"Mess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forgives a trespass against her law. The opportunity that is lost does not return. The mistake by which a life is marred cannot be undone. The constitution shattered by intemperance cannot be restored, the birthright bartered for a mess of pottage is gone for ever, and no bitter tears or supplications have power to bring it back. Whether we repent of it or not, every sin we commit leaves its dark mark behind, and in this life at least the stain can never ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... went up to the works in the morning, he found Mills humped on a box beside the fireplace in the old cabin, reading "The Man Who Couldn't Die." At noon he was gone somewhere. Over the noon meal in the split-cedar mess-house, the other bolt cutters spoke derisively of the man who laid off work for half a day to read a book. ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... still open and contain only a more or less complete store of honey. Others are hermetically sealed with an earthen lid. The contents of these latter vary greatly. Sometimes we find the larva of a Bee which has finished its mess or is on the point of finishing it; sometimes a larva, white like the first, but more corpulent and of a different shape; at other times honey with an egg floating on the surface. The honey is liquid and sticky, with a brownish colour and a very ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... loaf of bread Unchipt, unflead. Some brittle sticks of thorn or brier 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, Spiced ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... they are worthy of encouragement. I will keep 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, fearing lest ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... great evil, as there was nothing to read, and card-playing and cock-fighting were the chief amusements. This was also our wash-day, and the ration of soap issued for six men was only enough to wash one shirt; hence this was given by lot to one of the mess, and the others were content with the virtue of water alone. While our regiment was often commended for its ability in building fortifications, no one ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... like; not so the parsons—Hallo! where am I? Take care, old Folliard; take care, you old dog; what have you to say in favor of these same parsons—lazy, negligent fellows, who snore and slumber, feed well, clothe well, and think first of number one? Egad, I'm in a mess between them. One makes a slave of you, and the other allows you to play the tyrant. A plague, as I heard a fellow say in a play once, a plague o' both your houses: if you paid more attention to your duties, and scrambled less for wealth and power, and this world's honors, you would not turn ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... I'm made of such soft material the slightest breeze will mess me all up. I'm not so like that as I evidently appear; and if it's true that we're afraid other people will do the things we'd be most likely to do ourselves, it seems to me that I ought to be the one to be afraid. I ought to be afraid that somebody may say something about me to you that will make ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... Charley went on with his canoe building. He melted together in a pot, resin and pitch. The proportion he determined by experiment, for the mixture had to be neither hard enough to crack nor soft enough to melt in the sun. Then he daubed the mess over all the seams. Wallace superintended the operation for ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he cried. And the child, looking in a very hard and piteous way at his father, bit his lips, clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit. Rawdon told that story at the clubs, at the mess, to everybody in town. "By Gad, sir," he explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one that boy of mine is—what a trump he is! I half-sent his head through the ceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for fear of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by the mere accident of sex. I tell you he is just the sort of idiot the Germans have been longing to get hold of and twist round their fingers. Before twelve months or two years have passed, you'll curse the name of that man, when you look at the mess he has made of the army. Peace is all very well—universal peace. The only way we can secure it is by being a good deal stronger than we ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and the water so distilled escaped at the nipple of the gun-barrel, and was conducted into a bottle placed to receive it." The accompanying sketch is taken from a model which I made, with a soldier's mess-tin for a boiler, and a tin tube in the place of a gun barrel. The knob represents the breech; and the projection, through which the water is dropping, the nipple. I may remark that there is nothing in the arrangement which would hurt the most highly-finished gun ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... MESS. Your herald Lichas, where the oxen graze The summer meadow, cries this to a crowd. I, hearing, flew off hither, that being first To bring thee word thereof, I might be sure To win reward and gratitude ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... no doubt. A rare 'ard liver, cock-fighting, 'unting, 'orse-racing from one year's end to the other. Then after 'im came my grandfather; he went to the law, and a sad mess he made of it—went stony-broke and left my father without a sixpence; that is why mother didn't want me to go into livery. The family 'ad been coming down for generations, and mother thought that I was born to restore it; and so I was, but not as she thought, ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... and one day, when endeavouring to obtain a stand for his theodolite, he felt himself suddenly sinking. He immediately threw himself down, and rolled over and over until he reached firm ground again, in a sad mess. Other attempts which he subsequently made to enter upon the Moss for the same purpose, were abandoned for the same reason—the want of a solid stand for ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... tried to describe the review to his wife, and made such an abject mess of it, that after twenty minutes she made up her mind that he must have a headache, and, leaving the room quietly, went to the little cupboard below the stairs. She found the door ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... no! We couldn't talk there, with a lot of silly young fools hanging about. I told Random that I would never enter the mess, so he invited me to come always to his quarters. He was in love with Lucy then," chuckled the Professor, "and nothing ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... trust he may be as willing to give up the land when his lease is out. I have been told that he is a sporting friend of the Dean's. It seems to me that you have, all of you, got into a nice mess here by yourselves. All I want you to understand is that I cannot now trouble myself ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... my boy has the posts cleaned," he said. "When you get to the Mess, Parker, please tell them I'll be up to breakfast as soon as I've had ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... "that I have been getting into no end of a mess, and that some stock I bought to help myself out of it, has gone down and made things ten ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... have fifty things to say to each other," he said. "You'll find me in the mess-room. But, Guy, don't be long; I've no appetite myself this morning, and it will refresh me to see you eat your breakfast;" and so faded away gradually through ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... the night, and when my eyes opened in the morning she lay naked by my side, having thrown off her blood-stained chemise. She was awake. "Ah! Percy, my love, I thought you would never wake, but I did not like to touch you: see what a mess the bed is in—it was a real rape—you would never have done it if I had been strong enough—But now, oh, ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... little—perfunctorily—about the dale and its folk, and Mary fell without difficulty now and then into the broad Westmoreland speech, which delighted Meynell's ear, and brought the laugh back to his eyes. Then, abruptly, he told her that the campaign of slander was over, and that the battle, instead of "infinite mess and dislocation," was now to be a straight and clean one. He said nothing of Barron; but he spoke tenderly of the Bishop, and Mary's eyes swam ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... talked the matter over last evening, and Phil would have come to speak to you about it, but he said you looked so wretchedly—and so you do—that just to look at you made him break down, and he was afraid he'd get rattled and make an a—a mess of it. Then Felix, he couldn't come, because, well, because—I guess he felt badly, too, about your being ill. So I thought I'd better come down and have a talk with you, though I must say I was afraid I might do something awkward,—I'm so ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... friends were apt to flatter; if an assembly were called, there, too, the counsel proposed by a few was carried by the clamorous plaudits of the rest. The minds of soldiers could, then, only be thoroughly known when, by themselves, free from all restraint, and over their mess, they gave unreserved utterance to their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... do, it's on the Red Sea,' says Giglio, at which the Princess burst out laughing at him, and said, 'Oh, you ninny! You are so ignorant, you are really not fit for society! You know nothing but about horses and dogs, and are only fit to dine in a mess-room with my Royal father's heaviest dragoons. Don't look so surprised at me, sir: go and put your best clothes on to receive the Prince, and let me ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... correct answer." He eyed her thoughtfully. "You have done me a great service," he went on. "You have shown me an unsuspected, a dangerous weakness in myself. At another time—and coming in another way, I might have made a mess of my career—and of the things that have been entrusted to me." A long pause, then he added, to himself rather than to her, "I must look out for that. I must do ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... telling. I might have done things worth while if it had not been for M'Connachie, and my first piece of advice to you at any rate shall be sound: don't copy me. A good subject for a rectorial address would be the mess the Rector himself has made of life. I merely cast this forth as a suggestion, and leave the working of it out to my successor. I do not think ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
... want any mess-up with the brakeman, so we may as well walk out now that they're coming back for him. Only one man in this shanty, and he wouldn't turn out unless it were a director. Leave your baggage where they dumped it—can't ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... going over now. Quick work, isn't it? And to think that a few months ago I was hanging around the club and generally making a mess of life. That's all over now, thank God. I'm going to make good. Try to buck mother up. It's pretty hard for her. It's hard for all women, just waiting. And while I know I'm coming back, safe and sound, I'd like to feel that you are going to keep an eye on ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "Nice looking mess that," he growled, surveying the repast with undisguised disgust. "No wonder we don't do no business with thet kind ov a cook. I reckon I'd a done better to hav' toted a nigger back with me. No, yer needn't stay—go ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... like this, are wholly unworthy the confidence of any people. I believe such men would, if they had the power, and were it to their temporal interest, sell their country's independence, and barter away every man's birthright for a mess of pottage. Well may ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... barricade, encircling an area about eighty yards in diameter. The cloth tents, such as are used in the army, were pitched inside the enclosure. The animals were all hobbled and turned out to feed in the meadow. The company was divided into four messes of seven men each. Each mess had its cook. They quickly prepared ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... We were confident that the little god whose image, with bow and arrow, stood in the garden of Dahlia's ancestral home, would put things right for us in the end. Yet we were not greatly annoyed when he made a mess of his business and married her to the wrong man; for in the meantime such strange things had been allowed to occur and the right man had proved such a disappointment that we didn't much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... fool. Still, you can't help feeling a bit sorry for her. I dare say I can get things done by lunch-time; then I'll drive over the Fluella. I'll put up at the Kulm; but don't bother to write till you've got something settled. I'm not going to mess about saying good-by to people. You can tell Miss ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... Just as the foods and drinks of a good dinner, if mixed up together on a dish, would produce a filthy mess, so conversely, if we could separate any form of dirt into the pure solid, liquid and volatile chemical compounds of which it is composed, into pretty crystals, liquids and gases, exhibited in the scientific manner on spotless watch-glasses ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... lethargy of the company of diners vanished, and all joined with a will in the recital of all its verses. In the glow of loyal enthusiasm that filled the room the ice gradually melted, and as we surveyed the fluid mess upon our plates we knew that our ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... mimicked the officer. "What d'ye think this place is, th' Metropolitan Club? Ye'll have yer bacon an' coffee, an' be glad t' git it. They'll feed ye in th' mess-room. Come along." ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... some parts of Ireland there existed a custom of boiling new wheat in this manner, but without steeping. It was merely intended as a mess for children, in order to give them the first of the wheat at reaping time, but was not continued as a mode of cooking it. This mess was called in, Irish gran bruitead, (pron. grawn breehe), boiled or ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... board the ships on which I have met "the man without a country" was, I think, transmitted from the beginning. No mess liked to have him permanently, because his presence cut off all talk of home or the prospect of return, of politics or letters, of peace or of war—cut off more than half the talk men liked to have at sea. But it was always thought ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... so many times, I'm a little doubtful. She's in a bad way, I admit. It has its bad side as well as its pretty side, this religion. It unhinges a lot of people, and I reckon Clarke's a little off or he wouldn't have got my folks into that mess." ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... sent messes unto them from before him; but Benjamin's mess was five times so much ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... to the regimental mess, and, after dining, loitered there longer than usual, with a convivial set, until it was late ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... said; he had not the least idea what they were talking about, but he fancied that one or both must be annoyed, perhaps by the upsetting of the tea; he could think of nothing else. "Such a mess," he said; "and such a waste. Is the cup ready? Shall ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... luxuriating before my crowded banquet-table of misery, as I sat mopping my nose—which was getting most unmistakably rough with prairie-winds and alkali-water—and thinking what a fine mess I'd made of a promising young life, I fancied I heard an altogether too familiar C-sharp cry. So I got wearily up and went tiptoeing in to see if either ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... 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 ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... some executioner," he declared, forcefully. "Your bullet mushroomed just after it went into his breast. It tore his lung to pieces, cut open his heart, made a mess of kidneys an' paunch, an' broke his spine.... An' look at this ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... know about the time the pseudomen from the Fifth managed to sneak in and lay a mess ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... his wife's side, he burst into imprecations. Calming himself at last with a supreme effort, he added: "A pretty mess you've made of it, to let the Buccaneer drive home with her; why on earth couldn't you keep hold of him? He's mad with love; any fool ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was in an awful mess. No sooner was the good man in power than politics struggled to pull him down to make room for the knaves. When Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated, the Sentinel of Boston wrote the obituary of the American nation. I quote it as a ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... friends. As I parted from him at the gangway, he mentioned having caused a case of claret to be lowered into our boat, which he begged us to present to our Colonel and the other officers of our mess. We pulled cheerily back, but it was not until long after dark that we reached the 'Vibelia,' and which we perhaps could not have accomplished, but for their having exhibited blue lights every few minutes ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... officer whom he was calling upon, and asked him if he had ever been to the Sandwich Islands. "The man started," he said, on returning, "as if he had been struck. He had evidently been there and committed some terrible crime, which my allusion recalled. I had made a frightful mess of it. B—— led me away to the door." This woful account was, of course, an imaginary and symbolical representation of the terrors which enforced conversation caused him; the good officer's surprise at the abrupt introduction ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... poor wight ever more relieved than I as, sheathing my knife, I wiped the sweat from me; and now to relief was added a mighty satisfaction, for where was one goat would be others. Thus, my fears allayed, and bethinking me how savoury was a mess of goat's-flesh, I fell a-watering at the mouth like the hungry ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... mistaken. It was Mrs. Chaikin. She looked haggard and more than usually frowsy. The cause of her pitiable appearance was no riddle to me. I knew that her husband's partner had made a mess of their business and that Chaikin had lost all his savings. "Does she want a ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... the band. In two hours the camp was in sight, and when about a mile from it we were met by two bands, belonging to 11th and 86th regiments, with whom we were to brigade, and also an invitation from the sergeants of the 11th regiment to lunch at their mess after our immediate duties had been performed. We took up our quarters in "F" square and were again in huts, but everything for the comfort of the regiment was at hand. The commanding officer was pleased to appoint me battalion ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... girl Would pity on me take, And extricate me from the mess I'm in. The angel-how I'd bless her, li this her home she'd make, In my little old sod shanty ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... he said. "And Ruth Fielding was in it, of course—and did her part in extricating you all from the mess, too, I'll be bound! Whatever would we do without Ruth?" and he smiled and shook hands with ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... Elizabethan writing. It has the exactitude without the occasional finickingness of the best French work, and it has the breadth of English, but never falls into confusion, clumsiness or extravagance. Mr. Belloc does not experience difficulties with his relative pronouns or bog himself in a mess of parentheses. The habit of exposition has taught him to disentangle his sentences and ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... you place they going beat you—in suit of white. Old white man to Wilderness Plantation. Parish old man name. Treat his wife bad. Come to house, ain't crack. Come right in suit of white. Drag him out—right to Woodstock there where Mr. Dan get shoot. Put a beating on that white man there till he mess up! Oman never gone ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... your reverence, were not some throats so much wider than others. You will always see that one porker half empties the trough before others have moistened their snouts in the mess." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... without being condemned," he gasped. "You will use your influence, I know, and you will get me out of this mess. I shall be grateful to you for ever, and will do anything you like! But don't leave me, it would ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... humour, and helped hector the petty officers and men. The crew, depressed and irritated, went through their duties pully-hauly-wise. There was no song under the forecastle in the first watch, and often no grog on the mess table at one bell. Dodd never came on the quarter-deck without being reminded he was only a passenger, and the ship was now under naval discipline. "I was reared in the royal navy, sir," would Robarts say, "second lieutenant aboard the Atalanta: that is the school, sir, that is ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Uncle Jeb called some of us to move the mess boards into the pavilion, because it was beginning to blow from the east and the awnings and thatch roofs over the mess boards didn't keep the rain off, because it blew sideways. Out on the lake the water was churning ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... himself. While Much marveled at the friar's knowledge of herbs and simples and woodland things which savored a stew greatly. So they gabbled together like two old gossips and, between them, made such a tasty mess that Robin Hood and his stout followers were like never to leave off eating. And the friar said grace too, with great unction, over the food; and Robin said Amen! and that henceforth they were always to ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... sent to us. The water just came in time, because we were all out. They brought horses for all of us then, and after we had started the people of the island went ahead and came back with water and milk, which did us a world of good. At the house of the governor we had a mess of brown beans, and then we all fell asleep on the floor. God knows how long we slept, but when we waked up we were like wolves again. We then had beans with fresh killed mutton, and that made us all deathly sick ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... moving with the times, Would only feed us, like the Press, On squalid "mysteries," ugly crimes, Scandals and all that carrion mess, I see no solid reason why ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... miles to Abu Sitta. Our transport establishment had been very carefully thought out, and, though both animals and vehicles were undoubtedly overloaded at the start, this soon rectified itself, as consumable stores could not be replaced. We had one camel per battalion for officers' mess, and he started out very fully laden. He was a good deal less heavily loaded towards the end of the operations. Next day we marched on beyond the Wadi at Gamli—a very dusty and tiresome march—and were to have remained there throughout ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... make a great mess in my bedroom; but I could never sleep in that bed again without a spring cleaning of some sort," said ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... but the work ye must do! Methods are my business. Let me tell you the true position. In ae word it is no more and no less than this. You and me are baith here to carry out the proveesions of the Act for the Pacification of the Highlands. That means the cleaning up of a very big mess, Sandeman, a very big mess. Now, what is your special office in this work? I'll tell ye, man; you and your men are just beesoms in the hands of the law-officers of the Crown. In this district, I order and ye soop! (He indicates ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... after twelve, for orderly call and mess had sounded in front of the adjutant's office, when one of the hospital attendants came floundering up the row from Lanier's, and made his way to Sumter's door, a little note in his hand. He would wait, he said, for an answer, and the maid bade him step inside while she ran up-stairs. ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... to settle himself. There ought to be an end to this kind of thing now. He has got out of this mess, but every time it becomes worse and worse, and he'll be taken in horribly by some harpy if we don't get him to marry decently. I fancy he was very nearly going in this last affair." Sir George, in this matter, did not ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... had dried her tears she walked to the kitchen, and with her own hands scraped that acid, alkaline mess into the drain. ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... an explosion. "All right," Mars said. "Discounting the training end of things, and assuming that Hermes can fix up the glandular mess, I think he can ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... 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 ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... and set a mess of hot pottage and other viands before him. Little more conversation passed between them, for the old man was weary, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the officer indifferently. "Best get her into her house. Don't reckon they want to mess up the hospital ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... invariably a Conservative. In the Army, usage was at its strongest—stronger even than at a public school; it was almost bad manners, "bad form," to hold political opinions differing from those of your mess. Political discussion was sharply discouraged; but this never meant that a man might not express vehemently the prevailing opinion. On the broad facts it was inevitable that the prevailing opinion should be unfriendly to Irish Nationalists. Irish Nationalists ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... twisted. Reveille blew at dawn, and there were sheets of cold pouring rain, and everywhere there were dead men, dead men, dead men lying there in the wet, and the ambulances were wandering round like ghosts of wagons, and the wood was too dripping to make a fire, and three men out of my mess were killed, and one was a boy that we'd all adopted, and it was awful discouraging. Yes, we were right tired, damn Yankees and all of us.... Doctor, if I was you I wouldn't bother about that leg. It's all right as it is, and you might hurt me.... Oh, all right! Kin I smoke?... Yuugh! ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... 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 on ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... other enlistments are for four years. Recruits must speak English. Landsmen are usually sent to sea on special training-ships until proficient, and are then sent into general service. Raw recruits may enlist as landsmen, or coal-passers or mess attendants. Ordinary seamen must have served two years, and seamen four years before the mast, prior to first enlistment as such; and before enlistment in any other rating allowed on first enlistment, applicants must prove their ability to hold such rating. Landsmen, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... replied the girl. "The maid was so late with my tea—and—well, to tell the truth, I upset a whole new box of powder on my dressing-table and had to clean up the mess." ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... came down to receive the Sacrament. But I staid not, but calling my boy from my Lord's lodgings, and giving Sarah some good advice, by my Lord's order, to be sober and look after the house, I walked home again with great pleasure, and there dined by my wife's bed-side with great content, having a mess ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... some more perch, and they went fishing for their breakfast in true camping-out style. A mess was procured in less than half an hour, and then they got one of the pans hot, while Snap made coffee and brought out the last of the bread they ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... and defying the gendarmerie on the public roads. But Hyldy was all docility. He ate his way through the grant, the office stationery, and the central tin dump with the most disarming naivete. He was the spoilt darling of every mess. The reflected glory which Isinglass and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... giving them the vote. Seeing what a mess the members of my own sex so often make of the job of trying to run the country, I don't anticipate that the Republic will go upon the shoals immediately after women begin voting and campaigning and ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... regiment has a large proportion of Southern-born officers, who led their men with more than usual exposure. These men had always said the Southern Negro would fight as staunchly as any white man, if he was led by those in whom he had confidence. The question has often been debated in every mess of the army. San Juan hill offered the first occasion in which this theory could be tested practically, and tested it was in a manner and with a result that makes its believers proud of the men they commanded. It has helped ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... there most of us are, in this village, without a man to take steps for and trot 'round after! There's just three husbands among the fifteen women scrubbin' here now, and the rest of us is all old maids and widders. No wonder the men-folks die, or move away, like Justin Peabody; a place with such a mess o' women-folks ain't healthy to live in, whatever Lobelia ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with the grander passion of seeing life as a ruined thing; her birthright to aspiring cleanness sold for a mess of quick-lunch pottage. And as she walked in a mist of agony, a dumb, blind creature heroically distraught, she could scarce distinguish between sordidness and the great betrayals, so chill and thick was the ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... Don't hurry. Le's talk. I'm lonesome as one bug all alone in a buffler robe. See any footin' over 'cross? I'm gittin' tired o' this outpost business. All foolishness. We'll know when we strike th' red devils. No need o' havin' some one tell us. Your hoss looks sorter peaked. S'pose we'll have a mess of a fight soon? We boys come along to fight, not to stand like stockade-timbers out here ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... the metaphysician everything will become one, being united with everything else by degrees so subtle that there is no escape from seeing the universe as a single whole. This in theory; but in practice it would get us into such a mess that we had better go on talking about differences of kind as ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... outfit will make excellent postcards, modern methods having got rid of the dark room and much of the mess, and postcard-size prints can be pasted on various ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... I says. "I'll see you further first. You have got a front. You mugged that stuff away, and you'll have to get us out of the mess." ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... but I'll be on hand at mess time," and he made an effort to look like a well man. "But I tell you, daughter, there's something on my mind; the ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... I'd never known him to miss his mark, and he wouldn't have missed me—if he hadn't had another destination for his bullet. I've regretted it more than once. I've had pretty nearly all that life could give me—and I've made a mess ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... a fascination about painting furniture, Adams. I have painted the whole of my bedroom at Blandings and am now engaged on the museum. You would be surprised at the fascination of it. It suddenly came back to me the other day that I had been inwardly longing to mess about with paints and things since I was a boy. They stopped me when I was a boy. I recollect my old father beating me with a walking stick—Tell me, Adams, have I eaten ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... week there things was in a mess, with Robbie balkin', Mother havin' a case of nerves, Father nursin' a grouch, and Nick Talbot mopin' around doleful. Then some girl friend suggested to Robbie that if she did take Nick they could ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... unwisely, which even yields itself to the passion of others for the pleasure it gives rather than for the pleasure it receives—the thriftless, lavish, good-natured, affectionate people, who are said to make such a mess of their lives—are far higher in the scale of hope than the cautiously respectable, the prudently kind, the selfishly pure. There must be no mistake about this. One must somehow or other give one's heart away, and it is better to do it in error ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... East, the excited Californians burn in high fever. The grim dice of fate are being cast. Slowly, the Northern pine and Southern palm sway toward the crash of war. As yet only journals hurl defiance at each other. Every day has its duties for Hardin and Valois; they know that every regimental mess-room is canvassed; each ship's ward-room is sounded; officers are flattered and won over; woman lends her persuasive charms; high promised rank follows the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... komercajxo. Merchant negocisto. Merciful kompata—ema. Mercury hidrargo. Mercy kompato—eco. Mere nura. Merely nure. Meridian meridiano. Merino merinolano. [Error in book: merinoslano] Merit merito. Merit meriti. Mermaid sireno. Merriment gajeco. Merry gaja. Mesh masxo. Mess kunmangxi. Message depesxo. Messenger sendito. Messiah Savonto, Mesio. Messmate kunmangxanto. Metal metalo. Metallic metala. Metallurgy metalurgio. Metaphor metaforo. Mete dividi, disdoni. Meteor meteoro. Meteorology meteorologio. Meter ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... curious things; some have got life and some haven't got anything I can see, except paint. There was one I saw in New York, now. I thought at first it was a mess of spinach. I stood off and looked, and I walked up close and looked, and still I couldn't see anything but the same green mess. But—will you believe it, Nephew?—that thing was The Woods in Spring! Thinks I, They evidently boil their ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... details of my task, time passed rapidly. The watch changed, and I joined my officers in the tiny, arched dining salon. It was during the meal that I noticed for the first time a sort of tenseness; every member of the mess was unusually quiet. And though I would not, have admitted it then, I was not without a good deal of nervous ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... we will 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 will be ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... an old colored woman whom they employed for the purpose. Two of us had a dislike for onions in our stew, while the others were well pleased with them. So we two agreed with old "Maggie," for a small consideration, to prepare us a separate mess without onions. The next day our mess came by itself. We took it, and began our meal with peculiar satisfaction; but the first taste showed us an unmistakable onion flavor in our stew. When old Maggie came again, we remonstrated with her on her breach of engagement. "Bless your hearts, ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... a 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 clean ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... say. A week in a place like this is much like a jail sentence unless you're hard at work. Are things in pretty much of a mess?" ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... I spent the first half of a day in capturing a grasshopper, and the remainder in a fruitless effort to catch a mess of trout. In the agony of disappointment, I resolved to fish no more. A spirit of rebellion seized me. I determined that thistles should thenceforth be my only sustenance. "Why is it," I asked myself, "that in the midst of abundance, every ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... buggle has blowed for mess which is what they call the meals and you would know why if you eat some of them so I will close for this time and save the rest for the next time and my address is Co. C. 399th. Infantry, Camp ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... change after Verner's Pride!" she querulously complained. "It's not half as nice as it was there! Just this old bedroom and a mess of a dressing-room, and nothing else! And only that stupid Catherine to ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... how they was fed? Well, it was lak dis: You've seen pig troughs, side by side, in a big lot? After all de grown niggers eat and git out de way, scraps and everything eatable was put in them troughs; sometimes buttermilk poured on de mess and sometimes potlicker. Then de cook blowed a cow horn. Quick as lightnin' a passle of fifty or sixty little niggers run out de plum bushes, from under de sheds and houses, and from everywhere. Each one take his place, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... inventive faculties; but Fernando, despite his native shrewdness and wonderful inventive powers, was liable to get into trouble. He knew as little about a ship as a landlubber might be supposed to know, and his companion saw at once that he would make a mess of the story, so he came to his rescue by informing the assembly that a fine vocalist at the other end of the room was going to sing, and asked that the story be deferred until after the song. They all hurried away save Fernando, ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... and edge, such as Arabs carry at the belt. It may have been that he was about to murder me when vengeance came on him, whether from man or God, or the Gods of Old, I know not. Suffice it, that when I found my Ruby Jewel, which shone up as a living star from the mess of blood wherein it lay, I paused not, but fled from the place. I journeyed on alone through the hot desert, till, by God's grace, I came upon an Arab tribe camping by a well, who gave me salt. With them I rested till they had set me on ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... my heart," he said, absently taking off his spectacles, polishing, and replacing them. Then he resumed his former line of thought. "Tom Robinson is out of the mess. He, and his father before him, found other ways of disposing of their capital where it was more under their own inspection and control. If that foolish girl of ours, Maria, could only have brought herself to listen to Robinson," ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Hilda, "I must wipe up this mess. There, Judy, keep back for a moment; it will get upon the carpet, and spoil it if we are not as quick as possible. Hand me that sheet of blotting-paper, dear. There now, that is better—I have stopped the stream from descending too far. Why, Judith, my dear, you ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... brought down a bowl of soup and whole peas swimming in it, put before our hero a tin bread-basket full of small biscuit, called midshipmen's nuts, and the pepper-caster. Jack's visions of tea, coffee, muffins, dry toast, and milk, vanished as he perceived the mess; but he was very hungry, and he found it much better than he expected; and he moreover found himself much the better after he had swallowed it. It struck seven bells, and he ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... came down upon the moors as thick as ever I saw it; and there was no sound of any sort, nor a breath of wind to guide us. The little stubby trees that stand here and there, like bushes with a wooden leg to them, were drizzled with a mess of wet, and hung their points with dropping. Wherever the butt-end of a hedgerow came up from the hollow ground, like the withers of a horse, holes of splash were pocked and pimpled in the yellow sand ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... be known as the best- dressed woman in Washington society. Perhaps, too, it was remembered that he had brought from the camp one of its legacies. Few post commanders refused the original delicacies for the mess-table at head-quarters from the post sutler who desired to keep on the right side of those in authority. Why, then, could not the Secretary of War permit his wife to receive a douceur from one of those cormorants, who always grow ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... hear a good account of him," the squire replied. "He is sharp and intelligent, and will make his way in life, or I am mistaken. His father was an uncommonly clever fellow, though he made a mess of it, just at the end; and I think the boy takes ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... opportunity in the evening, in his tent, to give expression to opinions of his, which would not tend, if listened to, to raise a leader in the estimation of his officers. He said that Mr. B. was a rash, mad man; that he did not know what he was doing; that he would make a mess of the whole thing, and ruin all of us; that he was frightened at him; that he did not consider himself safe in the tent with him, and many other things. Some of this was said in the presence of the Doctor and Mr. Becker; but the most severe remarks were ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... forty-fathom slumber that clears the soul and eye and heart, and sends you to breakfast ravening. They emptied a big tin dish of juicy fragments of fish—the blood-ends the cook had collected overnight. They cleaned up the plates and pans of the elder mess, who were out fishing, sliced pork for the midday meal, swabbed down the foc'sle, filled the lamps, drew coal and water for the cook, and investigated the fore-hold, where the boat's stores were stacked. It was another perfect day—soft, mild, and clear; and Harvey ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... Cuthbert really meant the regular ship biscuit used on all sailing vessels along the seashore and the lakes—there are two brands; one a bit more tasty than the other, and this is supposed to be for the officers' mess; but in a pinch both fill the bill admirably, as myriads of canoeists are willing to testify ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... school, the day following the return of Coningsby, according to custom, he repaired to Buckhurst's room, where Henry Sydney, Lord Vere, and our hero held with him their breakfast mess. They were all in the fifth form, and habitual companions, on the river or on the Fives' Wall, at cricket or at foot-ball. The return of Coningsby, their leader alike in sport and study, inspired them ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... mess-call sounded for the midday meal, when the sun was shining almost perpendicularly, a boat's crew from one of the cruisers were sent over to the supply-ship for a load of beef. Not a breath was stirring, ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... Emily, you've got us in a pretty mess! It so happened I was looking for a letter myself," he snapped, as he jerked himself to his feet. "See here, Teddy, where did that rascally little dog go to? Come, let's go find Rover," he finished, stooping and lifting the small boy to his shoulder. The next ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... to this last remark, so Mosk launched out on another topic. 'I like yer cheek, I do,' he growled; 'it's you that have got me into this mess, and now you wants me to take up ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... M—-, with whom I dined yesterday, said that he had frequently met David Hume at their military mess in Scotland, and in other parties. That he was very polite and pleasant, though thoughtful in company, generally reclining his head upon his hand, as if in study; from which he would suddenly recover," &c. [Note ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... Chesterfield amid an enormous twilit welter and litter of disarranged chairs and tables; empty teapots, cups, jugs, and glasses; dishes of fragmentary remains of cake and chocolate; plates smeared with roseate ham, sticky teaspoons, loaded ash-trays, and a large general crumby mess—Rachel, the downright, the contemner of silly social prejudices and all nonsense, was actually puffed up because she had a servant in a cap and because automobiles had deposited elegant girls at her door and whirled them off again. And ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... every movement, noting the play of every feature. So in his simplicity he practised a simple diplomacy. He hummed to himself as he went his rounds and while he sat over his diary. He only knew one song—"A Warrior Bold"—which every mess in India associated with old Jem Agar, for no evening was considered complete without the Major's one ditty if he were present. He had stood up and roared it in many strange places, quite without sentiment, ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... sits the wind in that quarter?" a gay voice exclaims, and Prince Harry comes to his sister's side. "Well, here be I in a pretty mess. Was I not prepared to deny in council, before all the lords, this petition of King Erik for our Princess,—ay, and to back it up with my stout bowmen from the marches? Beshrew me, Sis, but since when didst thou shift to so fair a taste for—what was it? frozen turnips and salted beef? And—how ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... the contents of the jar. Instantly he uttered a cry of joy, and threw out his arms in a wild gesture which upset the pot and sent the liquid streaming across the floor to the very feet of the Englishman. The attendant drew a red handkerchief from his bosom, and, mopping up the mess, he followed it into the corner, where in a moment he found himself face to ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dragons in knots, stuffed with hen's feathers. That had to be wherever she went. Then she must sit in the chief place at the table, beside the giver of the feast, and her food must be seen to. First she must have a mess of oats seethed in kids' milk; then, for her meat, a dish made of the hearts of animals. Gizzards, too, of birds, and their livers, must be in it. There were to be set for her a brass spoon, and an ivory-hilted knife with rings ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... young man arose early, for the tide was then low, and started forth with basket and clam hoe on his arm. Aunt Lucretia had promised him, by a smiling nod, a mess of fritters for dinner if he would supply the necessary clams. Alongshore the soft clam is the only clam used for fritters; the tough, long-keeping quahog is shipped ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... owerworked Committee has gone and got thereselves into a nice mess, and all by their kindness in wanting to let as many people as possibel see the grate show on Friday. They has acshally bin and ordered a grate bilding with rows of seats, out in Gildhall Yard, enuff to hold about a thousand Ladies and Gentlemen, all in their ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 11, 1891 • Various
... hard pressed by hunger, sells his birthright for a mess of pottage, is unwise. But what shall we say of him who parts with his birthright, and does not get even the pottage in return? It is not necessary to inquire whether opulence be an adequate compensation for the sacrifice of bodily and mental freedom; for Frances ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... roots along its brink were conspicuous. The beaver now went very cautiously, sniffing the air for any hint of peril. After winding along for some twenty or thirty yards, the new canal shoaled out to nothingness behind a screen of alder; and here, in a mess of mud and water, the beaver found one of his comrades hard at work. There was much of the new canal yet to ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... couldn't concentrate. He was always looking for happiness. He had fallen in love and wasted himself and made a mess ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... at him with his mouth open in an imbecile sort of way, which seemed to excite Mac still more, for, turning to his young host, he said, in a low voice, and with a look that made the gentlemen on the chairs sit up suddenly: "I beg pardon, Van, for making a mess, but I can't stand by and see my own brother tempt another man beyond his strength or make a brute of himself. That's plain English, but I can't help speaking out, for I know not one of you would willingly hurt Charlie, and you will if ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott |
