"Shuffling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... quibble. The idea is of shuffling as in making a promise with what is called a "mental reservation." "Palter with us in a double sense" is the famous expression in Macbeth, V, viii, 20, and it brings out clearly the meaning ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... the bed, pulled out the snake and flung it, still coiled, to the center of the room, whence with a harsh, shuffling sound it slid across the polished floor till stopped by the wall, where it lay without motion. It was a stuffed snake; its ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... scraped together enough to give a portion to his child (as the rumour ran) of a few hundreds—whom had he injured?—whom had he imposed upon? The contributors had enjoyed their sight for their pennies. What if after being exposed all day to the heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaven—shuffling his ungainly trunk along in an elaborate and painful motion—he was enabled to retire at night to enjoy himself at a club of his fellow cripples over a dish of hot meat and vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought against him by a clergyman ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... at it aghast, it reared itself on its haunches after the manner of an ape, and leered piteously at me. Then, shuffling forward, it rolled over, and lay sprawled out like some ungainly turtle—and wallowed, as for warmth, in the cold grey ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... hole in the door, which he hoped to enlarge enough soon, to enable him to escape. He had not much time, however, for thought; for the giant and his wife soon came in. By peeping out a little, he could just see their great feet shuffling over the ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch
... stand still. The clock ceased to tick, the little rumble in the stove was silenced, the shuffling feet of one of the soldiers stayed, the movement of some rustle in the wall paper was held. The world ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... managed too cleverly. She was gone. I had been so long, to my great vexation, painfully pacing after the slowly-moving, out-shuffling mass of ex-worshippers—dexterously essaying the while to avoid treading on the trailing trains of the ladies, or incurring the anathemas, "not loud, but deep," of gouty old gentlemen with tender feet, which they would put in one's way—that, on my succeeding at length ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... one evening in the week to forego their usual games of chance or skill, such as whist, billiards, and cockamaroo. But the essential inanity of a fashionable party requires to be amused, so we set round a large table, and played at "letters," sedulously "shuffling" the handsome ivory capitals as we gave each other long jaw-breaking words, the difficulties of which were much enhanced by their being usually misspelt, but which, nevertheless, formed a very appropriate vehicle for what the world calls "flirtation." I can always find out other people's ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... forgetfulness, this remarkable company of world-wanderers drifted, in the moonlight, above the universal watery grave of the drowned millions, with the harmonies of stringed instruments stealing out upon the rippling waves, and the soft sound of swiftly shuffling feet tripping ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... it fell short of the highest standard. Most of it was lost at the back of his throat, and what did emerge was mainly inaudible. However, as she distinctly caught the word 'love' twice, and as Tom was shuffling his feet and streaming with perspiration, and looking everywhere at once except at her, Sally grasped the situation. Whereupon, without any visible ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... right?" the Duchess' voice whispered, and no doubt my face was ashen. "Quite," whispered my voice. But this pathetic monosyllable was the last gasp of the social instinct in me. Suddenly, as the "voluntary" swelled to its close, there was a great sharp shuffling noise. The congregation had risen to its feet, at the entry of choir and vicar. Braxton had risen, leaving me in daylight. I beheld his towering back. The Duchess, beside him, glanced round at me. But ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... word he went shuffling out into the dark hall. At the front door he turned and looked back at her; then, slowly, ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... shuffling step approach the door, it was unlocked, and a gray old woman, with a huge horsehair wig upon her head, ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... barking at this, but there were sounds as if of protest mingled with it, and finally the dog subsided into a howl, and dropped down by the door to wait, a low, shuffling, panting sound coming through the ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... through the snow and came to a stop with a clang and a roar, disgorging a chattering holiday crowd who paused for a change of cars at Cotesville on their southbound trips. Uncle Noah hastened his shuffling footsteps: the Northern Express with its horde of transient visitors had been a vital part of the inspiration. Upon the station platform people stamped up and down in the snow or laughed and chatted, quite ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... for hours. They could not tunnel straight on account of stones; but by the end of the night they were under the kitchen floor. Benjamin was on his back, scratching upwards. Peter's claws were worn down; he was outside the tunnel, shuffling sand away. He called out that it was morning—sunrise; and that the jays were making a noise down below ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... from the sampan these festive mariners of the Kan-kiang have developed into shuffling, shirking gormandizers, who peer longingly into every eating-house we pass by and evince a decided tendency to convert their task into a picnic. Finding me uncomplaining in footing their respective "bills of lading" at the frequent places where they rest and indulge their appetites for ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... of his dead protector. But reaching his apartment, he sternly banished them with the vanished romance they revived, and lighting his lamp, laid out his papers in the prospect of an evening of uninterrupted work. He was surprised, however, after a little interval, by the sound of uncertain and shuffling steps on the half-lighted passage outside, the noise of some heavy article set down on the floor, and then a tentative knock at his door. A little ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... his head and stretching his crossed legs under the table as far as possible, upon noticing which all laughed. His Excellency wished to change the course of the conversation, so, throwing down the cards he had been shuffling, he said half seriously: "Come, come, enough of jokes and cards! Let's get to work, to work in earnest, since we still have a half-hour before breakfast. Are there many matters to be ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... Shuffling down the long slope, its tired legs moving automatically, the drooping pony swerved a little and then came to a halt, trembling with fright. Startled out of his unpleasant ruminations, his lips tensing over his teeth in a savage snarl, Calumet Marston swayed uncertainly ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... he, in a voice that made me jump; 'what is this story I hear of Collins? Now, no shuffling,' says he; 'I've traced it home to you, and I want your authority. I always looked upon Collins as a decent sort of oddity,' says he; 'and I'm determined to sift this matter thoroughly.' Frightened me out of a year's growth." Moriarty paused, and ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... dust and spattering each other with mud, but travelling by the same road to the same end. A Whig, he said, was a trimmer who dared neither to be a rogue nor an honest man, but was 'a sort of whiffling, shuffling, cunning, silly, contemptible, unmeaning negation of the two.' And the true genuine radical reformers? To them, as represented by the school of Bentham, Hazlitt entertained an aversion quite as hearty as his aversion for Whigs and Tories. If, he says, the Whigs are too finical ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... was a stranger to Mrs. Croft, and was to be introduced; and nothing could be more awkward and embarrassing than our entree and introduction. There were such compliments and apologies, such changing of places, such shuffling of chairs, and running about of servants, that I thought we should ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... produce to shew the disorder in which this pretended word of God, the Bible, has been put together, and the uncertainty of who the authors were, we have only to look at the first three verses in Ezra, and the last two in 2 Chronicles; for by what kind of cutting and shuffling has it been that the first three verses in Ezra should be the last two verses in 2 Chronicles, or that the last two in 2 Chronicles should be the first three in Ezra? Either the authors did not know their own works or the compilers did ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... the cook and build the fire; advising me first, in a friendly way, to take the hearth brush that was 'kapin' the windy up, and rap on the wall if I needed annything more.' At eight o'clock we heard the porter's shuffling step in the hall, followed by a howl and a polite objurgation. A strange dog had passed the night under Francesca's bed, and the porter was giving him what he called 'a good hand and fut downstairs.' He had put down the hot ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was gone, a sudden cloud had come over his bright face, his figure seemed to have collapsed, the light seemed to have faded out of his hair. With a shuffling step, the very antithesis of his brisk, elastic tread, he turned to the door ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... shuffling of steps in the hall and a glitter of trappings. The Commandant of the Fort stepped forward to the doorway and glanced in. The priests questioned with their eyes, the nuns ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... pardoned and retain the offence? In the corrupted currents of this world Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice. And oft 't is seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but 't is not so above; There is no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence. What then? what rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it when one cannot repent? O wretched state! O bosom ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... A shuffling formation took place, and half of the Dutch sailors ranged up beside the prisoners; the other half remained and herded the gold washers together. Barry tried to look around, but a pistol at his head warned him not to try it again, and out ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... A shuffling footstep caught their ears, and both turned towards a boy, in the dress of one of the Lagunes, who approached from ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sallow, dirty-looking lad of about eighteen, but stunted and, dwarfed for his age, came shuffling by us, to follow the carpenter, and he held one hand to his eye and spoke in answer with his face ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... arrival, her father on the doorstep, she and her aunt behind him, and in the hall, lines of uneasy and shuffling peasants. How awkward and ill at ease they must have seemed! Then came the carriage, Hubert alighting first, then Karl. Karl had seen her instantly, over her ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... attention should not be involuntarily strained to hear. Walking on tip-toe, doing any thing in the room very slowly, are injurious, for exactly the same reasons. A firm light quick step, a steady quick hand are the desiderata; not the slow, lingering, shuffling foot, the timid, uncertain touch. Slowness is not gentleness, though it is often mistaken for such; quickness, lightness, and gentleness are quite compatible. Again, if friends and doctors did but watch, as nurses can and should watch, the features sharpening, ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... heart: I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew, Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers; I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree; And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry: 'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag. ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... floor. As a matter of fact, she had. Her grandmother, who was a Toplofty, made all her grandchildren walk daily across a polished floor with sand-bags on their heads. And the old lady directed the drill herself. No shuffling of feet and no stamping, either; no waggling of hips, no swinging of arms, and not a shoulder stooped. Furthermore, they were taught to enter a room and to sit for an indefinite period in self-effacing silence while their elders ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... at any point a real advance upon Locke. The general will, in practical instead of semi-mystic terms, really means the welfare of the community as a whole; and when we enquire how that general will is to be known, we come, after much shuffling, upon the will of that majority in which Locke also put his trust. Rousseau's general will, indeed, is at bottom no more than an assertion that right and truth should prevail; and for this also Locke was anxious. But he ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... Admiral!" he cried, as the gaunt old man came shuffling down the street towards them, with his stoop, his cross- grained features drawn awry with twinges of rheumatism, his hands crossed above his tall cane. All Axcester laughed at his long blue surtout, his pigtail ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the kitchen, O'Grady's rage against Furlong, though moderated, had settled down into a very substantial dissatisfaction, which he evinced by poking his nose between his forefinger and thumb, as if he meditated the abstraction of that salient feature from his face, shuffling his feet about, throwing his right leg over his left knee, and then suddenly, as if that were a mistake, throwing his left over the right, thrumming on the arm of his chair, with his clenched hand, inhaling the air very audibly through his protruded lips, as if he were supping ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... alive. [9] Lieut. Speke, awakened by the report of firearms, but supposing it the normal false alarm,—a warning to plunderers,—he remained where he was: presently hearing clubs rattling upon his tent, and feet shuffling around, he ran to my Rowtie, which we prepared to defend ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... disgraceful brand upon Isabella Graham. What she urged upon others she exemplified in herself. She kept a purse for God. Here, in obedience to his command, she deposited the first-fruits of all her increase; and they were sacred to his service, as in his providence he should call for them. No shuffling pretences, no pitiful evasions, when a fair demand was made upon the hallowed store; and no frigid affectation in determining the quality of the demand. A sense of duty was the prompter, candor the ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... there shuffling, in order to fight down his tears; but he had to snigger with mischievous delight at the idea of Jeppe's ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... world?" she asked herself deliberately. "Of course, if it goes beyond a certain point it is like madness—you must keep out of its way, for your own sake. But papa used to say there were many things a great deal worse. So there are!—meanness, and shuffling with truth for the sake of your soul. As for the other tales, I don't believe them. But if I did, I am not ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... learned at second hand and third hand. But of their guilt he had no doubt. One of them was Marlborough. He had, after betraying James to William, promised to make reparation by betraying William to James, and had, at last, after much shuffling, again betrayed James and made peace with William. Godolphin had practised similar deception. He had long been sending fair words to Saint Germains; in return for those fair words he had received a pardon; and, with this pardon in his secret drawer, he had continued ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and fire as well as any man, and she stood with the gun firmly held in her strong young arms, and pointed towards the door. For one breathless moment—which seemed a year—they waited. The growl sounded nearer, and a swift shuffling of clumsy feet told them that some ponderous animal was approaching. The next instant the object ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... words left the young man's lips there came from outside the noise of much shouting and shuffling of naked feet, and anon the sound of a voice, loud and harsh, asking for leave to speak with the praetorian praefect. Caius Nepos paused, tablets in hand. Strangely enough the voice, though well-known, seemed to have a sobering effect on all these ebullient tempers. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the dead flowers, noticed that a shuffling track that was not of his making had been swept to a cupboard in the corner. In the upper part of the door of the cupboard was a square panel that looked as if it slid on runners. The door itself ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... sounds heard in the room were the shuffling of the feet of the two wrestlers and the oaths of the enraged Bluffy. Keith had not uttered a word. He fought like a bulldog, without noise. His effort was, while he still gripped the pistol, to bring his two hands together ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... thoughts were passing through her mind she happened to glance out of the window. Nutty was shambling through the garden with his pail, a bowed, shuffling pillar of gloom. As Elizabeth watched, he dropped the pail and lashed the air violently for a while. From her knowledge of bees ('It is needful to remember that bees resent outside interference and ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... within hearing, from oldest to youngest, would be wriggling and shuffling, as if through some magic piper's bewitchment; for even those who at first affected contemptuous indifference would be ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... knocker had scarcely ceased to echo when I heard the shuffling of feet within, and the sound of chains and bolts being withdrawn. The door opened. A man stood before me holding a lighted candle which he shaded with his hand. His faded black clothes, once apparently a butler's dress, his white hair and advanced age left me in no doubt that ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... little could be seen through the thick green branches of the tree outside. From the yard below came the sound of wheels, and of men's excited voices. There came also the twinkle of lanterns borne by hurrying hands, and the tramp of shuffling feet. In the window David shivered. There were no wide sweep of mountain, hill, and valley, no Silver Lake, no restful hush, no daddy,—no beautiful Things that Were. There was only the dreary, hollow mockery of the Things they ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... was shuffled and divided into three piles. After this Geary made a mental calculation, selected one of these piles, shuffled it, and gave it back to her, asking her if she saw her card in it; then more shuffling and dividing until their interest and patience were quite exhausted. When Geary finally produced a jack of hearts and demanded triumphantly if that was her card, Henrietta began to laugh and declared she had forgotten what card she chose. Geary said he would do the trick ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... curtain, a light sprang up from the room she had left. O'Reilly was there, searching for her. It had been simple to say, while she stood on a solid floor, that he would not look out of the window. But he might look out: he might hear her feet shuffling along the ledge. If his head appeared now, she ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... life and lilt went out of them, and they were again maundering and futile things, getting in one another's way, stumbling and shuffling through the darkness, hesitating to grasp ropes, and, when they did take hold, invariably taking hold of the wrong rope first. Skulkers there were among them, too; and once, from for'ard of the 'midship house, I heard smacks, and curses, and groans, and out of the darkness hurriedly emerged ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... had gone, Schwalliger turned and winked slowly at the minions of the law, and went quietly into a corner with them, and there was the sound of the shuffling of silken paper. Later on he found the old man and returned him his ten, and went back ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... order, we begin the descent; sometimes on foot, sometimes shuffling on the ice; always proceeding much more quietly and slowly than on our upward way; and constantly alarmed by the falling among us of somebody from behind, who endangers the footing of the whole party, and clings pertinaciously to anybody's ankles. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... getting out of it, I must go," said the shepherd to himself; and came near, and stood with the stick across his shoulders, holding the ends of the stick on both sides with his hands, swinging the switch that he held in his right hand, stooping, moving his head from side to side, and shuffling his feet. Seeing the shepherd, who thus came and stood, the gentleman entered into ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson
... rattled urgently, to an accompaniment of feet shuffling on the stone; and immediately—if he were to make a logical deduction from the rasping and scraping sound within the door-casing—the bell-pull was violently agitated, without, however, educing any response from the bell itself, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... recovering from her illness, and Tryon from his love, and while Fate is shuffling the cards for another deal, a few words may be said about the past life of the people who lived in the rear of the flower garden, in the quaint old house beyond the cedars, and how their lives were mingled with those of the men and women around them and others that ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... nearly as possible opposite the elevator, so that we might arrive at the foot of the stairs but a moment before Madge and Henry, and we could hear the two fathers shuffling on the street floor, when suddenly, as we reached the third floor, we heard a whisper from Henry in the elevator. The elevator had stuck fast between the third and fourth floors. As with one mind, Lemuel ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... the heavy, shuffling step passed into the adjoining bedroom, and soon the wretched man was in stupor. As Mildred came out she saw Belle, who had returned from her work, looking toward the room in which her father slept, with a lowering, reckless expression ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... 1801.... The very least that could soothe the Irish and give them hope is a clear enunciation what measures of relief Mr. Gladstone is resolved to propose. But he is incurably averse to definite statements, and seems as anxious as a Palmerston might be to reserve a power of shuffling out.... He tells the Boers of the Transvaal that if they will submit unconditionally, they shall meet 'generous' treatment. If the injured Basutos submit, their case will be carefully considered.... Nothing was to me more ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... feet were on the threshold, stumbling, shuffling, ill-shod feet of men bearing a burden. In that city, one may not lie in his home more than one day after he is dead. They set down what they bore, beside the couch, and waited, and the woman saw their questioning faces and heard them whispering. Then one ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... a lady, But the commonest wench on the street, Shuffling, shabby and shady, Shameless to pass or meet. Walk with her once—it's a weakness! Talk to her twice—it's a crime! Thrust her away when she gives you 'good day,' And the besom won't board you next time. Largesse! Largesse, Fortune! What is ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... puffed fiercely, like a locomotive blowing off steam. Then he rose and took two or three turns up and down the gallery, shuffling his feet, his chest heaving. Then ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... bucks jest step up and say we was good dancers, and we start shuffling while de rest of ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... jostled by a bevy of females, shuffling along in their yellow slippers, their faces shrouded to the eyes in that never-forgotten covering with the Turkish wives, the yashmach; now crowded one side by an armed kervos who is clearing the way for some dignitary to follow; and now forced ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... Chauvelin's repeated summons, there came anon the sound of someone moving in one of the upstairs rooms, and presently the light overhead disappeared, whilst a door above was heard to open and to close and shuffling footsteps to come slowly ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... substance from the Father, but nevertheless agreed with Arius in thinking that the Son had a beginning of existence, were called Semi-Arians; and were received into communion by Athanasius, in spite of this disagreement. To me it seemed to be a most unworthy shuffling with words, to say that the Son was begotten, but was never begotten. The very form of our past participle is invented to indicate an event in past time. If the Athanasians alleged that the phrase does not allude to "a coming forth" completed ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... mesdames and messieurs how you can dance," cried Chacot. "Strike up, Jean," he added to his son, who, getting down a riddle from the wall, commenced scraping away, and producing a merry tune. Up got the bear, and began shuffling and leaping about, in a fashion which strangely resembled an Irish jig, at the same time singing in a voice which sounded remarkably like that of a human being. The audience applauded; but the bear at length, getting tired from ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... swore to her narrative, formally made out by her solicitor, before the author of Tom Jones, and Mr. Fielding, by threats of prosecution if she kept on shuffling, induced Virtue Hall to corroborate, after she had vexed his kind heart by endless prevarications. But as Virtue Hall was later 'got at' by the other side and recanted, we leave ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... stick, and up went Neddy's heels. "Crack—crack— crack," went the stick again, and up went Neddy's heels four, five, six times over. But the donkey had this time met with his match, and, in spite of his kicking and shuffling, Harry sat him like a hero. 'Tis true that he was bumped all sorts of ways—right and left—on to the donkey's neck—on to his crupper, and was several times nearly off, but never quite; so that at last Neddy gave up in despair, submitted to his thrashing, and then ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... loci, the Chevalier himself, was not the last to welcome this prime stay and ornament of his establishment. He came shuffling forward with a hundred apish conges and chers milors, to express his happiness at seeing Lord Dalgarno again.—"I hope you do bring back the sun with you, Milor—You did carry away the sun and moon from your ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... intervals of rest, always retire to their places and sit down. The dancing is not so energetic as many of those commonly indulged in for amusement only. The steps consist of two treading movements made by each foot in succession. Keeping time with the drum-beats, at the same time there is a shuffling movement made by the dancer forward, around and among his companions, but getting back toward his place before the verse is ended. The attitude during these movements consists in bending the body forward, while the knees are bent, giving one the appearance of searching for a lost object. ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... these three, Judas, the priests, and Pilate, suggest to us, I think, a threefold way in which conscience is perverted. Judas represents the agony of conscience, Pilate represents the shuffling sophistications of a half-awakened conscience, and those priests and people represent the torpor ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the boys clambering down the stairs from the conning tower and called out, feebly, yet with sufficient strength to make himself heard above the sound of shuffling feet. ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... drawing-room was even smaller than the dining-room. On the walls hung some monstrosities of portraits; in front of the sofa, of which the stuffing protruded in several places, stood a green table; on the sofa sat Ivan Semyonitch, already shuffling the cards. Near him on the extreme edge of a low chair sat a spare woman in a white cap and a black gown, yellow and wrinkled, with short-sighted eyes and thin cat-like lips. 'Here,' said Ivan Semyonitch, 'let me introduce him; the first man's dead; Andrei ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... from those who would not support the new Administration or croaked about its instability. The action of Dundas and the bishop was unfortunate; for it gave rise to the report that Pitt was intriguing with them for a shuffling of offices in which he would again come out at the top; and, as usually happens, the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... night there already, the twilight was softly dying away, and all at once the young priest stopped short, fearing to take another step, for, from the room beyond, the large yellow salon, there came a murmur of feverish, distracted words, ardent entreaties, fierce panting, a rustling and a shuffling of footsteps. And suddenly Pierre no longer hesitated, urged on despite himself by the conviction that the sounds he heard were those of a struggle, and that ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... sayin' you give it up." Wrinkle again applied himself to the screen and fireplace, and returned shuffling, his tobacco-quid in his hand. "Well, you've heard about the dime circus that was to show here a month back, an' couldn't because all the actors hit the grit an' left the manager to settle with the sheriff for debts that follered it all ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... you a clout on the head.... Go away!" Men in couples or threes stood pensive or moved silently along the bulwarks in the waist. The first busy day of a homeward passage was sinking into the dull peace of resumed routine. Aft, on the high poop, Mr. Baker walked shuffling and grunted to himself in the pauses of his thoughts. Forward, the look-out man, erect between the flukes of the two anchors, hummed an endless tune, keeping his eyes fixed dutifully ahead in a vacant stare. A multitude of stars coming ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... been. 'Leicester's Commonwealth' says 'she was found murdered (as all men said) by the crowner's inquest,' as if the verdict was not published, but was a mere matter of rumour—'as all men said.' Appleyard's behaviour need not detain us long, as he was such a shuffling knave that his statements, on either side, were just what he found expedient in varying circumstances. Dudley, after Amy's death, obtained for him various profitable billets; in 1564 he was made keeper of the Marshalsea, had a commission under the ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... just coming out; he's listened to better than any man in the House now, but he'll borrow half-a-crown from you if you'll lend him one. How d'ye do, my lord? I hope I have the pleasure of seeing you well?" and Bott bowed low to a lord who was hurrying through the lobby as fast as his shuffling feet would carry him. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Abner's benefit. But he gave them in highly condensed versions, as his sorely taxed vocal organs had almost reached the limit of their strength. He had just reached the conclusion, having been interrupted several times by Abner's exclamations, when, ahead of them, on the road, they spied a figure shuffling along in the dust. The two boys were on the rear seat of the rig, so that the man, when he saw the rig approaching, having turned his head at the sound of hoofs, did not ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... both ears were uncovered. No, nothing was to be heard. I was trying to compose myself to sleep again, persuading myself that I had been dreaming, when again—yes most distinctly—there was a sound. A sort of shuffling, scraping noise, which seemed to come from the direction of the passage leading from the tapestry room to the garden. Fear made me selfish. I pushed Mary, then shook ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... finished dressing, next morning, and was strapping my things together for the day's campaign, when I heard a shuffling step upon the porch, and the door opened gently, without any previous ceremony of knocking. To my angle of vision what at first appeared to have opened it was a tray of coffee, rolls, eggs, and a packet of sandwiches, but, after hesitating ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... He arrives, shuffling his slippers along the floor, and examines all the laughing faces. As he cannot hear, he hesitates to sit down, and this time his smile betrays ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... along. A squirrel—were such a creature possible—would have stirred disproportionately the light alkali dust; the two heavy wagons and the shuffling feet of the beasts raised a cloud. The fitful furnace draught carried this along at the slow pace of the caravan, which could be seen only dimly, ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... she leaned over towards me. She had already rung a bell, and outside I could hear the shuffling footsteps of the old ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dim watches of the night for a week past, Simpson, secretly busied with preparing Hugh Johnstone's flitting, was perplexed at the sound of shuffling feet and whispered voices in the master's rooms opening into the splendid gardens. "Who the devil has he there? Some woman!" mused the old veteran servant. Simpson had his own little "private life" to wind up, and so ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Cromwell's filthy cruelties in Ireland, or his impatient slurring over of the most sinister riddle in the morality of Frederick the Great—these passages are, one must frankly say, disingenuous. But it is, so to speak, a generous disingenuousness; the heat and momentum of sincere admirations, not the shuffling fear and flattery of the constitutional or patriotic historian. It bears most resemblance to the ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... an official swell, a certain chief clerk, named Kissing, much higher in standing though younger in age than the gentleman of whom we have before spoken. He would hurry in, out of his own neighbouring chamber, with quick step and nose in the air, shuffling in his office slippers, looking on each occasion as though there were some cause to fear that the whole Civil Service were coming to an abrupt termination, and would lay about him with hard words, which some of those in the big room did not find it very easy to bear. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... nothing," answered the oracle, in a very oracular manner, shuffling the cards as she spoke; "no, give up nothing, but keep all you can. That is the way to thrive, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... of being four years in stepping from one door of the "White House" to the other, ceases to be the meed of a dignified ambition when it results from a skilful shuffling of political cards, rather than from strength and steadiness of head and ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... out Bessie is, Alf?" asked Mr. Crow, shuffling the envelopes until he found the one he wanted. He removed the card, printed neatly by the Tinkletown Banner Press, and squinted at ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... took the plug, gnawed at it. They stood quiet, their jaws working. They solemnly spat, one after the other, into the placid water. They stretched voluptuously, with lifted arms and arched backs. From beyond the mountains came the shuffling sound of a far-off train. A trout leaped, and fell back in a silver circle. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... chicanery of traffic. He had a vast deal of stern but honest pride in his nature, and, moreover, held the whole savage race in sovereign contempt. Abandoning all further attempts, therefore, to bargain with his shuffling customers, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and paced up and down the deck in sullen silence. The cunning old Indian followed him to and fro, holding out a sea-otter skin to him at every turn, ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... a game in which I did my own shuffling. I never believe in trying to bluff a full hand. Had I had but ordinary detectives with whom to deal, I make bold to say I should have come off rich and triumphant. I had no means of knowing that I was to play with a chemist who would use against me the latest scientific ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... snarl from within, followed by a sudden shuffling of feet as the two men leaped upright from what I presume had been a recumbent position, warned me to be ready to face defiance if not the fury of despair; and curbing with a determined effort the slight sinking of heart natural to a man of my make on the threshold of a very doubtful adventure, ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... July morning Mrs. Holt was sweeping the front porch when a forlorn specimen of humanity came shuffling up the front walk and asked to see Dr. Holt. Mrs. Holt took him into the office and ran to the garden to tell George his first patient had come. His face had been flushed from pulling weeds, but it paled perceptibly as he started to the back porch ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... can find pleasure in shuffling cards all evening long to find out whether they shall win a few pence at the end. None but driveling idiots could spend time in inquiring into all that is happening around them, whether Madame Such-an-One slept single on her couch or in company, whether she has more blood than lymph, ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... of that," cried the hag, disabling him for the moment, by a severe blow on the arm from her staff. And shuffling off with an agility which could scarcely have been expected from her, she passed through a gate near her, and disappeared ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... himself it was alright, when he noticed Wilson shuffling about with the inner pocket of ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... they promote the moral principles of government, and the keeping desperately wicked persons as the subjects of laws and not the makers of them, to be of little importance. What signifies the cutting and shuffling of cards, while the pack still remains the same? As a basis for such a connection as has subsisted between the powers of Europe, we had nothing to fear, but from the lapses and frailties of men,—and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a narrow path high above the river. It was very dark, so that even with the vast blaze of stars overhead, Hillyard could hardly see the flutter of his shikari's white robe a few paces ahead of him. They passed a clump of bushes and immediately afterwards heard a great shuffling and lapping of water below them. The shikari stopped abruptly and seized the bridle of Hillyard's donkey. The night was so still that the noise at the water's edge below seemed to fill the world. Hillyard slipped off the back of his donkey ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... the evidence against her, dwelt upon the shuffling of Dunne, deduced that the reason for so much lying was to conceal the damning truth—namely, that she knew Hicks for a rebel when she gave him shelter, and thus became the partner of his horrible guilt. Upon that he charged them to find their verdict "without any consideration of persons, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... compulsory conviviality. No one was allowed to shirk—no daylight—no heeltaps—was the wretched jargon in which were expressed the propriety and the duty of seeing that the glass, when filled, must be emptied and drained. We have heard of glasses having the bottoms knocked off, so that no shuffling tricks might be played with them, and that they could ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... with an out-stretched arm, withdrew silently in the direction of the lunch-room. He was a tall man with stooping shoulders, and his noiseless retreat was cautiously made, yet not quite cautiously enough, since Judson's sharp eyes marked the shuffling figure vanishing in the shadow cast by the over-hanging ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... martyrised expression. In her heart she felt a sick trembling of her religious belief that Elektra was the greatest opera ever composed. For Audrey had the prestige of Paris and of the automobile. Mrs. Spatt, however, said not a word. Mr. Ziegler, on the other hand, after shuffling some seconds for utterance, ejaculated with ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett |
