"Loafing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thus partially concealing the face. Men, women and children, all in bare feet, squat in the sand or sit hunched up against the sunny side of their houses. Beyond any other Orientals I have seen, these Egyptians have the capacity for unlimited loafing under circumstances that would drive an American insane in a few hours. Flies swarm over them; passing donkeys or camels powder them with dust; the fierce sun beats down on their heads; but all these things they accept philosophically as an inevitable part of life, as something decreed by ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... genuine rough hospitality for which the back country is famous. The resources of a desert cattle-station are very limited, but everything which was possible was done for the two white boys, and they spent a very restful and enjoyable week and a half, loafing round the homestead. It was not much of a place to look at, but Sax and his friend thought it was wonderful. They had travelled across the desert for a month in order to reach that little collection of buildings, and during that time they had not seen a fence or a roof ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... chose Langley and myself as part of it. The mate generally kept us upon the quarter-deck with him, and many were the cozy confabs we used to hold, many the choice cigars we used to smoke upon that handy loafing-place, the booby-hatch, many the pleasant yarns we used to spin while pacing up and down the deck, or leaning against the rail of the companion. As I have said, Mr. Stewart was a delightful watch-mate—and Bill Langley and I used to love him dearly, and none the worse that he ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... said Ole, crashing around the loafing-room. "Aye yust can tal das haus by har skagaroot smell. Come on, yu leetle fallers! Aye bet ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... proceeding from his tent, he said: "Look here, Commandant, reorganise your commando as quickly as you can, and report to me as soon as you are ready." He also gave me permission to incorporate in the reorganised commando various Hollander and German stragglers who were loafing round about, although he seemed to entertain an irradicable prejudice against the Dutch ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... don't like it. I tell you I don't like it. It is not for me to interfere with one of my colleagues on the staff, but I tell you frankly that in my opinion it is an abominable waste of time for a boy. It gets him into idle, loafing habits." ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... knowledge of the habits of bears and the art of trapping them. Traps were built, under advice, where there was not one chance in a thousand of catching anything, and bogus bear-tracks, made with a neatly-executed model by an ingenious guide, who preferred loafing about camp to moving it, kept the expedition ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... bought that tobacco myself for my own personal use, and not for a lazy, loafing, cow-faced lump of slumgullion to glom and smoke. Why don't you spend something besides the evening now and then? Gawda-mighty, you sit on yore coin closer than a hen with one egg! I'll gamble that Robinson Crusoe spent more money in a week than ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... Tallente replied. "You've given them something fresh to think about. They may even decide not to vote to-day at all. Miller has some strong supporters. He appeals tremendously to a certain class of labour—and that class exists, you know, Dartrey—which loves the excitement and the loafing of a strike, which feels somehow or other that benefits got in any other way than by force are less than they ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... explanation. Kalisch seems to think that Cain went about his work, after the interview with God, in a better frame of mind; but while he toiled hard "in the field" he became incensed at the sight of Abel loafing under a fine umbrageous tree and calmly watching his flock. Forgetting the divine admonitions, and listening only to the voice of passion, he madly killed his only brother, and made himself the first murderer. The Talmud gives ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... he did that," Sir Charles said triumphantly. "He must have changed it there himself; and then I changed it back again. In point of fact, I remember seeing a fellow with long hair loafing about. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... loafing around here, digging up our whole driveway, unless there was," persisted Paul good-humoredly. "Come, out with it! You're the darndest kid for getting into messes. What's happened to ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... a thunder-storm, dashing up from the stones and hissing through the air, and soon a perfect torrent of water coursed along the kennels and accumulated in pools over the choked-up drains. The few stray passengers who had been loafing rather than walking about the street, had scuttered away like frightened rabbits to some invisible places of refuge, and though Salisbury whistled loud and long for a hansom, no hansom appeared. He looked about him, as if to discover how far he might be from ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... back. Loafing round the hotel is dreary and my job's not getting on. Although I'm ordered to lie off, this won't count for much. I'll be made accountable for ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... in his eye and peered over the footlights into the abyss, thinking the last comer might be a woman, in which case he would perhaps have condescended to sing a little louder and better. A number of people were loafing on the stage, standing up or sitting on the wooden steps of somebody's enchanted palace, but Logotheti could not see Margaret ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... to Trout Creek Mill and told Dave Fellows. Dave got on the old grey mule and came up to town to find out further news. The townsfolk, loafing under the trees around Main Street and going about on little errands, shouted when they saw Dave come in on his mule beside Mottie on the bony horse. "Two of a kind," was passed round the circle of business ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... late on the cabbage-leaf, And the red, red beet forsakes the ground; And lovers' wanderings grow more brief, And fewer loafers are loafing around. ...
— Punchinello Vol. II., No. 30, October 22, 1870 • Various
... You're loafing about, and not a drop of water do you fetch me, and there's no wood am I to feed you for nothing, and you worrying me into the bargain?' She ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... speak to you, Mr. Le Moyne." She lowered her voice. "Joe Drummond's been coming out here pretty regular. Schwitter says he's drinking a little. He don't like him loafing around here: he sent him home last Sunday. What's ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... who were loafing in the portico, threw stones at the reciting Eumolpus and he, taking note of this tribute to his genius, covered his head and bolted out of the temple. Fearing they might take me for a poet, too, I followed after him in his flight and came to the seashore, where we stopped as soon as ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... house" to all comers, and the very men who wondered how he could afford it and who predicted his speedy swamping in a mire of debt and disgrace were the very ones who were most frequently to be found loafing about his gallery, smoking his tobacco and swigging his whiskey, a pretty sure sign that the occupant of the quarters, however, was absent. With none of their number had he ever had open quarrel. Remarks made at his expense ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... twentieth century. Every man to the age he lives in—it must be so. The old phrase, "Drunk as a sailor," meant, in most men's minds, drunk as a man-o'-war's man. I was born and brought up in a great seaport—Boston—and my earliest memories are of loafing days along the harbor front and the husky-voiced, roaring fellows coming ashore in the pulling boats from the men-o'-war; fine, rolling-gaited fellows, in from long cruises and flamingly eager to make the most of their short ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... mother's voice, sternly, "thou good-for-nothing! Thou'st let the syrup burn, and the smell is all over the house. Charles, what dost thou mean by loafing indoors at this hour of the day? ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... a good horse—Tophet, black as a coal, all raw bones and joint, and a reach like a moose. His legs worked like piston-rods. But, as I said, I did not know where to go or what to do. So we used to sit at the Post loafing: in the daytime watching the empty plains all panting for travellers, like a young bride waiting her husband for the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... such habits as drinking and loafing around saloons and clubs and abusing the family have been checked on account of the gardener's time and attention being ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... obliged," he said. "I was just loafing around and a little curious, that's all. Thanks. Hope I haven't ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... low cheap houses near the canal. The men about were very vulgar and talked rough and loud, nearly every one with a pipe, and poorly dressed, loafing around the saloon, apparently the worse for whisky. The children were barefoot, bare headed and scantly dressed, and it seemed awfully dirty about the doors of the shanties. Pigs, ducks and geese were at the very door, and the women I saw wore dresses that did not come down ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... men are little better than ornamental. The guards do a good deal of changing, to the annoyance of workers who want to get into the lines, but they rarely stop any one. The soldiers do a vast deal of loafing. A photographer who had his camera ready to take a view among the ruins was arrested to-day and made to work for an hour by General Hastings' order. When his stint was done he did not linger, ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... way to solve this problem of living," he said, "is to see how much we can work, and not how little. Germany's working ten hours a day, and producing. We're talking about six, and loafing ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... matted beard hung almost into his lap; a dirty ragged blanket covered his legs. I had found him out in Bankok through that busybody Schomberg, the hotel-keeper, who had, confidentially, directed me where to look. It appears that a sort of loafing, fuddled vagabond—a white man living amongst the natives with a Siamese woman—had considered it a great privilege to give a shelter to the last days of the famous Gentleman Brown. While he was talking to me in the wretched hovel, and, as it were, fighting for every minute of his life, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... Whitson that night over his new acquaintance. Whitson listened with his usual impassiveness, and then asked Langley how it was that "an old loafing nigger," as he expressed it, had impressed him so remarkably. Langley replied that he did not quite know, but he thought the effect was largely due to the man's teeth. But all the same he was "a ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... blotched faces and cadaverous looks, were loafing in every room. They hung their heads in silence. The women turned their faces away at the sight of the uniform. They cling to these wretches, who exploit their starved affections for their own ease, with a grip of desperation. It is their last hold. Women have to love something. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... went by, nor aught cared I; Such things are not in my way: I turn'd me to the tinker, who Was loafing down a by-way: ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... makes the instruction a real and practical help instead of being merely theoretical. It affords pleasant and profitable employment to the pupils during spare moments that would otherwise be lost in idle loafing or play. ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... you wanted the boy he was in the alley pitching buttons with loafing urchins of his own kind—"alley rats" his father angrily called them—or leading a predatory gang of the same unsavory companions in raids on other stores in ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... Sam Doyle!" he said, "unless you want to buy something. I don't want any boys loafing round ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger
... condition only forty-eight hours before we sailed. He launched forth into a tirade against the torpedo staff at Bruges, and, warming to his subject, he roundly abused the whole of the depot personnel, whom he stigmatized as a set of hard-drinking, shore-loafing ruffians, who were incapable of realizing that they existed for the benefit of the boats' ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... will you do it? You know writers have just got to get material. It is absolutely necessary. And I am running very short of ideas, I have been loafing." ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... we may not see port for a week," answered the captain. "How do we know but what there are a dozen or more steam launches, like the one we've just left astern, loafing about in the Sound waiting for us? If there are, we'll have to get shet of 'em somehow, and that will take time. If we don't 'tend to your arm now, it may be so bad when the doctor sees it that he can't do nothing with it without half killing of you. Take off his coat and vest, men; and Morgan, ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... time, we also knew ourselves, and we preferred the indolence of dreamers to aimless stir, easy-going pleasure to the useless toil which would have exhausted our courage and worn out the edge of our intelligence. We had analyzed social life while smoking, laughing, and loafing. But, though elaborated by such means as these, our reflections were none the ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... the dim outlines of the houses. At the inn at San Andres we found that we could have no rooms, as all the little windowless dens were occupied by people from the country who had come in for a fiesta. There were indeed a good many men loafing about the courtyard, but scarcely any women, and we could hardly understand a fandango happening without them. They thought otherwise, however; and presently, hearing the tinkling of a guitar, we went out and saw two great fellows in broad hats, jackets, and serapes, solemnly dancing opposite ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... yet, though I have seen him enthusiastic, misled, moved to tears over nothing, indignant over an imaginary insult, or ready to forgive any one who could be fool enough to be his enemy, I have never known him so thoroughly upset or so positive in his convictions as when the other morning, as I sat loafing before my fire, he entered ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... with your team this P. M., instead of loafing around here watching the scrub eleven do things." remarked Charlie Scott, one of the group. "It can't be possible that a seasoned veteran of two years' experience can pick up points ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... question, helped the old man up the stairway to his bed and then returned to the barroom, in which several of the regular boarders were loafing. One or two greeted him familiarly, and it was evident that they all knew something of the capture and were curious to learn more. His answers to their questions were brief: "You'll learn all ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... embarrassed. "Well," he said, suddenly changing the subject, "talking about nerves reminds me that when the holidays are over you and I are going away on a honeymoon. After this we are to have one a year. We'll drop everything and indulge in the heaven-given luxury of loafing. You need it. Your eyes are too big and your face too pale. I don't see what has ailed me not to notice before. But right after Christmas, dear, I'm going to run away with you.... What are you thinking ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... a student again, loafing along the arcades after dinner, eager for novelty, careless of draughts. Little by little he lost himself in dim reveries. His cigar never left his lips. The ash grew longer and longer yet, a lovely white ash, slightly ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... the flatboat and pirogue now belongs to history. Our expedition is a revival, and therein lies novelty. However, the historic spirit was not evident among our visitors—railway men, coal miners loafing out the duration of a strike, shipyard hands lying in wait for busier times, small boys blessed with as much leisure as curiosity, and that wonder of wonders, a bashful newspaper reporter. Their chief concern centered in the query, how Pilgrim could hold that goodly heap of luggage ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... watch-dog," said Stafford to himself. "Now, what on earth am I to do? I suppose they'll spring on me—the collie, at any rate. It's no use running; I've got to stop and face it. What a confounded nuisance! nuisance! But it serves me right. I've no business to be loafing about ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... found a vessel by which I can return to the Eastern Gulf squadron, father," said Christy one morning, with more earnestness than usual. "I begin to feel guilty of neglect of duty while I am loafing about home." ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... it furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement. The woman stood a little apart from the others. Coldly indifferent alike to the man's cursing and coughing and to the daughter's ejaculations, she appeared to be looking at the mountains. But the young man fancied ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... We were not always loafing in front of the undertaker's shop. Sometimes we were quite active. Many windows and street lamps were smashed. And we derived great joy from being pursued by the "cops"—especially by a certain fat one, for whom we made life a ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... set of loafing swine you are!" he coolly remarked. "It's not to the point that I'm no better, but if any of you feel insulted, I'll be happy to make what ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... raised on an English farm and from childhood he had learned the ways of work animals and how to make them comfortable. So, for the ease of their feet, the cattle shed and its attached, roofed loafing pen had earth floors. All soil removed from the silage pits, dusty sweepings from the threshing floors, and silt from the irrigation ditches were stored near the cattle shed and used to absorb urine from the work cattle. This soil was spread about six inches deep in the cattle ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... population there already," said Cochrane, apologetically. "It won't be long before a local television station will be logical. I was just thinking, Babs, that after we get bored with loafing, I could start a program there. Really sound stuff. Not commercial. And of course with the Dabney field it could be piped back to Earth if any sponsor wanted it. I think ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... silence and through work. Prayer gives you strength to "work"—the answer comes from your Larger Self—which is the Spirit of God "brooding" over all and pouring strength into all. But do not fly in the face of DEITY by expecting it to "do the work" for you while you go about loafing after offering your prayer. Nonsense. That man prays who works constantly, silently, patiently, ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... Musgrave concluded, with decision, "I wish distinctly understood, and that is, if she insists on having young men loafing about her—as, of course, she will—she will have to entertain them in the garden. I won't have them in the house, Agatha. You remember that Langham girl you had here last Easter?" he added, disconsolately ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... the lords-in-waiting loafing about the hall that Mrs. Cooke was out on the golf links, chaperoning some of the Asquith young women whose mothers had not seen fit to ostracize Mohair. Mr. Cooke's ten friends were with them. But this discreet and dignified servant could not reveal the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the imagination, and we enter into all the sorrows of the imprisoned dame. We conceive the burthen of the long, lack-lustre days, when she leaned her sick head against the mullions, and saw the burghers loafing in Maybole High Street, and the children at play, and ruffling gallants riding by from hunt or foray. We conceive the passion of odd moments, when the wind threw up to her some snatch of song, and her heart grew hot within her, and her eyes overflowed at the memory of the past. ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... apparently be all-powerful and all-wise. At any rate, it would improve the character of the people. "Socialism would teach and train all children wisely; it would foster genius and devotion to the common good; it would kill scamping, and loafing, and jerrymandering; it would give us better health, better homes, better work, better food, better lives, and better ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... incredulity. On our stand at the show we exhibited two cars, which, as I carefully learned beforehand from the book of the words, were a Byng-Beatty and a Tanglefoot, these being the cars for which we are what they call concessionaires. (The bat is tricky, but one picks it up loafing about garages.) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... the streets for an hour, trying to think up some way to get that money, but nothing suggested itself. At last I lounged into the big lobby of the Ebbitt House, which was then a new hotel, and sat down. Presently a dog came loafing along. He paused, glanced up at me and said, with his eyes, "Are you friendly?" I answered, with my eyes, that I was. He gave his tail a grateful little wag and came forward and rested his jaw on ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... have been done in a moment of abstraction, and then I hailed the "cab runner" who was loafing down the road; and, what with him and a messenger boy in a hurry, we got the basket down and lifted it into a big square hall and laid it almost at the foot of the staircase, up which we should have to ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... kitchen at this time began to be haunted by those occasional hangers-on and retainers, of uncertain fortunes, whom a full experience of her bountiful habits led to expect something at her hand at this time of the year. All the poor, loafing tribes, Indian and half-Indian, who at other times wandered, selling baskets and other light wares, were sure to come back to Oldtown a little before Thanksgiving time, and report themselves in ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... telephone and got up from the desk, stretching. He left the orderly-room and walked across the hall to the recreation room, where the rest of the boys were loafing. Sergeant Haines, in a languid gin-rummy game with Corporal Conner, a sheriff's deputy, and a mechanic from the service station down ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... mother answered them pleasantly; so that they got on very well together, and everybody was satisfied—especially Jim, who was benefiting by Aunt Victoria's bequest to the extent of being able to keep up with the best of his bar-loafing acquaintances. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Rogers, charged with loafing, sleeping in the park, and leaving the gate open, were discharged, with a caution to take care how they interfered with corporation rights in future, or they would get their corporation ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... "will half a dozen of you see to the wine. Get hold of some of those fellows loafing about there and make them roll out as many barrels as will supply a pint to every man in the regiment, ourselves as well as the men. O'Grady, take Lieutenant Horton and Mr. Haldane and two sergeants with you. Here is my purse. Go through the town and get some ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... I think that saving a little child, And bringing him to his own, Is a derned sight better business Than loafing around the Throne. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... of work than he was fond of drink. Whenever want pressed too hard, he worked a few days; but, as soon as he had earned ten francs, good-by! Off he went, lounging by the road-side, talking with the wagoners, or loafing about the villages, and watching for one of those kind topers, who, rather than drink alone, invite the first-comer. Trumence boasted of being well known all along the coast, and even far into the department. And what was most ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... Streets, but he is out of that now—keeps a first class Cafe, and owns a block of houses. Now Paul, here is a splendid chance for you; business is dull, and now accept this opening. Of course I mean to keep a first class saloon. I don't intend to tolerate loafing, or disorderly conduct, or to sell to drunken men. In fact, I shall put up my scale of prices so that you need fear no annoyance from rough, low, boisterous men who don't know how to behave themselves. ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... of careless loafing about Canea. I have intimated my slight experience of Turkish towns; and if the critic should think it worth while to remark that I should have seen Constantinople and Cairo, Smyrna and Salonica, before attempting to describe ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... it would have been the same in any other group among whom his lot might have been thrown. With others of his associates, whatever he thought of them and their ways, he was friendly and tolerant, if not sociable; it was in connection with these that the gossip circulated of his "loafing about with hard drinkers." Dr. Loring describes them to the life as "a group of men all of whom had remarkable characteristics, not of the best many times, but original, strong, highly-flavored, defiant democrats, with whom he was officially connected, who made no appeal to him, but ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... Rickart. "I thought it was funny you were loafing along so leisurely. Didn't you know to-day was the day ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... to maintain some degree of rude comfort and keep up any kind of organised society with the scanty means at their disposal were very great indeed. The popular notion of the lazy savage basking in the sunshine, or squatting round the fire and loafing on the labour of his women, did not fairly apply to the Maori—at any rate to the unspoiled Maori. As seen by the early navigators, his life was one of regular, though varied and not excessive toil. Every tribe, in most ways every village, was ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... all his family around him, and, most distinct of all, she knew that no McLaughlin, sisterless or many-sistered, lived in this beehive which she lived in, though it were 99 Linwood Street. Into her own cell of that beehive, however, she took poor, sad, desolate Nora. Into the hallway she bade the loafing neighbor boys bring Nora's trunk; in a language Nora could hardly understand she explained to her that all would be well as soon as the policeman passed by. She sent Mary Murphy, who happened to be at home from school, for ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... you were not here to be depressed by it. There was a clear and golden sunset, making the loveliest shadows and lights on the meadows and across my straight path [over the field to the willows, between firs], and now the stars shine.—The way in which Concordians observe Fast is by loafing about the streets, driving up and down, and dawdling generally. No one seems to mourn over his own or his country's sins. Such behavior must disturb our Puritan fathers even on the other side of the Jordan.—In the evening Julian brought me a letter. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... came to the Prison of Mazas, which in ordinary times would have been strongly guarded; but now, save for a few National Guards loafing about, it was deserted—the criminals all being liberated and set plundering and fighting—the hostages ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... them there, sir," said a convalescent Tommy, pointing to the grey cruisers flying the tricolour. "They've been bottled up there, since the submarines appeared off Helles and sank the Majestic and t'other boats. There's only destroyers loafing around Cape Helles ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... came pouring around the house, and I let her hand loose—it was hard to do it, too—and then she was gone, and we rode on to the ford. We stopped when we got to the stream to let the horses have their turn at drinking, and as I sat loafing in the saddle, with my mind pretty full of what had just passed, my eyes were all over. Every cavalry officer, and especially an aide-de-camp, gets to be a sort of hawk in active service—nothing can move within range that he doesn't see. So as I looked about me I took ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Dennys Broughton, whose wayward flapper daughter Betty is in the early fierce stages of revolt against the stuffiness of life at Grange Court, meets Smith over some boys' club work, and, finding brains and dreams in him (a formidable contrast to her loafing brother), falls into passionate first-love. Smith is just as badly if more soberly hit, and recognising the impossibility of the situation (quite apart from demonstrations by the alarmed Broughtons) decides to take his tape and shears to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... better. You will have a bungalow to yourself," continued McClintock, "and your morning meal will be your own affair. But luncheon and dinners you will sit at my table. I'm a stickler about clothes and clean chins. How you dress when you're loafing will be no concern of mine; but fresh twill or Shantung, when you dine with me, collar and tie. If you like books ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... life of loafing," came the instant answer. "The hours with the stars and the flowers, under the green trees with the whisperings of breezes in the grass. My books, my thinkers and their thoughts. Beauty, music, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... one. At the corner some untidy little girls danced on the pavement, while a group of boys stood by, loafing against the window of a small liquor shop, and occasionally scattering the girls by some threat of hair-pulling ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... the hole, and saw, following steadily one after the other, four of the great beasts, with the little, squat driver seated on the neck of the last; and after they had passed, loafing carelessly along as if he were too important and disdained to be driven, came the Rajah, muttering as if to himself, and walking straight up to the big stable door before going ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... a source of displeasure to Shyuote, who above all things disliked work. He had not come down to the fields to toil. What he sought for was a friendly chat with his father, a few hours of lounging and loafing near him. Disappointed and pouting, he bent over the work assigned, while the two men went on with their task as ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... as well as she could, though her opportunities, she said, were a good deal narrower than he took them to be. She had, herself, so much to do as Paula's factotem that there wasn't much leisure for loafing about. And this launched her into a humorously exaggerated account of what was involved in being secretary, chauffeur and chaperon to a successful opera star. But she pulled up when she saw he was ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Mrs. Holton drank a cup of bouillon at Struby's counter, informed the white-jacketed attendant that it was excellent, and crossed Main Street to Montgomery's Bank under the admiring eyes of a dozen young collegians who happened to be loafing in the drug-store. Amzi escorted his sister at once to his private room at the rear, poked the fire, buttoned his coat and ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... a sufficiently discourteous message came back; and the mighty personage, after loafing about for an hour or two, retired and wrote an article in which he described the people of the Black Country as savages, and revived a foolish old libel or two which at one time had currency concerning them. The old nonsense about the champagne was there, for one thing. I know the Black Country ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... suddenly, "don't we fix those big doors into your studio so they will open? Then, if I want you, I won't have to go through the hall. That illustrator is loafing about a good ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... was hard and the days short, we were absolutely idle—idle to the point of blushing with shame when the thought struck us that all the time our salaries went on. Young Cole was aggrieved because, as he said, we could not enjoy any sort of fun in the evening after loafing like this all day; even the banjo lost its charm since there was nothing to prevent his strumming on it all the time between the meals. The good Paramor—he was really a most excellent fellow—became unhappy as far as was possible to his cheery nature, till one dreary day I suggested, ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... applying it, and further their indifference as to the individual character, worth, and welfare of their men. On the part of the men the greatest obstacle to the attainment of this standard is the slow pace which they adopt, or the loafing or "soldiering,'" marking time, as ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... steps, loafing a few moments before jogging out to Bannister Field for a strenuous scrimmage under the personal supervision of Slave-Driver Corridan, the Gold and Green football squad had gathered. It was from these stalwart gridiron gladiators that the caustic criticism of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr.'s, vocal atrocities ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... wishing that he had learned a trade. It would have been better in the long run. But no one had told him, and he knew, deep down in his heart, that he would not have listened if they had. It had been so easy. Big money—sharp, glorious fights—periods of rest and loafing in between—a following of eager flatterers, the slaps on the back, the shakes of the hand, the toffs glad to buy him a drink for the privilege of five minutes' talk—and the glory of it, the yelling houses, the whirlwind finish, the referee's "King wins!" ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... from the crowd; but the High Sheriff, who left the room with me, shrugged his shoulders and said: "If they had half of the courage of that Scot they would not be loafing around here, applauding James Rodolph. I am tired of it; I am going to resign and go to the front." He was as good as his word, for that very day he resigned the office of High Sheriff of the county of Cecil, packed his saddle-bags, gathered some volunteers about him, ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... it many times, for there are pages that I am not sure that I understand. One looks into its depths of suggestion as one looks into a clear but very deep lake; one can see far down, but not to the bottom of it, which remains mysterious. He invites his own soul, but there is no loafing. Indeed his mind seems preternaturally active, as in a combination of ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... removed while W. was a young child. At 13 he was in a printing office, at 17 he was teaching and writing for the newspapers, and at 21 was editing one. The next dozen years were passed in desultory work as a printer with occasional literary excursions, but apparently mainly in "loafing" and observing his fellow-creatures. It was not till 1855 that his first really characteristic work, Leaves of Grass, appeared. This first ed. contained only 12 poems. Notwithstanding its startling departures from conventionality both in form and substance it was well received by the leading ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... favourite "loafing place" for the New Salem boys and young men. Among these, were some of the roughest fellows in the settlement. They were known as the "Clary Grove Boys," and they were always ready for a fight, in which they would, sometimes, prove themselves ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... starve; and when we do work we only just earn enough to keep body and soul together. Under the present system everybody who can possibly manage to do so avoids doing any work, the only difference being that some people do their loafing better than others. The aristocracy are too lazy to work, but they seem to get on all right; they have their tenants to work for them. Rushton is too lazy to work, so he has arranged that we and ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... a high-priced school, that they get most of the losses and few of the profits of industry. They get a living wage when times are good. When times are bad they lose the one thing they've got to sell, and that's their day's work; when a loafing day is gone there's nothing to show for it, and no way to make it up. Maybe that's as it should be, but the worker can't see it, especially if the boss can still buy gasoline and tires when the plant is idle. Oh, yes, ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... June until September this work was pushed rapidly forward. There were also trenches to be made in advance of the original firing-line, for the purpose of connecting up advanced points and removing dangerous salients. At such times there was no loafing until we had reached a depth sufficient to protect us both from view and from fire. We picked and shoveled with might and main, working in absolute silence, throwing ourselves flat on the ground whenever a trench ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... guarding their little property. That village, amid the waters, was a sad sight to see; but I heard no complaints. There was no tearing of hair and no gnashing of teeth; no bitter tears or moans of sorrow. The men who were not at work in the boats stood loafing about in clusters, looking at the still rising river, but each seemed to be personally indifferent to the matter. When the house of an American is carried down the river, he builds himself another, as he would get himself a new coat when his old coat ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... Cuthbert said when they informed him of their intention, "it is early yet, but it is warm enough even for loafing on the rocks, and I hate London when it's full. I will go for a fortnight anyhow," and so with Wilson and two younger men, he started for Newquay, on the north of Cornwall. Once established there the party met only ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... had been the most fruitful in exciting incident. For two months he and his crew had dodged about among quaint Norwegian harbours and in and out of fjords of wonderful beauty. Storms they had weathered and calms they had endured; lazy days they had spent, swimming, fishing, loafing; and wild days in fighting gales and high-running seas that threatened to bury them and their crew beneath their white-topped ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... they could not tell how many men there were, for they kept dodging in and out among the trees. Some people said there were only two, and some said they saw four, but only one was caught that night—an idle, loafing young fellow who had been staying at the village inn for a few weeks, pretending to be a city clerk convalescing after an illness. The worst of it was that he had only a few of the smaller things in his pockets, none of the ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... come in? I'll be pulling this wire rope and she'll be all over the country, and her friends won't be my friends and her ways won't be my ways. She'll get out of reach of me in a week, and I won't be in it. I'm not the sort to go loafing round while my wife supports me, carrying her satchel for her. And there's nothing I can do but just this. She'd come back here some day and live in the front floor suite, and I'd pull her up and down in this elevator. That's ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... and the capitan stopped to say a few words to two of his vagabonds. One of these immediately hurried off in the direction of the river. The other was still loafing outside the cafe when his ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Ida,' shouted Herbert. 'I wouldn't go with them if they went down on their knees to me! What should I do, loafing about among a lot of disputing frog-eaters, without a word of a Christian language, and old Frank with his nose in a guide-book wanting me to look at beastly pictures and rum old cathedrals. You would be a fish out of water, too, Ida. Now Conny ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... myself," the latter explained. "But I'm loafing this summer. I'm in town only because there's talk that St. ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... wild honey here. We were moping along down through this dreadful place, every man in the rear. Our guards—two gorgeous young Arab sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols and daggers on board—were loafing ahead. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Mohammedism, the Gipsies were busily engaged in singing songs and plundering, and in this work they were encouraged by the Persians as they passed through their territory. The Persians have always been friendly to these wandering, loafing Indians, for we find that during the wars of India by Timur Beg, and other monsters previous, they were harbouring 20,000 of these poor low-caste and outcast Indians; and, in fact, the same thing may be said of the other countries they passed through on their way ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... been making an ass of yourself. While the other fellows have been improving themselves you have been loafing around public-houses. Good night," and Penrose left ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... down-town he telegraphed the joyous news to Jack Starlett, in Washington, to prepare for an old-fashioned loafing bee. ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... sea, you old money-grabber. There's a sight for your soul. Did you ever think of the beauty of it? Such a day!—no wonder you're loafing. Oh! I beg your pardon, Madam. ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... staying in the pub. Talks and dresses like a War profiteer. Seems to be doing nothing but loafing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... it. Since the new order came into force, he had fulfilled his obligations regularly enough—until the year before last, by which time his leg really disabled him. It had fortuned, however, that one afternoon on the Quay, loafing around less on the chance of a job (for odd jobs are scarce at Polpier) than to wile away time, he had encountered Dr Mant, the easy-going practitioner from St Martin's. Dr Mant fancying an excursion after the mackerel, at that time swarming close inshore, Nicky-Nan had rowed him out ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... his triplex chronometer intently, then unplugged and glanced around the control room, in various parts of which half a dozen assistants were loafing at their stations. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... "she is loafing about the streets with some young puppy who has nothing of his own but a cigarette and a walking-stick, and they both borrowed. I'll have a talk with her when she comes in, and we'll see if she ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... nominal fire-insurance business, but as a matter of fact the tiny two-roomed frame structure that bore his painted sign was nothing more or less than a loafing place for him and his rheumatic friends, and a place in which the owner could spend the heat of the day in a position of comfort to his stiff leg—that is to say, asleep in a high-backed office chair, his feet propped upon his desk. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... man to see and remain quiet. Women work at the fires when pregnant, and fuddle themselves with beer at night; the men are a shiftless lot, who spend their lives hand-in-hand with poverty and think only of beer, "baccy," and loafing. You know I'm no prohibitionist, but I hate to see beer the goal of men's ambitions. In one school there was a class with forty "backward" children. That's the kinder word, Edge, but the real one is "imbecile." Think ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... the last time we were here? You lectured me for loafing, and shooting woodpeckers. There were other things, but you couldn't recall them at the moment. I've been doing some right stiff ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... long as it was light, he could see them loafing and sleeping in the grass outside with their guns beside them. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... this. I went into MOSER'S last week. Just when I got in I tripped over some ribs of beef lying in the doorway, and before I had time to say I preferred my beef without any boot-blacking, I fell head-first against an immense sirloin on the parlour table. Mrs. MOSER called all the men who were loafing around, and all the boys and girls, and they carved away at the sirloin for five hours without being able to get my head out. At last an old gentleman, who was having his dinner there, said he couldn't bear whiskers served up as a vegetable with his beef. Then they knew they'd got ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... furniture on the following Saturday, the day fixed for sales under legal authority. Lousteau was taking a walk, smoking cigars, and seeking ideas—for, in Paris, ideas are in the air, they smile on you from a street corner, they splash up with a spurt of mud from under the wheels of a cab! Thus loafing, he had been seeking ideas for articles, and subjects for novels for a month past, and had found nothing but friends who carried him off to dinner or to the play, and who intoxicated his woes, telling him that ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... in mind right now a player in the line, who came to college after four years of school football. Ever since his entry he has complained that no one has told him anything. Now this particular player spends ten months of each year loafing, and expects in his two months of football to do a man's job ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... large Tartar population in Chengtu, and the Manchu quarter is one of the most picturesque parts of the city, with the charm of a dilapidated village set in untidy gardens and groves of fine trees. Loafing in the streets and doorways are tall, well-built men and women, but they had a rather down-at-heel air, for their fortunes were at a low ebb when I was in Chengtu. The military service they once rendered had been ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... He was more punctual than either his employer or the merchandise, and met with the usual reward of punctuality in being forced to waste his time in waiting for the tardy ones. He seemed to the New Salem people to be "loafing"; several of them have given that description of him. He did one day's work acting as clerk of a local election, a lettered loafer being pretty sure of employment on such an occasion. [Footnote: Mrs. Lizzie H. Bell writes of this incident: "My father, Menton Graham, was ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... — And I'll have your words from this day filling my ears, and that look is come upon you meeting my two eyes, and I watching you loafing around in the warm sun, or rinsing your ankles when the night ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... Compose the great globe And all that therein is. I'll wait awhile, possessing my soul in Patience. Everything comes to the man who waits. (Sometimes, 'tis true, 'tis the bobby Who asks what he's loafing there for, And bids him Move on. That is a chance the brave resolute soul Faces.) The pity of it is That you, MARKISS, having so much to give, So little ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... backs, as if to remind us that the burden-bearers are not all of Italy, for the women of France work quite as hard as the men, more constantly it would seem, if we may judge by the number of men who are to be seen loafing about the little inns ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... when William longed for a trip on the Bay to the Island, or an hour's loafing in the parks, but when the longing took possession of him on lesson nights he fought it down with firmness, and he usually won. He confided in Epstein occasionally, and the wise old comedian let ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... how to enjoy themselves," he expatiated; "they've got too much of everything, including spare time. What's a holiday to anybody who has never done a stroke of work? You and I know the difference; we can appreciate the fun of loafing between spells of work; but these people have got no standards to measure their fun by, so it's all the same to them—flat, vapid, monotonous, unless they season it up with cocktails and carrying on; and even that gets to have all the same flavour ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... fish-hooks, spears, and other implements, constructed dance-masks and head-dresses, and all the paraphernalia for the various ceremonies and dances. They performed all the rites and dances, and in addition did a good deal of strutting up and down, loafing and 'yarning.' The women cooked and prepared the food, did most of the gardening, collected shell-fish, and speared fish on the reefs, made petticoats, ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... that runs right along the edge of the water. It was an awful grand sight, but the waves didn't seem to have strength enough to move, only gave out a lazy sob once in a while, as if they were tired of carrying so many loafing ships about that hadn't spirit enough to ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... work is exciting, and when they want change they often gamble, because that is the only form of excitement which is keener than the stir and tumult of the theatre. When Devine won three hundred pounds on one Derby he was a lost man. He pitted his wits against the bookmakers'; he took to loafing about with those flash, cunning fellows who appear to spend their mornings in bars and their evenings in music-halls; he lost his ambition, and he began to lead a double life. In the end he took to presenting himself at the theatre in ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... or two loafing about the schooner and swearing under his breath as he regarded the shore, where the crew was going ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... per hundredweight, be the reglar price what it may; also for paying what's called, I think, premeums for putting Pore Boys or Pore Gals as aprentisses to warious trades, so as to lern and laber truly to get a good living when they growd up, insted of loafing about in dirt and hignorence; likewise for allowing little pensions to poor old women as is a striving all their mite and main to keep themselves out of the hated Workhouse; and there are seweral other similar good purposes as the good ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... known that in all these transactions not a dollar in money changed hands. Men bought with promissory notes and sold for the same consideration. The mercantile venture was not successful. Berry was drinking and loafing, and Lincoln, who did not work as faithfully for himself as for another, was usually reading or telling stories. So when a couple of strangers, Trent by name, offered to buy out the store, the offer was accepted and more promissory notes changed ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... "Pooh! Loafing blackguards, with scarcely an exception! Well, I was going to tell you: Glazzard comes from my own town, Polterham. We were at the Grammar School there together; but he read AEschylus and Tacitus whilst I was grubbing over Eutropius ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... done, we started for Taos, for it was now almost time to start out for the winter's trapping. On our arrival at Taos we found Johnnie West, who had been loafing around for two months, and who was anxious to get at work again. Uncle Kit hired him to go with us to South Park to trap the coming winter, that being the place he had decided upon for the ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... received upon leaving, gave the officer new strength and determination, so he shut his teeth and spurred his rebellious limbs into swifter action. There was no longer any opportunity of riding the sled, even where the trail was hard, for some of the Police dogs were limping and loafing in their collars. This was indeed a race, a Marathon, a twenty-three-mile test of courage and endurance, and victory would go to him who could call into fullest response his last ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... been devoted to evil, now turned into channels of finest, highest service—the kind of service that really satisfies the cravings of the human heart. I see a boy who, because he is of an intensely sociable disposition, seeks the companionship of a gang of fellows around the loafing places and pool-rooms in the evenings. Touched by the spirit of Christ, those social qualities will be even more enthusiastically devoted to winning other young people into Christian life and service. I see a young fellow with an unbroken will, glorying in his freedom, as he sees it, to resist ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... weeks ago, one of these men returned, and has spent most of the time since his arrival in loafing about the different barrooms upon the river. He is said to have been constantly intoxicated. As soon as the losers of the gold heard of his return, they bethought themselves of the coyote-hole, and placed about its entrance some brushwood ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... sparsely over three hills, Bakrota, Terah, Potrain; and the summit of the last and lowest is crowned by Strawberry Bank Hotel, mainly the resort of captains and subalterns from the four plains stations of the district, doing their two months of signalling, Garrison Class, or of unadulterated loafing, as ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... herds of antelopes scudding before the advancing train? Nary an antelope have you got for to scud. Rocky Mountains, sir? They ain't rocky at all—they're as flat as my hand. Where are your savage gorges? I can't see none. Where are your wild injuns? Do you call them loafing tramps in dirty blankets, injuns? My belief is that they are greasers looking out for an engagement as song and dance men. They're 'beats,' sir, 'dead beats,' they're 'pudcocks,' and you oughter be ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... "That's the man who wrote about 'gilded subalterns loafing luxuriously in cushioned cars in a giddy round of useless and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... to his games when in the lower school, is a fair test of the spirit with which he will take to his work when he rises into the higher school; and that nothing is worse for a boy than to fall into that loafing, tuck- shop-haunting set, who neither play hard nor work hard, and are usually extravagant, and often vicious. Moreover, they know well that games conduce, not merely to physical, but to moral health; that in the playing- field boys acquire virtues which no books can give ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... know what sailors are, my dear sir. Let me just show you by an instance. One day in dock at home, while loafing on the forecastle head, I noticed two respectable salts come along, one a middle-aged, competent, steady man, evidently, the other a smart, youngish chap. They read the name on the bows and stopped to look ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... through moral sensuality. It was a laceration of the nerves... Defiance of common sense was too tempting. Stavrogin and a wretched, half-witted, crippled beggar! When you bit the governor's ear did you feel sensual pleasure? Did you? You idle, loafing, little ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
