"Tell on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the fact that the fibre of her nature was exceptionally strong, her experience of this last hour had removed the most part of the oppression that had weighed her down for more than a twelvemonth—the doubt as to which way a discovery of his past would tell on her husband's love for her. She had no feeling now but anxiety on his behalf, and this really helped her towards facing the situation calmly. All things do that take ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... trips. We are, aren't we?" cried the happy Mother, hugging the little ugly dog in her arms. "And they won't know;—they can't laugh at us. We'll never let them know we couldn't bear it another minute, will we? The Boy sha'n't tell on us." ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... "'Tell on,' said he, when the girl had put a spray bearing three blossoms into his buttonhole. 'Is it anything you want ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... fully, as I conceive, These materials of Prelacy are ordination." Remember you said, "many materials of Prelacy." I beseech you, Sir, How many is ordination? Ordination, ordination, ordination; tell on till you think you have made many materials; and, withal, tell us (if this be the meaning, that ordination should be retained without any power of ecclesiastical government in the ministry) how was it imaginable that he could hereby satisfy that scruple which then he spoke to, viz., the scruple ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... flash of interest, "they's a queer thing about that. Now, lad, mark you! 'tis easy enough t' send messages Aloft; but when it comes t' gettin' a line or two o' comfort t' the poor damned folk Below, they's no mortal way that I ever heared tell on. Prayer," says he, "wings aloft, far beyond the stars, t' the ear o' God Hisself; an' I wisht—oh, I wisht—they was the same sort o' telegraph wire t' hell! For," said he, sadly, "I've got some news that I'd ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... always afraid it is an accident, and so with the things I don't know in my own household. I always fancy them worse than they are. There are so many things one can imagine when one doesn't KNOW, and now I fancied everything. Such things, I think, tell on older people more than on younger ones, and at last I went to my room and kept there most of the time, reading William James's Varieties of Religious Experience. It is an excellent work in many ways. I am told it is given in sanitariums for nervous people to read, for the purpose ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... his supper in silence. He could not tell on Ferdy; that would not be "square." He consulted his mentor, his chief, ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... "You'll not tell on me, sir, but it's only right you should know as Mrs. Smith" (the house-keeper, of whom Dare stood in mortal terror) "has them fine damask table-cloths out for the house-keeper's room; I see 'em myself; and everything going ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... watching the track ahead as the great engine stormed around the curves and up the grades. The struggle against odds was beginning to tell on him. The building of this new line, the opening of the new country, was the real end for which all the planning and scheming in the financial field had been only the necessary preliminaries. For himself he had craved nothing but the privilege of building the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... powers. Beef cattle, that is, four year old long horns differ greatly from other cattle in their travel. The first day after being put out on the trail they will travel twenty-five miles without any trouble then as the pace begins to tell on them they fall back to fifteen or twenty miles a day, and there also seems to be an understanding among the cattle themselves that each must take a turn at leading the herd, those that start in the lead in the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... and tear was beginning to tell on me. I was feeling fagged out. But to-morrow His Majesty was sailing again for England. That night, through a member of the Headquarter Staff, I enquired of Colonel Wigram if it was at all possible for me to accompany ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... Then there tell on the silence and stillness of the room the sound of a strong heart's sobs, as Dick, in spite of all his manliness, laid his head on the table and wept ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... answered fretfully, for the suspense began to tell on his nerves. "I would rather know the worst and face the worst than be left to worry over these hints. Has the trouble to do with ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... soon intervened, and Lieutenant Ninnis and Dr. Mertz, who travelled out by the 'Aurora' in charge of the sledging-dogs, had their time fully occupied, for the wet conditions began to tell on their charges. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... fool, do you s'pose dese darkies would tell on me? Ef dey would, dar word ain't 'lowed in de law; so you trabble. I don't keer ter handle you, but I shill ef you don't leab widin ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to understand just what worry is. It is always an advantage to get an enemy clearly defined and keep it so, so you can hit it harder, and make every blow tell on a vital part ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... is with him now, and has watched every night since Arthur's return. I never saw any one so changed, or else we didn't understand him. He is tireless in his strength, and womanly in his patience. His vigils are beginning to tell on him sadly, but he says that he will not give up till the crisis is past. If Arthur lives he will owe his life largely to one who, last summer, appeared too indolent to think of anything but his own pleasure. How we often misjudge people! They were boys and playmates together, and ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... charming; now she is full of scorn and hatred of England. She says the Englishmen were arrested because they were heard to say that German papers were "full of lies." "So they are," said I, "and you can go now and get me arrested too." "Oh, no," said she, "I would not tell on you!" In spite of her magnanimity I cannot think our interview was a success. We argued until I said, "If we are to remain friends, we must not discuss the war. I cannot think England wrong, and as a loyal German you think Germany right. Don't let us talk ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... cloud before the sun! Many more would have worked than we employed, but we used the precaution of taking the names of those engaged. The tall men became exhausted soonest, while the shorter men worked vigorously still—but a couple of days' hard work seemed to tell on the best of them. It is doubtful if any but meat-eating people can stand long-continued labour without exhaustion: the Chinese may be an exception. When French navvies were first employed they could not do a tithe of the work of our English ones; but when ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... 'eerd tell on Christ?" the old man asked in measured machine-like tones. "I thowt ivery one know'd on 'im. Why, what religion ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... the main objeck of the members is not to get cougt and evry feller whitch is a member must agree never to betray enny other feller if he gets cougt himself and is licked to maik him tell. and enny feller whitch does tell on another member will be maid to eet a live toad and 4 angel wirms. it is no xcuse if he does it under terible tortures sutch as shaking hands with a pensil between your fingers or putting musterd on your tung or licking you with a bed slot in ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... together. I don't want—at least, I don't want to want—to know anything about Peter Storm that he doesn't wish known. But Ed Caspian will know if possible. I do wonder what the mystery can be, don't you? I shall write again almost at once, whether I have any more to tell on this subject or not. I can't stop long in the middle of ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... he found he lay Between the opposing fires, but could not tell On which hand were his friends; and either way For him to turn was chancy—bullet and shell Whistling and shrieking over him, as the glare Of searchlights scoured the darkness to blind day. He scrambled to his hands and knees ascare, Dragging his wounded ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... Mi. Tell on; there is nothing I should like better. Indeed, if I were given my choice between hearing your story, and having my late dream of riches over again, I don't know which I should decide on. 'Twas a sweet vision, of joys above ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... for the slaughter. But the world thought she was set at liberty, and, as her barge passed under the bridge, Mary heard with indignation, from the palace windows, three salvoes of artillery fired from the Steelyard, as a sign of the joy of the people. Vexations began to tell on Mary's spirit. She could not shake off her anxieties, or escape from the shadow of her subject's hatred. Insolent pamphlets were dropped in her path and in the offices of Whitehall. They were placed by mysterious hands in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... saying a word. 'Dear Grandma! She won't tell on us for throwing stones at her,' said Daisy to herself. 'Then I'll tell, that's what I'll do!' she added ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... name. Surely the acknowledgment of a mental debt which will not be immediately detected, and may never be asserted, is a case to which the traditional susceptibility to "debts of honour" would be suitably transferred. There is no massive public opinion that can be expected to tell on these relations of thinkers and investigators—relations to be thoroughly understood and felt only by those who are interested in the life of ideas and acquainted with their history. To lay false claim to an invention or discovery which has an immediate market value; to vamp up a ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... it to be always so? Was he to pass out of the world into eternity thus—thrilling the hearts of those who heard him with bitterest agony? No; there came a change. Another day, the remedies had begun to tell on the patient. The fever gradually left him. The fire had faded from his eye, the hectic from his cheek. And now father and mother, one on either side, bent over him. Lady Oldfield read from the blessed Book the parable of the Prodigal Son. ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... not tell a falsehood. He took the shoes and hid them in the trunk room. I caught him doing it, but I thought it was only a joke, and so kept silent. Then, after you fellows rescued me from the hole in the snow, I made Nat send the shoes back. At first I was going to tell on him, but, somehow, I didn't want ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... and had everything happen to him that German science had discovered was useful to exterminate the lesser races, and it finally begun to tell on him, hardened as he was by fighting from the cradle up, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... excitement made his head ache between the eyes and spoiled his appetite for dinner. He had vowed again and again that he would not go to the races; but as the day wore on and the solitude of the club became oppressive and the silence of the Avenue began to tell on him, he changed his mind, ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... it out," he advised. "If she got on to this! But I'll never tell on you, Matilda." He patted her shoulder assuringly. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... this sumpshus counterpane for four days. Me son, I begin to ondherstand why the naygur is no use. Widout me boots, an' me trousies like an openwork stocking on a gyurl's leg at a dance, I begin to feel like a naygur-man—all fearful an' timoreous. Give me a pipe an' I'll tell on.' ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... my piece about the good house mother had seemed to tell on my little audience. Marianne had nestled close to her mother, and laid her head on her knee; and though Jenny sat up straight as a pin, yet her ever busy knitting was dropped in her lap, and I saw the glint of a tear in her quick, sparkling eye,—yes, actually ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the Dodge case was beginning to tell on me, for it was keeping us at work at all kinds of hours to circumvent the Clutching Hand, by far the cleverest criminal with whom Kennedy had ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... once, the short upper-lip closed firmly on the lower one. For some minutes amazed anger with Maurice was all she felt. Then, however, came the knowledge of what his words meant: he knew—Maurice knew; he had seen through her fictions; he would tell on her; there would be dreadful scenes with Joan; there would be reproaches and recriminations; she would be locked up, or taken away. As for what lay beyond, his assertion that Schilsky had been there—had been and gone, without a word to her—that ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the great world are flung open to the college graduate, has undergone but little modification in a thousand years, and has become very well known to all collegians long before they take their degree. To make the parting words of warning and encouragement tell on ears that are now eager for other and louder sounds, everything that can be done needs to be done to preserve their freshness and their pathos, and certainly nothing could do as much to deprive them of both one and the other as hashing them up annually in a slovenly report ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... place was indeed good news. I thanked Nielsen. And Doyle appeared immensely relieved. The packing and carrying had begun to tell on us. Pups ingratiated himself into my affections. He found out that he could coax meat and biscuit from me. We had three axes and a hatchet; and these we did not pack in the wagon. When Doyle finally got the teams started Lee and Nielsen ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... spar and he tied me to it and we floated and floated and floated until a big ship passed us and brought us here." She spoke between bites, very calmly, as though her tale, as thrilling as any of Samuel's dream adventures, was no uncommon story for a dainty little maid to tell on a spring morning. ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... the Willards of the new letter. The strain had begun to tell on Alma, and her father had had her quietly taken to a farm of his up in the country. To escape the curious eyes of reporters, Halsey Post had driven up one night in his closed car. She had entered it quickly with her ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Walter Wells'— But he had been caught and shut up in the attic, where his father gave him a chance to recollect that it is cruel to torment animals—but it really had been Walter's fault, only he wasn't going to tell on him—and then, after he had been alone, he had knocked his head against the wall in his rage at the injustice of ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... tell on me, Comtesse! [He thinks it out.] They had just guessed I would be firm because they know I'm a strong man. You little saw, Maggie, what a good turn you were doing me when you said you wanted to make another copy ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... it was; but refrain thee, that I may tell on my tale! The ship and the sea vanished away, but I was not back in the hall of the Golden House; and again were we three in the street of the self-same town which we had but just left; but somewhat dim was my vision thereof, and I saw little save the door ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... story which Lord Houghton used to tell on the subject was that after his father had refused the place in the Ministry pressed upon him by Mr Perceval, he sent to the friend with whom he had made the bet (whose name had never transpired) a copy of Mr Perceval's letter, and a cheque for L100. See The ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... wanted to tell on him I should have told long ago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his ease. As if anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who would believe me if I ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... some urgent duty as host; and, in fact, several like interruptions occurred in the course of an hour. But in each case the imperturbable colonel returned with the same hearty words upon his lips: "Now, gentlemen, let's take a drink, and then I'm ready to talk." Then as the smooth brandy began to tell on the deacons, they gradually modified their estimate of the landlord's sins and their personal duty, until at length one of them rose from his chair and turning to the other said: "Waal, I guess Col. Balcom ain't the wust sort o' man in the ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... gave himself up. "It was I who damaged the machine the first time. But not after that. Now you will have to tell on me, Hoeflinger. Did you not know it? Why am I to ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... dropping behind Black Boy. Pawnee is in the lead, Fanny D. is second, Lightfoot is third, and now Black Boy has pushed ahead of Nemo! Ha! ha! ha! Everything is all right! Hogan has done his work, and the stuff is beginning to tell on Merriwell's racer at just the right time. We'll send the fellow back to Yale penniless, and then I will jump on him with his paper. I'll expose him as a race-track gambler, a fraud, a swindler! I'll ruin his college career, as he ruined mine! But I'll not be satisfied then. I'll hound him till ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... with me of old friends and past times, we warmed ourselves into a wish, that all who remained of the club should meet and dine at the house which once was Horseman's, in Ivy-lane. I have undertaken to solicit you, and therefore desire you to tell on what day next week you can ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... eager feet toward the forum, this youth plunged into the fields and forests, and with a lover's passion for his noble mistress gave himself to roots and seeds and flowers. While he was still a child he would tell on what day in March the first violet bloomed; when the first snowdrop came, and, going back through his years, could tell the very day in spring when the first robin sang near his window. Soon the boy's collection of plants appealed to the wonder of scholars. ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... a good deal relieved. He was clearly a being of extraordinary powers, and might, for anything I knew, have made me run away with Lady Perilous. And then, when the pangs of remorse began to tell on her ladyship, never a very lively woman at the best of times—However, the spectre seemed to have thought ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... of smaller streams by dams, and the pursuit of the fish with nets and other implements, had already begun to tell on their number; but it was not until the present century that the industrial activities of the country began to seize upon the water power of the larger rivers and to interrupt in them by lofty dams the ascent of salmon ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various
... you and vex you, Distract and perplex you; False-hearted and ranging, Unsettled and changing, What then do you think, she is like? Like sand? Like a rock? Like a wheel? Like a clock? Ay, a clock that is always at strike. Her head's like the island folks tell on, Which nothing but monkeys can dwell on; Her heart's like a lemon—so nice She carves for each lover a slice; In truth she's to me, Like the wind, like the sea, Whose raging will hearken to no man; Like a mill, like a pill, Like a flail, like a whale, Like an ass, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... of himself are equally placed to the discredit of his account. They seem to think a man could never accuse himself except he were in the wrong; therefore if ever he excuses himself, he is the more certainly in the wrong: whatever point may tell on the other side, it ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... off, but I wouldn't tell on him. He run off to join the Yankees. They never found him, although, they used the nigger dogs, who were taken out by men who were looking ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... who were mostly young and well acquainted with the house and its hospitality, there was one unique figure,—that of the lively Miss Strange, who, if personally unknown to Miss Driscoll, was so gifted with the qualities which tell on an occasion of this kind, that the stately young hostess hailed her presence with very ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... said he, "and finer folk live in it than I ever thought on, or ever heerd tell on except in th' storybooks. They are having their good things now, that afterwards ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to say during slavery times. She was cooking for her mistress and had a family. She'd hide good things to take to her children. The mistress kept a polly parrot about in the kitchen. Polly would tell on grandma. Caused grandma to get whoopings. She talked like a good many of 'em. She got sick. The woman what married grandma's brother was to take her place. She wasn't going to be getting no whoopings. She sewed the parrot up. He got to dwindling. They doctored him. She clipped his tongue at ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... hour passed in this way. The strain was beginning to tell on some of the boys, for they felt that it was necessary to keep keyed up to a high tension all the time. They did not know at what moment loud yells would indicate that the battle had been resumed ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... and renewed murmuring ensued, and the sound of high voices in dispute. Then the mass divided into two wings and slowly encircled the fence of fire; starting noisily and confidently, and then going more slowly, quietly, warily, as the silence of the flame began to tell on their heated nerves. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... motive was a different one. I had an idea the strain would soon tell on him—or Ida. ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... the sea-wall I looked round a second time. My pursuer was now only about thirty yards distant, but it was evident that his efforts had begun to tell on him. He again shouted out some breathless advice to the effect that it would be "best" for me to surrender, but without waiting to argue the point I scrambled up the bank and cast a hurried, anxious glance ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... morning to call upon Aristo; yet he would not allow that he was doing wrong. He recurred to the pleasant imagination that Callista would certainly become a Christian, and dwelt pertinaciously upon it. He could not tell on what it was founded; he knew enough of his religion not to mean that she was too good to be a heathen; so it is to be supposed he meant that he discerned what he hoped were traces of some supernatural influence operating upon her mind. He had a perception, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... from their fell repast, That sinner wip'd them on the hairs o' th' head, Which he behind had mangled, then began: "Thy will obeying, I call up afresh Sorrow past cure, which but to think of wrings My heart, or ere I tell on't. But if words, That I may utter, shall prove seed to bear Fruit of eternal infamy to him, The traitor whom I gnaw at, thou at once Shalt see me speak and weep. Who thou mayst be I know not, nor how here below ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... man laid a hand on her shoulder, looking down at her with accusing eyes. "Hain't you known me long enough to know I couldn't tell on any one who'd been good to—" He broke off with a cough. "And what's more, do you think any one who could take our little boy's hand and lead him, as you might say, straight to heaven—would ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... simply, with a curious mixture of ruefulness and defiance. Then he added: "If you want to be mean enough to tell on a feller, after he's been the means of your having such a supper as that (and you were hungry, too; you needn't say you wasn't; you ate an awful lot yourself), ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... drew near for us to go back, I began to experience a feeling of depression. While I had not noticed it before, I suppose the cumulative effect of the experiences of the last eight months was beginning to tell on me. I noticed that Bouchard appeared to be in about the same condition. He would sometimes sit for an hour or more, in our room at the Cecil, gazing into space, never uttering a word. Poor boy, while of course he could not know that this was to be his ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... tell on you? Yup; that's what I mean. You get rid of Thomas and squelch that law case, and I'll keep mum. You can trust ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... volumes of their titles and then cast them away. But he lived a long while ago, when the value and rarity of many of these things were not so generally understood, and there were not customers all over the Old and New Worlds as many as one can tell on one's fingers to take an early book, if it was offered to them. Even now it not seldom happens that an exceedingly interesting signature or note accompanies an item worth only so much per lb., and your connoisseur in the autograph surrenders all but his portion to its destiny. Who can gainsay ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... fired sharp right and left behind his shoulder. Again he charged with a terrific trumpet, which sent "Sunday" flying through the forest. This was his last charge. The wounds which he had received began to tell on his constitution, and he now stood at bay beside a thorny tree, with the dogs barking around him. These, refreshed by the evening breeze, and perceiving that it was nearly over with the elephant, had once more come to my assistance. Having loaded, I drew near ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... I don't tell on you," said the other,—a dark miss with roguish eyes and fat, plump figure, and curls that shook ever ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... age, for either would be a clue to his chance of carrying the tale against us down the valley there. He seemed tremendous sharp and wicked lying yonder looking at us, and I was in a sweat all night for fear he would be out and tell on us. But so far he's under the same roof ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... informed us that the British were attacking the town. With an optimism that now seems marvellous, we never for a moment doubted that the enemy would be driven back, and that we would at last be able to take a little repose, for twelve hours daily in the saddle was beginning to tell on us. Quite cheerfully we rode down to the village, listening to the music of the bursting shells and the lively rattle of the small-arms. Suddenly a cloud of Boers issued from a kopje to our right, and slowly retreated across our front. ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... Chinaman I know who used bad-sounding fancy names. Most of them are flowery. As you'll see in Calcutta.) We used to find that out for ourselves. Nothing grows on you so much, if you're white, as the Black Smoke. A yellow man is made different. Opium doesn't tell on him scarcely at all; but white and black suffer a good deal. Of course, there are some people that the Smoke doesn't touch any more than tobacco would at first. They just doze a bit, as one would fall asleep naturally, ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... the inside to make the grain closer: I've heerd tell on that dodge. If you warn't so far from the "Corner," we could fix our sugar together, an' make but one bilin' of it, for you'll want a team, an' you don't know nothin' about maples.' Zack's eyes were askance upon Robert. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... while waiting for overseas service he was intent on recruiting all over Canada. He went over in command of the Second Contingent from Canada, but the tremendous strain of his forty years of service began to tell on his once powerful physique, and to his deep disappointment he was prevented from leading his men in the field. In recognition of his services to the Empire he received Knighthood and a Major-Generalship, which represented a long and strenuous ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... thee, O king, I will relate unto thee [somewhat] of that which befell kings of old time of the perfidy of their women and of the calamities which overtook them by reason of these latter." "How so?" asked the king. "Tell on." "Hearkening and obedience,"answered Shehrzad."It hath been told me, O king, that a man once related to a company ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... No! no! It's simply the country town beginning to tell on him. He is curious about new guests, and Miss Carrington hadn't mentioned your coming! He suggested, in a vague sort of way, that there was something familiar about you, but he didn't attempt to particularize. It was ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... about ten miles of the way; and, though age has since begun to tell on them, I shall ever remember them in their pride and strength as they galloped alongside our wagons down the long slopes of the Spanish Peaks in ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... at the mill. We got up in there with our feet. They had to wash out the troughs. It was a wood house. It was a big mill. He sold that good syrup in Atlanta. It wasn't sorghum. The men at the mill would scare us but we hid around. They come up to the house and tell on us. ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... "Oh, I couldn't tell on a girl, sir," he answered, and then his smothered injury burst forth; "but she ought to be ashamed of ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Hardy is rather stooped from rheumatism. Nelly is now the chief personage in the family: Lydia and Jane are nowhere beside her. They are good-humored, bouncing girls; but they are certainly not brilliant. I hope it is not Aunt Dora's walnut table that is broken. Was it not mean of Parson's man to tell on Armande? I think, since you have plenty of loose cash, we might venture on a set of those curtains we saw at Protheroe's, for the drawing-room. I can easily use the ones that are ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... going to meeting to-day," chuckled the naughty boy, "and I don't believe grandma'd ever tell on me if I carried along ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... kings used to come and hunt near Petra, and brag about it afterward; after you have well discounted the lies they made their sculptors tell on huge stone monoliths when they got back home, they remain a pretty peppery line of potentates. But for imagination, self-esteem, ambition, gall, and picturesque depravity they were children—mere chickens—compared to the modern gentleman ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... look in his eyes that I suppose I ought to have understood, but I can scarcely blame myself, for the accumulated strain, not only of the last three days and nights, but of the whole arduous month of my cruise with Davies, was beginning to tell on me, now that safety and success were at hand. I handed up the chart through the companion, and then crept into the reeling fo'c'sle and lay down on the spare sail-bags, with the thunder and thump of the seas ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... are other reasons which militate against the idea of the final success of the Colony. The Syrian climate is not adapted to Europeans, and year by year it must infallibly tell on the Germans, exposed as they are to sun and miasma. It is true that Haifa is, perhaps, the healthiest place in Palestine, yet even here they suffer from fever and dysentery, and if they should attempt to spread inland, they will find their ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... are different in the result from the expectation. Age, illness, an increasing family, no family at all, household cares, want of means, isolation, incompatible prejudices, quarrels, social difficulties, and such like, all tell on married people, and make them far other than they once promised to be." When that awakening comes there is only one solace, and women take to that supreme solace much more often than men. And that solace, as you all know, ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... thus to operate not ineffectually for the relief and renovation of a continent over which one tide of misery has swept without ebb and without restraint for unremembered centuries. It is ours, if we will, to do something that shall tell on all the coming ages of a race which has been persecuted and enslaved, trodden down and despised, for a thousand generations. Our Father has made us the almoners of his love. He has raised us to partake, as it were, in the ubiquity of his own beneficence. Shall we be unworthy of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... and health? In the struggle it would have a better chance of surviving; and those of its offspring which inherited the variation, be it ever so slight, would also have a better chance. Yearly more are bred than can survive; the smallest grain in the balance, in the long run, must tell on which death shall fall, and which shall survive. Let this work of selection on the one hand, and death on the other, go on for a thousand generations, who will pretend to affirm that it would produce no effect, when we remember what, in a ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... "some persons work with their hands, and some with their heads, and some with their hearts. Abraham's head is always at work—he isn't like most other boys. And as far as his heart—Well, I do love that boy, and I am his step-mother, too. He's always been so good to me that I love to tell on't. His father, I'm thinkin', is rather hard on him sometimes. Abe's heart knows mine and I know his'n, and I couldn't think more on him if he was my own son. His poor mother sleeps out there under the great trees; but I mean to be such a mother to him that ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... supper-table the personification of quiet geniality, but Amy thought she had never seen him look so hollow-eyed. The long strain was beginning to tell on him, decidedly, and to-night he felt as if he had received a mortal blow. But with indomitable courage he hid his wound, and seemed absorbed in a conversation with Leonard and his father about ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... civilization we may have to tell on him though," remarked John. "Don't you think we'll ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... horrid sight, and Cherry was terribly frightened lest they should all come to life suddenly, and set on her and tear off her limbs too. She told Aunt Prudence, "she was mortal fear't of 'em, for she'd heard tell on 'em up to Zennor, and everybody said there was never no knowing what they wouldn't be up to. She'd thought all along that she'd got in with the Little People, only her master was such a fine upstanding man, she'd never have took him for ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... many other words of Scripture which carry the same thought, that he who has fellowship with God, and lives in the constant reception of the supernatural life and grace which come from Jesus Christ, possesses the secret of perpetual youth. The world ages us, time and physical changes tell on us all, and the strength which belongs to the life of nature ebbs away, but the life eternal is subject to no laws of decay and owes nothing to the external world. So we may be ever young in heart and spirit. It is possible for a man to carry the freshness, the buoyancy, the elastic ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... wears out, and that when a thing's worn out it's for good and all. I think it's reasonable to suppose that when I wear out it will be for good and all, too. There isn't anything of us, as I look at it, except the potentiality of experiences. The experiences come through the passions that you can tell on the fingers of one hand: love, hate, hope, grief, and you may say greed for the thumb. When you've had them, that's the end of it; you've exhausted your capacity; you're used up, and so's your character,—that often dies ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... amiable. Emily Warren, I can even tolerate thy music—nay, let me speak the truth, I'd much like to hear some after my nap. Thee needn't shake thy head at me, mother, I've caught thee listening, and if thee brings me up before the meeting, I'll tell on thee. Does thee realize, Emily Warren, that thee is leading us out of the straight and ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... word of ancient history. Not—one—word! They wrote it about their own nations, didn't they? All right. Then you might just as well expect them to tell what really happened, as think that I'd tell on another boy in my own school. I must say it would be as mean as dog pie of them if they did, but all the same that does not make history true, ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... some feature, such as a dash, a blot, or the distortion of a letter, which would recall to them the character of the writer. Most of the best experts of this class confess that they cannot tell on what their judgment is based. They simply think that the writing is not by the same hand as that admitted to be genuine. "No," they will tell you, "it is not merely superficial resemblance. I don't know what it is, but I feel sure," ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... him one in the snoot, and he hit me back. we was jest fooling, but old Francis called Cawcaw up front to lick him. i thought if i went up and told him he wood say, noble boy go to your seat, i wont lick neether of you. anyway i knew that Cawcaw wood tell on me, and so i told old Francis i hit Cawcaw first, and old Francis said Harry i have had my eye on you for a long time, and he jest took us up and slammed us together, and then he wood put me down and shake Cawcaw and then he wood put Cawcaw down and shake me till my head wabbled ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... their sleeping and suddenly said to them, "I shall tell you a merry tale." At that word they lifted up their heads and hearkened unto that, and afterward (their sleep being therewith broken) heard him tell on of heaven again. In what wise that good father rebuked then their untoward minds—so dull to the thing that all our life we labour for, and so quick and eager toward other trifles—I neither bear in mind nor shall here need to rehearse. But ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... rejoice in a supposed good bargain at her expense. To sell to Mr. Humphreys's friend in Louisville was just the thing. When pressed by some of her neighbors who had not received the Adventist gospel, to tell on what principle she could justify her sale of the farm at all, she answered that if the farm would not be of any account after the end of the world, neither ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... of honor among the cadets of Putnam Hall that no student should tell on another. To do that would have been to put one's self down as a sneak, and none of our friends wanted such ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... as merry as possible, till last autumn, when something brought on erysipelas, and she was gone almost before they took alarm. The good little daughter was beaten down then, really ill for a week; but if you can understand me, the shock seemed to tell on her chiefly bodily, and though she was half broken-hearted when her husband in a great fright brought me up to see her, and say whether her sister should be sent for, she still made fun of him, and described the impossible advice they would bring on themselves. ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dealing with his daughter. She had three babies in all. They said they put them up in the ceiling, up in a loft. This old man got mad with Bob Young and burnt his gin. Mother seen him slipping around. They ask her but she wouldn't tell on him, for she didn't see him set it on fire. They measured the tracks. He got scared mother would tell on him. One night a colored man on the place come over. Her husband was gone somewhere and hadn't got home. She was cooking supper. They heard somebody but thought ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Parraday. "When we was gals women's rights and women's doin's warn't much hearn tell on. Still, Miz' Scattergood, I wasn't so meek as I know on. But mebbe, women was mostly chattels—like horses an'—an' chickens. But if that was so, that day's gone by, thanks be! An' it's gone by in Polktown a deal because of this same Janice Day. Oh, ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... and lower as they trudged wearily along. The many miles already covered that day were beginning to tell on them severely. They were hungry, too, having eaten nothing ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... descended from on high to the rescue of the struggling commonwealth, and his decrees were omnipotent as to the course of the campaign. The seasons that year seemed all fused into one. It was difficult to tell on midsummer day whether it were midwinter, spring, or autumn. The rain came down day after day, week after week, as if the contending armies and the very country which was to be invaded and defended were to be all washed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sister, that we should have found it all out in such an easy sort o' way? If criminals would always tell on themselves as plainly as Big Swankie did, there would be no ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... The queen put it off strangely. The conference could be delayed no longer. It opened without the intended makeweight, and the court of France was less inclined to make concessions for a peace. The delay began to tell on the bourse at Antwerp. The Fuggers and the Schertzes drew their purse-strings, and made difficulties in lending more money to the emperor.[471] The plenipotentiaries had to separate after a few meetings, having effected nothing, to the especial mortification ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... almost mad," she whispered in her ear, "and I have just found out what the trouble was. He would not tell on account of our mother, but poor ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... old-time trail imagery, "you prolix, garrulous Firio, you knew! You had the great equine trio ready, and look at the miles they have done since sunset to prove it! You, P.D., favorite trooper of our household cavalry! You, Wrath of God, don't be afraid to make an inward smile, for your face will never tell on you! You, Jag Ear, beat a tattoo with the fragment of the gothic glory of burrohood, for we rest, to go on all the faster when the heat of the ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... thousand pounds o' Miss Digby's money! It's t' meanest scheme I iver heard tell on! I'm fair shamed ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... Berny. The German counter-attacks were unusually unsuccessful, and on 9 September Ginchy was carried by the Irish regiments which had helped to take Guillemont. It looked as though the Allies were at least getting into their stride, or the wasting struggle was beginning to tell on the German reserves and resistance. Over two months had been spent in securing objectives marked down for the first day or two of the battle; but with the fall of Guillemont the last fragment of the German second position had fallen into our hands, their ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... declared that worthy, when, at last, the tale had been completed. "But thar's lots of mighty good soundin' yarns goin' 'round camp, 'bout wonderful gold mountains an' caves of gold. Howsomever, I never heer'd tell on anybudy's really findin' any on 'em; an', I reckon, 'most on 'em is jest lies. But that thar map seems tew give y'ur yarn a look like th' truth; an', I reckon, them tew skunks must have believed th' yarn, or they wouldn't have ben so pow'ful anxious tew git th' map. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... born till I was nine years old, I was too great a treasure to be contradicted. The parsonage was the great balance to the home spoiling; Mr. and Mrs. Fotheringham were most kind and judicious; and Helen's character could not but tell on all around.' ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... It's a coon's age since we've seen you, Tom. Time you showed yourself. How are the children, Jenny—and what's Tom Scott been doing? What's this we hear about that stray young one? Nice tale that is to tell on a fellow. Fowler heard it at Brownsboro and like to have killed himself. Lord! how hot it's been! I'm ready for supper, Jenny. Sit down, Tom. As soon as I get through supper, we'll have a real old-fashioned talk. I've been suffering for one for three months. Jenny, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the posterior half of the cranio-spinal chord and its nerves. For now the entranced person, who has no feeling, or taste, or smell of his own, feels, tastes, and smells every thing that is made to tell on the senses of the operator. If mustard or sugar be put in his own mouth, he seems not to know that they are there; if mustard is placed on the tongue of the operator, the entranced person expresses great disgust, and tries as if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... at all, and his heart almost stopped with fear. He picked her up and fanned and patted her into wakefulness again and then turned desperately to the window and looked down. There was no one he knew or who knew him as far as he could tell on the street, and he determined recklessly to risk another sortie ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... started cryin' about not havin' the pump along that she'd been used to seein' in the yard at home. And I says to myself, 'Look a-here, Jake, I don't care if they do ketch on to you and yer blamed whiskey business. They're not the sort to tell on you.' Gee! but that about the pump got me! And I says, 'Jake, you're goin' to give them the best you hev got.' Why, that Big Bend desert and lonesome valley of the Columbia hez chilled my heart in the days that are gone when I weren't used to things; ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... It was amazement, wonder and delight, Although not love, that moved his cruel sense; "Tell on," quoth he, "unfold the chance aright, Thy people's lives I grant for recompense." Then she, "Behold the faulter here in sight, This hand committed that supposed offence, I took the image, mine that fault, that fact, Mine be the ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... she laughed and glanced at Rodney. "Well, if you won't tell on me, I'll not tell on you." And then seeing Audrey straighten, "I don't mean that, of course. Clay's at a meeting to-night, so I ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... there was; and the thing reminds me of the stories they used to tell on the New York police. It looked to me as though all the row was raised by Mrs. Clancy, as Captain Rayner says; but the man was arrested. That being the case, I would ask the captain for what specific offence he ordered Clancy to ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... ended all this disturbance by appealing straight to the scout-master, who would have asked Bumpus to tell on his honor if he had what did not belong to him. But it did not suit the boy to do this. He was naturally rather obstinate, ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... that the Belgians were advancing, and that several skirmishes had taken place; that a big engagement was expected during the night or in the morning. We passed the last of the German outposts about two miles this side of Malines, but for fear we might tell on them, they would not tell us whether we had any more of their kind ahead of us. We shot along through the open country, between the last Germans and the edge of Malines, at a fairly good rate, and kept a lookout for the English flag, ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... "What mockery or malice have we here?" cries Herve Riel: "Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river disembogues? Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Entered free ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... work, and constant anxiety were beginning to tell on Mrs. Athelny; and sometimes her back ached in the evening so that she had to sit down and rest herself. Her ideal of happiness was to have a girl to do the rough work so that she need not herself get up before seven. Athelny waved ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... of judging him have been much fewer, but as far as they have gone, they lead to the same conclusions. L. perhaps has not dwelt enough on his indolence. Probably as he grows older, and the effects of his early habits tell on him, it increases. I am told that it is difficult to make him attend to business, that he prolongs audiences apparently to ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... planted them unyuns and pertaters right alongside of each other, and the unyuns got into the pertaters' eyes and they couldn't see to grow. Oh, yes, lots of fun down home onct in a while. I calculate I've got the funnyest lot of chickens you ever heerd tell on. I've got sixty old hens and they lay an egg every day; but they don't lay any at nite, cos when nite comes every one of them is roosters. I had one old hen, she went into the woodshed and sot down on the ax and tried to hatch-it. I had another one sottin' on a door knob, tryin' to hatch ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... generally foretell when folks is going to die, having done a good bit of sick-nursing in my time afore I married Hankey; but as to foretelling how they're going to leave their money, I can no more do it than the babe unborn; nor nobody can, as ever I heard tell on." ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... before her, and Simeon too. Abuse them for all you're worth. It's daytime now, and they won't dare do anything to you. If anything happens, tell them straight that, now, you're going to the governor immediately and are going to tell on them. Tell 'em, that they'll be closed up and put out of town in twenty-four hours. Bawl 'em out and they get like silk. Well, now, I ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Beaumetz, through shell-shattered villages, by roads twisting up and down long hills, commenced to tell on the men long before the first halt was due. Breathing became, in many cases, long and heavy; some stumbled blindly forward with heads strained down, and others impotently cursed at the Higher Command for not calling a halt. Sweat trickled over dust-begrimed ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... enough to tell her parents all there was to tell on the voyage, but she had no idea that her limousine was taking her to the very inn that Strathdene had lured her to on that night when he tested her ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... up on Prescott and Holmes, Brayton directed, as often as possible, charges through the center, or right-end rushes. But almost half of the time Lehigh seemed bent on bearing down the Army's left end. The hard work was beginning to tell on ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... to prevent the Spaniards from thus setting a bad example to the subjects of the Bourbon dynasty. Then the condition of Poland was giving some alarm to the despotic monarchs of the Continent everywhere; for, if Poland were to rise and were allowed to assert its liberty, who could tell on what soil, sacred to despotism, other rebellious movements might not also break out. Therefore, the monarchs of the Holy Alliance were much perturbed, and came to the conclusion that, as the Congress ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... to tell on him. A quarter of the quantity would have made a clean-living man incapably drunk, but it had only made Marsden's eyes bright. He gave ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... not drunk, and tax them to follow him, but, his stout legs proving unable to carry out this excellent resolution, he gradually fell to the rear. As the sun rose higher, and grew hotter, the pace began to tell on him, and he accepted without protest the support of two comrades who had been drinking with him at Hochst. He retrograded into a condition of pessimistic dejection as the enthusiasm of the wine evaporated. ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... gloomy as she, and their dreary interviews grew more dreary than ever, for she was now scarcely more silent than he. His constant and increasing anxiety, in addition to the duties of a responsible business position, began to tell on his health. The owner of the manufactory of which he was superintendent, called him into his office one day, and told him he was working too hard, and must take a little vacation. But he declined. Soon after a physician whom he knew buttonholed him on the street, and managed to get in some shrewd ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... the worse for a basting, and a deal more to the same tune, which almost broke through my determination to say nothing of what had caused the mischief; for, after all, Dick Cludde and Cyrus Vetch were my schoolfellows, and, in my day; for one boy to tell on another was ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... he said, "is mortal afraid of strangers and such like, and there's photographers and newspaper men round in these parts just now, by reason of the disappearance of this young lord that you heerd tell on. Some say he was drowned, and I have heerd folk whisper about a duel with the gentleman as is with Mr. Cecil now. Anyway, it was here that he disappeared from, and though I've not seen it in print, I've heerd as his brother is offering a reward of a thousand pounds to any as might find him. It's ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... find the key-bar, but about a month ago, the old key-bar fell in the river, and I know where it is. Maybe you think I'm crazy, but I'm dive and get it for you, if you'll only promise not to tell on Uncle Jimmy, because he couldn't help going. Maybe you don't understand, but he just couldn't. I've got the swimming badge and that's for diving too. All you have to do is to give me some rope, so I can take one end of it down ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... cried Danny. "I'll show you what I'm trying to do. I'll tell on you for keeping a dog that don't belong to you, and you'll be arrested—all ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... communion with God, high above the world, was remote from the world. Why, how do they make electricity nowadays? By the fall of water from a height, and the higher the level from which it descends, the mightier the force which it generates in the descent. So nobody will tell on the world like the man who lives above it. The height from which a weight rushes down measures the force of its dint where it falls, and of the energy with which it comes. 'He shall dwell on high'; and only the man that stands above the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... his head, and looking as depressed as I did when I woke; "that wouldn't do here. The fellows never tell on each other, and we should be sent to Coventry. It's precious hard to be licked, and then punished after, when you ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... satisfied without a more unmistakable guidance than those inward voices. There was light enough for her, if she opened her Bible, to discern the text sufficiently to know what it would say to her. She knew the physiognomy of every page, and could tell on what book she opened, sometimes on what chapter, without seeing title or number. It was a small thick Bible, worn quite round at the edges. Dinah laid it sideways on the window ledge, where the light was strongest, and then opened it with her ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... sugar-bowl, which was an heirloom in the family—and he managed to break the bowl. It was the first time I had ever had a chance to tell anything on him, and I was inexpressibly glad. I told him I was going to tell on him, but he was not disturbed. When my mother came in and saw the bowl lying on the floor in fragments, she was speechless for a minute. I allowed that silence to work; I judged it would increase the effect. I was waiting for her to ask "Who did that?"—so ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... quickly enough, for there were a thousand things to tell on both sides. The aeronaut described his accident and related how he had lived through all the dreary months that had gone. Fortunately there did not happen to be any fierce wild beasts in the cliff bordered valley, and while he had ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... address in the Wollbadgasse. Peter was not subtle, no psychologist, but he had seen during the last few days how the boy watched Harmony's every word, every gesture. And, perhaps, when loneliness and hard work began to tell on her, McLean's devotion would win its reward. McLean's devotion, with all that it meant, the lessons again, community of taste, their common youth! Peter felt ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... big wicker armchair and looked quizzically across at his niece Celia, who lay upon her couch at the other side of the room. She gave him a somewhat pale-faced smile in return. Four weeks of enforced quiet were beginning to tell on her. ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... annoyance; but my digestion had been impaired in Russia by the vast quantity of tea, cucumbers, veal, cabbage-soup, and other horrible mixtures which I had been forced to consume while there, and which now began to tell on my constitution. Notwithstanding repeated doses of cognac, taken from time to time as I walked the decks, the sea began to whirl all round, the clouds overhead to swing about at random through the rigging, and the odor of the machinery to produce the strongest and most disagreeable ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... Because through the body, and only through it, practically, can we tell on others for the Lord. Do we speak to them? Do we write to them? Do we make home comfortable and happy for them? Do we "meet the glad with joyful smiles and wipe the weeping eyes"? Do we travel to those who want us? Do we nurse them? Do we think for them? All has its motives in the regenerate ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... eating during this conversation, and now he joined in. "I say," he began, "I'm not worrying about what will become of Angus Niel after he's dead. I want to know what's going to be done with him right now. We're the only ones that know about this. Are we just going to keep whist, or shall we tell on him?" ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... back to England. Lord John had benefited in health by wintering abroad; he was still vigorous enough to resist in the House of Lords the claim of the United States for the Alabama indemnity, and to give a presidential address to the Historical Society; but the years were beginning to tell on him. ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... age, except Diana, and Diana's little heart, day by day, was growing fuller of insubordinate and angry feelings. She was not at all by nature an unforgiving little child, but the want of petting and the severe life which she was obliged to lead began to tell on her high spirits. She became defiant, and was always looking out for an opportunity to vent her wrath upon the people whom she termed her enemies. Had Iris only had a chance of talking to the little girl, she would soon have got to the bottom of the matter, and things might ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... i gave their tickets to the next house. it took me till 8 o'clock and i got 1 dollar for it. i dont believe those girls that dident get their tickets will care much about going ennyway. i gess the Head girls wont want to tell on me another time. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... down the river, was intensified from the first moment in Montreal; and it was so welcome that they were almost glad to lose money on their greenbacks, which the conductor of the omnibus would take only at a discount of twenty cents. At breakfast next morning they could hardly tell on what country they had fallen. The waiters had but a thin varnish of English speech upon their native French, and they spoke their own tongue with each other; but most of the meats were cooked to the English taste, and the whole was a poor imitation of an American hotel. During their stay the same ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... household equipment. He had added a bedroom here, a cool summer kitchen there, an icehouse, a commodious porch, a washing machine, even a bathroom. But Bella remained unplacated. Her face was set toward the city. And slowly, surely, the effect of thirty years of nagging was beginning to tell on Ben Westerveld. He was the finer metal, but she was the heavier, the coarser. She beat him and molded him as iron ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... to his office to plead her case, fearing Mrs. Spragg's intervention. For some time past Mr. Spragg had been rather continuously overworked, and the strain was beginning to tell on him. He had never quite regained, in New York, the financial security of his Apex days. Since he had changed his base of operations his affairs had followed an uncertain course, and Undine suspected that his breach with his old political ally, the Representative ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... o' it, Rob," Mysie replied eagerly. "Do ye mind the day she was goin' to tell aboot you takin' hame the bit auld stick for firewood? When I telt her if she did, I'd tell on her stealin' the tallow frae the engine-house an' the paraffin ile ay when she got the chance. She didna say she'd ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... her name, she cried out, "What mortal has betrayed me? For, surely no fairy would tell on me? Alas, my fate, ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... get my map done," said John, "and many a time after this we'll talk it all over, and we can tell on the map right where we ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... Then we'll have a wedding and after the wedding we'll all be thrown out of The Dreamerie to make room for Master Don and his consort. So, it appears to me, since Mr. Daney has warned you not to tell, mother dear, that he cannot afford to tell on you himself—no, not even to save ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... Leila, and received in return her dear childish scrawls. But the strain of her absence began to tell on him. He began to feel the pull toward old pleasures and distractions. Then one day Jerry Tuckerman arrived on the scene. The next night, he and Barry and the other radiant musketeers motored over to Baltimore by moonlight. Barry did not come home the next day, nor ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... don't know the terrible state of mind she's been in for months—it may have been years for aught I know, the wearing strain of incessant strife between feeling and reason going on beneath every other interest and occupation. It was little wonder, I think, that it should tell on ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden |
