"Gingerly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... possessed by unnatural energy, stayed only to put off his boots. Then "Courage!" he panted, "all goes well!" and, carrying his boots in his hands, he led the way, stepping gingerly from joist to joist until he reached the tie-beam. He climbed on it, and, squeezing himself between the struts, entered a second loft, similar to the first. At the farther end of this a rough wall of bricks in a timber-frame lowered his hopes; but as he ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... Brice held Simon Cameron gingerly, almost respectfully, standing so the huge eyes were able to gaze unimpeded at the gaping and shaking boy. Then, speaking very slowly, in a deep and ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... great a puzzle. Benson finally decided to stop guessing until some future time. He went on with his dressing. Finally, with his blouse buttoned as exactly as ever, and his cap placed gingerly on his aching head, he opened the stateroom door, stepping out into ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... with her, Ebenezer, and settle it," commanded Miss Cynthia, and at the word the bird stretched out his funny claw, which Ruth took in gingerly fashion. ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... the first!" reflected Daireh, as he was escorted through the streets, his woe-begone appearance and gingerly gait exciting much mirth and mockery amongst the juvenile population. "I wish I had left the accursed wills alone. And what son of Sheytan is this who has traced them, and had my likeness in his pocket? A detective? No; no English policeman would win upon this mad fool of a sheikh—may the ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... their walks abroad, they stepped very gingerly as they approached the village of Marsden. It never occurred to them to enter Donald's home. They might have found him half-a-dozen times a day. They never once crossed the threshold of ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... was suggested everybody seemed ready for the start, even without the moon, for the path was fairly clear and the men had pocket flashlights, so down in the dark they started, proceeding cautiously and gingerly, and accumulating mental reservations about mountains and mountain climbing until the moon suddenly overtook them and sent a silvering wash of light into the ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... staring at them, and his surprise seemed equal to their own. He waved his hand. Catlin gingerly ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... was dark. They were cold. Their legs were stiff. They lay each along one edge of a tremendously wide bed, between them a tangle of narrow sheets and blankets. Telemachus raised himself to a sitting position and put his feet, that were still swollen, gingerly to the floor. He drew them up again with a jerk and sat with his teeth chattering hunched on the edge of the bed. Lyaeus burrowed into the blankets and went back to sleep. For a long while Telemachus could not thaw his frozen wits enough ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... from broken casks; guns which had belonged to the family were broken and splintered and lay where they had been hurled; fences were broken down. Had there been any stock left, there was nothing to keep them out of garden or yard. Only old Whitey was left, however, and he walked gingerly about sniffing at the cumbered ground, looking as surprised as he was able. The carriage and buggy had been drawn out, the curtains and cushions cut and smeared thoroughly with molasses and lard. Breakfast-time arrived, but no Ruthy came up from the quarter; ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... Holding it gingerly, as if it were a dangerous combustible which might explode at any moment, she hurried away with it to her own room, turned the key in the lock, and ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... is it!" exclaimed the old woman, who had drawn back the door gingerly as if she had expected some one else on possibly a hostile mission, for an expression of relief came over her face when she saw only me; and then, ushering me into a little room leading out of the hall, she left me there, ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... stared at one another a moment and then began laughing. Arthur seemed crestfallen, while Uncle John handled his small box as gingerly as if he suspected it contained ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... to be an adept in the most difficult fields and now in his new environment he was pushing his investigations with passionate zeal. But the boys found in him points on which a laugh could be hung. As he strode homeward from his walks in the outer fields or marshes, we eyed him gingerly, for who could tell what he might have in his pockets? Turtles, tadpoles, snakes, any old monster might be there, and queer stories prevailed of the menagerie which, hung up, and forgotten in the professor's dressing-room, crept out and sought asylum in the beds, shoes, and hats of ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... gingerly, as if afraid of soiling her dainty boots; but Midge and Molly, with a hop, skip, and jump, bounded out on the beach ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... wouldn't do no harm to sweep an' beat these carpets!" she exclaimed. Then, slipping her forefinger gingerly over the edge of a chair: "Look at that dust!" she said, severely, holding ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... for he came downstairs very gingerly, and obviously relied on the banisters for support. He gave his mother a hearty hug, and, in reply to her questions concerning the whereabouts of Netty, explained that the daughter of the house had gone out in a state of agitation and ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... he found Scotty again and pressed him down; then, very gingerly, he put his head above water, half expecting to feel the ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... bigger and more noble-looking fellow was never seen. Veevee said he couldn't stand another dog in the place. So he started up, barking loudly, and offering to fight the mastiff to the death on the spot. But Briton stepped gingerly over the little dog, and went and lay quietly ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... instead of plucking off a piece for my experiment, what should I do but walk up to a great pine tree in a portion of the wood which had escaped so much as scorching, strike a match, and apply the flame gingerly to one of the tassels. The tree went off simply like a rocket; in three seconds it was a roaring pillar of fire. Close by I could hear the shouts of those who were at work combating the original conflagration. I could see the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... somewhat gingerly, first by the blade, then by the handle. "Wha—what do you do first?" ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... the fire. He paused to reconnoitre, but not being driven back, came closer. His nose shot swiftly to the side, nostrils a-tremble and bristles rising along the spine; and straight and true, he followed the sudden scent to his master's head. He sniffed it gingerly at first and licked the forehead with his red lolling tongue. Then he sat abruptly down, pointed his nose up at the first faint star, ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... I had no sooner in hand than a natural sense of disquietude led me to glance apprehensively, first at the door, then at the window, though I had locked the one and shaded the other. It seemed as if some other eye besides my own must be gazing at what I held so gingerly in hand; that the walls were watching me, if nothing else, and the sensation this produced was so exactly like that of guilt (or what I imagined to be guilt), that I was forced to repeat once more to myself that it was not a good man's overthrow I sought, or even a bad man's immunity from punishment, ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... down dejectedly in a chair in the office, and Stedman approached his instrument gingerly, as though it ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... and were dumb with amazement. The Lion gently took the packet of sulphur tablets from Christine and thanked her for providing them. Gingerly he approached each of the other three sleeping lions in turn and insinuatingly placed two in the mouth of each lion; one tablet each side between each lion's big front teeth ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... the last drench and backtow of the surf, rocked her clear from part of her watery load, and then, with a feeling of relief, clambered gingerly on board and baled the rest over the gunwale with his hands. It is not good to stay over-long in these seas which fringe the West African beaches, by reason of the ground shark which makes them his hunting-ground. And then he manned the paddle, knelt in the stern, and went the shortest way to ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... quick-witted to realize that his companion desired him to strike a blow with his fist at the grinning face painted on the leathern pad, and he did so without hesitation. At the same time, as he had no idea of what resistance he should encounter, he struck out rather gingerly, and the ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... smiled over the very gingerly way in which he reached out for her elbow to guide her around the rail and toward the step. Technically, the action constituted putting her off the car. She heard the crisp voice once more, this time repeating a number, "twenty-two-naught-five," ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... is such," commented he, "is strikingly catholic. Plutarch, Snarleyow, the Opium Eater, Martin Chuzzlewit." Then came a host of tattered pamphlets, bound in shrieking paper covers, which the speaker handled gingerly. "'The Crimes of Anton Probst,'" he continued to read, "'The Deeds of the Harper Family,' 'The Murder of ——'" here he paused, tossed the pamphlets aside with contempt, sat down and drew ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... with the ointment, which at first made us smart fearfully, and then, very gingerly sat down ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... put the awful atom on it gingerly, while the foster-mother reiterated her counsel ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the gap single file and gingerly, then forward again at a hard gallop, clattering rough-shod over paved streets, for now at last we were in the city ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... gingerly. She was uncommonly afraid of what she might be drawing on herself by her venturing to disagree with the small autocrat of the nursery. To her surprise Hoodie took the information philosophically, relieving her feelings only by ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... provost-guard, armed with picks and spades, and made them march in close order along the road, so as to explode their own torpedoes, or to discover and dig them up. They begged hard, but I reiterated the order, and could hardly help laughing at their stepping so gingerly along the road, where it was supposed sunken torpedoes might explode at each step, but they found no other torpedoes till near Fort McAllister. That night we reached Pooler's Station, eight miles from Savannah, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... was the broad-shouldered lackey I had seen riding behind the coach: and now stood over the saucepan with a twisted flask in his hand, from which he pour'd a red syrup very gingerly, drop by drop, with the tail of his eye turn'd on his master's face, that he might know when ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... trembles in the leash. A boiler, trembles when word goes down the speaking-tube from the bridge for "all she's got." And so the mild-looking hakim Kurram Khan, walking gingerly across her rocks, donning cheap, imitation shell-rimmed spectacles to help him look the part, trembled even more than ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Perhaps not then. The sum of his discontent plunged him into a black temper in which he rehearsed the details of his morning's misadventure with growing spleen and wished sincerely that Silas would appear again and roar at him. And, then, gingerly descending the rickety steps, Kenny remembered that the corncrib ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... weather. It was so with all the others—the Red Riding-hoods, the princesses, the Bo-Peeps and with every one of the characters who came to the Mayor's ball; Red Riding-hood looked round, with big, frightened eyes, all ready to spy the wolf, and carried her little pat of butter and pot of honey gingerly in her basket; Bo-Peep's eyes looked red with weeping for the loss of her sheep; and the princesses swept about so grandly in their splendid brocaded trains, and held their crowned heads so high that people half-believed them to be ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... there, Sholto stepped gingerly over the reclining forms of the first relief guard, who lay wrapped in their cloaks, every man grasping his arms. Most of these were lying in the dead sleep of tired men, whilst others restlessly moved about ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... off, and was gingerly applying that hand to the narrow stretch of upper lip. There was blood there. Hen, catching only an imperfect view as he gazed down past the end of his nose, was sure that he had been badly ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... wily statement to again throw men off the track; at any rate it contains the old assumption of a mystery, practically insoluble, about the gentler sex. Women generally encourage this notion, and men by their gingerly treatment of it seemed to accept it. But is it well-founded, is there any more mystery about women—than about men? Is the feminine nature any more difficult to understand than the masculine nature? Have women, conscious of inferior strength, woven this notion of mystery about themselves ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and to observe the fear with which she shunned him. Pity and alarm, in nearly equal forces, contested the possession of his mind; and yet, in spite of both, he saw himself condemned to follow in the lady's wake. He did so gingerly, as fearing to increase her terrors; but, tread as lightly as he might, his footfalls eloquently echoed in the empty street. Their sound appeared to strike in her some strong emotion; for scarce had he begun to follow ere she paused. A second time she addressed herself to flight; and a second ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to recover his nerve, and returned to become an unseen spectator to a purely domestic scene, for Bones had immersed the squalling infant in his own india-rubber bath, and was gingerly cleaning him with ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... very gingerly for a few paces. Then there was an oath, a shower of blue sparks as shod hooves crashed on small stones, and a man rolled over with a jangle of accoutrements that would ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... more punctiliously than usual, and came back to the hearthrug still inflated as it were with his own eloquence. Meanwhile Lucy was washing up the tea things. The little servant had brought her a bowl of water and an apron, and Lucy was going gingerly through an operation she detested. Why shouldn't Mary Ann do it? What was the good of going to school and coming back with Claribel's songs and Blumenthal's Deux Anges lying on the top of your box,—with a social education, moreover, so advanced that the dancing—mistress had invariably ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... classes stirred nervously, counting off the minutes, sitting gingerly on the seat-edges for fear of wrinkling the carefully pressed suits or shifting solicitously the sharpened trousers in peril of a bagging at the knees. Heavens! how interminable the hour was, sitting there in a planked shirt and a fashion-high collar—and what ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... split tomato can and carefully holding it before him stepped gingerly over to a rock on which he sat down and began eating of the contents of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... over to the cradle and more gingerly still pulled down the dirty blanket. She had no intention of touching the baby—she had no "knack with kids" either. She saw an ugly midget with a red, distorted little face, rolled up in a piece of dingy old flannel. She had never seen ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... no more harm, Sister," said he. "Paint as much as you like." And gingerly He picked up the snake with his stick. Clotilde Thanked him, and begged that he would shield Her secret, though itching ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... The master of the house professed himself delighted at his good fortune; pressed his friend's hand with his third remaining finger and presented his arm, the stiff one, to the lady who touched it as gingerly as if she ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... moment.) Here is the saucer that she used. More finger-prints. A few minutes ago I sent this young woman a note. The man who gave it to her wore gloves, so did I when I addressed the envelope. Hers are the only naked hands that have touched it. (He picks up the envelope gingerly by one corner, and holds it outward to them.) They are unquestionably Helen O'Neill's finger-prints. (HELEN is in WILLIAM'S arms. DONOHUE puts down the envelope. Then he picks up the cup and points to the finger-marks on it.) And so, Mr. Crosby, are these. There can be no doubt about it. ...
— The Thirteenth Chair • Bayard Veiller
... but a few minutes later as he lay snuggled between his blankets, Connie smiled to himself to see his big partner take the book from the shelf, light his pipe, and after settling himself comfortably in his chair, gingerly turn its pages. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... inside," put in Billy, as he gingerly removed a piece of meat from his ear. "As an outside decoration I'm ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... overheard him bellowing away most lustily. I made him the usual compliments—explained that this was the first I had heard of his illness, and that I had come to him post-haste—and sat down at his side, in very gingerly fashion, lest I should touch his feet. There had been a good deal of talk already about gout, and this was still going on; each man had his pet prescription to offer. Cleodemus was giving his. 'In the left hand take up the tooth of a field-mouse, which has ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... an easy attitude waiting for an answer and gazed in clumsy surprise at Dick, as that arch-deceiver stamped his way down below in a fury. He even went so far as to pretend that Dick had gone down for the flag in question, and gingerly putting his head down the scuttle, said that a pair of bathing drawers would do if it was not forthcoming—a piece of pleasantry which he would willingly have withdrawn when the time came for him to meet Dick ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... gingerly. He had hated to think of the untold fathoms beneath him—depths which in his imagination were strewn with shipwrecks and the bones of ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... as he looked at his prisoner, whom he held gingerly between a finger and a thumb. "Are you the rascal that keeps me awake at night with your ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Rather gingerly the girls entered the old house again. The light was flashed in all the rooms downstairs, but the girls balked at going to the upper floors, though Mr. Blackford ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... A trifle gingerly his chum extended his hand toward the circle of metal. Though Tom had assured him that the little disk was still in place, Ned was unable to repress a start when his finger touched a cool, polished surface which his eyes told ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... valley, our route lay across a region where no blade of grass had ever grown. As far as the eye reached, the scene was one of utter desolation. The horses picked their steps gingerly, and the foot-soldiers stumbled along as best they could, tripping now and then over the stones and boulders that strewed the path. All day long, with intervals for rest, we tramped, and the coming of night still found us ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... the slightest indication of an alarm ashore, Lanyard ventured to continue rowing, but with utmost caution, lifting and dipping his blades as gingerly as though they were fashioned of brittle glass, and for want of a better guide keeping the stern of the dory square to the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... fat woman and her three children caused a great commotion. They had rigged themselves out in hired suits which might be described as an average fit, for that of the mother was as much too small as those of the children were too large. They trotted gingerly out into the surf, wholly unconscious that the crowd of beach loungers had, for the time, turned their attention from each other to the quartet in the water. By degrees the four worked out farther and farther until a wave larger than usual washed the smallest child ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... in silence. When the operation was complete he abruptly thrust out one powerful hand. Just for an instant a gleam of pleasure lit the Indian's dark eyes. He gingerly responded. Then, as the two men gripped, the "spat" of rifle-fire began again. There was a moment in which the two men stood listening. Then their ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... hungry roar of the surf below, and try as you would not to, caught glimpses of the white swirl of it. I moved cautiously, keeping close to the face of the cliff. Crusoe, to my annoyance, sprang down upon the ledge after me. I had a feeling that he must certainly trip me as I picked my way gingerly along. ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... little round face peering over a bristling hedge. He shouted some faded inquiry. "Eh?" I tried to shout, but could not do so for want of breath. He made his way towards me, coming gingerly among ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... a comfort I handled it very gingerly, and it seems to be sound yet, after I saw what this has ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... corpse gingerly. Raf though that he would like to investigate the body closely but could not force himself to that highly disagreeable task. There was a chorus of excited exclamation from the ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... gingerly up to the hatchway that led down to the forecastle. If disease had smitten the Minnie B they hoped to get some clew from the taint of the sailors' quarters. Greer stuck a nose down the ladder first. Beyond the usual close ship smells ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... looked round again to convince himself that the manoeuvre was unobserved. Reassured on this point, he lowered himself down gingerly over the seat until he was lying on his back with his legs in the air and his head in a clump of marigolds. In this attitude he seized the bell and rang it furiously, feebly waving his uninjured leg ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... move on," someone shouted, and I walked back toward the clearing squinting in the sun. It hurt, and I touched my face gingerly, suddenly realizing what had happened. Yesterday, riding in the uncovered truck, and this morning, un-used to the fierce sun of these latitudes, I had neglected to take the proper precautions against exposure and my face was reddening with sunburn. ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... into the unknown recesses of the house, and sat gingerly on greasy horsehair-seated chairs, in the parlour, while the bubbling cry of the rasher and eggs arose to heaven from the frying-pan, and the reek filled the house as with a grey fog. Potent as it ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... jerked his head at Dane and the younger spaceman holstered his fire ray, slipped gingerly over the drop and prepared to repeat Nymani's ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... dining-room. If so, he was all right. He could find his way up to his room with his eyes shut. It was easy to find out for certain. The walls of the dining-room at Kay's, as in the other houses, were covered with photographs. He walked gingerly in the direction in which he imagined the nearest wall to be, reached it, and passed his hand along it. Yes, there were photographs. Then all he had to do was to find the table again, make his way along it, and when he got to the end the door would be ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... was a good sport and felt the importance of his duty. While all were watching him, and the multitude did no more than breathe, he walked gingerly over the grass, and with a keen old eye picked out a point that was equally distant from the long and short sides of the parallelogram. Here he stood gravely for a few moments, as if to confirm himself in the opinion that this was the proper place, and extended ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... just then his eye fell upon a feature which seemed corroborative of that view: the pagoda of cigars which Michael had erected ere he left the chambers. "Why that?" reflected Gideon. "It seems entirely irresponsible." And drawing near, he gingerly demolished it. "A key," he thought. "Why that? And why so conspicuously placed?" He made the circuit of the instrument, and perceived the keyhole at the back. "Aha! this is what the key is for," said he. "They wanted me to look inside. Stranger and stranger." And with that he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... door opened gingerly at last, a head inserted itself, my noose fell, and I hauled taut, I don't know which was most surprised—myself or the Gray Mahatma! I jerked the noose so tight that he could not breathe, let alone argue the point. I reckon I nearly hanged him, for his neck jammed ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... back. Close beside the shed grew a tall and luxuriant maple. The lower limbs had been chopped off, and the trunk rose clear to a height of nearly twelve feet before the massive limbs branched out. The twins had discovered that by climbing gingerly on the rotten roof of the woodshed, followed by almost superhuman scrambling and scratching, they could get up into the leafy secrecy of the grand old maple. More than this, up high in the tree they found a delightful arrangement ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... gingerly in his fingers. Philippa, a little ostentatiously, turned her back upon the two men and took up ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of your longitude a few hundred miles, Master Moses, but the comparison is well enough, otherwise. We have twice the wind and sea we had then, moreover, and that was dry weather, while this is, to speak more gingerly, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... got back to his room after the swimming lesson that afternoon, he found Tom nursing a very red and enlarged nose. He had a wet towel in his hand and was gingerly applying it ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... longer possible to parley. Well!—that struck me as a good object lesson. I wanted to say to the secularising folk everywhere—England included—just come here, and look what your policy comes to, when it's carried out to the bitter end, and not in the gingerly, tinkering fashion you affect at home! Just understand what it means to separate Church from State, to dig a gulf between the religious and the civil life.—Here's a country where nobody can be at once a patriot and a good Christian—where the ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his pocket, drew out several twenty dollar gold pieces (money was never scarce with a lone rider) and passed them to Buck. The latter received the coin gingerly, hesitated, and then returned it to the hand ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... his brother-in-law Julian Wemyss, whom they held to be answerable for the attack at the White Loch. So as soon as the wounded man could be moved, the best horses to be had in Minnigaff drew the coach gingerly across the bridge and out ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... indescribable horror of slavery"—it was, in fact, so indescribable that (until it was evident that the North would conquer) none of them ever succeeded in giving anybody the faintest conception of it, or any idea that it existed. I can still recall how gingerly and cautiously—"paw by paw into the water"—these dough faces became hard- baked Abolitionists, far surpassing us of the Old Guard in zeal. I lived to see men who had voted against Grant and reviled him become ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... impervious to the strokes of the most tremendous of tails. Would she soar? In a prose balloon she seeks the stars. There is room and power of ascension for any quantity of ballast—fling it out, and up she goes! Let some gas escape, and she descends far more gingerly than Mrs Graham and his Serene Highness; the grapnel catches a stile, and she steps "like a dreadless angel unpursued" once more upon terra firma, and may then celebrate her aerial voyage, if she choose, in an Ode which will be sure near ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... it proved. A shot brought the animal tumbling down. Toby picked it up gingerly by a leg ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... eclectic and fastidious taste; and to hold (on high aesthetic grounds, of course) toads and spiders in as much abhorrence as does any boarding-school girl. However, finding some rock ledges which formed a natural ladder, down he scrambled, gingerly enough, for he was neither an active nor a courageous man. But, once down, I will do him the justice to say, that for five whole minutes he forgot all about Fra Dolcino, and, what was ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... yelled. "Take hold of that horse. What are you afraid of?" he cried to a groom who was gingerly approaching the struggling animal. "Now then, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... shook her hand in a very gingerly fashion and chirruped to her as you might to a pup. Sophie took not the slightest notice of him, but turned her back, and buried her face in my neck. He shrugged his shoulders, supposed that they could take her on trial. She might suit his wife; he himself ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... "scrubbed" with snow by a dozen ready hands, until the rallying host of his compatriots advanced vigorously to the rescue. The normal alliance of us middle-men was with the Southenders, though a good deal rougher than ourselves; and in times of truce a solitary boy would walk a little gingerly through their quarter, as errands or family occasions led him that way. But the principal commercial interests centered in those parts of the town, and if, upon the breaking out of determined warfare, we could secure, in the capacity of leader, the ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... spasmodic jump, and lifting his feet gingerly, deposited them in the barest places he could find; and for the rest of the journey he did not once take his eyes ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... looked at me; and I saw the stupefaction in his eyes. I looked back at him, a direct glance of hatred, as I put my finger-tips gingerly ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... overhead. Above me a staging held a kitchen chair, some fire pails, and several pots whose sides were smirched with the colors they contained. The only sign of human life was the faint warm odor of pipe smoke. Knowing, then, that some one beside myself was in the loft, I proceeded gingerly between two vast canvases which hung side by side, preparing myself on my soft-footed way down this aisle to see the man I sought as I emerged from the other end. I imagined I heard a nervous, suppressed cough, indicating ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... commencing the passage. The method of procedure was this. The sledge rested on the narrow bridge which was indeed so shaped that the crest only admitted of the runners resting one on each side of it; the slope away was like an inverted "V" and while Lashly sat gingerly on the opposite ridge, hauling carefully but not too strongly on the rope, Crean and I, facing one another, held on to the sledge sides, balancing the whole concern. It was one of the most exciting moments of our ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... He went forward gingerly, feeling his way like a blind man on strange ground. Ere long he stumbled over a door-sill and found that the walls of the passage had fallen away; he had entered a room, a black cavern of indeterminate dimensions. Across this he struck at random, walked himself flat ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... ran, and ran, and it happened that she ran rather heedlessly and blindly and dropped her mussy little package of fancy work, and Karl von Rosen, coming out of the parsonage, saw it fall and picked it up rather gingerly, and called as loudly as was decorous after the flying figure, but Annie did not hear and Von Rosen did not want to shout, neither did he want, or rather think it advisable, to run, therefore he followed ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... this flaying heat Miss Becker stepped gingerly, almost immediately rejoined by Mr. Leon Kessler, crowningly touched with the correct thing in ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... outskirts, was a shallow, stony river, but deep enough at one point for gingerly swimming. Stefan seemed never to have been cool through the summer except when he was squatting or paddling in this hole. He remembered only indistinctly the boys with whom he bathed; he had no friends among them. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... difficult feat of fine balancing, for unless she hit upon the exact center of gravity, the tub promptly overturned, and flung her into the water. It was a most mirth-provoking competition, candidates and spectators bursting into shouts of laughter as one after another the girls gingerly climbed into their tubs, and toppled over into the bath. Those who managed at last to preserve their equilibrium were given paddles, and had to navigate themselves to the nearest plank, where they invariably fell out, and were rescued and towed ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... about this new eugenric law," mused Mr. Crow, gingerly pulling at his whiskers. "So fer as I know, it ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... hours of dreamless sleep, Irene awoke to a torpid but blissful conviction that bed is a most comfortable place when bones ache and the slightest movement is made irksome by patches of chafed skin. In fact, having buried her hands gingerly in the wealth of brown hair that streamed over the pillow, she lay and watched the white planks of the deck overhead, wondering idly what time it was. The effort to guess the hour brought her a stage nearer ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... always adapted herself quickly and calmly to new circumstances. "It is never any use to get in a stew about things," she was wont to say. So now she untied Nap gingerly, with many rueful glances at her geraniums, and led him away to the field behind the house, where she tied him safely to a post with such an abundance of knots that there was small fear ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... commercial regulations and other important matters might be necessary to the common interest and permanent harmony of the several states." And other important matters,—thus again was the weightiest part of the business relegated to a subordinate clause. So gingerly was the great question—so dreaded, yet so inevitable—approached! This reference to "other matters" was pronounced by the commissioners to be a vast improvement on the original plan; and Hamilton's address now ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... substance, which certainly did not make it run any easier. By hard work he managed to cut across two of the wide boards, and through them again, adjoining the next joist. When he was ready to lift out I pumped a new supply of smoke into the holes, then rather gingerly ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a somewhat more serious character. Upon a subsequent occasion a man hobbled into the office upon crutches. Proceeding to a chair and making a cushion of some newspapers, he sat down very gingerly, placed a bandaged leg ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... fetch water for the day's use from the well I told you about. Old people say it was the prettiest sight in the world to see her come stepping lightly and gingerly over the stones, with the pail of water balanced on her head; she was too adroit to need to steady it with her hand. They say, now that they can afford to be charitable and speak the truth, that in all her changes to other people, there never was a better daughter to a widowed mother than Nest. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... must pass the ambassador's house in his walk, but in under the dark archway there stood four men sheltering, in grey cloaks that reached to their feet. Stepping gingerly on the brick causeway that led down to the barge-steps, they came and stood before the young man, three being in a line together and one a little to the side. He hardly looked at them because he was thinking: 'This afternoon ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... was the reply; but Jewel was already sitting on the grass pulling off her shoes and stockings. She leaped nimbly into the wet boat, and Mr. Evringham stepped gingerly after her, seeking for dry spots for his ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... And Molly started gingerly down the hill. She pulled the timber, heavy as an iron safe, here and there through the brush, missing no steps, making no false moves, backing, and finally getting out of the way of an unexpected roll with the ease and intelligence of Laveque himself. In five ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... stock phrases, such as, "our vile village" (our country), "your condescending to instruct" (your words), "I dare not obey your commands" (we will not do what you ask), probably involved nothing more in the way of humility than the terms of our own gingerly worded diplomatic notes, each term of which may, nevertheless, offend if it be ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... looked gingerly over at the city below. As he did, she gasped. He heard a great tearing sound of thunder. In the sky, a small hole appeared. There was a scream of displaced air, and something went zipping downwards in front of them, setting up a wind that bounced the carpet about crazily. Dave glanced ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... time and words over a matter that you know as well as I must be handled very, very gingerly? It is not because it is not gilt-edged, but because of the peculiar situation of it. The public thinks this stock which is to be offered to it belongs to the Amalgamated Company, and that the City Bank is selling it for the Amalgamated treasury just as in any of the ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... flickered in through the doorway. It made the ascent of the first flight of creaking stairs quite easy. At least Rose-Marie could step aside from the piles of rubbish and avoid the rickety places. She wondered, as she went up, her fingers gingerly touching the dirty hand-rail, how people could exist ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... he growled. "What are you doing here?" The others massed slowly around, staring and beginning to mutter. "Provocatori!" I heard somebody say. "Looters!" I produced our passes from the Military Revolutionary Committee. The soldier took them gingerly, turned them upside down and looked at them without comprehension. Evidently he could not read. He handed them back and spat on the floor. "Bumagi! Papers!" said he with contempt. The mass slowly began to close ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... begun by Irving, but was in that day a venture so new and startling, that Irving, gentleman and scholar, went at it gingerly and with many inferential deprecations. His hand, however, first broke the ice, and to-day we can see the live and human Washington, full length. He does not lose an inch by it, and we gain a ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... eyes, such as a hamadryad would conceivably possess, since they were beyond doubt the candid and appraising eyes of some woodland creature, and always seemed to find the world not precisely intimidating, perhaps, yet in the ultimate a very curious place where one trod gingerly. Still, this Nelchen was a practical body, prone to laughter,—as in nature, any person would be whose mouth was all rotund and tiny scarlet curves. Why, it was, to a dimple, the mouth which Francois Boucher bestowed on his sleek goddesses! Louis Quillan ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... insurances on our lives and want to murder us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?" "It was not me," cried Dough-Boy, "it was Aunt Charity that brought the ginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits, but only this ginger-jub—so she called it." "Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr. Starbuck. It is the captain's orders—grog for the harpooneer on a whale." "Enough," replied Starbuck, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... frozen silence of the procession, these boots and shoes clumping across the bare floor called attention to themselves in voices which seemed to shriek and with the fiendishness of inanimate objects screamed the louder at their owners' gingerly steps. A function of the Commune when Madame Guillotine presided must have been a frothy and frivolous affair compared to the ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... confession to gaze, with deep disgust, upon Pink's convulsed figure. "Well," he snapped, settling back on the pillow, "laugh, darn yuh! and show your ignorance! By gracious, I wish I could see the joke!" He reached up gingerly and readjusted the bandage on his head, eyed Pink sourly a moment, and with a grunt eloquent of the mood he was in turned his face ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... "throne of grace;"—all uniting in loyal prayers for the divine blessing on the fair head of their Sovereign, and in the hope that the comely young man of her choice might do virtuously, and walk humbly, and gingerly by her side— but a little in the rear, as became him; not, of course, as a husband, Scripturally regarded, but as the German Consort of ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... Henslow said something like 'Oh! well we're told, aren't we, Mr. Dean, not to judge others?' and the Dean he gave a kind of sniff, and walked straight up to the tomb, and took his stand behind it with his back to the screen, and the others they come edging up rather gingerly. Henslow, he stopped on the south side and scratched on his chin, he did. Then the Dean spoke up: 'Palmer,' he says, 'which can you do easiest, get the slab off the top, or shift one of the ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... of pine boughs and carried it away with me there lay a flurry of litter that spoke volumes: for among it was a corned-beef can that was no product of Skunk's Misery, where meat meant squirrels and rabbits, and—a corked bottle of wolf dope! That I laid gingerly aside till I had poked around in the rest of the mess, but there was not much else there besides kindling. I got up to leg it for the underground cave, blazing that I had missed Hutton and half hoping he might be there,—but I dropped flump on my ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... cheerful—who called upon Hannah three or four times a week and whiled away many hours in her stimulating society. Occasionally her husband found him there, but if the fact annoyed him he gave no evidence of it. It was observed, too, that the manner of the visitor was gingerly deferential toward his host; he evidently desired no trouble with "Mistah Breckenridge." Occasionally he took Hannah for a walk; several times he brought her simple offerings of chickens and melons, heartening her ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... tilted an inquiring eyebrow at me, and I handed him a small bottle. He opened and sniffed at it gingerly. "What gives?" ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... so abruptly that he narrowly missed the jar at his side. On noiseless sandals Pahul had approached, and stood before him nodding his head with an air of assured conviction. The ape had fled and a stork stepped gingerly away. ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... or an obscure folk-singer; whether his dialect has been Tuscanised or is still Sicilian with French admixture,—these are things not to be found out, things of mere opinion and hypothesis, things good to write programmes and theses on, but only to be touched in the most gingerly ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... aircraft have been so rapidly developed, especially during the latest period of the war, that it was only the coming of the armistice that saved mankind from a hurricane of slaughter. In 1914 a few small bombs were carried by officers into the air, and were gingerly dropped over the side of the machine. Accuracy of aim was impossible. In the large modern bombing machine the heavier bombs weigh almost three-quarters of a ton; they are mechanically released from the rack on which they are hung, and when the machine ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... when a few minutes later he turned into Manresa Road. Opposite the entrance to the alley of Romney Studios, there happened to be a small hiatus in the kerbstone. George curved the machine largely round and, mounting the pavement through this hiatus, rode gingerly up the alley, in defiance of the regulations of a great city, and stopped precisely at the door of No. 6. It was a matter of honour with him to arrive thus. Not for a million would he have walked the machine up the alley. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... gingerly on to the deck, for his body had so little weight under the double attraction of Saturn and the Rings that a very slight effort would have sent him flying up to ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... commented Butler, softening the least bit in a gingerly way. "I'm much obliged to you. I'll take it as a great favor, ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... hurt us! Come on. Close the panel—there, like that. I'll go first." She led the way, Jerry tiptoeing gingerly behind her. ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... the world do you live?" said Rufus turning his beefsteak in a very gingerly manner and not daring to take his eyes ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... on his back, gingerly took one of his front upper tooth—an eye teeth—between thumb and forefinger, and consideratively moved it back and forth. Again he yawned, stretched his arms, rolled over, and knocked the ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... was the jewel which rested against a square of black cloth all its own in the center of the table. While his heart still acted queerly, while Naida, Nini, and Ivana hung back, delighted, but still too bewildered to move, Kirby advanced and took gingerly in his hands a single white diamond about eighteen inches long, and almost as wide and deep as ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... expectantly content, and so did not see the alarmed look which the boy shot at him. The horse splashed gingerly into the stream, the wheels grated musically over the little stones, and the water lapped and gurgled about the spokes. Wade leaned back with closed eyes and nodded approvingly. "Just the same," he murmured. "It might be the ford below Major Dabney's. This is surely God's ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Martin seated himself gingerly upon the edge of a chair. It was an uncomfortable position, and his arms ached keenly from being constrained in the unnatural position the handcuffs demanded, but he dare not slip out a hand and ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer |
