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More "Forefinger" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conformed to types familiar to Bradley. There was the legal type, monotonously emphatic, with extended forefinger, which pointed, threatened and delineated. His speaking wore on the ear like a saw-filing. Then there was the political speaker, the stump orator, who was full of well-worn phrases, who could not mention the price of wool or the number of ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... off that name upon his forefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon a separate finger. "Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the name of Clare, and the name of ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... bosom, the second bare to the hips. Queenly Cleopatra rests back against her chair in meditative ease, leaning her cheek against one hand, whose elbow the rail of the seat sustains; the other is outstretched upon her knee, nipping its forefinger upon the thumb thoughtfully, as though some firm, wilful purpose filled her brain, as it seems to set those luxurious features to a smile as if the whole woman 'would.' Upon her head is the coif, bearing in front the mystic uraeus, or twining basilisk of sovereignty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... minds as to what he wanted, straightened up and bent a freshened interest on the cabin-plot which the clerk had spread out upon the counter for his advisement. And a moment after Staff had audibly stated his wishes, the other prodded a certain spot of the chart with a thin and fragile forefinger. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... tactical error. There is only one rule of conduct in dealing with nau-naus. Never swat them. Whatever you do, don't swat them. They are so vicious that in the instant of annihilation they eject their last atom of poison into your carcass. You must pluck them delicately, between thumb and forefinger, and persuade them gently to remove their proboscides from your quivering flesh. It is like pulling teeth. But the difficulty was that the teeth sprouted faster than I could pull them, so I swatted, and, so doing, filled myself full with their poison. This was ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... glove out of his jacket pocket, slipped it over his left hand, flexing his fingers to work it into position. Reetal's eyes fastened on the rounded metal tips capping thumb, forefinger and middle finger of the glove. ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... he, with a smile. Then he opened his book, took his pencil in his hand, and slipped in a careful forefinger to mark ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... Robbie, raising his forefinger in an attitude of remonstrance, which he had just previously been practising on the unhappy Dash,—"Liza, think what it is to call this reverend clerk and sexton and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... to a platform in front of the altar, or what resembled such. Here the sage took his stand, and placed the ladies beside him, once more earnestly repeating by signs his injunctions of silence. The Italian then, extending his bare arm from under his linen vestment, pointed with his forefinger to five large flambeaux, or torches, placed on each side of the altar. They took fire successively at the approach of his hand, or rather of his finger, and spread a strong light through the room. By this the visitors could discern that, on the seeming altar, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... docther. Dawn't ye knoo? Thuh big, flehmin poomple oop there." She indicated the locality, by flattening the rude tip of her own nose with her broad forefinger. ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... the Apostle employs here are both of them very emphatic. 'His words were half battles,' was said about Luther. It may be as truly said about Paul. And that word 'work' which he employs, means, not work with one hand, or with a delicate forefinger, but it means toil up to the verge of weariness. The notion of fatigue is almost, I might say, uppermost in the word as it is used in the New Testament. Some people like to 'labour' so as never to turn a hair, or bring a sweat-drop on to their foreheads. That is not Christian ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... asked him to tell us about his scales and sea-things, and he did so willingly—told us what kind of clay there was round Korholmerne—went into his room and fetched a sample of weed from the White Sea. He was constantly lifting up his right forefinger and shifting his thick gold spectacles back and forward on his nose. Herr Mack was most ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... his coat, adjusts his collar, studies the posters, shakes his head over them as if they were not to his taste, goes to the desk, and after studying it smiles at the rose and gives it a kittenish peck with his forefinger. NORA comes back and MIFFLIN turns to her with his ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington
... especially when he had reached some triumphantly absurd conclusion. He had two little quick gestures of the hands as he spoke, opening his fingers, waving a point aside, emphasizing an argument by a quick downward motion of his forefinger. He had, too, a quick, loud, ebullient laugh, sometimes shrill, sometimes deep; and he abandoned himself to laughter at an absurd story or jest as completely as anyone I have ever seen. Rose was an excellent mimic, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the Rumanian what he thought about Italy. "Italy began as a coquette. She will end"—he made the gesture of counting money into his hand—"she will end as a cocotte." He waved a forefinger in ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... Shakespeare, "infinite in faculty," took infinite pains to embody his thought in words of crystal clearness. Coleridge once said of him that one might as well try to dislodge a brick from a building with one's forefinger as to omit a single word from one of ...
— Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases • Grenville Kleiser
... himself. His bass tones became guttural and almost inarticulate, while he lowered them to prevent their travelling. On the reddish clay at his feet were foot-marks very like the prints of a large mastiff. He studied them one by one, even tracing the outline with his forefinger. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... whispered to him: "Bid seven on no suit. You've got the joker." Her delicate forefinger, its nail shining, was pointing at a curious ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... hands toward Grimaud, who merely thrust the guard out and shut the door behind him. At the same time he felt the duke's arms on his shoulders like two iron claws; but instead either of calling out or defending himself, he placed his forefinger on his lips and ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... followed the direction of his forefinger. Against the dark blue of the evening sky to northward glowed a faint phosphorescence, arch-shaped, from which shot, with pulsating regularity, long shafts of light. They beat almost to the zenith, and back again, a half dozen times, then the whole illumination disappeared ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the poor, and good advice with it. She is rigorous in the observance of every propriety; no storm keeps her from church. If the children of a new generation climb unduly upon the pew-backs, or shake their curly heads too wantonly, she lifts a prim forefinger at them, which has lost none of its authoritative meaning. She is the impersonation of all good severities. A strange character! Let us hope that, as it sloughs off its earthly cerements, it may in the Divine presence scintillate charities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... the station at Brockenhurst—in the New Forest—didn't we Maude," said Mrs. Slifer, "and it must have been—now let me see—" poor Mrs. Slifer collected her wits, a bent forefinger at her lips. "To-day's Thursday and we got to Mullion yesterday—and we stopped at Winchester for a day and night on our way to the New Forest, it was on Saturday last of course. We'd been having a drive ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to the bird and thrust a big forefinger between the wires of the cage. Immediately, with an answering chirp, the canary hopped along his perch with a queer sidewise motion and, reaching the finger, sprang upon it with a little flutter of ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... suddenly to grasp the situation. Her finely arched eyebrows were raised, her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkling. She rose slowly to her feet, and, child though she was, the dignity of her demeanour was such that Lady Delahaye with her accusing forefinger seemed to shrink ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... unbecoming passion? Lydia Prateapace remembered, certainly, a name being mentioned—it was Lesby or Lisby, or something like that. "Indeed!" said Miffins, arching his brows, and significantly touching the tip of his nose with his forefinger—"ah! indeed! a foreigner, depend upon it—a Lisbon lady; that, Miss, is the capital of Portugal, where them figs comes from. Only think, a foreign lady—a lady from Lisbon—that is too bad!" to which the three readily assented. "I doubt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... nervously offered it; and when Gus timidly said, "I think, Sam, I'm rather in the way here, and perhaps—had better go," Mrs. H. looked him full in the face, pointed to the door majestically with her forefinger, and said, "I think, sir, you ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... would. She frowned at him forbiddingly. But he was as yet scarcely half through his speech. He picked up his manuscript from the table and glanced at it, and then looked appealingly at her. She was obdurate. She held a warning forefinger in ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... and continued to fumble among the clothing it contained. All at once he called out and raised his hand. On the forefinger ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... Orleans race-track, and the brilliant banquets given by the Indiana and Kansas citizens who compose the North Carolina Society have made the South rather a "fad" in Manhattan. Your manicure will lisp softly that your left forefinger reminds her so much of a gentleman's in Richmond, Va. Oh, certainly; but many a lady has to work now—the war, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... the lady who owned these gazelles. And lo! she was looking out of a wicket in a lattice of brass and never saw my eyes a fairer than she, and in fine my tongue faileth to describe her beauty. When she caught sight of me looking at her, she put her forefinger into her mouth, then joined her middle finger and her witness finger[FN483] and laid them on her bosom, between her breasts; after which she drew in her head and closed the wicket shutter and went her ways. There upon fire broke out in and was heaped upon ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... were his cue, the crafty features of Lawton appeared cautiously in the doorway, bestowed a furtive and searching inspection on the room, and finally winked solemnly at its only occupant. A hand was inserted. The forefinger beckoned. Bennington arose wearily and ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... whiskers with a thoughtful forefinger. Not thus had Judith been wont to reply to him. Always before, if there had been denial, there were too, reasons adduced, shy looks from the corners of those dark eyes and tender inquiries as to ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... the dark began to lighten, and Henry stopped short in surprise. Paul was walking in such automatic fashion that he almost ran against him before he stopped. Henry pointed with a long forefinger to a red spot deep in ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his worst fault was disobedience, and a world of trouble it got him into. Remember that, Master Bertie: your grandpapa would be obeyed, and your papa is his own son in that respect. So take care, my dear, take care!" and the old lady shook her forefinger warningly. "But everything's forgot and forgave now," she added, more cheerfully; "and right glad I am ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... for bed, she stood in front of her long cheval glass, the folds of her blue dressing gown trailing away from her pretty, lace-frilled nightgown, she shook her forefinger warningly at the ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... snuggled close to him. When he put his nose into the captain's plate, he was gently reprimanded. But once, when he merely sniffed at the mate's steaming tea-cup, her received a snub on the nose from the mate's grimy forefinger. Also, the mate did not offer ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... forth his rough forefinger shamedly to touch the velvet of a green leaf, as one unaccustomed might touch a ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... he went on, marking off the list on a combative forefinger, "and cookery; there was the Polyglot Club, and the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... idea is not so far eradicated as entirely to prevent suspicion appears from this circumstance, that the guest, though taking a leaf from the betel-service of his entertainer, not unfrequently applies to it his own chunam, and never omits to pass the former between his thumb and forefinger in order to wipe off any extraneous matter. This mistrustful procedure is so common as not ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... pay," said the Kvartalnue Nadziratel, with a slight but significant shake of the head, sticking his forefinger through a button-hole of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... profound obeisance, proffering the tart at the same time between his thumb and forefinger, "will you so far honour an entire stranger? I can answer for the quality of the pastry, having eaten two dozen and three of them myself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was able. "My mamma is sick, and they carried her away to the asylum," she told Robert. "She—she tried to hurt Amabel; she tried to"—Amabel made that hideous gesture with her tiny forefinger across her throat. "Mamma was sick or she wouldn't," ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... woman, with a forefinger in a faded-looking book, came out from behind some window-curtains, and, rummaging Mrs. Moss's chair with a practised hand, produced a large silver snuff-box, from which Mrs. Moss took a pinch, and then offered it to Granny, who ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... George!" Bingo slipped the thumb and forefinger of the useful hand into his waistcoat-pocket. Something sparkled in the big pink palm he extended to Saxham—something sparkled, and spurted white and green and scarlet points of fire from a myriad of facets. The something was an oval ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... observed to be foaming at the mouth. No attention was paid to this; his family believing it to be a symptom of hydrophobia, with which he had been afflicted from the cradle. Suddenly a dark-eyed stranger entered the house, took the patient's neck between his thumb and forefinger, threw the body across his shoulder, winked respectfully to the bereaved widow, and withdrew by way of the kitchen cellar. Farewell, pure ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... of my face was accomplished. The chambermaid pointed with her wicked forefinger in the ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... forth and be saved?" he yelled: "Who amongst you is still a prisoner to Satan? Let him come forth and confess the Lard. I see 'ee over there"—pointing a shaking forefinger—"you'm hesitating. You can't make up your mind to give up that sin you love. Give it up, or this night thy soul shall be required of thee, and all the devils in hell shall play at ball with it in the midst of ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... drawing my right hand, with the forefinger and thumb pressed together, nimbly from my right haunch to my left shoulder, "you have condescended to resume the paternal arts to which you were first ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... shrill, neighing laugh, and was about to begin his offensively affectionate tactics—he lifted his open, tawny hand, and aimed his forefinger with a black border on a thick yellow finger-nail towards a place where he might jab, pinch, or tickle the barefoot, bare-armed girl. But Zinaida, smiling and frowning at the same time, edged ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... midwife heard the grandmother storm and rave, while hunting for her crutch, she ran first to the honey jar, dipped her forefinger in it and put some drops of honey on the baby's tongue. Then she passed it out the window to some women friends, who were waiting outside. She knew the law, that if a child tasted food, it must ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... Zephaniah Scranton, sat just where he could see me. This fact impressed my mind with more solemnity than all the exhortations which had preceded it—a proof of the efficacy of facts above reason. Under shadow and power of this weighty truth, I demurely took hold of my mother's forefinger to walk to meeting. ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Mount Ida—in a word, ripe, fresh, and firm. The hand should be white, especially towards the wrist, but large and plump, feeling soft as silk, the rosy palm marked with a few, but distinct and not intricate lines; the elevations in it should be not too great, the space between thumb and forefinger brightly colored and without wrinkles, the fingers long, delicate, and scarcely at all thinner towards the tips, with nails clear, even, not too long nor to square, and cut so as to show a white margin about the breadth of a ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... stirred his rum and water with a file, brought Magwitch's two one-pound notes for Pip, and the redoubtable Jaggers, the autocrat of the Old Bailey, with his burly form, great head, and huge, cross-examining forefinger announced to Pip his Great Expectations. Down the river in the direction of yonder "distant savage lair", from which the wind comes rushing, lie those long reaches, between Kent and Essex, "where the river is broad and solitary, where the waterside inhabitants are very few, and ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... had not failed to remark the abruptness with which Father Smyth had cut me short; joined both his hands, and with the stretched forefinger tapping me on both hands, which were clenched as in prayer, addressed to me these identical remarkable words, "My dear fellow, the licence is a mere watchword of the day, and they make a cat's-paw ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... he was a consulting mining engineer with a beautiful office in Victoria Street and a nice taste in spats—scratched an earthy nose with a muddy forefinger. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... long; in another moment his face was raised from earth, his hands resumed their places on the rifle, his forefinger sought the trigger; mind, heart, and eyes were clear, conscience and reason sound. He could not hope to capture that enemy; to alarm him would but send him dashing to his camp with his fatal news. The duty of the soldier was plain: the man must be shot dead from ambush—without warning, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... a minute!" he stammered. "Whut dis? B'lieve I done foun' it! I sho is! Heah she am! Heah's dis nigger-stopper, jes lak I tol' you!" Tump marked a sentence in the guaranty of the deed with a rusty forefinger and looked up at Peter in ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... the marionette, "My dear sire, to deceive me one must have a good - " and he touched his forehead with his forefinger as much as to say that within lay a great brain. "Before leaving home I studied so much that the teacher feared I ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... Mrs. Plumston, but the acrobats are about to begin," said one of the young men, touching the fez with his forefinger. ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... closed hard upon the letter at the very last instant—ah, not too late. But suppose she had, but for one second, opened her thumb and forefinger and—what? What would ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... the store and got a job. For a time she was in Eden. The doleful proprietor's doleful wife was usually down-cellar making ice-cream while her husband was out in the kitchen cooking candy. Kedzie was free to guzzle soda-water at her will. Her forefinger and thumb went along the stacks of candy, dipping like a robin's beak. She was forever licking her fingers and brushing marshmallow dust off her chest. She usually had a large, square caramel ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... possessed of mighty strength. Nor did Yuvanaswa die—which itself was strange. Then Indra of mighty strength came to pay him a visit. And the deities enquired of the great Indra, 'What is to be sucked by this boy?' Then Indra introduced his own forefinger into his mouth. And when the wielder of the thunderbolt said, 'He will suck me,' the dwellers of heaven together with Indra christened the boy Mandhata, (literally, Me he shall suck). Then the boy having tasted the forefinger extended by Indra, became possessed of mighty strength, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... monument" and make a new monument in Jacobean style. He was straitly ordered to "repair and beautify the original monument"; he did repair it, and repainted the colours. That is all. I do not quote what Halliwell-Phillipps tells us {183a} about the repairing of the forefinger and thumb of the right hand, and the pen; work which, he says, had to be renewed by William Roberts of Oxford in 1790. He gives no authority, and Baconians may say that he was hoaxed, or "lied ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... hands in his, the left one he held in his left hand, and the right one he held in his right hand. Taking Adele's right-hand forefinger and placing it in her left hand, he began to tell her a little story about a lark, which he remembered his mother used to recite to him when ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... more," said she, petulantly touching his hand with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and yieldingly. "It smells of spice and sugar, but I can't taste it; your wrist is so stiff, and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Joe, shaking his forefinger close into the face of little Sloper. "When a retired tailor degrades the honour of a seaman's flag by a shooting at it and a riddling of it, the law 'as made and purwided sets forth this: that the insulted ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... Frenchman how to carry his candle in the miner's manner, so that it could not go out, which consisted in holding it low down between the forefinger and third finger, so that the hollow palm of the hand formed a kind of shield; and then Vandeloup, hearing the sound of falling water close to him, asked what it was, whereupon Archie explained it was for ventilating purposes. The water fell the whole height of the mine through a ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... her side. He watched her progress silently, except for business words and instructions, till the exercise was finished and Faith had turned to him for further directions; then taking her hand he put upon its forefinger one of the prettiest things she had ever seen. It was an old-fashioned diamond ring; the stones all of a size, and of great clearness and lustre, set close upon each other all the way round; with just enough goldsmith's work to bind them together, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... with the ring on his forefinger, watching the artist's smoke with the same curiously obscure smile. It had the effect on Lightmark now, as Rainham's smile did on many people, however innocent it might be of satiric intention, of infusing his next remarks with the ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... order at once to solve this very simple problem, I silently unfolded and spread out upon the table my map of Europe; and each of us, as we leant over it, placing a forefinger on or near Wiesbaden (our eyes being fixed upon Dover), we remained in this reflecting attitude for some seconds, until the Prince's finger first solemnly began to trace its route. In doing this, I observed that his Highness's hand kept swerving far into ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... sack gives way inside you," Cardigan had explained, "you'll go like that!" He snapped a forefinger and thumb ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... said the other, with a fat laugh. "I was one of the quiet little mice," he added archly, "and you were always such a gay dog." To our indescribable delectation he actually thrust a stubby forefinger into his ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... to a fairly uniform thickness: brown, old, natural fingers that worked as in a sleep, the thumb having a long grey nail; and from moment to moment there was a quick, downward rub, between thumb and forefinger, of the thread that hung in front of her apron, the heavy bobbin spun more briskly, and she felt again at the fleece as she drew it down, and she gave a twist to the thread that issued, and ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... word here and there, but Garfield was too much absorbed to notice him, and so pushed on steadily, warming up as he proceeded. Unfortunately for his scheme, however, before he had gone far he made a touching reference to his mother, when Uncle Jacob, gesticulating energetically, and with his forefinger leveled at the speaker, cried: "Just a word—just one word right there," and so persisted until Garfield was compelled either to yield or be absolutely discourteous. The General, therefore, got in his word; nay, he held the floor for the ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... deviltries in this ship unless I give the word. Otherwise—" The great scar on his forehead was blue and twitching, and his voice was deadly earnest. He did a thing so expressive it made me shudder. He lifted his hand, and carelessly placed his forefinger on the outer side of his bunk, and when he lifted it, two of the myriad cockroaches that infested the foc'sle were mashed fiat on ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... much the same in a similar stress of circumstances. The child, at any rate, appeared to be satisfied with his behavior; for when he had held it a considerable time, and set it down, it still favored him with its company, keeping fast hold of his forefinger till we reached the confines of the place. And on our return through the court-yard, after visiting another part of the establishment, here again was this same little Wretchedness waiting for its victim, with a smile of joyful, and yet dull recognition about its scabby mouth and in its ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Rosco, throwing his rifle into the hollow of his left arm, so as to bring the muzzle full on the mate's chest, while, with the forefinger of his right hand, he lightly touched the triggers, "draw your pistols from your belt, and be very careful how you do it— very careful—for if, even by chance, you touch hammer or trigger, you ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... dusted the lining, treasuring carefully each flake and mite of tobacco that his efforts gleaned. The result was scarce a thimbleful. He searched in his pockets, and brought forward, between thumb and forefinger, tiny pinches of rubbish. Here and there in this rubbish were crumbs of tobacco. These he segregated with microscopic care, though he occasionally permitted small particles of foreign substance to accompany the crumbs to the hoard ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... J. Bayard Steele, balancin' his bamboo walkin' stick thoughtful on one forefinger, "I'm getting to be a regular expert ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... halted on the edge of the pasturage ground, glanced quickly over his field of vision, and then, placing a thumb and forefinger between his teeth, he emitted a blast like that of a steam whistle. It was a signal he had taught the stallion, and he knew that if the horse was within a mile he would come toward him on a full gallop. Deerfoot repeated the call twice and then waited and looked and listened. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... as he said: "Ah, yes. I will now refer to your true mark," and he drew forth a little book as he spoke and carefully examined the record. "Ah, yes," he murmured, not lifting his eyes from the page on which he had placed a forefinger. "Ah, yes. It is as I fawncied. Your average for the term in your recitations is what brings you below. It is true you are two above the required mark in your examination, but you are three below in your recitation work, and that, I regret exceedingly to say, brings you still one point below the ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... the blue and gold valentine on Aunt Cordelia's knee. In the valentine's centre were two hands clasping. Emmy Lou's forefinger pointed to the words beneath the ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... that followed on Billebedam's departure by heaping the dirty plates higher on the table and drumming a tattoo on the cleared space with his knuckles. Hutchinson snuffed the smoky candle and reflectively rubbed the soot from the wick between thumb and forefinger. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... she, on her knees beside the hamper, with her forefinger against her lips, 'suppose—suppose we have some croquettes. I know how to make some very plain and ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... for added outrage, had flung herself at him and was smiling sweetly in his swollen face. About them the torrent poured. Then all at once, in a riot that afterwards seemed to her phantasmagoric, the policeman raised a forefinger in salute. From the maelstrom she was hoisted bodily into a car. Somebody, the policeman probably, was boosting her from behind. Never had she suffered such indignities! To accentuate them, somebody else was shouting ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... herself and, after feeling for a handkerchief she did not have, wiped her eyes with a forefinger and then wiped the finger on her bare leg. She grinned and turned to the Omans. "Prince, will you and Dark Lady please conjure us up a steak-and-mushrooms supper? They should be in the pantry ... since this ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. Now, it was not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did NOT propose to invest your small capital in ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... broiled, but are at their best served as follows;—Select a pair of plump birds; clean them, cut off the legs, and remove the heads without breaking or tearing the neck skin; insert the forefinger in it, and separate the skin over the breast from the flesh; fill this with a nicely-seasoned bread stuffing, and fasten the loose end of the neck to the back. Place a thin wide slice of bacon over the breast, and fasten the ends ...
— Breakfast Dainties • Thomas J. Murrey
... recommendation—close-mouthed. For about the mine it was never known when the brick went to town or who took it. Hicks had impressed this fact upon Zavalla. He was to tell nobody that he was delegated to this duty. "Not even"—Hicks had leveled a forefinger at Chino, and the cold eyes drove home the injunction as the steam-hammer drives the rivet—"not even your wife." And Zavalla had promised. He would have trifled with dynamite sooner than with one of ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... hands of Donnegan rose past the line of his waist, past his shoulders, and presently locked easily behind his head. A terrible chance, for Landis had come within a breath of shooting. So great was the impulse that, as he checked the pressure of his forefinger, he stumbled a whole pace forward. ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... intelligence for me to say that they all know their own names as well as you know yours. They know, too, their numbers when they are acting as soldiers formed in line waiting orders; the Professor passes along and checking them off with his forefinger numbers them, then falling back, calls out for certain ones to form into platoons, and they make no mistake. Their ears are alert, their senses sharp, their memory good. "Number Two," "Number Four," and so on, answer by advancing, as a soldier would ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... he laughed, shaking a gnarled forefinger. "I thought it was your voice in the crowd. Your Ladyship 'ud like to have me all nervous, wouldn't you? Well—if Tom Tripe was out of a job tomorrow, the very first person he'd apply to for a new one would be the Princess Yasmini; and she'd give ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... firmly between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, leaving about eight or nine inches hanging loosely down; lay this over the thigh of the right leg, and with the right hand rub it in a downward direction, which will cause the twisted strand to loosen. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... once in the moonlight she had asked it with her voice from the gate above the Narrow Way. Between them stood a table inlaid with ivory and pearl, whereon the dust from the street had gathered through the open lattice. Masouda leaned over, and with her forefinger wrote a single Arabic letter in the dust upon the table, then ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... you, Coppy,' said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. 'I knew she didn't ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... surprise at the question, Sir John Dene jerked up his head to look at her, and Dorothy's forefinger managed to find the ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... "Of course you do not mean that, Mr. Bliss," said the young reformer with impressive politeness, "for if you did we should have to put you out in the street." Even in those early days, when Roosevelt was in dead earnest, he had a way of pointing his forefinger and of fixing his under jaw which the person whom he addressed could not mistake. That forefinger was as menacing as a seven shooter. Mr. Bliss, with all the prestige of a successful career at the bar behind him, quickly understood ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... James made no reply, but stood ruminating, with the forefinger of his left hand pressing his nether lip; then ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... thinking of his own brown bird. Suddenly a glint came into his bright blue eyes. In the corner of the room, against the wall, leaned the two Sharp rifles. Smoky glanced about him, rose, walked to the corner, bent down, and smelt the muzzle of Ransom's rifle. Then he slipped his forefinger into ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... the direction of Moll's large forefinger with his gaze. After a little he made out quite plainly, rising against the clear sky beyond the low-lying ground, a faint trail of blue-gray smoke; and lower down, considerably below the smoke, there shone a small spot of ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... to swallow up the little gun-stock. His long knobbed finger fitted around the lock in a strange but familiar way. Caleb was a bent-arm shot, and the short barrel looked like his own forefinger pointing at the target as he pumped away six times in quick succession. All went into the blaze and two into the charcoal ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... "Wherever Spicca is concerned there is a duel. He is a terrible fellow, with his death's-head and dangling bones—one of those extraordinary phenomena—bah! it makes one shiver to think of him!" The old fellow made the sign of the horns with his forefinger and little finger, hiding his thumb in the palm of his hand, as though to protect himself against the evil eye—the sinister influence invoked by the mention of Spicca. Old Astrardente was very superstitious. The ambassador laughed, and even Corona ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... at my friend's somewhat more nervous manner as he questioned the second servant, until I noticed his old cocaine-squirter being shoved gently back into his pocket with his left hand, as he pointed his right forefinger at the servant. Holmes had evidently just sneaked in an extra shot in the arm without any one's getting wise, and I, who knew him of old, was sure that he would have a fit ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... set the basket on the ground, reached up, and carefully lifted from a board laid across the top of the hopper, several pans of clabbered milk, which she poured into the basket. Instead of putting the pans back, she tilted them up against the hopper, squatted down in front and with her slim forefinger, scraped down the sides and bottom of each pan so that she and Billy could scoop up and convey to their mouths, by means of their three crooked fingers, all that had not gone into the basket. Then she licked her improvised spoon clean and dry; ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... rushed three Uhlans, sabres shining in the dim light from the window behind me; I laid my forefinger flat on the blade of my sabre and shortened my arm for a thrust—then there came a blinding flash, a roar, and I was down, trying to rise, until a clinched fist struck me in the face and I fell ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... religion out of account for the moment, friend," said he. "But mark what I say to you." With a minatory forefinger he beat the time of his words. "Know, friend, that there is no religion a man can pretend to can give a countenance to lying. Thou hast a precious immortal soul, and there is nothing in the world equal to it in value. Consider that the great God of Heaven ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... old beggar you are. But I'll give the devil his due and acknowledge the horses are a credit to you." He held a dollar towards him balanced on his forefinger. "Here, take this and fill your ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... a spring. The dagger split suddenly into three blades, as when one separates the forefinger and the ring-finger from the middle one. The outside blades were sharp on their outer edge. The stab was to be made with the dagger shut, then the spring touched and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... by the gaunt brick wall of the fast-filling cemetery. As I began to muse thereon, I heard a cry, and perceived my guardian peeping from round the corner of a distant tomb, and beckoning me with imperative forefinger. I wanted to stay; I wanted to have "Meditations at the grave of Maupassant," to ponder on the irony of death, to think of the brilliant novelist, the lover of life, cut off in his pride, to lie amid perspectives of black and lavender ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... but it remained immovable. She picked at the metal hasp which covered the cheap lock. It did not yield, but her fingers—or she fancied it—touched moisture. The girl shrank back and looked at her hand. Thumb and forefinger were smeared with blood. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... last the source of it, a warning forefinger close to the pane that seemed to urge for silence. Rising, she moved slowly to the window, uneasy, doubtful, yet with hope beginning to stir at her heart. She formed a cup for her eyes with her palms so as to hold back the light while she peered through the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... stooped down to lecture a small black-and-tan terrier, which would persist in walking on the sheet and smelling at the rose-leaves as Mary sprinkled them. She took his fore-paws in one hand, and lifted up the forefinger of the other, while the dog wrinkled his brows and looked embarrassed. "Fly, Fly, I am ashamed of you," Mary was saying in a grave contralto. "This is not becoming in a sensible dog; anybody would think you ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... higher ground, lifted his foot from the mire and removed the boot. He shook something out into his hand. It was round and hard and shiny, perhaps an inch in diameter. He held it aloft between thumb and forefinger. The filtering sunlight struck it ...
— One Purple Hope! • Henry Hasse
... the little parlour in which he had left his guest, the coachman. As he went, he slipped his forefinger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket, where they closed upon a tiny phial. It contained a pennyworth of laudanum, which he had purchased a week or so before from the Raynham chemist, as a remedy for ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... exactly. I mean something more in the antique—something or other, you see"—here he began twirling his forefinger in the air and sketching an amorphous phantom of some sort, of an altogether unattainable character, ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... object in shooting, ill as I do it, is the invigorating and cheering exercise, which does so much for health (1842).' One day this year (Sept. 13, '42) while out shooting, the second barrel of a gun went off while he was reloading, shattering the forefinger of his left hand. The remains of the finger the surgeons removed. 'I have hardly ever in my life,' he says, 'had to endure serious bodily pain, and this was short.' In 1845, he notes, 'a hard day. What a mercy that my strength, in appearance not remarkable, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... emotion; he was annexed; he became serious. "Say," he said, "that's a mighty smooth hat you got on." And he touched the fluffy rim of it with his forefinger. His fat shoulders leaned ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... had a lower jaw edged with a roll of black whisker, a jaw that protruded like a bulldog's. With the familiarity of the long-time lieutenant, he pecked with thumb and forefinger at the end of a cigar protruding from his chief's waistcoat-pocket. He wrenched off the tip between snaggy teeth. He ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... shall see." Blanchard's red, shiny forefinger clawed down the column of names, halting at the numeral forty-four. The space was blank. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... suddenly raising her forefinger, "is not that something like a soft knocking? Can anyone have fallen down in this deep ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... silent a moment, biting his forefinger. There was something in the action strongly reminiscent of a cunning, ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... shield, a vast emblazonry of human charities and human loveliness that have perished, but quartered heraldically with unutterable and demoniac natures, whilst over all rises, as a surmounting crest, one fair female hand, with the forefinger pointing, in sweet, sorrowful admonition, upwards to heaven, where is sculptured the eternal writing which proclaims the frailty of earth ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... all my four-o'clocks!" she said. And then her rustic shyness overcame suddenly all else, and she dragged her great toe back and forth in the soft mould, and put her forefinger in her mouth, and looked askance at them from the corners of ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... raising his forefinger, "I said so, but it was an error. I go to Vandon, and she will not go away. I go to London to my lawyer, and he says ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... shook the dead From living man; that stretched ahead Her resolute forefinger straight And marched toward the gloomy ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... unintelligible, except to one who understood its subject-matter, as the notes of their own cattle. The clerk, Samson Loud, was at the other end of the store, cleaning a molasses-barrel from its accumulated sugar. "Look-a-here," said Cyrus Robinson, beckoning Jerome with a hard crook of a seamed forefinger. The boy stood close to the counter, and uplifted to him his small, undaunted, ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... an insult, Mr. Daunt. I intended it to be merely a frank expression of opinion. Just a moment, please!" he urged, breaking in on violent language. He brought his thumb and forefinger together to make a circle and poised his hand over his head. "I don't wear one of these. I have no right to wear one. Halo, I mean! I'm no prig or preacher—at least, I don't mean to be. But when I talk business ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... his hand out of his pocket, and held some object up between his forefinger and his thumb. It was about the length of a match, but had a sharpened point, instead of ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... slightly bent backwards, and the mouth wide open. If he has not sufficient control over his tongue to prevent it from arching up, he must gently hold its protruding tip with a pocket handkerchief between his thumb and forefinger. The mirror is now slightly warmed to prevent its becoming dimmed by the moisture of the breath, and then, holding it like a pen, the operator introduces it into the throat so that it touches the uvula. This must be done ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... forefinger he was touching the palm of his left hand, apparently to emphasize his words, while she looked pale, even frightened. She was listening without comment, without protest, while I stood watching them from behind. Many other visitors were idling ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... what does not belong to you!" she said, laying down the law with her mite of a forefinger; and, to make her words more impressive, giving him an occasional tap on the nose. He listened dutifully, as if he were the sole transgressor; but interrupted the homily now and then by lapping the hand of his little mistress ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... white and still before him in her coffin, he could not have felt more completely that sense of the futility of life, of love, of hope, of everything. As he stood there, one hand in his pocket, the other tracing with a forefinger an aimless pattern in the dust on the piano, he perceived with remarkable clarity that the unhappiness he had suffered, the loneliness he had endured before he met Doris Cleveland was nothing to what now threatened, to what now seemed to dog his ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... dropped his instrument into his coat pocket and gazed in the direction of the glass square whose image had so aroused his ire. "I apologize, B262H72476Male, for my suspicions as to your veracity—but I had in mind several former experiences." He shook a warning forefinger. "I will now ...
— John Jones's Dollar • Harry Stephen Keeler
... and, as the hieroglyphics on his coffin assure me, a prime favourite with one Queen Amyntas. Beneath these mouldering swaddlings of the grave a great ruby still cherishes its blood-guilty secret on the forefinger of his right hand. Most curious is it to reflect how in all lands, and at all times, precious minerals have been endowed by men with mystic virtues. The Persians, for instance, believed that spinelle and the garnet were harbingers of joy. Have you read the ancient Bishop of Rennes on the subject? ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... with her soft forefinger and shrank back shyly. She knew it was her birthday, but she did not know whether the frock had anything to do with ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... has his mother to look after. I wouldn't want to take him from Waity, though, and then perhaps I couldn't get him, anyway.... If I couldn't, he'd be the only one! I've never tried yet, but I feel in my bones, somehow, that I could have any boy in Edgewood or Riverboro, by just crooking my forefinger and beckoning to him.. .. I wish—I wish—they were different! They don't make me want to beckon to them! My forefinger just stays straight and doesn't feel like crooking!... There's Cephas Cole, but he's as stupid as ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that now!" cried the Admiral, with a lunge of his forefinger at the Doctor. "You mark my words, Walker, if we don't look out that woman will raise a mutiny with her preaching. Here's my wife disaffected already, and your girls will be no better. We must combine, man, or there's an end ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to believe that I dozed and woke by snatches. I watched the moon descend in her foggy circle; but I saw also the mulberry face and minatory forefinger of Mr. Romaine, and caught myself explaining to him and Mr. Robbie that their joint proposal to mortgage my inheritance for a flying broomstick took no account of the working-model of the whole Rock and Castle of Edinburgh, which I dragged about by an ankle chain. Anon I was pelting with Rowley ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... don't, and never expect to. Now, look at this, for instance," and the storekeeper touched the paper with the forefinger of his right hand. "A kimona, just think of that! I never had a call for such a ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... interrupted Frank, laying down his knife and fork, and placing the forefinger of his right hand in his left palm, as if he were about to make a speech. "Because, Eda, because there is such a thing as heat—long-continued, never-ending, sweltering heat. Because there are such reprehensible and unutterably detestable insects ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... as he held the cap between his thumb and forefinger of one hand up before his eyes, while he rubbed his bald crown with the other. "Good for Mirandy." And then, as a small slip of white paper fluttered to the floor, he ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... the wall of the Credit Lyonnais, put the forefinger of either hand against it, about twenty-five centimetres apart, and at a level of about a foot above his eyes. Holding his fingers thus he gazed at them, shifting them slightly from time to time and moving his glance from ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... ones. He learned it from a little girl when he was travelling in Oregon, and I think a good many little readers of YOUNG PEOPLE might be pleased with it. This is the way: close your hand, and point out the knuckle of the forefinger for January, and the depression between that and the middle knuckle for February. The middle knuckle designates March, and the next depression April; and so on to the small knuckle, which stands for July. Then go back to the forefinger for August, ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... leaning forward, and taking Bartley's plump, soft knee between his thumb and forefinger, "I felt awfully about the way we parted that night. I felt bad. I hadn't acted well, just to my own mind, and it cut me to have you refuse my money; it cut me all the worse because I saw that you was partly right; I hadn't been quite fair with you. But I always did admire you, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... and inches. Step to the trunk of the tree you wish to measure and, reaching up to this height, pin a piece of white paper on the tree. Step back a distance equal to three or four times the height of the tree; hold a lead-pencil upright between the thumb and forefinger at arm's-length. Fix it so that the end of the pencil shall be in line with the paper on the trunk; move the thumb down the pencil till it is in line with the ground at the base of the tree; move the arm and pencil ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... an instrument of my profession, madam. I raise this hammer; I point the barrel at you; I pull this trigger that is against my forefinger; ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... Strong lifted a fatherly forefinger. "Naughty naughty! Shouldn' call brother fool. Danger hell fire if you call brother fool. Nev' min', Recky—we un'stand each other. Two fools. I'm go'n behave." He knocked his derby in the back so it rested on his nose, stuck his ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... thumb and forefinger, P. Sybarite treated himself to one small sip—an instant of lingering delectation—another sip. So only, it is asserted, must the victim of the desert begin to allay his burning thirst; with discretion—a sip ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... Jews to be banished, and Don Pedro with a steady forefinger, "That man—take him, too! Who does not know that his grandmother was Jewess, and that he lived with her and drank poison?" But the Dominican, "No! The Holy Office will take him. You have but to read—only you must not read—what he has ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... staring, fierce, black, goggle eyes, with huge circular spectacles standing up like fortifications in front of them; a shaggy beard and mustache of mixed black, white, and grey; a prodigious cameo ring on the forefinger of one hairy hand; the other hand always in and out of a deep silver snuff-box like a small tea-caddy; a rough rasping voice; a diabolically humourous smile; a curtly confident way of speaking; resolution, independence, power, expressed ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... "No wonder that they look so little, for the book here says her forefinger is four feet long. Look at that figure on the top of the big building yonder. That Is Diana, the huntress. How tall ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... was a little termagant. Her big blue eyes seemed to flash with anger, and as she danced about, shaking her fist at Marjorie and pointing her forefinger at her, she cried, tauntingly, "Stuck ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... old, and a by-and-by pause in the general joviality. "Now, Mr. Whitman," spoke up one of the girls, "what have you to say about Thanksgiving? Won't you give us a sermon in advance, to sober us down?" The sage nodded smilingly, look'd a moment at the blaze of the great wood fire, ran his forefinger right and left through the heavy white mustache that might have otherwise impeded his voice, and began: "Thanksgiving goes probably far deeper than you folks suppose. I am not sure but it is the source of the highest poetry—as in parts of the Bible. Ruskin, indeed, makes ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... hid the treasure. Then it follows the treasure wasn't hidden before 1776, and that rules out all the yarns about Hornigold, Teach, Bat Roberts, and suchlike pirates, the last of whom must have been hanged a good fifty years before: though here's evidence"—Captain Branscome laid a forefinger on the chart— "that these gentry had dealings with the island in their day. 'Gow's Gulf,' 'Cape Fea'—Gow was a pirate and a hard nut at that; and Fea, if I remember, his lieutenant or something of the sort; but they had gone their ways before ever this was printed, and consequently before ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Jim ran his forefinger dexterously around the inside of a jelly glass and licked the finger with the nonchalance of a two-year-old. "Hunh. Got heap big gol' mine, me. No can go ketchum two year, mebby. I dunno. Feet no damn good for walk. Back no damn good for ride. No ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... exhibits Frederick in his electoral garb pointing with two fingers of his right hand to the name Jehovah at the head of the medal. At his left Luther is standing with a burning light in his right hand and pointing with the forefinger of his left hand to a book lying on a table and bearing the title: "Biblia Sacra: V[erbum] D[ei] M[anet] I[n] Ae[ternum]." The reverse represents the Elector standing on a rock inscribed: "Schloss Hartenfels, Castle Hartenfels." In his right hand he ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... it from an unlovely waste piece of ground, bounded by the gaunt brick wall of the fast-filling cemetery. As I began to muse thereon, I heard a cry, and perceived my guardian peeping from round the corner of a distant tomb, and beckoning me with imperative forefinger. I wanted to stay; I wanted to have "Meditations at the grave of Maupassant," to ponder on the irony of death, to think of the brilliant novelist, the lover of life, cut off in his pride, to lie amid perspectives of black and lavender beads. But ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... harangue, I felt something scratching near my knee, and feeling what it should be, found the squirrel had got into my coat-pocket. As I endeavoured to remove him from his burrow, he made his teeth meet through the fleshy part of my forefinger. This gave me an unexpressible pain. The Hungary water was immediately brought to bathe it, and goldbeater's skin applied to stop the blood. The lady renewed her excuses; but, being now out of all patience, I abruptly took my leave, and hobbling downstairs with heedless haste, I set my foot full ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... bowling the marble, as if it were a ball, or holding it between the thumb-nail and the second joint of the first finger and shooting it with the thumb from there; but these ways are wrong. The correct way is to hold it between the tip of the forefinger and the first joint of the thumb. Marbles are divided into "taws," or well-made strong marbles with which you shoot, and "clays," or the ordinary cheap colored marbles at which you aim and with ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... about forty years, being deposed, testifieth that, about the first breaking-out of this last Indian war, being at the house of Captain Joshua Scotto at Black Point, he saw Mr. George Burrows, who was lately executed at Salem, lift a gun of six-foot barrel or thereabouts, putting the forefinger of his right hand into the muzzle of said gun, and that he held it out at arms' end, only with that finger: and further this deponent testifieth, that, at the same time, he saw the said Burrows take up a full barrel of molasses with but ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... hand, with its pink palm upward, gently into his own brown one, and placed the tip of one of his fingers on a tiny red scar on her forefinger. ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... THAT," said the implacable Stranger, pointing with a hooked forefinger at Alison's 'History of Europe' in an indefinite number ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... interposed the Triton's lady, placing her forefinger significantly on her lips; "you peril your life by talking thus without guard. Go to the door; look out, that you may see if there be any listeners, then I will tell something ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... a laugh like that of an amused infant, Gibbie raised his hand, and with thumb and forefinger gently pinched Donal's large nose, at which they all burst out laughing with joy. It was as if they had found an angel's baby in the bushes, and been afraid he was an idiot, but were now relieved. Away went Janet, and brought him his gruel. It was with no small difficulty ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... that, when this species of stupefaction was produced while she was employed in any action, the action was repeated as long as the mesmeric influence lasted. For instance, it was asserted that she was once deprived of the motion of every part of her body, except the right forefinger, with which she was rubbing her chin; and that, when thrown into the trance, she continued rubbing her chin for several minutes, until she was unmagnetised, when she ceased. A similar result was obtained when she was smoothing down her hair; and at another time when she was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... and passed his forefinger across his forehead, brushing the sweat away from above his quiet eyes. He moistened the tip of his thumb and slid it along the blade of his hemp hook—he was using that for lack of a scythe. Turning, ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... of Amsu, and, as the hieroglyphics on his coffin assure me, a prime favourite with one Queen Amyntas. Beneath these mouldering swaddlings of the grave a great ruby still cherishes its blood-guilty secret on the forefinger of his right hand. Most curious is it to reflect how in all lands, and at all times, precious minerals have been endowed by men with mystic virtues. The Persians, for instance, believed that spinelle and the garnet were harbingers of joy. Have you ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... into a shrill, neighing laugh, and was about to begin his offensively affectionate tactics—he lifted his open, tawny hand, and aimed his forefinger with a black border on a thick yellow finger-nail towards a place where he might jab, pinch, or tickle the barefoot, bare-armed girl. But Zinaida, smiling and frowning at the same time, edged away ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... talked busily to herself, gesticulating with one small forefinger. But after a little she grew tired of filling her basket with grass and leaves, and stood peeping out through the bars of the gate. How much more fun it would be to go to the real market where she had often been with Joanna! She knew perfectly well that she was not ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... snatched off his wig, placing it on the gun-deck capstan; then took out his set of false teeth, and placed it by the side of the wig; and, lastly, putting his forefinger to the inner angle of his blind eye, spirited out the glass optic with professional dexterity, and deposited that, also, next to ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... find an article in it on the Railroad Kings and Princes of America, and that his picture, Georgie's, was among the very first!" At this juncture in her narrative Mrs. Rindge shrieked with laughter, in which she was joined by Mrs. Kame and Hugh; and she pointed a forefinger across the table at Mr. Pembroke, who went on solemnly eating his dinner. "Georgie gave him ten cents with which to buy the magazine," she added a little hysterically. "Well, there was a frightful row, and a lot of men came down to that end of the car, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... are; they are all for you," answered the child, pointing with her outstretched arm and forefinger all round. ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... who said that after their labour, which they wrought upon their Lives, was done, those Lives should be theirs to possess; so men took comfort from their toil and labour and the grinding and cutting of their griefs. But as their Lives began to shine with experience of many things, the thumb and forefinger of Yahn would suddenly close upon a Life, and the man became a shadow. But away beyond the Rim ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... his forefinger, "I said so, but it was an error. I go to Vandon, and she will not go away. I go to London to my lawyer, and he says she is ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... to spot Seppings. Presently, however, he hove in view, doing fearfully lissom things in mid-floor. I "Hi-Seppings!"-ed a couple of times, but his mind was too much on his job to be diverted, and it was only when the swirl of the dance had brought him within prodding distance of my forefinger that a quick one to the lower ribs enabled me ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... one towering armorial shield, a vast emblazonry of human charities and human loveliness that have perished, but quartered heraldically with unutterable and demoniac natures, whilst over all rises, as a surmounting crest, one fair female hand, with the forefinger pointing, in sweet, sorrowful admonition, upwards to heaven, where is sculptured the eternal writing which proclaims the frailty of earth ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... run together and become blended in a third, which shows us everything we see in each. But, in order that they should so run together, both the eye and the brain must be in a natural state. Push one eye a little inward with the forefinger, and the image is doubled, or at least confused. Only certain parts of the two retinae work harmoniously together, and you have disturbed their natural relations. Again, take two or three glasses more than temperance permits, and you see double; the eyes are right enough, probably, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... were so shaken that I could not govern my voice and conceal my agitation. This was the sort of thing that made my terrifically whiskered mate tap his forehead with his forefinger. I had detected him using that gesture while talking on deck with a confidential air to the carpenter. It was too far to hear a word, but I had no doubt that this pantomime could only refer to ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... misappreciated his foresight, he again produced his pocket-book, and extracted from its innermost recesses a fragment of a German newspaper, reputed oracular in matters theatrical. This he handed to me, tapping a particular paragraph significantly with his forefinger. The paragraph ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... what shall we tackle?" asked Mr. Pike, as he checked down the line with a rigid forefinger. "If you don't care what happens to you, we might try a couple of cocktails—that is, if you like the taste of eau de quinine. Oh, I'll tell you what! Here are lemons, seltzer and ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... not yet regained his self-control, but with trembling forefinger he turned and pointed ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... raising her forefinger, "you were just on the point of saying, 'and has shed its milk mind.' Now I am going away before you make me ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... stab—in the back—and his mouth on his face like a scar. There was this solicitor chap next him, with his hump, with his hair like a mane, and a head like a house, and a mouth like a cave. He'd a great big red tongue, about a yard long, like a retriever's, and a great long forefinger with about five joints in it that he waggled when he was cross-examining and shot out when he was incriminating like the front nine ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... the sixpence in his pocket; "I'll explain to you. You must first catch the flea, hold him so tight between the forefinger and thumb as to force him to open his mouth; when his mouth is open you must put a very little of this powder into it, and it will kill ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... again in a moment, and, dodging the Englishman's furious leap, thrust a hand inside his jacket, and before Frobisher could get to grips with him, he found himself confronted with the muzzle of a heavy revolver, pointing straight at him, the Governor's forefinger already crooked round ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... country. When I spoke of the monk she looked very queer and went straight to a shelf of books and took out this one—" Miss Ocky held up the one she was carrying, and Varr saw that she was keeping a place in it with one forefinger. "When she showed me a certain passage in it, I put it right under my ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... again pausing in her story, and spreading out her little brown hands, to examine them, Eugenia held up one of her slim palms, and studied it intently, tracing the lines with a tapering white forefinger. ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a profound obeisance, proffering the tart at the same time between his thumb and forefinger, "will you so far honour an entire stranger? I can answer for the quality of the pastry, having eaten two dozen and three of them myself since ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Why, because it is of all the fingers the least useful. When we clutch at or grasp things, we do so by the strength of the thumb and little finger. If a man scratches his head, he does it with the forefinger; if he wishes to test the heat of the wine[95] in the kettle, he uses the little finger. Thus, although each finger has its uses and duties, the nameless finger alone is of no use: it is not in our way if we have it, and we do not miss it if we lose it. Of the whole body it is the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... the receiver in the like is no better than the stealer," she resumed, indignantly; "and I'd have you know, it was just Beck's own daughter who came here and offered Elizabeth a respectable place in a respectable house, and it was to me she talked, my lad," pointing self-consciously with quivering forefinger at her own bosom; "so Elizabeth has not begged herself in there at all. You didn't need to desert your watch to bring such tales here; and Elizabeth shall hear of it—that she shall," she repeated, excitedly, striking one hand into the ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... faction cheering its favorite to the echo. The second number was a jig, and as the darky drew his bow several times across the strings tentatively, his foreman, who stood six inches taller than any man in a crowd of tall men, tapped himself on the breast with one forefinger, and with the other pointed at his dusky champion, saying, "Keep your eye on me, Price. We're going home together, remember. You black rascal, you can make a mocking bird ashamed of itself if you try. You know I've swore by you ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... water-spirits called Rusalkas, who raise storms and cause much damage to the shipping. The great anniversary of these storm-spirits is St. Peter's Day. The John Dory is St. Peter's fish, and it is said that the spots on each side of its mouth are the marks of the apostle's thumb and forefinger. It was called 'janitore,' or doorkeeper, because in its mouth was found the penny with which the temple-tax was paid. Now, St. Peter also was the doorkeeper of heaven, and from janitore to John Dory was an ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... going to be too much for his patience to listen to them. He would get too hot under the collar and be snappish, afterwards. Luckily he was in the library. There were better voices to listen to. He got up, ran his forefinger along a shelf, and took down a volume of Trevelyan, "Garbaldi and the Thousand." The well-worn volume opened of itself at a familiar passage, the description of the battle of Calatafimi. His eye lighted in anticipation. There was a man's book, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... life he was a consulting mining engineer with a beautiful office in Victoria Street and a nice taste in spats—scratched an earthy nose with a muddy forefinger. ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... roses, and quadrifoils. He will next apply his wet hands, oozing with sweat, to turning over the volumes, then beat the white parchment all over with his dusty gloves, or hunt over the page, line by line, with his forefinger covered with dirty leather. Then, as the flea bites, the holy book is thrown aside, which, however, is scarcely closed in a month, and is so swelled with the dust that has fallen into it, that it will not yield to ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... never let a five franc piece flit past him without trying to capture it, no matter how. The painter Lazare, a proud wearer of rags, would never have soiled his brushes by painting the portrait of a tailor holding a parrot on his forefinger, as our friend the painter Marcel had once done in exchange for the famous dress coat nicknamed Methuselah, which the hands of each of his sweethearts had starred over with darns. All the while ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... a teasing forefinger at him and whittled it with another in glee. Then, as if remembering something, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... aided with a roll of her eyes the effect of mock-menace in her uplifted forefinger. "Oh, never fear," she cried. "You'll catch it hot and strong. But that'll keep till afternoon. Tell me, do you feel strong enough to go in next door and attend the trustees' meeting this forenoon? It's rather important that you should be there, if you can spur yourself ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... sets forth how the Mura-Mura produced the race of man out of a species of small black lizards, which may still be met with under dry bark. To do this he divided the feet of the lizards into fingers and toes, and, applying his forefinger to the middle of their faces, created a nose; likewise he gave them human eyes, mouths and ears. He next set one of them upright, but it fell down again because of its tail; so he cut off its tail ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... my lord!" cries the Master, with a mounting intonation, and his forefinger very conspicuously lifted up. "Be at rest: it will not fail you. It now remains that I should salute these gentlemen whom we have wearied with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... white cloth. Toward the farther end of the table stood a tall Christmas-tree, decked with various simple ornaments; and the candles on it were lighted with a little ceremony, the chubby granddaughter of three years pointing her bare arm and uplifted forefinger to the tree, and reciting a short poem appropriate to the occasion, as we entered the room, about half-past seven o'clock. Then the beautiful and winning child found her toys, her lovely wax doll and its cradle, and another doll of rubber, small and homely, ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... short, of her position in respect to other children. Never since her release from prison had Hester met the public gaze without her. In all her walks about the town, Pearl, too, was there: first as the babe in arms, and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of her mother, holding a forefinger with her whole grasp, and tripping along at the rate of three or four footsteps to one of Hester's. She saw the children of the settlement on the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... simplest way of making a gradation from strong to pale colour is to dip one corner of a broad brush into the colour and the other corner into water so that the water just runs into the colour: then, by squeezing the whole width of the brush broadly between the thumb and forefinger so that most of the water is squeezed out, the brush is left charged with a tint gradated from side to side. The brush is then dipped lightly into paste along its whole edge, and brushed a few times to and fro across the block where the gradation ...
— Wood-Block Printing - A Description of the Craft of Woodcutting and Colour Printing Based on the Japanese Practice • F. Morley Fletcher
... stir; men drained glasses, knocked out pipes, got up, murmured good-nights. Lanyard closed the American novel upon a forefinger, looked up abstractedly, rose, moved toward the door. The utmost effort of exceptional powers of covert observation assured him that, at the moment, none of the company favoured him with especial attention; the author of that ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... that you should go away with a wound like this on the hand that has done so much for us," said David, as he carefully adjusted the black strip on that forefinger, roughened by ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... hay-fork. Denis stepped back, and back again, until he stood in the doorway. One of the sharp prongs of the hay-fork grazed his hand, and slipped up his arm tearing his skin. Involuntarily, his hand clutched the revolver. His forefinger tightened on the trigger. There was a sharp explosion. The hay-fork dropped from Mrs. Drennan's hand. She flung her arms up, half turned, and then collapsed, all crumpled up, ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... accomplished, or her wool was expended. She took the spindle, now charged with her labours, and, undoing the thread gradually, measured it by casting it over her elbow and bringing each loop round between her forefinger and thumb. When she had measured it out, she muttered to herself—'A hank, but not a haill ane—the full years o' three score and ten, but thrice broken, and thrice to OOP (i.e. to unite); he'll be a lucky lad an ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... be asked. He came out with a black cloud on his brow, and with his mind half made up to kick Mr. Clarkson out of the room. Mr. Clarkson, when he saw him, moved his chin round within his white cravat, as was a custom with him, and put his thumb and forefinger on his lips, and then ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... more—a little more," said she, petulantly touching his hand with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and yieldingly. "It smells of spice and sugar, but I can't taste it; your wrist is so stiff, and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... bite, but I got him a shoulder-blow right on the nose. It made him wink, an' he reared an' struck at me with his front hoofs. I ducked to the left an' the minute his hoofs came down I slipped thumb an' forefinger into his nostrils, an' tried to jerk his head around to the right; but I'd thrown him once before that way an' he was too quick. He threw up his head before I could grip his mane with my left, an' a reachin' kick with his right hind ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... lead him unresistingly to within a few feet of Bumpus; but, just as he was within an inch of the huge fist of that nautical monster, he suddenly wrenched his collar out of his captor's grasp, darted to the door, turned round on the threshold, hit the side of his own nose a sounding slap with the forefinger of his right hand, uttered an unexpressively savage yell, vanished from the ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... palm of his hand. A metal button was fastened to one corner of the wafer, and a simple drawing was imbedded in the wafer. Brion held it to the light and saw a picture of a man's hand squeezing the button between thumb and forefinger. It was a subminiaturized playback; mechanical pressure on the case provided enough current to play the recorded message. The plastic sheet vibrated, acting as ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... dart of his serpent-like eyes showed the white woman, as immovable as a statue, with her rifle levelled at his chest and her delicate forefinger on the trigger. ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... for my actions in both," said the Provost, coldly, and made a sign with his left hand to the executioners; then, with a smile of triumphant malice, touched with his forefinger his right arm, which hung suspended in a scarf, disabled probably by the blow which Durward had ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... she found the store and got a job. For a time she was in Eden. The doleful proprietor's doleful wife was usually down-cellar making ice-cream while her husband was out in the kitchen cooking candy. Kedzie was free to guzzle soda-water at her will. Her forefinger and thumb went along the stacks of candy, dipping like a robin's beak. She was forever licking her fingers and brushing marshmallow dust off her chest. She usually had a large, square caramel outlined in one ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... side of his nose with his lean forefinger, and said, "Near is my shirt, but nearer is ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... sprawled at length on his elbows almost under the forefeet of one of the burros which was nosing him over in a friendly caress. He called out as he approached, and the big prospector sat up, deftly snapped the cigarette he had been smoking into the creek with his thumb and forefinger, and got to ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... studied Spinoza on the sly, and the country louts from whom he bought birds merely to set them free, and the blood-red hair of the hangman's niece who sang him folk-songs. And suddenly he came to himself, raised his eyelid with his forefinger ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a tenderness for a man after that. Beside, we used to hunt together in Exmoor, and have royal nights afterward into Ilfracombe, when we were a couple of mad young blades. Fond of him? Why, I would have sooner given my forefinger than that he should have gone ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... insult, Mr. Daunt. I intended it to be merely a frank expression of opinion. Just a moment, please!" he urged, breaking in on violent language. He brought his thumb and forefinger together to make a circle and poised his hand over his head. "I don't wear one of these. I have no right to wear one. Halo, I mean! I'm no prig or preacher—at least, I don't mean to be. But when I talk business I intend to talk it straight and use few words—and those ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... They should then be put into, say six-inch pots, filled to about an inch of the top with pure coarse sand, firmly packed. Place the cuttings, the buds up, about an inch apart, all over the surface of the pot; press down firmly with thumb and forefinger until the bud is even with the surface; sift on sand enough to cover the upper point of the bud about a quarter of an inch deep; press down evenly, using the bottom of another pot for the purpose, and apply water enough to moisten the whole contents ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... ought to know, for I'm going to be a nurse, some day, and help papa. Now take this or I'll have to hold your nose, as they do the baby's," and she held out a spoonful of unpleasant looking mixture, extending her dainty forefinger and thumb of her other hand, as if to administer dire punishment to Tom, if he ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... man," he said, "and I will make a business proposal: A hundred guineas for the box, cash down, and our commission to be ten per cent on the proceeds of the contents. You must remember," raising a fat forefinger to check Smith, who was about to interrupt him, "that it may be necessary to force the box in order to open it, thereby decreasing its market value and making it a bad bargain ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... sinews, was no small trencherman, and, as the phrase is, did himself right royally whenever porridge was in question. All these sat, peaceably swallowing, while I, at the table's foot, faced mother, stirring my steaming bowl with my forefinger, forgetting the heat thereof, but not daring to wince, lest BETTY, whose tongue cut shrewdly when she had a mind, should ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... disarm this wrath. I tried to think so. But I knew well enough that there was more to come. I had hardly taken my seat when, looking up, I could see between my fingers the little man standing up and gesticulating beside one of the keepers. At one moment he rapped the damning page with his forefinger; the next, he turned sidewise and flung out a hand toward me; and I divined, without hearing a word, all the bitterness of his invective. The keeper appeared to take it seriously. I felt myself blushing. ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... out her right forefinger, and gave him a little nod, so cool and killing, that Rawdon Crawley, watching the operations from the other room, could hardly restrain his laughter as he saw the Lieutenant's entire discomfiture; the start he gave, the pause, and the perfect clumsiness with which he at length ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... about three feet down, when the fellow next to me, after a mighty stroke with his pick, let go of the handle, and pinched his nose with his thumb and forefinger, at the same time letting out the explosion, "Gott strafe me pink, I'm bloody well gassed, not 'alf I ain't." I quickly turned in his direction with an inquiring look, at the same instant reaching for my gas bag. I soon found out what was ailing him. One whiff was enough and I lost no time in ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... legs will not move sideways. To test this latter, which is of great importance in the spring bow-pencil as well as in the pen, it is well to close the legs nearly together and taking one leg in one hand and the other leg in the other hand (between the forefinger and thumb), pushing and pulling them sideways, any motion in that direction being sufficient to condemn the instrument. It is safest and best to have the two legs of the bow-pen and pencil made from one piece of metal, and not of two separate pieces ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... have said they were crazy. I wish—" Whatever the wish was, it wasn't uttered. Mary gasped and coughed rackingly. Carefully she moved back from the bench, opened a drawer and found a thermometer. She put it in her mouth. Then she drew a drop of blood from her forefinger and filled a red and white cell pipette, and made a smear of ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone
... behind him, then stared again, then made gestures backward, and next pointed at Malcolm with rapid pokes of his forefinger. Bewilderment had brought on the impediment in his speech, and all Malcolm could distinguish in the babbling efforts at utterance which followed, were the words,—"Twa o' them! Twa o' them! Twa o' them!" often and ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the girl, striking a note on the piano with her forefinger. "She thought she might as well go home for a week or two before taking another place. She has heard of something ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... modesty and timidity, and her gait must also be bashful and maidenly. Her long robe falls to her feet in simple folds, while Peitho holds hers up saucily, between her forefinger and thumb, as if stealthily dancing with triumph over her recent victory. Indeed the figure of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in a low tone, "but how shall I answer him?" The last was scarcely audible. It seemed almost as though she spoke to herself. With her forefinger she idly traced some hieroglyphics ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... pursed up, especially when he had reached some triumphantly absurd conclusion. He had two little quick gestures of the hands as he spoke, opening his fingers, waving a point aside, emphasizing an argument by a quick downward motion of his forefinger. He had, too, a quick, loud, ebullient laugh, sometimes shrill, sometimes deep; and he abandoned himself to laughter at an absurd story or jest as completely as anyone I have ever seen. Rose was an excellent mimic, and Father Payne used to fall into agonising ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... his interest returned. It had been mailed in a far distant city in the United States, and the fine, clear handwriting was obviously feminine. He didn't have to rub the paper between his thumb and forefinger to mark its rich, heavy quality and its beauty,—the stationery of an aristocrat. The ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... not driven to this extremity. We take hold of our coffee-biscuit between the thumb and forefinger, and behold it is on its road—Open the mouth, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... gurgled in a thick voice. Then he pointed his frightfully thin, trembling forefinger up at the sun and shrieked, "Sun!" Next he snatched at the medals again and said, "Shines beautifully." And all the while his restless glance wandered hither and thither as if looking for something, and his ugly, bestial laugh repeated itself ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect. Now, it was not really difficult, by an inspection of the groove between your left forefinger and thumb, to feel sure that you did NOT propose to invest your small ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... goodness!" snapped Miranda, "and I guess by your looks there ain't anybody 'dear' to you but yourself. But I ain't made a mistake. It's you I was asking. What you bin in there for?" There was a blaze of defiance in Miranda's eyes, and her stubby forefinger pointed at him like a shotgun. Before her the bold black eyes quailed for an instant. The young man's hand sought his pocket, brought out a piece of money ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... from the page again after a considerable interval the girl's eyes were fixed intently upon his face, with a queer questioning expression in them, a mute appeal. He closed his book with a forefinger inserted to mark the place, ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... had a bad habit of pulling and scratching at any knot or roughness in the paper of the book I happen to be reading; and now, almost unconsciously, with my forefinger I was pulling at an edge of parchment which projected from the joint of the cover. When I came to myself and proceeded to close the book, I found it would not shut properly because of a piece which I had curled up. Seeking to restore it to its former ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... forgotten the cloudy atmosphere of the house, and being cold, had come, in all her old, imperious certainty of love and warmth, to be let in. Amelia stopped short in her work, and an ugly frown roughened her brow. Josiah Pease, with all his evil imaginings, seemed to be at her side, his lean forefinger pointing out the baseness of mankind. In that instant, she realized where Enoch had gone. He meant to take the three o'clock train where it halted, down at the Crossing, and he had left the child behind. Tearing off her apron, she threw it over her head. She ran to the door, and, opening ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... while in his office. Tinker and young man were there talking until the day was gone. The warden sat apart, reading. Now and again they whispered earnestly, as if they were not agreed, Darrel shaking his forefinger and his head, Trove came away as the dark fell, a sad and ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... what has become of him?" puts in Vee, restin' her chin on the knuckle of her forefinger and starin' into ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... certain style, are chopped to the ultimate or only to the penultimate smallness. His directions and admonitions to the waiter are therefore minute and exquisite, and eloquently accentuated by the pressure of thumb and forefinger; and it must be added that the imagination of the waiter is usually quite worthy of the refined communion thus opened ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... Yuvanaswa die—which itself was strange. Then Indra of mighty strength came to pay him a visit. And the deities enquired of the great Indra, "What is to be sucked by this boy?" Then Indra introduced his own forefinger into his mouth. And when the wielder of the thunderbolt said, "He will suck me," the dwellers of heaven together with Indra christened the boy Mandhata, (literally, Me he shall suck). Then the boy having tasted the forefinger extended by Indra, became possessed ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... be gracious. Ten times in an hour Diccon was off his horse to pluck this or that flower that her white forefinger pointed out. She wove the blooms into a chaplet, and placed it upon her head; she filled her lap with trailers of the vine that swayed against us, and stained her fingers and lips with the berries Diccon brought her; she laughed at the squirrels, at the scurrying partridges, at the turkeys ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... represented Napoleon's battles and Nelson's sea fights; and in the midst of these would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand,—which might have been mistaken for the Hand of Destiny, though, in truth, it was only the showman's,—pointing its forefinger to various scenes of the conflict, while its owner gave historical illustrations. When, with much merriment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the exhibition was concluded, the German bade little Joe put his head into the box. Viewed ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... the sneak's room. No one was about. She would have cut off one of her fingers for the coin. That half-crown meant pleasure and a happiness so tender and seductive that she closed her eyes for a moment. The half-crown she held between forefinger and thumb presented a ready solution of the besetting difficulty. She threw out the insidious temptation, but it came quickly upon her again. If she did not take the half-crown she would not be able to go Peckham ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... all manner of riches and favours, and I will bestow no more upon thee," said the Jinnee, sullenly. "Nay, in token of my displeasure, I will deprive thee even of such gifts as thou hast retained." He pointed his grey forefinger at Ventimore, whose turban and jewelled robes instantly shrivelled into cobwebs and tinder, and fluttered to the carpet in filmy shreds, leaving him in nothing ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... round riding folks horses. Der next morning der horses manes would be tied up. Now her husband didn't know she was a witch so somebody tole him he could tell by cutting off one of her limbs so one night the wife changed to a cat and the husband cut off her forefinger what had a ring on it. After that der wife would keep her hand hid cause her finger wuz cut off; and she knowed her husband would find out ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... lamp, he heard voices; and, walking close under it, found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, on the wall of which was painted a long hand in faded flesh-colour, pointing with a lean forefinger, to ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... pill-box in his pocket. Methodically, without haste, he drew it out, chose one white pellet, and, holding it between his bony thumb and forefinger, listened. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... table lay a pocket lamp, facing sternward, the light pouring upon what looked to be a map; and over it were bent three faces, one of which was Cunningham's. A forefinger was ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... he poked first one and then the other on the naked chest with his forefinger, to secure their attention, and then proceeded to remark, with much flourishing ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... Innstetten examined more closely than before the little package tied up with a red cord. It seemed to consist of a number of notes, rather than letters. Bending it between his thumb and forefinger, like a pack of cards, he slowly let the edges slip off one at a time, and a few lines, in reality only disconnected words, darted past his eyes. It was impossible to distinguish them clearly, yet it seemed to him as though he had somewhere seen the handwriting before. Should he ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... Coppy,' said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. 'I knew she didn't ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I sent ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... continued Heidi, "from one window you can see a very, very large grey house, and the roof runs like this—" and Heidi drew a zigzag line in the air with her forefinger. ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... disguises the form which it should express. In fact, poets are apt to have an affection, not merely for their inspiration, but for the words that clothe it. Keats confessed, "I look upon fine phrases as a lover." Tennyson delighted in "jewels fine words long, that on the stretched forefinger of all time sparkle forever." Rossetti spoke no less sincerely than these others, no doubt, even though he did not illustrate the efficacy of his search, when he described his interest in reading old manuscripts with the hope ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... woman shouted. "Wait a bit, and you'll see something!" In a twinkling, Finne-Marit was in the road and on her knees almost in front of Gertrude. Then, with her forefinger, she drew a circle in the carpet of fir needles, at the centre of which she ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... Achilles? My boy, she is your sword-arm!" His sturdy forefinger ran along the line of frontier under his eye with little staccato leaps. "Eh?" he ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... his long, lean forefinger and began to single them out impressively. As he did so, each ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... pride, judge him too harshly? I tell you if an angel from heaven had witnessed against him I would have laughed the tale to scorn. But I have seen—I have seen with my own eyes. The man who came to the door and threatened us had lost a joint of the forefinger. Yesterday I saw that man with him; I saw the hand that held the pistol to-day give him a note yesterday. I saw him read the note, and I saw him point me out to the man who bore it—that he might know to-day whom he was to seize! Oh shame! Shame ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... points of danger and insurrection, whence came a suspicious buzz of whispering from behind a desk-lid or a pair of widespread large geographies. Now and then a toiling child would rise and come down the aisle, with his forefinger firm upon a puzzling word as if it were an unclassified insect. It was a lovely beckoning day out-of-doors. The children felt like captives; there was something that provoked rebellion in the droning voices, the buzzing of an early wild bee against ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... steps until he stood outside the glass-enclosed cage where twelve of the hardest-worked clerks in London bent over their ledgers and invoicing. With his forefinger—a fat, pudgy forefinger—he tapped upon a pane of glass, and an anxious errand boy bolted through ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stories are told of his leniency to these last. At Thornhill, on a fair day, he was seen to call at the door of a poor woman who for the day was doing a little illicit business on her own account. A nod and a movement of the forefinger brought the woman to the doorway. "Kate, are you mad? Don't you know that the supervisor and I will be in upon you in forty minutes?" Burns at once disappeared among the crowd, and the poor woman was saved a heavy fine. Another ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... only a ford and no bridge. The bed of the river is soft; the horses will stop, or, at all events, must go at the walking pace. Across the stream are a few trees' (he paused, illustrating his description with rapid gestures and an imaginary diagram drawn upon the rock with the forefinger), 'ilex, and here, to the left, some pines. The stream runs thus from north-east to south-west. This bank is high, and over here are low-lying meadows ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... my room!" and Dexter Sprague's right forefinger trembled violently as it pointed toward the door ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... and joy, Little Mystery put out a hand and placed the tip of her tiny forefinger on the girl's face. Then she ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... head with a long forefinger. "Right inside of that skull. I do my own thinking," ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... attention to the exact description of the position, contained in the language of Hardee: "The piece in the right hand, the barrel nearly vertical, and resting in the hollow of the shoulder; the guard to the front, the arm hanging nearly at its full length near the body; the thumb and forefinger embracing the guard, the remaining fingers closed together, and grasping the swell of the stock just under the cock, which rests on the little finger." I simply could not execute the shoulder, or carry, with any precision, although the positions of support, right-shoulder-shift, ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... corner of the rounded lid, but it remained immovable. She picked at the metal hasp which covered the cheap lock. It did not yield, but her fingers—or she fancied it—touched moisture. The girl shrank back and looked at her hand. Thumb and forefinger were ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... had that rascal in mind when you bought those sweet potatoes from the coon yesterday at Memphis," he declared, shaking his forefinger ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... the fire. The operator, an old woman, took a tablespoon and filled it with water. With the sixpence she then lifted as much salt as it could carry, and both were put into the water in the spoon. The water was then stirred with the forefinger till the salt was dissolved. Then the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands were bathed with this solution thrice, and after these bathings I was made to taste the solution three times. The operator then drew her wet forefinger across my brow,—called ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... turning and tumbling on the grass, and Dick pounced upon it, for its under sides showed gleams of silver in the faint light, and he could see it bounding. Chippy took it from him, unhooked it, slipped his forefinger into the trout's mouth, and broke its neck with a dexterous jerk of finger and thumb. Then he weighed it in his hand. 'Not a big un,' he whispered; 'about half a pound. There ought to be more on 'em in ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... secret drawer in his desk, inserted his forefinger and, apparently, pressed a button. The doors of the bookcase flew open as if by magic, and, at the same time, a bell inside the bookcase rang sharply. Miss Dana watched each motion of her ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... between your eyebrows,—three straight lines running up and down; all the probate courts know that token,—"Old Age, his mark." Put your forefinger on the inner end of one eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my sign-manual; that's the way you used to look before I left ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... answering, he stood, after one startled glance at her, looking intently at the knuckle of his forefinger. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... most other personages whose mausoleums have been conspicuous enough to attract the violator; and as for dead men's hair, I have seen a lock of King Edward the Fourth's, of a reddish-brown color, which perhaps was once twisted round the delicate forefinger of Mistress Shore. ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... sejest—why don't you give those children some proxitude of iron, my dear—through a knitting-needle? Hark!" continued she, as Prudy scratched the top of the tent with her forefinger. "There's a mouse in this house, Mr. Carter: you must set a trap as quick as you ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... see how much people will believe," she said, putting out her candle and snuffing it with her thumb and forefinger. Then she began to arrange the boxes she had brought, setting them in order upon the shelves. Still neither of the men answered her. But she was not the woman to be reduced to ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
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