"Mess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Katosa, which is situated on the bank of a stream among gigantic timber trees, and found there a large party of Ajawa—Waiau, they called themselves—all armed with muskets. We sat down among them, and were soon called to the chiefs court, and presented with an ample mess of porridge, buffalo meat, and beer. Katosa was more frank than any Manganja chief we had met, and complimented us by saying that "we must be his 'Bazimo' (good spirits of his ancestors); for when he lived at Pamalombe, we lighted ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... received, that four masses per annum should be said for them during life, at the four chief feasts, and 300 per annum for either or both after death, for ever; on the anniversary of Hugh, the Abbot bound himself to feed the poor with bread, beer, pottage, and one mess from the kitchen, for ever. (Rot. Pat., 20 Edward the Second) In the Appendix to the companion volume, In All Time of our Tribulation, will be found an account of the petitions of the two Despensers, with the curious list of their goods destroyed by ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... the police!" said Croyden, snapping his fingers. "They're all bunglers—they will be sure to make a mess of it, and, then, no man can foresee what will happen. It's not right to subject the women to the risk. Let us pay first, and punish after—if we can catch the scoundrels. How long do you think Henry Cavendish will hesitate when ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... though worn out with fatigue, she could not sleep. This, then, was her coming home! She had sold her birthright, and got not even the "mess of pottage," but ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... busy to a man with Saturday morning recitations, did not see the arrival of the visiting team. But the Lehighs and the afternoon's game were the only topics for talk at dinner in the cadet mess hall. ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... broken-hearted—and what have you done with them? You have bartered them for benefices, and peddled them for popularity; you have given them in exchange for money, for houses, for furniture, for things like this—and this—and this! You have sold your birthright for a mess of pottage, therefore you ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the circuit days vanished with stage-coaches and post-chaises. If you climbed on to the former for the sake of economy because you could not afford to travel in the latter, you would be fined at the circuit mess, whose notions of propriety and economy ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... be three letters. At first I thought these letters be going to bring a deal of potter and bother—maybe something worse—and I will put them in the fire. Then I thought, they bean't your letters, Pyn, and if you want to keep yourself out of a mess, never interfere and never volunteer. So here they be. But if you will take an old man's advice, I do say to you, burn the letters. It will be better far than to be ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... such a mess of things lately, that I thought I'd better leave it alone, for that I was safe to put my foot in it one way or other, so I came and ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... this moment, amid the clash of glasses and the bubbling of wine, the excited and voluble Gascons were discussing in one breath the war, the council, the court, the ladies, and whatever gay topic was tossed from end to end of the crowded mess-table. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Blake said. "Give him half an hour's rest, and he'd keep up with us back to Killicuddery. But where is your horse, and how did you get into this mess? The boy tells me he found you in ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Dangle, not surprised in the slightest. "Glad you've come. I may want you. Bit of a mess I'm in—eigh? But I've caught 'em. At the very place ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... and make a mess of flapjacks for breakfast," for it was admitted by the boys that Dick was the best cook ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... don't I? and many more too. We were talking about it at mess, yesterday, and chaffing Derby Oaks—until he was as mad as a hatter. Know Sir Derby Oaks? We dined together, and he went to the play: we were standing at the door smoking, I remember, when you passed in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on a tree by a great city in the East thought that the day dawned because of his cawing. One day he said to himself, "How important I am! But for my care, I confess, the world would get into a mess." ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... in camp the bugle sounded the assembly. Of course I did not know an "assembly" from a mess call, but the others ran for the parade ground and ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... hand, Major," the detective said, looking down at Desmond's proffered one, "for I'm in a filthy mess and no error. But won't you come in, sir?" he said to the Chief and led the way across the mosaic tile pathway to the front door which ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... the evening, where there was nobody left but Sefton baiting Ferguson for having been out of the division. He told me that it was not impossible Lord Spencer would be put at the head of Government. They will manage to make a confounded mess of it, I dare say. Billy Holmes came to the Duke last night with the news of the division, and implored him to let nothing prevent his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... lot bought at the sale after the suppression of the Holy Inquisition in Spain. This is a pretty good negative,' he went on, holding it up to the light with his head at the angle of discriminating judgement. 'Washed enough now, I think. Let us leave it to dry, and get rid of all this mess.' ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... preposterously absurd that the helmsman, rendered almost imbecile by laughter, let the boat drive into a second pile, when, as I live to write it, the mate, who was cleaning himself near to the basket, was thrown a second time into the glutinous mess! I will not attempt to repeat the sea-blessings he bestowed upon the steersman. Happily eggs were cheap, and a dollar might have represented a more considerable smash. Now it was two days following this that the captain sent the long-boat ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... laugh, Greatest of Congresses! After days and weeks pugnacious, After labours ostentatious, See how big the mess is! ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... she know her port, Though she goes so far about? Or blind astray, does she make her sport To brazen and chance it out? I watched when her captains passed: She were better captainless. Men in the cabin, before the mast, But some were reckless and some aghast, And some sat gorged at mess. ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... then, a happy Christmas; and if before the new year, you have not forgotten me, I shall be delighted to have your company at OUR MESS. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... true or not, but the ancient Chinese certainly seem to have divided the circle into 365 degrees. To learn the length of the year needed only patient observation—a characteristic of the Chinese; but many younger nations got into a terrible mess with their calendar from ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... fairly groaned as I did the rest of the errent. But my promise weighed on me, and Duty poked me in the side. I wus determined to do the errent jest as I would wish a errent done for me, from borryin' a drawin' of tea to tacklin' the nation, and tryin' to get a little mess of truth and justice ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... relating to his department of the household. V—— took him by the arms, and forcing him into a chair, in a confidential way began, "See you here, my old friend Daniel, I have long been wishing to ask you what you think of all this confused mess into which Hubert's peculiar will has tumbled us. Do you really think that the young man is Wolfgang's son, begotten in lawful marriage?" The old man, leaning over the arm of his chair, and avoiding V——'s eyes, for V—— was ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Balaam recognised the awful mess he was in, and being by this time as limp as a wet rag, he made the most abject apology. "I have sinned," he said, "for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me." This strange reasoning shows still more clearly how the poor prophet had taken leave of his senses. He ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... though he was unconscious of either effort or weariness. They brought him luncheon, in due time, on a napkin-covered tray. He lifted the napkin peevishly, took a disdainful look at the food, gulped down a cup of black coffee, and pushed the mess away from him. He had ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... the Chancellor brought no unmixed good to physical science. It was natural enough that the man who, in his better moments, took 'all knowledge for his patrimony,' but, in his worse, sold that birthright for the mess of pottage of Court favor and professional success, for pomp and show, should be led to attach an undue value to the practical advantages which he foresaw, as Roger Bacon and, indeed, Seneca had foreseen, long before ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... white as flour, Me and him picked them up for 'most an hour; Next day when our ma saw that there mess She was pretty mad, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... grounds thoroughly: an arrangement which considerably relieved the minds of the Australians, who had rather dreaded the prospect of "poking about" the house under the eyes of its tenants. The butler stiffened respectfully at the sight of the boys' uniforms. It appeared presently that he had been a mess-sergeant in days gone by, and now regarded himself as the personal property ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... I met Fanny and Belle coming down with one Kitchener, a brother of the Colonel's. Dined in the billiard-room, discovered we had forgot to order oatmeal; whereupon, in the moonlit evening, I set forth in my tropical array, mess jacket and such, to get the oatmeal, and meet a young fellow C. - and not a bad young fellow either, only an idiot - as drunk as Croesus. He wept with me, he wept for me; he talked like a bad character in an ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... obliged," said Skippy, gulping down his disappointment. He tripped against the foot-scraper and made a mess of opening the door for her. He wanted above all things in the world to follow her in and be permitted just for a few more wonderful minutes to sit and gaze at her loveliness. But to admit this was impossible. Whatever happened, she must never suspect, never! So at loss for ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... minnows, primus inter pares[Lat], nulli secundus[Lat], captain; crackajack * [obs3][U. S.]. supremacy, preeminence; lead; maximum; record; [obs3], climax; culmination &c. (summit) 210; transcendence; ne plus ultra[Lat]; lion's share, Benjamin's mess; excess, surplus &c. (remainder) 40; (redundancy) 641. V. be superior &c. adj.; exceed, excel, transcend; outdo, outbalance[obs3], outweigh, outrank, outrival, out-Herod; pass, surpass, get ahead of; over-top, override, overpass, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of the great soldier remained unimpaired to the last was proved to me on the night of his arrival. He dined at my Headquarters' mess, and after dinner I had a long conversation with him on the situation. It was getting late, and I suggested that, as he had a hard day before him on the morrow, he should go to his quarters and get ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... fashion, and ultimately find their way into the rubbish heap. The people of all the New England States are poorer when the ignorant whites, foreigners, or negroes of our southern states destroy the robins and other song birds of the North for a mess of pottage. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... supplies for the inhabitants and his army. Famine was already beginning to threaten all of the poorer classes who had neglected their opportunities to leave the city, or who had been unable to do so. As for Ned Crawford's provisions, he had continued to board with Anita, or with any mess of military men among whom he might happen to be. He had made many acquaintances, and he had found the ragged, unpaid, illiterate Mexican soldiers a genuinely hospitable lot of patriotic fellows. He came to his supper somewhat late on the evening of March 21st, and that night, ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... of June 1807, between Major Campbell and Captain Boyd, officers of the 21st regiment, stationed in Ireland, about the proper manner of giving the word of command on parade. Hot words ensued on this slight occasion, and the result was a challenge from Campbell to Boyd. They retired into the mess-room shortly afterwards, and each stationed himself at a corner, the distance obliquely being but seven paces. Here, without friends or seconds being present, they fired at each other, and Captain Boyd fell mortally wounded between the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... man replied respectfully, "but still, I hope I may say that I've as much common sense as most people. You see, sir," he went on, turning to Quest, "the spots where he could emerge from this track of country are pretty well guarded, and he'll be in a fine mess, when he does put in an appearance, to show himself upon a public road. Yet by this time I should say he must be nigh starved. Sooner or later he'll have to come out for food. I've a little scheme of my own, sir, I don't mind admitting," the man concluded, with ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... themselves to communities, and now I have a similar instance of a deer to offer, in combination, however, with a dog, who attached himself to the 42nd Highlanders, having been presented to that regiment by a friend of one of the officers. The dog had belonged to a captain in the navy, who dined at the mess, while the regiment was stationed in Malta, and so attached himself to that community, that nothing would induce him to leave it; so his master was forced to leave his favourite Newfoundland behind him; who, from that moment, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... pieces which must be cut out of every quarter of beef, mutton, pork, veal, nay, stock-fish and salmon, are determined, and must be entered and accounted for by the different clerks appointed for that purpose. If a servant be absent a day, his mess is struck off. If he go on my lord's business, board-wages are allowed him, eightpence a day for his journey in winter, fivepence in summer. When he stays in any place, twopence a day are allowed him, besides the maintenance of his horse. Somewhat above a quarter of wheat is allowed for every mouth ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... didn't," answered Sam. "It's another brake, one that Dick heaved overboard." And he pointed to the ropes and hooks. One hook, the biggest, had caught in a rock lining the gully, and the ropes were in a mess around the wheels ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... Go 'long there with you!" cried Captain Ben, waving the dish-cloth and the poker. "I declare for 't! I most hadn't ought to have left that bread out on the table. They've made a pretty mess of it, and it is every spec there is in the house too. Well, I must make a do of potatoes for supper, with a bit of pie and a mouthful ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... have to cook some of it the best we can, although I expect we'll make a sorry mess of it without Chris. I guess broiling some of it ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... only I couldn't find you. It was nigh dropping into Miss Gascoigne's hands, and a pretty mess that would have been. And I warn you—you had better mind what you are about—Miss Susan Bennett told me all about it; and a nice little story it is, too, for a married lady. And Miss Gascoigne has scented it out, I'll be bound ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... had been no such thing. Well, the mere fact of your father's behaviour to your mother...." He stopped short, with misgivings that his policy of talking himself out of his difficulties was not such a very safe one, after all. Here he was, getting into a fresh mess, gratuitously! ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... notion to try fishing, and with considerable success. Later in the day Frank also wet a line, and between them they managed to secure a decent mess of fat trout ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... Hole, do you? Yes, I am quick-eyed enough to read every thought in your black heart. Do I not know that you came in the canoe with the white medicine man from Oswego? Do I not know that you listened outside the open window of the mess-room at Fort Niagara, while the white chiefs talked at night? Do I not know that you painted your face, with the thought that the white man was a fool and would no longer recognize you? Then you came in this canoe that you might make it go slow, like a swan whose wing is broken by ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... bottom of the wet mess of hair and red and flesh was old Shep, stone-dead. And as Saunderson pulled the body out, his face was working; for no man can lose in a crack the friend of a ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... mess-room; and, although they never have been to sea, they are taught to treat the school as if it were a war vessel. They ate with vigour when I saw them, and I was told that the money given to them by the Government is spent for extras in the eating line—principally candies. Each table constitutes ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... two grew from acquaintances to friends with a quickness that boyhood alone can bring about. They visited the armory, the chapel, the stables, the great hall, the Painted Chamber, the guard-house, the mess-room, and even the scullery and the kitchen, with its great range of boilers and furnaces and ovens. Last of all Myles's new friend introduced ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... incomplete obligations of the past. The American people deserve to be impatient, because we do not yet have the public house in order. We've had great success in restoring our economic integrity, and we've rescued our nation from the worst economic mess since the Depression. But there's more to do. For starters, the Federal deficit is outrageous. For years I've asked that we stop pushing onto our children the excesses of our government. And what the Congress finally needs to do is pass a constitutional amendment that mandates a balanced budget ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... animal, and there's the right stuff for a soldier in him, if I'm not mistaken. He's in earnest too, for he enlists in the regiment ordered back to Washington. Bless me, child, another goblet broken; you'll ruin the mess ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... chronicle of them seem fantastically incredible; and this law of Nature made no exception in the case of The Girl Up-stairs. There were rehearsals which ran so smoothly and swiftly that they'd have done for performances; there were others so abominably bad that the bare idea of presenting the mess resulting from six weeks' toil, before people who had paid money to see it, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... and hunger were in a great measure the cause of my sickly looks, the major proceeded to place before me the debris of his day's dinner, with a sufficiency of bottles to satisfy a mess-table, keeping up as he went a running fire ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... chair and after a few inquiries about his trip, Mr. Freet said: "It's supper time and I'll take you over to the mess and introduce you. Only a few of the engineers have their wives here and all the others, with the so-called 'office' force, eat at 'Officers' Mess'. I'm not going to load you up with advice, Mr. Manning. ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... darkness and confusion there was a doubt about who had led the retreat, but Dick was blamed and made no defence. In spite of this, he was acquitted at the inquiry, perhaps because he was a favourite and Colonel Challoner was well known upon the frontier, but the opinion of the mess was against him. He left the service and the Challoners never ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... an arrangement, sir," I answered, "my friend here would be literally selling his birthright for a mess of porridge." ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... is weighty matter, of which the king must be advised! Monsieur's wife becomes expectant of a son and heir. 'Tis meet that Louis the Great should be advised of this! Mother of God! 'Tis a pretty mess enough back there on the St. Lawrence, where not a hen may cackle over its new-laid egg but the king must know it, and where not a family has meat enough for its children to eat nor clothes enough to cover them. My faith, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... She would not leave the bungalow lest he should return in her absence. She busied herself with the making of a fancy-dress which she and her ayah had concocted for the coming ball at the mess-house. It was to be quite an important affair, and every European within reach was to attend—according to Noel's decree. He had persuaded his colonel to have a purely European function for once, pleading that it would ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... continued, paying no attention to the stiffness of his manner, "the government has got itself into a pretty mess by seizing your pamphlet. You ought to see how the morning papers lash it! Here," she added, giving Thuillier a small sheet printed on sugar-paper, in coarse type, and almost illegible,—"here's another, you didn't read; the porter has just brought it ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... through like a mutinous schoolboy. 'I might tell you that I don't care a button whom you marry, but that would not be true. I do care more or less. As you say, I know you pretty well. I'd a little rather you didn't make a mess of it; and if you must I should distinctly prefer not to have the spectacle under my nose for the rest of my life. I can't hinder you, but ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... said we were delighted, and we meant it. I looked around for a hut or some such place, or even for a tent, and, seeing nothing of the sort, wondered where we might be going to eat. I soon found out. The major led the way underground, into a dugout. This was the mess. It was hard by the guns, and in a hole that had been dug out, quit literally. Here there was a certain degree of safety. In these dugouts every phase of the battery's life except the actual serving ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... notice when we are going to begin to fit out, and they keep the rooms for us. We both slept there last night. The house is kept by a nice clean woman, the widow of a skipper who was lost with his craft about ten years ago. I have no doubt she can put the lad up too, and he can mess with us. I will go round with him myself; till we get the shrouds up, one is quite enough ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... of seven o'clock on this momentous evening of the 1st of April, a 'mess' of sailors on board a Danish ship of the line, the outermost of all in the harbour, had just received, in common with their shipmates, an extra allowance of braendeviin—white corn-brandy, somewhat like whisky. They were filled with feelings of high professional pride and confidence, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... keeps my little loaf of bread Unclipt, unflead. Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar Make me a fire, Close by whose living coal I sit, And glow like it. Lord, I confess, too, when I dine, The pulse is Thine, And all those other bits, that be There placed by Thee; The worts, the purslain, and the mess Of water-cress, Which of Thy kindness Thou hast sent; And my content Makes those, and my beloved beet, To be more sweet. 'Tis Thou that crown'st my glittering hearth With guiltless mirth; And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... to go down with these, however, having to mess along with Jones and Maitland in the deck-house close to the galley, where the three mids consoled themselves with the reflection that if they were excluded from the saloon, at all events they were nearer the place ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... an awful mess for 'em all, and they just come home," groaned Mr. Tisbett; drawing his fur mitten across his eyes, and leading his horses, he followed at a funeral pace, careful not to stop at the gate until the door was closed, when he began ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... shaky on the pronunciation of the word camera, or the workings of it. To Addison and Theodora's great amusement, he went on to inform the rest of us in a superior tone, that the cammirror took a reflection from a person's face, much as a looking-glass does, and then threw it on a "mess of soft chemical stuff" which the artist had spread on a little pane of glass. "Being soft, the reflection naturally sticks in it," Halse continued. "Then all the fellow has to do is to harden it up—and ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... sort of ovens, which leaves no doubt of this being also the practice in Atooi; especially as we met with no utensil there that could be applied to the purpose of stewing or boiling. The only artificial dish we met with was a taro pudding, which, though a disagreeable mess from its sourness, was greedily devoured by the natives. They eat off a kind of wooden plates or trenchers; and the women, as far as we could judge from one instance, if restrained from feeding at the same dish with the men, as at Otaheite, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... I do, but I can't wait to look now. I must write some letters. You had better put them together a little. If you were to sort them, you would know what is there. Now, what a mess ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... were unable to get a shoot at them. we also saw several tracks of those animals in the snow. the indians inform that there is great abundance of Elk in the vally about the Fishery on the Kooskooske River. our meat being exhausted we issued a pint of bears oil to a mess which with their boiled roots made an agreeable dish. Potts's legg which has been much swolen and inflamed for several days is much better this evening and gives him but little pain. we applyed the pounded roots and leaves of the wild ginger & ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... care," said he, "how deeply you had been dining: in vino veritas, Bunny, and your pluck would always out! I have never doubted it, and I never shall. In fact, I rely on nothing else to get us out of this mess." ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... the rest gather'd round to larn what the mess was, an' then there was Chevychace. They handed round the eye, an' looked at et this way an' that, an' 'splained what had happen'd wan to t'other; an' then they hushed an' stood quiet while their dasayved brother cussed hissel' out. Not a smile 'mongst ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... making a mess of things," William continued. "Your coming back that way fits neatly into your departure. You needn't think people have forgotten that you ran off with another man's wife. And your coming back right now, just when the Montgomerys had buried the hatchet, was calculated ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... interrupted Brice, annoyed by the pitiful attempt to cling to a revealed secret. "The time for bluffing is past, man! The whole game is up. You'll be lucky to escape a prison term, even if you get out of to-night's mess. That's what I'm here for. Barricade the house, first of all. I noticed you have iron shutters on the windows, and that they're new. You must have been looking for something like this to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... hair tied up tight, and a peaked hat put on me over a wig which had been flung into water. I 'm told that I looked something fearful; and the one who did the deed, and drew me, an innocent girl, into this mess, was Hollyhock Lennox. A poor English girl went almost raving mad, and no one could tell but that a real ghost had been about. Well, I'm the ghost, and the wicked one who led me astray was Hollyhock ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... scruples at partaking of food not dressed by his own people, were not yet, however, at an end. For though, on returning to his lodging in the evening, he found that his friend had succeeded in procuring from the ship a dish of kichiri, (an Indian mess, composed of rice and ghee, or clarified butter,) his inability to communicate with his landlady still occasioned him considerable perplexity. "Having ventured to take some pickles, which I saw on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... falsh Mess John, To the green leaf of the tree; It does not fit a mansworn man A ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... to have some young regular-army lieutenant ride up to your tent at an hour's notice, and leisurely devote a day to probing every weak spot in your command,—to stand by while he smells at every camp-kettle, detects every delinquent gun-sling, ferrets out old shoes from behind the mess-bunks, spies out every tent-pole not labelled with the sergeant's name, asks to see the cash-balance of each company-fund, and perplexes your best captain on forming from two ranks into one by the left flank. Yet it is just such unpleasant processes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... the books in the Surrogate's office until you find her father's will; if her papa is still alive and kicking, persuade her to take his bank-book into the back kitchen and there count the shekels. Never let your heart get into the mess, for that ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... more as if you'd make me. You have a good big bump of order, and I haven't any at all in little things. Tom Watterly was right. If I had tried to live here alone, things would have got into an awful mess. I feel ashamed of myself that I didn't clear up the yard before, but my whole mind's been ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... him, as if we admired his idle pomp, we pursued our journey. Father Simon had the curiosity to stay to inform himself what dainties the country justice had to feed on in all his state, which he had the honour to taste of, and which was, I think, a mess of boiled rice, with a great piece of garlic in it, and a little bag filled with green pepper, and another plant which they have there, something like our ginger, but smelling like musk, and tasting like mustard; ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... saw two teal ducks; I levelled my rifle, and handsomely decapitated one. This was a temptation to my constancy; appetite and conscientiousness had a long strife as to the disposal of the booty. I reflected that it would be but an inconsiderable trifle to the mess of four hungry men, while to roast and eat him myself would give me strength to hunt for more. A strong inward feeling remonstrated against such an invasion of the rights of my starving messmates; but if, by fortifying ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... child, haven't you written to Ester yet? Do you think it is quite right to neglect her so, when she must be very anxious to hear from home?' Now, you know, when mother says, 'Sadie, my dear child,' and looks at me from out those reproachful eyes of hers, there is nothing short of mixing a mess of bread that I would not do for her. So here I am—place, third story front; time, 11:30 P.M.; position, foot of the bed (Julia being soundly sleeping at the head), one gaiter off and one gaiter on, somewhat after the manner of 'my son John' so renowned in history. Speaking of bread, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... to the number of one hundred or more. A large old-fashioned wagon-sheet would be spread over the bottom and side of the wagon body, and filled with as much as two horses could pull. I never knew until then how far a man's prejudice could overcome him. Our mess had concluded to treat itself to a turkey dinner on Christmas. Our boss of the mess was instructed to purchase a turkey of the next wagon that came in. Sure enough, the day came and a fine fat turkey bought, already dressed, and boiling away in the camp kettle, while all hands stood around and ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... again to your own lodging, that dark, moist and mournfull Cell, and satisfie your self, if you can get it, with a mess of milk and brown George, or some such sort of lean fare. So that you'l have time enough to wast away that fulsomness and fogginess of body, that you have gotten in your Nurse-keeping. For there's no body that will give you any thing, or thinks ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... "It's a mess here!" he muttered. And after observing Gervaise a moment, he malignantly added: "Don't you ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... revolted, less against her mother's defects as an organizer than against the odious mess of the whole business of domesticity. She knew that, with her mother in the house, Florrie would never get to bed at half-past eight and very seldom at nine, and that she would never be free in the afternoons. She knew that if her mother would only consent to sit still and not interfere, the housework ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... these full dishes may be added sallets, fricases, 'quelque choses,' and devised paste; as many dishes more as will make no less than two and thirty dishes, which is as much as can conveniently stand on one table, and in one mess; and after this manner you may proportion both your second and third course, holding fullness on one half the dishes, and shew in the other, which will be both frugal in the splendor, contentment to the guest, and much pleasure ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... man in the English mess-jacket, clean-shaven and bronzed by the suns of the equator, the detective saw no likeness to the pale, bearded bank clerk of the New England city. This, he guessed, must be some English official, some friend ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... 9th Division and met Generals Hunter-Weston, de Lisle and Doran. As we were having our confab, the Turkish guns from Asia were steadily pounding the ridge just South of Headquarters. One or two big fellows fell within 100 yards of the Mess. After an A.1 lunch (for which much glory to Carter, A.D.C.) visited Gouraud at French Headquarters. Going along the coast we were treated to an exciting spectacle. The Turkish guns in Asia stopped firing at Headquarters and turned on to a solitary French transport containing ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... two minutes to sailing time, and the passenger was in the cabin mess-room, when he heard the exclamation. ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... few minutes of meditation and a "Lemme see, now; Patsy's been cooking for me—eighty-six was that hard winter, and he come the spring—no, the fall before that. I know because he like to froze before we got the mess-house chinked up good—I'll be doggoned if Patsy ain't gitting old!" That was it, perhaps: Patsy was getting old. And old age does not often sweeten one's temper, if you notice. Those angelic old men and old ladies ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... time to time, but the daenge was more in demand. It consisted of a mixture of chopped-up fish, tallow, and maize-meal, all boiled together into a sort of porridge. This dish was served three times a week, and the dogs were simply mad for it. They very soon learned to keep count of the days when this mess was to be expected, and as soon as they heard the rattling of the tin dishes in which the separate portions were carried round, they set up such a noise that it was impossible to hear oneself speak. Both ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... didn't mean to go. She often and often didn't want to. Don't be angry with Susie. Nurse often said, 'I can't think where you get your stockings in such a mess.' But the twins asked Susie, and she went; often and often she didn't ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... comparison a little more effectively, and consider whether red cloth and epaulets have never had an influence of that sort. Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers, but, dressed in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... not wait for it to be done, but ate it half raw, without salt, butter, sugar, syrup, milk, or anything that serves to render such food palatable, and only partially cooked at that, it still seemed to Winn one of the best things he had ever eaten, and he immediately started the cooking of another mess. There was not much of the wheat in sight, and to secure a second cupful the boy scraped up every ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... went over that made me do this. I don't know for certain. There was sharks about: cruel things happen 'pon the sea. The boat was in a gashly cauch of blood too. One chap—Jeff Tresawna it was: his mother lived over to Looe—had tried to open a vein, to drink, an' had made a mess o't an' bled to death. Far as I know there was no fightin' to eat one another, same as one hears tell of now an' then. The men just went mad and jumped like sheep: 'twas a reg'lar disease. Two would go quick, one atop ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... came out in an explosion. "All right," Mars said. "Discounting the training end of things, and assuming that Hermes can fix up the glandular mess, I think ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Engineer mess of those days (the present anteroom), the portrait of Henry Yule now faces that of his first chief, Sir Henry Harness. General Collinson said that the pictures appeared to eye each other as if the subjects were continuing one of those ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... The mess of blood about Makes 'em so slippery that one's like to fall In carrying the wounded ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... ink and splendid as a Greek statue, brought flowers from the Palace for some departing acquaintance of the Sirdar and his wife. Officers in evening dress dashed up through the sand, on donkey-back, to see the last of friends, their mess jackets making vivid spots of colour in the electric light. All the fragrant blossoms of Khartum seemed to be sending farewell messages of perfume on the cool evening air. No more fantastic scene at ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... tears to work themselves up when they wanted to make a scene. But Astrid Bagge, a gentle, quiet housewife and mother, declared she kept all her troubles for the evenings when her husband dined at the volunteer's mess, because he hated to see anyone crying. Then she sat alone and in darkness and wept away the ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... us now," said Jack, shaking his head. "Pierre, my boy, I'm sorry I've brought you into this mess; ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... she said in dismay. "And you had to come out here after me, and have stayed so long! What a foolish girl I have been and what a mess I have made! They will perhaps be angry and go away, and I will be to blame. I am afraid you can ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... with no religion at all, as yet, and ready to be made Lutheran or Roman, according as the husband might be whom her parents should find for her? This talk, very idle and abusive much of it was, went on at a hundred mess-tables in the army; there was scarce an ensign that did not hear it, or join in it, and everybody knew, or affected to know, that the Commander-in-Chief himself had relations with his nephew, the Duke of Berwick ('twas by an Englishman, thank God, that we were ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... large stone building, facing the river at a point not far from where the stream emptied into the lake. It was a three-storied structure, and contained the classrooms and a mess hall and also the dormitories and private rooms for the scholars. Close by was a smaller brick building, occupied by Colonel Colby and his family and some of ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... to make a mess, so get some papers and put them down on the floor," said Frankie's mamma. Abe ran to get the papers, and very soon the two boys were down on ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... shown to our quarters on the third floor. We expect two bare dormitories with rows of hard beds, which we are prepared to make ourselves, besides sweeping the dormitories, and we find a fine suite of rooms—a mess-room, bedrooms, dressing-rooms, bathrooms—and hospital orderlies for ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... waste of time for us to stop for one miserable whale when we don't expect to break out our boats until we're well below the equator. We'd just make a mess of the old hooker and have to ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... brought pointed sticks, and two paddle-shaped blades. The Chief without ceremony dived into the mess and speared a piece of the meat, and waved it to and fro, to cool it. Here was an opportunity to follow the example thus set, and George was glad to take ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... flung the mess-room door open so forcibly that Ben Gillam waked with a jump. At sight of Le Borgne the young New Englander sprang over the benches with his teeth agleam and murder on his face. But the liquor had gone to his knees. He keeled head over like a top-heavy brig, and when we dragged him ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... growing thing, the insatiable interest in how things are done. Every one who knows his admirable poems on painting—"Fra Lippo Lippi" and "Andrea del Sarto" and "Pictor Ignotus"—will remember how fully they deal with technicalities, how they are concerned with canvas, with oil, with a mess of colours. Sometimes they are so technical as to be mysterious to the casual reader. An extreme case may be found in that of a lady I once knew who had merely read the title of "Pacchiarotto and how he worked in distemper," and ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... got some sass!—And I spending more'n forty pound fixing it up for you. I've given you new wall paper and new carpet and new curtains and all the best pictures, and took an unaccountable lot of trouble, and now you go and mess ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... of the Lord Nelson was gathered in the big mess hall. Wayne stared down at the tired, frightened faces of the puzzled people looking up at him, ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... the decision, and Jack left the service. At his request, his devoted admirer Mesty—an abbreviation of Mephistopheles—an African, once a prince in Ashantee and now the cook of the midshipmen's mess, was allowed to leave the service and accompany our hero to England as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... a mess of pottage, mother. I will not sell my honor for a sum of money, however acceptable that sum might be. It would never prosper with me, ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... in a mess," she explained; "and she's not hurt so much as Sammy said. He told her she was in bad just to keep her quiet ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... answer for a splendid one at our wedding breakfast," said Rosamond. "The mess-man who came to help was lost in admiration. Did you ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Anne. It's Anne I'm talking about. I suppose you can make a mess of your own life if you like. You've no business to make ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... skimpy, sickly, ridiculous pseudo-boxes of bricklets, because they do not know what to ask for, and the toyshops are just the merciless mercenary enemies of youth and happiness—so far, that is, as bricks are concerned. Their unfortunate under-parented offspring mess about with these gifts, and don't make very much of them, and put them away; and you see their consequences in after life in the weakly-conceived villas and silly suburbs that people have built all round ...
— Floor Games; a companion volume to "Little Wars" • H. G. Wells
... tree, in order to build himself a dwelling; a third is hoeing in his field of Indian corn. Here comes a huntsman out of the woods, dragging a bear which he has shot, and shouting to the neighbors to lend him a hand. There goes a man to the sea-shore, with a spade and a bucket, to dig a mess of clams, which were a principal article of food with the first settlers. Scattered here and there are two or three dusky figures, clad in mantles of fur, with ornaments of bone hanging from their ears, and the feathers of wild birds in their ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hunt, as Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak placed before her lord the matutinal mess of whale-skin boiled to that particular rubber-boot consistency which was his taste, she said, "I'm not as young as I was, you entertain much, the household cares are heavy, I'd like you to get another wife to help me with the work." Chief Oo-vai-oo-ak chewed upon the whale-skin ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... from you soon, dear Delaserre.—Remember, I can learn nothing about regimental affairs but through your friendly medium, and I long to know what has become of Ayre's court-martial, and whether Elliot gets the majority; also how recruiting comes on, and how the young officers like the mess. Of our kind friend, the Lieutenant-Colonel, I need ask nothing; I saw him as I passed through Nottingham, happy in the bosom of his family. What a happiness it is, Philip, for us poor devils, that we have a little resting-place between the camp and the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... savor in a situation that compelled him to interfere in Flint's program. Such a move on his part was contrary to his standards, to his training in comradeship, to all his acquired philosophy. He had the well-bred man's distaste for getting into a mess. He abhorred scenes ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... afeard he didn't have nothin' to eat, an' oncet in a while I'd kerry him up a mess o' vittles; but it allers seemed drefful hard for him to take 'em, an' fin'ly he told me not to do so no more, an' said suthin' to himself about devourin' widders. So I didn't darst to go up agin, he looked so kind o' furce an' sharp, till, last night, I reck'n'd the snow would ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the portrait of a celebrated and extremely pugnacious Englishman who had got the newspapers down on him two or three years ago for a wild interview he had given against the entente cordiale. Max remembered it and the talk about it in the officers' mess at Fort Ellsworth, just after he joined his regiment. However, the Frenchman's photographs were his own business; and Max relented not at all toward the cheeky brute because he had a portrait of ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... and dragged his master by the clothes towards the bank. John scrambled out, but he was covered with mud. Tom helped him to take off his clothes, and clean off the mud and dry them; but with all they could do, John was still in a sad mess, and as it was now late in the day, he turned to go ...
— The Moral Picture Book • Anonymous
... the Flesh as small as possibly they could, and when that in the Pot was well boiled, they would take it up, and strewing a little Salt into it, they would eat it, mixt with their raw minced Flesh. The Dung in the Maw would look like so much boil'd Herbs minc'd very small; and they took up their Mess with their Fingers, as the Moors do their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... them near me till I have occasion to try them; when, if they prove their abilities, I will promote them; but if not, I will put them to death." He then allotted them an apartment, with an allowance of three cakes of bread and a mess of pottage daily; but placed spies over them, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... with a pistol yesterday, and it went off and the bullet grazed the skin, and the damned thing has begun bleeding again. I know you are a trained nurse, Tantine. Serge, who is with me, has tried and made a ridiculous mess of it, so I brought the bandage ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... guarded their master to his country seat. We stopped at a little village for refreshment; and when we came by the country seat of this great man, we found him sitting under a tree before his door, eating a mess of boiled rice, with a great piece of garlic in the middle, and a bag filled with green pepper by him, and another plant like ginger, together with a piece of lean mutton in it: this was his worship's repast: but pray observe the state ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... He flung his arms out wildly into his eternal night, and then burst suddenly into tears. He cried for some time, but it was the thought of Ken which made him stop. Ken would have said, "Isn't there enough salt water around here already, without such a mess of tears?" ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price |
