"Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his thumb, his forefinger, and his middle finger, he raised his hand swiftly, as though about to throw the snuff into the air, and, with his ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... acknowledged fact, that the American physique was rapidly deteriorating because of tobacco, and that coroners' verdicts were constantly being thus pronounced on American youths: "Died of excessive smoking." On the other hand, that eminent citizen of our Union, General Thomas Thumb, was about that time professionally examined in London, and his verdict on tobacco was quoted to be, that it was "one of his chief comforts"; also mention was made of a hapless quack who announced himself as coming from Boston, and who, to keep up the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... battery!" she called in her fresh, strong voice. "I make the charge, Girls!" she exclaimed, turning to the others, "that's the man who thrust me into that room, and locked me there. That's the ghost. I recognize him by the scar on his thumb!" ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... sitting with its back to the window, staring down at the floor. His clothes hung loosely upon him, and his thin hair was colorless. He slowly raised a wasted face as he looked toward the door. Pelle had already recognized him from his maimed right hand, which had only the thumb and one joint of the forefinger. He no longer hid it away, but let it lie upon his ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... lightning, and the air would have been clear again. But, as it was, he cut the face off the work with a knife, and deliberately trod the pieces under foot as they lay on the ground. He gave me one single blow—with his thumb—which I still feel, it is true, and then he treated me and my parents with such scorn, so coldly and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... has been intimated, is "Christian in its disposition, and well-behaved beyond most of its kind," will readily bite, if it is held in the fingers and anything is put to its jaws. But that is nothing. So would you, most gentle reader, if a great giant pinched you between his thumb and finger, and held your hands and feet and head; and if, too, like our spider, you could not see enough to distinguish friends from foes. Spiders, then, will bite. But to the second part of the inquiry our answer must be less ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... well, much wash in cold water, the rice flour make him stick. Water boil all ready very fast. Throw him in, rice can't burn, water shake him too much. Boil 1 1/4 hours or little more, rub one rice in thumb and finger; if all rub away him quite done. Put rice in colander, hot water run away. Pour cup of cold water on him, put back rice in saucepan, keep him covered near the fire, then rice all ready. Eat ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... water which had dripped from his legs lay upon the herbage and soft, dank, moist earth; but there was something else—footprints! Not Leather's, made by broad shoe-soles, but newly impressed marks with wide-spreading toes, the big toe in each case being rather thumb-like in its separation from ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... water from the hand upon the head and breast. In the ball play the ball sticks are dipped into the water at the same time. While the bather is in the water the shaman is going through with his part of the performance on the bank and draws omens from the motion of the beads between his thumb and finger, or of the fishes in the water. Although the old customs are fast dying out this ceremony is never neglected at the ball play, and is also strictly observed by many families on occasion of eating the new corn, at each new moon, and ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... all right!" the former declared. "And that's where old Sam kept his books." He ran his thumb-nail over the significant file-marks on the handle. "Looks like an alligator ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... musket, 1855; the Snider, 1865; the Martini-Henry, 1871; and the Lee-Metford magazine rifle. On the right, between two grotesque figures, called Gin and Beer, from the entrance to the Buttery of the old Palace of Greenwich, is a case containing executioners' swords (foreign), thumb-screws, the Scavenger's Daughter for confining the neck, hands, and feet, bilboes for ship use, and thumb-screws. Observe also the so-called "Collar taken from the Spanish Armada," which however was here in 1547, ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie
... impatience, amounting almost to pain, which every mother's son of us has experienced upon occasions of greater—or less importance than this. They were again at the very point of starting, when a message was brought to Mrs. Snodgrass that little Master Charles had cut his thumb dreadfully! What was to be done? Mrs. Snodgrass vowed she shouldn't be easy in her mind the whole day unless she knew the extent of the mischief; and as they only lived in Euston Square, and she could be there and back again in twenty minutes, she would herself go see what ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... Proclus, stroking his sharp chin with his thumb and forefinger; "but I fear that our beautiful Nike also cared little for this lofty virtue of the judge in the last coronation. However, her immortal model lacks ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... objected, "who makes the money dance; its that charming little woman of his. Ah, she's no bigger than your thumb, but she'd eat the devil, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... known to English Dealers under the name of The Lace Lizard, is peculiar in having the two series of the scales, placed on the upper part of the centre of the tail, raised into a biserrated ridge, and in the outer toe, or rather thumb, of the hinder-foot being long, and reaching to the penultimate distal joint of the first or longest toe; ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... fellows through long use in grasping limbs and rocks. This is remarkable of the Marquesans; each toe in the old and industrious is often separated a half inch from the others, and I have seen the big toe opposed from the other four like a thumb. My neighbors picked up small things easily with their toes, and bent them back out of sight, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... silence we stood around that table at New Scotland Yard and watched, as though we expected it to move, the ghastly "clue" which lay there. It was a shrivelled human hand, and about the thumb and forefinger there still dryly hung a fragment of lint which had bandaged a jagged wound. On one of the shrunken fingers was a ring set with ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... a woodcutter lived with his wife in a small cottage not far from a great forest. They had seven children—all boys; and the youngest was the smallest little fellow ever seen. He was called Tom Thumb. But though he was so small, he was far cleverer than any of his brothers, and he heard a great deal more than ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... ahead of the Indian ponies and brought his rider under the cliff as Carmena reached the foot of the ladder. She called out to him in a tone of joyful greeting and hastened forward to offer her hand. The man ignored her welcome and jerked a thumb up at the window from which ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... had come. Her fingers were splashed as she felt for the artery, which she closed by leaning her whole weight on the thumb. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... forth: Plenty of men!—His mouth was blocked by the reflection, that we count the men on our fingers; often are we, as it were, an episcopal thumb surveying scarce that number of followers! He diverged to censure of the marchings and the street-singing: the impediment to traffic, the annoyance to a finely musical ear. He disapproved altogether of Matilda Pridden's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Katherine docks, and got no relatives and no friends there. I'm off to sea again when I've dispodged o' this here incumbrance. I'm takin' her down to her mother's sister—that way." He indicated the down road with his thumb. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... for years, and the more he learned about it the more there was to learn. He used to cover big sheets of paper with complicated diagrams trying to prove something or other to himself. I'd come into the studio and find him with thumb tacks and strings and stuff all over the place. He'd get big long rulers and draw lines to various points all over the room, and end up with a little drawing of a cube about an inch square that anybody coulda made in a half a minute without all the apparatus. ...
— Vanishing Point • C.C. Beck
... in these annals of childhood was a visit of Tom Thumb to Buckingham Palace on March 23, 1844. Not long afterwards, on June 5th, the little Prince saw his first Review, on the occasion of the Emperor of Russia's visit, and clapped his hands and shouted at the splendid spectacle. On March 24, 1846, he was given that first and greatest pleasure ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... exclamations Cousin Benedict uttered when he had brought this insect, which he held between his index finger and his thumb, as near as possible to his short-sighted eyes, which neither glasses ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... with a saucer or tin cutter of that size cut out a circle. Place a tablespoonful of spinach prepared French style upon one side, wet the edges, fold over the other side and press it around with the fingers and thumb, brush with egg and bake until a light brown. When served pour around it cream or a cream sauce in which is a hard boiled egg chopped fine, ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous
... the most part sold to Bannerman & Co., of New York. Differences from the ordinary commercial Luger are as follows:—one inch longer barrel, grip of black walnut, U. S. coat of arms stamped on receiver, and thumb-safety is reversed. Curiously enough, this particular pistol was purchased from a gunsmith by W. Fall Gardner, of New York City, while at Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1920, and while with the American Army of Occupation. It is interesting to speculate how the weapon found its way back to the country ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... for a moment, and then drew it, and held it out to the gunner, who went below, and by the time the young officer had had a good inspection of the lugger, Billy came back with his left thumb trying the ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... said Korak to Akut, jerking a thumb in the direction of the girl. "Do not harm her. We ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... empire are indigo and cotton. To produce cotton, they sow seeds, which grow up into bushes like our rose-trees. These produce first a yellow blossom, which falls off, and leaves a pod about the size of a man's thumb, in which the substance at first is moist and yellow. As this ripens, it swells larger, till at length it bursts the covering, the cotton being then as white as snow. It is then gathered. These shrubs continue to bear for three or four years, when they have to be rooted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... the command of the man who held him completely under his thumb, Casey ran forward. Seeing him coming, Jerry fled behind a large screen. Here rested a heavy cane, and he picked it up and brandished ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... designed for belligerent Christians. Finally down from its shelf he dragged the ponderous Roman, Seated himself at the window, and opened the book, and in silence Turned o'er the well-worn leaves, where thumb-marks thick on the margin, Like the trample of feet proclaimed the battle was hottest. 80 Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling, Busily writing epistles important, to go by the Mayflower,[17] Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, God willing! ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... he replied, with his good nature entirely restored. "You can see that you get me right under your thumb when you talk that way. But we must both be on our guard against your fault, you know, or pretty soon you'll be taking the whole work of the farm off ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... student at Oxford University, as he jerked his thumb in the direction of a slight but well-set-up fellow, a classmate, ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... grimy thumb at his companion, "will ye 'ark to this brimstone witch—been clackin' away all along from Sevenoaks, she 'ave! Gimme a tanner an' she's yourn—say thrippence—say a penny!" At this the woman started to berate him ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... up to me with an affected air of chagrin, recounted the adventure; at which I laughed heartily, and then his countenance cleared up. 'My dear soul (said he) when I saw a sort of a wild baist, snarling with open mouth at the Master of the Ceremonies, like the red cow going to devour Tom Thumb, I could do no less than go to the assistance of the little man; but I never dreamt the baist was one of Mrs Bramble's attendants — O! if I had, he might have made his breakfast upon Derrick and welcome — But you know, my dear friend, how natural it is for us Irishmen ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... that? In my business, 'tis true that strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgment and knowledge are what keep it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae; bad at figures—a rule o' thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse—I can see that. I have been looking for such as you these two year, and yet you are not for me. Well, before I go, let me ask this: Though you are not the young man I thought you were, what's the difference? Can't ye stay just the same? Have you ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... thirsty sandy soil; they are essentially plants of very dry positions. Hence they have thick and succulent little stems and leaves, which merge into one another by imperceptible gradations. All parts of the plant alike are stumpy, green, and cylindrical. If you squash them with your finger and thumb you find that though the outer skin or epidermis is thick and firm, the inside is sticky, moist, and jelly-like. The reason for all this is plain; the stone-crops drink greedily by their roots whenever ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... odd: it was an almost fluorescent white and, though it was perfectly opaque, it was thinner than any paper Forrester had ever seen in public. It almost didn't seem to be there when he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... ago the people of Panama lived in fear under the thumb of a dictator. Today democracy ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George H.W. Bush • George H.W. Bush
... see him," replied the housekeeper, completing her meaning by a movement of the thumb toward the upper story. "That's by his way of it; but I've an idee of my own. He tried to bribe me, Mr. Michael. Bribe—me!" she repeated, with inimitable scorn. "That's no' kind ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mentioned. All the women were soon acquainted with them from the current descriptions, but nobody could cite the precise source of all this information. There were finger rings, earrings, bracelets, a REVIERE of phenomenal width, a queenly diadem surmounted by a central brilliant the size of one's thumb. In the retirement of those faraway countries she began to gleam forth as mysteriously as a gem-laden idol. People now mentioned her without laughing, for they were full of meditative respect for this fortune ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... six-shooter from his side pocket. A red bandanna handkerchief protected the shiny barrel; he unwrapped this, regarded the weapon doubtfully, and rubbed his fat thumb over ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... certain trade- interests which he was in office to protect. Accusations began to be guardedly thrown out against him in the Senate, which he parried off with the cool and audacious skill of an expert fencer, knowing that for the immediate moment at least, he had a "majority" under his thumb. This majority was composed of persons who had unfortunately become involved in his toils, and were, therefore, naturally afraid of him;— yet it was evident, even to a superficial student of events, that if once the innuendoes against his ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the creatures need almost constant attention. At brief intervals some expert visits each tray to inspect progress, picks up the plumpest feeders, and decides, by gently rolling them between forefinger and thumb, which are ready to spin. These are dropped into covered boxes, where they soon swathe themselves out of sight in white floss. A few only of the best are suffered to emerge from their silky sleep,—the selected breeders. They have beautiful wings, ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy. Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught But now and then with pressure of his thumb To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud Streams far behind him, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... interrupted M. Radisson, as if the fellow's prattle had cut into his mental plannings; and he bade us heap such a fire as could be seen by Indians for a hundred miles. "If once I can find the Indians," meditated he moodily, "I'll drive out a whole regiment of scoundrels with one snap o' my thumb!" ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... of considerable time, for with their masts they would have to clear away the branches to a considerable height. Down near the water the branches by which we pushed ourselves along were those of the undergrowth, with many rattans and other creepers varying from the thickness of one's thumb to that of one's wrist, and these would take a great deal of chopping before one of their war boats could be pushed through, but higher up they would probably have much thicker branches to contend with. It may be that they can lower ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... cliffs of Esterel with purple shadows in their hollows, to the blue bays opening between their red horns—all to no purpose, she would not look out at the window. He produced a box of jujubes, and offered her one between his thumb and forefinger. She refused it, but thrust her fingers into the box and extracted one for herself. Then she leaned back in the carriage, drew her hat over her face, and exposed to view only a chin and a mole under it, ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... engine house that evening, but there was no one in sight. He had never been in such a place before, and stood for a moment or so uncertain how to make his presence known. Presently he saw an electric button on the side of the room, and he put his thumb on it. The effect was electrical in every sense of the word. Through the ceiling, down the stairs and from every other direction firemen came running and falling, the horses rushed out of their stalls, and, in short, all the machinery of a modern ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... to believe others were,—how many, it would be difficult to say. Of our party, only two were wounded. One received a ball in his hand, near the wrist; but it only entered the skin, and he pushed it out with his thumb. Another received a ball in the fleshy part of his thigh, which had to be extracted; but neither of them were sick or crippled by the wounds. When young Gorsuch fired at me in the early part of the battle, both balls passed through my hat, cutting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... The time it takes for each kind of tea to draw is calculated to a second. When the can is emptied it is passed around among the company for each tea-drinker to take up as many leaves as can be held between the thumb and finger; the leaves being ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... attention, and looking up, they saw Jake Laughlin step into view. He raised his hand, as if to command silence, jerking his thumb at the same time significantly toward the wagon and the rest of the settlers. He stepped carefully into the wagon-track, and the ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... at my own very great peril. But truth has an eternal title to our confession, though we are sure to suffer by it." Behold, again, the fairest of poets. Young's Imperium Pelagi was ridiculed in Fielding's Tom Thumb; but let us not forget that it was one of his pieces which the author of the Night Thoughts ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... assimilating it with the ground than that of the older animals, which do not need to be screened from the observation of birds of prey. I observed the Arabs at Aden, when making their camels kneel down, press the thumb on the withers in exactly the same way the antelopes do with their young; probably they have been led to the custom by seeing this plan adopted by the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Some money. Her hand slips out of the breast of her gown Asleep. My fingers creep Carefully over the sweet Thumb-mound, into the ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... his hand as though to hook his thumb into the armhole of his vest, remembered that he had only a coat buttoned round him ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... way of agricultural improvement before 1850. With some few exceptions the methods of cultivation were substantially the same as those of colonial days, and were marked by crudeness, waste and a general adherence to rule-of-thumb principles. The year 1850 roughly marks the beginning of a period of improvement and development. The Irish famine of 1846 and the German political troubles of 1848 were followed by an unprecedented emigration to America of highly desirable European labourers, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that he might read a verse. He could not read a word, however, which a scholar who chanced to be present observing, he stood behind him and prompted him with the verse he was to read; but coming towards the end, the man's thumb happened to cover the remaining words, and so the scholar, in a low voice, said: "Take away thy thumb," which words the man, supposing them to form part of the verse he was reading, repeated aloud, "Take away thy thumb"—whereupon the judge ordered him to be taken away ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... for a little, both men talking in Kaffir, and then Japp lifted up one of the little objects between finger and thumb. It was a small roundish stone about the size of a bean, but even in that half light there was ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... folded the papers, and held them out between finger and thumb. 'The—handwriting...' ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... robot handled routine things routinely. If they were not routine, the card was dropped on the manager's desk. It was then the manager's job to fit everything back into the routine. He grasped the card firmly between thumb and forefinger and stalked out of his office. He took an elevator down to the registration desk. His trouble was that he had seized upon the first thing he saw wrong with the card and saw nothing thereafter. To him, "out of the ordinary" meant ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Polter's body shifted as he cautiously moved. I clung. I saw that Babs was being held gently between his thumb and forefinger. He lowered her to the ground, and she stood beside the bread and meat he had ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... have handled is that of "Tom Thumb," whose author was a Pythagorean philosopher. This dark treatise contains the whole scheme of the metempsychosis, deducing the progress of the soul ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... the butcher, to get a piece of raw beef for Tom's eye, which was to be healed off-hand, so that he might show well in the morning. He was not a bit the worse, except a slight difficulty in his vision, a singing in his ears, and a sprained thumb, which he kept in a cold-water bandage, while he drank lots of tea, and listened to the babel of voices talking and speculating of nothing but the fight, and how Williams would have given in after another fall (which he didn't in the least believe), and how on earth the Doctor ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... astonishing force, and are generally ruptured rather than yield. If not ruptured, they close again, as Dr. Canby informs me in a letter, "with quite a loud flap." But if the end of a leaf is held firmly between the thumb and finger, or by a clip, so that the lobes cannot begin to close, they exert, whilst in this ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... opinion I have always had of Katerina Sergyevna. Many a young lady's called clever simply because she can sigh cleverly; but yours can hold her own, and, indeed, she'll hold it so well that she'll have you under her thumb—to be sure, though, that's quite as it ought to be.' He slammed the lid to, and got up from the floor. 'And now, I say again, good-bye, for it's useless to deceive ourselves—we are parting for good, and you know that yourself ... you have acted sensibly; ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... to be here on the table a book on Egypt by Rawlinson that I used to thumb long ago. A footnote says: "The font of hieroglyphic type used in this work contains eight hundred forms. But there are many other forms beside." There is more light on Egypt in later works than in Rawlinson, but the statement quoted will serve ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... men. If the temper of my mind were not obnoxious to all cheerfulness, I could almost have laughed, the bully was so excellently beaten, mortified, and enraged! His head was bound up, his eyes were plaistered, his thumb sprained, his body of all colours, and his mind as hotly fevered as Alexander's itself could have been, had Alexander been vanquished at the ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... sat watching Uncle Remus sharpen his shoe-knife. The old man's head moved in sympathy with his hands, and he mumbled fragments of a song. Occasionally he would feel of the edge of the blade with his thumb, and then begin to sharpen it again. The comical appearance of the venerable darkey finally had its effect upon the child, for suddenly he broke into a hearty peal of laughter; whereupon Uncle Remus stopped shaking his head and singing ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... of one foot having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn away by the devilish grip of a steam engine. Yet, though the corporeal hand was gone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the stump, Giles steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingers with as vivid a sensation as before the real ones were amputated. A maimed and miserable wretch he was; but one, nevertheless, whom the world could not trample on, and had no right to scorn, either in this or any previous stage of his misfortunes, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... noise outside: and how they found in the morning that this house was the mitten of a giant, infinitely greater than themselves; and that what they had taken for a separate chamber in the great house was the thumb of his mitten; and that the strange noise was the snoring of this giant Skrymir, who was asleep close by, after having pulled off ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... top-coat lay where he had last thrown it—across the edge of the berth. He shook his head at it, and from his wardrobe took a heavy ulster, scanned it approvingly and put it on. He hauled his steamer trunk out from under his berth, and from a corner of it dragged a thick wallet. He ran his thumb along the edge of the bills within it. Large banknotes they were mostly. He stuck the wallet into his hip pocket. The handle of a magazine pistol peeped up at him. He took it up, laid it flat in the palm of his hand, shook his head, and tossed it back. He took one ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... John ran a close race in their respective ledgers. For in a statement of accounts rendered after the operations of the company had lasted rather more than two years, the debts due were as follows: From the English L607 11s. 9d. and from the Indians L615 7s. 9d. Old and thumb-worn as the account books are, written with ink that had often been frozen and with quill pens that often needed mending, they are extremely interesting as relics of the past, and are deserving of a better fate than that which awaited them when by the merest accident they were rescued ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... back—that's him there, talkin' to the guy with the fur on his jaw," informed the barkeeper, making a gesture with his thumb. "What's your poison?" ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... of that little thumb of yours, my darling, or you will be cracking it instead of ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... tent drapery of chintz; over the washstand hung a crayon done by Arethusa in her infancy—the same representing a lady engaged in the pleasant and useful occupation of spinning wheat with a hand composed of five fingers, and no thumb. In the corner stood a cheval-glass which Jack had seen shrink steadily for years until now it could no longer reflect his shoulders unless he retired back for some two yards or more. There was a delectable closet to the room, ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... was between my first and second finger and the rubber-tipped end lay across my wrist. The other pencil he thrust crosswise so that the pointed end stuck out between the second and third finger and the blunt end between the index finger and thumb. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... laid his hands on their shoulders and heads, while they, on their part, joined their hands and crossed their thumbs, bowing down profoundly before him—I am not sure whether they did not even kneel. He anointed the thumb and fore-finger of each of their hands, and marked a cross on their heads with Chrism. He said also that this would remain with them unto ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... doctor, to him was assigned the thumb. A sailor, the finger next the thumb. A fool, the middle finger. A married or diligent person, the fourth or ring finger. A lover, the last or ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... looked at the Franciscan in amazement, but the latter, with his thumb, made the sign of the cross in a peculiar manner upon his breast. The host replied by making a similar sign on his left shoulder. "Yes, indeed," he said, "we did expect you, but we hoped that you would arrive in a better state of health." And as the peasants were looking at the innkeeper, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lordship read the news at half-past five, he broke into a cold sweat. Then he bit savagely at the nail of his favourite thumb. Considering that, so recently as that morning, he had reluctantly decided that that toothsome entremet must be allowed to go unmolested for at least a week, his action was indicative of an emotion which knew no rules. That he made no mention ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... to Marche-a-Terre the little horn in which Bretons put the finely powdered tobacco which they prepare themselves during the long winter nights. The Chouan raised his thumb and made a hollow in the palm of his hand, after the manner in which an "Invalide" takes his tobacco; then he shook the horn, the small end of which Pille-Miche had unscrewed. A fine powder fell slowly from the little hole ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... practical application is local, transitory, dependent on racial and geographical conditions. There is obviously a great change in our penal methods. We do not mutilate our criminals or scalp them for the preservation of their souls, and we have lost confidence in the rack and the thumb-screw. But we need only transport ourselves to other lands and study other people's views of judicial necessities, and we shall find that the punitive systems of the thirteenth or the eighteenth centuries are still with us. ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... man—the printing is distinctly masculine—of limited education and unacquainted with the town of Croydon. So far, so good! The box is a yellow, half-pound honeydew box, with nothing distinctive save two thumb marks at the left bottom corner. It is filled with rough salt of the quality used for preserving hides and other of the coarser commercial purposes. And embedded in it ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... doesn't come"—he paused, and snapped the finger and thumb that hung quiescent at his side—"well and good. I shall have lived. I shall have known what life is meant to be. I shall have been the ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... unless it might be a razor. You don't cut ropes with your thumb-nails, do you? Of course it was ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... eldest, "I shall soon have an opportunity to pluck one of them;" and so it happened, for not long after the young man left the room. She instantly went up to the bird and took hold of its wing, but as she did so, the finger and thumb remained and stuck fast. In a short time after the second sister came in with the full expectation of gaining a golden feather, but as she touched her sister to move her from the bird, her hand stuck fast to ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... tell you about was the nicest chap I ever see. He was kind to me, too. When I cut my thumb most off—see the scar?—a-slicin' bread in that boardin' house, the missis put me out 'cause I ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... Cap of Darkness. The rug was the famous carpet which carried its owner through the air wherever he wished to go. The sword was the Sword of Sharpness. The ivory glass showed you anyone you wanted to see, however far off. The boots were the Seven-league Boots, which Hop-o'-my-Thumb stole from the Ogre about 1697. There were other valuable objects, but these were the most useful and celebrated. Of course the king did not tell the tradesmen what ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang
... Mr. Neale," remarked the policeman, jerking his thumb over the Hollow, "this, in a manner of speaking, belongs to nobody. Some say it belongs to the Crown—I don't know. All I know is that nobody has any rights over it—it's been what you might term common land ever since anybody ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... him, or, if they did, he suppressed his interest because he knew that his public would otherwise behave as Dr. Johnson did when Fox talked to him of Catiline's conspiracy. 'He withdrew his attention and thought about Tom Thumb.' ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... doth not know what logic lies concealed, Where diving finger meets with diving thumb? Who hath not seen the opponent fly the field, Unhurt by argument, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... with our hands to the Lord in the heavens": and Ex. 17:11: "And when Moses lifted up his hands Israel overcame." That at times he joins his hands, and bows down, praying earnestly and humbly, denotes the humility and obedience of Christ, out of which He suffered. He closes his fingers, i.e. the thumb and first finger, after the consecration, because, with them, he had touched the consecrated body of Christ; so that if any particle cling to the fingers, it may not be scattered: and this belongs to the reverence for ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... pictures of the typical booksellers of the period. Tom Nash has limned for us a vivid little portrait in 'Pierce Penilesse' (1592), in which he declares that if he were to paint Sloth, 'I swear that I would draw it like a stationer that I know, with his thumb under his girdle, who, if ever a man come to his stall to ask him for a book, never stirs his head, or looks upon him, but stands stone still, and speaks not a word, only with his little finger points ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... cloud of dust. Then the umpire, flapping a flippant thumb skyward. Then a berserker roar of rage, a pandemonium of fury beside which Babel was a soundless desert. And from leather-like lungs four inches from Helen's ear, in a voice which could have brought the glad news from Ghent ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... that functionary. "I hope you've forgot nothink? Miss 'Melia's gownds—have you got them—as the lady's maid was to have 'ad? I hope they'll fit you. Shut the door, Jim, you'll get no good out of 'ER," continued John, pointing with his thumb towards Miss Sharp: "a bad lot, I tell you, a bad lot," and so saying, Mr. Sedley's groom drove away. The truth is, he was attached to the lady's maid in question, and indignant that she should have been robbed of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... back in her chair, at the exact angle permitted by the laws of propriety; rested her left elbow on the palm of her right hand, and lightly supported her cheek with her forefinger and thumb. In this position she waited Mr. Troy's answer—the living picture of human obstinacy in ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... the weight and length of the blade. If you have a light cutlass weighing, say, about one and a half pound, and measuring about thirty-four inches in the blade, you may hold it in the same way as in single-stick play, viz. with the thumb on the back of the hilt, as in the sketch, and you will probably find that in this way the guards are made with greater facility. At the same time, when guarding, say, with the hanging guard (see Fig. 15), the thumb is liable to ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... my word, and though the Duke used all the arguments with her which he could think of, she bound my thumb with silk, and with a needle drew blood, with which she obliged me to sign a promissory note as follows: "I promise to Madame la Duchesse de Bouillon to continue united with the Duke her husband against the Parliament in case M. de Turenne approaches with the army under his command within twenty ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... his thumb and finger the delicate skin of the Tzigana, and pinched her on the neck, below the ear. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... pointed with his thumb over his left shoulder. 'He is in jail. He is good for twenty years. I did it myself. My name is So-and-so. Good job. Procurator said you were interested—some woman in the case, parishioner of ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the organs of the body. Sully says that in bed we may voluntarily imagine that a leg has a position quite different from that it really has. Let me cite some similar examples from my "Manual for Investigating Judges.'' If we take a pea between the thumb and the index finger, we feel the pea simply, although its tactile image comes to us through two fingers, i. e., double. If now we cross the third finger over the fourth and hold the pea between the ends of these two fingers, ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... on a hot-bed, in thumb-pots, or on inverted turf, or sods, cut in convenient pieces; and about the last of May, if the weather is warm and pleasant, transplanted to hills ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... deferentially, and then, half shutting his small gray eyes, replied with an ominous chuckle, as one who enjoys bad news: "Eh, well enough, M. Paul; but I don't like that." And, lifting an unshaven chin, he pointed over his shoulder with a long, grimy thumb to the western sky. ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... way, at the same time taking quiet possession of Elsie's little rosewood rocking-chair—a late present from her papa, and highly prized by the little girl on that account—and beginning to scratch with her thumb nail upon ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... light on the canned goods, if necessary; but get the best reels and lines on the market. Nothing in life hurts so much," he said impressively, "as to get a three-pound bass to the top of the water and have your line break. I've had a big fellow get away like that and chase me a mile with its thumb on its nose." This last, of course, was ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... less congenial engagement of meeting the Board, which was often a cause of great anxiety and pain to him; for it was difficult to satisfy men of all tempers, and some of these not of the most generous sort. On such occasions he might be seen with his right-hand thumb thrust through the topmost button-hole of his coat-breast, vehemently hitching his right shoulder, as was his habit when labouring under any considerable excitement. Occasionally he would take an early ride before breakfast, to inspect the progress of the Sankey viaduct. He had a favourite ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... armory, Tallyho was much gratified with a view of its contents—trophies of the famous victory of Queen Elizabeth over the Spanish armada, among which the most remarkable were the thumb screws, intended to be used in order to extort confession from the English, where their money was hidden. The axe with which the unfortunate Anne Bullen was beheaded by order of Henry VIII.; a representation of Queen Elizabeth ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... prevailed, how the battle of life was fought. M. Nioche, as a reduced capitalist, was familiar with these considerations, and he formulated his information, which he was proud to be able to impart, in the neatest possible terms and with a pinch of snuff between finger and thumb. As a Frenchman—quite apart from Newman's napoleons—M. Nioche loved conversation, and even in his decay his urbanity had not grown rusty. As a Frenchman, too, he could give a clear account of things, and—still as a Frenchman—when his knowledge ...
— The American • Henry James
... or thumb in order to turn over leaves. Many respectable people are addicted to this habit, but it is a vulgar one. Besides, it is entirely useless. The same remarks might be applied to the habit of suffering the corners of the leaves to turn up, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... principal members of this pine family grow. Instead of stretching straight out into the water, it curves toward the lawn, as if the back of your hand and your four fingers composed the lawn, and your thumb, slightly but not far extended, were the Point of the Pines. There are only a few trees, for the Point is small; they're seven in number and they reach beautifully toward the Sound, like running dryads holding out eager arms ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... very deliberately, as if he had prepared the form of words in which he made his strange request, and as he spoke he held out a sheet of paper apparently torn out of a notebook. "I asked that gentleman over there"—he jerked his thumb over his shoulder—"to be my first witness, and he kindly consented. I'd be much obliged if you'd sign your name just here. I'll also ask you to take charge of it—only a small envelope, as you see. It's addressed to my ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... upbraided Alexander Downie with his son-in-law Clerk, the panel, his having killed the said Serjeant: And Downie said, as the deponent heard, what could his son-in-law do, since it was in his own defence: Depones further, That he saw upon Elizabeth Downie, Clerk's wife, her thumb, a yellow ring, which he took to be gold; and this he saw after her marriage, having a little knap upon it like into a seal, having scores or lines round about it, and this he saw frequently upon her hand, which ring the deponent ...
— Trial of Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bane Macdonald • Sir Walter Scott
... to e'en the doctor's hood, The book of life ye thumb, And reckon o'er, in light and joyous mood, Your ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... you. But take this along with you:—that property is mine; land, house, stock, every thing. All is safe and snug under cover of a mortgage, to which Billy was kind enough to add a bond. One was sued, and the other entered up, a week ago. So that all is safe under my thumb, and the girl may whistle or starve for me. I shall give myself no concern about the strumpet. You thought to get a prize; but, damn me, you've met with your match in me. Phil Haddin's not so easily choused, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... He paused to notice the keen old Scotchman wince under the thrust, "but, in the mean time, I am merely waiting orders here, and I want you to post me about the condition of affairs up there." He vaguely indicated with his thumb the far-distant battlement of the Roof of the World. Hugh Johnstone rang a silver bell, and muttered a few words in Hindostanee to an attendant. "I must know more from Calcutta before I can explain just where I stand," said the renegade ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... coincident with popular emancipation from the mere superstition of drug-administration. The older lists of approved remedies were loaded with items that had no curative properties at all, except by suggestion. They were purely magical—the thumb-nails of executed criminals, the hair of black cats, the ashes of burned toads and so on. Even at this moment your pharmacopoeia contains scores of remedies that are without effect or that do not produce the effects credited to them. I am relying on high therapeutical authority ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... a grape-shot in his ankle, and a flesh-wound in his side from a glancing ball or piece of shell. Captain Pope has had a musket-ball extracted from his shoulder. Captain Appleton is wounded in the thumb, and also has a contusion on his right breast from a hand-grenade. Captain Willard has a wound in the leg, and is doing well. Captain Jones was wounded in the right shoulder. The ball went through and he is doing well. Lieutenant Homans wounded ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... hatched at Delphi with Apollo's blessings on him." Dion pointed with his thumb to the small coop at his feet. "The oracle is simple. You cast before him two piles of corn; if he picks at the one to right we take toad's bone, to left the adder's fat. Heaven will speak ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... aspect a matter of gesture) is unused by whole nations, and so, too, is handshaking. It has been said by a traveller that the vulgar operation described by Barham in the line "Put his thumb unto his nose and spread his fingers out" is a mark of courtesy and esteem in one remote nation; nor is putting out the tongue a sign of contempt everywhere. Certain of the gestures of ballet still strictly ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... pints of water. Four of these were given for the ordinary, and eight for the extraordinary. The executioner inserted a horn into the patient's mouth, and if he shut his teeth, forced him to open them by pinching his nose with the finger and thumb.] ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the same room with his brothers, but his bed being the longest and largest, his youngest brother was to sleep at the other end of it—foot to foot. True, by this means he got another pillow, for of course that little Hop-o'-my-thumb could do without one, and so he took his; but in spite of this, he determined that, sooner than submit to such an indignity, he would sit up all night. Accordingly, when all the rest were fast asleep, Melchior, with his boots off and ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various |
