"Button" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the last couple had hurried by, breathless at being late, did he refasten the top button of his mackintosh, move clear of the nook which had sheltered him, and step out ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Pressing the push-button beside my bed, I strove to hear the sound of the bell, though I well knew it was impossible for the sound to rise three stories to me even if the bell did ring. It rang all right, for a few minutes later Brown entered ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... come. Precious as you are to all your relatives (myself included), take my word for it, the lawyers who are managing this case will not pay fifty pounds for you if they can possibly help it. Are you still persuaded that my needy pockets are gaping for the money? Very good. Button them up in spite of me with your own fair fingers. There is a train to London at nine forty-five to-night. Submit yourself to your friend's wishes and go ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... he and the men were impressed by the important point to which his line of argument was leading, then went on excitedly: "We only have t' reason deflectively t' put our fingers on th' button what caused th' doggonedest Injun ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... pointing at the little discs, "grows precisely like these little buttons which you see here. It is a species of cactus which rises only half an inch or so from the ground. The stem is surrounded by a clump of blunt leaves which give it its button shape, and on the top you will see still the tuft of filaments, like a cactus. It grows in the rocky soil in many places in the state of Jalisco, though only recently has it become known to science. The Indians, when they go out to gather it, simply lop off these little ends as they ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... button or the trigger it will mean the end of you, you dogs. Now, listen to me. At the foot of the stairs are two policemen and a couple of detectives. They were duped into coming here by the word that a sucker was to be fleeced in Broadso's rooms to- night. All I have to do is to press the ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... be trying on a lady's dress at a party!! Who ever heard of such a thing? I never did! But the best of it was, that Miss Florence did not seem to care a button; she smiled and simpered, and allowed herself to be tumbled over on her nose, and never squealed an atom when pins were run into her back. But no doubt she came to the conclusion that it was the custom of the country. At any rate, ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... men saw he did not care a button whether his grindstones revolved or not, they soon brought the defaulters to book. Bayne was sent upstairs, to beg Mr. Little to advance the trade contributions, and step the amount ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the button. There was a second shirt underneath, and to that on the left breast were pinned two ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... was given to the surgery of wounded, mortified or diseased pieces of intestine by the introduction from Chicago of an ingenious contrivance named, after the inventor, Murphy's button. This consists of a short nickel-plated tube in two pieces, which are rapidly secured in the divided ends of the bowel, and in such a manner that when the pieces are subsequently "married'' the adjusted ends of the bowel are securely fixed together and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... put their heads up the opened hatchways, the decks were knee-deep, the drift to windward was almost level with the bulwarks, every yard was edged with white, every rope and cord had a light side and a dark, every point and truck had a white button on it, and every hole, corner, crack, and ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... it is,' he whispered, 'written with my own hand. This will tell you exactly what passed this afternoon. It will tell you our plans. It will tell you of the share which my master and the other two are taking. Button it up safely,' he said, 'and, whatever you do, do not let them know outside that you have got it. Between you and me,' he went on, leaning across the table, 'something seems to have happened to them all to-day. There's my old ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fault was his habit of punning," remarked the detective, watching the girl's form as he drew nearer. "It is that which blinded his contemporaries to his real talents. What exquisite roses, Miss Merrick! May I ask for one for my button-hole?" ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... her father, she sate down, half losing herself in tracing out the changing features of the girls, and holding Susan's hand for a minute or two, unobserved by all, while the first class sought for their books, and the Vicar's lady went as near as a lady could towards holding Mr. Bell by the button, while she explained the Phonetic system to him, and gave him a conversation she had had ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... resulted. I have no doubt that the bandages were genuine, and had not been disturbed or unfolded; the color of the marks were so similar to those of the present 'marking ink,' that I was induced to try if they were produced by silver. With the blowpipe I immediately obtained a button of that metal; the fibre of the linen I proved by the microscope, and by chemical reagents, to be linen; it is therefore certain that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with the means of dissolving silver, and of applying it as a ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... in my portmanteau," said Lambelle, "some hundreds of metres of electric wire. I will attach one of the dogs by this clip, which we can release from a distance by pressing an electric button. The moment the dog escapes he will undoubtedly ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... bore in Australia just now is the man who raves about getting the people on the land, and button-holes you in the street with a little scheme of his own. He generally does not know ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Just off, my dear. [To his daughters, genially] Rehearsin'? What! [He goes up to FREDA holding out his gloved right hand] Button that for me, Freda, would ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... prostitute nature in me. I was simply overwhelmed with sensuality. I considered I was a criminal and wished to see in how many ways my nature had the criminal instinct. I wanted to see if I could become a thief. I stole a silver button in a shop where antiquities were sold, but I went to the shop the same day again and returned the button, without the people knowing. I found I could not become a thief. Then the question came. Why had I felt a criminal since my seventh year? Was it my ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... party, and when the injured man was brought in had merely donned his rumpled linen jacket with its right sleeve half torn from the socket. A spot of blood had already spurted into the white bosom of his shirt, smearing its way over the pearl button, and running under the crisp fold of the shirt. The head nurse was too tired and listless to be impatient, but she had been called out of hours on this emergency case, and she was not used to the surgeon's preoccupation. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... she said, with a tender smile. She was fastening a button in her glove. I doubt her ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... next floor. Julius preceded us down the thickly carpeted corridor leading the way to a large apartment, or rather a suite of rooms, as handsomely furnished as any in other hotels. He switched on the lights and left us, with the remark, "When you want the waiter or anything, just press the button." ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... as mutton, Then held her master by the button: "Master, my heart and soul are wrung—till They can't abide that dirty dunghill: Master, you know I make your beer— You boast of me at Christmas cheer; Then why insult me and disgrace me, And next to that vile dunghill place me? By Jove! it gives my nose offence: ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... disdain and a curl of the lip, And point to my coat's missing button, And haughtily ask if I want a cook, To serve up my beef ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... Rosy-Lilly!" answered the child, playing with a button on Johnson's vest. "Is he gettin' warmer now? He was so cold, and ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... who imagined himself to be enjoying an airy solitude between sky and water. So he gently swung himself into the lee rigging and, leaning far down, cautiously lifted Mr. Barker's cap from his head by the woollen button in the middle. Mr. Barker knocked the ash from his cigar with his free hand, and returned it to his mouth; he then conveyed the same hand to the top of his head, to assure himself that the cap was gone. He knew perfectly ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... the general. When they had ceased to be heard, she rushed into Annouschka's room, and both began to pull aside a bundle of linen, thrown down, as if by accident, into the embrasure of a window. Under the linen was a large chest with a spring lock. Annouschka pressed a button, Vaninka raised the lid. The two women uttered a loud cry: the chest was now a coffin; the young officer, stifled for want of air, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... bloomer to use when you are scrambling over the mountains on foot. Indeed, on the White Mountains now, the ladies best equipped ride up those steep pulls on men's saddles. For that work this is much the safest. Have a simple skirt to button round your waist while you are riding. It should be of waterproof,—the English is the best. Besides this, have a short waterproof sack with a hood, which you can put on easily if a shower comes. Be careful that it has a hood. Any crevice between the head cover ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... she rattled the hook and repeatedly pressed the round button which operated the bell. "Buck! Buck!" she cried into ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... intense disgust while Tom was admiring Mrs. Pugh's famous book of devices from letters, translating the mottoes, and promising contributions, the offence was greatly increased by his coming up to her (and that too just as Harry was released by the button-holding Mr. Grey) ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Hide the Button. After they had played some time, and it was Willie's turn to find it, he came into the nursery with his face flushed, and evidently much excited. "It isn't fair," said he, and the tears gathered in his eyes, and his lips quivered with emotion, ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... while the adjutants and company commanders calculated and reckoned, and by morning the regiment—instead of the straggling, disorderly crowd it had been on its last march the day before—presented a well-ordered array of two thousand men each of whom knew his place and his duty, had every button and every strap in place, and shone with cleanliness. And not only externally was all in order, but had it pleased the commander in chief to look under the uniforms he would have found on every man a clean shirt, and in every knapsack the appointed number of articles, "awl, soap, and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... "I have got to unbutton another button. But what sort of an ostrich's stomach have you got, my son? I should think you were used to ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... when I exhibited the Morse system to the astonished dignitaries of Peking, those old men, though heads of departments, chuckled like children when, touching a button, they heard a bell ring; or when wrapping a wire round their bodies, they saw the lightning leap from point to point. "It's wonderful," they exclaimed, "but we can't use it in [Page 205] our country. The people would steal the wires." Electric ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... interview with Sir Tobias, he found Terry standing in the hall, doing up the last button of her gloves. James, of the velvet-plush manners, lost no time in proffering him his hat and cane, and in flinging the front-door wide. He did it with the air of a sentimentalist who was aiding and ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... Maurice's striped flannel jacket and thrust two large bunches of flowers and ferns into the two button-holes, to ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... papered wall was a little button. She could touch this and order—what should she order? A carriage and prancing pair to take her to drive? She did not wish to drive. A cab to take her to the shops, or an order to merchants to send her samples of their wares that here, in her own room, like a queen or a princess, she might ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... Zoom; I paid 2 stivers for the horse, and I spent 1 florin 6 stivers here. At Bergen I bought my wife a thin Netherlandish head cloth, which cost 1 florin, 7 stivers, besides 6 stivers for three pairs of shoes, 1 stiver for eyeglasses, and 6 stivers for an ivory button; gave 2 stivers for a tip. I have drawn the portraits in charcoal of Jan de Has, his wife, and two daughters; and the maid and the old woman in silverpoint, in my sketch-book. I saw the Van Bergen house, which is a very large ...
— Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries - [This is our volunteer's translation of the title] • Albrecht Durer
... better than I am, and yet you never try to make me feel it; but I do all the same. And I love you three and Queen Mab; and I love the place; and I should like to live here always. But outside of that," he added quickly, "I don't care a button for anything." ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... tiger eat 'em up. Evly bit of 'em. Escept hims feet. An' he walked along, an' he walked along, an' he walked along, an' he met a horsh. An' e horsh ate 'em all up. Evly bit of 'em. An' nofing was left. Ony hims button. An' hims mover had no dear ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... advertising, writing, canvassing, and button-holing in England, had kept a newspaper on foot, and was able to point to powerful friends in Parliament and in London mercantile circles. By giving scrip supposed to represent plots and farms in its New Zealand territory, it secured ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Mr. Palmer, holding Mr. Walsingham by the button, proceeded to recapitulate some of Dr. Wheeler's prognostics; and at every pause, Mr. Walsingham turned impatiently, so as almost to twist off the detaining button, repeating, in the words of the king of Prussia to his physician, "C'est un ane! C'est un ane! C'est un ane!"—"Pshaw! ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... fine as if drawn by the point of a very small needle.[I-20] His dress was a blue coat and buff waistcoat, half boots remarkably well blacked, and a silk handkerchief tied with military precision. The only antiquated part of his dress was a cocked hat of equilateral dimensions, in the button-hole of which he wore a very small cockade. Mrs. Dods, accustomed to judge of persons by their first appearance, said, that in the three steps which he made from the door to the tea-table, she recognised, without the possibility of mistake, the gait of a person who was ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... long enough to get bilin' dhrunk, an' got him on his back, so jumped over the clift wid him lavin' him dead enough, I go bail. Whin they come to sarch the sailor to see phat he had in his pockets, they found three long hairs round the third button av his top-coat. So they tuk thim to the king tellin' him where they got thim, an' he was greatly rejiced, bekase now he belaved he had the Pooka sure enough, ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... don't know much about these things, but I read the papers, and I suppose you mean that the clock 'pressed the button,' and ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... was so round and so plump that he looked as if he had pillows under his clothes. And though he was only twelve he had two chins. Every once in a while he would eat so much that a button ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... comely and wise young woman, whom he would of course take—to wife. For all contingencies I would liberally provide. In a word, I would, in the plebeian, but expressive phrase, "put him through" all the material part of life; see him sheltered, warmed, fed, button-mended, and all that, just to be able to lay on his talk when I liked,—with the privilege of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and when the door clicked in response to the button Betty touched, pushed his way ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... that he ordered the door to be opened. The crowd, chiefly ladies, rushed in and embarrassed the general with every possible outburst of affection, to which he could only reply, "Thank you, you are very kind." He gave them his autograph in books and on scraps of paper, cut a button from his coat for a little girl, and then submitted patiently to an attack by the others, who soon stripped the coat of nearly all the remaining buttons. But when they looked beseechingly at his hair, which was thin, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... all that. The elevator is an electric one and any person can run it by pushing the button. All you have to do then is to unpack the wireless instrument here in your room, and after you have adjusted it you can certainly arrange in some way to get it on top of the ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... short, and we all run to the beach and jump on the backs of boys, who carry us dry-shod to the boat. We are rowed to the steamer, and presently descend to the storeroom, which smells of calico, soap, tobacco and cheese. Anything may be bought here, from a collar-button to a tin of meat, from perfumery to a shirt, anything,—and sometimes even the very thing one wants. We provide for the necessities of life for the next month or two, hand over our mail and end our visit with a drink. Then the whistle blows, we scramble into the boat, and while my host waves ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... had joined the Duke of York: and to-day his Royal Highness is in full retreat before Pichegru: and he and my son Miles have taken Valenciennes for nothing! Ah, parson! would you not like to put on your old Sixty-third coat? (though I doubt Mrs. Blake could never make the buttons and button-holes meet again over your big body). The boys were acting a play with my militia sword. Oh, that I were young again, Mr. Blake! that I had not the gout in my toe; and I would saddle Rosinante and ride back into the world, and ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the boys, the captain lumbered towards them, waving a dirty piece of paper. "Read that," he roared, "just brought in by that copper-faced, shoe-button-eyed son ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... cannot be said with precision that he writhed; his movement was more a slow, continuous squirm, effected with a ghastly assumption of languid indifference; while his gaze, in the effort to escape the marble-hearted glare of his schoolmates, affixed itself with apparent permanence to the waistcoat button of James Russell Lowell just above the "U" ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... standard of their machine-gun is always at 200, and they have not altered the range for three months. Occasionally at night the N.C.O. seizes the traversing-handles, and with his thumb on the button slowly sweeps that range of sand-bags, till the feed-block sucks up the cartridge-belt like a chaff-cutter and the empty cartridge-cases lie as thick round the tripod as acorns under an oak. The Huns reply by taking a flashlight photograph of us with a calcium flare, and then all is ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... could I do? She suddenly backed up before me," Mrs. Porter said in self-defence. "Could I tell her to let Hong button her?" ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... powerful black tribe on the banks of the White Nile. They are very wealthy, and possess immense herds of cattle; are also agriculturists, fishermen, and warriors. Their huts are regularly built, looking at a distance like rows of button mushrooms. They embark boldly on the river in their raft-like canoes, formed of the excessively light ambatch-wood. The tree is of no great thickness, and tapers gradually to a point. It is thus easily cut down, and, several ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... big-chested, straight-backed, clear-eyed, clean-souled sea-dog, with arms of hickory, fingers of steel, and a brain in instant touch with a button marked "Experience and Pluck." Another was a devil-may-care, barefooted Venetian, who wore a Leporello hat canted over one eye and a scarlet sash about his thin, shapely waist, and whose corn teeth gleamed ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of scarlet ribbon, and her much be-furbelowed and be-spangled dolman, attested the fact that she had donned her best clothes for the occasion of her visit, and that Thorley fashions differed from those of the metropolis. She wore gloves with one button, moreover, ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... button painted gray, set at the side of one of the stones of the wall, which looked unreal. She struck the stone with her knuckles and it gave out the sound of hollow wood, which was followed, as an echo, by a little laugh from Lanstron. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... demanded Patricia, but Arabella put her left hand over her lips, while with her right she slipped another button into its buttonhole, and sidled ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... wonderfully the old gentleman threw off his trouble. To listen to him energetically arguing with the Rev. Mr. Jeffries as to whether or no it would be proper, as had hitherto been the custom, to devote the proceeds of the harvest festival collection (1 pound 18s. 3d. and a brass button) to the county hospital, or whether it should be applied to the repair of the woodwork in the vestry, was under the circumstances most instructive. The Rev. Mr. Jeffries, who suffered severely from ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... after midnight when he was awakened by hearing a rattling on the window of his room. The reason he was able to fix the time so accurately was because as soon as he awakened he pressed a little electric button, and it illuminated the face of a small clock on his bureau. The hands pointed ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... girl gave a little cry of fright and stepped back, her hands reaching blindly toward Gavin, as if for support or comfort. The gesture caused her to drop the flashlight. Its button was "set forward," so it did not go out as it fell. Instead, it rolled in a semi-circle, casting its ray momentarily in a wide irregular arc as it revolved. Then it came to a stop, against an outcrop of coral, with a force that put its sensitive ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... was it? He gets on with his Latin too. And, Isa, he has fastened a half-franc to his button-hole, for the sake of the beloved image, and no power on earth can persuade him out of being so ridiculous. I was base enough to say that it wouldn't please the Queen of Spain! And he responded, he 'chose her to know that he ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Orleanist once more. And he added, with the crafty hypocrisy of an old hosier from the Rue Saint-Honore: "But you, my dear Granoux; don't you think the ribbon would look well in your button-hole? After all, you did as much to save the town as Rougon did. Yesterday, when I was calling upon some very distinguished persons, they could scarcely believe it possible that you had made so much noise ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... my face without speech, his hand still on the button of the bell-rope, his eyes in mine; this was the decisive heat. My face seemed to myself to dislimn under his gaze, my expression to change, the smile (with which I had begun) to degenerate into the grin of the man upon the rack. I was besides harassed with doubts. An innocent man, I argued, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then set out to regain the chaise, which was some distance in advance. When he had proceeded about twenty steps, he paused, and, turning towards Antoinette, who was engaged in readjusting her hood and rebuttoning her twelve-button gloves, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... of all their friends could say, On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, In a sieve they went to sea. And when the sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, "You'll all be drowned!" They called aloud, "Our sieve ain't big; But we don't care a button, we don't care a fig: In a ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... Franklin who, bethinking himself of the commercial difference between hard black horn and soft, spongy bone, began the earliest shipments of the tips of the buffalo horns, which he employed a man to saw off and pack into sacks ready for the far-off button factories. Many tons of these tips alone he came to ship, such had been the incredible abundance and the incredible waste; and thus thriving upon an industry whose cause and whose possibility he deplored, he came to ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... the story, which the king's son heard from a place where she had hid him. The king's son immediately wished the attendant should be a three-legged dog, that must always follow him. He wished the girl to be a rose and put her in his button-hole. The king's son then attended the court, as the king wished to go hunting. 'Where is the attendant?' asked the king. 'He is here close by,' said the king's son. The king was satisfied with the answer, and went out hunting. The king's son led the hunt to the tower where the queen was ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... on the weather-bow; how the ship tacked and stood toward them; how she weathered on one of monstrous size, and how he and the other youngsters were mad to lower the boat and go after it, and how the captain said: "Ye lubbers, can't ye see that is a right whale, and not worth a button? Look here away over the quarter at this whale. See how low she spouts. She is a sperm whale, and worth seven hundred pounds if she was only dead ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... officers and their wives—went to the company barracks to see the men's dinner tables. When we entered the dining hall we found the entire company standing in two lines, one down each side, every man in his best inspection uniform, and every button shining. With eyes to the front and hands down their sides they looked absurdly like wax figures waiting to be "wound up," and I did want so much to tell the little son of General Phillips to pinch one and make him jump. He would have done it, too, and then put all the blame upon me, without ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... since the discovery of the unstamped letter had sat in a heap buried in his coat collar,—the military button having given way,—now gave his version of ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... capital thing about a mint-julep," he said comfortably, and smacked appreciative lips. "One always suggests another." He drained his glass and rose. At the other side of the room was the bell-button. His finger was extended and about to touch it when he stopped to think. "No! Great heavens!" said he. "That makes my third, already, and I'm as dry as the desert of Sahara." He sat down again, an air of martyrdom upon his face. "Ah, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... calf—there is a tooth Of the Great Bear, and, passing Neptune close, I would avoid his trident's point, and fell, Thus sitting, plump, right in the Scales! My weight Is marked, still registered, up there in heaven! (Hurriedly preventing De Guiche from passing, and detaining him by the button of his doublet): I swear to you that if you squeezed my nose It ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... with the mammals, he found their number greatly increasing on his hands. Button, like Raleigh, though a professed naturalist, and a writer of admirable genius, had no very distinct notions of species. He was inclined to question whether even the ass might not be merely a degraded horse; ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... quietly through the balmy evening, we came to Hammersmith, and were well received by our friends there. Boffin, in a fresh suit of clothes, welcomed me back with stately courtesy; the weaver wanted to button-hole me and get out of me what old Hammond had said, but was very friendly and cheerful when Dick warned him off; Annie shook hands with me, and hoped I had had a pleasant day—so kindly, that I felt a slight pang as our hands parted; for to say the truth, I liked her ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... she suddenly lowered her sails, and two men took hold of a little boat on her deck, and launched it overboard as if it had been a chip. Then I noticed that our pilot, a red-faced man in a rough blue coat, who to my astonishment had all this time been giving orders instead of the captain, began to button up his coat to the throat, like a prudent person about leaving a house at night in a lonely square, to go home; and he left the giving orders to the chief mate, and stood apart talking with the captain, and put his hand into his pocket, and ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... take my little gold mouse out of your pocket and hand it to me.' I must say I was took back at this, but I spoke back, as bold as brass, and said I never seed his gold mouse. 'O, ho!' says he, 'what you didn't see was the electric button under the table cover which rung a bell when the mouse was picked up. That's what I call ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... umbilical cord. When the child is born, the umbilical cord is cut, and the scar or depression in the abdomen where the umbilical cord was attached constitutes the navel or umbilicus (in slang language—button or belly button). The umbilical cord consists of two arteries and one vein embedded in a gelatin like substance and enveloped by a membrane, and it is through the umbilical cord that the blood from the placenta is brought to and carried from ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... and just when he was goin' to pull 'em down the van started as they had heard and seen it. After a while he got on to his knees and managed to wrench a corner; of the front curtain clear of the button and get his head out. And there was the van going helter-skelter, and feeling like Tam o'Shanter's mare (the old man said), and he on her barebacked. And there was no horses, but a cloud of dust—or a spook—on ahead, and the bare pole steering straight for it, just as the professor ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... and monotonous in architecture, but its composition and its radiance quite surpass any earthly conception. The buildings are all domed and stand in squares which are filled with fruit trees, low bush-like spreading plants, bearing white pendant lily-like flowers or pink button-shaped florets like almonds. Each building is square, with a portico of columns, placed on rising steps, a pair of columns to each step. Vines wind around the columns, cross from one line of columns to another and form above a tracery of green fronds bearing, ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... pint of fine young button mushrooms, let them stew gently in a white veal gravy seasoned with salt, pepper, a blade of mace, and if approved, the grated peel of half a lemon, it should be thickened with flour and the yolk of an egg stirred ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... ministers the most probable method of raising a large sum for the payment of the troops of the electorate, I should, instead of the tax and lottery now proposed, advise them to establish a certain number of licensed wheelbarrows, on which the laudable trade of thimble and button might be carried on for the support of the war, and shoeboys might contribute to the defence of the house of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... woeful figure! In one hand she carried an empty shoe box. And her face was streaked with good rich Iowa mud. Her clothes were plastered with it. One shoe was caked from the sole to the very top button, and a great gash in her stocking revealed a generous portion of round ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... and, as Jim spoke, he reached over and unhooked a tiny gold chain from the upper button of his friend's coat, around which it was twined in a ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... they backslide, let 'em swear ag'in; Jes' let 'em put on sheep-skins whilst they 're swearin'; To ask for more 'ould be beyond all bearin'." "Be gin'rous for yourselves, where you 're to pay, Thet 's the best practice," sez a shepherd gray; "Ez for their oaths they wun't be wuth a button, Long 'z you don't cure 'em o' their taste for mutton; Th' ain't but one solid way, howe'er you puzzle: Till they 're convarted, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... electric bell button in the wall. He waited a moment, then touched it again; waited a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... assurance of their own inefficiency. When we hear that a people have declared their intention of being henceforward better than their neighbors, and going upon a new theory that shall lead them direct to a terrestrial paradise, we button up our pockets and lock up our spoons. And that is what we have done very much as regards the Americans. We have walked with them and talked with them, and bought with them and sold with them; but we have mistrusted them as to their internal habits and modes of life, thinking that their philanthropy ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... inquired, and which were obviously no one's business. They knew him here by the name of "Lone Tooth Hank," and he wore what had been, in the days of his colonelcy—or its equivalent—a frock-coat, restrained by the lower button, and thus establishing a waist-line long after nature had had the last word to say on the subject. With this he wore the sombrero of the country, and the combination carried a rakish effect that ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... giant was standing in the road, who took the drummer from the first, and stuck him in his button-hole. The drummer laid hold of the button, which was as large as a dish, held on by it, and looked merrily around. Then they came to a third giant, who took him out of the button-hole, and set him on the rim of his hat. Then the drummer walked backwards ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... took out from a pocket the palm and wrist portion of a fur glove. It was badly rotted, and the rest had either fallen away or been gnawed by some animal, but a button with ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... if it were a sanctuary from the clash and clamor without its walls. Thompson walked down a hushed corridor over a velvet carpet that muffled his footfalls and so came at last to the proper door, where he pressed a black button in the center of a brass plate. The door opened almost upon the instant. A maid eyed him interrogatively. He mentioned ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... pulling down the handkerchief, hastens to give needless assurance that she is "so vexed," etcetera. Susannah joins her in condoling, and so does widow Martin; but Mainmast, with tears in her eyes, (drawn by the blow), and a smile on her lips, declares that she "don't care a button." Sally is therefore blindfolded again. She catches Charlie Christian immediately, and feeling that there is no other way of ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... my friend, whoever you are,' he murmured placidly, as he began to struggle with the stiff button-holes ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... went on Jerry, and, to prevent Smith from entering the place, our hero caught him by the button ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... official aspect. Over the doorway was nailed a huge, prehistoric-looking buffalo-skull, bleached white with the years—the time-honoured insignia of the R.N.W.M.P. being a buffalo-head, which is also stamped on the regimental badge and button. ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... pantaloons and tighter gloves, fidgets and fumes in the vestibule, the six ushers crowd about him inanely, and the sexton rushes to and fro like a rat in a trap. Finally, all being ready, with the ushers formed two abreast, the sexton pushes a button, a small buzzer sounds in the organ loft, and the organist, as has been said, plunges magnificently into the fanfare of the "Lohengrin" march. Simultaneously the sexton opens the door at the bottom of the main aisle, and the ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... mid-America and out west. Nothing but Mexican saddles are used. I have ridden on many kinds in different countries, but for keen discomfort the Mexican, in my opinion, beats them all. There is a peak in front, about a foot higher than the saddle-seat, which is capped by a wooden pin with a large wooden button on the top. The object of this is to twist the lasso round when, after a successful hunt behind cattle, wild or tame, the struggling beast is at the other end. But however useful it may be, it is not a pleasant appendage to a saddle, ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... outside world. Only a few officers had the old army fly tents; the soldiers were each supplied, or rather had supplied themselves upon the battlefield of the enemy with small tent flies, about five by six feet, so arranged with buttons and button holes that two being buttoned together and stretched over a pole would make the sides or roof and the third would close the end, making a tent about six feet long, five feet wide, and four feet high, in which three or four men could sleep very comfortably. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... activity, but the boy who is growing into his social and larger self makes every real incident a jewel rich in association and suggestive of the continuity and oneness of his group life. The use of an appropriate pin or button, of club colors, yells, whistles, and secret signals will bear fruit a hundred fold in ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... round-shouldered, dirty, and slovenly in appearance; in fact, bad imitations of soldiers. Now, the Confederate has no ambition to imitate the regular soldier at all; he looks the genuine rebel; but in spite of his bare feet, his ragged clothes, his old rug, and tooth-brush stuck like a rose in his button-hole,[65] he has a sort of devil-may-care, reckless, self-confident ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... The maid's father, who of late had been nightly dressing Ferry's wound and mine, came to us in Ferry's room; and there my Captain turned to greet me, his face white with calamity. He took me caressingly by a button of my jacket. "Can you have your wound washed to-night ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... as well prepared, and with incomparably more zeal than the best trained conscripts of Europe. Not urged to the front like slaves by the whips of innumerable penalties, their needs not considered to the provision of a button, or a ration of salt, shabby even to squalor in their appointments, they gathered in response to a call which it was easy for the laggard to disobey, and almost uncared for by the forethought ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... day's pay being from 50 to 60 cents.[23] In other cases a day's work brought in but 25 cents, and seventeen overalls of blue denim gave a return of 75 cents. Two and a half cents each is paid for the making of boys' gingham waists, with trimming on neck and sleeves, including the button-holes; and the women who made these sat sixteen hours at the sewing-machine, with a result of ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... rose a gesture prophetic and immense. The trivial phrase and that intercepted look opened a great door of wonder in his heart. In a second he grew "absent-minded." Or, rather, something touched a button and the whole machinery of his personality shifted round noiselessly and instantaneously, presenting an immediate new facet to the world. His normal, puny self-consciousness slipped a moment into the majestic calm of some far larger state that the ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... watched I saw him, in the dim light, stoop to replace the movable panel. Then, tapping upon the tiled floor as he walked, the fugitive approached me. He was but three paces from the French window when I pressed the button of my lamp and directed its ray fully ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... it will make you feel, Mrs. Fischlowitz. Button up tight that collar and right away we start. Please, right next to you, will you press that third button? That means we go right down and find outside ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... caught sight of the elderly man inside—a tremendous profile over a huge fair beard that was half grey, one large and rather watery blue eye behind a single eyeglass with a broad black ribbon, a gardenia in the button-hole of a smart grey coat, a cloud of cigarette smoke, one very large and aristocratic hand, with a plain gold ring, holding the cigarette and resting on the edge of the window. He smelt the smoke after the brougham had passed, and ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... leger) in the fleet which sailed from Toulon for the conquest of Algeria in the year of grace 1830. And, indeed, I had seen and examined one of the buttons of his old brown, patched coat, the only brass button of the miscellaneous lot, flat and thin, with the words Equipages de ligne engraved on it. That sort of button, I believe, went out with the last ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... was handing him a rose. He took it, and placed it in his button-hole. He was not very skillful in arranging it, and she stood on tiptoe to help him. Just then Frances came out of the house. The sun was shining full on the pair; Fluff was laughing, Arnold was making ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... I write the present article,—to relieve myself from the pertinacious inquiries with which I have been assailed since my return from the melancholy episodes of the executions at Washington. I am button-holed at every corner, and put through a cross-examination, to which Holt's or Bingham's had no searchingness: "How did Mrs. Suratt die?" "Was the rope attached to her left ear?" "What sort of rope was it, for example?" "Do her pictures look like her?" ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... have a plan of action ready, which he applies without a question or an instant's hesitation. Make an unknown sound behind him as he plods along the shore, and he hurls himself headlong into the cover of the bushes, as if your voice had touched a button that released a coiled spring beneath him. Afterwards he may come back to find out what frightened him. Sit perfectly still, and he rises on his hind legs for a look and a long sniff to find out who you are. Jump at him with a yell and a flourish ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... eighths of an inch wide and are made either for the button-hole or with safety-pin clasp. Price ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... nobody; but a sentinel on camp-guard by day is expected to perform that ceremony to anything in human shape that has two rows of buttons. Here was a human shape, but so utterly buttonless that it exhibited not even a rag to which a button could by any earthly possibility be appended, button-less even potentially; and my blameless Ethiopian presented arms to even this. Where, then, are the theories of Carlyle, the axioms of "Sartor Resartus," the inability ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... table Quite covered with bottles And all kinds of dishes Are sitting the gentry, The old Prince presiding In dignified state At the head of the table; All white, dressed in white, With his face shrunk awry, 20 His dissimilar eyes; In his button-hole fastened A little white cross (It's the cross of St. George, Some one says in a whisper); And standing behind him, Ipat, the domestic, The faithful old servant, In white tie and shirt-front Is brushing ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... deemed he had a right to tread more proudly because he had chanced to suffer, where all had been equally exposed, in the performance of a common duty. The empty sleeve, unostentatiously fastened by a loop from the wrist to a button of the lappel was suffered to fall at his side, and by no one was the deficiency ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... attend upon members who want them for errands. Formerly the pages were signalled by members clapping their hands, and the noise incident to this method was frequently a great disturbance of the House proceedings. The new system just adopted involves merely the pressing of a button on the member's chair, and this rings a small gong while displaying a signal on ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the Beecher, Henry Ward Beethoven Branger Birds and their Ways Books British Gallery in New York, the British India Buchanan's Administration Burr, Aaron Button-Rose, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Deacon," said I, as the old gentleman commenced to button up his coat, "I am not going into the details of these wonderful experiments; but I am sure you will be interested in the results of the first six or ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... certain situations, makes us recognize an object as meaningful and significant, and waves the flag for the emotion; the emotion fires up the engine, pulls the levers all over the body that release its energy and get it ready for action, and pushes the button that calls into the mind an intense, almost irresistible desire or impulse to act. Once aroused, the emotion and the impulse are not to be changed. In man or beast, in savage or savant, the intense feeling, the marked bodily changes, ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... cucumbers; one quart large cucumbers, cut or sliced; one quart green tomatoes, cut in pieces; one large cauliflower, divided; five green peppers, chopped fine; one quart button onions, cut up. To four quarts of water add one pint salt and pour over the vegetables and let stand twenty-four hours; then heat in same brine just enough to scald; turn into colander and drain. Mix one-half cup flour; six tablespoonfuls mustard; two tablespoonfuls tumeric, with enough ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... as above, but use white stock, no beef, and only pheasant or fowl trimmings, button mushrooms, cream instead of glaze, and a ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... sheet of flame and the guide may be made as short as desired, and the motion of the gaseous mass be directed by a simple button placed in the center of the burner; thus giving the form shown by Fig. 5, which, however, differs from the previous figure in the fact that the inverted flame is directed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... right forefinger already resting on a little white button, ready at a touch to send the kindling spark into the mighty mass of explosives which lay buried at the bottom of what had been the Great Lever pit. Lennard also had his right forefinger on another button, but his left hand ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... vibrating bell, so widely used as a door bell, is a device consequent to the telegraph. Its action is to give a series of blows on its gong when its key or push button closes the battery circuit. At the risk of describing a trite though not trivial thing, it may be said that when the contact 1 of Fig. 16 is closed, current from the battery energizes the armature 2, ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... of peaceful proprietorship. He paused to examine his bed of spring wallflowers, stooped to uproot an impertinent dandelion which had taken root in his otherwise irreproachable turf, gathered a fine auricula and placed it in his button-hole. Then he took a contented survey of his fruit trees, until his eyes finally rested upon the white-robed bower of the balloon. A change came o'er the spirit of the Colonel's pastoral dream. His ruddy gills assumed a purplish hue, his grizzled hair stood up in fighting attitude. He advanced ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... beautiful rooms. If thou doesn't, the moths will eat up thy fine carpets and cushions, and thou will become one of those chronic, disagreeable invalids that nobody on earth—and I wouldn't wonder if nobody in heaven either—cares a button for." ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... superintendent came among them they fell back from around a big, flat boulder on which was stationed the electric battery. MacDonald's face was flushed and his eyes snapped like dragonflies as he pointed to a tiny button. ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... valued possessions of Mrs. Wilson were the rings, bracelets and baskets fashioned from buttons and fruit-seeds by her soldiers in hospital, tokens of their grateful remembrance of her. I showed her a little cross cut from a button in a prison and given to me by my uncle, Colonel Phillips, of the Confederate Army, who had been a captive on Johnson's Island. The prisoners used the cross to certify to the validity of secret ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... a sincere tribute to two departments of our British Army. The Commissary Department which supplies every want of the soldier, from a high explosive shell to a button. It is as near to the one hundred per cent. mark of efficiency as it is possible for a human organization to become. It is not too much to say that ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... always as it were priming itself, as the number of percussion caps required are introduced through the butt, and conducted to the point desired. The method of inserting the percussion caps is perfectly easy; pressing a little button or nut at the bottom of the butt causes a plate to open, when two spiral wire-springs must be taken out, as also a moveable tube, from the interior of the gun, and the latter filled with percussion caps, which must be poured into fixed tubes which communicate with the anvil; they ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... Little Princess hung her head, for she had nothing about her that was worth so much as a bone button, and the Wizard knew that as well as you and I. So he said, very softly, "Will you give me your ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... down on an air-car call button, stood waiting until one of the city flitters landed on beam ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... chin, Knowing that a whole life Is in my power, that I am now master, I, a barber, and that a missed stroke, A slice too deep, cuts off the round, cheerful head That lies before me (he is thinking of a woman, Books, business) from his body, As though it were a loose button on a vest— I am overcome. Then the feeling came over me... this animal. Is there. The animal... both my knees knock. And like a small boy tearing paper Without knowing why, And like students who ...
— The Verse of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... protection; yet the poor slave who is fortified by none of these personal bulwarks, is denied the protection of law, while the master, surrounded by them all, is panoplied in the mail of legal protection, even to the hair of his head; yea, his very shoe-tie and coat-button ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... respect to both of us continued much the same for some time longer, but by degrees we both, at the same time, observed, that an alteration began to take place. My master attributed this to his altered fortunes, and I placed it to the score of my decayed appearance—the threadbare cloth and tarnished button came in, I was sure, for their full share of neglect, and he at last fell into the same opinion. To describe all the variety of treatment that we experienced would be a tedious and unpleasant task,—but I was the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... clear with a fast, dry track forecast for post time. The doorbell woke me up and I dredged my apartment to identify Nora fiddling in my two-bit kitchen with ham and eggs. Outside it was Lieutenant Delancey practising kinematics by pressing the button with a levitated pencil instead of shoving on the thing directly. (I'd changed the combination on the ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... inventor succeeds, as well he may, in making a machine which would go into a watch-case, yet complete in all its parts, able to fly around the room. It may carry a button, but nothing heavier. Elated by his success, he makes one on the same model twice as large in every dimension. The parts of the first, which are one inch in length, he increases to two inches. Every part is twice as long, twice as ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... after some time, Andy was observed gazing with the most astonished curiosity into the plate before him. His eyes were rivetted on something; at last he touched it with his knife, arid exclaimed, "Kirhappa, dar dhia!"—[A button by G—.] ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... and he said yes, that had occurred to him, but that we must make sacrifices for Willie's good. He was very brave and cheerful about it. Well, I mustn't stay. There's quite a nip in the air, and Rammikins will get a nasty cold in his precious little button of a nose if I don't walk him about. Say 'Bye-bye' to the ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... degrees, as that swells, the skin cleaves, and at length falls off, with its thorny top and all (which is a part of it) and leaves the seed Case to ripen, and by degrees, to shatter out its seed at a place underneath this cap, B, which before the seed is ripe, appears like a flat barr'd button, without any hole in the middle; but as it ripens, the button grows bigger, and a hole appears in the middle of it, E, out of which, in all probability, the seed falls: For as it ripens by a provision of Nature, that end of this ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... her bonnet-strings and flung them apart,— she likewise loosened the top button of her collar and heaved a deep sigh. Again the Reverend John smiled, and vaguely balanced a penholder ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... cloudless: a haze kept to itself the distant promise of the park: there was no wind. The sleepy hum of insects, a rare contented melody, tilted the hat of Silence over that watchman's eyes. The wandering scent of hawthorns offered the faultless day a precious button-hole. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... strange to know that there was once a time when Cree was young and straight, a callant who wore a flower in his button-hole and tried to be a hero ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie |
