"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... use, Senor," he said to Frank, who had jumped from the running board and stood beside him. "She is finish. The spark plug, she is on the—what you call it?—the bum." And with an air of finality, he closed the cover. At the same moment he turned to peer anxiously down the road ahead, whence came now on the still twilight the thudding hoofbeats of a ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... got a big job, Jimmie, but I want to make a man out of you, temper, laziness, gambling, and all. You got it in you to be something more than a tango lizard or a cigar-store bum, honey. It's only you ain't got the stuff in you to stand up under a five-hundred-dollar windfall and—a—and a sporty girl. If—if two glasses of beer make you as silly as they do, Jimmie, why, five hundred dollars would land you under ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... to think twice before taking a stranger into my family," said Belding, seriously. "Well, I guess he's all right, Laddy, being the cavalryman's friend. No bum or lunger? ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... I'll take that there camery and bust it over your danged head!" he spluttered. "I'll show ye! Call me a bum that's wearin' a shurf's star fer the first time in his life, will ye! Why, I'll jest about ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... boats are bum boats, Layin' for the Hun— But ev'ry boat that flies our Flag Mounts a ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... his hand clutchin' at his side, an' his pink checks gray an' twisted. He coughed a dry, short cough, an' groans out between his set teeth. "It 's my heart; I got a bum pump. You tell George Jordan that I never breathed a word of it, but that Jack Whitman—Oh, my God! Get me a drink of whiskey! Get me ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... systematically insolent to girls, policemen, and new chums.... At twelve years of age, having passed through every phase of probationary shrewdness, he is qualified to act as a full-blown bus conductor. In the purlieus of the theatres are supper-rooms (lavish of gas and free-mannered waitresses), and bum-boat shops where they sell play-bills, whelks, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... posterior development has been made to appear still larger by the use of cushions, and in England in the sixteenth century we find the same practice well recognized, and the Elizabethan dramatists refer to the "bum-roll," which in more recent times has become the bustle, devices which bear witness to what Watts, the painter, called "the persistent tendency to suggest that the most beautiful half of humanity is furnished with ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... said Ide, "if you've told it to me straight. I should think a man put on the bum from a good job just in one day would ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... Benny the Bum: "I wanna know kin I borry a red lantern off'n you? I find I gotta sleep in the street to-night an' I'll harfta warn the ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... got a hammerlock on me. "This Dry-towner bum tried to talk us into making a priority call to Magnusson, the Chief at Central. He knew a couple of the S.S. passwords. That's what got him through the gate. Remember, Cargill passed the word that somebody would turn up trying ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... never any question between them of the permanency of the relationship. They both knew that it was temporary. But he is absolutely certain that but for one of the representatives of the class that is despised, driven about and persecuted by brutal policemen and ignorant judges, he would have become a bum, or, most likely, he would have committed suicide—at the point of which he was several times; only pity for his mother and sisters ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... snapped off, and Malone sat back in his chair and sighed. He spent a few minutes regretting that he hadn't chosen, early in life, to be a missionary to the Fiji Islands, or possibly simply a drunken bum without any troubles, but then the report Mitchell had mentioned arrived. Malone picked it up without much eagerness, and began ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... is," I said. "Charlie says it's a good Monday night town because two through freights lay over there till daylight. Tuesday night we have to double back to Greenwich, and that's where Charlie gave us the bum deal. This gag of chasing us back over the same route is rotten, because somebody may be sitting up for us with a rock. But Charlie says Greenwich has developed into a great show town since five ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... turn him out now Tutt will sue us all for false arrest and put the whole administration on the bum," snarled O'Brien. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... buzz! buzz! Hum-a-bum buzz! As I went over Tipple-tine I met a flock of bonny swine; Some yellow-nacked, some yellow backed! They were the very bonniest swine That e'er ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... word, an' he sniffed the smell of the ink and the hot metal like it was June roses. He kind of wanders over to his old desk and slumps down in the chair, and tips it back, and puts his feet on the desk, with his hat tipped back, and a bum stogie in his mouth. And along came a kid with a bunch of papers wet from the presses and sticks one in his hand, and—well, girl, that fellow, he just wriggled he was so happy. You know as well as I do that every man on a morning paper ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... ride in your bum wagon," he said, "and now you've stuck us down here nine miles from the nearest beer! You've a lot to answer ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... beating his way three hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at the finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I manage for "kipping"?—which means sleeping. Did I know the rounds yet? He was getting on, though the country was "horstyl" and the cities were "bum." Fierce, wasn't it? Couldn't "batter" (beg) anywhere without being "pinched." But he wasn't going to quit it. Buffalo Bill's Show was coming over soon, and a man who could drive eight horses was sure of a job any time. These mugs over here didn't know beans about driving ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... a fact, and they can't no low-down whisky bum beat him fer jedge, neither—'specially ef they count on using niggers to do it with. You see the race am so mighty close, that all the booze bosses is a telling the niggers that they is got the 'ballunce uf power' as they calls it and it's up ter them ter elect a ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... him. "You big bum, do you think I really care?" He grinned. "Don't feel too guilty, Twin. We've been back ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... many and many a time she came, and always it was good advice she was giving to my mother, and warning her what not to do if she would have good luck. There was none of the other children of us ever seen her unless me; but I used to be glad when I seen her coming up the bum, and would run out and catch her by the hand and the cloak, and call to my mother, 'Here's the Wee Woman!' No man body ever seen her. My father used to be wanting to, and was angry with my mother and me, thinking we were telling lies and talking ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... Tramps, Life-Guards, Washerwomen, Ghosts, Clowns and God-knows-what, armed with jezails, umbrellas, brooms, catapults, pikes, brickbats, kukeries,[52] pokers, clubs, axes, horse-pistols, bottles, dead fowls, polo-sticks, assegais and bombs. They were commanded by a Highlander in a bum-bee tartan kilt, top-hat and one sock, with a red nose a foot long, riding on a rocking horse and brandishing a dem great cucumber and a tea-tray made into a shield. There was a thundering great drain-pipe mounted on a bullock-cart and a naked man, painted blue, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... "I'm through. Get to hell out of here. You'll be hung yet, you loafer. A good-for-nothing bum, that's what. Get out ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... The rule for elevator boys is still somewhat in the air, because so few of these bum hotels over here have elevators, but you can sort of reason the thing out if you put your mind on it. When you get on a street car in Germany, what tip ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... 'While I ain't sayin' it's pure joy to have him around, I ain't got the heart to hand it to him. I don't mind trimmin' boobs—that's what they're for—but this Elsy thing is too soft. He must be in quite a wad on this bum hoss of his'n.' ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... concernin' wimmen is gen'ally soured. You 'mind me of the man from New Jersey who come out west to buy a ranch. A hawss throwed him five times hand-runnin'. He ropes a steer that happens to run into the bum loop he was swingin' an' it snakes him out'n the saddle. A pesky cow chases him when he was afoot, a couple calves gits a rope twisted round his stummick an' lastly a mule kicks him into a bunch ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... coppers. He was clothed in an aged and tattered suit, and his derby was a marvel of dust-covered crown and torn rim. He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat, and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City Hall Park he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection. The sifting rain saturated the old velvet collar of his overcoat, and as the wet cloth pressed against his neck, he felt that there no longer ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... whispered the Runt. "Metzer was fixin' ter snitch on him ter-night. Dey've got de goods on Stace, too. He made a bum job ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... broke the hostile silence. "He ought to be here. I've sent for him. Sit down and wait, though f rom the looks of you, you haven't got a chance. I can't throw the public down with a bum fight. Ringside seats are selling at fifteen ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... that the widow Clark, who was a sensible enough woman in the matter of roomers and household management and knew a bum from a modest paying laboring man as well as any one in the profession, was perplexed in the present situation as to the course of true wisdom? Incredible as it may seem, it was Adelle who during this time of doubt gave her aunt strength to resist much bad advice. Her influence was, as might ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... time," Anita told him. "The Government provides Mr. Tinker with any kind of transportation he needs. A thousand thanks, Tony. I won't forget—" The rest was cut off as she gave him one of the more polite bum's rushes. I think he would have liked to hang around to see the rest of our ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... starvation army they play, And they sing and they clap and they pray. Till they get all your coin on the drum, Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum: ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... know you're a cool customer," the man appraised, "but if you think you're going to put anything over on us this time, you've made a bum guess." ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... Dart putting much eloquence Into the monosyllable. "That's a bum monniker out of a French love story. It's the Roosian princess. It's Helga, that's ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... I didn't begin to keep boarding-house yesterday. It means that I am not the kind that can be taken in by every hack-driver's son that comes loafing over here because he can't bum a living at home. It means that you can't ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a thriving town some fifty or sixty miles north of their starting-point. Austin was so chilled he could hardly walk, but managed to follow the other fellows up-town. It is needless to say that his initiation into the life of a "bum" was not pleasant. But his companions seemed not to mind their discomfort, and he trudged along with them. When they reached town, they first got something warm to eat, then inquired for a place to stay. The man of whom they asked understood their circumstances, for he had seen ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... in the darkness I am conscious of a big thrill of pride. The overland has stopped twice for me—for me, a poor hobo on the bum. I alone have twice stopped the overland with its many passengers and coaches, its government mail, and its two thousand steam horses straining in the engine. And I weigh only one hundred and sixty pounds, and I haven't a ...
— The Road • Jack London
... insisted the other with convincing simplicity: "I'm such a bum loser, I'm willing to stake my last five hundred on the proposition that you don't leave this house a dollar ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... sir, but I did n't hear the conwersation, habbin' the ladies to 'tend to. But Jack was oncommon short in his floor timbers, sir, and had no length of keel at all. His beam was won'erful for his length, altogedder—what you call jolly-boat, or bum-boat build, and was only good afore'e wind, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mrs. Petty. "In my belief it's come on through reading those newspapers. If I had my way I'd bum the lot. Can I trust you to watch him while I go ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... said in a low, interested voice. "There's a whiskered bum dodging around your back hall here, and if I'm not very much mistaken, he's got ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... A.M. still coaling up. Every thing working smooth and nothing to stop, it is a beautyfull night and the Southern Cross looms up with more beauty than I ever seen befor. But the ships bum Boat is all right too, she loomed up with a big ketle of hot Steaming cocoa, Just the thing a man wants when he has the mid watch. the wether is very cold down hear. a few of the men is going ashore to morrow. I dont think I will be able to go as I will have the afternoon watch, any way I ...
— The Voyage of the Oregon from San Francisco to Santiago in 1898 • R. Cross
... She is kinder Red Headed tolerable tall and has got a prety Bust in fact she is perfectly made up and you mite know of her by a Thing she has got tattooed on her rite thigh kindly in front of her leg. I think they aimed it for a Hart with L. M. in it but they kinder made a bum job of it and it is hard to make out what it is. If you here of her let me know it at wounced and I will come rite up fur her fur I want to See her bad. eny thing you let me no Surtenly will be appreciate. ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... can count me outer dis deal. You oughter know that. I'm on de bum all right enough, but dat other t'ing don't go wit' me. Burglary is no good. I'll say good night and many ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... to thrust himselfe in betwixt the legat, and the archbishop of Canturburie. And where belike the said archbishop of Canturburie was loth to remooue, he set his buttocks iust in his lap, but he scarslie touched the archbishops skirt with his bum, when the bishops and other chapleins with their seruants stept to him, pulled him away, and threw him to the ground, and beginning to lay on him with bats and fists, the archbishop of Canturburie yeelding good for euill, sought to saue him from their hands. Thus was verified in him that sage ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... you judged "Wild Bill" by his oratory, you thought him a creature poisoned through and through, a soul turned rancid with envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness. But now the tears came into his eyes, and he put his arm over Jimmie's shoulder. "Say, old pal, that's bum luck! By God, I'm sorry!" And Jimmie, who wanted nothing so much as somebody to be sorry with, clasped Bill in his arms, and burst into tears, and told over and over again how he had gone to what had been his home, and found only a huge crater blown ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... I'm a-tellin' yer. I wanter be a good boy. My pa, he drinks. He drinks like—" The word he used, in description, was not the sort of a word that should have issued from childish lips. "An' my big brother—he ain't like Pa, but he's a bum, too! I don't wanter be like they are—not if I kin help it! I wanter be th' sort of a guy King Arthur was, an' them knights of his'n. I wanter be like that there St. George feller, as killed dragons. I wanter do real things," unconsciously he was quoting from the gospel of Rose-Marie, "wi' my life! ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... winter," he points out to Sergeant M'Snape, "a body can breathe withoot swallowing a wheen bluebottles and bum-bees. A body can aye streitch himself doon under a tree for a bit sleep withoot getting wasps and wee beasties crawling up inside his kilt, and puddocks craw-crawing in his ear! A body can keep ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... think yo're going to skin me outen three-fifty, one-fifty, or one measly cent, you need some medicine, an' I'll give it to you in pill form! You'd make a bum-looking angel, so get up an' hand over that cayuse, an' do ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... or Poor Robin's Character of an unconscionable Pawnbroker, and Ear-mark of an oppressing Tally-man; with a friendly Description of a Bum-bailey, and his merciless setting cur, or follower. With Allowance. London, Printed for ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... the fellow who had given his name as Mike Hogan. "Don't call me a bum! I'm onto your curves, and there ain't no reason why you and ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... said Hetty, poising her knife, "is it as bad art as that? I ain't a critic; but I thought it kind of brightened up the room. Of course, a manicure-painter could tell it was a bum picture in a minute. I'll take it down if you say so. I wish to the holy Saint ...
— Options • O. Henry
... "forgettin' what a great man you are so long as Father's payin' the bills, let's figure on just what your standin' is now. You're a bum bond clerk, on the ragged edge of bein' ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Are the folks who come With their owlish strictures— Telling why they're bum. Of all lines of babble This one has the call: Picture gallery gabble Is the best ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... and manner how Gargamelle was brought to bed, and delivered of her child, was thus: and, if you do not believe it, I wish your bum-gut fall out and make an escapade. Her bum-gut, indeed, or fundament escaped her in an afternoon, on the third day of February, with having eaten at dinner too many godebillios. Godebillios are the fat tripes of coiros. Coiros are beeves fattened at the cratch in ox-stalls, or in ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... got a new boarder to-day, a feller with bum nerves who come from the city. Gee! but he's togged out t' kill. Got money, too, an' ain't afraid to spend it. ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... own affairs best. But with all your money, you'd better take to the tall pines yourself, like these old guys in the 'Lobster Club.' That's the advice of a man who's in the business for money not glory. This is a bum game. They'll get me some day, some of these yeggs or bunk artists that I've sent away for recuperation, as the doctors call it. But I'm doing it for bread and beefsteak, while it lasts. You run along and play—a good way from ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... "He's handing out bum dope, as usual," Scotty added. "He hasn't even read the letter." He grinned widely. "But I have. And he'll eat his words ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... "You think that all the college graduates turn out lawyers and doctors and professors? Some of 'em are mighty glad to sweep out banks in hopes of a clerkship; and some take any sort of a place in a mill or a business house, to work up; and some bum round out West 'on cattle ranches; and some, if they're lucky, get newspaper reporters' places ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... you do, Lee?" said Manning. "Report me to the Council? They'll listen to me before they'd pay attention to complaints from a nobody who's been drifting around the outworlds for most of his life. That's all you are, you know, Lee—a drifter, a bum, like the rest of them. That's what everybody out here on the Edge is ... unless he ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... said Waymark, smiling, as he lit his cigar. The result was that, in a quarter of an hour Sally had related her whole history. As Ida had said, she came from Weymouth, where her father was a fisherman, and owner of bum-boats. Her mother kept a laundry, and the family had all lived together in easy circumstances. She herself had come to London—well, just for a change. And what was she doing? Oh, getting her living as best she could. In the day-time she ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... so kind as to bring me another box of caramels?" Annie, without stopping her work or so much as looking up, raises her voice and calls down the room—and in her heart she is the same exactly as Elizabeth W.—"Fannie, you bum, bring me a box of car'mels or I'll knock the hell clean out ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... it became dark, the camp fires were allowed to bum low; and shortly afterwards the whole corps, with the exception of the sentries, were sound asleep. At four o'clock they were roused, and marched silently off in the appointed direction. By five o'clock each party was at its post and, for half an hour, they lay in expectancy. The ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... "Yeah. Bum-lookin' joint, ain't it? These guys ain't got no brains; they like to live like this." The contempt of the second speaker was only surpassed by the stridency of ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... of a busted drive-shaft, a cracked crank-case, a loose steering-wheel, a bum battery, a dilapidated differential and faulty ignition, it is just as good as new. Outside of buying four sets of tires, three new springs, a new top, two rear axles, a couple of batteries, having the valves ground sixteen times, the clutch tightened every week and the self-starter repaired ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... ordinary, and bringing home the "muckle greybeard "full of excellent Glenlivat from the Cross Keys on Wednesday. Above them both the Reverend Erasmus Teends droned and drowsed, as Jess Kissock said with her faculty for expression, "bummelin' awa like a bubbly-Jock or a bum-bee in a bottle." ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... Gogie had to keep track of seventy-'leven accounts and watch every single last movement of a fool girl that can't even run the adding-machine, why, he'd get green around the gills. He'd never do anything but make mistakes! Well, I guess the old codger must have had a bum breakfast this morning. Wanted some exercise to digest it. Me, I was the exercise—I was the goat. He calls me in, and he calls me down, and me—well, just lemme tell you, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... and there was more animation in the tone. "I may have something better for you than this lumber wagon. I 'm right, ain't I, in guessing you 're no regular bum?" ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... I would always desert the office if there's a plausible excuse to bum about the waterfront. Is there any passion in the breast of mankind more absorbing than the love of ships? A tall Cunarder putting out to sea gives me a keener thrill than anything the Polo Grounds or the Metropolitan Opera can show. Of what avail a ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... boys were interrupted by the authoritative voice—"I told you to move on, didn't I—now if I tell you again I'll run you in. D'yer hear? What you boys let that old bum hang around you for anyway. What's he ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... into the vestibule of one of the many slum saloons abounding in that locality, and here he watched the mounted police hard at work trying to again open the thoroughfare. While he thus passed the time until he could cross the street, he was accosted by a typical Chicago rum-soaked bum. "Say, friend," the semi-maudlin wretch pleaded while he edged most uncomfortably close to Joe, "would you mind assisting a hungry fellow who has not eaten a square meal in a week?" More for the sake of getting rid of his unpleasant company, than from a desire to accord charity, Joe went ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... hab de keen smell o' de root, An' it hab rich er tender yaller green! De co'n hit kinder twinkle when hit firs' begin ter shoot, While de bum'le-bee hit bum'le in between. ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... thousand fans had come To see the twirler who had put big Casey on the bum; And when he stepped into the box the multitude went wild. He doffed his cap in proud disdain—but ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... tune to another. "Don't that sound like the Plaza Major in old Chihuahua by moonlight?" cried McKinney, as a swinging band march came squealing out through the door. "That's a piece by a Mexican band. Can't you hear the choo-choo, and the wee-wee, and the bum-bum? They're ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... Shu[u]den's order a hole was dug, just four shaku (feet) in depth. The Osho[u] began the recitation of the sutra. The priests stood by in vigilant attention. As the last word reverberated on the bishop's lips they seized the sutra wrapped bamboo, slipped it in the long box—bum! the lock snapped. The congregation was tremendously impressed. For a decent time Shu[u]den remained in prayer and meditation. "The charm is complete. O'Iwa no longer wanders, to her own penance and the disaster of men. Henceforth he who says she does so lies. Hearken to the words of Shu[u]den. ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... sits a Knight, And here a grave old man ore right Against his worship, then perhaps That by and by a Drawer claps His bum close by them, there down squats A dealer in old shoes and hats; And here withouten any panick Fear, dread or care a ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... look from eyes that seemed to bum like red coals, but he said nothing whatever. He took the coffee Sylvia held out to him and drank it ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... the poetry was strictly on the bum, but what it lacked in quality it made up in quantity and he could spiel it off by the yard. Whenever he got stuck for a rhyme he would blow the whistle which he used to call the crowd in front of the freak he was lecturing about and move to the next platform. That didn't happen ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... me the money and let me go now, and I won't ever come back!" cried Montgomery eagerly. "I been lookin' for the chance to get clear of this bum town! I'll stay away, don't you lose no sleep about that; I ain't got nothin' ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... bunch like that," Dickie commented. "A man that can't get a job to-day is a bum. And the fellow doesn't live that ever gets through knocking around. That is if he's a ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... goed py. Vot heardest dou, Napolium? De rumpitty, rumpitty, rumpitty poom! Ven you hear de sound of de droom, Oh denn you know dat de Dootch hafe coom, De treadful roarin Dootch, mit de droom Und de roompitty, pumpitty, poompity pum! De wild ferocious Dootch on a bum, Mit cannon roar und pattle hum, Mit fee und faw on de foe und fum! Led py de awful Breitemum! Bitty ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... that happiness has wrecked more poems than sorrows ever helped to flow in sparkling jets. Dinah, happy in seeing Etienne taking his ease, smoking a cigar after breakfast, his face beaming as he basked like a lizard in the sunshine, could not summon up courage enough to make herself the bum-bailiff of ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... reasons for such a sequence, it would appear that the purpose must be to deprive the student of any occasion for becoming pessimistic. Certainly nobody will ever have his convictions upset by looking at ancient cloths daubed over with linseed oil, nor by the bum-ta-ra of music. But, to my mind, in a country like Spain, it is better that our young men should be dissatisfied than that they should go to the laboratory every day in immaculate blouses, chatter like proper young gentlemen about El Greco, Cezanne and the ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... in the daytime. "Majority rules," they said, "and there's three of us against you. We can't sleep while you have that lamp burning. The light keeps us awake and it also makes the room so hot that the devil couldn't stand it. If you stay up reading to-night we'll give you the bum's rush." ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... leaving a call with the night clerk for eight o'clock in the morning, she seems to drift off into a peaceful slumber, but awakens on the moment and hurrying all the way up to the other end of Main Street she slams the bass keys a couple of hard blows—bumetty-bum! And so it goes for quite a long spell after that: Tippy-tap!—off to the country for a week-end party, Friday to Monday; bumetty-bum!—six months elapse between the third and fourth acts; tippetty-tip!—two ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... know. The whole system is on the bum to-day. Maybe half an hour; maybe more. Better ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... aid the deputy marshal in kidnapping was not an act of levying war, or treason against the United States. "In so doing he is not acting the part of an honest, loyal citizen [who ought to do any wickedness which a bum-bailiff commands]; he may be liable to be punished for a misdemeanor for his refusal ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... "Well, the dadblasted bum!" exclaimed Bunker in a rage as the miner passed over the first hill and, stumping across the street, he rolled up the tumbled blankets. "The dirty dog!" he grumbled vindictively, hoisting the bed upon his shoulders; but as he started back to the house he heard something drop from ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... of the property owners to obtain their rents was at once removed by Lord Roberts. In order to give effect to this decision it was necessary to appoint officials. Practically what was really required was a sort of glorified bum-bailiff, with the necessary assistance, the bum-bailiff holding a position similar to that of a magistrate. I was asked to suggest the name of a senior officer of the Australians who would be suitable. I did so. But the point arose by what name was the appointment to ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... the Captain. "Messenger, send Mr Portfire here." The gunpowder functionary, he of the flannel cartridge, appeared. "Gunner, send one of your mates into the maintop, and let him bum a ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... late, Thoughts Underworld, the Brainstorm Slum, The land of Futile Piffledom; A salon weird where congregate Freak, Nut and Bug and Psychic Bum. ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... head, Montana," said his honor. "Open up to that there Declaration. Here, Larsen, put your hand on this and swear you're telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They ain't going to be any bum testimony taken in this court. We ain't going to railroad ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... lean and sprawling youth with lank blonde hair, a long nose, and an incorrigible smile that spread to the furthest confines of his face. To quote himself, he was a bum artist and a squarehead. He took people at their own valuation and was ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... gate, an' most likely fine it locked when we git there. Hold on till I git my internal machine to work on the fence. Dad! Where's that ole morepoke? O, you're there, are you? Fetch the jack off o' your wagon—come! fly roun'! you're (very) slow for a young fellow. Bum," (abbreviation of "bummer," and applied to the red-headed fellow) "you surround them carrion, or we'll be losin' the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... "Art's a bum mistress if she makes you hustle like that!" commented Ogilvy. "Shake her, Kelly. She's a wampire mit ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... you, mun! 'twould ha' look'd busy like, in me, to say a word; so I took up a warming pan, and I bang'd bum bailey, wi' the broad end on't, 'till he fell o' the floor as fat ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... get back to land!" the other exploded. "If worst comes to worst we've got the wireless, haven't we? We can light on the water and send out an S. O. S., can't we? I must say you're a mighty bum sailor." ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... to enter to call on my friend, Mr. Elsworth, to sip an afternoon glass with him, when a big-booted fellow cried out, halt. Now, sir, the idea of asking a man well in both legs to halt, is preposterous. So I said, and walked on as straight as I could, when bang, bum, whiz, came one, two, three bullets scattering ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... his name is Jack Hoag; he's a little bit of a trapper and a big bit of a bum; stuck me last year. He doesn't come out this way; they say he goes out by the west side of ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of sixteen," said George, "are bum dancers. Anyhow, I wouldn't dance with one unless ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... retorted, with a perfect imitation of Chip's manner and tone when crossed. "I've been trying out all the darned benchest you've got—and there ain't a one I'd give a punched nickel for but Silver. I'd a rode Shootin' Star, only he wouldn't stand still so I could get onto him. Whoever broke him did a bum job. The horse I break will stand, or I'll know the reason why. Silver'll stand, all right. And I can guide him pretty well by slapping his neck. You did a pretty fair job when you broke Silver," the Kid ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... the red tie" (that was my cosmopolite), said he, "got hot on account of things said about the bum sidewalks and water supply of the place he come from ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... teenty, alligo, dan, Bobs o' vinegar, gentleman, Kiss, toss, mouse, fat, Bore a needle, bum a fiddle, Jink ma jeerie, jink ma jye, Stand you ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... understand something important to everybody. You come in here and claim by the right of personal interest that we should be most willing to tell you our business. Then in the next breath you defend the installation over on the other side of town for their attitude in giving the bum's rush to people who try to ask questions about their business. Go read your Constitution, Mr. Fisher. It says there that I have as much right to defend my home against intruders as the A.E.C. has to defend their ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Escal. Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the 205 Great. Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a tapster, are you not? come, tell me true: it shall be ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... handkerchief. The heat in the dining-room was oppressive. "I've never see 'em before, an' they didn't seem like talkin' a heap. They were all three hard-lookin' citizens, an'—might ha' been anything from bum cowpunchers to—" ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... harm meant. That's right, stand by him. I like to see it. Why, a little queen across the counter from you tole me you'd have married him if he'd had three bum lungs, that crazy ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... what though you have a Coach lined through with velvet, and four fair Flanders mares, why should the streets be troubled continually with you, till Carmen curse you? can there be ought in this but pride of shew Lady, and pride of bum-beating, till the learned lawyers with their fat bags, are thrust against the bulks till all their causes crack? why should this Lady, and t'other Lady, and the third sweet Lady, and Madam at Mile-end, be daily visited, and your poorer neighbours, with ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... weren't fifty in the audience. She couldn't act. I mean she couldn't draw. The whole company was on the bum and stone-broke. They'd scraped out of Australia and the Sandwich Islands, but it looked as if they'd stay in Calcutta, doing good works, such as mending roads for the public, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... paid his fare. And when you squeak he gets the Roosevelt glare, And hoots, "I won't be dickied with - I'll shoot!" Then all the passengers get in and root. Loud cheers of, "Put him off!" and "Make him square!" Till Mr. Holdfast with an injured air Pungles his nick and ends the bum dispute. ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... Go, Sir Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the orchard, like a bum-baily. So soon as ever thou see'st him, draw; and as thou drawest, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft, that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... there for a man to do, if he doesn't do anything? He's not going out anywhere since his mother's death; he has no clubs to go to, I understand. What does he do—go to his office and come back, and sit in that shabby old brick house all day and blink at the bum portraits of his bum and distinguished ancestors? Do you know what he does with himself?" ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... said, "Come in—come in—for the love of heaven come in, else you will ruin me entirely." "How so?" cried Opie "Marry, thus," replied the other, "my neighbors over the way will see you, and say, 'Fuseli's done,—for there's a bum bailiff,'" he looked at Opie, "'going to seize his person; and a little Jew broker,'" he looked at Northcote, "'going to take his furniture,—so come in ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... Bum Bahadoor had acted as prime minister during the absence of his brother in England, and had just learnt to value the possession of power when the return of the minister put an end to his short-lived greatness, and he would have sunk at once into comparative insignificance, had not Jung, who knew ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... incredible swiftness, pawed himself back to the dying man's head and yelping, licked frantically at the hand of his master. Coming up into plain sight, Stone got a good look at the man he had killed: "Stormy Gorman!" he exclaimed, with an oath of surprise. "Who'd 'a' thought," he continued, "that big bum would be up at Dutch Henry's ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... you a real old bear-hug, but I've got a bum wing and I can't. Gee, we musta passed each other on the road somewhere, because I was streaking it down here to see you—gee, but you look good to me!—and you were streaking it up there to see me—" The adorable young voice hesitated ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... it easier. It's the woman's suit-case, and if we can't find out who she is from that, we're pretty bum, eh?" ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... he sent us a good dinner, and a glass of grog each, which we discussed under the half-deck, between two of the guns. We had some money in our pockets, and we purchased some sheets of paper from the bum-boat people, who were on the main-deck supplying the seamen, and I wrote to Mr Drummond and Mr Turnbull, as well as to Mary and old Tom, requesting the two latter to forward our clothes to Deal, in case of our being detained. Tom also wrote ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... "but who could have wanted to do it. You and I, Rivers, know every one in Westways. Can you think of any one with malice enough to make him want to bum a house and risk the possibility ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... to cool the boiling radiator, the bug panted up, and with the first grin she had seen on his face since Dakota Milt chuckled, "The Teal is a grand car for mountains. Aside from overheating, bum lights, thin upholstery, faulty ignition, tissue-paper brake-bands, and this-here special aviation engine, specially built for a bumble-bee, it's what the catalogues ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... in full play, and his gaze came to rest upon Calvin Gray; his eyes began to blaze. "You—you big bum!" he cried. "I might have known ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... gloaming sight o' what's reasonable—that is anes and awa'—a glisk and nae mair; but he's crack-brained and cockle-headed about his nipperty-tipperty poetry nonsense—He'll glowr at an auld-warld barkit aik-snag as if it were a queezmaddam in full bearing; and a naked craig, wi' a bum jawing ower't, is unto him as a garden garnisht with flowering knots and choice pot-herbs. Then he wad rather claver wi' a daft quean they ca' Diana Vernon (weel I wet they might ca' her Diana of the Ephesians, for she's little better than a heathen—better? she's waur—a ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Guffey, "here's my idea: As a witness you're on the bum, but as a spy, you're it. They know that you blabbed, and that I know it; they know I've had you in the hole. So now what I want to do is to make a martyr ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... of a roasted crab; And when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale; The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale, Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, And rails or cries, and falls into a cough, And then the whole choir hold ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... "Bum. My fever was high all night," moaned the sufferer. "I heard you fellows come up, and I hoped someone might drop in. I suppose you ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... was awakened by a scratching noise on the iron quilt which covers my repose. A cold perspiration broke out on my forehead. I buried my head in the hardwood pillows and waited the end. Just then M. Stepupski, the Minister of the Department of Bum Shells, walked in through the secret ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... maybe it was my bum shooting and not the bad luck the stallion put on my rifle that made me miss. So I give him the job of plugging the hoss. Well, he tried and missed three times. Off goes the grey and the chestnut like a streak the first crack ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand |
