"Mumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she said dejectedly. "It makes me yawn. John says I mumble." She looked at me sharply, distrustfully. "You are very kind, but—it's too much! Why ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... gratuitous detail that filled me at once with confusion, suspicion, and revolt. I felt myself blushing for us both, and I did not care. My address utterly deserted me, and I made no effort to recover it, to carry the thing off. All I would do was to mumble such words as Raffles actually put into my mouth, and that I doubt not with a thoroughly ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... compliance with the request was impossible. None of the rest, however, not even his sister, could keep their countenances, for the eye of the speaker had pointed and sharpened his words; and William, very red in the face, was understood to mumble, as soon as mumbling was possible, that "he wouldn't laugh unless he had a mind to," and a threat to "do ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... long before she had ever reached the end of it, by this way she was shoved, so to speak, from person to person, without ever really finding out who half of them were, for it would seem as if there had been a conspiracy to mumble the names spoken to Arethusa, that she could almost have fled the Party. "The Advice to Young Ladies" had said nothing of such a proceeding as being part of the Routine of Parties, nor had Elinor made any mention of it. Arethusa was totally unprepared. And it was, ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... obdurate iron, and severed the bands that bruised and held her white wrists. Even then she could not speak, though she smiled a little, faintly and forlornly and gratefully. She struggled to say one word, but it resolved itself into a cacophonous and inarticulate mumble, half-infantile, half-imbecile. ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... mumble of mingled confusion and distress. How could he own to his post commander that he was scared? No. 5 now was to be seen swiftly coming up the eastward front so as to be within supporting or hearing distance—curiosity, not sympathy, impelling; and so ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... put her hand to her mouth to suppress an exclamation. Pinto was talking, but his voice was a mumble. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... them, he could bring him to heaven. And so we must conclude he died 1733, Dec. 23d, and went down to Tophet with a lie in his right hand, and so remains in spite of all the priest could mutter or mumble over him, as the author of his Elegy in his master's name well ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... mumble painful guilty the dormitory the tie the chin he got off with a good fright without appearing to do so, he was looking at them ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... a tooth to that of a mistress there's no pang that is not bearable. The apprehension is much more cruel than the certainty; and we make up our mind to the misfortune when 'tis irremediable, part with the tormentor, and mumble our crust on t'other side of the jaws. I think Colonel Esmond was relieved when a ducal coach-and-six came and whisked his charmer away out of his reach, and placed her in a higher sphere. As you have seen the nymph in the opera-machine go up to the clouds at the end of the piece where Mars, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... old miser, obstinate as are the half-fuddled, began to mumble, 'I came not here to drink, O Ukleet, but to make a bargain; and my bags be here, and I like not yonder veil, nor the presence of yonder Vizier, nor the secresy of this. Now, by the Prophet and that interdict of his, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mumble rotten bones; and strive to clothe with flesh and blood The skeleton; and to shape a Form that all shall ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... to pass through the power of the idol, that these two pieces of reed shall fight together, and whose part shall get the better, to that king shall the victory be given." The astrologers began to mumble their prayers and incantations, while the multitude stood around to observe the result; and after some time, the two pieces of reed seemed spontaneously to fight together, and the portion inscribed with the name ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... month, good father, and we will be behind the bastions of Belle Isle; were it not for my Madeline's sake, I would make it six; but this bloodhound having been slipped upon us."—The sounds were here lost in the trampling of their horses; I heard the man of masses mumble something in reply, and they wheeled out of hearing up the rugged pathway to the bridge. "Now, mind your promise, Master William," said Aleck, as we rose and proceeded to the house. We soon arrived there; ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... Justinian commanded that, in the holy administration, all things should be pronounced with a clear, loud, and treatable voice, that the people might receive some fruit thereby. These men, lest the people should understand them, mumble up all their service, not only with a drowned and hollow voice, but also in a ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... I cried. I thought he was the most dull, unimaginative man I had ever met. I don't know what more I would have said, but the much-belated Hamilton came in just then and took his usual seat. So I dropped into a mumble. ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... because if he doesn't, the next morning half the twelve-year-old kids in the country will be rushing wild-eyed into school to slip the teacher the real inside about the discovery of America. By the time he gets that done, he'll be able to mumble a couple of generalities about vast and incalculable effects, and then it'll be time to tell the public about Widgets, the really safe cigarettes, all filter and absolutely ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper
... mumble to us when we're sick. Heigho! would I were in the little island well home again, though that were just their song of welcome to me, as I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... indeed begin to recite a prayer. One might perhaps have expected him to mumble something altogether unintelligible. But no! He recited it to the end with a solemn voice, and his eyes remained cast down the whole time. His face even began to assume a more human expression, and when he came to the words which announced remission of sins to the truly penitent sinner, ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... hands weighed, measured, and trafficked with as so much coin! where is all this going on? Do you suppose it was only going on in the time of David, and that nobody but Jews ever murder the poor? If so, it would surely be wiser not to mutter and mumble for our daily lessons what does not concern us; but if there be any chance that it may concern us, and if this description, in the Psalms, of human guilt is at all generally applicable, as the descriptions in the Psalms of human sorrow are, ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... in voices scarce above a whisper; and brown children fondled each other, laughing noiselessly, or lay asleep on rugs which would be costly elsewhere. In the bazaars nothing was selling, and no man did anything but mumble or eat, save the few scholars who, cross-legged on their mats, read and laboured towards Nirvana. Priests in their yellow robes and with bare shoulders went ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... think herself the obliged, rather than the obliger? Then let me tell thee, Belford, it is impossible so far to hurt the morals of this lady, as thou and thy brother varlets have hurt others of the sex, who now are casting about the town firebrands and double death. Take ye that thistle to mumble upon. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... so astonished that he did not know what to say, but managed at last to mumble his ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... rustle of my robe. So long as stand these walls I cannot leave them. Yet will I go: behold you, that stand by, A mother by her own son thrust away, Cast out—ha, ha!—in my old age, infirm, To totter and mumble in oblivion! ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... is rough, heady, strong, Dangerous to disquiet: let him bide! He needs some bone to mumble, help amuse The darkness of his den with: so, the fawn Which limps up bleeding to my foot and lies, —Come to me daughter!—thus ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... over the arch, and the figure of a workman carrying a basket appeared. Beside him ran a little boy. He passed me, wishing me good night. I was minded to speak to him, but did not. I answered his greeting with a meaningless mumble and went on over ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... Jack had taken no interest in Uncle Remus's story of the horses' tails, and yet, as soon as the little boy and Aunt Tempy were through laughing at a somewhat familiar climax, the old African began to twist and fidget in his chair, and mumble to himself in a lingo which might have been understood on the Guinea coast, but which sounded out of place in Uncle Remus's Middle Georgia cabin. Presently, however, his uneasiness took tangible shape. He turned ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... now gone by, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly: Mere puppets they who come and go At the bidding of a huge formless Thing That shifts the scenery to and fro, Ruling the World from flat and wing— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... brushed the dirt off his knees. "If there's anything that stirs my temper, it's this mumble-grumble, whiffle-and-hint business. Out and open, that's my style." He was reflecting testily on the ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... for a moment, and then tried to mumble something, that the boys could not understand. After a few attempts he fairly shrieked out: ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... his natural sphere of society to ask Lords, Generals, Aldermen, and other persons of fashion, but is niggardly of his hospitality towards his own equals, is a Dinner-giving Snob. My dear friend, Jack Tufthunt, for example, knows ONE Lord whom he met at a watering-place: old Lord Mumble, who is as toothless as a three-months-old baby, and as mum as an undertaker, and as dull as—well, we will not particularise. Tufthunt never has a dinner now but you see this solemn old toothless ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... course I am. Any woman will break her neck to see two people, for whom she does not care a hair-pin, stand up, one in white and the other in black, and mumble a few words that she knows by heart, and then take position at the end of a room and have "society" paraded up to them by solemn little corporals with white favors, and then file off to the rear for rations of Perigord ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... "We're in a position to make a move any old way from here. There isn't one chance in ten of his coming around the corner; and if he does make a show of doing that, why we can be sitting here, playing mumble-de-peg, or something like that, just as if we didn't care whether ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... t'other day, word was brought that one of the King's messengers was at the door. Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold; Algernon Sidney danced before my eyes, and methought I heard my Lord Chief-Justice Lee, in a voice as dreadful as Jefferies', mumble out, Scribere est agere. How comfortable it was to find that Mr. Amyand, who was at table, had ordered this appanage of his dignity to attend him here for orders! However, I have buried the Memoires under the oak in my garden, where they are to be found ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... voice and manner of speaking, too, should likewise be attended to. Some will mumble over their words, so as not to be intelligible, and others will speak so fast as not to be understood, and in doing this, will sputter and spit in your face; some will bawl as if they were speaking to the deaf: others will ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... heart palpitating with anxiety, Rita followed her guide into the convent, making, as she went, anxious enquiries concerning her father's health. To her first question the old woman replied by an inarticulate mumble; and upon its repetition, a brief "I do not know; the lady abbess will see you,"—checked any further attempt upon a person who either could not or would not give the much wished-for information. Passing through a corridor and up a staircase, the lay sister ushered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... "Buli" was an aristocratic-looking old fellow with a large nose and a very haughty look. He is a very important chief, but knew no English, and we carried on our conversation through the medium of Masirewa. He spoke in a kind of mumble, with a very thick voice. Once when he had been mumbling worse than usual there was a kind of restrained titter from someone in the crowd at the back. The "Buli" heard it, and slowly turning his head he transfixed the crowd with his piercing gaze for many seconds amid a dead silence. ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... roguish roistering Roscius (I spit at them all) to beguile with Stage shows the gaping Woman, whose Sex hath still chiefly upheld these Mysteries, and are voiced to be the chief Stage-haunters, where, as I am told, the custom is commonly to mumble (between acts) apples, not ambiguously derived from that pernicious Pippin, (worse in effect than the Apples of Discord,) whereas sometimes the hissing sounds of displeasure, as I hear, do lively reintonate that snake-taking-leave, and diabolical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... carrying on animated conversations with one and another in much the same way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentences in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech,—but better where other talking is going on. Thus,—"We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham replies,—"I am very gligloglum, that is, that you were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... back, until he was sure they were in camp. Then as cautiously he crawled up the bank. Through the scrub with his uninjured eye he could make out the figures around the yellow of the fire which had gone down considerably. Now what would they do? He could hear the mumble of the corporal's voice. Would they be sufficiently sobered to be ready for the chase in the morning? Birnier did not think so with that case of brandy there; the corporal would not, at all events. There was a scream of pain and ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... clutching the girl's arm with such force that the pail fell to the ground and the berries were spilled, "you ain't gwine for ter sell me to nobody? Say you ain't, an' fo' de Lawd I'll never touch nothin', nor lie, nor sass ole Miss, nor make faces and mumble like she does. I'll be a fust cut nigger, an' say my prars ebery night. I'se done got a new one down ter ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... tufted with rosemary, box, lavender, and lentisk. On the way it passes the Abbaye de Mont Majeur, a ruin of gigantic size, embracing all periods of architecture; where nothing seems to flourish now but henbane and the wild cucumber, or to breathe but a mumble-toothed and terrible old hag. The ruin stands above a desolate marsh, its vast Italian buildings of Palladian splendour looking more forlorn in their decay than the older and austerer mediaeval towers, which rise up proud and patient and defiantly erect beneath the curse of time. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... in a low mumble as the men passed on. Gregory emerged from his cover and looked after the two fishermen. Then he noticed the girl had finished her ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... confusion, because my money was all in the hands of Saveliitch. I began to mumble excuses, when Zourine exclaimed, "Oh! well! Good God! I can wait till morning; don't be distressed about it. Now let us go to supper." What could I do? I finished the day as ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... it for her admonition, and observed, 'But she was good,' only, however, in a mumble, that the other two thought it inexpedient to notice, though it made both hearts ache for her, even Alice's—with an additional pang of self-reproach that she herself was not good enough ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... formless. The average member of the capitalist class, when he discusses socialism, is condemned an ignoramus out of his own mouth. He does not know the literature of socialism, its philosophy, nor its politics. He wags his head sagely and rattles the dry bones of dead and buried ideas. His lips mumble mouldy phrases, such as, "Men are not born equal and never can be;" "It is Utopian and impossible;" "Abstinence should be rewarded;" "Man will first have to be born again;" "Cooperative colonies have always failed;" and "What if ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... official reports of the Lords' debates a speech begins thus: "Lord —— (who was indistinctly heard)." The Commons' report might well adopt this salutary practice as a warning to Members who persistently mumble, or who address their remarks to the body of the House instead of to the SPEAKER. Ministers are the worst offenders. One of them was asked this afternoon, for example, whether the Judicial Adviser to the SULTAN had discouraged the use of the English language in the ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... Larry. "You two were made for each other. She's waiting for you to step up and talk man's talk to her—and instead you sulk in your tent and mumble about something you think she might have thought or said a year ago! You're too sensitive; you're too proud; you've got too few brains. It's a million dollars to one that in your handsome, well-bred ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... you speak like this?" exclaimed the youth, almost frightened, and hotly began to mumble to her some words about her beauty, about her kindness, telling her how sorry he was for her and how bashful in her presence. And she listened and kept on kissing his cheeks, his neck, his head ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... his head and wondered; it was not Packard's way to mumble to himself. And again, ready to jump for his life as the big car took a dangerous turn, his eyes glued to the sheer bank a few inches from the singing tires, he caught a sound through the blast of the sparton which surely must have come ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... the song: "eat the fattest of the passengers." This indirect allusion to Boule de Suif shocked the well-bred passengers. There was no response. Cornudet alone smiled. The two good Sisters had ceased to mumble their rosary, and with their hands thrust down in their wide sleeves, they held themselves motionless, obstinately lowering their eyes and doubtless offering up as a sacrifice to God the suffering He ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... room above him he could hear Earle poking the fire. He could hear the low mumble of his voice, the soft treble of Marian's. They avoided him now as if he were a plague. He did not try to make it out. His master was providence. He could not question the decrees of providence, but he would circumvent ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... back in her chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap, tap of her hand beat ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... jest her very loving and gentle that she give me so great a work, because that she have her hands so little. And truly, she presently to stop me of my mocking; for she put her pretty hands upon my mouth, and I then to have to mumble and to laugh, and so she to go forward ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... about. There was a new sound in the air, a low mumble, a vague murmur. Men's voices. Outside, coming nearer swiftly, were men. Her first thought was of King; then she knew that it was too soon for him to have gotten out of the mountains, found assistance, and returned. A deep, heavy bass voice drowned out ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... coherently," thought Ivan, "though he does mumble; what's the derangement of his faculties ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... could not. Her words were turned into a mumble. A cloth was over her mouth and face, fastened tightly, strong arms lifted her and carried her forwards. She could not see, she could not struggle. The noise of the fighting grew rapidly less. She was being swiftly carried away from it, now ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... grown too fly. You've got only to pass a remark on his sail-cloth coat to make him shut up. All the town knows it. But he's got you to listen to his crazy talk whenever he chooses. Don't I hear you two at it, jabber, jabber, mumble, mumble——— ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... barely understand each other. What pleasure did she find in listening to his bad French? and in her native Hungarian he could not even say, "I love." Why had she not come to him, Gregorio Livadas, who could talk to her well and would not mumble like an idiot and look red and uncomfortable! Then he saw she was drinking champagne, and he sighed. Ah, yes, these English were rich, and women only cared for money; they were unable to give up their luxuries for the ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... shrieked when she felt the pin, but she had her mouth full of the Giant, and she couldn't do more than mumble a little in a half-smothered sort of way. The Dwarf paid no attention to that, but gave her another eye-opener with the pin. It went in about an inch, judging from what the Female Samson said when she described ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... were dumb in him for the moment from lack of co-ordination. The two or three things he might have said seemed to strangle each other in the attempt to get right of way. In response to Guion's confidences he could only mumble something incoherent and pass on to the drawing-room door. It was a wide opening, hung with portieres, through which he could see Olivia Guion standing by the crackling wood fire, a foot on the low fender. One hand rested lightly ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... childish reproaches haunts me yet oftentimes in my dreams. My school-days come again, and the horror I used to feel, when in some silent corner, retired from the notice of my unfeeling playfellows, I have sat to mumble the solitary slice of gingerbread allotted me by the bounty of considerate friends, and have ached at heart because I could not spare a portion of it, as I saw other boys do, to some favorite boy; for if I know my own heart, I was never selfish,—never ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... years!" he said to himself over and over again, laughing stupidly. "Then I am two hundred and thirty-three years old! The oldest inhabitant. Surely they haven't reversed the tendency of our time and gone back to the rule of the oldest. My claims are indisputable. Mumble, mumble. I remember the Bulgarian atrocities as though it was yesterday. 'Tis a great age! Ha ha!" He was surprised at first to hear himself laughing, and then laughed again deliberately and louder. Then he realised that he was behaving foolishly. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... bottom of our English hearts a very strong belief in freedom, and a very weak belief in right reason, we are soon silenced when a man pleads the prime right to do as he likes, because this is the prime right for ourselves too; and even if we attempt now and then to mumble something about reason, yet we have ourselves thought so little about this and so much about liberty, that we are in conscience forced, when our brother Philistine with whom we are meddling turns boldly round upon us and asks: Have you any light?—to shake our heads ruefully, and to let ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... Alas! who was to attend it? The Missionary would not do twice; and the slaves were emancipated. A bold step must be taken. The parish must be astonished in some way or other; but no one was able to suggest what the step should be. At length, a very old lady was heard to mumble, in indistinct tones, 'Exeter Hall.' A sudden light broke in upon the meeting. It was unanimously resolved, that a deputation of old ladies should wait upon a celebrated orator, imploring his assistance, and the favour of a speech; and the deputation ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Pap says when they keep looking at you right stiddy, they're a-witching you. Specially if they mumble. Becuz when they mumble they're saying the Lord's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that a crazy man, who appeared very harmless, had by the side of the brook piled a great number of stones; he would wade into the river for them, followed by a cur dog, whom he would frequently call his Jacky, and even his Nancy; and then mumble to himself, 'Thou wilt not leave me. We will dwell with the owl in the ivy.' A number of owls had taken shelter in it. The stones he waded for he carried to the mouth of the hole, and only left just room enough to go in. Some of the neighbors at last recollected him; and I sent to inquire ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... been a rare chance had his projection of the self that we are so apt to make an object of invidious allusion stayed out. What it all really most comes to, you feel again, is that none of his impulses prospered in solitude, or, for that matter, were so much as permitted to mumble their least scrap there; he was predestined and condemned to sociability, which no league of neglect could have deprived him of even had it speculatively tried: whereby what was it but his own image ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... a sparrow, but she did not deign to answer them. They asked a robin, but she was hurrying home with a worm in her mouth and could only mumble something which sounded like "yeast." They asked a pussy-cat and she said if they would come home with her first she would look it up in a book she had there. But Hazel did not want to go. "For," she whispered to Bushy-Tail, "she ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... to give a truly appreciative and affectionate sketch of young Arthur Mynors; and then he quotes the sentence about the Master of the Beagles, and on this he comments thus: "The aged Barbarian will, upon this, admiringly mumble to us his story how the battle of Waterloo was won in the playing-fields of Eton. Alas! disasters have been prepared in those playing-fields as well as victories; disasters due to inadequate mental training—to want of application, knowledge, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... of gold, but they hire for a trifle the first impudent pedant whom they come across, and who only wants to be talked of, whether for good or ill. The dead, they say, is none the wiser if an ape stands in a black dress in the pulpit, and beginning with a hoarse, whimpering mumble, passes little by little into a loud howling. Even the sermons preached at great Papal ceremonies are no longer profitable, as they used to be. Monks of all orders have again got them into their hands, and preach ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Antonio Mumble thy prayers if that affords relief, But if by sundown I am not repaid Another Moses must thou be and bring Another set of miracles from heaven Or lose the very coat from off thy back. By sundown—but a few short ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... naval affairs." droned the clerk, mechanically. "House Bill No. 1,109 is amended to read as follows—" And his voice sank to an unintelligible mumble, for every Senator present he well knew was aware that the amendment named Altacoola as the naval ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... either; I remit both twain. I see the trick on't: here was a consent, Knowing aforehand of our merriment, To dash it like a Christmas comedy. Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany, Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick, That smiles his cheek in years, and knows the trick To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd, Told our intents before; which once disclos'd, The ladies did change favours, and then we, Following the signs, woo'd ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... reproached him quickly. "Of course it must be looked after right away. And then, Doctor, I'd like to talk to you, if you don't mind." She watched them retreat to the bunk-house together. Swan's big form towering above the doctor's slighter figure. Swan was talking earnestly, the mumble of his voice reaching Lorraine without the enunciation of any particular word to give a clue to what he was saying. But it struck her that his voice did not sound quite natural; not so ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... the morn, and the rumble Of wheels is abroad in the streets, Still I tumble and mumble and grumble At the fleas in my ears and—the sheets; Mumble and grumble and tumble Till the buzz of the bees is no more; In a jumble I mumble and drumble And tumble ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... I very nearly screamed; you see, Mamma, how dreadful foreigners are like that. It was like being hugged by a bear in the Zoo; and after it, he kept giving me flowers or presents if I dared to sit down for a moment, but he did not say a word except once or twice a mumble ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... room and came back with a number of grey cards in his hand. He began to mumble over the descriptions, and ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... soldiers were climbing the slope. For almost half an hour he kept his position, and behind him Roger muttered on, staring up at the sky. Amid the mutterings from time to time the old man heard a curse. They sank at length to a mumble, senseless, rambling on ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... year of probation, he released her hand with an incoherent mumble, turned, and disappeared in the direction ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... man, who was gazing stupidly at Patches, returned the salutation with an unintelligible mumble, and proceeded ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... talk to!" Lucia was diseased-looking and unkempt-looking and she ironed very badly. Everyone tried to help her out. They instructed her with a flow of English. When Lucia would but shake her head they used the same flow, only much louder, several at once. Then Lucia would mumble to herself for several minutes over her ironing. At times, late in the afternoon, Miss Cross would ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... a voice and manner as mechanical as that of the judge, would mumble his oft repeated story, giving the exact minute of his observations, the actions of the woman in accosting different pedestrians and in her final approach ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... planted finger and foot on the ledges of that solid precipice and climbed to the invisible summit. Hilderman was muttering to himself beneath his breath, but I was too dazed, my brain was too numbed to make any sense out of the confused mumble of words which came from him. Dennis held my arm in a vice-like grip that stopped the circulation, and almost made me cry out ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... that the memory of the episode had in it hardly a trace of misfortune. Then, steam navigation expanding in these seas and men of his craft being scarce at first, he had 'got on' after a sort. He was eager to let strangers know in a dismal mumble that he was 'an old stager out here.' When he moved, a skeleton seemed to sway loose in his clothes; his walk was mere wandering, and he was given to wander thus around the engine-room skylight, smoking, without relish, doctored tobacco in a brass bowl at the end of a cherrywood ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... "Well, I never!" For presently every one of the listeners had gone off to sleep. The reader, whose back was toward the new-comer, did not see him. He was the only one left awake, and Bobby looked to see him drop over at any moment. But the little fat man read right along in a drawling, sleepy mumble, something about the Athenians until Bob cried out: "Hello, Ole Puddin'-bag, everybody'th gone to thleep; you'd jeth as well hole ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... pride that this fair being could wear his shoes, and that she was wearing them, that he could only mumble some stupid words about being so glad to serve her. And she, wise girl, said nothing about the quantities of soft cotton-wool which Dame Charter had been obliged to stuff into the toes before they would stay upon the small feet ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... As Raven remembered, it was something about pa'tridges and his gun. Whether he was shaken by fright, one could not have told, but he was, as Charlotte remarked upon it afterward, "all to pieces." Raven ignored the mumble, whatever it was, and Tenney, finally understanding that he might as well be as far off the earth as Dick, for all the attention anybody was going to pay him, turned, limping, and then Raven, with that mechanical ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... his feet muttering of treachery from Governor Brigdar of the Hudson's Bay Company, and put himself in front of the intruders so that Ben could not see. But the poor fellows were so frozen that they could only mumble out something about the Prince Rupert having foundered, carrying half the crew to the river bottom. Hurrying the two Englishmen to another part of the fort, M. Groseillers bade ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... activity which is the cardinal element in human life. After all, in spite of the pretentious impostors who trade upon the claim, literature, contemporary literature, is the breath of civilized life, and those who sincerely think and write the salt of the social body. To mumble over the past, to live on the classics, however splendid, is senility. The New Republic, therefore, will sustain its authors. In the past the author lived within the limits of his patron's susceptibility, and led the world, so far as ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... ripened I used to stand under it and gloat over it for hours, to fill my senses with its perfect beauty. At length I plucked it. I never regretted the waiting; the fruit tasted only the sweeter. . . . You are like that peach, Madame. By the Cross, over which these Jesuits mumble, but you are worth a dance ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... grin, At breakfast, on the sly, And mock the wobble of his chin And eyebrows belt so high And kind: "How did you rest, last night?" We'd mumble and let on Our voices trimbled, and our sight Was dim, ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... throwing it for him to retrieve. Lad made a tentative snap at the bag, his tail wagging harder than ever. But he missed it. And, in another moment the man stopped swinging the bag and tucked it under his arm again as he began to mumble with a ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... thing! (He fumbles with the tubes in trying to readjust them. At last he succeeds, and, after listening intently, is rewarded by hearing a muffled and ghostly voice, apparently from the bowels of the earth, say—"Ha, say you so? Then am I indeed the hooshiest hearsher in the whole of Mumble-land!") ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various
... not know why my boy's associations with Delorac's Island were especially wild in their character, for nothing more like outlawry than the game of mumble-the-peg ever occurred there. Perhaps it was because the boys had to get to it by water that it seemed beyond the bounds of civilization. They might have reached it by the bridge, but the temper of the boys ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... the wall of your den in front of you, and dimly you know that, while all the world outside is snow-covered and swept with bitter winds, and the earth is gripped solid in the frost, you are very warm and comfortable. Changes of temperature do not reach you, and you sit and croon to yourself and mumble your paws, and all sorts of thoughts and tangled scraps of dreams go swimming through your head until, before you know it, you have forgotten everything and ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... He has to mumble in an unintelligible manner mysterious words (the meaning of which he does not know himself) when a poisonous mixture is being boiled in order to render its venomous virtue more efficacious. He makes exorcisms against the evil spirits when the wind arises or a heavy storm breaks ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... have guessed Mark's intention, for raising her stick she forbade him to move, and before he had time to mumble an apology and flee she was ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... the children of these nobles may be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day?" The multitude were bewildered by the glare of royalty. But here and there a sullen fish-woman, leading her ragged, half-starved children, would mumble and mutter, and curse the "Austrian," as the beautiful queen swept by in her gorgeous equipage. These discontents and portentous murmurs were spreading rapidly, when neither king, queen, nor courtiers ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... turned first red, then white, and tried to mumble out some evasion. But Mr Barnacle was not the man to be put ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... word from the bulky shadow which stood with folded arms close against a square of gray, while over their heads a wretched old man paced back and forth, wringing his hands, pausing at every turn to peer out into the night and to mumble the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... behaved like enemies. You profaned the church, that Bulgarian church where I took my first communion. You have despoiled the archives and burned our libraries; you ordered closed our national school where I learned to mumble the alphabet of my ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... Blackbeard hauled out a dog-eared chart of parchment and unrolled it upon the table. The boys foresaw his intention and feared the worst. Presently they heard him mumble to himself: ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... you and the surface be everlastingly damned!" said the other man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble and did not distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of having duly asserted the wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as becomes one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The other man in brown watched his receding aspect. ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... ain't one of the scared-mouse kind. She looks you square in the eye when there's any call for it and she don't mumble her remarks when she has something to say. Not Miss Joyce. Her words come out clear and crisp, with a slight roll to the r's and all the final letters sounded, like she'd been ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... of age; and we keep the secret even from her father. In this village you will mumble over the bans without one of your congregation ever taking heed of the name. I shall stay here a month for the purpose. She is in London, on a visit to a relation in the city. The bans on her side will be published with equal privacy in ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of the country," the Judge concluded his peroration. Then he went on with the pith of his remark, to the effect that the girl who could be mad enough and disobedient enough to refuse the hand of such a man as that, might go to—mumble—mumble—mumble—for she could never more be daughter ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... right, old mumble-peg. Don't you get carried away by the fire of old Rome. That's your motto. Here are the tools, a perfect picter of the sublime and beautiful; and all I hope is that our friend and pitcher, the Deakin, will make a better job of it than he did last night. If he don't, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seated at either end Of a long table in the centre of the room, busily engaged in cleaning their accoutrements, glanced up casually at his entrance; then, each vouchsafing him a preoccupied salutory mumble, they bent to their furbishing with the brisk concentration peculiar to "Service men" the world over. As an accompaniment to their labours, in desultory fashion, they kept alive the embers of a facetious wrangling argument—their respective vocabularies, albeit more ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... those of my family have the grace to die cheaper. In a word, Sir Dominick, we understand one another's business here: I am resolved to stand like the Swiss of my own family, to defend the entrance; you may mumble over your pater nosters, if you please, and try if you can make my doors fly open, and batter down my walls with bell, book, and candle; but I am not of opinion, that you are holy enough ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... brutal to say how very far from contented he felt, so Horace could only mumble that he had never been lodged like that before ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... begins, "Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye!" and ends, "All those of you having just cause for complaint draw near and ye shall be heard." However, you would have thought it was of no import here. Custom and indifference had allowed it to sink to a mumble. A third bailiff guarded the door of the jury-room; and in addition to these there were present a court clerk—small, pale, candle-waxy, with colorless milk-and-water eyes, and thin, pork-fat-colored hair and beard, who looked for all the world like ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... good manners put on his glasses to look at Mr. Edwardes, and I, having to say something, thought that I might as well introduce them to each other, though I took care to mumble Bunny's name so that it could not be heard. Mr. Edwardes bowed and opened his paper again, but Bunny having arrived at the fact that I was face to face with a don of some kind, thought he would try to pass ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... mumble that she alone knew the secret of restoring him to health, and that he was rendered peaky and poky only by ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... S.," screamed Joe at the top of his voice, as Curlie came hurrying up. "They sent that much in code and I got it all right. Then they tried to tell me their troubles and all I got was a mumble and grumble mixed with static, which meant nothing at all to me. Repeated it three times. Very little space in between. Should have called you, I guess, but there really wasn't time; besides I kept thinking I'd start getting ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... MUMBLE A SPARROW. A cruel sport practised at wakes and fairs, in the following manner: A cock sparrow whose wings are clipped, is put into the crown of a hat; a man having his arms tied behind him, attempts ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... religiously signe theyr forfronts and their breast wt the signe of the cross, in the wertue of which they are confident that clap can do them no scaith. Some we have sein run to their beads and their knees and mumble over their prayers, others away to the church and doune before the Altar and blaither anything that comes in their cheek. They have no ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... must instantly—instantly!—know the difference between "Platoon right," for instance, and "Right by squads," even though the commands may not have been given for an hour. And one must know it whether corporal or not, for half the time the corporals do not yet know it themselves, and either mumble their commands or are silent, so that they are no help. And even if a fellow knows what to do, but lags in the doing of it, then he is likely to put the whole line out. Further, freight trains rumble by at the bottom of the drill field, ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... people. Nor does their shorn crown in the least admonish them that a priest should be free from all worldly desires and think of nothing but heavenly things. Whereas on the contrary, these jolly fellows say they have sufficiently discharged their offices if they but anyhow mumble over a few odd prayers, which, so help me, Hercules! I wonder if any god either hear or understand, since they do neither themselves, especially when they thunder them out in that manner they are wont. But this they have in common with those of the heathens, that they are vigilant ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... considerable when I asked him the price of pork tenderloins to have him mumble through two or three verses till he fetched it up, but I didn't have any real kick coming till he got ambitious and I had to wait till he'd hummed half through a grand opera to get a quotation on pickled pigs' ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... off by himself and, walking rapidly, would try through pure physical fatigue to force his mind to give up the remembrance of the persistent, complaining voice. At times he would give way to fits of anger and strew impotent oaths along the silent street, or, in another mood, would mumble and talk to himself, praying for strength and courage to keep his own head during the ordeal through which he thought they were passing together. And when he returned from such a walk and from ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... and passed the sitting-room door without looking in; I sat down in a rocking chair that had been placed near the stair-way, sat there and listened to a girl's laugh and the low mumble of a man's voice. "Let us go out where it's cooler," I heard Guinea say, and I got up with ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... A mumble of assent replied to him, and the townsmen craned their necks to look out. A procession slowly wended its way up the street, led by the marshal, astride a piebald horse bearing the crude brand of the CG. Three men followed ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... bushes at the side of the road their pulses throbbed in great excitement as they observed that the peddler addressed some one inside the car. His tone was low so they did not catch the words, but they heard a mumble and saw his ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... Hugh be tempted to put his threat into execution, Nick managed to swallow his pride, and mumble that he guessed he must be out of condition just then, a fact so evident that Thad had to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... mumble and I stooped low but he relaxed suddenly and seemed to shrink. I felt his heart but it was still. I tried his eyes and they were sightless. Patsy sent up a heartrending wail and crawled over behind his master's gun and knapsack, so I knew my ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in a few plain words. It saves time and money; I'm convinced, too, that it carries more weight. Everyone nowadays can write a book, and most people do; but how many can talk? The art is being utterly forgotten. Chatter and gabble and mumble—an abuse of language. ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... of visible temptation. What fretted her so, what was wearing her down to the point of fatigue, was the patent imbecility of her reluctance. There would have been some sense of it if Cutty had proposed a real marriage. All she had to do was mumble a few words, sign her name to a document, live out West for a few months, and be in comfortable circumstances all the rest of her life. And ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... gradually come to realise that here was the place of drama. Most of the men would look, and then, without a sound or glance about, would slouch off with drooping shoulders. Others would mumble to themselves—or, what amounted to the same thing, would mumble to one another in barbarous dialects. But about one in five could speak English; and scarcely an evening passed that some man did ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... Mumble, mumble,—"the Lady Jane sank back on her couch"—resumed Eyebright, speaking rather thickly by reason of the bread and butter. "She was very pale, and one tear ran slowly ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... wiring party's going out"— And yawning sentries mumble, "Wirers going out." Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with muffled thud, They toil with stealthy haste and ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... again to talk to him, but I was suffering too much to do more than mumble. I don't know how long we'd been there. I suppose he'd only stopped to rest, for before long he hoisted me over his shoulder again and away we went. Quite a while after that we struck that little valley where the hut stands. He carried me into the shack and laid me ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... things went so badly that two reporters had to be got rid of. The editor kept Pulitzer on the staff, because he felt that if anyone was destined to force him out of the editorial chair it was not a young, uneducated foreigner, who could hardly mumble half-a-dozen words of English. The editor was mistaken. Within a few years J. P. not only supplanted him but became half- ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... this delay was produced by doubt, which the poets truly declare to be the father of delay. It was a doubt which arose in the mind of one of the Brahmins, who, when a doubt arose in his mind, would mumble it over and over, but never masticate, swallow, or digest it; and thus was the preservation of the royal line endangered. For years had the aspirants for regal dignity, and more than regal beauty, hovered round the court, each with his mandolin on his arm, and a huge ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat |
