"Sputter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their host with their ludicrous cross lights; and on a third, the same number of stutterers entertained him still more, not only by their uncouth impediment, but by the anger with which they began to sputter at one another, on the supposition that each was mocking his neighbor. A short-hand writer, behind the scenes, was employed to take down the conversation, which, says the witty essayist, was easily done, inasmuch as one ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... shriek of sirens at the arsenal, also the crackle of machine guns from all sides. Now I realized what it meant. It was war. The Austrians had taken this way to acknowledge Italy's defiance. The enemy had threatened to destroy Venice, and this was their first attempt. Above the sputter of the machine guns and the occasional explosions of shrapnel could be distinguished the buzz of an aeroplane that moment by moment approached nearer. Soon the machine itself became visible, flying oddly enough from the land direction, not from the Adriatic. It flew high and directly, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... off my system and sent him down here as soon as I got Kirk's idiotic, impudent letter—" The old man began to sputter with indignation. "What d'you think he wrote me, Mrs. Cortlandt? He had the impudence to turn down a good job I offered him because 'his wife might not like our climate!' Imagine! And I had positively begged him to come back—on any terms. Of course, it ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... this supper of ours, eh? If we only had some of Isaiah's last batch of mincemeat we could sartinly do it with that; it was the nighest thing to cement ever I saw put on a table. I asked him if he filled his pies with a trowel and you ought to have heard him sputter. You remember Isaiah, don't you, Crawford? Tall, spindlin' critter, sails cook for Zoeth and me at the house down home. He ain't pretty, but his heart's in the right place. That's kind of strange, too," he added with a chuckle, "when you consider how nigh his shoulder-blades are to ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... coming toward him. Instantly he had a scheme. In a subdued growl, yet distinctly, he threw over his shoulder an order that eight men should go to the right and eight to the left. Then, on his feet, he sent into the darkness a stern "Halt!" Instantly there was a sputter, arms thrown up, the inevitable "Kamerad!" and Hirondelle ordered the first German to pass him, then a second. Out of the darkness emerged a third. Hirondelle waved him on, and with that there was a fourth. And a fifth. Behold a sixth. About ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... there, watching the sparking sputter of the powder as it slowly ate its way along the little paper tube. Then, suddenly, a dreadful thought occurred to him. The girl! What if Madge Brierly should come to meet the lowlander before the bomb exploded, should see him lying there, should hurry to him, frightened, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... shape of cat that was ever seen. And they were plunging and leaping and racing about so, that it looked like twice as many cats as there really were, and as if every cat had a dozen tails. "Sfz! Sfz! Sputter! Scratch, spp, spt! Growl, growl, miaow, miaow," they went, till, between the noise and the flying around, it was ...
— The Hunter Cats of Connorloa • Helen Jackson
... everybody she could think of—that time had no time to be counted at all, but flew by with feathers unheeded. The mutter of the sea became a roar, and the breeze waxed into a heavy gale, and spray began to sputter through the air like suds; but Mary saw the rampart of the rocks before her, and thought that she could easily get back around the point. And her taste began continually to grow more choice, so that she spent as much time in discarding the rubbish ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... fifty feet from the highway. The girl touched his hand again. "We're safe," she cried, her voice vibrant with excitement, "we're safe at last." From beneath the bonnet, as though in answer to her statement, came a sickly, sucking sputter. The momentum of the car diminished. The throbbing of the engine ceased. They sat in silence as the machine coasted toward the highway and came to a dead stop, with its front wheels upon the road to safety. The ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... just for a slight mistake, go on preaching to him! what's the use of coming out with all you've said? Let him go wherever he pleases; for there are still our lady and Mr. Chia Cheng to keep him in order. But you go and sputter him with your gigantic mouth; he's at present a master, and if there be anything wrong about him, there are, after all, those to rate him; and what business is that of yours? Brother Huan, come out with you, and follow me and let us ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... he said to the head cook, "you take this long fork. And as soon as a weenie begins to sputter and brown, turn it over so it browns ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson
... female mouth, And sounds as if it should be writ on satin, With syllables which breathe of the sweet South, And gentle liquids gliding all so pat in, That not a single accent seems uncouth, Like our harsh northern whistling, grunting guttural, Which were obliged to hiss, and spit and sputter all. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... down the stair. The door at the foot of it opened. The earl entered a step or two, then stopped. Through the darkness Donal seemed to know exactly where he stood. He knew also that he was fumbling for a match, and watched intently for the first spark. There came a sputter and a gleam, and the match failed. Ere he could try another, Donal made a swift blow at his arm. It knocked the box from ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... light of a bayberry candle. Through the narrow corridors and boxed-in stair wells of a ramshackle hotel, came no sounds except the minors of the night. Somewhere far off a dog barked and somewhere near at hand a traveling salesman snored. In the flare and sputter of the charring wick and melting wax shadows lengthened and shortened like flapping flags ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... old wretch! your doughnuts shall sizzle and sputter and swim unheeded in their grease; but the beardless jaw that should have wagged filially to chew them is dropped in death; the stomach which they should have distended is ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... prates Of matters far beyond their pates. The grave old man he makes a bustle, And his wise sentence in must justle. Up starts th' Apprentice boy and he Says boldly so and so't must be. The dealer in old shoes to utter His saying too makes no small sputter. Then comes the pert mechanick blade, And ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... being of a wholly unsimilar construction and constitution, and being of no more blood and kinship with men than are the serene eternal lights of the firmament with the poor dull tallow candles of commerce that sputter and die and leave nothing behind but a pinch of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to the irresponsible outbursts of certain —— [censored] who squeeze into "The Readers' Corner" and sputter out senseless denunciations of the magazine, its appearance, its policies, and so on. I do not object to logical, well-founded criticism, but I most decidedly do object to the —— [censored] remarks and invidious comparisons indulged in ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... passage widened, then abruptly it ended. A bleak vista of volcanic ash dotted with sputter cones opened before them. It was a flat tableland, roughly circular, scarcely half a kilometer across, a desolation of black rock, stunted trees and underbrush, and gray volcanic ash. A crater, somewhat larger than the rest, lay with its nearest edge about ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... him, and Sticky-toes continued to scold and sputter and swell himself up with anger. But everybody forgot Sticky-toes when they heard the voice of Blacky the Crow calling "Caw, caw, caw!" from the very same hemlock-tree. Now no one knew that Blacky the Crow had come to the party, for Blacky never ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Mocker • Thornton W. Burgess
... things for young hands to deal with. Maisie could not explain how it had happened, but a veil of reeking smoke separated her from Dick, and she was quite certain that the pistol had gone off in his face. Then she heard him sputter, and dropped on her knees beside him, crying, "Dick, you aren't hurt, are you? I ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... churn-dasher grew heavier, the wrath in Jimmy's cup began to sputter, dissolving into that which in his older sister's heart would have been tears; in Jimmy's heart, it took the form of convulsive sniffling. The boy could hear his sister clattering the breakfast dishes in the kitchen. The thing ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... give your neck, Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of yours, 125 That this were undone! Killing! Kill the world, So Luca lives again!—aye, lives to sputter His fulsome dotage on you—yes, and feign Surprise that I return at eve to sup, When all the morning I was loitering here— 130 Bid me dispatch my business and begone. ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... cloud after cloud of lightning-winged insects, and passing, by God's mercy and the Spaniard's bad marksmanship—passing high. Between two crashes, came a sudden sputter, and some singing thing began to play up and down through the trees, and to right and left, in a steady hum. It was a machine gun playing for the range—like a mighty hose pipe, watering earth and trees ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... sputter of the match had died out, Viner had recognized the man who lay dead at his feet. He was a man about whom he had recently felt some curiosity, a man who, a few weeks before, had come to live in a house close to his own, in company with an elderly lady ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... Russia. It took a little perspicacity to see that something was weighing on the good man's mind; something he had come to say and for his honest life could not get out. His plight became more pitiable as the interview proceeded, and when he rose to go, he grew as red as a turkey-cock and began to sputter. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... the irrefutable thing. Why you wanted Brian to paint pictures," went on Whitaker, ignoring Kenny's outraged sputter, "when he couldn't, is and always has been a matter of considerable worry and ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... I'm off—why, what's that? Yes, by Jove, there's a sputter Of rain on the pavement!—the sunshine retires; And I wish, oh, I wish that my tongue dared to utter The thoughts that this changeable weather inspires. Back, back to my rooms; I am drenched and disgusted; In thick boots and an ulster I'll tempt it again; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... very well; but that which was strangest to him was to see me eat salt with it. He made a sign to me that the salt was not good to eat; and putting a little into his own mouth, he seemed to nauseate it, and would spit and sputter at it, washing his mouth with fresh water after it: on the other hand, I took some meat into my mouth without salt, and I pretended to spit and sputter for want of salt, as much as he had done at the salt; but it would not do; he ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... fall less heavily. Only now and then a great drop fell with a hiss and sputter into the fire; but the wind grew fiercer as the evening waned, and the thunder and pounding of the sea was deafening. The spray dashed higher and higher, quite up to the backs of the men who huddled about the fire, and its fine mist sifted even into Hagar's ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... while a red snake flew upwards with a sputter and a sizzle. Stas seized a bamboo pole with both hands in order not to fall and fixed his eyes on the distance. His pulse and his temples beat like sledge hammers; his lips moved in fervent prayer. His last breath, and in it his whole soul, he sent ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... east was mixing the morning with fresher air, and new odors for the new day that was dawning, when Marcia awoke. The sharp click of spoons and dishes, the voices of the maids, the sizzle, sputter, odor of frying ham and eggs, mingled with the early chorus of the birds, and calling to life of all living creatures, like an intrusion upon nature. It seemed not right to steal the morning's "quiet hour" thus rudely. The thought flitted through the girl's mind, and in an instant more the ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... echo and the worst of them able to outchat a hundred of the best picked gossips. And yet their condition would be much better were they only full of words and not so given to scolding that they most obstinately hack and hew one another about a matter of nothing and make such a sputter about terms and words till they have quite lost the sense. And yet they are so happy in the good opinion of themselves that as soon as they are furnished with two or three syllogisms, they dare boldly enter the lists against any man upon any point, as not doubting but ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... business, orderly and thorough, of redding up the cabin, stowing the beds, washing out the lower deck, folding away the awning, and transforming the cockpit into a breakfast-room, with table neatly set forth. Meanwhile Euergetes has returned, and from the forecastle comes the sputter of red mullet cooking. Cynthia clatters the cups and saucers, while in the well by the cabin door I perform some acquired tricks with the new-laid eggs. There is plenty to be done on board a small boat, but it is all simple enough. Only, you must not let it overtake you. Woe ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Then, with an ominous sputter, the port engine conked out. The plane lurched and slipped into a dive. Down it whirled again into the steady ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... to sputter. One person after another was examined by the health commissioner. Was it merely my imagination, or did I really hear a heart beating with wild leaps as if it would burst the bonds of its prison and make its escape if possible? Perhaps it ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... At Nanci, 23d February, age eighty-six, King Stanislaus Leczinsky: 'his clothes caught fire' (accidental spark or sputter on some damask dressing-gown or the like); and the much-enduring innocent old soul ended painfully his ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... toil. Within fifteen minutes the lights were turned out, the watchman was making his first round. Instead of the sounds of a vast industry, nothing was heard but the sz-szz-szzz of the vanishing trams, the sputter of an arc-light, the barking of a dog. The gray twilight of a bleak March day shut down rapidly over frozen field ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... let in only the chilling gray of dawn. Yet he stopped with half his clothes removed, and, going to an improvised shelf in the corner, took down a battered volume. It was not until the lamp warned him of the spent hours with its dying sputter that he laid aside the resonant sentences in which Carlyle had been talking to him of heroes and their worship. In another room across the hall he had heard stirrings for an hour after the silence of sleep had fallen on the rest ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... take it. They began at the bow of the barge and walked to the stern, making one after another of the excursionists deliver his valuables, and then slipped quietly over the stern of the barge; the pirate craft began to spit and sputter furiously; and the next moment it was tearing through the water like ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... that sinful experiment with the handkerchief I discovered by accident that I was not the only doubter in Polotzk. One Friday night I lay wakeful in my little bed, staring from the dark into the lighted room adjoining mine. I saw the Sabbath candles sputter and go out, one by one,—it was late,—but the lamp hanging from the ceiling still burned high. Everybody had gone to bed. The lamp would go out before morning if there was little oil; or else it would ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... bibliophile who is very happy to make your acquaintance, and who knows that long ago you used to make elf-knots in the manes of mares at the crib, drink the milk from the skimming-pails, slip graines-a-gratter down the backs of our great-grandmothers, make the hearth sputter in the faces of the old folks, and, in short, fill the house with disorder and gaiety. You can also boast of giving the nicest frights in the world to lovers who stayed out in the woods too late of evenings. But I thought you had ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... in the glowing coals, sliced the pork thin, laid some slices in the pan and set that upon the coals, where the pork began to sputter almost ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... pepper and salt, thin with hot water, and thus produce a sauce that helps down vegetables and potatoes. In making a brown sauce we put a little butter or olive oil in the frying-pan; let it bubble and sputter, dredge in Allinson wholemeal flour, stir it round with a knife until browned, add boiling water, pepper, salt, a little ketchup, and you then have a nice brown sauce for many dishes. If we wish to make it very tasty we fry a finely chopped onion first and add that to it. White sweet sauce is ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... let go all holts and dropped backwards, trusting to my thick head for easy lighting. Then I heard a little fizz and sputter from below. At that my hair riz right up so I could feel the breeze blow under my hat. For about six seconds I stood there like an imbecile, grinning amiably. Then one of the Chiricahuas made a sort of grunt, and I sabed that they'd ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... where the thermometer falls to forty degrees below zero, without inducing the inhabitants to suppose that the world has reached its conclusion. The billets are usually piled up on end, so that the flames rise and twine round them with a fierce intensity that causes them to crack and sputter cheerfully, sending innumerable sparks of fire into the room, and throwing out a rich glow of brilliant light that warms a man even to look at it, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the tree tops, which bent away from its touch and scattered moisture on the fire and the frying pan. There was a sputter and sizzle and Leff muttered profanely before he ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... most surprising to him was to see me eat salt with it: upon which he made me understand, that the salt was very bad for me; when putting a little into his mouth, he seemed to nauseate it in such a manner as to spit and sputter at it, and then washed his mouth with fresh water: but to shew him how contrary his opinion was to mine, I put some meat into my mouth without salt and feigned to spit and sputter as much for the want of it, as he had done ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... Miss Twining," sympathized Miss Crilly. "She's the kind that won't sputter it all out, as I should; she'll cry ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... procession moved upstairs, Coonie, the house-boy, bringing up the rear with an armful of sticks and some fat splinters of lightwood, which were soon blazing with an oily sputter. Coonie scented a story, and his bullet pate was bent over the fire an unnecessarily long time, as he blew valiant puffs upon the flames which no longer needed his assistance, and arranged and rearranged his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... face, then she dropped her lids haughtily, swept me from head to foot with one contemptuous glance, and without even the faintest nod in return to my "Bon jour, Madame," she turned to Mrs. P——, who, red with indignation, was trying to sputter out a demand for an ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... giving up the chase, this only spurred them on. They gathered a bundle of wood, piled it up at the foot of the pine, and set fire to it. In a twinkling the tree began to sputter and burn like a candle blown by the wind. Pinocchio saw the flames climb higher and higher. Not wishing to end his days as a roasted Marionette, he jumped quickly to the ground and off he went, the Assassins close to him, ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... cannot do execution. The outer drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot; new deputation of citizens (it is the third and noisiest of all) penetrates that way into the outer court: soft speeches producing no clearance of these, De Launay gives fire; pulls up his drawbridge; a slight sputter—which has kindled the too combustible chaos; made it a roaring fire-chaos. Bursts forth insurrection at sight of its own blood, (for there were deaths by that sputter of fire,) into endless rolling explosion of musketry, distraction, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... abhorred his more liberal principles, to which sometimes he addressed a submissive remonstrance. He has at times written a letter coolly, and, at the same moment, chronicled his suppressed feelings in his diary, with all the flame and sputter of his strong prejudices. He was expressly nicknamed Cardinal Cole. These scandalous chronicles, which only show the violence of his prejudices, without the force of genius, or the acuteness of penetration, were ordered not to be opened till twenty ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... 1685, broke very dark and windy, with dull clouds moving heavily across the sky and a constant sputter of rain. Yet a little after daybreak Monmouth's bugles were blowing in every quarter of the town, from Tone Bridge to Shuttern, and by the hour appointed the regiments had mustered, the roll had been called, and the vanguard was marching briskly ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... leap along the lines, Leap up and hang and swoop and sputter out; A bullet hits a wiring-post and whines; I wish to Heaven that I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... fat. Articles to be fried must be immersed in fat, and no frying-pan is deep enough to do this safely. Put two to three pounds of clarified dripping or lard into the kettle, and let it get very hot. This will be after it ceases to sputter—some time after, perhaps; but you must now begin to watch for smoke to rise from the centre. Have near you some little squares of bread crumb; drop one in from time to time; only when it colors immediately is the ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... always gay at this performance—for it meant much innocent merriment among her guests, and with the lighting of the last lantern, her own day was done. So the brilliant eyes flashed with a fresh fire, and the olive cheek glowed anew. All the men and women laughed as children sputter laughter, when they are both pleased and yet a little ashamed to show their pleasure. It was so very ridiculous, this journey up a rock with a Chinese lantern! But just because it was ridiculous, it was also delightful. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... while sticking to their flanks like red nettles half a dozen young warriors rode like the wind on their nimble ponies, cracking away with revolver or rifle in savage joy in the glorious sport. Too much for Burleigh's nerve was the combination of sounds, thunder of hoofs and sputter of shots, for when a cheer of sympathetic delight went up from the soldier line at sight of the chase, and the young engineer sprang to the door of the ambulance to help the major out, he found him a limp and ghastly heap, quivering with terror in the bottom of the ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... two magistrates, of whom we may say that, from ignorance of law, want of temper, and impenetrable stupidity, the whole circle of commercial or professional life could not produce a pair more, signally unqualified for the important offices they occupied. One of them, named Sputter, Sir Spigot Sputter, was an old man, with a red face and perpetual grin, whose white hair was cropped close; but in compensation for this he wore powder and a queue, so that his head, except in vivacity ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... now with eyes that shone with a deep understanding. Under the sputter of the lamp above their heads the two men clasped hands, and the Little Missioner's grip was like the ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... the storm rave o'er the earth; Their kine are snug in barn and byre; The apples sputter on the hearth, The ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... and the sputter the four horsemen shouted and charged him. Drat such a gun! All that he might do was to whirl and run like a deer for the nearest thicket. He crashed into it, head-first; they could not follow. He tore through, and was commencing to chuckle at his success—when ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... know the plop of liquid in a pitcher. So if I spill my milk, I have not the excuse of ignorance. I am also familiar with the pop of a cork, the sputter of a flame, the tick-tack of the clock, the metallic swing of the windmill, the laboured rise and fall of the pump, the voluminous spurt of the hose, the deceptive tap of the breeze at door and window, and many ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... hilly, wooded ground on the south. The fighting on the next day was far more serious. At dawn of a beautiful spring morning, in a country radiant with verdure and diversified by trim villages, the thunder of cannon and the sputter of skirmishers' lines presaged a stubborn conflict. The allied sovereigns from the commanding ridge at their centre could survey all the enemy's movements on the hills opposite; and our commissary, Colonel (afterwards Sir Hudson) ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... hout!' sings yours truly, a-thinkin' the fun was at 'and, But, bless yer! 'twas only a sputter. I can't say the meeting looked grand. Five thousand they reckoned us, Charlie, but if so I guess the odd three Were a-spooning about in the halley's, or lappin' ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... about describing the impious behavior of little Ginx. Whatever swaddled infant could do in the way of opposition, with hands, and legs, and voice, was done by that embryo saint. The incense made him cough and sputter; the lights and singing raised the very devil within him. His cries drowned the prayers. He frightened his conductress by the redness of his face. He ruined the red cross with ejected matter. You would have taken him for an infant demoniac. ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... lull and crash of the breaking night-gusts, and it might mean the north wind, storm, and snow. It whooped down the hollow, scattering the few scrub-oak leaves; it whirled the red embers of the fire away into the dark to sputter in the snow, and blew the burning logs into a white glow. Mescal slept in the shelter of the spruce boughs with Wolf snug and warm beside her. Hare stretched his tired limbs in the heat ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... crackling stopped and the spark went out with a sputter. The man stopped writing and wheeled about in his seat. He saw them looking in ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... straight, black bonnets, tight sleeves to the elbow, long silk gloves, and great fans, big enough for a windmill; and of a hot day it was a great amusement to me to watch the bobbing of the little black bonnets, which showed that sleep had got the better of their owners' attention, and the sputter and rustling of the fans, when a more profound nod than common would suddenly waken them, and set them to fanning and listening with redoubled devotion. There was Deacon Dundas, a great wagon load of ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... many things. The farm-horse to whom Bangor's market-square had been full of strange sights became, in comparison with his former self, most sophisticated. He feared no noise save that sinister whistle made by Broncho Bill's long lash. The roaring sputter of gasoline flares was no more to him than the sound of a running brook. He had learned that it was safe to kick a mere canvasman when you felt like doing so, but that a real artist, such as a tumbler or a trapeze man, was to be respected, and that the person of the ring-master was most sacred. Also ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... hear the sputter and crackle of road-surfacing machines—the cheap Western type which fuse stone and rubbish into lava-like ribbed glass for their rough country roads. Three or four surfacers worked on each side of a square ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... terrier puppy; and Coppy had permitted him to witness the miraculous operation of shaving. Nay, more—Coppy had said that even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would rise in time to the ownership of a box of shiny knives, a silver soap-box and a silver-handled "sputter-brush," as Wee Willie Winkie called it. Decidedly, there was no one except his father, who could give or take away good-conduct badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and valiant as Coppy with the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast. Why, then, should Coppy be guilty of the unmanly weakness ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... a high projecting rock, a continuation of the high ground that closed in that side of the long slope of V. Beach, and from here came that infernal shower of bullets that was causing such terrible havoc. From the "Clyde" one could easily tell where the bullets were coming from by their sputter ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... Mordkovitz virtually ordered him to get some sleep. He went to his quarters at Company House, downed a spaceship-captain's-size drink of honey-rum, and slept until 1600. As he dressed and shaved, he could hear, through the open window, the slow sputter of small-arms' fire, punctuated by the occasional whump-whump-whump of 40-mm auto-cannon or the hammering of ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... shine; Now, like a fount, it bursts on high, Meanders now, a slender line; Far reaching, with a hundred veins, Here through the valley see it glide; Here, where its force the gorge restrains, At once it scatters, far and wide; Anear, like showers of golden sand Strewn broadcast, sputter sparks of light: And mark yon rocky walls that stand Ablaze, in ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Patricia's name, and her anger at Sally Gardner was suddenly turned against Patricia Langdon, with tenfold force and vehemence. It is an axiom that blue-eyed women have more violent tempers than black-eyed ones, once they are thoroughly aroused. Your brunette will flash and sputter, and say hasty things impulsively, or emotionally, but her anger is likely to pass as quickly as it arises, and it is almost sure to leave no lasting sting, behind it. Your fair-haired, fair-skinned, man or woman, when ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... trench, with undue levity, On the bounds of the holy and the awful,— I praise the heart, and pity the head of him, And refer myself to THEE, instead of him, Who head and heart alike discernest, Looking below light speech we utter, When frothy spume and frequent sputter Prove that the soul's depths boil in earnest! May truth shine out, stand ever before us! I put up pencil and join chorus To Hepzibah Tune, without further apology, The last five verses of the third section Of the seventeenth ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... no sound was heard, save the weird howling of the wind outside, with an occasional sputter as a stray gust of snow swept down the broad chimney to the roaring fire. Every Grammar School boy, as he dropped off to sleep, knew that a big blizzard was still ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... sputter Hilary drew back, closed the door of the lantern, and walked backwards aft, towards where the men were gathered. The desire was strong upon him to run and rush right into the far corner of the cabin; but he was a king's ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... and by Thursday night the party was actually assembled at 'The Breakers.' There was a sou'easter on that night, but the drift-wood burned stoutly in the wide chimney-piece, with now and then a cheerful sputter as a few stray drops sought to immolate themselves in the ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... wait upon yourself, and are charged extravagantly for the privilege, whilst its proprietor pays his devoirs (devours?) to his bottle of Schnapps, from which his lips are seldom removed, excepting to receive his pipe, and to sputter out some delectable Dutch. Thought of Wm. Shenstone's "Warmest Welcome at an Inn," and wished the poet had been compelled to "put up" with this same Dutchman as a species of "poetical justice," for placing the purchased pleasures of a public house before the sacred ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... awakened before dawn by the rapid sputter of rain on the roof. It dribbled through several holes and spread across the floor. He sat up shivering. Shera was a glowing cigarette ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... cry against "women in education." Here is Mr. Barrett Wendell, of Harvard, solemnly claiming that teaching women weakens the intellect of the teacher, and every now and then bursts out a frantic sputter of alarm over the "feminization" of our schools. It is true that the majority of teachers are now women. It is true that they do have an influence on growing children. It would even seem to be true that that is ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... turn.[24] But candles in the wind are apt to flare, And Christians, in a tempest, to despair. The flame also with smoke attended is, And in our holy lives there's much amiss. Sometimes a thief will candle-light annoy, And lusts do seek our graces to destroy. What brackish is will make a candle sputter; 'Twixt sin and grace there's oft' a heavy clutter. Sometimes the light burns dim, 'cause of the snuff, Sometimes it is blown quite out with a puff; But watchfulness preventeth both these evils, Keeps candles light, and grace in spite of devils. Nor let not snuffs ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... drinking—he could only make his way to the street and stagger on to a car. He had a sense of humor, and later on, when he became an old hand, he used to think it fun to board a streetcar and see what happened. Now, however, he was too ill to notice it—how the people in the car began to gasp and sputter, to put their handkerchiefs to their noses, and transfix him with furious glances. Jurgis only knew that a man in front of him immediately got up and gave him a seat; and that half a minute later the two people on each side of him got up; and that in a full minute the crowded car was ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... summons—cagy boy that he was—the telephone rang oftenest for Nick. Because of the many native noises of the place, the telephone had a special bell that was a combination buzz and ring. It sounded above the roar of outgoing cars, the splash of the hose, the sputter and hum of the electric battery in the rear. Nick heard it, unheeding. A voice—Smitty's or Mike's or Elmer's—answering its call. Then, echoing through the grey, vaulted spaces of the big garage: "Nick! ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... close to the boiler to minimize radiation loss. If the temperature is raised to a point where an appreciable vaporization occurs, the oil will flow irregularly from the burner and cause the flame to sputter. ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... Manila, for fear that the peace and commercialism of the present days would be disappointing to one who knew it when each day was filled with trouble and threats of trouble; when the city lay always as if under an impending cloud and when the borders of the bay rang with the thunder of guns and the sputter of musketry. ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... with weighty aphorisms and talk obtrusive nonsense. Hence sometimes we resent a little the taking in vain of the name of some old friend. It is rather too hard upon Sam Johnson to be made a mere 'passive bucket' into which Horne Tooke may pump his philological notions, with scarcely a feeble sputter or two ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... which they rode. A broad arid plain, swelling into stony hills, surrounded them on every side. Here and there in the extreme distance, mounted figures moved over the vast expanse—Boer scouts who marked in amazement the advance of this great array. Once or twice these men gathered together, and a sputter of rifle fire broke out upon our left flank, but the great tide swept on and carried them with it. Often in this desolate land the herds of mottled springbok and of grey rekbok could be seen sweeping over the plain, or stopping with that curiosity upon which the hunter trades, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... seized the end of a fuse projecting from one of the canisters and held the crimson end of his cigar against it until a sputter of sparks showed that it had caught. From this fuse he turned to the one in the second ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... pushed the switch over still another notch and the motor began to hum and sputter. The beast was raised ten feet, fifteen feet, eighteen, twenty. Now he was on the level with the top of ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... close and got ready, now said he, you jest wade in up to your waste and squat down and duck your head under. i said the water will get in my nose. he said no it wont jest squat rite down. i cood see him laffin when he thought i wood snort and sputter. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... kind o' miracle, for one of the Corporal's stiffened eyelids quivered and came down halfway, and the martial spirit of its owner flickered up long enough for W. Keyse to sputter out: ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... letter and I know your interest in Jack and germs is almost as great as mine. Jack has been in Peking. He thinks the revolution of the Chinese against the Manchu Government is going to be something far more serious this time than a flutter of fans and a sputter of shooting-crackers. The long-suffering worm with the head of a dragon is going to turn, and when it does, there will not be a Manchu left to tell ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... began the nervous man as the wires became quiet. "I—" again the wire sputtered, and he couldn't hear himself talk. When it was quiet, he tried again, but as soon as he began to grumble, the wire began to sputter. He glanced suspiciously at the boy, but the latter was earnestly watching ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... reached Bud's convertible, parked near the yacht club pier, they found the car completely waterlogged. Its electrical system gave not even a faint sputter or spark. ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... row of empty seats. In the orchestra box two or three men, one in his coat sleeves, were disputing over an opera score. High up in the topmost gallery some one was experimenting with the calcium machine; a fan of light occasionally swept the house, or a man's profile was silhouetted against a sputter ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... feared to press the button. There was not a sound, save a little sputter which they rightly laid to the wireless machine which the Weasel had told them about. In a moment, (it seemed years) Hen decided that they must have light, even at the risk of discovery, and his flashlight illumined ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... pot is steamin' An' de bacon good an' fat, When de chittlin's is a-sputter'n' So's to show yo' whah dey's at; Take away you sody biscuit, Take away yo' cake an' pie. Fu' de glory time is comin', An' it's proachin' very nigh, An' you' want to jump an' hollah, Do you know you'd bettah not, When you mammy ses de blessin' An' ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... within reach of the life-belt. But here the demented man managed to wreathe his legs and arms in another and more terrible hold. The pair of them were now cursing horribly, cursing whenever a wave left choking them, and allowed them to cough and sputter for breath. They fought as two men whose lives had pent up an unmitigable hate for this moment. They fought, neither losing his hold, as their strength ebbed, and the weight of their clothes dragged them lower. Dick Rendal's hand still clutched the ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... it fall on her than you would have laughed to see how the rosy color came back to the dear child's cheek, and how she began to sneeze and sputter, and how astonished she was to find herself dripping wet and her father still throwing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... of dissipation or expansion, especially a quick one, particularly if there be an r, as if it were from spargo or separo: for example, spread, spring, sprig, sprout, sprinkle, split, splinter, spill, spit, sputter, spatter. ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... lies in your tilting your nose at their ways and ideas, and insisting upon your own. That rouses the sense of individuality in them and they then fight for their ways and ideas—then there's boil and bubble and sputter and ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... the long shadows, worrying out bits of charms to try on passersby. And when the bird flew to him, or the tree bowed to him for pure love's sake (like everything else on my Hill), he'd shout, "Robin! Look—see! Look, see, Robin!" and sputter out some spell or other that they had taught him, all wrong end first, till I hadn't the heart to tell him it was his own dear self and not the words that worked the wonder. When he got more abreast of his words, and could cast spells for sure, ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... good for people as taking a dose of their own medicine. The difference is that I am honest. I just say in plain English, 'if they don't treat you right, come to me.' They have only said it in actions and inferences. I want to teach Mag Sinton how her own doses taste, but she begins to sputter before I fairly get the spoon to her lips. Just ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... red sulky faces were hidden in the dark, watching candle after candle sputter, brighten, and twinkle, till the trembling shadows began to flit away like ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... regiment had reached the plateau night had put an end to the struggle. A sputter of rifles would break out now and then, followed perhaps by a spiritless hurrah. Occasionally a shell from a far-away battery would come pitching down somewhere near, with a whir crescendo, or flit above our heads with a whisper like that ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... cried King. "Where can we go? Be quick, Hobbs! Think! Don't sputter like that. I want to be personally conducted, and damned quick ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... right back again," says I. "And let's pipe the aforesaid fires clean down into the tailin's." So there we sat, thinking better of each other and all creation. The fires of animosity went out with a sputter and we talked large and fine. I don't care; I like to once in a while. I don't travel on stilts much, yet it does a man good to play pretty now and then; besides, you can say things in the Spanish that are all right, but would sound simple-minded in English. English is the tongue to yank a beef critter ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... but onc't a year!" Pap 'u'd say, and snap his eyes ... Row o' apples sputter'n' here Round the hearth, and me and 'Lize Crackin' hicker'-nuts; and Warr'n And Eldory parchin' corn; And whole raft o' young folks here. "Chris'mus ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... flame gave a last feeble sputter and went out. She heard the groan again. And in that room, the room she had examined so carefully, so close as to seem almost at her very ear, a faint voice wailed agonizingly, ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... topic untactfully was broached in his presence Mr. Lobel, recalling the fate of the elaborate feature entitled Let Freedom Ring, had been known to sputter violently and vehemently. Upon this production—now abiding as a memory only, yet a memory bitter as aloes—he had spared neither expense nor pains, even going so far as personally to direct the filming of all the principal scenes. And to what ends? Captious critics, including ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... was rudely startled out of his nap, thinking some great catastrophe had overtaken him. As he sat up and rubbed his eyes, looking around him in bewilderment for the cause of his sudden awakening, he heard an angry voice sputter shrilly, "Well, Peace Greenfield, I ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... friends, you are all simpletons," he exclaimed. "I am not like you, thank fortune! I do not sputter over my soup. Long life to women! Yes, all of them, pretty and otherwise! For, upon my word, there are no ugly ones. I do not notice that Miss Keepsake has feet like the English, and I forget the barmaid's ruddy complexion, if she is attractive otherwise. Now ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... was near apoplexy. He could only sputter and cough. He was to be sent as an errand boy to the people of Charles Town, at the brutal behest of this unspeakable knave, but refusal meant death and there were his fellow captives to consider. He thought of his nephew and was about to plead that Jack be sent along with ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... which a fire was started in order that Andy might prepare supper. When this was almost ready peal after peal of thunder suddenly crashed among the cliffs, which seemed to collapse and fall down upon us, and a flood from the sky descended. The fire died without a sputter, everything not in rubber was soaked, and all we could do was to stand in the darkness, cold and hungry, and wait for the deluge to cease. At last we were able to start the fire once more, and had ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... it. They stand on their height there, will perhaps fire carbines, as their wont is. "You, Buddenbrock, go into them with your Cuirassiers!" Buddenbrock and the Cuirassiers, though it is uphill, go into them at a furious rate; meet no countercharge, mere sputter of carbines;—tumble them to mad wreck, back upon their second line, back upon their third: absurdly crowded there on their narrow height, no room to manoeuvre; so that they plunge, fifty squadrons of them, wholly into the Georgengrund rearward, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... doubtless have known, that the situation in which I found myself was precisely of the kind most conducive to the darkest deeds. I did but bemoan it, and think of Lear in the hovel on the heath. The wind howled in the chimney, and the rain had begun to sputter right down it, so that the fire was beginning to hiss in a very sinister manner. Suppose the fire went out! It looked as if it meant to. I snatched the pair of bellows that hung beside it. I plied them ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... lit with a sputter, for a moment its fiery blowing filled the deck with smoke, then it darted skyward, with a tremendous swis-s-sh! Up, in a long black column it went, into the very heart of the hot brazen sky, then it exploded with a faint ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... of sight under water. What could it mean! But there was little time to wonder. Suddenly a catapult seemed to strike the muskrat from beneath and lift him clear from the water. With a tremendous rush and sputter Hukweem came out beneath him, her great pointed bill driven through to his spine. Little need of my help now. With another straight hard drive, this time at eye and brain, she flung him aside disdainfully and rushed to her shivering little ones, ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... felt that I was a chicken in his grasp. "Rendez-vous, coqin; rendez-vous!" said he, and then suddenly doubled up with a scream, for someone had stabbed him in the bowels with a bayonet. There was very little firing after the first sputter; but there was the crash of butt against barrel, the short cries of stricken men, and the roaring of the officers. And then, suddenly, they began to give ground—slowly, sullenly, step by step, but still to give ground. Ah! it was worth all that we had gone through, the thrill of that ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his forte, and his nervousness made him sputter. His speech was vibrant, trenchant, like hammerstrokes, and he said things to which there was no answer. He had a horror of discussion: ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux |
