"Forefinger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the night before; her waist was confined by the same black band; but the chestnut hair seemed more beautiful beneath the black silk sunshade, leaned so gracefully, the black handle held between thumb and forefinger. And the little black figure seemed a part of the beautiful English park, now so green and fragrant in all the flower and sunlight of June, and decorated with a blue summer sky, and white clouds moving lazily over the tops of the trees. And the impression of the beautiful park was enforced ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... the same service from three men, and that each had answered me with the single word yes, accompanied by a gesture of the hand. If one of them had let his thumb approach the forefinger, it is plain to me that he would deceive me, for his thumb thus placed tells me that he ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... to three days," remarked the prudent Brownie. "Last time it was to be three days—an' 'twas more like six when we saw you again. Once you two gets away—" and she wagged a stern forefinger at her employer. "And there's that black himp—he ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... all sitting under the trees before the hotel, resting rather vacantly after a hard romp. Celia perched high on a root, her curls against the brown bark, her hat dangling by its elastic from a forefinger, her lips parted, her eyes vacant. Gerald leaned gracefully against the trunk. Bobby sat cross-legged on the ground watching her—and him. Kitty and Margaret reclined flat on their backs, gazing up through the leaves. Morris alone showed a trace of activity. He had ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... reverentially but firmly, "'twas afther he was run by thim dogs yestherday, and 'twas your ladyship's dog that finished him. He tore the throat out of him under the bed!" He pointed an accusing forefinger at Bismarck, whose lambent eyes of terror glowed from beneath the valance ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... conformed to types familiar to Bradley. There was the legal type, monotonously emphatic, with extended forefinger, which pointed, threatened and delineated. His speaking wore on the ear like a saw-filing. Then there was the political speaker, the stump orator, who was full of well-worn phrases, who could not mention the price of wool or the number of ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... off that name upon his forefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon a separate finger. "Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the name of Clare, and the name of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... bosom, the second bare to the hips. Queenly Cleopatra rests back against her chair in meditative ease, leaning her cheek against one hand, whose elbow the rail of the seat sustains; the other is outstretched upon her knee, nipping its forefinger upon the thumb thoughtfully, as though some firm, wilful purpose filled her brain, as it seems to set those luxurious features to a smile as if the whole woman 'would.' Upon her head is the coif, bearing in front the mystic uraeus, or twining basilisk of sovereignty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... minds as to what he wanted, straightened up and bent a freshened interest on the cabin-plot which the clerk had spread out upon the counter for his advisement. And a moment after Staff had audibly stated his wishes, the other prodded a certain spot of the chart with a thin and fragile forefinger. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... tactical error. There is only one rule of conduct in dealing with nau-naus. Never swat them. Whatever you do, don't swat them. They are so vicious that in the instant of annihilation they eject their last atom of poison into your carcass. You must pluck them delicately, between thumb and forefinger, and persuade them gently to remove their proboscides from your quivering flesh. It is like pulling teeth. But the difficulty was that the teeth sprouted faster than I could pull them, so I swatted, and, so doing, filled myself full with their poison. This was ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... glove out of his jacket pocket, slipped it over his left hand, flexing his fingers to work it into position. Reetal's eyes fastened on the rounded metal tips capping thumb, forefinger and middle finger of the glove. ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... he, with a smile. Then he opened his book, took his pencil in his hand, and slipped in a careful forefinger to mark ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... Robbie, raising his forefinger in an attitude of remonstrance, which he had just previously been practising on the unhappy Dash,—"Liza, think what it is to call this reverend clerk and sexton and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... to a platform in front of the altar, or what resembled such. Here the sage took his stand, and placed the ladies beside him, once more earnestly repeating by signs his injunctions of silence. The Italian then, extending his bare arm from under his linen vestment, pointed with his forefinger to five large flambeaux, or torches, placed on each side of the altar. They took fire successively at the approach of his hand, or rather of his finger, and spread a strong light through the room. By this the visitors could discern that, on the seeming altar, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... docther. Dawn't ye knoo? Thuh big, flehmin poomple oop there." She indicated the locality, by flattening the rude tip of her own nose with her broad forefinger. ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... the Apostle employs here are both of them very emphatic. 'His words were half battles,' was said about Luther. It may be as truly said about Paul. And that word 'work' which he employs, means, not work with one hand, or with a delicate forefinger, but it means toil up to the verge of weariness. The notion of fatigue is almost, I might say, uppermost in the word as it is used in the New Testament. Some people like to 'labour' so as never to turn a hair, or bring a sweat-drop on to their foreheads. That is not Christian ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... asked him to tell us about his scales and sea-things, and he did so willingly—told us what kind of clay there was round Korholmerne—went into his room and fetched a sample of weed from the White Sea. He was constantly lifting up his right forefinger and shifting his thick gold spectacles back and forward on his nose. Herr Mack was most ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... his coat, adjusts his collar, studies the posters, shakes his head over them as if they were not to his taste, goes to the desk, and after studying it smiles at the rose and gives it a kittenish peck with his forefinger. NORA comes back and MIFFLIN turns to her with his ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington
... especially when he had reached some triumphantly absurd conclusion. He had two little quick gestures of the hands as he spoke, opening his fingers, waving a point aside, emphasizing an argument by a quick downward motion of his forefinger. He had, too, a quick, loud, ebullient laugh, sometimes shrill, sometimes deep; and he abandoned himself to laughter at an absurd story or jest as completely as anyone I have ever seen. Rose was an excellent mimic, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the Rumanian what he thought about Italy. "Italy began as a coquette. She will end"—he made the gesture of counting money into his hand—"she will end as a cocotte." He waved a forefinger in ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... Shakespeare, "infinite in faculty," took infinite pains to embody his thought in words of crystal clearness. Coleridge once said of him that one might as well try to dislodge a brick from a building with one's forefinger as to omit a single word from one of ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... himself. His bass tones became guttural and almost inarticulate, while he lowered them to prevent their travelling. On the reddish clay at his feet were foot-marks very like the prints of a large mastiff. He studied them one by one, even tracing the outline with his forefinger. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... whispered to him: "Bid seven on no suit. You've got the joker." Her delicate forefinger, its nail shining, was pointing at a curious ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... hands toward Grimaud, who merely thrust the guard out and shut the door behind him. At the same time he felt the duke's arms on his shoulders like two iron claws; but instead either of calling out or defending himself, he placed his forefinger on his lips and ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... followed the direction of his forefinger. Against the dark blue of the evening sky to northward glowed a faint phosphorescence, arch-shaped, from which shot, with pulsating regularity, long shafts of light. They beat almost to the zenith, and back again, a half dozen times, then the whole illumination disappeared ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the poor, and good advice with it. She is rigorous in the observance of every propriety; no storm keeps her from church. If the children of a new generation climb unduly upon the pew-backs, or shake their curly heads too wantonly, she lifts a prim forefinger at them, which has lost none of its authoritative meaning. She is the impersonation of all good severities. A strange character! Let us hope that, as it sloughs off its earthly cerements, it may in the Divine presence scintillate charities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... the station at Brockenhurst—in the New Forest—didn't we Maude," said Mrs. Slifer, "and it must have been—now let me see—" poor Mrs. Slifer collected her wits, a bent forefinger at her lips. "To-day's Thursday and we got to Mullion yesterday—and we stopped at Winchester for a day and night on our way to the New Forest, it was on Saturday last of course. We'd been having a drive ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to the bird and thrust a big forefinger between the wires of the cage. Immediately, with an answering chirp, the canary hopped along his perch with a queer sidewise motion and, reaching the finger, sprang upon it with a little flutter of ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... suddenly to grasp the situation. Her finely arched eyebrows were raised, her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkling. She rose slowly to her feet, and, child though she was, the dignity of her demeanour was such that Lady Delahaye with her accusing forefinger seemed to shrink ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... unbecoming passion? Lydia Prateapace remembered, certainly, a name being mentioned—it was Lesby or Lisby, or something like that. "Indeed!" said Miffins, arching his brows, and significantly touching the tip of his nose with his forefinger—"ah! indeed! a foreigner, depend upon it—a Lisbon lady; that, Miss, is the capital of Portugal, where them figs comes from. Only think, a foreign lady—a lady from Lisbon—that is too bad!" to which the three readily assented. "I doubt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... nervously offered it; and when Gus timidly said, "I think, Sam, I'm rather in the way here, and perhaps—had better go," Mrs. H. looked him full in the face, pointed to the door majestically with her forefinger, and said, "I think, sir, you ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would. She frowned at him forbiddingly. But he was as yet scarcely half through his speech. He picked up his manuscript from the table and glanced at it, and then looked appealingly at her. She was obdurate. She held a warning forefinger in ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... and continued to fumble among the clothing it contained. All at once he called out and raised his hand. On the forefinger ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... Orleans race-track, and the brilliant banquets given by the Indiana and Kansas citizens who compose the North Carolina Society have made the South rather a "fad" in Manhattan. Your manicure will lisp softly that your left forefinger reminds her so much of a gentleman's in Richmond, Va. Oh, certainly; but many a lady has to work now—the war, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... the lady who owned these gazelles. And lo! she was looking out of a wicket in a lattice of brass and never saw my eyes a fairer than she, and in fine my tongue faileth to describe her beauty. When she caught sight of me looking at her, she put her forefinger into her mouth, then joined her middle finger and her witness finger[FN483] and laid them on her bosom, between her breasts; after which she drew in her head and closed the wicket shutter and went her ways. There upon fire broke out in and was heaped upon ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... were his cue, the crafty features of Lawton appeared cautiously in the doorway, bestowed a furtive and searching inspection on the room, and finally winked solemnly at its only occupant. A hand was inserted. The forefinger beckoned. Bennington arose wearily and ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... whiskers with a thoughtful forefinger. Not thus had Judith been wont to reply to him. Always before, if there had been denial, there were too, reasons adduced, shy looks from the corners of those dark eyes and tender inquiries as to ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... the dark began to lighten, and Henry stopped short in surprise. Paul was walking in such automatic fashion that he almost ran against him before he stopped. Henry pointed with a long forefinger to a red spot deep in ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his worst fault was disobedience, and a world of trouble it got him into. Remember that, Master Bertie: your grandpapa would be obeyed, and your papa is his own son in that respect. So take care, my dear, take care!" and the old lady shook her forefinger warningly. "But everything's forgot and forgave now," she added, more cheerfully; "and right glad I am ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... for bed, she stood in front of her long cheval glass, the folds of her blue dressing gown trailing away from her pretty, lace-frilled nightgown, she shook her forefinger warningly at the ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... snuggled close to him. When he put his nose into the captain's plate, he was gently reprimanded. But once, when he merely sniffed at the mate's steaming tea-cup, her received a snub on the nose from the mate's grimy forefinger. Also, the mate did not offer ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... forth his rough forefinger shamedly to touch the velvet of a green leaf, as one unaccustomed might touch a ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... he went on, marking off the list on a combative forefinger, "and cookery; there was the Polyglot Club, and the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... idea is not so far eradicated as entirely to prevent suspicion appears from this circumstance, that the guest, though taking a leaf from the betel-service of his entertainer, not unfrequently applies to it his own chunam, and never omits to pass the former between his thumb and forefinger in order to wipe off any extraneous matter. This mistrustful procedure is so common as not ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... pay," said the Kvartalnue Nadziratel, with a slight but significant shake of the head, sticking his forefinger through a button-hole of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... profound obeisance, proffering the tart at the same time between his thumb and forefinger, "will you so far honour an entire stranger? I can answer for the quality of the pastry, having eaten two dozen and three of them myself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was able. "My mamma is sick, and they carried her away to the asylum," she told Robert. "She—she tried to hurt Amabel; she tried to"—Amabel made that hideous gesture with her tiny forefinger across her throat. "Mamma was sick or she wouldn't," ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... woman, with a forefinger in a faded-looking book, came out from behind some window-curtains, and, rummaging Mrs. Moss's chair with a practised hand, produced a large silver snuff-box, from which Mrs. Moss took a pinch, and then offered it to Granny, who ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... George!" Bingo slipped the thumb and forefinger of the useful hand into his waistcoat-pocket. Something sparkled in the big pink palm he extended to Saxham—something sparkled, and spurted white and green and scarlet points of fire from a myriad of facets. The something was an oval ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... observed to be foaming at the mouth. No attention was paid to this; his family believing it to be a symptom of hydrophobia, with which he had been afflicted from the cradle. Suddenly a dark-eyed stranger entered the house, took the patient's neck between his thumb and forefinger, threw the body across his shoulder, winked respectfully to the bereaved widow, and withdrew by way of the kitchen cellar. Farewell, pure ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... of my face was accomplished. The chambermaid pointed with her wicked forefinger in the ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... forth and be saved?" he yelled: "Who amongst you is still a prisoner to Satan? Let him come forth and confess the Lard. I see 'ee over there"—pointing a shaking forefinger—"you'm hesitating. You can't make up your mind to give up that sin you love. Give it up, or this night thy soul shall be required of thee, and all the devils in hell shall play at ball with it in the midst of ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... drawing my right hand, with the forefinger and thumb pressed together, nimbly from my right haunch to my left shoulder, "you have condescended to resume the paternal arts to which you were first ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... shrill, neighing laugh, and was about to begin his offensively affectionate tactics—he lifted his open, tawny hand, and aimed his forefinger with a black border on a thick yellow finger-nail towards a place where he might jab, pinch, or tickle the barefoot, bare-armed girl. But Zinaida, smiling and frowning at the same time, edged ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... midwife heard the grandmother storm and rave, while hunting for her crutch, she ran first to the honey jar, dipped her forefinger in it and put some drops of honey on the baby's tongue. Then she passed it out the window to some women friends, who were waiting outside. She knew the law, that if a child tasted food, it must ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... Zephaniah Scranton, sat just where he could see me. This fact impressed my mind with more solemnity than all the exhortations which had preceded it—a proof of the efficacy of facts above reason. Under shadow and power of this weighty truth, I demurely took hold of my mother's forefinger to walk to meeting. ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Mount Ida—in a word, ripe, fresh, and firm. The hand should be white, especially towards the wrist, but large and plump, feeling soft as silk, the rosy palm marked with a few, but distinct and not intricate lines; the elevations in it should be not too great, the space between thumb and forefinger brightly colored and without wrinkles, the fingers long, delicate, and scarcely at all thinner towards the tips, with nails clear, even, not too long nor to square, and cut so as to show a white margin about the breadth of a ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... stirred his rum and water with a file, brought Magwitch's two one-pound notes for Pip, and the redoubtable Jaggers, the autocrat of the Old Bailey, with his burly form, great head, and huge, cross-examining forefinger announced to Pip his Great Expectations. Down the river in the direction of yonder "distant savage lair", from which the wind comes rushing, lie those long reaches, between Kent and Essex, "where the river is broad and solitary, where the waterside inhabitants are very few, and ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... had not failed to remark the abruptness with which Father Smyth had cut me short; joined both his hands, and with the stretched forefinger tapping me on both hands, which were clenched as in prayer, addressed to me these identical remarkable words, "My dear fellow, the licence is a mere watchword of the day, and they make a cat's-paw ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... he was a consulting mining engineer with a beautiful office in Victoria Street and a nice taste in spats—scratched an earthy nose with a muddy forefinger. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... long; in another moment his face was raised from earth, his hands resumed their places on the rifle, his forefinger sought the trigger; mind, heart, and eyes were clear, conscience and reason sound. He could not hope to capture that enemy; to alarm him would but send him dashing to his camp with his fatal news. The duty of the soldier was plain: the man must be shot dead from ambush—without warning, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... a minute!" he stammered. "Whut dis? B'lieve I done foun' it! I sho is! Heah she am! Heah's dis nigger-stopper, jes lak I tol' you!" Tump marked a sentence in the guaranty of the deed with a rusty forefinger and looked up at Peter in ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... the marionette, "My dear sire, to deceive me one must have a good - " and he touched his forehead with his forefinger as much as to say that within lay a great brain. "Before leaving home I studied so much that the teacher feared I ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... Mrs. Plumston, but the acrobats are about to begin," said one of the young men, touching the fez with his forefinger. ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... closed hard upon the letter at the very last instant—ah, not too late. But suppose she had, but for one second, opened her thumb and forefinger and—what? What would ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the store and got a job. For a time she was in Eden. The doleful proprietor's doleful wife was usually down-cellar making ice-cream while her husband was out in the kitchen cooking candy. Kedzie was free to guzzle soda-water at her will. Her forefinger and thumb went along the stacks of candy, dipping like a robin's beak. She was forever licking her fingers and brushing marshmallow dust off her chest. She usually had a large, square caramel ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... possessed of mighty strength. Nor did Yuvanaswa die—which itself was strange. Then Indra of mighty strength came to pay him a visit. And the deities enquired of the great Indra, 'What is to be sucked by this boy?' Then Indra introduced his own forefinger into his mouth. And when the wielder of the thunderbolt said, 'He will suck me,' the dwellers of heaven together with Indra christened the boy Mandhata, (literally, Me he shall suck). Then the boy having tasted the forefinger extended by Indra, became possessed of mighty strength, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... monument" and make a new monument in Jacobean style. He was straitly ordered to "repair and beautify the original monument"; he did repair it, and repainted the colours. That is all. I do not quote what Halliwell-Phillipps tells us {183a} about the repairing of the forefinger and thumb of the right hand, and the pen; work which, he says, had to be renewed by William Roberts of Oxford in 1790. He gives no authority, and Baconians may say that he was hoaxed, or "lied ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... hands in his, the left one he held in his left hand, and the right one he held in his right hand. Taking Adele's right-hand forefinger and placing it in her left hand, he began to tell her a little story about a lark, which he remembered his mother used to recite to him when ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... more," said she, petulantly touching his hand with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and yieldingly. "It smells of spice and sugar, but I can't taste it; your wrist is so stiff, and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Joe, shaking his forefinger close into the face of little Sloper. "When a retired tailor degrades the honour of a seaman's flag by a shooting at it and a riddling of it, the law 'as made and purwided sets forth this: that the insulted ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... Frenchman how to carry his candle in the miner's manner, so that it could not go out, which consisted in holding it low down between the forefinger and third finger, so that the hollow palm of the hand formed a kind of shield; and then Vandeloup, hearing the sound of falling water close to him, asked what it was, whereupon Archie explained it was for ventilating purposes. The water fell the whole height of the mine through a ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... her side. He watched her progress silently, except for business words and instructions, till the exercise was finished and Faith had turned to him for further directions; then taking her hand he put upon its forefinger one of the prettiest things she had ever seen. It was an old-fashioned diamond ring; the stones all of a size, and of great clearness and lustre, set close upon each other all the way round; with just enough goldsmith's work to bind them together, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... with the ring on his forefinger, watching the artist's smoke with the same curiously obscure smile. It had the effect on Lightmark now, as Rainham's smile did on many people, however innocent it might be of satiric intention, of infusing his next remarks with the ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... order at once to solve this very simple problem, I silently unfolded and spread out upon the table my map of Europe; and each of us, as we leant over it, placing a forefinger on or near Wiesbaden (our eyes being fixed upon Dover), we remained in this reflecting attitude for some seconds, until the Prince's finger first solemnly began to trace its route. In doing this, I observed that his Highness's hand kept swerving far into ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... sack gives way inside you," Cardigan had explained, "you'll go like that!" He snapped a forefinger and thumb ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... said the other, with a fat laugh. "I was one of the quiet little mice," he added archly, "and you were always such a gay dog." To our indescribable delectation he actually thrust a stubby forefinger into his ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... to a fairly uniform thickness: brown, old, natural fingers that worked as in a sleep, the thumb having a long grey nail; and from moment to moment there was a quick, downward rub, between thumb and forefinger, of the thread that hung in front of her apron, the heavy bobbin spun more briskly, and she felt again at the fleece as she drew it down, and she gave a twist to the thread that issued, and ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... word here and there, but Garfield was too much absorbed to notice him, and so pushed on steadily, warming up as he proceeded. Unfortunately for his scheme, however, before he had gone far he made a touching reference to his mother, when Uncle Jacob, gesticulating energetically, and with his forefinger leveled at the speaker, cried: "Just a word—just one word right there," and so persisted until Garfield was compelled either to yield or be absolutely discourteous. The General, therefore, got in his word; nay, he held the floor for the ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... deviltries in this ship unless I give the word. Otherwise—" The great scar on his forehead was blue and twitching, and his voice was deadly earnest. He did a thing so expressive it made me shudder. He lifted his hand, and carelessly placed his forefinger on the outer side of his bunk, and when he lifted it, two of the myriad cockroaches that infested the foc'sle were mashed fiat on ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... much the same in a similar stress of circumstances. The child, at any rate, appeared to be satisfied with his behavior; for when he had held it a considerable time, and set it down, it still favored him with its company, keeping fast hold of his forefinger till we reached the confines of the place. And on our return through the court-yard, after visiting another part of the establishment, here again was this same little Wretchedness waiting for its victim, with a smile of joyful, and yet dull recognition about its scabby mouth and in its ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Rosco, throwing his rifle into the hollow of his left arm, so as to bring the muzzle full on the mate's chest, while, with the forefinger of his right hand, he lightly touched the triggers, "draw your pistols from your belt, and be very careful how you do it— very careful—for if, even by chance, you touch hammer or trigger, you ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... dusted the lining, treasuring carefully each flake and mite of tobacco that his efforts gleaned. The result was scarce a thimbleful. He searched in his pockets, and brought forward, between thumb and forefinger, tiny pinches of rubbish. Here and there in this rubbish were crumbs of tobacco. These he segregated with microscopic care, though he occasionally permitted small particles of foreign substance to accompany the crumbs to the hoard ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... J. Bayard Steele, balancin' his bamboo walkin' stick thoughtful on one forefinger, "I'm getting to be a regular expert ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... halted on the edge of the pasturage ground, glanced quickly over his field of vision, and then, placing a thumb and forefinger between his teeth, he emitted a blast like that of a steam whistle. It was a signal he had taught the stallion, and he knew that if the horse was within a mile he would come toward him on a full gallop. Deerfoot repeated the call twice and then waited and looked and listened. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... as he said: "Ah, yes. I will now refer to your true mark," and he drew forth a little book as he spoke and carefully examined the record. "Ah, yes," he murmured, not lifting his eyes from the page on which he had placed a forefinger. "Ah, yes. It is as I fawncied. Your average for the term in your recitations is what brings you below. It is true you are two above the required mark in your examination, but you are three below in your recitation work, and that, I regret exceedingly to say, brings you still one point below the ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... the blue and gold valentine on Aunt Cordelia's knee. In the valentine's centre were two hands clasping. Emmy Lou's forefinger pointed to the words beneath the ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... that followed on Billebedam's departure by heaping the dirty plates higher on the table and drumming a tattoo on the cleared space with his knuckles. Hutchinson snuffed the smoky candle and reflectively rubbed the soot from the wick between thumb and forefinger. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... she, on her knees beside the hamper, with her forefinger against her lips, 'suppose—suppose we have some croquettes. I know how to make some very plain and ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... for added outrage, had flung herself at him and was smiling sweetly in his swollen face. About them the torrent poured. Then all at once, in a riot that afterwards seemed to her phantasmagoric, the policeman raised a forefinger in salute. From the maelstrom she was hoisted bodily into a car. Somebody, the policeman probably, was boosting her from behind. Never had she suffered such indignities! To accentuate them, somebody else was shouting ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... herself and, after feeling for a handkerchief she did not have, wiped her eyes with a forefinger and then wiped the finger on her bare leg. She grinned and turned to the Omans. "Prince, will you and Dark Lady please conjure us up a steak-and-mushrooms supper? They should be in the pantry ... since this ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. Now, it was not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did NOT propose to invest your small capital in ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... broiled, but are at their best served as follows;—Select a pair of plump birds; clean them, cut off the legs, and remove the heads without breaking or tearing the neck skin; insert the forefinger in it, and separate the skin over the breast from the flesh; fill this with a nicely-seasoned bread stuffing, and fasten the loose end of the neck to the back. Place a thin wide slice of bacon over the breast, and fasten the ends ...
— Breakfast Dainties • Thomas J. Murrey
... recommendation—close-mouthed. For about the mine it was never known when the brick went to town or who took it. Hicks had impressed this fact upon Zavalla. He was to tell nobody that he was delegated to this duty. "Not even"—Hicks had leveled a forefinger at Chino, and the cold eyes drove home the injunction as the steam-hammer drives the rivet—"not even your wife." And Zavalla had promised. He would have trifled with dynamite sooner than with one of ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... hands of Donnegan rose past the line of his waist, past his shoulders, and presently locked easily behind his head. A terrible chance, for Landis had come within a breath of shooting. So great was the impulse that, as he checked the pressure of his forefinger, he stumbled a whole pace forward. ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... intelligence for me to say that they all know their own names as well as you know yours. They know, too, their numbers when they are acting as soldiers formed in line waiting orders; the Professor passes along and checking them off with his forefinger numbers them, then falling back, calls out for certain ones to form into platoons, and they make no mistake. Their ears are alert, their senses sharp, their memory good. "Number Two," "Number Four," and so on, answer by advancing, as a soldier would ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... he laughed, shaking a gnarled forefinger. "I thought it was your voice in the crowd. Your Ladyship 'ud like to have me all nervous, wouldn't you? Well—if Tom Tripe was out of a job tomorrow, the very first person he'd apply to for a new one would be the Princess Yasmini; and she'd give ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... firmly between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, leaving about eight or nine inches hanging loosely down; lay this over the thigh of the right leg, and with the right hand rub it in a downward direction, which will cause the twisted strand to loosen. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... once in the moonlight she had asked it with her voice from the gate above the Narrow Way. Between them stood a table inlaid with ivory and pearl, whereon the dust from the street had gathered through the open lattice. Masouda leaned over, and with her forefinger wrote a single Arabic letter in the dust upon the table, then ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... you, Coppy,' said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. 'I knew she didn't ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... surprise at the question, Sir John Dene jerked up his head to look at her, and Dorothy's forefinger managed to find the ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... "Of course you do not mean that, Mr. Bliss," said the young reformer with impressive politeness, "for if you did we should have to put you out in the street." Even in those early days, when Roosevelt was in dead earnest, he had a way of pointing his forefinger and of fixing his under jaw which the person whom he addressed could not mistake. That forefinger was as menacing as a seven shooter. Mr. Bliss, with all the prestige of a successful career at the bar behind him, quickly understood ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... James made no reply, but stood ruminating, with the forefinger of his left hand pressing his nether lip; then ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... thinking of his own brown bird. Suddenly a glint came into his bright blue eyes. In the corner of the room, against the wall, leaned the two Sharp rifles. Smoky glanced about him, rose, walked to the corner, bent down, and smelt the muzzle of Ransom's rifle. Then he slipped his forefinger into ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the direction of Moll's large forefinger with his gaze. After a little he made out quite plainly, rising against the clear sky beyond the low-lying ground, a faint trail of blue-gray smoke; and lower down, considerably below the smoke, there shone a small spot of ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... to swallow up the little gun-stock. His long knobbed finger fitted around the lock in a strange but familiar way. Caleb was a bent-arm shot, and the short barrel looked like his own forefinger pointing at the target as he pumped away six times in quick succession. All went into the blaze and two into the charcoal ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... "Wherever Spicca is concerned there is a duel. He is a terrible fellow, with his death's-head and dangling bones—one of those extraordinary phenomena—bah! it makes one shiver to think of him!" The old fellow made the sign of the horns with his forefinger and little finger, hiding his thumb in the palm of his hand, as though to protect himself against the evil eye—the sinister influence invoked by the mention of Spicca. Old Astrardente was very superstitious. The ambassador laughed, and even Corona ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... at my friend's somewhat more nervous manner as he questioned the second servant, until I noticed his old cocaine-squirter being shoved gently back into his pocket with his left hand, as he pointed his right forefinger at the servant. Holmes had evidently just sneaked in an extra shot in the arm without any one's getting wise, and I, who knew him of old, was sure that he would have a fit ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... set the basket on the ground, reached up, and carefully lifted from a board laid across the top of the hopper, several pans of clabbered milk, which she poured into the basket. Instead of putting the pans back, she tilted them up against the hopper, squatted down in front and with her slim forefinger, scraped down the sides and bottom of each pan so that she and Billy could scoop up and convey to their mouths, by means of their three crooked fingers, all that had not gone into the basket. Then she licked her improvised spoon clean and dry; ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... rushed three Uhlans, sabres shining in the dim light from the window behind me; I laid my forefinger flat on the blade of my sabre and shortened my arm for a thrust—then there came a blinding flash, a roar, and I was down, trying to rise, until a clinched fist struck me in the face and I fell ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... religion out of account for the moment, friend," said he. "But mark what I say to you." With a minatory forefinger he beat the time of his words. "Know, friend, that there is no religion a man can pretend to can give a countenance to lying. Thou hast a precious immortal soul, and there is nothing in the world equal to it in value. Consider that the great God of Heaven ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... old beggar you are. But I'll give the devil his due and acknowledge the horses are a credit to you." He held a dollar towards him balanced on his forefinger. "Here, take this and fill your ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... a spring. The dagger split suddenly into three blades, as when one separates the forefinger and the ring-finger from the middle one. The outside blades were sharp on their outer edge. The stab was to be made with the dagger shut, then the spring touched and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... by the gaunt brick wall of the fast-filling cemetery. As I began to muse thereon, I heard a cry, and perceived my guardian peeping from round the corner of a distant tomb, and beckoning me with imperative forefinger. I wanted to stay; I wanted to have "Meditations at the grave of Maupassant," to ponder on the irony of death, to think of the brilliant novelist, the lover of life, cut off in his pride, to lie amid perspectives of black and lavender ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... but it remained immovable. She picked at the metal hasp which covered the cheap lock. It did not yield, but her fingers—or she fancied it—touched moisture. The girl shrank back and looked at her hand. Thumb and forefinger were smeared with blood. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... last the source of it, a warning forefinger close to the pane that seemed to urge for silence. Rising, she moved slowly to the window, uneasy, doubtful, yet with hope beginning to stir at her heart. She formed a cup for her eyes with her palms so as to hold back the light while she peered through the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... stooped down to lecture a small black-and-tan terrier, which would persist in walking on the sheet and smelling at the rose-leaves as Mary sprinkled them. She took his fore-paws in one hand, and lifted up the forefinger of the other, while the dog wrinkled his brows and looked embarrassed. "Fly, Fly, I am ashamed of you," Mary was saying in a grave contralto. "This is not becoming in a sensible dog; anybody would think you ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... higher ground, lifted his foot from the mire and removed the boot. He shook something out into his hand. It was round and hard and shiny, perhaps an inch in diameter. He held it aloft between thumb and forefinger. The filtering sunlight struck it ...
— One Purple Hope! • Henry Hasse
... the little parlour in which he had left his guest, the coachman. As he went, he slipped his forefinger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket, where they closed upon a tiny phial. It contained a pennyworth of laudanum, which he had purchased a week or so before from the Raynham chemist, as a remedy for ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... exactly. I mean something more in the antique—something or other, you see"—here he began twirling his forefinger in the air and sketching an amorphous phantom of some sort, of an altogether unattainable character, ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... object in shooting, ill as I do it, is the invigorating and cheering exercise, which does so much for health (1842).' One day this year (Sept. 13, '42) while out shooting, the second barrel of a gun went off while he was reloading, shattering the forefinger of his left hand. The remains of the finger the surgeons removed. 'I have hardly ever in my life,' he says, 'had to endure serious bodily pain, and this was short.' In 1845, he notes, 'a hard day. What a mercy that my strength, in appearance not remarkable, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... emotion; he was annexed; he became serious. "Say," he said, "that's a mighty smooth hat you got on." And he touched the fluffy rim of it with his forefinger. His fat shoulders leaned ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... had a lower jaw edged with a roll of black whisker, a jaw that protruded like a bulldog's. With the familiarity of the long-time lieutenant, he pecked with thumb and forefinger at the end of a cigar protruding from his chief's waistcoat-pocket. He wrenched off the tip between snaggy teeth. He ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... shall see." Blanchard's red, shiny forefinger clawed down the column of names, halting at the numeral forty-four. The space was blank. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... suddenly raising her forefinger, "is not that something like a soft knocking? Can anyone have fallen down in this deep ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... silent a moment, biting his forefinger. There was something in the action strongly reminiscent of a cunning, ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... shield, a vast emblazonry of human charities and human loveliness that have perished, but quartered heraldically with unutterable and demoniac natures, whilst over all rises, as a surmounting crest, one fair female hand, with the forefinger pointing, in sweet, sorrowful admonition, upwards to heaven, where is sculptured the eternal writing which proclaims the frailty of earth ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... all my four-o'clocks!" she said. And then her rustic shyness overcame suddenly all else, and she dragged her great toe back and forth in the soft mould, and put her forefinger in her mouth, and looked askance at them from the corners of ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... raising his forefinger, "I said so, but it was an error. I go to Vandon, and she will not go away. I go to London to my lawyer, and he says ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... shook the dead From living man; that stretched ahead Her resolute forefinger straight And marched toward the gloomy ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... unintelligible, except to one who understood its subject-matter, as the notes of their own cattle. The clerk, Samson Loud, was at the other end of the store, cleaning a molasses-barrel from its accumulated sugar. "Look-a-here," said Cyrus Robinson, beckoning Jerome with a hard crook of a seamed forefinger. The boy stood close to the counter, and uplifted to him his small, undaunted, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... an insult, Mr. Daunt. I intended it to be merely a frank expression of opinion. Just a moment, please!" he urged, breaking in on violent language. He brought his thumb and forefinger together to make a circle and poised his hand over his head. "I don't wear one of these. I have no right to wear one. Halo, I mean! I'm no prig or preacher—at least, I don't mean to be. But when I talk business ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... his hand out of his pocket, and held some object up between his forefinger and his thumb. It was about the length of a match, but had a sharpened point, instead of ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... slightly bent backwards, and the mouth wide open. If he has not sufficient control over his tongue to prevent it from arching up, he must gently hold its protruding tip with a pocket handkerchief between his thumb and forefinger. The mirror is now slightly warmed to prevent its becoming dimmed by the moisture of the breath, and then, holding it like a pen, the operator introduces it into the throat so that it touches the uvula. This must be done ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... forefinger he was touching the palm of his left hand, apparently to emphasize his words, while she looked pale, even frightened. She was listening without comment, without protest, while I stood watching them from behind. Many other visitors were idling ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... what does not belong to you!" she said, laying down the law with her mite of a forefinger; and, to make her words more impressive, giving him an occasional tap on the nose. He listened dutifully, as if he were the sole transgressor; but interrupted the homily now and then by lapping the hand of his little mistress ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... white and still before him in her coffin, he could not have felt more completely that sense of the futility of life, of love, of hope, of everything. As he stood there, one hand in his pocket, the other tracing with a forefinger an aimless pattern in the dust on the piano, he perceived with remarkable clarity that the unhappiness he had suffered, the loneliness he had endured before he met Doris Cleveland was nothing to what now threatened, to what now seemed to dog his ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... dropped his instrument into his coat pocket and gazed in the direction of the glass square whose image had so aroused his ire. "I apologize, B262H72476Male, for my suspicions as to your veracity—but I had in mind several former experiences." He shook a warning forefinger. "I will now ...
— John Jones's Dollar • Harry Stephen Keeler
... and, as the hieroglyphics on his coffin assure me, a prime favourite with one Queen Amyntas. Beneath these mouldering swaddlings of the grave a great ruby still cherishes its blood-guilty secret on the forefinger of his right hand. Most curious is it to reflect how in all lands, and at all times, precious minerals have been endowed by men with mystic virtues. The Persians, for instance, believed that spinelle and the garnet were harbingers of joy. Have you read the ancient Bishop of Rennes on the subject? ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... with her soft forefinger and shrank back shyly. She knew it was her birthday, but she did not know whether the frock had anything to do with ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... has his mother to look after. I wouldn't want to take him from Waity, though, and then perhaps I couldn't get him, anyway.... If I couldn't, he'd be the only one! I've never tried yet, but I feel in my bones, somehow, that I could have any boy in Edgewood or Riverboro, by just crooking my forefinger and beckoning to him.. .. I wish—I wish—they were different! They don't make me want to beckon to them! My forefinger just stays straight and doesn't feel like crooking!... There's Cephas Cole, but he's as stupid as ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that now!" cried the Admiral, with a lunge of his forefinger at the Doctor. "You mark my words, Walker, if we don't look out that woman will raise a mutiny with her preaching. Here's my wife disaffected already, and your girls will be no better. We must combine, man, or there's an end ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to believe that I dozed and woke by snatches. I watched the moon descend in her foggy circle; but I saw also the mulberry face and minatory forefinger of Mr. Romaine, and caught myself explaining to him and Mr. Robbie that their joint proposal to mortgage my inheritance for a flying broomstick took no account of the working-model of the whole Rock and Castle of Edinburgh, which I dragged about by an ankle chain. Anon I was pelting with Rowley ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... don't, and never expect to. Now, look at this, for instance," and the storekeeper touched the paper with the forefinger of his right hand. "A kimona, just think of that! I never had a call for such a ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody |
