"Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sunset rays, as he tested its sharpness between thumb and finger. The Arab watched with a smile. "We understand one another," he said. There was no need to finish the description of his plan. With a solemn wave of his hand ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... After the undertaker had taken charge of the body he found on the dead man's neck, just to the left of the chin, a dullish, black bruise which might have been caused by the pressing of some blunt instrument, or by a man's thumb. Considering it of much importance, he notified the coroner, ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... would first bite out the minister's finger-nails,—a form of torture then in vogue among the northern Indians, both converts and heathen. Williams offered him a hand and invited him to begin; on which he gave the thumb-nail a gripe with his teeth, and then let it go, saying, "No good minister, bad as the devil." The failure seems to have discouraged him, for he made no further attempt to ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... of it, ma'am," says cook, with virtuous indignation. "Just because she holds up her head a bit, an' likes a ribbon or two, there's no holdin' the gossips down below," indicating the village by a backward jerk of her thumb. "She's as dacent a little sowl as you'd wish to see, an' has as nate a foot as there is in the county. The Cantys has all a character ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... right way," said Mr. Winston, as he spoke he placed his thumb on a brass nail and the gauze door rose, instead of opening, and without any noise displayed the contents of ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... keep this," with a jerk of her thumb towards the big, bare room which had been hers since she left Aunt Milly and the little home town. "There's a room at the top of the Kensington I can have, with a light as good as this, and that settles the last problem. I'd hate to have to go outdoors ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... for the hand, covering the thumb in one space and the fingers in another, so that men wearing them can still ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Gussie took their machetes to a grindstone on the hurricane-deck. Our soldiers gathered around to see them sharpen their long knives, but only one could be induced to test the edge of these barbarous instruments with his thumb. ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... me the reins, stepped out of the sleigh, went a short distance to a large crack that he had seen while speaking, and returned with a thumb placed on the handle of the whip, as a measure to show that his statement was true. The ice, at that spot, was certainly nearer eighteen than sixteen inches thick. Herman Mordaunt showed the measure to Mrs. Bogart, whose alarm was pacified by this positive ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... with you?" said the marquis, offering the little note, which he had carried all the time between his finger and thumb. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... A small shower of tobacco sifted to the floor: the rice-paper cracked and came away; and with the bland smile and gesture of a professional conjurer, Lanyard exhibited a small cylinder of stiff paper between his thumb ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... thumb down there," said an experienced orchardist to me the other day. We were talking about the recently started theory that the best bearing orchards are to be found on the low lands of the prairies. "You just ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... asked the senator, "that your hundred signers of this thing are afraid madame will get the cholera?" He took the petition's free end between thumb and finger and softly pulled. But its ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... admit that I'm not much at taking up with second-hand opinions. Now, here's another idea of mine." He held up a walnut between his thumb and finger. "There's a tree in that, ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... his head in solemn reprobation, and Ralph did not know whether to laugh or to look grave. Then there fell a long silence, and Cromwell again fell to fingering his signet-ring, taking it off his thumb and rolling it on the smooth oak, and at last stood up ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... when it instantly caught the pup by the under jaw and held on as only it could (they have a powerful jaw), nor would it release its hold until choked near to death, which was done by taking it behind the bony framework of the head, between the thumb and finger, and pressing hard. The pup did considerable howling for half an hour, by which time the jaw was much swollen, remaining so for two or three days, after which it was all right again. By this I could only conclude ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... they demaund or call for any thing so much as for the said Reals of eight. Mercery or haberdashers wares were in no such request as money. Also we much marueiled, how the Iauans should tell vs of more shippes to come, making signes with their foure fingers and thumb, that foure Lyma (which word in their language signifieth ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... of the body evenly distributed between the two feet. Extend one arm to lightly grasp the bar, and carry the other arm straight out from the shoulder, in a slightly relaxed position, as shown in the diagram. The thumb should rest on the tip of the first finger, the middle and ring fingers slightly bent, the little finger extended so that it is slightly separated from the others, the wrist bent slightly downward. The whole attitude should ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... and raw-boned, with a long yellow moustache, an unwholesome complexion, and filthy nails. The very sight of him with one grimy thumb buried deep in the lukewarm stew, that seemed, from the frequency of its repetition, to constitute the pride of his culinary art, was sufficient to ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the delicately embroidered collar, a thumb and finger on either side. "I guess it won't meet," ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... I was a lark, a lark all lofty in the sky, I do not know what I should do to quench my blazing eye. I'd look me down on Dominic's, and think of the days when I was young, Or would I was an infant meek all sucking of my thumb. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... towards the table, around which the company were seated. His appearance excited the utmost astonishment in the whole group: curiosity was exhibited in every countenance—the magnum remained poised midway in the hand of Palmer—Dr. Small scorched his thumb in the bowl of his pipe; and Mr. Coates was almost choked, by swallowing an inordinate whiff ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Cabul, which is the most important fair in the whole world. And this was the reason why the old Prince of Cashmere had brought his daughter to the fair: he had lost the two most precious objects in his treasury; one was a diamond as big as my thumb, on which, by an art then known to the Indians, but now forgotten, a portrait of his daughter was engraved; the other was a javelin, which of its own accord would strike whatever mark ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... you fleas from the kaross of Sekukuni, till I can come across and crack you between my thumb and finger. Or at the least wait until Macumazahn has time to get his rifle. No, put down those guns of yours; for every shot you fire I swear that I will cut ten Basuto throats when we come to storm your koppies, as we shall do ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... helping hands to you. Well, and women have been trained for hundreds of years to see things in that private and personal way, and to exalt the private and personal virtues. Just as they've been trained to stick to rule of thumb methods that more or less work, rather than to try experiments. So, on the whole, I think their getting the vote will mean that politics will be crookeder and more reactionary than they've been in a good ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... went straight to the store and to a shelf in a far and dusty corner where were all of the purchasable books of the village. A thumb in her mouth, a frown in her eyes, she regarded them ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... We began in a small way as a nation, without much stock-in- trade, and we kept our accounts by rule of thumb. But it seems to me we are doing a pretty large business as a ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... ship, sir," answered Helling. Then he hesitated, and slowly slipped his finger and thumb along the waist-band of his trousers. But he only repeated, "I must find a ship," ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... should be carried with clean hands. God requires it, men require it, and have a right to require it. The mightiest witness for Him is the witness of a pure life, and if we go about the world professing to be His messengers, and carrying His epistle in our dirty fingers, the soiled thumb-mark upon it will prevent men from caring for the message; and the Word will be despised because of the unworthiness of its bearers. 'Be ye clean that bear the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... a show in progress. The wit of the thing seemed to consist chiefly in the wonderful names chosen. The King of the Cannibal Islands was to appear on a white charger. King Chrononhotonthologos was to be led in chains by Tom Thumb. Achilles would drag Hector thrice round the walls of Troy; and Queen Godiva would ride through Coventry, accompanied by Lord Burghley and the ambassador from Japan. It was also signified that in some back part of the premises a theatrical ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... 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, I promise ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... nigh Mart's place last fall an' heerd her screamin',—you could hear the blows landin' on her back, too,—so I jest stepped sort o' spry to'ards his cabin an' ketched him layin' it on with a wilier branch as thick as your thumb, an' her a screechin' like a wild-cat in a trap. Well, what happened inside the next minute made a friend o' her fer life,—an' an enemy o' him. You'd have thought any dootiful an' loyal offspring would o' ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... the way she must cover them; yet, when those covered by her came out of the oven they had not risen at all, they were like rich short paste; while my own, made from the same paste, were toppling over with lightness. I had, without saying anything, pressed my thumb slightly on one spot of one of mine; in that spot the paste had not risen at all, and I think this practical demonstration of what I had tried to explain was more useful than an hour's talk would ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... affected yawn and stretch. In speaking she looked at her mother, and not at the painter to whom she had been sitting for nearly two hours. The young man in question stood embarrassed and silent, his palette on his thumb, brush and mahlstick suspended. His eyes were cast down: a flush had risen in his cheek. Miss Bella's manner was not sweet; she wished evidently to slight somebody, and the painter could not flatter himself that the somebody ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a man to ride the horses back, he could come down the Swan. I will be coming up, and we ought to pinch Imbrie between the two of us. The situation is a serious one, as Imbrie has the whole tribe of Kakisas under his thumb. He will stop at nothing now; may be insane. The position of the women is a ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... ground his teeth, "never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!" (And he shook me with the force of his hold.) "I could bend her with my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage—with a stern triumph. ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... always seemed to me strange that even experienced women of the world, like Mrs. Milton-Cleave, can be so easily hoodwinked by that vague nonentity, 'The Best Authority.' I am inclined to think that were I a human being I should retort with an expressive motion of the finger and thumb, "Oh, you know it on the best authority, do you? Then ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... it. He did justice to her as a good, true-hearted, self-improving American. Taken by herself, he felt for her decided regard; but taken in connection with Aurora he would sometimes have liked delicately to lift her between finger and thumb and drop ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... then sprinkled over the meat, it would dissolve entirely, few would suspect that onion was present, and yet there would be no danger that the pie would be tasteless. A little piece of onion the size of a thumb-nail, chopped as small as possible, would be sufficient to flavour two small meat pies four inches in diameter. And a pie this size would be quite large enough for a ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... together. Still, there may have been nothing wrong. She was old Judge Carmody's daughter, you know. Longworth got Carmody under his thumb in money matters and put the screws on. They say he made Carmody's daughter the price of the old man's redemption. The girl herself was a mere child, I shall never forget her face on her wedding day. But she's been plucky since then, I must say. If she has suffered, she hasn't shown ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... She emitted this monosyllable with a falling inflection, and followed it by a full stop. She took his teacup from him. "You know what little Tommy Tucker did." She placed her thumb on one of the upper black notes of the piano and waved her fingers over the remainder of the keyboard. "'Just a song at twilight,'" She ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... wheeled out of sight, Capitola—I am sorry to say—put her thumb to the side of her nose and whirled her fingers into a semicircle, in a gesture ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... immortal George; 'I wish it wasn't; I wish I was any thing but me. But what is the news here? is there any one running? They are all running back there,' (pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.) ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that, sir. The sound of the French tongue, which these blacks of Hayti speak with a better accent than the gamins of Paris, gained over Captain Alphonse; while Madame Boisson declared the whole episode truly charming, her fat husband, who was entirely under her thumb, shrugging his shoulders and giving them ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... his case sentiment can be guided by sentiment. And all for his best good! He mustn't run wild in this folly! I believe there's no one who can approach him with more tact than my daughter Lana." Despeaux found an opportunity to dig his thumb suggestively into Blanchard's side. "They have been extremely good friends, I believe, in boy-and-girl fashion; between us three old townsmen, I'll go as far as to say they were very much interested in each other. But in the case of both of 'em their ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... as the page entered, "what is to do here? It seems that I am not to be master even in this little island of Hop o' my Thumb. They lord it over me even as they did when I was here before, as Prince of ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... bananas of the tropics, the camels of the East, the buffaloes of the West, and the cannibals of the South, are equally at our service. We can hold the mountains, rivers, seas, and human races between our finger and thumb, and thus, as we gently dally with care, we may see the wonders of the world as in a pleasant dream. Thus may we enjoy the perils and hardships of travel at a very small sacrifice of ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... commenced. A little fat man in a ruffled and embroidered shirt, buff waistcoat with crystal buttons, knee breeches and silk stockings of reproachless black, and steel buckled shoes, had come before the curtain, sticking one thumb in his waistband and the other in his vest armhole, to display a huge seal ring and a mammoth diamond hoop, respectively, as well as his idea of ease in company. He announced in a high flute-like voice that in consequence of indisposition, ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... when in for his viva voce examination at college; and of experiencing a difficulty when called upon to place the ring on one of the fingers of the white hand held forth to him, and of his probable selection of the thumb for the ring's resting place, had not the bride considerately poked out the proper finger, and assisted him to place the golden circlet in its assigned position. Mr. Verdant Green had also a misty ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... she 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
... slips of paper between his fingers, taking care to put the paper of his confederate between the third and little finger; he then takes the folded paper from between his thumb and first finger and rubs it, folded as it is, over his forehead, at each rub mentioning a letter, as H. rub, A. rub, S.T.I.N.G.S., after which he calls out that some lady or gentleman has written "Hastings." "I did," replies ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... a-pluck. Which fear nother giants nor Jupiter's fire-bolt, Nor Belzebub the master-devil, as ragged as a colt? I would thou wouldst come hither once again: I think thou hadst rather alive to be flayn. Come again, and I swear by my mother's womb, I will pull thee in pieces no more than my thumb; And thy brains abroad I will so scatter, That all knaves shall ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... a fair company, God us save; For if any of us three be mayor of London, I-wis, i-wis, I will ride to Rome on my thumb: Alas! ah, see; is not this a great feres? I would they were in a mill-pool above the ears; And then I durst warrant, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... away any too easily, Sam. Things are in a fearful snarl. But I telephoned to Mr. Powell, the lawyer, to look after matters during my absence. I think we've got those brokers under our thumb—at least I hope so. But if we haven't, we stand to lose ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... proportions, most powerful lungs, and a true Irish physiognomy—a cast of countenance in which it always strikes me that Nature had originally forgotten the nasal organ, and then returning to complete the work had taken between finger and thumb a piece of flesh and pinched it, thus forming the nose rather high up on the face, while the waste of material below goes to make the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... handkerchief or piece of something tightly above the elbow, and the barber deftly slits a vein immediately below the hollow of the elbow-joint, pressing out the vein he wishes to cut by a pressure of the left thumb. The blood spurts out, the patient looks at the squirting blood, and then surveys the onlookers with a "who-cares?—I-don't" sort of a grin. He then squats down and watches it bleed about a half-pint, occasionally working the elbow-joint to stimulate the flow. Half a pint is considered about ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... to rest and smiled back at him tentatively. They never knew what to expect from Connel. "Well, did you put them through their paces?" he asked as he jerked his thumb ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... of them took a purse out of his bosom and showed it to Sancho, by which he comprehended they were asking for money, and putting his thumb to his throat and spreading his hand upwards he gave them to understand that he had not the sign of a coin about him, and urging Dapple forward he broke through them. But as he was passing, one of them who had been examining him very closely rushed towards ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... baby's feeding bottle but not perforated) on the upper end, after cutting or snapping off the sealed point of the capillary portion. If pressure is now exerted upon the elastic bulb by a finger and thumb whilst the capillary end is below the surface of the fluid to be taken up, some of the contained air will be driven out, and subsequent relaxation of that pressure (resulting in the formation of a partial vacuum) will cause the fluid ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... while she was making her way up the bank, and I was helping him to make the boat secure, I said, "Well! the new boat has done bravely!" "Between you and me, my dear fellow," said he, as he laid his hand on my shoulder with a grip, that I think must have left his thumb-mark on the skin, "if the boat had not behaved better than any boat of her class that I ever saw, there would have been a considerable probability of our being dined on by the fishes, instead of dining ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... smack calfskin; to kiss the book in taking the oath. It is held by the St. Giles's casuists, that by kissing one's own thumb instead of smacking calfskin, the guilt of taking a false ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... lady's visit was to discover if the knife had been poisoned. Finding that all question would be useless, she had recourse to an artifice to effect her purpose, suggested by the discovery of a splinter buried in Bertha's thumb. ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... student is remarkably addicted; but in the present case what was to be done? He offered the nearest a pinch of snuff, as a mode of commencing his acquaintance and cultivating his complacency. The student dug his thumb into the box, and, with the additional aid of the forefinger sweeping out half its contents, growled out something like thanks, and then drew up in his seat, as if he had too warmly encouraged the impertinent intrusion of a Philistine to whom he had ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... motion. He comes but a little way after Cody in the chronology of early British experimenters, but Cody, a born inventor, must be regarded as the pioneer of the present century so far as Britain is concerned. He was neither engineer nor trained mathematician, but he was a good rule-of-thumb mechanic and a man of pluck and perseverance; he never strove to fly on an imperfect machine, but made alteration after alteration in order to find out what was improvement and what was not, in consequence of which it was said of him that he was ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... again, looking back and waiting. But still Chad sat irresolute and in a moment, Jack heard something that disturbed him, for he threw his ears toward the top of the hill and, with a growl, trotted back to Chad and sat close to him, looking up the slope. Chad rose then with his thumb on the lock of his gun and over the hill came a tall figure and a short one, about Chad's size and a dog, with white feet and white face, that was bigger than Jack: and behind them, three more figures, one of which was the tallest of the group. All stopped when they saw Chad, who ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... the air by means of a wide flattened membrane connecting the whole of the limbs and tail, the thumb of the fore-paws and the hind-feet alone being left free. This membrane, though wonderfully delicate, is furnished with minute blood-vessels. It also possesses a system of nerves of the most exquisite power of sensation, which enables it to fly rapidly among the boughs ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... he had pinned the larger sum of money he had taken from his purse when he had changed from mufti at the inn over in the Bistrick quarter of the town. They had found it? Something crinkled under the pressure of his fingers, and a pin pricked his thumb. It was there—his money. They had not searched for it, thinking of course that the money they had found in the pockets was all that he had possessed. He found the head of the pin and opened the lining, counting the notes—ten of them in ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... Maire," replied Scaufflaire; then, scratching a speck in the wood of the table with his thumb-nail, he resumed with that careless air which the Flemings understand so well how to mingle ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... was surely there in some form, and escaped the slaughter. Then or later it is thought he took to the trees to escape his enemies, as the rats in Jamaica have taken to the trees to escape the mongoose. To his tree-climbing we probably owe our hand, with its opposing thumb. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... a little," said Grandcourt, in his favorite attitude, having his left forefinger and thumb in his waist-coat pocket, and with his right hand caressing his whisker, while he stood near Gwendolen and looked at her—not unlike a gentleman who has a felicitous ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... to the shipping. The great anniversary of these storm-spirits is St. Peter's Day. The John Dory is St. Peter's fish, and it is said that the spots on each side of its mouth are the marks of the apostle's thumb and forefinger. It was called 'janitore,' or doorkeeper, because in its mouth was found the penny with which the temple-tax was paid. Now, St. Peter also was the doorkeeper of heaven, and from janitore to John Dory ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... just as it had closed upon the lean throat of Old Jimmie on the day of Larry's return—only now there was nothing playful in the noose of that big hand. He shook Gavegan as he might have shaken a pillow, with a thumb thrusting ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... to wait here for you, master and missy," said the man. "There were some farmers men down that way, round the corner," and he jerked his thumb—for he had by this time come out of his hole—in an imaginary direction, "as said this were a private road, and they'd set dogs on us if we came on. I'm a peaceable fellow, and not fond o' fightin', so I'd just have gone on my way out of ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... to a different part of the building, and joined another crowd, this time surrounding the illustrious Tom Thumb, at that time one of the ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... the white trader. So great is the adulteration, that most of the traders have to cut each ball open. Even the Kinsembo rubber, which is put up in clusters of bits shaped like little thimbles formed by rolling pinches of rubber between the thumb and finger, and which one would think difficult to put anything inside of, has to be cut, because "the simple children of nature" who collect it and bring it to that "swindling white trader" struck upon the ingenious notion that little pieces of wood shaped like the thimbles ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... informed him in answer to that mute question; and as the fellow moistened his thumb to turn back the pages, Mr. Caryll saved him the trouble. "It says, I think, that the man should be on your right hand and the woman on your left. Ye seem to have reversed matters, Mr. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... his hand in his pocket, his thumb on a little plate that was set in the side of the small mechanism that was concealed therein. As he neared the door, the little plate began to vibrate, making a buzz which could only be felt, not heard. Mike sighed ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and described the matter. Afterwards, in a reply to a question of mine, whether he still seemed to feel the hand that had been amputated, he answered that he did always; and, baring the stump, he moved the severed muscles, saying, "There is the thumb, there the forefinger," and so on. Then he talked to me about phrenology, of which he seems a firm believer and skilful practitioner, telling how he had hit upon the true character of many people. There was a great deal of sense ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the hole in your pinafore! You ARE Jane, aren't you? And you're the Panther; I can see your dirty handkerchief that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb! Crikey! The wish has come off, after all. I say, am I as handsome ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... perfection—so were her jewels. One saw that her corsetiere was an artist, and that everything had cost a great deal of money. She had taken off one glove and Amaryllis saw her bare hand—it was well-shaped, save that the thumb turned ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... of freezing amazement. "You will no doubt remember in what capacity I find you employed. Nay, keep your hands still, Saint-Eustache. I don't fight catchpolls, and if you give me trouble my men are yonder." And I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. "And now to business. I am not minded to talk all day. I was saying that I marvel at your temerity, and more particularly at your having laid information against Monsieur de Lavedan, and having come here to arrest him, knowing, ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... clean-cut little stenographer. Her correspondence had always been free from erasures, thumb-marks, errors. Her four-room flat was as spotless as her typewritten letters had been. The kitchen shone in its blue and white and nickel. A canary chirped in the tiny dining-room. There were books and magazines on the sitting-room table. The bedroom was brave in its snowy spread and ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... some time, the better to stir up his vital spirits, and appareled himself according to the season; but willingly he would wear a great long gown of thick frieze, lined with fox fur. Afterward he combed his head with the German comb, which is the four fingers and the thumb; for his preceptors said that to comb himself otherwise, to wash and make himself neat was to lose time in this world. Then to suppress the dew and bad air, he breakfasted on fair fried tripe, fair grilled meats, fair hams, fair hashed capon, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... Graves said to Howard, "Jack is rather a masterful young man, I think. He has no sense of respect in his composition. Were you aware of the fact that he had us all under his thumb this evening?" ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... thought the 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 her sister's dress, and neither of them could ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... wrapped them together in a warm blanket. The remaining puppy was handed over to the gardener and seen no more in that place; so it is safe to assume that this little creature's life embraced no sorrows or disillusions. The next thing Finn knew was that his gaping mouth, held open by the Master's thumb and forefinger, was being pressed against a soft surface from which warm milk trickled. "At last!" one can imagine Finn muttering, if he had been old enough to know how to talk. Immediately his little hind-legs began to work like pistons, and ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... not say that, my dear," she cried, appalled. "It is not your affair at all, and the Turners are not to blame because the Sheriff is under the thumb of his madam. The Turners have their good points as well as ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... said, as we appeared. He jerked a thumb towards the classroom. 'I've locked dem in. What's doin', Buck?' he asked, indicating ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... use much larger rakes and cover a wider part of the cove. Now and then the men on board the sailboats would haul up the rakes, which were shaped something like a man's hand is when half closed and all the fingers and the thumb are spread out. The clams were dumped on deck, afterward to ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove • Laura Lee Hope
... off; for he apprehended, as I did not, the difficulty attendant upon running a line in a true and regular curve. But I am not prepared to say that this work could not have been accomplished by mere rule of thumb. My friend Bandelier, in the course of his admirable analysis of the ruins at Mitla, has made clear to me how easy it is to attribute to scientific knowledge work that is the result only of manual skill. As I have pointed out in my discussion of this matter in my Pre-Columbian ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... returned Laurie, with his thumb in his mouth, after a vain attempt to capture a solitary scarlet flower that grew just ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... addressed every term of endearment to me, I was too much excited to make any reply. For in a few moments he continued his delicious play, titillating the interior of my Mons Veneris, while he caressed my clitoris with his thumb, sending a lava of delight through my frame. In spite of all my endeavors not to appear too lascivious, I could not help moving my buttocks in response to his soul inspiring touches—I felt the crisis approaching. At that moment I saw him tear open the front of ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... never seen groping about in a helpless and timid way for "a position," and shrinking from the turmoil and dirt of some walks of life, without spreading among the uncultivated a contempt for culture and increasing their confidence in the rule of thumb. The mere "going to college" is recognized as a sign of pecuniary ease, and of a desire for social advancement, but not as preparation for the kind of work which the bulk of the community is doing, and thus makes mental culture seem less desirable, and ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... to get across, Jerry," Spillane said, at the same time jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his wife. "Her father's hurt at the Clover Leaf. Powder explosion. Not expected to ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... by the trail, how long since persons have passed, the number of the party, as well as the number of animals. An Indian, when he makes a fire, uses half a dozen little sticks as big as your thumb, and very dry, and all the smoke the fire makes, will ascend straight up in one steady column. The white man will use, if he is a novice, the dry to kindle with, and then he will chuck on the wet wood, which ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... myself that I was young. I turned to speak to my hostess, but she was gone on business of her own. So there I stood for half an hour, biting my thumb. I had as yet seen nothing of the mysterious Ellen, although many a score of eyes, in license of the carnival, had flashed through their masks at me, and many others as their owners passed by in the dance or promenade near where I ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... of a hippopotamus, the hairy lips of which were still sound and not putrified, and the jaw was also firm, out of which we plucked a great many teeth, two of them eight inches long and as big as a man's thumb, small at one end, and a little crooked, the rest not above half so long. The maw was full of jelly, which stank extremely. However, I saved for awhile the teeth and the shark's jaw. The flesh of it was divided among my men, and they took care ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... $5,000 on that new home we're going to buy on the first of the year, and I fell down and broke my promise. I thought I could drag the homestead money away from the Street, so I took a few slices of Amalgamated Copper and burned my thumb. Old Colonel Frenzied Finance didn't do a thing to me. When I yelled for help my pocketbook looked like a last season's autumn leaf in the family Bible. Peaches isn't wise that I've lost my roll, so it's up to me to make good before she ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... Fer couldn't we du wut we would with our own? An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so, Eat up his own words, it's a marcy it is so. 160 Wy, these chaps frum the North, with back-bones to 'em, darn 'em, 'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum: Ther's enough thet to office on this very plan grow, By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow; But an M.C. frum here ollers hastens to state he Belongs to the order called invertebraty, Wence some gret filologists ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Philammon's head, which, as there was a head and shoulder's difference between them, might on the whole have been considered, from a theatric point of view, as a failure. Whereon the little man seized the calabash of beer, and filling therewith a cow's horn, his thumb on the small end, raised it high ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Sir G. Vans was a giant, and a bottle-maker. And as all giants who are bottle-makers usually pop out of a little thumb-bottle from behind the door, ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... excitedly, and, forgetting all about the messiness of the great wet shapeless-looking mollusc, he used both finger and thumb. "Here, ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... head;" and another ancient law allowed the use only of "a stick no longer than the husband's arm and no thicker than his middle finger" in the case of the wife; while Blackstone's well-remembered restriction was to "a stick no bigger than his thumb." ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... piece I 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 ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... on Mr. Harker, "and when the scoundrel has been unmasked, you need have no fear of any future danger. In my master's chain of villainy there was a single flaw; but that flaw has broken the whole chain. The poor tool, whom he had had so long beneath his thumb, whom he had trodden under his foot remorselessly, suddenly regained his freedom—which he had bartered for the safety ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... things make a great difference to a sailor. When we got on deck, the man at the wheel struck eight bells (four o'clock in the morning), and "All Starbowlines, ahoy!'' brought the other watch up, but there was no going below for us. The gale was now at its height, "blowing like scissors and thumb-screws''; the captain was on deck; the ship, which was light, rolling and pitching as though she would shake the long sticks out of her, and the sails were gaping open and splitting in every direction. The mizzen ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... send such things as that through without cratin'?" says I to a guy behind the chicken wire, jerkin' me thumb at Mr. Sleuth. "What's the ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... maternal grandfather had returned to Stratford. To that place he very frequently resorted in his youth, and there, in the well-stored and well-arranged library he pursued the studies he loved. The tradition is that he conned his Greek lessons lying flat on the floor with his thumb in his mouth, and the fingers of the other hand employed in twisting a lock of the brown, hair on his forehead. He took no pleasure in fishing or in hunting; I doubt whether he ever let off a fowling-piece ...
— A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin - Verplanck • William Cullen Bryant
... ones with old folk-lore tales when the family gathered together around the great living-room fire in the winter evening, or asked eagerly for a bedtime story in the long summer twilight. Tales such as "Jack the Giant Killer," "Tom Thumb," the "Children in the Wood," and "Guy of Warwick," were orally current even among the plain people of England, though frowned upon by many of the Puritan element. Therefore it is at least presumable that these were all familiar to the colonists. In fact, it is known that John Dunton, ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... Jerome (Prologue, super Marc.) says that "it is related of the Blessed Mark* that after receiving the faith he cut off his thumb that he might be excluded from the priesthood." [*This prologue was falsely ascribed to St. Jerome, and the passage quoted refers, not to St. Mark the Evangelist, but to a hermit of that name. (Cf. Baronius, Anno ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... with these, working 'em down into the valley, the weather changed. It snowed harder. Just oodles of the most perfectly darling snow. Then distemper broke out among the saddle horses. Then being already shorthanded, what does the fool vaquero boss do but pick a splinter out of his thumb with a pin and get blood poison enough to lay him off? Too much trouble for cussing. I tried that out scientifically. So I had to get out and make a hand. If I heard someone say I did as much as any three of these ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... a grin threw the door open and indicated with his thumb that Swetenham and Dick might advance. He winked at them as they passed him, a fund of malignant impudence in his eyes. The room inside was small and scattered with a profusion of clothes. Fanny, attired in a long silk dressing ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... uproar, and, apparently, finding it too prodigious, the brigade, after a little time, came marching airily out again with its fine formation in nowise disturbed. There were no traces of speed in its movements. The brigade was jaunty and seemed to point a proud thumb at the yelling wood. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... peal of laughter was Gubblum's swift abridgment. The peddler tapped the mouth of his pipe on his thumb-nail, and smiled under ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... smartness pays better in the town, and the low intellectual qualities which are contained in it are educated by town life. The knowledge of human nature thus evoked is in no sense science, it is a mere rule-of-thumb affair, a thin mechanical empiricism. The capable business man who is said to understand the "world" and his fellow-men, has commonly no knowledge of human nature in the larger sense, but merely knows from observation how the average man of a certain limited class is likely to act ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... great artists, he had come to his second manner. In the great world, when he went to the Prince de Wissembourg's, to the Prefecture, to Comte Popinot's, and the like, he held his hat in his hand in an airy manner taught him by Valerie, and he inserted the thumb of the other hand in the armhole of his waistcoat with a knowing air, and a simpering face and expression. This new grace of attitude was due to the satirical inventiveness of Valerie, who, under pretence of rejuvenating her mayor, had given ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... and an impetus to his own pursuit of Blanche: if pursuit might be called which had been no pursuit as yet, but mere sport and idle dallying. "She said something to him, did she? perhaps she gave him the fellow flower to this;" and he took out of his coat and twiddled in his thumb and finger a poor little shrivelled crumpled bud that had faded and blackened with the heat and flare of the night—"I wonder to how many more she has given her artless tokens of affection—the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... call my friend Salemina. She doesn't mind it. She knows that I am simply jealous because I came from a vulgarly large tribe that never had any coat-of-arms, and whose ancestors always sealed their letters with their thumb nails. ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... what is written which results from the fact that these thoughts and emotions have been those of the author rather than of any other human being. It is the expression of one man's individuality, as sure and as unique as the sound of his voice, the look from his eye, or the imprint of his thumb."[45] Every person who has any call to write has a strong personality—an original manner of looking at life and of treating its problems. He wishes so to influence the world by this personality that it will consent to see through his eyes, or will at least listen patiently ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... rowdy, and gives it to him back, and then they get at it. Your nephew, who is a stout colt, buffets him well for a time, but Forrester, who is a mighty, powerful built fellow, he gets the better in the long run, and both come down together in the road. Then Forrester, being uppermost, sticks his thumb into Master Colleton's eye—the left eye, I think, it was—yes, the left eye it was—and the next moment it would have been out, when your nephew, not liking it, whipped out his dirk, and, 'fore Forrester could say ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... thrusting his brawny arm forth, with the fist clenched, indicating the necessary point of the compass by the thumb; "the coast of Guinea might have lain hereaway, and the wind you see, was dead off shore, blowing in squalls, as a cat spits, all the same as if the old fellow, who keeps it bagged for the use of us seamen, sometimes ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, resting it against the second finger. Heat it in the upper flame, slowly at first, then strongly, but heat only a very small portion in length, and keep it in constant rotation with the right hand. ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... behind, and joining these two by a line convex upward. The superficial appearance of the palm of the hand is described in the article on PALMISTRY; with regard to anatomical landmarks the superficial palmar arterial arch is situated in the line of the abducted thumb, while the deep arch is an inch nearer the wrist. The digital nerves correspond to lines drawn from the clefts of the fingers toward the wrist. On the back of the forearm the olecranon process of the ulna is quite subcutaneous, and during extension of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... wedding ring, studded with precious stones, was worn on the forefinger; Christianity moved it to the third finger. Its use was originated in this way: the priest first put it on the thumb, saying 'In the name of the Father'; on the forefinger, adding, 'in the name of the Son;' on the second finger, repeating, 'in the name of the Holy Ghost;' and on the third finger, ending with 'Amen,' and ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... and from the streaming tear drops sprang into being, as his first boon, a progeny of ghosts and goblins, of an aspect so loathsome and dreadful, that he was ready to faint away. At one time, after profound meditation, different beings spring forth: one from his thumb, another from his breath, a third from his ear, a fourth from his side. But ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... them the best way to shoot, not by placing the marble in the hollow of the first finger and shooting it out with the thumb, but on the tip of the first finger and letting ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... of prosperity, when he drove about in a hired carriage resplendent with the d'Entragues coat of arms, which cost him five hundred francs a month; had a majestic coachman in fine livery and a Tom Thumb groom; sported himself in gorgeous garments and strutted about in the Opera foyer, amidst the real or feigned admiration ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... critics were the sole critics of that evidence; and they are the sole light by which we foreigners can become critics. The great Chinese defect in criticism is the failure to work out general principles, and to criticize constructively as well as analytically. Their history is a rule of thumb, hand to mouth, diary sort of arrangement, like a vast museum of genuine but unclassified and unticketed objects. But there is no good reason whatever for our doubting the genuineness of either traditions or documents beyond the point of scepticism to which native Chinese ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... the never tiresome recital, how Phronsie fell down the stairs leading from the kitchen to the "provision room" in the little brown house, with the bread-knife in her hand; and how, because she cut her thumb so that it bled dreadfully, mother decided that she could at last have a pair of shoes bought especially for her very own self; and how Deacon Brown's old horse and wagon were procured, and they all set forth, except mother, and how they rode ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... braced, and the body, though perfectly strait, not perpendicular, but inclining as far to the right as a firm position on the right leg will permit. The right arm must then be held out with the palm open, the fingers straight and close, the thumb almost as distant from them as it will go, and the flat of the hand neither horizontal nor vertical, but exactly between both. The position of the arm perhaps will be best described by supposing an oblong hollow square, formed by the measure of four arms, as in plate the first, where the arm in its ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... "u," "y," "g," is formed upon the extreme joint of the little finger. The slight discoverable system that seems to attach to his arrangement of the letters is the placing of the vowels in order upon the points of the fingers successively, beginning with the thumb, intended, as we suppose, to be of mnemonic assistance to the learner. Such assistance is hardly necessary, as a pupil will learn one arrangement about as rapidly as another. If any arrangement has advantage over another, we consider it the one which has ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... physics; and for a time he and another boy named Rolfe—now a distinguished man of science—carried on electrical experiments of their own in the cellar of the Rolfe house. Here they had a "Tom Thumb" telegraph, a telephone which they had ventured to improve, and a hopeless tangle of wires. Whenever they could afford to buy more wires and batteries, they went to a near-by store which supplied electrical apparatus to the professors and students of Harvard. This store, with its workshop ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... whispered to her, and the result was that with the cup of milk came a plate of the magnificent raspberries. The doctor opened his grave eyes at Daisy, and stood at the foot of her couch picking up raspberries with his finger and thumb, as he had taken that one ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... had gathered itself for a final rush, and, when it had actually started to charge, he dropped to the ground like a flash. In a fraction of a second his powerful right arm went out, and he gripped the nostrils of the bull, pressing his thumb and forefinger home as far as he could. Then he twisted, ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... captain?' I asked, and a man jerked his thumb over his shoulder. The others wore thick jerseys and knitted caps, but there was one man ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan |
