"Skipper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had left a very different impression. Fred worked hard at his studies because he had to; and even with persistence and industry he had not shone brilliantly in the scientific courses he had elected. The venerable dean once said that Fred was a digger, not a skimmer and skipper, and that he would be all right if only he dug long enough. He was graduated without honors and went South to throw in his fortunes with his father's Mexican projects. He was mourned at the college as the best all-round player ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... a fool for a skipper," grumbled a voice. But almost at the moment the wind took her right aback—or would have done so had the crew not been preparing for it. Her stern swung slowly around into view, and within two minutes she was fetching away from ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Joe Chambers?" Master Lirriper hailed the skipper as he appeared on the deck of the Susan. "I have brought you two more passengers for London. They are going there ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... time when the brig had been wrecked her crew had got safe away from her, and had been able in part to strip her before they left her alone upon the sea. What I wanted, however, they had not taken away. In a locker I found a case made to hold six big bottles, in which the skipper had carried his private stock of liquors very likely; and two of the bottles, no doubt being empty when the cabin was cleared, had been left behind. They served my turn exactly, and I brought them on deck and filled them from my pool ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... price, for to let sailors git the upper hand, there's many a man as has giv' the helm into the hands of his old woman and made a better v'yage thereby; and I don't mind sayin', sir, that havin' while follerin' the water got into the habit of allowin' her for to be skipper in the house durin' my short stoppin's on shore, it got for to be so much the custom, that since comin' home for a full due I ain't never tried for to break away from it; and though human natur' is falliable, and she does make mistakes, especially ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... most of them are navigable for coasting vessels of light draught. These inlets are so influenced by the action of storms, and their shores and locations are so changed by them, that the cattle may graze to-day in tranquil happiness where only a generation ago the old skipper navigated his craft. During June of the year 1821 a fierce gale opened Sandy Point Inlet with a foot depth of water, but it closed in 1831. Green Point Inlet was cut through the beach during a gale in 1837, and was closed up seven years later. Old Sinepuxent Inlet, which was forced open by ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... one to take any risk, but I will not hear of such a venture as this. Do you think I will allow the hope of all England to be staked for a pirate? And would you break our commander of her rank? All that Dorothy need do at Portsmouth is to curtsey to the first skipper she meets, and I'll warrant he will carry ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the skipper,' one of 'em said, 'and hasn't got a soft place about him. Well, my lad, I'm sorry for what's happened, but talking won't do it any good. You've got a long voyage before you, and you'd best turn in and ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... the ship was the same Captain Lamberton we have heard of before. He was a brave and bold skipper, but it is said that he was not altogether pleased with the ship when he first saw her; that he did not like her lines and thought her not quite seaworthy. Other people, too, besides Captain Lamberton, complained that she was not only badly built, but badly loaded, with the light ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... the feeling lingers and reflects a bit of scenery, but for the most part it can only catch gleams of color that mingle with the prevailing tone and enrich without usurping on it. This volume contains some of the best of Mr. Whittier's productions in this kind. "Skipper Ireson's Ride" we hold to be by long odds the best of modern ballads. There are others nearly as good in their way, and all, with a single exception, embodying native legends. In "Telling the Bees," Mr. Whittier has enshrined a country superstition in a poem of exquisite grace and feeling. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... it was nothing worse, but mere forgetfulness to change the course: one of those dreadful lapses of memory which baffle all Board of Trade inquiry. You may light, and buoy, and beacon every danger along the coast, and still you leave that small kink in the skipper's brain which will cast away a ship for all your care. The second of his desires you have helped me to fulfil. He wished in death to be John Murchison again, and lie where his ship lies: lie with his grand error atoned ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Captain Porter wrought such havoc among the British whalers in the South Seas, he found that no inconsiderable portion of their crews consisted of Americans, some of whom enlisted on board his own vessel; and among the crews of the American whalers were many British. In fact, though the skipper of each ship might brag loudly of his nationality, yet in practical life he knew well enough that there was very little to choose between a Yankee and a Briton. [Footnote: What choice there was, was in favor of the American. In point of courage there was no difference whatever. The Essex ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... found two boats taking passengers on board, one for Dundee and the other for Perth. Here my grandfather's great gift of foreknowledge was again proven, for he proposed that they should bargain with the skipper of the Dundee boat to take them to that town and pay him like the other passengers, at once, in an open manner, but that, as the night was cloudy and dark, they should go cannily aboard the boat for Perth, as it were in mistake, and feign not to discover their ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... "Skipper Worse," marked a distinct step in his development. It was less of a social satire and more of a social study. It was not merely a series of brilliant, exquisitely finished scenes, loosely strung together on a slender thread of narrative, but was a concise and well-constructed story, ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... objected to; indeed, it would be useless to object, for they overrun all ships. And rats are supposed to leave a vessel only when it is going to sink. A Welsh skipper, however, once cleared his ship of them without the risk of a watery grave, by drawing her up to a cheese-laden ship in harbour. He quietly moored alongside, and, having left the hatches open all night, cast off with ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... for some time been engaged in making a trigonometrical survey of the island of Lampedoza, in the Mediterranean. Thence he had embarked in a Greek vessel for Tripoli; had been nearly wrecked through the skipper's intemperance, and had finally been put ashore at Malta. He had also been Byron-smitten, and had followed in the wake of the author of "Childe Harold" to the Levant; had contemplated "the Niobe of nations" among the ruins of Rome; had witnessed the dance of the dervishes amid ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... shoal and she had sunk under them. We took them aboard, boat and all, wrote down carefully their tale of woe, and then put the steamer about, pushed as near the wreck as we dared and anchored. Her skipper came forward and asked me what I intended doing, and I told him I was going to survey the wreck. A little later he again came to ask permission to go aboard the wreck to look for something he had forgotten. I told him certainly not. Just before sunrise the ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... only a whole lot smoother, I'd call this a jolly day for a spin," the skipper of the craft went on to say, ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... subtle co-ordination of this ocean hunting; for the beginning of any tale may be known only to an admiral in a London office, the middle of it only to a commander at Kirkwall, and the end of it only to a trawler skipper off the coast of Ireland. But here and there it is possible to piece the fragments together into a complete adventure, as in the following record of a successful chase, where the glorious facts outrun all the imaginations of the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... passion. "You villains!" he shouted, shaking both fists. "You scoundrels, you highwaymen, you—you—road-hogs!—I'll have the law of you! I'll report you! I'll take you through all the Courts!" His home-sickness had quite slipped away from him, and for the moment he was the skipper of the canary-coloured vessel driven on a shoal by the reckless jockeying of rival mariners, and he was trying to recollect all the fine and biting things he used to say to masters of steam-launches when ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... the happy bridegroom, was evidently still in the adoring stage, so he listened complacently to his wife's silly badinage with the skipper, whom she informed, apparently for the information of the company, that she was just nineteen, but winced a little at her further admission that they had only been married ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... subordinate, whom he knew to be an anxious, careful man, on his promotion. Captain Dixon was always self-confident. That glass of champagne from the Senator's hospitable bottle made him feel doubly capable to-night to take his ship out into the open Atlantic, and then to bed with that easy heart which a skipper only knows on the ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... or twice, people of the same names, and those very uncommon ones, who were in no way related to each other; nevertheless, I venture to tell your correspondent J. F. M. that about twenty years ago there was living the skipper of a coasting vessel, trading between Bridport and London, named Caleb Clark. He or his family are ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... first instance, coasting up the bank for several hundred yards, and then striking boldly into the current; and it was amusing to see our well-crammed boat suddenly drawn into the rapid stream and whisked and whirled about like a straw, while a nice calculation on the part of the skipper, and a good deal of rowing and shouting on that of the sailors, enabled us to touch the opposite shore not very far below the point from which we had started. One last lingering look at Cashmerian ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... down as a gangway was pointed out to him, he showed signs of irritability and threatened an adverse report on the handling of the troops. On being informed that it was his privilege to make such a report he left the ship. However, he was later observed in altercation with the skipper of the smaller vessel and eventually a second gangway was rigged. When this move was commenced there was room on the main deck for two companies only. The other two were kept clear and their officers ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... skipper of the second skiff, "do you notice that where we make this turn to the left the bushes along the point are kind of frayed, like something had rubbed against 'em a ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... forward with quick interest. Perhaps the cruiser's skipper had a lead. But, no, he sank back into his chair. That name was strictly a Section G pseudonym. No one used it outside the department, and he'd already said too much by using the term ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... of aboard ship. Carry on and do your duty; keep a sharp lookout, all gear shipshape, salute the bridge when going on watch, that is the whole duty of a good officer. That's plenty theology for a seaman." But the skipper's eye turned brightly toward his bookshelves, where he had several volumes of sermons, mostly ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... sally against sea life. Silly sort of life, he called it. No opportunities, no experience, no variety, nothing. Some fine men came out of it—he admitted—but no more chance in the world if put to it than fly. Kids. So Captain Harry Dunbar. Good sailor. Great name as a skipper. Big man; short side- whiskers going grey, fine face, loud voice. A good fellow, but no more up to people's tricks than ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... bows as she laboured, the water washing aft of course, and drenching them who might have escaped the rain to the skin, so that not a soul aboard had a dry rag on. You can imagine, sir, how the men stomached this, particularly when there was the skipper swearing at 'em all the time, and saying that they were lazy lubbers and not worth their salt, when they were trying hard to do their best, as I must give them the credit of! I spoke to the cap'en, but it was of no ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... old at the time, and as my father, who had a strong objection to the sea, would not apprentice me to it, I shipped before the mast on a sturdy little brig called the Endeavour, bound for Riga. She was a small craft, but the skipper was as fine a seaman as one could wish for, and, in fair weather, an easy man to sail under. Most boys have a rough time of it when they first go to sea, but, with a strong sense of what was good for me, I had attached myself to a brawny, good-natured infant, named Bill Smith, ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... rude compromise between guttural Dutch, and husky English—which has served them as a medium of communication during the long voyage. It is a good harbor, they think, and a likely country. They are impatient for the skipper to let them go ashore, and find out what grows ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... I have them, the better for me. 'Tis for Henry Shovel. But Henry Shovel has now turned into a work called The Shovels of Newton French: including Memoirs of Henry Shovel, a Private in the Peninsular War, which work is to begin in 1664 with the marriage of Skipper, afterwards Alderman Shovel of Bristol, Henry's great-great-grandfather, and end about 1832 with his own second marriage to the daughter of his runaway aunt. Will the public ever stand such an opus? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sailed to Norway and had a prosperous voyage, and Audunn spent the following winter with the skipper Thorir, who had a farm in Morr. The summer after that, they sailed out to Greenland, where they ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... brought to sea with us, but the fowls were killed. There had been some barley and wheat together; but, to my great disappointment, I found afterwards that the rats had eaten or spoiled it all. As for liquors, I found several cases of bottles belonging to our skipper, in which were some cordial waters; and, in all, about five or six gallons of arrack. These I stowed by themselves, there being no need to put them into the chest, nor any room for them. While I was doing this, I found the tide began to flow, though very calm; and I had the mortification ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... and Pelham concluded that the skipper's lady was in the cabin, but whether dead or alive he did ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... "Five outside the skipper an' me," was the reply, "an' I cal'late we'll fill her up in a day or so. Seven men can sail her like a witch, but they won't fill her hold very quick. She'll take fifteen hundred quintal easy, or I ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... had been discovered and betrayed to the skipper by some officious noodle, and Captain Willis was ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... remember," he went on, "that the skipper did not happen to mention a cat, a yellow cat, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... rapidly as possible. We were very hungry, and ate with our eyes nearly closed, and conversation was anything but hilarious. For years the huge flat-bottomed scow plied back and forth to the steamers, and the skipper enjoyed a monopoly of the business, and ruled his motley crew with an iron hand. Gradually old age began to weaken his power, and the sons overthrew his authority and pushed him aside. All hands became captain and crew at once, and amid a medley of commands and ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... begun to unroll the chart which indicated the approaches to his destination, when he became horrorstruck, and rushing up the cabin stairs called out, "All hands on deck! Hard, a port!" The mate excitedly asked, "What's the matter?" "The matter?" said the infuriated and panic-stricken skipper, "Why the b——y rats have eaten Holland! There is nee Rotterdam for us, mister, this voyage." But in spite of a misfortune which seemed serious, the mate prevailed upon this distinguished person to allow him to have a share in the navigation, with the ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... sea asked the skipper what death his father died? 'My father,' says the skipper, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather, were all drowned. 'Well,' replies the merchant, and are not you afraid of being drowned too?'"—Ib., ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... in skipper-like state, all alone with his nephew Walter: a boy of fourteen who looked quite enough like a midshipman, to carry out the prevailing idea. But there it ended, for Solomon Gills himself (more generally called old Sol) was far from having ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... was already near Thanksgiving,—the news reached Elkanah. "I thought you'd ha' been down afore this to see Hepsy Ann Nickerson in her trouble," said an old coasting-skipper to him, with mild reproach, handing him a letter from his mother,—of all persons in the world! Whereupon, seeing ignorance in Elkanah's inquiring glance, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Cabottaggio now means no more than coasting trade. But before there was any real ocean commerce it referred to the regular sea-borne trade of the time; and Giovanni Caboto must have either upheld an exceptional family tradition or struck out an exceptional line for himself to have been known as John the Skipper among the many other expert skippers hailing from the port ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... also, tending to make my lot on ship-board very hard to be borne. True, the skipper himself was a trump; stood upon no quarter-deck dignity; and had a tongue for a sailor. Let me do him justice, furthermore: he took a sort of fancy for me in particular; was sociable, nay, loquacious, when I happened to stand at the helm. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... boom clewed up to clear her deck load of rough stone; drawing ten feet aft and nine feet for'ard; a twelve-horse hoisting engine and boiler in her forecastle; at the tiller a wabbly-jointed, halibut-shaped, moon-faced (partially eclipsed, owing to a fringe of dark whiskers), sleepy-eyed skipper named Baxter,—such was the sloop Susie Ann, and her outfit and her commander, as she lay alongside the dock in New London Harbor, ready to discharge her cargo at the site of Shark Ledge ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... your own,—somewhat scrubbed, no doubt, with rough usage, but sound,—so it's time for you to look out for rudder, compass, and charts, and it seems to me that thems to be found with young Mister Allfrey, so you'd better go an' git him to become skipper o' your ship without delay. You see, sir, havin' said that to myself, I've took my own advice, so if you'll take command of me, sir, you may steer me where you please, for I'm ready to be your sarvant for love, seein' that you han't got ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... not been too dark for the shade of the enemy to be perceived, so his skipper gave one of his earnest ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... from the mouth of the Mersey on the 15th of June and for several weeks we had fair breezes and unclouded skies. The skipper, an admirable seaman but nothing more, favored us with very little of his society, except at his table; and the young woman, Miss Janette Harford, and I became very well acquainted. We were, in truth, nearly always together, and being of an introspective turn ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... but he is fond of mast-heading the youngsters when they think they do not deserve it. The third lieutenant would be a sailor if he knew how to set about it; he generally begins at the wrong end, and is always making stern way, but," said he, "he almost prays as good a stick as the skipper. As for the other officers, we have not so much to do with them as with those I have described. However," added he, "there is one more—I mean the purser: he is a complete nip-cheese, and as for his steward, he ought to have swung at the fore-yard arm long ago." ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... "All right," cried the skipper; "here it is at last, solid as the fluke of an anchor. Toss me the powder-flask Harry; look sharp, else ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... Coacoanut Grove was planned to-day—time, 4:30 P.M.—the party to consist of half a dozen gentlemen and three ladies. They all started at the appointed hour except myself. I was at the Government prison, (with Captain Fish and another whaleship-skipper, Captain Phillips,) and got so interested in its examination that I did not notice how quickly the time was passing. Somebody remarked that it was twenty minutes past five o'clock, and that woke me up. It was a fortunate ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... orders from their parents to take care of themselves, for Marta, the old skipper's widow, had three nights running heard the sea demand corpses with a short bark. They talked about that, too, and about when the fishermen would venture out again, while they ran about the beach. "A bottle, a bottle!" cried one of them suddenly, dashing ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... therefore decided on going home to plead the cause of his Patagonians. He sailed with his family for Rio in a small vessel, and the voyage could not have been one of the least of the dangers, for the skipper was a Guacho who had been a shoemaker, and knew nothing about seafaring, and there was not a spare rope in the ship. From Rio Gardiner took a passage home, and safely arrived, after six years of brave pioneering in three different quarters of ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of commanding the ship and escaping, but would not adventure upon it without his advice. He said, Let all alone, for the Lord will set all at liberty in a way more conducive to his own glory and our own safety. Accordingly when they arrived, the skipper who received them at Leith, being to carry them no farther, delivered them to another to carry them to Virginia, to whom they were represented as thieves and robbers. But when he came to see them, and found they were all grave sober Christians, banished for presbyterian ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... no signs of the tug, do you, Tom?" said the old skipper, John Bunk, rolling up to me from the companion hatchway. He was fresh from the cabin, and was rather tipsy, with a fixed stare and a stately manner, though his legs would have framed the lower part of an egg. His hat was tall, and brushed the ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... sailors' boarding house here, tell them we want to ship out, and they'll furnish us with the proper amount of drinks and take care of us, all hunky dory, till they find us a berth on ship ... of course they'll be well paid for their trouble ... two months' advance pay handed over to them by the skipper ... but that won't bother ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... feedle, That's what Renzo had, tiddy hi! 'Twas humped up in the meedle, So haul the bowline, haul! He played a tune, and the old cow died, And the skipper and crew jumped over the side, And swum away on the slack of the tide, So ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... D. was a trim little ship, The men they could man, and the skipper could skip; She sailed from her haven one fine summer day, And she foundered at sea in the ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... There was once a skipper of Dyrevig called Bardun. He was so headstrong that there was no doing anything with him. Whatever he set his mind upon, that should be done, he said, and ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... though that is not usually resented in British Columbia, he now and then went even further than is considered permissible in that country, and he had gained the sincere dislike of the red-haired George, who acted as the Tillicum's deck-hand, cook, and skipper. ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... barometer," suggested another, "that he used to have when he was a steamboat skipper. I'm sure he'd let me have it. It's in the attic now, where nobody ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... Everything was SOP. The ship wasn't taut, she was tight! And she wasn't happy. There was none of the devil-may-care spirit that marks crews in the Scouting Force and separates them from the stodgy mass of the Line. Every face I saw on my trip to the skipper's cabin was blank, hard-eyed, and unsmiling. There was none of the human noise that normally echoes through a ship, no laughter, no clatter of equipment, no deviations from the order and precision so dear to admirals' hearts. This crew was G.I. right down ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... The diligence had gone. A fishing-boat was starting for Audierne. He decided to go by it. Breton fishermen are usually shy of storm to foolishness, and one or two of the crew urged the drunken skipper not to start, for there were signs of a south-west wind, too friendly to the Bay des Trepasses. The skipper was, however, cheerfully reckless, and growled ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... though perhaps not so odd as stupid, that they should have anchored in the Cove just to disembark one woman's boxes. It would have been much simpler to go to the Port, as every well-bred skipper does, and had the French woman's stuff carted out. At any rate, we'll go down this afternoon and have ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... "I want you to understand that I am skipper of this vessel, and that I am to give orders. I don't know anything about this man; but do you ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... evident traces of past habits of intemperance; as far as his features went, they certainly reminded Harry of Mr. Stanley's portrait. The sailor's dress was that which might have been worn by a mate, or skipper, on shore; he appeared not in the least daunted, on the contrary he was quite self-possessed, with an air of determination about him which rather took ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... in circulation among the servants how that Captain Goldsmith on the knoll above—the skipper in that crow's-nest of a house—has millions of gallons of water always flowing for him. Can he have damaged my well? Can we imitate him, and have our millions of gallons? Goldsmith or I ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... thinks I may get out again. I dislike the skipper so much, that I am not sure that ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... East across the Indian Ocean and into the Red Sea, whence they transferred their cargoes to caravans which completed the trip to Cairo and Alexandria. By taking advantage of monsoons,—the favorable winds which blew steadily in certain seasons,—the skipper of a merchant vessel could make the voyage from India to Egypt in somewhat less than three months. It was often possible to shorten the time by landing the cargoes at Ormuz and thence dispatching them by caravan across the desert of Arabia to Mecca, and so to the Red Sea, but caravan ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Tony to take the child to Mantes, then to make all possible haste for Calais, and there to keep in close touch with the Day-Dream; the skipper will contrive to open communication. Tell him to remain in Calais waters. I hope I may have ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... days, "like lightning," and proceeded to a small but active sea-port town on the coast, Zaandam. The first person they saw here was a man fishing from a small skiff, at a short distance from the shore. The tzar, who was dressed like a common Dutch skipper, in a red jacket and white linen trowsers, hailed the man, and engaged lodgings of him, consisting of two small rooms with a loft over them, and an adjoining shed. Strangely enough, this man, whose name was Kist, had been in ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... thought of that. A poor devil of a ticket of leave man, about my size, was knocked down for me, and," he added, suppressing a laugh, "will be buried, deeply lamented, in the chancel of Dornton Church. While the row was going on, the skipper, fearing to lose other men, warped out into the stream, and so knew nothing of what happened to me. When they found what they thought was my body, he was willing to identify it in the hope that the crime might be charged to the crimps, and so did the other sailor witnesses. But my brother ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... which had picked her up) insisted on Jack dancing with his daughter, to which the sailor consented. He did not wish to appear surly or stand-offish. The manly grace with which he bore off the young lady charmed Estelle, and she scarcely heard the skipper's question: 'The young ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... boats ply between Bellport and the Great South Beach, whither the summer visitors are in the habit of repairing for the purpose of tumbling in the surf on the outside. In one of these, with a fair wind and a skipper acquainted with the numerous shoals, it is very pleasant to sail across the bay, and then turning round Mastic Point to follow the channel connecting the Great South with East Bay, and so to reach Moriches. From that point east the shore is broken ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... wind presently," the skipper said. "See how light the sky is to the south. There will be white tops on the waves in an hour ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... A skipper going ashore to drum up trade was a novel spectacle. Imagine the captain of one of the Atlantic greyhounds prying among the warehouses on West Street, demanding of the merchants: "Anything going my way, this trip?" He would scorn to do it. Before his passengers have passed the custom officers, ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... trinkets; My plot, like an icicle's slender and slippery, 320 Every moment more slender, and likely to slip awry, And the reader unwilling in loco desipere Is free to jump over as much of my frippery As he fancies, and, if he's a provident skipper, he May have like Odysseus control of the gales, And get safe to port, ere his patience quite fails; Moreover, although 'tis a slender return For your toil and expense, yet my paper will burn, And, if you have manfully struggled thus far with me, You may e'en twist me up, and just light your ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... seen. And their speech, plentifully sprinkled with colloquialisms of a salt flavor, amused her, and sometimes puzzled her. Some of the men who rode short distances in the car wore fishermen's boots and jerseys. They called the conductor "skipper," and hailed each other ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... name was "I," and that was because he did not happen to have been born in Indiana. Had that accident happened to him, even the Indiana Society would have given him a place at the speaker's table. He was the skipper of our fleet, had an extra master's certificate entitling him to command even the Mauretania. Many yarns were invented to explain his being with us. It was as if "John D." should ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... an evasive, discouraged-looking person, heavy-headed, and stooping so that one could never look him in the face, that even after his friendly exclamation about Monroe Pennell, the lobster smack's skipper, and the sleepy boy, I did not venture at once to speak again. Mr. Tilley was carrying a small haddock in one hand, and presently shifted it to the other hand lest it might touch my skirt. I knew that my company was accepted, and we walked together ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Johnny Heinhold who secretly warned me across the bar that I was getting pickled and advised me to take small beers. But as long as Captain Nelson drank large beers, my pride forbade anything else than large beers. And not until the skipper ordered his first small beer did I order one for myself. Oh, when we came to a lingering fond farewell, I was drunk. But I had the satisfaction of seeing Old Scratch as drunk as I. My youthful modesty scarcely ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... de Skipper Van Brennen: no, he owes me four guilders, and he has owed me for a long time. Besides, his ship ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... as the skipper lit his pipe, "I daresay you would like to hear how we came to be fugitives on ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... nonsense as you sing," said Batavius, with all the authority of a skipper to his mate. "How can a woman fly when she has no wings? And to say any bark has wings is not the truth. And what kind of rose is the rose of love? Twelve kinds of roses I have chosen for my new garden, but that kind I never heard of; and I will not believe in any rose that never dies. And you ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... craft. Nothing could be less like (I thank Heaven) the ordinary yachtsman's recollections of his travels, and I get an impression that Mr. Bennett was not ill-pleased to leave most of the work and the technical knowledge to his skipper. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... leisurely cruise around the world, in the governor's little old boat—the Ariel—painted up within an inch of her life, brass all shining, lockers filled, a first-class cook engaged, and a brand-new skipper and crew—picked men. Sounds pretty good to me. How about you? Shop keeping in it ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... alongside for a while, but the immense drag of her four towers of canvas soon draws her clear, and she speedily looms once more like a cloud on the horizon. Good-bye! The squat collier lumbers along, and her leisurely grimy skipper salutes as we near him. It is marvellous to reflect that the whole of our coal-trade was carried on in those queer tubs only sixty years ago. They are passing away, and the gallant, ignorant, comical race of sailors ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... had to go in small boats from the shore to the ship, and the trip cost two dollars and a half. I waited till I had seen some of the boats make a trip or two, and then choosing one that had a sober skipper, I made the venture. It was said that one drunken boatman allowed his boat to drift into some breakers and ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... worthy and able skipper, we landed on the soil of the giant Republic at Jersey city, where the wharves, &c., of the Cunard line are established, they not having been able to procure sufficient space on the New York side. The first thing we ran our heads against was, of course, the Custom-house; but you must not ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... arrival had been on schedule; survey team had been dispatched with minimum delay, had reported grounding and camp establishment without incident, had relayed particulars of commencement of operation—until the last entry. It was eerie listening to the emotionless voice of 231's skipper: "Sub-entry one. Date: same. Time: 2205 Zulu. No contact with base camp. Surface front negates visual. Am holding dispatch of M 1. Will wait until next scheduled ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... towards the French Market, and before ten o'clock was seated in the captain's cabin of the big British steamer Ambassador, which had arrived at her moorings during the night. Cram and Kinsey were already there, and to them the skipper was telling his story. ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... bank with extra ropes and holdfasts to make all secure. An elderly lady, with a dirty red cap and very untidy ringlets, superintended the business with much clamour. We take her to be the wife or grandmother (not sure which) of the skipper. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... that Puritan spirit by the presence of Queen Mary's pupil, he wrapped his cloak about him and went out to study the weather, and inquire for lodgings to which he might remove Cicely. He saw nothing he liked, and determined on consulting his old mate, Goatley, who generally acted as skipper, but he had first to return so as not to delay the morning meal. He found, on coming in, Cicely helping Oil-of-Gladness in making griddle cakes, and buttering them, so as to make Mr. Heatherthwayte declare that he had not tasted the like since ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... earlier than we and pushed for home. At any rate, here she was. We knowed her owners, as fishermen do; but we'd never passed word with her, nor with any of her crew. I'd heard somewhere—but where I couldn't recollect—that the skipper was a blasphemous man, given to the drink, and passed by the name of Dog Mitchell; but 'twas hearsay only. All I noted, or had a mind to note, as we dropped anchor less than a cable length from her, was that she had no boat astern or on deck ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... what had happened, he readily agreed to give us a passage in the Aguila. We must be prepared to rough it, he said. The schooner had no accommodation for passengers, but she was a sound boat, and the Chilian skipper was a trustworthy sailor. Then he sent to his warehouse for some extra provisions, and afterwards introduced us to the ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... replied the Ripper's skipper, as he put about and went whizzing over the blue waters ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... preserve us!" cried Peechy Prauw. "I'd not have had that sea chest in the house for any money; I'll warrant he'd come racketing after it at nights, and making a haunted house of the inn. And as to his going to sea in his chest, I recollect what happened to Skipper Onderdonk's ship on his ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne |
