"Skipper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Rhine breaks up into a delta of navigable streams, on which little brown-sailed cargo-boats ply perpetually; and the skipper of a Dutch cargo-boat will do anything for money. A couple of hours' hard walking brought Jim and Desmond to a village with a little pier near which half a dozen boats were moored. A light showed in a port-hole, and they went softly on deck, and found their ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... was, that, armed with a couple of good-sized pollack as a present to the skipper in charge of the lighter, Josh Helston and his young companion rowed alongside the well-moored vessel before the morning was much older, and were soon on deck watching the proceedings ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... duty. In the month of June another cargo arrived at Boston, and when the excise-officer stepped on board he was seized and confined below, while the wine was sent on shore. The officer was afterwards liberated, and on the following morning the skipper of the sloop entered four or five pipes at the custom-house, declaring that this was the whole of his cargo. Aware of the falsehood of this statement, the commissioners ordered a comptroller to seize the sloop, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Langdale was appointed 2nd in Command of "C." There were also other changes, for Major R.E. Martin was given Command of the 4th Battalion, and was succeeded as 2nd in Command by Major W.S.N. Toller, while Captain C. Bland became skipper ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... Shall be happy to take any letters or packages you have to send for that settlement, captain," exclaimed the speaker through his trumpet. This was all very polite. Still more so was it when the American skipper offered to send his boat aboard us to receive our despatches. As it happened, the captain had been wishing to send a letter back to Sierra Leone, and several of the officers wished to write, and as the delay would not be great, we told the polite American that we would ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... Kielland's third novel, "Skipper Worse," marked a distinct step in his development. It was less of a social satire and more of a social study. It was not merely a series of brilliant, exquisitely finished scenes, loosely strung together on a slender thread of narrative, but was a concise and well-constructed ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... advised, testily, when she followed him down the ladder. He stood at the foot and offered his hand, but she leaped down the last two steps and did not accept his assistance. "Now, you have twisted that skipper of ours until he doesn't ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... formation of metallic sulphides, as above. A skipper one night anchored his newly painted vessel near the Boston gas-house, where the refuse was deposited, with its escaping H2S. In the morning, to his consternation, the craft was found to be black. H2S had come in contact ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... had turned her round and was making headway against the waves, but still her bow would not lift, and the captain wept still more. His womanish behaviour disgusted me. At last a quiet passenger, an experienced sailor, gave some advice, which the skipper followed, and which helped matters a little, so that he regained his self-control to the extent of calling a general council; he announced that he dared not continue the voyage, and asked our consent to return to Noumea. We all agreed, and about midnight we approached the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... oot waitin' their tatties, an' they roared to Sandy to stop; but Sandy cudna. The tatties were fleein' ower the back door o' the cairt, an' the scales were rattlin' an' reeshlin' like an earthquake; an' there was Sandy, bare-heided, up to the knees amon' his tatties, ruggin' an' roarin', like the skipper o' some schooner that was rinnin' on the rocks. I'll swear, Sandy got roond his roonds an' a' his tatties delivered in less than half the time Donal' took! The wives an' laddies were gaitherin' up the tatties a' the wey to Tutties Nook; and gin Sandy got to the milestane ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... that it bore evident traces of past habits of intemperance; as far as his features went, they certainly reminded Harry of Mr. Stanley's portrait. The sailor's dress was that which might have been worn by a mate, or skipper, on shore; he appeared not in the least daunted, on the contrary he was quite self-possessed, with an air of determination about him which rather took Harry ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Desiring one day to go to Mobile, but reluctant to leave Montgomery and its pleasures—unwilling to quit certainty for hope—he persuaded the captain of a loaded steamboat to wait four days for him at an expense of $400 a day; and lest time should hang too heavy on the obliging skipper's hands, Jack permitted him to share the orgies gratis. But that ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... engine-room for full speed ahead, and an instant later I heard the dull boom of a gun. In a moment I was up on deck to see an enemy submarine about two hundred yards off our port bow. She had signaled us to stop, and our skipper had ignored the order; but now she had her gun trained on us, and the second shot grazed the cabin, warning the belligerent tug-captain that it was time to obey. Once again an order went down to the engine-room, and the tug reduced speed. The U-boat ceased firing and ordered the ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... thousands of eyes, and boats put out all along the coast to inquire; and within two or three hours the pinnace was back again in Rye harbour, with news that set bells ringing and men shouting. On Wednesday, the skipper reported, there had been an indecisive engagement during the dead calm that had prevailed in the Channel; a couple of Spanish store-vessels had been taken on the following morning, and a general action had followed, which again had been indecisive; but in ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... some time been engaged in making a trigonometrical survey of the island of Lampedoza, in the Mediterranean. Thence he had embarked in a Greek vessel for Tripoli; had been nearly wrecked through the skipper's intemperance, and had finally been put ashore at Malta. He had also been Byron-smitten, and had followed in the wake of the author of "Childe Harold" to the Levant; had contemplated "the Niobe of nations" among the ruins ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the gallant skipper of the British collier, slouching with a heavy load of grime for London, or waddling back in ballast to his native North, alike is delighted to discover storms ahead, and to cast his tarry anchor into soft gray calm. For here shall he find the good shelter of friends like-minded ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of talk and repartee permitted on an excursion. Before sunset they were out in the open, and could feel the long ocean swell. The wind had risen a little, and there was a low band of clouds in the south. The skipper told Mr. Delancy that it would be much fresher with the sinking of the sun, but Jack replied that it wouldn't amount to anything; ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the stern railing, slacken, loop, and come up off the port quarter. Frithiof called up the speaking tube to the bridge, and the bridge answered, 'Yes, nine knots.' Then Frithiof spoke again, and the answer was, 'What do you want of the skipper?' and ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... Whately, of Dublin, he says: "It was imagined we could not help ourselves, but I took the task of navigating on myself, and have conducted the steamer over 1600 miles, though as far as my likings go, I would as soon drive a cab in November fogs in London as be 'skipper' in this hot sun; but I shall go through with it as a duty." To his friend Mr. Young he makes humorous reference to his awkwardness in nautical language: "My great difficulty is calling out 'starboard' when ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... a corner were Jasper Nettlepoint and Mr. Porterfield's intended. Tucked away was the odious right expression, and I deplored the fact so betrayed for the pitiful bad taste in it. I immediately turned away, and the next moment found myself face to face with our vessel's skipper. I had already had some conversation with him—he had been so good as to invite me, as he had invited Mrs. Nettlepoint and her son and the young lady travelling with them, and also Mrs. Peck, to sit at his table—and had observed with pleasure that his seamanship had the grace, ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... and swiftness which were part of his manner, the Sicilian skipper bent forward and laid a ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... around the harbour. Here and there a sleepy sailor tumbles out of a forecastle; smoke is curling from the galleys. A skipper puts his head out of a companionway and sniffs toward the weather; the sea stretches in undisturbed calm; all the ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... this here arn't the skipper's garden, and you and me only gardeners, but 'board ship—leastwise it's all ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... skipper," exclaimed O'Grady. "He would try it and do it too. We'd back him, and so would ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... trawlers with their shark-mouthed flat-fish, And red nets hanging out to dry, And the skate the skipper kept because he liked 'em, And landsmen never knew the ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... said Jack. "Probably the skipper wanted privacy, and—do you read Spanish, Dick! You know a number of modern ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... altitudes, variations of the compass, latitudes and longitudes, as calculated on the spot, appear in the map by Mr. Arrowsmith, and it is hoped may not differ much from the results of the same data in abler bands. The office of "skipper," which, rather than let the Expedition come to a stand, I undertook, required no great ability in one "not too old to learn:" it saved a salary, and, what was much more valuable than gold, saved the ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... ground over the cliffs. A little schooner came round the point, running before the sea. She might have got clear away, because it was easy enough for her, had she clawed a short way out, risking the beam sea, to have made the harbour where the fishers were. But the skipper kept her close in, and presently she struck on a long tongue of rocks that trended far out eastward. The tops of her masts seemed nearly to meet, so it appeared as if she had broken her back. The seas flew sheer over her, and the men had ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... money. Needless to say, we were ready enough to go in with them. Already they had a scheme of getting a ship such as they particularly needed. There was at that time lying at Hong-Kong a sort of tramp steamer, the Elizabeth Robinson, the skipper of which wanted a crew for a trip to Chemulpo, up the Yellow Sea. Salter Quick got himself into the confidence and graces of this skipper, and offered to man his ship for him, and he packed her as far as he could—with his own brother, Noah, myself, my French friend, ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... apparently for water. She had the dregs of a mixed crew of Lascars and Portuguese, who said they had lost the rest of their men by desertion, and that the captain and mate had been carried off by fever. There was something so queer in their story that our skipper took the law in his own hands, and put me on board of her with a salvage crew. But that night the French crew mutinied, cut the cables, and would have got to sea if we had not been armed and prepared, and managed to drive them below. When we had got them under hatches for a few hours ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... bought that craft because—well, because she reminded me of old times, I cal'late. I used to command a schooner like her once; bigger and lots more able, of course, but a fishin' schooner, same as she used to be. And I was a good skipper, if I do say it. My crews jumped when I said the word, now I tell you. That's where I belong—on the deck of a vessel. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... starboard watch whilst listening to this address; but on its conclusion there was a general move towards the forecastle, and we soon were all busily engaged in getting ready for the holiday so auspiciously announced by the skipper. During these preparations his harangue was commented upon in no very measured terms; and one of the party, after denouncing him as a lying old son of a seacook who begrudged a fellow a few hours' liberty, exclaimed with an oath, 'But you don't bounce me out of my liberty, old chap, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... times are past away, When, doomed in upper floors to star it. The bard inscribed to lords his lay,— Himself, the while, my Lord Mountgarret. No more he begs with air dependent. His "little bark may sail attendant" Under some lordly skipper's steerage; But launched triumphant in the Row, Or taken by Murray's self in tow. Cuts both Star ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... may be more people than Chatfield and the Squire in at this business," continued Vickers. "Just so! We—Copplestone and myself—know very well that the skipper of the Pike, Andrius, is in it: that's undeniable. But there may be others—or one other, or two—on shore here. And as the Pike can communicate by wireless, those on board her may have sent a message to their shore confederates ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... Matters here did not mend, for the wind had risen since we started, and the roar of the breakers on the shore recalled Kuching, and the comforts we had left behind us, most vividly to our minds. After, however, a short consultation with our steersman (who acted as skipper), we determined to push on for Sadong at once, and hoisting the old rag that did duty for a sail we stood ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... anchored the boat, and lit pipes, preparatory to passing as comfortable a night as might be under the circumstances, the only thing troubling me being the anxiety of the skipper on our behalf. Presently the blackness beneath was lit up by a wide band of phosphoric light, shed in the wake of no ordinary-sized fish, probably an immense shark. Another and another followed in rapid succession, until the depths beneath were ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... of men who were to stay here all this day at least, we were suddenly roused at being told that the wind was fair, that a little fleet of herring-busses was passing by for Mull, and that Mr Simpson's vessel was about to sail. Hugh M'Donald, the skipper, came to us, and was impatient that we should get ready, which we soon did. Dr Johnson, with composure and solemnity, repeated the observation of Epictetus, that, 'as man has the voyage of death before him, whatever may be his employment, he should be ready at the ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... threatened an adverse report on the handling of the troops. On being informed that it was his privilege to make such a report he left the ship. However, he was later observed in altercation with the skipper of the smaller vessel and eventually a second gangway was rigged. When this move was commenced there was room on the main deck for two companies only. The other two were kept clear and their officers took refuge on the boat deck. There they were found, ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... very civil; and, upon inquiring of the skipper of the boat who he was, I found that my friend was a man of large fortune, who lived somewhere near Utica, on an ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... the shape of a rifle—all are there ready to drive away the bad antoh which caused the illness. To a pole—or rather a combination of two poles—are tied two rudely made wooden figures, one above the other, representing, the one below, the djuragan or skipper (tihng); the one above, the master ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... commanding the ship and escaping, but would not adventure upon it without his advice. He said, Let all alone, for the Lord will set all at liberty in a way more conducive to his own glory and our own safety. Accordingly when they arrived, the skipper who received them at Leith, being to carry them no farther, delivered them to another to carry them to Virginia, to whom they were represented as thieves and robbers. But when he came to see them, and found they were all grave sober Christians, banished for presbyterian ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... reached the house we found Daddy lying on the steamer chair. He was engaged in deep converse with our skipper, who left at once. The doctor only remained a few minutes, and then Susie appeared, her rubicund face framed in the mighty antlers of my quarry. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... note to Mrs. Dodson, and was on his way back home when he saw Susan Skipper, Mrs. Dodson's hired girl, and Dent Freeman, the hired man of the place, washing the big front windows of the house—that is, Dent was washing them, perched upon a step-ladder, for Susan was quite heavy and was afraid to trust herself very high in the air. However, ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... A skipper gray, whose eye's were dim, Could tell by tasting, just the spot, And so below, he'd "dowse the glim,"— After, of course, his ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... you'll do," said he, "so now march. I'll wait for you here, and we'll go on board together; for old Bloater the skipper says he'll certainly weigh ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... represented the Atlantic Ocean. The Outer Holm we called "America," Graemsay Island was "Africa," and the Ness Point was "Spain," while a small rock that stood far out in the bay was "St. Helena." Tom Kinlay was, by his own appointment, our skipper; Robbie Rosson and Willie Hercus were classed able seamen; and my dog, Selta, and I were called upon to do duty for both passengers and cargo, curiously enough, sailing with ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... picturesque. He offered himself to no temptations now, nor to any risks. Right onwards he went to the docks, addressed himself to a grave, elderly master of a trading vessel, bound upon a distant voyage, and instantly procured an engagement. The skipper was a good and sensible man, and (as it turned out) a sailor accomplished in all parts of his profession. The ship which he commanded was a South Sea whaler, belonging to Lord Grenville—whether lying at Liverpool or in the Thames at that moment, I am not sure. ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... he or his skipper hailed me just now and wanted to know whether you were here, I said you were. The fellow asked me if I was going into the harbor. I said I was. So he gave me a message for you—that they would hang about outside ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... the night came a cold so intense that he was driven to sleep in the cabin where reigned the small iron stove that brewed the skipper's odorous pot. After he had slept a good way into the next day, he came up again to find the gale still strong and the prospect coloured now with green of wave and snow of foam, blue of sky and snow of winged cloud. The favourable force was still pushing them onward toward ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... Dacia, which was formerly under German registry and belonged to the Hamburg-American Line, and takes her to Brest; a French prize court will determine the validity of her transfer to American registry; British skipper reports that the German converted cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich sank a British ship and a ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... as his name denotes, was a priest; but "whether he compeared and abjured, or fled, we can find no certaintie;" that Adam Dayes, or Dease, was "a ship-wright that dwelt on the north side of the bridge of Leith;" that Henry Cairnes, "skipper in Leith, fled out of the countrie to the Easter seas;" and that "John Stewart, indweller in Leith, died in exile." (Hist. vol. i. p. 108.)—"Henricus Cairnys, incola de Leith," was denounced as a fugitive, and condemned for heresy, in 1538-9; and on the 8th of April 1539, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... answered the captain, "if you want to call a schooner a ship, and I don't mind lyin'. But you better say Miller and Gonzales, owners, and ordinary, plain, Billy-be-damned old Samuel K. Boone, skipper." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... Discovery of the West-coast of Australia in 1616: Dirk Hartogs-island and -road, Land of the Eendracht or Eendrachtsland (1616) VIII. Voyage of the ship Zeewolf, from the Netherlands to India, under the command of supercargo Pieter Dirkszoon and skipper Haevik Claeszoon van Hillegom.—Further discovery of the West-coast of Australia (1618) IX. Voyage of the ship Mauritius from the Netherlands to India under the command of supercargo Willem Jansz. or Janszoon and skipper Lenaert Jacobsz(oon). Further discovery of the ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... Lively Polly than I was. Captain Booden was, therefore, the main reliance of the little twenty-ton schooner, and if her deck-load of firewood and cargo of butter and eggs ever reached a market, the skilful and profane skipper should have all the ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... which announced her arrival. The steamer was so near, that we could scan the faces of everybody on board, and hear enthusiastic congratulations on their safe arrival after their tedious voyage. The skipper conferred with the Morro guard. What was the ship's name? Where did she hail from? Who was her captain? Where was she bound for? A needless demand, I thought, seeing that there is no water navigable beyond the town; ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill. He asked if it could make salt. "Yes, it could make salt," said he who owned it, and when the skipper heard that, he wished with all his might and main to have the mill, let it cost what it might, for, he thought, if he had it, he ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... never before seen. And their speech, plentifully sprinkled with colloquialisms of a salt flavor, amused her, and sometimes puzzled her. Some of the men who rode short distances in the car wore fishermen's boots and jerseys. They called the conductor "skipper," and hailed ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... wailed, the wind it moaned, And the white caps flecked the sea; "An' I would to God," the skipper groaned, "I had ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... he was transferred from his joyless village life to the still worse life of a sailor boy. He went on board a wretched little vessel, to stand by the rudder while the skipper drank. Filthy and disgusting the poor boy looked; starving and benumbed with cold he was. One would have thought, from his appearance, that he never had been well fed; and, indeed, ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... a half drunken voice from one of the boats astern of us. "Hillo," responded the coxswain. The poor skipper even pricked up his ears. "Have you got Dick Catgut's fiddle among ye?" This said Dick Catgut was the corporal of marines, and the prime instigator of all the fun amongst the men. "No, no," said several voices, "no fiddle here." The hail passed round among the other boats, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Kitchell. "I ain't a skipper of no oil-boat any longer. I'm a beach-comber." He fixed the wallowing bark with glistening eyes. "Gawd strike me," he murmured, "ain't she a daisy? It's a ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... merchant bowed, and the skipper went away, still keeping his hand on the revolver. Every cranny in the walls seemed fit to hide a murderer—seemed made for nothing else; and Hindhaugh thought what a fool he must have been to venture under ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... himself in a seaport town his first business was to visit the water front and take knowledge of the vessels that lay in the stream or by the docks. One voyage he made to England was in a cargo ship. With his passion for work he took on the duties of surgeon, and amazed the skipper with a revelation of the new technique in operations which he himself had been accustomed to perform by the light of ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... gone." The Canadian fishermen, of course, would suffer equally with those of our own shores. They are a light-hearted people, though, are these Canadians, fond of music and dancing, and they would doubtless find consolation for their troubles by addressing the skipper of the Miantonomah in a grand MASANIELLO strain, chorussed ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... Snark to stern first. I am waiting for the next gale to see how it will work. I think it can be done. It all depends on how her stern takes the seas. And who knows but that some wild morning on the China Sea, some gray- beard skipper will stare, rub his incredulous eyes and stare again, at the spectacle of a weird, small craft very much like the Snark, hove to stern-first and riding out ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... a skipper of Dyrevig called Bardun. He was so headstrong that there was no doing anything with him. Whatever he set his mind upon, that should be done, he said, and done it ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... for some ship about to sail for the island Miss Lydia proposed to discover. That very day the colonel wrote to Paris, to countermand his order for the suite of apartments in which he was to have made some stay, and bargained with the skipper of a Corsican schooner, just about to set sail for Ajaccio, for two poor cabins, but the best that could be had. Provisions were sent on board, the skipper swore that one of his sailors was an excellent cook, and had not his equal for bouilleabaisse; he promised mademoiselle should be ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... stiff as iron. It was Peru we were bound for,—Peru where the submarine city lay beneath uncounted fathoms waiting for us. The captain and I were the only ones Acuma, the half-breed, had taken into his confidence; all the others sailed on a blind errand, trusting to the skipper, who was a shrewd man and severe. And the brigantine wallowed around the Cape and toiled on and on up the coast, and every day Acuma grew more restless; every day he cast about the water with eyes that seemed to pierce to the very ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... drawn to a cloud of dust hanging in the air, for the unpleasant wind of the previous night had given way to a softer and cooler breeze. He read its token correctly, and smiled at the picture which his fancy drew of Stump, when that choleric skipper heard what had happened to his second mate. Surely he would be among those now ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... among the western islands occupied two years, and I became an expert skipper as time went on, and many, many hours he and I sat up together and perused the wonderful books he had, and discussed a wide range of subjects which the readings suggested. It was a feast for me, and it was such a pleasure to him, which I know was ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... until we became used to the situation. The roof seemed so low that we instinctively stooped our heads to avoid getting them removed from our shoulders, an action which caused immense amusement to the skipper, who, in the manner of his kind, accentuated the eerie feeling of the place by spinning all sorts of creepy yarns about canal boatmen who had mysteriously gone overboard in the pitch dark, and never ...
— Through Canal-Land in a Canadian Canoe • Vincent Hughes
... remarked Buzzby to Singleton one day, as they stood at the weather gangway watching the foam that spread from the vessel's bow as she breasted the waves of the Atlantic gallantly—it's my opinion that our skipper is made o' the right stuff. He's entered quite into the spirit of the thing, and I heard him say to the first mate yesterday he'd made up his mind to run right up into Baffin's Bay and make inquiries ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the Royal George, that he had inquired what inns there were along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... southward, and met with a Dutch Guineaman, which he made prize of, but, after having plundered her, the skipper had his ship again. Two days after he took an English ship, called the Experiment, Captain Cornet, at Cape Lopez; the men went all into the pirate service, and having no occasion for the ship they burnt her and then steered for St. Thome, ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... yards past the Alert he came to a landing stage which fitted the description given by the skipper of the Squalla. Thompson hauled his canoe out on the float, gained the shore, and found a path bordering the bank. He followed this. Not greatly distant he could hear the blows of chopping, the shrill blasts of a donkey-engine whistle and the ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... became rough, and a large number of the men were sick. There was straw in the bottom of the boat, which we all slept on. Most of the men adjourned to this straw very sick. Those who were not got a piece of rancid salt pork from the skipper, and cut a large, thick slice out of it. This was put on the end of a fish-hook and drawn across the men's faces. The smell was terrific, and the effect added to ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... My plot, like an icicle's slender and slippery, 320 Every moment more slender, and likely to slip awry, And the reader unwilling in loco desipere Is free to jump over as much of my frippery As he fancies, and, if he's a provident skipper, he May have like Odysseus control of the gales, And get safe to port, ere his patience quite fails; Moreover, although 'tis a slender return For your toil and expense, yet my paper will burn, And, if you have manfully struggled thus far with me, You may e'en twist me up, and just light your cigar ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... engine-room signaled the skipper's order, and the ship felt her way once more. Again there was silence, save for the throb of the engines and the grating of the steering-chain ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... about him and went out to study the weather, and inquire for lodgings to which he might remove Cicely. He saw nothing he liked, and determined on consulting his old mate, Goatley, who generally acted as skipper, but he had first to return so as not to delay the morning meal. He found, on coming in, Cicely helping Oil-of-Gladness in making griddle cakes, and buttering them, so as to make Mr. Heatherthwayte declare that he had not tasted the like ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be the most skilful skipper, possibly barring Paul, along the Bushkill. He seemed to know how to get the best speed out of an iceboat, and at the same time avoid serious accidents, such as are likely to follow the reckless use of such ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... it is," said Barney, "and a good clean race it will be if Dave Tower is skipper of that submarine. I never knew ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... come before morning, unless something has happened to him, for I never knew Plum to break his word," said Jack to the skipper. ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... Dunfermline town, Drinking the blude-red wine: 'O whaur will I get a skeely skipper To sail ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... on the size," said the mate, laughing. "If it had been very small we might have plugged it with our jackets till we managed to row back, or the skipper, seeing we were in distress, sent another boat after us. If it had been a very large hole we should have had to hold on to the gunwale outside all round, for she wouldn't have sunk, and then again the captain would have sent a boat to pick us up, if ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... where the feeling lingers and reflects a bit of scenery, but for the most part it can only catch gleams of color that mingle with the prevailing tone and enrich without usurping on it. This volume contains some of the best of Mr. Whittier's productions in this kind. "Skipper Ireson's Ride" we hold to be by long odds the best of modern ballads. There are others nearly as good in their way, and all, with a single exception, embodying native legends. In "Telling the Bees," Mr. Whittier has enshrined a country superstition ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... fert animus mutatas dicere formas[7]. Tis the mind of man, and woman to affect new fashions; but to our Mynsatives[8] for sooth, if he come like to your Besognio,[9] or your bore, so he be rich, or emphaticall, they care not; would I might never excell a dutch Skipper in Courtship, if I did not put distaste into my cariage of purpose; I knew I should not please them. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... was on leave—and I wint down to Yaquina Bay with Captain Tyler on his tin gas schooner, thinkin' to mesilf it was a holiday—and all the fun I had was insthructin' the gasoline engineer in the mysteries of how to expriss one's sintimints without injurin' the skipper's feelin's? Well, I landed in the bay and walked about in the woods, which is foine for the smell of thim which is like fresh tar; and one afternoon I find two legs and small feet stickin' out of ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... the soldiers are gone, Bunny, and then get him down to the coast and smuggle him aboard a fishing-boat and get the skipper to run him across to ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... Dunfermline town, Drinking the blude-red wine; 'O whare will I get a skeely skipper, To sail ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... it," bellowed Buller. "For eighteen years I have coached Fernhurst; and before that I coached Oxford and Gloucestershire; and I am not going to stand this. Lovelace, you are not fit to be captain of a pick-up, let alone a school Colts side. Burgoyne, skipper the side. Now then, two minutes more to half-time; do ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... feel, Mack. That's where a skipper is hog-tied against taking any action. You just sort of feel that there's something devilish afoot, but you don't know enough what it is to be ready to meet it. Puts me in mind of a song I heard once aboard ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... congregation, he wad say to me, 'they may pray that stand the risk, Peggy Bryce, for I've made insurance.' He was a merry man, Doctor; but he had the root of the matter in him, for a' his light way of speaking, as deep as ony skipper that ever loosed anchor from Leith Roads. I hae been a forsaken creature since his death—O the weary days and nights that I have had!—and the weight on the spirits—the spirits, Doctor!—though I canna say I hae been easier since I hae been at the Wall than even now—if I kend ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... nor could his accent undeceive me. For as there is a lingua franca of many tongues on the moles and in the feluccas of the Mediterranean, so there is a free or common accent among English-speaking men who follow the sea. They catch a twang in a New England Port; from a cockney skipper, even a Scotsman sometimes learns to drop an h; a word of a dialect is picked up from another band in the forecastle; until often the result is undecipherable, and you have to ask for the man's place of birth. So it was with Mr. Jones. I thought him a Scotsman who had been long to sea; and yet ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Norway and had a prosperous voyage, and Audunn spent the following winter with the skipper Thorir, who had a farm in Morr. The summer after that, they sailed out to Greenland, where they ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... hard work is what you will find most of aboard ship. Carry on and do your duty; keep a sharp lookout, all gear shipshape, salute the bridge when going on watch, that is the whole duty of a good officer. That's plenty theology for a seaman." But the skipper's eye turned brightly toward his bookshelves, where he had several volumes of sermons, mostly of a ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... made the city than he landed and disembarked the present and loading it upon porters' backs took his way therewith to the Sovran and continues faring until he entered the presence. The Sultan accepted the gift and largessed him in return, and at even-tide the skipper craved leave of return to his ship fearing lest any harm befal vessel or passengers. So he said, "O King of the Age, on board with me is a woman, but she is of goodly folk and godly and I am apprehensive concerning ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... Mariner. — N. sailor, mariner, navigator; seaman, seafarer, seafaring man; dock walloper*; tar, jack tar, salt, able seaman, A. B.; man-of-war's man, bluejacket, galiongee[obs3], galionji[obs3], marine, jolly, midshipman, middy; skipper; shipman[obs3], boatman, ferryman, waterman[obs3], lighterman[obs3], bargeman, longshoreman; bargee[obs3], gondolier; oar, oarsman; rower; boatswain, cockswain[obs3]; coxswain; steersman, pilot; crew. aerial navigator, aeronaut, balloonist, Icarus; aeroplanist[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Lowering Jacob Lowerre Robert Lowerre (2) Robert Lowerry John Lowery Philip Lowett John Lowring Pierre Lozalie Jacques Lubard James Lucas Lucian Lucas Jean Lucie William Lucker William Luckey (2) W. Ludds Samuel Luder David Ludwith Peter Lumbard Francois Lumbrick Joseph Lunt (3) Skipper Lunt Philip Lute Nehemiah Luther Reuben Luther Benjamin Luyster Augustin Luzard Alexander Lyelar Charles Lyle Witsby Linbick Jean Lynton Peter Lyon Samuel Lyon Archibald Lyons Daniel Lyons Ephraim Lyons Ezekiel Lyons ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... was; and in a few minutes Gimblet, rather out of breath after his run, hurried on board, and with a word of apology and thanks to the obliging skipper turned, like the other passengers, towards the ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... came back to the stern of the boat, Jan expected a scolding, but perhaps it seemed to the good-natured skipper that Jan had troubles enough already, for he only said mildly, "Stick to your job, son, whatever it is," and went on covering his potatoes with empty boxes and pieces of sailcloth. Jan paid such strict ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Autumnal day, when he found himself becalmed off a small island not down on the chart, the skipper felt no little uneasiness. He paced his deck impatiently, occasionally turning his eye to every quarter, surveying the horizon for some sign of a ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... with unavailing penitence and pity; he sought to take the skipper's hand, but Arblaster avoided ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... appear, and it was getting darker and darker every minute. Something must have attracted the attention of the skipper on shore, and he had doubtless landed. But while Corny was waiting for his cousin, he saw two men making their way through the grove on the other side of the fence towards the river. One of them he recognized, and gave a peculiar whistle, which drew the two men in the direction from ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... skipper, as he let his sheet fly and rounded to the well-worn stones. A good voyage had they made of it, he and his two brown, ragged boys. Large fish and small, pink fish, blue, yellow, orange, striped fish and mottled, wriggled together, and flapped their tails ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... jeweler who had been led by an inordinate love of seafaring and fishing to fly from the shop as soon as he had made enough money to live in modest comfort on the interest of his savings. He retired to le Havre, bought a boat, and became an amateur skipper. His two sons, Pierre et Jean, had remained at Paris to continue their studies, and came for the holidays from time to time to share their ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... starting something!" He stared at both of us with an almost startled expression, as if he could not believe his own verdict, yet could not get away from it. "Else you'd give the Bundesrath story to the papers! That German skipper's conduct ought to be bruited round the world! You said you'd do it. You promised us! You told the man to his face ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... down-East skipper was entirely one of accident. Wandering along the beach at Bic, we had come upon a boat, half dory, half nondescript, which from the possession of certain peculiarities was claimed by one of the party to be of Maine origin, and, to settle the dispute, a little ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... the passengers below, and pen them in with closed hatches and storm-shutters, (so hot, Emmy, that the black-hole of Calcutta must have been an ice-house to it: how the foolish people abused our wise skipper, and more than one pompous old Indian threatened him with an action for false imprisonment!) this huddling away was the first effort; and simultaneously with it, the crew were all over the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... and the bowler absolutely insisting on going in. The girls were more peaceable; they were chiefly employed in skipping, and only abused one another mildly when the rope was not properly turned or the skipper did not jump sufficiently high. Worst off of all were the very young children, for there had been no rain for weeks, and the street was as dry and clean as a covered court, and, in the lack of mud to wallow in, they sat ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... the booms; the red ensign streamed from the gaff-end; and the burgee, or house flag—a red star in a white diamond upon a blue field—cut with a swallow tail in the present instance to indicate that her skipper was the commodore of the fleet—fluttered ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... had a feedle, That's what Renzo had, tiddy hi! 'Twas humped up in the meedle, So haul the bowline, haul! He played a tune, and the old cow died, And the skipper and crew jumped over the side, And swum away on the slack of the tide, So haul ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... but you've got a tight craft of your own,—somewhat scrubbed, no doubt, with rough usage, but sound,—so it's time for you to look out for rudder, compass, and charts, and it seems to me that thems to be found with young Mister Allfrey, so you'd better go an' git him to become skipper o' your ship without delay. You see, sir, havin' said that to myself, I've took my own advice, so if you'll take command of me, sir, you may steer me where you please, for I'm ready to be your sarvant for love, seein' that you han't ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... coast but ourselves, expected to have news from home. She rounded-to and let go her anchor, but the dark faces on her yards, when they furled the sails, and the Babel on deck, soon made known that she was from the Islands. Immediately afterwards, a boat's crew came aboard, bringing her skipper, and from them we learned that she was from Oahu, and was engaged in the same trade with the Ayacucho, Loriotte, etc., between the coast, the Sandwich Islands, and the leeward coast of Peru and Chili. Her captain and officers were Americans, and also a part of her ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... a hard trip, certainly, and the amount of water through which they had traveled the latter part of it almost justified its being called a "cruise." Old Captain Abner Barnes, skipper, for the twenty years before his death, of the coasting schooner T. I. Smalley, had, during his life-long seafaring, never made a much rougher voyage, all things considered, than that upon which his last will and testament had sent his niece ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Everything was SOP. The ship wasn't taut, she was tight! And she wasn't happy. There was none of the devil-may-care spirit that marks crews in the Scouting Force and separates them from the stodgy mass of the Line. Every face I saw on my trip to the skipper's cabin was blank, hard-eyed, and unsmiling. There was none of the human noise that normally echoes through a ship, no laughter, no clatter of equipment, no deviations from the order and precision so dear to admirals' ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... extreme exertion at the oars that they could escape. After passing this Holy Nose they came to a rocky promontory, which they had to sail round. After having waited here some days on account of head winds, the skipper said: 'This rock, which ye see, is called Semes, and we shall not get so easily past it if it be not propitiated by some offering.' Istoma said that he reproved the skipper for his foolish superstition, on which the reprimanded skipper said nothing more. They waited thus the fourth day at ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... from her, and had been able in part to strip her before they left her alone upon the sea. What I wanted, however, they had not taken away. In a locker I found a case made to hold six big bottles, in which the skipper had carried his private stock of liquors very likely; and two of the bottles, no doubt being empty when the cabin was cleared, had been left behind. They served my turn exactly, and I brought them on deck and filled them from my pool of rain-water—and so was safe ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... presented himself to the Captain of the Hydrographer, the bluff skipper set the young man down as a college boy in search of sociological experience and therefore to be viewed with good-humored tolerance—good-humored, because Dan was six feet tall and had combative red-gold hair. ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... skiffs, launches, tugs and other vessels. The fact that the water in that vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of these navigators and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race came the tug Reuben S. Watson, the skipper of which, following a famous precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It was to this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women have often a vein of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... your skipper, and what is he like?" "Oh, well, if you want to know, I'm sailing under a hard-case mate as I sailed with years ago; 'E's big as a bucko an' full o' beans, the same as 'e used to be When I knowed 'im last in the ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... in the lighthouse, solitary and desolate as it must have been, was considered no hardship by those who undertook the office, the following anecdote will prove. A skipper was once carrying out in his boat a new light-keeper to the rock. The man had been a shoemaker, and the skipper said to him, 'Friend Jacob, how is it that you choose to go out to be a light-keeper, when you can earn, as I have been told, half-a-crown or three shillings a day on shore, by making ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... opportunities, no experience, no variety, nothing. Some fine men came out of it—he admitted—but no more chance in the world if put to it than fly. Kids. So Captain Harry Dunbar. Good sailor. Great name as a skipper. Big man; short side- whiskers going grey, fine face, loud voice. A good fellow, but no more up to people's tricks ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... skipper, but full of fancies, as you'll find; but there isn't a better seaman out of the port of London," he observed, as he took a few turns alongside me. "I have a notion that he believes in the yarns of the Flying Dutchman, and of old Boody, the Portsmouth chandler, and in many other such ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... men who, with the young doctor, accompanied Johnny and Pant back to the mine were old friends of other days, David Tower and Jarvis, one-time skipper and engineer of the submarine in that remarkable race beneath the ice and through the air told about in our second book, "Lost in the Air." Like all worthy seamen, they had found that money "burned holes in their pockets," and before ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... year, and for some weeks the combined fleets lay moored alongside each other. The Royal Admiral was a frequent visitor to our ship. On one of these visits I had the experience of serving him with luncheon. He was the guest of our skipper. During the luncheon I handed him a note from his Flag Lieutenant. A dealer in mummies had come aboard with some samples. They were spread out on the quarter-deck. The note related the facts, but the Queen's son was not impressed, ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... "Wall," said the skipper, "I am surprised! I strove to think o' suthin' to say, all the time he was here, but I swow I couldn't think o' nothin'. I couldn't ask him if it seemed good to git home, nor how the thermometer had varied in different parts o' the town where he'd been. Everything seemed ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... to himself without letting it show on his face. The skipper was letting the boot ensign redeem himself after the ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... skipper had turned her round and was making headway against the waves, but still her bow would not lift, and the captain wept still more. His womanish behaviour disgusted me. At last a quiet passenger, an experienced sailor, gave some ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... a light the skipper avoided a collision." To avoid is to shun; the skipper could have avoided a collision only by ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... years,' he said, grimly. 'It's no use; it's accident when a ship falls in with it. One captain reports it a thousand miles from where the last skipper spoke it, and always in the Gulf Stream. They think it is a different specimen every time, and the papers are ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... of which was that at the end of a week's tossing and seasickness, Elijah Curtis was landed at Santa Barbara, pale, thin, but self-contained and resolute. And having found favor in the eyes of the skipper of the Kitty Hawk, general trader, lumber-dealer, and ranch-man, a week later he was located on the skipper's land and installed in the skipper's service. And from that day, for five years Sidon and ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... next seaport to find another berth, since I've refused to sail on the Huntress," he explained in answer to her questions. "Mr. Martin has had to get a new skipper and a new crew, for none of the old hands would sail when they heard it was against your father's wishes. There was a bark came in from Delaware to be laid up for repairs, with mostly Swedes aboard, and they have manned the Huntress from her. The ship is ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... and bearing was that of a man in a towering passion. Almost immediately afterwards, however, he decided that he must have been mistaken in supposing this, for as Walford looked up and recognised him he stopped dead in the road for a moment, and then hurried towards the skipper with outstretched hand and ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... made the trip with a Finnish skipper, disconcertingly cross-eyed, a Lascar mate who looked like a pirate and had a voice like a school-girl, a purser addicted to the piccolo late at night, and fellow-passengers who jabbered interminably about nothing at all in half a dozen languages. So Trask ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... emphasis, that he thought well of it. He began to realize that this woman, with her blunt common sense, was likely to be a pilot worth having in the difficult waters which he must navigate as skipper of the Regular church in Trumet. Also, he began to realize that, as such a skipper, he was most inexperienced. And Captain Daniels had spoken highly—condescendingly but highly—of his housekeeper's qualifications and personality. So the agreement ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... tangled and wobbled up. Passing boats bother us, too. Sometimes a float will catch on a paddle-wheel, and like enough half of the net will be torn away. A pilot with any human feeling will usually steer one side, and give a fellow a chance, and we can often bribe the skipper of sailing-craft by holding up a shad and throwing it aboard as he tacks around us. As a rule, however, boats of all kinds pass over a net without doing any harm. Occasionally a net breaks from the floats and drags on the bottom. This is covered with cinders ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe |
