"Mess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... article of consumption, and from personal experience I can testify as to its palatability, although it reminded one of indifferent beef rather overdone. Hair seal and bear steaks were on different occasions tried at the mess on board the Corwin, but everybody voted eider duck and reindeer the preference. It is not so very long since that whale was a favorite article of diet in England and Holland, and Arctic whalemen still, to my personal knowledge, use the freshly tried ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... from headquarters. I always studiously avoided him if we happened to be in quarters at the same time, and so I did not at first miss him; but when day after day and even weeks passed without his reporting at mess, I began to be greatly troubled. My imagination pictured him as back in Paris urging his suit to Pelagie, and I feared greatly, either that she would at last yield to his importunities, seeing no way of escape, or that some trouble ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... it twice—do you hear! This is all your fault, Tempenny. You have got me into a pretty mess upon my word. My wife won't believe me, and I shall never hear ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... the risk. I know George Halkett. Miriam, having a bit of fun, might find herself landed in a mess. I'm sorry, Helen. I hope ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... entered into the army with an excellent constitution at the age of fifteen. The corps I served in was distinguished by its regularity, that is, the regular allowance of the mess was only one pint of wine per man each day; unless we had company to dine with us; then, as was the general custom of the time, the bottle circulated without limit. This mode of living, though by no means considered as excess for men, was certainly too great ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... stood at the barred window of his locked ward and stared vacantly over the hills towards the craft shop. He stood there unmoving until a ward attendant came and took his arm an hour later to lead him off to the patients' mess hall. ...
— A Filbert Is a Nut • Rick Raphael
... and awoke in the morning to find a summer sun streaming in at the window, and his kind host and hostess smiling at his bed-curtains. He was ravenously hungry, and his doctor permitted him straightway to partake of a mess of chicken, which the doctor's wife told him had been prepared by the hands of one ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... glad to hear a good account of him," the squire replied. "He is sharp and intelligent, and will make his way in life, or I am mistaken. His father was an uncommonly clever fellow, though he made a mess of it, just at the end; and I think ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... object, which a timely flash of lightning showed me was a column, standing in exactly the opposite direction from my own house. I could now locate myself correctly, and the lightning becoming every moment more vivid, I was enabled to grope my way by slow degrees to the mess, where I expected to find some one to show me my way home; but the servants, who knew from experience the probable effects of a cyclone, had already closed the outside Venetian shutters and barred all the doors. In vain I banged at the door ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... usefulness without some kind of exterior nourishment—I will then proceed to demonstrate how this can be most easily accomplished. Our first cousins, the trees and bushes, do not sit down at stated hours to a heterogeneous mess of steak, tea and onions: they stand firm in the ground unhurried by the sound of the dinner-bell and careless of the state of the American market. As the spider is sufficient in itself in house-building, so are the trees, the grass and all ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... the mess there'll be up there, I'd have two cripples on my hands instead of one. You stay here and look after the women—and get one of them to fix you up a ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... name to Kennedy the other day, he looked as black as thunder. But it is not odd that any one should quarrel with him. I can't stand him. Do you know, I sometimes think that Laura will have to give it up. Then there will be another mess in the family!" ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... of the peculiar taste arising from decomposition, or no more flavor than starch. When intended to be used as food, this meal is stirred into boiling water: they put in as much as can be moistened, one man holding the vessel and the other stirring the porridge with all his might. This is the common mess of the country. Though hungry, we could just manage to swallow it with the aid of a little honey, which I shared with my men as long as it lasted. It is very unsavory (Scottice: wersh); and no matter how much one may eat, two hours afterward he is as hungry as ever. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... this Christmas mess already bought and paid for; and he was all flattered up with self-esteem over his idea; and we had in a way flew the flume with that fizzy wine I speak of; so ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... be implicitly obeyed. His uniform was a source of extreme pleasure to him. He was allotted a whole "Tommy" to himself as a soldier servant. He rejoiced in the possession of quite a big room for his quarters. And there was the Mess. ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... lots of the poor fellows have died, too. You know, of course, how the newspapers are roasting us. We are being called inhuman; they are going to investigate us; perhaps indict me. Oh, it's an awful mess; and now some one is trying to make Taylor believe ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... began to settle. All that the men and three pumps could do to keep her from sinking. Got her in shallow water at last and tried to patch her up. This was the Fort Nelson cargo, and it is ruined. Boat covered with smeared calico and blankets and everything else, hung up to dry. Pretty mess they will have at Fort Nelson—but this is all they'll have for another year! Nobody ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... that Dorgan had chosen the time to make his "clean-up," I took no chances after the end-of-track camp was reached. The money valise went with me to the mess tent, and I ate supper with my feet on it, and with the big revolver lying across my knees. After supper I lugged my responsibility over to the commissary pay-office, and by the flickering light of a miner's candle stowed the money in the ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... I stand in the position of a skilled and rich player who has tempted a less wealthy partner into a doubtful game. If my plans fail, I can look after myself; but I shouldn't like to get you in a mess. If I give you a hint, will ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... said Bainton, with a chuckle; "You ain't got ten to bet agin one—we couldn't spare so much. If she doos nothing else, she'll dekrate the church at 'Arvest 'Ome an' Christmas—that's wot leddies allus fusses about— dekratin'. Lord, Lord! The mess they makes when they starts on it, an' the mischief they works! Tearin' down the ivy, scrattin' up the moss, pullin' an' grabbin' at the flowers wot's taken months to grow,—for all the wurrld as if they was cats out for a 'oliday. I tell ye it's been a ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... that its practitioners painted in shaking fear of the concierge appearing for the studio rent. The attempt was alluring, but when I rose from my camp-stool and stepped back into the path to get more distance for my canvas, I saw what a mess I was making of it. At the same time, my hand, falling into the capacious pocket of my jacket, encountered a package, my lunch, which I had forgotten to eat, whereupon, becoming suddenly aware that I was very hungry, I began to eat Amedee's ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... musical antics of her finger. She folded it in with its mates, so that her hand became a fist. She stood up and stared down at the clutter of the breakfast table. The egg—that fateful second egg—had congealed to a mottled mess of yellow and white. The spoon lay on the cloth. His coffee, only half consumed, showed tan with a cold gray film over it. A slice of toast at the left of his plate seemed to grin at her with the semi-circular wedge that he ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... any sort, and keen as our relish of nature's more colossal forms might be, I am not sure that we would not have exchanged, at that moment, the view of these wonders, with all the train of thoughts arising out of them, for the interior of a snug room in a village inn, and a mess of calves' flesh, with a bottle of wine to drink after it. Of our village inn we as yet, however, saw no symptoms; and wearily and slowly step followed step, without, as it seemed, bringing us nearer to the object of our wishes. At last, just ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... not at all satisfied with themselves though they knew that what they were going to do was nothing less than their plain duty. Their new friendship, their fine plans of a helpful turn, bringing pleasure and profit, had ended in a sordid mess. Duties are funny things.... ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... have to cook some of it the best we can, although I expect we'll make a sorry mess of it without Chris. I guess broiling some of it ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... "AN answer," he said, "but not the correct answer." He eyed her thoughtfully. "You have done me a great service," he went on. "You have shown me an unsuspected, a dangerous weakness in myself. At another time—and coming in another way, I might have made a mess of my career—and of the things that have been entrusted to me." A long pause, then he added, to himself rather than to her, "I must look out for that. I must ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... comfortin'. When I feel most sorry for any one I'm most crabbed. It's one of my mean ways. If there's many screws loose in you, you will go under. If you are rash, or cowardly, or weak—that is, ready to give up-like—you will make a final mess of your life; but if you fight your way up you'll be a good deal of a man. Seems to me if I was as young and strong as you be, I'd pitch in. I'd spite myself; I'd spite the devil; I'd beat the world; I'd just grit my teeth, and go fur myself and ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... that's all. But I didn't have the nerve to go and tell the girl. The engagement had been announced, and all that, and I knew what a mess it would make for her. I sat in my room, among the things I was packing in my grip to take with me, and thought and thought. If I went to her there would be a scene. If I said I had been disinherited she would want to know why—naturally. I had quarreled with the ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to two different regiments of grenadiers in garrison at Munich, were recommended to me by their colonels as being very steady, careful men, are each at the head of a mess consisting of twelve soldiers, themselves reckoned in the number. The following accounts, which they gave me of their housekeeping, and of the expenses of their tables, were all the genuine results of actual experiments made at my particular ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... situation. I count my little hoard day by day, as a castaway might, or a besieged garrison. I have begun to try to get along on cheap foods again—(that is the reason of my indigestion). Yesterday I burned a mess of oatmeal, and now I shall live on burned oatmeal for I know not how long. I was cooking a large quantity ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... bound to help each other, don't forget that, Fritz," said Seth. "It might just as well be me that'll take a slide, and go squash into that awful mess on the right, or on the left. Don't know whether to swim, or wade, if that happens; but see there, you can't find ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... you into an awful mess, haven't I? I usually do make a mess of everything I undertake. You'd better beware ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... it and through the garden fence so rapidly that by the time I dressed and got outside Max was paddling the pirogue they had brought in among the pea-vines, gathering all the ripe peas left above the water. We had enjoyed one mess, and he ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... his sleeve, but he threw off the hand roughly. He was one of the best rough and tumble fighters in the Straits Settlements. "You thieving beach-comber, I don't want to mess up the deck with you, but I'll cut your comb for you ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... person found a fork, spoon, pint tin cup, and a flaring six-inch-wide, two-inch-deep pan out of which to eat. The passengers were instructed to form groups of six and choose a mess-manager, who was supposed to take the big pan and bucket, get the dinner and drinkables, and distribute the portions to his group. After the meal, some member was supposed to collect the tin utensils and wash them ready for next time. ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... in all sorts of places and at all sorts of times; in his sleep, in his waking moments, at mess, out shooting, and even once in the hot rush of battle. He remembered it well—it was at El Teb. It happened that stern necessity forced him to shoot a man with his pistol. The bullet cut through his enemy, and with a few convulsions he died. He watched him die, he could ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... man, patient and knowledgeable. He had been sent to clear up the mess which two incompetent administrators made, who had owed their position rather to the constant appearance of their friends and patrons in the division lobbies than to their acquaintance with the native ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... water. When starch is added to several times its bulk of hot water, all the starch granules burst on approaching the boiling point, and swell to such a degree as to occupy nearly the whole volume of the water, forming a pasty mess. Sugar is dissolved readily in the either hot or cold water. Cold water extracts albumen. Hot water ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... pity to make a mess here under such dubious circumstances. Mr. Dare, I perceive that a mean vagabond can be as sharp as a political regenerator. I cry quits, if you care ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Mrs. Chaikin. She looked haggard and more than usually frowsy. The cause of her pitiable appearance was no riddle to me. I knew that her husband's partner had made a mess of their business and that Chaikin had lost all his savings. "Does she want ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... flag now flies over the society's own camp beside the Baltimore and Ohio tracks, near the bridge to Kernville. The tents were pitched this morning and the camp includes a large supply tent, mess tent and offices. Miss Clara Barton, of Washington, is, of course, in charge, and the work is being rapidly gotten into shape. I found Miss Barton ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Smellie. No one knows who led the charge down upon the boats, or gave the cry to stave in the barrels on board. But in a trice the preventive men were driven overboard and, as they leapt into the shallow water, were caught and held and drenched in the noisome mess; while the Riding Officer, plastered ere he could gain his saddle, ducked his head and galloped up the beach under a torrential shower of ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that can only be done properly at my office in Holborn. Come to think of it—we had better see to that first of all,' he went on, unlocking the door. 'Get hold of Powl, and see. And be quick back, and clear me up this mess.' ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he said, waving aside the other's denials. "I've got you out of this mess, and now I've done with you. It's no good talking, because I don't ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... better," observed Martha, inspecting him as they walked along. "It wouldn't have, though, if Primmie had finished the job. I was so busy that I let her start on it, but when I saw what a mess she was makin' I had to drop everything else and ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... in his hand-baggage the portrait of a celebrated and extremely pugnacious Englishman who had got the newspapers down on him two or three years ago for a wild interview he had given against the entente cordiale. Max remembered it and the talk about it in the officers' mess at Fort Ellsworth, just after he joined his regiment. However, the Frenchman's photographs were his own business; and Max relented not at all toward the cheeky brute because he had a portrait of the great ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... cried Hortense. "How can you be so cruel? I couldn't wait upon myself. I want my broth. And I want my hair done. And you can see yourself how the room is all in a mess. And——" ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... small party relieved me of a greater weight of anxiety than I can describe; and when it is considered that Mr. Hunter left an employment of a much more lucrative nature to join an arduous service in a vessel whose only cabin was scarcely large enough to contain our mess-table, and which afforded neither comfort nor convenience of any description, I may be allowed here to acknowledge my thanks for ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... conservative—the man who has no vision of his own—who has to go about stealing his beliefs from the other side? He's very efficient at putting them into effect—but efficient as a tool, as a servant. Look at the mess he makes of his own game when he tries to act on his own ideas. He crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, and he creates communism. He closes the door to trade-unionism and makes a revolution. That's efficiency for you. We radicals are not so damned inefficient, ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... popularity quite intoxicated a youth who had passed his life in a rural seclusion, where he had been appreciated, but not huzzaed. Ferdinand was not only popular, but proud of being popular. He was popular with the Governor, he was popular with his Colonel, he was popular with his mess, he was popular throughout the garrison. Never was a person so popular as Ferdinand Armine. He was the best rider among them, and the deadliest shot; and he soon became an oracle at the billiard-table, and a hero in the racquet-court. His refined education, however, fortunately preserved ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... do, I hope he'll look sharp about it, for poor Miss Sommers's fate and the lives o' my mates, to say nothin' of my own, is hangin' at this moment on a hair—so to speak," returned the sailor, as he carefully scraped up and consumed the very last grain of the savoury mess, murmuring, as he did so, that it was out o' sight the wery best blow-out he'd had since he enjoyed his last ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... in by my Irish father to conciliate a German uncle of my mother's. Augustus! It's rather a mess. What shall I put on my professional brassplate? If I put P. Augustus Byrne nobody's fooled. They know my ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... twa! And thrawn-gabbit Madge, wha for certain Was jilted by Hab o' the Shaw. And Elspy, the sewster, sae genty— A pattern of havens and sense— Will straik on her mittens sae dainty, And crack wi' Mess ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... poetry running through the entire Irish race, a fleeting lyrical emotion which expresses itself in a flash, usually in connection with love of country and kindred across the sea. I had a touching illustration of it the other morning. The despot who reigns over our kitchen was gathering a mess of dandelions on the rear lawn. It was one of those blue and gold days which seem especially to belong New England. "It's in County Westmeath I 'd be this day," she said, looking up at me. "I'd go cool my hands in the grass on my ould mother's ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... they aren't supposed to be. There's one in particular, called "The Coming of Summer," which I sometimes dream about when I've been hitting it up a shade too vigorously. It's all dots and splashes, with a great eye staring out of the middle of the mess. It looks as if summer, just as it was on the way, had stubbed its toe on a bomb. He tells me it's his masterpiece, and that he will never do anything like it again. I should like ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... Dora, put away that mess! The Ellenboroughs are directly opposite, watching everything you do. Eat that omelet, or anything respectable, unless you want ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... dogs," exclaimed David Mizzle, stroking his chin as he surveyed the bone. "If I could only find out, now, which of ye it was, I'd have ye slaughtered right off, and cooked for the mess, I would." ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... told himself. "If I'm wrong, it'll take a sector patrolman to straighten out the mess. And I could ...
— Indirection • Everett B. Cole
... fireth his Austrian rifle at midnight, and the whole camp is aroused and formed in line of battle, when lo! his mess come bearing in a nice porker, which he solemnly declareth so resembled a Secesh that he was compelled ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... I wish I was sitting down at the mess-table—but what's that? a woman screaming?—Yes, by heavens!—come along, Ned." And away dashed Jack towards the house, followed by Gascoigne. As they advanced the screams redoubled; they entered the porch, burst into the room from whence they proceeded, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... I was surprized to perceive Johnson come in and take his seat at another table. The mode of dining, or rather being fed, at such houses in London, is well known to many to be particularly unsocial, as there is no Ordinary, or united company, but each person has his own mess, and is under no obligation to hold any intercourse with any one. A liberal and full-minded man, however, who loves to talk, will break through this churlish and unsocial restraint. Johnson and an Irish gentleman got into a dispute concerning ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... and mess, Left, as they lay, to die, In the battle's sorest stress, When the storm of fight swept by: They lay in the Wilderness,— Ah, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... which declaration Lucy rewarded him with a smart box on the ear, saying, "Is you no better manners than to 'cuse white folks of lyin'? Miss Fanny never'd got as well as she is if she's picked up a mess of ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... or I shall never get to the end of my story. As to the eggs, I did not manage mine as cleverly as the priest did his. I made a mess of it, bestowing good part of the yolk on my moustache, much to Graziella's amusement. I perceived she could hardly refrain from tittering. But she was soon sobered,—the conversation turning on the last days of Corsica—and tears came in her eyes. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... major continued his ride, and the Irishman duly followed the old sow to—a turn in the road, when he 'obeyed orders,' and left the lame pig 'at home,' where that night at least one mess had roast pig with 'ubi beans ibi patria,' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "What a shameful mess we have made of it," said Peter Gerasimovitch, approaching Nekhludoff, to whom the foreman was telling a story. "Why, we have sentenced her to ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... a house-painter.... We are getting him out of a mess! Though indeed there's nothing to fear now. The matter is absolutely self-evident. We only put ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... preserves, and a light. She also ordered her to be careful that the people in the parlor should see her as she went up-stairs. "I guess they'll know I'm in earnest when they see the tea," she said. "I've set out a mess of 'em, and it won't take long to ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... compose ourselves to read, if the place be light enough; and if not, we doze and talk alternately. At one, a bell rings, and the stewardess comes down with a steaming dish of baked potatoes, and another of roasted apples; and plates of pig's face, cold ham, salt beef; or perhaps a smoking mess of rare hot collops. We fall to upon these dainties; eat as much as we can (we have great appetites now); and are as long as possible about it. If the fire will burn (it WILL sometimes) we are pretty cheerful. If it won't, we all remark to each other ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... there are housewives; but what is their poison in one home seems to make them wax and grow fat in another. Borax and powdered sugar, scattered thickly over shelves and around baseboards and sink, is a favorite remedy with many, but it is an unsightly mess, particularly in summer, when the sugar melts and becomes sticky. After all, experience has demonstrated that the one really effectual method of extermination is to besiege the roaches in their own bailiwick—the pipes and woodwork about the sink—with ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... room, the former by the attendance of more numerous and better dressed attendants than usual. Two Pillos were present. The incense as usual was burning, and the Pillos, both old and new, were seated before some large Chinese-looking figures. The only novel ceremony was the praying over a mess of something which I imagine was meant for tea; in the prayer all joined, when finished the beverage was handed to the Pillos, who, however, were contented with merely tasting it. Before this some was strewn on the floor in front, and some to the right of the chieftains. The castle ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... sir," said my tutor, "you go too quickly and risk making a mess of it. I never considered it to be disagreeable when women get a little corporation, especially if all the remainder of her body is well proportioned. It's a kind of beauty I'm rather partial to. ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... temper," laughed Norman. "I'm pounding away at you about my superiority, partly because I've been drinking, but chiefly for your own good—so that you'll realize I'm right and not mess ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... recognized also that an hour ago the greater likelihood had been that I should be where he lay, and he be looking down on me. Dis aliter visum. His own sin had stretched him there, and I lived to muse on the wreck—on the "mess" as he said in self-mockery—that he had made of his life. Yet, as I had felt when I talked to him before, so I felt now, that his had been the hand to open my eyes, and from his mighty but base love I had learned ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... stands out prominently in the emotions produced by the disaster is that in moments of urgent need men and women turn for help to something entirely outside themselves. I remember reading some years ago a story of an atheist who was the guest at dinner of a regimental mess in India. The colonel listened to his remarks on atheism in silence, and invited him for a drive the following morning. He took his guest up a rough mountain road in a light carriage drawn by two ponies, and when some distance from the plain ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... rundown from personnel. Dig up something on their angle, too. Several representative cases. Get a few people to help you—many as you need. I'm going to take this whole mess in to the Chief ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... is whut de Lawd loves. When I wuz a boy they raised chillen then. Now they lets 'em do as they please. There ain't no real chestizing no more. They takes a lil tee-ninchy switch and tickles em. No wonder de world is in sich uh mess. ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... wanderings, a friendly Field Ambulance car deposited me at the door of the mess of the clearing station, where the arrival of a 'Scotch minister' had been awaited with a good deal of curiosity ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... needed beside. Potatoes can be served with what you please; a dish of milk, a herring, is enough. The rich eat them with butter; poor folk manage with a tiny pinch of salt. Isak could make a feast of them on Sundays, with a mess of cream from Goldenhorns' milk. ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... about dis matter dat I vish to see you, my dear sare. I persvade der man to sell ten cases. He be very nearly vot you call in der mess. He valk into de Gazette next week. He shtarve now. I pity him. De ten cases cost him ten pounds. I give fifty shilling—two pound ten. He buy meat for de childs, and is tankful. I take ten shillings for my trouble. Der Christian ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... it's Jord King. He's had a bad accident—confound his recklessness! I'm afraid he's made a mess of it this time for fair, though I can't be sure till ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... constant source of grievance and friction between the eldest and youngest hope of the house. The poor boy had not many changes of raiment, and he being of an age to dabble in any mess that came handy without reference to his sister's olfactory nerves, there was no denying the fact that his little brown tunic, his worn little trousers had acquired a very boyey smell. Unless under the protection of his mother's presence, ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... the youngest of the party, and the least experienced; but he was well-grown, strong and healthy, and very fond of boxing, wrestling, running, riding, and shooting; moreover, he had served an apprenticeship in hunting deer and turkeys. Their mess-kit, ammunition, bedding, and provisions were carried in two prairie-wagons, each drawn by four horse. In addition to the teams they had six saddle-animals—all of them shaggy, unkempt mustangs. Three or four dogs, setters and half-bred ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... cord, maintained a constant, jerking register on its dial. He had resolutely banished all thought save that of navigation. Halvard was occupied forward, clearing the deck of the accumulations of the anchorage. When he came aft Woolfolk said shortly: "No mess." ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... several bottles into his belt-pak after he had put on his field uniform, so that he could get at them at mealtimes, and trudged out toward the mess hall to the meager breakfast ...
— Cum Grano Salis • Gordon Randall Garrett
... had been brought up with some severity by their parents, who had old-fashioned notions with regard to discipline; and three things had been especially enjoined upon them from their infancy. Always to speak the truth, never to mess their clean pinafores, and last, but not least, never to play ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... out and walked to his hotel. "I'm afraid I did mess it," he thought, "yet I don't see what else I ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... flouted the word, and he turned with a dubious benevolence to Leonora. 'No, my lass, it isn't,' he said, pausing. 'John'll get out of this mess as he's gotten out of many another. Trust him. He's your husband, and he's in the family, and I'm saying nothing against him. But trust him ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... mouth of the Uinta, a river coming in from the west. Up the valley of this stream about 40 miles the reservation of the Uinta Indians is situated. We propose to go there and see if we can replenish our mess-kit, and perhaps send letters to friends. We also desire to establish an astronomic station here; and hence this will be our stopping place for ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... I used to say when I first went as cook aboard ship, but I had a shot at it, and a nice mess I made of it. But when I came home from that trip I gave another cook a shilling to teach me how to make a few fancy things, and now I'm thought as good a cook as any in the ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... that he asked the cooks at the different houses where he delivered milk, to save for him. They threw rotten vegetables, fruit parings, and scraps from the table into a tub, and gave them to him at the end of a few days. A sour, nasty mess it always was, and not fit ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... so every one thinks at first. Why should you thrust your nose into the mess? The neck is ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... "Nice looking mess that," he growled, surveying the repast with undisguised disgust. "No wonder we don't do no business with thet kind ov a cook. I reckon I'd a done better to hav' toted a nigger back with me. No, yer ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... you all now," he said, "and if after this I hear of a single perversion, woe be unto that pervert, for it is better for his miserable soul that he had never been born. Is there a man here base enough to sell his birthright for a mess of Mr. Lucre's pottage? Is there a man here, who is not too strongly imbued with a hatred of heresy, to laugh to scorn their bribes and their Bibles. Not a man, or, if there is, let him go out from amongst us, in order that we may know him—that we may avoid his outgoings and his incomings—that ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... well-informed young man, without friends, connections, or employment of any kind, could have to do as a resident at Fairport. Neither port wine nor whist had apparently any charms for him. He declined dining with the mess of the volunteer cohort which had been lately embodied, and shunned joining the convivialities of either of the two parties which then divided Fairport, as they did more important places. He was too little of an aristocrat to join the club of Royal True Blues, and too little of a democrat to ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the paper says, hey? I never learned to read any of the modern languages," confided Boston Fat. "I was too much taken up with the dead ones at Harvard. Well, comrade, now you can see for yourself that I didn't steal this mess of moth-food. There was the sign right on it saying, 'Help Yourself.' It was there, even if I couldn't read it. Instinck told me them clothes was for me. I took 'em and ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... about it. And so, you see, I had to rush it into print in the way I chose to tell it—which won't do you a bit of harm, d'Antimoine—in order to head him off. The blackguard meant to get you into a mess, and if I'd hung fire he'd have told somebody else about it, and had the real story published. Of course, you know, there's nothing in the real story that you need be ashamed of; but if it had been told, you certainly would have ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... was never a sound during his lessons. He was altogether absorbed in his subject, was absolutely and wholly a Frenchman; he did not even talk Danish with the same accentuation as others, and he had the impetuous French disposition of which the boys had heard. If a boy made a mess of his pronunciation, he would bawl, from the depths of his full brown beard, which he was fond of stroking: "You speak French comme un paysan d'Amac." When he swore, he swore like a true Frenchman: "Sacrebleu-Mops-Carot-ten- Rapee!" [Footnote: Needless to say, this is ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... mutton and potatoes, turned from the moment he swallowed it into chromogens and toxins, and that his apparent appetite was merely the result of fermentation. For herself her platter was an abominable mess of cheese and protein-powder and apples and salad-oil, while round her, like saucers of specimen seeds were ranged little piles of nuts and pine-branches, which supplied body-building material, and which she weighed out ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... selects point for breach; orders assault of Sikandarbagh; leads the 93rd to the attack his aide-de-camp wounded; quartered in the Shah Najaf; his prudence; orders second assault; orders colours to be planted on mess-house; meeting with Havelock and Outram; his soldierly instincts; evacuation of the Residency; thanks the troops for their services; march to Cawnpore, 200-203; defeats Nana Sahib and Tantia Topi at Cawnpore; high opinion of Hope Grant; favoured Highlanders unduly; action at Khudaganj; invidious ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... host, looking forward upon the decks below, he was struck by one of those instances of insubordination previously alluded to. Three black boys, with two Spanish boys, were sitting together on the hatches, scraping a rude wooden platter, in which some scanty mess had recently been cooked. Suddenly, one of the black boys, enraged at a word dropped by one of his white companions, seized a knife, and, though called to forbear by one of the oakum-pickers, struck the lad over the head, inflicting a gash from ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... concluded to accept and delivered up the I.O.U.'s they had against Esdale. Imagine the surprise and vexation of these people some two years after on seeing the identical Harry Esdale, who many believed they had seen buried, coolly smoking his cheroot in the mess verandah, or basking in smiles of the fair ones as they cantered gaily across the midan after the heat of the day had passed." Horace would, doubtless, have added other words of warning and advice, but Arthur was summoned to attend the Madame Sahib, either in her drawing room or in the spacious ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... don't you see,' he said, ruefully, 'what a mess I'm in? If they find out that I was in the Pav. at the time when the cups were bagged, how on earth am I to prove ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... remained. One part she put aside for the morning, and of the other she made for her brothers' supper some thin gruel, instead of their usual hearty porridge. The hungry little lads eyed with undisguised discontent the not very savoury mess; but, fortunately, the table was laid in the corner of the room most distant from their mother's bed, and their ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... of—that, had such a measure been proposed by a political speculator previously to Queen Anne's reign, he would have been scouted as a dreamer and a visionary, who calculated upon men being generally somewhat worse than Esau, viz., giving up their birthrights, and without the mess of pottage." However, on this memorable day, thus it was the union was ratified; the bill received the royal assent without a muttering, or a whispering, or the protesting echo of a sigh. Perhaps there might be a little pause—a silence like ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... faced me, came over and reached for the book. "Dump the whole rotten mess into the fire, Jerry, and be done ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... with the crash and the nasty mess of timber and shrouds, floatin' to leeward, began to hammer at our hull in an ugly fashion. A couple of us got at the wreckage as best we could, but before we had cut it adrift, the Allison Doura had sprung a leak and four of us ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... stood in the doorway striving to remove the mess of sticky mush that had struck him full in the breast and now covered a large portion of his body, including his face, was a man of middle age and respectable appearance, clad in a rubber ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... not fare well, did it dare to lift its head in this garrison"—answered the serjeant, with a dignity that might better have suited the mess-room of a regular regiment, than the situation in which he was actually placed. "Both captain Willoughby and myself have seen mutiny attempted, but neither has ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... you have been able to make a handsome affair out of it at all, after you had let it hang so long in the wind, if I had not taken on myself to make it agreeable to the gentleman, and cooked as neat a mess out of it as I have seen a Frenchman do out of a ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... journey over the Medicine Bow from Rock Springs on the Union Pacific in the comfortable carriage of old Bill Hay, the post trader, escorted by that redoubtable woman, Mrs. Bill Hay, and within the week of her arrival Nanette Flower was the toast of the bachelors' mess, the talk of every ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... mess of politics at bottom, depend on't!" continued my father, still talking to himself. "Ah, you don't know what politics are, my little Gretchen!—so much ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... bar-room without a risk of getting into a fight with a drunken rowdy; you can't stop at one of these landing-places but what thar's a chance of getting into a mess with fellows who come in from the backs for a spree, and one doesn't look to have these rivers which, one and the other, are tens of thousands of miles long, just kept as free from hard characters as a street in Boston. It's as good as we can look for at present. Settlement ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... always land-locked," returned Cap, laughing heartily; "but yonder is the Pathfinder, as they call him, with some smoking platters, inviting us to share in his mess; and I will confess that one gets no venison at sea. Master Western, civility to girls, at your time of life, comes as easy as taking in the slack of the ensign halyards; and if you will just keep an eye to her kid ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... talk there, with a lot of silly young fools hanging about. I told Random that I would never enter the mess, so he invited me to come always to his quarters. He was in love with Lucy then," chuckled the Professor, "and nothing was ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... I have been friends a life-time. We hooked watermelons, hunted coons, and attended all the frolics together when we were boys. We slept under the same blanket, belonged to the same mess, and fought side by side at Palo Alto and Cerro Gordo; we shed our blood on the same battlefields when fighting to save this glorious Union. I have loved you, General Fry, like a brother, but this is too much, it is putting friendship to a turrible ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson |
