"Chatter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the girl before him with new interest. Out of her chatter he had at last garnered one important fact. His mind, trained to seize upon the vital and instantly discard the inconsequential, clutched the bit of information, and turned it over. From the first Carroll had scouted the idea that the dead man's fiancee might ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... rather be out in the country where men still wear guns, where the sky isn't stained with filthy coal smoke, where there's an horizon wide enough to breathe in, where there's man-talk instead of this damned chatter over tea-cups—" ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... responded the Chilians, and a second later the Gatling in the bows began to chatter out its deadly message, while the seamen rapidly loaded and fired their rifles, in the hope of destroying the infernal machine before it could reach the Blanco Encalada. But, try as they might, it seemed impossible ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... to get me out of court one of these days, squire," muttered Potts, "and so will you too, Master James Device.—A day of reckoning will come for both—heavy reckoning. Ugh! ugh!" he added, shivering, "how my teeth chatter!" ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... from under the Great Rock into the beautiful bay, and was promptly boarded by a few gentlemen of effusive manners who were greatly concerned about the health of Captain S——. The latter requested them to cease their chatter and ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... yes, you speak truth, alas! And yet you must be freed. And"—here she got to her feet, and with flashing eyes spoke out—"and you shall be set free. Let come what will, I owe my first duty to you, though all the world chatter; and I will not stir from that. As soon as I can make ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... riding out in a strange land, on a secret mission, with a pocket full of special service money. Whatever I had felt in the few days of the sea-passage was all forgotten now. I did not even worry about not knowing the language. It would keep me from loitering to chatter. My schoolboy French would probably be enough for all purposes if I vent astray. I was "to avoid chance acquaintances, particularly if they spoke English." That was my last order. Repeating it to ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... be in bed, anyhow," responded Ailsa gaily; and then, this giving the conversation a merry turn, they talked and laughed and kept up such a chatter that three-quarters of an hour went like magic and nobody seemed aware of it. But suddenly Ailsa thought, and then put her thoughts ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... may not see! The distant cauldrons cloak The lava-coloured plains with clouds of umber smoke. Nay, by that shrapnel-light, by those wild shooting stars That rip the clouds away with fiercer fire than Mars, They are painted sharp as death. If these can eat and drink Chatter and laugh and rattle their knives, why should we shrink From empty names? We know those ghastly gleams are true: Why should Christ cry again—They know not what they do? They, heirs of all the ages, sons of Shakespeare's land, They, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... face had by this time become so pale that it could not become paler, so it turned somewhat green instead. His teeth, too, had a tendency to chatter when he spoke, but by a strong mental effort he prevented this, and said in a subdued voice that he was willing to do whatever ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the loins and long in the arms. And their ears had no lobes, and had little pointed tips, a thing that still, in rare instances, survives. Stark-naked vivid little gipsies, as active as monkeys and as full of chatter, though a little wanting ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... ('sh!) Oh, the American girl in Europe! Often she is creditable, but sometimes she is just shocking. This one, a minute ago—19, fat-face, raspy voice, pert ways, the self-complacency of God; and with it all a silly laugh (embarrassed) which kept breaking out through her chatter all along, whereas there was no call for it, for she said nothing that was funny. "Spose so many 've told y' how they 'njoyed y'r chapt'r on the Germ' tongue it's bringin' coals to Newcastle Kehe! say anything 'bout ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... chatter, Friends and foes you bespatter, And dirty, like them, what you eat: The Hollands, your muse Does most grossly abuse, Tho' you feed on their wine and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... wasting my time with your silly prattle," said Meadows, very sternly. "Man alive! you never made fifty pounds cash since you were calved. It comes to your hand to-day, and even then you must chatter and jaw instead of saying yes and closing your fingers on ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... close friendship was established with the Crampas family. They met once at the Borckes', again quite casually at the station, and a few days later on a steamer excursion up the "Broad" to a large beech and oak forest called "The Chatter-man." But they merely exchanged short greetings, and Effi was glad when the bathing season opened early in June. To be sure, there was still a lack of summer visitors, who as a rule did not come in numbers before St. John's ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... that contained in its folded petals all their domestic hopes; and as the star-eyed young mother kissed it lightly and laid it in its father's arms, the happy pair walked away, leaving the echo of their gay musical chatter lingering ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... hill, overlooking another plain, a crescent of steep kopjes on the left, occupied by Boers. The convoy halted just as a spattering rifle-fire ahead struck on the still morning air (it was just dawn), and the chatter of a Maxim on the left flank. We were all rather silent. A staff-officer galloped up, "Walk,—March," "Trot," rang out to the Battery, and we trotted ahead down the hill, plunged down a villainous spruit, and came up on to the level, under a ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... Peter too is typified by Aaron, along with Christ; and I answer, if you must keep on, you could also say that Aaron was a type of the Turk; and who could prevent you, since you delight in such senseless chatter. But you have given promise to argue from the Scriptures; now do it, and leave your dreams at home. Moreover, where faith is concerned, one must contend not with uncertain Scripture texts, but with those that refer to the issue in a way that is certain, clear, and simple; ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... of the evening, holding Betsy in his lap, listening to her funny baby chatter and roaring at her escapades. He took a great fancy to the Clark twins and made all manner of fun for the children by pretending that there was only one of them. "Goodness; how you do fly about!" he would say ruefully to ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... up an incessant chatter. They talked over their situation, but could as yet decide upon nothing. It grew dark at length. The sun went down. The usual ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... the chatter of the keeper as he holds my second gun, and pays me that attention which can only be wiped off by tips! I can hear the sound of the first shot, and decipher the meaning of the initial ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... whether it be correct or incorrect. In either case the child imitates it, and for that child it becomes the natural tone. The child reared in the wilderness, beyond the hearing of a human voice, will imitate the notes of the whip-poor-will, the chatter of the monkey, and the hoot of the owl, and for ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... that every year the governor was subject to a most distressing illness, which, for the time being, entirely deprived him of his reason. When it began to come on, he would talk and chatter incessantly. Each year he had some fresh hallucination, at one time fancying himself an oil-jar, at another a frog, and skipping about like one. Again, another time, he declared he was dead, and wished ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... to ask what's new, but you chatter on so that I have no chance for a word edgeways. Now, what the devil is new ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... all along the road. We soon made the acquaintance of the party. The girls were huddled together on deck in a sort of cage or trelliswork, where they remained, drenched by the sea, four days and three nights, without their chatter and their outbursts of merriment ever ceasing for a single instant. They all dreamt of becoming the wives of sultans or pashas and of living in palaces. As the old man fed them with nothing but millet, to fatten them, we used to bring them our dessert ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... Their chatter, their laughter, their good-humoured innuendoes, above all, their flashes and flickerings of envy, revived Tess's spirits also; and, as the evening wore on, she caught the infection of their excitement, and grew almost gay. The marble hardness left her face, she moved ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... hour afterwards he used to bolt the front door, and go upstairs to bed, always stopping at the sitting-room with a kindly admonition to the "children" not to be late. At last the girls would stop their chatter, and retire for the night, Emily giving her bed to the visitor and taking a share of the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... say I, in a friendly tone. "It will be nice for the general to have an Englishman to talk to. I hope you will sit by him; he has been so much used to men all his life that he must get rather sick of having nothing but the chatter of one woman to ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... the various sleepers coiled or sprawled in their beds; their breathing had not yet grown restless at the nearing of day. He stepped to the door carefully, and saw the crowding blackbirds begin their walk and chatter in the mud of the littered and trodden corrals. From beyond among the cotton woods, came continually the smooth unemphatic sound of the doves answering each other invisibly; and against the empty ridge of the river-bluff lay the moon, no longer shining, for there was ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... likely to save our children from infidelity as their knowing that we receive when we ask, and that our knock brings an open door. If only the family altar were the meeting place between God and man, Atheists might sneer and chatter, but they would never be able to cause our children to listen, for would not they say, "I know my father is a man of God, and the word of the Lord in ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... thrust himself upon me in the hotel; and I was right. I did know it, though thirty years had elapsed since we last met. A man who had been out in Calcutta and picked up a little Sanskrit and a pretty good smattering of Hindustani—a man who can chatter a bit in a foreign tongue always seems a big scholar to one who can't. This fellow, on the strength of his acquirements, came back to England and obtained an appointment near London where military ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... crowd we chaff and chatter with, we meet occasionally a man who never chaffs nor chatters,—a man who sees all things; perhaps because of this, suffers all things, but says nothing at all. The sphinxes are still extant. The old time ones were of stone and bronze; the modern ones are of flesh and ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... in answer to the distant chatter of an electric bell, and in self-defence, Broffin had to grope on the floor for his hat and stand ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... Sovrani was detained in her studio by the fascinating company and bewildering chatter of a charming and very well-known personage in Europe,—a dainty, exquisitely dressed piece of femininity with the figure of a sylph and the complexion of a Romney "Lady Hamilton,"—the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein, an Austro- ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... listened to snatches of the usual vapid chatter that dancing seems to induce. Then the orchestra blared forth with another of the seductive ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... the General Manager's. And presently he recognized the coachman. The horses were moving at a walk, very slowly; but at length Harboro recognized the General Manager's wife, reclining under a white silk sunshade and listening to the vivacious chatter of a young woman by her side. They would be coming over to attend the services in the Episcopal church in Eagle Pass, Harboro realized. Then he recognized the young woman, too. He had met her at one of the affairs to which he had been ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... butterfly apparel, which flutter around their limbs like gaily coloured wings. The suns and stars of every climate flash and sparkle in those eyes. The whole gigantic city resounds with merry songs and musical chatter, and any man who could have seen them tripping along in whole lines might have exclaimed in despair: "Why have I not a hundred, why have I not a thousand hearts to ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... the while the stream talked, the larks sang, and in the hollow of the hills three children were happy. George landed half a dozen trout before lunch-time; but Taffy caught none, partly because he knew nothing about fishing, partly because the chatter of the stream set him telling tales to himself and he forgot the rod in his hand. And Honoria, after hooking a tiny fish and throwing it back into the water, wandered off in search of larks' nests. She came slowly back when George blew a whistle ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... people might chatter and beckon as they would, his interest in them was gone. On the other hand, he had become completely absorbed in the personality of this other, once heart and centre of the gayest set in civilized society; now dwelling in ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... continued to rattle, and the children's teeth to chatter; also Siller's, all she had left in ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... had not to warn the giant not to chatter about meeting the stranger on the road to Waterfield. If that person with dried red mud on his boots was the spy who had followed Mr. Richard Bartholomew East and was engaged by Montagne Lewis to interfere with any attempt the president ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... austere virgin, and the warmth with which she repelled this accusation, caused us all so much amusement, that in another moment or two we were in the full swing again of our ordinary chatter. ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Jack cried excitedly, thrusting the folded newspaper under Ted's eyes and pointing to the bold typed appeal for recruits, all the while keeping up a running fire of chatter. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... at them as he sat in the sunlight, as if he approved of their merry chatter. Possibly he thought it fine that there were to be two little girls at Sherwood Hall to ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... rocked to and fro. "Oh! vy vos I a midshipman," cried he, "to be wrecked on this desolate island? I vish I vos at home at Bloomsbury! Oh! that I had but to turn and embrace my kind, good, benevolent, and much respected grandmother." As he uttered this pathetic plaint, he heard a chatter—of which, at first considering that it proceeded from his own teeth, he took no notice—but the sounds being repeated, he turned his head, and beheld a huge baboon with a dog-face and flowing hair, grinning with admiration at ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... tearoom of the smartest hotel in Munich; war has come; high-voiced women of title chatter over their teacups; comes swaggering in the Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria; he has just had his sabre sharpened and has girt his abdomen for war. His wife runs to him. And she kisses the sabre and shouts: "Bring it back to me covered with blood—that I may kiss it again!" And ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... much talking during the first part of the scramble, but Aleck contrived to get the contents of one of his pockets scattered by a hasty jump, and we had to stop and pick up the things, which was the signal for our chatter to begin ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... had a tenderness for the garrulity of Old Veuve, and for the damsel. Chatter on that subject ran ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in showers about me; and there I heard only The roar of the sea, ice-cold waves, and the song of the swan; For pastime the gannets' cry served me; the kittiwakes' chatter For laughter of men; and for mead drink the call of the sea mews. When storms on the rocky cliffs beat, then the terns, icy-feathered, Made answer; full oft the sea eagle forebodingly screamed, The eagle with pinions wave-wet.... The shadows of night became darker, it snowed ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... mean to chatter so much, but I wish you would come out hither and read our possibilities now being daily disclosed, and our actualities which are not nothing. I shall like to show you my near neighbors, topographically or practically. A near neighbor and friend, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the speaker's pendent eyelids and grave gray eyes suddenly shook March to his foundations; and he cried, distractedly, "I don't understand!" as men do when they fear that they do understand. There was no sound for a space but the happy chatter of the birds, and then ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... sister was sixteen when I left; she must be eighteen now. She was pretty, and she ought to be beautiful. Then there is my brother Edouard, a delightful youngster of twelve, who will let off fireworks between your legs and chatter a gibberish of English with you. At the end of the fortnight we will go ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... chatter, Mr. Ferrers, and listen to me with whatever little power of concentration you may possess. Your conduct, sir, has been wholly unfitting an officer and a gentleman. If I did my full duty I'd order you in arrest at once, and have you brought to trial before a general court-martial. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... repeated, turning toward Barebone, who stood listening to the boy's chatter. "You find us as you left us, Loo. Was it six months ago? Ah! How time flies when one remains stationary. For you, I ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... the shifting line of dark figures seen against the white wall of the breaker, or note the fugitive tints on the dimpling surface of the water, or the wet margin of the tide. A group of villagers is clustered round the water-fountain a few yards away; the children chatter about us as they fill their pitchers; and the old women, creeping homewards, cast a glance under their bonnets at the boys, and exchange muttered comments with their gossips. Soon the cliffs of the southern headland ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... He heard a harsh chatter—voices crying out in a foreign tongue. He heard a great booming voice that stirred memory. He heard a pistol-shot. He heard Ruth's voice, raised in a ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... matter? what's the matter? What is't that ails young Harry Gill? That evermore his teeth they chatter, Chatter, chatter, chatter still. Of waistcoats Harry has no lack, Good duffle grey, and flannel fine; He has a blanket on his back, And coats ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... bell of warning was pealing loudly from the cedar lawn, she could hear the merry chatter of the returning guests. ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... barbarians. What of it? We scorn them and their abuse. For my part I hope that in this war we have merited the title of barbarians. Let neutral peoples and our enemies cease their empty chatter, which may well be compared to the twitter of birds. Let them cease their talk of the Cathedral at Rheims and of all the churches and all the castles in France which have shared its fate. These things do not interest us. Our troops must ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... Villon, "do you really fancy that I steal for pleasure? I hate stealing, like any other piece of work or of danger. My teeth chatter when I see a gallows. But I must eat, I must drink; I must mix in society of some sort. What the devil! Man is not a solitary animal—cui Deus foeminam tradit. Make me king's pantler, make me Abbot of St. Denis, make me bailie of the Patatrac, and then I shall be changed indeed. But as long ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... acted in an unfriendly manner, I will try for the first and final time to explain it. I hold that any man who marries a good woman gets more than he deserves, no matter how worthy he may be. I have a profound respect for all women, and I think that your light chatter about choosing between two is an insult to both of them. I think either of them is infinitely too good for ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... an open-air existence. Most of her daylight hours were spent, either rolling on the rough lawn, or sleeping in a hammock swung beneath an apple tree, and as a result, night-tide found her a very drowsy baby indeed. The children might romp and sing and chatter around her very cot as she slept, but she could not steal out of her slumbers even to blink a golden eyelash ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... checked calico) on their heads, their strong red arms bared above the elbow. The Mere Michon, the eldest of the four, directed everything and kept them well at work, allowed very little talking; they generally chatter when they are washing and very often quarrel. When they are washing at the public "lavoir" in the village one hears their shrill voices from a great distance. Our "lingere," Mme. Hubert, superintended the whole operation; she was very keen about ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... always do just what they meant, or really wished, at the bottom of their hearts. But to-day all the little storms were forgotten in the great news, and all the faces looked bright and eager, though just at first not much was said, for when children are hungry of course they can't chatter quite so fast, and all the four tongues were silent till at least one cup of tea, and perhaps three or four slices of bread and butter each—just as a beginning, ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... them! Glad of that! But youngsters, eat first, chatter afterwards! The wagons will be at the door very soon and I want to get in a good thirty miles ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... possible you will have such comfort as that for some time to come; but we may be able to make your teeth chatter in a few days," Neal replied laughingly, and then as the breeze caused by the movement of the yacht over the water fanned his face, he added sleepily, "Good night; I don't believe I shall open my eyes until ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... always ready to take a "trick" at the wheel during either of the dog-watches, and so give the rightful helmsman a chance to stay "for'ard" and amuse himself with his shipmates; and when this was the case Blanche generally used to seat herself in a deck-chair near him, and chatter away upon ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... ironwort, in gaudy border, filled the fence corners of the big fields. A misty haze hung in the air, because the Indians were burning the prairies to round up game for winter. The cawing of the crows, the chatter of blackbirds, and the piping bob-whites, sounded so close and so natural out there, while the crowing cocks of the barnyard seemed miles away and slightly unreal. Grown up and important, I sat on a board laid across the wagon bed, and guided the team of matched greys between the rows of shocks, ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... felt like being candid with me in a matter where I'd naturally be vitally interested, I can hardly expect you to pour out your heart about a dead-and-gone love-affair with a rustic up in these parts. I understood from the chatter of your old friends that it is dead and gone. I can congratulate you on that proof of your newer wisdom, Lana. It shows that my counsels haven't ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... privilegio Papali ad triennium et postea non. The Shitabranna of the Maids. The Bald Arse or Peeled Breech of the Widows. The Cowl or Capouch of the Monks. The Mumbling Devotion of the Celestine Friars. The Passage-toll of Beggarliness. The Teeth-chatter or Gum-didder of Lubberly Lusks. The Paring-shovel of the Theologues. The Drench-horn of the Masters of Arts. The Scullions of Olcam, the uninitiated Clerk. Magistri N. Lickdishetis, de garbellisiftationibus horarum canonicarum, libri quadriginta. Arsiversitatorium confratriarum, incerto authore. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of a man to raise up the son of Irene; so I brought you to Father Victor on a winter night and left you in his arms. That was after I'd done my best to raise you and you was just about old enough to chatter a bit. There wasn't nothing else to do. My wife, she went pretty near crazy when I brought you home. And she'd of killed you, Pierre, if I hadn't took ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... claim with a quiet firmness that proved irresistible. Grace was said with solemn brevity by the Colonel, whose sum total of orthodoxy was comprised in that brief grace, and in regular attendance at church on Sunday mornings; and then there came a period of chatter and laughter which might have been a little distracting to a stranger. Each of the boys and girls had some wonderful fact, usually about his or her favourite animal, to communicate to the father. Aunt Betsy broke in with her fine manly voice at every turn in the conversation. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... railway station were full of soldiers. No enthusiasm, no stir of any kind, only the usual tired stoicism. And one thought of what the poilu can be like; of our Christmas dinner-table at the hospital under the green hanging wreaths and the rosy Chinese lanterns, the hum, the chatter, the laughter of free and easy souls in their red hospital jackets. The French are so easily, so incorrigibly gay; the dreary grinding pressure of this war seems horribly cruel applied to such a people, and the heroism with which they have borne its untold miseries is ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... fish, Jack and Bill were sent below, so that the authorities might not see them and carry them off. Captain Turgot was much afraid of losing them. They were getting on famously with their French, and Bill could chatter away already at a great rate, though not in very good French, to be sure, for he made a number of blunders, which afforded constant amusement to his companions, but Pierre was always ready ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... piece of work. The Marchesino could not realize work. He knew his friend published books. He even saw him sometimes actually engaged in writing them, pen in hand. But he was sure anybody would far rather sit and chatter with him, or hear him play a valse on the piano, or a bit of the "Boheme," than bend over a table all by himself. And Artois always welcomed him. He liked him. But it was not only that which made him complaisant. Doro was a type, and a ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... though she suffered cold, hugged herself and shivered, she was not of our nature, to die of such exposure. Her eyes, as I could guess, were long-enduring and steadfast. Her lips were not blue, though her teeth seemed to chatter; she was not rigid with the stiffening that precedes frozen death. Drawing near her by degrees, coming within fifteen yards of where she stood and passioned, though she saw me, waited for me, in a way expected me, she showed neither fear nor embarrassment, nor appealed by looks for shelter. She ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... Have you turned into the by-streets and watched the men returning to their wise little houses and the family groups assembled to meet them and help them change into their kimonos? Have you heard the splashing and the chatter of the bath-houses which are the evening clubs of the common people and the great clearing-houses of gossip? Have you heard the broken samisen music tracking you down a street of geisha houses? Have you seen the geisha herself in her blue ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... for some minutes with her; but, suddenly, she feigned to be seized with a sharp pain in the spleen, and was conducted to a sofa. The young Comte de Vermandois came and sat there near her. They were both exhibiting signs of gaiety; their chatter amused them, and they were seen to laugh with great freedom. Although Monsieur le Dauphin was assuredly not in their thoughts, he thought they were making merry at his expense. He came and sat at the right of the Princess ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sharpened on his, Rose's own had developed. They had dealt in delicious nonsense, these two, and had her husband been of a different temperament she might have found it a refuge in her life with him. But, somehow, from the first, even before they were married, when with Martin, such chatter had died unuttered on Rose's tongue. The few remarks which she did venture, nowadays, had the effect of a disconcerting splash before they sank into the gloomy depths of the thick silence. Occasionally, in sheer self defense, she carried on a light monologue, but Martin's lack of interest ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... there was something for which he was seeking and which he never found. The desire and the questing came to him most compellingly in the long winter filled with its eternal starlight, when the maddening yap, yap, yap of the little white foxes, the barking of the dogs, and the Eskimo chatter oppressed him like the voices of haunting ghosts. In these long months, filled with the horror of the arctic night, the spirit of Tao whispered within him that somewhere there was light and sun, that somewhere there was warmth and flowers, and running streams, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... white-crested laughing-thrush. This is the Eastern counterpart of the white-throated laughing-thrush (Garrulax albigularis). This species has a large white crest. It goes about in flocks of about a score. The members of the flock scream and chatter and make discordant sounds which some might ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... escape, as we lived, from being beset. We had all to attend the Queen to the Litanies at the chapel. She used to remain in her little orator praying long after they were finished, Mademoiselle with her, and, by her own account, generally asleep. I am ashamed to say how much chatter, and how many petits soins, went on among those waiting outside. I used to kneel, as I heard people say, like a grim statue over my chair, with my rosary hanging from my hands, for if I did but hear a rustle and turn my head, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... because he overleaps the level of his life, and is greater than his race, being one of them? If he were of the heroic race, what virtue in being heroic? it is the assertion of his trivial life that makes his speciality evident,—the shadow that throws out the bas-relief. We chatter endlessly about the immense good of Washington's example: I believe its good would be more than doubled, could we be made, nationally, to see him as a human being, living on 'human nature's daily food,' having mortal and natural ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... look cheerful at the breakfast-table, and every one missed the gay laugh and chatter which usually made the ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... two naughty unruly children into the bargain. No wonder that she grew paler even than her wont at the appalling thought. Luckily for her, however, Maud was far from guessing the dismay her casually given information was causing her silent companion, and under cover of her chatter, Margaret had time to recover a little from the shock she had received and to resolve to try and make the best of it. Of one thing she was sure, Eleanor herself had no idea of the services she had been expected to give in exchange for being asked to spend her holidays at The Cedars. Neither ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... thanks to the doctor and a pump we pulled him through. When he was able to be shipped home I went down to the train to see him off and as he kissed me goodby he said, 'Don't you worry, kid, I won't forget this.' I didn't pay any attention to his chatter, thinking it nothing but balloon juice. But this letter says that he died about a week ago and left ten thousand to me in such a way that it won't do his wife no good to yelp. Ten thousand! Gee, ain't that an awful huge lot of ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... with her good mother-wit, this man saw in a moment as an enemy, viz., that this new combination dwarfed the L20,000 altogether. Monckton had no idea that his unknown antagonist Nurse Easton had married the pair, but the very attachment, as the chatter-box of the Dun Cow described it, was a bitter pill to him. "Who could have foreseen this?" said he. "It's devilish." We did not ourselves intend our readers to feel it so, or we would not have spent ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... shiver,' said Mr. Dick, counterfeiting that affection and making his teeth chatter. 'Held by the palings. Cried. But, Trotwood, come here,' getting me close to him, that he might whisper very softly; 'why did she give him money, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... reason for further delay. He urged Anne to marry him. Why should they waste time? When he consulted Marcia, she agreed with him. Everybody, she said, was getting married. Why shouldn't he and Anne? Already the rumor of their engagement had crept out. There were hints of it in the social chatter of the papers. Why not announce it formally, and have ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... living pastoral, full of the genuine breath of the fields, the song of birds, and the pleasant chatter of trickling streams. ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... your head, or starved out, or knocked out, or something, for if it stays there it will addle your brains altogether. Why cannot you see that you are in the world just like other people, and give up all these ridiculous dreams and all this chatter about counts and princes and such like people, of whom you never spoke to one in your life, for ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... wife had been so jealous, and procured for him a French gouvernante, who had lived with families of the first quality in Paris; and who, of course, must set my Lady Lyndon jealous too. Under the care of this young woman my little rogue learned to chatter French most charmingly. It would have done your heart good to hear the dear rascal swear Mort de ma vie! and to see him stamp his little foot, and send the manants and canaille of the domestics to the trente mille diables. He was precocious in all things: ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that Toby and I were near the companion-hatch, that we might hold on tight to it. The scene was stirring in the extreme; rather more than was pleasant indeed. I did not like the state of things, and Toby's teeth began to chatter in his head. It was very dark. The wind roared through the rigging; the sails, extended to the utmost, would, I thought, burst from the bolt-ropes, or carry the stout mast out of the vessel. The lugger heeled over till the men at the ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... all over the world, wherever a man-of-war is anchored, manage to find out when it is dinnertime, appearing regularly when the mess-tins are being washed, and the cooks are taking the buckets of broken victuals to the head to throw overboard. Then they chatter and scream, and fight for the remnants as they drift astern, until all is consumed, when they betake themselves to fresh fields out of sight until we pipe to ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... listened many and many a time To little JINKS, the jerky comic mime, And his facetious chatter. But ill would fare Town's guest if he refused For the five hundredth time to be 'amused' By ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... alert. While his garrulous tongue ran aimlessly on, he considered ways and means. The boy held up empty hands to show him that he was unarmed. The nester did not by the flicker of an eyelash betray the presence of a third party to the man at table with him. Nevertheless his chatter became from that moment addressed to two listeners. To one it meant nothing in particular. To the other it was ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... were mere children. What would her friends in Paris have said to that? I spent all my leisure time in the women's house, whither I was unconsciously more and more strongly attracted, not less by the young American's conversation—which was a piquant mixture of animated controversy and unaffected chatter—than by her harp-playing and her clear alto voice. But this did not satisfy sister Clara, who at last hit upon the plan of marrying us. Our common 'foolishness'—that is, our social ideas—made us, she thought, mutually suitable; and though, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Sunday tea, with sardines and tinned salmon and tinned peaches, besides tarts and cakes. The chatter was general. It concerned the Nixon family ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... at the door, the presence of the commissioner Mutel, the chatter of the previous evening, had naturally roused everybody's imagination. But this excitement had to be kept for home use: the whole street was under arrest, and its inhabitants were forbidden to leave their houses. The windows, crammed ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the lingering chatter of his predecessors dies away. He is rotund, judging by his voice (I have not yet seen him); also I should say that he goes in for physical culture. For, by the sounds that ascend to my window, his procedure ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... time in carrying out his plans. He was eager to rejoin his comrades in the north, but when the time came to leave he was very sorry to say good-by to Lucia. She had found a warm and secure spot in his big heart, and he knew he would miss her gay chatter and the laughing ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... bold 340 Plainly appear; the dastard changes hue And shifts from place to place, nor can he calm The fears that shake his trembling limbs, but sits Low-crouching on his hams, while in his breast Quick palpitates his death-foreboding heart, 345 And his teeth chatter; but the valiant man His posture shifts not; no excessive fears Feels he, but seated once in ambush, deems Time tedious till the bloody fight begin;) Even there, thy courage should no blame incur.[8] 350 For should'st thou, toiling in the fight, by spear Or falchion bleed, not on ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... of documents which causes the Gallery to resound with foolish and vapid chatter there are two small pictures. Every one has passed by them, but now an artist is examining them, and they are evidently the only two things in the exhibition that interest him. One is entitled "Sunset on the Nile", an ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... ivory side, You clasp the golden head; Fools, fools, who chatter and sing, You have taken the sign of a terrible thing, You have drunk down God with your beeswing, And broken ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... in no mood for company, missed the rest of the crew by two public-houses, and having purchased a baby's teething powder and removed the label, had a congratulatory drink or two before going on board again. A chatter of voices from the forecastle warned him that the crew had returned, but the tongues ceased abruptly as he descended, and three pairs of eyes surveyed him ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... to consider how this was to be managed, and she came to the conclusion that a visit to St. Penfer was the best way. She knew well how to prepare for it—the little helps, and confidences, and personal chatter Joan was always pleased and flattered by were the wedge. Then as they washed the dinner dishes and tidied the house together, ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... bending reeds and lapping waters to break the hush and remind one of a sentient world. Perhaps the author and his Indian guides occasionally exchanged a word, or the two white companions and himself indulged in a laugh that started the rattling echoes of the hills, but there was no chatter, no twaddle, no dissensions. The narrative reads like a story. Reading it, one longs to start for LAKE GLAZIER to-morrow, and thence descending, halt not in his long course until his faithful canoe slips ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... with favour the crowd which made them even more uncomfortable than they had been before. As Englishmen in such positions generally do, they kept themselves aloof and scowled, frowned at the children who whined in the nearest neighbourhood to them, and listened in disgust to the continuous chatter about ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... said the doctor. "The last of the Avellanos and the last of the Corbelans are conspiring with the refugees from Sta. Marta that flock here after every revolution. The Cafe Lambroso at the corner of the Plaza is full of them; you can hear their chatter across the street like the noise of a parrot-house. They are conspiring for the invasion of Costaguana. And do you know where they go for strength, for the necessary force? To the secret societies amongst immigrants ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... to chatter. The person my uncle expects may arrive at any moment. If we had to give him breakfast, where should we be with nothing in ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... burst of song had a wonderful effect upon the denizens of Clear Lake, as we named the sheet of water; for, after a brief momentary pause in their chatter—as if of incredulity and blazing surprise—they all arose at once in such myriads that the noise of their wings was not unlike what I ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... chatter of his promenades among the masterpieces it may be assumed that he has crossed the sill of middle-age. Remy de Gourmont, gentle ironist, calls such a period l'heure insidieuse. Yet, is it not something—a vain virtue, perhaps—to ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Verily, this very day I mean to shed thy blood and rid the folk of thy prattling." The youth replied, "O king, an there have betided thee talk because of me, by Allah, and again by Allah the Great, those who have brought on thee this talk from the folk are none but these wicked Wazirs, who chatter with the crowd and tell them foul tales and ill things in the king's house, but I hope in the Most High that He will cause their malice to recoil upon their own heads. As for the king's menace of slaying me, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... birdlings keep up with their mother! They like to talk as well as Eddie Dudley and some other children, whom I have heard pleasantly called little chatter-boxes. Children have much to learn, and must ask many questions. The world is new and strange to them, and is a constant source of surprise and wonder. I do not suppose people ever learn faster than before they are six years old, or ever learn more in the same length ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... Emma's anger, Monsieur Homais' chatter, and, perhaps, by the heaviness of the luncheon, was undecided, and, as it were, fascinated by the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert |
