"Grumpy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be so grumpy,' Randolph put in, 'and do fix what you're going to buy. There's something over here that papa would like, I know. A whistle, such a jolly strong one, and only two-pence. It would do for him to call me in by, and much less trouble than ringing ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... physician, Is in so grumpy a condition I really more than half suspicion He nears his end; Who then would lie on earth to shave me, To feed me, coach me, and to save me From tedious cares that would enslave ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... does a tiger-cat love its kittens. He's a gouty, grumpy old fellow, with an in-growing grouch. I couldn't see a mite of good in ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... way back we met old Yule; he seemed rather grumpy, I thought. I don't think she's the kind of girl to make a paying business of literature. Her qualities are personal. And it's pretty clear to me that the valley of the shadow of books by no means agrees with her disposition. Possibly old Yule is ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... sent Cleena 'the furnishing of a good dinner,' she told me. I don't know when we may have another such a meal, one that thee would think fit to eat. I'd like to ask thee to come and share it with us, instead of staying here alone, all grumpy with the gout. But it isn't my dinner, thee sees, and I'm going home to tell my people everything. About the picture and the donkey and all. If, after that, they agree with me that it would be nice to ask thee to ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... and after dinner we sat on the stoop; he was still rather grumpy, though we pretended not to notice it. Presently Chad came along and took a seat beside us; but at first I don't think anybody, except, perhaps, Nora, paid him much attention. Felix had been very quiet all day, and now he sat with his elbows on his ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... his tentative knock thereon the night before. The picture showed an anemic and woebegone couple haggling and shaking their fists at each other, while a large caption announced that "Thousands of Married Folks Lead a Cat and Dog Life—Are Cross, Crabbed and Grumpy!"—all of which could be obviated if ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... marched, and formed in line. Lieutenant Pendleton came and spoke to the captain, then walked away smiling. "The lieutenant says you did well," said the captain briefly. But he was so short that we thought him grumpy, especially since the lieutenant had never before been seen to give us anything else than his little ironical smile. Yet at company conference, in the evening, one of us ventured to ask the captain if we really had done ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... thrusting a bayonet through another man." Walter writhed and shuddered. "I think of these things all the time—and it doesn't seem to me that Jem and Jerry ever think of them. They laugh and talk about 'potting Huns'! But it maddens me to see them in the khaki. And they think I'm grumpy because I'm ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... make them, no matter how busy or grumpy she might be, for the walk was long and bleak. The poor things got no other lunch and were ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... ever falling are turned into fog That hangs o'er the vale damp and chill, And in it the little folks shiver and shake Till they really are well-nigh ill! So I long to cry out to the sad little crew, "Come up to the sunshine, you grumpy ones, do! Your tears are all needless, if only you knew— Come out of the Valley of Grump, poor dears, Come out of ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 34, August 23, 1914 • Various
... our labour was completed, but never uttered the slightest expression of gratitude for that, or for any thing else we could do for her. She was constantly asking us to lend her different articles of dress, and when we declined it, she said, "Well, I never seed such grumpy folks as you be; there is several young ladies of my acquaintance what goes to live out now and then with the old women about the town, and they and their gurls always lends them what they asks for; I guess you ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... wind veered to the south, and Friday proved to be mild and sunny, save for a touch of autumnal haze in the air. But not even this freakish return of summer could rouse him from the grumpy mood which held ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... all settled Jaffery proclaimed himself the most care-free fellow alive. His hitherto grumpy and resentful attitude towards Liosha changed. He established himself as fellow slave with her under the whip of Susan's tyranny. It did one good to see these two magnificent creatures sporting together for the child's, and incidentally ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... does, when he's never there!" flashed Evadna, unintentionally revealing her real grievance. "He just eats and goes—and he isn't even there to eat, half the time. And when he's there, he's grumpy, like all the rest." She was saying the things she had told herself, on the way up, that she would DIE rather than say; to Miss Georgie, ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... awakening," cried Du Meresq. "Dinner spoiled, and a very stern expression of paternal opinion to you, my poor Cecil. Very grumpy to me. By Jove, I won't tell him to-night! Here's your half-baked boots. We shall never get them on. Shall I carry you to the boat, and roll your ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the last man she dared think of going to for help, when he should have been the first. Nevertheless she had come now, and a soft word from him, such as he gave most readily to all who were in distress, would have drawn her pitiful tale from her, but he was in a grumpy mood, and had heard none of the rumors about her mother's being ill, which indeed were only common among the Monypenny children, and his first words checked her confidences. "What are you hanging about my open window ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... were all much frightened, and tried to bail out the ugly water, but it rose too fast, and soon the monkeyish boat began to sink. After it had sunk through the water about a mile, it struck plump on a rock, and then it glided into a dwarfish cave at the bottom of the sea. The grumpy and genial Cricket immediately fell out of the boat, in her surprise. Cunning Will jumped after her. The sugary party had come to a mountainous spot down below the sea, and they found a minute garden there, ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... at an early hour upon the morrow, Mistress Winthrop cool and distant; his lordship grumpy and mute; Mr. Caryll airy and talkative as was his habit. They set out soon afterwards. But matters were nowise improved. His lordship dozed in a corner of the carriage, while Mistress Winthrop found more interest in the flowering hedgerows ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... thinking of farmyard fights," he sniffed. "If Fatty Coon or Grumpy Weasel or my cousin Solomon Owl grabbed you, you'd find that a fight in the woods is a very different matter from a ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... was of a shy disposition I could see, and wanted drawing out; but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young Carr's disappointment. Indeed, he was quite silent and morose for a whole day about it, poor fellow. He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built, with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... saw the grumpy old brute again in a curious way. I was sweeping the lake with my field glasses when I saw what I thought was a pair of black ducks near a grassy shore. I paddled over, watching them keenly, till a root seemed to rise out ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... ye all I've been thinkin'," said Biddy; "I feels all stirred up with thinkin', like the soup when Grumpy puts the stick in it. I never slept at all till I thinked it out as how ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a Cat's-butcher at Clapton, who's bin in luck's way, and struck ile, Is dead nuts on Yours Truly. Old josser, and grumpy, but he's made his pile. Saw me settin' about in the garden, jest like a old saffron-gill'd ghost A-waiting for cock-crow to 'ook it, and hanxious ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... he may have felt was carefully locked in his own breast. His underlings, the farm-labourers, found him a little more "grumpy" than usual, and his daughter scarcely dared open her lips to him for a month after the funeral. But from that time forward Miss Carley, who was rather a spirited damsel, took a very different tone with her father. She was not to be crushed and subdued into a mere submissive ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... group of dwellings on the Cohasset shore which the Government provides for them, and which shelter their families. The term of duty on the rocks is two weeks; at the end of each fortnight two happy men go ashore and two grumpy ones come off; that is, if the weather permits a landing, for keepers have been stormbound for as long as seven weeks. The routine of duty is much the same in all of the lighthouses. By night there must be unceasing watch kept of the great revolving light; and, if there ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... shadow, and mirage; the same occasional strips of green marking the watercourses and oases. As to smaller detail, we saw many interesting divergences. In the foreground constantly recurred the Bedouin brush shelters, each with its picturesque figure or so in flowing robes, and its grumpy camels. Twice we saw travelling caravans, exactly like the Bible pictures. At one place a single burnoused Arab, leaning on his elbows, reclined full length on the sky-line of a clean-cut sandhill. Glittering in the mirage, half-guessed, half-seen, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... stretching forbidding arms downwards to bar our passage to their sacred heights. Sometimes an inviting vista through the branches would lure us in, when it would narrow, and at its upper angle we would find a solid phalanx of these grumpy dwarfs. Then we had to attack boldly, scrambling over the obstinate, elastic arms and against the clusters of stiff needles, till we gained the upper side and ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... been on shore and seen the inside as well as the outside of things," observed Cousin Silas, who had overheard us. We thought he was in what we used to call one of his grumpy humours, and did not heed him. We sailed on, and dropped our anchor opposite to the city of Funchal. A health-boat came off, but as no one was sick on board, the people in her did not trouble us much. When she went away, we were surrounded with other boats pulled by swarthy, muscular, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... spirits now rose very high, and when Claude Locker came in with his shoes soaked from a tramp in the wet grass she greeted him in such a way that he could scarcely believe she was the grumpy girl of the day before. As they went into breakfast Mrs. Fox remarked to her husband in a low voice that Miss Asher seemed to have recovered entirely from ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... malignant cloud seemed hanging over me, and I felt its oppressiveness, and waited for it to break. I had grown used to many things of late; I had learned much from what I had seen at the Zasyekins; their disorderly ways, tallow candle-ends, broken knives and forks, grumpy Vonifaty, and shabby maid-servants, the manners of the old princess—all their strange mode of life no longer struck me.... But what I was dimly discerning now in Zinaida, I could never get used to.... 'An adventuress!' my mother had ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... though grumpy, stopped her; "Come, come, Madame Jeanne, stop that; you will make ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... in the wood, it was rather fun. Mr. Hodgkinson and Lord Doraine sat on either side of me. Lord Valmond came up with the last guns, rather late, and he looked round the table and frowned. He seems quite grumpy now, not half so good-tempered as he used to be. I expect it is because Mrs. ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... vividly apparent for that. "A perpetual eyesore," Marshall termed it in private. But then there was no accounting for the ways of folk in high places. Marshall did not pretend to understand them. He was, in his own grumpy fashion, sincerely attached to his master, and he never presumed to criticize his doings. He only ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... you know, I had him card indexed as havin' more or less tabasco in his temper'ment, with a wide grumpy streak runnin' through his ego. And he is kind of crisp and snappy in his talk, I'll admit. Strangers might think he was a grouch toter. But that's just his way. It's all on the outside. Back of that gruff, offhand talk and behind them bushy, gray eyebrows there's a lot of ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... struggle in the widow's mind; she sorely wanted money, and she might not have another chance of letting the room. This grumpy old man might prove pleasanter on further acquaintance; at any rate he might not be so disagreeable as many another; and with one glance at her little sick boy upon the rug, the mother made up her mind and decided to take her lodger ...
— The Boy Artist. - A Tale for the Young • F.M. S.
... or more other rooms—a dormitory arrangement without supervision and without the quiet needed for rest. The difficulty of securing good service under these conditions, together with the thousand and one annoyances of living at too close quarters, noisy children and pianos, grumpy janitors, smelly garbage, have led to the latest phase: non-housekeeping flats with daily care of a sort supplied by the janitor if desired, a kitchenette where eggs and coffee for breakfast and dishes for invalids may be prepared, and restaurants galore ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... got home dad was grumpy, and wondered what we wanted riding the horses about when there was nothing to do and nothing to see. But Warrigal had made him a pot of tea, and he was able to smoke now; so he wasn't so bad after all. We made ourselves pretty comfortable—Aileen ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... a queer little bear cub that lived with Grumpy, his mother, in the Yellowstone Park. They were among the many Bears that found a desirable home in the ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... belongs to Shakespeare, Sancho Panza to Cervantes, or Panurge to Rabelais. Whether Sganarelle is a servant, a husband, the father of Lucinde, the brother of Ariste, a guardian, a faggot-maker, a doctor, he always represents the ugly side of human nature, an antiquated, grumpy, sullen, egotistical, jealous, grovelling, frightened character, ever and anon raising a laugh on account of his boasting, mean, morose, odd qualities. Moliere was, at the time he wrote Sganarelle, more than thirty years old, and could therefore no longer successfully represent ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... I don't say but that a husband is a good thing to have, mind you! I guess I'm like all other women and want to have one some time, but so long as I've got pa I'm in no hurry. He's as much trouble as a husband would be, and as grumpy when things don't go to suit him. Sometimes I feel like in the end I'd choose to marry the Colonel, since it wouldn't be so much of a change, the Colonel bein' like pa in some ways, such as bein' economical; and then again I feel like I'd prefer ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... to above was certainly startling. I was talking to an old man whom I had long known: a little wrinkled old man, deservedly esteemed for his integrity and industry, full of experience as well as of old-world notions sometimes a little "grumpy," a little caustic in his manner of talking, but on the whole quite kindly and tolerant in his disposition. You could often watch in his face the habitual practice of patience, as, with a wry smile and a ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... was very kind and good-tempered, and a very hard-working giantess, and she was very much to be pitied for having such a disagreeable, grumpy old husband. Cornelian, though, had one great fault, and that was that she was very, very inquisitive. I do not know that she ever did any harm to anyone but herself by it. It brought about her own death, though, in a very dreadful manner. And ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... they could only have forgotten Rotherwood, and their altered circumstances, they would have enjoyed it immensely. Mrs. Saxon, the unfailing sunshine-radiator of the household, tried to ignore the tone of discontent in her husband's voice, the grumpy attitude of Egbert, Quenrede's fit of the blues, and Athelstane's rather martyred pose. She insisted on bundling everybody out for a blow on ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... and put on another exhibition of free-hand feeding, getting more grumpy and disgusted every minute. We were all ready to yell for mercy and put on our civilized clothes when we heard a terrific riot from outside. Then ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... spleenly^; splenetic, cankered. cross, crossgrained^; perverse, wayward, humorsome^; restiff^, restive; cantankerous, intractable, exceptious^, sinistrous^, deaf to reason, unaccommodating, rusty, froward; cussed [U.S.]. dogged &c (stubborn) 606. grumpy, glum, grim, grum^, morose, frumpish; in the sulks &c n.; out of sorts; scowling, glowering, growling; grouchy. peevish &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dirty place and what a grumpy old man!" Lalage remarked as they came out of the Record office, after handing the envelope to the surly porter, who had taken it with an inarticulate growl and tossed it to a waiting boy. "Still, if they use it and they're good to you, I don't mind how dusty their ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... mention that," said she. "If I'd been in your place, I should have been mad enough to say anything. But it's no use to sit here and be grumpy. You'd better let me go and get you a book. The "Critical Magazine" for 1767 and 1768, is on that list, and I know there are lots of queer, interesting things in it, but it takes a good while to hunt them out from the other things for which ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... first call to the school connected the Mitchells with a grumpy-voiced janitor who growled that teachers and principals had headed for their hills of freedom and wouldn't be back until Monday Week. It took some calling to locate a couple of James Holden's classmates who asserted that he hadn't been in ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... when our officers gave the grand ball at Hull, Frank Hollis came to Mamma, and said they could do nothing without the Major's daughter, and I must open the ball. Such nonsense he talked—didn't he, Lucy? Well, Mamma gave way, and said she'd persuade the Major. Papa was rather grumpy at first, you know, Lucy, but we coaxed him over at last. Oh, it was such fun! I danced first with Frank Hollis—just out of gratitude, you know, and then with Captain Murphy, and then—O Lucy, do you remember who?—and I had a silk dress which Mamma brought from India, trimmed just ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seldom gets much thanks, I believe," was my grumpy comment, which he unexpectedly chose to accept as an apology and with a large, fine, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... Hannah had the sense to see that it's the man that's got to make his way in the world. Hannah is always certain of her bread and butter, which is a good deal in these hard times. Besides, she's naturally grumpy, and she doesn't go out of her way to make herself agreeable to young men. It's my belief she'll die an old maid. Well, there's ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Thaddeus was grumpy. One premise only was necessary for the conclusion—in fact, it was the only premise upon which a conclusion involving Thaddeus's grumpiness could find a foothold. If Thaddeus felt rested, everything in the world could go wrong and ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... surprise. "It is foolish, and unnecessary. Now you won't grumble, my pet, if I go for a long day's sport to-morrow. It will do me all the good in the world, some excitement and exercise. I have been getting dreadfully grumpy and cross." ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... F7, 3217. Letters of Gilles, justice an the canton of Roquemaure (Gard), Oct. 31, 1792, and Jan. 23, 1793, on the electoral proceedings employed in this canton: Dutour, president of the club, left his chair to support the motion for "lanterning" the grumpy and all the false patriots... On the 4th of November "he forced contributions by threatening to cut off heads and destroy houses." He was elected juge-de-paix.—Another, Magere, "approved of the motion for setting up a gallows, provided ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... driver who discovered that he, too, could call forth people by the way in which he greeted them and did business with them. On his morning runs he observed that many people were grumpy and sullen, and treated him and their fellow passengers discourteously. At first his inclination was to respond in the same way. Then he discovered that by taking the initiative and greeting his passengers with a smile and ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... laughed Tom—who had got out of his grumpy state quickly enough; for his disposition was almost as light-hearted as that of his friend, and it was only the heat and the confinement on board ship when in harbour that had previously oppressed his spirits—"let us look smart, and be off. Here's that fellow Tompkins just ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... me: 'Old Father Grumpy is much as usual, save that he gives a little at the knees. You remember how we used to laugh at his airs and graces! Well, he has given up all that, and though he still struts about on great high heels, like a Landes peasant on his stilts, he has no brightness at ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I got so tired and grumpy up in the hot city that I just had to come down here to be cheered up. ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... heart of the vast business district of Chicago, but the West Side is as big as the two of them, and its population contains a large number of exceedingly rich men, who, like the rich men of the other sides, are as content with themselves for being "self-made," are just as grumpy, and with as many weaknesses. Some of these West Side rich men live on Ashland Avenue. There certainly lived and lives Mr. Jason B. Grampus, a great speculator, whose home has its ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... formal "Good-night, sir," from Stannard and Sumter, and a grumpy dismissal from the indignant commander, the ill-starred conference broke up. Snaffle, pouring balm into Button's ready ear, as he saw him home, went in and drank his health at the well-stocked sideboard, and then started straightway across the parade ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... grumpy silence he showed an air of repressed excitement, sending frequent, shifty glances over the room; and that he possessed the temper of a fiend I did not doubt after seeing him turn upon the waiter for some trifling omission and reduce ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... his knee, and making foolish jokes, talking and giggling like an imbecile, bestowing sweetmeats. With them—for the most sinful motives, as Rashid averred, and, I suppose, believed—he was all sugar; but when he came back to the house he was as grumpy as could be. Rashid would have destroyed him at a nod from me one evening when ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... said the lady; "he has no teeth. He is like one of the family, faithful and grumpy; but the latter is my grandchildren's fault, for they have teased him; they play at wedding, and want to give him the part of the bridesmaid, and that's too much for him, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... one after another, on the various coasts,—solemn Frank, long Gus, gallant Ed, fly-away Molly Loo, pretty Laura and Lotty, grumpy Joe, sweet-faced Merry with Sue shrieking wildly behind her, gay Jack and gypsy Jill, always together,—one and all bubbling over with the innocent jollity born of healthful exercise. People passing in the road below looked up and ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... sturdy and adventurous foreigners whom the grumpy officers jostle and hustle about. For neither poverty, nor oppression, nor both together can drive a man out of his country, unless the soul within him awaken. Indeed, many a misventurous cowering peasant continues to live on bread and olives in his little ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... below stairs, or she would not have allowed it, for she was very fond of mice. Mr. and Mrs. Mouse knew they were perfectly safe with her, but they were not at all as sure of her maid, who looked very cross and grumpy. So things went on for some time very happily, and Mrs. Mouse began to look about for a good place to put her babies in, for she had fifteen of them. She found a large bottle under the wardrobe at one end, and so she told her husband she would put them ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was rather too grumpy In my last note to you. But my patience had been desperately tried. I have gone through a good deal; now at last I am recovering sanity, and can admit that you had no choice but to ask those questions. I know and care nothing ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... such a very high pitch, and sometimes I wish my mother had let that unlucky name become extinct in the family, or that I might adopt my nickname. One could live up to Backyard easily enough. It seems to suit being grumpy and tyrannical, and seeing no further than one's own ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... these reasons—and because Mahan was too busy and too grumpy to bother with him—Bruce elected to stay where he was, for a while, and share the Missourian's vigil. So, when the rest of the party moved along to the next sentry-go, the dog remained. The Missourian was only too glad to have him do so. It is tedious and stupid to pace a desolate ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... import of the question reached him, like a bullet which strikes some time after the flash of the fired shot. Luckily his disengaged hand was ready to grip a bar of the gate. He held it with a terrible force, but his presence of mind was gone. He could make only a sort of gurgling, grumpy sound. ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... just like you do. He used to get very grumpy, and very, very unhappy. He begged and pleaded with me for understanding, and I couldn't give it to him. Then one day he got dreadfully drunk, after a whole year away from it. And mother's cousin came. He talked to father for five or ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... "Grumpy! Well, isn't it enough to make a fellow feel low-spirited when he has been ill for weeks, wandering about here on these mountain-sides, hunted as if we were wild beasts, almost starving, and afraid to go near any of ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... explained the situation to him and begged him not to consider us any more for the present. We must think of the maids too. You see, Hugo makes a good deal of extra work, and I'm afraid Hannah might turn grumpy if there was yet another man to ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... I said, 'the case of an heir apparent of seventy; his father was ninety-five. One day the young man was very grumpy. They tried to find out what was the matter with him; at last he broke out, "Everybody's ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... will happen before night," Jimmy muttered gloomily, as he made his way down to the dining room, from which issued a tempting aroma of bacon. "It's all too good to be true." But then, Jimmy always did feel grumpy ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... later, Janet took a plate of tongue over to his bunk, he was fast asleep. The others had a dismal, grumpy meal, and they were glad when the washing-up was done and it was bedtime. But no one had a good night. The rain dropped from the trees on to the Slowcoach's roof with loud thuds, and at midnight the thunder and lightning began, and Janet got up and splashed out ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... he said in his more usual grumpy voice, "or I wouldn't have bothered you. I'll leave it and you can sign it and send ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... She bore the scoldings and bad temper of mother and sister with a smile on her lips, and the patience of a lamb. But this angelic behavior did not soften them. They became even more tyrannical and grumpy, for Marouckla grew daily more beautiful, while Helen's ugliness increased. So the stepmother determined to get rid of Marouckla, for she knew that while she remained, her own daughter would have no suitors. Hunger, every kind of privation, abuse, every means was used to make ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... done about my application, nor, for that matter, about those thousands of others. We were being played with. I began to feel grumpy. It was a lovely afternoon, and I remembered, with regret, that I had thrown over an engagement to go for a walk with a friend at Wimbledon. About this hour, I calculated, we should be strolling along Beverley Brook or through the glades ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... be but one great Dr. McAlister," Theodora answered loyally. "No, mother, I must not stay to lunch, not even if Babe would grill her tibia for me. Billy gets very grumpy, if I leave him alone at his meals. Good-bye, Babe. Don't let anything happen to ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... dwellings so flimsy that the sound of snores and sleepy mutters within could be heard in the pauses of the thundering clatter of his blows. He called out men's names menacingly from the saddle, once, twice. The drowsy answers—grumpy, conciliating, savage, jocular, or deprecating—came out into the silent darkness in which the horseman sat still, and presently a dark figure would flit out coughing in the still air. Sometimes a low-toned woman cried through the window-hole softly, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... why he shouldn't be there," said Lily. "I would rather it should be he than I, because Lady Julia is so grumpy." ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... a learned lady, who taught me in person the picturesqueness of grumpiness. Her temper was ever perfect, because she was never in the wrong, but I being so, she was grumpy. She carried my iniquity under her brows, and looked out on me through it. I was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... letters begun with infinite reluctance, and put off suddenly till next day—till next week, as like as not! The neglected, uncared-for pen, flung away at the slightest provocation, and under the stress of dire necessity hunted for without enthusiasm, in a perfunctory, grumpy worry, in the "Where the devil is the beastly thing gone to?" ungracious spirit. Where, indeed! It might have been reposing behind the sofa for a day or so. My landlady's anemic daughter (as Ollendorff would have ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... wagon. But givin' up Number One to the other man gives him a chance to pose a lot, an' mebbe it's got a heap of effect on Number Two, who sort of thinks that if she gets tied up to such a sucker she'll be able to wrap him around her finger. But if he loves Number Two, he'll be mighty grumpy to the next fellow that goes to ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... whiffling husky cachinnations as if they were laughing through wool. Of none such comes good." A young lady must not speak too loud or be too boisterous; she must even tone down her wit, lest she be misunderstood. But she need not be dull, or grumpy, or ill-tempered, or careless of her manners, particularly to her mother's old friends. She must not talk slang, or be in any way masculine; if she is, she loses the battle. A young lady is sometimes called upon to be a hostess if her mother is dead. Here her liberty ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... still looked serious. "Why, my dear old boy," continued Wildney, "the Gordonites'll be the first to laugh at the trick when we tell them of it next morning, as of course we will do. There, now, don't look grumpy. I shall cut away and arrange it with. Graham, and tell you the whole dodge ready ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... He is grumpy and stumpy, and old and gray, With a sleepy look in his lonely eye, (The other he lost at a matinee— Knocked out by a boot from a window high.) Wherever he goes, he never knows— Quarter or pause in the midnight spree, For the life of a cat is a life ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... raced through the pages hungrily, avidly. Not so on this fair November afternoon. Whether it was the mince pie and melted cheese she had partaken of a bare hour before, or whether it was the even-more-so-than-usual grumpy mood of her employer, Joshua Barnes, she could not tell. Perhaps it was neither. She refused to analyze it. Whatever the cause, she felt heavy ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... crew is a grumpy old man called Simon Hixon. After a long time Peter and Simon become more friendly. There is an accident and the vessel is cast up on a rock fairly near an island. The Captain is injured as he had been the last to leave ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... by this time, had found out that it was a bird that was talking to them, and not cross old Mr. Grumpy, as they had at first supposed, who, always being in an ill humor himself, never could bear to see any one looking happy. They walked up to where the bird was, and stood there lost in admiration at his accomplishments; and really he was a very wonderful bird, ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... sheets of a newspaper just arrived from London, had the temerity not to hear. He was in a grumpy mood, arising, in the first instance, from having been dragged away from his business and his club to Cornwall. It was nothing to him that he was in the Land of Lyonesse. His brief impression of the Duchy was that ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... a time, there lived a family of bears in a thick wood. Grumpy-growly, the father, was a jolly, cross old fellow—oh! I guess he was! and the little ones didn't dare so much as to snap at a fly without permission, when he ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow
... did not converse on the way to the store. Zoeth made an attempt, but Shadrach refused to answer. He was silent and, for him, grumpy all the forenoon. Another fortnight passed before the subject of the decision which must, sooner or later, be given Judge Baxter was mentioned ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... found the old man sitting on the porch of his Iber City shack, thoughtfully chewing tobacco and fingering his home-made cane. At first he answered in grumpy monosyllables, but by the magic of a good cigar, he gradually let himself go, disclosing minute details of a most remarkable ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... to one of our characters whom we have been forced to neglect. The temper of Bilbil the goat was not sweet under any circumstances, and whenever he had a grievance he was inclined to be quite grumpy. So, when his master settled down in the palace of King Gos for a quiet life with the boy Prince, and passed his time in playing checkers and eating and otherwise enjoying himself, he had no use whatever for Bilbil, and shut the goat in an upstairs room to prevent his wandering through the city ...
— Rinkitink in Oz • L. Frank Baum
... grumpy," Mellicent complained to her mother. "She never laughs now, nor makes jokes, nor flies about as she used to do! She's just as glum and mum as can be, and she never sits with us! She is always in her bedroom with the door locked, ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... walks around the grounds with me, at sunset," she explained, in intervals of cajoling the grumpy mass of fluff to descend. "And he ran ahead of me, to-day, to the edge of the path. That must have been when Bobby caught sight ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... talked and finally O'Malley joined in. It was clear that the boys had buried the hatchet, so he saw no reason for being grumpy. Besides, the cook had just made some blueberry pies and ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery
... you to come as my companion, you would see nothing derogatory in the offer. You shall come as my companion, now, or if you like as joint guardian to the child. You shall have your own rooms in the house; and when you feel inclined to be grumpy, and don't care to take your meals with the child and me, you can ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... before all else, swallowed the mandarin's compliments for all they were worth, and I can imagine him giving a grumpy nod to the smiling minion of the Viceroy as he ordered "the prisoner" to be brought on deck, and the boat to be ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... grumpy and monosyllabic. He refused to discuss the situation or Mrs. Sherwood, returning with an obvious effort to commonplaces. Mrs. Morrell exerted all her fascination to get him back to the former level. A little cold imp sat in the back of Keith's brain and criticised sardonically; Why will big ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White |
