"Puff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It flared with a puff on the rocks, twenty feet from where the two projectors were mounted. I saw that two helmeted figures were down there. They tried to swing their grids upward, but could not get them vertical to reach us. The ship was firing at us, but it was far away. And Grantline's searchbeam ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... he?' said the squire, stroking the little Roger's curly head. 'And he can puff four puffs at grandpapa's pipe without being ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... it is written (Prov. 28:25): "He that boasteth and puffeth up himself, stirreth up quarrels." Now strife is apparently the same as quarrel. Therefore it seems that strife is a daughter of pride or vainglory which makes a man boast and puff ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the most remarkable of this famous company were two sons of the North Wind (airy youngsters, and of rather a blustering disposition), who had wings on their shoulders, and, in case of a calm, could puff out their cheeks and blow almost as fresh a breeze as their father. I ought not to forget the prophets and conjurers, of whom there were several in the crew, and who could foretell what would happen tomorrow, or the next day, or a hundred years hence, but were generally ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... fury was a red, pulsing thing inside him, fed by his own helplessness. To be pinned here so near his goal, fastened up as a target for an inanimate but cunningly fashioned weapon, ate into him like a stream of deadly acid. His big gamble would puff out in a blast of fire to light up Topaz's sky, with nothing left—nothing. On the armrest of his sling-seat ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... years since, is now regarded as an old fogy, because he assumed that the spores of smut travel from the manure and seed of the previous crop in the circulation of the plant to the capsule, and thus convert the grain into a puff-ball, so also the ears of corn, the oats, and rye. This monstrosity on the rye grains is called ergot, or spurred rye, and when it is eaten by chickens or other fowls their feet and legs shrivel or perish with dry gangrene, not because the ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... and took aboard a few barrels of water as she faced a sudden puff of wind that almost put her on her beam ends. But she was a game little craft, and came back from the onslaught of the elements with a sturdiness that indicated strong timbers, and a build that was meant to cope with the sudden squalls that come out of ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... of nerve. If you lose your head you are sure to play the fool at a critical moment. Fraulein was like that. The moment the game went against her she began to hop about, and puff and pant, and work herself into such a fever that she couldn't even see a ball, much less hit it. I kept calm, and so of ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... mask of a smile Trudy began: "I'm cross. You were gambling again—yes, you were! Never mind how I know. I know!... I'll have macaroni, ripe olives, and a cream puff." ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Cole, with many a puff That haloed his urbanity, Would smoke till he had smoked enough, And listen most attentively. He beamed as with an inward light That had the Lord's assurance in it; And once a man was there all ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... Sometimes when I was at the wheel and running a little to leeward of another vessel, he would say, "I reckon I can weather him, sir, if you let me have her a bit;" and then, with delicate touches and catlike watching of every puff and every send of the sea, he would edge his way up, and pass his ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... for the self-righteous moralists who puff themselves into a state of Jingo complacency over the failings of foreign nations, to declare with considerable unction that the domestic hearth, which every Frenchman habitually tramples upon, is maintained in unviolated purity in every British household. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... was made as a white puff suddenly seemed to dart from one of the windows of the Hall, and then there was another, and another, the reports seeming to follow, and then to ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... They are always painted white, and the paint is always very dirty. When they begin to move, they moan and groan in melancholy tones which are subversive of all comfort; and as they continue on their courses they puff and bluster, and are forever threatening to burst and shatter themselves to pieces. There they lie, in a continuous line nearly a mile in length, along the levee of St. Louis, dirty, dingy, and now, alas! mute. They ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... drew us forth to watch an aerial battle in progress. With the aid of borrowed glasses I could see six machines in the sky manoeuvring for position. Two in particular seemed to be closely engaged when the German suddenly turned tail and fled. A white puff of smoke beside him indicated that the Archibalds had been watching the combat closely. A second, third and fourth followed in rapid succession until suddenly at the fifteenth burst the Taube began to drop and flutter down, like a leaf falling from a forest tree ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... words meant nothing. The puff of night air from the port-hole carried the fragrance from the room. The image wore its unchanging, meaningless smile, and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... increased, and everyone seemed on the move. The ladies paid their last visits to the bazaars and shell shops, and children extracted the last ounce of exertion from the exhausted leg-weary donkeys. Meanwhile the lords of the creation strutted about, some in dressing-gowns, others, "full puff," with bags and boxes under their arms—while sturdy porters were wheeling barrows full of luggage to the jetty. The bell-man went round dressed in a blue and red cloak, with a gold hatband. Ring-a-ding, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... hang pendant on the left; when all this is done, to "light the brown cigar," to put yourself in an elegant reclining posture between your opening jalousies, and, with both elbows resting on the red velvet cushion that crowns the hard edge of the balustrade, to puff forth light wreaths of blue vapour into the balmy air, and to see the bathers come back from the baths. There you may "think down hours to moments:" and so was it with myself; for I took my post at my window by half-past six, and at nine I was still there. Every now and then went ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... depicting it would be deprived of all the essentials of a picture, and merely made a chaos of destruction, with here the glint of a gun and there the flash of a sabre; here a momentary view of a black piece of heavy artillery, and there a head, an arm and a leg of one of the combatants; here a puff of smoke, and there a volley of belching flame—but all indistinct, terrible and indescribable. Solid shot, conical shell and spherical case went humming, hurtling and howling through the air, blotting out rebels and slaying loyalists. The leaden messengers of the sharp-shooters went ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the Constitution drew ahead, but the situation continued most critical. All through the afternoon the British frigates kept towing and kedging, being barely out of gunshot. At 3 P. M. a light breeze sprung up, and blew fitfully at intervals; every puff was watched closely and taken advantage of to the utmost. At 7 in the evening the wind almost died out, and for four more weary hours the worn-out sailors towed and kedged. At 10.45 a little breeze ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... begun to sing just after three o'clock that clear morning, for Celeste lying awake heard them; and they were keeping it up in the bushes. Gabriel leaned his feathered head over the road, listening for hoof-falls and watching for the first puff of dust in the direction of Prairie du Pont. The road was not as well trodden as it is now, and a little ridge of weeds grew along the centre, high enough to rake ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... puff of dust as the horse sprang into the road, a muffled shuffle, struggle, then the regular beat of hoofs, and she ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... your dish a little water. Take half a pound of rice, cree it soft as you would do for eating, and pour it upon the back of a sieve, let it stand while it is cold, then take a spoon and flat it like paste on your hand, and lay on the breast of every pigeon a cake; lay round your dish some puff-paste not over thin, and send them to the oven; about half an hour will ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon
... back to the mirror, lighted his cigarette, took one puff, threw it into the grate. Then he told Coursay what had occurred between him and the young girl under the elm, reciting the facts minutely and ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... louder, until it became one continuous roar—like the sound of a rushing cataract—a bovine Niagara! At first the buffaloes and the horses seemed well matched, but by degrees the superiority of the latter became obvious, as the savages drew nearer and nearer to the flying mass. Soon a puff or two of smoke, a whistling bullet and a whizzing arrow told that the action had begun. Here and there a black spot struggling on the plain gave stronger evidence. Then the hunters and hunted became mixed ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... "I thought at first she had really committed suicide and that this was a note of explanation. But it is not. Listen. It is just a line or two. It reads: 'Am feeling better now, though that was a great party last night. Thanks for the newspaper puff which I have just read. It was very kind of you to get them to print it. Meet me at the same place and same time to-night. Your Blanche.' The note was not stamped, and was never sent. Perhaps she rang for a messenger. At any rate, she must ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... had promised Mr. Hall to do this, and so advise him where the Harris family were stopping. No sooner was the red, white, and blue given to the breeze above the hotel, than a puff of white smoke was seen on the yacht, and then came the report of a gun in response to Harris's flag signal. Bills were paid at once, and the Harrises took carriage down to the landing. As the "Hallena" glided in between the piers, she ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... without hesitation, indicating a third place, and both girls cried out in admiration. That was just right. They knew it went awkwardly before, but they could not quite see where it should be. Their mother threw herself into their occupation, altering a fold here and pulling out a puff there, apparently engrossed in what she was doing, but conscious, through all Marian's light-hearted chatter, of the shade on Honour's brow. Her heart ached to see it, but she would not force the girl's confidence. There was not ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... Mr. Wallace enumerates (19. 'Journal of Travel,' edited by A. Murray, vol. i. p. 78.) a long series of groups in which this rule holds good; but it will suffice here to give, as instances, the more familiar groups of kingfishers, toucans, trogons, puff-birds (Capitonidae), plantain-eaters (Musophagae, woodpeckers, and parrots. Mr. Wallace believes that in these groups, as the males gradually acquired through sexual selection their brilliant colours, these were transferred ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... sleep, though," said Tobias, as the sentry, seating himself in the chair and placing his musket by his side, stretched out his legs, when, taking a pull at the jug, he began to puff away from the pipe which Tobias Platt had lighted for him. Tobias then, having placed a lantern with the dark side turned away from the sentry, quietly retired; he came back, however, before long, to find the beer jug empty, while ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... steeple top Had stood for many a day, And every year a coat of gold Increased his aspect gay. Subservient to the changing air, Each puff he'd quickly learn To obey with sycophantic ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... were fast to the other yacht, and I firmly determined not to lose sight of Mr. Whippleton again, under any circumstances. We had hardly made fast before the wind died out again. It was only a puff which had come to my aid, as it were providentially, and had enabled me to gain my point. I had noticed, when Mr. Whippleton left the Florina, that he took with him the leather bag, which contained his ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... when they were grown up they wanted to be just like him and strut around with their wings trailing, their tails spread, their necks drawn back, and their feathers ruffled. Then, they thought, when other people came near them, they would puff and gobble and cry, "Get out of my way!" They tried it once in a while to see how it would seem, but they were still slender and their voices were not yet deep enough. The sisters laughed at them when they did this, and that made them feel very uncomfortable. The long, limp red wattles ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... understandable, although the perspective was all wrong. "Weird beasts they seem to have had knocking about the country in those days. Whacking big size too, if one may judge. By Jove, that'll be a cave-tiger trying to puff down a mammoth. I shouldn't care to have ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... puff of smoke, but the owner of the foot was not satisfied with that for a hand reached down, lifted the bomb, the fuse of which still showed a smouldering spark of fire, and calmly pulled out the "tail" of the explosive. ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... the three hundred—gee golly, but it had cost, that short stay in the burg of Bland's dreams. A hundred dollars gone like the puff of a cigarette! Well, there were the three hundred left—he'd have been broke, pronto, if he had stayed there much longer. Another hundred he had spent on the Thunder Bird—golly, but propellers do cost a lot! And ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... was the crane, so that it hung at the proper height over the fire—for this was the kitchen as well as the reception room. The low ceiling was blackened with the smoke that filled the upper part of the room and escaped slowly through the hole over the fire, unless a puff of wind drove it back again. A row of bright copper casseroles hanging against the wall—like the burnished shields along the sides of the ancient triremes, if this comparison be not too noble for such a lowly subject—gleamed vaguely in the flashing of the red fire-light, and a large, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... ideal place for fishing. A deep, quiet pool, partly shaded by big trees, lay placid and motionless, except for an occasional ripple, stirred by a light puff of wind. An old wattle tree grew on the bank, its limbs jutting out conveniently, and here Jim and Wally ensconced themselves immediately, and turned their united attention to business. For a time no sound was heard save the dull ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... those times humanity flowed in very small channels, which a strong man of genius could thwart and direct. But humanity now is a stream so broad that it is almost like an ocean, in which all have similar being, and the big fish come to the surface, and spout and blow and puff without having any influence ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... crossing the mouth of the bay made the water dash a little as it broke in accentuated waves. A warm puff of air wandered in on ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... bamboo and thatch. Thatch fences surround all the little courtyards. Leaves, refuse, cowdung fuel, and wood are piled up round every hut. At each door is an open air fire, which smoulders all day. A stray puff of wind makes an inquisitive visit round the corner, and before one can half realise the catastrophe, the village is on fire. Then each only thinks of his own goods; there is no combined effort to stay the flames. In the hot west winds of March, April, and May, these fires ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... men. By this time the entire sky was overspread with a funeral pall, and it was so dark that they could hardly see. When they were within a few hundred yards of the bunkhouse they heard a weird whining noise far off over the prairie, and suddenly a little puff of cool air struck against their ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... stick, only that the ends are now joined together. All the inside surface of the ring is going one way, namely, the way the stick is pulled; and all the outside is going the other way. Such a vortex-ring is made by the smoker who purses his lips into a round hole and sends out a puff of smoke. The outside of the ring is kept back by the friction of his lips while the inside is going forwards; thus a rotation is set up all round the smoke-ring as it travels out into the air." In these cases, and in others as we commonly ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... doomed to disappointment. Still keeping his eye glued to the telescope, he suddenly observed a flash and a puff of white smoke leap out from a corner tower of the fort, and a few moments later the dull "boom" of a fairly-heavy gun made itself heard. At the same moment a tiny ball soared aloft to the head of the flagstaff on the battlements, ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... mortal life such charms? The moon grows sickly at the sight of day, And early cocks have summoned me away: Yet I'll appoint a meeting place below, For there fierce winds o'er dusky vallies blow, Whose every puff bears empty shades away, Which guidless in those dark dominions stray. Just at the entrance of the fields below, Thou shalt behold a tall black poplar grow; Safe in its hollow trunk I will attend, And seize thy ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... councillor Nannetti from the Kilkenny People. I can have access to it in the national library. House of keys, don't you see? His name is Keyes. It's a play on the name. But he practically promised he'd give the renewal. But he wants just a little puff. What will I tell ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... They swell and puff up their souls, and their natural way of speaking, according to the height of their magisterial place. The Mayor of Bordeaux and Montaigne have ever been two by very manifest separation. Because one is an advocate or a financier, he must not ignore the knavery there is in such callings; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... who is rather a muff, Who bamboozled those seniors that cut up so rough, When they saw the inscription, or rather the puff, Placed by the master so rude and so gruff, Who married the maid so Tory and tough, And lived in the house that ...
— Beautiful Britain—Cambridge • Gordon Home
... watched, hoping for an opportunity to inflict a fatal wound. It soon came. The animal rolled lazily over on its right side, exposing the whole of its left fin, and before it could recover itself Sir Reginald had levelled and discharged his piece. There was a very faint puff of thin fleecy vapour, but no report or sound of any kind save the by no means loud click of the hammer, above which could be distinctly heard the dull thud of the shell. The whale shuddered visibly at the blow, and made as though ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... answered Everett quickly, as he blew a puff of smoke at her. "And you, Rose Mary, are the bloom of every rose-bush that I ever saw anywhere. You are, I verily believe, the only and ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... way to the kitchen, Marie peeped into the bedroom. She switched up the light and looked it over, well pleased. Soon, when she had unpacked, her dressing-table would be furnished with all her pretty things, tortoiseshell and silver, big glass powder-puff bowl, big glass bowl and spoon with scented salts for her bath, and the manicure set of super-luxury which a girl friend had given her on her marriage. She was really adorably equipped; she was starting ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... shall th' effect of this good lesson keep As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... There was a thin puff of smoke, and a screaming echo went rolling and reverberating down the Wabash. Abram's eyes widened, and a curious whiteness settled on his lips. He stood as if incapable of moving. "Clang! Clang!" came ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... lives so long and is so hard to kill. It was the spores that were on the bullet. They resist any temperature except comparatively high and prolonged, and even resist antiseptics for a long time. On the surface of a wound they aren't so bad; but deep in they distil minute gas bubbles, puff up the surrounding tissues, and are almost ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... view what thou art, striving to know thyself, the most difficult thing to know that the mind can imagine. If thou knowest thyself, it will follow thou wilt not puff thyself up like the frog that strove to make himself as large as the ox; if thou dost, the recollection of having kept pigs in thine own country will serve as the ugly feet for the wheel of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the top of the funnels. The child saw the mass of water coming, and shrieking flew round the port side of the charthouse. But just as she turned down the open space between it and the funnel the vessel rolled to starboard. At the same moment came a puff of wind of greater violence than ever. The child, calling out, half in simulated half in real fear, flew down the slope. As she did so the gale took her, and in an instant whirled her, almost touching her mother, over the rail ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... puff or two, and then He says, "You ought to see The one I caught on Thursday—long As 'tis from you to me. I had him on the bank; yes, sir, As sure as you are born, And then he jumped right back again—" But ma—how ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... gentile councils are very informal, but the meetings of the tribal councils are conducted with due ceremony. When all the persons are assembled, the chief of the Wolf gens calls them to order, fills and lights a pipe, sends one puff of smoke to the heavens and another to the earth. The pipe is then handed to the sachem, who fills his mouth with smoke, and, turning from left to right with the sun, slowly puffs it out over the heads of the councilors, who are sitting in a circle. He then hands the pipe to the man on his left, ...
— Wyandot Government: A Short Study of Tribal Society - Bureau of American Ethnology • John Wesley Powell
... little play upon words," Warrington remarked, with a puff "Amory—Amori. It showed proof of scholarship. Let us hear a bit of the rubbish." And he stretched over from his easy-chair, and caught hold of Pen's manuscript with the fire-tongs, which he was just using in order to put a coal into his pipe. Thus, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a fine contrast of national character between the Yorkshireman and his mate. The Irishman was all puff, blarney, and brag, and all the time had been in a humour either to fight or to shake hands. Nothing would serve him but to play at cards with every one of the company, offering the most tremendous odds; but, fortunately for him, there was not another purse-proud man in the room but himself. ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... with it as a bitch plays with her pups, trying its powers little by little, yet still in play, until a day came when I discovered it to be strong and the master of me. Then indeed, my brother, I could not rest until I had put it to this proof." He lit his pipe solemnly, drew a puff or two and handed it to John. "Let us smoke together before we turn back. He that has a friend as well as wife and children needs not fear ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... out!" came a peremptory whisper. He obeyed, but not quick enough. A pair of red lips emerged from the shadows. There was a puff, and the candle was extinguished. "I've got my reputation to consider. We mustn't ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... had been let fall, and in less than three minutes were sheeted home. The headsails filled. At the very moment they did so, a stronger puff of wind came right down the harbour. "Cut, cut!" was the word. Round swung her head towards the open sea. Almost with a bound it seemed her stern lifted off the ground. "Hurrah! hurrah! We are free! we are free!" was the joyful cry. Now, come shot or shell, or whatever ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... to follow had preceded him. A faint light from a dark lantern, borne by one of the strangers, fell on the path in front of them, and was a guide to Maulear. Thus they descended the principal staircase of the villa, crossed the ground floor, and entered the front court. A puff of wind just then put out the lantern, as the person who bore it was attempting to brighten ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... earth, and sustain them in mid-air. The group of angels over the "Last Judgment," flinging their mighty limbs about, and those that surround the descending figure of Christ in the "Conversion of St. Paul," may be referred to here as characteristic examples. The angels, blowing their trumpets, puff and strain like so many troopers. Surely this is not angelic: there may be power— great, imaginative, and artistic power—exhibited in the conception of form, but in the beings themselves there is more of effort ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Puff! puff! Your face lights up as brightly, and your fragrant breath comes as freely here by the campfire, as when we were at home, and had our slippered feet upon the mantelpiece before the old-fashioned 'Franklin,' and were surrounded by our books and our pictures, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... somewhat attenuated in adults. Be that as it may, a small child's expressions are still in unmistakable motor terms. It is obviously through the large muscles that a baby makes his responses. And even a three-year-old can scarcely think "engine" without showing the pull of his muscles and the puff-puffing of exertion. Nor can he observe an object without making some movement towards it. He takes in through his senses; and he interprets through ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... fire the town; and it was sad to see these humble homes puff up in a cloud of smoke and sparks, then burst into vivid flame. In the orchards our men were plying their axes or girdling the heavily-fruited trees; field after field of grain was fired, and the flames ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... her room an hour later she found the tray quite empty, and Toinette fast asleep. Arranging the couch pillows more comfortably, and throwing a warm puff over the sleeping girl, she whispered, softly: "Poor little maid, your battle with Apollyon was short and sharp, but, thank God, you've conquered, even at the expense of an ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... author has a number of books out a cunning hand will keep them all spinning, as Signor Blitz does his dinner-plates; fetching each one up, as it begins to "wabble," by an advertisement, a puff, or ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and high in air a puff of smoke appeared, a pearl-grey, fleecy cloud, and as I, unsuspecting, watched it writhe into fantastic shapes, my ears were smitten with a deafening ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... this vessel; indeed, it required a bold inquirer to face those solemn Africans' gaze, as they sat cross-legged on deck, and ate their soup from a universal bowl, or calmly inspired from their chibouques, and blew out a formal and composed puff of the bluest tobacco-smoke. It did, indeed, soon forcibly recall the feelings of Egyptian travel to see these men;—the red fiery sunsets, the palm-trees, and crocodiles, and obelisks, and Indian corn, and, over ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... rest assured, and the author of this pamphlet believes his reputation will warrant the assertion and belief, that he could not be hired to puff an unworthy article, or write a book to induce American farmers, to purchase an article which would not prove highly ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... a bit, and the Reindeer went over farther than ever. For the moment I thought she was gone, and I knew that another puff like that and she surely would go. While I pressed her under and debated whether I should give up or not, the Chinese cried for mercy. I think it was the sweetest sound I have ever heard. And then, and not until then, did I luff up and ease out the main-sheet. ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... ending roofs arose the two lofty chimneys of the generators. From the very threshold one detected the rumbling and quivering of machinery, all the noise and bustle of work. Black water flowed by at one's feet, and up above white vapour spurted from a slender pipe with a regular strident puff, as if it were the very breath ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... little now and then, she lay for the greater part of the day in a dreamy state, often dropping asleep, and having to be coaxed to take the necessary nourishment. Very white and frail she looked, as if it would not take much of a puff to blow her away. Nevertheless, each day brought an increase of appetite and strength, and each day she grew fonder of her careful, tender nurse, as well as of Mrs. Wright's giant son. As Estelle grew stronger, she began to notice how the two loved each other with no ordinary love. 'Her Jack' was ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... attending the discharge of the piece were almost as great. A puff of wind, or the slightest motion of the soldier himself, would throw the priming from the touch-hole, and it is almost unnecessary to add, that in rainy or even very damp weather, such a gun was utterly useless. The first step in improvement was to place the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... at the man curiously. He was short and very fat, and had a face like a puff-ball, with little red eyes and scarcely any nose at all. He wore a black gown with scarlet grasshoppers and june-bugs embroidered upon the cloth; and his hat was high and peaked, with an imitation grasshopper of extraordinary size ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... Remarks Puff Paste Common Paste Mince Pies Plum Pudding Lemon Pudding Orange Pudding Cocoa Nut Pudding Almond Pudding A Cheesecake Sweet Potato Pudding Pumpkin Pudding Gooseberry Pudding Baked Apple Pudding Fruit Pies Oyster Pie Beef Steak Pie Indian Pudding Batter Pudding Bread Pudding Rice Pudding ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... see how romantic and foolish it was, how like a puff of wind it ought to be on your conscience. We shall be ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... A puff of smoke from the bushes; another; twenty. But no bullets came, the enemy firing from too long a distance. It was like a peaceable field day with blank ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... will be extremely gay, And Hook extremely dirty; And brick and mortar still will say "Try Warren, No. 30;" And "General Sauce" will have its puff, And so will General Jackson— And peasants will drink up heavy stuff, Which they pay a heavy tax on; And long and late, at many a fete, Gooseberry champagne will shine— And as old as it was in Twenty-eight, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... tremendously charged, a wire that touched and retreated, that made and lost its contact, the flashing arc was working toward the deck. It felt its way to the body of the ship; the arc was plain, starting from mid-air to hiss against the armored side; the arc shortened—went to nothing—vanished.... A puff of smoke from an open port proved its presence inside. Delamater had the conviction that a deadly something had gone through the ship's side—was insulated from it—was searching with its blazing, arcing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... order: deranged: it was not human, to be killed. But it lay motionless, with the fire hose playing upon it. Then abruptly there was an explosion. The fallen Robot, with a deafening report and a puff of green flame, burst into flying metallic fragments like shrapnel. Nearby windows were broken from the violent explosion, and pieces of the flying metal were hurled a hundred feet or more. One huge chunk, evidently a plate of the thing's body, struck into the crowd two ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... the Vatican, and, as he knew the palace well, went up to the pope's bedroom, a light in his hand and attended by no servant. As he turned round a corridor a puff of wind blew out his lamp; still, as he knew the way, he went on, thinking there was no need of seeing to find the object he was in search of; but as he entered the room he recoiled a step, with a cry of terror: he beheld a ghastly ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is possessed of the sense of smell to a remarkable degree, and, as every one who has stalked in Ladakh is aware, the wind is treacherous. If the stalker feels a puff of wind on his back when within 700 or 800 yards of the game, he well knows that it is 'all up.' On the tops of the mountains and in the vicinity of glaciers these puffs of wind are of frequent occurrence; ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... first corner Stuffy turned, and stood for one minute. Then he seemed to puff out his rags as an owl puffs out his feathers, and fell to the sidewalk like ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... below. At the foot of the precipice were four or five whales, from thirty to fifty feet in length, apparently. We could have tossed a pebble upon them. At times abreast, and then in single file, or disorderly, round and round they went, now rising with a puff followed by a wisp of vapor, then plunging into the deep again. There was something in their large movements very imposing, and yet very graceless. There seemed to be no muscular effort, no exertion of any force from within, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... they did seem reasonable, and he remembered that all the men he had ever seen used tobacco. So he decided that, if he expected to be a man himself, he must soon begin to use it, too. He therefore accepted the pipe and began to puff vigorously at the stem. But try as he would, he couldn't make the pretty little curls of smoke mount up into the air as he had watched his father and other men do. Very soon, however, a deathly sickness began to steal over him. His head and stomach ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... was coming. The ship that had been lying tide-rode swung to a heavier puff; and suddenly the slack of the chain cable between the windlass and the hawse-pipe clinked, slipped forward an inch, and rose gently off the deck with a startling suggestion as of unsuspected life that had been lurking stealthily in the iron. In the hawse-pipe ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... all sorts of bathers. The little timid waders could dip their toes and splash their hair in the shallow basin in-shore. The more advanced could wade out shoulder-deep, and puff and flounder with one foot on the ground and the other up above their heads, and delude the world into the notion they were swimming. For others there was the spring-board, from which to take a header into deep water; and, further ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... not answer. He was crossing in his mind the four hundred and five metres to the first Boche listening-post. Next beyond the abris was the latrine from which a puff of wind brought now and then a nauseous stench. Then there was the tin roof, crumpled as if by a hand, that had been a cook shack. That was just behind the second line trenches that zig-zagged in and out ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... shrilly, the last goodbyes were spoken, the guard shouted 'All aboard for Melbourne,' and shut all the doors, then, with another shriek and puff of white steam, the train, like a long, lithe serpent, glided into the rain and darkness ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... say the impatient audience, and with this I must agree; for, looking from my tent as I write, I can see the smoke-puff bulging on Bulwana Hill as 'Long Tom' toils through his seventy-second day of bombardment, and the white wisp seems to beckon the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... suddenly recollecting he had not celebrated his birthday for several weeks, announced a royal festival on a most elaborate scale. The cream-puff crop was an unusually large one, and the bushes were hanging full of the delicious ripe puffs, which were highly prized by ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... there went up a mighty shout of gladness and congratulation at the glory they had witnessed; and they took the air deeply into their chests, and were as divers that have been long fathoms-deep under water, and ascend and puff hard and press the water from their eyes, that yet refuse to acknowledge with a recognition the things that be and the sights above, so mazed are they with those unmentionable marvels and treasures and profusion of jewels, and splendid ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... am quite glad to find you here," said Mr. Cayenne, a celebrated reviewer, to Mr. Partenopex Puff, a small author and smaller wit. "Have ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... that her feelings were returned was only a step. Events and details, lighter than puff-balls, were to her links of iron, which formed a wonderful chain of evidence. She went about nursing the idea that Schilsky desired an introduction as much as she did; that he was suffering from a romantic and melancholy attachment, which forbade ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... on the point of betaking herself away, when she perceived Lin Tai-yue, standing on the door-step, laughing significantly while biting a handkerchief she held in her mouth. "You can't resist," Pao-ch'ai said, "a single puff of wind; and why do you stand there and expose yourself to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... out. The only way the air can get in is up the hollowed mast, the bottom of which is immersed in the water in the boat. There is a small hole in the bottom of the boat through which the water in it leaks away. This lowers the water until it has cleared from the bottom of the mast through which a puff of air goes up into the shell, allowing some of the water in the shell to pour out into the water in the boat. Now the water from the shell pours out in greater volume into the boat than the water that is leaking out of the boat. This fills it up again until the bottom of the mast is again ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... until within rifle-shot, and then suddenly swerved away in an oblique line. The ambush had failed, and a puff of smoke issued from behind the bowlder. Two braves, in gorgeous war paint, sprang up, and at the same time a score of whooping Indians rode out of timber on the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... we left Quebec, but about noon we struck much clearer and cooler air, and soon after ran into an immense wave or puff of fog that came drifting up the river and set all the fog-guns booming along shore. We were soon through it into clear, crisp space, with room enough for any eye to range in. On the south the shores of the great ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... of Santa Fe, another very beautiful and curious little bird, the copper-bellied puff-leg, is found, at an elevation of about 9000 feet. (Unlike the greater number of birds, the female humming-birds are generally as richly ornamented as the male.) It is named from the curious white puffs or ruffs—looking as ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... available railway line, knotted arms of which every knot marks a station, testify sufficiently to the relief of pressure thus afforded. Great Towns before this century presented rounded contours and grew as a puff-ball swells; the modern Great City looks like something that has burst an intolerable envelope and splashed. But, as our previous paper has sought to make clear, these suburban railways are the mere first rough expedient of far ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... as her hand guided me. A puff of wind blew on my cheek, cold and infinitely pure. I stood blinking in a short gallery that ended suddenly in blue sky, and, staggering forward, I cast ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... pickpocket work, with help of the press, these demi-booksellers make. They crack their brains to find out selling subjects, and keep hirelings in garrets, at hard meat, to write and correct by the great (qu. groat); and so puff up an octavo to a sufficient thickness, and there's six shillings current for an hour and a half's reading, and perhaps never to be read or looked upon after. One that would go higher must take his fortune at blank walls, and corners of streets, or repair to ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... majestical an air as if a crowd of enthusiastic admirers were rushing forward to grasp the divine promulgations, instead of their being, as in fact they are, coldly received by the accidental passenger, like a lying lottery puff or a quack advertisement. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... ground itself, were soaked, or if in winter the deadwood were buried beneath snow and the dead limbs of standing trees difficult to break off, it was a discouraging task. Sometimes after what seemed like eons of struggling, I would get a sickly little flame flickering, when, puff! along would come a blast of wind and smother it out with snow. I did learn eventually that pitch knots were so rich in gum or resin that they would always catch fire, and so I shaved off splinters with my trusty hunting knife and used them ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... Has he forgot from whence he sprung; A mushroom in a bed of dung; A maggot in a cake of fat, The offspring of a beggar's brat. As eels delight to creep in mud, To eels we may compare his blood; His blood in mud delights to run; Witness his lazy, lousy son! Puff'd up with pride and insolence, Without a grain of common sense, See with what consequence he stalks, With what pomposity he talks; See how the gaping crowd admire The stupid blockhead and the liar. How long shall vice triumphant reign? How long shall mortals bend to gain? How long ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... to master Juet, and uttered these remarkable words, while he pointed towards this paradise of the new world—"See! there!"—and thereupon, as was always his way when he was uncommonly pleased, he did puff out such clouds of dense tobacco smoke that in one minute the vessel was out of sight of land, and Master Juet was fain to wait until the winds ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... my "Pulse of Nature's Heart," Which I procured some little cash on, And quickly packed me to depart In search of "gilded haunts" of fashion, Which I might puff at column rates, To please my host and meet my reckoning; "Base is the slave who"—hesitates When wealth, and pleasure both ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... There was a puff of smoke, and then a bright tongue of flame; and immediately he had achieved his purpose he was terrified, and fled away from the dreadful light, and hid himself, shuddering, in the darkness of the ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... Malone took a puff of his cigarette. "Maybe he just wants to be sure," he said. "Funny things are happening all over." The cigarette tasted terrible and he put it out in an ashtray ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett |
