"Rummage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but it happened that I had never seen any in my life. I remember I thought it must be white and soft like the string of a firecracker. So I began to rummage through all the drawers and boxes for fuse. One of the first things I came across was a coil of black, stiff, tarry string, but I threw it to one side and went on looking for fuse. After I had hunted half an hour and found none, I gave up. As I stood there thinking, a good deal discouraged, ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... stocked with its hardware; even a carpet lay on the floor, for Mrs. Lloyd having heard from David a laughing declaration of Matilda's present longing for an old carpet, had immediately given permission to the children to rummage in the lumber room and take anything they found that was not too good. Matilda was very much afraid there would be nothing that did not come under that description; however, a little old piece of carpet was found that somehow had escaped being ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... though he was a man of wide and not very edifying experience. The tactics which had started his friendship with Joanna he had learned at the shorthand and typewriting college where he had learned his clerking job—and they had brought him a rummage of adventures, some transient, some sticky, some dirty, some glamorous. He had met girls of a fairly good class—for his looks caused much to be forgiven him—as well as the typists, shop-girls and waitresses of his more usual association. But he ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... you boys go rummage the store room for the corn popper. The corn's in a corn-meal sack on the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... cruiser of the Crown; "yes! I, and my officers, will taste of your banquet! But the viands shall be such as these hirelings of the King shall little relish!—Pull with a will, my men, pull; in an hour, you shall rummage the store-rooms of that ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... with life, and echoed with the sound of calling, or screaming, voices. The inhabitants were surely all of them in a flurry of furious activity. Children were playing before and upon the door-step, which was flanked by an open shop, whose interior revealed with a blatant sincerity a rummage of mysterious edibles—fruit, vegetables, strings of strange objects that looked poisonous, fungi, and other delights. Above, from several windows, women leaned out, talking violently to one another. Two were holding babies, who testified their new-born sense of life by screaming shrilly. Across ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... Dave began to rummage. At last he got down into the body of the wagon. With the rays of the lantern thus concealed, the ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... Goods shall be delivered to them without delay and the bailiffs meddle no more of the same Goods upon Pain of Imprisonment and pay the Party grieved quatreple Damages." As is well known, it is the United States custom to insist upon the oath of the importer, and notwithstanding that, rummage open his trunks. Or are we to infer that people were more truthful in ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?" said ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... prone upon the cool meadowy ground and frantically reaching out under the running board of the car to her full arm's length she began to rummage awkwardly hither and yon beneath the heavy weight of the man in the desperate hope of feeling ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... said Lora Perry, who was present. "I've two or three trunkfuls of old-fashioned clothes, that ought to fit you girls fairly well. They're not antiques, you know; they're some I had before I was married,—but they're pretty. Go in the trunk room and rummage." ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... been having a solitary rummage among old things. It is my last night here. We're leaving for the country to-morrow, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... sibilantly. "We'll have a tag day and a rummage sale and I'll get up a dicker party and some theatricals. ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... juncture Bob arrived with a small keg of water, which he carried down to the landing. Then he went forward again after a bag of biscuit. As the terrified Ah Sing was still burning joss sticks and chattering prayers to his ancestors, Bob had to rummage about for the biscuit himself, but he finally secured a half-emptied bag, which he carried down and deposited on the ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... into the rowboat. With him are thrust his son and {32} eight others of the crew. The rope is cut, the rowboat jerks back adrift, and Hudson's vessel, manned by mutineers, drives before the wind. A few miles out, the mutineers lower sails to rummage for food. The little boat with the castaways is seen coming in pursuit. Guilt-haunted, the crew out with all sails and flee as from avenging ghosts. So passes Henry Hudson from the ken of all men, though Indian legend on the shores of Hudson Bay to this day maintains that the castaways landed ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... from the wars, has found that his heart's treasures have gone to rummage sales, and—you know the story of the man who bought his dress suit ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... all these lonesome days between!" objected Mrs. Patterson. "Indeed, it will not hurt me, Sarah. Why, I feel better already. And you'll help me. If you'll get out your work-basket, I'll rummage in this trunk ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... won't give you the keys. I'm the proper person to put things in order if you did not replace them properly. You are just making an excuse to rummage yourself. My motive for inspecting is very ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... heard. It was easy to guess that those light steps were a woman's. Edoardo turned towards a table, as if to look for some papers, saying to himself: 'I am lost.' And Sophia knelt down by the trunk that contained her clothes, pretending to rummage for something in it, while she wiped away her tears, and ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... into its unfathomable depths. Satisfied that it was impassable, they consulted for a few minutes, and then, apparently coming to the conclusion that the place was untenanted, they returned to the middle cave, and began to rummage and toss about the things ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... sensibility has at all existed for it) rummages over our old trunkful of spiritual duds and, drawing forth ever so tenderly this, that and the other tattered web, holds up the pattern to the light. I find myself in this connection so restlessly and tenderly rummage that the tatters, however thin, come out in handsful and every shred ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... vaunted the joys of meat and the ancient ways of the land: —"Our sires of old in Taiarapu, they that created the race, Ate ever with eager hand, nor regarded season or place, Ate in the boat at the oar, on the way afoot; and at night Arose in the midst of dreams to rummage the house for a bite. It is good for the youth in his turn to follow the way of the sire; And behold how fitting the time! for here do I cover my fire." —"I see the fire for the cooking, but never the meat to cook," Said Tamatea.—"Tut!" said Rahero. "Here in the brook, And ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But Oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, he sprang into ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... said the pilgrim, and wiped the dog's eyes with the flaps of its ears, for it looked as though it had wept. But when the dog heard what the pilgrim said, it understood, for animals understood all languages merely by the tone. It then began to rummage in the rubbish heap. And behold! there lay, between two cabbage leaves, a pomegranate and a piece of white bread. The pilgrim, who was accustomed to all kinds of miracles, praised God, and ate. And when he had eaten, he thanked God the Merciful. The dog stood by the whole ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... occupation of this Japanese country, seems to be a perpetual hunt after curios. We sit down on the mattings, in the antique-sellers' little booths, take a cup of tea with the salesmen, and rummage with our own hands in the cupboards and chests, where many a fantastic piece of old rubbish is huddled away. The bargaining, much discussed, is laughingly carried on for several days, as though we were trying to play off ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... an aggregate is reached that is indeed startling. In the defense of all these cases the Government is at great disadvantage. The claimants have preserved their evidence, whereas the agents of the Government are sent into the field to rummage for what they can find. This difficulty is peculiarly great where the fact to be established is the disloyalty of the claimant during the war. If this great threat against our revenues is to have no other check, certainly Congress should supply the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... and dresser impart a certain air of dainty hominess. A cheap set of hanging shelves for books and clock would be a welcome addition. Walls and floor should be painted, and a colonial rug placed before the bed. Don't give the servant's room the look of a perpetual rummage sale by making it a dumping ground for old defaced pictures, furniture, and bric-a-brac. Remember that it is her only haven of rest, and have it restful, if only for selfish reasons, for renewed bodily vigor means well-done work and a made-over disposition. When we ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... I rummage the town in search of adventure; climb one hundred and fifty steep steps, and find the highlands at the top, green, pastoral and reposeful. Pleasant homes are scattered about; a few animals feed leisurely in the grassy streets. One diminutive Episcopal chapel comes near to ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... liberality and friendship of an old lady of the Society of Friends, eminent for her benevolence and charity. Her deceased husband had been a medical man of eminence, and left her, with other valuable property, a small and well-selected library. This the kind old lady permitted me to rummage at pleasure, and carry home what volumes I chose, on condition that I should take, at the same time, some of the tracts printed for encouraging and extending the doctrines of her own sect. She did not even exact ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... that Mr. St. Claire should ask to leave his keys with me? One would suppose he'd trust his cousin to rummage his goods and chattels sooner ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... needles and thread," said Silver Ears. "I mean to rummage in these trunks and get a whole lot of stuff for dresses and bonnets and patchwork. And our shopping bag—we must ...
— The Graymouse Family • Nellie M. Leonard
... A rummage sale of toys added quite a large sum to the general fund. There was a 5-cent table, a 10-cent table and ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... no longer Bray) Is off like a shot away and away, Over the brine To far Palestine, To rummage and hunt over Ascalon plain For the unburied bones of his victim slain. "Look out, my Squire, Look nigher and nigher, Look out for the corpse of a bare-footed Friar! And pick up the arms and the legs of the dead, And pick up his body ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... lady did was to go to an oak chest which was in the room, and rummage there. With many grunts and wheezes (for she was eaten with rheumatism) she drew out a bundle done up in an old shawl. This she opened upon ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... level, or you'll shake out the priming. Ship it here; turn out that one, and heave it into that boat, if they come alongside. Steady now—so! Rummage about, and find me a bolt or two, a marlin-spike, anything. Quick, or the captain will be ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Marillac's wing. This room had only one window, on the north, with a bit of green stuff for a curtain; its only furniture was a miserable wooden bed drawn into the middle of the room. Licquet and the commissary examined the partitions and had them sounded. Soyer allowed them to rummage in all the corners, then, when they had given up all idea of finding anything themselves, he went up to the bed, put his hand under the mattress and removed a nail. They immediately heard the fall of a weight behind the wall, which opened, disclosing ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... quite as well not to tell Maria." But Johnny would hear nothing of this scheme. He would pay the entire cost of his own journey. He had lots of money, he said, and would like nothing better. "Then I'll run down," said Toogood, "and rummage up what tidings I can. As for writing to the dean, what's the good of writing to a man when you don't know where he is? Business letters always lie at hotels for two months, and then come back with double postage. From ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... sat down to their morning meal with a hearty goodwill. The host began to rummage among his correspondence, and finally extracted an unstamped note, which he opened. His face brightened as he read, and he laid it down with a broad smile ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... a big bunch of wall-flowers in her hand. She told, with some laughter, how she had waylaid Rosalie on her return from market to peep into her basket of provisions. To rummage in this basket was ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... on his side and was off to sleep. Joe envied him. About three in the morning he heard French Pete crawl up for'ard and rummage around in the eyes of the boat. Joe looked on curiously, and by the dim light of the wildly swinging sea-lamp saw him drag out two spare coils of line. These he took up on deck, and Joe knew he was bending them on to the hawsers to make ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... the great field of astronomy that is discouraging to the savant who hasn't the time nor means to rummage around through the heavens. At times I am almost hopeless, and feel like saying to the great yearnful, hungry world: "Grope on forever. Do not ask me for another scientific fact. Find it out yourself. Hunt up your own new-laid planets, and let me have a rest. Never ask me again to sit ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... sparkling eyes. They explained themselves as 'diggers'—just diggers—and opened me a new world. Granted that all Egypt is one big undertaker's emporium, what could be more fascinating than to get Government leave to rummage in a corner of it, to form a little company and spend the cold weather trying to pay dividends in the shape of amethyst necklaces, lapis-lazuli scarabs, pots of pure gold, and priceless bits of statuary? Or, if one is rich, what better fun than ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... 6. MY DEAR FRIEND: You asked me to write to you often and to tell you in particular about the things I might see. You also begged me to rummage among my recollections of travels for some of those little anecdotes gathered from a chance peasant, from an innkeeper, from some strange traveling acquaintance, which remain as landmarks in the memory. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Delia first," Calliope told me then, "to the Rummage Sale that the Cemetery Auxiliary, that the Sodality use' to be, give. That is to say, they didn't give it, as it turned out—they just had it, you might say. Abel was twenty-five or so, an' he'd just come here fresh ordained a minister. We found he wa'n't the kind to stop short ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... mean to lie quietly there and allow this sneak-thief time to rummage around. Of course the precious paper wanted by Jules was securely hidden; but for all that it went against his grain to allow ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... a passport. Of course, it was forged. He had a trolley transfer from Wyndham, Ohio, 'bout a hundred miles west of Cleveland, and, let's see, a hotel bill of the Hotel Bishop in Cleveland. He has a suite there, I guess. I'd like to rummage through his trunk. I tripped him up two or three times, enough to find that he's got a lot of information about army places. Seems to have more of it in his head than ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... thee; even when thy mouth says: "Give food in addition to water that I may reach my goal in safety," they are deaf and will not hear. They say not yes to thy words. The iron-workers enter into the smithy; they rummage in the workshops of the carpenters; the handi-craftsmen and soldiers are at hand; they do whatever thou requirest. They put together thy chariot: they put aside the parts of it that have been made useless; thy spokes are faconne quite new; thy wheels are put on, they put the courroies ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... only known writings of his which belong to this period are sermons, and these—a mere "scratch" collection of pulpit discourses, which, as soon as he had gained the public ear, he hastened in characteristic fashion to rummage from his desk and carry to the book-market—throw no light upon the problem before us. There are sermons of Sterne which alike in manner and matter disclose the author of Tristram Shandy; but they are not among ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... for Saints, Beheld before a golden altar lie The longest lance his eyes had ever seen, Point-painted red; and seizing thereupon Pushed through an open casement down, leaned on it, Leapt in a semicircle, and lit on earth; Then hand at ear, and harkening from what side The blindfold rummage buried in the walls Might echo, ran the counter path, and found His charger, mounted on him and away. An arrow whizzed to the right, one to the left, One overhead; and Pellam's feeble cry 'Stay, stay him! he defileth ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Rosenthal shall rummage the German quarter and even go through Williamsburgh and Hoboken. The end justifies any amount of labor that can be ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... with regard to events, I will, then, just rummage about its lumber-room, and see if I cannot tumble out some long-forgotten recollection on the subject, if I may so express myself; but I sincerely trust that it may not turn out to be a tendency for the poet, or some such inclination incompatible with the ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... at the plank with a knowing frown. A rummage through the old corner cupboard where the provisions were kept provided him with a wide strip of bacon rind, such as Uncle Billy used to rub on his saw. John Jay carried it out of doors and carefully rubbed the plank from one end to the other. Then he greased the underside ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... from necessity, were taken by the Lawries, but for Rosamond there was scarcely found a standing point, unless she were willing to share the apartment of a sick lady, who had graciously consented to receive any genteel, well-bred person, who looked as though they would be quiet and not rummage her things more than ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... many laws; yet under thy regimen they take us from the bosom of the nurse, turn the meat about upon the platter, pull the bed-clothes off, make us sleep when we would wake, and wake when we would sleep, and never cease to rummage and twitch us, until they see us safe landed at the grave. We can do nothing (but be poisoned) with impunity. What is worst of all, we must marry certain relatives and connexions, be they distorted, blear-eyed, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... some time there would be no writing. He was aware of a sadness akin to that with which one leaves home and family. He looked at the manuscripts in the corner. That was it. He was going away from them, his pitiful, dishonored children that were welcome nowhere. He went over and began to rummage among them, reading snatches here and there, his favorite portions. "The Pot" he honored with reading aloud, as he did "Adventure." "Joy," his latest-born, completed the day before and tossed into the corner for lack of stamps, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... is to-day to contemplate the situation occupied by Henry, forced thus to rummage the kingdom for the dust of two murdered princes, that he might, by unearthing a most wicked crime, prevent the success of a young pretender, and yet fearing to do so lest he might call the attention of the police to the royal record of homicide, ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... foxes could not get at it. Then we put our sleighs containing our outfit on the top of each other and made them fast with cords. When this was done Jakob said: "Foxes are often very bold, and they come and rummage around the tents; and when famished they bite everything they get hold of. We shall be able to hear them from our snow houses if they try to get into ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... boy. You can't ride and you can't skate. You are just good for nothing. You're just fit to be sold at a rummage-sale." ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... your coming in here both times? I wonder if you had me on your mind and wanted to see how I was. But you did not seem to. You kept groping your way toward that old closet as though you wished to rummage about in it. But do come and let me take you back to bed now, and I will stay with you so you will behave yourself and give Polly ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... when it rains, leads thither from the town. A wooden gate, and a fence, half stone and half bamboo, seem to separate the cemetery from the people in the town, but not from the goats and sheep of the parochial priest of the immediate vicinity. These animals go in and out to rummage among the tombs or to make that solitary ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... of the house comes in, accompanied by LORD BROCKLEHURST. The EARL OF LOAM is a widower, a philanthropist, and a peer of advanced ideas. As a widower he is at least able to interfere in the domestic concerns of his house—to rummage in the drawers, so to speak, for which he has felt an itching all his blameless life; his philanthropy has opened quite a number of other drawers to him; and his advanced ideas have blown out his figure. He takes in all the weightiest monthly reviews, and prefers those that are uncut, ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... going to rummage in the old bookcase upstairs, and see if I can come across anything fit to read, or an adventure." And not being in the habit of letting the grass grow under his feet (if vegetation was ever known to develop in such ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... travel; but God knows why theologians should go forth. They can become mad enough at home! They come into Catholic countries, and then there is an end of them! Wherefore should book-worms go forth? They shut themselves up in the diligence and in their chambers, rummage a little in the libraries, but not so much as a pinch of snuff do they do us any good when they return! Those who cost the most generally are of the least use, and bring the country the least honor! I, thank God! paid for my journey ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... this letter and come to the conclusion that it pretty clearly expressed all that he at that moment desired to say to the Governor of Panama, George made a further rummage of the cabin and, having at length found a sheet of paper large enough for his purpose, he took a pen and, dipping the feather of it in ink, proceeded laboriously to print upon it, in Spanish, a proclamation to the citizens of Panama, informing them that he, George Saint Leger, having certain ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... headless dummies of the Bowery have a very ghastly look at night. They suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that are yet so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... thou loved and youthful bridegroom, Handsomest of all the people, Never may'st thou send the damsel, Never may'st thou push the fair one In the corner there to loiter, Or to rummage in the corner. In her father's house she never, Never in her mother's household, 110 Went to loiter in the corner, Or to rummage in the corner. Always sat she at the window, In the room she sat, and rocked her, As her father's joy at evening, ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... get personal," he said curtly. Sitting down at a desk, he began to rummage with some papers and, turning ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... his spectacles, and once more started to rummage in the cupboard, and to smother his guest with dust as he untied successive packages of papers—so much so that his victim burst out sneezing. Finally he extracted a much-scribbled document in which the names of the deceased peasants ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... basket and we will fill it with articles from the mantel and what-not," said Mary, "and carry them all to the attic, until you have a rummage sale some day. We'll burn these 'everlasting' and 'straw' flowers, and pampas grass, and this large apple stuck full of cloves. Here is a small china dog and a little china basket with a plaited china handle decorated with gilt, and tiny, pink-tinted china roses. And these large, glass ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... cut out paper dolls till it suddenly dawned upon Nettie that it was time for another meal. She laid down her scissors with a sigh. "I really don't know what we shall have for dinner," she said. "Mother was going to bring something back with her. I shall have to rummage." ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... the world isn't so stupid," retorted Sprague, beginning to rummage his chaotic desk. "There, sir," he went on, dragging a bundle of newspaper clippings to the surface, "there is the world's opinion of the exposure. Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Troy—you'll find the comments of every important city ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... humorous chapter so far. We do not enclose it, as we desire to stimulate your curiosity. You can read it in the Clarion to-morrow evening—unless you wish to reserve that pleasure exclusively to yourself. In that case you may send a picture to the rummage sale of the Red Cross at — Fifth avenue. Mrs. Follett Drayton is in charge. Send any framed picture and between the picture and the backing insert five of Uncle Sam's promissory notes of the usual denomination. Put your name on the picture for ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... rising here into a hump, falling there into a depression. Immediately behind the cabaret, where the dead gazelles with their large glazed eyes lay by the fowl-run, was a rough wooden trellis with vines trained over it, making an arbour. Beyond was a rummage of orange trees, palms, gums and fig trees growing at their own sweet will, and casting patterns of deep shade upon the earth in sharp contrast with the intense yellow sunlight which fringed them where the leafage ceased. An attempt had ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... greedy seamen rummage every hold, Smile on the booty of each wealthier chest; And, as the priests who with their gods make bold, Take what they like, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... however," exclaimed the Canadian, "you must let us see first what we can do to fit your honour out a little better. Come, Bibi, let us have supper, and I will try what I can rummage out that may be of use to monsieur. If I can do nothing else, I can at all events furnish him with a rifle ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... querist^, examiner, catechist; scrutator scrutineer scrutinizer^; analyst; quidnunc &c (curiosity) 455 [Lat.]. V. make inquiry &c n.; inquire, ask, seek, search. look for, look about for, look out for; scan, reconnoiter, explore, sound, rummage, ransack, pry, peer, look round; look over, go over, look through, go through; spy, overhaul. [object is a topic] ask about, inquire about. scratch the head, slap the forehead. look into every hole and corner, peer into every hole and corner, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... "it is perfectly fresh, and I like the shape. Just wait till you see it trimmed, Miss Bean. May I rummage a little among your drawers? I will not toss the ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... "The rummage sale," Mr. Pennycoop pointed out to her, "occurs only once a year, and at that time your own temper, ...
— The Cost of Kindness - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... to soothe him any, and he quavered out he would be better where he was. But I said they'd rummage the whole island upside down before they were done, and all he had to do was to lay low, not worry, and let me and Tom ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... with some of his friends. The entrance-hall was full of things—bags, portmanteaus, and leather articles of every sort. The boxes had to be got out of their covers, and that was infinite trouble; and of luggage and of rummage there was no end. At intervals, moreover, there were violent showers, giving rise to much inconvenience. Ottilie encountered all this confusion with the easiest equanimity, and her happy talent showed in its fairest light. In a very little time she had brought things to order, and disposed of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... certain ferocious animals, male and female, scattered over the country, dark, livid, and all scorched by the sun, affixed to the soil which they rummage and throw up with indomitable pertinacity; they have a sort of articulate voice, and, when they rise to their feet, they show a human face; they are, in fact, men. At night they withdraw to the caves, where they live on black bread, water, and roots. They spare other men the trouble ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... choose to run any risque, how small soever it might be, for the sake of saving half a crown, with which they were satisfied. If you do not gratify the searchers at St. Laurent with the same sum, they will rummage your trunks, and turn all your cloaths topsy turvy. And here, once for all, I would advise every traveller who consults his own case and convenience, to be liberal of his money to all that sort of people; and even to wink at the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... one man, standing alone, immersed in rummage sales, parish concerts, mothers' meetings, school teas, and other feminine functions, be rude to Fifteen women at once? Between you and me, I have tried it, in my desperation, in individual cases, and it has no effect. I have discovered you can't please ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... was urged that the arguments for open shelves were all arguments for anarchy; that the readers who want to rummage about for what they want lack proper discipline of the mind; that the number of books lost under it has been very large; that librarians are custodians and conservers, as well as dispensers of books; that all books misplaced are practically ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... was fain to rummage in his pocket, either for a handkerchief or for a lump of Salem "Gibraltars:" both came out together in a state of happy union. Mercedes took hers simply. Only Miss Dolly was too proud to eat candy in the carriage. The Salem Gibraltar is a hard and mouth-filling dainty; ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... waiting to be asked. I can see them sticking out all over her. My dear, you are here for a week's visit. Don't choke yourself trying to ask everything in one breath, but 'walk into our parlor' and we will show you all we have, and let you rummage to your heart's content." ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... settled it.... Neither you nor I, nor all the critics in the world, have any trustworthy data that would give them the right to reject such literature. I do not know which are right: Homer, Shakespeare, Lopez da Vega, and, speaking generally, the ancients who were not afraid to rummage in the "muck heap," but were morally far more stable than we are, or the modern writers, priggish on paper but coldly cynical in their souls and in life. I do not know which has bad taste—the Greeks who were not ashamed to describe love as it really ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... then wrapping a shawl around her, threw herself heavily and sullenly on the bed. But inaction was not a characteristic of Minty's emotion; she presently rose again, and, taking an old work-box from her trunk, began to rummage in its recesses. It was an old shell-incrusted affair, and the apparent receptacle of such cheap odds and ends of jewelry as she possessed; a hideous cameo ring, the property of the late Mrs. Sharpe, ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... book that always makes me hungry," said Phil. "There's so much good eating in it. The characters seem always to be reveling on ham and eggs and milk punch. I generally go on a cupboard rummage after reading Pickwick. The mere thought reminds me that I'm starving. Is there any tidbit in ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "I rummage my brains in vain for what often rushes into my head unbidden,—little traits and sayings which recall his looks, manner, tone, and gestures; and I have always continued to think that a crisis of life was arrived ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... except once, when they bought a couple of lovely neckties, one of which he made Pemberton accept, they laid it out scientifically in old books. This was sure to be a great day, always spent on the quays, in a rummage of the dusty boxes that garnish the parapets. Such occasions helped them to live, for their books ran low very soon after the beginning of their acquaintance. Pemberton had a good many in England, but he was obliged to write to a friend ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... lid's off to you—and remember you asked for—the rummage, Rose Mary," answered Everett in a tone as light as hers. Then suddenly he rose and stood tall and straight in front of her, looking down into her upraised eyes in the dusk. "You don't know, do you, you rose woman you, what a man's life can hold—of nothingness? Yes, I've worked hard at my ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... don't understand is why they should make you take oath to a thing and then rummage through your trunks as though they didn't ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... sea, when the two Baalbekian lads are snug on deck, their rugs spread out not far from the stalls in which Syrian cattle are shipped to Egypt and Arab horses to Europe or America, they rummage in their bags—and behold, a treat! Shakib takes out his favourite poet Al-Mutanabbi, and Khalid, his favourite bottle, the choicest of the Ksarah distillery of the Jesuits. For this whilom donkey-boy will ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... sir," returned Sterling, as his ship moved on; "by the way, Sir Gervaise, would it not be fair-play to rummage the prize's lockers before she gets into the hands of the custom-house? Out here on the high seas, there can be no smuggling in that: there must ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a minute. I'm at those details again. I'm at your disposal, gentlemen, but I declare that we must have mutual confidence, you in me and I in you, or there'll be no end to it. I speak in your interests. To business, gentlemen, to business, and don't rummage in my soul; don't tease me with trifles, but only ask me about facts and what matters, and I will satisfy you at ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... is not anything. You begin now and rummage the barn, and I'll wait here for you. Granny is cackling, so you're sure to find one somewhere," and Tommy threw himself down on the hay with a luxurious sense of having made a good bargain, and done a ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... with one—pushed the said weasel into your burrow. Which thing he could never have done without your help, and if you had resisted but ever so little he would never have effected his purpose. If his weasel was allowed to rummage in your burrow, that is not his fault, ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... and very little with a broom. A rickety old chest of drawers stood in one corner, presumably filled with hospital necessaries, from the very strong smell of drugs emanating from it, and from the fact that the nurses would bustle in and rummage for some desired article, giving glimpses of the confusion inside. On the top of the drawers were arranged a multitude of medicine-bottles, half full and half empty, cracked and whole. The broken old washstand had been of valuable service during the night, as with it I barricaded the door, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... our brave soldiers and sailors. Count me in, girls, and you'll find me at the Liberty Shop early and late, where I promise to sell anything from an old hoopskirt to a decayed piano at the highest market price. We've had some 'rummage sales' in Washington, you know, but nothing to compare with this thorough and businesslike undertaking of yours. But I won't wear your uniform; I can't afford to allow the glorious red-white-and-blue to look dowdy, as it would ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... on a previous voyage, he manages to work a passage through the hold to the after part right under the cuddy; and from there my gentleman, if you please, makes his way on deck again through the hatchway in the captain's cabin, not forgetting to rummage the steward's pantry for ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... well?" It would have been unlike him not to have remembered that he had seen children at her house. "Hammy and Berta made great friends with me the other day.... Tell them I haven't forgotten the promise to rummage up some odd native toys I picked up in Rhodesia—made of mud and feathers and bits of fur and queerly-shaped seed-pods—the most enchanting collection of birds and beasts that ever came out of the Ark. And the Makalaka have a legend about a big flood and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... began to rummage Edith's treasure trunk. The other came to her assistance after a dazed interval. The family ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... and locked, the engravings locked up, all the drawers and closets locked. Why, if I want to take a fellow into the library, in the first place it smells like a vault, and I have to unbarricade windows, and unlock and rummage for half an hour before I can get at anything; and I know Aunt Zeruah is standing tiptoe at the door, ready to whip everything back and lock up again. A fellow can't be social, or take any comfort in showing his books and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... ready; and then we went to Burlington, and spent the rest in poshays like two gentlemen; and when we was down upon our stumps at last, for only one leg there is between us both, your honor, my boy he ups and makes a rummage in his traps; which the Lord he put it into his mind to do so, when he were gone a few good sheets in the wind; and there sure enough he finds five good guineas in the tail of an old hankercher he had clean forgotten; and he says, 'Now, father, you ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... and held it out to Cary who came forward as if in a dream. Then the General turned his back again and began to rummage on his desk. ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... to rummage every hole and corner in the room as well as the luggage of both Duperre and his wife. The brown suit-case which was in the wardrobe in the bedroom attracted their attention, but when unlocked was found to contain only a few ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... been rash to have termed it a man— turning its eye upwards to the place from whence the voice came, answered with a dreadful grin and shaking of its fist, yet presently began to undo a parcel, and rummage in the pockets of a sort of jerkin and pantaloons which it wore, seeking, it appeared, a bunch of keys, which at length it produced, while it took from the pocket a loaf of bread. Heating the stone of the wall, it affixed the torch to ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... that girl was gone!' reflected poor Don, as he went sulkily back to his basket. 'It's enough to make a dog steal, upon my tail it is! I'm positively starved—no bones, no chicken, only beastly dry dog-biscuits and milk twice a day! I wish I could rummage about in gutters and places as Jock does—but I don't think the things you find in gutters are ever really nice. Jock does—but he's just that low sort of dog ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... could remember she had been permitted to play with the contents of the late Herr Conrad Wilner's wonder-box. The programme on such occasions varied little; the child was permitted to rummage among the treasures in the box until she had satisfied her perennial curiosity; conversation with her absent-minded father ensued, which ultimately included a personal narrative, dragged out piecemeal ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... rummage the basket for those songs which had the most tragical pictures—for Sally had a most tender heart, and delighted in whatever was mournful—Rachel looked steadfastly in her face, and told her she knew by her art that she was born to good fortune, but advised her not to throw herself ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... ammunition, we put them all to the sword. Not a soul of them escaped, except some that were drowned in an adjacent bog, and, in a very short time, nothing was to be heard but silence. Their uniforms were all different colors, but mostly green. After the action we went to rummage a sort of camp, which they had left behind them. All we found was a few pikes, without heads, a parcel of empty bottles full of water, and a bundle of French commissions filled up with Irish names. Troops are now stationed ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... does our Pope controversy go on? and the pamphlet? It is impossible to write any news: the Austrian scoundrels rummage all letters. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... future wife. David Hunter, whose devout and intelligent character procured for him great respect, died at Blantyre in 1834, at the age of eighty-seven. He was a great favorite with his grandchildren, to whom he was always kind, and whom he allowed to rummage freely among his books, of which he had a considerable ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... half a hundred loves to stir on this swift descent of her life line, she did over Jason. Partly because he was his winged-Hermes self, and partly because—because—it was difficult for her rather fagged brain to rummage back. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... at the house, I continued to rummage, finding nothing of importance, however; and towards dusk I came out to see if I might discover Sir George and Magdalen Brant. They were not in sight. I waited for a while, strolling about the deserted garden, where a few poppies turned their crimson disks towards the setting sun, and ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... had borne A sharper pain for no more injury. How otherwise should free men deal and be, With patience frayed and loyalty outworn? No act of England's shone more generous gules Than that which sever'd once for all the strands Which bound you English. You may search the lands In vain, and vainly rummage in the schools, To find a deed more English, or a shame On England with more honor to ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy |
