"Mopping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the door, and he himself sat in stiff funereal state by the window; he held a folded white handkerchief in his folded hands, and was diligently mopping his eyes. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... on my head, I turned to make sure that all was right behind us. I found that M. d'Agen, intent on keeping his distance, had chosen the same moment for rest, and was sitting in a very natural manner on his faggot, mopping his face with the sleeve of his jerkin. I scanned the brown leafless wood, in which we had left Maignan and our men; but I could detect no glitter among the trees nor any appearance likely to betray us. Satisfied on these points, I muttered ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... returning to the dining-room and mopping his brow. "Upon my word, Jose, that nasty varmint gave me quite a turn for the moment, he ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... could see the three survivors still running in the same direction as they had started, right for Mizzen-mast Hill. We were already between them and the boats, and so we four sat down to breathe, while Long John, mopping his face, came slowly ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... great game," asserted Mr. Harding mopping his brow. "How shall we divide up? I suppose you're the best player, Carter, and Smith comes next, but I can beat the Kid, here," patting Miss ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... this moment Tournefort had once more caught sight of Rateau, striding leisurely this time up the street. The worthy agent quickly took refuge under a doorway and was mopping his streaming forehead, glad of this brief respite in the mad chase, when that awful churchyard cough suddenly sounded so close to him that he gave a great jump and well-nigh betrayed his presence then and there. He had only just time to withdraw further still into the angle of the doorway, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... a gasp of relief that the manager saw the car driven away at furious speed, while he stood staring out of the window, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. His thoughts were still in a whirl, and even then he could not shake from his mind the more than half belief that in some unconscious way he had indeed, unwittingly and unwillingly—for he was as good ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... the drawing-room, later on in the afternoon, that Brodrick found his wife, shrunk into a corner of the sofa and mopping her face with a pocket-handkerchief. Tanqueray had one knee on the sofa and one arm flung tenderly round Jinny's shoulder. He met, smiling, the ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... exhausted swain, mopping his brow. "I'm clean tuckered out. I ain't done so much work for ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... withered, lean old man, clothed all in leather, wearing no wig but his own rusty grey hair falling lank on his shoulders, with a sour face of a very jaundiced complexion, and pale eyes that seemed to swim in a yellowish rheum, which he was for ever a-mopping ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... They sat down upon the porch, and one of them, the large man, removed his hat, produced a blue bandana, and fell to mopping his red face. The day was warm, and the settlement, lying low under surrounding peaks, received none of the outside breezes. Also, it was inert now, wrapped in the quiet of a frightened people. There was no movement anywhere ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... who was mopping his forehead, "what did you think of our charge?—Ah, Rajah Hamet," he continued, as he caught sight of the young man, who approached to hold out his hand, "what did you think of our sham-fight? Did ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... boxes into the hall. When we had finished I stood mopping my face with a handkerchief, but my eyes were glued to the label tacked on ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead; "I have a small pawnbroker's business at Coburg Square, near the City. It's not a very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than just give me a living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... never speak!—That she would bring to him what he could never, never bring to her!—The thought was unbearable. And as hideous recollections used to rise before him, devilish caricatures of his former self, mopping and mowing at him in his dreams, he would start from his lonely bed, and pace the room for hours, or saddle his horse, and ride all night long aimlessly through the awful woods, vainly trying to escape himself. How gladly, at those moments, he would have welcomed centuries of a material hell, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... me!" he cried in great distress, "there, there, child, you shall give away the whole if you wish; I've enough for you without it—only don't cry, Phronsie. You may do anything you like, dear. There," mopping up her wet little face with his handkerchief, "now that's a good child; Phronsie, you are not going to cry, of course not. There, do smile a bit; that's my girl now," as a faint light stole into Phronsie's eyes. "I didn't mean you'd really blame ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... up and began to pace to and fro. "How came that in your head, eh?" He threw me a furtive sidelong look, and halted before me mopping his forehead. "I'll tell you what, though: Murder there'll be if you don't help me give ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... the Reverend George Dayne, of the Charities, and hard behind him Labor Commissoner O'Neill, mopping his face as he ran. These two were known to the neighborhood, with their right of going in, and no questions asked. Out again came the ambulance surgeon, shaking his head jauntily at all inquiries. Out lastly, after an interval, issued Mr. Pond, and disappeared into the establishment ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Willock, as he started back toward the wagon, mopping his brow on his shirt-sleeve, "Robinson Crusoe wasn't in it! Wonder why he done all that complaining when he had a nice easy sea to wash him ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the confiscated blasters have been checked and the disturbance rays of the master integrator set. You'll probably have few natives left alive to take as prisoners after those thirteen charges explode but continue with a mopping up job that ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... damp pall had overhung the Island, mopping up feeble sounds and strangely muffling the stronger. Now it was translated. Lifting so that the summits only of the hills were capped, the haze (for it became nothing more) assumed a luminous yellow saffron suffused with sage green. Against this singularly lovely, ample "cloth" ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Russell's Hound did anything but call for help. Anonyma's umbrella, Kew's cane, and Mr. Russell's stick did all they could towards making peace, but the big dog seemed to have set itself the unkind task of mopping up a puddle with Mr. Russell's Hound. The process took a considerable time. And it was never finished, for the mistress ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... him as "the little brother of the iceberg." Mr. and Mrs. Chester came to dinner on the 16th of November. Both the men loudly clamoured for permission to remove their coats, and sat with blanched and chattering jaws. Mr. Blackwell made a feeble pretence at mopping his brow, but when the dessert proved to be ice-cream his nerve forsook him. "N-no, Belinda," he said. "It's too warm for ice-cream to-night. I don't w—want to get chilled. Bring me some hot coffee." As she brought ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... shall you give the order?" repeated Fritzing, pausing in his study to stare at her, the bill in one hand and his pocket-handkerchief, with which he was mopping his forehead, ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... last handkerchief I have with me, Miss Bobby," he announced feelingly, watching his young mistress mopping water and ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... with the shore, the boatmen reaping a harvest. "A bob th' trip, yer 'anner, on a day like this." The doors of the village inn swinging constantly, and the white-aproned landlord (mopping a heated brow at royal orders), sending messengers to ransack the village cupboards for a reserve of glasses. And when at last the boats are ready for the long pull up to Sligo town, and the impatient boatmen shouting, "Coom on now, byes! Before th' toide tarns; byes, now!" ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... however, we are at noon, and whoever looks will see that the whirring is done by Mr. Venables. He is in a linen suit with the coat discarded (the bird is sitting on it), and he comes and goes across the Comtesse's lawns, pleasantly mopping his face. We see him through a crooked bowed window generously open, roses intruding into it as if to prevent its ever being closed at night; there are other roses in such armfuls on the tables that one could not easily say where the room ends and ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... oil—nay, I cannot tell what there was not. Sister Ada lost her temper early, and sorely bewailed her hard lot in having first to carry and find room for all these things, and secondly to use them. The old ways had suited her well enough: she could not think what my Lady wanted with all this mopping and scouring. Even Sister Joan said a little sarcastically that she thought my Lady must be preparing for the possibility of our having to stand a siege. My Lady, who heard both behind their backs, smiled her grim smile and went on. She does not ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... what little stock of patience he possessed before we reached there, or that the Spaniard would begin to wonder at the surprising weight. Dropping the chest with good will amid the raffle littering up the floor space, we came forth together, the soldier to pick up his gun, while, mopping my face vigorously, I proceeded forth into the guard-room for the purpose of ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... regatta-day in the small town. The road was thick with people and lined with sweet-standings; and by the near end of the bridge a Punch-and-Judy show had just closed a performance. The orchestra had unloosed his drum, and fallen to mopping the back of his neck with the red handkerchief that had previously bound the panpipes to his chin. A crowd still loitered around, and among it I noted several men and women in black—ugly stains upon the ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... too clever for me. The third day out, as one of the ship's officers was showing me about the vessel, I detected Reginald Maltravers in the hold. It is not usual to allow women so far below decks; but I had insisted on seeing everything. Perspiring, begrimed, and mopping the moisture from his brow with a piece of cotton waste, there he stood in the guise of a—of—a croaker, is ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... to the rear of the house he scampered. Lin was out mopping the floor of the back porch. Perched on the top of the fence ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... awful fate. If he had only had about him from the beginning the right influences, if some woman had loved him and guided him aright,—Milly hoped that he might yet be spared, pardoned if possible. Mopping the tears from her eyes she left the court-room for the last time, with a vague sense ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... see our way to signing on a steward who travels in such style?" the Jew asked, mopping the inside of his collar-band with ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... under the strain, and he sneaked into the dining-room and started mopping the stuff up like a vacuum cleaner. Whisky would seem to be what he filled the radiator with. I gather that he used up most of the decanter. Golly, Jeeves, it's lucky he didn't get at that laced orange juice on top of ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... bit in the nose, you know," he answered, mopping that organ with his handkerchief; "but did you see me punch 'yon varlet' ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... their wives and children came in, and there was such a scene that Browning slipped out, seated himself on the piazza, and mopping his brow with his kerchief, said, "Bless my soul; I believe I will never go home. There is more real enjoyment at a miner's funeral in Virginia City; there is, ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... made to feel exactly like Lady Macbeth to-day at algebra. When Miss Campbell turned her back, another girl dared me to put my pen in Miss Campbell's red ink. (This is strictly against the law.) So of course I did. But instead of mopping it straight off like a fool I displayed it with pride. Consequently it fell all over my hands. Miss Campbell was just coming up so I had to hide them murmuring 'Out, damned spot!' etc. Luckily she didn't see, ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... hugged Ken, and kept hold of him as if he might get away. He was panting and sweating. All at once he sat down on one of the braces of the bleachers and began mopping his face. He seemed to cool down, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... better spell old Billy a little," suggested the slave, putting down his side of the chariot, and mopping off his face with his red bandanna. "Cart's kinder heavy when you carry it so fur. ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... to his own room, panting, mopping his damp gray hair with his fat wrist, and looking ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... hear a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They haven't got life enough in them. They'll deliquesce like fungi, and keep a hundred eulogists mopping the spot where they left off. Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began. Do you think that you are going to die, sir? No! there's no hope of you. You haven't got your lesson yet. You've got to stay after school. We make a needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... didn't know I was taking it!" groaned Flossie, trying in vain to find her handkerchief, and mopping her eyes in desperation with a corner ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the bottom and covered them up. We then carefully removed all marks of the ground having been disturbed, and we placed a large stone upon the top. I dare say that since the Emperor was a young gunner, and helped to train his pieces against Toulon, he had not worked so hard with his hands. He was mopping his forehead with his silk handkerchief long before we had come to the end ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... left their partners, as custom demanded, and had gone to the doors, energetically mopping their brows with handkerchiefs as various in colour as the women's dresses; red and yellow silk, blue and purple, and the eternal gaudy bandana. Thornton paused at the door, losing himself among the men who had come out to stand there smoking or to wander a little away in the darkness where ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... approached, mopping his face, and engaged her in conversation, whereupon Cortlandt rose languidly and strolled away through the crowd that came ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... chair, mopping his brow. Some ten minutes went by before a thought occurred to him that was fortuitously anticipated by the sudden appearance ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... fans jamming grand stand and bleachers; there is only a small board, with a tiny ball swaying uncertainly on its string, an invisible man to operate it, markers to show the runs, and a little crowd of hot, tired men and office boys mopping their faces in the shadeless, dirty street. There's nothing pretty or pleasant or thrillingly ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... can't you see," exploded the little doctor, mopping up his face with his big handkerchief, "that your big German was trying to tell you of Polly's playing, and to say something, probably pretty much the same that he has said to her and to Jasper? O dear me, I should like to have been ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... Surgeon sat down, breathing heavily and mopping his forehead. It was the longest speech he had ever made, and he was painfully conscious of its inadequacy. The Senior Surgeon excused himself and left the room, not, however, until he had given the House Surgeon a look pregnant ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... you," he answered, mopping the perspiration which was streaming from his face. "I was tinkin' dot may be if you git dot fellow, you vould be vantin' me for a vitness, and s'help me Moses I vould not do dot—not ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... still mopping his face and looking across the gathering-place toward Alpha, glaring above ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... hair of your head. The world is small, as you say, but just at this moment infernally busy mopping up. What, bother about a little dinkum dinkus like this, with Russia mad, Germany ugly, France grumbling at England, Italy shaking her fist at Greece, and labour making a monkey of itself? Nay! I'll shift the puzzle so you can read it. When the yacht was released from auxiliary duties ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... or rather I thought I was, for my innocent stroll about Emmerich was duly observed by a man who bore the unmistakable air of his profession, and who stepped into my compartment on the Cologne train as I sat mopping my brow waiting for it to start. He flashed his badge of detective authority, asked to see my papers, returned them to me politely, and ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... choking down her sobs, mopping her face with a small, dirty handkerchief. Suddenly, taking a step towards him, she clenched both her hands and struck ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... admitted. "We taught them their lesson down there in the desert—they've never been seen in daylight since. Out at night—and their invisible heat-rays setting fire to a city a mile away, then mopping up with their green flame-throwers if anyone's left. They pick our planes out of the sky even when they're flying without lights. Darkness means nothing to them! It was murder to send troops in against them, ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... once or twice gives his fantasy play, it is in describing the black cave of a palace at Arezzo into which the white Pompilia is borne, the cave and its denizens—the "gaunt gray nightmare" of a mother, mopping and mowing in the dusk, the brothers, "two obscure goblin creatures, fox-faced this, cat-clawed the other," with Guido himself as the main monster. Yet the Count, short of stature, "hook-nosed and yellow in a bush of beard" is not a monster but a man; possessed of intellectual ability ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... followed Matt into the store. Here a portion of the stock had to be removed, and then the young auctioneer set the boy to work mopping up the water on ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... but I'm sorry to have kept you a-waiting. Look you, I was mopping out the—Dear heart, but what is come to you? Has the resurrection happened? for your face looks nigh too ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... talk it over some more, but I'm going for a drink," Ed declared, and left the room, nervously mopping his face. He knew only too well the character of his two visitors; he had learned much about Tad Lewis during the past few months, and, as for the Mexican, he thought the fellow capable of any crime. At this moment Ed bitterly regretted his acquaintance with these neighbors, for both men knew ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... a packed mass of humanity swirled and gyrated and wriggled in the contortions of the "latest" dance, and laughed and howled immoderately; and around the sides of the room, the waiters rushed this way and that amongst the crowded tables, mopping at their faces with their aprons. It seemed as though confusion itself ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... danger of intrusion lessened, his ennui increased. One dull, humid day, when the whole world resembled a dripping sponge, Percival reached the limit of his endurance. The canvas was down, and nothing could be seen but long vistas of slippery decks, with barefooted Chinese sailors everlastingly mopping and slopping about in the wet. He had counted the five hundred and fiftieth raindrop that clung to the red life-belt at the rail when he saw the young Scotchman next him ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... and out into the street, breathing great breaths of air. He had been suffocating in that atmosphere, while the apprentice's chatter had driven him frantic. There had been times when it was all he could do to refrain from reaching over and mopping Jim's face in the mush- plate. The more he had chattered, the more remote had Ruth seemed to him. How could he, herding with such cattle, ever become worthy of her? He was appalled at the problem confronting him, weighted down by the incubus of his working-class ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... he said, mopping his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief which he drew from the tail of his coat. "I am thankful to have got these things here in—I devoutly trust!—safety. Specimens? Well, not exactly; though, to be sure, they may be specimens ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... a hand over his eyes, another footstep invaded the outer passage, and Mr. Pope himself rushed in, mopping his brow. ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... it; but, if they had gone through the job of scrubbing down the thwarts and bottom boards of the cutter after the fray, as Larrikins and I had to do, mopping up the blood and gore, which was more than an inch deep, the fighting would not have seemed so jolly ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... stop an' boil th' kettle," said Dick, throwing down the light pack of provisions he carried and mopping the perspiration from his forehead, for the mid-day sun was warm. "If we were only havin' a canoe, now, we'd be a rare piece farther. 'Twere a long ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... sacrifices,' Jane said. So she and Anthea went and talked to the priest, who was no longer lying on his face, but sitting on the top step mopping his forehead with his robe, for it ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... BEERMANN. At last. [Mopping his braze.] Good God? when a matter is so urgent and so much depends on it they ought not to chase one all over the building. I must rest a bit. All this excitement and running up and down stairs. ... So you are the gentleman who has the ...
— Moral • Ludwig Thoma
... with peremptory halting gesture and commanding voice has always said;—thus far, but no father. You will doubtless live to see me at fifty struggle through a dance with the daughter of my old sweetheart while the son of another breaks us; and I, broken of wind and mopping my bald head, shall retire to a corner and rest while conversing with the hostess' grandmother. Seriously, mother, I intend to marry just as soon as a girl as good and sweet as you are will have me. I am beginning ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... he asked, mopping the perspiration from his face with the tablecloth. "She laughs when I speak seriously, but I have hoped that it was because of my damnable manner of speech rather than my suit. Tell me, what do you think about it? Is she in ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... still mopping his face, but finding no words. He feared death very much and this prophecy of it, spoken with such a ring of truth, as though the speaker knew, frightened him. At that moment in his heart he cursed the Reverend Mr. Knight and ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... edge of the dough with skilled fingers and then settled the pan upon a bed of coals just outside the heart of the fire and, squatted by its side, carefully watched the baking. Meanwhile, Norman and Paul were crunching bacon scraps while Roy was mopping his perspiring brow with the sleeve ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... scrubber to comprehend, and she was filled with a longing to be good—very good. She made ardent resolutions not to "jaw" the boys so much, and to be more gentle with Iry and Go. Her conscience kept on prodding until she censured herself for not mopping the corners ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... and but for Eloise I'd have got out some way, I was so uncomfortable with Bell fanning on one side till that rheumatic spot on my shoulder, which troubled me some at Harvard, began to ache, and the fat woman the other side mopping her face with a handkerchief saturated with cheap perfumery, and the big hat in front flopping and nodding this way and that, and no place ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... mopping his bald head after one of his energetic failures at lawn tennis, grunted assent, and remarked that a few years more would see a like development in their elder son, a remark which bordered on absurdity; for Johnny ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... perhaps fortunate for the girls' peace of mind that they did not notice two men who were closely behind them. One of the men was fat and short and had little eyes and a bald head, which he was now mopping vigorously with ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... Star would assign you to this Edwards case," panted Kennedy, mopping his forehead, for the heat in the terminal was oppressive and the crowd, though not large, was closely packed. "Mr. Jameson is my right-hand man," he explained to Waldon, taking us each by the arm and urging us forward. "Waldon was afraid we might miss ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... symmetrically enclosed between the balustrades. At the corner of the neighbouring streets huge bills repeated in quaint letters "Lucie de Lammermoor-Lagardy-Opera-etc." The weather was fine, the people were hot, perspiration trickled amid the curls, and handkerchiefs taken from pockets were mopping red foreheads; and now and then a warm wind that blew from the river gently stirred the border of the tick awnings hanging from the doors of the public-houses. A little lower down, however, one was refreshed ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... mopping his face with a handkerchief. "I'll take it," he said, and it seemed to me that the room began to turn round. "Let us fix it up at once," he added. "I have engaged a man to drive me to the station and I want to take ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... side once in the dust And caught sight of him treading-water-like, Keeping his head above. 'Damn ye,' I says, 'That gets ye!' He squeaked like a squeezed rat. That was the last I saw or heard of him. I cleaned the rack and drove out to cool off. As I sat mopping hayseed from my neck, And sort of waiting to be asked about it, One of the boys sings out, 'Where's the old man?' 'I left him in the barn under the hay. If ye want him, ye can go and dig him out.' They realized from the way I swobbed my neck More than was needed something must be up. They headed ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... puffed up the drive and disgorged a mob of reporters and photographers. As many as the room would hold pushed into it, and the others stood outside in the drive and complained loudly. The complaints of the photographers were especially varied and forceful. Goldberger looked around him in despair, mopping his face angrily, for the crowded room ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... play, and there was hardly a dry handkerchief in the house. But one man in the first balcony irritated his neighbors excessively by refusing to take the performance in the proper spirit. Instead of weeping, he laughed. While others were mopping their eyes and endeavoring to stifle their sobs, his face beamed with merriment and he burst ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... haven't drunk vodka but paraffin, Dashenka . . ." muttered Strizhin, mopping the cold sweat ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... peritonitis was already present, the ordinary procedure of dry mopping, followed by irrigation, was necessary, before closing ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... heat more than I do," she answered, demurely, which was true, for she looked as cool as a cucumber and as comfortable as a mouse in a cheese, while I was mopping my face every other ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... awake by a tropical downpour which lashed against the windows and poured through the ceiling. Three times they had to get up and move the bed round to escape the stream of water. Marcella seemed to be spending all the night mopping up water. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... Waffles. 'I thought it would be somewhere thereabouts. Well, I suppose we've all had enough,' added he, 'may as well go home and have some luncheon, and then a game at billiards, or rackets, or something. How's the old water-rat?' added he, turning to Thornton, who was now busy emptying his cap and mopping the velvet. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... intensely dry heat the danger of exposure was lessened by active exercise and the profuse perspiration that followed it. In another moment the stranger had reached their side, dripping as if rained upon, mopping his damp curls and handsome bearded face with his linen coat, as he threw himself pantingly on ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... seconds I had the seemingly inanimate maiden safely deposited in the inside of the barouche and myself sitting by her side. The driver cracked his whip, and whilst I, happy but exhausted, was mopping my streaming forehead the chaise rattled gaily along the uneven pavements of the great city in the ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... instantly conscious that her act had been misconstrued, retired with less grace than she had come forward, and spent most of the lecture in surreptitiously mopping her eyes. As she walked dejectedly down the corridor afterwards, she was accosted by Hermione Graveson, a ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... wrote a letter before for nigh 'pon twenty years, I b'lieve," he gasped, mopping his brow and stretching his arms with relief, "and now 'tisn't much of a one. I'm out of practice, but the little maid'll understand," and he chuckled happily as he handed it to Miss Grace. ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... suddenly, for the first time, that Werner was still in the evening clothes he had donned for the part. On his face were streaks in the little make-up that remained after his frequent mopping of his features with his handkerchief. Too, his collar was melted. I could imagine ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... water that came down the chimney was very dirty. The wind whistled outside. Noel said, 'If it's pipes burst, and not the rain, it will be nice for the water-rates.' Perhaps it was only natural after this for Denny to begin with his everlasting poetry. He stopped mopping ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... over twenty years. Because of this same mourning, and because she was always talking of the dead, she was called "Widow Anne," and looked on the appellation as a compliment to her fidelity. At the present moment she stood at the gate of her tiny garden, mopping her red eyes ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... feet, mopping his cheeks. But there was no weakness in him now. Yes, he would do something. He would go after the thieves that had turned his own flesh and blood against him and root them all ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... sweat gather on his temples and ran his hand half angrily over his forehead and through his thinning silver hair. He was too old a man to let fear affect him any more and he was too tired a man to waste his energy mopping his forehead every few minutes in a gesture that would show his feelings to the crew. Maybe it was only vanity, he thought, but when your muscles went soft and started pushing back against your belt and your hair turned gray and started a strategic retreat, you ...
— Decision • Frank M. Robinson
... his oration, of an attempt to buy off the honest representative of the working classes for five thousand dollars. This had a tremendous effect on the excitable minds before him. He finished his speech with an impassioned tirade against the corrupt influences of the money power, and was mopping his flushed face, listening with elation to the hum of anger that resulted, confident that he had made his point, when James arose. The new man was as familiar with the tone of the meetings of laborers as Grady himself. At the beginning he had no wish ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... little man, mopping the perspiration from his shining head, "quiet as lambs to-day. Their own mothers wouldn't have known the Board from ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... it seemed, indeed; for presently the worthy Mr. Buckhurst made his reappearance in quite a sad state, mopping his red face and swollen eyes most vigorously with a figured cotton handkerchief, and proclaiming, with as much intelligibility as the cold in his head and the peculiar circumstances of the case would admit of, that he'd "be dagg'd ef he hadd't raver be chucked idto two cadawls dad 'ave ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... I sat luxuriating before my crowded banquet-table of misery, as I sat mopping my nose—which was getting most unmistakably rough with prairie-winds and alkali-water—and thinking what a fine mess I'd made of a promising young life, I fancied I heard an altogether too familiar C-sharp cry. So I got wearily up and went tiptoeing in to ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... and it was a very awkward thing for Sir James that I was here, a circumstantial piece of evidence against him. I looked straight into Weir's eyes as he came forward, ungainly and uncertainly, smiling half his dirty teeth bare, and mopping his yellowy face with a dirty handkerchief. To my astonishment he made not a single sign of recognition. I was his trump card, and he left ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... general, it is stifling," said Monpavon, crimson, fearing for his paint, and the lowered windows exposed to the populace these high functionaries mopping their august faces, strained, agonized, by the same expression of waiting—waiting for the Bey, for the storm, waiting ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... scene Mac Strann gazed with a thoughtful air and then stepped to the side of the room where stood a bucket of dirty water, recently used for mopping behind the bar. This he caught up, returned, and dashed the black, ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... "Do you think I would let him go to that dirty house—and with this fever, too? Why, Mrs. Meech's front curtains haven't been washed since Christmas! She and the preacher and Martha all sit around with their noses in books, and never even know that the water-spout is leaking and the porch needs mopping! You can't tell me anything ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... shawl, and slouched out of the room, mopping her eyes with the glove that she had not ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Merlin was mopping his forehead as if in intense fatigue after a hard struggle; Robespierre was coolly ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... it," barked Mr. Daily. Turning to behold Mr. Maily mopping his brow, he cried, "For heaven's sake don't let anybody see you standing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... And suddenly everything—class-mates, president, roaring voices—died away. There was just one thing on earth. In the doorway, in the group behind the president, a girl stood with her head against the wall and cried as if her heart would break. Cried frankly, openly, mopping away tears with a whole-hearted pocket-handkerchief, and cried more to mop away. As if there were no afternoon tea, no mob of Yale men in the streets, no world full of people who might, if they pleased, see those tears and understand. The girl. Herself. Crying. In a flash, by the light ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... "Senorita," began Connell, mopping his forehead and assuming his most polite manner; "you are perfectly safe with us, and as quickly as possible your brother and yourself shall be sent back to Manila. You are a brave slip of a girl, and we boys respect bravery in whatever dress—boy ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... not more than thirty feet from the fire. Bruce was washing his hands in a canvas basin. Langdon was mopping his face with a towel. Close to the fire Metoosin was kneeling, and from the big black skittle he was holding over the coals came the hissing and sputtering of fat caribou steaks, and about the pleasantest smell that had ever ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... blacks in such annual numbers as has hitherto been done, cannot have any beneficial effect upon the present state of things. It is Dame Partington with her pail mopping up the rushing waters of the Atlantic! So far as this gradual removal has any effect, it tends to keep up the price of slaves in the market, and thus perpetuate the system. A writer in the Kentucky Luminary, speaking of colonization, uses the following argument: "None are obliged ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... the crushing, twisting, tearing and maiming of his fellow-man, yet of all these devilish machines nought is there so constant, so pitiless and hard of endurance as the agony of suspense; there is a spectre mopping and mowing at our shoulder by day and haunting the misery of our nights; here is a disease slowly but surely sapping hope and courage and ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... away to one side, and having placed him against the wall of the captain's cabin, walked away from him, adjusting their costumes, and mopping their sweat-covered brows. Fatigued by the struggle, and exhausted by the disgrace of his defeat, Foma lay there in silence, tattered, soiled with something, firmly bound, hand and foot, with napkins ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... a fresh bath of spirit and watch carefully. When the natural colours show in their original tints, average time three to six hours, remove the tissues from the spirit bath, dry off the spirit from the cut surfaces by mopping with a soft cloth, then transfer ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... hot!" he said, mopping his brow. "Sure, Miss Norah, y' kem in the nick av time—'twas run clane off ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... was alert enough now. It took him no time to rush up to the perspiring clerk, who, discouraged, stood mopping ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... spoke, First mopping brow and cheek, where still, for one that budged, Another bead broke fresh: "What Judge, that ever judged Since first the world began, judged such a case as this? Why, Master Bratts, long since, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... "I was afraid to leave it, unshielded. It might pick up some residual activity. Radiation, that is. From those hydrogen hordes outside." He let the object rest for a moment, mopping his head while he talked. "Can you hide it in here? I'm not really anxious to have Budget Control know where some of this stuff went—even though I have honorable intentions of returning the components later—and the good captain down there on the bridge might not consider ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... for Mr. White. One of the colored clerks (who, to do credit to his English education, affected to be utterly prostrated by the heat) replied with languor that Mr. White was upstairs; upon which Sheriff, mopping himself with a handkerchief, went ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... well dressed and pompous, among their goods and chattels on the great and busy wharves in the hot sunshine, mopping their perspiring brows and fat cheeks, which latter, like those of well kept porkers, adorned their rubicund faces. Across their broad waistcoats dangled glittering ropes and "charms" of tawdry composition, well suited to the ankles of a chaingang, ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... beautiful flat one skimming along with nearly a dozen hops in the brilliant track of the moon on the water. She did not pay any attention to me at first, and I kept skipping away, just as if I did not see her mopping her eyes. By-and-by a stroke worthy of myself sent a pebble spinning through the ripples, and Mary's ready laugh rang out beside me. Within twenty minutes of Dolly Martin's appearance on the scene, "Mamie" was the center of the corn-roasters, and the gayest of the gay. Belle told ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... at this letter. I picked it up while the shindy was going on between you and Paul in the common room. All the fellows were crowding round you. No one saw the letter but me. Paul dropped it when he was mopping the blood from his face. I ought to have given it back, but I saw that it was father's handwriting; so I sneaked off with it, and read it; and then—then I knew that I'd done a mean thing and did not like to ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... Nancy. "He's the mischief for sweating. He'll be mopping his forehead and forgetting the eggs. But here—where's your waistcoat pocket, Pete? Have you room for a hayseed anywhere? There!... It's a quarter of twist, poor boy," she whispered ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... twenty-five recruits had actually cost the Arla forty pounds, and, since they had taken to the bush, there was no hope of recovering them. The skipper and his mate proceeded to drown their sorrow in cold tea. The cold tea was in whiskey bottles, so Bertie did not know it was cold tea they were mopping up. All he knew was that the two men got very drunk and argued eloquently and at length as to whether the exploded nigger should be reported as a case of dysentery or as an accidental drowning. When they snored off to sleep, he was the only white ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... the intention of asking further of the coming visitor, and, keeping The Dancer as still as she could, sat looking at the valet with great, questioning eyes, fanning her hot face with her hat. Gaston, whose own horse stood like a rock, was frankly mopping his forehead. Dianna decided against any more questions. Gaston would naturally be hopelessly biased, having been born and brought up in the shadow of the family, and after all she would rather judge for herself. One inquiry only ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... past three in the afternoon—the Chinese appeared from a cabin, and sat down on the low rail aft, mopping his shaven head. "I don't wish you any harm, little yellow man," Bedient thought, "but you'd be most accommodating if you would fall into a faint ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... running at once; and mopping at his brow, "They're a real bonny folk, the French nation," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... approached Shafto and his companion, FitzGerald, rather warm, mopping his good-looking face, Miss Bliss, tripping airily beside him, in an ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... up mopping his brow and took he arm and led her back to Anna-Felicitas, who was taking care of the luggage and had sat down philosophically to await developments on a bag of sulphur. She didn't yet know what ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... maples ends in a cow," I said, solemnly. At which we both shrieked with mirth, leaning on the decrepit fence and mopping our ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... little fracas," said Lund, mopping at his face, "we'll mebbe have a nice, quiet, genteel sort of ship. My gun went overboard, didn't it? Better let me have that ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... do, Miss Verjoos? How air ye, Miss Claricy?" he asked, taking off his straw hat and mopping his face and head with his handkerchief. "Guess we're goin' to ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... frantically mopping up the black streams with her pocket handkerchief, surrendered the book to the outraged librarian. Nemesis had indeed descended upon her ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... like that of a child suffering from toothache. He fairly grovelled at Venner's feet, but as far as the latter's expression was concerned, the two might have met for the first time. Just for a moment Fenwick stood there, mopping his yellow face, himself a picture of abject misery ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... having discovered her handkerchief, was mopping very flushed cheeks and mumbling on about her own woes. "Why can't you be satisfied just to go on the way we always have? Why can't you be satisfied to have me like you almost as much ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... your life, my dear," mopping his brow vigorously. "They're a lot of cutthroats and assassins—policemen, magistrates and all—but when the eagle screams they're wise ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... Towne elected our representative to the legislature," said Chairman Pilkinton, weakly, and sat down, mopping his brow. ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... Billy, mopping his brow and letting his gaze travel around the horizon again before settling, in dull wrath, on Mr. Fett. "What's the use, sir, of makin' a man feel like a villain and putting thoughts into his head without ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... counterpane enmeshed and reduced to helpless silence, slammed the door and leant panting against the cabin, mopping his brow. ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... we should not forget to provide ourselves with a pocket-handkerchief of a useful size; for a dab of mud on the face is a common occurrence. Our noses and often our eyes require "mopping" on a cold day, and as the small square of lace bedecked or embroidered cambric which usually does duty as a handkerchief, is totally unable to meet the various calls made upon it, it is ridiculously out of place. If a watch is ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... taking off his Panama hat and mopping his perspiring head and face with a huge red-silk handkerchief, "that is a good job well done, and without the loss of a man, too—except, of course, the unfortunate four that we were too late to save. You have managed the affair exceedingly ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... tested with the contents of the jar. Instantly he uttered a cry of joy, and threw out his arms in a wild gesture which upset the pot and sent the liquid streaming across the floor to the very feet of the Englishman. The attendant drew a red handkerchief from his bosom, and, mopping up the mess, he followed it into the corner, where in a moment he found himself face to face ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... frivolous for Cardington," he said, taking off his cap and mopping his brow. "I'm glad to meet you, sir. This is a spooky place, the ideal place for a man to hang himself in. I spent four years in the Hall and never came up here before. I knew and loved your predecessor, as all the fellows did. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... coming up, straw hat in one hand, pocket-handkerchief in the other, and mopping his face. "This is rather warm work, Poole, my boy. Well, Mr Burnett, what do you think of blockade ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... said, when he was sheepishly mopping the floor, "smoking is a filthy and injurious habit. If you must smoke, you must; but don't stick a lighted pipe in your pocket again. Your skin's your own: you can blister it if you like. But this house is not mine, and I don't want a conflagration. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart |
