"Whiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bought the ranchos surrounding them from the Moreno grandees. Gone were the Morenos from all but the archives of California, but the willows and Dr. Hiram Webster were full of years and honors. The ranchos were ranchos no longer. A somnolent city covered their fertile acres, catching but a whiff at angels' intervals of the metropolis of nerves and pulse and feverish ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... be to get back to it. Wish I could get a whiff of the air right now. Yes, indeed! I am American to the ends of my fingers, and hallelujah to the day when I ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... when Diamond was getting strong enough to go out, his mother got his aunt's husband, who had a little pony cart, to carry them down to the sea-shore. A whiff of sea air, she said, would do them both good. They sat down on the edge of the rough grass which bordered the sand. Away before them stretched the sparkling waters of the ocean, every wave of which flashed ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • Elizabeth Lewis and George MacDonald
... friends. And there was scarcely a grown person in the entire audience of Japanese who was not smoking, for women as well as men smoke in Japan: one pinch of tobacco in a short pipe, one puff, a little whiff of smoke inhaled and the operation is over. Before the curtain rose, the Nesan flew busily from one box to the other with cushions and sweetmeats, baskets of oranges and boxes of sweet pickled black beans. Presently came the sound of two blocks of ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... are possible again! The fool has learned wisdom, and, I hope, become a man. But come," said he in a more natural tone, "let us get back to our ditch, and, while you tell me the particulars, if you don't object I should much like to try a whiff at ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... Wyatt experienced a prescient vicarious qualm to note their lack of heed or secrecy—the noisy shifting of heavy weights (barrels, kegs, bags of apples, and peaches for pomace), the loud voices and unguarded words. When a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean air that pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous odors, and gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most unobservant inmate, that the still was operated in a ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... A faint whiff of gas from the kitchen made her turn pale with dread. Then it flashed into her mind what must have happened—that sudden gust of wind had blown out the gas! As she ran to the kitchen, she realized that she had caught the same faint ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... she said brightly, shaking hands with me when Andy and I were going to turn in. 'And don't forget your pipe. Here it is! I know that Bushmen like to have a whiff or two when they turn in. Walter smokes in bed. I don't mind. You can smoke all ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... a whiff, "make your conversation as short as possible, whether in Latin or Dutch, for, to tell you the truth, I am rather ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Americans, he doomed himself and his regime. A successful resistance to royal authority in America was all the French Republicans needed to inspire them. Of course, we have Louis's own weakness to blame, too. If he'd given those rascals a whiff of grapeshot, when the mob tried to storm Versailles in 1790, there'd have been ...
— He Walked Around the Horses • Henry Beam Piper
... whiff disturbed pussy's and "the Captain's" (so I have called my old setter friend) nap, for puss stands up on her morocco bed and arches her back like a horseshoe, and then springs, with a jolted-out "mew-r-r-r," ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... Their father came back very tired one morning, and went up the hill to his breakfast, and the children got into the boat and pushed off, in imitation of their daddy. It came on to blow, as it does down there, without a single whiff of warning; and when Robin awoke for his middle-day meal, the bodies of his little ones were lying on the table. And from that very day Captain Cockscroft and his wife began to grow old very quickly. The boat was recovered without much damage; and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... that New England is the corner lot of our national estate. Our poets have preserved for us in ballads our homespun legends. They have imaged in verse the beauty of New England's hills and waters. As we read there comes the whiff of fragrance which transports us to the hillside pasture where the sweet fern and sorrel grow, or the salt breeze of the sea blows again on our cheeks, or the rippling Merrimac sings in our ears, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... de ghostes am whiff away, like de fog outen de holler whin de wind blow' on it, an' li'l' black Mose he ain' see no ca'se for to remain in dat locality no longer. He rotch' down, an' he raise' up de pumpkin, an' he perambulate' right quick to he ma's shack, an' ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... that Kathleen appeared to apply herself to that becoming and feminine employment with double industry after the appearance of the M'Mahons. Kate Hogan was sitting in the chimney corner, smoking a pipe, and as she took it out of her mouth to whiff away the smoke from time to time, she turned her black piercing eyes alternately from Bryan M'Mahon to Kathleen with a ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... for the granddaughter of the good-wife Marcile. That petite personne, moreover, was a rather sophisticated young lady. One would never have seen her, in the mornings, munching a hunk of bread-and-butter "as long as from here to Easter." No; Jeannette has fulfilled her part, providing a whiff of marjoram and cottage flowers for the castle chambers. She has read, written and said her prayers. She has the firm outline, the rosy cheeks, the simplicity of a Watteau peasant-girl—nothing of the Greuze languish, with its ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... open shell and Charley emptied its contents of powder into the open cut. Quickly, he applied a match to the black grains and they caught with a hiss, there was a tiny cloud of black smoke and a whiff of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... coal-blackened floor, Toomey, with his big shovel flinging open the iron gate to the blazing furnace for every new mouthful he fed it, and snapping it shut when he turned away for another, for not a whiff of the draught could be wasted. Once past the deserted station at the Fort there would come eight miles of twisting and turning and struggling up-grade, and every pound of steam would be needed to pull even this baker's dozen of heavily laden cars now thundering ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... strange straits in my day, but I have never yet slept in the streets. Be thankful I did not leave the two of you to be carried out of this square in the morning. I came here spoiling for a fight, and had my sword all ready to begin carving you when Cartier's voice struck me like a whiff of bracing, salt-sea air. But what great enterprise have you on hand? Your serious looks bespeak some weighty scheme. Whatever it is, my sword is ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... more sensitive to the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, if nothing else, and the forces of the Revolution probably would have swamped him from the very first moment of his emergence at Toulon, when the whiff of grape-shot, symptom of an inexorable, merciless intellect and will, started him upon the road that led to the Napoleonic Era. Destiny is always ironic. For the deficiency of the internal secretions which made him eligible for glory was ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... flying along the side street, already a whiff of cool air was meeting us—and the river lay before us, and the steep muddy descent to it, and the wooden bridge with a train of waggons stretching across it, and a garrison soldier with a pike beside the flagstaff; ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... foregathered with one and all, such was the strange fascination of the town for one who was twice the man among his northern roses. But that is the kind of mistress that London is to those who have once felt her spell; you may forget her by the year, but the spell lies lurking in the first whiff of the wood pavement, the first flutter of the evening paper on the curb; and even in the cab you wonder how ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... that when my father looked at the signature at the end of the long, closely written letter he gave a whiff of surprise and sat motionless for a moment or so staring at it. Then he turned to the commencement and read it very carefully through, after which he turned it over and read it again. Clearly it brought no ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... servant awaited me, and we were soon clattering over the hard sand by the shining sea, and up the ascent which leads to the windy table-lands of Waimea. The air was like new life. At a height of 500 feet we met the first whiff of the trades, the atmosphere grew cooler and cooler, the night-wind fresher, the moonlight whiter; wider the sweeping uplands, redder the light of the burning mountain, till I wrapped my plaid about me, but still was chilled to the bone, and when the four hours' ride was over, soon after ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... into the first building and checked the name against the mailboxes there, trying to ignore the combined smells of sour milk, red pepper and here and there a whiff of unwashed humanity. ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... and her movement sent a faint whiff of perfume about her, dainty as herself. And then there was just a moment's painful silence. The awkwardness of the moment dwelt with them both; it would be hard to say which felt ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... wind, as she was learning, and something whispered silence. Slowly she returned to Jessie's side, and together once more they searched with the glasses the distant trail that, distinctly visible now in the slant of the morning sun, twisted up the northward slopes on the winding way to Frayne. Not a whiff ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... was enough for Dad. The situation was hopeless. 'We'll go to the Solomons,' he said, 'and get a whiff of English rule. And if there are no openings there we'll go on to the Bismarck Archipelago. I'll wager the Admiraltys are not yet civilized.' All preparations were made, things packed on board, and a new crew of Marquesans and Tahitians shipped. We were ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... garden-patch. The cow stopped abruptly, threw up her head and stared at the hunter. The sight of the crouching figure must have suggested to the stupid animal that every thing was not right, for with a frightened whiff, she bounded short around with the intention of joining ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... of cow pasture, and a steady-eyed, white-haired capitalist, rolling on his rolling-stock, leans back against the upholstery and gazes with eyes tight closed upon a steady-eyed, brown-haired youngster herding in at eventide. The whiff of violets from a vender's tray, and a young man dreams above his ledger. The reek of a passing brewer's wagon, and white ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... so much commotion in the water behind her. There do not seem to be any regular sailors, and in their stead a collection of individuals remarkably greasy in their appearance, who may be cooks or stokers, or possibly both. Then you cannot go on the poop without being saluted by a whiff of hot air from the grim furnaces below; men are always shovelling in coal, or throwing cinders overboard; and the rig does not seem to belong to any ship in particular. The masts are low and small, and the canvas, which is always spread in fair weather, looks as if it had been trailed along ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... professed to be ill this morning, and I was alarmed. I dosed her with the medicine which Dr. S—— had given me when the epidemic first appeared, and sent for the Doctor himself. But I discovered, before he came, that she had gotten too close a whiff of the chloride-of-lime bag, and it nauseated her. She is more afraid of the disinfectants than ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... blithe. Day after day waxed and waned; the one or two woodmen who sawed, shaped, spokeshaved on her father's premises at this inactive season of the year, regularly came and unlocked the doors in the morning, locked them in the evening, supped, leaned over their garden-gates for a whiff of evening air, and to catch any last and farthest throb of news from the outer world, which entered and expired at Little Hintock like the exhausted swell of a wave in some innermost cavern of some innermost ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... nothing of his lost draft at Alexandria, and was much relieved thereby, became incorrigible when he smelt the whiff of the trenches brought by these heroes. He would invite our subscriptions to the daily sweepstake with the words: "Come along, fork out. Last few sweeps of your life." And he would take me aside and say: "I suppose I shall be daisy-pushing soon. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... receive instruction and acquire information. The question of remuneration being settled, tobacco is furnished at each sitting, as the Mid[-e] never begins his lecture until after having made a smoke-offering, which is done by taking a whiff and pointing the stem to the east; then a whiff, directing the stem to the south; another whiff, directing the stem to the west; then a whiff and a similar gesture with the stem to the north; another whiff is taken slowly and with an expression of ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... that if it caught a whiff from earth to its liking, the beetle might descend from the ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... forth into the street to get a whiff of fresh air. He, the demon, pertinaciously stuck to us; he familiarly linked his arm through mine, and, suggesting coffee as rather a good thing to take after dinner, took us over to the Cafe du Cardinal, where he, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... in front of me, there swung a flaunting sign—"A l'Irlandois"— at which I cheered up. Here, at any rate, in the midst of this noisome babel, seemed to come a whiff from the old country, and I felt like a castaway in ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... where'er we may, through city or through town, Village or hamlet of this merry land, Though lean and beggar'd, every twentieth face, Conducts th' unguarded nose to such a whiff Of state debauch, forth issuing from the sties That law has ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... man grinned; the winch began again, and the voices that called: 'Lower away! Stop her!' were as familiar as the friendly whiff from the lascars' galley or the slap of bare feet along the deck. But for the passage of a few impertinent years, I should have gone without hesitation to share their rice. Serangs used to be very kind to little white children below the age of caste. Most familiar of all ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... belts or neck-hung sheaths. Women toiled over the fires, smoke-curing the meat, on their backs infants that stared round-eyed and sucked at lumps of tallow. Dogs, full-kin to wolves, bristled up to Smoke to endure the menace of the short club he carried and to whiff the odor of this newcomer whom they must accept by ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... started off on a lope, freshened by the rest, and Bud's followed. They topped the rise, and, then as the animals came within sight and smell of their stables, and caught the whiff of ever-welcome water, they dashed down the slope toward the green valley in which nestled the corral and ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... is the truth. But I really thought you above the fear of village gossip, Gabriella. Why, it is more idle than the passing wind, lighter than the down of the gossamer. I thought you had a noble independence of character, incapable of being moved by a whiff of breath, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Fred, but was otherwise crowded and crossed with items of interest, and Anne almost felt herself back in Avonlea while reading it. Marilla's was a rather prim and colorless epistle, severely innocent of gossip or emotion. Yet somehow it conveyed to Anne a whiff of the wholesome, simple life at Green Gables, with its savor of ancient peace, and the steadfast abiding love that was there for her. Mrs. Lynde's letter was full of church news. Having broken up housekeeping, ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the sun had shifted, and it was far less hot. But he opened a small window on a level with the roof, and inhaled, with an air of profound relief, the whiff of warm air that entered. Then he took up his sketch of Christine's head and for a long while ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the seas with Jonadab Kilroot, master of the stolid barque, "Merchant of London," I say nothing, or as good as nothing. Master Kilroot was a noisy, bulky man, with a whiff of the tar-barrel ever about him and a heart as stout as a ship's biscuit. He feared God always, and drubbed his men whenever it was necessary; in his estimation the office of sea-captain was the most important under heaven, and Master John Freake the ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... see," said a voice, which to Lord Henry appeared to reveal the arrogance of its owner, "is that your Inner Light is but a vague and vapid abstraction, a mere whiff of the whisky bottle, but not the ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... close enough I'll say, when you get a whiff of the hell-fire. Better wait here 'til I find a way through the brush. An' keep out of reach of the horse's heels with that slicker on. You can't never trust a cayuse, 'specially when they can't more'n half see. They're liable to take a ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... Excuse me five minutes, while I run over to the guard-house. Then I'll rejoin you, and we'll have a whiff together." Another moment, and Mr. Holmes was sole occupant ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... home, feeling very miserable and down on his luck. How he hated London, and all that belonged to it! Like a whiff of fresh air the memory of Shorne Mills wafted across his mind. He let himself in with his latchkey, and, taking a sheet of note paper, made some calculations upon it. There was still something remaining of his ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... smoke coming through the roof of a house and the flames breaking out of the windows to know that the building is on fire. Hark! There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, but very knowing little creeping crackle that is tolerably intelligible. There is a whiff of something floating about, suggestive of toasting shingles. Also a sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that stings one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is going on.—Oh,—oh,—oh! do you know what has got hold of you? It is the great red dragon that is born of the little ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... into any trouble or danger about it, unless he was in love. And not to mention here such famous courtesans as Phryne or Lais, Gnathaenium, 'kindling her lamp at evening time,' on the look-out for lovers and inviting them, is often passed by; 'yet, if some sudden whiff arise' of mighty love and desire, it makes this very delight seem equal to the fabled wealth of Tantalus and his domains. So feeble and cloying is the venereal indulgence, if Love inspires it not. And you will ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze brings the first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for half a day and abate no whit of their zeal ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... up from around Bailey's strawberry patch and Tumley's hedge you get a whiff of such deliciousness as makes your mouth water. And more than likely Bessie sees you and comes running out with a few samples of her heavenly work. As you dispose of those cinnamon buns you forget that Bessie's voice is a trifle too high and too sweet, and that she is inclined ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... objection to a musk-rat running about my room quietly if I do not startle him. I never allow one to be killed, and encourage their presence in the house, for I think the temporary inconvenience of a whiff of musk is amply repaid by the destruction of the numerous objectionable insects which lurk in the corners of Indian houses. The notion that they do damage by gnawing is an erroneous one, the mischief done by mice and rats being frequently laid to their charge; they have not the powerful dentition ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... insensible forms of Eustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the carpet, with their feet to the fire, when such restorative processes as could be thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being in the meantime sent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a whiff of life left in either of the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief had been thrust off awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle of hartshorn to Clym's nostrils, having tried it in vain upon the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... had Adams scented the first whiff of the quarrel-laden atmosphere of the embassy than he expressed in his usual self-satisfied, impetuous, and defiant way his purpose to be rigidly impartial. But he was a natural fault-finder, and by no ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... smoking turf of the other side. I gulped a great breath of the fresh air into my suffocating lungs, tore the buckskin covering from my broncho's head and we raced on in a swirl of smoke, always following the dust which revealed the tracks of the retreating Sioux. There was a whiff of singed hair, as if one of the horses had been burnt, and Little Fellow gave a shout. Looking back I saw his horse sinking on the blackened patch; but La Robe Noire and I rode on. The fugitives were ascending ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... A whiff of pipe smoke drifted over his shoulder, and he looked around. The dog's master stood just behind him; regarding him with that quizzing, half pathetic, half humorous, and ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... her pipe, and whiffed away with her eyes half shut; after enjoying it for about twenty minutes or so, her old husband thought she had had enough, and taking it from her put it in his own mouth and had his whiff. When he had done, he restored it again to his wife. Underneath another old bedstead were a couple of large dogs, which occasionally let their voices be heard in a dispute; some of the stones on one side of the fire-place had broken away, making a little window through which the dogs could reach ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... the professor's engagement Cap'n Aaron Sproul and Hiram Look kept sullenly to their castles, nursing indignant sense of their wrongs. They got an occasional whiff of the scandal that was pursuing their names. Though their respective wives strove with pathetic loyalty to disbelieve all that the seeress had hinted at, and moved in sad silence about their duties, it was plain that the seed of evil had been ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... perfume, redolence; (offensive smell) stink, fetor, stench. Antonyms: inodorousness, scentlessness, anosmia. Associated Words: olfactory, reek, fume, perfume, inodorous, malodorous, odoriferous, odorous, osphresiology, osphretic, odorless, deodorize, deodorization, emanation, effluvium, sniff, whiff, disinfect, disinfection, unsavory, savory. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... shell nor bursts a bomb, Nor ever blows the slightest whiff of gas, Such as was not infrequent in the Somme, But on thy breast shall lean some slant-eyed lass; And she shall listen to thy converse ripe And search for souvenirs among thy kit, Pass thee thy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... others not so well known to fame. Pleasant hours those and gemuethliche, as the Germans say; how different the after-dinner clay pipe or cheap weed of those times to the post-prandial havannah we now complacently whiff at our friend's Maecenas' hospitable table! Yes, things have changed, my dear Rag, since the day we were paying our bill, and you addressed the waiter with superb affability: "Here, Charles, is a penny for you. I know it isn't much, ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... of a sudden and Mrs. Lee herself came out, still in her dress and her jewels, and her face all a-daub with paint, and the blood on her arm and dress, and ran through another door further along, leaving behind her a great whiff of coarse perfume. It was but for an instant that we saw her; yet, even in that instant, a sort of horror came on me again as if she were something monstrous and ominous, though—poor woman!—I have never heard anything against ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... vol. i. p. 269), who met him at Woburn in 1819, speaks of his great conversational charms, and Moore ('Journals and Correspondence', vol. vii. p. 216) describes him, in 1838, as a man "from whom one gets, now and then, an agreeable whiff of the days of Fox, Tickell, and Sheridan." Many years after Fox's death, Adair was at a fete at Chiswick House. "'In which room,' he asked of Samuel Rogers, 'did Fox expire?' 'In this very room,' I replied. Immediately, Adair burst into tears with a vehemence of grief such as I hardly ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... there very long; for he was hungry, too; and that made him think about the good whiff he had smelled when he went through the kitchen with the snowshoes under his arm, just before he strapped them over his moccasins ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... host's contracted frame and manner. Mr. Laving ton, to whom Faxon's case had been rapidly explained by young Rainer, had welcomed him with a sort of dry and stilted cordiality that exactly matched his narrow face, his stiff hand, and the whiff of scent on his evening handkerchief. "Make yourself at home—at home!" he had repeated, in a tone that suggested, on his own part, a complete inability to perform the feat he urged on his visitor. "Any friend of Frank's... delighted... ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... hides, horns, and tallow, and were ready to sail again on the following Sunday. I went ashore to my old quarters, and found the gang at the hide-house going on in the even tenor of their way, and spent an hour or two, after dark, at the oven, taking a whiff with my old Kanaka friends, who really seemed glad to see me again, and saluted me as the Aikane of the Kanakas. I was grieved to find that my poor dog Bravo was dead. He had sickened and died suddenly, the very day after I ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... going well and there was a prospect before them of a prosperous future and everything they wanted, they were supple enough and loud to laud the good gentleman who was conveying them to comfort. But with the break in our luck their praises and their patience went in a whiff, and they showed themselves to be such a parcel of wrong-headed, grumbling, disheartened and dispiriting knaves as ever helped to shake a good man's courage. They were as ready to imprecate Captain Amber now as they had been to load him with praises before, and in this they ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of roast apples steeping in hot toddy came wafting out the portals of Malachi's pantry—a smell of such convincing pungency that even the most infrequent of frequenters having once inhaled it, would have known at the first whiff that some musical function was in order. The night was to be one ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Whiff! Though Pete tried, too late, to dodge the stone, it landed against his sombrero, carrying that away without ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... in the control room he was not as badly shocked by the passage of the beam as were Breckenridge and those you saw. The things in the other rooms were about ready to fight, so we gave them a little whiff of tritylamin, but Captain King will be as good as ever ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... chair, blew a whiff of smoke from a lop-sided mouth. "Six months!" chanted he lugubriously, "an' they call this a ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... before Saul, who had of course all the livings in his own gift, no doubt. I've got a new thing running in my head this very minute that you shall hear though, all the same, as soon as I've hammered it into shape—a sort of villanette in music, a little whiff of country freshness, suggested by the new ethereal acquisition, little Miss Butterfly. Have you ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... uncertain in the shadow of the screen that guarded the door. There was a whiff of chloroform in the air, and through the doorway leading to the room where we had sat throughout the previous night I could see the end of a white-covered table. Thank God, that part ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... would afford a good opportunity to ascertain explicitly, the feeling which existed among them towards their fallen foe. About seven o'clock they arrived. They took their seats in silence, passed the pipe for all to take a whiff, and in return, quaffed a glass of champagne, which seemed to have a peculiar relish. Pashepahow, shook hands ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... has the remarkable property of becoming red in vapor of sulpho-cyanide. Here is a long-necked flask of the gas, made by sulphuric acid acting on potassium sulpho-cyanide. Keep back, Dr. Waterworth, for it would be very dangerous for you to get even a whiff of this in your condition. Ah! See—the scratches I made on the paper ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... latest, before noon of the morrow, we should sight the Treasure Island. We were heading S.S.W., and had a steady breeze abeam and a quiet sea. The Hispaniola rolled steadily, dipping her bowsprit now and then with a whiff of spray. All was drawing alow and aloft; every one was in the bravest spirits, because we were now so near an end of the first part ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the deep weeds and were forgotten until morning by the harassed family; and they rolled their eyes occasionally, with apprehension lest the grinding of the wheels should cease, and some ghostly wall loom up at one side of their way, unlighted by a single glimmer and unperfumed by any whiff of supper. It was a fine thing to be movers' dogs when the movers went into camp or put up in state at a tavern. Around a camp were all sorts of woodsy creatures to be scratched out of holes or chased up trees, or to be nosed and chewed ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... no telling what had brought the troop of horsemen to a halt, but after a time Kirby knew that the cause of his horse's sudden departure must have been a whiff of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... slowly (it was John who collected the beetles). Even on the second day its legs were supple. But the butterflies were dead. A whiff of rotten eggs had vanquished the pale clouded yellows which came pelting across the orchard and up Dods Hill and away on to the moor, now lost behind a furze bush, then off again helter-skelter in a broiling sun. A fritillary ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... comments of the passers-by, the first citizen himself and the Honorable Heth Sutton might be seen. Mr. Worthington, whose hawklike look had become more pronounced, sat upright, while the Honorable Heth, his legs crossed, filled every nook and cranny of an arm-chair, and an occasional fragrant whiff from his cigar floated out to those on the tar sidewalk. Although the pedestrians were but twenty feet away, what Mr. Worthington said never reached them; but the Honorable Heth on public days carried his voice of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... So I am. Chemistry is one of my hobbies, and I spend hours a day in my laboratory yonder. I have only just struck work, and as I had inhaled some not-over-pleasant gases, I thought that a turn down the road and a whiff of tobacco might do me good. That was how I came to meet you, and my toilet, I fear, corresponded only too well with my smoke-grimed face. But I rather fancy I know you by repute. Your name is ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sisther met with a misfortune, it was many a betther woman's case than ever you'll be. Don't shout till you get out of the wood, ma'am. You dunna what's afore yourself. Any how, it's not be lettin' fellows into the masther's kitchen whiff the family's in bed, an' dhrinkin' whiskey wid them, that'll get you through the world wid your character safe. * * * An' you're nothin' but a barge, or you'd not dhraw down my sisther's name that never did you an ill turn, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... haughty air, and disdains to utter a single word to arrest the stranger's passing steps. Should you question him about the price, and attempt to cheapen his merchandise, the answer will be comprised in two words; and if the abatement be again proposed, he replies with an economical "No," and a whiff of smoke, after which he again relapses ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... canoes are approaching mid-channel, closing in from either side en echelon, and the boat must pass between them. Soon she has some of them abeam, with others on the bows. It is running the gauntlet, with apparently a very poor chance of running it safely. The failure of an oar-stroke, a retarding whiff of wind, may bring death to those in the gig, or capture, which is the same. Yet they see life beyond, if they can but reach it,—life in a breeze, the "sough" on the water, of which Seagriff spoke. It is scarcely two cables' length ahead. Oh, that it were ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... at Mrs. Handsomebody and marvelled that she should suspect nothing. Did she get no whiff of the furry smell of Anita? Did no faint echo of Tony's music disturb her thoughts? What were her thoughts? Deep ones I was sure, for her brow was knit. Was she thinking of that brother on whom the Scotch ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... with an earnest sympathy; because, after having mourned their faults and trembled at their perils, I have joyfully saluted the noble and manly policy of which the election of Mr. Lincoln is the symptom. Is it not true, that at the first news we all seemed to breathe a whiff of pure and free air from the other side of ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... that had made me cross it quickly—on the farther side of which two ships were lying, both rising a little above it and both jammed close against its side. For a moment I hesitated, in doubt as to which of the two I had come by; and I should have hesitated longer had not a whiff of the horrid smell struck upon me strongly and urged me to go on. And so away I went, taking to the ship that I thought was the right one; and still fancying that it was the right one when I got aboard of it—for both, as I have said, were ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... parish on my shoulders, and perhaps my long experience of men had made me a little less credulous than Christian charity requires; for I could have sworn that some of the heroes who hung on him had never had a whiff of Austrian blood, and would have fed out of the same trough with the white-coats if there had been polenta enough to go round. Happily my friend had no such doubts. He believed in the patriots as devoutly as in the ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... to the wind. What was that new taint upon the air? It was one almost unknown to him,—but one which he instinctively dreaded, though without any reason based directly upon experience of his own. At almost any other time, indeed, he would have taken the first whiff of that ominous man-smell as a signal to efface himself and make off noiselessly down the wind. But just now, his first feeling was wrath at the thought of being hindered from his prospective meal. He ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... became strong within him. In effect he was transported far back into those dim ages, when man fought with the stone axe, and his five senses were so preternaturally acute to protect his life that he had a sixth and perhaps a seventh. A whiff came on the wind. It was faint, because it had traveled far, but he knew it to be the odor of the panther. The big cowardly beast was crouched in a little valley to his right, and he was trembling, trembling ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... something dreadful happening in the house. Everything alarmed him now. He was afraid of the old woman who smelled of snuff, and who, when she dressed him in the morning, looked at him with a pitying air; he was afraid of the doctor, who climbed the five flights of stairs twice a day now, and left a whiff of perfume behind him; afraid of his father, who did not go to his office any more, whose beard was often three days old, and who feverishly paced the little parlor, tossing back with a distracted gesture the lock of hair ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... superior brilliancy perceptible in the comet's head, which is termed its nucleus, and it is necessarily a matter of pressing interest to determine what this bright nucleus is; whether it is really a kernel of hard, solid substance, or merely a whiff of somewhat more condensed vapor. Newton, from the first, maintained that the comet is made partly of solid substance, and partly of an investment of thin, elastic vapors. If this is the case, it is manifest that the central nodule of dense substance should be ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... idleness are destroying them as a people and need not do so, then their decay might be arrested and the fair hopes of the missionary pioneers yet be justified. So long as they soak maize in the streams until it is rotten and eat it together with dried shark—food the merest whiff of which will make a white man sick; so long as they will wear a suit of clothes one day and a tattered blanket the next, and sit smoking crowded in huts, the reek of which strikes you like a blow in the face; so long as they ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... cleared; and I must say this was the only time I came across this lhiamba giving such strong effects; usually the men just cough with that racking cough that lets you know what they have been up to, and quarrel for a short time. When, however, a whiff of lhiamba is taken by them in the morning before starting on a march, the effect seems to be good, enabling them to get over the ground easily and to endure a long march without being exhausted. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... long time before the work in the chamber ceased, and Ned had plenty of time in which to review the strange case he was interested in. The transition from gay New York to that weird apartment seemed almost like a whiff of fancy. Then he recalled the painstaking surveillance of the fellow called "His Nobbs" on the way down, and smiled at the thought that the plans he had made at first sight of the spy ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... goes my commission of captain of this craft, in a whiff," returned the sailing-master. "That is as much as to say, here comes one who will command when he gets on board. Well, well, it is Mr. Griffith, and I can't say, notwithstanding his love of knee-buckles ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... favorite metaphor of the day, in regard to the guiding spirit of an often-killed but still living and breathing "monster." As the writer entered his apartment, he took a long pipe from his mouth with the most easy deliberation, while the last whiff from the aromatic Virginia weed curled upward in an azure cloud, and mingled with the vapor which had ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone |
