"Curt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... winters long Has bronzed and shrivelled sere her face and neck; Her locks are wild and grey, her teeth a wreck; Her foot is vast, her bowed leg spare and strong. A wide blue cloak, a squat and sturdy throng Of curt blue coats, a mutch without a speck, A white vest broidered black, her person deck, Nor seems their picked, stern, old-world quaintness wrong. Her great creel forehead-slung, she wanders nigh, Easing the heavy strap with gnarled, brown fingers, The spirit of traffic watchful in her ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... of his writing—the first answer to hisletters—should have come, after three long years, in the shape of this impersonal line, too curt to be called humble, yet confessing to a consciousness of the past by the studied avoidance of its language! As she read, her mind flashed back over what she had dreamed his letters would be, over the exquisite answers she had ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... trip round the world, and, I think, losing him again so soon made it almost worse for her than if they had never been reunited, especially as another and irreparable loss came upon her immediately after his departure. This was the sudden death of her mother, the news of which arrived one day in a curt note written by her father to Colonel Colquhoun, no previous intimation of illness having been sent to break the shock of the announcement. I can never be thankful enough for the happy chance which brought about that last accidental meeting of Evadne ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... belligerent myself. It was just a week after I came. One of his new tenants phoned in that Nesbitt must get the rubbish out of the alley back of his house or he would move out. Mr. Nesbitt tried to evade a promise, but the man was curt. 'You get that rubbish out to-day, or I ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... interrogatories from the British Government, stated officially his grievances against Austria, while Lord Malmesbury despatched Lord Cowley on a special mission to Vienna to mediate between Austria and France. In April, however, after a curt summons to the Sardinians to disarm had been disregarded, Austria invaded Piedmont, and Victor Emmanuel placed himself at the head of his army. The first engagement took place, with unfavourable results ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... up behind Koupriane, he asked the question. In a few curt words, still hurrying on, Koupriane told the reporter he had just learned that the police had left the little Bohemian Katharina alone for a moment with the expiring officer. Katharina acted as housekeeper for Michael and Boris. She knew the secrets of them both. The first thing any ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... make himself agreeable now saying a few words to the dame, who generally gave him curt answers, and now addressing Nelly. As he had plenty to say for himself, she could not help being amused, and his conversation served to beguile the way over the somewhat dreary country they had to pass till the ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... Sabatol ['God does not pay on a Saturday']—the wages of men's sins often linger in their payment, and I myself saw much established wickedness of long-standing prosperity. But a Frate Predicatore who wanted to move the people—how could he be moderate? He might have been a little less defiant and curt, though, to Lorenzo de' Medici, whose family had been the very makers of San Marco: was that quarrel ever made up? And our Lorenzo himself, with the dim outward eyes and the subtle inward vision, did he get over that ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... he answered. "It's all one. I suppose he's not come over." At this moment the mate came on deck with the carpenter, carrying a model ship which they had been making together in their spare time. They nodded to the stranger, who gave them a curt "How do?" as though they had parted from him only the night before. The mate growled at me for wasting time on deck when I should be at work. He sent me down to my usual job of getting the cabin ready for the breakfast of the gentlemen. ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... circumstance that, upon the return of the boats from their mission of rescue, the saloon party aboard the Thetis should almost immediately separate and retire to their respective cabins, with nothing more in the way of conversation than a few curt questions and answers. The fact is that they were powerfully impressed with the conviction that they had that night witnessed, and been in an indirect way assisting at, an occurrence that was destined to exercise an important influence ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... said Chad, "is harder'n a diamond. He interduced me to what he called a shore-perplexus punch, and 'twas like being kicked twice by a mustang. He's playin' it low down on you, Curt. He ain't no sicker'n I am. I hate to say it, but the runt's workin' you ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... never understand why he begged for that extra five minutes. Perhaps it was that he had some mad hope of persuading the bank manager to allow him to overdraw to that amount. If so, the refusal was a curt one, for he reappeared with a ghastly face ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... Yuan Ki's room was a six-footer, a college graduate, and an athlete. Yuan Ki was much impressed. He secretly admired him, but was ungraciously curt to him. This was Yuan Ki's way of making the teacher "keep his distance." But the teacher seemed not to notice it. He was always kind to Yuan Ki, even as he was to ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... early stages of the Galician campaign that when our troops, after sweeping away the resistance at Lwow and Jaroslau, loudly knocked at the doors of the fortress of Przemysl, they met with a stern rebuff. In reply to the summons of the Russians to surrender the keys the commandant wrote a curt and dignified note remarking that he considered it beyond his own dignity or the dignity of the Russian General to discuss the surrender of the fortress before it had exhausted all its powers of resistance. During the second invasion of Poland by the Austro-German armies the enemy's ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... All she had apparently vouchsafed her parent was the statement that she intended to re-marry, and the command to send Paul over; and Ralph reflected that his own betrothal to her had probably been announced to Mr. Spragg in the same curt fashion. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... somewhere in this million. There can be few hirers of books who neither pay income-tax nor live on terms of dependent equality with those who pay it. I see at the counters people on whose foreheads it is written that they know themselves to be the salt of the earth. Their assured, curt voices, their proud carriage, their clothes, the similarity of their manners, all show that they belong to a caste and that the caste has been successful in the struggle for life. It is called the ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... dressed to-night,' whispered George II. to his wife, whom he had called up from the card-table to impart to her that important conviction. 'Lady Mary always dresses well,' was the cold and curt reply. ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... said McGee, with a curt nod; and the old fellow hastened to obey, only too eager to find favor in the sight of the ruler. "Take this hyar paper, an' look her over. Tell me wot hit sez, d'ye mind, an' on'y that, if yuh know wots good ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... perquisition; but as the duke and ambassador had to submit, I thought it best to follow his example; besides, resistance would be useless. The Englishman, who prides himself on his strict adherence to the law of the land, is curt and rude in his manner, and the English officials cannot be compared to the French, who know how to combine politeness with the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... stone floor of the wide kitchen at Heathknowes, where all the business of the house was transacted, fell with little raps of defiance, curt and dry. Her nose in the air told of contempt louder than any words. She laid down the porridge spurtle like a queen abdicating her sceptre. She tabled the plates like so many protests, signed and witnessed. She swept about the house with the ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... received no correction.' The question 'Wherefore?' is asked in very various tones, but none of them has in it the accent of true conviction; and there is a whole world of difference between the lowly petition, 'Show me wherefore Thou contendest with me,' and the curt, self-complacent brushing aside of God's merciful threatenings in the text. The last thing which most of us think of as the cause of our misfortunes is ourselves; and we resent as almost an insult the word, which if we were wise, we ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... The affections are strong and their foundations lie deep: but they are not—such affections seldom are—wide-spreading; nor do they show themselves on the surface. Indeed, there is little display of any of the amenities of life among this wild, rough population. Their accost is curt; their accent and tone of speech blunt and harsh. Something of this may, probably, be attributed to the freedom of mountain air and of isolated hill-side life; something be derived from their rough Norse ancestry. They ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... acquiesce with a single word. I certainly hoped no curt objection would be made to the reading of any proposition which any member might deem it his duty to offer. As gentlemen differ from me in this respect, I will hand the paper to the Chair. I hope at least it may be permitted to ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... companies and the headquarters of the 27th Battalion. The transport, the "Ivernia,"[L] was a comfortable ship of 14,000 tons register belonging to the Cunard Line. The captain and officers at first displayed a rather cool and curt manner towards their new passengers but in the course of a day or two visibly thawed. The captain afterwards, in explanation, stated that from information he had received in regard to the Australians he had expected ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... days ago, arrived a chit asking us to explain a curt quotation from the report of the A.A.L.R.B.G.S., to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... to a friend. "He seems so cool at excitable moments; he does not lose his head and rush his men into danger. In fact, he always looks before he leaps, and when he does leap, he makes us move—and the Boers too." Perhaps French was best summed-up one day by a trooper whom, in a curt word, he had just sentenced to barracks for some offence. "The General don't bark much," he remarked, "but, crikey, don't he know ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... the eager assurance that he was very far from thinking meanly of Percalus, the other bystanders, impatient at this whispered colloquy, seized his attention with a volley of questions, to which he gave but curt and not very relevant answers, so much had the lad's few sentences disturbed the calm tenor of his existing self-possession. Nor did he quite regain his presence of mind until he was once more summoned into ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... the fish was being removed, the door opened to admit a tall, thin woman, wearing outdoor costume, who passed quickly down the room and took the vacant place at the table, murmuring a curt apology to Mrs. Lawrence on her way. To Diana's astonishment she recognised in the ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... criss-crossed with field telegraph and telephone wires. Still more spectacular, everywhere there are traffic directions. And these directions are very large and very curt. "Motor- lorries dead slow," you see in immense characters in the midst of the foreign scene. And at all the awkward street corners in the towns a soldier directs the traffic. Not merely in the towns, but in many and many a rural road you come across a rival of the Strand. For the ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... him was this: whilst in her hand she held the spindle, she flung out to a back-yard close by her lodge, where, after she had peeled off the barks of an old sycamore three several times, she very summarily, upon eight leaves which dropped from thence, wrote with the spindle-point some curt and briefly-couched verses, which she threw into the air, then said unto them, Search after them if you will; find them if you can; the fatal destinies of your marriage are ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... was virgo intacta, he declined and she went away. A fortnight or so later he received a letter from her in the country, making no reference to what had passed, but giving an account of her work with her Sunday-school class. He did not reply, and then came a curt note asking him to return her letter. My friend feels sure she was devoted to auto-erotic performances, but, having become attracted to him, came to the conclusion she would ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... looked at him in wonder. The momentary convulsion of his florid physiognomy seemed to strike them dumb. They exchanged a quick glance. Presently the clean-shaven man fired out another question in his curt, unceremonious manner: ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... was the unanimous opinion, expressed without scruple. While from the back of the hall came the curt request to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... genially; but there was something curt and official in his tone when he next spoke that took the Englishman slightly aback. "You must bare your breast over your heart and lungs," he said; and while Thorndyke was unbuttoning his shirt, he and the medical man went to the door and brought ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... by, it is possible I was about to say. But, unwilling to smother the reader beneath a mountain of rhetorical flowers,—which accident might happen, should I resolve to be "equal to the occasion,"—I shall contain myself, and state, in the way of a curt preface, in plain prose, and directly to the point, that I entered a remarkably large and populous cemetery, no matter where, very early one morning,—in fact, you have the gate-keeper's word for it that I was the first person there,—that I climbed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... on my part, but I accepted this curt dismissal very ill-humouredly. That Harley, for some reason of his own, wished to be alone, was evident enough, but I resented being excluded from his confidence, even temporarily. It would seem that he had formed a theory in ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... doubtful—he could not have carried it out. His ship collided with a tree—an accident singularly frequent in the Zeppelin records—so disabling it that it could only limp home under half power. A rather curt telegram from his Imperial master is said to have been Count von Zeppelin's first intimation that he ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... citizen Chauvelin, the citizen Commissary would, no doubt, have given a curt refusal to a request to see a prisoner at this late hour of the evening. But Chauvelin was not a man to be denied, and whilst muttering various objections in his ill-kempt beard, Cuisinier, nevertheless, gave orders that the citizen was to be conducted ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... met Cowan. The two always nodded to each other, but to-night Neil's curt salutation went unheeded. Cowan, with troubled face, hurried by him and went up the ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... his surprise with a ready, smiling acceptance of her tone, "I was wondering if I oughtn't to apologize to you—if I should ever see you again—for being so curt this morning. And then you spring up out of the ground before me. Well, so I will apologize. I ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... curt commands and the others obeyed him without a word. Almost the first thing he did was to step to the table and fling the whisky bottle through the door into ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... is," said Captain Ross, equally curt, and silently thanking the fates that her ladyship was going home ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... military precision of the Colonel, both boys began to wonder at a quarter-past eleven why they had not been summoned, for the Colonel had said in his curt epistle to Glyn—which "looked cross," so the boy said—that he would be at ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... the Pyrenees; but he would not leave his wife in Paris, lest some importunate creditor might reveal to her the secret of his horrible position. He therefore took her and the two children with him, refusing to allow her to take the tutor and scarcely permitting her to take a maid. His tone was curt and imperious; he seemed to have recovered some energy. This sudden journey, the cause of which escaped her penetration, alarmed Juana secretly. Her husband made it gaily. Obliged to occupy the same carriage, he ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac
... charge. No public man ever came out of a personal discussion less favourable than the noble minister for the colonies on this occasion. The simple truth evoked was, that while a committee of the house supposed that they were possessed of full and complete reports, they were supplied with only curt and crude extracts, calculated to place matters in the ministerial light, but not really affording the committee the opinions of those whose views they purported to be. This practice was, unfortunately, common with great officers of state; but it seemed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... grass, spotted with small one-story buildings. To the left was a single towering structure built of Titan crystal and on top of it was the largest atomic blaster he had ever seen. He turned to ask the guardsman about the gun but was motioned ahead with a curt, "No ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... looked down at him emptily. "No," she said, "don't get up. I'm leaving, Major Mauser." He began to rise, to protest, but she said, her voice curt, "I have seen only one fracas on Telly in my entire life, and was so repelled that I vowed never to watch again. However, I am going to make an exception. I am going to follow this one, and if, as a result of your actions, even a single person meets death, I wish never to see you again. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... with the curt and almost breathless impatience of haste, "but have I ever denied our bond of intimacy, Euan? Closer bond have I with no man. But it must be a comrade's bond between us.... I meant to make that plain to you—and doubtless, my heart being full—and I ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... appalling creation, still plunged and kicked violently to rid himself of it. The man who had stepped out of the depths of the wheat quickly crossed the road, unhitched the traces, drew back the vehicle, and, glancing at the traveler's dusty and disordered clothes, said, with curt sympathy:— ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... by a stare, or gentleness by the softness of her gaze, by the set of the gracious curve of her lips, by the coldness or the sweetness of her smile. When Emilie meant to conquer a heart, her pure voice did not lack melody; but she could also give it a sort of curt clearness when she was minded to paralyze a partner's indiscreet tongue. Her colorless face and alabaster brow were like the limpid surface of a lake, which by turns is rippled by the impulse of a breeze and recovers its ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... delinquent debtors to stir up. A certain small shopkeeper of the China Bazaar was responsible to the concern for a few thousand rupees, wherewith he had been accommodated by Uncle Rajinda as a basis for certain operations in seersuckers and castor-oil, that had yielded no returns. So our Baboo, in a curt chit, (that is, note, or sheet of paper, as near as a Bengalee can come to the word,) bade the small speculator of China Bazaar come down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Dave reined his horse that way and stopped at the shed door. The two talked for a minute and Dave rode on, passing Bud with a curt nod. Pop came over to where Bud stood leaning against ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... but no movement was wasted. His face was intent, his glances sharp, and she liked the crisp, curt way in which he spoke to Carroll. The man's task was, in one sense, not important, but he was absorbed in it. Then while Carroll slipped the moorings, Vane ran up the headsails and springing aft seized the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... so?" answered the Countess, with a curt laugh. "My Lady Foljambe is vastly pleasant, trow. Asking her caged bird's leave to set another bird in the cage! Well, little brown nightingale, what sayest? Art feared lest the old eagle bite, or canst trust the hooked beak for a ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... during and after lunch the high, insistent ring had summoned the Professor. He gave us the news as it came through to him in a few curt sentences. Such terrific items had never been registered in the world's history before. The great shadow was creeping up from the south like a rising tide of death. Egypt had gone through its delirium and was now comatose. Spain and Portugal, after ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a simple prayer to the Heavenly Father "who knoweth that ye have need of these things," asking that he might catch the eye of a generous traveller. He felt he had indeed been "led" to this plain, brown-faced, broad-shouldered lady, when he remembered how nearly, after her curt nod from a distance had engaged him, he had responded to the blandishments of a fussy little woman, with many more bags and rugs, and a parrot cage, who was now doling French coppers out of the window of the next compartment. "Seven pence 'apenny of this stuff ain't much for carrying all that along, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... drily; and, shutting his teeth upon his inherent contempt for a liar, he swung away, acknowledging with a curt nod the civil "Good-arfternoon, sir," that ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... only interested in his immediate departure. The change had occurred with such abruptness, West was unable as yet to realize its full significance, but, with no attempt to combat her decision, left the room, closing the door behind him. In that moment his mood changed. The dismissal had been so curt, his pride rose in rebellion. Finding Sexton in the front hall, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... reckon," I said, kind of curt-like. And I did. Owen Blair hadn't a face a body could forget—that long face of his with its clean color and its eyes made to look love into a woman's. When I thought of Mark Foster's sallow skin ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... admiral, offering to spare Maracaibo without ransom; to release his prisoners, with one half of the captured slaves; and to send home the hostages he brought away from Gibraltar, if he might be granted leave to pass the entry. The Spaniard rejected all these terms, with a curt intimation that, if the pirates did not surrender within two more days, they should be compelled to do so at ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... reply to your question as to what the religious views of the Brook Farmers are, I might, if I wished to be curt, say that they are such as you see by their lives. I am aware, however, that such a reply will not exactly suit you, and that you really mean what are their creeds, as, are they all Baptists, Trinitarians, ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... evening meal. To her he said briefly that Mistress Daisy had gone to her room, weary and with a headache, and would take no supper. I felt the smart of reproof to me in every word he uttered, and even more in his curt tone. I stood at the window with my back to him, looking through the dripping little panes at the scattered lights across the river, and not ceasing for an instant to think forebodingly of ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... and sawdust; a few pensive sailors stood about, gazing down at her with serious eyes. Sebright, bent double, circled slowly on a prowl of minute inspection. Suddenly straightening himself up, he pronounced a curt "She'll do"; and, without looking at us at all, went off busily ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... 10th.—Entered new house on 4th curt. A great mercy. Hope it may be more a house of prayer than any we ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... thought otherwisely, for he coolly informed the applicant that he was not Quartermaster, and declined to pay any attention to an order on that officer. Back to head-quarters travels 'Shylock,' with his dishonored order and his complaint. The paper is forthwith returned with a curt indorsement and the assurance that 'that will make it all right.' Thus fortified, he returned to the charge, and triumphantly displaying the back of the paper only to Dr. Smith, demanded his 'nigger.' Dr. Smith looked at the writing presented to him ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... ideals, my point of view. I had no desire to feed my new-sprung contempt by watching him pump in vain for information to be used in his secret campaign against me. "No, thanks. Another day," I replied, and left him with a curt nod. I noted that he had failed to speak of my marriage, though he had not seen me since. "A sore subject with all the Langdons," thought I. "It must be very sore, indeed, to make a man who is all ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... they arrived, Megget gave a curt order for his own men to follow and galloped in the same direction the ranch ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... at the door. Miss Brown dismissed him with a curt nod. He sank thankfully into his desk as Sid DuPree sprang forward to admit the newcomer—a new girl and her mother. From the shelter of his big geography, John surveyed the couple with that calmly critical stare which only a ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... the glare of the mid-day sun, with those faces gathered round them, it appeared rather to add a grotesque horror to the scene. The dragoman salaamed and salaamed like some ungainly automatic doll, and then, as the chief rasped out a curt word or two, he fell suddenly upon his face, rubbing his forehead into the sand, and flapping upon it ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... young student adieu in a few curt words, and made his way homeward through the sweet spring evening feeling half-ruffled, half-amused, as any other strong, unimaginative man might who has been menaced by a ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... curt announcement compared with many. When the deceased has occupied any kind of official post, or has been an employer of labour, a long register of his many virtues accompanies the advertisement of his death. "He who has just passed away was ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... if looking for employment will ever again avail me aught. The frequent re pulses, half-promises, and curt noes, the cherished, deluded hopes, and fresh endeavours that always resulted in nothing had done my courage to death. As a last resource, I had applied for a place as debt collector, but I was too late, and, besides, I could not have found the fifty shillings demanded as security. There was ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... countries. Hatteras was always intent upon his maps, and said little; his taciturnity increased as the brig got more and more south; he often mounted the poop, and there with folded arms, and eyes lost in vacancy, he stood for hours. His orders, when he gave any, were curt and rough. Shandon kept a cold silence, and kept himself so much aloof by degrees that at last he had no relations with Hatteras except those exacted by the service; James Wall remained devoted to Shandon, ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... superintendent took no notice whatever beyond a curt nod. She did not understand this, and a pain shot through her sensitive heart. Then she reflected that he might not have ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... Yet how curt is the version last quoted, and how blundering the sentence! Washington's spelling was always faulty, but it is not characteristic of him to write "abtain" for "abstain." This is one of many signs of haste, suggesting that his pen was following oral instruction. ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... means," said be; "it is not for such a man as I am to steal a victory, 'Malo me fortunae poeniteat, quam victoria pudeat.'"—["I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory." Quint. Curt, iv. 13]— ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... that we can hope, is by many arrows, more or less far off on different sides, to indicate, in the course of time, for what target we are aiming, and after an hour's talk, back and forward to convey the purport of a single principle or a single thought. And yet while the curt, pithy speaker misses the point entirely, a wordy, prolegomenous babbler will often add three new offences in the process of excusing one. It is really a most delicate affair. The world was made before the English language, and seemingly upon a different design. Suppose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... help," said another, worn-out, when Maimon pleaded for only a few coppers. Yet he never acquired the beggar's servility, nay, was often himself the patron of some poorer hanger-on, for whom he would sacrifice his last glass of beer. Curt in his manners, he refused to lift his hat or embrace his acquaintances in cold blood. Nor would he wear a wig. Pure Reason ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... table sat a boy—one of those child veterans the big city develops. He had a long and extremely narrow head. His eyes were close together, sharp and shifty. His expression was sophisticated and cynical. "Well, sir!" he said with curt impudence, giving Feuerstein ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... can have any now in the strict construction of the term orator, because we must not confuse the name orator with the words babbler and charlatan, for these can exist in any country, in all the regions of the inhabited world, among the cold and curt Englishmen as among the lively ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... LARRY [with curt sincerity]. Yes of course I do: why should I tell you lies about it? Nora Reilly was a person of very little consequence to me or anyone else outside this miserable little hole. But Mrs Tom Broadbent will be ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... these women, whom I had not seen until that day, to tell what we think and feel, to tell how it looks to us, who are the mothers of soldiers, and to whom even now the letter may be on its way with its curt inscription across the corner. I got my commission there to tell fearlessly and hopefully the story of ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... as to whether his resignation was desired, he was advised by the Chief of the bureau of insular affairs that the appointment of Mr. Francis Burton Harrison, who is a Tammany Hall democrat, as his successor had been sent to the Senate, [481] and three days after its confirmation received a curt request for his resignation to be effected in a week and a day. He was also requested to employ servants for Mr. Harrison. Spaniards who read on the public streets newspapers which printed this message were seen to tear them up ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... Oscar now was. Accordingly, he felt an interest in him, but the sort of interest which alone he could take, checked by the apparent harshness that characterized him. The aspect of this gaunt young man, with a muddy skin and hair cropped like a clothes-brush, who was curt of speech and possessed a piercing eye and a gloomy vivaciousness, ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... not, you will spend together at the house of Eudemius," the old man persisted, and received a curt grunt of assent. Undeterred by lack of enthusiasm of his hearers, he settled to the discussion of a ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... that floated back to her, like a returning tide, the living colour and splendour of the beautiful head, the light of eyes that seemed to reflect such utterly other things than the mean things actually before them; and, above all, the high curt consideration of a manner that even at bad moments was a magnificent habit and of the very essence of the innumerable things—her beauty, her birth, her father and mother, her cousins and all her ancestors—that its possessor couldn't have ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... Mrs. Blobbs's curt refusal to receive the lace only added fuel to the blazing thought that had flared up in Dalton's mind when he recalled the certificates. Holding on to them had caused one explosion. The mantilla might prove another such bomb. He dared not leave it at home and he could not carry it ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Kars' eyes. The girl's final words shocked him momentarily out of his self-command. There was one other at least who held his breath for what was to follow that curt negative. But Bill Brudenell need ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... he be got to utter more than a monosyllable in his presence. Harvey's face would twitch, and his fingers clench of themselves as he touched his cap. And with my Aunt Caroline he was the same. He vouchsafed but a curt reply to all her questions, nor did her raptures over the stud soften him in the least. She would come tripping into the stable yard, daintily holding up her skirts, and crying, "Oh, Harvey, I have heard so much of Tanglefoot. I must see him before ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... hair, and the birdlike treble of his voice, have been often enough described, and I will only say of them here that, when he took me for a walk in the garden, I subconsciously felt them—I cannot tell why—to be formidable. He inquired as to my tastes and interests with a species of curt benignity; but to my interest in poetry he exhibited a most disconcerting indifference, and I felt during the whole of our interview that I was walking with a mild east wind. In this he was a marked contrast to Ruskin, Robert Browning, and certain others—especially to "Owen Meredith"—men between ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... of the town which were less openly engaged in business, legitimate, questionable, or beyond question, Harris inquired at many doors for lodgings for himself and wife, or for his wife alone. The response ranged from curt announcements that the inmates "ain't takin' boarders" to sympathetic assurances that if it were possible to find room for another it would be done, but the house was already crowded to suffocation. Great lines of washing in the back yards, and groups dirty children ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... the will. For there was a will after all. Deborah, and Bart, who had witnessed it at the request of their master, told Mr. Pash of its existence, and he found it in one of the three safes in the cellar. It proved to be a short, curt document, such as no man in his senses would think of making when disposing of five thousand a year. Aaron was a clever business man, and Pash was professionally disgusted that he had left behind him such ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... began to feel weak and ill, so that he had hardly enough energy to go on looking for the work which seemed so desperately hard to find. He was growing used now to the long waiting at the back of a shop on the chance that he would be taken on, and the curt dismissal. He walked to all parts of London in answer to the advertisements, and he came to know by sight men who applied as fruitlessly as himself. One or two tried to make friends with him, but he was too tired ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... basin of warm water simmering on the ashes; Sayre used it as a finger-bowl, dried his hands on his shirt, lighted his pipe, and then slowly drew from his hip pocket a flat leather pocket-book. "Curt," he said, "I'm not selfish. I'm perfectly willing to share glory with you. You ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... didn't make any comment, as I noticed that at supper, whenever you or I spoke of the Frasers, he answered in curt monosyllables." ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... most extraordinary coincidence, a curt, business-like letter arrived in the evening post from Maris Tarnowsy, post-marked ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... letter, hundreds of the second, I wrote with painful care, pen carefully chosen, the one-inch margin down the left hand side of the paper first portioned off with dots. To three or four I received a curt reply, instructing me to call. But the shyness that had stood so in my way during the earlier half of my school days had now, I know not why, returned upon me, hampering me at every turn. A shy child grown-up folks at all events can understand and forgive; but a shy ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... sharply that the hand fell. "Yes, I am looking for you," he said, and his voice was unusually curt. "Come outside a minute, will you? I want to speak ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the sentiments of Father Ugo, the reader ought not to be surprised that his reluctance to enter into a theological discussion with Amanda was great, and his answers to that indefatigable she bore rather curt and ironical. After a good deal of conversation about the weather, crops, the telegraph, railroads, thunder storms, electricity, and such other subjects as were suggested by the climate and state of the ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... recall. Virtue she hath, and modest heed, Is piquant too, and sharp withal. Her cheek's soft light, her rosy lips, No length of time will e'er eclipse! Her downward glance in passing by, Deep in my heart is stamp'd for aye; How curt and sharp her answer too, To ecstasy ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the company of cavalry at McClellan's headquarters. The thought of his presence sent the blood surging in scarlet waves to her face. There was no longer any question in her mind that she had wounded him too deeply for forgiveness. Her dismissal had been so cold, so curt, it had been an accusation of dishonor. She could see it clearly now. He had poured out his confession of utter love in a torrent of mad words and clasped her in his arms without thought or calculation, an act of instinctive resistless ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... accumulated in the convents of every land. Then his teacher, Jerome, had been three years an anchorite on the heights of Camaldoli, where for more than four centuries the Thebaid had been revived; and Jerome, cold and curt on most religious themes, was warm with enthusiasm on this one. He had pored over the annals of St. John Baptist's abbey, round about which the hermit's caves were scattered, and told him the names of many a noble, and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... bowing graciously to right and left. Once she rose for an instant and addressed a curt sentence to the crowd, and in answer they cheered, a full-mouthed chorus of one ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... entering a subdued city, satiated with victory and peace. After him came Jess, now white from age, with her cart, and in it a woman carefully wrapped up,—the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and looking back. When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) made a curt and grotesque "boo," and said, "Maister John, this is the mistress; she's got a trouble in her breest,—some kind o' ...
— Rab and His Friends • John Brown, M. D.
... path. The day was superb. I found Mr. Tillington, in spite of his studiously languid and supercilious air, a most agreeable companion. He knew Europe. He was full of talk of Rome and the Romans. He had epigrammatic wit, curt, keen, and pointed. We sat down on a bench; he kept Lady Georgina and myself amused for an hour by his crisp sallies. Besides, he had been everywhere and seen everybody. Culture and agriculture ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... have liked to ask him his meaning, but felt that he had condescended enough. He bade the man a curt good-night, therefore, and turning away passed quickly into St. Aldate's Street. Thence it was but a step to the Mitre, where he found his baggage and ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... rules he laid down for her sex. Consequently that distant air she bore toward him filled him with satisfaction. It was quite enough for the present—for the present—that three times each day his perseverance and determination were rewarded by that curt little acknowledgment of her ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... up with the vexed scowl on his face, and walked the room. In a minute the library door opened again, and a pale, thin, rigid, frozen-looking little woman, scantily clad, the weather being considered, entered, and dropped a curt, awkward ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... and then displeased and then she frowned and shrugged her shoulders as if she did not really care whether Mr. Jerry was there or not. She gave him rather a curt greeting when he joined them with ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... into the central chamber and the vessel gave a tremendous lurch as the power was again applied. It was soon spent, however, and after the final observation, the others waiting in breathless suspense for him to finish his calculations, he made his curt announcement. ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... rapid river of no great breadth. Here the driver stopped, and the two travellers descended from the vehicle. The priest exchanged a few words in a low voice with one of the servants who had leapt down from the box, and then turning to Vellacott he said in a curt manner— ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... so curt and sharply sweet, my dear. Here I have been listening to marvellous accounts of your amiability ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... sporting companions, reminding him of bets which had not been paid, expressing astonishment which was child-like in its simplicity, and requesting an immediate settlement. These were generally short, curt, and altogether unpleasant. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... removed and asked him if there was anything I could do for him about his wife and children. I'd never seen them—I arrested him at the bank, and, of course, he was never out of custody after that. He answered in a queer, curt way that his wife and children were being looked after. I heard, incidentally, that his wife had left home, or was from home—there was something mysterious about it—either as soon as he was arrested or before. Anyway, he said nothing, and from that moment ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... Tenway, will know within a minute of the appearance of each stranger what is his purpose there,—whether he be going or has just come, whether he is himself on the way or waiting for others, whether he should be treated with civility or with some curt command,—so that if his purport be honest all necessary assistance may be rendered him. As Lopez was walking up and down, with smiling face and leisurely pace, now reading an advertisement and now watching the contortions ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... will he be to posterity? Some admirers have already answered the first question, perhaps as satisfactorily as it can be answered, by saying, "Daudet is simply Daudet." As for the second question, a whole school of critics is inclined to answer it and all similar queries with the curt statement, "That concerns posterity, not us." If, however, less evasive answers are insisted upon, let the following utterance, which might conceivably be more indefinite and oracular, suffice: Alphonse Daudet is one of those ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the whole interview he plays a sorry part, and is evidently cowed by the hated authority and personality of the old man; while Samuel, on his side, is curt, stern, and takes the upper hand, as becomes God's messenger. The relative positions of the two men are the normal ones of their offices, and explain both Saul's revolt and the chronic impatience ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 17th curt.stilo novo, I hold a coenobitical symposion at Monkbarns, and pray you to assist thereat, at four o'clock precisely. If my fair enemy, Miss Isabel, can and will honour us by accompanying you, my womankind will be but too proud to have the aid of such an auxiliary in the cause of resistance ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Mills nodded a curt gesture of farewell, and left the room, and when he had gone Mr. Taynton sat down again in the chair by the table, and remained there some half hour. He knew well the soundness of his partner's reasoning; all he had said was ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... draw another breath of uncertainty on that score," was the curt rejoinder. "He is ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... gaol-life must signify. She had heard of death and the painful Question; and she had perceived something of the heroism that was needed to meet them; yet she had never before imagined what that life of confinement might be, until she had watched this man, whom she had known in the world as a curt and almost masterful gentleman, careful of his dress, particular of the deference that was due to him, now become this worn prisoner, careless of his appearance, who stroked his mouth continually, once or ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... quite boyishly eager for the hours to pass on Wednesday, and when at last it was time to start, dismissed his chauffeur with a curt sentence, and started off alone. The chauffeur, it may be mentioned, merely glanced after him, and with a shrug of his shoulders wondered "what the ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... he now asks, with soul-harrowing indifference to all my counter inquiries." To bin," I reply, desperately, curt and indifferent, beginning to see through his game. " Bin, bin! bacalem." he says; supplementing the request with a coaxing smile. At the same moment my long-suffering digestive apparatus favors me with an ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the marriage, Jack and his bride were out walking one day. A beautiful young woman crossed their path. Jack addressed her, but she gave him a very curt reply. ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... forewoman, had been in ignorance of the failure and death of Archibald Fowler, she would probably have read the announcement in Madame's face as she watched her welcome the wife of his son. There was nothing offensive, nothing unkind, nothing curt; but, in some subtle way, the difference was emphasized between the eccentric daughter-in-law of a millionaire and an inexperienced young woman who must work for her living. For the welcome revealed at once to the observant eyes of Miss Smith the significant ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... which reached me indirectly and was delayed; also for your most interesting and generous book, which I immediately sat down and read at a sitting; which in its turn so stimulated me that I immediately wrote a rapid and rather curt reply for my own little rag. I fear you will find the reply more controversial than I meant it to be; for your book is so packed with challenges that I could not but make my very short article a thing packed with mere repartees. But I do hope you will understand how warm ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... in the doorway as the full aroma of the place smote him, now entered at the curt suggestion of Sondheim, ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... a child to do something, I don't remember what, and he answered me impertinently with a curt neay (no). I turned to his mother who was present and told her that the boy ought to have his ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... these curt words Frank let Buckskin have his head; and, accompanied by his chum, started at a full gallop over the level, in the direction of the spot where the dun-colored ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... a Romish priest elevate the elements, he felt compelled to absent himself, and on the next Sunday to attend the service at a Congregational chapel. He had, in in the meantime, expostulated with Mr Lerew, both personally and by letter, but had received only a curt and unsatisfactory reply. He had afterwards heard, from undoubted authority, that the doctrine of purgatory was taught to the schoolchildren; that prayers for the dead were offered up, as also prayers ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... it, so that we may all live virtually as long as we like; which, of course, disposes once for all of a world to come. The Psalmist was not always complaisant or even temperate in his language, but he lived a long time ago and must be pardoned; his curt summary stands: "Dixit insipiens!" But the writer vows that if he were addicted to the pursuit of any branch of physical knowledge he would insist upon being called by the name of that branch. He would be a physiologist ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... in this country. No man—you apprehend me?—no man here bears a charmed life.' He stood there for a moment in the moonlight with his delicate hooked nose set a little askew, and his mica eyes glittering without a wink, then, with a curt Good-night, he strode off. I could see he was disturbed and considerably puzzled, which made me feel more hopeful than I had been for days. It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend, the battered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat. I clambered on board. She rang ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... either by letter or in a personal interview, to any arrangements as to his career, etc., which involved expenditure of the trust moneys. When a somewhat rude and lengthy letter to them to that effect was met with a curt acknowledgment of its receipt and a reference to their previous decision, Mr. Knight's annoyance hardened into a permanent grievance against his son, whom he seemed to hold responsible for what he ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... Ghazi," they told him in eager chorus, with a childish mingling of excitement and terror; and would fain have enlarged upon their own valour in pursuing the Taker of Life, but that Desmond's curt "chupraho"[34] checked them ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... a moment to wait that time, for the man who was selling lemonade answered Betsy's shy question with a stare and a curt, "Lord, no! What could a young one ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... her own way of living, that her rather snuggling friendliness with him was as honest as a boy's. Her surprise at her own mistake showed how genuine her intention of straightness really was. When he came, once or twice to see her, he called her Lily, and she called him "Curt," and they joked together like two playfellows,—except when he was too gloomy to joke. But it was his gloominess that made her feel sure there was nothing but friendliness in his calls. She was not curious ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... turned up here at the Turner place. I imagine Mrs. Turner knew what was in store for her when his rusty buggy came in sight around the corner of the barn. At any rate, she made no protest, and listened meekly to his curt statement that he held an overdue mortgage, with plenty of back interest owing, and it was time for her to go. She went. Neither she nor anyone else doubted Creed's rights in the matter, and, after all, I believe it got ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... train; its attack upon the hacienda, and its repulse by the horse of Kentucky and Arkansas; the fall of Yell and Vaughan, the insolent mission, under a white flag, to inquire what General Taylor was waiting for; the curt reply "for General Santa Anna to surrender;" the junction, by this ruse, of the Mexican cavalry in our rear with their main army; the concentrated charge upon the American line; the overpowering of the battery of O'Brien; the fearful crisis; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... speak to Kesby when he passed his open office door. Kesby didn't need smiles or praise, he worked loyally just for the rare curt acknowledgement that he had done well. Three years of managing had made him a good lieutenant, completely faithful. When Bryce quit Union Transport Kesby would ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... who had given him rather curt greeting, and had followed the Duke around to the front of the house. The old man was tramping the porch from ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... The note was curt, very much to the point, and signed by a single initial. "If you wear this to-morrow night I shall know what to expect." The date was ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... Minnesota Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library James Sutherland, University College, London H.T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Curt A. Zimansky, ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive
... better have shaken hands with him than have given him the curt nod she begrudged him. She looked past him to see Mrs. Dyckman, in whose arms she found herself smothered. Mrs. Dyckman, in her bride-fright, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... honestly, that an aged man had rented the house for a month and had paid him in advance. What more could the agent say? Only one bit of puzzlement: why hadn't the blond stranger appeared? Who was he, in truth, and what had been his game? All this waiting and wondering, and then a curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the better. What his employer's motives were did not interest him half so much as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and that all element of danger ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... two prisoners differed greatly. Vaucheray was gloomy, silent, hard-faced. He cynically, in curt, sneering, almost defiant phrases, admitted the crimes of which he had formerly been guilty. But, with an inconsistency which puzzled everybody except Lupin, he denied any participation in the murder of Leonard the valet and violently ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... for the girl. She heard it flushing painfully, and, suddenly, with a curt handshake, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was the scene in the last chapter where Quayle, confronting his quarry, unmasked him. Quayle might have floundered in the earlier part of the story, but in his big scene he was exactly right. He was curt, crisp ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... all sorts and kinds, but with a preference for bookish people, divines, both of the Establishment and out of it, printers and authors. Sometimes, indeed, the description is short enough, and tells one very little. To many readers, references so curt to people of whom they never heard, and whose names are recorded nowhere else, save on their mouldering grave-stones, may seem tedious and trivial, but for others they will have a strange fascination. Here ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... at sea," he observed, finally, and stopped to drink a long draught. Lingard, bending over the table, had been listening with eager attention. Carter went on in his curt and ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... his eyes over it, scribbled an answer on the back with a gold pencil which he extracted from his pocket, and dismissed the man with a curt nod. The envelope had fluttered to the table and lay there face up. Patty inadvertently glanced at the address, and as the truth flashed across her, she hid her head against the back of the stone seat in a gale ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster |
