"Thumb" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eye-teeth now," said Gladding. "Holden's as safe as you or me. And, Prime," he added, rising, and, as he took leave, making a peculiar gesture with the thumb of his right hand touching the end of his nose, and his fingers twinkling in the air, "you're too old a fox to need teaching, but it will do no harm to say I advise you to keep as ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... description), it will be tried by its peers next session in Grub Street. Arthur, Alfred, Davideis, Richard Coeur de Lion, Exodus, Exodiad, Epigoniad, Calvary, Fall of Cambria, Siege of Acre, Don Roderick, and Tom Thumb the Great, are the names of the twelve jurors. The judges are Pye, * * *, and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... United States. The capitalistic system is to be destroyed. The institution of private property is to be abolished. Free competition and private initiative are to be abolished or greatly restricted. All business is to be under the thumb of the government. Personal liberty is to be narrowed down. Some socialists even go so far as to declare war upon the family and the church, but though a number of socialist leaders favor the abolition of the institution of marriage, and are professed ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... a new direction. Going at so swift a pace, and in such a dim light, in a few bounds it enters among some bushes, where it is brought up standing. Before its rider can extricate it, a strong hand has hold of it by the head, with a thumb inserted into its nostrils, while the fingers of another are clutching at his own throat. The hand on the horse's muzzle is that of Caspar the gaucho, the fingers that grope to get a gripe on the rider's neck being those ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... so overcome with the heat, that he had fallen asleep. He awoke with a shivering sensation of cold over his whole body, particularly at his chest, and, half-opening his eyes, he perceived the pilot, Schriften, leaning over him, and holding between his finger and his thumb a portion of the chain which had not been concealed, and to which was attached the sacred relic. Philip closed them again, to ascertain what were the man's intentions: he found that he gradually dragged out ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... disappeared, murmuring something about Anglais, milords, and droles. The precise purport of his reflections could not be distinctly understood by those in the house, for civility made him inarticulate, but when he was safely outside he looked at a piece of crisp paper in his hand, then, with his thumb pointing over his shoulder, he gave an immense shrug, ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... darning-needle; "no, but high-minded! There were five brothers, all descendants of the 'Finger' family. They always kept together, although they were of different lengths. The outermost one, little Thumb, was short and stout; he went at the side, a little in front of the ranks: he had, too, but one joint in his back, so that he could only make one bow; but he said, if a man were to cut him off, such a one were no longer fit for military service. Sweet-tooth, the second finger, ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... experiment to represent the way in which a person's neck is broken. Bring the ends of the left thumb and the left second finger together in the form of a ring. Place a piece of a wooden toothpick across it from the middle of the finger to the middle of the thumb. Put the right forefinger of the other hand up through the front part to represent the odontoid process of the axis, and place ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... nor after either. "Rab!" he said roughly, and pointing with his thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab leapt up, and settled himself; his head and eye to the dead face. "Maister John, ye'll wait for me," said the carrier; and disappeared in the darkness, thundering down-stairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a front window; there ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... "Now, Henry, you be ready to clap your thumb over the hole, as soon as I take the flower away, or ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... repaired, I came upon the chest, and opening it, discovered my boys' hoard, and in it this packet of books. I sat down on the top of the chest and read them all through, from Jack the Giant-killer down to Hop o' my Thumb without rising, and this in the broad daylight, with the yellow sunshine nestling beside me on the rose-coloured silken seat, richly worked, of a large stately-looking chair with three golden legs. Yes I could tell you all those stories, not to say the names ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... as she called it. It did not follow because he was a butcher that he was to have butchering ideas for ever, or that he was to know nothing of 'literature,' as she termed it—that is, novels. Mr. Mumbles had read 'Puss in Boots,' 'Jack the Giant Killer,' 'Tom Thumb,' 'Jack and the Bean Stalk,' 'Whittington and his Cat,' and 'Mother Goose' in his childhood. In his boyhood he had gone through 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' and 'The Seven Champions of Christendom,' ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... he, "Brother, if I were a judge, and you had been brought before me upon any charge which would render necessary such questions as those I have put to you, the reply you have given would oblige me to apply the thumb-screw. It is nothing to me who you are, what is your name, or whither you are going: I only warn you, that if it suits your convenience to lie on this journey, you should lie with more appearance of truth. You say you are going to La Pena de Francia, and ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... again turned faint, so faint indeed that he did not dare to keep his feet, but sank into a sitting posture, resting his back against the stone of the idol's thumb. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... what your protectors wanted you to be. So they took you by the shoulder, they led you to the door, and cried: "Be off, rascal; never appear more. He would fain have sense, reason, wit, I declare! Off with you; we have all these qualities and to spare!" You went away biting your thumb; it was your infernal tongue, that you ought to have bitten before all this. For not bethinking you of that, here you are in the gutter without a farthing, or a place to lay your head. You were well ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... bones of our bodies, by the seeds of the million years that flow in our veins, material things are spiritually discerned. There is not science enough nor scientific method enough in the schools of all Christendom for a man to listen intelligently to his own breathing with, or to know his own thumb-nail. Is not his own heart thundering the infinite through him—beating the eternal against his sides—even while he speaks? And does he not ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... second speech, almost as miraculous as the first. You remember the astonishment and incredulity of Atahualpa the Peruvian King; how he made the Spanish Soldier who was guarding him scratch Dios on his thumb-nail, that he might try the next soldier with it, to ascertain whether such a miracle was possible. If Odin brought Letters among his people, he might ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the tramp, in a hard voice. "Go ahead, an' get done with it. I'm tired of standing here." He had released his thumb from the spring of the electric torch, and the light went out, making the spot seem all the blacker ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... the sharp—it was sung so at the Salzburg opera. The Portier snapped his thumb at the Salzburg opera. Things were looking serious; they walked back to the locale in silence. The sentry coughed. Possibly there was something, after all, in the ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... towards the desert, Owen galloping after them, watching the aerial battle from his saddle, riding with loose rein, holding the rein lightly between finger and thumb, leaving his horse to pick his way. Again a hawk had reached a sufficient height and stooped; again the heron dodged, and so the battle continued, the hawks stooping again and again, but always missing the heron, until at last, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... that he thought he was perhaps not quite wise in his decision, and this he did sotto voce. But even with this precaution it was not safe to say much, and during the little that he did say, the bishop made a very slight, but still a very ominous gesture with his thumb towards the door which opened from his dressing-room to some inner sanctuary. Mr Slope at once took the hint and said no more; but he perceived that there was to be confidence between him and his patron, that the league desired by him was to be made, and that this ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... was tested whenever there was doubt.[4] In countries industrially backward, payments are still made in this manner. For some time after the discovery of gold in California, gold dust was roughly measured out on the thumb-nail. In shipments of gold to-day by bankers to settle international balances, metal may be in the form of bars that bear the mark of some well-known banking house. In all of the cases of this kind the gold is money in fact, but not by ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... the chine bone, cut off the thumb, pierce the diaphragm, or to tear off the hair and fracture the skull, was each punished by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... father was dead, and Furibon was now lord of all: disdaining, therefore, any repulse, he raised an army of four hundred thousand men, and put himself at the head of them, appearing like another Tom Thumb upon a war-horse. Now, when the Amazons perceived his mighty host, they gave the princess notice of its who immediately dispatched away her trusty Abricotina to the kingdom of the fairies, to beg her mother's ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... off my defensive measures till the morrow, because I was a wee bit puzzled as to what to do. In fact, the more I thought, the more puzzled I grew. The only "measures of defence" I could recall for the moment were, how to tie "a thumb or overhand knot," and how long it takes to cut down an apple tree of six inches' diameter. Unluckily neither of these useful facts seemed quite to apply. Now, if they had given me a job like fighting the battle of Waterloo, or Sedan, or Bull Run, I knew ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... the part of the speech which was to be taken as a justification of the armament, reminded me of Parson Saunders's demonstration why minus into minus makes plus. After a parcel of shreds of stuff from AEsop's fables and Tom Thumb, he jumps all at once into his ergo, minus multiplied into minus makes phis. Just so the fifteen thousand men enter after the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... with care to this weapon. Of course it was already loaded, but, lest the night-dew might have damped the priming, he threw up the pan-cover, with his thumb-nail scraped out the powder, and then poured in a fresh supply from his horn. This he adjusted with his picker, taking care that a portion of it should pass into the touch-hole, and communicate with the charge inside. The steel was then returned to its place, and the flint duly looked to. Its state ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... similar to those arising from heat iron. As night came on, every breath of wind died away, an more entire calm it is impossible to conceive. The flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the least perceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration. However, as the captain said he could perceive no indication of danger, and as we were drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to be furled, and the anchor let go. No watch was set, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the other hand, holding his quarter-staff by the middle, and making it flourish round his head after the fashion which the French call "faire le moulinet", exclaimed boastfully, "Come on, churl, an thou darest: thou shalt feel the strength of a miller's thumb!" ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... stood at the window ruminating, with his left hand in his breeches pocket, and his right, with finger and thumb pinching his under lip, after his wont, and the despairing accents of the poor vicar's last sentence still in ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... thumb on the man who would have stolen it for me at the time," rejoined Judson, "but he was discharged for some minor dishonesty before I had ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... his battledore, which he balanced most curiously upon his forefinger. "Look at him!—now do look at him!" cried Tarlton; "did you ever in your life see anybody look so silly?—Hardy has him quite under his thumb; he's so mortally afraid of Parson Prig, that he dare not, for the soul of him, turn either of his eyes from the tip of his nose; look how ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... busily cleaned and dusted the bottles with my handkerchief as I took them out. Little by little I completely emptied the dressing-case. It was lined with blue velvet. In one corner I noticed a tiny slip of loose blue silk. Taking it between my finger and thumb, and drawing it upward, I discovered that there was a false bottom to the case, forming a secret compartment for letters and papers. In my strange condition—capricious, idle, inquisitive—it was an amusement to me to take out the papers, just ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... ready for this great enterprise: the regent of Spain, Mary Anne of Austria, a feeble creature, under the thumb of one Father Nithard, a Jesuit, had allowed herself to be sent to sleep by the skilful manoeuvres of the Archbishop of Embrun; she had refused to make a treaty of alliance with England and to recognize Portugal, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and he saw the most miserable sight. An old woman lay on the ground by the river's edge; a bundle of filthy water-logged rags crowned by a bruised, vindictive face and grey hair smeared with filth and slime. She lay on her back a shapeless huddle; her right thumb tied to her left toe and so across: there was a rope about her middle, but in their hot haste they had ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... the throat to a point under the left ear. The upper portion of the windpipe was severed, and likewise the jugular vein. The muscular coating of the carotid artery was divided. There was a slight cut, as if in continuation of the wound, on the thumb of the left hand. The hands were clasped underneath the head. There was no blood on the right hand. The wound could not have been self-inflicted. A sharp instrument had been used, such as a razor. The cut might have, ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... little feat set about accomplishing it himself, and when I met him some days afterwards he exhibited his proficiency in the art. But he was a little taken aback when I then took the puzzle from him and, while simply holding the medal between the finger and thumb of one hand, by a series of little shakes and jerks caused the ring, without my even touching it, to fall off upon the floor. The following little poser will probably prove a rather tough nut for a great many readers, simply on account ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... and had been from the day they first foregathered. The converts served as witnesses. Bill stood over the missionary, prompting him when he stumbled. Stockard put the responses in the woman's mouth, and when the time came, for want of better, ringed her finger with thumb and ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... hector me, and do as you like because you had me under your thumb in other days. You're a very good fellow, Thorne, but I ain't sure that you are the best doctor in ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... administered. There were eight vessels, each containing 2 pints of water. Four of these were given for the ordinary, and eight for the extraordinary. The executioner inserted a horn into the patient's mouth, and if he shut his teeth, forced him to open them by pinching his nose with the finger and thumb.] ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the foundation of his fortune lay in the employment of trained chemists, while other men made steel by rule of thumb. Trained chemists made better steel, just a little. They devised ways to make it cheaper, just a little, and they found means to utilize the slag. All this means hundreds of millions of dollars, if done on a ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... question of nationality in Europe bristles with difficulties. It cannot be solved by theory and rule of thumb. What is a nation? Shall it be determined by speech, by blood, by geographical boundary, by historic tradition? The freedom and independence of a country can and ever should be assured when with one voice ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... Master, this is so small particle perhaps will not be sufficient for tinging four granes of Lead. He answered; Give it me. I, accordingly gave it him, conceiving, good hope of receiving somewhat a greater particle instead thereof; but he breaking off the one half almost of it with his thumb-nayl, threw it into the fire, and wrapping the other up in blew paper, he gave to me, faying, It is yet sufficient for thee. To which, I with, a sad Countenance and perplexed Mind, answered: Ah ...
— The Golden Calf, Which the World Adores, and Desires • John Frederick Helvetius
... then, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, "If you keep on to the river and that clump of cedars, you will find Termagaunt in ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... and if once that hand fastens on John Haygarth's money, it'll be bad times for you and me. Miss Halliday counts for exactly nothing in my way of reckoning. If her stepfather told her to sign away half a million, she'd scribble her name at the bottom of the paper, and press her pretty little thumb upon the wafer, without asking a single question as to the significance of the document. And, of course, she'd be still less inclined to make objections if it was her husband who asked her to execute the deed. Aha! my young friend, how is it you grow first red and then white ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... was inadequate, and because he had nothing to substitute for it, he frankly abandoned any attempt at valid thought on so difficult a question as the relation of the white colonies to the rest of the British Empire. He therefore decided in effect that it ought to be settled by the rule-of-thumb method of 'cutting the painter'; and, since he was the chief official in the Colonial Office at a critical time, his decision, whether it was right ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... had been developed by long struggles and were often cherished when their real justification had disappeared. The Constitution had not been 'made' but had 'grown'; or, in other words, the one rule had been the rule of thumb. That is an excellent rule in its way, and very superior to an abstract rule which neglects or overrides experience. The 'logic of facts,' moreover, may be trusted to produce a certain harmony: and general principles, though not consciously invoked, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... "One moment." He took the ring between his forefinger and thumb, as if he were a conjurer about to perform, glanced triumphantly round the bar-room, held the girl's hand gallantly in his, deliberately replaced the ring on her finger, and said, "With this ring I thee wed; with my body I thee worship; with ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... short frocks, and used to go with John to see the turkeys fed, and be so scared when they gobbled and strutted with rage at her scarlet bombazette;—how they used to pick up frozen apples and thaw them in the dish-kettle; how she pounded her thumb, cracking butternuts with a flat-iron, and John kissed it to make it well,—only it didn't! And then how they slid down-hill before church, and sat a long two hours thereafter in the square pew, smelling of "meetin'-seed," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... pointing to the seven grains between his thumb and four fingers, "our children shall be guided by these when the Sun-father is not near and thy terraces are as darkness itself. Then shall our children be guided by lights." So Sky-father created the stars. Then he said, "And even as these grains gleam up from the ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... knowledge, look upon his approaching end with a courage and an apathetic calm which resemble the smiling fortitude wherewith the ancient gladiators uttered their parting salutations to Nero—when, in expectation, they waited for the fatal thumb to be turned down, in ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of the pouch at his side a long black, dirty-looking leaf, which smelt very strong, and also a little bowl about the size of a man's thumb, with a long, slender handle fixed to it. Said he to a boy standing near him, "Run, my pretty fellow, and bring me some fire." Whilst the boy was bringing the fire, he fell to rubbing the black leaf to pieces between the palms of his hands. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... a special predilection for digging the huge nail of his thumb into the side of his victim, a peculiarity for which he had been named "the Cossack," his famous thumb being referred to by the boys as his spear. He had a passion for inventing new and complex modes of punishment, his spear figuring in most of them. One ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... seemed he had set out to justify his brother's calumnies; as though he was bent to prove himself a man of a dry nature, immersed in money-getting. Had I been there alone, I would not have troubled my thumb; but all the while, as I listened, I was estimating the effect on the man's wife, and telling myself that he fell lower every day. I was the one person on the surface of the globe that comprehended him, and I was bound there should be yet another. Whether he was to die there and his virtues perish: ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mountains of letters asking about sucking the thumb, as introduced by dainty Miss Vanity Vaux in Draw it mild, Daisy. Only the tip of the thumb should be sucked; those of you who put the whole thumb into your mouths must not complain if you see smiles exchanged round you. Where the eyes are large ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... competition. It is an ill look-out for the cycle mechanic who is not prepared to tackle the new problems that will arise. For all this next century this particular body of mechanics will be picking up new recruits and eliminating the incompetent and the rule-of-thumb sage. Can it fail, as the years pass, to develop certain general characters, to become so far homogeneous as to be generally conscious of the need of a scientific education, at any rate in mechanical and chemical matters, and to possess, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... Bailey jerked a thumb significantly at the ceiling. "The boss wants to see you. And you'd better have the right answers, too. The boss seems to have a lot ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse
... is a picnic, not a bally Union debate. You can't argue for nuts; and when you start spouting you're the limit. But two can play at that game!" He flourished a half-empty syphon of lemonade, threatening the handle with a very square thumb. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Estelle, far from it. He did justice to her as a good, true-hearted, self-improving American. Taken by herself, he felt for her decided regard; but taken in connection with Aurora he would sometimes have liked delicately to lift her between finger and thumb and drop her ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... noble fruit as ever swung To grace a tree so firm and strong. Indeed, it was a great mistake, As this discovery teaches, That I myself did not partake His counsels whom my curate preaches. All things had then in order come; This acorn, for example, Not bigger than my thumb, Had not disgraced a tree so ample. The more I think, the more I wonder To see outraged proportion's laws, And that without the slightest cause; God surely made an awkward blunder.' With such reflections proudly fraught, Our sage grew tired of mighty thought, And threw himself ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... Brummell was more. He had some sharpness and some taste. But the former was all brought out in sneers, and the latter in snuff-boxes. His whole mind could have been put into one of these. He had a splendid collection of them, and was famous for the grace with which he opened the lid of his box with the thumb of the hand that carried it, while he delicately took his pinch with two fingers of the other. This and his bow were his chief acquirements, and his reputation for manners was based on the distinction of his manner. He could not drive in a public conveyance, but ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... a strange scene was going on. Sitting well back in his consulting-chair, his hands spread out, finger to finger, thumb to thumb, Doctor George was gazing sternly in silence at an ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... in this narrow wedge. The distance through the chest and point of the heart from side to side was, in this case, exactly four and one-half inches. A man's hand, as shown in the photograph, can easily grasp the whole lower chest of a deer, placing thumb and forefinger over the heart on opposite sides. (2) The heart of a deer, and indeed of all ruminant animals, lies close against the chest walls and is easily reached and wounded. The chest cartilage, except in an old deer, is soft; the ribs are thin and easily ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... the gun is, like Stephen in the classic rhyme, to "p'int de gun, pull on de trigger." But since the ordinary pull is a jerk that affects the aim, some genius has invented the new method. So we are taught first to grip the small of the stock with the full hand, the thumb along the side, and with the forefinger to take up the slack of the trigger till it engages the mechanism, and then to take a little more, till presently the gun will go off. At this point, while using the sling to secure ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... individuals do not realize the small amount of force that will prevent the enlargement of the chest. This can be demonstrated by drawing a piece of tape tightly around the lower part of the chest of a vigorous adult, and confining it with the thumb and finger. Then endeavor fully to inflate the lungs, and the movement of the ribs will be ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... Transcendental Philosophy, the leaves flying about and losing themselves, and the thoughts as ill-arranged, for the Hebrew Talmudical manner still clung to his German writing as to his talking, so that the body swayed rhythmically, his thumb worked and his voice chanted the sing-song of piety to ideas that would have paralyzed the Talmud school. It was in like manner that when he lost a game of chess or waxed hot in argument, his old Judean-Polish mother jargon ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... "so" by stamping his foot down over and over again and raising it up, the last time cleverly picking an ordinary pebble from the ground with his toes, and holding it out as easily as if he had used his fingers and thumb. ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... except for Morton's philosophical outpourings to the listening Eleanor, most of the dreary occasion of eating poor food, served by a waiter who put his thumb into things, was given up to the stifled laughter of the girl and boys, and to conversation between the other two guests, who were properly arch because of the occasion, but disappointed in their dinner, and anxious to shake their heads and lift shocked hands as soon as they could get out ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... monopolised the conversation with his Irving talk, and both Carrie and I came to the conclusion one can have even too much imitation of Irving. After supper, Mr. Burwin-Fosselton got a little too boisterous over his Irving imitation, and suddenly seizing Gowing by the collar of his coat, dug his thumb-nail, accidentally of course, into Gowing's neck and took a piece of flesh out. Gowing was rightly annoyed, but that man Padge, who having declined our modest supper in order that he should not lose his comfortable chair, burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... flat upon the ground near Lylda, and after a moment she climbed into it, two soldiers lifting her up the side of my thumb as it lay upon the ground. In the hollow of my palm, she lay quite securely, and very carefully I raised her up towards my face. Then, seeing that she was frightened, I set her ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... whom everybody trusted; an apparently steady-going, grinning sort, as we used to call him. Well, he was completely under Miss Annie's thumb, and would fetch and carry for her like a faithful dog. As soon as he saw that I began to care for Annie, and anybody could see that, he transferred some of his allegiance to me and became my faithful servitor also. Never did a man have a more devoted adherent ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... up the country; hunting was threatened; the power and vulgarity of the press were appalling; women had lost their heads; and everybody seemed afraid of having any "breeding." By the time little Gyp was Gyp's age, they would all be under the thumb of Watch Committees, live in Garden Cities, and have to account for every half-crown they spent, and every half-hour of their time; the horse, too, would be an extinct animal, brought out once ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... where Finn was, and bade him to roast it, but he bade him not to eat any of it. And when Finn brought him the salmon after a while he said: "Did you eat any of it at all, boy?" "I did not," said Finn; "but I burned my thumb putting down a blister that rose on the skin, and after doing that, I put my thumb in my mouth." "What is your name, boy?" said Finegas. "Deimne," said he. "It is not, but it is Finn your name is, and it is to you and not to myself the ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... a sharp eye to observe the slight pallor of the civilian's face at these words, and the only other manifestation attesting their significance was a voluntary relaxation of the thumb and fingers holding the dishonored paper, which, falling to the road, unheeded, was rolled by a gentle wind and then lay still, with a coating of dust, as in humiliation for the lie that it bore. A moment later the civilian, still looking ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... of the Y.M.C.A. building sauntered the Reporter. Perceiving the Candy Wagon at the curb he paused, scrutinising it jauntily, through a monocle formed by a thumb ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... would continually give way, and there was nothing to be done but rest on one haunch and try to look wise, being continually bothered by the flies. After a while he began to grow stronger and more comely, his ears darkened, and his eyes—put in, as they say, with a dirty thumb—grew larger, taking on that exceeding brightness that made passers-by look and look again. He was also allowed further afield when his turn came. There were walks along the river-banks, in company with half-a-dozen of the others; and before he was six months old he could run a good distance ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... things to start Jacky, so he won't be much trouble or expense; and anyway, he's past the most troublesome age and you won't have to be up nights with him, and he isn't afraid of anybody or anything, as you can see by his just sitting there laughing and sucking his thumb, though he doesn't know what's going to become of him. And he's just seventeen months old like dear little Sarah Ellen in the graveyard, and we thought we ought to give you the refusal of him before he goes to the poor farm, and what do you think about it? Because it's near ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... upright in a wooden cot. A fat-faced atom of brown humanity, bald-headed and big-eyed, he sucked his thumb and stared at the visitor, and from the visitor ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... to shoot and be shot at. He was wounded no less than seven times. The first wound was received by him two minutes after he had fired his first shot, the bullet going through his neck. The second hit him in the left thumb. The third struck near his right hip, passing entirely through the body. The fourth bullet (which was apparently from a Remington and not from a Mauser) went into his neck and lodged against the bone, being afterward cut out. The fifth bullet again hit his left hand. The sixth scraped ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... seat Stefan had indicated with a big thumb, and suddenly a ravenous hunger came upon her. The great pan full of sizzling bacon and fat pork; the steaming and strongly scented coffee; the great pile of thick floury rolls taken out of the oven, appeared to constitute a repast fit for the gods. Stefan and his family joined ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... now with a will. There was but a short moment of suspense, then the sliding panel fell back, the little tin box was pulled out, and Cecile's Russia-leather purse was held up in triumph between Jane's finger and thumb. ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... experience in these matters. But among them was a Gaster who was calmer than the swearer, and more prudent and conciliating than those he swore against. Hearing this objurgation, he went blandly up to the sacred porker, and, lifting the flap of his right ear between forefinger and thumb with all delicacy and gentleness, thus whispered into it: "You do not in your heart believe that any of us are such fools as to sell our gods, at least while we have such a reserve to ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Great Commanders A Hint on Entertaining Look at Your Cup Entertainment Suggestion Have a Peanut What the Eyes Tell Revealed by the Thumb Characters in Finger Nails Beauty's Seven Nurses To Discover a Woman's Age How He May Be Won Dew Drops Birth Stones for Luck Kruger's Unlucky Diamond Strange Wills Laughagraphs The Man Who Can Make Us Laugh Queer ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... organization, explaining their secret signs, says,* "The sign or token of distress is made by placing the right hand on the right side of the face, with the points of the fingers upward, shoving the hand upward until the ear is snug up between the thumb ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... drew back the bolts. Only the spring lock now barred him from her. With thumb and forefinger he turned the key, pushed the door gently open, ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... the trunk of the tree you wish to measure and, reaching up to this height, pin a piece of white paper on the tree. Step back a distance equal to three or four times the height of the tree; hold a lead-pencil upright between the thumb and forefinger at arm's-length. Fix it so that the end of the pencil shall be in line with the paper on the trunk; move the thumb down the pencil till it is in line with the ground at the base of the tree; move the arm and pencil upward till the thumb is in line ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... absurdity and self-contradiction. An amusing instance of this may be given from Sesame and Lilies. In the first lecture, which, it will be recalled, was given in aid of a library fund, we find[21] the remark, "We are filthy and foolish enough to thumb one another's books out of circulating libraries." His friends and his enemies, the clergy (who "teach a false gospel for hire") and the scientists, the merchants and the universities, Darwin and Dante, all had their share in the indignant lecturer's indiscriminate ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... and scientific anatomy." (53. The Rev. Dr. Haughton, after giving ('Proc. R. Irish Academy,' June 27, 1864, p. 715) a remarkable case of variation in the human flexor pollicis longus, adds, "This remarkable example shews that man may sometimes possess the arrangement of tendons of thumb and fingers characteristic of the macaque; but whether such a case should be regarded as a macaque passing upwards into a man, or a man passing downwards into a macaque, or as a congenital freak of ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... with a tea-spoonful of rose-water or eight drops of essence of lemon, stirred in at the last. Spread it evenly with a broad knife, over the top of each queen-cake, ornamenting them, (while the icing is quite wet) with red and green nonpareils, or fine sugar-sand, dropped on, carefully, with the thumb ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... shop-front. Business smartness pays better in the town, and the low intellectual qualities which are contained in it are educated by town life. The knowledge of human nature thus evoked is in no sense science, it is a mere rule-of-thumb affair, a thin mechanical empiricism. The capable business man who is said to understand the "world" and his fellow-men, has commonly no knowledge of human nature in the larger sense, but merely knows from observation how the average man of a certain limited class is ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... soil around it first, and when you have it nearly full, just the same as if you take your son and lay him on your knee and spank the butt good and put the soil around the roots. Then pack it with your thumb and your ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... Squire," said the Clockmaker, "there was pride even in that hovel. It is found in rags as well as King's robes, where butter is spread with the thumb as well as the silver knife, NATUR' IS NATUR' WHEREVER ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the ear of a black cat, boil it in the milk of a black cow, wear it on the thumb, and no one ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... protecting and nursing them. As the leaves develop, these membranous wrappings curl back, and finally wither and fall. In the plane-tree, or sycamore, this inner wrapping of the bud is a little pelisse of soft yellow or tawny fur. When it is cast off, it is the size of one's thumb nail, and suggests the delicate skin of some golden-haired mole. The young sycamore balls lay aside their fur wrappings early in May. The flower tassels of the European maple, too, come packed in a slightly furry covering. The long and fleshy inner scales that enfold ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... it, and squinted along it; he rubbed it with his thumb, he rested one end of it on the ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... nibbled at it, hungrily. She pulled out a book here, a book there, read a paragraph, skimmed a page. There was no attempt at classification. Lever rubbed elbows with Spinoza; Mark Twain dug a facetious thumb into Haeckel's ribs. Fanny wanted to sit down on the floor, legs crossed, before the open shelves, and read, and read, and read. Fenger, watching the light in her face, seemed himself to take on ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... an artery in his neck, was lying helpless, in danger of bleeding to death, when a Rough Rider came to his assistance. There was only one thing to be done—to stop the bleeding till a surgeon came. A tourniquet could not be applied where the wound was. The Rough Rider put his thumb on the artery and held it there while he waited. The fighting drifted away over the hill. He followed his comrades with longing eyes till the last was lost to sight. His place was there, but if he abandoned the wounded cavalryman it was to let him die. He dropped his gun and ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... I do. Susy's given me five lessons. You have to sit up as straight as a pin, and count your fingers, one, two, three, four. X is your thumb." ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... at yourself, at the shimmering garment that you found waiting for you. With thumb and forefinger ...
— Hall of Mirrors • Fredric Brown
... joint between his finger and thumb for a moment till it was black at the end; then he turned to the saucer at his side, which Hilda herself had placed there, and chose from it, cat-like, with great deliberation and selective care, a particular needle. Hilda's eyes followed his every movement as closely and as fearlessly ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... her eyes are a faded blue, girlish, even childish, but the mouth is that of an old person, with a moist lower lip of a raspberry colour, impotently hanging down. Her husband—Isaiah Savvich—is also small, a grayish, quiet, silent little old man. He is under his wife's thumb; he was doorkeeper in this very house even at the time when Anna Markovna served here as housekeeper. In order to be useful in some way, he has learned, through self-instruction, to play the fiddle, and now at night plays dance tunes, as well as a funeral march for shopmen far gone on ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... we asked. One of the least busy of the throng spared time to point to it with his thumb, as he passed us. In some bewilderment we drew up in front of a large unfinished house, through the many uncased apertures of which we could see only scaffoldings, rough boards, carpenters' benches, and heaps of shavings. Streams of men were passing ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... destiny is to chance. The black star Erlik rushed through interstellar darkness unseen; those born under its violent augury squalled in their cradles, or, thumb in mouth, slumbered the dreamless slumber ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... village. By and bye I discovered that, by lying motionless for an hour or so on the dry moss in the wood, he would at length grow so bold as to allow himself to be seen, but high up among the topmost branches. Then, by means of my binocular, I had the wild thing on my thumb, so to speak, exhibiting himself to me, inquisitive, perplexed, suspicious, enraged by turns, as he flirted wings and tail, lifted and lowered his crest, glancing down with bright, wild eyes. What ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... men began to talk about Engelissmen, and they talked and laughed all the way to Amsterdam. Every now and then one of them would jerk his thumb in my direction. It ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... the door. Sandy first hung back, then, in a sudden enthusiasm, ran in, and pointed a thumb pink with much sucking at the still uncleared dinner-table, which David and the child's mother had ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with his back firmly pressed against the wall, relieved the strain on his thumbs. He rested a moment and then, as it were, walked up the edge of the door until his feet reached the top. Swinging one leg over the door, by patient effort he was enabled to release one swollen thumb, then the other. An instant later he dropped down and leaned exhaustedly against ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... now, filling their glasses at a table in the middle of the stage, eating cakes, amusing themselves with the corks, which went pop, like toy guns, and applauding with their thumb-nails. To the Astrarium! And long live jollity! That night, they would one and all risk their skins. They were like soldiers drinking to their sweethearts, in the trenches, before the battle. And ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... the sake of a moral convention. Both comments point Mr Wells' expression of what he calls in this book "the essential antagonism ... in all human affairs ... between ideas and the established method—that is to say, between ideas and the rule of thumb." And he adds: "The world I hate is the rule-of-thumb world; the thing I and my kind exist for primarily is battle with that, to annoy it, disarrange it, reconstruct it." This confession is so lucid and characteristic that I cannot improve upon ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... screw-top jars, such as the Mason, screw down with the thumb and little finger, not using force but ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... among us, needing crews? Will you have clansmen for your candlesticks, or silver plate? Myrmidons at your tents, ant-born, or only a mob on the Gillies' Hill? Are you resolved that you will never have any but your inferiors to serve you, or shall Enid ever lay your trencher with tender little thumb, and Cinderella sweep your hearth, and be cherished there? It might come to that in time, and plate and hearth be the brighter; but if your servants are to be held your inferiors, at least be sure they are ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... thumb into his pipe-bowl and puffed in silence for a moment. Allen, satisfied that he had at last caught his friend's attention, fanned ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson |
