"Bum" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... steamer; tug; line of steamers &c. destroyer, cruiser, frigate; landing ship, LST; aircraft carrier, carrier, flattop [Coll.], nuclear powered carrier; submarine, submersible, atomic submarine. boat, pinnace, launch; life boat, long boat, jolly boat, bum boat, fly boat, cock boat, ferry boat, canal boat; swamp boat, ark, bully, battery, bateau [Can.], broadhorn^, dory, droger^, drogher; dugout, durham boat, flatboat, galiot^; shallop^, gig, funny, skiff, dingy, scow, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... all hands around, and about nine o'clock the curtain went up. After we had waited fully ten minutes, out came a big, fat, greasy looking Dago with nothing on but a bear robe. He went over to the side of the stage and sat down on a bum rock. It was plainly to be seen, even from my true lovers' seat, that his bearlets was sorer than a dog about something. Presently in came a woman, and none of the true lovers seemed to know who she was. Some said it was Melba, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... had the name of a thief wished on her until she got to be one. She was expelled from school; put in a reformatory; ran away; stole to keep herself alive. Then they all took a hand at her—ministers, society girls, charitable associations; they gave her a bum steer and made her feel she was a hopeless outcast, so she felt more at home with the vagrant class. The only person who had ever made her feel she wanted to be straight was a Salvation Army woman, but she had gone away and no one ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... the end of a tragedy sword, and quietly stole off at dead of night—"the bell then beating one,"—leaving my queen and kingdom to the mercy of my rebellious subjects, and my merciless foes, the bum-bailiffs. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... 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
... to be excluded as much as possible, but what cannot be excluded is to be subdued. If this is impossible, it shall be expelled. All illustrious lights will speak there. Terry has been invited, but has refused on democratic grounds, and sticks to that 'bum' ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... ten 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 Casey ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... my room," invited Herbert, leading the way. "It's a pretty bum joint, but it's the best in the house—the best I could find in this wretched hole of a town. I'm mighty glad to see you, old pal, though I may not appear to be. Oh, blazes! but I have got ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... may drudge an' drive, Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an' strive; Let me fair Nature's face descrive, And I, wi' pleasure, Shall let the busy, grumbling hive Bum ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... compared with yours. If you had stuck you'd be at the head of my engineer corps right now. Baxter is played out. Boone is ill. Henney had to take charge of the shops in Omaha.... And you, with fortune and fame awaiting you, throw up your job to become a bum... to drink and gamble away your ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... Oberon, and make him smile, Oft lurk in gossip's bowl, and her beguile In very likeness 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 their hips ...
— A Fairy Tale in Two Acts Taken from Shakespeare (1763) • William Shakespeare
... 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
... another category of girl, who goes brutally into passionate pleasures, follows the shows, drinks and knocks about town with the boys. She is known as a "bum," has sacrificed name and reputation and cannot remain in ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... to knock you out, Blow-Hard. You're doing for yourself nicely. Come on over here. Pretty slow! Pretty slow! Who was your dancing teacher, Joe? You're getting white around the lips now. Bum heart. You won't ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... too. So, she on the footstool of the throne, her eyes and his were on a level. She laid hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes until he could see his own twin portraits in hers that were glowing sunset pools. Heart of the Hills? The Heart of all the East seemed to bum in ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... spoken it outright as a fact, and he must have thought that her silence confirmed it. He had said that the "furriner" cared nothing for her, and had dared to tell her that she was in love with him. Her cheeks began to bum. She would call him back and tell him that she cared no more for the "furriner " than she did for him. She started from the steps, but paused, straining her eyes through the darkness. It was too late, and, with a helpless little cry, she began pacing the porch. She had scarcely heard ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... pulmonary subject I, Tra la la la la, bum bum! It can't last long until I die, Tra la la la ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... forthcoming that whatever the father might have been, his son was able to uphold the family pride, and I had my revenge. Some day soon now my boy will read his father's story[25] himself, and I hope will not be ashamed. They read it in their way in the other boy's house, and got out of it that I was a "bum" because once I was on the level of the Bowery lodging house. But if he does not stay there, a man need not be that; and for that matter, there are plenty who do whom it would be a gross injury to call by such a name. There are lonely men, who, with no kin of their own, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... old 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, Wrenn, I ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... 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
... 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 traffic to drive ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... cried, "and a bum waiter comes along and beats him up just when he is trying to have a little innocent sport on Christmas Eve. You take off your apron, young man, and get your time. I won't have no ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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? He ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... were 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 you were ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... 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
... returned brusquely. "Girls usually think they know it all as soon as they've learned to dance and dress and flirt a little. They never know anything about things like architecture, for instance. That house is about as bum a house as any house ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... acumen that she saw even vaguely the real Bill Siddall, the money-maker, beneath the General William Siddall, raw and ignorant and vulgar—more vulgar in his refinement than the most shocking bum at home and at ease in foul-smelling stew. Every man of achievement hides beneath his surface—personality this second and real man, who makes the fortune, discovers the secret of chemistry, fights the ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... When an ugly "bum," well up to trap, creeps like a rascal from the sheriff's-office, and with his capias armed, ere you are half-dressed, gives you the chase, and, as you "leg" away for the bare life, his knuckles dig into the seat of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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
... resemble their life in its changes and vicissitudes, its partings and its meetings, its inquietudes and its persecutions!—that mistaken zeal should follow them down to the very tomb—as if earthly passion could glimmer, like a funeral lamp, amid the damps of the charnel-house, and "even in their ashes bum their wonted fires!".... ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... 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
... him that when he was a small boy he displayed the same tendencies that later on made him great in his chosen field. His family possessed a distinct tendency toward conformity and respectability, but Carl was a companion of every 'alley-bum' in Vacaville. His respectable friends never won him away from his insatiable interest in the under-dog. They now know it makes valid his claim ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... For the yellow butter's coming. It will come, come, come, With a bum, bum, bum, All the buttermilk a-bumming, When the yellow ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... and Buck the next night you'd have had to go to a little bum hotel over near the West Side ferry landings. We was in a little back room, and I was filling up a gross of six-ounce bottles with hydrant water colored red with aniline and flavored with cinnamon. Buck was smoking, contented, and he wore ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... westbound, about one-forty in the morning. There wasn't anything else till six-one. Them are always the hardest hours. A fellow's got to stay awake, see, and nothin' to keep him—unless maybe a coyote howlin' a mile off, or maybe a bum knockin' around among the box cars on the sidin', or, if it's cold, the stove to tend. That's all. Unless you put a record on the old phonograph and hit 'er up a few minutes now and then. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the pot was on the fire, a little old man came into the house. "Bum-bum," he said; "give me something to eat out of ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... his hurt caused him. They talked the matter over, and he, knowing that something must be done for the support of the family, gave, though unwillingly, his consent. Thus it happened that my mother again took to bum-boating. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... 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 a magazine. ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... visit the lake less often and to wish that September and the opening of college would arrive. When the day finally came to return, he was almost as much excited as he had been the year before. Gosh! it would be good to see Carl again. The bum had written only once. Yeah, and Pudge Jamieson, too, and Larry Stillwell, and Bill Freeman, and—yes, by golly! Merton Billings. He'd be glad to see old Fat Billings. He wondered if Merton was as fat as ever and as ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... particular guilt or the particular innocence of either—Judas, immaculately attired in a white coat, arrived from downstairs with a step ladder and proceeded with everyone's assistance to reconstruct the original pipe. And a pretty picture Judas made. And a pretty bum job he made. But anyway the stove-pipe drew; and everyone thanked God and fought for places about le poele. And Monsieur Pet-airs hoped there would be no ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... strife, which much sooner than any external commotion around me would have caused me to perish. Every harsh and undeserved indignity I had to suffer only increased my secret rancour, and whilst accustoming myself more and more to wine as a stimulant and so stirring up the fire to make it bum more merrily, I heeded not that this was the only way by which good could come out of the ruinous evil. In these few words, in this brief statement, I hope you will find the key to many things which may have appeared to you contradictory, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... slight though well built man in ragged clothes and disreputable soft hat. The image was photographed upon his brain for life—the honest, laughing eyes, the well moulded features harmonizing so well with the voice, and the impossible garments which marked the man hobo and bum as plainly as though he wore a placard ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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 consequently ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... and bum farms are played out. There's no money in Shadow Hill—or if there is, it's locked up—or the income tax has paralysed it. No, I'm through. There's nothing doing in land; no commissions. And I'm considering a ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... for?—'e come to see his pal had fair play," Bill was exclaiming, as he stood on the threshold of the inn and faced the crowd of diggers in the street. "'E proved the whole boilin' of 'em, Judge, law-sharks, police, an' bum-bailies, was a pack of fools. He made a reg'lar holy show of 'em. An' what ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... the tunes in the world, ringing such peals! It has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is beginning "Turn again, Whittington." Buz, buz, buz; bum, bum, bum; wheeze, wheeze, wheeze; fen, fen, fen; tinky, tinky, tinky; cr'annch. I shall certainly come to be condemned at last. I have been drinking too much for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a consumption, and ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... other went into Gladesville for being mad; and one day the bailiff seized the cart and horse with me in it and a load of timber. So I went home and helped mother and the kids to live on one meal a day for six months, and keep the bum-bailiff out. Another cove ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... you are laying out for yourself? And then bum-by you will get old or sick ma' be, and who is going to want you around then? Every woman needs a husband of her own ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... with 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 ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... murmured the tramp. "Him still making good in the business, and me a bum! Well, it's all my own fault. If I'd stuck to the fire-eating and not drinking fire-water I'd be somewhere to-day. Just ask Bill Watson what sort of an act Ham Logan had—'Coal-fire Logan!'" exclaimed the man. "That was ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... meet, From near Bunhill, and distant Watling-street. No Persian carpets spread th' imperial way, But scatter'd limbs of mangled Poets lay; From dusty shops neglected authors come, Martyrs of pies, and reliques of the bum. Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay, But loads of Shadwell almost chok'd the way. Bilk'd stationers for yeomen stood prepar'd, And Herringman was captain of the guard. The hoary prince in majesty appear'd, High on ...
— English Satires • Various
... I'd make a bum husband. I ain't got the breath to blow out a candle." Mr. Hyde chuckled; the idea of marriage plainly amused him. "How you know I ain't got a covey ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... 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 ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... Gen[)a]bum, Orleans, an ancient town in Gaul, famous for the massacre of the Roman citizens committed there ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... breaks his father's heart. Instead of following the trail already made, he cuts loose, frequents vulgar resorts, hates his school work, becomes a loafer and a bum—and, finally, a second-rate day laborer. Again, what he is himself, his "vital spark" has been stronger than immediate heredity and environment, and ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... other, "we've GOT to send him out so he can make a pow-wow to the big legal smoke in 'Frisco. We've been cold-decked with a bum judge. They've got us into a corner an' ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bum for his throttle, and a fresh application to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... days, surrounded by bum-boats filled with picturesque natives of all colours, chattering like parrots, and almost as gaudy in their plumage. Meanwhile the crew were hard at work replenishing the coal-bunkers, filling up wood and water, taking ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... sheep must have run headlong into the trap. He found the prints of their tiny, flying hoofs, the indentations where the sharp points had dug deep as they leaped. Empty shells, more shells—they must have been bum shots—and then a drop of blood upon a rock. The drops came thicker, a stream of blood, and then the slaughter pen. They had been shot down against the wall without a single chance for their lives. The entire band, save Old Felix, had been exterminated. Their limp and still-bleeding carcasses, ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... say too, 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, ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... dreams, that's all," said Overland, grinning. "Fifteen a month and found ain't bad for a bum, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the tunes in the world, ringing such peals. It has just finished the "Merry Christ Church Bells," and absolutely is beginning "Turn again, Whittington." Buz, buz, buz: bum, bum, bum: wheeze, wheeze, wheeze: feu, feu, feu: tinky, tinky, tinky: craunch. I shall certainly come to be damned at last. I have been getting drunk for two days running. I find my moral sense in the last stage of a consumption, and my religion burning as blue and faint ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Beef-eaters, 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 ...
— 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
... 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 ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... 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 years later; dear me, how the old place has changed! Biffetty-biff! Gracious, ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Peterson, his Oxonian friend, burst in on him open-mouthed with delight, and, as usual with bright spirits of this calibre, did not even notice his friend's sadness. "Cupid had clapped him on the shoulder," as Shakespeare hath it; and it was a deal nicer than the bum-bailiff rheumatism. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... very interested by Vespa's reply to a mother who had written him," he went on. "Her daughter ended up in a Bohas camp for schizos, and her son had left his wonderful home and brilliant future to become a bum. She wanted to know why. Vespa took six long paragraphs to give six explanations, all equally valid and all advanced by equally distinguished sociologists. He himself favored the mass hysteria theory. But if you looked at his gobbledegook closely, you ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... particulars. Don't put on any modest doubts or fears about your disqualifications, for I assure you I think you are the very man they are in search of; so conceive yourself to be tapped on the shoulder by your bum-bailiff and affectionate friend, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... a low, gruff voice. "I'm nothing but a roughneck, I know, and not worth much at that, but if it's any satisfaction to you to know you've bowled a bum like me over to His side, why I'm ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... screen 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
... Penhallow, "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-day. I knew you were thinking that. I knew it all the time I was in Colorado, growing up from a sickly kid, with a bum lung, to a heap big strong man. It forced me to do things I was afraid to do. It goaded me on to stunts at the very thought of which I'd break out in a clammy sweat. Don't you see how I'll have to turn handsprings in front of you, like the school-boy in the McCutcheon cartoon? Don't ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... 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 ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Bud a whole lot more 'n he's ever had before, an' it's a full house to a pair o' dooces he ain't lookin' for no more from you just yet. But then, Bud ain't no pet lamb nor yet a peace conference, an' it's four aces to a bum-flush he means t' get back at ye ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... interrupted Charlie firmly. "You might just as well hop on a train and go back to Chicago. If you're expecting me to help you unload a lot of bum oil stock on Miss Alix Crown you're barking up the wrong tree,—I don't give a cuss if you are my own sister's son. Miss ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... took him on out o' kindness," mumbled Tedge. "I got no license fer passenger business. Jest a bum I took on to go and see his swamp girl up Des Amoureaux. Well, it ain't no use sayin' ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... much we who deal chiefly in new books are at the mercy of the publishers. We have to stock the new stuff, a large proportion of which is always punk. Why it is punk, goodness knows, because most of the bum books don't sell. ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... then, 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 ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... an Ale-draper near New-palace-yard, Who used to Jerk the Bum of his Wife; And she was forced to stand on her Guard, To keep his Clutches from her Quoiff: She poor Soul the weaker Vessel, To be reconcil'd was easily won; He held her in scorn, But she Crown'd him with Horn, Without Hood or Scarff, and rough as ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... you are old, and in your veins the blood runs cold, there'll come your way some dismal wreck, who'll roast you sore, and cry: "By heck! And also I might say, by gum! 'Twas you that put me on the bum! Your writings got me headed wrong; you threw it into Virtue strong; and in the prison that you see, I'm convict ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... 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 foolish ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... the drum? Bum! Bum! Those are the only two tones. Always bum! Bum! Hark to the plaintive song of the old woman, to the call of the priests! The Hindoo woman in her long robe stands upon the funeral pile; the flames rise around her and her dead husband, but the Hindoo woman ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... 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 run ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... before I ran away with the circus," he soliloquized in the midst of the throng milling up the Elevated station stairs. "And later, when I had come back from the circus, I took that long bum on brake-beams. And when I had come back from that, a little later I went off in the forecastle of the 'Tropic Bird' to Tahiti. And each time that flapping business came first. Every time I've done something wild and foolish, I've flapped first ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... on y'r Uncle Dudley. I aint no Little Fatima fer looks; but I knows it, see. Young McKilligan bent me bugle in a ten-round go wunst; I gets this here split whistler the time I licked Kay-O Bergey, an' I's born with this here wheeze in me pipes, an' with that bum layout I aint buttin' into no cynthia ortchesstra, believe me. But I knows it, see, an' I got a kick in each mitt an' I aint never renigged on a pal, Mr. Kendrick, an' I goes to church reg'lar every damn Sunday, see. Y'r auntie'll be safer'n if ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... into the street, feeling as if some rough hand might at any instant seize them. But all was still, save the sound of voices in the distance. When they came in sight of the carriage, the driver began to bum carelessly to himself, "Who ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... behind the thing typified, although not so completely as is the case in the passage under consideration, in the words, "She burns incense."—From what has been remarked, it appears that, in substance, Hos. iv. 13, "They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains and bum incense upon the hills," is entirely parallel. The two clauses, "She went after her lovers," and "she forgat Me," both serve to represent the crime in a more heinous light. Sin must certainly have already poisoned the whole heart, if occasion for its exercise ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... 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 ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... Sailor Mike's place, not wishin' to deprive you of your share o' the sport. But I met a big policeman who said: 'Tell that red-headed Irish bum that it'll be better for his health to stay away from ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... she was so rash as to pause a moment to look down into a huge vessel, full to the brim of the queer-looking compound which the vendor described in a loud voice as 'bum-bum candy.' ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... "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
... has a 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
... is about the slickest deal I have ever put over. Joe, they're going to be right comfortable. I've shipped a maid for the girls, and the cook this time is several degrees superior to the average maritime specimen, for there's nothing like a couple of days of bum cooking to upset tempers—and I'm taking no chances. Also, just before I left I gave your future daughter-in-law her quarterly dividend—you see, when her father died I had to sort of look after the family, and I ran a bluff that Kenyon had some Ricks Lumber & Logging ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... 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 ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... 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 ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... Broadway player of legitimate roles, a man who could play any juvenile Shakespearian role without a rehearsal, a member of The Lambs and The Players Clubs. And here I was sitting out on the end of a wharf because I didn't have money enough to hire even a bum rowboat. And the three first launches that had passed by were all owned by Vaudeville players—whom my legitimate friend 'did not know at all.' I thought it all out and then I turned to my ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... ship!" growled the Man-Who-Knew-It-All to the Bum Actor. "Screw out of the water every souse she makes; lot of dirty sailors skating over the decks instead of keeping below where they belong; Chief Engineer loafing in the Captain's room every chance he gets—there he goes now—and it's the second time since breakfast. And the Captain ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... This disability on the part 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 be designated? I don't ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... so high that they could look down and see everything, you know. They could see the big ponds up in the sky where the rain is made, and the awful big windmills up there where the wind blows from, and the cannons that bum the ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... received, and moreover, very hungry. The first lieutenant did not forget his promise: 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 ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... 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 blue light." ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... was soon thrown, and my luck did not alter— I was floor'd at all points, and my hopes were a hum; I'm at Tattersall's all but believed a defaulter, And here, in a spunging house, shut by a bum. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... 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 spends his day off hanging around the office ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... rascals of ten a twain, Who care not a rush for hail nor rain, Messages swiftly to go or to come, Or duck a taxman or harry a bum,[7] Or "clip a server,"[8] did blithely lie In the stable parlour next to the sky[9] Dinners, save chance ones, seldom had they, Unless they could nibble their beds of hay; But the less they got, they were hardier all— 'T was the custom ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... road leans a flat outcrop of stone, known locally as "The Bum's Rock." An antique philosopher of those parts assured the wayfarer that it is named for a romantic vagabond who perished there by the explosion of a can of Bohemian goulash which he was heating over a small fire of sticks; but one doubts ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... sun was out o' sight, And darker gloamin' brought the night; [twilight] The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone, [cockchafer] The kye stood rowtin' i' the loan; [cattle, lowing, lane] When up they gat and shook their lugs, [ears] Rejoiced they werena men but dogs; And each took aff his several way, Resolved to ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... says. '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 ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... embarrassed. He had accepted a similar invitation the week before, and had confided to Rose Martel afterward that he "never heard such a bully band playing such bum music." But Mr. Chester's intention was so kind that he could run no risk of ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Nolan interrupted furiously. "Come and eat. Great Scott! That girl would buy a bum car and a costly one, because the demonstrator ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... all means," 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
... a species of coma and leaves me with twenty-five dollars! That's what I get. What I've been doing is a longer story. I apologize for not having seen your friend who brought the letter, but it's up to you to apologize for a bum epistle ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... "You big bum, do you think I really care?" He grinned. "Don't feel too guilty, Twin. We've been back to ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... the next morning. Usually I decide to save the money so I do not have to earn more. En extremis, I repeat the old Yankee marching chant like a mantra: Make do! Wear it out! When it is gone, do without! Bum, Bum! Bum bi Dum! Bum bi di Dum, Bum ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... last answer the man drew a step nearer and, in a voice which was fast getting beyond his control, said: "You know now, don't you? You can see it plain as day how long it takes to make a bum of a man when he's up agin things like that. You—" He paused, listened intently, and sprang back, hugging the wall. "What's that? Somebody comin'! My God! It's a cop! Don't tell him—say you won't tell him—say it! ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... dresses, flowered hats, and many ribbons, and with dinner-baskets stuffed with good things to eat—old ham, young chicken, angel-cake and blackberry wine—to be spread in the sunless shade of great poplar and oak. From Bum Hollow and Wildcat Valley and from up the slopes that lead to Cracker's Neck came smaller tillers of the soil—as yet but faintly marked by the gewgaw trappings of the outer world; while from beyond High Knob, whose crown is in cloud-land, ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... 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 ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... out here!" he 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, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... taking place around me. Says Corder, struggling with his pack, "Bann, will you help me into my corset." Pickle says to Reardon (out of David's hearing) "Ten cents for a bum piece of pie that you have to eat with your hands! That gets my goat." And just now has come a hoot from every part of the camp when from I company, in line to start and loading guns for a skirmish, sounded the pop of an accidental discharge. ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... is not to come, with a hey, with a hey, Now safe is David's bum, with a ho; Then hey for Oxford ho, Strong government, raree ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... man, nor a Westerner, neither." The boss still stared. "And you don't look like a bum. What's your ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... bum," Mr. Gibney cried furiously. "Or I'll bang you in that other eye that's ready ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... happen to us," replied the engineer shortly. "No. 10 doesn't carry anything but the money the newsboy gets out of the passengers for peanuts and bum dime novels but we have something in that express car that's going to ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... 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
... of his feat, and when he caught his breath enough to speak, explained, "Yepp,—it's the only place in this bum town where you can get Alligretti's, and they're the only kind that're fit to eat" He tore open the box as he spoke, demolishing with ruthless and practised hands the various layers of fine paper and gold cord which ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... who always counted themselves a free people, and could never abide to be in bondage to any. And this was something of the reason, that they were so generally, by all the Jews, counted so vile and base, and reckoned among the worst of men, even as our informers and bum bailiffs are with us at ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Noch aus der Ferne toent es schwach, Ganz leise bumbumbumbum tsching; Zog da ein bunter Schmetterling, Tschingtsching, bum, um die Ecke? 35 ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... built, and Jet was lying inside the shanty where the smoke would not disturb him, while Jim remained outside to "brighten the blaze" whenever the fuel should bum too low. ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... whose lives seem sweet and decorous when compared with those of a Sandwich or a Dashwood or a Duke of Grafton. Yet these men, whose companionship might be rejected by Jack Sheppard, and whose example might be avoided by Pompey Bum, are the men whose names are ceaselessly prominent in the early story of the reign, and to whose power and influence much of its calamities are ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... 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 Ninth Symphony, and never ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... where they lived. I'm afraid I wasn't interested. Aren't you glad the fire didn't bum the cupola? I almost wish they could leave the house that lovely weathered brown tone, instead of painting it white with green blinds again. Dad would like it that way, too. I suppose everybody would say it was flying in the face of tradition, after ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... bum!" the old man shouted at me. "That no-good from nowhere! I'll fix him! Thinks he's something, does he? I'll show him! Anything he can do I ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... with visiters from the fleet; every vessel having sent at least one boat ashore, and many of them some three or four. Captain's and gun-room stewards, midshipmen's foragers, loblolly boys, and other similar harpies, were out in scores; for this was a part of the world in which bum-boats were unknown; and if the mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must fain go to the mountain. Half an hour had sufficed to exhaust all the unsophisticated simplicity of the hamlet; and milk, eggs, fresh butter, soft-tommy, vegetables, and such ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... attitude toward his own work and that of his master, and I attempted to draw him out with a crass compliment. He denied me gently. 'The best things I do, or rather did, young feller, are jest a little poorer than his worst. Between ourselves, he painted some pretty bum things. Some I suppose he did, like me, by lamplight. Some he sketched with one hand while he was lighting that there long pipe with the other. Sometimes, I guess, he was in a hurry for the money. Now, when I'm painting my level best, like I used to could, mine are about like that. But people ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... Raven, "he brought his bum up here and they sat and guzzled. Well, you're wrong, my son. Come, let's go down, and though I don't know whether it'll mean anything to you, you shall have ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... gallantry and scurrilous jests, and approved of balls and comedies, which was very far from the saint's doctrine. A preacher of that Order had the rashness and presumption to declaim bitterly against the book in a public sermon, to cut it in pieces, and bum it in the very pulpit. The saint bore this outrage without the least resentment; so perfectly was he dead to self-love. This appears more wonderful to those who know how jealous authors are of their ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... do that. I cain't water 'em. I ain't got rights to even lay my hands on 'em! O-h-h!" he shuddered, and agonizedly pulled taut on every tired, aching muscle. "Yuh oughter be beat up with a club. Yuh oughter get pounded with a rawk. You're a rotten, whisky-soaked bum, that's all yuh are now, and yuh oughter be killed and kicked ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... 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
... dramatic descriptions of things which I cannot but recognise. M. S—-, with his pince- nez, the Doctor, and, above all, the rapids of the Ogowe, rolling his hands round and round each other and clashing them forward with a descriptive ejaculation of "Whish, flash, bum, bum, bump," and then comes what evidently represents a terrific fight for life against terrific odds. Wish to goodness I knew French, for wishing to see these rapids, I cannot help feeling anxious and worried at not fully understanding this dramatic ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... 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 ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... Swifty Joe. "To look at the map of woe you're carryin' around, you'd think nobody ever had a bum tusk before." ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... There 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, to ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris |
