet, and gay laughter came ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... down the hill to the palaces beside the lake—the palaces to which all France used to troop for pleasure. We moved soddenly at first, shuffling in our steps. But the drums were still rolling out their defiance and the bugles were still blowing. The laziest man in the French Army was doing his utmost to belie his record. The ill-shod, flattened feet took up the music. They began to dance. Were there ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... when dinner was on the table, I heard an unusual noise and shuffling on the stairs, and a heavy knock on the door. I opened it, and saw four men bearing on a pallet the form of my friend Paton. A police officer accompanied them. They brought Paton in, and laid him on his bed. ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... look at this tomfoolery!" holding up the fashion plates representing the new dress for the diplomatic service of Japan. Time has proved that he was wrong, and that the Japanese were right in adopting a new uniform, when they wished to fall in line with nations of the West. With their old shuffling habiliments and the cringing manners inseparable from them, they never could have been admitted to intercourse on easy ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... for the honour of my country, but I could not bring myself to realise that the national honour centres in my shoes. So I parted with them at the top of the steps leading up into the Minister's pavilion, and walking on what is known as my "stocking-feet," and feeling rather shuffling and shabby accordingly, was ushered through a throng of prostrate dependents into the presence of the Menghyi. He came forward frankly and cordially, shook hands with a hearty smile with Dr. Williams and myself, and beckoned us into an inner alcove, carpeted with rich rugs and ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... to Parisian squalor, made of dirt, which crusted and spotted the damp walls, the worm-eaten balusters, the disjointed window-casings, and the door originally red. Presently the cough of an old woman, and a heavy female step, shuffling painfully in list slippers, announced the coming of the mother of Ida Gruget. The creature opened the door and came out upon the landing, ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... as he heard the shuffling of feet. Men were carrying out the prisoner. With feeble anger he brushed aside the hand of a cuirassier who was trying to staunch ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... moment," profoundly remarks Professor Sedgwick, "suppose that there are some religious difficulties in the conclusions of geology. How, then, are we to solve them? Not by making a world after a pattern of our own—not by shifting and shuffling the solid strata of the earth, and then dealing them out in such a way as to play the game of an ignorant or dishonest hypothesis—not by shutting our eyes to facts, or denying the evidence of our senses—but by patient investigation, carried on in the sincere love of truth, and by learning ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Then there was a shuffling of feet as of a crowd going away. Sir Ferdinando having sat down, got up again and shook me warmly by the hand. I returned his greeting with my pleasantest smile; and then, while the people were moving, I spoke to them two or ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... none so grateful as OLD MORALITY. Curious to note how, when beholding the welcome last folio of his discourse, OLD MORALITY, uplifting his voice, said, "And now to——", there was a sudden movement in the crowd, a shuffling of feet, a rustling of garments, a motion as if the congregation were about to rise to receive the benediction. But OLD MORALITY was only about to observe, "And now to bring these imperfect remarks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... head-quarters, and that not a Bolognese would enter it. At dinner-time I saw only the Austrian uniform around the table. This was a matter of no great moment. Not so what followed. When I went to bed, there commenced overhead a heavy shuffling of feet, and an incessant going and coming, with slamming of doors, and jolting of tables, which lasted all night long. A sad tragedy was enacting above me. The political apprehensions are made over-night in the Italian towns; and I little doubt that the soldiers were ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... housekeeper as she led the way timidly to my room. As we passed into a dark hall in the wing, I noticed that it was closed by an iron gate with a grating. Three of the doors on the corridor were likewise grated. A strange noise, as of shuffling feet and the howling of infuriated animals, rang through the hall. Bidding the housekeeper good-night, and taking the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... when the workers are returning home; they drifted along singly and in crowds, stooping and loitering, shuffling a little after the fatigue of the day. There was a whole new world out here, quite different from that of the "Ark." The houses were new and orderly, built with level and plumb-line; the men went their ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... at the helmet. Tricasse ripped up the mail-sack with his long clasp-knife. "They stole our mail; they will not steal it again," observed Tricasse, sorting the letters and shuffling ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... up its voice again. This time it was "I love a lassie." Before the song was finished there came the sound of shuffling feet. One of the men in the next stall was leaving. Curly could not tell which one, nor did he dare look over the top of the partition to find out. He was playing safe. This adventure had caught him so unexpectedly that he had not found ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... of simple uprightness, kindled by strength, in the beautiful face of Reuben Miller's daughter. He did not know what to say. Draxy waited in perfect composure and silence. It seemed to him hours before he spoke. Then he said, in a miserable, shuffling way,— ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... that one may say we have no future there. Mr. —— and Mr. —— (as precious a pair of rascals as ever wrought upon the ignorance of a country) have disgusted all thoughtful men of whatever party; while the shuffling of our better men on the question of public honesty, their folly in allowing such people as Blaine and Conkling to taunt them into cheap hurlings back of defiance (as the silly Southern newspapers term it), their inconceivable ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... heard the door of old Spooner's room open and close, following which there was a faltering, shuffling step on the stairs and the thump, thump, thump of a cane, growing fainter until it could ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... forget the sight of the Professor as he appeared out of the darkness, shuffling along upon his knees where his garments were worn into holes, and by the feeble light of the lamp that he moved from time to time, painfully pushing the great yellow object forward, only a foot or two ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... but in taking that part, he is led entirely by headstrong obstinacy, caprice, novelty 'pique, or personal motive of some sort, and not by a steadfast regard for truth or habitual anxiety for what is right uppermost in his mind. He is not a fee'd, time-serving, shuffling advocate (no man could write as he does who did not believe himself sincere); but his understanding is the dupe and slave of his momentary, violent, and irritable humours. He does not adopt an opinion 'deliberately or for money,' yet his conscience is at the mercy of the first provocation ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Arrowhead living room. Chiefly the table's burden is composed of trade journals of the sober quality of the Stockbreeder's Gazette or Mine, Quarry & Derrick or the "Farmer's Almanac." But if, for example, one really tired of a vivacious column headed "Chats on Fertilizers" one could, by shuffling the litter, come upon a less sordid magazine frankly abandoned to the interests of ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... instant he lay still in bed after the shuffling process known generally as "cuddling down." And he knew that it was approaching because of the assistance the hall clock brought to his bewildered ears. For the hall clock—a big, dignified piece of furniture with a deep note—happened just then to strike the ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... this labour by holding with their hands a bamboo placed horizontally over their heads. Although, by going always unshod, their feet are extremely callous, and therefore adapted to the exercise, yet the workmen when closely tasked by their masters sometimes continue shuffling till the blood issues from their soles. This is the universal ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... bore some burden of household treasure, many some pathetically absurd family heirloom. Every kind of vehicle appeared to have been called into use, from smart carriages drawn by heavy Flemish horses to little carts harnessed to dogs. Over all reigned a stupefied silence, broken only by shuffling footfalls. Among them the absence of automobiles and light horses would indicate all such had been commandeered by the Belgian military authorities. Their cavalry was badly in need of good light-weight mounts. At crossroads passage to imagined safety ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... were sitting in a group before the hotel when a man was seen approaching them with shuffling steps. Uncle John looked at him closely and Mumbles leaped from Patsy's lap and rushed at the stranger with ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... hoarseness, but capable of every shade of colour. There was a playful and impetuous raillery in nearly all she said, and everything seemed to be expressed by mind and body at the same time. She moved her body restlessly, and while standing in the same place her feet were always shuffling. Her dress was homely—almost poor—and perhaps a little careless. She appeared to smile and laugh continually, and yet there were tears in ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... straightway forgot him. Once he had his two horses "lined out" in their shuffling little trail-trot that was their natural gait, he picked up his dream where he had been interrupted. Where his body went mattered little to Johnny Jewel, so long as he was left alone with his thoughts. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... how Balaam felt," she said, irrelevantly, and fell to shuffling the cards. "You don't, and you won't, understand that Virginia is a human being. In any event, I wish you ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... a murmur, a shuffling of feet, and a turning of heads; eyes looking into eyes, saying, "Ah, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... five hundred feet of the end of the receiving line of the villagers. Angel, the orang-outan, was in the line also. The sight of the wagons was too much for him. He scampered along the street in that peculiar shuffling gait that all the villagers knew, and started for ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... little group of people with strained faces and staring eyes presented themselves behind the Captain; she recognized several men, the stewardesses, and Mrs. Stanislaw; while in the shadows beyond them was whispering and much shuffling. The whole ship seemed to be afoot. Captain Carey gave one swift look round the cabin, then his eyes rested on her startled face, and he patted her arm ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... cannon and murmured over by the foliage of tropic trees, gives an air of old-world distinction to the long Bay street, whose white houses, with their jalousied verandas, ran the whole length of the water-front, and all the long sunny days the air is lazy with the sound of the shuffling feet of the child-like "darky" population and the chatter of the ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... discomfiture (though not mine—we had been partners) with a Welsh rabbit and a tumbler of something hot. We had done with the cards, but while she waited for this refreshment she sat with her elbows on the table shuffling ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... building not far from Baxter street. The front door was unlocked. He opened it, and feeling his way up—for there were no lights—knocked in a peculiar way at a door just at the head of the stairs. His knock was evidently heard, for shuffling steps were heard within, a bolt was drawn, and Marlowe confronted a little old man, of feeble frame and deeply furrowed face, who scanned the face of his visitor by the light of a candle which ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... cooking food so hungrily that he felt pity for them, and he touched one of them on the shoulder and asked him if he would like something to eat. The boy looked at him, but did not answer, and his companion came shuffling to his side ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... The two men came shuffling into the cabin, looking like gleaming ghosts in their chameleon-suits, which repeated the color of the walls. "Someday," growled Johnny, "there'll be a type suit where you can ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... admittance, thrust hairy faces in at the open windows. A row of dusty, grease-covered lamps flanked by composition metal reflectors, concentrated light upon the shelled spot, leaving the remainder of the room in variant shadow. The low murmur of suppressed conversation, accompanied by the unconscious shuffling of restless feet, sounded through the place. Becoming constantly more noticeable, an unpleasant, penetrating odor, of the unclean human animal ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... of the servant was contagious. Uel began to believe the master would come. He was congratulating himself upon the precaution he had taken in leaving a man at the port to conduct him rightly when he heard a shuffling of feet below stairs. He listened startled. There were several men in the company. Steps shook the floor. Uel and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... extending his folded arms above his head and stretching his crossed legs under the table as far as possible, upon noticing which all laughed. His Excellency wished to change the course of the conversation, so, throwing down the cards he had been shuffling, he said half seriously: "Come, come, enough of jokes and cards! Let's get to work, to work in earnest, since we still have a half-hour before breakfast. Are there many matters to be ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... path; a running grumble of unmistakable threats; a shambling moonlit figure seen in glimpses through the leaves, very near us for an instant, then hidden by the shrubbery as he passed within a few yards of our hiding-place. A diminuendo of the shuffling steps; then a cursing, frightened savage at one end of the rhododendrons, and we two stealing out at the other, hand in hand, and bent quite double, into ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... murmuring and shuffling of feet outside again, and Rosalie left the room hurriedly and went below to stop it. She met the men who were bringing the body of Jo Portugais ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... his old one, knowing how sure-footed he was, how easy in his paces, and how quiet in his pasture. 'Very true, O Lucian,' said he; 'the horse is a clever horse; noble eye, beautiful figure, stately step; rather too fond of neighing and of shuffling a little in the vicinity of a mare; but tractable and good tempered.' 'I would not have parted with him then,' said I. 'The fact is,' replied he, 'my grandfather, whom I am about to visit, likes no horses but what are Saturnized. To-morrow ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... him to get through, of course. Five long, long minutes he smoothly shuffled away—a pause followed, then something fell with a thump on the floor. I said to myself "There—he is pulling off his boots —thank heavens he is done." Another slight pause—he went to shuffling again! I said to myself, "Is he trying to see what he can do with only one boot on?" Presently came another pause and another thump on the floor. I said "Good, he has pulled off his other boot—NOW he is done." But he wasn't. The next moment he was shuffling again. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... dexterity rather than physical force) is held by a woman; and anyone who will watch girls making change before the pneumatic tubes in the great department stores about Christmas time will experience the same wonder one feels on first seeing a professional gambler shuffling cards. ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... state of continual fever; my nights were turned into days; and, during the few hours of sleep—but not of repose—which gave me strength to return to the gaming-table, the rattling of the dice and the shuffling of the cards haunted me in my dreams, with alternations of exultation and despair, as vivid though not as distinct, as in my waking hours. At first, (the old history of all such cases,) I won immensely, and this encouraged me to play higher and ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... still remains the sense of 'command' in 'Empire;' and in the past history of our Government of the Cape Colony there has been too little wholesome command and obedience, and too much opportunism, shuffling off of responsibility, with self-sufficient ignorance and doctrinaire foolishness taking the place of knowledge and insight. Want of courage is, I think, in short, at the ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... victory half won. Deerfoot could not stifle a feeling of resentment over the contemptuous behavior of Taggarak toward him. Instead of contenting himself with merely challenging the Shawanoe to mortal combat, he sent him word that all that was left for him to do was to choose between two methods of shuffling off the mortal coil. It was to be the Spirit Circle or by the knife of the Blackfoot. This scornful treatment of the youth angered him, and it was one of the reasons why he decided to adopt a policy ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... that is what we hear them say. And they say truly. Many years ago I became acquainted with a millionaire who had acquired his wealth by building things, raising cattle, erecting factories—not by shuffling ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... episodes, occasionally glancing behind the scenes, during the pauses of the acts, and watch the unfolding of the world-drama, was thrillingly interesting. To note the dubious source, the chance occasion of a grandiose project of world policy, and to see it started on its shuffling course, was a revelation in politics and psychology, and reminded one of the saying mistakenly attributed to the Swedish Chancellor Oxenstjern, "Quam ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... from his own blood; he puts on emu feathers and gazes about him vacantly in stupid fashion like an emu bird; he makes a structure of boughs like the chrysalis of a Witchetty grub—his favourite food, and drags his body through it in pantomime, gliding and shuffling to promote its birth. Here, difficult and intricate though the ceremonies are, and uncertain in meaning as many of the details must probably always remain, the main emotional gist is clear. It is not that the Australian wonders at and admires the miracle of his spring, the bursting ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... who was ahead, stopped and aimed his gun for a shot, he was less than a hundred feet away. The shots from the two boys came close together, and bruin stopped in surprise, then, with a snarl, turned around and in a lumbering, shuffling movement started for ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... percolated through all the currents of Paris life, so that wherever one goes, in every quarter and at every hour, among the busy confident strongly-stepping Parisians one sees these other people, dazed and slowly moving—men and women with sordid bundles on their backs, shuffling along hesitatingly in their tattered shoes, children dragging at their hands and tired-out babies pressed against their shoulders: the great army of the Refugees. Their faces are unmistakable and unforgettable. ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... hard together. In the stillness he had his fight! And just then a shuffling outside ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... I heard something shuffling towards me at which the dog growled, then seemed to slink away as though it were afraid. I opened my eyes again, looked, and closed them once more in terror, for what I saw suggested that perhaps I was dead ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... Hugh," she said. "I knew not it was so serious. It is hard to realise that you are no more a boy, and must have the sorrows my sex provides for you. I like her, and I would help you if I could, but you are late." And she went on shuffling the cards, while I took up a book, being inclined ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... descend rapidly, with the little old gentleman in a shuffling run, and the Policeman springing from hand to hand as if he feared pursuit, and swaying his legs from side to side with a tick-tock, tick-tock. The going was easy. Soon the bottom of the slope was reached. Then ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... arrival of a ship from England an auction is generally held, and the various articles exhibited, damaged and sound, under the shade of some tree in the centre of the town; where an Englishman would be amused to see one of the first merchants shuffling round with a handful of tea, and telling the audience that it is just upon the rise, and recommending that he be allowed to send home a pound ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... sympathizers at heart with the enemy—upholding the institution for which it fights—obliged to bear the odium of its ancient opposition to protection, disgraced by its enmity to American manufacturing interests—apologizing in a thousand shuffling, petty ways for English arrogance—this wretched fragment of a faction, after assuring the South that the North would not fight, and persuading the North that the South was quite in the right in every thing, now appears as constant meddler and mischief-maker in the great struggle ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... court. It was situated in a back street. Like trails of ooze, when the tide, neither ebb nor flow, is leaving and making for some estuary, trails of human beings were moving to and from it. The faces of these shuffling "shadows" wore a look as though masked with some hard but threadbare stuff-the look of those whom Life has squeezed into a last resort. Within the porches lay a stagnant marsh of suppliants, through whose centre trickled to and fro that stream of ooze. An old policeman, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... recognising that for all the good he could do he might just as well not hurry back again, resigned himself to the inevitable, picked up his bridle, went into the shuffling herd of horses, and caught the one pointed out to him. It was a big, raw-boned, ragged-hipped bay, a horse that would have been a gentleman under any other conditions, but from long buffalo-hunting had become a careless-going, loose-jointed ruffian, taking his life in his hands every day. He ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... this miscarriage of their exploitation design when a shuffling sound in the distance proclaimed the shambling approach of the advertising department. And if Pee-wee had not made good his flaunting boast to handle the six merry maidens, he at least made amends and ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... this remarkable company of world-wanderers drifted, in the moonlight, above the universal watery grave of the drowned millions, with the harmonies of stringed instruments stealing out upon the rippling waves, and the soft sound of swiftly shuffling feet tripping ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... have been shuffling china plates like cards, from the clatter that could be heard in the Great Court. Jacob's rooms, however, were in Neville's Court; at the top; so that reaching his door one went in a little out of breath; but he wasn't there. Dining in Hall, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... Albion—if it is yours—who is a great gobemouche stuffed full of cotton, steaming with fog, clutching gold with one hand and the Bible with the other, that she may swell her money-bags, and seem a saint all the same; never laughing, never learning, always growling, always shuffling, who is like this spider—look!—a tiny body and huge, hairy legs—pull her legs, the Colonies, off, and leave her little English body, all shriveled and shrunk alone, and I should like to know what size she would be then, and how she would ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... quivering with wrath, seemingly making strong effort at self-control, then, with the old ring and snap to every word, he first sent the bar-keeper out of the room, telling him to take the flask at once to his quarters, then turned quickly on Crane, who was stupidly shuffling at a ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... already moving. They headed upstream, going at a steady, shuffling trot. Three of the women, Kieran noticed, had babies in their arms. The older children ran beside their mothers. Two of the men and several of the women were white-haired. ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... dealer's partner must collect the cards from the preceding deal and has the right to shuffle first. Each player has the right to shuffle subsequently. The dealer has the right to shuffle last; but, should a card or cards be seen during his shuffling, or while giving the pack to be cut, he ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... tamboricas strike up a lively twanging air, to which the circle of dancers endeavor to shuffle time with their feet, while at the same time moving around in a circle Livelier and faster twang the tamboricas, and more and more animated becomes the scene as the dancing, shuffling ring endeavors to keep pace with it. As the fun progresses into the fast and furious stages the youths' hats have a knack of getting into a jaunty position on the side of their heads, and the wearers' faces assume a reckless, flushed ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... that consideration and of the great importance of Sicily, it is not so much the value of the point in dispute as the manner in which the French fly from their word that disheartens me. It is not Sicily, but the shuffling, insincere way in which they act, that shows me that they are playing a false game; and in that case it would be very imprudent to make any concessions, which by any possibility could be thought inconsistent with our honour, or could furnish our allies with a plausible ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... had gone out, and sat there shuffling the cards and building them into various forms. She was thus employed when Overton again passed the window and entered the room ere she could conceal them. He observed her attempt to do so and ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the stage he Folly's standard bore, Whilst Common-Sense stood trembling at the door. How few are found with real talents blest! Fewer with Nature's gifts contented rest. Man from his sphere eccentric starts astray: All hunt for fame, but most mistake the way. Bred at St Omer's to the shuffling trade, The hopeful youth a Jesuit might have made; 590 With various readings stored his empty skull, Learn'd without sense, and venerably dull; Or, at some banker's desk, like many more, Content to tell that two and ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... station agent was threading his way through his car report, and remained provokingly unconscious of Harris's presence at the ticket window. The farmer took no pains to conceal his impatience, coughing and shuffling obviously, but it was not until the last box-car had been duly recorded that the agent deigned to recognize ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... before. A parody on a horse, to one who did not look closely, but to one who knows and who looks beyond the mere external form for that hidden something in both man and horse which bespeaks strength and reserve force, there was seen through the blindness and the ugliness and the sleepy, ambling, shuffling gait a clean-cut form, with deep chest and closely ribbed; with well drawn flanks, a fine, flat steel-turned bone, and a powerful muscle, above hock and forearms, that clung to the leg as the Bishop said, "like ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... warden sent to the hospital ward for No. 874. No. 874, that being Anse Dugmore, came shuffling in and kept himself upright by holding with one hand to the door jamb. The warden sat rotund and impressive, in a swivel chair, holding in his hands a folded-up, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... both of the air service boys shot toward their separate goals. Shuffling footsteps sounded that told of some one coming; but thanks to the swiftness of their movements the boys managed to conceal ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... and, with lifted hand, listened to the oath of office read in the clerk's sounding voice. He swore solemnly, with the help of God, to support the Constitution, and serve his people to the best of his ability; and he meant it. It did not occur to him that this oath was a shuffling and indefinite obligation. The room seemed to grow a little dimmer as he stood there; the lofty ceiling, rich in its colors, grand and spacious to him, seemed to gather new majesty, just as his office as lawmaker gathered a ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... The shuffling sound of footsteps was now quite audible upon the stairway, and soon the bloated face of Mr. Stevens's hopeful son was seen at the chamber door. In society and places where this young gentleman desired to maintain a respectable character he could be as well behaved, as choice in his language, ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... pause, Bill put out his finger and thumb to snuff the candle, but his hand shook—he snuffed it out, and we were all left in darkness. I can hardly describe the feeling which appeared to pervade the whole of our party. Every one was shuffling and crowding with their shoulders, but still no one ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... master. But Hassler did not seem to mind. On the contrary, it rather seemed as though her impertinence amused him; and while he went on growling, he chaffed the girl and took a delight in exciting her. At last Christophe heard a door open, and, still growling and chaffing, Hassler came shuffling. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... peals forth and a choir of sweet voices chaunts the 'Agnus Dei.' Again the congregation kneels to the sound of a silver bell; the smoke of incense curls through the aisles, and the golden beetles move up and down; again there is a scraping of chairs, a shuffling of feet, and a general movement towards the pulpit, the men standing in groups round it with their hats in their hands; then a pause, and for the first time so deep a silence that we can hear the movement of the crowd outside, and ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... all sides, and nearly to the ceiling, with carved bookcases of walnut blackened with age to the colour of old mahogany. There were a number of massive tables in the room, upon which the light fell agreeably from high clerestory windows at each end of the apartment. Meschini himself was shuffling along in a pair of ancient leather slippers with a large volume under his arm, clad in very threadbare black clothes and wearing a dingy skullcap on his head. He was a man somewhat under the middle size, badly made, though possessing considerable physical strength. His complexion ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... are not always as well equipped as our fellows and they may have no advance supply-base; but they know how to campaign. South of us are multitudes who will take a bag of corn, a water-bottle, and a pair of straw sandals and go shuffling over the hill trails for forty or fifty miles a day. And don't think they won't fight. They will. In countries where boys of twelve and thirteen pack a gun and go off with their fathers in the army, they probably do not worry overmuch about ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... communism, could he have found any that did not seem to him at variance with ineradicable instincts of human nature. All his life the artist and the moralist in him alike were in rebellion against the bourgeois spirit,—against timid, negative, and shuffling substitutes for active and courageous well-doing,—and declined to worship at the shrine of what he called the bestial goddesses Comfort and Respectability. The moralist in him helped the artist by backing with the force of a highly sensitive ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... evening the population of the street was of a mixed character. The street was busiest at that time; a vast and prolonged murmur arose—the mingled shuffling of feet, the rattle of wheels, the heavy trundling of cable cars. At four o'clock the school children once more swarmed the sidewalks, again disappearing with surprising suddenness. At six the great ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... was his right by kin." But Eadwine and Morkere, the representatives of the great Mercian family of Leofric, had hopes that they might turn William's invasion to their own good, and secure their independence in the north by allowing Wessex to fall unassisted into his hands. After much shuffling, Eadgar was at last chosen for king. "But as it ever should have been the forwarder, so was it ever, from day to day, slower and worse." No resistance was organised. In the midst of all this turmoil, ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... diseased feet as they rest upon their heels. In attempting to turn either to the right or left he allows his head to be drawn to the one side to its full extent before moving, then makes his hind feet the axis around which the forward ones describe a shuffling circle. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... History go on kneeling to the end of time? I am for having her rise up off her knees, and take a natural posture: not to be for ever performing cringes and congees like a court-chamberlain, and shuffling backwards out of doors in the presence of the sovereign. In a word, I would have History familiar rather than heroic: and think that Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding will give our children a much better idea of the manners of the present age in England, than the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... of another musical number there was a general expectation of dismissal, a shuffling of feet and a murmur of voices. This was checked suddenly by Bill. The boy had been near the receiver all the while, on the chance of being needed in case of mishap, or for a sharper "tuning in"; now he got what the others did not and rising he ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... pipes that gleamed in faint colors, just above its gradual soft approach. It passed them, already halfway across the great room. I saw then that its stature was that of ordinary men. The prolonged booming of the clock died away. I heard the footfall, shuffling upon the polished boards. I heard another sound—a voice, low and monotonous, droning as in prayer. The figure was speaking. It was a woman. And she carried in both hands before her a small object that faintly shimmered—a glass of water. And ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... He merely thought that life without happiness is impossible. What was happiness? He yawned and went on shuffling about and about between the walls of his room. Looking forward was happiness—that's all—nothing more. To look forward to the gratification of some desire, to the gratification of some passion, love, ambition, hate—hate too indubitably. Love and ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... exactly seven weeks later—that is to say, on the evening of June 18th, 1811—that as I stood in the doorway whistling Come, cheer up, my lads, to Mrs. Trapp's tame blackbird, the old Jew slop-dealer came shuffling up the alley and ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... white with fright as he did so. For there was a series of thumping, shuffling sounds, and a shrill noise that made his ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... sigh of regret. These sounds were quickly supplemented by the roll of the heavy carts which purveyed the only water suitable for drinking and culinary purposes; and by the sounds of wood-sawing and wood-chopping before the doors of the adjacent houses—sounds quickly blending themselves with the shuffling feet of the slaves cleaning the doorsteps and sidewalks, and chattering, singing, quarrelling the while with their neighbours, or with other early ministers ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... than six hours Ezra read on, from early morning until midday, yet still the people stood, still the people listened attentively. There was no stir in the crowd, no one asked what time it was, there was no shuffling of feet, no yawning, no fidgeting; in earnest, ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... possibly he owed three successive wives, the last one much younger than himself. Now, in his sixties, he was still light in his movements. He had a queer way of tripping along on the balls of his feet, with a half-shuffling movement, his hands buried in his pockets, with the thumbs out. He was, I fear, the sort of man capable of wearing a frock-coat unbuttoned. It was amusing to see him walk the poop with the captain of ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... wing of wind, Every tilt of breeze, Stirs a sound of frolicking In the tallest trees: Scuffling, shuffling, shouldering, Nudges, nips, and taps, Watch and wait a moment, ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... boat and proceeded to the inn, he was directed upstairs by the landlord, who was an enlarged and coloured edition of his brother. From the other side of the gymnasium door came an unceasing and mysterious shuffling sound. ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... within hearing, from oldest to youngest, would be wriggling and shuffling, as if through some magic piper's bewitchment; for even those who at first affected contemptuous indifference would be drawn into the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... passengers;) and I will own there was a pleasant feeling of superiority in being able to walk the deck, and eat, and go about, and comparing one's self with two poor, miserable, pale creatures, staggering and shuffling about decks, or holding on and looking up with giddy heads, to see us climbing to the mast-heads, or sitting quietly at work on the ends of the lofty yards. A well man at sea has little sympathy with one who is seasick; he is too apt to be conscious of a comparison ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... walked two other figures; one was the half-naked negro, the other the man with the plaited queue and the earrings, whom Tom had seen lifting the chest out of the boat. Now they were carrying the heavy box between them, laboring through the sand with shuffling tread as they bore it onward. As he who was counting pronounced the word "thirty," the two men set the chest down on the sand with a grunt, the white man panting and blowing and wiping his sleeve across his forehead. And immediately he who counted took out a slip of paper ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... of the old creature, she came shuffling along the back piazza with his breakfast. She let herself in by lifting one knee to a horizontal, balancing the tray on it, then opening the door ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... here is my father, who has come to escort me home," said Mademoiselle Noemie. "He speaks English. He will arrange with you." And she turned to welcome a little old gentleman who came shuffling up, peering over ...
— The American • Henry James
... something quite uncanny about the silence of the place. The monotonous ripple of the burn below seemed to intensify it. I stood in hesitation for a moment or two before venturing to knock at the door. When at last I had done so, shuffling footsteps sounded within, and Archie opened the door; the same bland smile which I had noticed when I first saw him appeared on his wrinkled face, and the faded blue ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... this chill early morning. He was slapping his long thin arms across his narrow chest, and performing a kind of amateur double-shuffle with his long flat feet, when Mr. Carter approached him; and he kept up the same shuffling and the same slapping while engaged in conversation with his superior, in a ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... to Mrs. Perkins, as the shuffling feet on the porch shuffled off into the night, "what ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... about Oxford and Cambridge. There were bashful youths too, who blushed when she entered and rose hurriedly with muttered excuses. If they could be induced to stay, Olive, seeing that it pleased Astorre to see them shuffling their feet and writhing on their chairs in an agony of embarrassment before her, did her ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... a donkey, and gave the boy directions where to meet him—a considerable distance from the appointed spot. He went himself on foot. He slipped in the heat along the sandy street, where strings of camels still go slouching, shuffling with their loads from the quarries that built the pyramids, and he felt that little friendly Helouan tried to keep him back. But desire now was far too strong for caution. The desert tide was rising. It easily swept him down the long white street ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... (1743-1805), a noted theologian. Cf. "On the Clerical Character" in "Political Essays" (Works, III, 276): "This same shuffling divine is the same Dr. Paley, who afterwards employed the whole of his life, and his moderate second-hand abilities, in tampering with religion, morality, and politics,—in trimming between his convenience and his conscience,—in crawling between heaven and earth, and trying to cajole ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... figure halted and then hurried on faster than before, with a curious, shuffling walk. It ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood
... play" has suddenly become as dead as Queen Anne. The grimness, the intensity of life, are amazing in this final scene, where the old happy ending is completely abandoned for the first time, and where the paradox of life is presented without the least shuffling ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... with wonderful good-humor to the well- meant strangulation, his black eyes intently fixed upon the dumplings which his foster-mother was dexterously rolling together, when a strange footstep was heard shuffling uncertainly about on the floor of the round-house just outside the dwelling-room door. Mrs. Lake did not disturb herself. Country folk were constantly coming with their bags of grist, and both George and the miller were at hand, for a nice breeze was blowing, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... for as Phil released his hold upon the handle he heard the door leading from the kitchen to the refectory open, the hitherto subdued sounds of activity in the kitchen suddenly became greatly intensified, while voices and the sound of shuffling sandals on the stone floor of the refectory came through the door which he ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... in Bliss). After "patches," "yet their footemanshippe is not altogether shuffling." After "His other poems are but briefs." "At more leisur'd times he makes disticks on noblemen which are put under their twopenny pictures that hang in ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... With a shuffling of feet the last of the crowd pushed through the big oak doors and they were closed and locked. An officer brought a corroded tumbler of brackish water and placed it in front of Mr. Tutt. The judge leaned forward with malicious ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... rarely incorrect. * * The very name of the sect carries with it an impression of meanness and hypocrisy. Scarce an individual that has had any dealings with those belonging to it, but has good cause to remember it from some circumstance of low deception or of shuffling fraud. Its very members trust each other with caution and reluctance. The more wealthy among them are drained and dried by the leeches that perpetually fasten upon them. The leaders, ignorant and bigoted—I speak of them collectively —present us with no counter-qualities that can conciliate ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... white tulle veil, and led in by my fellow- slaves, who were also in baggy trousers and babouches. There could be no doubt that we were slaves, for we were overloaded with chains on arms, ankles, and waist. I found circulation a very difficult matter shuffling about in babouches, which are the most awkward things to walk in. One risks falling ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... there was a looking hither and thither among the little ones, and a shuffling about on the small Derby chairs, while one or two pairs of eyes were suddenly turned to the fire, as if watching it relieved a certain degree of embarrassment which their ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... suddenly awoke with a singular feeling of dread and suspense. She listened silently, but for some time distinguished none other than the small sounds of night on shipboard—the indistinct orders, the dragging of ropes, the creaking of timbers, the dull, regular jar of the engine, and the shuffling noise of feet overhead. But, ere long, she seemed to catch faint, distant sounds, that seemed like cries; then came hurry and confusion on deck; then voices in the cabin, one of which said: "they never can get it ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... thieving butler he had discharged in London. His attention did not linger on this familiar soft-shuffling tool of the master thief, however, but snapped back to the big, good looking young man with the branching shoulders ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... only just fun; but I'm afraid it's something more than that—something they're ashamed of and really want to hide. I've seen such shuffling and queer business going on when any of the ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... words its own, and the public are more familiar with it than with any other. It was this air that a young man in a drinking house in Macao, near Hong-Kong, began humming thoughtlessly while his companion was shuffling the cards for a new game. Both were Americans, the man with the cards more than twenty years the elder. Noticing the tune, he threw down the pack. Every word of the hymn had come back to him with the ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... moments came the answer. He got to his feet, shuffling through the sand in the curious little half dance which betrayed his agitation more strongly than ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton |
