"Telltale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was stirred beyond his usual depth of emotion, and it was not altogether the sight of Fred Thurman's battered body that unnerved him. He wanted to believe that Thurman's death was purely an accident,—the accident it appeared. But Lorraine and the telltale hoofprints by the rock compelled him to believe that it was not an accident. He knew that if he examined carefully enough Fred Thurman's body he would find the mark of a bullet. He was tempted to look, and yet he did not want ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... bitter harvest from her summer's sowing. She sat and thought till her cheeks burned and her temples throbbed; but she dared not ease her pain with tears. The gong sounded like a Judgment-Day trump of doom, and she trembled at the idea of confronting many eyes with such a telltale face; but she could not stay behind, for Aunt Pen must know the cause. She tried to play her hard part well; but wherever she looked, some fresh anxiety appeared, as if every fault and folly of those months had blossomed suddenly within the hour. She saw Frank Evan more sombre and ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... stopped suddenly, and he knew! The man had lowered his paper, and as he turned his head to look out, the boy saw on his right cheek, almost concealed by hat and whiskers, a telltale scar. ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... shoulders. "Why, I'll keep on this trail till my legs is wore off above my boots!" and he turned to guide his pony up a little branch trail at the top of which stood a tent with the telltale windlass ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... already suggested, a Chinaman might have a long nail on the little finger, but he would also have the other nails long, wouldn't he? Furthermore, he might use the boards to conceal the prints of his telltale foot-gear; but why should he not have put on shoes of the ordinary type? If he had time to prepare the boards,—the whole affair shows premeditation, —clearly he had time to change his boots. The Chinese are usually small, and this might easily ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... The telltale newspaper item, reproduced above, outlines the story behind this volume. What is not made clear is the fact that the entire expedition was painstakingly planned many months ago, the publishers themselves making it financially possible by contracting with Dr. Traprock for his literary ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... value of gifts is gauged by the measure of self-sacrifice involved. In that little book was immortal love—old laughter—old tears—old beauty which had bloomed like a rose years ago, holding still its sweetness like old rose leaves. She removed the telltale fly-leaf; and late on the night before Sylvia's birthday, the Old Lady crept, under cover of the darkness, through byways and across fields, as if bent on some nefarious expedition, to the little Spencervale ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... automobiles racing through the streets loaded with armed men. There were crowds looking for a telltale face in their own midst. Guards, deputies, coppers were surrounding houses and peering into alleys, raiding saloons, ringing doorbells. The whole city was on his heels. The city was like a pack of dogs sniffing wildly for his trail. And when they found it they would come whooping toward him ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Joan, conscious of a telltale pallor, was leaning forward with an elbow on the table and shielding her face with widespread fingers propped against cheek and forehead. In the noise and flurry of the train it was easy to tune the voice to such a note that it must be inaudible to those at the adjacent tables; but ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... beside her on the grass. What would he say if he knew? He would not be pleased, she was certain, for during the month that she had been at the Double R—riding out almost daily with him—he had forced her to see that he had taken a liking to her—more, she herself had observed the telltale signs of something ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... in that, I saw, for all the listlessness of the tone in which it had been uttered. So I went skipping down-stairs and closed my baby grand and inspected the table and twisted the glass bowl that held my nasturtium-buds about, to the end that the telltale word of "Salt" embossed on its side would not betray the fact that it had been commandeered from the kitchen-cabinet. Then I turned up the lamp and smilingly waited until my lord and master seated himself at the other side of the table, grateful beyond words ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... my love; I come," cried Nell, in agitation, fairly running to the door to open it, but stopping aghast as her eye caught over her shoulder the sad, telltale ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... dwindled to sighs and exclamations. He felt the need of a competing sound as the chug of the spearhead in the ditch should announce the discomfiture of the West Germans. But before committing the telltale runes to this ditch, Hauptmann scanned it carefully over Linda's curly head, and considered thoughtfully its worthiness to receive so important a deposit. The survey could not have been more reassuring. Like so many of the main irrigating ditches that carry the water of Father ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... night, you never ought to have heard about it, and you never would have done if Uncle Bruce had not been such an old telltale. Just wait till I get him alone; that's all. Anyhow, he didn't think it a heinous crime did he ? I expect he gave a great laugh that startled every one ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... had made much of probable danger from the "bronchos," she had sent up those telltale puffs of smoke. During the flight across the Basin she had changed from boots to moccasins, which he now knew to be of Apache style, if not of Apache make. They would account for the moccasin print behind the crag from which his hat had been shot ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... whole repulsive, rotten business came back to me. And, changed man that I had become in the last six months, I saw myself as I had been. I felt that she was looking at me, was reading the degrading confession in my telltale features. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... is on the ground, indeed, that we take our four-foot census of the woods. How often we learn with surprise from the telltale white that a fox was around our hen house last night, a mink is living even now under the wood pile, and a deer—yes! there is no mistaking its sharp-pointed un-sheep-like footprint—has wandered into our woods from ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... Walter. I had not thought of that. Still"—he brightened—"I'm counting on human nature. I don't believe anyone guilty of the crime could have that towel in his possession, after the hints I have thrown out, without examining it so as to see what telltale mark or stain would be ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... turned to his wife. "Stay here at the port, Bobby. Wrap one leg around that lever, to anchor you. What does your telltale read? That gauge there—your radiation meter. It reads twenty, same as mine. Just pink, so we've got a minute or so. I'll roust out some passengers and toss 'em to you—you toss 'em along ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... eyes of thine, Else, though no accents fall, These stealing tears from mine Will tell thee all! Strange, that what lips deny, Is spoken by the telltale eye." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, murmuring lover's confidences behind the shield of his tilted hat, which hid from all but Evadna his smiling lips and his telltale, glowing eyes. He looked up at that last sentence, though it is doubtful if he had heard much of what she ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... She looked suspiciously at Arnold, whose telltale cheek flushed. "A young lady! Indeed! And ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... from their seats the three girls darted to and fro. The telltale spelling and copy-books were flung into the drawer of the chiffonier, and the key was turned on them. Polly, her immodest sampler safely hidden at the bottom of her workbox, was the most composed of the three; ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... blockade; and he had been in action with a steamer from the other side of the ocean; and he knew that this black smoke of the soft coal, exclusively used by English steamers, was a telltale in regard to such vessels. It had been an idea of his own to take in a supply of this kind of fuel, for while its smoke betrayed the character of vessels intending to run the blockade, the absence of it betrayed the loyalty of the ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... the flashlight between his knees, leaving his hands free, and from the leather girdle drew the old-time metal case, thin, like a cigarette case, and from the case, with a pair of little tweezers that precluded the possibility of telltale finger prints, lifted out a small, diamond-shaped, gray-coloured paper seal, adhesive on one side, which he moistened now with his tongue—and, stooping quickly, attached it to the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... you to go!" The moment she had said it, she caught herself with a nervous little laugh, and added a postscript of whimsical nonsense to disarm her utterance of its telltale feeling. "Why, I'm just getting you civilized, yourself. It took years ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... was not down at once. She was not down until she had taken time to bathe her red eyes, powder her telltale nose, smoothe her ruffled hair, and whip herself into the calm, steady-eyed, self-controlled young woman that Arkwright finally rose to meet when ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... not allow herself to go back so far. "If there is any fruit I DETEST, it is DATES," she often said laughingly. "Some people delight in a good memory—I delight in a good forgettory of the past, with its telltale milestones of birthdays and anniversaries of ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... down the path to the tree, but no Kentucky warblers were to be seen—not right away. So I sat down in the path and waited to see what would happen. It was only a short time till the female appeared, with a telltale bunch of worms in her beak. A moment later her mate also arrived, carrying a small worm in the usual way. The situation was growing interesting. The two birdlets chirped and flitted about in the tree for a long time, afraid to go down to the nest. I moved slowly and cautiously farther up the ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... waxed more angry, and they heard Bertha declare, "You're a horrid old telltale! Go on and tell, if you want to, and I'll tell what you stole out of father's desk ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... she saw some one coming, she felt the necessity of bringing her telltale face to order and getting ready to answer whoever she was to meet. As she drew nearer she became suddenly aware that it was Rosa Rogers coming with her arms full of bundles and more piled up in front of her on her pony. Margaret knew at once that Rosa must have seen Forsythe go by her house, and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... his single spot, almost invisible in the dust, until he found a second similar spot. This he marked, and dodging and circling, like a hound on a scent, the Snipe ran his trail from his first tiny spot to the trees near the creek where the horses had been left. Doubling, he patiently tracked the telltale spots up the path that led to the cabin. Then he called ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... chain, and held firmly between its jaws was the frozen leg of a marten. The keen eyes of 'Merican Joe saw at a glance that the animal had neither gnawed nor twisted its own way out of the trap but had been torn from it by violence. The Indian scowled darkly at certain telltale tracks in the snow, and an exclamation ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think," replied Miss Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale. ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... with her right hand. But in this latter movement she again exposed her brother by the very means she took to protect him; for quick-seeing Madge, observing the action, gently but firmly unclasped the younger sister's hand, and so disclosed the telltale marks of Ned's fingers upon the delicate wrist, by squeezing or wrenching which that tyrant had evinced his ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... survey, saw that it was real, nothing had changed; noted with mild surprise that he'd somehow remained in the shadow of his screen this time. He had lost track of time entirely but the suit's air supply telltale was in the yellow indicating about two hours more or less to go on breathing. In quick succession he reviewed the events, accepted the probability of the abandoned search without a qualm and made his decision. There was no need ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... the desert there was music that evening at Sidi-bel-Abbes, headquarters of the Foreign Legion. The soul of the Legion was speaking in its tragic-sweet voice, and the Place Carnot was full of soldiers sauntering singly or in pairs, mostly silent, as if to hear their own heart-secrets cried aloud by telltale 'cellos and ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... and mournful Absence of a most beloved BROTHER, who was in the Bounty with Captain BLIGH at the Time of the FATAL MUTINY, which happened April 28th, 1789, in the South Seas, and who, instead of returning with the Boat when she left the Ship, stayed behind. Tell me, thou busy flatt'ring Telltale, why— Why flow these tears—why heaves this deep-felt sigh,— Why is all joy from my sad bosom flown, Why lost that cheerfulness I thought my own; Why seek I now in solitude for ease. Which once was centred ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... me right away, and some strange woman would come, and maybe she'd whip Emmy. Emmy want Becky to go?" Sobs, and little arms clinging wildly to Becky's aproned skirts. "No, no! Well, she ain't goin'. But Emmy mustn't tell tales or she might have to. Tattlers are wicked anyway. 'Telltale tit! Your tongue shall be slit, and all the little dogs'—There! run now! There's ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... persuasions (for Gabrielli prized his friendship and advice as much as she trifled with him in a different role) persuaded her to spare the Frenchman the insufferable ridicule which her retention of the telltale sword would have imposed on one whose rank and station could ill afford to be made ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... her feet and hurried him out where some further wonders must be seen and exclaimed over without delay. But Lieutenant McGuire saw the pink flush that crept into her face, and his own heart responded to the telltale betrayal of her feeling for him. For never in his young and eventful life had the man found anyone who seemed so entirely one with himself as did this lovely girl from a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... why it should be given to the gales, and the salt-sea atmosphere, to be tossed upon the waves, and occupied by a rude shipmaster in his dreadnaught clothes, when the fairest lady in the land has no such boudoir. A telltale compass hung beneath the skylight, and a clock was fastened near it, and ticked loudly. A stewardess, with the aspect of a woman at home, went in and out of the cabin, about her domestic calls. Through the cabin door (it being a house on deck) I ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... moments, consolingly recalled to his mind how Monsieur Blanc's modestly denominated Societe Anonyme des Bains de Mer et Cercle des Etrangers made it a point to proffer a railway ticket to any impending wreck, such as himself, who might drift like a stain across its roads of merriment, or leave a telltale blot upon one of its perennially beautiful and ever-odorous flower-beds. But now, as he reviewed those past weeks of hesitation and inward struggle, a sense of relapse crept over him. As he recalled the picture of the clear-cut profile between the ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... for those passengers who are bored from reading, or poker, or promenading, or simply are incompetent to amuse themselves without external assistance, Peter ignored the dozen pair of curious and interested eyes which were focussed on his white uniform as he passed, with those telltale chevrons of golden sparks at the sleeves, strode into the wireless cabin, hastily closed the door, locked it, and thereupon gave ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... word of Scandinavian origin seems to unite the senses of 'grinning,' 'flattering' (see Love's Labour's Lost, V, ii, 109, and Ben Jonson's "fawn and fleer" in Volpone, III, i, 20), and 'sneering,' and so is just the right epithet for a telltale, who flatters you into saying that of another which you ought not to say, and then mocks you by going to that other and telling what you have said.—/Hold, my hand:/ stay! here is my hand. As men clasp hands in sealing a bargain. In Rowe's text the ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... however, Sir M. should come to hear that I had flown for succour to the enemy's camp, I fear it would be all over with the bargain for which Anthony and I are selling our souls. T. Slaney says he never shall know. He guarantees that Cook labels and other telltale marks shall be removed from everything, though time is short and there is much to do. He will be the power behind the tents, and I will be in them, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... so thoroughly and always her guide that it was not likely she thought of the white-feathers being the telltale. But now she realized that a man, one she knew of old as a treacherous character, one whose scent had always meant mischief to her, that had been associated with all her own troubles and the cause of nearly all her desperate danger, was close to her ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... seemed like hours. Gradually, however, the leader of the silent ships drew nearer. There was no mistaking the telltale reports in the wireless room. Basing his calculations on the chief electrician's reports, McClure figured the leader of the oncoming squadron to be now not more than half a mile away and moving steadily forward ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... new from the electric illumination of the hold, the blackness was positive, with the palpable quality of an element, relieved alone by the dull glow of the binnacle housing the gyroscope telltale, from which the faintest of golden reflections struck back to pick out a pair of seemingly severed fists gripping the handles of the bridge steering wheel with a ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... hours evidences grew thick and fast that tribes inhabited the island. Muro, and the different men, were continually finding traces, none of them, however, which indicated that the people were near at hand, or that the telltale marks had ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... strip. In a minute she dropped off everything, while I took off my trousers—coat and waistcoat having been already laid aside. I had brought a towel to lay on the couch below her bottom, to prevent any telltale stains. Laying her down on her back, with her bottom close to the end, her legs gathered up, and her two feet resting on the sofa, with her knees falling outwards (in the very best position for my intended ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... appearances" is the social law. "Do what you like, but save appearances." A dignified hypocrisy none disobey. These men and women, with the historic names, dare not show each other what they are. There was no flirting, no romping, no loud laughter; not a loud word—no telltale glances, no sitting in corners. It was a pose throughout. Men bowed ceremoniously, and addressed as strangers ladies with whom they spent every evening. Husbands devoted themselves to wives whom they never saw but in public. Innocence may betray itself, seems to betray itself—guilt ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... line in Fritz' territory we could see our shells bursting. The telltale flash meant that the Huns were getting a dose of severe medicine, though we could at that moment only guess at the destruction that was being wrought. Later we were to see the havoc worked by ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... thus believing am most fortunate. It was not Hermes led thee here, but Eros, And swifter than his arrows were thine eyes In wounding me. There was no moment's space Between my seeing thee and loving thee. O, what a telltale face thou hast! Again I see the wonder ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... answered, while a sudden smile dimpled around her mouth and the big glove went up to hide her telltale cheeks: "Uncle, if I must have lovers, I do wish they'd be more interesting. How can I like or respect men who go on as some of them do and then imagine women can feel honored by the offer of their hands? Hearts are out of fashion, so they don't say ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... vertical ascent and was slanting toward the latitude Bridget requested. The Pacific rolled up under the atomjet's polished nose, which sparkled with myriads of brighter star reflections. Then he recalled he couldn't play over the ocean and veered slowly northward, up the coast to the telltale configuration ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... ever eaten in his own home, where a high-priced cook held sway over the kitchen. There was also a meat pie that seemed delicious, both as to crust and contents, when opened; though Obed in-formed them that it was made of canned beef, and even displayed the recent tin jacket, with its telltale label, as confirmation ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... enter a tunnel. The effect is far more striking than in the daytime. The light is more concentrated, and the mouth of the tunnel we have just entered might be the entrance to Hades—for there is no telltale spot of light to prove to our senses the existence of any opening at the other end. The sound echoed from the walls and roof has a tremendous quality, and resolves itself into a grand sort of Wagnerian rhythm, making a vast crescendo, till with a rush we clear the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... sight without looking back, and there rose a picture in his thoughts to take her place, a picture of dark, defiant eyes, of telltale hair falling in betrayal of her disguise, as if discovering her secret to him who had a right ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... From his position Bradley could not see the wings of his captor, nor in the darkness had he been able to examine those of the second creature closely when it circled before him. He listened for the puff of a motor or some other telltale sound that would prove the correctness of his theory. However, he was rewarded with nothing more than the ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a whit. Is't dishonor to her purity To urge thy smoky flame to brightness worthy Of her? 'Tis what she wishes most; witness Her confusion and her telltale blushes. Do me justice, man; my thoughts are pure And dwell on lawful marriage only. Thou, thou Alone, couldst see impurity in that. I spoke of thee, man, of thee; and who Beside thyself would think a mottled thought Could touch a maiden linked ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... are a better-looking one than your cousin. But excuse me for changing the subject of the conversation, for I am losing time. I see by the telltale over our heads that the Bronx is headed to the south-west, which is doubtless the course you were ordered to ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... learn of the loss of her two idolized sons, he put the picture behind him. Here was a transport full of men, his own command largely, and a deep anxiety beset him when he looked over the sea, searching its surface for a glimpse of a telltale periscope. ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... the two bobbins of the electro-magnet end in two clamps, 1 and 2. The second of these latter is insulated from the clock-case. Both communicate with the extremities of the circuit in which is interposed the seismic telltale that brings about a closing of the current. Having noted the position of the hands on the dial when the clock was running, one can deduce therefrom the moment at which the shock occurred that set the clock ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... valley he found a gully which gave access to the water's edge. He descended, located a ford, and crossed. There were cattle-trails through the cottonwoods; he might have followed them, but he feared the telltale shoe-prints. He elected the more difficult route down the stream itself. The South Y.D. ran mostly on a wide gravel bottom; it was possible to pick out a course which kept Pete in water seldom higher than his knees. An hour of this, and Drazk, peering through ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... said Betty, trying hard to keep the telltale tremulousness from her voice—trying desperately to sound brave and resigned. "But we must remember that thousands of women and girls all over the United States are going through the same thing. And for the boys' sake, we must ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... walk on." Then, after a pause, she continued, "I found your note, Lizzie, and I am sorry that I have such a telltale face; but I am unhappy, Lizzie; yes, I am miserable, and I cannot conceal it. I would not obtrude my sorrow upon others, but it is my face and not my tongue ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... we may meet," she said, softly, at last,—so softly that he barely heard the words. Had she uttered no sound he could have been sure of her response, for it was in her telltale eyes. His blood leaped madly. "You will be hurt if you wait till the train is running at full speed," she cried, suddenly returning to the abandoned merry mood. She pushed him gently in her excitement. "Don't you see how rapidly we are moving? Please go!" There was a ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... waiting was over. The ship filled with vibration as Guns opened up. Twenty-five seconds to target. His eyes flicked from the sightscreen to the sky ahead, looking for the telltale flare of rockets—ready to follow like ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... Twenty minutes later, however, and before the trench was more than three parts finished, there came a tremendous change. Turning hastily to the river, Bartlett uttered a shout of alarm and called for light. He had approached the telltale stake, and suddenly, before he reached it, found his feet in the water. The river was rising with fierce rapidity at last, and five minutes later began to lick at the edge of the hay-rick, and churn along with a strange hidden force and devil in it. The pace increased ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... labored with his hands—until one looked at them. His hands were in strange contrast to the rest of him. Long, slim, mobile hands they were, with tapering nervous fingers—the hands of a thinker or of a musician. Telltale splotches of acid told of hours spent in a laboratory, a tale that was confirmed by the almost imperceptible stoop ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... sounding, but so intent were they on this phenomenon they were facing, they paid it no heed. Their eyes were alight, their lips in firm straight lines of resolve, as they dived down upon the invisible obstruction—whatever it was—from whose surface the telltale updraft came. ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... capitalized in the verses of the ancient singer made famous by Irish-English Fitzgerald. Her disguise was sufficient, only that her hair was so richly assertive. There was not any like it in the cattle country; very little like it anywhere. It was a telltale, precious possession, and Major King never could have made good a plea of hidden identity against it ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... trowel in one hand and her basket of weeds in the other. Wilmer wondered if she had been glancing up from some flowery screen and read the story of that altered posture. She looked sharply anxious, like a mother whose child is threatened. Jerome shrewdly knew that Marshby's telltale attitude was no ...
— Different Girls • Various
... called me a telltale. Now I'll go and tell papa. You got into a fine scrape for calling ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... objections, and having rolled himself in his blankets was almost immediately asleep and breathing heavily. The moment Dan heard his companion draw breath with a telltale regularity, he sat up again in his blankets. Bart was instantly at his side. He patted the shaggy head lightly, and pointed ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... of disappointment troubled her; but as he moved a chair for Maud, she saw on the one ungloved hand a little scar which she remembered well, for he received it in saving her from a dangerous fall. At the sight all the happy past rose before her, and if her telltale eyes had not been averted they would have betrayed her. A sudden flush of maidenly shame dyed her cheek as she remembered that last ride, and the childish confidences then interchanged. This Helen was the little sweetheart whose picture he wore, ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... answered the summons. He held a book in his hand, and as Rangely spoke she saw Austen's look turn quickly to her, and met it through the gathering gloom between them. In an instant he was at her side, looking up questioningly into her face, and the telltale blood leaped into hers. What must he think of her for coming again? She could not speak of her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... course was served, Commander Bainbridge ordered the ward-room doors closed after the attendants had passed outside. Then he stated that Captain Gales wished it understood that the finding of the telltale envelope under Ensign Darrin's mattress was the only circumstance against that officer, and that, in the captain's opinion, it was wholly likely that some one else had placed the envelope there with the intention of arousing ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... hours. Oh! here, where in that summer noon I basked, And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers, To justify a life of sensuous rest, A question dear as home or heaven was asked, And without language answered. I was blest! Blest with those nameless boons too sweet to trust Unto the telltale confidence of song. Love to his own glad self is sometimes coy, And even thus much doth seem to do him wrong; While in the fears which chasten mortal joy, Is one that shuts the lips, lest speech ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... last and stood up, shaking his head. Suddenly the Med Ship seemed empty. Then he saw Murgatroyd staring vexedly at the exit port. The inner door of that small airlock was closed. The telltale light said the outer door was not locked. Someone had gone out quietly. ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... touches were given, the transom was hung with heavy black canvas; a curtain of the same was so arranged as to permit its being drawn over the telltale cracks of the door. Dennis and Stover, sent to reconnoiter from the hall, waited while the Tennessee Shad passed a lighted candle back and forth over the sealed entrance. One traitor crack was discovered ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... disclosure; retection^; unveiling &c v.; deterration^, revealment, revelation; exposition, exposure; expose; whole truth; telltale &c (news) 532. acknowledgment, avowal; confession, confessional; shrift. bursting of a bubble; denouement. [person who discloses a secret] tattletale, snitch, fink, stool pigeon, canary. V. disclose, discover, dismask^; draw the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... nothing more to do here now," he concluded. "I can see nothing for the present except to go back to New York. The telltale burn may not be the only clue, but if the thief is going to profit by his spoils we shall hear about it best in New York or by cable from London, Paris, or some other ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... this, George Denham was in bed and fast asleep. He had been met at the door by Kitty Kendrick, in whose telltale face the blushes of that heartiest of all welcomes had chased away the pallor of dread and anxiety. Mrs. Kendrick was less sympathetic in word than in deed. She had known George Denham since he was a little boy in short clothes; ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... Teddy, vainly trying to stifle a telltale yawn. Uncle Teddy was secretly wishing that Katherine had overslept with the rest of them and did not have such a tremendous idea of good sportsmanship. But, being a thorough sport, he shook himself out of his drowsiness and ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... home the new and startling idea. "That current is one of the feeblest known to science, for the dynamo that generates it is no ponderous thing of copper wire and steel castings. It is just the heart itself. The heart sends over the wire its own telltale record to the machine which registers it. The thing takes us all the way back to Galvani, who was the first to observe and study animal electricity. The heart makes only one three-thousandth of a volt of electricity ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... of the street was a restaurant of no great pretensions. It catered to large appetites and modest purses. Its crockery and atmosphere were thick; its soup and napery thin. Into this place Soapy took his accusive shoes and telltale trousers without challenge. At a table he sat and consumed beefsteak, flapjacks, doughnuts and pie. And then to the waiter be betrayed the fact that the minutest coin and himself ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... down the highway to a point beyond the site of the forthcoming joust. While doing so, he kept well within the concealing shadows of the bordering oaks and beeches where the ground was soft and could give forth no telltale clip-clop of hoofbeats. His circumspection proved wise—as in one sense, of course, it already had—and when the false Sir Launcelot came riding by on his way to the castle and the chamber of the Sangraal, he was ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... that there was some feeling between the two men, though what it was about I could not say. As Miss Grey introduced us, I glanced hastily out of the corner of my eye at Kennedy. Involuntarily his hand which held the telltale sequin had sought his waistcoat pocket, as though to hide it. Then I saw him check the action and deliberately examine the piece of tinsel between his thumb ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... fine nerves. Several times he caught Aholibah's eye upon him, and he vaguely wondered if he had omitted anything—or, had he betrayed his feelings? In Paris the waiter who shows that he has ears, or eyes, or a heart, except in the exercise of his functions, is lost. He is bound to be caught and his telltale humanity scourged by instant dismissal. So when those fathomless eyes glittered in his direction, his knees trembled, and a ball of copper invaded his throat. He could barely drag himself to her side and ask if he ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... I saw another sacrifice; I overtook small shrivelled forms, children they were, by the dim dawn. How their immature coughings racked my heart and gave me that strange tightening of the chest! I could not keep my eyes from the ground whence came the sound of small telltale splashes, after each cough. Many times I stopped to hold a ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... have not starved my curiosity altogether," said Clara, smiling, "but have given it a little hope to feed on for the present, I think, woman though I am, I can promise all you wish. Seriously, Basil," she continued, "that telltale locket of yours has so pleasantly brightened some very gloomy thoughts of mine about you, that I can now live happily on expectation, without once mentioning your secret again, till you give me ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... never looked more beautiful to him. Her night's rest had restored the colour to her soft cheeks and curved lips; and in her eyes, when she looked at him again, there was a strange, glowing light that thrilled him. During the next half-hour he almost forgot his telltale disfigurements. At breakfast Paul and Peggy Blackton were beautifully oblivious of them. Once or twice he saw in Joanne's clear eyes a look which made him suspect that she had guessed very near to ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... Bess had retorted, straightening up defiantly with a large wad of the cotton still in her hand and a telltale tuft of it protruding from the keyhole. "I'm not going to have any skinny old man with a funny mouth looking in at me while I sleep, I can tell you! Nan Sherwood," she added threateningly, as Nan went off into a gale of uncontrollable mirth, "if you don't stop laughing, ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... hear anything," said Virgie, breathing very fast; but she too had heard it—a sound above them, a scraping sound, as of someone lying flat along the rafters and shifting his position and, while she spoke, a telltale bit of plaster fell, and broke ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... could not have inherited tuberculosis from two uncles who died of consumption. For years I had known that I was a marked victim. Silently I carried my tragedy, suspecting each cold and headache to be the telltale messenger that should let others into my secret. He was a veritable emancipator who informed me that heredity did not work from uncle to nephew; that not more than a predisposition to consumption ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... COMBATANTS.—The French have discarded the historic red trousers, and the elimination of lace, white gloves, and other telltale insignias of the officers, have been dispensed with ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... asked Violet about the necklace I suspected that it was no longer in her possession. I guessed that by her evasive answers and telltale face. When she left the room and went upstairs I crept after her in the shadows and followed her to the door of Nepcote's room. I listened to their conversation; I heard him promise her to return secretly to the moat-house on the following night with the necklace. My heart leapt as I listened. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... an old gentleman come to live next door," Prudence continued, taking up her sewing again, "who watches us through a telescope sometimes, and when he sees us in the green- almond trees he writes to Papa. He says it is for our good, old telltale. Once, though, he took us into his library and showed us some beautiful fossils. He said they were as old as Moses, and one of them might be a million years old. It was a fan-shell, quite whole and pretty. Fancy a million years! I wonder what the world ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... rough, and callous as he was, begged me, with tears streaming down his face, to retrace my steps. Alas, when would impulsive youth ever listen to wise counsel and take heed! I entered the ruins and saw a dark telltale pool oozing forth from under the door of a cellar. Oh, had I but then overcome my morbid curiosity and fled! But no! I must needs open the door and look in. I saw—I saw a beautiful whiskey barrel, its belly bursted ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... his brush into the whitewash again and again, until he had covered up the last telltale mark of Johnny's feet. The cabin was bright and shining when he finished. He pulled another stool up to the fireplace and ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... with the news that Yvonne was somewhat better, adding that she had come to take leave of me. Her composure surprised me gladly, for albeit in her eyes there was also a telltale light, the lids, demurely downcast as was her wont, amply screened ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... quiet street the detective suddenly linked arms with his companion. Probably he smiled sardonically when he felt a telltale quiver run through Ingerman's ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... threw back his head at the telltale little quaver in the voice and found Sarah Hunter smiling ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... old boards of the floor gave a telltale snap. It was behind him, and so loud that it shattered his vision of Big Tom and the pudding bowl. Some one was in the room! ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... expressions upon the face of the baron were many, and every change of expression was a telltale look to our hero, and as he was doing so well he ...
— A Successful Shadow - A Detective's Successful Quest • Harlan Page Halsey |
