"Brass buttons" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them, he ran on four legs and went faster, so that I think he might have got away altogether if he had not unfortunately run into a gooseberry net, and got caught by the large buttons on his jacket. It was a blue jacket with brass buttons, ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... cool. Its rooms are finished in dark oak of a low temperature. Home-made breezes and deep-green shrubbery give it the delights without the inconveniences of the Adirondacks. One can mount its broad staircases or glide dreamily upward in its aerial elevators, attended by guides in brass buttons, with a serene joy that Alpine climbers have never attained. There is a chef in its kitchen who will prepare for you brook trout better than the White Mountains ever served, sea food that would turn Old Point Comfort—"by Gad, sah!"—green with envy, and Maine venison that would melt the official ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... ponies for mine, but again I shook my head. They talked together awhile, then one of them triumphantly brought me an old coat which had evidently belonged to a soldier, and seemed much surprised that its brass buttons were not enough of an inducement to make me give up the coveted prize. Though both father and I continued to refuse their request as positively as ever, they still swarmed around us and looked at me in a most embarrassing way. I did not mind much, but father seemed angry and he said, sternly: ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... plucky young fellow, and was reproved by a Federal officer for continuing to wear brass buttons. Irvin retorted sharply, and was hurried into prison. Fearing that he would be searched and his papers found, he slipped them to a friend, undetected by the guard. After remaining in prison for several hours, Lieutenant Irvin was released and censured by the officer, ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... horseman. His face is very handsome—short, aquiline, delicate nose; piercing dark grey eyes; skin tanned to red bronze by exposure to the weather. He was dressed in Red River style, a blue cloth capote (hooded frock coat) with brass buttons; red and black flannel shirt, which served for waistcoat; black belt around the waist; trousers of brown and white striped home-made stuff, buff leather moccasins on his feet. I had never come across a wearer of moccasins before, and it ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... were fragments of decayed cloth. It was blue serge. Lying about were a few blackened objects—brass buttons marked with an anchor. The dead man's boots were in the best state of preservation, but the leather had shrunk and the ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... gold and silver, sometimes ornamented with jewels, filigree work, &c.; ivory, horn, bone and mother-of-pearl or other nacreous products of shell-fish; vegetable ivory and wood; glass, porcelain, paper, celluloid and artificial compositions; and even the casein of milk, and blood. Brass buttons were made at Birmingham in 1689, and in the following century the metal button industry underwent considerable development in that city. Matthew Boulton the elder, about 1745, introduced great improvements in the processes of manufacture, and when his son started the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... nearly dark. I had observed in the corner opposite to me at the other side, and at the end next the horses, two small circular reflections, as it seemed to me of a reddish light. They were about two inches apart, and about the size of those small brass buttons that yachting men used to put upon their jackets. I began to speculate, as listless men will, upon this trifle, as it seemed. From what centre did that faint but deep red light come, and from what—glass beads, buttons, toy decorations—was it reflected? We ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... its nose with a very dirty hand, the child begged money for a sick mother—a dying mother—and begged as if not accustomed to it—all the time with an eye for that dread of New England beggars, the man in the blue coat and brass buttons. ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... farmers, a small servant aged fourteen, thick-set, and named Babylas. The lion dressed his tiger very smartly—a short tunic-coat of iron-gray cloth, belted with patent leather, bright blue plush breeches, a red waistcoat, polished leather top-boots, a shiny hat with black lacing, and brass buttons with the arms of Soulas. Amedee gave this boy white cotton gloves and his washing, and thirty-six francs a month to keep himself—a sum that seemed enormous to the grisettes of Besancon: four hundred and twenty francs a year to a child of fifteen, without counting ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... fellow in a uniform of blue, with brass buttons and a visored cap, stood near by, and to him ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... paragon of loveliness in this Circe of that grim, ascetic defendant, who sat beside his counsel. But presently all eyes were fixed on the Colonel, who certainly made up in his appearance any deficiency of his fair client. His portly figure was clothed in a blue dress coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat which permitted his frilled shirt-front to become erectile above it, a black satin stock which confined a boyish turned-down collar around his full neck, and immaculate drill trousers, strapped over varnished boots. A murmur ran round the court. ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... and called at this island. They found a curious race of Malay stock. These aborigines did not know what money was good for. Nor had they ever used tobacco or rum. They gave the officers goats and pigs for tin pots and brass buttons, and hung around the vessel all day in their canoes waiting for a chance to dive for something which might be thrown overboard. They wore clouts only, ate taro and yams, and had axes, spears, and knives ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... fun, and rain could not dampen their feelings, however hard it poured. But, as ill luck would have it, a young gentleman of another party on board, in the full uniform of a very great yacht club, with brass buttons enough to sink him, stepping quickly to get out of the wet, tumbled holus-bolus, head and heels, into a barrel of water I had been coopering, and being a short man, was soon out of sight, and nearly drowned before he was rescued. It was the nearest to a casualty on the Spray ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... Blue and it sported a large gold-leaf on its side, and inside the cabin were two hard-faced gentlemen wearing uniforms with brass buttons and that Old Bailey look in their eye. The one on the left was ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... of Ray Kennedy as a young man of steady habits and blameless life, but she regretted that he was an atheist, and that he was not a passenger conductor with brass buttons on his coat. On the whole, she wondered what such an exemplary young man found to like in Thea. Dr. Archie she treated respectfully because of his position in Moonstone, but she KNEW he had kissed the Mexican barytone's pretty daughter, and she had a whole ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... with green, and a black cloth spencer (an article much like a boy's jacket exaggerated), from beneath which protruded the very broad tails of a blue coat, with rather more than their proper complement of bright brass buttons, while drab gaiters and shorts ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Street runners ceased out of the land soon after the introduction of the new police. I remember them very well as standing about the door of the office in Bow Street. They had no other uniform than a blue dress-coat, brass buttons (I am not even now sure that that was necessary), and a bright red cloth waistcoat. The waistcoat was indispensable, and the slang name for them was ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... had said, or was saying, that we were descended from monkeys, which was quite absurd, though it might be true enough. On the sea the thrashing hills of green water suggested a kind of immensity and terror, but not the immensity of the poet's heart. The ship was safe, the captain at table in brass buttons and blue uniform, eager to be nice to her—told her so. Her faith really, was in the captain. And there with her, always, was Cowperwood, looking at this whole, moving spectacle of life with a suspicious, not apprehensive, but wary eye, and saying ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... candle and a box of matches, I went downstairs. I had, as I have said, no longer any terror of the lower floor. The cat lay as usual on the table in the back hall. I saw his eyes watching me with their curious unblinking stare, as intelligent as two brass buttons. He rose as my light approached, and I made a bed for him of a cushion from a chair, failing my ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... transformation that well-nigh upset the gravity of our hunters, and rendered Dick's efforts to look solemn quite abortive. San-it-sa-rish had once been to the trading-forts of the Pale-faces, and while there had received the customary gift of a blue surtout with brass buttons, and an ordinary hat, such as gentlemen wear at home. As the coat was a good deal too small for him, a terrible length of dark, bony wrist appeared below the cuffs. The waist was too high, and it was with great difficulty that he managed to button the garment across his ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... he could see soldiers with halberds, and spouts where the water ran, like dragons and serpents. That was a house to look at; and there lived an old man, who wore plush breeches; and he had a coat with large brass buttons, and a wig that one could see was a real wig. Every morning there came an old fellow to him who put his rooms in order, and went on errands; otherwise, the old man in the plush breeches was quite alone in the old house. Now and then he came to the window and looked ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... long to dry 'em.—Yes, I know it's bothersome, buy yer can't go int' s'ciety 'thout takin' some trouble, 'n' anyhow I couldn't git round to 'em last night.—Sarah Maud, I think 'twould be perfeckly han'som' if you ripped them brass buttons off yer uncle's policeman's coat 'n' sewed 'em in a row up the front o' yer green skirt. Susan, you must iron out yours 'n' Kitty's apurns; 'n' there, I come mighty near forgettin' Peory's stockin's! I counted the whole lot last ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... could be found at no other place on the programme. It was a marvellous rig that he wore when he reappeared. A pair of white duck pantaloons, stiffly starched, were strapped under a pair of substantial, well-greased, cowhide boots. The waistcoat was of bright-red cloth with brass buttons. The long-tailed blue broad-cloth coat was also supplied with big brass buttons. He wore a high linen dickey and a necktie made of a small silk American flag. On his head he had a cream-colored, woolly plug hat and carried in his hand a baton resembling a small barber's pole, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... possible that could add to our looks and appearances was done to make an acceptable display before our commander in chief. Guns were burnished and rubbed up, cartridge boxes and belts polished, and the brass buttons and buckles made to look as bright as new. Our clothes were patched and brushed up, so far as was in our power, boots and shoes greased, the tattered and torn old hats were given here and there "a lick and a promise," and on the whole I must say we presented ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... somewhat altered his style of costume. He wore a sky-blue, swallow-tailed coat, whose maker had flourished in London half-a-century before. It had a velvet collar about five inches deep, fitted uncommonly tight to the figure, and had a pair of bright brass buttons, very close together, situated half-a-foot above the wearer's natural waist. Besides this, he had on a canary-coloured vest, and a pair of white duck trousers, in the fob of which evidently reposed an immense gold watch of the olden time, with a bunch of seals that would have served ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... deck of the Essex as she swung slowly out to sea, stood Captain Porter, and by his side stood the proudest boy in all America that day, David Farragut, a little midshipman in a shining uniform which boasted more brass buttons than the years of its wearer's life—for David was only ten years old, and this is how he came to be in such an important ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... occurred to me that almost anything that was hard would answer to sharpen the edge and point of the ivory harpoon-head, and, since I could not get any kind of metal to make a whole harpoon-head out of, I had to try some other plan. As good luck would have it, I now thought of the brass buttons on my coat. Some of these I quickly tore off. Then I hacked my knife with a sharp flint stone until I had made a saw of it, and with this saw I cut a little groove along the tapering point of the ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... Circling her waist she wore a girdle of touchwood, and attached to it a great skin pouch, in which she kept the charms which she used when she was practising her sorcery. She wore upon her feet shaggy calfskin shoes, with long, tough latchets, upon the ends of which there were large brass buttons. She had catskin gloves upon her hands; the gloves were white inside and lined with fur. When she entered, all of the folk felt it to be their duty to offer her becoming greetings. She received the salutations of each individual according as he pleased her. Yeoman Thorkel took the sibyl ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... The only difficulty was that their patched clothes made them feel a little abashed at the prominent roles they were to assume. However, their mother made them each a nice jacket from a striped dress, one of her only two dresses, and she adorned them with the military brass buttons their father had had taken from his coat; so they felt very proud. Their father, of course, was to give the bride away,—an office he accepted with pleasure, he said, provided he did not have to move too far, which might be hazardous so long as he had to wear ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... with plastering, something which no one in Jamestown had ever seen before. He was regarded as an aristocrat. He wore a swallow-tail coat of fine blue jeans, instead of the coarse brown native-made cloth. The blue-jeans coat was ornamented with brass buttons and cost one dollar and twenty-five cents a yard, a high price for that locality and time. His wife wore a calico dress for company, while the neighbor wives wore homespun linsey-woolsey. The new house was referred to as the Crystal Palace. When John ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... live up to your shoulder-straps and brass buttons after this, Wesley," she cried, as the proud young dandy strutted over the arabesques of the library, where the delighted papa marched him, the better to survey the boy's splendor. "And think of the fate that awaits you if, in the esteem of Acredale, you should turn out less ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... After peace had settled down and it became perfectly evident that we were harmless, the door of one of the huts opened and an Indian man appeared. Doubtless the cause of his disappearance before our arrival had been the easily discernible presence in our midst of the brass buttons of Corporal Gamarra. Possibly he who had selected this remote corner of the wilderness for his abode had a guilty conscience and at the sight of a gendarme decided that he had better hide at once. More probably, however, he feared the visit of a recruiting party, since it is quite likely ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... with a hollow-looking face, framed with long, dirty white whiskers. He had a muffler round his neck, and was wearing a peasant's cloak of a dark colour. Around him, shown up by the moon, were sword belts, brass buttons, sword hilts, and other objects that the infamous old fellow had torn ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... about sixty entered, white-haired, thin, and swarthy, in a cinnamon-coloured dress-coat with brass buttons, and a pink neckerchief. He smirked, went up to kiss Arkady's hand, and bowing to the guest retreated to the door, and ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... for a while into the charitable shade of a tree in the fence, when Coggan saw a figure in a blue coat and brass buttons running to them across ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... at the footlights; a cage in a corner in which I descried the ferocious wild tomcat; and, busily putting the last touches to the guy ropes, the pupil and assistant Quast, neatly attired in a close fitting bottle-green uniform with brass buttons. Almost immediately Lola appeared, in a shimmering gold evening gown, and with a necklet of barbaric gold round her neck. I had never seen her so magnificently, so commandingly beautiful. I was conscious of a ripple of admiration running through the huge assembly—and it was a queer sensation, ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... when he observes, "Trifling as this recital may appear, the circumstance was highly affecting to a person in my situation. I was oppressed with such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes. In the morning, I presented my compassionate landlady with two of the four brass buttons remaining on my waistcoat; the only recompense ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... with yells of applause, and even when the confusion was at its height, I noticed a small, dark-complexioned man, wearing a blue frock coat with brass buttons, but with no other insignia of office or ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... speaking Celtic to one whom they deem their countryman, have no hesitation in acknowledging themselves to be "Cairdean droich oir," workers of false gold. The rings are principally made out of old brass buttons; those worn by old Chelsea pensioners being considered the very best for the purpose. Many an ancient Corporal Trim, alter having spent all his money at the public-house, and only become three-parts boozy, has been induced by the Hindity-mengro to sell all his buttons at the ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... is as plentiful as brass buttons, nowadays, but moral courage is a rarer virtue; and I'm lacking in it, as I'll prove. You think me a Virginian; I'm an Alabamian by birth, and was a Rebel three ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... them. The extreme north of my playground had been, within my father's easy remembering, a woodland wild enough to shelter deer; and even in my boyhood there remained patches of forest where once in a while the sharp-eyed picked up gun-flints and brass buttons that had been dropped among those very trees by the marauding soldiery of King George III. of tyrannical memory. There was no deer there when I was a boy. Deer go naturally with a hardy peasantry, and not naturally, perhaps, but artificially, with the rich and great. But deer cannot ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... to trade for food and horses when Lewis and Clark departed from the coast inland had dwindled to what could have been tied in two handkerchiefs; but necessity proved the mother of invention, and the men cut the brass buttons from their tattered clothes and vended brass trinkets to the Indians. The medicine-chest was also sacrificed, every Indian tribe besieging the two captains for eye-water, fly-blisters, and other patent wares. The poverty of the white man roused the insolence ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... will recall that anybody with any pretensions to being the life and soul of the party was accustomed to attend binges at the Casino in the ordinary evening-wear trouserings topped to the north by a white mess-jacket with brass buttons. And ever since I had stepped aboard the Blue Train at Cannes station, I had been wondering on and off how ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... on his glossy beaver with enormous brim, high curved; his blue coat with brass buttons; his white waistcoat, gray breeches, and top-boots; and marched up to the chateau of Beaurepaire, and sent in his card with his ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... service, sir: a close-whiskered, bristly, pot-bellied little Britisher in brass buttons an' blue. 'Glad t' know you, Cap'n Small,' says he. 'You've come in the nick o' time, sir. How near can you steam with ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... moon made it almost as light as day, and even dignified Albertson joined in the jovial song, while Billy Sparrow, dressed in his best blue broadcloth with its bright brass buttons, joined lustily in the chorus: "Rah! Rah! Rah! Albertson, Mack, ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... she hardly dared risk herself with him, lest she should find a seat less desirable even than the memorable brush-heap. But Mike protested loudly to having joined the "Sons of Temperance" only the night before, and as in his new suit of blue, with shining brass buttons, he presented a more stylish appearance than his father, his mistress finally decided to try him, threatening all manner of evil if in any way he broke his pledge, either to herself or the "Sons," the latter of whom ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... almost alone in the world. Their mother had died in giving them birth. Their father, an old man when he married, reached his allotted span when his sons first donned Her Majesty's brass buttons, and quietly went to keep his watch below. Discipline had been his guiding star through life, and when Death called him he obeyed without a murmur, trusting confidently to the Naval Department in the first place, and the good God in the second, to ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... of Swan's hotel the landlord sat snoozing peacefully behind the desk. There was only one customer. He was a gray-haired, ruddy-visaged old salt in white duck—at this time of year!—and a blue sack-coat dotted with shining brass buttons, the whole five-foot-four topped by a gold-braided officer's cap. He was drinking what is jocularly called a "schooner" of beer, and finishing this he lurched from the room with a rolling, hiccoughing gait, due entirely to a wooden peg which extended from his right knee ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... in so dark a face. Of all the beggar-men that I had seen or fancied, he was the chief for raggedness. He was clothed with tatters of old ship's canvas and old sea cloth; and this extraordinary patchwork was all held together by a system of the most various and incongruous fastenings,—brass buttons, bits of stick, and loops of tarry gaskin. About his waist he wore an old brass-buckled leather belt, which was the one thing solid ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... looked to one side and there he saw a toy Policeman, dressed just as a real one would be, with blue coat, brass buttons, a white helmet and a club that swung on the end of a leather string. The Policeman walked along, for he could do that when a spring inside him was wound up. And as he walked he swung his club to and fro, and said, just ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope
... minutes before half-past seven, the Duke, arrayed for dinner, passed leisurely up the High. The arresting feature of his costume was a mulberry-coloured coat, with brass buttons. This, to any one versed in Oxford lore, betokened him a member of the Junta. It is awful to think that a casual stranger might have mistaken him for a footman. It does not do to ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... may go further, and say that the cares of the farm, when high farming was unknown, did not much lift at that time the master above the man. The latter wore a smock-frock, while the former, perhaps, sported a blue coat with brass buttons, and had rather a better kind of head-dress, and ambled along on a little steady cob, that knew at which ale-house to call for the regular allowance, quite as well as his master. But as regards talk—which was chiefly of bullocks and pigs—well, there really was no very ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... clumsily drawing forth the property purse or bag of coin which Smith had prepared, he burst the fastening and showered the contents on the unfortunate Camille. Lo and behold! the property coin proved to be medium-sized brass buttons with long shanks. A far-sighted humorist among the audience caught sight of them and, with utter disregard of the dramatic situation and ignoring the consequences of his interference, unloosed his tongue and in a peculiar treble ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... But there are cleverer people. The so-called thinking public in Germany must have some national problem to solve. It finds some such, readily enough in order to play with it. Meanwhile they take no notice that the party in power [Footnote: Men with the brass buttons.] are ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... stopping outside the hotel drew me to the window as the waitress left me, and I was in time to see an old gentleman with a long white beard step from the interior of a Daimler landaulette, the door of which was held open by a dignified chauffeur, whose attire seemed to consist mainly of brass buttons. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... too, they had to act as rough and ready police (for there were no men in brass buttons in the woods!) and be ready to support the right, and deal out justice, just as our "cow-boys" of later ranch ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... charge to testify that they were extremely affable and disposed to make their prisoners as comfortable as possible. Still, in the close, stifling weather, to be locked up within the narrow circuit of a dungeon was limbo. The pair wore their own clothes, Travers still retaining a navy-jacket with brass buttons engraved with the initials of some yacht club, and did not complain of having been subjected to indignities. While I was with them the shadow of a face darkened the window; it was a Carlist prisoner who had hoisted himself up ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... sure that any tree or flower nursed by Miss Cobbe would be the very first to fade away and that her gazelles would die long before they ever came to know her well. The sight of the brass buttons on her pea-jacket would ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... shelter in the tent of a Foulah shepherd, who charitably gave him boiled corn and dates, although he was recognised as a Christian. He here purchased some corn in exchange for some brass buttons, and again took the road to Bambarra, which he resolved to follow for the night. Hearing some people approaching, he thought it prudent to hide himself, which he did in the thick brushwood. He there sat holding his ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... his age, in his hitching, home-made clothes, twisted himself about when Barnabas entered, and stared at him with slow regard. He eyed the smooth, scented hair, the black satin vest with a pattern of blue flowers on it, the blue coat with brass buttons, and the shining boots, then he ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... this,—he not only discoursed glibly about diplomacy, but sagaciously gave out that he would turn his back to no one in his knowledge of treaties; which said knowledge, and his crutch, he was always ready to swear by. Those great brass buttons with the eagles, and his blue small clothes, too, he wore to the day of his death. The parish had a feeling that no fourth of July could be celebrated without him; and I well remember how on that day I used to think ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... somewhat cadaverous-looking as to features, with a clean-shaven upper lip, a short goatee beard, and light hair, slightly touched with grey, worn so long that it came down over the collar of his coat, which was of faded blue cloth, adorned with brass buttons. His trousers were braced up high enough to reveal his ankles, and he wore a pair of ancient red morocco slippers upon his otherwise naked feet. His head was adorned with a peakless cap of what looked like wolfskin, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... evening of our stay in Topeka there was a gay gathering of young people, where, as usual, the soldier boys were the lions. Brass buttons bearing the American Eagle and the magic inscription "U. S." have ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... recall another characteristic of Edison wherein he differs from most men. There are many individuals who derive an intense and not improper pleasure in regalia or military garments, with plenty of gold braid and brass buttons, and thus arrayed, in appearing before their friends and neighbors. Putting at the head of the procession the man who makes his appeal to public attention solely because of the brilliancy of his plumage, and passing down the ranks through the multitudes ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... horse-pistol on the streets of Jonesville. I looked at the crowd of fantastic students getting ready to bolt for the fence. I looked at our victim, fairly punching words into his notebook. It was the brightest young dream that was ever busted by a fat loafer in brass buttons. Then I saw Ole Skjarsen and had my one ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... just like the farmers, plenty of 'em, have around these diggings? Well, I've changed my mind, boys. It just broke in on me that I saw somethin' flash every time they moved this way and that. No, it wasn't the field glasses either; but somethin' about their clothes. Brass buttons, I reckon, boys! Them men might 'a' been wardens from the penitentiary, lookin' for a prisoner that escaped ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... small trench that has been cut in the turf to save their reputation for alignment. Then they break into platoons, and are inspected, man by man, by the adjutant and his aides. The inspection being over about eleven o'clock, the colonel appears, all glorious in brass buttons, epaulets as large as tin plates, and a cocked hat of great proportions. Once more the regiment forms in double ranks, with presented arms. The colonel and his "staff" ride slowly down the line, turn back, and take their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... into Omaha, we made ready to do so. But the people of Omaha were also ready. The Swede and I hung upon the side-ladders, ready to drop off. But the freight did not stop. Furthermore, long rows of policemen, their brass buttons and stars glittering in the electric lights, were lined up on each side of the track. The Swede and I knew what would happen to us if we ever dropped off into their arms. We stuck by the side-ladders, and the train rolled on across the Missouri ...
— The Road • Jack London
... host, firm and well set up on his limbs, smoking his long churchwarden and caring nothing for nobody at home, and despising everybody abroad. He wore the typical scarlet waistcoat, with shiny brass buttons, the corduroy breeches, and grey worsted stockings and smart buckled shoes, that characterised every self-respecting innkeeper in Great Britain in these days—and while pretty, motherless Sally had need of four pairs of brown hands ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... party. Full well did Patrick know of the grandeur of Isaac's holiday attire and the impressionable nature of Eva's soul, and gravely did he fear that his own Sunday finery, albeit fashioned from the blue cloth and brass buttons of his sire, might ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... surely have left me but few alternatives. The main resource of a small New York boy in this line at that time was the little sheath-like jacket, tight to the body, closed at the neck and adorned in front with a single row of brass buttons—a garment of scant grace assuredly and compromised to my consciousness, above all, by a strange ironic light from an unforgotten source. It was but a short time before those days that the great Mr. Thackeray had come to America to ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... black silk chimney-pot hat on, and his Eton jacket, with the wide shirt collar. Berquin, in a tightly fitting double-breasted brown cloth swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, yellow nankin bell-mouthed trousers strapped over varnished boots, butter-colored gloves, a blue satin stock, and a very tall hairy hat with a wide curly brim, looked such an out-and-out young gentleman of France that we were all proud of being seen in his company—especially ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... man in a black overcoat with the brass buttons wider apart across the chest than at the belt line, like those of our traffic police in summer-time, I thought it was a trick of the mist. Because the uniform that, by a nice adjustment of buttons, tries to broaden the shoulders and decrease the waist, is not being worn much in ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... too, carried a fine repeating rifle, but his dress was incongruous and striking. He wore a felt hat, broad of brim, with a heavy gilt cord around the crown. A jacket of dark red velvet with broad brass buttons enclosed his strong shoulders and body, but his costume was finished off with trousers, leggings and moccasins of tanned deerskin. Will saw the butt of a pistol and the hilt of a knife peeping from under ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... her," was his disappointed soliloquy. Then followed a few moments of silent thought. Suddenly he pulled himself together, put on a bold front, stalked manfully up to the porch, and rang the bell determinedly. When a man in brass buttons appeared to answer his summons, Dudley felt decidedly more reassured, and his previous fears of being greeted with a countryman's heavy boot ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... He is young, clean-shaven except for a dark mustache, wears a white tie, a blue coat, cut like dress-coat, blue trousers with red side stripes, brass buttons; his waistcoat is of striped red ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson
... single thrilly thrill. And would you believe it, Mr. Townsend?—after a while he came back, precisely as though he had been a bad penny or a cat. He had been in the Boer War and came home just a night before I left, wounded and promoted several times and completely covered with glory and brass buttons. He came seven miles to see me, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him, for I had on my best dress and was feeling rather talkative. Well! at ten I was quite struck on him. At eleven perfectly willing to part friends, and at twelve crazy for him to go. He stayed till ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... teeth—two, for his mouth was always open; a pair of flaring ears like those of a mouse, and two little restless, wicked eyes that shone like black diamonds: the whole of him, with the exception of his cocoanut of a head, squeezed into a gray cloth suit bristling with brass buttons and worsted braid, a double row over his chest, and a stripe down each ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... been polished until it "flashed" properly, was girded to a brass-mounted belt about his waist; an ancient, gold-braided, military cap, which was much too large, covered his curly head; and four tarnished brass buttons, displaying the Golden Lion of Norway, gave a martial air to his blue jacket, although the rest ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... afternoon I dressed up in my high gray wool hat, my fine long-tailed blue cloth coat with brass buttons, by pink waistcoat, frilled shirt, white cravat, and yellow nankeen trousers, and walked slowly several times around my strawberry bed. Did no see ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... the mess-boy," said Riggs, indicating the black boy who stood behind him, clad in a white jacket with brass buttons, below which he wore a scarlet sarong reaching to his bare feet, and evidently fashioned from an old table-cover. The hilt of a kris showed above the folds of his sarong, and the two lower buttons of the jacket were left open, so that the dagger might be free to his hand. ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... regiment of little Boy Bunny Scouts, dressed in khaki, with guns and caps and brass buttons and guns and drums and a captain and a fife, and I guess there were three or four fifes, and as soon as they saw the little rabbit, they all shouted, "Here comes Billy Bunny. Let's get him to join ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... up to keep it from the floor, while the right, owing to the Captain's misfortune, barely reached his ankle. A checkered woolen shirt hung about him in folds, and over it he wore a garment that Cap'n Cod was pleased to style his "professional coat." It was a blue swallow-tail, with bright brass buttons. As worn by Winn the tails hung nearly to the floor, the cuffs were turned back over his wrists, and the collar ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... just what had taken place; how, when the gentlemen were seated, Malachi in his undress blue coat and brass buttons had approached his master noiselessly from behind, and with a gravity that befitted the occasion had bent low his head, his hands behind his back, his head turned on one side, and in a hushed voice had ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... or five customers, faces well known to Charley, all of whom seemed to be dressed with a splendour second only to that of the landlady. One man had on an almost new brown frock coat with a black velvet collar, and white trousers. Two had blue swallow-tailed coats with brass buttons; and a fourth, a dashing young lawyer's clerk from Clement's Inn, was absolutely stirring a mixture, which he called a mint julep, with a yellow kid glove dangling ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... in the original] said Cousin Hans, indignantly; "it's certainly too dear a joke for a little country like ours to maintain acrobats of that sort. Didn't I see the other day that this so-called army requires 1500 boxes of shoe-blacking, 600 curry-combs, 3000 yards of gold-lace and 8640 brass buttons?—It would be better if we saved what we spend in gold-lace and brass buttons, and devoted our half-pence to ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... Suspicion was now excited, and the affair underwent a thorough examination, which elicited the following facts. The convict, in the hope of obtaining his pardon as a reward, had filed a guinea and some brass buttons, which, judiciously mixed, made a tolerable pile of gold-dust, and this he carefully distributed over a small tract of sandy land. In lieu of the expected freedom, his ingenuity was rewarded with close confinement and ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... began to laugh again, at the thought of a mule in trousers. "Aw, come on down," I said. "You ain't got any trousers for him." "Have, too," he said; "I'm making them spare minutes out of Turkey red. And when I adds brass buttons and pockets I'll put 'em on, the next time ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull
... somewhat obscured by the bronzing effects of rough weather, but the lines of his mouth showed that affectionate impulses were strong within him—perhaps stronger than judgment well could regulate. He wore a blue jacket with little brass buttons, and ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... "Quite natural," he answered. "Why, I might have eaten you!" But in the absorption of his talk with her he had forgotten that, as he went to the door, he had seen a blue coat and brass buttons, had recognized the face of his old enemy, Moresco. Now the realization that, armed and uniformed, a minion of the forces of the city's law and order, that cheap foe was actually waiting for his little Anna—for his gentle, big-eyed, soft-voiced Anna!—came to him with a new ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... musket in the ranks. He was with Washington at Valley Forge and had many stories to tell of their hardships. He was upward of seventy-five years old when I first remember him—a little man in a blue coat with brass buttons. He and Granny used to come to our house once or twice a year for a week or two at a time. Their permanent home was with Uncle Martin Kelly in Red Kill, eight miles away. I remember him as a great angler. How many times in the May or June mornings, as soon as he had had his breakfast, ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... origin and destiny. I hold it to be the duty of the amiable architect to carry out the wishes of his employer as far as consistent with his own peace of mind; and if you insist on having a row of brass buttons around all your casings, and setting your own tin-type, life-size, at every corner, I shall acquiesce; but my sober advice is that the interior work be simple and unobtrusive. The most perfect style in dress or manner is that which attracts the least attention; so the essential ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... suspiciously at his companion; but, fascinated by the clear, luminous eyes, he launched with Southern violence into a whirling story. The villain was a traveller in buttons—buttons! To be wronged by a traveller in diamonds might have its compensations—but buttons! Linen buttons, bone buttons, brass buttons, trouser buttons! To be a traveller in the inanity of buttonholes was the only lower degradation. His name was Bondon—he uttered it scathingly, as if to decline from a Bocardon to a Bondon was unthinkable. This ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... morning after presenting his landlady with two of his last four brass buttons. But though he made another gallant effort to reach Timbuktu and the Niger, which, he was told, "ran to the world's end," lions and mosquitoes made life impossible. His horse was too weak to carry him any farther, and on 29th July 1796 ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... up his money in a parcel which he gives to the gipsy. The latter, after various ceremonies performed, returns the parcel, which is to be buried. The money will be found doubled by a certain date. Of course when the owner unburies the parcel he finds nothing in it but brass buttons. In the same way, and with pious confidence, the American boy buries a marble in a hollow log, uttering the formula, 'What hasn't come here, come! what's here, stay here!' and expects to find all the marbles he has ever lost. {145} Let us follow the belief in magical roots ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... Britisher. He was tall, lean, and cadaverous, with long, straight, colourless hair reaching almost to his shoulders, and a scanty goatee beard adorning his otherwise clean-shaven face. His outer garments, consisting of blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons and white kerseymere waistcoat and trousers—the former also trimmed with brass buttons—seemed to have been made for a man many sizes smaller than himself; for the coat was distinctly short at the waist, while the sleeves terminated ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... replied Otway sullenly, "the Island trade is not calculated to turn out Chesterfields. I'm sick enough of it, now we are carrying passengers as well as cargo. I suppose the firm will be asking us supercargoes to wear uniform and brass buttons soon, like the ticket collector on ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... of the street, glanced interestedly at the dark store windows as he went by. And then, a block ahead, on the other side, his eyes rested on an approaching form. As the other reached the corner and paused, and the light from the street lamp glinted on brass buttons, Jimmie Dale's eyes narrowed a little under his slouch hat. The policeman, although nonchalantly swinging a nightstick, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... into details, it may be said that our hero selected everything to his satisfaction except a coat. Here he was rather particular. Finally, he espied a blue coat with brass buttons, hanging ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... called the old mistress. She looked out the window and pushed me back up in the corner and shot the door. She was so scared. I thought them things they had on their coats (buttons) was pretty. I found out they was brass buttons. I peeped out a crack it was already closed 'cept a big crack, I seed through. Well, the wagons was high in front and high in the back and sunk in the middle. Had pens in the wheels instead of axels. Wagon had a box ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... me, and under their benign influence the petty trials and inconveniences of the past seven or eight weeks faded away like a dissolving view. The authorities have also served us out with clothes. I have received a lovely khaki tunic with beautiful brass buttons stamped with Lion and Unicorn, "Dieu et mon Droit," and a' that. And the fit is a wonderful fit; it is truly marvellous how they can turn out such a well-fitting coat for—a big boy of twelve. And I have boots! A grand fit ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... one of his policemen, who did not wear a uniform. This was done so no crowd would gather in front of the hotel to stare at Freddie, Flossie and Laddie, as would have happened if a policeman in uniform, with his bright brass buttons, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope
... see him," he said, "walking down from Apsley House to the Chapel Royal, St. James's, in white trousers and blue frock-coat with brass buttons. Whenever he was in London on a Sunday he used to attend the early morning eight o'clock service at St. James's, and when I had any friends who wanted to see the great Duke, I used to take them to church. Frequently he, with myself and friends sitting at a good point of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... in his yellow uniform with brass buttons, came forward with a questioning lady at his side. They stood so close to us that we could not help hearing ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... of a robust policeman, in his helmet and brass buttons—a policeman who was expecting him—Ransom could see that in a twinkling. He judged in the same space of time that Olive Chancellor had heard of his having arrived and had applied for the protection of this functionary, who was now simply ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... a big monkey, wearing a blue coat with brass buttons and swinging a short club in his hand, strutted up to ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... couldn't answer. And the tall spiked iron fence that ran all the way around the yard, which was full of trees—how wonderful that was, too! As they stood looking, law-makers and visitors poured out through the doors—a brave array—some of them in tight trousers, high hats, and blue coats with brass buttons, and, as they passed, Caleb Hazel reverently whispered the names of those he knew—distinguished lawyers, statesmen, and Mexican veterans: witty Tom Marshall; Roger Hanson, bulky, brilliant; stately Preston, eagle-eyed Buckner, and Breckenridge, the magnificent, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... told, direct to Mr. Seward at Washington. He was, in fact, the sort of diplomatist whose duties, as he apprehended them, were those of a spy. He was a person disagreeable to look at, as in his odd-coloured trousers, short waistcoat, and dark green dress-coat, with brass buttons, he went elbowing about amongst the ladies and gentlemen promenading the public walk, which commands so beautiful a view over the St. Lawrence, called the "Platform." Phrenology would have condemned him. Phrenology and Physiognomy combined, would have hung him, on the certain verdict ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... white of the other part of the eyes, still more conspicuous. The mouth, which was very wide, sometimes whistled inaudibly the tune of a Scotch jig (always the same tune), sometimes was slightly curled with a sardonic smite. The Englishman was dressed with extreme care; his blue coat, with brass buttons, displayed his spotless waistcoat, snowy, white as his ample cravat; his shirt was fastened with two magnificent ruby studs, and his patrician hands were ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... knee-caps of the taller man. With the exception of the "tile," his costume was altogether military—to me well-known. It was the ordinary undress of the mounted rifles: a dark-green round-about of coarse cloth—with a row of small brass buttons from throat to waist—and overalls of the same material. In the particular sample before us, overalls was rather an inappropriate name. The garment so designated scarcely covered the calves of the wearer's legs—though of these there ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... appreciated gifts: one dozen linen towels spun, woven and bleached by the hands of Mrs. Goodwin; her husband adding for Louis the solid silver knee and shoe buckles his grandfather wore when a revolutionary officer, the trusty sword that hung by his side, and his uniform coat with its huge brass buttons, with the trunk of red cedar where for years ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... drawn quickly nearer, and Jack could even make out the fact that the men crowded in her seemed to be in some sort of uniform, for he certainly discovered brass buttons. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... amusement, but it was exceedingly exciting. The animal having been caught in a box-trap, and not maimed or crippled in any way, was first muzzled, and then let loose for a race for its life over the prairies, with hounds and hunters in full pursuit. All the blue coats and brass buttons of the hunters did not make that a brave thing to do, but the wolves were great nuisances, and it was long before the days of Bergh. On one of these occasions, the wolf was led to the starting point by some soldiers to be prepared for the chase, but none of ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... rustic; a smiling, smoothly-shaven, obliging man, dressed in a blue swallow-tailed coat, with brass buttons, and exhibiting his bardic legs in a pair of extremely stout and comfortable ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... system the exceptional features of which were too often by both friend and foe made to stand for the system itself. His tall beaver, with its curled brim, and his blue broadcloth dress-coat, faded and frayed, with its brass buttons, bore unmistakable evidence of their age and origin, but they seemed to be a reasonable and necessary contribution ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... said Roy to himself. "He has two brass buttons on the back of coat, and this chap hasn't any. I believe he was a thief, after my money. Lucky I didn't put it under my pillow, or he'd have it now. I must be on the watch. No wonder Billy Carew warned me to be careful. I wonder ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... sentry paced in front of the gate to the grounds, keeping out all who had not provided themselves with a pass. The sentry had seen the crowd gathering towards the east, and in the distance he noticed the brass buttons of the police glistening in the western sunlight. He wondered ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... wore an odd flat cap, like a tam-o'-shanter with a visor. Their coats were of bright blue, with the coat-of-arms of the princess on the brass buttons. This coat reached nearly to their feet, and in the back it was gathered full and stiffened with canvas, for all the world like a woman's pannier. I thought I should die the first time I got a ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... William, now (I can't abear to call him Will, because that was the name as 'is father went by, and I 'old that in a sense it is sacred), there's Master William, though 'e's only jist out o' frocks an' frilled trousers, and noo into blue tights an' brass buttons, there 'e is, goin' about the country on a pony as isn't much bigger than a Noofoundland dog, but goes over the 'edges an ditches in a way as makes my blood to curdle an' my skin to creep, with that dear boy on 'is back and 'is tail flyin be'ind, an' shoutin' with a ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... institution; many had come straight from the casual wards; others had spent the long hours since sundown in the streets; and one, a hale old man who diffused around him an air of respectability and comfort, was a lodger at Clerkenwell Workhouse. His snuff-coloured coat with two brass buttons at the back was the solitary whole garment visible in this section of ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... was the most affected by the communication. His bushy eyebrows frowned at Evan, and he began tugging at the brass buttons of his coat, like one preparing to arm ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... baronet! Sir Gregory Gubbins took precedence of Colonel Maltravers! He could not ride out but he met Sir Gregory; he could not dine out but he had the pleasure of walking behind Sir Gregory's bright blue coat with its bright brass buttons. In his last visit to Lisle Court, which he had then crowded with all manner of fine people, he had seen—the very first morning after his arrival—seen from the large window of his state saloon, a great staring ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... along the passage, and that made it more reproachful. He come out of a green-baize door—the very place I can point out to you, and the selfsame door, miss, though false to the accuracy of the mind that knows it, by reason of having been covered up red, and all the brass buttons lost to it in them new-fangled upholsteries. Not that I see him come through, if you please, but the sway of the door, being double-jointed, was enough to show legs, had been there. And knowing that my lord's private room was there, made me put ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... miles between the two boys, but the pace at which the elder walked bid fair to bring them face to face within an hour. The boy whom we now introduce was evidently a sailor. He wore blue trousers, a blue vest with little brass buttons, a blue jacket with bigger brass buttons, and a blue cap with a brass button on either side—each brass button, on coat, cap, and vest, having an anchor of, (apparently), burnished gold in the centre of it. He had clear blue eyes, brown curly ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... spotted too with many stains, ragged at the trouser-ends and even torn in one place above the elbow, fitting also so closely to the figure that it must have been at bursting point. He saw round the neck a dark navy handkerchief, and down the front of the coat brass buttons that shook and trembled as ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... a certain ragged boy, was for many weeks among the missing. A few Sundays later, one of the first arrivals was master James, but he was so decently clad that I did not recognize him, and was obliged to inquire his name. A blue jacket, much too large for him, and ornamented with brass buttons, gave him a very distinguished air, but we soon learned that clothes do not always make the man, for time has proven him not as worthy as we thought. O, such a little scamp as he is! and yet so full ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various
... questions. The man with the scar had committed some inexcusable offense, and Mrs. Sandford had crossed him off the list. He knew that the Italian officer is, more or less, a lady's man; and the supreme confidence he has in the power of brass buttons and gold lace makes him at ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... sick man took cognizance of nothing but the blue coats and brass buttons. He did not look for locust clubs and silver shields. These were policemen—his deadliest enemies; but he ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... but to have ended by becoming an obscure housepainter in a village that lived by raising corn and by feeding that corn to red steers —ugh!—the thought made him shudder. He looked with envy at the blue coat and the brass buttons of the railroad agent; he tried vainly to get into the Caxton Cornet Band; he got drunk to forget his humiliation and in the end he fell to loud boasting and to the nursing of a belief within himself that in truth not Lincoln nor Grant but he himself had thrown the winning die ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... told the same. They could just pick and choose their good times. Tessie's mind groped about, sensing a certain injustice. How about the girls? She didn't put it thus squarely. Hers was not a logical mind. Easy enough to paw over the men-folks and get silly over brass buttons and a uniform. She put it that way. She thought of the refrain of a popular song: "What Are You Going to Do to Help the Boys?" Tessie, smiling a crooked little smile up there in the darkness, parodied the words deftly: ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... in protest against the obligation to work in a black man's land. In countries where the half-breed and the black man live for and almost monopolize government employment few white men take kindly to braid and brass buttons. That fellow's contempt for his job was equaled only by the babu station master's scorn of him and his own for the station master. Yet both men did ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy |
