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More "Gab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opinion, too," he agreed; "but a fellow needs some help sometimes, if he ain't over handy with the gift of gab." ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... eccentric rod of a steam-engine for fitting a pin in the gab-lever to break the connection with the slide-valves. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... later, while members of the squadron were engaged in the usual after mess gab fest, an orderly entered with a summons for McGee and Larkin to report to Major Cowan. Larkin had just that day secured a misfitting regulation issue uniform from the Supply Officer, Robinson, and the group had been ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... wish,' said Dumbiedikes, 'I were as young and as supple as you, and had the gift o' the gab as weel.'"—Heart ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot', Die uns gab unser Herre Gott Durch Mosen, seinen Diener treu, Hoch auf ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... way," he said, "I am going to make a balloon excursion to-morrow. I didn't mention it to the society because these fellows gab so. There'd be a great crowd round, and I'd only have been hampered. When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better. That is what I have always found. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... gang after gang of rebels have been sent us—Independents, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchy men, dour Scotch Whigamores—dangerous fanatics all! Many are Naseby or Worcester rogues, Ironsides who worship the memory of that devil's lieutenant, Oliver. All have the gift of the gab. We disperse them as much as possible, not allowing above five or six to any one plantation, we of the Council realizing that they form a dangerous leaven. Should there be trouble, which heaven forbid! they would be the instigators, restless mischief-makers and overturners ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... useter flosserfize About the ocean an' the skies; An' gab an' gas f'um morn till noon About the other side the moon; An' 'bout the natur of the place Ten miles beyend the end of space. An' if his wife she'd ask the crank Ef he wouldn't kinder try to yank Hisself out-doors an' git some wood To make her kitchen fire good, So she c'd bake her beans an' ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Uncle Gab. (to himself). For all the notice that stuck-up young swell takes of me, I might be a block of wood! I'll make him listen to me. (Aloud.) Ahem! My Lord, I've just been telling my niece here the latest scandal in high-life. I daresay your Lordship has heard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... of his faces. A son of his, one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He has his gift—he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and Biting Giles, but that grin of his caused him to be noticed by a much greater person than ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the cowman. "Maybe there's more in what Kid says than I thought. He's been cross-questioning Blake all day. You know how little Kid is given to gab. But from the time we started off he kept after Blake like he was cutting out steers ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... Liverpool to Manchester. It so happened that to the quickest and most powerful perceptions and conceptions, to the most indefatigable industry and perseverance, and the most accurate knowledge of the phenomena of nature as they affect his peculiar labours, this man joined an utter want of the 'gift of gab;' he could no more explain to others what he meant to do and how he meant to do it, than he could fly, and therefore the members of the House of Commons, after saying 'There is a rock to be excavated to a depth of more than sixty feet, there ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... said he. "You were all having such a love feast gab-fest when I blew in. This is Mr. Orde, who bosses this place—and most of the country around here. If you want to do good to humanity on this meadow you'd better begin by being good to him. He controls it. He's humanity with a ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... will see them Climbing upon the thatch of their low sties, With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail 400 Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps Of one another's ears between their teeth, To catch the coming hail of comfits in. You, Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab, Make them a solemn speech to this effect: 405 I go to put in readiness the feast Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine, Where, for more glory, let the ceremony Take place of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... young paddy," said uncle Jacob, as he saw the dominie retire; "you have beaten the minister holler. Ha! ha! ha! I am really glad you silenced his gab, for he is 'tarnally blabbing about his religion; though I think he hain't much of it himself, except counterfeit stuff, like a bad bill,—ha! ha!—that he ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... them there Labour members of Parliament—a lot of b—rs what's too bloody lazy to work for their livin'! What the bloody 'ell was they before they got there? Only workin' men, the same as you and me! But they've got the gift o' the gab and—' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... agent. You look as if you had a gift of the gab. A successful life insurance agent will make a good deal more than ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... things to their conclusions which was dangerous, and reminded him of his mother-in-law. He was a baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to understand them, but up to the present he had failed. And this did not surprise him ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the devil haven't you had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... "O thou glib of gab and fair of face, ignore not my case and men's fear of me; and well thou weetest how I assault the strongly walled place and uproot the vines from base. Wherefore, do as I bid thee, and stand before ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Karlych? Have we not labored for you? We are much satisfied with our late mistress—may she enjoy eternal life!—and we are grateful to the young Prince for thinking of us," began a red-haired peasant with a gift of gab. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... a Sunday evenin', d'ye see, gentlemen?—he'd walk across t' valley up there to Whitcliffe and stop an hour or two, enjoyin' hisself. Well, now, as you're no doubt well aweer, Mr. Eldrick, he were a reight hand at talkin', were yon Parrawhite—he'd t' gift o' t' gab reight enough, and talked well an' all. And of course him an' me, we hed bits o' conversation at times, 'cause he come to t' house reg'lar and sometimes o' week-nights an' all. An' he tell'd me 'at he'd had a deal o' experience i' racin' matters—whether it were ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... jaw with your scarf, Jim,' said Murgatroyd. 'When Venables comes he will soon find a way to check his gab. Yes,' he continued, looking at the back of my papers, 'it is marked, as you say, "From James the Second of England, known lately as the Duke of Monmouth, to Henry Duke of Beaufort, President of Wales, by the hand of Captain Micah Clarke, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... impartiality, listen—here's the sum and substance of Mr. Insarov. No talents, none, no poetry, any amount of capacity for work, an immense memory, an intellect not deep nor varied, but sound and quick, dry as dust, and force, and even the gift of the gab when the talk's about his—between ourselves let it be said—tedious Bulgaria. What! do you say I am unjust? One remark more: you'll never come to Christian names with him, and none ever has been on such terms with him. I, of course, as an artist, am hateful to him; and I am proud ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... Hey!" roared Mr. Pawket, with sudden severity. "None of that talk here! You mind your own business, young man. Don't you give us none of that gab." He turned to Mrs. Pawket: "What did I say about that new young feller that's come to teach school? He ain't here for no good—that's what I said!" Mr. Pawket studied the face on the envelope with a sort of curious horror, concluding, "Ef she's what you say she is, see ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... born leader. Of course a leader must have the gift of gab. She's a great talker, isn't she? Takes the conversation right into her own hands and keeps ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... Ayrshire village, meeting his pastor, who had just returned after a considerable absence on account of ill health, congratulated him on his convalescence, and added, anticipatory of the pleasure he would have in hearing him again, "I'm unco yuckie to hear a blaud o' your gab." This is an untranslatable form of saying how glad he should be to hear his minister's voice again speaking to him the words of salvation and of peace ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... to do that," said the delighted Bailie, "for it's a fact. Ye're a fine laddie and have a fearsome power o' the gab (mouth); I expect to see ye in the pulpit yet; but keeps a' it's time I was at the Black Bull, so ye micht juist slip in and tell the Rector I'm at the door—Bailie ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... not a preacher or a Mormon. I haven't got the gift of gab. Charleton is a good talker. ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... down; three on the British side were injured. Meanwhile the force under Major Peakman was protesting at Carter's Farm. The enemy there made a bold effort to silence Peakman. But a Maxim gun has a remarkable gift of the gab; the Major had one with him, and he let it do all the talking—with results that quickly drove the Boers beyond ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... so tha'rt th' new rector, art ta? I thowt as mich as another ud spring up as soon as th' owd un wur cut down. Tha parsens is a nettle as dunnot soon dee oot. Well, I'll leave thee to th' owd lass here. Hoo's a rare un fur gab when hoo' taks th' notion, an' I'm noan so mich i' th' humor t' argufy mysen today." And he took his pipe from the mantelpiece and strolled out with an imperturbable air. But this was not the last of the matter. The Rector went again and again, ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... surrender, on Mr. Dysart's part, of his left hand to the weaker belligerent. "He hates Miss Maliphant, nurse says, though Lady Baltimore wants him to marry her, and she's a fine girl, nurse says, an' raal smart, and with the gift o' the gab, an' ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... "Stow yer gab, Bill!" he said. "When you gits straight an' square, it'll be a round 'ole ye'll 'ave to drop into, mark my wurrd! An' no Dook o' Duncy 'ull pull ye out! This 'ere old friend o' mine don't unnerstand ye wi' yer fustian an' yer galligaskins. 'E's kinder eddicated—got ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... property to a saloonkeeper, or turn it into a moving-picture house and burn people to death in the rotten old fire-trap. And if you don't raise your hand, when I come to you fair and square, with an honest story—if you dare to order me out of here, because you've got to gab a lot of your charity drivel to a board of directors, instead of taking the interest any real man would take in something that was real and vital and eating into the very heart of New York life, I'm going to show you up, and put you ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... didn't know," said Endicott evasively, "that Michael has a great gift of gab! Would you like to stop and have an ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... that have come directly to us from England may be mentioned "throw up the sponge," "draw it mild," "give us a rest," "dead beat," "on the shelf," "up the spout," "stunning," "gift of the gab," etc. ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... it." Jock was in arms at once against any suspected criticism. "He's got more sand than many a blasted heavyweight. You ought to hear his gab—it's the newest thing in soul-saving. Sort o' homeopathic doctrine. Tastes good, but bitter as pisen under the coating. Real stuff inside, and all that. Get's working after it's taken, and the sweet taste lasts in your mouth while your innards are ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... he possessed the gift of gab, as the silver in the tongue and the gold in the full or thick-lipped mouth are oftentimes contemptuously characterized. And like many of his race he was a devoted student of the Bible to whose interpretation he brought like many other Bible students, not confined ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... an hour, children," said Curly. "Cards don't draw me like a good gab round the fire. And ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... meanwhile, Joshua Daunton grew more and more sleek, and pale, and fat. He throve upon our miseries. He played his part at length so well, as to avoid thrashings. He possessed, in perfection, that which, in classic cockpit, is called "the gift of the gab." He was never in the wrong. Indeed, he began to get a favourite with each of the individuals over whom he was so mercilessly tyrannising, while each thought himself the tyrant. All this may seem improbable to well-nurtured, shore-bred young gentlemen and ladies; but midshipmen ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... slight {150f} Each in its cauld hand held a light, - By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; {150g} Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted: Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled; A knife, a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o' life bereft, The grey hairs yet stack to the heft: Wi' ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... Some people have the gift of gab! Some people have no tongues at all To trip them up and ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... his forehead. "How be you, Keziah? What? You ain't all alone! Thought you'd have a cabin full of gab machines by this time. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Hoots! haud yer gab!" cried his polite daughter, leaping from her damp couch into the water, with no other evidence of feeling than a sharp "Hech!" as the cold element laved her limbs. "There's naethin' wrang wi' yer legs, only I've tied them to the table to keep them ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... must get our business finished, and we can talk after. I am offerin' three hundred pounds, twenty acres of land, five cows, six sheep, three clockin' hens, and a clutch of ducklin's, and want to know without any palaverin' or old gab, whether or not yourself and Sir Denis ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... Gab[)a]li, an ancient people of Gaul, inhabiting the country of Givaudan. Their chief city was Anduitum, now Mende, G. vii. 64; they join the general confederacy of Vercingetorix, and give hostages ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... talk that way," the captain warned, "so jist shet yer dirty mouths. I've heard sich gab before, and it doesn't jar me ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... his hard and insensitive nature, he was not the man who in new surroundings would be quick to every whisper of opinion. But he had been born and bred in Barbie, and he knew his townsmen—oh yes, he knew them. He knew they laughed because he had no gift of the gab, and could never be Provost, or Bailie, or Elder, or even Chairman of the Gasworks! Oh, verra well, verra well; let Connal and Brodie and Allardyce have the talk, and manage the town's affairs (he was ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... fairly beaten. Sir Francis Varney was by far too long-headed and witty for him. After now in vain endeavouring to find something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and looking fiercely at Varney, he said,—"I don't pretend to a gift of the gab. D—n me, it ain't one of my peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... neist, wi' bleth'rin' gab, Wha speeches wove like ony wab; O' ilk ane's corn aye took a dab, And a' for a fee; Accounts he owed through a' the toun, And tradesmen's tongues nae mair could drown; But now he thought to clout his goun ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... dirt to canvas. Honest, we could! Say, Mister, lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent end, while you do the polite gab at the main entrance, and if we don't lug away the daily receipts in sugar barrels I'll own the boxin' kangaroos for first cousins. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime! What do you ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... expressing what they wish to say, will—if we except the dozen leading men on each side of the House of Commons—compare with that of the more august assemblage. Nine-tenths of the Victorian members possess at least the gift of the gab. In the excitement of the moment, grammar goes to the winds, and h 's fall thick as leaves in Vallombrosa, but they neither hesitate nor falter in their speech, and are nearly all possessed of a good deal of useful practical ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... and his rough companions! What did all that gab about M'neer Kopperlith mean? There were other questions too; but—Femke had called him brother; and that was one thing which with him was as firm as the ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... "Stow ye gab!" growled the man Tom. "Gi'e him one for 'is nob, Jimmy." But as his nearer captor raised his cudgel, I ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Jimmy, whose fingers were getting sore from the various cuts received from the sharp edges. "Sure, we've got enough for a rigiment, so we have. Just ate up the balance yoursilf, and stow your gab, Nick." ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... gab,' roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. 'You, boy,' he said, addressing John, 'you look as if you had a little pluck in you. Didst never want to be ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... some winter fruit that in December grew; My mither has a silk mantil the waft gaed never through; A sparrow's horn ye soon may find, there's ane on ev'ry claw, And twa upo' the gab o' it, and ye shall get ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... "speech-band." If it is cut in children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot take hold of the mother's ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... it's your place to put out a hand first, and I think I can promise that the day-boys will shake it. Bah! I know I can never talk you round; it's no good attempting to. I'm not in a comic mood, and can't make you laugh, like Cadbury, and I haven't Vickers's gift of the gab. But wasn't last Friday's lesson enough? Wasn't ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... From gab of jay and chatter of crake The dusk wood covered me utterly. And here the tongue of the thrush was awake. Flame-floods out of the low bright sky Lighted the gloom with gold-brown dye, Before dark; and a manifold chorussing Arose of thrushes remote and nigh,— ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... too much to drink,—which he did, after the Danish fashion, far oftener than the rest of Baldwin's men,—he grew rude, boastful, quarrelsome. He would chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades, simply to laugh down a fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty of a true knight. Bitter ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... de batalla campal! Oh! (Prestando atencin, como si oyese algn ruido, y mirando otra vez muy sobresaltado hacia la puerta del foro.) No, nada. Se me ha colgado de los faldones del gabn..., de la corbata, que si tira algo ms me ahoga. ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... along and stow the gab," called Buckrow from the head of the companion, but in suppressed tones. "Keep yer lip shut, the afterguards are on deck here and I don't know where Thirkle is. Slip along and give us a hand with a knife or a gun. Looks like we'll settle the ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... out Lester. "We'll have plenty of time for a gab-fest when we get to Milton. We want to be ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... say, your honor?" asked Chips, scratching his head. "I haven't got the gift of the gab like you gen'l'men have." ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the detectives called on Colonel Clifford to make a private communication; his mate had spotted a swell mobsman, rather a famous character, with the usual number of aliases, but known to the force as Mark Waddy; he was at the Dun Cow; and possessing the gift of the gab in a superlative degree, had made himself extremely popular. They had both watched him pretty closely, but he seemed not to be there for a job, but only on the talking lay, probably soliciting information for some gang of thieves or other. He had been seen to exchange a hasty ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... that," said the delighted Bailie, "for it's a fact. Ye're a fine laddie and have a fearsome power o' the gab (mouth); I expect to see ye in the pulpit yet; but keeps a' it's time I was at the Black Bull, so ye micht juist slip in and tell the Rector I'm at the ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... see Rebecca as a lady doctor, somehow," mused Mrs. Cobb. "Her gift o' gab is what's goin' to be the makin' of her; mebbe she'll lecture, or recite pieces, like that Portland elocutionist that come out here ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the ocean an' the skies; An' gab an' gas f'um morn till noon About the other side the moon; An' 'bout the natur of the place Ten miles beyend the end of space. An' if his wife she'd ask the crank Ef he wouldn't kinder try to yank Hisself out-doors an' git some wood To make her ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the sergeant's back-flung, guarded growl, "quit your gab there! We're gettin' nigh, bhoys—here's th' brush forninst his place . . . must go mighty quiet an' ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... comes into a public-'ouse down my way sometimes. Artful 'Arry, he's called, and, for 'arf-a-quid, say, he'd frighten Uncle Dick 'arf to death. He's big and ugly, and picks up a living by selling meerschaum pipes he's found to small men wot don't want 'em. Wonderful gift o' the gab he's got.' ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... killing you are, you assassinate— Murder's the word for you, Barney McGee! Bold when they're sunny, and smooth when they're showery— Oh, but the style of you, fluent and flowery! Chesterfield's way, with a touch of the Bowery! How would they silence you, Barney machree? Naught can your gab allay, Learned as Rabelais (You in his abbey lay Once on the spree). Here's to the smile of you, (Oh, but the guile of you!) And a long while of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... performed the drudgery and slop-work in many of the fine homes of the upper class? But, after all, Peggy had more to give than receive; for by some means the poor washerwoman did not seem possessed of the "gift of gab." She was lamentably ignorant on many points where Peggy thought, with her advantages, she would have been well-informed and able to answer any question proposed. And so the news-loving housekeeper, though she remembered her master's interests ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... on the carronade—first lieutenant, says he, Send all my merry men aft here, for they must list to me: I havn't the gift of the gab, my sons—because I'm bred to the sea, That ship there is a Frenchman, who means to fight with we. Odds blood, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, I've fought 'gainst every odds—but ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... into you?" he hissed. "You're cross-grained lately. You're sore. Any more of this and I'll swear you're a disorganizer.... Now, Budd, you keep your mouth shut. And you, Cleve, you pay no heed to Budd if he does gab.... We're in bad and all the men have chips on their shoulders. We've got ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... hell do you know about it?" said Farrington fiercely, turning on the man. "What do you put in your gab for?" ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... man—a callant, the folk said—fu' o' book learnin' and grand at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae leevin' experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi' his gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the days o' the moderates—weary ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all the breakfast he wants," Elizabeth's uncle said, with his meager chuckle. "David's as big a donkey as any of 'em, though he hasn't the gift of gab ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... opened for two purposes, viz., speech-making and swallowing; and it never appeared to us that there was any lack either of Bolting or Bellering in the House of Representatives. However notably Honorable Gentlemen may play the game either of Gab or Grab, it isn't so clear that their constituents are much benefited by these accomplishments. If all they want is an open-mouthed Member, why don't the Massachusetts men import a first-class crocodile, and send him to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... is not I that am to blame, but our fine gentleman of a supercargo. He is just like any mortal: he has taken a drink of their Lethe up there, and forgotten to come back to us. He'll be wrestling with the lads, or playing on his lyre, or giving his precious gift of the gab a good airing; or he's off after plunder, the rascal, for what I know: 'tis all in the day's work with him. He is getting too independent: he ought to remember that he belongs to us, one ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... Bowring! man of many tongues, (All over tongues, like rumor) This tributary verse belongs To paint his learned humor. All kinds of gab he knows, I wis, From Latin down to Scottish— As fluent as a parrot is, But far more Polly-glottish. No grammar too abstruse he meets, However dark and verby; He gossips Greek about the streets And often Russ—in urbe. Strange tongues—whate'er you do them call; In short, the man is able ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... his rough companions! What did all that gab about M'neer Kopperlith mean? There were other questions too; but—Femke had called him brother; and that was one thing which with him was as firm as the rock ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... light: By which heroic Tam was able To note, upon the haly table, A murderer's banes, in gibbet-airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape— Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had strangled; A knife a father's throat had mangled, Whom, his ain son o' life bereft— The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft; Wi' mair of horrible and ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... arrow-heads hired a chap with a gift of the gab to tell the others how wrong it was to want things someone else had collared. That was the first lesson in morality, and the preacher, seeing there was money in the game, started the first priesthood. Yes, morality ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... glib of gab and fair of face, ignore not my case and men's fear of me; and well thou weetest how I assault the strongly walled place and uproot the vines from base. Wherefore, do as I bid thee, and stand before me even as the thrall standeth before ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... coat and hand it over. It's mine—I found it. I can stand a crazy man's gab, but when any one tries to do me out of what's my ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... firrups tak' him, ey hadn," replied Ashbead. "Theawst hear aw abowt it if t' will. Ey wur sent be t' abbut down t' hill to Owen o' Gab's, o' Perkin's, o' Dannel's, o' Noll's, o' Oamfrey's orchert i' Warston lone, to luk efter him. Weel, whon ey gets ower t' stoan wa', whot dun yo think ey sees! twanty or throtty poikemen stonding behint it, an they deshes at ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... as a lady doctor, somehow," mused Mrs. Cobb. "Her gift o' gab is what's goin' to be the makin' of her; mebbe she'll lecture, or recite pieces, like that Portland elocutionist that come out here to the ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... here in connection with the brave exploits which Christian knights, while in their cups, may boast that they will accomplish (F.). This practice of boasting was called indulging in "gabs" (Eng. "gab"), a good instance of which will be found in "Le Voyage de Charlemagne a Jeruslaem" (ed. Koschwitz), ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... her on the day before sailing, and she reproached one of the lads for keeping bad company. "Avast, there, granny," interrupted another, who took the chiding to himself. "None of your slack, or I'll put a stopper on your gab." The old woman sprang erect. Levelling her skinny finger at the man, she screamed, "Moon cursers! You have set false beacons and wrecked ships for plunder. It was your fathers and mothers who decoyed a brig to these sands and left me childless ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... him Heliogabalus," said the doctor; "but he is generally known by the name of Gab, which is a more convenient appellation for ordinary use. I picked him up on the road to Santa Fe. I have no great faith in his honesty; but as I wanted an attendant, I engaged him—though I strongly suspect he is a runaway, ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... at the risk of being scolded, or censured, or misunderstood. Your silence and seclusion in the country, at the time when you might be in Paris enjoying all the Parliamentary honors of the Comte de l'Estorade, cause me serious anxiety. You know that your husband's "gift of gab" and unsparing zeal have won for him quite a position here, and he will doubtless receive some very good post when the session is over. Pray, do you spend your life writing him letters of advice? Numa was not so far ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... earliest period, Die Lehre (vol. iii. p. 276), published in Hamburgs Waechter, 1817 (Strodtmann, op. cit. i. 54), does seem to show it. In this the young bee, heedless of motherly advice, does not beware of the candle-flame and so "Flamme gab Flammentod." We at once recognize a familiar Persian thought, and are reminded of Goethe's fine line, "Das Lebend'ge will ich preisen das nach Flammentod sich sehnet." (Selige Sehnsucht, ed. Loeper, ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... though Loughborough "had the gift of the gab in a marvellous degree, he was no lawyer;" and added, "in the house of Lords I get Kenyon or somebody to start some law doctrine, in such a manner that the, fellow must get up to answer it, and then I leave the woolsack, and give him such a thump in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... branches of amputation, from the scalp-lock to the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, dug out, and ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... shot down; three on the British side were injured. Meanwhile the force under Major Peakman was protesting at Carter's Farm. The enemy there made a bold effort to silence Peakman. But a Maxim gun has a remarkable gift of the gab; the Major had one with him, and he let it do all the talking—with results that quickly drove the Boers beyond the range ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... that of silence was not considered to hold a conspicuous place; "a famous cure for lockjaw, from whatever cause it may come on. There was Miss Trowlop—she had a very handsum' mouth and a considerable gift of the gab—was goin' to be married to Mr Shaver, run a hickory splinter through her prunella shoe into her foot—jaw locked as fast as old Ebenezer Gripeall's iron safe. If she'd a-had my Palmyra sarve she'd be still alive, Mrs Shaver, now; 'stead of that, the land-crabs ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... said Endicott evasively, "that Michael has a great gift of gab! Would you like to stop and ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... there? There's time for everyone to give out their chat and their gab, and to do their business and take their ease and have a comfortable life, only the King! The beasts of the field have leave to lay themselves down in the meadow and to stretch their limbs on the green grass in the heat of the day, ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... parishioner in an Ayrshire village, meeting his pastor, who had just returned after a considerable absence on account of ill health, congratulated him on his convalescence, and added, anticipatory of the pleasure he would have in hearing him again, "I'm unco yuckie to hear a blaud o' your gab." This is an untranslatable form of saying how glad he should be to hear his minister's voice again speaking to him the words of salvation and of ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... fer the ranch mail," began Lloyd, "an' Nick Porter was crookin' his elbow a-plenty. And talking a heap, too. In front of the Red Light he had a feller in flashy clothes with a sandy mustache, and the two was goin' it some in the gab line. I was leanin' against the front of the Red Light, at the time, a-readin' a letter, an' I couldn't help hear a little of what them two said. 'Sam'll put down a hole an' blow out a bag o' samples,' says Porter, 'an' bring 'em round about to Mac's. Turkeyfoot'll ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... general, with an air in which authority and supplication were equally prominent, "you've told an awful sight of lies in your time. Don't deny it, now—nobody that ever reads the papers will b'leeve you. Now's yer chance to put yer gift of gab to a respectable use. The lady's bothered, and wants to say somethin' or ask somethin', and she'll understand your lingo better'n mine. Fire away ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... every one in the whole room burst out laughing, and even dowager lady Chia broke out in laughter while she observed: "Do you listen to that mouth? I myself am looked upon as having the gift of the gab, but why is it that I can't talk in such a wise as to put down this monkey? Your mother-in-law herself doesn't dare to be so overbearing in her speech; and here you are jabber, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... as if you had a gift of the gab. A successful life insurance agent will make a good deal more than ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... "I'm not a preacher or a Mormon. I haven't got the gift of gab. Charleton is a good ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... Latin lesson, de scientia media, and sustenit the disputt thairupon, and was approven in both. The following ministers were present, Mr. Patrik Gillespie, Mr. David Dicksone, Doctor Jhone Strang, Mr. Zach. Boyde, Mr. George Young, Mr. Hew Blair, Mr. Gab. Conyngham, Mr. David Benett, Mr. Matthew Mackill. Mr. Wm. Young, Mr. Arch. Dennestoune, Mr. Jhone Carstaires, Mr. James Hamilton." The presbytery "ordaines Mr. Hugh Binnen to make ye exercise this daye fyfteen dayes, and the rest of his tryels ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... smoked glass, to watch her sail 400 Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps Of one another's ears between their teeth, To catch the coming hail of comfits in. You, Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab, Make them a solemn speech to this effect: 405 I go to put in readiness the feast Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine, Where, for more glory, let the ceremony Take place of the uglification ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... for him to gab all he wants to about his cars and things. By the time we go back to the Post to-night, if we see him again, I'll bet you he tells us what his father is worth and just how many gold chairs they ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... notch on the eccentric rod of a steam-engine for fitting a pin in the gab-lever to break the connection with ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... as he prepared to leave, "to look sharp if you see a forty-five-year-old damsel, with a little bright red face, all ears an' no chin, like the ace o' hearts. That'll be Miss Pickett. She'll have with her, like as not, a stout married lady, all gab an' gizzard, like a crow, an' a mouth like a new buttonhole. That'll be Mrs. Pennycook. Look out ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... while members of the squadron were engaged in the usual after mess gab fest, an orderly entered with a summons for McGee and Larkin to report to Major Cowan. Larkin had just that day secured a misfitting regulation issue uniform from the Supply Officer, Robinson, and the group had been having a great deal of fun ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... now I crave of thee, when thou comest back to the Tofts, to bid Jack fall upon other lands than Meadham when he rideth, because of the gift and wedding that I give thee now. So, lad, I deem that thou hast chosen thy part; but let not the tale thereof go out of thy mouth, or thou wilt gab away thy wedding. Lo, thou, I leave this door open behind me; and presently shall the smith come here to do away thine irons; and I shall send a squire to thee to lead thee to a fair chamber, and to bring thee goodly ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... tower may never stand tall, unless its stones and lime are slaked with thy blood—the blood of a fatherless man." "Lord God," cried Merlin, "believe not that my blood will bind your tower together. I hold them for liars who told over such a gab. Bring these prophets before me who prophesy so glibly of my blood, and liars as they are, liars I will prove them to be." The king sent for his sorcerers, and set them before Merlin. After Merlin had regarded them curiously, one by one, "Masters," said he, "and mighty magicians, tell us now I pray ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... only the idle and rough outcasts who feel at home there; the others refuse to enter an environment expressly set up for singles, orphans, unskilled persons, living in lodgings, foul-mouthed, lacking the sense of smell, with a gift of the gab, robust arms, tough hide, solid haunches, expert in hustling, and with whom blows replace arguments.[3368]—After the September massacres, and on the opening of the barriers, a number of proprietors and persons ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... said, "I am going to make a balloon excursion to-morrow. I didn't mention it to the society because these fellows gab so. There'd be a great crowd round, and I'd only have been hampered. When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better. That is what I have always found. Ever ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... from one of Brandt's men, who rode into Pitt just before we left, that you had new friends here by that name. This fellow was a handsome chap, no common sort, but lordly, dissipated and reckless as the devil. He had a servant traveling with him, a sailor, by his gab, who was about the toughest customer I've met in many a day. He cut a fellow in bad shape at Pitt. These two will be on the next boat, due here in a day or so, according to river and weather conditions, an' I thought, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... spoken he is the more watchin' he'll bear," remarked he. "There's many a villain with an oily gift of gab." ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... with your scarf, Jim,' said Murgatroyd. 'When Venables comes he will soon find a way to check his gab. Yes,' he continued, looking at the back of my papers, 'it is marked, as you say, "From James the Second of England, known lately as the Duke of Monmouth, to Henry Duke of Beaufort, President of Wales, by the hand of Captain Micah Clarke, of Saxon's regiment of Wiltshire ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Una especie de batalla campal! Oh! (Prestando atencin, como si oyese algn ruido, y mirando otra vez muy sobresaltado hacia la puerta del foro.) No, nada. Se me ha colgado de los faldones del gabn..., de la corbata, que si tira algo ms me ahoga. ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... of the gab' is in this case, as in many others, a very great resource. A striking remark or bon mot will easily mystify the spectators, and attract their attention from what you are DOING. Hence all prestidigitators are always well stocked with ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... nature, he was not the man who in new surroundings would be quick to every whisper of opinion. But he had been born and bred in Barbie, and he knew his townsmen—oh yes, he knew them. He knew they laughed because he had no gift of the gab, and could never be Provost, or Bailie, or Elder, or even Chairman of the Gasworks! Oh, verra well, verra well; let Connal and Brodie and Allardyce have the talk, and manage the town's affairs (he was damned if they should ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... wisdom—at least all the wisdom which is supposed to be necessary in making lawyers and law-makers—a precious small modicum of a material by no means precious. I was supposed to have the gift of the gab in moderate perfection, and my hearers were indulgent. My name obtained circulation, and, in a short time, I discovered that, in a professional as well as personal point of view, I had no reason to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... that to the quickest and most powerful perceptions and conceptions, to the most indefatigable industry and perseverance, and the most accurate knowledge of the phenomena of nature as they affect his peculiar labours, this man joined an utter want of the 'gift of gab;' he could no more explain to others what he meant to do and how he meant to do it, than he could fly, and therefore the members of the House of Commons, after saying 'There is a rock to be excavated to a depth of more than sixty feet, there are embankments to be made nearly to the same height, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... damned!" cries he. "It's the Campbells, man! You'll have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will the Advocate too, poor body! It's extraordinar ye cannot see where ye stand! If there's no fair way to stop your gab, there's a foul one gaping. They can put ye in the dock, do ye no' see that?" he cried, and stabbed me with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... another's. I'm not such a bad-looking chap when I'm dressed and my hair's greased. I can do tricks with cards like winking. I can ride a bit, shoot a bit—'specially pigeons—dance a bit, and make love to 'em no end. I've got the gift of the gab, I know, and I stick at nothing. That's what the girls like, and that's what will pull me through when I find the one I want. Another station, and not there yet! What a slow train ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... replied Fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, Charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers—"Artful Dodger—shrieks of laughter—here the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... much talk nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort on any thought, just like walking, the motion just goes ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... theirselves, though. Look at them there Labour members of Parliament—a lot of b—rs what's too bloody lazy to work for their livin'! What the bloody 'ell was they before they got there? Only workin' men, the same as you and me! But they've got the gift o' the gab and—' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... drinking the Duke's health, singing and speechifying with vociferous applause, shouting, and clapping of hands. I never knew before that oratory had got down into the servants' hall, but learned that it is the custom for those to whom 'the gift of the gab' has been vouchsafed to harangue the others, the palm of eloquence being universally conceded to Mr. Tapps the head coachman, a man of great abdominal dignity, and whose Ciceronian brows are adorned with an ample flaxen wig, which is the peculiar distinction of the functionaries of the whip. ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... from dirt to canvas. Honest, we could! Say, Mister, lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent end, while you do the polite gab at the main entrance, and if we don't lug away the daily receipts in sugar barrels I'll own the boxin' kangaroos for first cousins. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime! What ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... spat, and shifted his quid and spoke. "Tell ye what 'tis, all of ye," said he—"it's mighty easy talkin' an' givin' away gab instead of dollars. I'll bet ye anything ye'll put up that there ain't one of ye out of the whole damned lot that 'ain't got any money that would give it away ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Bunkum here too, as well as there. Slavery speeches are all Bunkum; so are reform speeches, too. Do you think them fellers that keep up such an everlastin' gab about representation, care one cent about the extension of franchise? Why no, not they; it's only to secure their seats to gull their constituents, to get a name. Do you think them goneys that make such a touss about the Arms' Bill, care about ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... airily. "Why, Uncle Cornelius was the hit of the season with Uncle Peter, though, of course, Aunt Flora didn't make good with that 'You betcher sweet!' monologue of hers. How could she? Even at that, she stands better with me than some conversational queens I know who get so busy with the gab they ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... called on me to-day. One, who had shown himself very friendly, began to enlarge on the dangers of the Soudan route. I immediately observed, "God is greater than all the Touaricks." This stopped his gab, and was applauded by the rest. A Ghadamsee bawled out, "Oh! it requires a great deal—much, much, much money to go to Soudan." "How much?" I asked,—"Oh! much, much, much!" was rejoined. "What is much?" "Five hundred dollars!" was ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... was sadly deficient in what is called the gift of gab, had no soothing words at his command, full as his heart was of compassion. And after sitting some time by the unhappy boy, patting him softly on the shoulder, he arose, and went away; concluding that his absence would be a relief to one ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... Wort, Heribrands Sohn: 30 "Das wisse Allvater oben im Himmel, Dass nimmer du Worte bis heute gewechselt Mit so nah gesipptem Mann." ... Da wand er vom Arme gewundene Ringe, Aus Kaisermnzen[5] gemacht, wie der Knig sie ihm gab, 35 Der Herrscher der Hunnen: "Dass ich um Huld dir's gebe!" Hadubrand erhob das Wort, Hildebrands Sohn: "Mit dem Ger soll man Gabe empfahen,[6] Spitze wider Spitze. Ein Spher bist du, Alter Hunne, (heimlich)[7] lockst ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... in argument. Time after time I've missed scoring a point because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven't. Oh, I ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... and his establishment became one of the show-places in the neighbourhood. The gardener, an elderly man, was quite a character. He was an Irishman and an Orangeman as well, and had naturally what was known in those parts as "the gift of the gab." The squire's wife was also proud of her plants, and amongst the visitors to the gardens were many ladies, who often asked the gardener the name of a plant that was strange to them. As no doubt he considered it infra dig. to say he did not know, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... brave boy. I've heard of what you did, an' you don't talk much. I'm glad of that. I can do all the talkin' that's needed by the three of us. The Lord created me with a love of gab." ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... be [1] True to this fraternity; That I will in all obey Rule and order of the lay. Never blow the gab or squeak; [2] Never snitch to bum or beak; [3] But religiously maintain Authority of those who reign Over Stop Hole Abbey green, [4] Be their tawny king, or queen. In their cause alone will fight; Think what they think, wrong or right; Serve them truly, and no other, And be faithful to my ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... taken too much to drink,—which he did, after the Danish fashion, far oftener than the rest of Baldwin's men,—he grew rude, boastful, quarrelsome. He would chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades, simply to laugh down a fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty of a true knight. Bitter it was to her to hear him ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... you get that way?" Ferdy Hillman, who was walking with Hugh and Pudge, demanded angrily. "We may not be so hot, but we're a damn sight better than these guys that work in offices and mills. Jimmie Henley gives me a pain. He shoots off his gab as if he knew everything. He's got to show me where other colleges have anything on Sanford. He's a hell of a Sanford man, ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... ex editione Gab Brotier cum Notis et Interpretatione in usum Delphini. Varis Lectionibus Notis Variorum, 12 vols. 8vo. 1l. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... to talk, eh?" jibed the slattern. "Well, before you get out of here you'll be tickled enough to shoot off your gab. Bah! You an' your airs! If you want any grub this mawnin' you'll come down an' grab it yourself, I'm ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Captain Zeb, mopping his forehead. "How be you, Keziah? What? You ain't all alone! Thought you'd have a cabin full of gab machines by this time. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... an anxious desire that I should attend one of these conclaves, I consented, on ascertaining that I should be afforded the opportunity of parading the gab with which I have been gifted in ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... hear my man, Paddock, making the deuce of a row at the smoking-room door. Paddock was a fellow I had done a good turn to out on the Selakwe, and I had inspanned him as my servant as soon as I got to England. He had about as much gift of the gab as a hippopotamus, and was not a great hand at valeting, but I knew I could count ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... bibliographical notes which are here and there scattered throughout this catalogue, render it of estimation in the opinion of the curious.——BALUZE. Bibliotheca Balusiana; seu catalogus librorum bibliothecae D.S. Baluzii, A. Gab. Martin, Paris, 1719, 8vo., two vols. Let any enlightened bibliographers read the eulogy upon the venerable Baluze (who died in his eighty-eighth year, and who was the great Colbert's librarian), in the preface of the Bibl. Colbertina (vide post), and in the Dict. Hist. (Caen, 1789, vol. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... ein Meer von bitteren Leiden Die Italienerin gab—Seligkeit, Seligkeit nur Laessest Du mich entzuendend, begeistert, befaendig empfinden, In der Spanierin fand Liebe und Leben ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... snakes which bromide won't make chase themselves back to the woods,' says he as he plunked 'em down on the table. 'I ain't got your gift of gab, but money talks and I've got this pile to say that you can't tell the truth to save your neck. Just stack up your pile alongside of that and then trot out your snakelet.' I was feeling pretty sore on Merritt for making such a bluff, but, of course, we had to make good and between us ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... exquisite! It is worth coming a thousand miles by stage coach and flatboat, to meet so droll an adventure with such a nondescript amphibian. He has a prodigious gift of gab, plain and ornamental. Did you take note of his metaphors? 'Rose of Sharon' is good.—By the way, we can't be far from the Bower of Bliss. We must tie up our Argo there as Brackenridge recommended, and go in quest of those exotic ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... be gone over an hour, children," said Curly. "Cards don't draw me like a good gab round the fire. And ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... and flock together over the same carcass. "Oh, I have heard something rich! Sit down and let me tell you all about it." And the first guffaw increases the gathering, and it has to be told all over again, and as they separate each carries a spark from the altar of Gab to some other circle, until from the coal-heaver in the cellar to the maid in the top room of the garret all are aware of the defamation, and that evening all who leave the house will bear it to other houses, until autumnal fires sweeping across Illinois ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... no mind-reader. I'll look up this business of securities, and then if the young feller's talked straight, we'll try to work it through him, if we can get to him, and I guess we can, so long as I ain't lost the gift of the gab in twenty years. We'll be as good, sorrowing heirs as ever ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... talk, March," answered Remsen, "that makes a good lawyer. Brains count some. If you get where you can conduct a case to a successful result you will never miss the 'gift o' the gab.' Talking's the little end of the horn in ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of him by speering cross-questions. Tommy and Benjie trembled from top to toe, like aspen leaves, but fient a word could we make common sense of at all. I wonder who educates these foreign creatures? it was in vain to follow him, for he just gab-gabbled away, like one of the stone masons at the Tower of Babel. At first I was completely bamboozled, and almost dung stupid, though I kent one word of French which I wanted to put to him, so I cried through, "Canna ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... to, aren't they?" demanded Darrin. "And now, Danny boy, we simply must stow all gab and get busy with our lessons. We've a recitation between now ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... despairingly. "It won't matter what becomes of me. I won't go to the devil for you or any woman if I can help it; and I—but where's the good of saying IF you refuse. I know I don't express myself properly; I'm a bad hand at sentimentality; but if I had as much gab as a poet, I couldn't be any fonder of you, or think more ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... to talk that way," the captain warned, "so jist shet yer dirty mouths. I've heard sich gab before, and it doesn't jar me ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... said Dumbiedikes, 'I were as young and as supple as you, and had the gift o' the gab as weel.'"—Heart ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... the baronial park-trees of England, and their descendants promise to abide for as many generations to come. In size, form, and color they differ but little from the American crow, but are swifter on the wing, with greater "gift of the gab," and less dignified in general deportment, though more given to aristocratic airs. Although they emigrated from France long before "La Democratic Sociale" was ever heard of in that country, they may be considered the founders of the ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... Look here, I'll give you the tip: this move, you know, to Ballarat, that he's drivin' at: what'ull you bet me there isn't a woman in the case? Fact! 'Pon my word there is. And a devilish fine woman, too!" He shut one eye and laid a finger along his nose. "You won't blow the gab?—that's why you couldn't have your parleyvoo this morning. When milady comes to town H. O.'s NON EST as long as she's here. And she with a hubby of her own, too! What 'ud our old pa say to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... within the Gab-ri[1] wild, A seer is resting on a rock; exiled By his own will from all the haunts of men, Beside a pool within a rocky glen He sits; a turban rests upon his brow, And meets the lengthened beard of whitest ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... "Es gab aber im Alterthum noch einen erlaubten Ausweg fuer die Verbindung vorneluner Maenner mit geringen (freien und selbst unfreien) Frauen, den Concubinat, der ohne feierliches Verloebniss, ohne Brautgabe und Mitgift eingegangen wurde, mithin keine wahre und volle Ehe, dennoch ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various
... rare chap, yon," began one, indicating the departed delegate by a jerk of his thumb towards the door. "He's getten the gift of the gab, anyhow!" ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... completely worn out by this time, if it's only by putting in, and taking out again, three times a week.' 'Oh! you're a rum un, you are,' replies the old woman, laughing extremely, as in duty bound; 'I wish I'd got the gift of the gab like you; see if I'd be up the spout so often then! No, no; it an't the petticut; it's a child's frock and a beautiful silk ankecher, as belongs to my husband. He gave four shillin' for it, the werry same blessed day as he broke his arm.'—'What do you ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... to be non-commissioned officer! That everlasting chatterer, who only owed it to his gift of the gab that he had been able to boast of himself as ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... five minutes, with the assistance of a little vodka, he would break down the ceremonious reserve of the severest old patriarch in the whole Greek Church, and completely carry him by storm; while I could only sit by and smile feebly, without being able to say a word. Great is "the gift o' gab." ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... him," said he. "You were all having such a love feast gab-fest when I blew in. This is Mr. Orde, who bosses this place—and most of the country around here. If you want to do good to humanity on this meadow you'd better begin by being good to him. He controls it. He's humanity with a ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... little varmin," he cried, "gab on. You thought you could outwit Jack, ded 'ee? Well, you be quiet now, or you'll ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... sure to do that," said the delighted Bailie, "for it's a fact. Ye're a fine laddie and have a fearsome power o' the gab (mouth); I expect to see ye in the pulpit yet; but keeps a' it's time I was at the Black Bull, so ye micht juist slip in and tell the Rector I'm at the door—Bailie MacConachie ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... The master of a school could not manage the gab, they being exceedingly contumacious. Beat them, he dared not; so he hit upon an expedient. He made a very strong decoction of wormwood, and for a slight offence, poured one spoonful down their throats: for a more serious one, he made them ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... "What I'm scared of is I'll murder one or two of these pesky women—that Banks woman, fer instance. It's gittin' so I can't stick my nose outside the door 'thout her droppin' everything an' runnin' out to gab with me. I don't get a minute's privacy. If it ain't one, it's another. You'd think I was Napoleon Boneparte, the way them women act. I don't know ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... Orlando, Reinaldo leading Ganelon, Oliver, Didier; two herses, one with Eldegr. & Gab., the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... her chin thrust out, her features convulsed, said nothing, not having yet acquired the Paris gift of street gab. The ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... off the track, turned upside down and its wheels making a thousand revolutions a minute. A kite in the air without a tail. A ship without a rudder. A clock without hands. A sermon that is all text; the incarnation of gab. Handsome, vivacious, versatile, muscular, neat, clean to the marrow. A judge of the effect of clothes, frugal in food and regular only in habits. With brains enough in his head for twenty men all pulling different ways. A man not ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert Peel, enjoying the dean's discomfiture. "Why," returned George Stephenson, "I only say this, that of all the powers above and under earth, there seems to me no power so great as the gift of the gab." This is the story. But there are facts which contradict it. The only visit paid by George Stephenson to Drayton Manor was made in the December of 1844, not the January of 1845. The guests (invited for Dec. 14, 1844), were Lord Talbot, Lord ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... enabled to take from the profits of his faces. A son of his, one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He has his gift—he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and Biting Giles, but that grin of his caused him to ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... dispose of this fellow's pretensions once for all. It is preposterous that a professional baseball player and street-car conductor should aspire to become mayor of Warwick. An orator? Nonsense! Just a paltry gift of the gab. Balaam's is n't the only ass whose mouth the Lord in his inscrutable wisdom ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... ladies, we must get our business finished, and we can talk after. I am offerin' three hundred pounds, twenty acres of land, five cows, six sheep, three clockin' hens, and a clutch of ducklin's, and want to know without any palaverin' or old gab, whether or not yourself and Sir Denis are prepared ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... much. That man has the gift of gab. He can wrap you right around his finger, I reckon," Larry ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... have you been, old lady? Where are you going? We know, we know! She's been to gab with spirits. Look at the old fool! getting ready to cry! What have you got in an envelope, old lady? A lock of hair? ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... to yerself, Mary Dolan, for yer gab of quittin', with the master and Miss Eva in sore trouble," answered the second girl. "But as you say," she continued, shaking her head, "it's a gloomy old place, and if it wasn't for Miss Eva I'd not be long in ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... remember how I wanted to be a lawyer and go into politics? I still think I might have made a go of it. I've kind of got the gift of the gab—anyway, I can think on my feet, and make some kind of a spiel on most anything, and of course that's the thing you need in politics. By golly, Ted's going to law-school, even if I didn't! Well—I guess it's worked out all right. Myra's ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... comfort to Ivory. I guess Aaron 'n' Jake Cochrane was both of 'em more interested in savin' the sisters' souls than the brothers'! Aaron was a fine-appearin' man, and so was Jake for that matter, 'n' they both had the gift o' gab. There's nothin' like a limber tongue if you want to please the women-folks! If report says true, Aaron died of a fever out in Ohio somewheres; Cortland's the place, I b'lieve. Seems's if he hid ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... long-headed and witty for him. After now in vain endeavouring to find something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and looking fiercely at Varney, he said,—"I don't pretend to a gift of the gab. D—n me, it ain't one of my peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, you ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... be non-commissioned officer! That everlasting chatterer, who only owed it to his gift of the gab that he had been able to boast of himself as ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... sergeant's back-flung, guarded growl, "quit your gab there! We're gettin' nigh, bhoys—here's th' brush forninst his place . . . must go mighty quiet ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... too much talk nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort on any thought, just like walking, the ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... had sech a gift o' gab," said Shif'less Sol. "He stirs me all up, he makes me want to hev some lady buy a ship fur me an' start me out to discoverin' continents. Do you think, Paul, thar's any lady who would sell her earrings an' finger rings fur me ez that Spanish one ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... know about it?" said Farrington fiercely, turning on the man. "What do you put in your gab for?" ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... you right," Gerald responded, slightly impatient. "You girls have no right to treat us this way. We brought you with us to give you a good time, and it seems that you might respect our wishes a little. No one can catch fish with a regular gab-fest going ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... envy. In five minutes, with the assistance of a little vodka, he would break down the ceremonious reserve of the severest old patriarch in the whole Greek Church, and completely carry him by storm; while I could only sit by and smile feebly, without being able to say a word. Great is "the gift o' gab." ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... more brain than he could stagger under; a disposition fiery, mercurial, sanguine, witty; he was made, according to Billy Fairfax's dictum, of "wire and brass tacks," and he possessed what Honey Smith (who himself had no mean gift in that direction) called "the gift of gab." He lived by writing magazine articles. Also he wrote fiction, verse, and drama. Also he was a painter. Also he was a musician. In short, ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... from the scalp-lock to the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, dug out, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... down, Mr Mooney-Rollyno, or whatever you are," said Andrew, "you've got to stay here; and Dawn, hold your mag! You'd give any one the pip with your infernal gab." ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... or gossip's, bridle. This is a rare curiosity, which is kept in the vestry. It would seem, from all that can be learned, that two hundred years ago there were in England viragoes so virulent, women so gifted with gab and so loaded and primed with the devil's own gunpowder, that all moral suasion was wasted on them, and simply showed, as old Reisersberg wrote, that fatue agit qui ignem conatur extinguere sulphure ('t is all nonsense to try to quench fire with brimstone). For such diavolas they had ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... die heil'gen zehn Gebot', Die uns gab unser Herre Gott Durch Mosen, seinen Diener treu, Hoch auf dem Berg ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... 4. Regarding Lessing he made this remark to Eckermann (February 7th, 1827): "Bedauert doch den ausserordentlichen Menschen, dass er in einer so erbaermlichen Zeit leben musste, die ihm keine bessern Stoffe gab, als ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... reserved benches from dirt to canvas. Honest, we could! Say, Mister, lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent end, while you do the polite gab at the main entrance, and if we don't lug away the daily receipts in sugar barrels I'll own the boxin' kangaroos for first cousins. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime! What do you say ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... And remember how I wanted to be a lawyer and go into politics? I still think I might have made a go of it. I've kind of got the gift of the gab—anyway, I can think on my feet, and make some kind of a spiel on most anything, and of course that's the thing you need in politics. By golly, Ted's going to law-school, even if I didn't! Well—I guess it's worked ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... der Seligkeit und ein Meer von bitteren Leiden Die Italienerin gab—Seligkeit, Seligkeit nur Laessest Du mich entzuendend, begeistert, befaendig empfinden, In der Spanierin fand Liebe und Leben ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... gone all on a sudden as cool as Dick, and nothing but his stertorous breathing hinted of the rage which filled him. 'That's it, is it? Then, if you're finished, hear me. I ain't got the gift o' the gab as free as you, but I can mek plain my meanin', p'raps. I'd rather see her a-layin' theer '(he pointed with a trembling hand at the ground between them); 'I'd rather lay her there, dead afore my ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... tackle, and Mrs. Biggs was there with her gab, if she is my niece, and said I got ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... anxious desire that I should attend one of these conclaves, I consented, on ascertaining that I should be afforded the opportunity of parading the gab with which I have been gifted ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... Manchester. It so happened that to the quickest and most powerful perceptions and conceptions, to the most indefatigable industry and perseverance, and the most accurate knowledge of the phenomena of nature as they affect his peculiar labours, this man joined an utter want of the 'gift of gab;' he could no more explain to others what he meant to do and how he meant to do it, than he could fly, and therefore the members of the House of Commons, after saying 'There is a rock to be excavated to a depth of more ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... me? You'll be puttin' in your gab, an' me spakin'? How-an-iver, as I was sayin', our house was the first ye came to, an' they say there's a great blessin' to thim that gives, the first charity to a poor man or woman settin' out to ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... know," said Endicott evasively, "that Michael has a great gift of gab! Would you like to stop and ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... Tagalogs now reckon ysang arao, "one day;" dalauang arao, "two [days]," and so on until they have the difference of weeks, which they call by the name Domingo, saying "so many Domingos." [355] The night is called gab-i; and the day arao, from the name of the sun. The months were named and reckoned by the name of the moon, namely, bovan in Tagalog. Thus did they divide the seasons after their own manner, and in their own speech. Only there are no terms to indicate ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... 'til things come to a head," said the mountaineer, laughing, "but, as I said, if Tennessee goes out, I reckon I'll go with her. It's hard to go ag'in your own gang. Leastways, 't ain't in me to do it. Now I've had enough of this gab, an' I'm goin' to skip out. Good-bye, young feller. ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... this time, if it's only by putting in, and taking out again, three times a week.' 'Oh! you're a rum un, you are,' replies the old woman, laughing extremely, as in duty bound; 'I wish I'd got the gift of the gab like you; see if I'd be up the spout so often then! No, no; it an't the petticut; it's a child's frock and a beautiful silk ankecher, as belongs to my husband. He gave four shillin' for it, the werry same blessed day as ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... especie de batalla campal! Oh! (Prestando atencin, como si oyese algn ruido, y mirando otra vez muy sobresaltado hacia la puerta del foro.) No, nada. Se me ha colgado de los faldones del gabn..., de la corbata, que si tira algo ms me ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... salesman was a riddle to me. I subsequently realized that his reticence accentuated an effect of solidity and helped to inspire confidence in the few words which he did utter. But at the time in question I was sure that the "gift of the gab" was an indispensable element of success ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... that I must lead off," said Malcolm, "because I am supposed to possess the gift of gab. But, if I do, I am not going to use it for any rhetorical effect to-day. Simple, earnest words must express the deepest feelings of the heart in doing justice to its own. Brothers and sisters, we meet to-day under our own roof-tree, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "Stow the gab, you big Finn! I'm through. Pay me off and help yourself to another second mate." And Matt put on his coat and whistled to the winchman to steady his slingload while he climbed out of the hold. Kjellin followed and Matt preceded him to ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... Berol, 1773, 8vo. The pithy bibliographical notes which are here and there scattered throughout this catalogue, render it of estimation in the opinion of the curious.——BALUZE. Bibliotheca Balusiana; seu catalogus librorum bibliothecae D.S. Baluzii, A. Gab. Martin, Paris, 1719, 8vo., two vols. Let any enlightened bibliographers read the eulogy upon the venerable Baluze (who died in his eighty-eighth year, and who was the great Colbert's librarian), in the preface of the Bibl. Colbertina (vide post), and in the Dict. Hist. (Caen, 1789, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot take hold of the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... He calls himself 'a curious old bitch', but he is a flat old dog. I should like to employ Caliph Vathek to kick him. Oh, the flummery of a birthplace! Cant! cant! cant! It is enough to give a spirit the guts-ache. Many a true word, they say, is spoken in jest—this may be because his gab hindered my sublimity: the flat dog made me write a flat sonnet. My dear Reynolds, I cannot write about scenery and visitings. Fancy is indeed less than a present palpable reality, but it is greater than remembrance. You would lift your eyes from Homer only to see close before you the ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... is not a military genius, and his colleagues have not proved themselves better administrators than half a dozen lawyers who have got themselves elected to a legislative assembly by the gift of the gab were likely to be; but still this system of sacrificing the leaders whenever any disaster takes place, and accusing them of treachery and incompetence, is one of the worst features in the French character. If it continues, eventually ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... of his race he possessed the gift of gab, as the silver in the tongue and the gold in the full or thick-lipped mouth are oftentimes contemptuously characterized. And like many of his race he was a devoted student of the Bible to whose interpretation he brought like ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... devil haven't you had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, mind; and don't you open your heads to talk till the grub's gone, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... "Why, Uncle Cornelius was the hit of the season with Uncle Peter, though, of course, Aunt Flora didn't make good with that 'You betcher sweet!' monologue of hers. How could she? Even at that, she stands better with me than some conversational queens I know who get so busy with the gab they make me dizzy." ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... seagoing people as had crossed her palm. The crew of a certain brig came to see her on the day before sailing, and she reproached one of the lads for keeping bad company. "Avast, there, granny," interrupted another, who took the chiding to himself. "None of your slack, or I'll put a stopper on your gab." The old woman sprang erect. Levelling her skinny finger at the man, she screamed, "Moon cursers! You have set false beacons and wrecked ships for plunder. It was your fathers and mothers who decoyed a brig to these sands and left me childless and a widow. He ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Dolan, for yer gab of quittin', with the master and Miss Eva in sore trouble," answered the second girl. "But as you say," she continued, shaking her head, "it's a gloomy old place, and if it wasn't for Miss Eva I'd not be ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... here, I'll give you the tip: this move, you know, to Ballarat, that he's drivin' at: what'ull you bet me there isn't a woman in the case? Fact! 'Pon my word there is. And a devilish fine woman, too!" He shut one eye and laid a finger along his nose. "You won't blow the gab?—that's why you couldn't have your parleyvoo this morning. When milady comes to town H. O.'s NON EST as long as she's here. And she with a hubby of her own, too! What 'ud our old ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... shifted his quid and spoke. "Tell ye what 'tis, all of ye," said he—"it's mighty easy talkin' an' givin' away gab instead of dollars. I'll bet ye anything ye'll put up that there ain't one of ye out of the whole damned lot that 'ain't got any money that would give it away ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... written by Graupner to Mattheson, the former, after mentioning that he studied the clavier and also composition under Kuhnau, says:—"Weil ich mich auch bei Kuhnau, als Notist, von selbsten ambot, u. eine gute Zeit fuer ihn schrieb, gab nur solches gewuenschte Gelegenheit, viel gutes zu sehen, u. wo etwa ein Zweifel enstund, um muendlichen Bericht zu bitten, wie dieses oder jenes zu verstehen?" ("As I offered myself as copyist to Kuhnau, and wrote some long time for him, such ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... horse;' spent his mornings in the schools, his afternoons in the cottages; preached four or five extempore sermons every week to overflowing congregations; took the lead, by virtue of the 'gift of the gab,' at all 'religious' meetings for ten miles round; and really did a great deal of good in his way. He had an unblushing candour about his own worldly ambition, with a tremendous brogue; and prided himself on exaggerating ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... said, "of a nation that loves to laugh, and you make sport with yourselves, and with others, by telling what is impossible, and reporting what never chanced. Thou art one of the knights of France, who hold it for glee and pastime to GAB, as they term it, of exploits that are beyond human power. [Gaber. This French word signified a sort of sport much used among the French chivalry, which consisted in vying with each other in making the most romantic gasconades. The verb ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... versprochen, 5 Gab mir ein'n Ring dabei, Sie hat die Treu' gebrochen, Mein Ringlein ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... her, as he prepared to leave, "to look sharp if you see a forty-five-year-old damsel, with a little bright red face, all ears an' no chin, like the ace o' hearts. That'll be Miss Pickett. She'll have with her, like as not, a stout married lady, all gab an' gizzard, like a crow, an' a mouth like a new buttonhole. That'll be Mrs. Pennycook. Look out for 'em both. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... were drinking the Duke's health, singing and speechifying with vociferous applause, shouting, and clapping of hands. I never knew before that oratory had got down into the servants' hall, but learned that it is the custom for those to whom 'the gift of the gab' has been vouchsafed to harangue the others, the palm of eloquence being universally conceded to Mr. Tapps the head coachman, a man of great abdominal dignity, and whose Ciceronian brows are adorned with an ample flaxen wig, which ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... argument. Time after time I've missed scoring a point because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven't. Oh, I believe in ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... called out Lester. "We'll have plenty of time for a gab-fest when we get to Milton. We want to ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... that you had new friends here by that name. This fellow was a handsome chap, no common sort, but lordly, dissipated and reckless as the devil. He had a servant traveling with him, a sailor, by his gab, who was about the toughest customer I've met in many a day. He cut a fellow in bad shape at Pitt. These two will be on the next boat, due here in a day or so, according to river and weather conditions, an' I thought, considerin' ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... near the Brighton shore, Straining my very eye-balls from my Cab; First came two "ten-horse" laughs—and then a roar, "Be off, queer Chap, or I'll soon stop your gab!" ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... a good deal in him, I believe! I dare say he's not very bright, but I don't know that we want brightness. A bright financier is the most dangerous man in the world. We've had enough of that already. Give me sound common sense, with just enough of the gab in a man to enable him to say what he's got to say! We don't want more than that nowadays." From which it became evident that Sir Cosmo was satisfied with the new political candidate ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... faces. A son of his, one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He has his gift—he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and Biting ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Insarov. No talents, none, no poetry, any amount of capacity for work, an immense memory, an intellect not deep nor varied, but sound and quick, dry as dust, and force, and even the gift of the gab when the talk's about his—between ourselves let it be said—tedious Bulgaria. What! do you say I am unjust? One remark more: you'll never come to Christian names with him, and none ever has been on such terms with him. I, of course, as an artist, am hateful to him; and I am proud ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... slang phrases that have come directly to us from England may be mentioned "throw up the sponge," "draw it mild," "give us a rest," "dead beat," "on the shelf," "up the spout," "stunning," "gift of the gab," etc. ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... the Gab-ri[1] wild, A seer is resting on a rock; exiled By his own will from all the haunts of men, Beside a pool within a rocky glen He sits; a turban rests upon his brow, And meets the lengthened beard of whitest snow. This morn an omen comes before his eyes, And him disturbs with a wild eagle's cries ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... the gift of the gab, nothing more and nothing less. What has your knack of fine talking to do with the truth, any more than playing the organ has? I've never been in your church; but I've been to your political meetings; and I've seen you do what's called rousing the meeting to enthusiasm: that is, you excited ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... there and heard it, and saw what I was thinking. I didn't say much. I let the chap have rope enow to hang himself with. When he comes back I'll give him a bit o' my mind as'll startle him. It was right-down clever of thee to see just what I had i' my head about all that there gab about things as didn't matter, an' the leavin' out them as did—thinking I wouldn't notice. Many's the time I've said, 'It is na so much what's put into a contract as what's left out.' I'll warrant tha'st ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had recourse to his old expedient, and unburthened the tumult of his thoughts to his confidential friend. "This," cried he, "is a new artifice of the fellow, to prove his imagined superiority. We knew well enough that he had the gift of the gab. To be sure, if the world were to be governed by words, he would be in the right box. Oh, yes, he had it all hollow! But what signifies prating? Business must be done in another guess way than that. I wonder ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... leader," replied Dunkirk. "Roebuck is far too shrewd for that. No, he has put forward as the decoy my colleague, Croffut,—perhaps you know him? If so, I needn't tell you what a vain, shallow, venal fellow he is, with his gift of gab that fools the people." ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... heard of what you did, an' you don't talk much. I'm glad of that. I can do all the talkin' that's needed by the three of us. The Lord created me with a love of gab." ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Sunday evenin', d'ye see, gentlemen?—he'd walk across t' valley up there to Whitcliffe and stop an hour or two, enjoyin' hisself. Well, now, as you're no doubt well aweer, Mr. Eldrick, he were a reight hand at talkin', were yon Parrawhite—he'd t' gift o' t' gab reight enough, and talked well an' all. And of course him an' me, we hed bits o' conversation at times, 'cause he come to t' house reg'lar and sometimes o' week-nights an' all. An' he tell'd me 'at he'd had a deal ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... relying upon the ponies for the first stage of the Southern Journey the subject was of interest as well as utility, but the greater share of interest centred upon the lecturer, for it was certainly supposed that taciturn Titus could not have concealed about his person the gift of the gab, and it was as certain as it could be that the whole business was most distasteful to him. Imagine our delight when he proved to have an elaborate discourse with full notes of which no one had seen the preparation. "I have been fortunate in securing another night," he mentioned ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... a school could not manage the gab, they being exceedingly contumacious. Beat them, he dared not; so he hit upon an expedient. He made a very strong decoction of wormwood, and for a slight offence, poured one spoonful down their throats: for a more serious one, ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... cried Jimmy, whose fingers were getting sore from the various cuts received from the sharp edges. "Sure, we've got enough for a rigiment, so we have. Just ate up the balance yoursilf, and stow your gab, Nick." ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... Sagas. But he is an adventurer with something strange and not altogether safe in his disposition. His youth was like that of the lubberly younger sons in the fairy stories. "They said that he was slack." Though he does not swagger like a Berserk, nor "gab" like the Paladins of Charlemagne, he is ready on provocation to boast of what he has done. The pathetic sentiment of his farewell to Hrothgar is possibly to be ascribed, in the details of its rhetoric, to the common affection of Anglo-Saxon poetry for ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... cries he. "It's the Campbells, man! You'll have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will the Advocate too, poor body! It's extraordinar ye cannot see where ye stand! If there's no fair way to stop your gab, there's a foul one gaping. They can put ye in the dock, do ye no' see that?" he cried, and stabbed me with one ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... points the mastery over Dr. Buckland. "What do you say, Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert, laughing. "Why," said he, "I will only say this, that of all the powers above and under the earth, there seems to me to be no power so great as the gift of the gab." {350} ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... enabled him to register his protest very forcibly. Nine Boers were shot down; three on the British side were injured. Meanwhile the force under Major Peakman was protesting at Carter's Farm. The enemy there made a bold effort to silence Peakman. But a Maxim gun has a remarkable gift of the gab; the Major had one with him, and he let it do all the talking—with results that quickly drove the Boers beyond the ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... so war mir noch ausserdem das Werk von der groessten Bedeutung, indem es mich an das Miterlebte theils erinnerte, theils mir manches Uebersehene nun vorfuehrte, mich auf einem unerwarteten Standpunkt versetzte, mir zu erwaegen gab was ich fuer abgeschlossen hielt, und besonders auch mich befaehigte die Gegner dieses wichtigen Werkes, an denen es nicht fehlen kann, zu beurtheilen und die Einwendungen, die sie von ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... for twenty-four hours, but at the end of that time it fell, and Victor Amadeus took up his headquarters there, while Eugene marched on to Gab. He had been preceded by the Ravens, who, in imitation of their enemies, had driven the people from their houses, and had set fire to whole villages, cutting down all ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... is exquisite! It is worth coming a thousand miles by stage coach and flatboat, to meet so droll an adventure with such a nondescript amphibian. He has a prodigious gift of gab, plain and ornamental. Did you take note of his metaphors? 'Rose of Sharon' is good.—By the way, we can't be far from the Bower of Bliss. We must tie up our Argo there as Brackenridge recommended, and go in quest of those exotic and ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... a great disappointment. Harry would have made a debater. Yes; yes; a nimble wit, an engaging manner, and the gift of the gab. And the father would have had him under ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... unless its stones and lime are slaked with thy blood—the blood of a fatherless man." "Lord God," cried Merlin, "believe not that my blood will bind your tower together. I hold them for liars who told over such a gab. Bring these prophets before me who prophesy so glibly of my blood, and liars as they are, liars I will prove them to be." The king sent for his sorcerers, and set them before Merlin. After Merlin had regarded them curiously, one by one, "Masters," said ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... half hour or so to talk, Mr. Philander, sir?" he asked. "I've got a couple of ideas I'd like to gab with you about, that I think might ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... may be opened for two purposes, viz., speech-making and swallowing; and it never appeared to us that there was any lack either of Bolting or Bellering in the House of Representatives. However notably Honorable Gentlemen may play the game either of Gab or Grab, it isn't so clear that their constituents are much benefited by these accomplishments. If all they want is an open-mouthed Member, why don't the Massachusetts men import a first-class crocodile, and send him to the National ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... hired a chap with a gift of the gab to tell the others how wrong it was to want things someone else had collared. That was the first lesson in morality, and the preacher, seeing there was money in the game, started the first priesthood. Yes, morality owes its existence ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... get that way?" Ferdy Hillman, who was walking with Hugh and Pudge, demanded angrily. "We may not be so hot, but we're a damn sight better than these guys that work in offices and mills. Jimmie Henley gives me a pain. He shoots off his gab as if he knew everything. He's got to show me where other colleges have anything on Sanford. He's a hell of a Sanford man, ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... "Must 'a' been something mighty important, but it's slipped my memory, sure. I do ricollect, though, hearin' Sam Amos say to old Squire Bentham, 'What's the matter, anyhow? Ain't Kentucky politicians got enough gift o' gab, without sendin' down to Tennessee to git somebody ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... bunch here reckoned as I, bein' gifted with the knack of gab, it fer me to speak for 'em. They're tongue- tied when there's ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... will, by all Christian means and measures, support Her Majesty's Government in Canada. May the Holy and Blessed God give us peace, and good government in our day. I have been a little vexed with the travelling gab of one of our own former friends, who is pleased to inform the people that you were the sole cause of the late rebellion. I must tell him, the first time I meet with him, that the meaning of his sing-song ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... are models of what simple dialect-poems should be. Above all, Mrs. Tweddell has the gift of humour; this is well illustrated by the song, "Dean't mak gam o' me," and also by her well-known prose story, "Awd Gab o' Steers." Her most sustained effort in verse is the poem entitled " T' Awd Cleveland Customs," in which she gives us a delightful picture of the festive seasons of the Cleveland year from " Newery Day," with its "lucky bod," to ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... hard and insensitive nature, he was not the man who in new surroundings would be quick to every whisper of opinion. But he had been born and bred in Barbie, and he knew his townsmen—oh yes, he knew them. He knew they laughed because he had no gift of the gab, and could never be Provost, or Bailie, or Elder, or even Chairman of the Gasworks! Oh, verra well, verra well; let Connal and Brodie and Allardyce have the talk, and manage the town's affairs (he was damned if they should manage his!)—he, for his part, preferred the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... mentioned here in connection with the brave exploits which Christian knights, while in their cups, may boast that they will accomplish (F.). This practice of boasting was called indulging in "gabs" (Eng. "gab"), a good instance of which will be found in "Le Voyage de Charlemagne a Jeruslaem" (ed. Koschwitz), ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... auszusenden; 2175 Wir wollen die Rede enden." Leicht htte sie ihn fortgesandt, Denn er befand sich gleich zur Hand. Der Garon auf den Wink der Maid Verbarg sich mit Geschwindigkeit; 2180 Schnell fasste ja der flinke Knapp, Was man ihm auszufhren gab. Er konnt ihr helfen bei dem Lgen Und ohne jede Bosheit trgen. Eh' ihre Herrin hatte Zeit, 2185 Zu trumen von der Mglichkeit, Der Knabe sei schon auf dem Wege, Nahm sie den Ritter in die Pflege,[1] Wie Gott allein sie lohnen kann. Mit schnster Bitte ging sie dran. 2190 Es lagen Kleider ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... some devilish cantraip sleight, Each in its cauld hand held a light: By which heroic Tam was able To note, upon the haly table, A murderer's banes, in gibbet-airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape— Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had strangled; A knife a father's throat had mangled, Whom, his ain son o' life bereft— The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft; Wi' mair ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... 'Stow this gab,' roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. 'You, boy,' he said, addressing John, 'you look as if you had a little pluck in you. Didst never want to ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... shall,' replied Fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, Charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers—"Artful Dodger—shrieks of laughter—here the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... throats. It seemed a cruel and awful thing to see one of our number disappear forever, and Holy Joe's words, spoken so softly and clearly, were of a kind to squeeze the hearts of even bad men. That parson had the gift of gab; he was a skilled orator and he could play upon our heartstrings as a musician upon ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... like it." Jock was in arms at once against any suspected criticism. "He's got more sand than many a blasted heavyweight. You ought to hear his gab—it's the newest thing in soul-saving. Sort o' homeopathic doctrine. Tastes good, but bitter as pisen under the coating. Real stuff inside, and all that. Get's working after it's taken, and the sweet taste lasts in your mouth while your innards ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... time, is there? There's time for everyone to give out their chat and their gab, and to do their business and take their ease and have a comfortable life, only the King! The beasts of the field have leave to lay themselves down in the meadow and to stretch their limbs on the green grass in the heat of the day, without being pestered and plagued and tormented and called ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... Owd Sammy, "an' so tha'rt th' new rector, art ta? I thowt as mich as another ud spring up as soon as th' owd un wur cut down. Tha parsens is a nettle as dunnot soon dee oot. Well, I'll leave thee to th' owd lass here. Hoo's a rare un fur gab when hoo' taks th' notion, an' I'm noan so mich i' th' humor t' argufy mysen today." And he took his pipe from the mantelpiece and strolled out with an imperturbable air. But this was not the last of the matter. The Rector went again and again, ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Cashel, despairingly. "It won't matter what becomes of me. I won't go to the devil for you or any woman if I can help it; and I—but where's the good of saying IF you refuse. I know I don't express myself properly; I'm a bad hand at sentimentality; but if I had as much gab as a poet, I couldn't be any fonder of you, or ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Bradley-Martin ball—all the preachers and teachers, editors and other able idiots pouring forth voluminous opinions. A tidal wave of printer's ink has swept across the continent, churned to atrous foam by hurricanes of lawless gibberish and wild gusts of resounding gab. The empyrean has been ripped and the tympana of the too patient gods ravished with fulsome commendation and foolish curse, showers of Parthian arrows and wholesale consignments of soft-soap darkening the sun as they hurtled hither and yon through the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Chinatown. For a matter of two or three blocks the street was given over to an impromptu form of public assembly, a poor man's debating ground, an open forum where any citizen with a grievance, a theory, or even merely the gift of gab might air his views and be reasonably sure of an audience. In the evening there was always a crowd. Street fakirs plied their traffic under sputtering gas torches, dispensing, along with a ready flow of glib chatter, marvellous ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Erden." Hildebrand erhob das Wort, Heribrands Sohn: 30 "Das wisse Allvater oben im Himmel, Dass nimmer du Worte bis heute gewechselt Mit so nah gesipptem Mann." ... Da wand er vom Arme gewundene Ringe, Aus Kaisermnzen[5] gemacht, wie der Knig sie ihm gab, 35 Der Herrscher der Hunnen: "Dass ich um Huld dir's gebe!" Hadubrand erhob das Wort, Hildebrands Sohn: "Mit dem Ger soll man Gabe empfahen,[6] Spitze wider Spitze. Ein Spher bist du, Alter Hunne, (heimlich)[7] ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... too, 'bout eight miles from Stephenson. Us come dere endurin' of de war. Dat were when my mammy marry one of de McAllum Niggers. My new pappy went to de war wid Mr. McAllum an' were wid 'im when he were wounded at Mamassas Gab Battle. He brung 'im home to ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... Evangelicals, especially of Melanchthon and Brueck, had made it impossible to rouse the Emperor to such a degree as the exigency of the case demanded. (Plitt, 63.) Luther wrote: "For that shameless gab and bloodthirsty sophist, Doctor Eck, one of their chief advisers, publicly declared in the presence of our people that if the Emperor had followed the resolution made at Bononia, and, immediately on entering Germany, had courageously attacked the Lutherans ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags, And knapsack a' in order; His doxy lay within his arm, Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm— She blinket on her sodger: An' ay he gies the tozie drab The tither skelpin' kiss, While she held up her greedy gab Just like an aumous dish. Ilk smack still, did crack still, Just like a cadger's whip, Then staggering and swaggering He ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... of his earliest period, Die Lehre (vol. iii. p. 276), published in Hamburgs Waechter, 1817 (Strodtmann, op. cit. i. 54), does seem to show it. In this the young bee, heedless of motherly advice, does not beware of the candle-flame and so "Flamme gab Flammentod." We at once recognize a familiar Persian thought, and are reminded of Goethe's fine line, "Das Lebend'ge will ich preisen das nach Flammentod sich sehnet." (Selige ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... so-called labor unions, and the strikes, and more trouble. These labor unions were started by a couple of smart, yellow niggers from Chaldea, one of them a sort of lay preacher, a fellow with a lot of gab. Before I got wind of them, they had gone so far it was almost impossible to squelch them. First I tried conciliation, but it didn't work a bit. They made the craziest demands you ever heard of—a holiday every ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... matter of course everything appeared up to date, and his establishment became one of the show-places in the neighbourhood. The gardener, an elderly man, was quite a character. He was an Irishman and an Orangeman as well, and had naturally what was known in those parts as "the gift of the gab." The squire's wife was also proud of her plants, and amongst the visitors to the gardens were many ladies, who often asked the gardener the name of a plant that was strange to them. As no doubt he considered ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... must choose. Them ez hez, must lose. Them ez knows, won't blab. Them ez guesses, will gab. Them ez borrows, sorrows. Them ez lends, spends. Them ez gives, lives. Them ez keeps dark, is deep. Them ez kin earn; kin keep. Them ez aims, hits. Them ez hez, gits. Them ez waits, win. Them ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... "I am going to make a balloon excursion to-morrow. I didn't mention it to the society because these fellows gab so. There'd be a great crowd round, and I'd only have been hampered. When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better. That is what I have always found. Ever ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... not I that am to blame, but our fine gentleman of a supercargo. He is just like any mortal: he has taken a drink of their Lethe up there, and forgotten to come back to us. He'll be wrestling with the lads, or playing on his lyre, or giving his precious gift of the gab a good airing; or he's off after plunder, the rascal, for what I know: 'tis all in the day's work with him. He is getting too independent: he ought to remember that he belongs to us, one half ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... Rebecca as a lady doctor, somehow," mused Mrs. Cobb. "Her gift o' gab is what's goin' to be the makin' of her; mebbe she'll lecture, or recite pieces, like that Portland elocutionist that come out here to ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... shall hyeah his thundah, Lak a blas' f'om Gab'el's ho'n, Fu' de Lawd of hosts is mighty When he girds his ahmor on. But fu' feah some one mistakes me, I will pause right hyeah to say, Dat I 'm still a-preachin' ancient, I ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Noverre. Oh, if you could only know the tricks played on poor Father Chevrel by that Monsieur Noverre, by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and especially by Monsieur Philidor! They are a set of rascals; I know them well! They all have a gab and nice manners. Ah, your ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... swear to be [1] True to this fraternity; That I will in all obey Rule and order of the lay. Never blow the gab or squeak; [2] Never snitch to bum or beak; [3] But religiously maintain Authority of those who reign Over Stop Hole Abbey green, [4] Be their tawny king, or queen. In their cause alone will fight; Think what they think, wrong or right; Serve them truly, and no ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... emphasis. "We must dispose of this fellow's pretensions once for all. It is preposterous that a professional baseball player and street-car conductor should aspire to become mayor of Warwick. An orator? Nonsense! Just a paltry gift of the gab. Balaam's is n't the only ass whose mouth the Lord in his inscrutable wisdom has ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... and reminded him of his mother-in-law. He was a baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... won't," returned Phelps, ungratefully. "Then they'll all gab about it. Come along; ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... that coat and hand it over. It's mine—I found it. I can stand a crazy man's gab, but when any one tries to do me out of ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... koennen die Kinder nach unserem Willen nicht formen, So wie Gott sie uns gab, so muss man sie lieben und haben, Sie erzielen aufs best und ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... a half hour or so to talk, Mr. Philander, sir?" he asked. "I've got a couple of ideas I'd like to gab with you about, that I think might speed ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... ye he was a Roundhead—a negotiator," shouted one of the rudest; "stop his gab at ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... "There's a good deal in him, I believe! I dare say he's not very bright, but I don't know that we want brightness. A bright financier is the most dangerous man in the world. We've had enough of that already. Give me sound common sense, with just enough of the gab in a man to enable him to say what he's got to say! We don't want more than that nowadays." From which it became evident that Sir Cosmo was satisfied with the new political candidate ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... The 'gift of the gab' is in this case, as in many others, a very great resource. A striking remark or bon mot will easily mystify the spectators, and attract their attention from what you are DOING. Hence all prestidigitators are always well stocked with anecdotes and funny observations; indeed, they ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... About the ocean an' the skies; An' gab an' gas f'um morn till noon About the other side the moon; An' 'bout the natur of the place Ten miles beyend the end of space. An' if his wife she'd ask the crank Ef he wouldn't kinder try to yank Hisself out-doors an' git some wood To make ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... us ask him to show us the scold's, or gossip's, bridle. This is a rare curiosity, which is kept in the vestry. It would seem, from all that can be learned, that two hundred years ago there were in England viragoes so virulent, women so gifted with gab and so loaded and primed with the devil's own gunpowder, that all moral suasion was wasted on them, and simply showed, as old Reisersberg wrote, that fatue agit qui ignem conatur extinguere sulphure ('t is all nonsense to try to quench ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... 401-413). These names are mentioned here in connection with the brave exploits which Christian knights, while in their cups, may boast that they will accomplish (F.). This practice of boasting was called indulging in "gabs" (Eng. "gab"), a good instance of which will be found in "Le Voyage de Charlemagne a Jeruslaem" (ed. Koschwitz), v. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... he said, "I am going to make a balloon excursion to-morrow. I didn't mention it to the society because these fellows gab so. There'd be a great crowd round, and I'd only have been hampered. When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better. That is what I have always found. Ever ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... yawning and lowering herself upon the kitchen couch, the springs of which squeaked complainingly under her weight, "Wa-al, 'tain't scurcely wuth doin' the dishes now. Jason'll stop and gab 'ith some one. It takes him ferever an' a day ter git a pail o' water. You go on about your play, Niece Janice. I'll git 'em ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... know the tricks played on poor Father Chevrel by that Monsieur Noverre, by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and especially by Monsieur Philidor! They are a set of rascals; I know them well! They all have a gab and nice manners. Ah, ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... like him should have succeeded as a salesman was a riddle to me. I subsequently realized that his reticence accentuated an effect of solidity and helped to inspire confidence in the few words which he did utter. But at the time in question I was sure that the "gift of the gab" was an indispensable element ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... never stand tall, unless its stones and lime are slaked with thy blood—the blood of a fatherless man." "Lord God," cried Merlin, "believe not that my blood will bind your tower together. I hold them for liars who told over such a gab. Bring these prophets before me who prophesy so glibly of my blood, and liars as they are, liars I will prove them to be." The king sent for his sorcerers, and set them before Merlin. After Merlin had regarded ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... you don't see the matter in its proper light. You shall go to see her, and, with your honeyed tongue and the gift of the gab that nature has bestowed upon you, you will put some resignation into her soul, and leave her consoled for your departure; and if you tell her, in addition to this, that you love her, and that it is only for the sake of God you are leaving her, her ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... The bunch here reckoned as I, bein' gifted with the knack of gab, it fer me to speak for 'em. They're tongue- tied when there's a woman on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... nothing," sais I, "but two Frenchmen ashore a jawing like mad. One darsen't, and t'other is afraid to fight, so they are taking it out in gab—they ain't worth listening to. How do they tell ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... rang, and he went out to the midday "gab-fest," as he inwardly characterised it. The meal proceeded to dessert without any unusual disturbance, then the diminutive Ebeneezer threw the remnants of his cup of milk into his mother's face, and was carried off, howling, to be spanked. Like many ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... koindly chap or yo' wouldn't ha' noticed. An' yo're not fur wrong either. I ha' reasons o' my own, tho' I'm loike to keep 'em to mysen most o' toimes. Th' fellows as throws their slurs on me would na understond 'em if I were loike to gab, which I never were. But happen th' toime 'll come when Surly Tim 'll tell his own tale, though I often think its loike it wunnot come till ...
— "Surly Tim" - A Lancashire Story • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... money for her railroad fare. "You understand, of course," so he wrote in conclusion, "that nothing may come of our meeting at all. So please don't say a word to anybody when you strike town. You've lived here yourself, and you know that three words hove overboard in Bayport will dredge up gab enough to sink a dictionary. So just keep mum till the business is settled ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... spry veteran? Only a boy On a three-legged crock? Well, I own you are older, And watching your riding's a thing to enjoy; There isn't a Jock who is defter and bolder; Your power, authority, eloquence—yes, For your gift of the gab is a caution—are splendid; But—the youngster may teach you a lesson, I guess, As to judgment of pace ere the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... old lady? Where are you going? We know, we know! She's been to gab with spirits. Look at the old fool! getting ready to cry! What have you got in an envelope, old lady? A lock of hair? An eyelash ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... look as if you'd been up against it!" And then the other would begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, "Come have a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up." And so they would drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently wretched-looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might have two; and if they were to discover that they were from the same country, or had lived in the same city or worked at the same trade, they might sit down at a table and spend an hour or two in talk—and ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... it's so killing you are, you assassinate,— Murder's the word for you, Barney McGee! Bold when they're sunny and smooth when they're showery,— Oh, but the style of you, fluent and flowery! Chesterfield's way, with a touch of the Bowery! How would they silence you, Barney machree? Naught can your gab allay, Learned as Rabelais (You in his abbey lay Once on the spree). Here's to the smile of you, (Oh, but the guile of you!) And a long while of ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... employ Caliph Vathek to kick him. Oh, the flummery of a birthplace! Cant! cant! cant! It is enough to give a spirit the guts-ache. Many a true word, they say, is spoken in jest—this may be because his gab hindered my sublimity: the flat dog made me write a flat sonnet. My dear Reynolds, I cannot write about scenery and visitings. Fancy is indeed less than a present palpable reality, but it is greater than remembrance. You would lift your eyes from Homer only to see close ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... many tongues, (All over tongues, like rumor) This tributary verse belongs To paint his learned humor. All kinds of gab he knows, I wis, From Latin down to Scottish— As fluent as a parrot is, But far more Polly-glottish. No grammar too abstruse he meets, However dark and verby; He gossips Greek about the streets And often Russ—in urbe. Strange tongues—whate'er you do them call; In short, the man is able To ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... choose. Them ez hez, must lose. Them ez knows, won't blab. Them ez guesses, will gab. Them ez borrows, sorrows. Them ez lends, spends. Them ez gives, lives. Them ez keeps dark, is deep. Them ez kin earn; kin keep. Them ez aims, hits. Them ez hez, gits. Them ez waits, win. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... gets all the limelight and blank verse. He had the "gift of the gab" all right. Old Cassius referred to it later on in one of those "words-before-blows" barneys they had on the battlefield where they hurt each other a damned sight more with their tongues than they ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... scalp-lock to the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort on any thought, just like walking, the motion just ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... these words, every one in the whole room burst out laughing, and even dowager lady Chia broke out in laughter while she observed: "Do you listen to that mouth? I myself am looked upon as having the gift of the gab, but why is it that I can't talk in such a wise as to put down this monkey? Your mother-in-law herself doesn't dare to be so overbearing in her speech; and here you are jabber, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... His fixed idea was that none of his daughters should ever be carried off by a fortune-hunter. The two older girls apparently escaped this danger by making fairly wealthy matches. But Alice—come away! why should she take up with this impecunious painter? He was good-looking and had the gift of the gab, but what was that worth? If he would come into the sugar-business, where a place was waiting for him, and make good there, it would be all right. Otherwise, the affair must be broken off, absolutely, finally, and forever. From this you can see that the Obstacle ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... restoration, gang after gang of rebels have been sent us—Independents, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchy men, dour Scotch Whigamores—dangerous fanatics all! Many are Naseby or Worcester rogues, Ironsides who worship the memory of that devil's lieutenant, Oliver. All have the gift of the gab. We disperse them as much as possible, not allowing above five or six to any one plantation, we of the Council realizing that they form a dangerous leaven. Should there be trouble, which heaven forbid! they would be ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... he had recourse to his old expedient, and unburthened the tumult of his thoughts to his confidential friend. "This," cried he, "is a new artifice of the fellow, to prove his imagined superiority. We knew well enough that he had the gift of the gab. To be sure, if the world were to be governed by words, he would be in the right box. Oh, yes, he had it all hollow! But what signifies prating? Business must be done in another guess way than that. I wonder what possessed ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... he snarled, "you'd better just stow your gab. You're lucky to be here yourself, let alone botherin' your thick head about anybody else, and you can kiss the Book on that! Do you know why you ain't with them carrion?" He jerked his thumb toward the beach. "It's because ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... drivin' at: what'ull you bet me there isn't a woman in the case? Fact! 'Pon my word there is. And a devilish fine woman, too!" He shut one eye and laid a finger along his nose. "You won't blow the gab?—that's why you couldn't have your parleyvoo this morning. When milady comes to town H. O.'s NON EST as long as she's here. And she with a hubby of her own, too! What 'ud our old pa say to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... and shifted his quid and spoke. "Tell ye what 'tis, all of ye," said he—"it's mighty easy talkin' an' givin' away gab instead of dollars. I'll bet ye anything ye'll put up that there ain't one of ye out of the whole damned lot that 'ain't got any money that would give it away ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of patter, we could pack the reserved benches from dirt to canvas. Honest, we could! Say, Mister, lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent end, while you do the polite gab at the main entrance, and if we don't lug away the daily receipts in sugar barrels I'll own the boxin' kangaroos for first cousins. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime! What do you ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... won't matter what becomes of me. I won't go to the devil for you or any woman if I can help it; and I—but where's the good of saying IF you refuse. I know I don't express myself properly; I'm a bad hand at sentimentality; but if I had as much gab as a poet, I couldn't be any fonder of you, or think more ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... suppose, for him to gab all he wants to about his cars and things. By the time we go back to the Post to-night, if we see him again, I'll bet you he tells us what his father is worth and just how many gold chairs they have at ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... first into Ba'weary, he was still a young man—a callant, the folk said—fu' o' book learnin' and grand at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae leevin' experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi' his gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the days o' the moderates—weary fa' them; ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my godmothers, and a silver mug, and a knife and fork in a case, with 'GAB' written on the handles. Only I mayn't use them till I'm seven, in case ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... queer gab?" he asked. "An' you're takin' some liberty with Miss Hammond, who never seen you before. Sure I'm makin' allowance fer amazin' strange talk. I see you're not drinkin'. Mebbe you're plumb locoed. Come, ease ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... your scarf, Jim,' said Murgatroyd. 'When Venables comes he will soon find a way to check his gab. Yes,' he continued, looking at the back of my papers, 'it is marked, as you say, "From James the Second of England, known lately as the Duke of Monmouth, to Henry Duke of Beaufort, President of Wales, by the hand of Captain Micah ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... d—d fellow Pritchard's sloop-of-war. It was he came off and gave us warning that the Shark was coming round upon us the day Kennedy was done; and he told us how Kennedy had given the information. The gipsies and Kennedy had some quarrel besides. This Gab went to the East Indies in the same ship with your younker, and, sapperment! knew him well, though the other did not remember him. Gab kept out of his eye though, as he had served the States against England, and was a deserter to boot; ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Sammy, "an' so tha'rt th' new rector, art ta? I thowt as mich as another ud spring up as soon as th' owd un wur cut down. Tha parsens is a nettle as dunnot soon dee oot. Well, I'll leave thee to th' owd lass here. Hoo's a rare un fur gab when hoo' taks th' notion, an' I'm noan so mich i' th' humor t' argufy mysen today." And he took his pipe from the mantelpiece and strolled out with an imperturbable air. But this was not the last of the matter. The Rector went ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... coming to my place of a Sunday evenin', d'ye see, gentlemen?—he'd walk across t' valley up there to Whitcliffe and stop an hour or two, enjoyin' hisself. Well, now, as you're no doubt well aweer, Mr. Eldrick, he were a reight hand at talkin', were yon Parrawhite—he'd t' gift o' t' gab reight enough, and talked well an' all. And of course him an' me, we hed bits o' conversation at times, 'cause he come to t' house reg'lar and sometimes o' week-nights an' all. An' he tell'd me 'at he'd had a deal o' experience i' racin' matters—whether ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... isn't easy to tackle, and Mrs. Biggs was there with her gab, if she is my niece, and said I ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... ich den pfaffen raten an den triuwen min, So spraeche ir haut den armen zuo: se, daz ist din, Ir zunge suenge, unde lieze mengem man daz sin, Gedaehten daz ouch si dur Got waeren almuosenaere. Do gab ir erste teil der Kuenik Konstantin, Het er gewest, daz da von uebel kuenftik waere, So het er wol underkomen des riches swaere, Wan daz si do waren kiusche, und uebermuete laere. Hagen, Minnesinger-Sammlung, Leipsic, 1838, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... Koenig in Thule, Gar treu bis an das Grab, Dem sterbend seine Buhle Einen goldnen Becher gab. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... he hissed. "You're cross-grained lately. You're sore. Any more of this and I'll swear you're a disorganizer.... Now, Budd, you keep your mouth shut. And you, Cleve, you pay no heed to Budd if he does gab.... We're in bad and all the men have chips on their shoulders. We've got to ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... Time after time I've missed scoring a point because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven't. Oh, I believe in ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... to Ivory. I guess Aaron 'n' Jake Cochrane was both of 'em more interested in savin' the sisters' souls than the brothers'! Aaron was a fine-appearin' man, and so was Jake for that matter, 'n' they both had the gift o' gab. There's nothin' like a limber tongue if you want to please the women-folks! If report says true, Aaron died of a fever out in Ohio somewheres; Cortland's the place, I b'lieve. Seems's if he hid his trail all the way from New Hampshire somehow, for ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "Maybe there's more in what Kid says than I thought. He's been cross-questioning Blake all day. You know how little Kid is given to gab. But from the time we started off he kept after Blake like he was cutting out steers ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... fauld as he dow, [limps double, can] Wi' his teethless gab and his auld beld pow, [mouth, bald head] And the rain rains down frae his red bleer'd e'e— That auld man shall never ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... ready to go with you, if you like ... Do not think, however, that the sophistries of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses have convinced me ... No, I simply would be sorry to break up the party ... But I make one stipulation: we will drink a little there, gab a little, laugh a little, and so forth ... but let there be nothing more, no filth of any kind ... It is shameful and painful to think that we, the flower and glory—of the Russian intelligentzia, will go all to pieces and let our mouths water at the sight of the first ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... trouble with our telephone even with Carrie to supply discretion for the whole town. Party lines and rubber ears are the source of all our woe. You know what a party line is, of course. It's a line on which you can have a party and gab merrily back and forth for forty minutes, while some other subscriber is wildly dancing with impatience. Most of our lines have four subscribers apiece, and it's just as hard to live in friendliness on a party line as it is for four ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... we must get our business finished, and we can talk after. I am offerin' three hundred pounds, twenty acres of land, five cows, six sheep, three clockin' hens, and a clutch of ducklin's, and want to know without any palaverin' or old gab, whether or not yourself and Sir Denis are prepared to ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... qualities that of silence was not considered to hold a conspicuous place; "a famous cure for lockjaw, from whatever cause it may come on. There was Miss Trowlop—she had a very handsum' mouth and a considerable gift of the gab—was goin' to be married to Mr Shaver, run a hickory splinter through her prunella shoe into her foot—jaw locked as fast as old Ebenezer Gripeall's iron safe. If she'd a-had my Palmyra sarve she'd be still alive, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... some if they did not," with a thousand such; as you may read in [6572]Austin (for there were fourscore and eleven heresies in his times, besides schisms and smaller factions) Epiphanius, Alphonsus de Castro, Danaeus, Gab, Prateolus, &c. Of prophets, enthusiasts and impostors, our Ecclesiastical stories afford many examples; of Elias and Christs, as our [6573]Eudo de stellis, a Briton in King Stephen's time, that went invisible, translated himself from one ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... he had taken too much to drink,—which he did, after the Danish fashion, far oftener than the rest of Baldwin's men,—he grew rude, boastful, quarrelsome. He would chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades, simply to laugh down a fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty of a true knight. Bitter it was to ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... I should plen it, I could git boosted into th' House or Sennit,— Nut while the twolegged gab-machine's so plenty, 'nablin' one man to du the talk o' twenty; I'm one o' them thet finds it ruther hard To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard, An' maysure off, accordin' to demand, The piece-goods el'kence that I keep on hand, The same ole pattern ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... adore her precious brother," said Graham, irreverently. "She knows as well as you and I do that he's a selfish sort of brute, in spite of his good looks and his gift of the gab. I say, Clara, when are these folks ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... making trouble far Haughton and his friends. And now they're going to bust you wide open and scatter your remains all over the country. They're going to fix you so that you'll never shoot off your gab about conditions in the state again. Governor—hell! you'll be a bum before that ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... twice emptying a canister that had originally held 4 pounds of preserved meat; this afforded me additional proof of Yampee being the word the natives of these parts use for water. At Swan River, the native name for water is gab-by, which differs so much as to lead us to suppose the dialect of the two places is quite distinct. This supposition is also borne out by the fact, that Miago, the native of Swan River we had on ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... delightful stranger, "let's you and me have a talk. There's a nice cool spot under these laurels; I'll stake out Pepita, and we'll just lie off there and gab, and not care if ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... I've heard of what you did, an' you don't talk much. I'm glad of that. I can do all the talkin' that's needed by the three of us. The Lord created me with a love of gab." ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... it is cut in children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... ruffian, in a piteous tone; for bullies are almost always cravens; "he was lent to me by Johny Groves—some call him another name; but that don't signify.—He lent him to me, to come up here, to stop your gab with the old woman, Mother Danty; and mayhap to give you a good basting into the bargain. But I didn't steal the horse no how; and there he is, running away over the hill-side, and I shall never catch him; for this cursed fellow has well ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... to carry on the law practice. Does not this indicate that the intellect of the American woman is equal, if not superior, to that of the men? American women are good conversationalists, and many of them are eloquent and endowed with "the gift of the gab". One of the cleverest and wittiest speeches I have ever heard was from a woman who spoke at a public meeting on a public question. They are also good writers. Such women as Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Mrs. Mary N. Foote Henderson, Mrs. Elizabeth Towne and many others, are a great credit to their ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... by far too long-headed and witty for him. After now in vain endeavouring to find something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and looking fiercely at Varney, he said,—"I don't pretend to a gift of the gab. D—n me, it ain't one of my peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, you sha'n't keep ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... over my mistake," grinned Sanderson. "You couldn't be anybody but Bransford, or you wouldn't shoot off your gab that reckless. If you're Bransford, I'm apologizin' to you for talkin' back to you. But if you ain't Bransford, get off your hind legs an' talk like ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... cross-questions. Tommy and Benjie trembled from top to toe, like aspen leaves, but fient a word could we make common sense of at all. I wonder who educates these foreign creatures? it was in vain to follow him, for he just gab-gabbled away, like one of the stone masons at the Tower of Babel. At first I was completely bamboozled, and almost dung stupid, though I kent one word of French which I wanted to put to him, so I cried through, "Canna ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... scientia media, and sustenit the disputt thairupon, and was approven in both. The following ministers were present, Mr. Patrik Gillespie, Mr. David Dicksone, Doctor Jhone Strang, Mr. Zach. Boyde, Mr. George Young, Mr. Hew Blair, Mr. Gab. Conyngham, Mr. David Benett, Mr. Matthew Mackill. Mr. Wm. Young, Mr. Arch. Dennestoune, Mr. Jhone Carstaires, Mr. James Hamilton." The presbytery "ordaines Mr. Hugh Binnen to make ye exercise this daye fyfteen dayes, and the rest of his tryels to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... now, said he, procrastination and the conciliatory demeanor of the Evangelicals, especially of Melanchthon and Brueck, had made it impossible to rouse the Emperor to such a degree as the exigency of the case demanded. (Plitt, 63.) Luther wrote: "For that shameless gab and bloodthirsty sophist, Doctor Eck, one of their chief advisers, publicly declared in the presence of our people that if the Emperor had followed the resolution made at Bononia, and, immediately on entering Germany, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... lan' shall hyeah his thundah, Lak a blas' f'om Gab'el's ho'n, Fu' de Lawd of hosts is mighty When he girds his ahmor on. But fu' feah some one mistakes me, I will pause right hyeah to say, Dat I 'm still a-preachin' ancient, I ain't ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... plantation to live. It were in Kemper, too, 'bout eight miles from Stephenson. Us come dere endurin' of de war. Dat were when my mammy marry one of de McAllum Niggers. My new pappy went to de war wid Mr. McAllum an' were wid 'im when he were wounded at Mamassas Gab Battle. He brung 'im home to die—an' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... he demanded in a scared tone. "Say, how'd it be if you told me what's your side in this little gab-fest? Who you workin' for? Police? Nickleby? Say, you aint crazy enough to think I had anything to do with the disappearance of that bunch ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Vasily Karlych? Have we not labored for you? We are much satisfied with our late mistress—may she enjoy eternal life!—and we are grateful to the young Prince for thinking of us," began a red-haired peasant with a gift of gab. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... said uncle Jacob, as he saw the dominie retire; "you have beaten the minister holler. Ha! ha! ha! I am really glad you silenced his gab, for he is 'tarnally blabbing about his religion; though I think he hain't much of it himself, except counterfeit stuff, like a bad bill,—ha! ha!—that he wants ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... mir Treu' versprochen, 5 Gab mir ein'n Ring dabei, Sie hat die Treu' gebrochen, Mein ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... but a fool or a scoundrel would ca'c'late he could hang ontew a piece o' prop'ty that had been stole, or traded for what had been stole. Talked, of course, just t' other way from what he did when he talked to you. Truckman didn't mind his gab, but when he was satisfied the hoss he put away had been stole, he guv up Peakslow's, and the fifteen dollars to boot. Now, how in the name of seven kingdoms Peakslow's gwine to turn it about to make anything more, beats ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... know Tom Ross had sech a gift o' gab," said Shif'less Sol. "He stirs me all up, he makes me want to hev some lady buy a ship fur me an' start me out to discoverin' continents. Do you think, Paul, thar's any lady who would sell her earrings an' finger rings fur me ez that Spanish ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... by the devil haven't you had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... say that since the tremendous enlargement of the American colony, the whole pace of London drawing-room talk has enormously improved. We British are not by nature a sprightly and speechful race, with the gift of gay gab, but under the American woman's cheerful influence we are enjoying ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... und ein Meer von bitteren Leiden Die Italienerin gab—Seligkeit, Seligkeit nur Laessest Du mich entzuendend, begeistert, befaendig empfinden, In der Spanierin fand ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... wir koennen die Kinder nach unserem Willen nicht formen, So wie Gott sie uns gab, so muss man sie lieben und haben, Sie erzielen aufs ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... yer gab!" cried his polite daughter, leaping from her damp couch into the water, with no other evidence of feeling than a sharp "Hech!" as the cold element laved her limbs. "There's naethin' wrang wi' yer legs, ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
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