"Palaver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great palaver of the Cree braves was held on the Blue-Pine Ridge," continued Okematan, "the chiefs chose me to go to Red River, and learn all that I could find out about the Palefaces and their intentions. I went, as you know. I attached myself to a family ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... heard much of her stage life. At first he took all this palaver with a grain of salt, the babbling of an ardent nature interested in the flighty romance of the studio world. By degrees, however, he became curious as to the freedom of her actions, the ease with which ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the magnus Apollo. Sefton is excellent as a commentator on Brougham; he says that he watches him incessantly, never listens to anybody else when he is there, and rows him unmercifully afterwards for all the humbug, nonsense, and palaver he hears him talk to people.... They dined in the brewhouse and visited the whole establishment. Lord Grey was there in star, garter, and ribbons. There were people ready to show and explain everything. But not a bit. Brougham took the explanation of everything into his ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... (always toward the eyes) and taking in the slack with tincture of benzoin and electrolyzing moles—to what end? Looking handsome. Oh, what a mistake! It's the larynx that the beauty doctors ought to work on. It's words more than warts, talk more than talcum, palaver more than powder, blarney more than bloom that counts—the phonograph instead of the photograph. But I was ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... intelligent parts of soldiering, so he encouraged these negroes, duller than oxen, and made them useful pioneers. Here is his own simple record of the way he got to the hearts of the Levy: "How they enjoy the palaver in which I tell them that 'they are the eyes to the body of the snake which is crawling up the bush-path from the coast, and coiling for its spring! The eyes are hungry, but they will soon have meat; and the main body ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... waste any time in needless palaver. The hours were precious to him, and even an Indian can cut time when his ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... its Quaker-ridden Assembly. Why, when once the war had broken out and was raging in good earnest, I longed for nothing so much as my own youth back again, that I might fight with the best of them. And the peace palaver of the Quakers sickened me. I came near to quarrelling with some of my old friends, and I grew eager to see fresh places, fresh faces. I turned it over in my mind, and I thought that if Quebec fell into our hands, English-speaking citizens ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... sceptically, confidently, as one who could not be deceived. "Pooh!" she said. "That was only a try-on. That was only so that he could begin his palaver! Don't tell me! I may be a simpleton, but I'm not such a simpleton as he thinks for, nor as some other folks think for, either!" (At this point Hilda had to admit that in truth her mother was not completely a simpleton. In her mother was a vein of perceptive shrewdness ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... quoth Dick. Then to the old black, who had stood by, saucer-eyed and speechless, the while: "Anthony, do you be as big a numbskull as you were born to be, and hold these redcoat gentlemen in palaver till we can win ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... world, Go up and slap him on the back and holler, "How'd you do?" And grasp his hand so warm he'll know he has a friend in you, An' ask him what's a-hurtin' him, and laugh his cares away, An' tell him that the darkest hour is just before the day. Don't talk in graveyard palaver, but say it right out loud, That God will sprinkle sunshine in the trail of every cloud. This world at best is but a hash of pleasures and of pain; Some days are bright and sunny, and some are sloshed ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... to disturb you,' I began, when Buck, ever the man of action, with a scorn of palaver, strode past me, and, having prodded with the pistol that part of the bedclothes beneath which a rough calculation suggested that Mr Abney's lower ribs were concealed, uttered ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... garments, we referred to native cloth and mats. Large quantities of cinnet are plaited by the old men principally. They sit at their ease in their houses, and twist away very rapidly. At political meetings also, where there are hours of formal palaver and speechifying, the old men take their work with them, and improve the time at the cleanly, useful occupation of twisting cinnet. It is a substitute for twine, and useful for many a purpose, and is now ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... the Captain, staring the Doctor broad in the face, "I've got wind of the whole affair; now ease off your palaver. You've married my daughter Betsy, in a joke; she's fit for the wife of a Commodore, and all I've got to say is, if you want her, take her; if you don't want her, you're a fool, and ought to be made a powder-monkey for the rest of your ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... mind for an answer, I had given him my address in St. James Square, and had again mingled with the crowd. Alas! I was not fated to get back to Flora so easily! Mr. Robbie was in the path: he was insatiably loquacious; and as he continued to palaver I watched the insipid youths gather again about my idol, and cursed my fate and my host. He remembered suddenly that I was to attend the Assembly Ball on Thursday, and had only attended to- night by way of a preparative. This put it into his head to present me to another young lady; ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for another. The delighted negroes went to mass as to their favorite Calenda; the tawdry garments and detestable drone of the priest, whose only Catholicism was his indiscriminate viciousness, appeared to them a superior sorcery; the Host was a great Gree-gree; the muttered liturgy was a palaver with the spirits; music, incense, and gilding charmed them for a while away from the barbarous ritual of their midnight serpent-worship. The priests were white men, for the negroes thought that black baptism would not stick; but they were fortune-hunters, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... of her talk came to me from time to time as confidential asides from the main flow of palaver which rolled along steadily toward the Judge. The Judge, poor fellow, showed plainly the effects of the struggle; so much so, that I suggested ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... in England—at least, I had no reason to be ashamed of my company. Yes; I too, like Crossthwaite, took the upper classes at their word; bowed down to the idol of political institutions, and pinned my hopes of salvation on "the possession of one ten-thousandth part of a talker in the national palaver." True, I desired the Charter, at first (as I do, indeed, at this moment), as a means to glorious ends—not only because it would give a chance of elevation, a free sphere of action, to lowly worth and talent; ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... if the very language of our parlors would lose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are necessarily so far fetched, through slides and dumb-waiters, as it were; in other words, the parlor is so far ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... heaven as he expects, the very first thing he'd do, would be to whip out that knife, and go to scrapin' away to get a little gold dust to put in his pocket; he! he! he! Don't look so horrified, Miss Graystone. I suppose, now you think I'm dreadful ungrateful. One thing I know, they'll palaver you till you'll think they was two pink and white angels that had slid down a rainbow, especially to make themselves agreeable to you; but Maria Mott's no fool, and she knows what she's a talkin' about ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... "is a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,—you are not an American, and therefore cannot claim ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... and sent word from Boston to Connecticut that the charter itself should be given up to him. This the men of Connecticut refused to do. Whereupon Sir Edmund with a military following presented himself at their Assembly, declared their governing powers to be dissolved, and, after much palaver, caused the charter itself to be laid upon the table before him. The discussion had been long, having lasted through the day into the night, and the room had been lighted with candles. On a sudden each light disappeared, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... scrabble. empty sound, dead letter, vox et praeterea nihil [Lat.]; a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing; sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. nonsense, utter nonsense, gibberish; jargon, jabber, mere words, hocus-pocus, fustian, rant, bombast, balderdash, palaver, flummery, verbiage, babble, baverdage, baragouin^, platitude, niaiserie^; inanity; flap-doodle; rigmarole, rodomontade; truism; nugae canorae [Lat.]; twaddle, twattle, fudge, trash, garbage, humbug; poppy-cock [U.S.]; stuff, stuff ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... high-flown book-learned English, as was his custom when in earnest, "Jeekie think they just black niggers like the rest, thief people. There ain't a white man in this house, except you and Miss Barbara and me, Major. Jeekie learnt all that in servant's hall palaver. No, not now, other time. Everyone tell everything to Jeekie, poor old African fool, and he look up an answer, 'O law! you don't say so?' but keep his eyes and ears open ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... thanking me, he departed, gratified with his gratuity, rejoiced at his reception, and most undoubtedly benefited by the beer with which I had encouraged his palaver—a word, by the way, which is not inappropriate, since it contains in itself the very word of words, the lav, which means a word, and is most antiquely and excellently Gipsy. Pehlevi is old Persian, and to pen lavi is Rommany all the world ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... outright. I speak in a figure. But all these are as dust in the balance to the wearisome man of ponderous acquirements, the solemn blockhead who usurps the pas, and if he happen to be rich, fancies himself entitled to prose and palaver away, as if he were Sir Oracle, or as if the pence in his purse could ever fructify the cauld parritch in his pate into pregnant brain. There is a plateful of P's for you at any rate, Tom. Beautiful exemplification of the art ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... saying, 'Sit down there,' in a manner quite in keeping with his stogies raised on the desk directly in our face. Such freedom, nay, such bestiality, I could never tolerate. Indeed, I prefer the suavity and palaver of Turkish officials, no matter how crafty and corrupt, to the puffing, spitting manners of these come-up-from-the-shamble men. But Khalid could sit there as immobile as the Boss himself, and he did so, billah! For he was thinking all the while, as he told ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... chief interpreter, and both utterly without perceptible resemblance to the rolling consonants and gutturals of the savages. Marcoy imbibed a strong impression that the only terms understood in common were the words of Spanish with which the palaver was thickly interlarded. This was the first time the interpreters were put on their mettle in a strictly professional sense, and the test was not altogether triumphant. However, by a careful raising of the voice in all difficult passages, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... confabulate, consult; babble, prattle, prate, chatter, gabble, gibber, blather; expatiate, descant, comment, harp, rant; palaver. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... in those days, a hotel where an atmosphere congenial to Southern institutions was sedulously maintained. But there were negro waiters in the dining-room, and mulatto bell-boys, and Dick had no doubt that Grandison, with the native gregariousness and garrulousness of his race, would foregather and palaver with them sooner or later, and Dick hoped that they would speedily inoculate him with the virus of freedom. For it was not Dick's intention to say anything to his servant about his plan to free him, for obvious reasons. To mention one of them, if Grandison should go away, and ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... years, probably for centuries, not only with upholders of the said vested interest, but with the respectable mass of the people he has delivered. They wouldn't ask him to dinner, or let their names appear with his in the papers; they would be careful how they spoke of him in the palaver, or at their clubs. What can we expect, then, when we have only poor gallant, blundering men like Garibaldi and Mazzini, and righteous causes which do not triumph in their hands; men who have holes enough ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... gathered as many recruits as possible from those sent out on the two previous expeditions, and finally anchored at Cape Palmas on February 11, 1834. After the usual tedious "palaver" and bargaining, the natives formally sold the required land. The cape is a promontory some seventy-five feet in height, separated from the mainland, except for a narrow, sandy isthmus. A river, navigable for some miles to small boats, opens ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... timbers!" exclaimed the sailor, as soon as the voice again ceased to be heard. "If that bean't the palaver o' a little girl, my name wur never Ben Brace on a ship's book. A smalley wee thing she seem to be; not bigger than a marlinspike. It sound like as if she wur talkin' to some un. What the Ole ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... argued strenuously for the appointment of a parliamentary commission, in which they were joined by the artful and cunning suggestions and canting palaver of Mr. Wilberforce. The cry of a jacobinical conspiracy was loudly raised, and Colonel Wardle was reviled, taunted, and menacingly reminded of the great responsibility which he incurred, by making such charges against the illustrious Commander in Chief. The cunning, hypocritical Whigs all joined ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... fruitless bargaining with the native chiefs, in all of which Coker regretted that the slave-traders had so ruined the people that it seemed impossible to make any progress in a "palaver" without the offering of rum. Meanwhile a report was circulated through the country that a number of Americans had come and turned Kizell out of his own town and put some of his people in the hold of their ship. Disaster followed disaster. The marsh, the bad water, and the malaria ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... excuse, extenuate, deny and palaver as he may, it remains true that the Socialist Party of America teaches the same treasonable doctrines of violence and insurrection as the Russian Bolshevists, but in a more covert way. We have a sample in the pamphlet, "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... this kind of artillery, which France has found so effectual towards subjugating the continent: but Troubridge had the prey within his reach; and in the course of a few days, his last battery, "after much trouble and palaver," as he said, "brought ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... cackle, gabble, murmur, prattle, blurt, chat, gossip, palaver, tattle, blurt out, chatter, jabber, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... certain of it,' he smiled; 'and again I say, more emphatically than ever, that you're the very man I'm looking for. If you'll take that chair and pull up to the fire, I'll take the other and we'll have a bit of a palaver.' ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... the horrible wreck was a citizen of Swamp Hollow upon whom a wonderful cure was effected; that "Her escape" was from inflammatory rheumatism by the aid of Gettem's Dead Shot Specific, and that the Titanic Disaster is eclipsed annually by the sad ends of thousands of people who neglect to take Palaver's Punk Pills. It always makes us mad, but we can't kick. If it weren't for the patent medicine people, we would have to pay for the ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... "watering out" which is the curse of the long verse or prose romance. Moreover, to get point and appeal, it was especially necessary to throw up the subject—incident, emotion, or whatever it was—to bring it out; not merely to meander and palaver about it. But language and literature were both too much in a state of transition to admit of anything capital being done at this time. It was the great good fortune of England, corresponding to that experienced with ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... fixed for holding a grand palaver at Wolf's Hope on the subject of Caleb's requisitions, and he was invited to attend at the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... her head about the property, or about her own will, or about the solicitor, or about a tombstone, and that it was worrying her. She and Miss Ingate (who had now returned home) had had a very extensive palaver, in low voices that never ceased, after the triumphant departure of Mr. Foulger. Audrey had cautiously protested; she was afraid her mother would be fatigued, and she saw no reason why her mother should be acquainted with all the details of a complex ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... been a quartz miner in the silver regions—a pretty hard life; I know all the palaver of that business: I know all about discovery claims and the subordinate claims; I know all about lodes, ledges, outcroppings, dips, spurs, angles, shafts, drifts, inclines, levels, tunnels, air-shafts, "horses," clay casings, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... twenty years from the time that he had left the shop, Cook was chosen for this important mission. What manner of man was he, who in that time had risen from life in a mud hut to the rank of a commander in the Royal Navy? In manner, he was plain and simple and direct, no flourish, no unnecessary palaver of showy words, not a word he did not mean. In form, he was six feet tall, in perfect proportion, with brown hair and eyes, alertly penetrating, with features sharp rather from habit or ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... pulpit," he went on coldly. "Some folks may stomach 'em; we won't. Them two sermons o' yours, p'r'aps they'd do down in some city place; but they're like your wife's bunnit here, they're too flowery to suit us. What we want to hear is the plain, old-fashioned Word of God, without any palaver or 'hems and ha's. They tell me there's some parts where hell's treated as played-out—where our ministers don't like to talk much about it because people don't want to hear about it. Such preachers ought to be put out. They ain't Methodists at all. What we want here, sir, is straight-out, flat-footed ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... Sir Francis, I don't want none o' this palaver. It's for all the world like a Frenchman, when you are going to give him a broadside; he makes grimaces, throws dust in your eyes, and tries to stab you in the back. Oh, no! none of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Past and Present (1843) or to Sartor (1831); and little of what they add is either needful or true. The world had been fully enlightened about Wind-bags, Shams, the approach to Tophet, Stump-orators, Palaver-Parliaments, Phantasm-Captains, and the rest of the Sartorian puppet-pantomime. There was a profound truth in all of these invectives, warnings, and prophecies. But the prophet's voice at last got so shrieky and monotonous, that instead ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... to parley with the categorical native; but his attempts at palaver were eminently unsuccessful. The naked black man was master ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... thought on it, and will think on it. We be all determined, so there be an end of the matter, and an end of your palaver. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... we passed had just seen two elephants, and a great palaver ensued, in which the word 'harden,' or some such equivalent for ivory, frequently occurred. Many of the trees on the line of route were very fine, specially the tapangs, the splendid stems of which, supported by natural buttresses, rose in several instances ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... a good little soul you are, Verity—you always say just the right thing! Tell Goliath, with my love, that I am busy, so there must be no pipe and no palaver to-night. I shall have to be up betimes too;" and then he took counsel with Verity as to the hour when his breakfast should ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... you will pardon my translating the palaver between this supercargo and the reis or captain of the boat. The reis was the proper companion for Harry, being a respectable fellow, and wearing some clothes. Harry himself was dressed in a linen suit of European cut, with a tarboosh or red cap on his head, ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... clear. The palaver about "brains," and "Mind Master"—and those ape hairs in Bentley's hands. He wished he knew all that had led up to that story he had read in the paper just prior to the appearance of the naked man from the west door of the Flatiron Building. However, the killing would get front page position ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... swung round and throwing himself into the armchair enquired politely after the health of Barbara and Susan. As far as the Persian journey was concerned the palaver was ended. He did not intend to give me his reasons for staying in England and I could not demand them more insistently. At any rate I had discovered the cause of his grumpiness. What creature of Jaffery's temperament ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... proposed execution by an Ojibwa girl from the Pottawottomi village.[50] Gladwyn, thus warned, was forearmed. Pontiac and his six chiefs were admitted to the council-chamber. Pontiac began the harangue of peace and friendly palaver and was about to give the preconcerted signal when Gladwyn raised his hand and the sound of clashing arms and drum-beating was heard without. Pontiac feared he was foiled, and announcing that he would "call ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... with a straw cigar fixed in his mouth, and, having been placed on the mat in the same manner as when alive, his betel box is set by his side. The friends and relatives then go through the form of conversing with him, and offering the best advice concerning his future proceedings. This palaver over, the corpse is placed in a large wooden box, and kept in the house for several months. At the expiration of this time, the relatives and friends again assemble, and the coffin is taken out and deposited on a high tree. The deceased is repeatedly cautioned ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... judge by a description from his own pen which Mr. Morley has incorporated in his lecture. It was there he wrote the book "The Prince," at forty- five, dedicating it to Lorenzo the Magnificent. The dedication was a bit of palaver to the tyrant who had destroyed Florentine freedom. It was several years before he was rewarded by a small employment and then he was commissioned to write the history of Florence which he finished and dedicated to Leo X, in 1527. Here, also, it is supposed, he wrote a comedy, much ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... parlor heard his voice, and Mr. Stevens immediately slipped out the back way in order not to be de trop a second time. Now Sam could not possibly have known what had been said in the parlor, and yet when he found his way in there, he and Miss Josephine, without any palaver about it, without exchanging a solitary word, or scarcely even a look, just naturally fell into each other's arms. Neither one of them made the first move. It just somehow happened, and they stood there and held and held ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... rattling old pans, making the most horrid noise, in order to drive him out of the town into the sea. The custom is preceded by four weeks' dead silence; no gun is allowed to be fired, no drum to be beaten, no palaver to be made between man and man. If, during these weeks, two natives should disagree and make a noise in the town, they are immediately taken before the king and fined heavily. If a dog or pig, sheep or goat be found at large in the street, it may be killed, or taken ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... question—the ground of a service rendered to historical truth. It might be—he wasn't clear; it might be—the question was deep, too deep, probably, for his wisdom; at any rate he had to control himself not to interrupt angrily such dry, interested palaver, the false voice of commerce and of cant. He stared tragically out of the window and saw the stupid rain begin to fall; the day was duller even than his own soul, and Jersey Villas looked so sordidly hideous that it ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... kep away from the whelps. My gals is all in titters about it; and Beck Teezle, says she, 'I wonder, says she, if Des and Luce Faddle, says she, will feel above us now?' They couldn't git me to dew their dirty Work, with all their ile and palaver. I bought a pitchfork on 'em, once in hayin', and got a platter there when Josephyne was married, and I paid 'em tew in mink skins; and that's all I had to dew with 'em. You lost a good 'eal ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... against the winter? They hover about our beautiful bay—these fiends in human shape, with brown wings outspread—and wantonly lay waste our fishing-pots in their reckless course, so that our crabs walk backwards into the sea. We have had gentlefolks down from London about it, men who argue and palaver, and wear high hats and are said to have long bills, and there is talk of a Government cutter to protect us, towed by red tape, and the trawlers are to cast their nets farther asea. But beware of believing what you read in the Brixham ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... about to catch her and carry her to my home she startles me by calling me 'Brother.' Did you ever hear of anything so maddening? Twice I have let her escape because of the word. But I can stand it no longer, and I am on the way to Princess Nzambi to hold a palaver about it." (By "palaver" the slangy Crocodile meant a ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... sort to go from my word. The man shall want for nothing, sir. But please don't ask me to love my enemies, and all that Rot. I scorn hypocrisy. Every man hates his enemies; he may hate 'em out like a man, or palaver 'em, and beg God to forgive 'em (and that means damn 'em), and hate 'em like a sneak; but he always ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... The palaver was sawdust and treacle. Old Bottleblue buzzed for a bit, And a sniffy young Wiscount in barnacles landed wot 'e thought a 'it; Said old Gladstone wos like Simpson's weapon, a bit of a hass and all ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... of the morning are slipping away; we must construe our hieroglyphics without further palaver. The sleeper lies upon his side, his left hand resting near his face upon the pillow. Were he to move it ever so little during our examination, the history of years might be thrown into confusion. Nevertheless, we shall hope to touch ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... those who have dismounted to climb after me from climbing any farther, and when I begin to fire at them pretty sharply they'll turn back at once, get to their horses, and join their mates, to have a palaver and come to the conclusion that it isn't safe to stop in the valley, because they'll be expecting every moment for fire to be opened by us. Then they'll ride back without another shot being fired at them, for the simple reason that I'm hurrying ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... a last palaver with our guide; he said that the extreme denseness of the fog gave assured token ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... before the ramparts actually fell, they might be granted favorable terms. But the monarch, who had now lost nearly half his men, demanded an unconditional surrender. As Norby had been conquered, and no signs of Mehlen's succor had appeared, the garrison, after much palaver, threw themselves upon the mercy of the king. The castle, on the 20th of July, passed into the monarch's hands once more, and a large portion of the rebel garrison was put to death. With this scene the conspiracy of Norby, Mehlen, and their ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... only secret upon which any secret society holds a caveat. Wisdom can not be corraled with gibberish and fettered in jargon. Knowledge is one thing—palaver another. The Greek-letter societies of our callow days still survive in bird's-eye, and next to these come the Elks, who take theirs with seltzer and a smile, as a rare good joke, save that brotherhood and good-fellowship are actually ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... the forests and mountains. But we did not get along so quickly as we purposed at the first. News of our victories over the detested Dons had spread like a fire through the isthmus. Chiefs came to palaver, offer gifts, and sue for our protection. The whole land wanted to shelter beneath the banner of St. George, and our eastward voyage was a sort of triumphal procession. This was all very pleasant, but 'twas dallying with danger. The Spaniards were acquainted with our ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... of the British Navy. I was not anxious to hear anything about it. I was keen to buy or rent his house, and I was able to refer to the names of men who were just slightly above the Admiral in social position. Of course one can't take a house without some palaver, and one meeting led to another. Naturally I offered my cheque as a deposit, and a guarantee of my good faith. I was invited to dinner, and then, without the old buffer suspecting anything, I drew the truth from him as easily as a wine waiter draws the cork out ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... bletherin' about the Volunteers, but all the same I don't like the look o' things, an' if they're not careful there'll be bother. It'll take the men at the top all their time to hold the bottom ones down. It ought never to have been allowed to begin with. The minute they started their drillin' an' palaver, they ought to 'a' been stopped. Have you ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... became the least dingy he was for having them torn out and sold and the house done over. If he traveled, money must go ahead of him and smooth the way. He did not want argument, useless talk, or silly palaver as he called it. Every one must discuss interesting topics with him or not talk at all. Letty understood him thoroughly. She would chuck him under the chin mornings, or shake his solid head between ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... till, then held a palaver as to the disposition of their prisoner. They finally left him tied with his own new rope to a huge drift log at the base of the pier, and went ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... Mallam. Detention at Damaggoo. First signs of European intercourse. Departure from Damaggoo. Arrival at Kirree. Attacked by the Natives. The Landers taken to Kirree. Loss of their Property. Holding of a Palaver. The Kirree people. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... chang'd, like shillings from the Mint Sent forth to find another one's protection! Chang'd as palaver which the members print And do not follow after their election! Ah! Mr. Cross, your gratitude is low, You might have ask'd me where I wish'd ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... bitter apples strew the ground. The place is uninhabited, I fear! I heard a hissing — there are serpents here! O there the natives are — a dreadful race! 25 The men have tails, the women paint the face! No doubt they're all barbarians. — Yes, 'tis so, I'll try to make palaver with them though; ('Making signs'.) 'Tis best, however, keeping at a distance. Good Savages, our Captain craves assistance; 30 Our ship's well stor'd; — in yonder creek we've laid her; His honour is no mercenary trader; This is his first adventure; lend ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... mo' palaver, Brer Fox make a bargain dat Mr. Buzzard wuz ter watch de hole, en keep Brer Rabbit dar wiles Brer Fox went atter his axe. Den Brer Fox, he lope off, he did, en Mr. Buzzard, he tuck up his stan' at de hole. Bimeby, w'en all git still, Brer Rabbit ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... Clarendon." I shall not easily forget my pleasure in discovering that the quotation "Nollumus leges Angliaemutari" on which Noodle relied in his immortal oration, is to be found in the record of the Barons' great "Palaver." ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... will, will you, young scapegrace? What did you come here for anyway? Not to palaver about how thankful you are that you got knocked out, stayed a week in bed and had your salary paid all the time. I'll bet you didn't come for that. Want a raise of ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... part, sir, where he walked into thieving. Don't like his telling 'em he loves 'em. 'Tisn't to be supposed a gentleman could really love such rubbish as that. Sounds like palaver. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the band came upon a small palisaded village of thatched huts set in a clearing in the jungle close beside a placid river. At their approach the villagers came pouring out, and Usanga advanced with two of his warriors to palaver with the chief. The experiences of the day had so shaken the nerves of the black sergeant that he was ready to treat with these people rather than take their village by force of arms, as would ordinarily have been his preference; but now a vague ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... come over, and palaver, Rowley, Keith, &c. and Coffin to abuse the Earl! Now, I can tell you, that he is ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... really surprised, but after some palaver he let me in together with the two loafers carrying my luggage. He grumbled at them however and slammed the gate violently with a loud clang. I was startled to discover how many night prowlers had collected in the darkness of the street in such a short time and without my being aware of it. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... lustily indulging in patriotic palaver, the propertied classes took excellent care that their own bodies should not be imperilled. Inspired by enthusiasm or principle, a great array of the working class, including the farming and the professional elements, volunteered for military service. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... close to the banks where cod are found, and but little time is required in proceeding to the scene of their labour, therefore there is no necessity for being in a hurry, and there is lots of time for palaver. Every boat has an oracle in it, who speaks with an air of authority. He is a great talker, and a great smoker, and he chats so skilfully, that he enjoys his pipe at the same time, and manages it so as not to interrupt his jabbering. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... "Come, give over yer palaver, for I'm not wantin' it," said Moll roughly, yet not ill pleased at her husband's judicious tribute to her smartness and her charms. "It's all very fine—you have everythin' nicely fixed up accordin' to yer own ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... sat down to hold a palaver. While this was going on, Keona carried Alice in his unwounded arm to the other end of the cave, and, making his exit through a small opening at its inner extremity, bore his trembling captive to a rocky eminence, shaped somewhat like a sugarloaf, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... in the way Whaley named David Lorimer. So the two men sat almost silent before the camp fire until midnight. Then Whaley said, "Mr. Lorimer, your son is at liberty now. You'll excuse me saying that the shorter you make your palaver the better it ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... only knew what a palaver they've made about having you here, pretending as it's all charity and the like, when, of course, ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers." Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables. He tears down ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... laird, May warstle for your favour; May claw his lug, and straik his beard, And hoast up some palaver. My bonnie maid, before ye wed Sic clumsy-witted hammers, Seek Heaven for help, and barefit ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... enough palaver," said the captain, in his offensive way. "Hoist the parson's traps aboard; and sheer off ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... me to learn to cut capers?-and dress like a monkey?-and palaver in French gibberish?-hey, would you?-And powder, and daub, and make myself up, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... shirt—then with a flannel one—and then, in regular succession, with three linen shirts. This concluded the Series of Shirts. Then commenced the waistcoats. A plain woollen waistcoat without buttons—with hooks and eyes—took the lead, and kept it; it was closely pressed by what is, in common palaver, called an under-waistcoat—the body being flannel, the breast-edges bearing a pretty pattern of stripes or bars—then came a natty red waistcoat, of which we were particularly proud, and of which the effect on ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... saw the open spot, an' then of course we were stuck with nothin' to lift off with. It looked all right. We'd unload our goods, an' if the local crowd couldn't use them all, why they'd pass the rest on at a profit to themselves. So we come out to palaver, an' then they won't let us go back in the ship. We were just lucky my com man had sent out a landing report when it looked like we piled up, or the Space Force patrol never woulda heard ...
— A Transmutation of Muddles • Horace Brown Fyfe
... he exclaimed, whirling the Baronet from him, as if he had been a thing of straw; "you know my power, and you know my terms: there needs no more palaver about it." ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... rolling and unrolling her knitting and looking icily out of the window, as she continued to stand opposite the squire. Poyser might sit down if he liked, she thought; she wasn't going to sit down, as if she'd give in to any such smooth-tongued palaver. Mr. Poyser, who looked and felt the reverse of icy, did sit down ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... annoyed. Bayweather and his palaver! "I don't do anything for them, except give them as good wages as the business will stand, and as much responsibility for running things as they'll take. Beyond that, I let them alone. I don't believe in what's known as 'welfare work.' I wouldn't want them messing around ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... After a short preliminary palaver, a feast of baked pigs and various roots was spread before us; of which we partook sparingly, and then proceeded to business. The captain stated his object in visiting the island, regretted that there had been a slight misunderstanding ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... a good deal of sly prudence in you," she said to Mr. Null. "You must have seen something, in your time, of the ways of deceitful Englishwomen. What does that palaver mean in plain words?" She handed the ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... understood it, to prevent her taking him back upon a very small show of repentance if the needed emotions were in prospect. He had decided pretty finally that it would be Bessie rather than another when he received a letter from Mrs. Vostrand. It was dated at Florence, and after some pretty palaver about their old friendship, which she only hoped he remembered half as fondly as she did, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... merchants: when they mean to trade with a town, they deliberately begin the affair by building huts, as if they knew that little business could be transacted without a liberal allowance of time for palaver. They bring Manchester goods into the heart of Africa; these cotton prints look so wonderful that the Makololo could not believe them to be the work of mortal hands. On questioning the Mambari they were answered that English manufactures came out of the sea, and beads were ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... the two others were gone before three weeks had elapsed. My uncle fancied that his rank would secure a favourite sent to him from Europe. He one morning received a deputation from the king of a native town, requesting a palaver, or conference. It was granted, and his sable majesty formally made proposals for Caesar to figure as a roast at a grand feast, which he was about to hold. My uncle indignantly refused; the king increased the sum offered, till it amounted to something considerable, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... 'Scandalous laggards, is this your mode of governing a free Republic? Freedom to let the State go to dry-rot, and become the laughing-stock of mankind. To provide for your own paltry kindred in the State-employments; to palaver grandly with all comers; and publish melodious Despatches of Van Hoey? Had not Britannic Majesty, for his dear Daughter's sake, come to the rescue in this crisis, where had we been? We demand a Stadtholder again; our glorious Nassau Orange, to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... minute, and some of the young hot-bloods was for smokin' us up, but the chief was a sport—I got to give the old bird credit. He rared back on his hind legs and made a stormy palaver; as near as I could judge he told his ghost-dancers they'd been cold-decked, but he expected 'em to take their medicine and grin, and, anyhow, it was a lesson to 'em. Next time they'd know better'n to monkey with strangers. Whatever ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... into a field of corn belonging to one of the Mandingo inhabitants, and destroyed great part of it. The Mandingo having caught the animal in his field, immediately drew his knife and cut his throat. The Serawoolli thereupon called a palaver (or in European terms, brought an action) to recover damages for the loss of his beast, on which he set a high value. The defendant confessed he had killed the ass, but pleaded a SET-OFF, insisting ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... and once more the soldiers quietly surrounded the herd of cattle, and drove them to head-quarters as before. The old scene was re-enacted. The new sheik, Morbe, together with Allorron and many headmen, arrived. Again a long palaver took place, through the medium of Tomby, the interpreter, and the promises of ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... tried to express her thankfulness for the kindness that had prompted the original proposal, and her sympathy with his natural vexation at finding that a traffic which he had really ameliorated at considerable loss of profit, was still considered objectionable; but he silenced this at once as palaver, and went off to fetch his wife to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cousin and the page came to bid Don Quixote farewell, the former returning home, the latter resuming his journey, towards which, to help him, Don Quixote gave him twelve reals. Master Pedro did not care to engage in any more palaver with Don Quixote, whom he knew right well; so he rose before the sun, and having got together the remains of his show and caught his ape, he too went off to seek his adventures. The landlord, who did not know Don Quixote, was as much astonished at his mad freaks as at his generosity. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... taught that every man must learn to bear arms, and that both man and woman must be prepared to make any sacrifice for their Fatherland. (2.) They have always held that national interests must be considered before international palaver. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... Mr. Fyshe. "He is staying at the Grand Palaver. I sent a telegram through one of our New York directors of the Traction, and his Grace has very kindly promised to come ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... characterization, an element which is much more essential in comedy music than in tragic. Whether they are celebrating the careless pleasures of a Bohemian carouse or proclaiming the agonies of a consuming passion, it is all one to his singers. So soon as they drop the intervallic palaver which points the way of the new style toward bald melodrama they soar off in a shrieking cantalena, buoyed up by the unison strings and imperiled by strident brass until there is no relief except exhaustion. Happy, careless music, such as Mozart or Rossini might have written for ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Galignani's, where the brothers, after some palaver, offered me L105 for the sheets of Napoleon, to be reprinted at Paris in English. I told them I would think of it. I suppose Treuttel and Wurtz had apprehended something of this kind, for they write me that they had made a bargain with ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... that the charge ought to be all the other way; for we, who make no purfession of religion at all, thinks ourselves so far righteous that we've got no need of a Saviour. Suppose, now, as we've got to as low a state o' the dumps as men can well come to, we all sits down in a row an' have a palaver about this matter—Parson Stevenson bein' ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... King, an' gin'l'min an' ladies," he say', "dis am a right bad case ob lazy majesty, 'ca'se de king been step on. Whin yivery li'l' black boy whut choose' gwine wander round at night an' stip on de king ob ghostes, it ain't no time for to palaver, it ain't no time for to prevaricate, it ain't no time for to cogitate, it ain't no time do nuffin' but tell de truth, an' de whole truth, an' ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... sufficient indigenous population had settled there, but it was no less easy to judge that some local arrangement concerning these exceptional places, conciliating every interest, might easily be made. Would that be possible nowadays, when electioneering palaver has embittered the whole business? After leaving St. George, we spent a long time hunting for our colony of St. Pierre Miquelon in continuous fogs, and only succeeded in finding it by means of a plan of my own invention. The weather happening to be moderate, I had several triangular soundings made ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... Why, to be sure, old Humphrey, you are as honest as a—pshaw! the parson means to palaver us; but, to return to my position, I tell you I do ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... "Go ahead with your palaver. I'll have to hand it to you when it comes to talk. I am not educated ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... for the family when you butted into this here world, didn't they? An' so that's your grandpa? I come pretty near hurtin' him an' you're some het up over it? But I reckon that if he has to set around an' listen to your palaver he'd be right glad to cash in. Shucks. I beg your pardon, ma'am. If it'll do you any good to know, I thought your poor grandpap was some one else. I was thinkin' it was a family affair, an' that I had a right to guzzle him. You see, I thought ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... grass-widow, and Penelope, the all-but-flapper, an insufficient chaperone. She expresses her disapproval with a hardy insolence which must be rare with vicars' sisters in these emancipated times. Naturally when you have a great deal of palaver about Betty's husband having deserted her two years ago after a serious tiff, and no word spoken or written since, you rightly guess that the expected new Adjutant, Captain Rymill, will be none other than the missing man. But you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... in his chair for the last four years, as I sat beside him sewin', and he was great company, Bill was, for all he was so sick; for he had great sperrits, and could argue somethin' surprisin' and grand. 'You're a good girl, Katie,' was the last words he ever said. I never was no hand to make a big palaver, so just as soon as the funeral was over I went right on with my sewin' and finished up everything I had in the house, for I needed the money to pay the expenses; and, besides, I made the first payment on the stone—it's a lovely one, John, cost me $300, but I don't mind that. ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... day the lord of Canada, called Donnacona, with twelve boats and accompanied by sixteen men, approached the ships. When abreast of the smallest of our vessels he began to make a palaver or preachment in their fashion, while moving his body and limbs in a marvellous manner, which is a sign of joy and confidence, and when he arrived at the flag-ship where were the two Indians who had been brought back from France, the said chief spoke to them and they to him. And ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... go now. It's cert'nly a fine day for ridin'." He stood silent for a moment, looking about him. Then he flushed. "Why, I'm gettin' right box-headed, ma'am," he declared. "Here I am standin' an' makin' you sick with my palaver, an' your horse waitin' to be ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Lord deliver us from all Cant: may the Lord, whatever else He do or forbear, teach us to look facts honestly in the face, and to beware (with a kind of shudder) of smearing them over with our despicable and damnable palaver into irrecognisability, and so falsifying the Lord's own Gospels to His unhappy blockheads of Children, all staggering down to Gehenna and the everlasting Swine's-trough, for ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... eat it in the same way as they do rice, with palaver sauce. Fundi ought to be well washed in cold water, and afterwards rewashed in boiling water. If properly prepared it will be white, and perfectly free from ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... If charity-bazaars, pious palaver, and orphaned babies' diapers had not been the sole topic of conversation at court; if there had been intellectual enjoyment of any kind, Louise might never have taken up her pen. As it was: "This Diary is intended to contain my innermost thoughts, my ambitions, ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... William did not threaten. He only asked me to give them rather more time—to make my changes more slowly. You know I cannot do that: straitened on all sides as I am, I have nothing for it but to push on. I thought it would be idle to palaver long with them. I sent them away, after arresting a rascal amongst them, whom I hope to transport—a fellow who preaches at ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... any notion of a palaver and the pipe of peace, I guess," said Adair, as indifferently as if he had just brought down a clay pigeon. "Prophesy, Stuart: ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... man. Brought up with them 'ere fine creturs, how could you nail your nose to a desk? I'll take you without more palaver. What's your name?" ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... only too well acquainted with the weakest side of the Persian character, and at once jumps to the conclusion that the sowars have stolen my money. Sending for me and summoning the sowars to his presence, without preliminary palaver he accuses them of robbing me of "pool." Addressing himself to me, he inquires: "Sahib, Parses namifami?" (Do you understand Persian?) "Kam Kam" (a little), I reply. "Sowari pool f pool koob; rupee-rupee Jcoob?" "O, O, pool koob; rupee koob; sowari neis, sowari khylie ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... But if any cove says as she's vicious, I sez in his teeth he lies. Soh! Gently, old 'ooman; come here, now, and set by my side on the bed; I wonder who'll have yer, my beauty, when him as you're all to 's dead. There, stow yer palaver a minit; I knows as my end is nigh; Is a cove to turn round on his dog, like, just 'cos ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... than performers of that kind. Who wouldn't pay half a dollar for such an hour as he had passed at Mrs. Burrage's? The sort of thing she was able to do, to say, was an article for which there was more and more demand—fluent, pretty, third-rate palaver, conscious or unconscious perfected humbug; the stupid, gregarious, gullible public, the enlightened democracy of his native land, could swallow unlimited draughts of it. He was sure she could go, like that, for several years, with her portrait in the druggists' windows and her posters ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... woman kill time. I slept sometimes and had pipe dreams about being out chasing cats into basements and growling at old ladies with black mittens, as a dog was intended to do. Then she would pounce upon me with a lot of that drivelling poodle palaver and kiss me on the nose—but what could I do? A dog ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... nasty stain on her flag if she sees this man go down without a hand lifted to save him. He is worth another Alma to her prestige. She can't afford to see him slaughtered here, where he's fighting the fight of civilisation. You see right through this thing, I know, and I don't need to palaver any more about it. It doesn't matter about me. I've had a lot for my money, and I'm no use—or I wouldn't be, if anything happened to the Saadat. No one would drop a knife and fork at the breakfast-table ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... nuisance!" he murmured. "Before they have finished their palaver as to how the accident happened and have repaired the damage, we shall have been here a full half-hour.... Jules will be ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... first ball, her nervous system, which never was particularly sensitive anyway, is completely blunted, so that she takes it as a matter of course to be sold again and again as a piece of property. One hears often enough of a 'woman palaver,' which is regarded exactly like a 'goat palaver,' as a damage to property, but one never, positively never, hears of a love-affair. The negress never has a sweetheart, either in her youngest days or after her so-called marriage. She is regarded, and regards herself, ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... took less time to happen than it tikes to tell with pen and ink, and though there may seem in reading it to be too much palaver on this stair-head, it was but a minute or two, after the bar was off the door, that John Splendid took me by the coat-lapel and back a bit to whisper in ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... brute bastes, which, without any sickening palaver of sentiment, I practise. Also, it's against an act of parliament, which I regard sometimes—that is, when I understand them; which, the way you parliament gentlemen draw them up, is not always particularly intelligible to plain common ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... once more saw the city given over to the visiting Hurons. The old persuasive palaver was repeated, and this time with more success. When the trading fair was over, Brebeuf, Daniel, and Davost set off with the savage fleet, each in a different canoe, facing a journey of nine hundred miles fraught with many perils, ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... and electioneering beer and bribery and balderdash, which is terrible to think of, in deciding. Your National Parliament, in so far as it has only that question to decide, may be considered as an enormous National Palaver existing mainly for imaginary purposes; and certain, in these days of abbreviated labor, to get itself sent home again to its partridge-shootings, fox-huntings, and above all, to its rat-catchings, if it could but understand the time of day, and know ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... his conceit. I thought that he fancied he could win any woman, and me without the least palaver or trouble. I felt annoyed. I said aloud, "I will become engaged to you;" to myself I added, "Just for a little while, the more to surprise and take the conceit out of you when the ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... has a tender heart,' he was frequently heard to observe in his morning rounds about this time. 'I used to think there was a great deal of palaver in her, but you may depend upon it there's no pretence about her. If he'd been the kindest husband in the world she couldn't have felt more. There's a great deal of good in Mrs. Dempster—a great deal ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot |
