"Little finger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too young to go. Harry is still safe in England—he may never have to go: the war may be over—the Kaiser may fall and break his neck—there's lots of ways peace may come. Even if Harry does go, he may not get killed. He may only get his toe off, or his little finger, and come home, or he may escape everything. Some do. Even if he is killed—every one has to die, and no one can die a better way; and Harry is ready—good and ready! So why does she fret? I know she's had trouble—lots of it—Lord, haven't we all? My three boys went—two have been killed; but I ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... she died in good dispositions, and now you seem tolerably well again. Are you still suffering on her account?' 'No, indeed!' she replied; 'that would be most unreasonable; but how can any person avoid suffering when even the end of this little finger is in pain? We are all one body in Christ.' 'By the goodness of God,' said her friend, 'you are now once more somewhat at ease.' 'Not for very long, though,' she replied with a smile; 'there are other persons who want ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... his hair is brown and grows away from his temples; because he opens and shuts his eyes, and his nose is a little out of drawing; because he has two lips and a square chin, and a little finger which he can't straighten from having played baseball too ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... interrupted Doughby impatiently. "The Indian, I can tell you——d'ye hear? Ralph Doughby tells you——has more real blood in his little finger than ten such leather-chopped fellows as yourself in their whole bodies, making all allowance for your white hide and your citizenship, neither of which, by the way, are much better than they should be. Ten times more, I tell you, and, if you don't believe it, I'll let you know it. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... up and down with an air learned by watching many a parade in barrack-square and drill ground, and though Nicholas did not cry in spite of falling hard, and Dora, who took the part of the Doctor, treading accidentally on his little finger in picking him up, still the Captain and his wife sighed nearly as often as they smiled, and the mother dropped tears as well as pennies into the cap which Tom, as the King of Egypt, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... is forgiveness? If by lifting a little finger I could make him suffer as he has made me, nothing would induce me to do it. If by lifting a little finger I could bring him happiness and success, I think—no, I am sure that I would not hesitate. But to purge my heart ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Decoction, together with that of the trajected Light and other Circumstances, may vary the Phaenomena of this Experiment. For the convenienter making whereof, we use instead of a Vial, any slender Pipe of Glass of about a foot or more in length, and about the thickness of a mans little finger; For, if leaving one end of this Pipe open, you Seal up the other Hermetically, (or at least stop it exquisitely with a Cork well fitted to it, and over-laid with hard Sealing Wax melted, and rubb'd upon it;) you shall have a Glass, wherein may be observ'd the Variations ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... feet 101/2 inches; hair, dove-coloured; scar on little finger of left hand; has assured carriage, walking boldly into good hotels and mixing with patrons on terms of equality; weight, 200 pounds; face slightly asymmetrical, but not definitely criminal in type; loathes Japanese art, but likes beefsteak and onions; wears No. 8 shoe; ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... half an hoar, and then to be strained to make the fomentation.] and apply to the gum-boil, between the cheek and the gum, a small white bread and milk poultice, [Footnote: Cut a piece of bread, about the size of the little finger— without breaking it into crumb—pour boiling hot milk upon it, cover it over, and let it stand for five minutes, then apply the soaked bread over the gum-boil, letting it rest between the cheek and the gum.] ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... always remember every look, every gesture, and every intonation of his voice. 'Why, she has done all that a woman can do for a man like me. She has made me feel little. Until I had a rebuff from her, I had all the world at my feet, Lexman. I did as I liked. If I crooked my little finger, people ran after me and that one experience with her has broken me. Oh, don't think,' he went on quickly, 'that I am broken in love. I never loved her very much, it was just a passing passion, but she killed my self-confidence. ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... "You see, it was too large for my little finger too small for any of the others. And I was afraid of losing it if I kept it in my pocket. I was always losing things—shaving mirrors, socks, wrist watch. Going about like that one does. At least, I did. All over France I scattered my belongings. That's ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... rose to his feet, holding his right hand on a line with his shoulder, palm to the front, thumb resting on the nail of the little finger, and ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... its mother," and a like meaning attaches to the Chickasaw ilbak-ishke, Hichiti ilb-iki, while the Muskogees call the "thumb," the "mother of fingers." It is worthy of note, that, in the Bakairi language of Brazil, the thumb is called "father," and the little finger, "child," or "little one" (536. 406). In Samoa the "thumb" is named lima-matua, "forefather of the hand," and the "first finger" lima-tama, "child of the hand." In the Tshi language of Western Africa a finger is known as ensah-tsia-abbah, "little child of ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... speaks he holds out his little finger, and I pinches it, my daughter, till the colour dies out of his lips, though he keeps them set, for I delights to see the nobleness and the endurance of him. So I explains the patteran to him, and shows him ours with two bits of hawthorn laid crosswise, for ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... were, be given in proof that both races were valued alike. It is not, however, true, that cruelty was always unpunished. A man was severely flogged for exposing the ears of a boy he had mutilated; and another for cutting off the little finger of a native, and using it as a ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... age. Francis became a banker's clerk, and you took to literature and governessing and general popularity. By a very clever stroke you managed to induce Professor Romaine to marry you. He was fifty and you were twenty-four. You did very well for yourself—twisted him round your little finger, and got him to leave you all his money; but really I do not see how this could be said to be ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... indulged him in every way and was always telling him that he would be a king one day, when he might do as he liked in all things. He found out now that even a king cannot always do that; it vexed him and made him angry. His ring began to prick him so often that his little finger was continually bleeding. He disliked this, as was natural, and soon began to consider whether it would not be easier to throw the ring away altogether than to be constantly annoyed by it. It was such ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... in his eyes. I used to imagine that the "nobles" of whom Antonia was always talking probably looked very much like Christian Harling, wore caped overcoats like his, and just such a glittering diamond upon the little finger. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... to say that her little finger was exactly insertable in a ten-cent piece from which everything had been removed but the milling: removed with infinite loving patience by Mr. Rossiter, and at the expense of much history and philosophy and other less important things, in his college bedroom at New Haven. Honora wore it for a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... borderland of Canada and the States, stretched like a hand, the thumb and small finger of which belonged to the Dominion, the three digits, in between, to the sister country. Of course it was comparatively easy to bring merchandise, and what not, by way of the thumb and little finger and send the same forth by the three exits, known to Timothy Goodale as "furrin parts." Timothy was excessively British, as so many Canadians are, but he was a broad-minded man in his sympathies, and a friend to all—when it ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... still so long that at last she began to be afraid to move at all, and she got afraid even to crook up her little finger for fear it would pop off loud,—she had kept still so long that all her round little fingers and her round ...
— Somebody's Little Girl • Martha Young
... put a quieting arm about her. "Why, see here, Kippy," he said, "didn't you know It was afraid of me? Look how strong I am! I could kill It with my little finger." ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... man's thumb from the wrist: "Here are the mountains that shut out the country by the Big Sea where is San Felipe. I go there once, long time ago. My people live there." He indicated the space between the first and second joints of the thumb. Next he touched the base of the Seer's little finger. "Here is Rubio City." Then tracing the outer rim of the palm toward the wrist: "Here are the hills, and the railroad that the Senor made." His finger paused in the depression between the base of the thumb and the outer edge of the palm ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... said Athelstane, "be reasonable. The Lady Rowena cares not for me—she loves the little finger of my kinsman Wilfred's glove better than my whole person. There she stands to avouch it—Nay, blush not, kinswoman, there is no shame in loving a courtly knight better than a country franklin—and do not laugh ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... were not ruffled. Zoeth was mightily pleased and Mary-'Gusta was happy because he was. The plan of alternate Sundays was adopted. It was but one instance of the "managing" quality which the girl possessed. Isaiah declared that she wound all hands around her little finger, but even he seemed ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... he took the cap out of his pocket between his finger and thumb, a second quail rose. As cool and self-possessed as it is possible to conceive, Frank cocked the left hand barrel with his little finger, still holding the cap between his forefinger and thumb, and actually contrived to bring up the gun, some how or other, and to kill the bird, pulling the trigger ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... tried, though I confess I am surprised that she could have helped having a silly one; but Betty, why, there hasn't been a girl since I grew up with so much sense in her head as Betty Ambler has in her little finger." ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... eerie ride for Alonzo, whose feet were falling upon strange places. His pulses jumped and his eyes swam with the tears of unlawful speed, but his big ungloved hand tingled not with the cold so much as with the touch of that divine grey fur upon his little finger. ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... illusions, as if the organ of sight was the only point assailable by the influences that have fastened upon me—I know better. For two years in my direful case that limitation prevailed. But as food is taken in softly at the lips, and then brought under the teeth, as the tip of the little finger caught in a mill crank will draw in the hand, and the arm, and the whole body, so the miserable mortal who has been once caught firmly by the end of the finest fibre of his nerve, is drawn in and in, by the enormous machinery of ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... in his camps, harassing him at every turn. He can, you know. He has immense resources. Oh, well, I'm satisfied, Stella, that you're a much wiser girl than I thought when I knew you'd left Jack Fyfe. I'm quite sure now you aren't the sort of woman Monohan could wind around his little finger. But I'm sure he'll try. You'll see, and remember what I tell you. There, I think I'd better run along. You're not ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... asked Mr. Forester, smiling. "It's extraordinary the way the girls have of making their own tales good; isn't it, doctor? There's my Blanche now—she can simply twist me round her little finger, and make me say yes when I mean no, little ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... madcaps. With our trousers turned up to our knees, we exploited, artless fishermen that we were, the peaceful waters of the river, the Aveyron. What we hoped to catch was the Loach, no bigger than our little finger, but tempting, thanks to his immobility on the sand amid the waterweeds. We fully expected to transfix him with ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Here is a ready-made wedding and decorations and assembled guests, a minister on the spot and a state where no licence is required. You have a very pretty new dress on and you love me. I have a plain gold ring on my little finger that will fit you. Aren't all the conditions fulfilled? Where is the sense of waiting and having another family upheaval in a ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... four or five individuals. The sdines are roasted over a charcoal fire, and flavored with a sauce of lemon, pimento, and garlic. When there are no sdines, there are sure to be coulious in plenty,—small coulious about as long as your little finger: these are more delicate, and fetch double the price. With four sous' worth of coulious a family can have a superb blaffe. To make a blaffe the fish are cooked in water, and served with pimento, lemon, spices, onions, and garlic; but without ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... twenty-eighth of August and he should have gone to his home, Loring remained at the Point fascinated, for Miss Haight and her musical companion stayed at Cozzens through September. In October they were to go to Lenox, and before the parting Loring's ring was on that little finger. She had promised to be his wife. Home then he hurried in response to the pleading of his sister, but the moment the Lenox visit was over and Miss Haight returned to New York thither went Loring to find his fiancee at the piano, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... me. We are betrothed this three years, and I never regretted my choice a single moment. I never saw, I never shall see, the man I could bear to look on beside you, my beautiful George. Take my ring and my promise, George." And she put her ring on his little finger and kissed his hand. "While you are true to me, nothing but death shall part us twain. There never was any coolness between us, dear; you only thought so. You don't know what fools women are; how they delight to tease the man they love, and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Republicans—the 'better element,' an' all that. That means the rich guys—that have their own little grafts to work. This perfessor was a great friend of old Henry Lockman—an' the old man used to run this town with his little finger. But they had a big strike here three years ago, and too many men got hit over the head. So it'll be a long day before there's any ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... the Asiatic art of bargaining under a cloth. Both parties sit opposite each other, holding hands: if the little finger for instance be clasped, it means 6, 60, or 600 dollars, according to the value of the article for sale; if the ring finger, 7, 70, or ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... gasped Winona (Percy was squeezing her little finger nail in orthodox fashion and the agony was ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... electro-psychological communication is to take the individual by the hand, in the same manner as though you were going to shake hands. Press your thumb with moderate force upon the ulnar nerve, which spreads its branches to the ring and little finger. The pressure should be nearly one inch above the knuckle, and in range of the ring finger. Lay the ball of the thumb flat and particularly crosswise so as to cover the minute branches of this nerve of motion and sensation. When you first take your subject by the hand, request ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... whispered to himself a malediction upon the waters and the firmament, upon the ship, upon the men. Everything had betrayed him! He had been tricked into that sort of high-minded resignation which prevented him lifting as much as his little finger, while these others who had a very clear perception of the actual necessity were tumbling against each other and sweating desperately over that boat business. Something had gone wrong there at the last ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the whole house are now all mere cylinders of bark, and through the thickest of them you could push your little finger. The household furniture—in fact everything made of wood—has been attacked and utterly ruined. Indeed, the ants will gnaw through most substances except earthenware, glass, iron, and tin. So greatly are ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... yer. First he chops down a small tree, an' he makes a wedge with an edge erbout ther size o' yer little finger, an' he waits until ther tree breathes ergin. Then he slips ther wedge in, an' hammers ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... came a sudden interruption from Phina. The little finger of her left hand touched a G, and the fourth had, instead of falling on the key-note, rested on the "sensible," like Ralph in the "Huguenots," when he leaves at the end ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... immigration authorities, could have told him the meaning of that swelling, just as he could have told Dag Daughtry the meaning of the increasing area of numbness between his eyes where the tiny, vertical, lion-lines were cutting more conspicuously. Also, could he have told him what was wrong with the little finger on his left hand. Daughtry had first diagnosed it as a sprain of a tendon. Later, he had decided it was chronic rheumatism brought on by the damp and foggy Sun Francisco climate. It was one of his reasons for desiring to get away again to sea where the tropic sun would warm ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... run a-muck against society just now. I am too thoroughly out of my own good books. I have been for years laughing at Young England, and yet its little finger is thicker than my whole body, for it is trying to do something; and I, alas, am doing utterly nothing. I should be really glad to take a lesson of these men and their plans ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... his little finger a splendid diamond ring, which had attracted a good deal of attention, especially among the ladies; who admired it extremely, and of which Miss Stevens had hoped to be one day the happy and envied possessor. Taking Rose's small ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... up: she has eyes as black as a sloe," says he, "and cheeks like the rose in June; and sorra taste ov this celestial mixthir shall crass the lips ov man or morteal this blessed night till she stirs the same up wid her own delicate little finger." ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... counting employed by savages a considerable degree of uniformity has been observed. Not only does he use his fingers to assist him in his tally, but he almost always begins with the little finger of his left hand, thence proceeding towards the thumb, which is 5. From this point onward the method varies. Sometimes the second 5 also is told off on the left hand, the same order being observed as in the first 5; but oftener the fingers of the right hand are used, with a reversal ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... and a mother, possessed a clitoris which measured 21/2 inches when erect. Casanova described an inverted Swiss, woman, otherwise feminine in development, whose clitoris in excitement was longer than his little finger, and capable of penetration.[174] The older literature contains many similar cases. In most such cases, however, we are probably concerned with some form of pseudohermaphroditism, and the "clitoris" may more properly be regarded as a penis; there is ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... He took up the check and held it to the blaze. "Look out," he said, as Sawyer sprung to interfere. "Sit down." He took the cinders and wrapped them in a piece of paper, folding it neatly. "Give this to Mr. McElwin and tell him that I have cremated the little finger of his god, and send ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... bees and the voice of the speaker, had given herself up to that lazy condition of mind which is the next best thing to sleep, when she was suddenly aroused. She was seated between Miss Pinckney and Silas. Silas had pinched her little finger. ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... it, that shaky little finger?" Matt grinned into the face of the tortured man. "Now turn it aside, so, an' drop it, gently . . . gently . . . gently." His voice crooned away in ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... you thinke my Lords The King will suffer but the little finger Of this man to be vex'd? Cham. Tis now too certaine; How much more is his Life in value with him? Would I were fairely ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... G. Wilder, in his paper on extra digits,[188] has {181} recorded no less than twenty-four cases where such excess coexisted in both little fingers; also one case in which the right little finger and little toe were so affected; six in which it was both the little fingers and both the little toes; and twenty-two other cases more or less the same, but in which the details were not ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... and are placed directly above the angle of the mouth, or a third part of its whole length distant from the snout. It is very quick-sighted, as it is also quick of hearing. Its ears—small round holes, which will not admit a little finger—are placed directly behind the eyes. The fins, which, as I have said, might be called paws, are close to the angle of the mouth. I have known a female whale support her young on them; and they are used to balance the body, to steer by, and, when hard pressed, to sink with greater ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... nature or excellent copies here. As it was not a public day except to those who wished to attend for instruction, I ought not with propriety to have intruded, but "J'etais Anglois" and every attention was paid. You would have given a little finger to have seen the room; it was a hot summer's day, but there all was cool and fragrant; the windows opened on the gardens, the tables were covered with groupes of flowers in vases; the company, about 40, were seated up and down where ever they chose, each with ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... grateful coolness and moisture of those showers that they are tempted to set out on their travels, which they defer till those fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole state; but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will swarm for a few days with myriads of those emigrants, no larger than my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a most accurate account of the method and situation in which the male impregnates the spawn of the female. How wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard to the limbs of so vile a reptile! While ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... to touch her at this present, nor even to look upon her, except to take from her somewhat which shall serve as a token to me and a memorial of her; that some sign endure between me and her." Then Kamar al-Zaman raised the young lady's hand and took from her little finger a seal-ring worth an immense amount of money, for that its bezel was a precious jewel and around ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... that of many things that were in the cart: or I might have done so, and that comes to the same thing. There was an old lady's glove too: I wonder what that was thinking of? Shall I tell you? The glove was lying there, pointing with its little finger at the tree. 'I'm sorry for the tree,' it thought; 'and I was also at the feast, where the chandeliers glittered. My life was, so to speak, a ball-night: a pressure of the hand, and I burst! My memory keeps dwelling upon that, and I have really ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... he was to women, and what a danger he was to husbands; and how the devil would roast him in the other world for his immorality in this. He screwed up his eyes and remained silent, and when the names of ladies of their acquaintance were mentioned, he held up his little finger—as though to say they mustn't give away other ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... lidless, with something in their dark direct gaze like the unwinking glare of a snake. His apparel was unconventional, even for war-time, consisting of a worn brown suit with big pockets in the jacket, and a soft collar, with a carelessly arranged tie. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a ruby ring of noticeable ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... give me horses to ride, guns to shoot, and I'd get the girls besides. They looked rather greedily at me just now. How jealous poor old Emily is of them! She says I'd 'go to the end of the earth for them'—and would not raise a little finger for her. Dear old Emily, she wasn't a bit cross the other night when I wouldn't go home with her. I must go and see her. She says she loved me—really loved me! ... She used to lie and dream of pulling me out of burning houses. I wonder ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... forty thousand—the devil knows whose they are, these diamonds? And it isn't that I am merely convinced, but I know well, that for the happiness of this same Birdie, nay, not even for her happiness, but, let us suppose that Birdie gets a hangnail on her little finger—well then, in order that this hangnail might pass away—imagine for a second the possibility of such a state of things!—Anna Markovna, without the quiver of an eyelash, will sell into corruption our sisters and daughters, will infect all of us and our sons with syphilis. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... of the straight, young figure had quenched the fire of his wrath. Confound the boy! Did he think he could insult him as he had insulted him only that afternoon and then twist him round his little finger? He would have it out with him presently. He would have the truth and no compromise, if he had to wring it out of him. He would—Again the vision of those strong young shoulders, with red stripes crossing their gleaming white surface, rose before Sir Beverley. He swore a strangled oath. No, ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... bring your pan back safe. Now look! If you don't like to take money, I'll leave this ring with you until I come back. There!" He slipped a small specimen ring, made out of his first gold findings, from his little finger. ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... held the sceptre, and in the other the globe; and on both sides of her stood pages in two rows, all arranged according to their size, from the most enormous giant of two miles high to the tiniest dwarf of the size of my little finger; and before her stood earls and dukes in crowds. So the man went up to her ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... left ear with the left little finger, and then bite the lower lip, before shaking hands with anybody. I thought that I would go into an inn and try these signs on somebody (on the landlord if possible) and then ask his advice. An ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... wives, one of whom is childless, the other bears in succession seven sons and a daughter. The childless wife cuts off the little finger of each and takes them one by one into the forest, where they are brought up. An old woman comes one day and tells the daughter that if her brothers love her they will give her a bat. The girl cries to her brothers for a bat, and one of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... his clothes except one suit, and found himself richer than he had imagined. Having paid his landlord the trifle due for rent, without any other incumbrance than the packet of articles picked up in the trunk at sea, three pounds sterling in his pocket, and the ring of Madame de Fontanges on his little finger, Newton with his father set off on foot for ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fashionable suit of light gray tweed, a water-woven Panama with a wine-colored ribbon, a wine-colored scarf; several inches of wine-colored socks showed below his high-rolled, carefully creased trousers. There was a seal ring on the little finger of the left of a pair of large hands strong with the symmetrical strength which is got only at "polite" or useless exercise. Resting lightly between his lips was a big, expensive-looking Egyptian cigarette; the mingled odor of that and a delicate cologne scented the air. With a breeziness which ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... floor, in the center of a square of orange-colored matting, he saw a white woman sitting. She was drinking tea out of an egg-shell of a cup, and after putting down the cup she would carefully massage her lips with the point of her little finger. This movement puzzled the newcomer until he suddenly realized that it was merely to redistribute the rouge ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... to my conduct while there. I played for the princess, who was a thin, melancholy looking woman, and she seemed to enjoy it and thanked me quite graciously. A day or two afterward I received a package by messenger, and it was this little finger ring, a present from the prince and princess. I didn't like the prince, but the ring was very pretty and I have kept it, because the princess probably picked it out and it gave her pleasure to do so. His wife ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... been obliged to ask his government for distinct and official instructions. "He holds to his place," said he, "by so slight and fragile a root as not to require two hands to pluck him up, the little finger being enough. There is no doubt that he has been in concert with those who are making use of him to re-establish their credit with the States, and to embark Prince Maurice contrary to his preceding custom in a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to their rocks they were surprised to find them all cool and not at all hot as they had expected, and one of the Goblins, putting a pointed little finger on the side of his pointed nose said to the others: "I have a thought, and it is this: The Fireflies were not invited to our frolic and I wonder if they alighted on ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... Winsome; "I never had message or word with you in my life to give you a right to touch me with your little finger. Let me go, ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... his most valued possessions, which he had abandoned forever, and that they were now entirely hers, to do with as she liked, filled her with most intense delight and pleasure. She took up the heavy gold ring and placed it on the little finger of her left hand; it was much too large, and she removed it and balanced it for a moment doubtfully in the palm of her right hand. She was smiling, and her face was lit with shy and tender thoughts. She cast a quick glance to the left and right as ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... against nature in seeking to give equal power to each finger. On the contrary, each finger should have an appropriate part assigned it. The thumb has the greatest power, being the thickest finger and the freest. Then comes the little finger, at the other extremity of the hand. The middle finger is the main support of the hand, and is assisted by the first. Finally comes the third, the weakest one. As to this Siamese twin of the middle finger, some players try to force it with all their might ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to the bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human fingers in an artificial covering. However recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us, said humorous Stubb one day, he can never be ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... What will she say? Why, if I had a little boy and he couldn't go out into the sunshine, and he wanted to learn, I'd rather have Diantha's little finger to help him with than the whole of some folks. You ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... your pardon. Well ... you've no further proof. If you can't plant your thumb on the earth and your little finger on the pole star you know nothing of distances. We must do away with ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... and (I quote from the regulations of the English cavalry) "the top of the thumb firmly closed on them—the upper part of the arm hanging straight down from the shoulder—the left elbow lightly touching the hip—the lower part of the arm square to the upper—little finger on a level with the elbow—wrist rounded outwards—the back of the hand to the front—the thumb pointing across the body, and three inches from it." In this position we are taught that "the little finger of the bridle-hand has four ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... cushion, wrapped in a superb pelisse; on his head was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger encrusted with jewels, and on the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire which was said to have cost two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. In his left hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he twisted backwards and forwards during the greater part of the visit." "In ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... (whilst you shuffle) keepe him a little before, or a little behind, all the cardes lying vnderneath him, bestowing him (I say) eyther a little beyond his fellowes before right ouer the fore finger, or else behinde the rest, so as the little finger of the left hand may meete with it, which is the esier and the readier, and the better way: in the beginning of your shuffleing, shuffle as thick as you can, and in the end throw vppon the deck the nether carde, (with so many moe at the least as you ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... large loop which forms the thread round the fingers, and at the same time through the first stitch or loop of the foundation. Draw the needle out, retaining the loops on the fingers and dropping them off, the little finger being the last to release the thread. As the thread tightens and the knot is firm, the loop on the little finger should be drawn up quickly and smartly. The next stitches are precisely similar, and row upon row is formed in the same manner. Having learnt the stitch, the next task is to make ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... they talked 'im over. Those Frenchies, I've 'eard it said, 'ave got the gift of gab—and Mr. 'Empseed 'ere will tell you 'ow it is that they just twist some people round their little finger like." ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... very strange. Find a man with his sights? He could follow his target as though a magnetic power attracted his rifle. The weapon seemed to have a volition of its own. It drifted along with the canter of Bill Dozier. With incredible precision the little finger of iron inside the circle dwelt in turn on the hat of Bill Dozier, on his sandy mustaches, on his fluttering shirt. And Andy knew that he had the life of a man under the ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... in question are 'Old Believers,' but the difference between them and the orthodox consists merely in their not smoking tobacco, and in their making the sign of the cross with the thumb, the ring finger, and the little finger, while the orthodox Russians, on the other hand, make it with the thumb, the forefinger, and the middle finger. All Samoyeds are baptised into the orthodox faith, but they worship their old idols at the same time. They travel over a thousand versts as pilgrims to their sacrificial places. ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... exparience that ye niver can be—puff—sure o' nothin' in this—puff—remarkable country. Jist look at Darkey now," continued the Irishman, sitting down on a stone before the fire, which now began to kindle up, and stuffing the tobacco into his pipe with his little finger. "There he is, a livin' Naygur, a-liftin' of the provision-bag out o' the canoe. Well, if he was all of a suddent to turn into Marmoset, an' swaller himself, an' then jump down the throat of Grampus, and the whole ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... little Lily, never so like the lily before. Poor old Sally had laid early spring flowers on the white coverlet. A snow-drop lay by her pale little finger and thumb, just like a flower that has fallen from a child's hand it its sleep. He looked, at her—the white angelic apparition—a smile, or a ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... saying would have been merely impudent He used the word 'finer' in its literal sense, and meant only that a fashion of minuteness in investigation and in style had come upon us. There is a sense in which the dissector who makes a reticulation of the muscular and nervous systems of a little finger is a 'finer' surgeon than the giant of the hospitals whose diagnosis is an inspiration, and whose knife carves unerringly to the root of disease. There is a sense in which a sculptor, carving on cherrystones likenesses ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... waved his right hand three times, with the thumb and little finger sticking out. "You may rely on ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... not name the alleged thief.) This, the third, was made of twigs and fibres of bark,—or what looked like that,—and was strongly stayed to the rose stems, the largest of which was not bigger than my little finger, and most of ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... repeated, with a little chuckle. "If I had a month to train him in, eh, what a speakable Perk I'd make him! I'd make him into a Perk that would sit up and speak when I lifted my little finger." She considered this. "I'm not so sure," she concluded, more doubtfully. "How can one tell through those horrid glasses, particularly when one doesn't see him for ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... am sure I don't know how we should have paid our bill at the 'Rising Sun' but for the money he sends; but people must know very little about art if they can take him for my husband. Why, Miss, in the ball trick, where my husband spreads his fingers wide, and throws out his little finger with quite an air and a grace, Thomas just clumps up his hand like a fist, and might have ever so many balls hidden in it. Besides, he has never been in India, and knows nothing of the ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... approving his own sentiment, but not recognizing his own words. "Here's my mother's ring, on my little finger, sweet mistress. But I must ask you to draw it off, for I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... bite, I am sure—he'd give a joint of his little finger to be as well with her as I am. [Aside.] But here she comes! Charles, stand by me. Must not a man be a vain coxcomb now, to think this ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... put his pipe out by smothering it with his little finger, then got up and went to the clothes closet. He took down his ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... was mirthless as he turned back to the car, and picked up the glove. Why had she dropped it there? It could not have been intentional. Why had—he began to tear suddenly at the glove's little finger, and in another second, kneeling on the car's step, his shoulders inside, he was holding a ring close under the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... dear, with an eighteenpenny frilling round the neck and sleeves, and not so much trimming as would go round my little finger. It is positive robbery,' the matron told her friends afterwards, not the less proud of her skin-tight high shouldered sleeves and the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... attained in the street cars of Southern cities? Members of the different races occupy the same cars, separated only by absurdly inadequate little open-mesh wire screens, so tiny and light that a conductor can move them from one seat to another with the strength of his little finger. Needless to add, these screens would serve to obscure neither sound, sight, nor smell of drunken rowdies who sat behind them! In summer cars black and white passengers may be separated not even by a make-believe screen; they are simply required, respectively, to ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... ulnar nerves, e e. The superficial palmar arch of the ulnar vessel anastomoses with the deep arch of the radial vessel. The principal points of communication are, first, by the branch, (ramus profundus,) I, Plate 18, which passes between the muscles of the little finger to join the deep arch beneath the long flexor tendons. 2nd, by the branch (superficialis volae) which springs from the radial artery, A, Plate 17, and crosses the muscles of the ball of the thumb, to join the terminal branch of the superficial ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... have been lying only to this extent." And Chichikov marked off upon his little finger a ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and told the whole story; how every time she was brought to bed, the old Queen, the King's stepmother, had stolen into her at night, had taken her babes away, and cut her little finger, and smeared the blood over her mouth; and then the Princes took the King, and shewed him the snake-pit where three babes lay playing with adders and toads, and lovelier children ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... Ellin,' he said, 'Despise her not unto me; For better I love thy little finger, Than all her ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... girl, she is," said old Tozer. "Wind us all round her little finger, that's what she could do—leastways, except when there was principle in it, and there I stood firm. But I've done things for Phoebe as I wouldn't have done for no other breathing, and she knew it. I wouldn't give ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... seems hardly a doubt that exostoses on the legs, caused by too much travelling on hard roads, are inherited. Blumenbach records the case of a man who had his little finger on the right hand almost cut off, and which in consequence grew crooked, and his sons had the same finger on the same hand similarly crooked. A soldier, fifteen years before his marriage, lost his left eye from purulent ophthalmia, and his two sons were microphthalmic ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... reflect that while there were plenty of women who were eager to present him with silver cigarette-cases, blue and white flower-jars, and things of that kind, there was not one of them, as he believed, who would dip her little finger in a bottle of ink for his sake. More than that, which of them would herself have dared ridicule in order to save him from ridicule? And in what light should he regard this suddenly prompted action on her part, which seemed to him so bewildering at the time, but ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... own fault, though, but I couldn't help it. You must know, they all are ready to bow down to the ninety-ninth part of a Lord's little finger; and Miss Brown—that's the teacher—always reads all the fashionable intelligence as if it were the Arabian Nights, and imparts little bits to Miss Salter and her pets; and so it was that I heard, whispered across the table, the ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... jewelry, in the shape of a couple of yards of watch-chain, a huge seal ring on each little finger, and a flaring diamond ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... for frivolity, Rosina loves her nice lover {24} and is willing to be his own. Figaro has told her of Almaviva's love, and in return she gives him a note, which she has written in secret. But the old Doctor is a sly fox, he has seen the inky little finger, and determines to keep ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... case with the females; although the latter on the first day of our meeting them evinced a desire to cover their persons, they afterwards went about as naked as the men—but the female children wore a small fringe in front. The married women had lost the last joint of the little finger of the right hand—one had three half-caste children. The huts of these natives are of simple construction, yet comfortable enough, and perfectly waterproof—a framework of sticks in a dome-like form is covered with bark of the tea-tree ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... hour Flo and Do lay on the arm of poor Midge who never moved except to touch them now and then with a tender little finger, or to kiss them softly, saying, "Dear babies, it is very nice not to be all alone. Are you comfy, darlings?" till she ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... like a glittering wave under the gaslight, the stuffs of various and tempting colours display their brittle and heavy folds, while the young ladies behind the counter, with their hair dressed tapering to a point and with a ribbon beneath their collar, tie up the article, little finger in the air, or fill bags of moire into which the sweets fall like ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Grant that I may be only five years old. Rid me of my senses, rid me of my manhood. Let a miracle sweep away all the man that has grown up within me. You reign in heaven, nothing is easier to you than to change me, to rid me of all my strength so that evermore I may be unable to raise my little finger without your leave. I wish never more to feel either nerve, or muscle, or the beating of my heart. I long to be simply a thing—a white stone at your feet, on which you will leave but a perfume; a stone that will not move from ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... therefore, wait a little till he pauses; and then, you observe, put up your thumb to your nose, with the fingers of your hands spread out as before, and then add to it your other hand, by joining your other thumb to the little finger of the hand already up, and stretch your other hand and fingers out like the first. Then you will see the effects of the second sign. Do you think you can recollect all this? for, as I said before, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... unjust. It was not a pleasant thing for me to do, and I hated myself in the stooping to do it, but there was no other way for it, since he dared not come in the daylight, and I dared not go to him. Now I wish to God I had never troubled myself and never lifted my little finger to accomplish this thing for the cause, since spies have been going and coming between Dudhope and the north. What I did, I did for you and King James, and if I had succeeded ye would have praised me and said that a woman's wiles had won a regiment of horse. ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... lord, but then I behoved to forget that I am a lord's man, and that's not so easy. But, however," he added, assisting his description with the thumb and the two forefingers of his right hand, thrust out after the fashion of a bird's claw, while the little finger and ring-finger were closed upon the palm, "to the Court I went, and my friend that promised me a sight of his Majesty's most gracious presence, was as gude as his word, and carried me into the back offices, where I got ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... influence on the human system," returned the surgeon, knocking the ashes from his cigar, with the tip of a little finger, in the manner of an adept. "The connection is intimate between the moral and physical feelings; but still, to accomplish a cure, and restore nature to the healthy tone it has lost from disease or accident, requires more than can flow from unguided sympathies. In such cases, the lights—" the surgeon ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... man of good family—contracted a mesalliance: that is, he married the daughter of a Canadian farmer, a frank, amiable girl, bewitchingly pretty, with more character in her little finger than some girls possess in their whole body. I met him one day, some three months after his ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... realised that it was much too young a voice for a man who appeared—and must be, if he were the real 'Uncle Phil'—extremely old; but it was only when I saw his hand, and the peculiar knotted and twisted little finger that I really knew who he was. What's that? The soap? Well, of course I knew that if, as I suspected, someone in the house was the real culprit, an attempt would be made to make it look as though the criminal entered ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... says, in a voice that rises as fast as the sound a mouse makes racing up the treble of the piano keys: 'Ump! whew! Didn't I tell you so? The minute my back was turned, of course you made ducks and drakes of all your promises. Show me a "Flying Jenney," that the tip end of any idiot's little finger can spin around, and I'll christen it Edward McTwaddle Singleton!' Seems funny to you, doctor? Just wait till you are married, and your Susan shuts the door and interviews you, picking a whole flock of crows, till you wonder if it isn't raining black feathers. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... ever dined with him I was really ashamed to go home with my dinner favor—it was so gorgeous! And there were such big bunches of violets in the finger bowls there wasn't room for your little finger. ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... creeps to another part of the lodge; where a savage sits in grim silence awaiting his coming. In his hand is a hatchet, and immediately in front of him is a dried buffalo skull. The sufferer draws near, and, holding up the little finger of his left hand, makes a short speech, and calling upon the Great Spirit to witness his self-sacrifice, unflinchingly lays the doomed finger on the skull. One quick, sharp stroke by the Indian who wields the hatchet and the finger ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... dangerous advantages, which only become so many causes of perdition. But I conjure you, my dear sir, let us talk of something else: this subject is too painful," said M. Rodin, with a voice of deep emotion, lifting the tip of his little finger to the corner of his right eye, as if to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... and sing 'I am but a Poor Blind Boy,' in the hope that our birds would call him in and give him a drink. He hadn't been at it five minutes before a fiery, red-headed little potman had knocked him head over heels in the gutter and told him to go away. Bill could have broken the chap in two with his little finger, but he daren't do anything. He came over to me and I sent him back again. This time he did get invited inside. And there he stayed for a full hour, while the witness and I stood shivering and wet and miserable in the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... night, "ah, well-a-day! you know not how to choose a man. An I could choose for you, Jule! By God's lady, there's Signior Mercutio, a brave gentleman, a merry gentleman, and a virtuous, I warrant ye, whose little finger-joint is worth all the body of this blackbird prince, dropping down from Lord knows where to fly off with the sweetest bit of flesh in Verona. ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... disarranged and torn, as if he had passed through a struggle to his death. The hands, puffed and shapeless, floated on the water, as if to balance the body. They seemed almost to move in an effort to keep the body afloat. And on the little finger of the left hand there was a great ring of gold with a red stone set in it, like a ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... sight, that giant snake lying there full length, while around it gathered six Amazon Indians and the one solitary New Yorker, here in the woods about as far from civilisation as it is possible to get. I proceeded to take measurements and used the span between my thumb and little finger tips as a unit, knowing that ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... little finger a trifle, that's all," was the reply. The finger smarted quite some, but Dick did not want to ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... seventeenth century were "tobacconists" in the old sense of the word. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have smoked immoderately; and a familiar anecdote represents him as using for the purposes of a tobacco-stopper, in a fit of absent-mindedness, the little finger of a lady sitting beside him, whom he admired, but the truth of this legend is open to doubt. Thomas Hobbes, who lived to be ninety (1588-1679), was accustomed to dine at 11 o'clock, after which he smoked a pipe and then lay down and took a nap of about half an hour. ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... fireside tricks was thus: He put his hands together, so: (illustration). "Now de' tumbs is you and your fader, de first finger is you and your mudder, ze next is you and your sister, ze little finger is you and your brudder, ze ring finger is you and your sweetheart. You and your fader separate easy, like dat; you and your brudder like dat, you and your sister like dat, dat's easy; you and your mudder like dat, dat's not so easy; but you and ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... tay you mane, sir?—I guess, to make tay, in the first place I must ab water, and in the next must ab room in the galley to put the kettle on—and 'pose you wanted to burn the tip of your little finger just now, it's not in the galley that you find a berth for it—and den the water before seven bells. I've a notion ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Lentulus scornfully. "I have but to lift my little finger, and my freedmen and slaves would kick your decuries, and yourself after them ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... of laughter at this, and West coloured a little more deeply with annoyance, but Ingleborough shrugged his shoulders, turned his little finger into a ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... lip underrateing him? . . . When a lady's lip is erratically disdainful, it suggests a misuse of a copious treasury, deserving to be mulcted, punished—how?—who can say?—that little man, now that little man, with a lift of his little finger, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sitting. "Here's pith!" said Gibson. "Pith!" said the other in chorus, and they nodded to each other in amity, primed glasses up and ready. And then it was eyes heavenward and the little finger uppermost. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... they be the smallest-boned pigs as ever could be—they bean't got a bone bigger nor your little finger." ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... (undressed is the best), and two pounds of beef or veal, a carrot, a large onion with four cloves stuck in it, one head of celery, a bundle of parsley, lemon-thyme, and savoury, about as big round as your little finger, when tied close, a few leaves of sweet basil (one bay-leaf, and an eschalot, if you like it), a piece of lemon-peel, and a dozen corns of allspice;[195-*] pour on this half a pint of water, cover it close, and let it simmer gently on a slow fire for half an hour, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... pawns, have assumed the bored and callous air of a remnant that has fought too long and is called upon to fight again. The Colonel has just unceremoniously pushed his sovereign to the rear with a flick of his nervous irritated little finger. His opponent can obviously bring him to his knees in two moves. Instead of which the Adjutant brazenly commences with massed bands and colours flying to execute a masterly tactical advance with the whole of his command—cavalry, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... out a net and seine them. We'll go down to the long hole now and see what we can do, and Wing will come as soon as he gives the men their dinner. If there is a fish in the creek you can depend on Wing to lure him. He just goes out and crooks his little finger and they begin to hunt for the hook," ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... was the mistake. They never sent me. Father loved me too much and he wanted to keep me always with him. He tried to teach me himself but I never learnt anything. I always knew I could turn them round my little finger. I always knew he'd rather do anything than make me unhappy. Sometimes we had lovely times together, sitting in the dusk in the front of the fire. Do you know, Maggie, I've never changed in my love for father? I've changed in everything else, but in that never. Yet I've hurt ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole |
