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More "Fumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... state generally on their side and enjoy the backing of the bourgeois establishment, its organizations and its facilities. Since their object is defense, they have no constructive program. Instead they stumble, fumble and bungle as their system flounders into one disastrous crisis ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... She took my stupid fumble very nicely, laughing merrily while saying, "If you like mountains and moonlight, Mr. Gordon, and don't mind the lack of a chaperon, get a stool for yourself, too." What was more, she offered me half of the lap-robe when ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... could make or wait for it; and it was big and real. Other men crowed or fumbled after petty and pinch-beck ends; impossible rhetorical republicanisms; vain senatorial prestiges; —or pleasure pure and simple—say rather, very complex and impure. Let them clack, let them fumble! Caesar would do things and get things done. He wore the whole armor of his greatness, and could see no chink or joint in it through which a hostile dagger might pierce. Even his military victories were won by some greater than mere military greatness.—Karma, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... only one hindrance—that I seemed not to know any of the people this brilliant couple had known. I think he wondered extremely, during the term of our intercourse, whom the deuce I DID know. He hadn't a stray sixpence of an idea to fumble for, so we didn't spin it very fine; we confined ourselves to questions of leather and even of liquor- saddlers and breeches-makers and how to get excellent claret cheap- -and matters like "good trains" and the habits of small ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... full back at every point in the Tiger's line for short gains, and showing no preference. But, all said, it was slow work and unpromising with the score board announcing five minutes to play. The Yale supporters, however, found cause for rejoicing, and cheered gloriously until there was a fumble and the Blue lost four yards on the recovery. Time was called and the trainers and water carriers trotted on the field. The head coach and an assistant came toward the bench, talking earnestly, the ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... if euer man went to Arthurs Bosome: a made a finer end, and went away and it had beene any Christome Childe: a parted eu'n iust betweene Twelue and One, eu'n at the turning o'th' Tyde: for after I saw him fumble with the Sheets, and play with Flowers, and smile vpon his fingers end, I knew there was but one way: for his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen, and a Table of greene fields. How now Sir Iohn (quoth I?) what man? be a good cheare: so a cryed out, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... apprehension, her fingers shaking so that it was with great difficulty that she managed the bag's clasp, she opened the receptacle, and, with accelerating nervousness which made her feel and fumble, took from it a small box—a jeweler's box. Slowly she returned to him, her feet dragging as if weighted; slowly, as she stood before him, drooping, frightened, she took off the cover of the little box, her heart hammering till it seemed as if it must burst ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... letter which lay on the table in front of him and unfolded it. He glanced at it and then put it down and began to fumble in ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... a pale, plain child, with sharp, intelligent eyes, and a busy little mind, that did a good deal more thinking than anybody imagined. She was just at the unattractive, fidgety age when no one knew what to do with her, and so let her fumble her way up as she could, finding pleasure in odd things, and living much alone, for she did not go to school, because her shoulders were growing round, and Mrs. Shaw would not "allow her figure to be spoiled." ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... a happy one—but it seemed, somehow, to illumine the office. Maxwell reflected irritably that there was something unusually likable about the fellow, but he wished he'd hurry up and get out. From force of habit his fingers grasped a blue pencil on his desk, and he began to fumble nervously among the manuscripts that lay before him. Harrington settled back more firmly in his chair, and the swinging of his torn boot was accelerated a trifle, but his voice when he spoke was full of ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... night, when it ought, by every suggestion of its dusty past, to have been left to the vengeful ghosts, the greater part of whose hopes and passions were recorded and gathered there; when in the dark the dead hands of forgotten men were stretched from their dusty graves to fumble once more for their old title deeds; at night, when it was lit up by flaring gaslight, the hollow mockery of this dissipation was so apparent that people in the streets, looking through the illuminated windows, felt as if the privacy of a family ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... Bah! that's his old trick. At the ball he will frown, And fumble the bat as though funk, or don't care, Filled his soul; but when slogging's the game he's all there. Mere posing, not playing the game,—yet he scores! I wonder how WILL likes the ring's frantic roars At their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... Endymion! The dim rich depths of the dark forests are stirred by it, and its murmurs die away, over the wailing spaces of the marshes. Obscure growths, and drowsy weeds overhanging moon-lit paths, where fungoid things fumble for light and air, hear that cry in their voluptuous dreams and move uneasily. The dumb vegetable expectancy of young tree-trunks is roused by it into sensual terror. For this is the sound of the hoof of Pan, stamping on the moist earth, ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... But he had given over the chase as a hopeless business. And Peggy Sullivan, the old dame of all work, when, by chance, for she never willingly looked toward the haunted quarter, she caught the faint reflection of its dull effulgence with the corner of her eye, would sign herself with the cross or fumble at her beads, and deeper furrows would gather in her forehead, and her face grow ashen and perturbed. And this was not mended by the levity with which the young ladies, with whom the spectre had lost his influence, familiarity, as usual, breeding ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... simple enough on paper; they take no account of that "personal element" which is everything in the south, of the ruffled tempers of those gorgeous but inert creatures who, disturbed in their siestas or mandolin-strummings, may keep you waiting half a day while they fumble ominously over some dirty-looking scrap of paper. For on such occasions they are liable to provoking fits of conscientiousness. This is all very well, my dear sir, but—Ha! Where, where is that certificate of ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... and the corporal, laying aside his rifle, began to fumble in the bushy hair of his comrade. He was obliged to turn the other's head so that the full flush of the fire light would beam upon it. He puckered his mouth with a critical air. He drew back his lips and whistled through his teeth when his fingers came in contact ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... hint for haste was utterly wasted upon Old Jerry. The latter failed completely to note the strained intensity of the face that was upturned before him and went on grumbling as he leaned over to fumble in the box beneath the seat. And the tirade continued in an unbroken, half-muffled stream until he straightened laboriously again, the boy's usual weekly packet of papers ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... direction of his home. Mr. Knight, half fainting as he was, submitted without a word until his door was reached; then, there being no response to his companion's vigorous ring, he murmured something about the servants having gone, and began to fumble in his pocket. ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... The manner of his capture was dramatic. A real milkman for whom Rizzi had worked in the past was marked out for slaughter. He had been blown up twice already. While he slept his wife heard some one moving in the hall. Looking out through a small window, she saw the ex-employee fumble with something and then turn out the gas on the landing. Her husband, awakened by her exit and return, asked ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... time Hans had recovered his confusion; and from a certain flutter in Sybrandt, and hard breathing of Cornelis, aided by an indescribable consciousness, felt sure the pair he had to deal with were no heroes. He pretended to fumble for his money: then suddenly thrust his staff fiercely into Sybrandt's face, and drove him staggering, and lent Cornelis a back-handed slash on the ear that sent him twirling like a weathercock in March; then whirled his weapon over his head and danced about the road ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... had never happened before, and how it happened this time I am at a loss to understand: but when Sara entered the Garden on this particular morning her eyes were full of tears. She had to fumble blindly around for her dimples, and when she did find them they were buried quite deep in her little wet cheeks. She would have strayed right on into the Garden without removing them, except that as soon as she saw the Snimmy's ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... than Madame ALBU as Arline. So "Arl in to begin!" and see and hear BALFE'S pretty little Girl of Bohemia while she is still visible and audible at Drury Lane. Mr. EADIE a trifle gawky as Thaddeus, but then he finds himself in an awkward situation, especially when he has to fumble for the documentary evidence of his birth, attested at a Bohemian Registry Office. CARL ARMBRUSTER conducted this, and then up got Herr FELD "with his little lot," represented by the unrivalled and unequalled Cavalleria Rusticana. Ah! Cavalleria is a treat, even when its performance is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... the groceryman to the bad boy, as he came limping into the store, and began to fumble around a box of strawberries. "I have never kicked at your eating my codfish, and crackers and cheese, and herring, and apples, but there has got to be a dividing line somewhere, and I make it at strawberries at ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... about him, he crossed to the open coffin and began to fumble amongst the putrefying mass of bones and webbing which lay therein. Out from this he presently drew ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... pattern. Behind the britchka stood a second, but an empty, turn-out, drawn by four long-coated steeds in ragged collars and rope harnesses. The flaxen-haired man lost no time in ascending the staircase, while his darker friend remained below to fumble at something in the britchka, talking, as he did so, to the driver of the vehicle which stood hitched behind. Somehow, the dark-haired man's voice struck Chichikov as familiar; and as he was taking another look at him the flaxen-haired gentleman entered the room. The newcomer ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... girl fumble with the door on her side, open it, and stagger out of his sight. Then she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded, disheveled, white as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she gazed at Kurt as if to make sure ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... he muttered, and withdrew his head and shoulders to fumble fiercely for his pipe. Courage in the woman he loves will move a man as never will her tears. There is also gratitude ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... had been designed and created for the work. He hanged villainous men singly, sometimes by pairs, and rarely in groups of threes, always without a fumble or a hitch. Once, on a single morning, he hanged an even half-dozen, these being the chief fruitage of a busy term of the Federal court down in the Indian country where the combination of a crowded docket, an energetic young district attorney with political ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... my nerves were in when I hit this planet. I'm finally forced to admit that everything you said about Pyrrus is true. It is the most deadly spot in the system. And only native-born Pyrrans could possibly survive here. I can manage to fumble along a bit after my training, but I know I would never stand a chance on my own. You probably know I have an eight-year-old as a bodyguard. Gives a good idea of my real ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... replied, beginning to fumble in his skirts; "London agrees with her remarkably, and she is better than she has been for years. And she is overjoyed at your most wonderful escape, Richard, as are ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the track of the Dinosaur in prehistoric clays than the highway, of a little village that only five years ago was full of human faults and joys and songs and tiny tears. Down that road before the plans, of the Kaiser began to fumble with the earth, down that road—but it is useless to look back, we are too far away from five years ago, too far away from thousands of ordinary things, that never seemed as though they would ever ...
— Unhappy Far-Off Things • Lord Dunsany
... whimper. "I—I do not know; unless some one has stolen my key." She put a hand down to fumble in ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Professor Brainey, or whatever name I might choose, and wait for my first customer. My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him,—ask him a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang of him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, dictating as follows: ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... madame! only think!" said Rosina, turning her wrinkled face toward me, and actually shaking all over with the recollection of her terror. "I thought I should have sank into the earth! I stood for a moment aghast, and then I began to fumble in my pocket. 'Where can the key be?' said I, pretending to search for it; but my countenance betrayed me, and my voice shook so, that he read me like a book. I am sure he knew the truth from that moment. He looked hard at me, while his face became quite livid; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them begin to fumble with the pad-lock, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... visitor utter an exclamation of annoyance, and fumble in his pocket for matches. He recognised the voice. It was Mr Seymour's. The fact was that Mr Seymour had had the same experience as General Stanley ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... the bathroom and into that bath, and then she filled a sponge with cold water and trickled it on him, until he threatened to jump out and give her a cold douche. Then, panting with her exertions and dry now, she collapsed on the chair and began to fumble with her hair and its solitary rose. It was exactly Julie who sat there unashamed in her nakedness, Peter thought. She had kept the soul of a child through everything, and it could burst through the outer covering of the woman who had tasted of the ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... and hunger and fear, and from all the tragic greatness of uncontrollable fate and we, we've got nothing to replace them. We are comic—comic! Ours is the stage of comedy in life's history, half lit and blinded,—and we fumble. As absurd as a kitten with its poor little head in a bag. There's your soul of man! Mewing. We're all at it, the poets, the teachers. How can anyone hope to escape? Why should I escape? What am I ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... along harmoniously, until the bobbing cavalier would lose his balance and tug at the reins; then the horse, which had a soft mouth, would turn sideways or stand still; the rider would then smack his lips, and if this had no effect he would fumble for the whip. The horse, guessing what was required, would start again, shaking him up and down until he looked like a ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... fail, if we fritter and fumble away our opportunity in needless, senseless quarrels between Democrats and Republicans, or between the House and the Senate, or between the South and North, or between the Congress and the administration, then history will rightfully judge us harshly. But if we ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... He began to fumble with the knots of my bonds too hastily and impatiently for effectiveness. I was trying to stoop over far enough to see what he was doing when my eye caught the shadow of a moving figure outside. An instant later Tim ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... sake, let's wave a white flag to keep them from mowing us down like wheat!" exclaimed Tubby, commencing to fumble in ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... from me. But if I stopped the poor man, and sympathetically questioned him about his former and his present life, I felt that it was no longer possible to give three or twenty kopeks, and I began to fumble in my purse for money, in doubt as to how much I ought to give, and I always gave more; and I always noticed that the poor man left me dissatisfied. But if I entered into still closer intercourse with the poor man, then my doubts as to how much to give increased also; and, no matter ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... went to his waistcoat, hanging where it always hung at night—on a hook beside the closet door. He watched her fumble through the pockets, watched her take her spectacles from the corner of the mantel and put them on, the bridge well down toward the end of her nose. A not at all romantic figure she made, standing beside the sputtering gas jet, ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... that?" interrupted Jimmy, rising and picking up a cigarette, so as to have something to fumble at with his fingers. "Whose fault is it, Lily, if not that ... well, if not Trampy's? Isn't it fair that he should pay for it? It would really become too easy, else, to steal other people's ideas! You ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... fumble in her pocket. "The principle is the same whether it is Gale or Dale or Tompkins. I never expected to learn of my niece's engagement from the public press. I am confident the notice said 'Gale.' Ah! I thought so. Plain as the nose on your face," she added, producing from her porte-monnaie a newspaper ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... throat and is waiting for the end. But he seems very weak himself. As I shout down the hole to encourage him, the coon, with one final effort, wrests himself free from the dog and comes scuttling out of the hole. With undignified haste I back away from the outlet and fumble a blunt arrow on the string, and I am just in time, for here comes one of the maddest and one of the sickest coons I ever saw. With a hasty shot back of the ear, I bowl him over and put him out of his misery. Turning him over with my foot to make ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... tiger-cat screams now, that whined before, That pried and tried and trod so gingerly, Till in its silkiness the trap-teeth join; Then you know how the bristling fury foams. They listen, this wrapped in his folds of red, While his feet fumble for the filth below; The other, as beseems a stouter heart, Working his best with beads and cross to ban The enemy that come in like a flood Spite of the standard set up, verily And in no trope at all, against him there: For at the prison-gate, just a few steps ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... cigarette and began to fumble for another. He was beginning to feel the first twinges of panic, and fought them down. Ribiera had not lied. Bell had been at this fazenda of his—which was almost a miniature Versailles three hundred miles from Rio—for two days. In all that time he had ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... science of skill, she can easily and at any time outdistance the most brilliant high-school graduate, for skill is her education, and she handles, and fingers, and computes sometimes many thousands of delicate threads, or intricate bits of metal, the slightest fumble of which might throw out of gear a powerful machine. This is applied mathematics, is it not? She uses no pencil nor paper, but counts by allowing one line to overlap another at every five hundred cards, done in some fine print work, and when ten five hundred cards show ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... sore, physically and mentally. He had been roughly used by two of the Roxley players, and had made a fumble at a critical moment. And all during that heartrending first half Dora had not noticed ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... replied Gaston. He felt in his own pockets, however, first for a cigarette and then for a match. He was indeed tired, so tired that he no longer remembered which pocket to fumble in or what he held in his hand as he fumbled. Ah, that sacred tank! Then he suddenly smiled again, looking at Magin. "There is something else I ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to set off my black hair; 105 In I shall march—for you may watch your life out Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you; More than one man spoils everything. March straight— Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for. Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on 110 Through guards and guards—I have rehearsed it all Inside the turret here a hundred times Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe! But where they cluster thickliest is the door Of doors; they'll ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... imagination; and, as compared with instinct, it is a power which acts in clearly denned, isolated, intermittent movements, each one of which has a definite beginning and a definite end. As compared with imagination, intuition is passive and receptive; as compared with instinct it does not fumble and grope forward, steadily and tenaciously, among the roots of things; but it suspends itself, mirror-like, upon the surface of the unfathomable waters, and suspended there reflects in swift sudden glimpses the mysterious movements of the great deep. In this process of reflecting, ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... away. And I will kiss her in the waterfalls, And at the rainbow's end, and in the incense That curls about the feet of sleeping gods, And sing with her in canebrakes and in rice fields, In Romany, eternal Romany. We will sow secret herbs, and plant old roses, And fumble through dark, snaky palaces, Stable our ponies in the Taj Mahal, And sleep out-doors ourselves. In her strange fairy mill-wheel eyes will wait All windings and unwindings of the highways, From India, across America,— All windings and unwindings of my fancy, All windings ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... over. For a moment later Captain Bunker began to fumble in his waistcoat pocket with the one hand that was not clasping his wife's waist. "One thing more, Mollie; when I left her and refused to take any of her dimons, she put a queer sort o' ring into my hand, and told me with a kind o' mischievious, bedevilin' smile, that I must keep it to remember ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Meet the ball; don't wait for it to get to you. That applies to you backs," and he nodded at Tom and his two mates. "Quarter, don't fumble when you pass the ball back. Be accurate. Don't make ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... believe much unreason and a little truth than to deny for denial's sake truth and unreason alike, for when we do this we have not even a rush candle to guide our steps, not even a poor sowlth to dance before us on the marsh, and must needs fumble our way into the great emptiness where dwell the mis-shapen dhouls. And after all, can we come to so great evil if we keep a little fire on our hearths and in our souls, and welcome with open hand whatever of excellent ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... the mantelpiece and began to fumble for the switch; in the silence his nails scratching at the panelling made a sound like to that of a gnawing mouse. He found it at last, and next instant the office broke into a blaze of light, showing Mr. Haswell, his ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... in front of the parapet. A splinter from one lifted a man's cap from his head and sent it flying. The splinter's whirr and the man's sharp exclamation brought all eyes in his direction. His look of comical surprise and the half-dazed fashion of his lifting a hand to fumble cautiously at his head raised some laughter and a ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... Meat, I shall not confine your Love to a Quantity, only give him a little at once, as long as his Appetite is Good: When he begins to fumble and play with his Meat, hold your hand, shut up ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... showed plainly, for she was moving. She looked like a wounded bird, and the man, thinking he must have hurt her in some way, followed her to pick her up and see what the trouble was. Three times he almost got her. Almost, but not quite. Crippled as she seemed, she could still fumble and flutter just out of reach; and when at last the man had followed her to a corner of the roof far from her young, Mother Nomer sprang up, and spreading her long, pointed wings, took flight, whole and sound ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... just struck one, when she heard the click of the gate. Slowly, heavily, ominously, she heard him come up the steps and fumble with his key at the door. He entered the bedroom, and she heard him sigh as he sat down. She remained quiet, for she had learned the hypersensitiveness induced by drink and was fastidiously careful not to hurt him even with the knowledge that she had lain awake for him. It was not easy. Her hands ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... Arthur's bosom,[18] if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end,[19] and went away, an it had been any christom child;[20] 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide:[21] for after I saw him fumble with the sheets,[22] and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. How now, Sir John! quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. So a' cried out—Heaven, Heaven, Heaven! three or four ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... shall. I need you at this moment More even than when my toothless gums did fumble About thy breast in ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... City Council engrossed on parchment, with a broad ribbon and large seal attached. After the mayor had fulfilled his office so well, General Grant said: "Mr. Mayor, as I knew that this ceremony was to occur, and as I am not used to speaking, I have written something in reply." He then began to fumble in his pockets, first his breast-coat pocket, then his pants, vest; etc., and after considerable delay he pulled out a crumpled piece of common yellow cartridge-paper, which he handed to the mayor. His whole manner ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... Dale was standing against the door on the outside. His position was perfectly natural—a hundred passers-by would have noted nothing but a most commonplace occurrence—a man in the act of entering a store. And, if he appeared to fumble and have trouble with the latch, what of it! Jimmie Dale, however, was not fumbling—hidden by his back that was turned to the street, those wonderful fingers of his, in whose tips seemed embodied and concentrated ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... said to break the situation—I think I said, 'It's you, Edmund?' I remember he fumbled with a sheet of music, and kept his eyes bent on it, and muttered something inarticulate. Then there was another speechless, helpless suspension. He continued to fumble his music without looking up. At last I remember saying, through a sort of sickness and giddiness, 'Let us get out of ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... he sits in it. Another never allows a visitor to enter his office, but goes to the outer reception room and stands while he talks. One man stands up as a signal that the interview is at an end. Another begins to fumble with the papers on his desk, and the salesman does not live who is not familiar with the man who must hurry out to lunch or who has only five minutes to catch a train. One man has his secretary or his office boy interrupt him after a visitor has been in as much ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... a certain childishness, in which they are more primitive than our more civilised peasants. But the speech comes from deeper than they are aware, it stumbles into a revelation of the soul. A drunken man in Tolstoi has more wisdom in his cups than all Ibsen's strange ladies who fumble ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... myself Of a starfish laid out with rigid points." "The wonder is it hadn't been your head." "It's hard to tell you how I managed it. When I saw the shaft had me by the coat, I didn't try too long to pull away, Or fumble for my knife to cut away, I just embraced the shaft and rode it out— Till Weiss shut off the water in the wheel-pit. That's how I think I didn't lose my head. But my legs got their knocks against the ceiling." "Awful. Why ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... a Camanche drops his arms and flies to the farther end of the hall, only to fumble unavailingly at the fastenings of the iron door, while a victorious Digger belabors him with the weapon he has just ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... but got up with a stumble, His rider went sideways, but knew how to tumble, And got up and remounted, though the pain made him humble, And he rode fifty yards and then stopped in a fumble. ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... the Professor, beginning to fumble in all his pockets—was he searching for a note in Sylvia's handwriting?—"in that case, you will be conferring a real favour on me if you can make it convenient to attend a sale at Hammond's Auction Rooms in Covent Garden, and just bid ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... minds, high and low, wise and foolish, cultivated and rude. This Teacher does not only impart wisdom by words as from without, though He does that too, but He comes into men's spirits, and communicates Himself, and so makes them wise. Other teachers fumble at the outside, but 'in the hidden parts He makes me to know wisdom.' So it is safe to take this Teacher absolutely, and to say, 'Thou art my Master, Thy word is truth, and the opening of Thy lips to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... visitor fumble with nerveless fingers, at his tightly buttoned cut-away coat. It resisted his efforts. Suddenly, with a snarl of exasperation, he dragged violently at the lapel, tearing the button outright from the ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of five, ten, and twenty-dollar bills lay snugly inserted between the leaves of the Bible. The tramp who lay on the floor, as yet too surprised to attempt to rise, rolled over and seized the book as a football player seizes the pigskin after a fumble, covering it with his body, his arms, and sticking out his elbows as a further ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... moments of strong feeling could not strike out a poetical thought, and afterwards polish it so as to be presentable. But men of sense know better than so to waste their time; and those who sincerely love poetry, know the touch of the master's hand on the chords too well to fumble among them after him. Nay, more than this, all inferior poetry is an injury to the good, inasmuch as it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts; and, in general, adds to the weight ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... indisposition of matter. Whereas an omnipotent moving power, as it could dispatch its work in a moment, so would it always do it infallibly and irresistibly, no ineptitude and stubbornness of matter being ever able to hinder such a one, or make him bungle or fumble in anything. ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... not left the sender's chair, not even while the door was under attack. Only a carrier beam connected the Sword with the Altair. She continued doggedly to fumble with dials and switches, trying to modulate it and raise ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... alone," she said. "Come with me. Show me my way—I will pay—I will pay anything in reason." Actually I saw her fumble at her purse, and the hot ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... the series. Murray was given a base on balls, but Merkle flied to short. In the second inning the Bostons started as bravely as they had in the first, as Gardner, the first batter, was safe on Fletcher's fumble. Stahl batted to Tesreau and Gardner was forced out. Wagner was given a base on balls, after Stahl had been thrown out trying to steal second, and Cady ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... to fumble in his pocket, but Hawkes checked him with a wave of his hand. "Never mind. I'll write it off to profit and loss. What's your name, spacer, and what brings you to ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... generally reached in cricket matches. Baldwin and Crane were both on their mettle and the fielding being of the sharpest kind safe hits were few and far between. Up to the ninth inning Chicago led by two runs, but here Earle's three-bagger, Hanlon's base on balls, Burns' fumble of Brown's hit and Carroll's double settled our chances, the All-Americas winning by a ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... that woman with a basket of vegetables we saw at the market the other day," said Polly, as he opened the portfolio. "Do tell me, Jasper, you did bring that, didn't you?" beginning to fumble ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... world, seeing that they pursue a system diametrically opposite? For example, when they attempt to speak Spanish, the most sonorous tongue in existence, they scarcely open their lips, and putting their hands in their pockets, fumble lazily, instead of applying them to the indispensable office of gesticulation. Well may the poor Spaniards exclaim, THESE ENGLISH TALK SO CRABBEDLY, THAT SATAN HIMSELF WOULD NOT ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... big fjord, black and gray, Breaks us our way; Waterfalls rushing on both sides rumble. Sponge-wet and slow, Cloud-masses over the mountain-flanks fumble; The sun and mist, lo, Symbol of ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... It seems stupid Beyond all expression to have a "possession" whose "ownness" there's desperate doubt of, And which (if she's nous) you can't keep in your house, nor yet (if she's "savvy") keep out of! What is "Hymen's halter"? I fidget and falter! The Beaks seem to palter and fumble. In such a strange fashion, I fly in a passion, and vow that the world is a jumble. Law seems a wigged noodle, as tame as a poodle, the whole darned caboodle (as 'ARRY sees) Is ructions and "rot," and our "rulers" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... eyes opened. At first she seemed not to see the anxious countenances bent over her. Then a look of recognition crept into her face, and a wan little smile parted the lips. She lifted one hand and began to fumble feebly in the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... are on the prowl, Swift fly the steeds along the even green, Bored by the bloody spur, and quickly seen The champion full in front, and as he goes He wins by half a head, or half a nose; Then betting fair ones fumble for their purse, Eager the trifling wager to disburse. Alas! they've nothing hanging by their side, Save but the string by which the bag was tied, For through the silken dress a gash is seen, Where the pick-pocket's impious knife ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... was conscious of the concentrated stare of sixty eyes as he slid onto the stool in front of his desk and began to fumble with the pens and blotters. The man at his left elbow said "well, well!" and the man at his right elbow said "st! st! st!" with his tongue in a most reproachful manner. They could understand Mr. Bingle's absence for three whole days, having got wind of a death in the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... did not hear it. But he caught the great black initials, "E.W." on the kit-bag as the porter staggered along, and stopped the aimless man, and the kit-bag was thrown into the apartment. Doors were now banging. Christine saw Edgar take out his purse and fumble at it. But Edgar's companion pushed Edgar into the train and himself gave a tip which caused the porter to salute extravagantly. The porter, at any rate, had been rewarded. Christine began to cry, not from chagrin, ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... an exclamation uttered as though the words had affrighted her. Whereafter, with quivering lips, she began hesitantly and uncertainly to fumble in her bodice. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... lazarette. Then I understood. He thought he had me inside. Also, he was blind, blind as a bat. I watched him, breathing carefully so that he should not hear me. He stepped quickly to his state-room. I saw his hand miss the door-knob by an inch, quickly fumble for it, and find it. This was my chance. I tiptoed across the cabin and to the top of the stairs. He came back, dragging a heavy sea-chest, which he deposited on top of the trap. Not content with this he fetched ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... on over his head, and commenced his afternoon work; then there came up the hill the sound of the school-bell, but Tip took no notice of that; he didn't want to think of school, much less even go. He began to fumble presently for his Bible,—he must have some help. It opened of itself at the Psalms, and he read the first line which he saw: "Unto Thee, O God, do we give thanks "—No, not that, and he turned back a couple of leaves. "Make a joyful noise "—No, no! he didn't want ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... glanced at the paragraph so eagerly that Philippa looked at him in surprise. She was still more surprised to see a deep flush spread over his face, as he tore the newspaper off the shoes and glanced at the date. Then he dropped it on the bed and began to fumble for something in the bottom of his trunk, saying, carelessly, "Oh, green goods men are just fellows who rope people in to buy counterfeit money. Here, Mack, you'll not have a chance to run many more ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... destinies, and helped to stuff the old-fashioned vault with wads of gilt-edged securities—millions in value if you did but know it—and making it what it is to-day. If you don't believe the first part of my statement, you've only to fumble among the heap of dusty ledgers piled on top of the dusty shelves; and if you doubt the latter part, then try to buy some of the stock and see what you have to pay for it. Although the gas was turned off in the directors' ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... through for a dozen yards. And so it went until the second found itself only a few yards from its goal line. There, with the backs pressed close against the forwards, the second held and secured the ball on downs, only to lose it again by a fumble on the part of Post. Then a delayed pass gained two yards for the first and a mass at left tackle found another. But the next play resulted disastrously, for when the ball was passed back there was no one to take it, and the quarter ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... whole of their very beautiful theory rests upon the very disputed passage in question. At an earlier period apparently, his mind did wander; when, as Mrs. Quickly says, he was "rheumatick," meaning doubtless lunatic, that is, delirious; and then he talked of other things. When he began to "fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends," though for a moment he might have fancied himself even "in his mother's lap," or anything else, he was clearly past all "babbling." In saying this, I treat Falstaff as a human being who ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... moulding a visage whereon the words 'treachery, avarice, theft, and murder' are printed in large capitals. You may possibly have been born simply ugly, but your present hang-dog cast of countenance is entirely your own handiwork, my good friend Guiseppe. Now pray do not fumble at your knife again, that is an excessively bad habit which you have contracted; take my advice and break it off. If you do not, it will assuredly get you ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... the floor wavered suddenly, the door opened, was locked again, and with a quick, catlike step a man moved along the side of the wall where the shadows lay thickest near the door, dropped on his knees, and began to fumble hurriedly with the base-board of the wall, pausing at every alternate second to ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... urgent claim beyond the fact that she was now her only one. Aunt Emily's clear vision might, indeed, be said to have found the way through a tangle of poignant conditions in which her own poor heart had been able to do nothing but fumble helplessly. ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... ones, that can be treated each year? Tough, independent Senator Dan Fowler fights a one-man battle against the clique that seeks perpetual power and perpetual youth, in this hard-hitting novel by Alan E. Nourse. Why did it have to be his personal fight? The others fumble it—they'd foul it up, Fowler protested? But why was he in the fight and what was to happen to Senator Fowler's fight against this fantastic conspiracy? Who ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... till at last a weather-beaten New England skipper, in a pea-jacket, stumped him by exclaiming, "Darned if I don't bet you! But stop; let me see if all's right." Then taking up and inspecting it, as if to see that there was no deception in it, he returned it to the table, and began to fumble about in a side pocket, first taking out a jack-knife, then a twist of tobacco, &c., till he produced a roll of bank notes, from which he took one of $10 and handed it to a by-stander; the gambler did the same, and ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... returned Shocker, smoothly. "Here you are. It's dark, isn't it? I'll light the gas," and he commenced to fumble in his pocket, as if hunting for ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... Shadow, wading in the torrent Of high excitement, snatch me from the riot— (Fool that he is)—and fumble with his warrant, And hail a hearse, and beg me to ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... a greedy girl! Now get your mind all made up. This is your chance. You know you're supposed t' take a slant at th' things an' make up your mind w'at you want before you go back w'ere th' tables are. Don't fumble this thing. When Olga or Minna comes waddlin' up t' you an' says: 'Nu, Fraulein?' you gotta tell her whether your heart says plum-kuchen oder Nusstorte, or both, see? Just like that. Now make up your mind. I'd hate t' have you blunder. Have ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... noble authors as remainder auctions. A good book is beyond price; and it is far easier to under than over sell it. The words of the modern minor poet are as rubies, and what if his sets bring a hundred guineas?—it is more as it should be, than that any sacrilegious hand should fumble them for threepence. It recalls that golden age of which Mr. Dobson ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... 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
... very much out of the common. Because for six months no friend or relation had called to see them, that was no reason why one never should. In the fog, a stranger may have thought it simpler to knock at the door with his stick than to fumble in search of a bell. The Hepworths lived chiefly in the room at the back. The light in the drawing-room may have been switched off for economy's sake. Jetson recounted the incident on reaching home, not as anything remarkable, but just as one mentions an item of gossip. The only one who appears ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... guilty boy it seemed as if the deacon must have been waiting for ten minutes at the least, and in a great flurry he began to fumble for his handkerchief. What had he done with it? Oh, there it was at last, way down in the depths of his right ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... my stupid fumble very nicely, laughing merrily while saying, "If you like mountains and moonlight, Mr. Gordon, and don't mind the lack of a chaperon, get a stool for yourself, too." What was more, she offered me half of the lap-robe when I was ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... room to grumble! Hadst thou taen aff some drowsy bummle, Wha can do nought but fyke an' fumble, 'Twad been nae plea; But he was gleg as ony wumble, That's ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... leaving his breakfast half finished, and began to wander up and down the room, reflectively tugging at his ear. Then he began to fumble in the pockets of his dressing-gown and finally produced the inevitable pipe, dilapidated pouch, and box of safety matches. He began to load the much-charred agent ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... blankets in the locker there," and the captain turned around, and began to fumble with his hands for the latch of the little door. "Ye'd better strip ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... mighty anxious as the game goes along, believe me," asserted Steve, as they arose to leave the vicinity of the bench. "I'll be skimpy with my throws to third to catch a runner napping, for fear Fred might make out to fumble and get the ball home just too late to nab the runner. And, Jack, try your level best to convince Fred that the eyes of all Chester will be on him during that game, with his best girl, pretty Molly Skinner, occupying a front seat ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... the band. The points of the opening are connected by a loop of fringe, a couple of cords not always tied, or anything that comes handy, apparently for ornament. Now, when the husband feels moved to demonstrate his affection for his spouse by administering a beating, he is not obliged to fumble and grope among those straight folds for the awkward triangular little opening, quite unsuited to accommodate his fist. He can grasp her promptly by the neck of her chemise and this comfortable semicircle, and not force her to doubt his love by delay and hesitation in expression. I asked ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... clearer with the growing day; And in the cold dawn light her hair is grey: Her lifted arms are naught but bone: her hands White withered claws that fumble as she stands Trying to pin that wisp into its place. O Philip, I must look upon her face There in the mirror. Nay, but I will rise And peep over her shoulder ... Oh, the eyes That burn out from that face of skin and bone, Searching my ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... with a groan, and began to fumble for the matches. All at once Gypsy heard a very ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... train rolled through the homely scenes of the outskirts, that black fringe which makes an unlovely border to the city, Choulette took from his pocket an old book which he began to fumble. The writer, hidden under the vagabond, revealed himself. Choulette, without wishing to appear to be careful of his papers, was very orderly about them. He assured himself that he had not lost the pieces of paper on which he noted at the coffeehouse ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... floor wavered suddenly, the door opened, was locked again, and with a quick, catlike step a man moved along the side of the wall where the shadows lay thickest near the door, dropped on his knees, and began to fumble hurriedly with the base-board of the wall, pausing at every alternate second ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... began to whimper. "I—I do not know; unless some one has stolen my key." She put a hand down to fumble in the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... however, Joeboy laid his sandwich upon the shield beside him, and then began to fumble behind him in the band of his cut-down trousers, out of a leopard-skin pocket attached to which he drew a packet of common leather tied up with a ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... daylight when the robbers reached their cave. The bundles were laid in a great circle on the floor, and, at a given signal, they were opened. For a moment each robber gazed blankly at the contents of his bundle, and then they all began to fumble and search among the piles of articles upon the cloths; but after a few minutes, they arose, looking blanker and more disappointed ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... very kind children," she said. She began to fumble in a bag by her side. "Here is a shilling ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... door was opened, and he saw, plain against the light, a man's figure, his father's. No doubt the old man was watching and listening. Perhaps the sound of the wheels reached him through the evening air, for in a few minutes he came out and walked down the drive. Hyacinth saw him fumble with the fastening of the rickety gate, and at last open it slowly and with difficulty. The car reached a gap in the loose stone wall, a familiar gap, for across it lay a short cut up a steeper part of the hill, which the road went round. Hyacinth jumped down and ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... parapet. A splinter from one lifted a man's cap from his head and sent it flying. The splinter's whirr and the man's sharp exclamation brought all eyes in his direction. His look of comical surprise and the half-dazed fashion of his lifting a hand to fumble cautiously at his head raised some laughter and ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... this time Hans had recovered his confusion; and from a certain flutter in Sybrandt, and hard breathing of Cornelis, aided by an indescribable consciousness, felt sure the pair he had to deal with were no heroes. He pretended to fumble for his money: then suddenly thrust his staff fiercely into Sybrandt's face, and drove him staggering, and lent Cornelis a back-handed slash on the ear that sent him twirling like a weathercock in March; then whirled his weapon over his head and danced about the road ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... theatre, put his hat on the end of the table as his habit was, and carefully selected a large piece of chalk. It was a joke among his students that he could not lecture without that piece of chalk to fumble in his fingers, and once he had been stricken to impotence by their hiding his supply. He came and looked under his grey eyebrows at the rising tiers of young fresh faces, and spoke with his accustomed studied commonness of phrasing. "Circumstances have arisen—circumstances ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... continued to fumble among her possessions in the bureau drawer; at last she brought forth an orange-coloured satin ribbon, which she placed in the Indian woman's hands with ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... on their mettle and the fielding being of the sharpest kind safe hits were few and far between. Up to the ninth inning Chicago led by two runs, but here Earle's three-bagger, Hanlon's base on balls, Burns' fumble of Brown's hit and Carroll's double settled our chances, the All-Americas winning by a score of 4 ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... monuments of his good taste in several rhyming tragedies, and the romance of Parthenissa. His father began the world by giving his name to a treatise wrote by Atterbury and his club, which gained him great reputation; but (like Sir Martin Marall, who would fumble with his lute when the music was over) he published soon after a sad comedy of his own, and, what was worse, a dismal tragedy he had found among the first Earl of Orrery's papers. People could easier forgive his being partial to his own silly works, as a common frailty, than ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Kurt saw the girl fumble with the door on her side, open it, and stagger out of his sight. Then she reappeared round the car. Bareheaded, disheveled, white as chalk, with burning eyes and bleeding lips, she gazed at Kurt as if to make ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... fashion, and on the present occasion he was doubly, terribly confused. Of no matter what book he asked the price, it was sure to be one, two, or three roubles. The larger books he could not afford at all; he could only look at them wistfully, fumble their leaves with his finger, turn over the volumes in his hands, and then replace them. "No, no, that is too dear," he would mutter under his breath. "I must go and try somewhere else." Then again he would fall to examining ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... probability she would pay the penalty on both sides of the grave. Awakening from one awful dream, she would, after listening to the stillness of the night for a time, lapse into another. Again she would suddenly awake and begin to fumble her rosary and repeat selections from a Catholic prayer book. Would she dare to turn back? Behind her was certain death; before her, the possibility of life. ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... from a pair of violet eyes and a pair of the most mysterious gray, I began to fumble in my pockets for the ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... is sinister With sounds of nameless battle overseas; Though when we turn and question in suspense If these things be indeed after these ways, And what things are to follow after these, Our fluent men of place and consequence Fumble and fill their mouths with hollow phrase, Or for the end-all of deep arguments Intone their dull commercial liturgies — I dare not yet believe! My ears are shut! I will not hear the thin satiric praise And muffled laughter of our ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone; For men were born to pray and save, Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... distress-sales of noble authors as remainder auctions. A good book is beyond price; and it is far easier to under than over sell it. The words of the modern minor poet are as rubies, and what if his sets bring a hundred guineas?—it is more as it should be, than that any sacrilegious hand should fumble them for threepence. It recalls that golden age of which Mr. Dobson has ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... the English are, in general, the worst linguists in the world, seeing that they pursue a system diametrically opposite? For example, when they attempt to speak Spanish, the most sonorous tongue in existence, they scarcely open their lips, and putting their hands in their pockets, fumble lazily, instead of applying them to the indispensable office of gesticulation. Well may the poor Spaniards exclaim, THESE ENGLISH TALK SO CRABBEDLY, THAT SATAN HIMSELF WOULD NOT BE ABLE ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Jason told him. "I won't begin to describe the condition my nerves were in when I hit this planet. I'm finally forced to admit that everything you said about Pyrrus is true. It is the most deadly spot in the system. And only native-born Pyrrans could possibly survive here. I can manage to fumble along a bit after my training, but I know I would never stand a chance on my own. You probably know I have an eight-year-old as a bodyguard. Gives a good idea ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... and a violent temper. One day he and a companion in the mountains fell out and fought. The Italian then had to walk twenty miles to find a surgeon, being in great need of his services. When he presented himself to the surgeon his face was heavily bandaged with blood-soaked cloths. He began to fumble in his pockets, and his face betrayed deep anxiety when he failed to find ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... doing? One would think you had never seen a corset before. Don't fumble! If you fumble, I shall pack you off to Paris by the first train to-morrow morning. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Ken saw a bloody finger. It was cold in the cage. Even an ordinarily hit ball must have stung the hands, and the way a hard grounder cracked was enough to excite sympathy among those scornful spectators, if nothing more. But they yelled in delight at every fumble, at everything that happened. Ken kept whispering to himself: "I can't see the fun in it. ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... Cantharides—Excellent, a Priapism follows, and as I'll handle it, it shall, old Lecherous Goat in Authority. Now they begin to Bill; how he slavers her! Gramercy Lilly, she spits his kisses out, and now he offers to fumble, she falls off, (that's a good Wench) and cries fair play above board. Who are they in the corner? As I live, a covy of Fidlers; I shall have some Musick yet at my making free o'th' Company of Horners; there's the comfort, and a Song too! He beckons for one—Sure 'tis no Anthem, nor no borrow'd ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... for a while he stood there, fighting off these yearnings while he gathered his far-strayed wits. Now and then he weakly attempted to catch the other's eye, but as Mike studiously refused to be caught, Cassidy could only blink owlishly and fumble again with the tangled ends of the skein. Finally, abandoning it all as useless, he turned toward the door, yet arrested his dazed shambling to ask ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... pebbly roof now. She showed plainly, for she was moving. She looked like a wounded bird, and the man, thinking he must have hurt her in some way, followed her to pick her up and see what the trouble was. Three times he almost got her. Almost, but not quite. Crippled as she seemed, she could still fumble and flutter just out of reach; and when at last the man had followed her to a corner of the roof far from her young, Mother Nomer sprang up, and spreading her long, pointed wings, took flight, whole and sound ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... pukka stuff!" roared the seaman, ceasing to fumble with the knots and glaring at Sin Sin Wa. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... eyes when he heard; and Diego was no weakling, but a straight-backed stoic of an Indian, who stood almost as tall as the Senor Jack himself and who could throw a full-grown steer to the ground by twisting its head. He bowed low and turned to fumble the sweet, dried grasses in Surry's manger; and beneath his coarse shirt the feel of the rawhide was sweeter than the embrace of ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... now, but if anybody happened to go into the drawing-room for anything, and they were discovered, each knew that his life was not worth a minute's purchase. Very steadily Sartoris steered his chair to the side of the big case on the floor, and his hands began to fumble ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... will not fumble for your seals, Nor listen where your tick-tick lies,— Nor dare to call in anger down The ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... mutter, with a half sigh of relief. Then the match burns my finger, and I drop it, quickly. As I fumble for another, the thing shines out again. I know, now, that it is no fancy. This time, I light the candle, and examine the place, more closely. There is a slight, greenish discoloration 'round the scratch. I am puzzled and worried. Then a thought ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... the bicycle racer. His eyes are strained, his nerves and muscles at tension—everything ready for excitement—and the book, lying open, leaves his hands perfectly free to drum on the sides of the chair, slap his legs and knees, fumble in his pockets or even scratch his head as emotion or interest demand. Does anybody deny that the highest proof of special genius is the possession of the instinct to adapt itself to the matter in hand? Nothing more need ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... to suggest to Jetson anything very much out of the common. Because for six months no friend or relation had called to see them, that was no reason why one never should. In the fog, a stranger may have thought it simpler to knock at the door with his stick than to fumble in search of a bell. The Hepworths lived chiefly in the room at the back. The light in the drawing-room may have been switched off for economy's sake. Jetson recounted the incident on reaching home, not as ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... squatted opposite each other on the table rock, and, feeling like another Sindbad the Sailor, I watched my new friend fumble in his bag and lay out at his side all sorts of odds and ends of string, fish-hooks, chewing-gum, material for making a fire, and so on, until at last he came to a package (done up, I noted with delight, in a broad, green leaf ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... affectionate, how friendly and how replete with deep meaning were the sentiments that dropped from her month, when, of a sudden, he saw her seal her lips and, flashing crimson, droop her head, and simply fumble with her girdle. Yet so fascinating was she in those timid blushes, which completely baffle description, that his feelings were roused within him to such a degree, that all sense of pain flew at once beyond the empyrean. "I've only had to bear a few ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... counter-revolution have the bourgeois state generally on their side and enjoy the backing of the bourgeois establishment, its organizations and its facilities. Since their object is defense, they have no constructive program. Instead they stumble, fumble and bungle as their system flounders into ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... to hear the President's angry voice over the inter-com. His anxiety made him fumble, but at last, ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... than a thousand pounds," said Archie dryly. "The Professor explained the obstacles to me. However, his doings have nothing to do with us, darling. Let Professor Braddock fumble amongst the dead if he likes. ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... was coming? She's generally very cross all day, and makes a point of giving away her presents to other members of the party under the very noses of the givers, to let them see what she thinks of their choice. The great idea is to sit down by her quickly when you see her begin to fumble with something you would like to have. I got quite a nice bag ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of all things in the world I hate to be laughed at. Listen to me, and don't fumble in your pockets while I'm ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... lookers-on, of spitting on the hands before commencing work. This apparently gratuitous piece of dirtiness is in reality absolutely necessary. Men with hands in this state have hardly any feeling in them; they find it difficult to pick up anything small, as a pin—the fingers fumble over it; and as for a pen, they hold it like a hammer. His chest was open to the north wind, which whistled through the bare branches of the tall elm overhead as if they were the cordage of a ship, and came in sudden ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... give me ribs of steel, or I shall split with pleasure.—Now play me Nestor at a night alarm: mimick him rarely; make him cough and spit, and fumble with his gorget, and shake the rivets with his palsy hand, in and out, in and out; gad, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... the whiskey stumbled to his feet, and leaning against a pile of lumber stood open-mouthed, waiting for the preacher's rebuke; but Davis hung his head, and began to fumble for a pipe in his sagging coat pocket; with clumsy fingers, scattering the tobacco from his little bag, he tried ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... seemed as if the deacon must have been waiting for ten minutes at the least, and in a great flurry he began to fumble for his handkerchief. What had he done with it? Oh, there it was at last, way down in the depths ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... Pa's tobacco box, and all you have to do is to touch a spring and it plays, 'She's a Daisy, She's a Dumpling.' I borrowed it and put it in Pa's pistol pocket, where he keeps his tobacco box, and when the choir got most through singing Pa reached his hand in his pocket and began to fumble around for a chew. He touched the spring, and just as everybody bowed their heads to receive the benediction, and it was so still you could hear a gum drop, the music box began to play, and in the stillness it sounded as loud as ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... could foster such a feud. No language except the chaos we fumble with could make it possible. By and by the war wore out of its own violence. People ceased to care how a thing was said, and began to take interest again in what was said. Those who had mimicked Amelie had grown into the habit of mimicry until they half forgot their scorn. The old-time ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... shrieked a voice from below, "are your fingers ever to be thumbs, then, that you should fumble your tools so? A thousand thunders of heaven! You have broken ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... happened to put my hand into my pocket, and there I found the greater part of a ship's biscuit, which, as I was quitting the cabin, I had mechanically thrust into it. I almost shouted for joy as I found the prize—though it was not much to be divided among four men. The discovery made the rest fumble in their pockets. McTavish had a tobacco-box, which he had only just filled, and Jack found a huge lump of grease, which, though not very savoury, was not to be despised. How it had come there he could not recollect. These treasures, however, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... head pityingly. "It's already too late. I'm sorry." He bent his head guiltily and began to fumble with the papers on ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... scrimmage with the second, Clint usually finished up at right or left tackle. But he couldn't help thinking that were he not there his absence would go unremarked. Even on the to him memorable occasion when he broke through the second's line on a fumble and, seizing the ball, romped almost unchallenged over the last four white lines for a touchdown the incident went apparently unnoticed. One or two of his team-mates patted him approvingly on the back, but that was all. Clint was beginning to have ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... avenger of all silverstrian things; and from that they said about him it seemed to me that this person was quite white, and was a kind of madness that would settle down quite blankly upon a place, a kind of mist in which reason could not live; and it was the fear of this that made them fumble nervously at the lock of that rotten door; but with the Sphinx it was not so ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... whatever name I might choose, and wait for my first customer. My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at him,—ask him a question or two, so as to hear him talk. When I have got the hang of him, I ask him to sit down, and proceed to fumble his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... bobbing cavalier would lose his balance and tug at the reins; then the horse, which had a soft mouth, would turn sideways or stand still; the rider would then smack his lips, and if this had no effect he would fumble for the whip. The horse, guessing what was required, would start again, shaking him up and down until he looked like a rag doll ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... command jockeys and even trainers on occasion can act with certainty, for they have their eye on the very tap-root of the Turf upas-tree. The noodles who read sporting prints and try to look knowing can only fumble about among uncertainties; they and their pitiful money help to swell the triumphs and the purses of rascals, and they fritter away good brain-power on calculations which have no sound basis whatever. Let us get to some facts, and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... inferior, and in the exact science of skill, she can easily and at any time outdistance the most brilliant high-school graduate, for skill is her education, and she handles, and fingers, and computes sometimes many thousands of delicate threads, or intricate bits of metal, the slightest fumble of which might throw out of gear a powerful machine. This is applied mathematics, is it not? She uses no pencil nor paper, but counts by allowing one line to overlap another at every five hundred cards, done in some fine ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... there's desperate doubt of, And which (if she's nous) you can't keep in your house, nor yet (if she's "savvy") keep out of! What is "Hymen's halter"? I fidget and falter! The Beaks seem to palter and fumble. In such a strange fashion, I fly in a passion, and vow that the world is a jumble. Law seems a wigged noodle, as tame as a poodle, the whole darned caboodle (as 'ARRY sees) Is ructions and "rot," and our "rulers" a lot of confounded ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... denominations of five, ten, and twenty-dollar bills lay snugly inserted between the leaves of the Bible. The tramp who lay on the floor, as yet too surprised to attempt to rise, rolled over and seized the book as a football player seizes the pigskin after a fumble, covering it with his body, his arms, and sticking out his elbows as a further protection ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they hae room to grumble! Hadst thou taen aff some drowsy bummle, [drone] Wha can do nought but fyke an' fumble, [fuss] 'Twad been nae plea; [grievance] But he was gleg as ony wumble, [lively, auger] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... looks for a moment; till, with a queer grin, Donovan began to fumble in his waistcoat-pocket, and drew out, in close company with a rounded plug of tobacco, ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... pretty little Girl of Bohemia while she is still visible and audible at Drury Lane. Mr. EADIE a trifle gawky as Thaddeus, but then he finds himself in an awkward situation, especially when he has to fumble for the documentary evidence of his birth, attested at a Bohemian Registry Office. CARL ARMBRUSTER conducted this, and then up got Herr FELD "with his little lot," represented by the unrivalled and unequalled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... call it! Now joolery is far nicer. I wish it were joolery, but I'm afraid it's too big. Open it, do! Cut the string, and don't fumble all day at one knot! The professor will buy you some more, if you ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... came into his eyes. He turned to fumble noisily with the glasses as he replaced them ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... that his eyeglass dropped, and he had to fumble to find it, so by that time I had begun to talk to old Colonel Blake, who was at ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... exhibited an empty purse, Robin suggested his money was probably hidden in the meal and sternly ordered him to produce it without delay. Grumbling about his loss, the miller opened his sack, began to fumble in the meal, and, when all the outlaws were bending anxiously over it, flung a double handful of flour right into their eyes, thus blinding them temporarily. Had not other outlaws now rushed out of the thicket, the miller would doubtless have effected his escape, but the new arrivals held ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... as steady and sure as they had been vacillant a moment since, he closed the safe door noiselessly, shot its bolts, and was yards away, crouching behind an armchair, before the man outside had ceased to fumble with the window fastenings. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... compared with the slightly built foreigner, he could have overpowered him as a child might crush an egg-shell, but he lacked the mentality, the magnetism of the Italian. He was cowed, dominated by the stronger mind. Grumbling, he began to fumble at his waist: ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... party produced an image of the Virgin and Child, and another offered comfits in a box; a third presented the wassail-cup, into which Raby immediately poured some silver, and Coventry followed his example. Grace fumbled for her purse, and, when she had found it, began to fumble in ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... centrepiece to the whole of this battle. As soon as we had won it I telegraphed to the Morning Post that now at last success was a distinct possibility. With this important feature in our possession it was certain that we held the key to Ladysmith, and though we might fumble a little with the lock, sooner or later, barring the accidents of war, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... hereditary, had welcomed the two apparitors (if that be the proper name for them) and led them kindly down the valley, and told them then to serve their writ. Misliking the look of things, these poor men began to fumble among their clothes; upon which the Doones cried, "off with them! Let us see if your message he on your skins." And with no more manners than that, they stripped, and lashed them out of the valley; only bidding them come to us, if they wanted ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... in there under ninety pounds and Fieldmouse is a cinch. That little sleight-of-hand stunt between Murphy and your nigger is working fine. They not only put it over on the judges, but none of the other owners are wise. I'd try it myself some day if I wasn't afraid somebody would fumble and give ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... nothing to say in answer, but she did the next best thing: she drew her rosary from under her dress waist and held it up to the Marchioness who nodded understandingly and began to fumble at her neck. In a moment she brought forth a tiny gold chain with a little gold cross hanging from it. She held it up and dangled it before the ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... answered. "I had—I wanted to—" And suddenly she commenced to fumble with her hand-bag; she brought forth a package of money which she placed before him on the desk. Her hands trembled so violently that she disarranged the bills, she even dropped a few; she stooped down and picked them up and stammered: "Take it, please; ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... only think!" said Rosina, turning her wrinkled face toward me, and actually shaking all over with the recollection of her terror. "I thought I should have sank into the earth! I stood for a moment aghast, and then I began to fumble in my pocket. 'Where can the key be?' said I, pretending to search for it; but my countenance betrayed me, and my voice shook so, that he read me like a book. I am sure he knew the truth from that moment. He looked hard ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... might walk up to the barrier deep in conversation. I should then get in front, and the examiner would pull me up for my ticket. I should fumble before producing my season. Meantime you would have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... you old goose; he doesn't know how you and I sat looking at one another, and pretending to fumble, and counting out slowly, waiting sick at heart for the sack of guineas that was to come down by coach. If it had not come we should not have broken, but we should have suspended payment for twenty-four hours, and I was young enough ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... if a Shadow, wading in the torrent Of high excitement, snatch me from the riot— (Fool that he is)—and fumble with his warrant, And hail a hearse, and ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... most diligent and loyal thing an old man can do is fumble, drink beer, and let a young ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... himself, springing from the onslaught of the assailant entering behind him, and thrusting the cursing Captain from his path he leaped through the sliding panel. The lock clicked home and he paused even in that moment of hammering pulses and pounding heart to fumble in the darkness to shut that other panel into the next room, remembering Fritzi's warning that those locks needed a key to open them from within. The minute's delay for the key would mean ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... who did not, from time to time, nervously fumble the butt of his six-gun. As three o'clock drew on the talk grew less and less. It broke out now and again in little uneasy bursts. Someone would tell a joke. Half hysterical laughter would greet it, ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... one of a seal on shore. The eyes being of small use, he must touch with his hands. Those hands are the most distinctive feature of his person; they are full of expression; tenderly groping hands, that hesitate and fumble in wistful fashion like the feelers of some sensitive creature of night. There is trouble, too, in that obese and sluggish body; trouble to which the unhealthy complexion testifies. He may drink only ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... David to your Goliath, thou great gomeril!" replied the Earl with equal good humour, seeing his cousin Hugh blush and fumble uncomfortably ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... to steal her wild young heart away. And I will kiss her in the waterfalls, And at the rainbow's end, and in the incense That curls about the feet of sleeping gods, And sing with her in canebrakes and in rice fields, In Romany, eternal Romany. We will sow secret herbs, and plant old roses, And fumble through dark, snaky palaces, Stable our ponies in the Taj Mahal, And sleep out-doors ourselves. In her strange fairy mill-wheel eyes will wait All windings and unwindings of the highways, From India, across America,— All windings and unwindings of ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... quiet Alcove with four Volumes that were being dissected at the drawing-room Clinics, she took a hack at the first and last Chapter of each. Just enough to protect her against a Fumble if she found herself next to ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... afterwards polish it so as to be presentable. But men of sense know better than so to waste their time; and those who sincerely love poetry, know the touch of the master's hand on the chords too well to fumble among them after him. Nay, more than this, all inferior poetry is an injury to the good, inasmuch as it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts; and, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... back to them, but not to me, and I saw him fumble for an instant with the papers. Quickly he pressed his thumb-nail on one side, as though making a rough "W," while on the other side he made what might be an "L." Then he shoved the two sheets and the carbon into ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... runs, one for thirty and the other for forty-five yards. Got a touchdown the second time. I wouldn't have, though, if Steve hadn't paced me most the way down and put the quarter out. Old Steve played like a whirlwind today. We all did, I guess. There was only one fumble, and that wasn't anyone's fault. Holt got a forward pass and a Miter Hill chap plunged into him and just about knocked the breath out of him and he let go ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... a sulphur match . . . Ha! at last my garret. Fumble at the latch, Close the door and bar it. Bed, you graciously Wait, despite my scorning . . . So, bibaciously Mad ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... Mr. Brown should sign the paper, and finally began to fumble in his pistol pocket, whereupon it passed through Mr. Brown's mind "that the little wretch might be meaning to shoot me." As he got the pistol out, Mr. Brown seized his wrist and turned his hand downward. After one shot had been fired, the struggle continued until the ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... preliminary questions; asking him, peradventure, whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty; considering him something in the light of a culprit at the bar; when they were brought to a pause by seeing him lay down his pipe and begin to fumble with his walking-staff. For a moment those present would not have given half a crown for both the crowns of the commissioners; but Peter Stuyvesant repressed his mighty wrath and stayed his hand; he scanned the varlets from head to foot, satchels and all, with a look of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... fragrant and savory—and placed it on the serving-table near the open window. There was a bit, of wire loose at the lower end of the screen, and, in the one second Marguerite's back was turned—just one second, but just long enough—Missy saw a velvety nose fumble with the loose wire, saw a sleek neck wedge itself through the crevice, and a long red tongue lap approvingly ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... shuffle a few steps and fumble with a drawer of the desk. In a moment the cold hard butt of a pistol was thrust into his hand. It had a ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... said Rosina, turning her wrinkled face toward me, and actually shaking all over with the recollection of her terror. "I thought I should have sank into the earth! I stood for a moment aghast, and then I began to fumble in my pocket. 'Where can the key be?' said I, pretending to search for it; but my countenance betrayed me, and my voice shook so, that he read me like a book. I am sure he knew the truth from that moment. He looked hard at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... the position is one of instinct like that of a bicycle racer. His eyes are strained, his nerves and muscles at tension—everything ready for excitement—and the book, lying open, leaves his hands perfectly free to drum on the sides of the chair, slap his legs and knees, fumble in his pockets or even scratch his head, as emotion and interest demand. Does anybody deny that the highest proof of special genius is the possession of the instinct to adapt itself to the matter in hand? ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... but it held, and I got to the top, and began to fumble for the hasp or lock of the scuttle. It was thick with cob-webs and dust, and for a while it refused to move. While I was working at it I heard Mr. Snider open the door at the foot of the ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... spring-laden breeze Out of the gladdening west is sinister With sounds of nameless battle overseas; Though when we turn and question in suspense If these things be indeed after these ways, And what things are to follow after these, Our fluent men of place and consequence Fumble and fill their mouths with hollow phrase, Or for the end-all of deep arguments Intone their dull commercial liturgies — I dare not yet believe! My ears are shut! I will not hear the thin satiric praise And muffled laughter of our enemies, Bidding us never sheathe ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... Teacher has His message level to all minds, high and low, wise and foolish, cultivated and rude. This Teacher does not only impart wisdom by words as from without, though He does that too, but He comes into men's spirits, and communicates Himself, and so makes them wise. Other teachers fumble at the outside, but 'in the hidden parts He makes me to know wisdom.' So it is safe to take this Teacher absolutely, and to say, 'Thou art my Master, Thy word is truth, and the opening of Thy lips to me ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... keep my place at your side and bear your name unreproved and taste to the full the awe and delight of a passion such as few women ever feel, because few women were ever loved by a man like you. Had my thoughts been elsewhere, my fingers might have forgotten to fumble along that wall, and I had been simply wretched to-day,—and innocent. Innocent! O, where in God's universe can I be made innocent again and fit to look in your face and to love—heart-breaking thought—even ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... "You fumble-fisted, space-gassing jerk!" snarled Charley Brett. "Depend on you to get things messed up! That Barnard guy is all set to roll with ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... pay them tribute. The manner of his capture was dramatic. A real milkman for whom Rizzi had worked in the past was marked out for slaughter. He had been blown up twice already. While he slept his wife heard some one moving in the hall. Looking out through a small window, she saw the ex-employee fumble with something and then turn out the gas on the landing. Her husband, awakened by her exit and return, asked sleepily what the ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... wave a white flag to keep them from mowing us down like wheat!" exclaimed Tubby, commencing to fumble in ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... quickly. I would have turned back, but I felt that every day I could keep him away from Los Pinos was a day gained for Mrs. Whitney. He was a dangerous maniac, too. The first day he behaved himself fairly well, but the second, after supper, when we had cleaned up, he began to fumble through the packs, and finally ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... solved his basic problems on the planet of his origin than he began to fumble into space. Barely a century had elapsed in the exploration of the Solar System than he began to grope ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... a slender brunette of a man, lean-cheeked, thin-lipped, and strong. The smooth-shaven face was a healthy sallow. All his movements were quick and precise. He did not fumble his cards. The eyes were black, direct, and piercing, with the trick of seeming to look beneath the surfaces of things. His hands, slender, fine and nervous, appeared made for delicate work, and to the most casual eye they conveyed an impression ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... driven and parched and bleached, by the enormous forces of industry and commerce, that all distinction in them seems to be reduced to a strange colorlessness; while the primordial animal cravings, greedy, earth-born, fumble after their aims across the sad and littered ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... solitude of the park he begged his companion, who had scarcely spoken all the way, to give him his arm, and leaned upon it as if still suffering, but watched him closely. About the middle of the park, where not a creature was in sight, he felt him begin to fumble in his coat pocket, and draw something .from it. But when, unresisted, he snatched away his other arm, Malcolm's fist followed it, and the man fell, nor made any resistance while he took from him a short stick, loaded with lead, and his own watch, which he found in his waistcoat pocket. Then ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... demanded his money, and, when he exhibited an empty purse, Robin suggested his money was probably hidden in the meal and sternly ordered him to produce it without delay. Grumbling about his loss, the miller opened his sack, began to fumble in the meal, and, when all the outlaws were bending anxiously over it, flung a double handful of flour right into their eyes, thus blinding them temporarily. Had not other outlaws now rushed out of the thicket, the miller would doubtless have effected his escape, but ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... methinks we have learnt this Trade of Gipsies as readily as if we had been bred upon the Road to Loretto: and yet I did so fumble, when I told the Stranger his Fortune, that I was afraid I should have told my own and yours by mistake— But methinks Hellena has been very serious ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... along the sill. They fumble on the wall. They stretch to reach the gun which stands beside the clock. Another inch and they will grasp it and Red Joe will be saved. The arm rubs against the pendulum of the clock. It swings and the clock starts to tick. And ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... of the Dinosaur in prehistoric clays than the highway, of a little village that only five years ago was full of human faults and joys and songs and tiny tears. Down that road before the plans, of the Kaiser began to fumble with the earth, down that road—but it is useless to look back, we are too far away from five years ago, too far away from thousands of ordinary things, that never seemed as though they would ever peer at us over chasms ...
— Unhappy Far-Off Things • Lord Dunsany
... with four Volumes that were being dissected at the drawing-room Clinics, she took a hack at the first and last Chapter of each. Just enough to protect her against a Fumble if she found herself next ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... Jane and like a dizzy man swayed from her with a hoarse cry and leaned shaking against a table where he kept his rider's accoutrements. He began to fumble in his saddlebags. His action brought a clinking, metallic sound—the rattling of gun-cartridges. His fingers trembled as he slipped cartridges into an extra belt. But as he buckled it over the one he habitually wore his hands became steady. This second ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... fallen stones. They were dead soldiers. I hardly glanced at them, for we were in search of living men. The cars were brought to a halt outside the building and we all climbed down. I lighted a cigarette, and I noticed two of the other men fumble for matches for the same purpose. We wanted something to steady us. There was never a moment when shell-fire was not bursting in that square about us. The shrapnel bullets whipped the stones. The enemy was ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... tragedies, and the romance of Parthenissa. His father began the world by giving his name to a treatise wrote by Atterbury and his club, which gained him great reputation; but (like Sir Martin Marall, who would fumble with his lute when the music was over) he published soon after a sad comedy of his own, and, what was worse, a dismal tragedy he had found among the first Earl of Orrery's papers. People could easier forgive his being partial to his own silly works, as a common frailty, than the want of judgment ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... ever shall. I need you at this moment More even than when my toothless gums did fumble About thy breast ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... Lily," said Davie, trying to fumble his blind way out of the cradle and start in search ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... goal from the longest punts the varsity full-back could make, and how he kicked the goal after all but one of the many touch-downs the scrub team made; how little Jumbo, as quarter-back, passed the ball with never a fumble and never a bad throw; how, when it came back to his hands, he skimmed almost as closely and as silently and as swiftly over the ground as the shadow of a flying bird, and made long run after long run that won the cheers of the crowd; how B.J., Sawed-Off, ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... auctions. A good book is beyond price; and it is far easier to under than over sell it. The words of the modern minor poet are as rubies, and what if his sets bring a hundred guineas?—it is more as it should be, than that any sacrilegious hand should fumble them for threepence. It recalls that golden age of which ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... slipped off his burden and pushed it through a jagged hole at the root. Then he glanced round him, a long, stealthy look, down at the earth and up at the sky, and crept into the tree. In the dimness I could see him fumble for the thing he wanted, pause to thumb its edge, and, throwing up his chin, raise ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... doing this afternoon?" asked the unconscious delinquent languidly. "Autograph quilts? I've got a lot of blocks for you—friends of mine in the city." She began to fumble in the pretty workbag she carried. "Gracious, I was sure I had them with me! Isn't that ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... seemed, but continued to fumble about, and at last, with his back turned to me, got my lamp lighted. For a moment he stood staring at the wall, as though he lacked the resolution to turn. And when he wheeled I knew that I looked upon the countenance of a man who had been broken on the wheel; ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... such a rider. At moments they seemed to be ambling along harmoniously, until the bobbing cavalier would lose his balance and tug at the reins; then the horse, which had a soft mouth, would turn sideways or stand still; the rider would then smack his lips, and if this had no effect he would fumble for the whip. The horse, guessing what was required, would start again, shaking him up and down until he looked like a rag doll badly ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... goose; he doesn't know how you and I sat looking at one another, and pretending to fumble, and counting out slowly, waiting sick at heart for the sack of guineas that was to come down by coach. If it had not come we should not have broken, but we should have suspended payment for twenty-four hours, and I was young enough ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... realising how affectionate, how friendly and how replete with deep meaning were the sentiments that dropped from her month, when, of a sudden, he saw her seal her lips and, flashing crimson, droop her head, and simply fumble with her girdle. Yet so fascinating was she in those timid blushes, which completely baffle description, that his feelings were roused within him to such a degree, that all sense of pain flew at once beyond ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... saddle broke, and having no crupper, saddle and addenda went over his head, and the flour was dispersed. Next the girth of the woman's saddle broke, and she went over her horse's head. Then he began to fumble helplessly at it, railing against England the whole time, while I secured the saddle, and guided the route back to an outlet of the park. There a fire was built, and we had some bread and bacon; and then a search for water occupied nearly two hours, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... he was bound to spot us behind it; but he opened it just enough to squeeze in, and then, feeling his way round by the wall, made straight for the letter-box. Although it was dark he seemed to know his way pretty well, and in a few seconds we heard him stop and fumble with a key in the lock. In a second or two he had opened it, and then, crouching down, began cautiously to rub a match on the floor. The light was too dim to see anything but the crouching figure of a man bending over the box and examining the ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... I reckon I is. He p'omised to git me a job up hyeah, an' I got yo' lettah—" here Silas, who had set his bundle on the floor in coming into the Presence, began to fumble in his pockets for the letter. He searched long in vain, because his hands trembled, and he was nervous under the eyes of this great personage who stood unmoved and looked calmly ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... ornamentation, of the balance of the architecture, he saw nothing; neither the tracery of carven column nor the aerial perspective of the groined arches. It was his genius not to see these things—to leave out the drawing is better than to fumble with it, and all his life he has done this; and though we may say that a water-colour with the drawing left out is a very slight thing, we cannot fail to perceive that these sketches, though less than sonnets or ballades, or even ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... fool!" shrieked a voice from below, "are your fingers ever to be thumbs, then, that you should fumble your tools so? A thousand thunders of heaven! You have ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the physician approached her simultaneously. At the same time, the two assistants began to fumble among their hideous arsenal. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Then she would fumble with her foot for a stone and stoop hastily—for you are at a disadvantage with ghosts and with Toms when you stoop—and pick it up and hurl it promiscuously in the direction of the footsteps, and quaver, in a voice that ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... to put my hand into my pocket, and there I found the greater part of a ship's biscuit, which, as I was quitting the cabin, I had mechanically thrust into it. I almost shouted for joy as I found the prize—though it was not much to be divided among four men. The discovery made the rest fumble in their pockets. McTavish had a tobacco-box, which he had only just filled, and Jack found a huge lump of grease, which, though not very savoury, was not to be despised. How it had come there he could not ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... that's William again. He doesn't waste time when he has anything to attend to, and I know exactly what he said to his mother. He will make every arrangement and fix everything for them and then tell them good-by. He isn't much with words, Billy isn't. He acts. There's no fumble in him, and even his mother, who thinks his mold was broken when he was born and that the Lord never made but one like him, has to admit he is a high-handed person when occasion requires. I don't agree with his mother ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... saw him sitting there with his back to her, crying, she was puzzled and disturbed. As she watched, she saw him fumble for something under the quilt, then lift a shining pistol, and place the muzzle to his thin, bald temple. With a cry of terror, she dashed forward and knocked the weapon from ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... Flaxie began to fumble with the key. Ninny smiled to hear her breathe so hard, but never thought the wee, wee fingers ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... encouragement, the Celt moistened his dry lips, thrust out his chest, and after a momentary fumble, stuck three fingers in ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... reluctance, from a pair of violet eyes and a pair of the most mysterious gray, I began to fumble in my pockets ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... across the floor wavered suddenly, the door opened, was locked again, and with a quick, catlike step a man moved along the side of the wall where the shadows lay thickest near the door, dropped on his knees, and began to fumble hurriedly with the base-board of the wall, pausing at every alternate second ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the reading of the next dispatch. "Alden's ball on a fumble. Steadily forcing Winthrop line back by superior weight. ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... matches. Baldwin and Crane were both on their mettle and the fielding being of the sharpest kind safe hits were few and far between. Up to the ninth inning Chicago led by two runs, but here Earle's three-bagger, Hanlon's base on balls, Burns' fumble of Brown's hit and Carroll's double settled our chances, the All-Americas winning by a score ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... folks up," remarked Tom, as he tooted his horn and waved his flag, and Sam followed suit. Then the fun-loving Rover placed his horn under his arm and began to fumble at something in ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... with the Joyces and the Gowans; and with these and other members of the general public they swept on, joining the vast throng of those who were so eager to press the great lady's Smyrna rugs with their own feet and fumble her silk hangings with their own fingers and rap her Japanese jars with their own knuckles and smell her new paintings with their own noses and see Mrs. Palmer Pence herself with their own eyes. "Gee! ain't it swell!" whispered Little O'Grady, who could make swans out of geese or geese ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... the players' benches, where he watched the Oakdale nine at practice. At times he smiled with a supercilious air of amusement, and especially was this noticeable when Eliot complimented the players or some one made some sort of a fumble ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... young heart away. And I will kiss her in the waterfalls, And at the rainbow's end, and in the incense That curls about the feet of sleeping gods, And sing with her in canebrakes and in rice fields, In Romany, eternal Romany. We will sow secret herbs, and plant old roses, And fumble through dark, snaky palaces, Stable our ponies in the Taj Mahal, And sleep out-doors ourselves. In her strange fairy mill-wheel eyes will wait All windings and unwindings of the highways, From India, across America,— All windings and unwindings of my fancy, All windings and ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... shall be, mayhaps, that it was by reason of this thing that the water, when I did make it, did fizz upward in a moment very loud and plentiful, and did boil overward to the earth from out of the cup, and wet upon my hand. And surely this thought did come very keen to my Reason, as I did fumble, each time of mine eating, there in the everlasting night and ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... wouldn't. I said things that I shouldn't have dared to say if I'd been cooler; but I'm glad I did! After a while I went back to my room, and I took out my key and hid it. I was afraid she'd lock me in. She did mean to, but for once she got fooled. I lay still as a mouse, hearing her fumble round my door. Finally she went downstairs. When I was sure she'd gone for good I took my key and stole across the hall. Sure enough, it unlocked the door, just as I hoped it would. Oh, that poor child was ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... were, of course, crude enough. It took me a long time to put aside all affectation and make-believe, if I have ever quite succeeded in doing it, and get down to what I really saw and felt. But I think now I can tell dead wood in my writing when I see it—tell when I fumble in my mind, or when my sentences glance off and fail ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... his haughty glance the characteristic outlines of that catastrophe of human genius in conflict with divine chance. All the other historians suffer from being somewhat dazzled, and in this dazzled state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy; in fact, a crumbling of the military monarchy which, to the vast stupefaction of kings, drew all the kingdoms after it—the fall of force, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... farm-kitchen, holding the little wooden box carefully in both his dogskin-gloved hands. He crossed to the hearth, stubbing his toe against a jutting floor-brick, and as he did so he caught his breath. Then he stepped down under the yawning gape of the chimney, and seemed to grope and fumble at the back of the hearth. He raised himself then, stepped back, and called out sharply in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... approval of the conduct of a little boy. Disraeli stopped dead short in his speech and one of the finest bits of comedy I can remember to have seen ensued. He closed his eyes and began very deliberately to fumble about the breast of his frock-coat within and without in search of something which he was evidently not over anxious to find. Alighting at last on the object of this perfunctory search he produced an eyeglass and, still with closed ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... to the minute, he entered his lecture theatre, put his hat on the end of the table as his habit was, and carefully selected a large piece of chalk. It was a joke among his students that he could not lecture without that piece of chalk to fumble in his fingers, and once he had been stricken to impotence by their hiding his supply. He came and looked under his grey eyebrows at the rising tiers of young fresh faces, and spoke with his accustomed studied commonness of phrasing. "Circumstances have arisen—circumstances beyond ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... them a rider appeared close to the front wheel of the buckboard. Waco shrank down in sodden terror. It was the Starr foreman, High-Chin Bob. Waco saw Pat's hand flash to his side, then fumble ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... opened. At first she seemed not to see the anxious countenances bent over her. Then a look of recognition crept into her face, and a wan little smile parted the lips. She lifted one hand and began to fumble feebly in the bosom of ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... that sort of thing to the doctors, but I guess he took a hand in it himself," he muttered, continuing to fumble with the knives in the drawer. It was no time to ask questions, and I did not. Kennedy rapidly stowed away the things in his pockets. One bottle he opened and held to his nose. I could distinguish ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... the hand which seemed always to fumble at her throat in moments of strain. He pulled down the black kimono and dragged her under the light, forcing her back against the white cabin. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Arthurs Bosome, if euer man went to Arthurs Bosome: a made a finer end, and went away and it had beene any Christome Childe: a parted eu'n iust betweene Twelue and One, eu'n at the turning o'th' Tyde: for after I saw him fumble with the Sheets, and play with Flowers, and smile vpon his fingers end, I knew there was but one way: for his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen, and a Table of greene fields. How now Sir Iohn (quoth I?) what man? be a good cheare: so a cryed out, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... look simple enough on paper; they take no account of that "personal element" which is everything in the south, of the ruffled tempers of those gorgeous but inert creatures who, disturbed in their siestas or mandolin-strummings, may keep you waiting half a day while they fumble ominously over some dirty-looking scrap of paper. For on such occasions they are liable to provoking fits of conscientiousness. This is all very well, my dear sir, but—Ha! Where, where is that certificate of origin, that stamp, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... triumphant; but when the Dame caught sight of Jan's slate, without minutely examining his work, she said, "Zo thee's been scraaling on thee slate, instead of writing thee figures," and at once began to fumble beneath ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... kept for one's friends! The tears stood in Diego's black eyes when he heard; and Diego was no weakling, but a straight-backed stoic of an Indian, who stood almost as tall as the Senor Jack himself and who could throw a full-grown steer to the ground by twisting its head. He bowed low and turned to fumble the sweet, dried grasses in Surry's manger; and beneath his coarse shirt the feel of the rawhide was sweeter than the embrace of ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... to her with an unspeakable vividness that in all probability she would pay the penalty on both sides of the grave. Awakening from one awful dream, she would, after listening to the stillness of the night for a time, lapse into another. Again she would suddenly awake and begin to fumble her rosary and repeat selections from a Catholic prayer book. Would she dare to turn back? Behind her was certain death; before her, the possibility of life. ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... little old lady rather arduously alight, pause, and look up at his darkened windows, and after a momentary hesitation, and a word over her shoulder to the cabman, stoop and fumble at the iron latch. He watched her with a kind of wondering aversion, still scarcely tinged with curiosity. She had succeeded in lifting the latch and in pushing her way through, and was even now steadily advancing towards him along the tiled ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... found him in bed in a most deplorable condition. Nevertheless, he received me with the greatest kindness, and wished to inspect the medals and the dies. He sent for spectacles and lights, but was unable to see anything clearly. Then he began to fumble with his fingers at them, and having felt them a short while, he fetched a deep sigh, and said to his attendants that he was much concerned about me, but that if God gave him back his health he ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... moving. She looked like a wounded bird, and the man, thinking he must have hurt her in some way, followed her to pick her up and see what the trouble was. Three times he almost got her. Almost, but not quite. Crippled as she seemed, she could still fumble and flutter just out of reach; and when at last the man had followed her to a corner of the roof far from her young, Mother Nomer sprang up, and spreading her long, pointed wings, took flight, whole and sound as ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... with the growing day; And in the cold dawn light her hair is grey: Her lifted arms are naught but bone: her hands White withered claws that fumble as she stands Trying to pin that wisp into its place. O Philip, I must look upon her face There in the mirror. Nay, but I will rise And peep over her shoulder ... Oh, the eyes That burn out from that face of skin and bone, Searching my ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... safe and reasonable contrivance for occupying the attention of the country, and is certainly a better way of settling questions than by push of pike. Yet, if one should ask it why it should not rather be called government by gabble, it would have to fumble in its pocket a good while before it found the change for a convincing reply. As matters stand, too, it is beginning to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit at Westminster and Washington or in the editors' rooms of the leading journals, so thoroughly is everything ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... particular to whom he gave up the letters, so that he got rid of them somehow, and could set off homewards), he would say he thought that he had, for such was his invariable safe form of answer; and would fumble in breast-pockets, waistcoat-pockets, breeches-pockets, and, as a last resource, in coat-tail pockets; and at length try to comfort me, if I looked disappointed, by telling me, 'Hoo had missed this toime, but was sure to write to-morrow;' 'Hoo' ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... an old curio in the form of a Phoenix, I dare say the Board—' said the nice gentleman, as Robert began to fumble with his buttons. ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... This is the Banto[u] San of the Shimaya of Honjo[u] Itcho[u]me. He is collecting the house bills. Deign not to disturb him."—"Shut up!" was the reply of the leader. "Another fellow of the same kidney. Look to him." Roughly he thrust his hand into Zensuke's bosom and began to hustle and fumble the clerk. When Jugoro[u] would interfere the two other men prevented him. With fright he saw the money belt of the banto[u] dangling from the man's hand. The nature of the affair was plain. ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... within a couple of inches from the desk-chair, and which consisted of a trap-door, the width of a board in the flooring and the length of a man's fore-arm and no longer; a trap-door that falls back like the lid of a box; a trap-door through which I can see a hand come and dexterously fumble at the pocket of a ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... The Athenian began to fumble in his belt for an obol, when he was rudely distracted by a twitch upon his chiton. Turning, he was little pleased to come face to face with no less a ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the letter which lay on the table in front of him and unfolded it. He glanced at it and then put it down and began to fumble in his pocket. ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... you, little girl," he muttered, and withdrew his head and shoulders to fumble fiercely for his pipe. Courage in the woman he loves will move a man as never will her tears. There is also gratitude ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... day light!" said Lisbeth, almost in a whisper. She was sitting half turned from me, her gaze fixed on the bend of the river, and by chance her restless hand had found and begun to fumble with ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... here gave utterance to a loud, contemptuous laugh, and began to fumble somewhat ostentatiously with ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... had been knocked from his hand. The only light came from the open trap in the floor above. Something fell softly at his feet; he picked it up. It was a cloth, saturated with chloroform. He flung it from him, and began with a new haste to grope and fumble for ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... For a moment he lay without motion, then (his face a-twitch with the effort) he came slowly to his elbow, gazed about him and so back to me again. Then I saw his hand creep down to the dagger at his hip, to fumble weakly there—howbeit, at the third essay he drew the blade and began to creep towards me. Very slowly and painfully he dragged himself along, and once I heard him groan, but he stayed not till he was come within striking distance, yet was he sore wounded and so weak withal that he was fain ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... that in all probability she would pay the penalty on both sides of the grave. Awakening from one awful dream, she would, after listening to the stillness of the night for a time, lapse into another. Again she would suddenly awake and begin to fumble her rosary and repeat selections from a Catholic prayer book. Would she dare to turn back? Behind her was certain death; before her, the possibility of life. ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... Jimmie Dale was standing against the door on the outside. His position was perfectly natural—a hundred passers-by would have noted nothing but a most commonplace occurrence—a man in the act of entering a store. And, if he appeared to fumble and have trouble with the latch, what of it! Jimmie Dale, however, was not fumbling—hidden by his back that was turned to the street, those wonderful fingers of his, in whose tips seemed embodied and concentrated every ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... youthful vanity, however, can be forgiven to those who are generous and faithful. Besides, Margaret Fuller was splendidly domestic. She advocated women's rights to a certain extent; but she was no forerunner to the modern brood of platform women who fumble their night-keys while they discourse on the duties of wives and mothers. She carried a helping hand into the families that she entered, as well as stirring all the inmates to an unwonted mental activity. She would knit socks while she talked Plato: but the best testimony to her character ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... young fellow nodded. "Very well!" Something in the tone of the last words, some accent of desperation, caused Buddy to raise his head. He was in time to see Margie fumble with her purse and extract something therefrom; to Buddy's eyes it resembled a bottle. "There is no use fighting any more. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... said. The next day at noon, punctual to the minute, he entered his lecture theatre, put his hat on the end of the table as his habit was, and carefully selected a large piece of chalk. It was a joke among his students that he could not lecture without that piece of chalk to fumble in his fingers, and once he had been stricken to impotence by their hiding his supply. He came and looked under his grey eyebrows at the rising tiers of young fresh faces, and spoke with his accustomed studied commonness of phrasing. "Circumstances ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... the first baseman the pitcher should cover the base, and if the hit is slow or if the baseman fumbles it he may still have time to toss the ball to the pitcher. The pitcher should not wait until he sees the fumble before starting, but the instant the hit is made go for the base; he will then be there and ready to receive the ball and not be forced to take it on the run. So, too, the occasion may arise when he should cover second or third, where some combination ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... man that I used to be!'—is beyond the comprehension of the friendly peasants; Clive's "fear" is as much misunderstood by his auditor as his courage by the soldiers; the "foolishness" of Muleykeh equally illudes his Arab comrades; the Russian villagers, the Pope, and the lord have to fumble through a long process of argument to the conclusion which for Ivan had been the merest matter of fact from the first. Admirable in its quiet irony is the contrast between the stormy debate over his guilt or innocence and his ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... frantically trying to remove his diving helmet again. Excitement made his motions ineffective, and he signaled for Farmer to help him, then continued to fumble with the fastenings himself. John Andrew turned, feeling completely doomed, to aid the man, and they started getting in each other's way and slowing down ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw
... very safe and reasonable contrivance for occupying the attention of the country, and is certainly a better way of settling questions than by push of pike. Yet, if one should ask it why it should not rather be called government by gabble, it would have to fumble in its pocket a good while before it found the change for a convincing reply. As matters stand, too, it is beginning to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit at Westminster and Washington or in the editors' rooms of the leading journals, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... had taken to calling him Pa; got it from the children. "You best strike the tuning fork and sing a tune or two before you start. Gets your throat limbered up and going smooth." Philomel had come to wait for her urging. Then he would fumble in his waistcoat pocket for the tuning fork and tapping it to chair rim or bootheel, he'd hold it to his ear, pitch the tune, and sing a verse or two of this ballad and of that. Then when he started forth on a winter's night, "Mind ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... White Linen Nurse began to fumble through the pages of her memorandum book. "I've always had money enough to 'go slow and make things perfectly right,'" she confided a bit wistfully. "Never in all my life have I had a pair of boots that weren't guaranteed, or ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... shook his head pityingly. "It's already too late. I'm sorry." He bent his head guiltily and began to fumble with ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... make a nice fumble, wouldn't we, if we didn't wear the uniform? What would it be—a month in the brig on hard ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... fingers shaking so that it was with great difficulty that she managed the bag's clasp, she opened the receptacle, and, with accelerating nervousness which made her feel and fumble, took from it a small box—a jeweler's box. Slowly she returned to him, her feet dragging as if weighted; slowly, as she stood before him, drooping, frightened, she took off the cover of the little box, her heart hammering till it seemed as if it must burst ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... if Hugh spent such a day alone, his thoughts seemed to have the same enlightening and invigorating quality. He did not fumble among dreary details, but saw swiftly into the essence of things, so that he smiled as he sate. A book would, on such occasions, touch into life a whole train of pretty thoughts, as a spark leaps along a scattered line ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... door—unless, indeed, it were a dead man retracing his steps by some mysterious impulse, such as even the dead might feel? Trenholme's heart beat low with the thought as he heard a heavy body bump clumsily against the baggage-room door and a hand fumble at its latch. There was enough light shining through his window to have shown any natural man that the small door of his room was the right one by which to enter, yet the fumbling at ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... spring and it plays, 'She's a Daisy, She's a Dumpling.' I borrowed it and put it in Pa's pistol pocket, where he keeps his tobacco box, and when the choir got most through singing Pa reached his hand in his pocket and began to fumble around for a chew. He touched the spring, and just as everybody bowed their heads to receive the benediction, and it was so still you could hear a gum drop, the music box began to play, and in the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... he's not in hell. He's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child. 'A parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. "How now, Sir John!" quoth I; "what, man! be o' good cheer." So 'a cried out, "God, God, God!" three or four times. Now I, ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... porch, slipped into the bar, and thence into the hall. Dan motioned to Tom to conceal himself in a closet beneath the stairway, and he himself slipped behind the clock. Hardly were they safely hidden thus, than they heard a fumble at the latch of the door into the bar. Then the door was pushed open, and the Marquis stepped cautiously in the hall. He paused for a moment, listening intently. Then he held open the door a little wider; and ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... on till, though she held the page close to her eyes, she seemed to fumble over the words. She was by then at the end of the instalment, and when she put the magazine down she pressed her fingers to her lids and complained that her eyes hurt her. "They often do," she said; "it's a good ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... match . . . Ha! at last my garret. Fumble at the latch, Close the door and bar it. Bed, you graciously Wait, despite my scorning . . . So, bibaciously Mad old world, ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... path across the floor wavered suddenly, the door opened, was locked again, and with a quick, catlike step a man moved along the side of the wall where the shadows lay thickest near the door, dropped on his knees, and began to fumble hurriedly with the base-board of the wall, pausing at every alternate second ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... was opened and dropped with an exclamation of disappointment. The searcher hurried. Penrun calmly noted that the fingers seemed to fumble and were not at all deft at this sort of work. He glanced down, and smiled grimly. A woman! He jerked his body away from the prodding pistol, gripped the slender hand that was about to plunge into his coat pocket, and whirled round, catching the ...
— Loot of the Void • Edwin K. Sloat
... "Take this one first, Perry. Gee, but it's stiff!" They had to fumble several minutes at the wet cable before they got it clear and let it slip over the bow. Then the other was cast off as well and Bert swung the lantern four times above his head as a signal to haul in. An answering ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the matter with this horse; he goes very fumble-footed. I am sometimes afraid he ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them begin to fumble with the pad-lock, and heard ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... turned to fumble with some papers on his desk. The Commissioner sat silent, his eyes wide and a bit shiny. He said nothing for at least half a minute, then, clearing ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... Once in a generation a mysterious wish for war passes through the people. Their instinct tells them that there is no other way of progress and of escape from habits that no longer fit them. Whole generations of statesmen will fumble over reforms for a lifetime which are put into full-blooded execution within a week of a declaration of war. There is no other way. Only by intense sufferings can the nations grow, just as the snake once a year must with anguish slough off the once beautiful ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... took up the attack. Again the sickening stench was about them as gaping jaws gleamed fiery beneath the hateful eyes and tore at the flimsy structure. Thorpe jammed more cartridges into the gun and fired again and again, then dropped the weapon to fumble for the rockets that Brent had ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... who had saved the whiskey stumbled to his feet, and leaning against a pile of lumber stood open-mouthed, waiting for the preacher's rebuke; but Davis hung his head, and began to fumble for a pipe in his sagging coat pocket; with clumsy fingers, scattering the tobacco from his little bag, he ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... image of the Virgin and Child, and another offered comfits in a box; a third presented the wassail-cup, into which Raby immediately poured some silver, and Coventry followed his example. Grace fumbled for her purse, and, when she had found it, began to fumble in ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... was in the drain, and when he heard the bailiff's heavy footsteps, and the noise he made fumbling about with the trap, he laughed, and said to himself: "Fumble away, you old stupid—I know what you are doing. You are setting up a gin in the same place you have set it twenty times before. Twenty times you have set the gin up there and never caught anything, and yet you cannot see, and you ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... her presents to other members of the party under the very noses of the givers, to let them see what she thinks of their choice. The great idea is to sit down by her quickly when you see her begin to fumble with something you would like to have. I got quite a nice bag that way ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... plays. Meet the ball; don't wait for it to get to you. That applies to you backs," and he nodded at Tom and his two mates. "Quarter, don't fumble when you pass the ball back. Be accurate. Don't make a mistake ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... the latter broke like paper, and the first streamed through for a dozen yards. And so it went until the second found itself only a few yards from its goal line. There, with the backs pressed close against the forwards, the second held and secured the ball on downs, only to lose it again by a fumble on the part of Post. Then a delayed pass gained two yards for the first and a mass at left tackle found another. But the next play resulted disastrously, for when the ball was passed back there was no one to take it, and the quarter was borne back several yards ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... pain and thirst, the wounded German hesitates between suspicion and pity, but pity gets the upper hand, and he crawls with his water bottle to the Russian. Later, as he lies helpless, his fears are aroused by seeing the Russian fumble with something in his breast. Is it a revolver? The wounded German, overstrained with suffering, waits in terror, but the Russian dies before his hand can bring out what it sought. When the stretcher bearers come the German ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... treated each year? Tough, independent Senator Dan Fowler fights a one-man battle against the clique that seeks perpetual power and perpetual youth, in this hard-hitting novel by Alan E. Nourse. Why did it have to be his personal fight? The others fumble it—they'd foul it up, Fowler protested? But why was he in the fight and what was to happen to Senator Fowler's fight against this fantastic conspiracy? Who ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... hands—with both huge arms go stretch Along the black wall of thy cellar. Nay, There may be some odd thing hidden away? Who knows—there may! Those great hands might so come In course of ghastly fumble through the gloom, Upon a sword—a sword! The hands once clasp Its hilt, must wield it with a ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... in clearly denned, isolated, intermittent movements, each one of which has a definite beginning and a definite end. As compared with imagination, intuition is passive and receptive; as compared with instinct it does not fumble and grope forward, steadily and tenaciously, among the roots of things; but it suspends itself, mirror-like, upon the surface of the unfathomable waters, and suspended there reflects in swift sudden glimpses the mysterious movements of ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... future fame as a bugman, as the fellows irreverently said; 'Stumpy' Smith, a demon bowler; Polly Lindsay, slow as ever and as sure as when he held the half-back line with Graeme, and used to make my heart stand still with terror at his cool deliberation. But he was never known to fumble nor to funk, and somehow he always got us out safe enough. Then there was Rattray—'Rat' for short—who, from a swell, had developed into a cynic with a sneer, awfully clever and a good enough fellow at heart. Little ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... patience, it seemed, but continued to fumble about, and at last, with his back turned to me, got my lamp lighted. For a moment he stood staring at the wall, as though he lacked the resolution to turn. And when he wheeled I knew that I looked upon the countenance of a man who had been broken on the ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... his head, and commenced his afternoon work; then there came up the hill the sound of the school-bell, but Tip took no notice of that; he didn't want to think of school, much less even go. He began to fumble presently for his Bible,—he must have some help. It opened of itself at the Psalms, and he read the first line which he saw: "Unto Thee, O God, do we give thanks "—No, not that, and he turned back a couple of leaves. "Make ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... it, even to himself, but that answer sounded a lot more probable. Machine technicians weren't exactly picked off the streets at random; they were highly trained for their work, and the idea of a whole crew of them starting to fumble at once, in a big way, was a little ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a surprise as the lunch. He watched the woman fumble over lighting the fire in the stove until he could stand ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... a little piece of wood out of his pocket, also a steel nail, and with the latter tapped several times upon the bit of veneering. Immediately they saw the sitting boy begin to fumble, as though he might be getting something out of his pocket. Then came an answering series of staccato taps, ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... honour of Pan, which comes so soon in Endymion! The dim rich depths of the dark forests are stirred by it, and its murmurs die away, over the wailing spaces of the marshes. Obscure growths, and drowsy weeds overhanging moon-lit paths, where fungoid things fumble for light and air, hear that cry in their voluptuous dreams and move uneasily. The dumb vegetable expectancy of young tree-trunks is roused by it into sensual terror. For this is the sound of the hoof of Pan, stamping ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... who in moments of strong feeling could not strike out a poetical thought, and afterwards polish it so as to be presentable. But men of sense know better than so to waste their time; and those who sincerely love poetry, know the touch of the master's hand on the chords too well to fumble among them after him. Nay, more than this, all inferior poetry is an injury to the good, inasmuch as it takes away the freshness of rhymes, blunders upon and gives a wretched commonalty to good thoughts; and, in general, adds to ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... the captain, rising. "Ye see," he said, apologetically, "we got to talking o' Roger and ole times, and I got a little out o' my course. It's a matter of—" he began to fumble in his pockets, and finally produced a small memorandum-book, which he glanced over—"it's ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... grasped his arm with one hand, while with the other he seized the lamp. The man cursed, and began to fumble at his belt, as though for a knife, whereon Peter, putting out his strength, twisted his arm so fiercely that in his pain he loosed the lamp, which remained in Peter's hand. The inn-keeper made a grab at it, missed his footing and rolled down ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone; For men were born to pray and save, Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... Argentine. His spirits rose slightly at the prospect before him; his step was fairly light and buoyant as he proceeded in the direction of his bedroom. There was no light in the room, so that he had to fumble about in his pockets for a box of matches which fell from his fingers and dropped on ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... silverstrian things; and from that they said about him it seemed to me that this person was quite white, and was a kind of madness that would settle down quite blankly upon a place, a kind of mist in which reason could not live; and it was the fear of this that made them fumble nervously at the lock of that rotten door; but with the Sphinx it was not so ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... of being glorious to-night, and I made sure to sleep by his side—now he'll be quite sober—and I'll be food for fishes; it's a cold bed that I shall turn into before morning, that's certain. Hand me the cakes, boy, if you can fumble them out; the more we fill ourselves, the less room for salt water. Well, then, wind and waves are great bullies; they fly slap back in a fright when they bang against a great ship; but when they get ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... low, wise and foolish, cultivated and rude. This Teacher does not only impart wisdom by words as from without, though He does that too, but He comes into men's spirits, and communicates Himself, and so makes them wise. Other teachers fumble at the outside, but 'in the hidden parts He makes me to know wisdom.' So it is safe to take this Teacher absolutely, and to say, 'Thou art my Master, Thy word is truth, and the opening of Thy lips to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... "ownness" there's desperate doubt of, And which (if she's nous) you can't keep in your house, nor yet (if she's "savvy") keep out of! What is "Hymen's halter"? I fidget and falter! The Beaks seem to palter and fumble. In such a strange fashion, I fly in a passion, and vow that the world is a jumble. Law seems a wigged noodle, as tame as a poodle, the whole darned caboodle (as 'ARRY sees) Is ructions and "rot," and our "rulers" a lot of confounded old foodles and Pharisees! Yes, that's what I think about Marriage ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various
... man hadn't sense to stop; again and again he flung his insults at the infuriated Sheeley, impatiently fighting off the efforts of his companion who sought to part them. Suddenly Chick saw him step back, while the others were grappling, and fumble in his rear pocket. He saw him steady himself against the door jamb, not four feet away, and raise a pistol. There was a sharp report, a smothered groan, ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... to whimper. "I—I do not know; unless some one has stolen my key." She put a hand down to fumble in ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... disgust. Was it possible? Was this the lady who had charmed him the other day? Who had spoken of England and conjured up the memories of his own home in the Midlands? With a playful gesture, she sent her hat careering across the street and began to fumble at her breast, unlacing or unbuttoning something. It was horrible, in ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... at once obey, Alfred actually began to fumble hastily with the straps that held her riding-skirt in place. This was so unusual in the bashful Alfred that Miss Caldwell roused and ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... some points, seized with his haughty glance the characteristic outlines of that catastrophe of human genius in conflict with divine chance. All the other historians suffer from being somewhat dazzled, and in this dazzled state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy; in fact, a crumbling of the military monarchy which, to the vast stupefaction of kings, drew all the kingdoms after it—the fall of force, the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... gleam came into his eyes. He turned to fumble noisily with the glasses as he replaced them in ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... amusing to hear Madame Poulard talk of the priests stopping the pilgrimages! The priests? Why, that's all they have left them to live upon now. These peasants' are the only pockets in which they can fumble nowadays." ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... now, that whined before, That pried and tried and trod so gingerly, Till in its silkiness the trap-teeth join; Then you know how the bristling fury foams. They listen, this wrapped in his folds of red, While his feet fumble for the filth below; The other, as beseems a stouter heart, Working his best with beads and cross to ban The enemy that come in like a flood Spite of the standard set up, verily And in no trope at all, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... in the same plight. I am waiting for mine." Mrs. Damer hastened to veil her solicitude, which was evidently unwelcome. She caught up her cloak and began to fumble with ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... little sleight-of-hand stunt between Murphy and your nigger is working fine. They not only put it over on the judges, but none of the other owners are wise. I'd try it myself some day if I wasn't afraid somebody would fumble and give ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... but untidy head, was urging them to undo the strings of their great leather purses, and replied to their somewhat indelicate jokes in a shrill voice, as she sat on the knee of the youngest, and allowed him to kiss her and to fumble in her bodice, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... him shuffle a few steps and fumble with a drawer of the desk. In a moment the cold hard butt of a pistol was thrust into his hand. ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... of going out with the economy of staying at home. There was only one hindrance—that I seemed not to know any of the people this brilliant couple had known. I think he wondered extremely, during the term of our intercourse, whom the deuce I DID know. He hadn't a stray sixpence of an idea to fumble for, so we didn't spin it very fine; we confined ourselves to questions of leather and even of liquor- saddlers and breeches-makers and how to get excellent claret cheap- -and matters like "good trains" and the habits of ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... corner is marked out as a part of the "sphere of influence" of anthropology, but there is not the slightest indication of an effective occupation among these raiding considerations and uncertain facts. Until anthropology produces her Daltons and Davys we must fumble in this corner, just as the old alchemists fumbled for centuries before the dawn of chemistry. Our utmost practice here must be empirical. We do not know the elements of what we have, the human characteristics we are working upon to get that end. The sentimentalized affinities ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... Jackson began to fumble with weak and trembling hands about his throat, to undo his shirt-collar,—he would not let me help him,—and presently, flushed and panting from the effort, he drew out a length of delicate Panama chain fastened rudely together by a link of copper ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... up," remarked Tom, as he tooted his horn and waved his flag, and Sam followed suit. Then the fun-loving Rover placed his horn under his arm and began to fumble at something in ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... skill, she can easily and at any time outdistance the most brilliant high-school graduate, for skill is her education, and she handles, and fingers, and computes sometimes many thousands of delicate threads, or intricate bits of metal, the slightest fumble of which might throw out of gear a powerful machine. This is applied mathematics, is it not? She uses no pencil nor paper, but counts by allowing one line to overlap another at every five hundred cards, done in some fine print work, and ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... moistened his dry lips, thrust out his chest, and after a momentary fumble, stuck three ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... hee's not in Hell: hee's in Arthurs Bosome, if euer man went to Arthurs Bosome: a made a finer end, and went away and it had beene any Christome Childe: a parted eu'n iust betweene Twelue and One, eu'n at the turning o'th' Tyde: for after I saw him fumble with the Sheets, and play with Flowers, and smile vpon his fingers end, I knew there was but one way: for his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen, and a Table of greene fields. How now Sir Iohn (quoth I?) what man? be a good cheare: so a cryed out, God, God, God, three or foure times: now I, to comfort ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... won it I telegraphed to the Morning Post that now at last success was a distinct possibility. With this important feature in our possession it was certain that we held the key to Ladysmith, and though we might fumble a little with the lock, sooner or later, barring the accidents of war, ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... wading in the torrent Of high excitement, snatch me from the riot— (Fool that he is)—and fumble with his warrant, And hail a hearse, and beg me to ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... coming spring, when the roads would be open and the days warm. Confident of his perfect security on the peninsula, and possessed by a sneaking, but denied, abhorrence for rush and discomfort, he rejoiced at delay. So, having left his snug bed to fumble about in the dark for his clothes, and, these donned, having loosed his speech before the grateful blaze in the fireplace, he did not argue fatigue or freezing as an excuse for procrastination; he passed over these rather too briefly and enlarged upon ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... subjective first principles in the development of his system; and it was not until adopted by Kant, or rather by Fichte, that the transcendental method showed its true colours. Even today philosophers fumble with it, patching soliloquy with physics and physics with soliloquy. Moreover, Locke's misunderstandings of Descartes were partly justified by the latter's verbal concessions to tradition and authority. A man who has a clear head, and like Descartes is rendered by his aristocratic pride ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... and there, sure enough, was the oak itself. Kneeling down, he slipped off his burden and pushed it through a jagged hole at the root. Then he glanced round him, a long, stealthy look, down at the earth and up at the sky, and crept into the tree. In the dimness I could see him fumble for the thing he wanted, pause to thumb its edge, and, throwing up his chin, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... them hereditary, had welcomed the two apparitors (if that be the proper name for them) and led them kindly down the valley, and told them then to serve their writ. Misliking the look of things, these poor men began to fumble among their clothes; upon which the Doones cried, "off with them! Let us see if your message he on your skins." And with no more manners than that, they stripped, and lashed them out of the valley; only bidding them come to us, if they wanted ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... face, the Tigers made one last desperate rally and in doing so called repeatedly on Kelly, with the result that with this star carrying the ball in nearly every rush the Princeton eleven carried the ball fifty-five yards up the field only to lose it at last on a fumble to Jim Rodgers. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... plainsman born and bred, the other a sergeant of cavalry. They dismount in the timber and picket their horses, then follow on foot the lead of their companion of the guard. While the corporal and the scout proceed to the wagon-fly and fumble at the opening, the tall sergeant stands silently a little distance in their rear, and the occupants of a neighboring shelter—the counterpart of the colonel's—begin to stir, as though their light slumber had been broken by the smothered sound of footsteps. One of them sits up ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... to begin!" and see and hear BALFE'S pretty little Girl of Bohemia while she is still visible and audible at Drury Lane. Mr. EADIE a trifle gawky as Thaddeus, but then he finds himself in an awkward situation, especially when he has to fumble for the documentary evidence of his birth, attested at a Bohemian Registry Office. CARL ARMBRUSTER conducted this, and then up got Herr FELD "with his little lot," represented by the unrivalled and unequalled Cavalleria Rusticana. Ah! Cavalleria is a treat, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... herself and two men,—an interval of a year between each,—and there had also been a kiss in an alcove designed by her dearest friend, Ella Linton, for the undoing of mankind, a place of softened lights and shadowy palms. It was her recollection of these incidents that had caused her to fumble with the blind cord when her father had been suggesting to her the disadvantages of inexperience in matters of the heart. But the incidents had led to nothing, except, perhaps, a week or two of remorse. But she could not help ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... speckled from the night before, so I handed him the fruit-lozenges, and went to pack my own box. Cousin Egbert I found sitting as I had left him, on the edge of a chair, carefully holding his hat, stick, and gloves, and staring into the wall. He had promised me faithfully not to fumble with his cravat, and evidently he had not once stirred. I packed my box swiftly—my "grip," as he called it—and we were presently off once more, without another sight of the Honourable George, who was to join us at tea. I could hear him moving about, using rather ultra-frightful ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... silver ribbon on the dark bosom of the meadow, was before me. Grasses and weeds were laden with dew, and the water whirled and whispered about the roots. I could have believed that the purling formed itself into words when I knelt down to fumble for the snake-bite cure. I would not let myself be scared. I kept saying over and over—"To save his life! to ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... We fumble and light up. They leave us our pipes, tobacco and matches; presently, one knocks with his pipe on the iron trap of the door and asks for water, which is brought in a tin pint-pot. Then follow ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... to decipher. When I used to inquire if he had anything for me, or for Holdsworth (he was not particular to whom he gave up the letters, so that he got rid of them somehow, and could set off homewards), he would say he thought that he had, for such was his invariable safe form of answer; and would fumble in breast-pockets, waistcoat-pockets, breeches-pockets, and, as a last resource, in coat-tail pockets; and at length try to comfort me, if I looked disappointed, by telling me, 'Hoo had missed this toime, but was sure to ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... tightening his fingers about his throat. As he did, Forrest writhing in the chair under his attack, began to fumble with his hand at his hip as if instinctively seeking something there. Stephen's eyes followed the movement, even while he, too, relaxed his hold to seize with his free hand the arm of his adversary. Only for a moment, however; for he immediately felt himself seized ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... once Ken saw a bloody finger. It was cold in the cage. Even an ordinarily hit ball must have stung the hands, and the way a hard grounder cracked was enough to excite sympathy among those scornful spectators, if nothing more. But they yelled in delight at every fumble, at everything that happened. Ken kept whispering to himself: "I can't see the fun in it. ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... very weak himself. As I shout down the hole to encourage him, the coon, with one final effort, wrests himself free from the dog and comes scuttling out of the hole. With undignified haste I back away from the outlet and fumble a blunt arrow on the string, and I am just in time, for here comes one of the maddest and one of the sickest coons I ever saw. With a hasty shot back of the ear, I bowl him over and put him out of his misery. Turning him over with my foot ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... sill. They fumble on the wall. They stretch to reach the gun which stands beside the clock. Another inch and they will grasp it and Red Joe will be saved. The arm rubs against the pendulum of the clock. It swings and the clock starts to tick. ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... to the girl, keeping his eyes on the Easterners, and his weapon steady. He had hung the wire coil over his shoulder, leaving his left hand free to fumble for and untie the cords around Naomi's ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... his most awful attributes. And yet she comforted herself with the thought, that, as he had forgiven her ignorance, she herself might surely forget it. Happy Lizzie, I envy you this easy path to knowledge! The volume she most frequently consulted was an old German "Faust," over which she used to fumble with a battered lexicon. The secret of this preference was in certain marginal notes in pencil, signed "J.". I hope they were really of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... peradventure, whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty; considering him something in the light of a culprit at the bar; when they were brought to a pause by seeing him lay down his pipe and begin to fumble with his walking-staff. For a moment those present would not have given half a crown for both the crowns of the commissioners; but Peter Stuyvesant repressed his mighty wrath and stayed his hand; he scanned the varlets from head to foot, satchels and all, with a look of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Bellamy had been the name of the gentleman who, a year and a half before, was to have met Pandora on the arrival of the German steamer; it was in Bellamy's name that she had addressed herself with such effusion to Bellamy's friend, the man in the straw hat who was about to fumble in her mother's old clothes. This was a fact that seemed to Count Otto to finish the picture of her contradictions; it wanted at present no touch to be complete. Yet even as it hung there before him it continued to fascinate him, and he stared at it, detached from surrounding ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... attached. After the mayor had fulfilled his office so well, General Grant said: "Mr. Mayor, as I knew that this ceremony was to occur, and as I am not used to speaking, I have written something in reply." He then began to fumble in his pockets, first his breast-coat pocket, then his pants, vest; etc., and after considerable delay he pulled out a crumpled piece of common yellow cartridge-paper, which he handed to the mayor. His whole manner ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... of his own greatness were expressing his approval of the conduct of a little boy. Disraeli stopped dead short in his speech and one of the finest bits of comedy I can remember to have seen ensued. He closed his eyes and began very deliberately to fumble about the breast of his frock-coat within and without in search of something which he was evidently not over anxious to find. Alighting at last on the object of this perfunctory search he produced an eyeglass and, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... English are, in general, the worst linguists in the world, seeing that they pursue a system diametrically opposite? For example, when they attempt to speak Spanish, the most sonorous tongue in existence, they scarcely open their lips, and putting their hands in their pockets, fumble lazily, instead of applying them to the indispensable office of gesticulation. Well may the poor Spaniards exclaim, THESE ENGLISH TALK SO CRABBEDLY, THAT SATAN HIMSELF WOULD NOT ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Alcove with four Volumes that were being dissected at the drawing-room Clinics, she took a hack at the first and last Chapter of each. Just enough to protect her against a Fumble if she found herself next to a ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... blue eyes opened. At first she seemed not to see the anxious countenances bent over her. Then a look of recognition crept into her face, and a wan little smile parted the lips. She lifted one hand and began to fumble feebly in ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... a pair of violet eyes and a pair of the most mysterious gray, I began to fumble in my ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... if you should sympathize too much with your brother, you might fumble at the right time or make a poor play which ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... names!" retorted the officer brutally. The other officer came up and began to fumble for a note book in the breast of his dirty tunic. When he found it he licked the lead of his pencil and squinted at the ex-Empress out of ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... she answered. "I had—I wanted to—" And suddenly she commenced to fumble with her hand-bag; she brought forth a package of money which she placed before him on the desk. Her hands trembled so violently that she disarranged the bills, she even dropped a few; she stooped down and picked them up and stammered: "Take it, please; don't say ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... into my pocket, and there I found the greater part of a ship's biscuit, which, as I was quitting the cabin, I had mechanically thrust into it. I almost shouted for joy as I found the prize—though it was not much to be divided among four men. The discovery made the rest fumble in their pockets. McTavish had a tobacco-box, which he had only just filled, and Jack found a huge lump of grease, which, though not very savoury, was not to be despised. How it had come there he could not recollect. These treasures, however, we determined not to begin ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... are connected by a loop of fringe, a couple of cords not always tied, or anything that comes handy, apparently for ornament. Now, when the husband feels moved to demonstrate his affection for his spouse by administering a beating, he is not obliged to fumble and grope among those straight folds for the awkward triangular little opening, quite unsuited to accommodate his fist. He can grasp her promptly by the neck of her chemise and this comfortable semicircle, and not force her to doubt his love by delay and hesitation in expression. I asked the pretty ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... her drinkings, Miss Todd might have been taken as an example by all the ladies of Littlebath. Sir Lionel's personal appearance has been already described. Considering his age, he was very well preserved. He was still straight; did not fumble much in his walk; and had that decent look of military decorum which, since the days of Caesar and the duke, has been always held to accompany a hook-nose. He had considered much about his toilet; indeed, he did that habitually; but on this occasion he had come to the conclusion ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... sent me by post. Mother did not know that it had come. We can't be friends until you've owned yourself in the wrong. We've all joined a Compact to get our friend back again and to show that it wasn't he who did it. I've got it with me,' and Tricksy began to fumble in ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... form of benevolence an agreeable sensation. I saw that I had done what the man wished and expected from me. But if I stopped the poor man, and sympathetically questioned him about his former and his present life, I felt that it was no longer possible to give three or twenty kopeks, and I began to fumble in my purse for money, in doubt as to how much I ought to give, and I always gave more; and I always noticed that the poor man left me dissatisfied. But if I entered into still closer intercourse with the poor ...
— The Moscow Census - From "What to do?" • Lyof N. Tolstoi
... the blood come back to his body again—on the twenty-five yard line there had been a fumble and the advance was checked. Twice again the battered end of the Kennedy was forced back for what seemed certain touchdowns, only to be saved by loose work on the Woodhull's part. It was getting dark and the half was ebbing fast—three minutes more ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... blind. In that little room, in the darkness, they seemed to be knocking about from side to side in search of light and an outlet, to be grasping out with powerful but blind hands; they seemed to fall upon the floor, and having fallen, to scrape and fumble with their feet. They hit against everything, groped about for everything, and flung it away, calm and composed, losing ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... is. He p'omised to git me a job up hyeah, an' I got yo' lettah—" here Silas, who had set his bundle on the floor in coming into the Presence, began to fumble in his pockets for the letter. He searched long in vain, because his hands trembled, and he was nervous under the eyes of this great personage who stood unmoved and ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... but when the Dame caught sight of Jan's slate, without minutely examining his work, she said, "Zo thee's been scraaling on thee slate, instead of writing thee figures," and at once began to fumble beneath her chair. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... marvellously. There is no sure way of comparison here. How words do their work in poetry, and how we appreciate the way they do it—this seems to involve the obscurest processes of the mind: analysis can but fumble at it. But we can compare inspiration—the nature of the inmost urgent motive of poetry. And it is not irrelevant to add (it seems to me mere fact), that Milton had the greatest motive that ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie
... with a touchdown in their favor, Colby thought to remain in the lead, they soon had this hope shattered. The Columbus Academy eleven played a fast and snappy second quarter, and, as a result, before it was half over they took the ball on a fumble and circled the ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... Noiselessly the boy reached the hen-house, and when he peered around that he saw to his bewilderment that the thief was Steve. Once more Steve went into the barn, and this time when he come out he began to fumble about his forehead with both hands, and a moment later Jason saw him move toward the gate, masked and armed. A long shrill whistle came from the turnpike and he heard Steve start into a ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... in the form of a Phoenix, I dare say the Board—' said the nice gentleman, as Robert began to fumble with ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
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