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More "Buttonhole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a seaport, it was very cosmopolitan, and one saw all sorts of people on its streets. Many were just natural-looking people, like Pirlaps and Avrillia; but some were of chocolate, like Yassuh, and some were Chinese, with long pigtails of black buttonhole-twist; and some were Parisians, with hats exactly like the one that the Japanese doll wore so unbecomingly. (Yes, Sara knew in her heart that it was unbecoming, though she would not have admitted it, even to you.) On the gay Parisian ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... morning of the Demonstration, Captain Caius Hocken, School Manager and therefore ex officio a steward, taking the field in his Sunday best with a scarlet badge in his buttonhole, "quite," declared Mrs Bowldler, "like a gentleman of the French Embassy as used frequent to take luncheon ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... skillets hung on the barrels of their rifles, simple kitchen utensils which constituted almost the whole of their cooking equipment. Their blankets and rubber sheets for sleeping were carried in light rolls on their backs. A toothbrush was stuck in a buttonhole. On their flanks or in front rode the cavalry, led by the redoubtable Turner Ashby, and there was in all their number scarcely a single horseman who did not ride like the Comanche Indian, as if he were born in the saddle. Ashby ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... simply must promise to come before he went away; she insisted. And she asked suddenly: "When I saw you on the seventeenth, didn't you have a bow in your buttonhole?" ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... and girls on the streets, some on 'em sellin' posies for charity, I bought two little bunches, one on 'em I put in Josiah's buttonhole, though he objected and said it would probable make talk for a man of his age and dignity to ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... man entered the room, Margaret arose and faced him. The Englishman was well dressed, and newly shaven, and wore a rosebud in his buttonhole. Evidently, he had spent some time over his toilet ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... pin from my dress, and fastened it at the buttonhole of Matthias's coat. Neither he nor I spoke a single word, but I am sure that while each wondered inwardly at the strange fulfilment of the prophecy, each was still more surprised that it had realized none of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... I assure you, my dear children, kept up most carefully. There was always a button to sew on, a buttonhole to remake, or a tear to be mended. Thus constantly in touch with the household Madame Hen soon thought she belonged to it. Indeed, worn out by the teasing of her companions, by the constant arguments she had with them, and touched ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... overhead lamp in their compartment. The stranger was a very tall man in dark clothes, who gave an instant impression of long rectangularity. He had a long nose, a long upper lip which hung over a thin slit of a mouth which resembled a buttonhole slightly frayed by wear. His chin was long and square and, like his upper lip, blue, as though a stiff black beard were in constant battle with a razor. His eyes were large and regarded Renwick with a mild melancholy as he bowed the Englishman a good morning. Renwick nodded curtly. He ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... agreeably. A travelling great-coat, only half buttoned up, nipped in his waist and disclosed a cashmere waistcoat crossed in front, beneath which was another waistcoat of white material. His watch, negligently slipped into a pocket, was fastened by a short gold chain to a buttonhole. His gray trousers, buttoned up at the sides, were set off at the seams with patterns of black silk embroidery. He gracefully twirled a cane, whose chased gold knob did not mar the freshness of his gray gloves. And to complete all, his cap ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... diamond, and from the front of his rimless cap waved a plume of diamonds. On his wrists were heavy gold bracelets of Malayan workmanship, and his fingers were cramped with almost priceless rings. In his buttonhole blazed a diamond orchid. The handle and scabbard of his sword were a solid mass of precious stones. Altogether this little known Oriental potentate possessed $10,000,000 worth of diamonds, the ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... who, curiously enough, seemed to have been on the platform when the train came in and to have been much interested in this shabby, lonely old man, who carried himself like a waif stranded in an unknown land. Da Souza was gorgeous in frock coat and silk hat, a carnation in his buttonhole, a diamond in his black satin tie, yet he was not altogether happy. This little man hobbling along in front represented fate to him. On the platform at Waterloo he had heard him timidly ask a bystander the way to the offices of the Bekwando Land and Gold Exploration Company, ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shoulders, as if electrified: he had a quick eye, and wore enviably well-fitting ducks: his neck, besides supporting his head and all its contents, supported an inextricable labyrinth of gold chains; from every buttonhole of his waistcoat the chains they came in, and the chains they came out, like the peripatetic man on the Boulevards who sells them: his gloves, well-fitting, and buttoning at the wrist, were of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... animals decorated to the horns with flowers and coloured ribbons harmoniously blended. And last of all came the exhibitor who was to receive the first prize—a slouching man, plainly dressed, with a pair of farmer's gaiters on, and without even a flower in his buttonhole. "Who is he?" asked the spectators. "Why, he is the Englishman," was the reply. "The Englishman!—that the representative of a great country!" was the general exclamation. But it was the Englishman all over. He was sent there, not to exhibit himself, but to show "the best beast," ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... the big man, mopping his face with a large silk handkerchief, which, even at that distance, gave out a powerful perfume. "Go ahead, Snuffin, and we will settle this matter later," and, adjusting a large rose in his buttonhole, the self-important individual took his place on the cushioned seat at the wheel, while the big red motor boat drew off ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... throwing himself down with his face to the ground like the cowardly guides. "But I suppose we'd better do as these gentry require, or else they'll be hitting us under the fifth buttonhole; and, what would ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... the same dark gray as the hair. The most cursory observer could not but recognize power and character in the head; yet one would scarcely have guessed it to be the power of a poet, the character of a prophet. Misled, perhaps, by the ribbon at the buttonhole, and by an expression of reserve, almost of secretiveness, in the lines of the tight-shut mouth, one would rather have supposed one's self face to face with an ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... destructive as his age, "the place will lose its charm. They grow for the End of the World, and the End of the World belongs to them. This wonderful spot will have no beauty when they're gone." To wear a blossom in the hair or buttonhole was to be protected against decay ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... special occasions, and she had invariably expressed her appreciation through the dainty lips of a boutonniere arranged by her own fingers. Now while he recognized the roses resting on her corsage, her eyes dwelt on her favorite double lilac violets, nestling in the buttonhole of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Teas," where a punning symbolic title of a book is worn by each guest, and a prize is given to the person who guesses most, and to the person whose title is considered the best. Thus, a person wearing a card having the letter R represented Middlemarch, and a person with catkins in his buttonhole, Hazell's Annual. But simpler devices are just ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... was thrown open. A man stood upon the threshold—a tall, fair man of middle age, with a small blond mustache, and a monocle dangling from a narrow black ribbon about his neck. From the very correct gardenia in his buttonhole to the very immaculate spats upon his feet, he was a careful prototype of the Piccadilly exquisite—a little faded, perhaps, slightly effete, but perfect in detail. He halted for a moment, as if he, too, were blinded by the swift change from sunshine ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... all, nothing except the expression of Noble's face and the somewhat ill-chosen pansy in his buttonhole hinted of the remarkable. Yet even here was a thing for which he was not responsible himself; it was altogether the work of Julia. What her work was, in the case of Noble Dill, may be expressed in a word—a word used not only by the whole Atwater family connection, in completely expressing Noble's ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... blame a man f'r bein' avaricyous in his ol' age. Whin a fellow gits so he has nawthin' else to injye, whin ivrybody calls him 'sir' or 'mister,' an' young people dodge him an' he sleeps afther dinner, an' folks say he's an ol' fool if he wears a buttonhole bokay an' his teeth is only tinants at will an' not permanent fixtures, 'tis no more thin nach'ral that he shud begin to look around him f'r a way iv keepin' a grip on human s'ciety. It don't take him long to see that th' on'y thing that's vin'rable ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... numerous among the street venders. They sell matches, tooth-picks, cigars, newspapers, songs and flowers. The flower-girls are hideous little creatures, but their wares are beautiful and command a ready sale. These are made into hand bouquets, and buttonhole bouquets, and command from ten cents to several dollars each. When the day is wet and gloomy, and the slush and the mud of Broadway are thick over everything animate and inanimate, and the sensitive soul shrinks within itself ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... supposed it would be such an attractive shop. What possible harm could there be in going over just to look? She might even go in and explain to the proprietor that she had made a mistake in coming into the neighborhood. It would be a kindness. She could use a spool of buttonhole twist as an excuse. She really ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... peculiar cut. Over this Lady Eleanor wore, first the grand cordon of the order of St. Louis across her shoulders; secondly, the same order round her neck; thirdly, the small cross of the same in her buttonhole; and, pour comble de gloire, a golden lily of nearly the natural size as a star. So far the effect was somewhat ludicrous. But now you must imagine both ladies with that agreeable aisance, that air of the world of the ancien regime, courteous, entertaining, without the slightest ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... I'll tell you all about it. First of all, there was a perfect jam in the town hall. I sat up in front, with a lot of fellows, and had a splendid view. The old Italian came out dressed in his best suit of clothes black broadcloth, flower in his buttonhole, and so on. He made a fine bow, and he said he was 'pleased too see ze fine audience, and he was going to show zem ze fine animals, ze finest animals in ze world.' Then he shook a little whip that he carried in his hand, and he said 'zat zat whip didn't mean zat he was ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... a construction of blocks, according to patchwork law, every alternate block of the border having an applied rose cut from printed calico in alternate colors of yellow, red, and blue. These roses were carefully applied with buttonhole stitch, and the cotton ground underneath cut away to give uniform thickness for quilting. The main body of the quilt was unnoticeably good, being a collection of faintly colored patches of correct construction. The quilting was a marvel—a large carefully drawn ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... shiny bald pate. A low collar of enormous circumference encircled his short neck and his tie was drawn through a Zodiac ring. His clothes were ill-fitting—shapeless trousers and a voluminous morning coat, in the buttonhole of which was a pink carnation with a silver papered stem, an immense watch-chain spread across a coarsely knitted waistcoat of Berlin wool. And he seemed out of breath. The pistol in his extended hand vibrated in sympathy with an ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... of the whole week. The lottery ticket vendor makes a double day's work on this occasion, and the itinerant gamblers, with portable stands, have crowds about their tables wherever they locate. The flower-girls, with dainty little baskets, rich in color and captivating in fragrance, press buttonhole bouquets on the pedestrians, and, shall we whisper it? make appointments with susceptible cavaliers; while men perambulate the streets with bon-bons displayed upon cases hung from their necks; in short, Sunday is made a fete day, when grandees and beggars complacently ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... gentleman, with a number of orders at his buttonhole, presently entered the room, and sauntered up to the marble table, before which reposed Simon and his clerical friend. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, as he took a place opposite them, and began reading ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... grind. John determined to walk by himself; but as he was leaving the Manor he met the Caterpillar, a tremendous buck, arrayed in his best—patent-leather boots, white waistcoat, a flower in his buttonhole. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... surgical profession to observe much apart. "I believe I'm going to decorate you." And she dimpled up at the Senior Surgeon, coquettishly. Selecting one of the blossoms with great care, she drew it through the buttonhole in his lapel. "See, I'm decorating you with the Order of the Golden Primrose—for brilliancy." Whereupon ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... Jack Henderson was not disappointed of his walk. He appeared dressed in his best, with a large bunch of primroses, bought in the market the day before in his hand, and two or three in his buttonhole. ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... lunch. While he was finishing dressing it came to me that his clothes had undergone much the same change as his dwelling. In his golden days in London he had been a good deal of a dandy; he usually wore white waistcoats at night; was particular about the flowers in his buttonhole, his gloves and cane. Now he was decently dressed and that was all; as far below the average as he had been above it. Clearly, he had let go of himself and no longer took pleasure in the vanities: it seemed to me ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... theory, and Adrian Brownwell traipsed up and down the earth, in his lavender gloves, his long coat and mouse-coloured trousers, his high hat, with his twirling cane, and the everlasting red carnation in his buttonhole. His absence made it necessary for Molly Brownwell to leave the sacred precincts of the home many and many a Saturday afternoon, to go over the books at the Banner office, make out bills, take them out, and collect the money due upon them and pay off the printers who ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... I was constantly on the outlook for a kind of tourist who had been described to me frequently and at great length by more seasoned travelers—the kind who wore his country's flag as a buttonhole emblem, or as a shirtfront decoration; and regarded every gathering and every halting place as providing suitable opportunity to state for the benefit of all who might be concerned, how immensely and ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... down on a bench by myself or set my foot any place without being assailed by insignificant accidents, miserable details, that forced their way into my imagination and scattered my powers to all the four winds. A dog that dashed by me, a yellow rose in a man's buttonhole, had the power to set my thoughts vibrating and occupy me ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... "Don't mind those two scoffers, Scott. If you take my advice you will join this East Orange Society. That would make six scientific societies he has joined since Christmas," she continued, turning on Duane with severe pride; adding, "and there's a different coloured ribbon decoration for his buttonhole from ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... three haversack binding straps through the loops on the inside flap and secure by means of the buckles on the opposite side of the haversack; pass the lower haversack binding strap through the small buttonhole in the lower edge of the haversack, fold the outer flap of the haversack over the whole and secure by means of the buckle on its underside and the ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... my eye most was his trousseau. Say! he was dressed to the minute, from the pink in his buttonhole, to the mother-of-pearl gloves; and the back of his frock coat had an in-curve such as your forty-fat sisters dream about. Why, as far as lines went, he had Jimmy Hackett and Robert Mantell on the back shelf. Oh, he was ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... honoured in the breach than the observance. Barely a dozen Members sported Lord BEACONFIELD'S favourite flower (for salads), and one of them found himself so uncomfortably conspicuous that shortly after the proceedings opened he furtively transferred his buttonhole to his coat-pocket. Among those who remained faithful were Lord LAMBOURNE (in the Peers' Gallery), who had for this occasion substituted a posy of primroses for his usual picotee, and, quaintly enough, Mr. HOGGE, who had not hitherto been suspected ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... joke has been made by those who followed after him. It will continue to be made with impertinent impunity until the sea gives up its seals; for the temptation is there daily and hourly, and the humorist is but human—he can not long resist it; so he will buttonhole you on the veranda of the Cliff House and whisper in your astonished ear as if he were imparting a state secret: "Their ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... achieved. He already not only regretted giving the ten thousand francs to Jenny, but the two hundred francs to the servants—nay the six sous given to the waiter at the restaurant, even the money he had spent on the bunch of violets. The bouquet still hung in his buttonhole, faded and shrivelled. What good did it do him? While the sous which he had paid for it—! He did not think of his wasted millions, but could not drive away the thought of ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... Featherstone descended the stairs she met Doctor Harris, gallant and gay, with a rose in his buttonhole, followed by the nurse and child, on a visit of reassurance ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... room. He was tall and beautifully dressed,—at least that was the first impression,—though, as a matter of fact, the clothes were of the cheapest ready-made variety. But nothing could look cheap or ill made on those splendid muscles. He wore a silk shirt, a flower in his buttonhole, a gray tie in which was a pearl as big as a pea, long patent-leather shoes with elaborate buff-colored tops; he carried a thin stick and a pair of new gloves in one hand, but the most conspicuous object in ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... "I don't know, Tom—but I know what it would have cost 'em if they had sent you over the road. I had a gun on me, and when that jury foreman stood up to give the verdict, it was looking him in the eye through a buttonhole in my coat. Him and Cheyenne and old Scotty and two or three more would sure have got theirs, if he ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... Mr. Richard Vanderpole took place on a Thursday night. On Monday morning a gentleman of middle age, fashionably but quietly dressed, wearing a flower in his buttonhole, patent boots, and a silk hat which he had carefully deposited upon the floor, was sitting closeted with Miss Penelope Morse. It was obvious that that young lady did not altogether appreciate the honor done to her by a visit from so distinguished ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Patricia, but Arabella put her left hand over her lips, while with her right she slipped another button into its buttonhole, and sidled toward ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... trying to rival the Billingsgate Calendar. The newspapers employed watchers, who picketed the block where Parnell and his wife lived, and telegraphed to Christendom the time the lights were out, and whether Mr. Parnell appeared with a shamrock or a rose in his buttonhole. The facts that Mrs. Parnell wore her hair in curls, and smilingly hummed a tune as she walked to the corner, were construed into proof of brazen guilt and a desire ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... passing fair. She may say how lovely you are while her fingers are still moist with your blood. Tell me, will this be kindness? It may be your fate to be imprisoned in the hair of one whom you know to be heartless or to be thrust into the buttonhole of one who would not dare to look you in the face were you a man. It may even be your lot to be confined in some narrow vessel with only stagnant water to quench the maddening thirst that warns ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... saw him and dropped the curtain immediately, a speck of colour in his buttonhole catching my ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... ceased to defy successfully anybody or anything. His clothes could scarcely be called shabby, at least they passed muster in the half-light, but one's imagination could not have pictured the wearer embarking on the purchase of a half-crown box of chocolates or laying out ninepence on a carnation buttonhole. He belonged unmistakably to that forlorn orchestra to whose piping no one dances; he was one of the world's lamenters who induce no responsive weeping. As he rose to go Gortsby imagined him returning to a home circle where he was snubbed and of ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... the two great changes in his household. His delight in having Joan near him again was pathetic. He had shaved for the second time that day, a most unusual occurrence. His white hair glistened with brilliantine, and there was a gardenia in his buttonhole. Some of the old fire had returned to his eyes, and his tongue had regained its once invariable knack of paying charming compliments. In his excitement and delight he departed from his rigid diet, and, his wife's attention being ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... himself until he is put out. This is, of course, only one way of being a poet. If he perseveres he will ultimately write lyrics for the music halls and make a fortune. He will then wear a fur coat that died of the mange, he will support a carnation in his buttonhole, wear eighteen rings on his right hand and one hundred and twenty-seven on his left. He will also be entitled to wear two breast-pins at once and yellow boots. He will live in England when he is at home, and be very ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... and the adoring pride of his downward gaze at her, stirred all the women's hearts and roused a sympathetic thrill in the men's breasts. Colin made a good show in the regulation bridegroom's frock coat, and with a sprig of orange blossom in his buttonhole. There was no doubt that he was extremely happy. He gave a short manly speech in response to Sir Luke's rather academic oration proposing the health of the wedded pair. The Premier too made a speech, and so did the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... saw a thick-set figure approaching her across the square; and a moment later she was shaking hands with Elmer Moffatt. In the bright spring air he looked seasonably glossy and prosperous; and she noticed that he wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. His small black eyes twinkled with approval as they rested on her, and Undine reflected that, with Paul's arms about her neck, and his little flushed face against her own, she must present a not unpleasing image of ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... as that happiness, he had stayed there six months, lodging in a room with a cupola, dining a la trattoria on truffles with Parmesan cheese, passing his evenings in the boxes of society people, going to the Grand Duke's balls, feted, invited everywhere, with white camellias in his buttonhole—economizing in the happiest ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... pomaded, with laced waist, the hips of a woman, the bust of a Prussian officer, the murmur of admiration from the boulevard wenches surrounding him, his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole; such was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... had made it, but deceivingly unconventional to the eye of the uninitiated. This he put on, taking particular pains to select a very plain cravat, and to fasten in it with care the scarf-pin bestowed upon him by old Benson, the little watchmaker on the corner below. Through the buttonhole in the lapel of his coat he drew a spicy-smelling sprig of ground-pine, chanting whimsically as he did so a couplet from ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... their buttonhole flowers naturally. Martin smiled at my choice for him, which was a small, but chubby, red and yellow, uncompromising Dutch tulip, far too stout to be able to follow its family habit of night closing, except to contract itself slightly. Evan caressed his lilies-of-the-valley ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... hold of the lappet of his coat; she had kept it in her hand even while she detached herself from his embrace. There was a white flower in his buttonhole that she looked at and played with a moment before she said; "I've a better idea—you needn't come to Griffin. Stay in your studio—do as ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... grandfather. "The first man you'll meet in the legislative lobby next winter, sugar on his speech and alum on his finger, so that he can get a good firm grip of your buttonhole, will be Arba Spinney, drawing his salary as the paid agent of half-a-dozen schemers. He may seem a little wilted just now, but he's a hardy ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... you." So then they took hands, and Susan drew him demurely about the garden. Presently she stopped with a little start of hypocritical admiration; at their feet shone a marigold. Susan culled the gaudy flower and placed it affectionately in George's buttonhole. He received it proudly, and shaking hands with her, for it was time to part, turned away slowly. She let him take a step or two, then called him back. "He was really going off with that nasty thing." She took it out of his buttonhole, rubbed it against his nose with well-feigned ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... up, half shy, and caught Van Reypen's gaze upon her. She turned toward Farnsworth, but he was looking another way. Plucking one stem of lilies of the valley from the bunch she tossed it to Phil, who caught it, kissed it, and put it in his buttonhole. Farnsworth looked round just in time to see the act, ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... very eerie to be alone in the National Gallery in the dead of the night with a tiny electric lamp in one's buttonhole and a sponge of alcohol and turpentine in one's hand. While he worked the little Madonna's eyes rested upon him and it could hardly have been mere fancy that made him believe they were full of gratitude ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... turned with disappointment to obey Glinda's command. But before they left the garden the Tin Woodman, who was fond of flowers, chanced to espy a big red rose growing upon a bush; so he plucked the flower and fastened it securely in the tin buttonhole of ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... that moment the students at the table were interrupted by the approach of a tall, dudish-looking individual, who wore a reddish-brown suit, cut in the most up-to-date fashion, and who sported patent-leather shoes, and a white carnation in his buttonhole. The newcomer took a vacant chair, sitting ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... But it was not a church hymn. It was a new method of shouting out the odds, attracting attention to an exceedingly well-got-up gentleman in a grey frock suit, patent leather boots, white spats, grey gloves, tall white hat, and a flower in his buttonhole. A new bookmaker had made his appearance. He informed the crowds in song that he betted "only for cash," not "on the nod"—"I pay on the winner, immediately after the race." It only wanted an organ to accompany him. It was quite amusing to watch the remainder of his brethren ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... quickly at old Perce and saw that he was in his best clothes, with a lovely new spotted blue and white tie, and a dahlia in his buttonhole. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... recognition, my eyes stopped before a face which brought to me a confused rush of memories. It was that of a woman who sat on an ottoman in the smallest room which was almost empty. Her companion was a small, vivacious man with a gray imperial, and the red ribbon in his buttonhole, to whose continuous stream of talk, eked out with meridional gestures, she had the air of being listlessly resigned. Her dress, a marvel of discretion, its colour the yellow of old ivory, was of some very rich and stiff stuff cut square ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... way, her violet gauze being covered with violets and her cap a tiny lace affair with a violet border. In her case she was able to use many real violets and to carry a basket of the fresh flowers. The contents was made up of small bunches of buttonhole size and she stepped from the procession at almost every table to sell a bunch to some gentleman sitting there. A scout ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... amazingly handsome, I thought, as I gazed admiringly at my comrade. Our staring made him shy, and as he blushed and touched up the stephanotis in his buttonhole, the engineer changed the subject by saying, "Talking of the squire, is it true, Dennis, what Jack tells me about the twenty pounds? Did he really forget to ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... attaching herself affectionately to his buttonhole, "I went round the links in eighty-three this morning. I did the long hole in four. One under par, a thing I've never done before in my life." ("Bless my soul," said Lord Marshmoreton weakly, as, ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... have bodices to her frocks that buttoned up in front, that she might pass the little silver bar through the buttonhole; and she set herself to make watch-pockets in all her skirts, which she managed by cutting slits in them just below the waistband, and sewing to the slits on the inside little pockets like small bag ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... flutter of the eyelids, while she sipped her tea, she took in the salient changes the last five years had produced in him, noting in particular that though slightly older he had improved in looks, and that the dark-red carnation still held its place in his buttonhole. ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... who sold buttonhole bouquets at the theater door could have seen that Charlie was handsome, with his pale brown smoothness and regularity of feature; the pretty mustache accentuating and not concealing the neat and ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... afford a speck of shade as they sat there in the eye of the westering sun. The man (aged about one-and-twenty) wore the uncomfortable Sunday-best of a mechanic, with a shrivelled, but still enormous, bunch of Sweet-William in his buttonhole. The girl was dressed in a bright green gown and a white bonnet. Both were flushed and perspiring, and I still think they must have ordered hot cocoa in haste, and were repenting it at leisure. They lifted their eyes and blushed with a yet warmer red as I ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... When his wife was not doing the housework she used to nurse the baby and cry, remembering the happy days when she lived with her father, who kept seventeen cows and lived quite in the country, and when John used to come courting her in the summer evenings, as smart as smart, with a posy in his buttonhole. And now John's hair was getting gray, and there was ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... coroner's jury, poking their pasteboard countenances close to the sculptor's with an unchangeable grin, that gave still more ludicrous effect to the comic alarm and sorrow of their gestures. Just then, a figure came by, in a gray wig and rusty gown, with an inkhorn at his buttonhole and a pen behind his ear; he announced himself as a notary, and offered to make the last will and testament of the assassinated man. This solemn duty, however, was interrupted by a surgeon, who brandished a ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... heard something move on the far side of the wall: he paused to make sure, and then he whistled, the sounds outside ceased, and in a moment something fell softly behind him. He turned quickly and snatched up a little buttonhole of flowers with a still smaller note tied ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... grand train of knights and nobles that accompanied her, and to admire the magnificence of the dresses and decorations which were so profusely displayed. Every body came wearing a daisy in his cap or in his buttonhole, for the daisy was the flower which Margaret had chosen for her emblem. At every town through which the bride passed she was met by immense crowds that thronged all the accessible places, and filled the windows, ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... me all about her! [Putting in her last roses; she keeps one rosebud in her hand, of a size suitable for a man's buttonhole. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... along with a tall red-nosed fellow. I noticed his red nose because it was the same colour as a book he held, whose leather cover was like a bad strawberry. He had a little ink-bottle hanging at his buttonhole and a pen in his mouth, and was followed by quite a ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... There was something almost spiritual in the look of Arthur Alce's eyes, as he stood beside Ellen, his arm held stiffly for the repose of hers, his great choker collar scraping his chin, lilies of the valley and camellias sprouting from his buttonhole, a pair of lemon kid gloves—split at the first attempt, so he could only hold them—clutched in his moist hand. He looked devout, exalted, as he armed his little bride ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... Maggie went with him to the creek, to see him sail. In the garden she picked a chrysanthemum and stuck it in his buttonhole, forgetting that he couldn't wear her token. There were so many things ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... as it is like the Legion of Honor in color, he is prohibited from wearing it in his buttonhole without displaying the small gold cross—And I ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... before the sacrifice of the yellow locks could be accomplished, and he stood on the steps of the hotel, clad in the most exquisite of grays, tapering down to the most brilliant of boots. He had a white rose in his buttonhole, and his great black dog was lying at his feet, having for a wonder found his master, for the beast was given to roaming, or to the plebeian society of Barker's servant. The American's careful attire ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... with thankfulness the kind offer of his host, and when he approached the daughter to take leave of her, she graciously stuck a sprig of water-cress in his buttonhole. ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... himself be swept away on the tide of some irresistible impulse. He longed to dare, and yet he had never dared. He longed to take risks, and yet he studied every step of the road. He longed to be unconventional, and yet he would have died rather than wear a red flower in his buttonhole. The thought of Patty rushed over him like the wind at dawn or the light of the sunrise. There was deliverance; there was freedom of spirit! She was the impulse he dared not follow, the risk he dared not take, the red ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... She had just pleasantly escaped being unpunctual. She came in, cool, slim, electric. Then she hesitated. For the fraction of a second she hesitated. Then Sam Klein greeted her: "Company's waiting, Miss Fuller, if you're ready." And the leading man came forward, a flower in his buttonhole, carefully tailored and slightly yellow as a leading man of forty should be at 10:30 A. M. "How wonderful ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... I am cheerful—I didn't turn a hair even over Mons—slept exactly the same, and had bacon and tomato for my breakfast. Then they say, "Carry on." And I do carry on. I go out as usual, dress just as carefully—spats, fancy waistcoat, buttonhole, etc. One night it's the Imperial and another it's the Cinema. Men are wanted to cheer the patriotic songs and to sing the chorus of "Tipperary." I help here. Then I spend my money freely—freely, I tell you. Any Tommy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... were about it. To be sure, the best of all congratulations awaited him on the 16th of March at the head of the Journal Officiel, in a decree which gleamed before his eyes in anticipation and made him squint in the direction of his buttonhole. ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... bulldog pipe in the corner of his mouth, a billycock hat set rather jauntily on his head, a short, drab-coloured overcoat of horsy cut, black and white check trousers, red-skin riding gloves, square-toed walking shoes, a light cane, and a rose in his buttonhole; you would have taken him at first sight for a sporting tipster. Matthieu, who had stopped short at this sudden apparition, and Bonafede, both stood staring in amazement. The new-comer looked at them with a wicked twinkle in his eye, and burst out ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... and walked with him into the garden, among the roses and sweet-smelling things of summer. And then—oh, wonderful, exquisite marvel!—plucked a sprig of mignonette, smelled it, and placed it in his buttonhole. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... pryin' at one o' her undercrusts. 'N,' just between you 'n' me, Mrs. Lathrop, he says it 's a secret 's he will carry to his grave unsealed as she give him a crock o' gherkins on his birthday, with a pair o' buttonhole ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... "I mean, did he buttonhole you on your way to school, and say, 'Jackson, a word in your ear. You stick on side.' Or did he lead up to it in any way? Did he say, 'Talking of side, you stick it on.' What had you been ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... angles to the cutter, and then slid down the slot until the cap-screw unbuttons from the cutter. The object in sliding the cap up the slot before turning it, is to prevent the danger of injuring the edge. Some caps are now made with the buttonhole at the upper end ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... marshalling them and reading as he walked in a great book. He was installed in a villa, semi-detached; the name, "Rosemore," on the gateposts. In a chair on the gravel walk he seemed to sit smoking a cigar, a blue ribbon in his buttonhole, victor over himself and circumstances and the malignity of bankers. He saw the parlour, with red curtains, and shells on the mantelpiece—and, with the fine inconsistency of visions, mixed a grog at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... slowly, for it was a warm day. He discovered a military-looking old man in a close-buttoned black coat, with an order at his buttonhole, a neck-cloth twisted an incredible number of times around his throat, a well-brushed hat, and light trousers. The gentleman nodded to a young lady, who went off towards the town, and then continued ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... fellow, what on earth should we men do going about with purity and innocence? A carefully thought-out buttonhole is much more effective. ...
— Lady Windermere's Fan • Oscar Wilde
... going to the scene of the contest. Both were dressed for the occasion, and I tell you they were sights! The bank clerk had on a collar so high that he could hardly turn his head, a high silk hat, long black frock-coat, and an immense white rose in his buttonhole. ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... the owner of a green-house, sent each of the members voting "aye" a buttonhole bouquet, a badge of honor which marked our friends for a few hours at least. It is a pertinent fact that, while the opposition insist that women do not want to vote, in a single county of this sparsely settled territory 222 women did vote in the midst of a severe ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... met; hers fluttered down; but she raised them suddenly and put the flower in his buttonhole, her face so close that he felt her breath ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... slightly-waving brown hair, that could only be parted, with the sweetest sorrow, in the centre of his well-shaped, almost philosophical head, and movements light and temperate as those of a meditative squirrel. Having just dined he was naturally in evening dress, with a butterfly tie, gleaming pumps, and a buttonhole of violets. He shut the door gently, glanced at his nice-looking grandmothers, and, walking forward very quietly and demurely, applied his eye to the telescope, lowering himself slightly by a Sandow exercise, which he had practised before he became a prophet. Having remained in this position ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... of Mr. Leath's opinions was enhanced by the distinction of his appearance and the reserve of his manners. He was like the anarchist with a gardenia in his buttonhole who figures in the higher melodrama. Every word, every allusion, every note of his agreeably-modulated voice, gave Anna a glimpse of a society at once freer and finer, which observed the traditional ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... how—how—that he—the man, has taken possession of him? Thomas says the two sneak off together every chance they get, and sometimes are n't back till eleven or twelve. I wish dadda would put a stop to it. Like as not, 't is for pilfering they are bound." Miss Meredith began anew on the buttonhole, and had she been thrusting her needle into either man or dog, she could not have sewed with a ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... writes a very good hand. Her husband is also one of the highest chiefs in Fiji, and speaks good English. They proved most hospitable, and presented me with some Fijian fans when I left the next morning, and the Princess gave me a buttonhole of flowers out of her garden. Dick Seddon, the Premier of New Zealand, had once visited them, and I noticed his portrait that he had given them fastened to a post in their hut. I left Navuso by steam launch which called at ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... his silk hat and frock-coat and spats, with a carnation in his buttonhole, he seized the wheelbarrow like a man, and away we went. I steered him up the Main Street, and people began to hail us with laughter from automobiles, and to jest with us on the sidewalk, and Marie came along with two other pretty ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... cried, with enthusiasm. "You are, Dawson, the perfect detective. As a criminal I should be mightily afraid of you. But, as in my buttonhole I always wear the white flower which proclaims to the world my blameless life, I am thoroughly enjoying this visit and our cosy chat beside the fire. Shall I telephone to my office and say that I shall be unavoidably detained from duty for an indefinite time? 'Detained' ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... the most part these waited on their customers in silence, she was full of lively talk, and as unblushing in her eagerness to sell as a 'bouquetiere' by profession. She had grown dangerously pretty. Fred was dazzled when she wanted to fasten a rose into his buttonhole, and then, as he paid for it, gave him another, saying: "And here is another thrown in for ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... the most distinguished—indeed, the only distinguished—physician in Saint X. He was a short, stout, grizzled, spectacled man, with a nose like a scarlet button and a mouth like a buttonhole; in speech he was abrupt, and, on the slightest pretext or no pretext at all, sharp; he hid a warm sympathy for human nature, especially for its weaknesses, behind an uncompromising candor which he regarded as the duty of the man of science toward a vain and deluded race that knew little and ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... one circumstance," he said, smiling. "When, five years ago, Kosorotov received the order of St. Anna of the second grade, and went to thank His Excellency, His Excellency expressed himself as follows: 'So now you have three Annas: one in your buttonhole and two on your neck.' And it must be explained that at that time Kosorotov's wife, a quarrelsome and frivolous person, had just returned to him, and that her name was Anna. I trust that when I receive the Anna of the second grade His Excellency will not ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... gentleman. He is very young, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient as it should seem for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he suspended from his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, the dogs barked, puss scampered, the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, never probably to be thus interrupted more. ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... again; and after my friend had made a note respecting some additional relief for the family, we bade the woman good day. We had not gone far before a little ragged lass looked up admiringly at two pinks I had stuck in my buttonhole, and holding up her hand, said, "Eh, gi' me a posy!" My friend pointed to one of the cottages we passed, and said that the last time he called there, he found the family all seated round a large bowl of porridge, made of Indian meal. This meal is sold at a penny a pound. He stopped at another ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... back, displaying a crimson—velvet facing, also richly embroidered, and an embroidered scarlet waistcoat; a large solitary star glittered on his breast, and the grand cross of the Legion of Honour sparkled at his buttonhole; his black neckerchief had been taken off; and his cocked hat lay beside him on a sofa, massively laced, the edges richly ornamented with ostrich down; his head was covered with a red velvet cap, with a thick gold cord twisted two or three turns round it, and ending ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... long for the appearance of the lawyer, a fat, pale-faced gentleman, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, tightly buttoned up in a frock-coat, the buttonhole of which was adorned with the red rosette ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... bearded, swarthy men around Blome's table. There were the four rustlers—Blome brooding, perhaps vaguely, spiritually, listening to a knock; there was Bo Snecker, reckless youth, fondling a flower he had, putting the stem in his glass, then to his lips, and lastly into the buttonhole of Blome's vest; there was Hilliard, big, gloomy, maybe with his cavernous eyes seeing the hell where I expected he'd soon be; and last, the little dusty, scaly Pickens, who looked about to leap and ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... thirst, shook the cramp from her limbs, and said: "Some time we will have to see where this road leads. There may be more surprises beyond." She broke a flower from its stem and fastened it in Kirk's buttonhole, while he gazed down at her with ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... decoration, i.e., the Cross of the Legion of Honor, founded by Napoleon I., and since always regarded as the highest of such distinctions in France. The cross is not usually worn, but in its place a bit of red ribbon in the buttonhole.] ...
— Bataille De Dames • Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve
... landlord, who seemed to have been proud of the official visit to his guest. He was profuse in his attentions, and even introduced him to a singularly artistic-looking man of middle age, wearing an order in his buttonhole, whom he met casually ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... I assure you, for Toby had a red feather-duster in his head, two remarkable flags waved over the carriage, Kit had a blue bow on his neck, which nearly drove him wild, Demi wore a nosegay of dandelions in his buttonhole, and Mrs. Jo carried the queer Japanese umbrella in ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... was tall and he was thin. His trousers were extremely elegant, a light cloth, black and white check, hung on his legs in graceful lines, and he wore tiny boots with light brown cloth tops. The jacket and waistcoat were in dark brown cloth, and the odour of the gardenia in his buttonhole contrasted with that of the sachet- scented silk pocket-handkerchief which lay in his side pocket. His throat showed white and healthy in the high collar tied with a white silk cravat in a sailor's knot, fastened with a small diamond. His hands were coarse and brown; he wore two rings, ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... his way to class he plucked up courage to purchase a small buttonhole for her, and blushed a very warm red when Joan took his offering with a smile and ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... 17.—St. Patrick's Day in the evening. Every Irish Member carries in buttonhole bit of withered grass; at least looks like withered grass. DICK POWER says it's shamrock. Anyhow it leads to dining-out, and business to fore being nothing more important than voting a few millions sterling for the Navy, House ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... over, and immediately there ensued between himself and Carrie a lively conversation, in which she adroitly managed to let him know that she had been three years at school in Albany. The next thing that I saw was that he took from her curls a rosebud and appropriated it to his buttonhole. I glanced at Emma to see how she was affected, but her face was perfectly calm, and wore the old sweet smile. When the young ladies were about leaving, I was greatly shocked to see Mr. Ashmore offer to ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... young—not quite sixteen—and small for her age, a mere child; and she had just been married—and married to Jurgis,* (*Pronounced Yoorghis) of all men, to Jurgis Rudkus, he with the white flower in the buttonhole of his new black suit, he with the mighty shoulders ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the first voice. "French Pete and that thar feller that keeps the Dutch grocery hev hed a row over it; emptied their six-shooters into each other. The Dutchman's got two balls in his leg, and the Frenchman's got an onnessary buttonhole in his shirt-buzzum, and hez ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... ribbon of the Legion of Honor at his buttonhole, for he had been a major of dragoons in the time of the Emperor. M. de Nucingen, who had been a contractor before he became a banker, had had reason in those days to know the honorable disposition of his cashier, who then occupied a high position. Reverses of fortune had befallen the major, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... has always amazed me that they should find the game worth the candle. What they add to their incomes I do not know, but it cannot be very much, and the trouble they have to take is colossal. Nobody loves them, and they must see it; yet they persevere. Glossop, for instance, had been trying to buttonhole me every time there was a five minutes' break in ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... ominous cough in the doorway caused them both to start. Mr. Tucker, in widower's weeds, but with a jonquil jauntily thrust through his buttonhole, stood with his hand still on the knob, evidently transfixed by ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... train at the village and looked about him with that bored and commiserating expression with which city men are apt to regard the shallow skyline of a small town. He was of medium height and carefully groomed from his well-tailored clothes to the carnation in his buttonhole and manicured polish of his nails. His face, clean-shaven save for a close-cropped and sandy mustache, held a touch of the florid and his figure inclined to stoutness. At the livery stable where he called for a buggy, after learning that no taxis were to be had, he gave the name of ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... given up his apartment that morning. His furniture had gone toward certain debts. His clothes, save what were upon him, had descended to his man-servant for back wages. As he sat there was not in the whole city for him a bed or a broiled lobster or a street-car fare or a carnation for buttonhole unless he should obtain them by sponging on his friends or by false pretenses. Therefore he had ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... about it. It is true that the best of congratulations awaits him on the 16th March on the front page of the Official Journal in a decree which flames in advance before his eyes and makes him glance every now and then at his buttonhole. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Mrs. Stubbs, and she pointed dramatically to the life-size head and shoulders of a burly man with a dead white rose in the buttonhole of his coat that made you think of a curl of cold mutting fat. Just below, in silver letters on a red cardboard ground, were the words, "Be not afraid, ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... Mick was full of the spirit of adventure, and looked forward to that spring Wednesday when he should leave for Queenstown, his mother made up for his heartless joy by her lugubriousness. As the time drew near she would buttonhole all and sundry whom she could catch to pour out her sorrows. The trailing gown and ragged lace shawl became a danger signal which we would all flee from, an it were not sprung upon us too suddenly. We had a shrewd ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... evening livery, he freed the heavy silver watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an old-fashioned silver watch of that obese style which first earned the portable timepiece its nickname of "turnip," and opening its back inserted a key attached to the other end of the chain. Its winding was a laborious process, prodigiously ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... quite a different style is made in applied work on unbleached cotton sheeting. A pattern of yellow fruit or flower with leaves is cut out in coloured serges sewn on with crewels in buttonhole stitch; stems, veins, and buds being also worked in crewels, and the ground slightly darned in dim yellow crewel. It is elaborate, but a very pleasant and repaying piece ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... dudes and ladies' men—the few Who wish they could be ladies too— Display a sprig of yellow Conspicuous in their buttonhole, To captivate a maiden soul ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... declared, "they're here, and they ain't here; they're like pigs in the garden, and yeou can't git 'em out." On which an old woman, a member of the flock, sprang up and cried, "That's right, Brother Pepper, kitch 'em by the fifth buttonhole!" {22} Tom went once to hear Gavazzi lecture at Debenham, and next day my father asked him how he liked it. "Well," he said, "I thowt I should ha' beared that chap they call Jerry Baldry, but I din't. Howsomdiver, this one ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... the mouth." "Yes," said Sir Robert, "and the arrow coming out of it." Or it may mean Sir Robert Inglis, Peel's successor at Oxford, more noted for his genial kindness and for the perpetual bouquet in his buttonhole at a date when such ornaments were not worn, than for capacity to conceive and say good things. In some mischievous lines describing the Oxford election where ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... my readers imagine a line formed by the Espana, Barcelona and Habana regiments, the artillery, and a lancer regiment, splendid troops all of them, under the command of General Count de Mirasol, with his baton slung at his buttonhole. And, facing this line, another of the most exquisitely charming aspect. All the volantes in Havana drawn up in battle array! The said volantes, peculiar to the place, are gigs without hoods or aprons, perched on two huge wheels, and each drawn by one horse in silver-mounted trappings, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... will be the adjustment of the two pieces of stuff in such a way that the edges to be fastened together touch one another from top to bottom. Then, if it is a buttoning-frame, the teacher will show the child the different stages of the action. She will take hold of the button, set it opposite the buttonhole, make it enter the buttonhole completely, and adjust it carefully in its place above. In the same way, to teach a child to tie a bow, she will separate the stage in which he ties the ribbons together from that in ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... sixty—bare-headed, dressed in a gray suit, with his collar and coat over his arm and hands filled with wild-flowers, was passing leisurely along, singing at the top of his voice. Once he stopped, and, bending over, picked a bunch of mountain-berries which he tucked into a buttonhole of his flannel shirt, just before disappearing in a turn of ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... or in the barracks, knowing the thousand little details of housekeeping which careful soldiers practice. He preserved the pride of dress, dressed himself well, wore the ribbon of the brave at his buttonhole and a wide crape ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... he swings in, all dolled up elegant with a pink carnation in his buttonhole. You should have seen the smile come off his face, though, when he sees what's occupyin' my desk chair. He'd have done a sneak back through the door too, if I hadn't ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... Kiowa halfback caught it and started up the field. Right at him came Birdie Andrews, hat in hand, and when the halfback arrived he bowed and asked him to stop. The runner declined. McMurty was right behind and he also begged the runner to stop. Boggs tried to buttonhole him. Skeeter Wilson, who was as fast as a trolley car, ran along with him for twenty-five yards, pleading with him to listen to reason and consent to be downed. It was no use. The halfback went over the goal line. The Kiowa delegation ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... an organ voluntary, played by Miss Janet Eden, who, as all the village said of her, 'was a rare 'and at doin' the music proper.' Each man and woman wore their Sunday best,—each girl had some extra bit of finery on, and each lad sported either a smart necktie or wore a flower in his buttonhole, as a testimony to the general festal feeling inspired by a day when ordinary work is set aside for the mingled pleasures of prayer, meditation and promiscuous love-making. The iconoclasts who would do away with the appointed seventh day of respite from the hard labours of ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... it is for the good sense of the public to distinguish true remedies from false, pure wine from adulterated; or, it is for the good sense of the public to distinguish in a buttonhole the decoration awarded to merit from that prostituted to mediocrity and intrigue. Why, then, do you call yourselves the State, Power, Authority, Police, if the work of Police must be performed by the ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... attentions. He was particularly polite, and pleasant, and anxious to be of service to me. Presently, he asked me what order of nobility I belonged to? I said, "I didn't belong to any." Then he asked me what order of knighthood I belonged to? I said, "None." Then he asked me what the red ribbon in my buttonhole stood for? I saw, at once, what an ass I had been making of myself, and was accordingly confused and embarrassed. I said the first thing that came into my mind, and that was that the ribbon was merely the symbol of a club of journalists to which I belonged, and I was not pursued ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... saw the princely arms and colours on various houses and in the windows of shops. Emblems of a small State, they belonged to the history of the Empire. The Court-physician passed with a bit of ribbon in his buttonhole. A lady driving in an open carriage encouraged me to salute her. She was the wife of the Prince's Minister of Justice. Upon what foundation had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and Evacuation Day, when the British redcoats got out of Boston and Patrick evicted the snakes from Ireland. For observing the day, wear a turkey-red coat, or vest, and put a bit of green ribbon, or a shamrock, in the buttonhole—the green above the red. On Easter day, wear a scrambled egg in ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... distinguished—indeed, the only distinguished—physician in Saint X. He was a short, stout, grizzled, spectacled man, with a nose like a scarlet button and a mouth like a buttonhole; in speech he was abrupt, and, on the slightest pretext or no pretext at all, sharp; he hid a warm sympathy for human nature, especially for its weaknesses, behind an uncompromising candor which he regarded as ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... 5:30 p.m. your grace is requested to be at the Piccadilly end of the Burlington Arcade with five hundred pounds in gold. You will there be accosted by an individual in a white top hat, and with a gardenia in his buttonhole. You will be entirely at liberty to give him into custody, or to have him followed by the police, in which case the duchess's left arm, cut off at the shoulder, will be sent home for dinner—not to mention other extremely possible contingencies. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... constantly on the outlook for a kind of tourist who had been described to me frequently and at great length by more seasoned travelers—the kind who wore his country's flag as a buttonhole emblem, or as a shirtfront decoration; and regarded every gathering and every halting place as providing suitable opportunity to state for the benefit of all who might be concerned, how immensely and overpoweringly ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... looked at his finger again, took it out of the buttonhole and looked at it closer, bit the side of it ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... and here I am," said a gentleman with a grey moustache, who entered my study, dressed in a dark-brown frock-coat and a wide-brimmed hat, with a red ribbon in his buttonhole. "What's the matter?" ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... full of the spirit of adventure, and looked forward to that spring Wednesday when he should leave for Queenstown, his mother made up for his heartless joy by her lugubriousness. As the time drew near she would buttonhole all and sundry whom she could catch to pour out her sorrows. The trailing gown and ragged lace shawl became a danger signal which we would all flee from, an it were not sprung upon us too suddenly. We had a shrewd suspicion that the tears Mrs. Sheehy shed ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... five years ago, Kosorotov received the order of St. Anna of the second grade, and went to thank His Excellency, His Excellency expressed himself as follows: 'So now you have three Annas: one in your buttonhole and two on your neck.' And it must be explained that at that time Kosorotov's wife, a quarrelsome and frivolous person, had just returned to him, and that her name was Anna. I trust that when I receive the Anna of the second grade His Excellency ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the street leading to his Bloomsbury attic, the author was tapped on the shoulder by a resplendent Bond Street being. That is, the said being wore a perfectly-fitting frock-coat, a silk hat, trousers with the regulation fold back and front, an orchid buttonhole, grey gloves, boots that glittered, and carried a gold-topped cane. The fact that Paul wheeled without wincing showed that he was not yet in debt. Your Grub Street old-time author would have leaped his own length at the touch. But Paul, with a clean conscience, turned slowly, ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... servile urbanity of the landlord, who seemed to have been proud of the official visit to his guest. He was profuse in his attentions, and even introduced him to a singularly artistic-looking man of middle age, wearing an order in his buttonhole, whom he met casually in ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... or elicit my admiration! In either case, I resolved upon a revanche. By its wound, the bignonia smelt sweeter than ever; and though I could not restore the pretty blossom to its graceful campanulate shape, from that time forward it appeared in my buttonhole—to the slight torture, I fancied, of ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... himself down with his face to the ground like the cowardly guides. "But I suppose we'd better do as these gentry require, or else they'll be hitting us under the fifth buttonhole; and, what would ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... they will say, art thou a magician, Spiegelberg? 'Tis a pity, the king will say, that thou wert not made a general, Spiegelberg, thou wouldst have thrust the Austrians through a buttonhole. Yes, I hear the doctors lamenting, 'tis a crying shame that he was not bred to medicine, he would have discovered the elixir vitae. Ay, and that he did not take to financiering, the Sullys will deplore ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried towards him and placed it in his hand. He stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, 'Tom Codlin's the friend, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... man, has taken possession of him? Thomas says the two sneak off together every chance they get, and sometimes are n't back till eleven or twelve. I wish dadda would put a stop to it. Like as not, 't is for pilfering they are bound." Miss Meredith began anew on the buttonhole, and had she been thrusting her needle into either man or dog, she could not have sewed with ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... photograph of the "A Class" of 1870: eight pretty girls in white, smiling among five solemn boys in black, and Tommy himself, as the valedictorian, occupying the centre of the picture in his new suit of broadcloth, with a rose in his buttonhole and his hair cut by a professional barber ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... waist and disclosed a cashmere waistcoat crossed in front, beneath which was another waistcoat of white material. His watch, negligently slipped into a pocket, was fastened by a short gold chain to a buttonhole. His gray trousers, buttoned up at the sides, were set off at the seams with patterns of black silk embroidery. He gracefully twirled a cane, whose chased gold knob did not mar the freshness of his gray gloves. And to complete all, ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... sketching in pen and ink, indoors and out—he used at one time to carry a little ink-bottle at his buttonhole, and steel pens in his waistcoat-pocket, and thus equipped he would sketch whatever took his fancy in his walks abroad—houses, 'busses, cabs, people—bits of street and square, scaffoldings, hoardings with advertisements—sea, river, moor, lake, ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... through his buttonhole. Conrad twisted his in his strong yellow teeth, turned it over, and then spat it out. The action, though of doubtful taste in itself, was ennobled by his perfect rendering of it. He brought it, so to speak, forever within the sphere ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... Jolnes, with a touch of pride in his air; "there is no such word in the lexicon of ratiocination. In Major Ellison's buttonhole there was a carnation and a rosebud backed by a geranium leaf. No woman ever combined a carnation and a rosebud into a boutonniere. Close your eyes, Whatsup, and give the logic of your imagination ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... from her with a hand that was perfectly steady, held it a moment, seemed to hesitate, finally withdrew it and planted it in his own buttonhole. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... a hearing before the General Assembly. The opponents had rushed into town every farmer and small politician they could secure and the women "antis" pinned a red rose in his buttonhole. The suffragists had given a yellow jonquil to every friend. Behind the Speaker's desk hung a huge yellow banner inscribed "Votes for Women," and so crowded was the room with determined men and eager women that the sergeant-at-arms had to clear a space ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... they should find the game worth the candle. What they add to their incomes I do not know, but it cannot be very much, and the trouble they have to take is colossal. Nobody loves them, and they must see it; yet they persevere. Glossop, for instance, had been trying to buttonhole me every time there was a five minutes' break in the ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... departure from the dairy window, which, overgrown with creepers, made a dark frame for the brightly-coloured picture. There was Mr Buckle, a young farmer of the neighbourhood, in a light-grey suit with a blue satin tie and a rose in his buttonhole. There was Bella, her face covered with self-satisfied smiles, mounting to his side. There was Agnetta carrying the new parasol high in the air with all its lace fluttering. How gay and happy they all looked! Mrs Greenways stood nodding at the window. She had meant to go out to the ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... instance, we call to mind the clergyman who makes a specialty of going from place to place as a successful debt demolisher. He is a part of the general system, just as much as the ice cream freezer or the buttonhole bouquet. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... world. Indeed, I could not but notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side and had a large bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the buttonhole of his coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care and business, but he is particularly so during this season, having so many commissions to execute in consequence of the great interchange of presents. And here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my untravelled readers ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... in his buttonhole, and stood looking in his face with a saucy gaze. Clarence yielded at once. His small despot knew very well how to rule him and to put down such short-lived attempts at insubordination as he ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... excited my suspicion, and, putting on my spectacles, I saw that I was fondling a snake, or smelling at a bud with a worm in it, I sprang up in horror and ran away; or, if it seemed to me through the glasses that a cherub smiled upon me, or a rose was blooming in my buttonhole, then I felt myself imperfect and impure, not fit to be leading and training what was so essentially superior in quality to myself, and I kissed the children and left them ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... prayers at church but spend nights and days listening to novellas, the parvo, predecessor of the Spanish gracioso, the Lisbon courtier descended from Aeneas, the astronomer, unpractical in daily life as he gazes on the stars, the old man amorous, rose in buttonhole, playing on a viola, the Jewish marriage-brokers, the country bumpkin, the lazy peasant lying by the fire, the poor but happy gardener and his wife, the quarrelsome blacksmith with his wife the bakeress, the carriers jingling along the ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... He was very dapper in a new tailcoat and a flower in his buttonhole. He was very nervous, too, for he was to give the address of the day. He pulled a small box from ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... button and buttonhole. For one is something and the other nothing, and what in the very nature of things could ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... proceeded to higher ground, and with increasing wonder Mr. Carlyle listened to the faithful catalogue of his possessions. His fetter-and-link albert of gold and platinum was minutely described. His spotted blue ascot, with its gentlemanly pearl scarfpin, was set forth, and the fact that the buttonhole in the left lapel of his morning coat showed signs of use was duly noted. What Parkinson saw he recorded, but he made no deductions. A handkerchief carried in the cuff of the right sleeve was simply that to him and not an indication that ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... She wore one glove (wrong side out), and was carrying the other one. Her dress, evidently donned hastily for the street, was unevenly fastened, showing the topmost button without a buttonhole. ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... too; I like you to wear one in your buttonhole as the ladies' grooms do in the Park," said the child, settling a scarlet poppy in ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... DES RUBANS; little bits of ribbon are worn in the buttonhole by members of the Legion of Honor, established by Napoleon in 1802. Membership in it is a purely honorary distinction, conferred by the government for conspicuous services of any kind, civil as well as military, and usually much coveted. Branger refused all such favors from ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... first sounded to most people a church hymn. But it was not a church hymn. It was a new method of shouting out the odds, attracting attention to an exceedingly well-got-up gentleman in a grey frock suit, patent leather boots, white spats, grey gloves, tall white hat, and a flower in his buttonhole. A new bookmaker had made his appearance. He informed the crowds in song that he betted "only for cash," not "on the nod"—"I pay on the winner, immediately after the race." It only wanted an organ to accompany him. It was quite amusing to watch the remainder of his brethren in the ring. ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... paper. Ethel Blue's dress was fashioned in the same way, her violet gauze being covered with violets and her cap a tiny lace affair with a violet border. In her case she was able to use many real violets and to carry a basket of the fresh flowers. The contents was made up of small bunches of buttonhole size and she stepped from the procession at almost every table to sell a bunch to some gentleman sitting there. A scout kept the ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... finger is twisted in your buttonhole,—if you pull yourself away I expect you'll break it, so pray don't pull; naturally, I detest pain. And I have ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the influence of M. Bertin was most considerable, yet he only used this influence to obtain orders and decorations for his contributors. As to himself, to his honor and glory be it stated, that he never stuck the smallest bit of riband to his own buttonhole, or, during the seventeen years of the monarchy of July, ever once put his feet inside the Tuileries. At the Italian Opera or the Varietes, sometimes at the Cafe de Paris, the Maison Doree, or the Trois Freres, M. Bertin may be seen enjoying the music, or his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... father. He dressed neatly and well. His trousers were never without their fresh crease. He was very vain of his neat appearance, even to the wearing of a fresh-cut flower in his buttonhole. This vanity made him also wear his derby indoors and out, because of ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... turn a hair even over Mons—slept exactly the same, and had bacon and tomato for my breakfast. Then they say, "Carry on." And I do carry on. I go out as usual, dress just as carefully—spats, fancy waistcoat, buttonhole, etc. One night it's the Imperial and another it's the Cinema. Men are wanted to cheer the patriotic songs and to sing the chorus of "Tipperary." I help here. Then I spend my money freely—freely, I tell you. Any Tommy I meet can have a drink—half a dozen at my expense, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... did indicated his unusual position. But Dolokhov, who in Moscow had worn a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman's padded coat with an Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of the room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denisov and began questioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov told him of the designs the large detachments had on the transport, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... buttonhole in fine style, and at lightning speed, to show the coolness of her mind, then with a rattling of all her lockets, looked up and waited for Lady ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that the Board would not forget to elevate their employees, using the word with a double e, as being more vigorous and Anglo-Saxon (he had the strong Imperialistic tendencies of his cloth). It was his salutary custom to buttonhole a director afterwards, and ask him whether he thought the coming year would be good or bad; and, according to the trend of the answer, to buy or sell three shares within ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... rooms about one o'clock the next morning, with his hat a little on the back of his head, and wearing, very much against his prejudice, a white rose in his buttonhole. Brightman, who was awaiting him there, looked up eagerly ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... angle of a worm fence. His uniform was worn and ragged, mud-stained as well as blood-stained; the cap which had fallen from his head was a tatter, and the torn shoes were ready to drop from his stiffening feet; but in a buttonhole of his tunic was stuck the inevitable toothbrush, which continued even to the end of the war to be the distinguishing mark of gentle nurture,—the souvenir that the Confederate so often received from fair sympathizers in border towns. I am not a realist, but I would not exchange ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... forceythia out of his buttonhole. "I can believe it. I found this in one, of the squares, and I think it belongs to you." He. offered it with a bow and a laugh, and she took it in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was wondering what all this meant, the curtain suddenly parted and there entered an elderly gentleman somewhat jauntily attired in evening dress with a rose at his buttonhole. Saunders instantly recognised him as the banker, and he felt a resentment at what he considered his foppish appearance, realising almost at the same moment the rustiness of his own clothes, an everyday suit, not too ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... on his way to class he plucked up courage to purchase a small buttonhole for her, and blushed a very warm red when Joan took his offering with a smile and pinned it into ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... money. Each time he performed the journey with greater swagger, but he never brought more than a few dollars at a time. He grew maudlin, familiar, could hardly see the cards or sit upright. As a preliminary to another journey to his bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsen's buttonhole with a greasy forefinger and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, "I got money, I got money, I tell yer, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... upon the little brass knocker brought him to himself, and, after a glance at the closet door, he opened that of the entry, and then the outer door, to admit a good looking, fair-haired young fellow of about five-and-twenty, most scrupulously dressed, a creamy rose in his buttonhole, and a look of vexation in his merry face as he stood looking at his ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... been some time since Mary had seen him so closely, and as he approached she noticed the faultlessness of his dress, the lily of the valley in his buttonhole, and that slightly ironic but smiling manner which is generally attributed to men of the world, especially to those who have travelled far on adventurous and forbidden paths. In another age he might have worn lace cuffs and a sword, and have just returned from a gambling house ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... sitting-room way up in the country. He had not thought, for a long time before, of the dear old woman who supposed her son was turning his wits to good account in the city. But Miss Sydney did not know how much he wished for a bit to put in his buttonhole when she indignantly went back to the dining-room to wait until that impertinent fellow stopped ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... instead of returning the box to my pocket I passed the chain through the buttonhole of my cloak and let it dangle on my breast as an ornament. When the cigarette was smoked, I cleared my throat in the orthodox manner and fixed my eyes on Runi, who, on his part, made a slight movement to indicate that he was ready to listen to ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... had before him. That was the first occasion in my life on which I wore a dress suit; and amidst the unwashed, coally-flannelled handful, I daresay that my expanse of shirt front, and the flower in my buttonhole, made me conspicuous. I was a red-hot Liberal in those days, for no better reason, probably, than that my father held that form of creed, and I was quite persuaded that Kenealy was a paid impostor. So when, in that raucous voice of his, he said, "I love the working man," I answered ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... indeed, was all the earth that I became startled by the sudden chatter of a squirrel disturbed at my approach, and unthinkingly I stooped to pluck a delicate pink flower blooming in the grass, and placed it in a ragged buttonhole of my ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... downward gaze at her, stirred all the women's hearts and roused a sympathetic thrill in the men's breasts. Colin made a good show in the regulation bridegroom's frock coat, and with a sprig of orange blossom in his buttonhole. There was no doubt that he was extremely happy. He gave a short manly speech in response to Sir Luke's rather academic oration proposing the health of the wedded pair. The Premier too made a speech, and so did the Attorney-General, who was best man. Bridget's bridesmaids had been selected from ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... them to go the limit. And they have been going it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of the green tabs will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... Torkleson, condemning Towne and his followers for "flagrant violation of management contracts and illegal fouling of managerial processes." Ben Starkey, President of the Board of American Steel, expressed "shock and regret"; the Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers held a mass meeting in protest, demanding that "the instigators of this unprecedented crime be permanently barred from ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... suddenly and silently as a ghost. There was something uncanny about him as he stood there—a short, heavily-built fellow, standing without a word, one hand in his trousers pocket, a cigar in his mouth, and a red rosette, such as peasants wear on holidays, in the buttonhole of what was evidently his best coat. There he stood, gazing fixedly at Olof, with a curious ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... cut out his portions with a pair of buttonhole scissors, either, or sauce them with a medicine-dropperful of gravy. He gives a big, full, satisfying helping, well cooked and well served. There is some romance in the San Francisco cooking, too, if the oldtimers who bemourn the ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... boots, yellow gloves, handsome studs, and a very pretty gold chain passed through the buttonhole of his waistcoat of black silk with blue flowers. Madame de la Chanterie took a little silver whistle from her pocket and blew it. The ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... telling you a story—still refusing to get up in the pulpit and preach, or to invade the platform and lecture, or to take you by the buttonhole in confidence and make fun of my Art—it has been my chief effort to draw the characters with a vigour and breadth of treatment, derived from the nearest and truest view that I could get of the one model, Nature. Whether I shall at once succeed ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... had only forgotten for a minute, because I have so much on my mind!" she explained, laughing. "Why, Jim, what lovely flowers! Ikey, where is your buttonhole bouquet that I took so much ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... off the nest. A Kiowa halfback caught it and started up the field. Right at him came Birdie Andrews, hat in hand, and when the halfback arrived he bowed and asked him to stop. The runner declined. McMurty was right behind and he also begged the runner to stop. Boggs tried to buttonhole him. Skeeter Wilson, who was as fast as a trolley car, ran along with him for twenty-five yards, pleading with him to listen to reason and consent to be downed. It was no use. The halfback went over the goal ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... the familiar grey frock-coat, with the red rose in his buttonhole, as made famous by Punch. His massive head he carried very high, looking downward through the pebbles of ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... any such thing," said Keith, stoutly. "You can never sing it so well again if you do. Please accept this from a man who would rather have heard you sing that song that way than have heard Albani sing in 'Lohengrin.'" He took the rosebud out of his buttonhole and gave it to her, looking her straight ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... a game of shuffleboard was in progress. Above the main companion-way the ship's bands condescended to a little dance music on behalf of the second class. The Scotchman, clad in inch-thick heather mixture, was already discussing with all whom he could buttonhole the possibilities of a ship's concert. In a word, it was the third day out, the storm was over, and the passengers were cognizant of life, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... taught to do the following kinds of stitch, with propriety. Over-stitch, hemming, running, felling, stitching, back-stitch and run, buttonhole-stitch, chain-stitch, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... on a new habit, and a gardenia in her buttonhole, and she gave Nikky her hand to kiss, but only nodded to ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... with rich embroidery at the bosom and collar, was open, and the lappels thrown back, displaying a crimson—velvet facing, also richly embroidered, and an embroidered scarlet waistcoat; a large solitary star glittered on his breast, and the grand cross of the Legion of Honour sparkled at his buttonhole; his black neckerchief had been taken off; and his cocked hat lay beside him on a sofa, massively laced, the edges richly ornamented with ostrich down; his head was covered with a red velvet cap, with a thick gold cord twisted two or three turns round it, and ending in two large tassels ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... him how to find anything you wanted quickly, and he pointed the column where events are listed; and when I found the third page there was your face so splendidly reproduced, and you seemed so fine and noble to me I forgot about the dress suit and the badge in your buttonhole, or to wonder when or how or why it could have happened. I just sat there shouting in my soul, 'David! David! Medicine Man! Harvester ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... reading as he walked in a great book. He was installed in a villa, semi-detached; the name, Rosemore, on the gateposts. In a chair on the gravel walk, he seemed to sit smoking a cigar, a blue ribbon in his buttonhole, victor over himself and circumstances, and the malignity of bankers. He saw the parlour with red curtains and shells on the mantelpiece—and with the fine inconsistency of visions, mixed a grog at the mahogany table ere he turned in. With that the Farallone gave one of the aimless ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... each guest, and a prize is given to the person who guesses most, and to the person whose title is considered the best. Thus, a person wearing a card having the letter R represented Middlemarch, and a person with catkins in his buttonhole, Hazell's Annual. But simpler devices ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... somewhat disapprovingly, but said nothing; and presently the three rose, without vocal suggestion from any of them, and strolled thoughtfully back to the theatre, pausing a moment by the way, while Tinker bought a white carnation for his buttonhole. There was a good deal, he remarked absent-mindedly, in what Mr. Potter had said about lightening ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... opinion into a man's house each day for less than he now pays for gas. Just before election you could go into your private office, throw in a large dose of campaign whisky, light a campaign cigar, fasten your buttonhole to the wall by an elastic band, so that there would be a gentle pull on it, and turn the electricity on your mechanical thought supply. It would save time and money, and the result would be the same as it is now. This would only be the beginning, of course, and after a while every ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... all of her bonbons and began to toy with the buttons on his vest. Suddenly she drew a long hair out of the buttonhole ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... not look very pleased. I am afraid, after all, you ought to have asked Lady Fitzroy," she said, in a low voice; but Dick turned a deaf ear. He showed her the rose in his buttonhole; and when Nan told him it was withered, and wanted him to take it out, he gave her a reproachful ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... from Toronto the town. It was packed full of speeches and singing from the children and from a Welsh choir—and Canada flowers Welsh choirs—and presentations from many societies, whose members, wearing the long silk buttonhole tabs stamped with the gold title of the guild or committee to which they belonged, came forward to augment ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... " began the other stiffly, but broke down, shook his seal ring at Rex, and walking over to the glass, rearranged the bit of wild hyacinth in his buttonhole with care. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... and gold. At first he put it down to mere niggerish taste, and his dislike for the girl edged his stricture; then, on second thought, the oddness of sumac for a nosegay caught his attention. Nobody used sumac for a buttonhole. He had never heard of any woman, white or black, using sumac for a bouquet. Why should this Cissie Dildine trig herself ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... remarked that Carl wore in the buttonhole of his uniform a wild flower which she had thrown away. It might have been the purest accident; but she knew that he had seen her with it in her hand. The same day they had wild strawberries at dinner, and there were ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... had departed, and Hans found himself alone, he dressed, put a flower in his buttonhole, and walked over to the Counselor's house; for now the moment had arrived when he could ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... man ahead of her in the labour market of the world. To do this she will have to sacrifice some of her present intelligence; it is impossible to imagine a genuinely intelligent human being becoming a competent trial lawyer, or buttonhole worker, or newspaper sub-editor, or piano tuner, or house painter. Women, to get upon all fours with men in such stupid occupations, will have to commit spiritual suicide, which is probably much further than they will ever actually go. Thus a shade of their present superiority to men will ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... him and dropped the curtain immediately, a speck of colour in his buttonhole catching ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... room, Margaret arose and faced him. The Englishman was well dressed, and newly shaven, and wore a rosebud in his buttonhole. Evidently, he had spent some time over his toilet ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... have dared; to-day there was a slight indefinable change in the manner of Mr. Carlisle towards herself, which cast a spell over her. He stood beside Black Maggie, the carnations making a rosy spot in the buttonhole of his white jacket, while he gave some order to the groom—Eleanor did not hear what, for her mind was on something else; then turned to her and took her down, that same indescribable quality of manner and handling saying to all her senses that he regarded the horse ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... physical nearness of others. It is the thing that makes the New York subways during the rush hours such a horror. It is not pleasant to have a person so near that his breath is against your face, and there are not many men who enjoy being slapped on the back, punched in the ribs, or held fast by a buttonhole or a coat lapel. A safe rule is never to touch another person. He may ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... that for?" she asked, staring at me as I placed it in my buttonhole. "What do you want of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... stuck in the buttonhole of the schoolmaster's coat, a pale tea-rose. If Dr. Knowles had been a man of fine instincts, (which his opaque shining eyes would seem to deny,) he might have thought it was not unapt or ill-placed even in the shabby, scuffed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... going?" demanded Patricia, but Arabella put her left hand over her lips, while with her right she slipped another button into its buttonhole, ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... and fight her way to Margarita—who has been favoured beyond most women, and knows not God—at least, not that implacable deity of the London slum! Whenever I hear or read the phrase "Salvation Army" then do I see a young exquisite with a white camellia in his buttonhole, gazing like a hypnotised Indian Seer at a crude transparency blotted with unconvincing texts, then rushing off to found a celibate order—from Margarita, who was no more celibate that ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... but as it is like the Legion of Honor in color, he is prohibited from wearing it in his buttonhole without displaying the small gold cross—And I see only the ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... boy, it is impossible to make you that—for there are no longer any whole-tailors. You may, if you like, be a thread-waxer or a needle-threader; you may be one of the thirty men it takes to make a buttonhole, but a complete tailor—alas! it ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... when the door was thrown open. A man stood upon the threshold—a tall, fair man of middle age, with a small blond mustache, and a monocle dangling from a narrow black ribbon about his neck. From the very correct gardenia in his buttonhole to the very immaculate spats upon his feet, he was a careful prototype of the Piccadilly exquisite—a little faded, perhaps, slightly effete, but perfect in detail. He halted for a moment, as if he, too, were blinded by the swift change from sunshine ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... francs to Jenny, but the two hundred francs to the servants—nay the six sous given to the waiter at the restaurant, even the money he had spent on the bunch of violets. The bouquet still hung in his buttonhole, faded and shrivelled. What good did it do him? While the sous which he had paid for it—! He did not think of his wasted millions, but could not drive away the thought of that ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... man, gazing in upon the scene before him with an expression of distinct aversion, mingled with indifference. He was dressed just like the other men, in a long frock coat, and he had a white gardenia in his buttonhole. But there was something about him distinct and noticeable—something in the quiet easy manner with which he at last moved forward to greet his hostess, which seemed to thrill her through and through with a sense of sweet familiarity. And then she caught a turn of his head as he ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Paris; you might as well tell me, that the Swiss will abjure the money which makes a part of his distinction, as the Frenchman give up the laced coat, the powdered queue, and the order of St Louis at his buttonhole. Those things are the man, they are his mind, his senses, himself. He is a creation of monarchy—a clever, amusing, ingenious, and brave one; but rely upon my knowledge of human nature—if French nature be any thing of the kind—that Paris, a capital without balls, and a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... for the peasants, without the assistance of the priest, sans le concours du clerg. On such days Ivan Matveitch had been in the habit of going in to the peasants in the hall or on the balcony, with a rose in his buttonhole, and putting his lips to a silver goblet of vodka, he would make them a speech something like this: 'You are content with my actions, even as I am content with your zeal, whereat I rejoice truly. We are all brothers; ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Stem stitch contour: Maidenhair in buttonhole stitch. Star in buttonhole stitch on background of ...
— Jacobean Embroidery - Its Forms and Fillings Including Late Tudor • Ada Wentworth Fitzwilliam and A. F. Morris Hands
... lots of wimmen and girls on the streets, some on 'em sellin' posies for charity, I bought two little bunches, one on 'em I put in Josiah's buttonhole, though he objected and said it would probable make talk for a man of his age and dignity to be trimmed ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... schoolroom doors were thrown open, and the strains of the wedding march from Lohengrin floated sweetly out to us from violin and piano. At the same moment Phil appeared with a paper flower in his buttonhole, and arranged us in couples,—Nora and he going first,—and so we marched into ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... in a pool of blood. Curled, pomaded, with laced waist, the hips of a woman, the bust of a Prussian officer, the murmur of admiration from the boulevard wenches surrounding him, his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole; such was this ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the Billingsgate Calendar. The newspapers employed watchers, who picketed the block where Parnell and his wife lived, and telegraphed to Christendom the time the lights were out, and whether Mr. Parnell appeared with a shamrock or a rose in his buttonhole. The facts that Mrs. Parnell wore her hair in curls, and smilingly hummed a tune as she walked to the corner, were construed into proof of brazen guilt and a desire to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Gadfly, with a cigar in his mouth and a hot-house flower in his buttonhole, was holding out to him a slender, carefully-gloved hand. With the sunlight reflected in his immaculate boots and glancing back from the water on to his smiling face, he looked to Martini less lame and more conceited ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... short by a ring of the bell, immediately answered by Ballard's man, and Jerry entered. He was, I think, attired in one of Jack's "Symphonies," wore a blossom in his buttonhole, swung a stick jauntily, and altogether radiated health and good humor, greeting us ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... see it, and it really did look pretty from a distance, with its little close-clustered red roofs like a buttonhole bouquet floating on the sea. As the steamer brought us nearer the island something of the glamor faded; but there were about a dozen girls assembled to watch the arrival of the boat, wearing rather nice, winged white caps ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... his love of home, his favourite recreation or his religious convictions. These, I venture to say, are grave omissions. The picture is sadly wanting in suitable accessories. If I had been painting it I should have put a simple yellow daffodil in the MINISTER'S buttonhole, and pictured through an open window a sunlit bed of leeks, with perhaps a goat gambolling among them. I should have represented the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS in his study practising putting with a small bomb. And on the wall should have been a life-size portrait ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... used to it," Joey told him; "eight o'clock, then, on Sunday; plain evening dress. If you like to wear a bit of red ribbon in your buttonhole, why, do so. You can get it ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... might have the desire to communicate myself to a larger circle, but is he likely to be listened to who intrudes? I cannot and will not intrude. You surely have done enough to attract the attention of people towards me; shall I too buttonhole them and ask them for a hearing? Dear friend, these people are flabby and cowardly; they have no heart. Leave them alone! If I am to succeed, it must be through people who care about the matter. Where I must offer myself I lose all my ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... sprays set ready for them, and putting one in his own buttonhole, fastened the other in her bodice with a ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... and land, and were chary of relating the things they had seen—not because they were more wonderful than the fantasies of the Ananiases of print, but because they were so different. And I was a perpetual wedding-guest, always striving to cast my buttonhole over the finger of one of these mariners of fortune. This Captain Malone was a Hiberno-Iberian creole who had gone to and fro in the earth and walked up and down in it. He looked like any other well-dressed ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... skull, bore out of one's life, weary out of one's life, tire out of one's life, bore out of all patience, weary out of all patience, wear out one's patience, tire out of all patience; set to sleep, send to sleep; buttonhole. pall, sicken, nauseate, disgust. harp on the same string; drag its slow length along, drag its weary length along. never hear the last of; be tired of, be sick of, be tired with &c adj.; yawn; die with ennui. [of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... apples in the streets and brings them home and doesn't eat them, and then I am obliged to put them in the balcony because they make the room smell faint. Also he meets countrymen with honeycomb on their heads, and leads them (by the buttonhole when they have one) to this gorgeous establishment and requests the bar to buy honeycomb for his breakfast; then it stands upon the sideboard uncovered and the flies fall into it. He buys owls, too, and castles, and other horrible objects, made in bog-oak (that material ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... makes you feel smaller and smaller until you could crawl into your own watch pocket and live happily there ever after. There'd be slews of room and when you wanted the air of an evening you could climb up in a buttonhole of your vest and be quite cosy and comfortable. But shrink as you may, there is now no hope of escape, for she has reached out and grabbed you firmly by the wrist. She has you fast. You have a feeling that eight or nine thousand people ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb
... papa Sechard, your son will be a credit to you, you will see; he will make money and be a rich man one of these days, and wear the Cross of the Legion of Honor at his buttonhole." ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... must promise to come before he went away; she insisted. And she asked suddenly: "When I saw you on the seventeenth, didn't you have a bow in your buttonhole?" ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... easily manipulate the cord with his tiny fingers. Aim to have the loops of uniform size. Finish with a loop five inches long, leaving an end of the same length. Now, placing together the two ends of the chain, we have a loop and two single ends of cord. Take these single cords together and buttonhole them over the loop for about three inches, then twist. Tie the single ends with a square knot, and fringe them ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw
... know what? From this day forth I confer on you the rank of page to me; and don't you forget that pages have to keep close to their ladies. Here is the token of your new dignity,' she added, sticking the rose in the buttonhole of my jacket, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Lord Reggie alone in the room reading his letters. He was dressed in loose white flannel, and in the buttonhole of his thin jacket a big green carnation was stuck. ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... knees. "Now listen, old fellow and I'll tell you all about it. First of all, there was a perfect jam in the town hall. I sat up in front, with a lot of fellows, and had a splendid view. The old Italian came out dressed in his best suit of clothes black broadcloth, flower in his buttonhole, and so on. He made a fine bow, and he said he was 'pleased too see ze fine audience, and he was going to show zem ze fine animals, ze finest animals in ze world.' Then he shook a little whip that he carried in ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... waistcoat of his evening livery, he freed the heavy silver watchchain from its buttonhole, drew from its pocket an old-fashioned silver watch of that obese style which first earned the portable timepiece its nickname of "turnip," and opening its back inserted a key attached to the other end of the chain. Its winding ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... great-coat, only half buttoned up, nipped in his waist and disclosed a cashmere waistcoat crossed in front, beneath which was another waistcoat of white material. His watch, negligently slipped into a pocket, was fastened by a short gold chain to a buttonhole. His gray trousers, buttoned up at the sides, were set off at the seams with patterns of black silk embroidery. He gracefully twirled a cane, whose chased gold knob did not mar the freshness of his gray gloves. And to complete all, his ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... the candle. What they add to their incomes I do not know, but it cannot be very much, and the trouble they have to take is colossal. Nobody loves them, and they must see it; yet they persevere. Glossop, for instance, had been trying to buttonhole me every time there was a five minutes' break ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... by dint of arms? If ever they do regain Venetia it will be through the blood of our Brandenburghers and Pomeranians, and not their own.' During this tirade a little old Belgian in black, with the chain of St. Peter at his buttonhole by way of watchguard, capered off to communicate the grateful news to a group of his ecclesiastical fellow-travellers, shrieking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... poems, tucked it under his arm, and they trotted off. In Madison Square they saw a gallant and courtly old man with military shoulders and pink cheeks, a debonair gray mustache, and a smile of unquenchable youth, greeting April with a narcissus in his buttonhole. He was feeding the sparrows with crumbs and smiled to see one of them fly off, carrying a long wisp of hay, bustling away to build for himself and his sparrow bride a bungalow in the foot-hills of the ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... in Paris; you might as well tell me, that the Swiss will abjure the money which makes a part of his distinction, as the Frenchman give up the laced coat, the powdered queue, and the order of St Louis at his buttonhole. Those things are the man, they are his mind, his senses, himself. He is a creation of monarchy—a clever, amusing, ingenious, and brave one; but rely upon my knowledge of human nature—if French nature ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... smiling. "When, five years ago, Kosorotov received the order of St. Anna of the second grade, and went to thank His Excellency, His Excellency expressed himself as follows: 'So now you have three Annas: one in your buttonhole and two on your neck.' And it must be explained that at that time Kosorotov's wife, a quarrelsome and frivolous person, had just returned to him, and that her name was Anna. I trust that when I receive the Anna of the ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... happened by the merest chance to be sauntering along the Station Road this morning, in his best blue frock-coat with a flower in the buttonhole, corrected some of the rumours, but without much success. Finding the throng so thick, he held a long debate between curiosity and dignity. The latter won, and he returned to No. 2, Alma Villas, in a flutter, some ten minutes before ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... blew the lapel of his light coat out a little way and there his eye caught the glint of a pin-head. He remembered that Marguerite Delarue had pinned a rose in his buttonhole the day before he left Las Plumas. He had been saying pretty, half-loverlike nothings to her about her hair and her eyes, and to conceal her embarrassed pleasure she had turned away and plucked a rosebud from the vine that clambered over the ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... and she pointed dramatically to the life-size head and shoulders of a burly man with a dead white rose in the buttonhole of his coat that made you think of a curl of cold mutting fat. Just below, in silver letters on a red cardboard ground, were the words, "Be not ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... religious convictions. These, I venture to say, are grave omissions. The picture is sadly wanting in suitable accessories. If I had been painting it I should have put a simple yellow daffodil in the MINISTER'S buttonhole, and pictured through an open window a sunlit bed of leeks, with perhaps a goat gambolling among them. I should have represented the MINISTER OF MUNITIONS in his study practising putting with a small bomb. And on the wall should have been a life-size portrait of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... many blisters would you have if you did not mend it, pray? May I suggest that you make the experiment and see? No marks at all for that answer! Question number four is, Work a buttonhole on ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... gone toward certain debts. His clothes, save what were upon him, had descended to his man-servant for back wages. As he sat there was not in the whole city for him a bed or a broiled lobster or a street-car fare or a carnation for buttonhole unless he should obtain them by sponging on his friends or by false pretenses. Therefore he had chosen ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... emotion, and see whether it would probably take the form of poetry or prose. You are suddenly informed that your house is on fire, and have to scramble out of it, without stopping to tie your neck-cloth neatly or to put a flower in your buttonhole. Do you think a poet turning out in his night-dress, and looking on while the flames were swallowing his home and all its contents, would ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... deemed a most suspicious manner. Both were Frenchmen evidently; they wore billycock hats and carried stout sticks; and one of them, swarthy and almost brigandish of aspect, had the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in his buttonhole. It was easy to take these individuals for French detectives, and I hastily jumped to the conclusion that they ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... he was finishing dressing it came to me that his clothes had undergone much the same change as his dwelling. In his golden days in London he had been a good deal of a dandy; he usually wore white waistcoats at night; was particular about the flowers in his buttonhole, his gloves and cane. Now he was decently dressed and that was all; as far below the average as he had been above it. Clearly, he had let go of himself and no longer took pleasure in the vanities: it seemed ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... up, and there stood in the doorway a rubicund-nosed gentleman, in a green coat and huge wonderfully gay coloured cravat, leather breeches, and top-boots, with a hunting-whip under his arm, a peony in his buttonhole, and a white hat which he flourished in his right hand, while he kept scraping with his feet, making his ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... to answer. It was the Hotel de Belleville at Paris. He was sitting opposite to me at table-d'hote, and his clothes were so new and glossy that I contemplated them with admiration, not unmixed with awe. He had a valuable ring on his finger, and a superb orchid in his buttonhole, and looked like a millionaire himself; things had improved with him, and the billiard-marker and valet were safely shunted. Miss Jacobi was with him"—and here Hugh paused a moment—"and she was handsomer ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Madame Joubert came over and stood beside him, looking at him and at the rosier, "Oui, c'est joli, n'est-ce pas?" She took the scissors that hung by a ribbon from her belt, cut one of the flowers and stuck it in his buttonhole. "Voila." She made a little ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... leave, "to look sharp if you see a forty-five-year-old damsel, with a little bright red face, all ears an' no chin, like the ace o' hearts. That'll be Miss Pickett. She'll have with her, like as not, a stout married lady, all gab an' gizzard, like a crow, an' a mouth like a new buttonhole. That'll be Mrs. Pennycook. Look out for 'em ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... mechanical drudgery took its place. An hour later someone knocked at an inner door which led to steep side stairs connecting with a side street entrance. Wondering who it was Mary opened it, to find Steve, very flushed and handsome, a flower in his buttonhole yet no ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... The bridegroom receives a buttonhole, but no one sings him a song. In the opera he is not on the stage during the bridesmaids' chorus. I have not been able to find out whether the quaint pretty verses are by Friedrich Kind, who founded the libretto of the opera on a story ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... he was surrounded by an excited knot of people who wished to know how he had extracted the amazing confession from Riley Sinclair. The sheriff tore himself away from a dozen hands who wished to buttonhole ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Calendar. The newspapers employed watchers, who picketed the block where Parnell and his wife lived, and telegraphed to Christendom the time the lights were out, and whether Mr. Parnell appeared with a shamrock or a rose in his buttonhole. The facts that Mrs. Parnell wore her hair in curls, and smilingly hummed a tune as she walked to the corner, were construed into proof of brazen guilt and a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... too dark to see, Mrs. Carr rolled the thread back on the spool, stuck the needle into the last buttonhole, and folding the infant's dress on which she was working, laid it away in her ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... me of a fighting-cock. He is a little man, much the height and build of the late General Funston, with hair cropped close to the skull, after the Russian fashion; through a buttonhole of his green service tunic was drawn the orange-and-black ribbon of the Order of St. George. He can best be described as "a live wire." His staff-officers impressed me as being as efficient and razor-keen as their chief. The ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... enters briskly, some leafy twigs bearing different sorts of nuts in one hand, and a long ripe hop-bine trailing after him from the other. A dahlia is stuck in his buttonhole.] ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... assure you, my dear children, kept up most carefully. There was always a button to sew on, a buttonhole to remake, or a tear to be mended. Thus constantly in touch with the household Madame Hen soon thought she belonged to it. Indeed, worn out by the teasing of her companions, by the constant arguments she had with them, and touched on the ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar
... on the lawn, and played at ball; they wandered among the flowers, and each of the young girls broke off a flower, and fastened it in a young gentleman's buttonhole. But the young Scotch lady looked round, for a long time, in an undecided way. None of the flowers seemed to suit her taste. Then her eye glanced across the paling—outside stood the great thistle bush, with the reddish-blue, sturdy flowers; she saw them, she smiled, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... place. If it is in the evening, the conventional evening dress is imperative. Black suit, dress coat, low-cut waistcoat, white tie, white or pale pearl-colored gloves, thin patent leather shoes and possibly a white flower in the buttonhole, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... know how that ancient profession may be divided up? May you not have sadly to tell him: 'My poor boy, it is impossible to make you that—for there are no longer any whole-tailors. You may, if you like, be a thread-waxer or a needle-threader; you may be one of the thirty men it takes to make a buttonhole, but a ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... had been too engrossed in the surgical profession to observe much apart. "I believe I'm going to decorate you." And she dimpled up at the Senior Surgeon, coquettishly. Selecting one of the blossoms with great care, she drew it through the buttonhole in his lapel. "See, I'm decorating you with the Order of the Golden Primrose—for brilliancy." Whereupon she ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... heroism that couldn't be uttered, staggered month after month among ruins, and found America untouched, comfortable, fat, still with time to worry over the suspected amorousness of the rich, still putting people into uniforms in order to buttonhole a man on landing and cross-question him as to ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... putting on my spectacles, I saw that I was fondling a snake, or smelling at a bud with a worm in it, I sprang up in horror and ran away; or, if it seemed to me through the glasses that a cherub smiled upon me, or a rose was blooming in my buttonhole, then I felt myself imperfect and impure, not fit to be leading and training what was so essentially superior in quality to myself, and I kissed the children and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... hair was tied up in new ribbons, and as Dave looked at her he thought she looked as sweet as might a fairy from fairyland. He could not help smiling at her, and when she came and pinned on his coat a buttonhole bouquet he thought he was the happiest ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... their pasteboard countenances close to the sculptor's with an unchangeable grin, that gave still more ludicrous effect to the comic alarm and sorrow of their gestures. Just then, a figure came by, in a gray wig and rusty gown, with an inkhorn at his buttonhole and a pen behind his ear; he announced himself as a notary, and offered to make the last will and testament of the assassinated man. This solemn duty, however, was interrupted by a surgeon, who brandished a ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the ally of a boy named Aubrey Mills and founded with him a gang of adventurers in the avenue. Aubrey carried a whistle dangling from his buttonhole and a bicycle lamp attached to his belt while the others had short sticks thrust daggerwise through theirs. Stephen, who had read of Napoleon's plain style of dress, chose to remain unadorned and thereby heightened for himself the pleasure of taking counsel with his lieutenant before ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... was the following day: how fearful, when the morning broke grey and lowering: how grateful, when the benignant sun shone out later, and promised a brilliant afternoon: how carefully I dressed, and what a price I paid for the flower for my buttonhole! ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... about the usual business of his toilet. In taking off his dress-coat he noticed the Legion of Honor which Miss Talcott had given him at the ball. He pulled it out of his buttonhole and tossed it into the fire-place. When he had finished dressing he saw with surprise that it was nearly ten o'clock. Ruby Glenn was ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... said, attaching herself affectionately to his buttonhole, "I went round the links in eighty-three this morning. I did the long hole in four. One under par, a thing I've never done before in my life." ("Bless my soul," said Lord Marshmoreton weakly, as, with an apprehensive eye on his sister, he patted his daughter's ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... voice here added in my ear, "that if he wishes to effect an entrance into the gambling den which his son haunts, he must take the precaution of tying a bit of blue ribbon in his buttonhole. It is a signal meaning business, and must not be forgotten," chuckled the old fellow, evidently deceived at last into thinking I was really one ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... castle, and I did not know what I should do, as I was most anxious Matthias should have his bouquet, apart from all consideration of his prophecy. Suddenly, an excellent idea occurred to me; I divided my own bouquet, tied up the half of it with a white ribbon, and fastened it to his buttonhole by a gold pin, keeping a common one for myself. Matthias was charmed with this ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the arm of our dear Prince?" asked a little fat man, girt in a white satin waistcoat, and a spray of white lilac in his buttonhole. ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... will say, art thou a magician, Spiegelberg? 'Tis a pity, the king will say, that thou wert not made a general, Spiegelberg, thou wouldst have thrust the Austrians through a buttonhole. Yes, I hear the doctors lamenting, 'tis a crying shame that he was not bred to medicine, he would have discovered the elixir vitae. Ay, and that he did not take to financiering, the Sullys will deplore in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... said the other. "You did a thousand things which no one else did. First, when you sat down at the table, what did you do with your napkin?" "My napkin? Why just what every body else did with theirs. I unfolded it entire]y, and fastened it to my buttonhole." "Well, my dear friend," said Delille, "you were the only one that did that, at all events. No one hangs up his napkin in that style; they are contented with placing it on their knees. And what did you, do when you took your soup?" ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... Henry, settling his buttonhole in his coat; "and when they grow older they know it. But I don't want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... growing dawn which now vied with the flickering light of the overhead lamp in their compartment. The stranger was a very tall man in dark clothes, who gave an instant impression of long rectangularity. He had a long nose, a long upper lip which hung over a thin slit of a mouth which resembled a buttonhole slightly frayed by wear. His chin was long and square and, like his upper lip, blue, as though a stiff black beard were in constant battle with a razor. His eyes were large and regarded Renwick with a mild melancholy ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... (as they were called at that time) in light silk gowns, covered with diamonds and precious stones, in carriages decorated with flowers. Coachmen and footmen wore powdered wigs, white or grey, silk stockings and knee-breeches and a flower in the buttonhole matching the colour of their livery and the flowers which hung about the horses' ears. Some of the carriages had no coachman's box or driver, but were harnessed to four horses ridden by postillions in green satin or scarlet velvet, with ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... did by standing up gallantly for the Censor, to whose support the Opposition was in no way committed, and by visibly defying the most cherished conventions of the average man with a bunch of carnations in his buttonhole as large as a dinner-plate, which would have made a Bunthorne blench, and which very nearly did make Mr Granville Barker (who has an antipathy to the ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... rarely to be conceded. Much that he has learned from Shelley he passes on to his readers, but before they receive it, it has become, not Shelley's, but Francis Thompson's. To stick a lotos-flower in our buttonhole—harris-cloth or broadcloth, it does not matter—is an impertinent folly that makes a guy of the wearer. But this man's raiment is his own, not that of other men, and Shelley himself would willingly have put his ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... walk in the woods. He expected that a renewal of the attack would be necessary before the sacrifice of the yellow locks could be accomplished, and he stood on the steps of the hotel, clad in the most exquisite of grays, tapering down to the most brilliant of boots. He had a white rose in his buttonhole, and his great black dog was lying at his feet, having for a wonder found his master, for the beast was given to roaming, or to the plebeian society of Barker's servant. The American's careful attire contrasted rather oddly with his sallow face, and with the bony hand that rested against ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... straight down his face, like a finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been drinking, I could see that. And what queer talk they used! Mr. Holmes inspected this cabin, then he took me by the buttonhole, ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... her head on one side, and a finger hooked confidentially through the Captain's buttonhole. "Well," she said, "I've had a very interesting time, Daddy Captain. First I cleaned the lamps, of course, and filled and trimmed them. And then I played Samson ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... some excuse of putting away designs, but presently peeped from the window, and Gillian, with excited curiosity, imitated her, and beheld, lingering about, a young man in the pink of fashion, with a tea-rose in his buttonhole and a ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of trusty she had constrained herself to civility. She had taken Mrs. Carder the flowers last night, and Rufus had put some tiny blooms in his buttonhole and caressed them at supper-time with significant glances ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... feature in the day's programme was the exhibition of articles made in the sewing department. Hundreds of specimens were effectively displayed against the walls of the large office. There were nicely made garments, bright patchwork quilts, dressed dolls illustrating hygienic styles of dress, buttonhole work and neat patches. Much of the work done won warm commendation from the visitors present, and that by the boys of the third grade received a full share of praise. In many cases it was difficult to believe that the specimens ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 48, No. 7, July, 1894 • Various
... nothing could turn him from this folly; he became daily younger and faster. He wore the most eccentric hats on one ear. He ordered his coats to be made in the very last fashion; and never went out without a camellia or a rosebud in his buttonhole. He no longer contented himself with dyeing his hair, but actually began to rouge, and used such strong perfumes, that one might have followed his track through the streets by the odors ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... talked with great volubility, showing that once embarked upon this theme, he felt himself in his proper element. Now and then he paused to buttonhole me or press me against the rocks. When he had said something he thought very convincing, he swiftly screwed his eyeglass into his eye and scrutinized my face to see what impression he had made upon me. This, added to ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a soft "Good-morning," and walked with him into the garden, among the roses and sweet-smelling things of summer. And then—oh, wonderful, exquisite marvel!—plucked a sprig of mignonette, smelled it, and placed it in his buttonhole. ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... he interrupted, as he drew it through his buttonhole, "but it will assuredly bring me ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... those invited a small cross, made of blue and rose coloured ribbon—the rose for the bride, the blue for the bridegroom; and the guests had to keep this token—the women to deck their head-dress, and the men their buttonhole, on the day of the wedding. This is their ticket of admission to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... him once at the Alhambra—poetry in a top hat! He wore evening clothes that were a little too elaborate, a white camellia in his buttonhole, and a thick-lensed monocle on a black ribbon. During the entr'acte he stood up and surveyed the house from pit to gallery, as if he wanted to be seen. He was very tall and the ugliest man in England. Imagine the body of a Lincoln, the hands of a woman, the jaw and mouth of Disraeli, an aristocratic ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... in, my dear, you know y' way, I guess," sighed Mrs. Bowker, passing a small, worn hand across her faded eyes. "There's five dozen more collar-bands I must stitch an' buttonhole t'night—so go your ways, my dear." So saying, Mrs. Bowker went back to her labour, which was very hard labour indeed, while Hermione led the way into a tiny room, where, on a small, neat truckle-bed covered by a faded quilt, a ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... would be occupied—and, in one month from to-day, our warships will have Constantinople under their guns. If K. won't listen to me, then, having been officially mis-informed that the War Council wish to see me (the last thing they do wish), I will take them at their word. I will buttonhole every Minister from McKenna and Lloyd George to Asquith and Bonar Law,—and grovel at their feet if by doing so I can hold them on to this, the biggest scoop that is, or ever has ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... very pleased. I am afraid, after all, you ought to have asked Lady Fitzroy," she said, in a low voice; but Dick turned a deaf ear. He showed her the rose in his buttonhole; and when Nan told him it was withered, and wanted him to take it out, he gave her a reproachful look that made ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... treat to see the Major stroll down Main Street to the post office every pleasant spring morning. Coat buttoned tight, silk hat the veriest trifle on one side, one glove on and its mate carried with the cane in the other hand, and the buttonhole bouquet—always the bouquet—as fresh and bright and ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... garden of the palace just then, and they turned with disappointment to obey Glinda's command. But before they left the garden the Tin Woodman, who was fond of flowers, chanced to espy a big red rose growing upon a bush; so he plucked the flower and fastened it securely in the tin buttonhole of his ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the bench near the end of the lane. By his side was a basin tied up in a cotton handkerchief; in the buttonhole of his coat there was a sprig of sweet-william. The girls from the big house came and stood still in front of him, staring at him rudely, ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... elegantly dressed, with his legs crossed in that indolent way, observing the clothes the ladies wear, so that he can describe them for his paper and make them out finer than they are and get bribes for it and become wealthy. That flower which he is wearing in his buttonhole is a rose—a white rose, a York rose—and will serve to remind us of the War of the Roses, and that the white one was the winning color when Edward got the throne and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... had tattled about. Mr. Burrage was successful, he could see that in the turn of an eye; not perhaps as having a commanding intellect or a very strong character, but as being rich, polite, handsome, happy, amiable, and as wearing a splendid camellia in his buttonhole. And that he, at any rate, thought Verena had succeeded was proved by the casual, civil tone, and the contented distraction of eye, with which he exclaimed, "You don't mean to say you were not moved by that! It's my opinion that Miss Tarrant will carry everything before ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees behind St. Quentin, we retort, "Oh, go and tell it to 'I.'" and then sit back and see what the inspired official organ of the green tabs will make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... clothes—his distinguished manners and grand seigneur air carried it off. One saw it was not the over-dressing of the nouveau riche, but the rather old-world dandyism of a past generation. This was the odder as the year was 1913, and he was exactly thirty. He always wore a buttonhole—to-day it was made of violets to match his violet socks—and invariably carried a black ebony stick, with an ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... all over indeed when I ought to be plucking nosegays of Lysimachia clethroides and Pyrethrum uliginosum to put in my buttonhole! I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... decorated to the horns with flowers and coloured ribbons harmoniously blended. And last of all came the exhibitor who was to receive the first prize—a slouching man, plainly dressed, with a pair of farmer's gaiters on, and without even a flower in his buttonhole. "Who is he?" asked the spectators. "Why, he is the Englishman," was the reply. "The Englishman!—that the representative of a great country!" was the general exclamation. But it was the Englishman all over. He was sent there, not to exhibit himself, but to show "the best beast," and he did it, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... day when they had parted, and now on this first occasion of her freedom she felt it again. What did he think of her? Did he suppose that she could transfer her love in that way, as a flower may be taken from one buttonhole and placed in another? He read it all, and knew that he was hurrying on too quickly. "I can understand well," he said in a whisper, "what your present feelings are; but I do not think you will be really angry ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... his grandfather. "The first man you'll meet in the legislative lobby next winter, sugar on his speech and alum on his finger, so that he can get a good firm grip of your buttonhole, will be Arba Spinney, drawing his salary as the paid agent of half-a-dozen schemers. He may seem a little wilted just now, but he's a hardy perennial—you needn't ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... you, for Toby had a red feather-duster in his head, two remarkable flags waved over the carriage, Kit had a blue bow on his neck, which nearly drove him wild, Demi wore a nosegay of dandelions in his buttonhole, and Mrs. Jo carried the queer Japanese umbrella in ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... your telegram and here I am," said a gentleman with a grey moustache, who entered my study, dressed in a dark-brown frock-coat and a wide-brimmed hat, with a red ribbon in his buttonhole. "What's the matter?" ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... covered with violets and her cap a tiny lace affair with a violet border. In her case she was able to use many real violets and to carry a basket of the fresh flowers. The contents was made up of small bunches of buttonhole size and she stepped from the procession at almost every table to sell a bunch to some gentleman sitting there. A scout kept the basket ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... swinging his stick and composing snatches not unworthy of her of whom they treated, his face towards the magic Schloss and its enchanted princess, and his pockets full of her letters! Herr Klutz's coat was clerical, but his brown felt hat and the flower in his buttonhole were typical of the worldliness within. "A poet," he assured himself often, "is a citizen of the world, and is not to be narrowed down to any one circle or creed." But he did not expound this view to the good man who was helping him to prepare for the examination ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... contrary; but as it is like the Legion of Honor in color, he is prohibited from wearing it in his buttonhole without displaying the small gold cross—And I see ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... was not disappointed of his walk. He appeared dressed in his best, with a large bunch of primroses, bought in the market the day before in his hand, and two or three in his buttonhole. ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... narrow stone stairway somewhere at the back of New Scotland Yard, and so came to the inspector's room. Bray was waiting for us, smiling and confident. I remember—silly as the detail is—that he wore in his buttonhole a white rose. His manner of greeting me was more genial than usual. He began by informing me that the police had apprehended the man who, they believed, was ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... a sprig in not quite the right direction, and the Maestro stepped forward and stooped to him, while Kirk's fingers found the buttonhole. ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... forest made up of immense trees with luxuriant foliage, overladen with parasitic orchids—eternally in bloom, of course, in the dreamy minds of the untravelled, and just waiting to be picked and to be placed in one's buttonhole. The sky, naturally, over such a forest, could only be swarming with birds of all sizes, with plumage of the richest colours and hues; and what else could such a luxuriant country have in the way of butterflies and insects than some which resemble precious gems in the iridescent tones ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... sound reached me to make discord; so quiet, indeed, was all the earth that I became startled by the sudden chatter of a squirrel disturbed at my approach, and unthinkingly I stooped to pluck a delicate pink flower blooming in the grass, and placed it in a ragged buttonhole of my old ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... have the reader by the "introduction" buttonhole, I want to make a suggestion or two about using a book like this. Do not, on the one hand, read it through and then put it away with the dictionary and the family Bible, and trust to memory for the ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... her; he was absorbed in watching Connie who stood on tiptoe, pinning a flower in Don Morley's buttonhole. ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... hers fluttered down; but she raised them suddenly and put the flower in his buttonhole, her face so close that he felt her breath on ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... he is sensitive about his personal appearance, and will not use a trumpet, which I consider weak. But we get on very well. He smells my flowers, and smiles and nods to me, and says something in a voice so low that I can't hear it; and I stick a posy in his buttonhole, and smile and nod to him, and say something in a voice so loud that he can't hear it; and so we go on. One day in each year we always spend together, and go to church. ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... what is given or achieved. He already not only regretted giving the ten thousand francs to Jenny, but the two hundred francs to the servants—nay the six sous given to the waiter at the restaurant, even the money he had spent on the bunch of violets. The bouquet still hung in his buttonhole, faded and shrivelled. What good did it do him? While the sous which he had paid for it—! He did not think of his wasted millions, but could not drive away the thought of that ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... where she found Ross and Elinor in front of a gloriously burning wood fire. But they were both garbed in what to her inexperienced eyes seemed the most pronounced party garments. Ross had donned a Tuxedo and pinned a tiny, pink rose in his buttonhole. Elinor wore a black gown that was very low in the neck to Arethusa, although in reality it was the most modest of decolletage, and a few of the same pink roses ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... as well as before the rulers. But what a curious choice of men! It would be called even an unhappy one. Thurlow Weed, with his offhand, apparently sincere, if not polished ways, may not be too repulsive to English refinement, provided he does not buttonhole his interlocutionists, or does not pat them on the shoulder. So Thurlow Weed will be dined, wined, etc. But doubtless the London press will show him up, or some "Secesh" in London will do it. I am sure that Lord Lyons, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... sensation which roused me up as I endeavored in imagination to swallow at one draught the contents of a metal tankard of half-and-half—half laurel-water, and half decoction of henbane—handed to me on a leaden salver by a demon-waiter, with a sprig of hemlock in the third buttonhole of his coat. This Lethean influence could hardly be that of the ailantus-tree alone. What of the plants on the balcony beneath,—the strange, rooty coilers which the mysterious planter sedulously fosters at the glooming of dusk, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... men—the few Who wish they could be ladies too— Display a sprig of yellow Conspicuous in their buttonhole, To captivate a maiden soul Or vex ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... — " began the other stiffly, but broke down, shook his seal ring at Rex, and walking over to the glass, rearranged the bit of wild hyacinth in his buttonhole with care. ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... his mother's sitting-room way up in the country. He had not thought, for a long time before, of the dear old woman who supposed her son was turning his wits to good account in the city. But Miss Sydney did not know how much he wished for a bit to put in his buttonhole when she indignantly went back to the dining-room to wait until that impertinent fellow stopped ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... you both. We have had quite enough of it. We shall always have the satisfaction that we did our duty to France, and our rank; and these ribbons,"—and he touched the rosette of the legion of honor, in his buttonhole—"will prove that we have distinguished ourselves. We have had great good fortune, hitherto; it ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... open. A man stood upon the threshold—a tall, fair man of middle age, with a small blond mustache, and a monocle dangling from a narrow black ribbon about his neck. From the very correct gardenia in his buttonhole to the very immaculate spats upon his feet, he was a careful prototype of the Piccadilly exquisite—a little faded, perhaps, slightly effete, but perfect in detail. He halted for a moment, as if he, too, were blinded by the swift change ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... journey with greater swagger, but he never brought more than a few dollars at a time. He grew maudlin, familiar, could hardly see the cards or sit upright. As a preliminary to another journey to his bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsen's buttonhole with a greasy forefinger and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, "I got money, I got money, I tell yer, an' I'm a ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... as close as a scabbard to his thin legs. He wore a high silk hat and a white carnation in his buttonhole. He looked neither to the right nor to the left. Apparently he was the one man in sight who was not concerned about the question of what had become or would become of the ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... been kept at home by a little dancing-party to-night.... I write this arrayed in my dress-coat with a rose in my buttonhole, a circumstance, I think, worth mentioning. It reminds me of Buffon, who used to array himself in his full dress for writing 'Natural History.' Why should we not always do it when we write letters? We should, no doubt, be more courtly and polite, and perhaps ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... not indifferent—it was excited: when first the Comte de Cambray and Crystal arrived on the Place du Carrousel, a number of white cockades could be picked out in the throng, either worn on a hat or fixed to a buttonhole, but as the afternoon wore on there were fewer and fewer of these small white stars to be seen: the temper of the crowd did not brook this mute reproach upon its enthusiasm. One or two cockades had been roughly torn and thrown into the mud, and the wearer unpleasantly ill-used if he persisted ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... something move on the far side of the wall: he paused to make sure, and then he whistled, the sounds outside ceased, and in a moment something fell softly behind him. He turned quickly and snatched up a little buttonhole of flowers with a still smaller ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... hat set rather jauntily on his head, a short, drab-coloured overcoat of horsy cut, black and white check trousers, red-skin riding gloves, square-toed walking shoes, a light cane, and a rose in his buttonhole; you would have taken him at first sight for a sporting tipster. Matthieu, who had stopped short at this sudden apparition, and Bonafede, both stood staring in amazement. The new-comer looked at them with a wicked twinkle in his eye, ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... two pieces of stuff in such a way that the edges to be fastened together touch one another from top to bottom. Then, if it is a buttoning-frame, the teacher will show the child the different stages of the action. She will take hold of the button, set it opposite the buttonhole, make it enter the buttonhole completely, and adjust it carefully in its place above. In the same way, to teach a child to tie a bow, she will separate the stage in which he ties the ribbons together from that in ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... saying was found, or else confess himself beaten. Mackay thought it might be a good habit for the graduates of his own alma mater across the wide sea to adopt. He wondered what some of his old college chums would think, if, when he got back to Canada, he should buttonhole one on the street some day, recite a quotation from Shakespeare or Macaulay, and demand from his friend where it could be found. He had a suspicion that the old friend would be afraid that the Oriental sun had touched George ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... with the flowing white locks and the white rose in his buttonhole bore down upon Quin and enveloped his hand ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... to reward him for his honesty that I gave him the fur coat and looped the big brass baggage check in his buttonhole. Voila!" ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... comes the Commissioner and his friends, very grand indeed, all dressed like swells always do in the evening, I believe, black all over, white tie, shining boots, white kid gloves, flower in their buttonhole, all regular. People may laugh, but they did look different from the others—showed more blood like. I don't care what they say, there is such ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... Dr. Dudley appeared, and Polly and Elsie hurried to pin a posy in his buttonhole. Elsie had chosen a pink and Polly a blue blossom, and one little girl held them in place while the other pinned them fast, the Doctor sending telegraphic messages over their heads to ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... own name, you know," he observed lightly, at last laying down his bow, and replacing the dainty white rose in his left top buttonhole. "Not official for a bank EMPLOYE to operate on the Stock Exchange. The chiefs object to it. So I do my little ventures in Tom's name instead, my brother-in-law, Tom Whitley's. Those Cedulas went up another ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Only—and I have never given you bad advice, Abel— don't let that thing hang any longer from your buttonhole. Put it into an envelope and keep it, and if you don't hear from me again in regard to it, write me out a fool and forget we were ever ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... mass she chose a spray, and set it in the bosom of her dress, then got to her feet and moved slowly toward him. "You're not wearing my colors to-night." This was directed to the white rose in his buttonhole. He took it out and tossed ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Snuffin!" said the big man, mopping his face with a large silk handkerchief, which, even at that distance, gave out a powerful perfume. "Go ahead, Snuffin, and we will settle this matter later," and, adjusting a large rose in his buttonhole, the self-important individual took his place on the cushioned seat at the wheel, while the big red motor boat ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... friends knew him as a butterfly hunter, a searcher for beetles and scarabs, who, indeed, was one of the first authorities in France on the subjects: Anatole Ferraud, who went about, hither and thither, with a little red button in his buttonhole and a tongue ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... It was a new method of shouting out the odds, attracting attention to an exceedingly well-got-up gentleman in a grey frock suit, patent leather boots, white spats, grey gloves, tall white hat, and a flower in his buttonhole. A new bookmaker had made his appearance. He informed the crowds in song that he betted "only for cash," not "on the nod"—"I pay on the winner, immediately after the race." It only wanted an organ to accompany him. It was quite amusing to watch the remainder of his ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... in under the lap covers. His umbrella was a dainty en-tout-cas with a mother-of-pearl handle, that had answered well enough in heavy mist or soft drizzle. His hat of fine straw was tied with a neat cord to his buttonhole; but although that precaution insured its ultimate safety, it did not prevent its soaring from his head and descending on Mrs. Shamrock's bonnet. He conscientiously tried holding it on with one hand, but was then reproved by both neighbours because his macintosh ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... wrinkled her nose. Then she flushed, conscious that he was a bit surprised at her tone of disdain. "Why, he will wear a frock-coat and a flower in the buttonhole and will bow in my customers. You didn't think my young man ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... one on earth for thousands of years has longed to witness, still remains a theory, and Adrian Brownwell traipsed up and down the earth, in his lavender gloves, his long coat and mouse-coloured trousers, his high hat, with his twirling cane, and the everlasting red carnation in his buttonhole. His absence made it necessary for Molly Brownwell to leave the sacred precincts of the home many and many a Saturday afternoon, to go over the books at the Banner office, make out bills, take them out, and collect the money due upon them and pay off the ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... slipped a finger into a buttonhole of the good parson's, (the only man in the parish who would have ventured upon such familiarity,)—"I think we've been a little strict with Reuben,—a little strict. He's a fine, frank, straight-for'ard lad, but impulsive,—impulsive, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London's best tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... beginning.] The Professors, being busy and important men, lecture from their particular standpoints, and having lectured, bolt; there is no provision whatever for the intelligent discussion of knotty points, and the only way to get it is to buttonhole a demonstrator and induce him to neglect his task of supervising prescribed "practical" work in favour of educational talk. Let us, therefore, in view of this state of affairs, deal with the general question how a branch of thought and knowledge ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... state on paper what I have to say. I can readily appreciate that the encounter is disagreeable. To meet one who has made a thing impossible to you sets the nerves on edge." He caught up his opera hat, his cane and gloves. He raised the lapel of his coat and sniffed at the orchid in the buttonhole. ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... but I've got two buttons left over, and there's only one buttonhole to put 'em in! What'll I ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... it is turned at right angles to the cutter, and then slid down the slot until the cap-screw unbuttons from the cutter. The object in sliding the cap up the slot before turning it, is to prevent the danger of injuring the edge. Some caps are now made with the buttonhole at the upper ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... leather boots, yellow gloves, handsome studs, and a very pretty gold chain passed through the buttonhole of his waistcoat of black silk with blue flowers. Madame de la Chanterie took a little silver whistle from her pocket and blew it. The ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... April 6.—Met again after so-called Easter Holidays. Mr. G. early in his place, looking as blooming as the Spring flower in his buttonhole. "The BRIGHT 'UN from Brighton," was MARJORIBANKS'S way of announcing the Chief, as he entered from behind SPEAKER'S Chair. Spoke for hour-and-half on moving Second Reading of Home-Rule Bill. General impression is everything ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... book; this time I find only the blue and gold thing which, such as it is, I send you, you are to take from me. I could not even put in what I pleased but I have said all about it in the word or two of preface, as also that I beg leave to stick the bunch in your buttonhole. May I beg that Mrs. Tennyson ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... to Solly, with a wink at myself, 'here's the first dinner-station we've struck where we can get a real good plate of beans.' And while he was up in his room trying to draw water out of the gas-pipe, I got one finger in the buttonhole of the head waiter's Tuxedo, drew him apart, inserted a two-dollar bill, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... was the cry that went from mouth to mouth. The Emperor gave each of the rogues a royal ribbon to wear in his buttonhole, and called ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... glass of old Madeira, he beheld three figures entering the room. These were Fancy, who had assumed the garb and aspect of an itinerant showman, with a box of pictures on her back; and Memory, in the likeness of a clerk, with a pen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her buttonhole and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm; and lastly, behind the other two, a person shrouded in a dusky mantle which concealed both face and form. But Mr. Smith had a shrewd idea that it was Conscience. How kind of Fancy, Memory and ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... experiences, after being given a compartment all to myself by men who glanced at me with eyes of hate and passed on to another compartment which was already crowded or stood up in the aisle of the car, I made a point of buying an American flag for my buttonhole. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... slowly, and looking about him with his rather pathetic eyes. He saw Jacob Crayford, smartly dressed, a white flower in his buttonhole, standing in a group of pressmen, went up to him and gently took him by ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... also bore fleurs-de-lis; on the shoulders a pair of straps cried out for useless epaulettes; these military appendages were there like a petition without a recommendation. This old gentleman's coat was of dark blue cloth, and the buttonhole had blossomed into many colored ribbons. He, no doubt, always carried his hat in his hand—a three cornered cocked hat, with a gold cord—for the snowy wings of his powdered hair showed not a trace of its pressure. He might ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... too glad to hear you speak! You put ideas into my poor head, and my poor head lets them out, and then you put them in again. What noble perseverance! If I live a while longer I do really think you will make a clever man of me. Let me put the rose in your buttonhole for you. And I say, I wish you would allow me to go on with ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... He is brilliantly dressed in a new fashionable frock-coat, with white waistcoat and grey trousers. A flower in his buttonhole, a dazzling silk hat, and patent leather shoes complete the effect. He is too concerned with the business he has come on to notice Mrs. Higgins. He walks straight to Higgins, and accosts ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... the whole a most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman. He is very young, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient, as it should seem, for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he suspended from his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, the dogs barked, puss scampered, the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... symbolic title of a book is worn by each guest, and a prize is given to the person who guesses most, and to the person whose title is considered the best. Thus, a person wearing a card having the letter R represented Middlemarch, and a person with catkins in his buttonhole, Hazell's Annual. But simpler devices are ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Princes' garments, or the exquisite harmonies and simplicity of shape of the Princesses. The willowy emerald-green Princess, who came from Fairyland, I am sure, shook hands with us and gave us tea and sugar and cream and a buttonhole, heavily scented, likewise a cigar, and if I hadn't had fever and could have spoken her language I'd have been enchanted. But first I should have described the wonderful umbrellas that ornamented the camp. When we got out of our carriage ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... value. Each button of his coat and low-cut vest was a diamond, and from the front of his rimless cap waved a plume of diamonds. On his wrists were heavy gold bracelets of Malayan workmanship, and his fingers were cramped with almost priceless rings. In his buttonhole blazed a diamond orchid. The handle and scabbard of his sword were a solid mass of precious stones. Altogether this little known Oriental potentate possessed $10,000,000 worth of diamonds, the second largest ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... Michaelmas once a year. His master had absolute control of his life and actions, and sometimes would enforce it with the whip-stock. But now the farm lad has the hardihood and the right to summon his employer before a magistrate, goes to "Lunnon" at holiday time, walks with a stick, wears a buttonhole in his coat, and, mirabile dictu! has been seen to ride home from his work on a "bone-shaker"! In place of the old bent figures in smock-frocks, there are spruce young fellows in black coats; in place of the old indoor farm service, its hearty living, ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... to one side," said his niece, sternly, "and the stud's out of your buttonhole. I wish you'd be a little tidier when you come here, uncle; it looks ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... corsage of narcissus. But the corsage was now smaller, by one flower, than it had been before, for, as I sighted them, she was in the act of placing one of the blooms from her bouquet in my companion's buttonhole. Her hands looked very white and small against his dark coat, and I recall that he was gazing down at them, and that his features were distorted ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... except the expression of Noble's face and the somewhat ill-chosen pansy in his buttonhole hinted of the remarkable. Yet even here was a thing for which he was not responsible himself; it was altogether the work of Julia. What her work was, in the case of Noble Dill, may be expressed in a word—a word used not only by the whole Atwater family connection, in completely expressing Noble's ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... principles of sewing were shown on neat little squares of cloth—running, hemming, stitching, gathering, and buttonhole-making. Then there were garments in which all these first steps ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... no head-covering. She wore one glove (wrong side out), and was carrying the other one. Her dress, evidently donned hastily for the street, was unevenly fastened, showing the topmost button without a buttonhole. ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient as it should seem for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he wore suspended by a riband from his buttonhole. The boys halloo'd, the dogs barked, Puss scampered, the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, never probably to be thus interrupted more. I ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... and happy muss of after-the-party. A white-taffeta dress with a whisper of real lace at the neck, almost stiffishly seated, as if with Marcia's trimness, on a chair. A steam of white tulle on the dressing table. A buttonhole gardenia in a tumbler of water. One long white-kid glove on the table beside the night light. A naked cherub in a high hat, holding a pink umbrella for ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... find anything you wanted quickly, and he pointed the column where events are listed; and when I found the third page there was your face so splendidly reproduced, and you seemed so fine and noble to me I forgot about the dress suit and the badge in your buttonhole, or to wonder when or how or why it could have happened. I just sat there shouting in my soul, 'David! David! Medicine Man! Harvester Man!' again ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... even more wickedly—"and Mrs. MacSpadden had put the flower there for him." This implied snub to his vanity was, however, more than compensated by his wicked anticipation of the pretty perplexity of his fair friend when HE should appear at dinner with the flower in his own buttonhole. It would serve her right, the arrant flirt! But here he was interrupted by the entrance of a tall ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the box to my pocket I passed the chain through the buttonhole of my cloak and let it dangle on my breast as an ornament. When the cigarette was smoked, I cleared my throat in the orthodox manner and fixed my eyes on Runi, who, on his part, made a slight movement to indicate that he was ready to listen to ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... eloquence of a revivalist preacher would suffice to divert the story into absolutely different channels, make him a white-soured hero, a man still pure, walking untainted and brave and helpful through miry ways. The appearance of some daintily gloved frockcoated gentleman with buttonhole and eyeglass complete, gallantly attendant in the rear of customers, served again to start visions of a simplicity essentially Cromwell-like, of sturdy plainness, of a strong, silent man going righteously through the world. This day there had predominated a fine leisurely person immaculately ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... Ralph was a man of importance that evening; first, because he belonged to a great family; secondly, because he was the handsomest man of his year. He wore a large golden star on his breast (for his fellow-students had made him a Knight of the Golden Boar) and a badge of colored ribbons in his buttonhole. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... might be a good habit for the graduates of his own alma mater across the wide sea to adopt. He wondered what some of his old college chums would think, if, when he got back to Canada, he should buttonhole one on the street some day, recite a quotation from Shakespeare or Macaulay, and demand from his friend where it could be found. He had a suspicion that the old friend would be afraid that the Oriental sun had touched George ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... little sprays set ready for them, and putting one in his own buttonhole, fastened the other in her bodice with a loving, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... say it is for the good sense of the public to distinguish true remedies from false, pure wine from adulterated; or, it is for the good sense of the public to distinguish in a buttonhole the decoration awarded to merit from that prostituted to mediocrity and intrigue. Why, then, do you call yourselves the State, Power, Authority, Police, if the work of Police must be performed by the ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... "I've yet all these sleeves to set, and stitch in, and the fronts to finish off; and a buttonhole to ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... Turning the corner of the street leading to his Bloomsbury attic, the author was tapped on the shoulder by a resplendent Bond Street being. That is, the said being wore a perfectly-fitting frock-coat, a silk hat, trousers with the regulation fold back and front, an orchid buttonhole, grey gloves, boots that glittered, and carried a gold-topped cane. The fact that Paul wheeled without wincing showed that he was not yet in debt. Your Grub Street old-time author would have leaped his own length at the touch. But ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... family; secondly, because he was the handsomest man of his year. He wore a large golden star on his breast (for his fellow-students had made him a Knight of the Golden Boar) and a badge of colored ribbons in his buttonhole. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... There is perhaps no other instance so remarkable of the desire of man for publicity and an enduring name. The greatness of his life was open, yet he longed to communicate its smallness also; and, while contemporaries bowed before him, he must buttonhole posterity with the news that his periwig was once alive with nits. But this thought, although I cannot doubt he had it, was neither his first nor his deepest; it did not colour one word that he wrote; and the Diary, for as long as he kept it, remained what it was when he began, a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in colour than the clay wall behind them. Madame Joubert came over and stood beside him, looking at him and at the rosier, "Oui, c'est joli, n'est-ce pas?" She took the scissors that hung by a ribbon from her belt, cut one of the flowers and stuck it in his buttonhole. "Voila." She made a little flourish with ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... said I, as long as you see me dressed like a gentleman. I shall not, Jack said, and with his girls took his departure, while George N., who interpreted all this merriment, took a fresh white rose and put it in my buttonhole. Let us go for lunch, said he and I followed gladly for I felt it ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... get used to it," Joey told him; "eight o'clock, then, on Sunday; plain evening dress. If you like to wear a bit of red ribbon in your buttonhole, why, do so. You can get it at Evans', in ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... dressed,—at least that was the first impression,—though, as a matter of fact, the clothes were of the cheapest ready-made variety. But nothing could look cheap or ill made on those splendid muscles. He wore a silk shirt, a flower in his buttonhole, a gray tie in which was a pearl as big as a pea, long patent-leather shoes with elaborate buff-colored tops; he carried a thin stick and a pair of new gloves in one hand, but the most conspicuous object in his dress was a brand-new, gray felt hat, with a rather wide brim, ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... tooth. He quite ceased going out, and gave up the reception-days he had established for the peasants, without the assistance of the priest, sans le concours du clerg. On such days Ivan Matveitch had been in the habit of going in to the peasants in the hall or on the balcony, with a rose in his buttonhole, and putting his lips to a silver goblet of vodka, he would make them a speech something like this: 'You are content with my actions, even as I am content with your zeal, whereat I rejoice truly. We are all brothers; at our birth we are equal; I ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... in pen and ink, indoors and out—he used at one time to carry a little ink-bottle at his buttonhole, and steel pens in his waistcoat-pocket, and thus equipped he would sketch whatever took his fancy in his walks abroad—houses, 'busses, cabs, people—bits of street and square, scaffoldings, hoardings with ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... "Gawd's frightful hard on women," and fight her way to Margarita—who has been favoured beyond most women, and knows not God—at least, not that implacable deity of the London slum! Whenever I hear or read the phrase "Salvation Army" then do I see a young exquisite with a white camellia in his buttonhole, gazing like a hypnotised Indian Seer at a crude transparency blotted with unconvincing texts, then rushing off to found a celibate order—from Margarita, who was no more celibate that ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... until the thing is cleared up and the danger past. To-morrow about dusk, however, you, personally, take him for a walk near the Park, and if, among the other Cingalese you may meet, you should see one dressed as an Englishman, and wearing a scarlet flower in his buttonhole, take no notice of how often you see him nor of ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... like one that bloomed in his mother's sitting-room way up in the country. He had not thought, for a long time before, of the dear old woman who supposed her son was turning his wits to good account in the city. But Miss Sydney did not know how much he wished for a bit to put in his buttonhole when she indignantly went back to the dining-room to wait until that impertinent fellow stopped ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... students at the table were interrupted by the approach of a tall, dudish-looking individual, who wore a reddish-brown suit, cut in the most up-to-date fashion, and who sported patent-leather shoes, and a white carnation in his buttonhole. The newcomer took a vacant chair, ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... elegant, a rose in his buttonhole, had entered the room, their manner stiff-starched, showing no surprise, accustomed as they were to receive visitors of all sorts and kinds: they were ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... indeed when I ought to be plucking nosegays of Lysimachia clethroides and Pyrethrum uliginosum to put in my buttonhole! I prefer to dream ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... Mr. Magnus harnessed his forefinger to Mr. Pickwick's buttonhole, and, drawing him to ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... little pile of reviews, several volumes of poetry, and a couple of library books. In the centre of the mantelpiece was a photograph, the photograph of a man a little older, perhaps, than this newly-arrived visitor, with rounder face, dressed in country tweeds, a flower in his buttonhole, the picture of a prosperous man, yet with a curious, almost disturbing likeness to the pale, over-nervous, loose-framed youth whose eye had been attracted by its presence, and who was gazing at ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with her head on one side, and a finger hooked confidentially through the Captain's buttonhole. "Well," she said, "I've had a very interesting time, Daddy Captain. First I cleaned the lamps, of course, and filled and trimmed them. And then I played Samson ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... down while he put off his fine broadcloth coat and lace ruffles and assumed the long vest and silk skull cap, which was his home dress; then he put it in a buttonhole of his vest, and seemed to joy himself in its delicate fragrance. With these preliminaries neither Joris nor Lysbet interfered; but when he had lit his long pipe and seated himself comfortably in his chair, ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... being unpunctual. She came in, cool, slim, electric. Then she hesitated. For the fraction of a second she hesitated. Then Sam Klein greeted her: "Company's waiting, Miss Fuller, if you're ready." And the leading man came forward, a flower in his buttonhole, carefully tailored and slightly yellow as a leading man of forty should be at 10:30 A. M. "How wonderful ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... hypocritical world worked overtime trying to rival the Billingsgate Calendar. The newspapers employed watchers, who picketed the block where Parnell and his wife lived, and telegraphed to Christendom the time the lights were out, and whether Mr. Parnell appeared with a shamrock or a rose in his buttonhole. The facts that Mrs. Parnell wore her hair in curls, and smilingly hummed a tune as she walked to the corner, were construed into proof of brazen guilt and a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... displaying a crimson—velvet facing, also richly embroidered, and an embroidered scarlet waistcoat; a large solitary star glittered on his breast, and the grand cross of the Legion of Honour sparkled at his buttonhole; his black neckerchief had been taken off; and his cocked hat lay beside him on a sofa, massively laced, the edges richly ornamented with ostrich down; his head was covered with a red velvet cap, with a thick gold cord twisted two or three turns round it, and ending in two large tassels of ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... to come before he went away; she insisted. And she asked suddenly: "When I saw you on the seventeenth, didn't you have a bow in your buttonhole?" ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... in the eyes of my client when he first beheld this novel effect. And yet when we were once more in the street I could not but admit that the change was worth all that it had cost him in suffering. Strangely, he now looked like some one, especially after I had persuaded him to a carnation for his buttonhole. I cannot say that his carriage was all that it should have been, and he was still conscious of his smart attire, but I nevertheless felt a distinct thrill of pride in my own work, and was eager to reveal him to Mrs. Effie ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... with a huge rose in his buttonhole and another bunch of flowers—carnations this time—in his hands. He made his way to the little round table where Julia ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Descoings, he wore a hat that was greasy, with the nap rubbed off at the edges, patched boots, a shabby overcoat, on which the red ribbon scarcely showed so discolored and dirty was it by long service at the buttonhole and by the spatterings of coffee and liquors. His buckskin gloves, of a greenish tinge, lasted him a long while; and he only gave up his satin neckcloth when it was ragged enough to look like wadding. Mariette was the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to his other hand. His collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The blooming stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming end to it. He met schoolboys with satchels. I'm not going tomorrow either, stay away till Monday. He met other schoolboys. Do they notice I'm in mourning? Uncle Barney said he'd get it into the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... at my buttonhole when I reached the second niche. There was a black varnished wicker tray heaped with fruit and a Brittany platter filled with ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... and a prize is given to the person who guesses most, and to the person whose title is considered the best. Thus, a person wearing a card having the letter R represented Middlemarch, and a person with catkins in his buttonhole, Hazell's Annual. But simpler ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... medium of his glass of old Madeira, he beheld three figures entering the room. These were Fancy, who had assumed the garb and aspect of an itinerant showman, with a box of pictures on her back; and Memory, in the likeness of a clerk, with a pen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her buttonhole and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm; and lastly, behind the other two, a person shrouded in a dusky mantle which concealed both face and form. But Mr. Smith had a shrewd idea that it was Conscience. How kind of Fancy, Memory and Conscience to visit the old gentleman just ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a quick glance around, and was a trifle upset by seeing Mr. Marrin coming straight toward her. He came with his easy, tripping stride, self-satisfied, red-faced, tastefully dressed, an orchid in his buttonhole. ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... the Haverly Mastodon Minstrels headed the third division of the Garfield inaugural parade. Ever mindful and proud of his men, Frohman, at his personal expense, bought a buttonhole bouquet for every member for the occasion and fastened it on their coats himself. On the sidewalk he followed with admiring eye and flushed face the progress ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Not an unwonted sound reached me to make discord; so quiet, indeed, was all the earth that I became startled by the sudden chatter of a squirrel disturbed at my approach, and unthinkingly I stooped to pluck a delicate pink flower blooming in the grass, and placed it in a ragged buttonhole of my ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... among the street venders. They sell matches, tooth-picks, cigars, newspapers, songs and flowers. The flower-girls are hideous little creatures, but their wares are beautiful and command a ready sale. These are made into hand bouquets, and buttonhole bouquets, and command from ten cents to several dollars each. When the day is wet and gloomy, and the slush and the mud of Broadway are thick over everything animate and inanimate, and the sensitive soul shrinks within itself at the sight of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the clock. A dull impatience of this large, bland, prosperous personage was growing in him. From the rim the top-hat had left upon his shining forehead to the tightly-screwed eyeglass that assisted his left eye; from the pink Malmaison carnation in the buttonhole of his frock-coat to the buff spats that matched his expansive waistcoat in shade, the large Major was the personification of luxurious, pampered, West End swelldom, the type of a class Saxham abhorred. He had seen the heavy dandy under other ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a young, pretty Aunt Maria, Molly would never have known her but for the portrait—kissed her uncle, and then she took a Christmas rose out of her dress and put it in Mr. Sheldon's buttonhole, and put up her face to him and said, 'Good-night, James.' He kissed her; Molly heard the loud, jolly sound of the kiss, and Aunt ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... the buttonhole parts, $60. This last is beyond all question the simplest, easiest to manage and to keep in order, of any machine in the market. Machines warranted, and full instruction ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... ways, too; still, as Zinariola was a seaport, it was very cosmopolitan, and one saw all sorts of people on its streets. Many were just natural-looking people, like Pirlaps and Avrillia; but some were of chocolate, like Yassuh, and some were Chinese, with long pigtails of black buttonhole-twist; and some were Parisians, with hats exactly like the one that the Japanese doll wore so unbecomingly. (Yes, Sara knew in her heart that it was unbecoming, though she would not have admitted it, even to you.) On the gay Parisian lady-fairies, however, these hats were charming—but ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... excitement died down and the round of mechanical drudgery took its place. An hour later someone knocked at an inner door which led to steep side stairs connecting with a side street entrance. Wondering who it was Mary opened it, to find Steve, very flushed and handsome, a flower in his buttonhole yet no ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... himself, since they were about it. It is true that the best of congratulations awaits him on the 16th March on the front page of the Official Journal in a decree which flames in advance before his eyes and makes him glance every now and then at his buttonhole. ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... many and what delectable enticements. Opposite the Tree, his back against the wall, sat old Bob, clad in a dress of state, part of which consisted of a swallow-tail coat (with an overgrown chrysanthemum in the buttonhole), a red necktie, and a pink-and-silver liberty cap of tissue-paper. He was scraping a fiddle "like old times come again," and the tune he played was, "Oh, my Liza, po' gal!" My feet shuffled to ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... child replied; "I'm going to try to sell some. Will you have one?—as a present, I mean." Mr. Codlin stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency, and ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to be alone in the National Gallery in the dead of the night with a tiny electric lamp in one's buttonhole and a sponge of alcohol and turpentine in one's hand. While he worked the little Madonna's eyes rested upon him and it could hardly have been mere fancy that made him believe they were full of gratitude and trust. At the end of an hour the outline of a child, faint and misty, appeared in her ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... them at the back of the loom, to head, foot, and sides, as in the illustration. One must then decide how close the warp is to be strung. Measure the string, which should be continuous, allowing enough to go to the rings at the back and make a buttonhole stitch each time. Then wind on a long thin stick or dress steel, in such a way that it will pass easily through the rings. In stringing the hammock in the illustration, a penholder was used. The rings are tied, with white cord, to ...
— Hand-Loom Weaving - A Manual for School and Home • Mattie Phipps Todd
... flowers, and recognizing many favorites that recalled the hothouse at Le Bocage, her eyes filled with tears, and she hastily put her lips to the snowy cups of an oxalis. How often she had seen just such fragile petals nestling in the buttonhole of ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... as you say. Holidays are not in the least wearisome any more. Plague on it! When a man tells me now that he hates holidays, I find myself getting very wroth. I pin him by the buttonhole at once, and tell him my experience. The fact is, if I were at dinner on a holiday, and anybody should ask me for a sentiment, I should say, 'God bless ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... skill of its making. It was a construction of blocks, according to patchwork law, every alternate block of the border having an applied rose cut from printed calico in alternate colors of yellow, red, and blue. These roses were carefully applied with buttonhole stitch, and the cotton ground underneath cut away to give uniform thickness for quilting. The main body of the quilt was unnoticeably good, being a collection of faintly colored patches of correct construction. The quilting was a marvel—a large carefully drawn ...
— The Development of Embroidery in America • Candace Wheeler
... Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London's best tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... he had risked his life vainly to save the aged Colonel Delavigne from a furious mob, for the red rosette in the old officer's buttonhole had cost him his life in an awkward promenade, and this sent the orphans, Valerie and Alixe Delavigne, adrift upon the mad maelstrom of Paris incendie. While Ram Lal glowered in his dissatisfaction, Madame Berthe Louison complacently regarded her two secret protectors on guard in the special ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... skirts. The gilt buttons also bore fleurs-de-lis; on the shoulders a pair of straps cried out for useless epaulettes; these military appendages were there like a petition without a recommendation. This old gentleman's coat was of dark blue cloth, and the buttonhole had blossomed into many colored ribbons. He, no doubt, always carried his hat in his hand—a three cornered cocked hat, with a gold cord—for the snowy wings of his powdered hair showed not a trace of its pressure. He might have been taken for not ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... war With GLADSTONE and his Items. Faith, JOE has travelled far! The Primrose Dames shall teach him True patriot "form" to know. He is leal, and will kneel To the "Lilies" in fair row; To the pretty, winsome Primrose girls, Who buttonhole Brum JOE. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... from the dairy window, which, overgrown with creepers, made a dark frame for the brightly-coloured picture. There was Mr Buckle, a young farmer of the neighbourhood, in a light-grey suit with a blue satin tie and a rose in his buttonhole. There was Bella, her face covered with self-satisfied smiles, mounting to his side. There was Agnetta carrying the new parasol high in the air with all its lace fluttering. How gay and happy they all looked! Mrs Greenways stood nodding at the window. She had meant to go out to ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... risen to receive it, but the child hurried towards him and placed it in his hand. He stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, 'Tom Codlin's ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... there was a hearing before the General Assembly. The opponents had rushed into town every farmer and small politician they could secure and the women "antis" pinned a red rose in his buttonhole. The suffragists had given a yellow jonquil to every friend. Behind the Speaker's desk hung a huge yellow banner inscribed "Votes for Women," and so crowded was the room with determined men and eager women that the sergeant-at-arms had to ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... of the town held him prisoner and he sought in his muddling, gentle way to find out where the mystery lay, and what it was all about. But his limited French and his constitutional hatred of active investigation made it hard for him to buttonhole anybody and ask questions. He was content to observe, and watch, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... that could be easily remedied," she added, with a touch of archness. Then Mr. Iglesias thought it time to depart. In the hall his host held him, literally by the buttonhole, looking up with squinting ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... continued the first voice. "French Pete and that thar feller that keeps the Dutch grocery hev hed a row over it; emptied their six-shooters into each other. The Dutchman's got two balls in his leg, and the Frenchman's got an onnessary buttonhole in his shirt-buzzum, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... put an unbiased opinion into a man's house each day for less than he now pays for gas. Just before election you could go into your private office, throw in a large dose of campaign whisky, light a campaign cigar, fasten your buttonhole to the wall by an elastic band, so that there would be a gentle pull on it, and turn the electricity on your mechanical thought supply. It would save time and money, and the result would be the same as it is now. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... an actress than a writer. Wouldn't you like me to leave college and go into a dramatic school? And then I'll send you a box for all my performances, and smile at you across the footlights. Only wear a red rose in your buttonhole, please, so I'll surely smile at the right man. It would be an awfully embarrassing mistake if I picked out ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... an attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like a smart, sensible little man, as he was, putting it gallantly and nattily into his buttonhole. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... over the chair of the visitor, and later, played billiards with her, a game at which Matilda did not excel. At family prayers next morning (the service was conducted by Mrs. Malory) the Vidame appeared with a white rosebud in his buttonhole, Mrs. Brown-Smith wearing its twin sister. He took her to the stream in the park where she fished, Matilda following in a drooping manner. The Vidame was much occupied in extracting the flies from the hair of Mrs. Brown-Smith, in which ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... clothes, with a rose from the Dovecot hot-house for buttonhole (which he slipped into his pocket when he saw other boys approaching), delivered them at the doors of the aristocracy, where, by the way, he had been a few ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... and pretty in her morning dresses, ensconced herself each day on the big couch hammock of the front porch to wave to Martin Landis as he passed on his way to the trolley that took him to his studies in the city. Sometimes she ran to the gate and tossed him a rose for his buttonhole. Later in the day she was at her post again, ready to ask pleasantly as he passed, "Well, how did school go to-day?" Such seemingly spontaneous interest spurred the young man to ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... role of trusty she had constrained herself to civility. She had taken Mrs. Carder the flowers last night, and Rufus had put some tiny blooms in his buttonhole and caressed them at supper-time with significant glances ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... laced waist, the hips of a woman, the bust of a Prussian officer, the murmur of admiration from the boulevard wenches surrounding him, his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole; such was ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... only a fawn Nimble became very fond of water lilies. But he didn't carry them as a bouquet, nor wear one in his buttonhole. He was fond of lilies in a different way: he liked to eat them, and their flat, round, glossy pads. At night his mother often led him to the edge of the lake on the other side of Blue ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Deulin quitted the little shop. It was still early in the day, and he hurried to Cartoner's rooms in the Jasna. He bought a flower at the corner of the Jerozolimska as he went along, and placed it in his buttonhole. He wore his soft felt hat at a gay angle, and walked the pavement at a pace and with an air ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... surprising and unexpected individuals filed into the foyer. First appeared a full-grown, confident man in a smart suit, of the colour of dry sea-sand, in a magnificent pink shirt with white stripes and a crimson rose in his buttonhole. From the front his head looked like an upright bean, from the side like a horizontal bean. His face was adorned with a strong, bushy, martial moustache. He wore dark blue pince-nez on his nose, on his hands straw-coloured gloves. In his left hand ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... elicit my admiration! In either case, I resolved upon a revanche. By its wound, the bignonia smelt sweeter than ever; and though I could not restore the pretty blossom to its graceful campanulate shape, from that time forward it appeared in my buttonhole—to the slight torture, I fancied, of the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... presented himself to Madame Beauvisage as a suitor for her daughter's hand. No step of that nature is ever taken secretly in the provinces. The procureur-du-roi, Frederic Marest, whose fortune, buttonhole, and position were about on a par with those of Antonin Goulard, had received a like refusal, three years earlier, based on the difference of ages. Consequently, the two officials were on terms of strict politeness with the Beauvisage family, and laughed at ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... strands across the shiny bald pate. A low collar of enormous circumference encircled his short neck and his tie was drawn through a Zodiac ring. His clothes were ill-fitting—shapeless trousers and a voluminous morning coat, in the buttonhole of which was a pink carnation with a silver papered stem, an immense watch-chain spread across a coarsely knitted waistcoat of Berlin wool. And he seemed out of breath. The pistol in his extended hand vibrated in sympathy ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... his dreams of happiness, the superlative of his hopes—do you know what it was? To enter the Institute and obtain the grade of officer of the Legion of honor; to side down beside Schinner and Leon de Lora, to reach the Academy before Bridau, to wear a rosette in his buttonhole! What a dream! It is only commonplace men who ...
— Pierre Grassou • Honore de Balzac
... warships will have Constantinople under their guns. If K. won't listen to me, then, having been officially mis-informed that the War Council wish to see me (the last thing they do wish), I will take them at their word. I will buttonhole every Minister from McKenna and Lloyd George to Asquith and Bonar Law,—and grovel at their feet if by doing so I can hold them on to this, the biggest scoop that is, or ever has been, open ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... gentleman,—either because the Squire desired it, or because the other Squire was tired of his companion and wanted to be off—which he was, as soon as the introduction was over. For in Mr. Stoutenburgh's eyes the buttonhole of Dr. Harrison's soft coat was no more precious (to say the least) than that of his own ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... shook and bowed continually. Probably he was the husband whom in a bitter mood at Talta she had called a lackey. And, indeed, in his long figure, his side-whiskers, the little bald patch on the top of his head, there was something of the lackey; he had a modest sugary smile and in his buttonhole he wore a University badge exactly ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... to live out here all alone under this terribly big sky. I wouldn't like it even if I were only a weed," and she looked around and shivered with the thought of her fearful ride alone in the night. But she tucked the little spray of brave green into the buttonhole of her riding habit and it looked of prouder lineage than any weed as it rested against the handsome darkness of the rich green cloth. For an instant the missionary studied the picture of the lovely girl on the horse and forgot that ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... honesty and loyalty, is he not the chosen dragoman of kings and princes when they journey into far distant lands (he speaks seven languages and many tribal dialects), and is he not today wearing in his buttonhole the ribbon of the order of the Mejidieh, bestowed upon him by his Imperial Highness the Sultan, in reward for his ability ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... dressing it came to me that his clothes had undergone much the same change as his dwelling. In his golden days in London he had been a good deal of a dandy; he usually wore white waistcoats at night; was particular about the flowers in his buttonhole, his gloves and cane. Now he was decently dressed and that was all; as far below the average as he had been above it. Clearly, he had let go of himself and no longer took pleasure in the vanities: it seemed to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... figure approaching her across the square; and a moment later she was shaking hands with Elmer Moffatt. In the bright spring air he looked seasonably glossy and prosperous; and she noticed that he wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. His small black eyes twinkled with approval as they rested on her, and Undine reflected that, with Paul's arms about her neck, and his little flushed face against her own, she must present a not ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... wary and sophisticated eye on the Manufacturers' Association and a finger in the buttonhole of every legislator, the socially awake of St. Louis have secured more humane child labor legislation, and the Nine-Hour Day for women and children with no ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... indeed, seen from this distance, she did not look a day more than thirty-five—an age when beauty possesses all the alluring charm of the luscious fruit of autumn. She was giving orders for the drive, and her coachman, with a rose in his buttonhole, listened while he reined in the spirited horse. "The weather's superb," added Chupin. "She'll no doubt drive round the lakes in the Bois ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... sewing were shown on neat little squares of cloth—running, hemming, stitching, gathering, and buttonhole-making. Then there were garments in which all ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1. No. 23, April 15, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... surprise that would be distinctly pleasant, though," said Wade, giving a great deal of attention to the selection of a match from his silver case. "For instance, if you were to give me a small piece of that lilac for my buttonhole." ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of his arrondissement and judge in the Court of Commerce. He kept a carriage, had a country-place near Lagny; his wife wore diamonds at the court balls, and he prided himself on the rosette of an officer of the Legion of honor in his buttonhole. ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... toppled, where deadly misery, deadly bravery, heroism that couldn't be uttered, staggered month after month among ruins, and found America untouched, comfortable, fat, still with time to worry over the suspected amorousness of the rich, still putting people into uniforms in order to buttonhole a man on landing and cross-question him ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... have had his nap by that time," she said, with a saucy glance in his direction, "and he will be as sweet and lovely as a May mawning. And he'll have on a fresh white suit for the evening, and a cah'nation in his buttonhole." Then she gave her ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Madison Square they saw a gallant and courtly old man with military shoulders and pink cheeks, a debonair gray mustache, and a smile of unquenchable youth, greeting April with a narcissus in his buttonhole. He was feeding the sparrows with crumbs and smiled to see one of them fly off, carrying a long wisp of hay, bustling away to build for himself and his sparrow bride a bungalow in the foot-hills of ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... I—a narrow stone stairway somewhere at the back of New Scotland Yard, and so came to the inspector's room. Bray was waiting for us, smiling and confident. I remember—silly as the detail is—that he wore in his buttonhole a white rose. His manner of greeting me was more genial than usual. He began by informing me that the police had apprehended the man who, they believed, was guilty ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... finger in his buttonhole, and stood looking in his face with a saucy gaze. Clarence yielded at once. His small despot knew very well how to rule him and to put down such short-lived attempts at insubordination as he occasionally ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... an old man, who looked about eighty, with perfectly white hair, and a nose reddened by the cold, and a pale, wrinkled face like an old woman's, came shuffling slowly along in list slippers, a shiny alpaca overcoat hanging on his stooping shoulders, no ribbon at his buttonhole, the sleeves of an under-vest showing below his coat-cuffs, and his shirt-front unpleasantly dingy. He approached timidly, looked at the coach, recognized Lisbeth, and came to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... me up as I endeavored in imagination to swallow at one draught the contents of a metal tankard of half-and-half—half laurel-water, and half decoction of henbane—handed to me on a leaden salver by a demon-waiter, with a sprig of hemlock in the third buttonhole of his coat. This Lethean influence could hardly be that of the ailantus-tree alone. What of the plants on the balcony beneath,—the strange, rooty coilers which the mysterious planter sedulously fosters at the glooming of dusk, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
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