"Puff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to have a breeze, Bob," said he, as a sharp puff of wind crossed the deck, driving the black smoke to leeward, and making the fire ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... were so kind to me when I wanted kindness, that you may take the change out of that gold now, and say I am a cannibal and negro, if you will. Ha, Baggs! Dost thou wince as thou readest this line? Does guilty conscience throbbing at thy breast tell thee of whom the fable is narrated? Puff out thy wrath, and, when it has ceased to blow, my Baggs shall be to me as the Baggs of old—the generous, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... on July 4, 1806, was: "Aquatic Theatre, Sadler's Wells. A new dance called Grist and Puff, or the Highland Fling. The admired comic pantomime, Harlequin and the Water Kelpe. New melodramatic Romance, The Invisible Ring; or, The Water Monstre and Fire Spectre." The author of both was Mr. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... speedily cut. Three hands jumped into the boat, and the end of a hawser being heaved to them, they towed round the schooner's head—the current caught it and helped them. Meantime the topsails were loosed and the jib run up; a puff of wind also came down the creek. Away glided the schooner—the boat dropped alongside. The slave-dealers, now mustering strong, began firing at them. They fired in return, so as to drive the villains to seek shelter behind the trees. It might well have enraged the Spaniards to see ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... in a moment—a wonderful, tense moment, during which I sat frozen to my chair, stricken dumb and motionless with the tragedy which it seemed that I alone had witnessed. For there had been a little puff of sound, so slight that no other ears had noticed it. The seat in front of me was empty, and the man on my right had fallen forwards, his hand pressed to his side, his face curiously livid, patchy with streaks of dark colour, his eyes bulbous. Waiters still hurried to and fro, the hum of conversation ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... overboard, and six of the crew had been set to work bailing in deadly earnest to keep ahead of the new leaks, there was time to consider the position and to realize how hugely better off we were than if the launch had caught us somewhere close inshore. Now we could sail safely northward, every puff of wind carrying us nearer to British water and safety, whereas unless they could mend that high-pressure boiler, they would have to lie there for a week, or a month—die unless some one came in search of them. Had ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... spin a coin. Madame Depine was to toss, the "Princess" to cry pile ou face. From the stocking Madame Depine drew, naturally enough, the solitary five-franc piece. It whirled in the air; the "Princess" cried face. The puff-puff of the steam-tram sounded like the panting of anxious Fate. The great coin fell, rolled, balanced itself between two destinies, then subsided, pile upwards. The poor "Princess's" face grew even longer; but for the life of her Madame Depine could not make her own face other than ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... his breast. I hesitated a second, squinting along the barrel of the carbine; I wanted him to round the point that jutted out from the other side of the canyon, so that his partners could not see his finish. If they did not see him go down, nor observe the puff of smoke from behind the rock, they might think he had fired a shot himself. And while I waited, grumbling at the combination of circumstances that made it necessary to shoot down even a cold-blooded brute like him ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sidelong glance at the Baron, and then at the Count, and blew a puff of smoke, but made ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... dressed!" cried Alice, and soon she, her sister, Estelle and the other women were donning their Southern costumes, wide skirts, with hoops to puff them out, and broad-brimmed hats, under which ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... supports this view. While sitting in my garden the other day a puff of wind blew a lady's parasol across the lawn. It rolled away close to a dog lying quietly in the sun. The dog looked at it for a moment, but seeing nothing to account for its movements, barked nervously, put its tail between its legs, and ran away, turning occasionally ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the three people round it wanted for no element or means of comfort. There were the shortcakes, which Mr. Linden might more readily recognize now in their light brown flakiness—his coffee was poured upon the richest of cream; the potatoes came out of the oven in the shape of a great puff-ball, of most tender consistency; and the remains of a cold chicken had been mystified into such a dish of delicacy as no hands but a Frenchwoman's—or Faith's—could concoct. It's a pleasant thing to be catered for by hands that love you. Mr. Linden had found that ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... in a wild panic. It was a blast of that kind that threw down and severely injured Battalion Chief M'Gill, one of the oldest and most experienced of firemen, at a fire on Broadway in March, 1890; and it has cost more brave men's lives than the fiercest fire that ever raged. The "puff," as the firemen call it, comes suddenly, and from the corner where it is least expected. It is dread of that, and of getting overcome by the smoke generally, which makes firemen go always in couples or more together. They never lose sight ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... anything to square up with those fellows," grumbled Nappy. He paused for a moment to puff away at his cigarette. "What do you ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... the reason for the difference at home is because we always carry a few amateurs, who are privileged to come in at practice and do all the damage they can, but who have to keep mighty quiet on the march. They can carry their horns, puff out their cheeks and look as grand as they please, but if they'd presume to cut loose with some real notes and smear up a piece, they'd ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... hawkweed, stretched away in rolling undulations like the plain of the sea; dense woods hung massed on the far horizon, beech-woods, sapphire blue beyond the pale silver and amber, of the middle distance, and under them a puff of white smoke from a passing train, or was it the white scar of a quarry? He could not be sure across so many miles of sunlit air, but it must have been smoke, for it dissolved slowly away till there was no gleam ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... who may this lady be whom ye so ungallantly devote to perdition?" inquired a stranger from behind, who had hitherto been silent, apparently not wishful to join the hilarity of those he addressed. The party quesited was in the midst of a puff of exhalation more than usually prolonged when the question was put, so that ere he could frame his organs to the requisite reply the pragmatical tailor, whose glibness of tongue was equalled only by his assurance, gave the following by way ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... it, but she always sighed more than usual, and behaved with even more sobriety and gravity then, as if to show that the utmost splendour of the world as represented by the satinet gown and a Paisley shawl could not make her forget that she was mortal, or puff up ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Genlis, "Adele et Theodore," I. 312.—De Goncourt, "La Femme an dixhuitieme siecle," 318.—Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 56.—Description of the puff au sentiment of the Duchesse de Chartres (de Goncourt, 311): "In the background is a woman seated in a chair and holding an infant, which represents the Duc de Valois and his nurse. On the right is a parrot pecking at a cherry, and on the left a little Negro, the duchess's two pets: the whole is ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... my darling with his odour of health is to feel a flood of bodily strength coursing through me, enough to make me forget that I am a frail thing myself, who could be blown away by a puff of wind. But to hear him talk on his own subject is to be lifted up to the highest reaches ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the blazing rags and trampled them under his feet. But the fire had reached the powder. There was a quick hissing sound of a burning fuse, and then a great puff. Brown threw himself on his face and waited, but there was nothing more. His two friends rushed to him and ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... ago that I saw two Dissenting Ministers (the Ultima Thud of the sanguine, visionary temperament in politics) stuffing their pipes with dried currant-leaves, calling it Radical Tobacco, lighting it with a lens in the rays of the sun, and at every puff fancying that they undermined the Boroughmongers, as Trim blew up the army opposed to the Allies! They had deceived the Senate. Methinks I see them now, smiling as in ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... the Demon Cigarette as he abhorred tobacco in any form, but he had martyrized himself until he was able to puff up the cold-air flue in the stilly reaches of the night without having to grope his way back to the bed and watch the room careen about him. He did not inhale, but he had learned to imitate the process so as to defy ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... allers a mistery to peeple how I make farmin pay, but, Squire, between you and I, heer's where I reckon I've got 'em. Where I loses in other branches I make up heer. Any and everybody which invents a farmin masheen sends me one, and I gives them a puff. Every 30 days I gets up a bee, to which I invites the nabors. With hammers we knock them masheens to pieces, and, sir!" said he, blowin his bugle horn of liberty with his cote sleeve, "as the Roman mother once said, 'these is my tressoors,' for, sure's your born, the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... boldness with the fair, so that it raises scandalised shafts in horror to the sky!—Hang care!—A barleycorn—Eat and be merry.—The gear upon my head and under my eye is a far more gorgeous red, when I puff out my chest and strut, than any robin's waistcoat or finch's tie.—A fine day. All is well. I curvet—I blow my horn. Conscious of having done my duty, I may quite properly assume the swagger of a musketeer, and the calm commanding bearing of a ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... The clouds were completely overhead now, from north to south, from east to west. There was not a patch of blue to be seen. The panting earth waited in abject fear. A puff of wind came, hot and stifling, as if an oven door had suddenly been opened. It passed over the mulgas, making them sigh and moan, and then was gone again, leaving the same breathless stillness. Another puff, this time cool and fresh. It also passed away and left the men ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... closely. In the centre of it he paused and looked down at the track beneath him. Another train was approaching. As it came near he trembled from head to foot, and, catching at the railing against which he leaned, was about to make a quick move forward when a puff of smoke arose from below and sent him staggering backward, gasping with a terror I could hardly understand till I saw that the smoke had taken the form of a spiral and was sailing away before him in what to his disordered imagination must have looked like a gigantic ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... will be extremely gay, And Hook extremely dirty; And brick and mortar still will say "Try Warren, No. 30;" And "General Sauce" will have its puff, And so will General Jackson— And peasants will drink up heavy stuff, Which they pay a heavy tax on; And long and late, at many a fete, Gooseberry champagne will shine— And as old as it was in Twenty-eight, It ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... present," said I, "require a knife with indispensable cheese-scoop and marmalade-shredding attachment. My indispensable steel mirror with patent lanyard and powder puff for attachment to service revolver is in perfect working order. I already possess two pairs of marching boots with indispensable trapdoors in each heel containing complete pedicure set and French-Portuguese dictionaries. My indispensable fur waistcoats, Indian clubs, ponchos, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 26, 1917 • Various
... came to us in flaws from different points of the compass, we did not come to an anchor until nearly midnight. We had a boat ahead all the time that we were working in, and those aboard ship were continually bracing the yards about for every puff that struck us, until about twelve o'clock, when we came to in forty fathoms water, and our anchor struck bottom for the first time since we left Boston,— one hundred and three days. We were then divided into three watches, and thus stood out the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... according to size. Cooked haricot beans. 1 onion. About one tablespoon of chopped mint or parsley. Puff or short paste. ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... him through the pantry door I locks it behind him. Followin' which, Doris uses the powder-puff under her eyes a little and we adjourns to the Plutoria palm-room, where we had a perfectly good dinner, all the humility Westy could buy with a two-dollar tip, and no folksy chatter on ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... the interruption away with a gesture of his strangely slim hands. "This ain't an argument. It's facts. Another ten years on the road, and where'll you be? In the discard. A man of forty-six can keep step with the youngsters, even if it does make him puff a bit. But a woman of forty-six—the road isn't the place for her. She's tired. Tired in the morning; tired at night. She wants her kimono and her afternoon snooze. You've seen some of those old girls on the ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... Mrs. James, shaking her head, with a jam puff in her hand, "if the Queen had listened to Maxwell she might have lived in safety ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... that their firebrands were no longer in their hands, and a moment later a puff of smoke from the corner of the house and the exultant yells of the savages warned me of our new danger. As I turned from the door, I met Brightson coming to seek ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... leaped up and bounced down the trail ahead of them. Fadeaway jerked his horse to a stop. "Now we'll see some real speed!" he said. There was a flash of the dog's long body, which grew smaller and smaller in the distance; then a puff of dust spurted up. Fadeaway saw the dog turn end over end, regain his feet and toss something in ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... back to those very real dreams of the nursery at home, and baby there, and little brother, and papa and mamma, and the long time ago, hours and hours ago! when I said good-bye, and Bobbie kissed his hand out of window, and the carriage took me off—a happy little woman, really going in the puff-puff! Oh, how could I ever have felt so happy then and be so miserable now? Had I ever thought that I was coming away from them all, with nobody at all but Jane, the new nursemaid, to take care of me? Had I ever thought how quite alone I should be, never able to ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... the wind came fresher and fresher, and now and then a damp puff and lull, that were too significant tokens for a seaman to disregard. Captain Ratlin jumped upon the inner braces of the taffrail, and shading his eyes with his hands for a moment, looked steadily to windward, then glanced at his well-filled sails as though he was loth to lose even a minute of such ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... in a brazier near at hand, I dexterously substituted a fragment of paper, on which I had been figuring my accounts, for the paper received, from the dhobi, placing the former on the glowing charcoal embers and bestowing the latter in the security of my girdle. A curl of white smoke, a puff of flame, and the work of destruction was, to all ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... a fresh tribute of curiosity. A strong puff of wind fluttered the awnings and one of the screens blowing out wide let in upon the quarter-deck the rippling glitter of the Shallows, showing to d'Alcacer the luminous vastness of the sea, with the line of the distant horizon, dark ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... goes up to him, and looks in his face. "Why," says he, "you confounded long-shore picked-up son of a green-grocer, what are you after?" an' he takes the article a slap with his larboard-flipper, as sent it flying to leeward like a puff of smoke. "Keep off the quarter-deck, you lubber," says he, giving him a wheel down into the lee-scuppers—"it's well the captain didn't catch ye!" "Come aft here, some of ye," sings out the third mate again, "to brace up the main yard; and you, ye lazy beggar, clap on this moment ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... almost calm, except for the swell running in from outside. What it was like outside the white horses and the wind-streaks showed. Hardly had we gone half a mile before we heard the queer clutching noise which meant that a strong puff of wind had compelled Tony to let the sheet fly. The squall past, he hauled it in again, put his legs across the stern and hung on. We sailed eight miles from land in ten minutes under the hour—speed, that, for a twenty-two-foot ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... significative of true power, likely to issue in good fruit, is his will to work for the work's sake, not his desire to surpass his school-fellows; and the aim of the teaching you give him ought to be, to prove to him and strengthen in him his own separate gift, not to puff him into swollen rivalry with those who are everlastingly greater than he: still less ought you to hang favours and ribands about the neck of the creature who is the greatest, to make the rest envy him. Try to make them love ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... pictures that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from that we went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke; and, producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... their character, and peacock to their reflection, meditating: Does it become me? Will it be generally liked? Will it advance me towards my heart's desire? Then they catch up their cloak, twist the mirror back to its usual position, puff out the candles, and steal forth into their career, shutting the door gently behind them. And, perhaps till they are laid out in the grave, the last four walls enclosing them, only the dressing-room could tell their ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... at intervals only,— Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri; And we believe we discern some lines of men descending Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming. Every ten minutes, however,—in this there is no misconception,— Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo's dome, and After a space the report of a real big gun,—not the Frenchman's?— That must be doing some work. And so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... every minute seemed to make the issue more and more certain. Sometimes a little puff of wind would strike the Defiance, fill her sails, and push her a little nearer her goal, but the hopes that those puffs must have raised in Dolly's rival and her crew were false, for each died away before the Defiance really ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... back to the mirror, lighted his cigarette, took one puff, threw it into the grate. Then he told Coursay what had occurred between him and the young girl under the elm, reciting the facts minutely and ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... Comedy, or Tragedy, being supported partly by its real Merit, but most powerfully by a Toasting, or Kit-cat-Club, comes off with universal Applause. How slippery is Greatness! Philo puff'd up with his Success, writes a second Play, scorns to improve it by the Corrections of better Wits, brings it upon the Stage, without securing a Party to protect it, and has the Mortification to hear it Hist to death. Pray how many Philos do we reckon in ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... Scheldt came the cries of sailors, the creaking of cordage, and the puff! puff! of the ferry-boats. On the bastions of the fortress opposite, a bugler was standing. Twice the mellow notes of the bugle came faintly over the water, then a great gun thundered from the ramparts, and the Belgian flag fluttered along ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... my opinion, the most remarkable of this famous company were two sons of the North Wind (airy youngsters, and of rather a blustering disposition), who had wings on their shoulders, and, in case of a calm, could puff out their cheeks and blow almost as fresh a breeze as their father. I ought not to forget the prophets and conjurers, of whom there were several in the crew, and who could foretell what would happen tomorrow, or the next day, or a hundred years hence, but were generally quite unconscious ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... It was that marvellous transparent blue, flecked with silver, but the sand at the bottom looked gold; when you kicked with your toes there rose a little puff of gold-dust. Now the waves just reached her breast. Beryl stood, her arms outstretched, gazing out, and as each wave came she gave the slightest little jump, so that it seemed it was the wave which lifted ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... not what makes thee tremble so, for I dare swear I never rode easier in all my life; our horse goes as if he did not move at all. Take courage, then; for the affair is in a good way, and we have the wind astern."—"I think so, too," quoth Sancho; "for I feel the wind puff as briskly here as if a thousand pairs of bellows were blowing on me at my back." Sancho was not in the wrong; for two or three pairs of bellows were indeed giving air; so well had the plot of this adventure been laid ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... and gripping him by the thigh, threw him to the ground, so that he fell on his back. She laughed at him and said, "Thou art surely an eater of bran: for thou art like a Bedouin bonnet that falls off at a touch, or a child's toy that a puff of air overturns. Out on thee, thou poor creature! Go back to the army of the Muslims and send us other than thyself, for thou lackest thews; and cry as among the Arabs and Persians and Turks and Medes, 'Whoso has ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... heard footsteps, which froze her. A man was crossing the street. He came from the direction of the corner where she had seen the supposed spy. Presently she saw him stop under one of the trees to scratch a match, and in the round glow of light she saw him puff at a cigar. Then he passed on with uncertain steps, as of one slightly under the influence ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... them never forgot. He told his publisher that to him alone he should look for the only true account of the reception of his book. "The critics," said he in continuation, "may write as obscurely as they please, and look much wiser than they are; the papers may puff and abuse as their (p. 044) changeful humors dictate; but if you meet me with a smiling face I shall at once know that all is ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... tried! But just as her boat would near the other, a chance current or a puff of wind would take the canoe just out of her reach. Paddling now with one oar she came very near the unsteady little craft, so near that Gladys suddenly decided to jump into ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... an amazed bulldog, managed to chew and puff on his cigar simultaneously and still speak understandable English. "Never saw anything like it. Never. First ballot and you had it, Jim. I know Texas was going to put up Perez as a favorite son on the first ballot, but they couldn't do anything ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett
... threat, for in the middle of the right-hand panel of the door a small wicket was opened through which the priests were wont to puff incense into the tomb of the sacred bulls—and twice, thrice, finally, when he still would not be pacified, a fourth time, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to himself to watch the boat turning into the shore, where a wharf loaded with truck for shipping jutted out into the stream; and one passenger—a sturdy, grizzled man in rough, brown hunting corduroy—leaped aboard followed by two fine dogs. Then the laboring engines, with puff and shriek, kept on their way; while Dan continued his investigations, and made friendly overtures to a big deck hand who volunteered to show ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... there came a slight puff of wind, and the water curling under it glanced more luminously; while an occasional flash of lightning announced that the clouds above ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... smoke was puffing out of its stack, and the dirty water running from its pipes, and the reflected fire from the engine's furnace blazed through the sunken eyes of the windows, begrizzled and begrimed, nothing was wanted but a little imagination to hear it cough and spit and give one final puff at its pipe and say: "Lu'd but o'ive wur-rek hard an' ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... mounted the hill, two regiments of cuirassiers on the right, and a regiment of lancers on the left fell on their flanks like lightning, and before they had time to look, they were upon them. We could hear the blows slide over their cuirasses, hear their horses puff, and a hundred paces away we could see the lances rise and fall, the long sabres stretch out, and the men bend down to thrust under; the furious horses, rearing, biting, and neighing frightfully, and then men under the horses' feet were trying to get up, and sheltering themselves ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... surface,—rise above it—and finally become some of the fairest isles of the Pacific. Charts tell of the isles, but no charts can tell the locality of coral reefs which have just, or barely, reached the surface. The Lively Poll was forging slowly ahead under a puff of air that only bulged her top-sails as she rose and sank on the majestic swell. Presently she rose high, and was then let down on a coral reef with such violence that the jury-mast with the main-topmast and all the connected rigging, went over the side. Another swell lifted her off, ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... watch, you can see the air shimmering and rising from an open field on a broiling summer day, or wavering and rushing upward from a hot stove or an open register in winter. Hold a little feather fluff or blow a puff of flour above a hot stove, and it will go sailing up toward the ceiling. As the heated air rises, the cooler air around rushes in to fill the place that it has left, and the outdoor "drafts" are made ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... sinks behind the Adirondacs over the lake, the parade ends; the many lookers-on having nothing to see but the bright visions of the next year's training, retire to their homes; while the now weary students, gathered in knots in the windows of the upper stories, lazily and comfortably puff their black pipes, and watch the lessening ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... avenging shell burst right among the bushes a thousand yards off. At the same time the ger-r-er of the machine-gun told that its handle was turning, and its deadly missiles tearing through the light cover. The effect was immediate; the enemy cleared off like midges from a puff of tobacco smoke, and retired across the ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... art by the gifted and high-minded; but in England thanks in the main to the anonymity of the press cunningly contrived by the capitalist, the journalist or modern preacher is turned into a venal voice, a soulless Cheapjack paid to puff his master's wares. Clearly our "Professor of AEsthetics and Critic of Art" is likely to have a doleful time of it in ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... a few, muff, muffs; chief, chiefs. So hoof, roof, proof, relief, mischief, puff, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... to whom he gave a passing glance, seemed even less earthly in her nature. Indeed, it appeared as if she had never more than half belonged to the material creation. Slight, ethereal, with untroubled blue eyes, and little puff curls too light to show their change to gray, she struck Gregory unpleasantly, as if she were a connecting link between gross humanity and spiritual existence, and his eyes reverted to Miss Walton, and dwelt with increasing interest on her. There at least were youth, ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... General Vaugirard began to puff like one of the machines. He threw out his great chest, pursed up his mouth and emitted his breath in little gusts between his lips, "Very good! Very good, my children!" he said, "Oil and electricity will carry us now, and we go ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... different from other operatives." A puff of cigarette smoke wreathed upward from the speaker's ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... courteously. "There is room by the fire for them," and he motioned to them to sit down by his side. A pipe, composed of a long flat wooden stem studded with brass nails, with a bowl cut out of red pipe-stone, was now handed round, each taking a short puff. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... leave you to guess at the excess of my joy; it was such, that I could scarcely persuade myself of its being real. But when I recovered from my surprise, and was convinced of the truth of the matter, I found the thing which I had followed, and heard puff and blow, to be a creature which came out of the sea, and was accustomed to enter at that hole to feed upon the dead carcases. I considered the mountain, and perceived it to be situate betwixt the sea and the town, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... handkerchief to her lips. Forgetful, he followed her swaying figure with puzzled gaze till admonished by the flame that crept toward his fingertips. Then dropping the match he struck another and put it to his cigarette. At the second puff he heard a choking gasp, and ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... strong symptoms of astonishment and admiration. He is said to have turned to master Juet, and uttered these remarkable words, while he pointed towards this paradise of the new world—"See! there!"—and thereupon, as was always his way when he was uncommonly pleased, he did puff out such clouds of dense tobacco smoke that in one minute the vessel was out of sight of land, and Master Juet was fain to wait until the winds dispersed ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... of that noisy crowd, he could catch the faint perfume of hyacinths from the borders along which they had passed and the trimly-cut flower-beds which fringed the deep green lawn. Almost he could hear the chiming of the old stable clock, the clear note of a thrush singing. A puff of wind brought them a waft of fainter odour from the wild violets which carpeted the woods. Then the darkness crept around them, a star came out. Hand in hand they turned towards the house and into the library, where a wood fire was burning on the grate. ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... visage so derisively, that the spectator could see his blackness all the better for it. Ever and anon, too, there came a glare of red light out of his eyes; as if the old man's soul were on fire, and kept on smouldering duskily within his breast, until, by some casual puff of passion, it was blown into a momentary flame. This he repressed, as speedily as possible, and strove to look as if nothing of the kind ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... place for fishing. A deep, quiet pool, partly shaded by big trees, lay placid and motionless, except for an occasional ripple, stirred by a light puff of wind. An old wattle tree grew on the bank, its limbs jutting out conveniently, and here Jim and Wally ensconced themselves immediately, and turned their united attention to business. For a time no sound was heard save the dull "plunk" of sinkers ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... to read, so I lit a match. A puff of wind extinguished it. There is always just enough wind to extinguish ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... in Germany, and all the adjacent countries, in all times, are to be found in the catalogue. I pass over the implied compliment to this country, namely, that while a true description is required in Germany, a puff both in time and space is wanted for England. I dwell on the injurious effect of such alterations to literature, and on the trouble they give to those who wish to be accurate. It is a system I attack, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... more or less than an arrangement of holes through which, when the wind blows in a stiff puff, air is forced with violence enough to cause the cry that disturbed us so much ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... said the other with a laugh. "But if your motive is what I imagine, then, thank goodness, your efforts are wasted. Listen to this. If, instead of being a young innocent girl, you were an ancient, shrivelled-up, worldly-minded woman, with a dried-up puff-ball full of blue dust for a heart, and a scheming brain manufactured by Maskelyne and Cook; and if you had Captain Horton for a son, and had singled me out for his victim, you could not have done more to put me in ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... "Robbins & Hartley, Brokers." The clerks had gone. It was past five, and with the solid tramp of a drove of prize Percherons, scrub-women were invading the cloud-capped twenty-story office building. A puff of red-hot air flavoured with lemon peelings, soft-coal smoke and train oil came in through the ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... the chair, though, almost caused his heart to stop beating. The cushions of the seat, compressed before, began to puff out to full volume, as if someone had just risen from them. And then, faintly but sharply outlined in the long-napped rug in front, appeared the print of a ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... hull throbbed with the giant pulsings of the two sets of engines. There was not another sound. It was as though the vessel were plunging through an endless void. In the darkness astern arose a spear-like puff of crimson flame. Again it ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... with a snow-white beard, sat equally unmoved, smoking the long chibook, without apparently regarding the king or his people. The chibook is a most useful instrument for a diplomat. If the situation is difficult, he can puff, puff, puff, and the incorrigible pipe will not draw; in the mean time, he considers a reply. At length the pipe draws, a cloud of smoke issues from the mouth. "I beg your pardon," says the embarrassed diplomat, evidently relieved by the little unreal difficulty ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... into a small room, in which the candles were so well screened by a green tin screen that we could scarcely distinguish the tall form of a lady in black, who rose from her armchair by the fireside as the door opened: a great puff of smoke issuing from the huge fireplace at the same moment. She came forward, and we made our way towards her as well as we could through a confusion of tables, chairs and work-baskets, china, writing-desks and ink-stands, and bird-cages, and a harp. She did not speak, ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... double-edged dagger in the other, he thrust his arm into the entrance, where the President, sitting in an arm-chair, presented to his view the back and side of his head. A flash, a sharp report, a puff of smoke, and the fatal bullet had entered ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... north and east of the county of Norfolk. We take note of this that we call a fact, and straightway the temptation presents itself to construct a theory upon it. Who knows not that in the trying spring-time, the "colic of puff'd Aquilon" makes life hard for man and beast in Norfolk, and that across our fields the cruel gusts burst upon us with a bitter petulance, unsparing, pitiless, hateful, till our vitality seems to be steadily waning? It was in the ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... once more in the bow of the long-boat, and presented towards us the weapon with which he had a moment before threatened us; and this time it was no idle menace. A puff of smoke rose from the muzzle of the piece, and, just as the sharp report reached our ears, Browne uttered a quick exclamation of pain, and ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... her cigarette, drew a puff upon it and exhaled a cloud of smoke before she answered. Then ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... he disappeared from view. Suddenly aware of a pain in his hand, he held it out before him and was astonished to find that the knuckles were already beginning to puff. He winced when he tried to clench his fist. A rueful smile twitched at the corners ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... a military turnout of which I was ignorant, I have sometimes had a vague sense all the day of some sort of itching and disease in the horizon, as if some eruption would break out there soon, either scarlatina or canker-rash, until at length some more favorable puff of wind, making haste over the fields and up the Wayland road, brought me information of the "trainers." It seemed by the distant hum as if somebody's bees had swarmed, and that the neighbors, according to Virgil's advice, by a faint tintinnabulum upon the most sonorous of their ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... others undertook to get down the chimney, "big squaw took up mighty great wallet, all full of feathers, more than was on all the eagles of all the hunting grounds of the red men, and tearing it open, easy as we tear a leaf, poured them on the fire. Big black smoke puff up quick as powder flash, and down come Indian like he shot. White squaw take up big tomahawk, and strike both on the head. Me nearly in the door by this time; big squaw jump at me with he great tomahawk, so big the great chief no lift it, and lifted it to strike. Me no like to be killed by ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... with its alternating smoke puff and dull red flare, struck the one jarring note in a symphony blown otherwise on great nature's organ-pipes; but to Thomas Jefferson the furnace was as much a part of the immutable scheme as the hills or the forests or the creek which furnished the motive power for its air-blast. ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... to find that her hand-bag had not been stolen. The powder-puff would serve temporarily for a wash-basin. The small change in her purse would postpone starvation ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... the very threshold one detected the rumbling and quivering of machinery, all the noise and bustle of work. Black water flowed by at one's feet, and up above white vapour spurted from a slender pipe with a regular strident puff, as if it were the very breath ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... by his side handed him a rifle, which he sighted, then took down as a puff of smoke rose ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... then add a quarter of a Pound of fine Sugar well beaten and sifted, and four Ounces of fresh Butter; warm these gently over a Fire, keeping it stirring all the while till it begins to thicken; then take it off, and put it in the Coffins made of puff Crust, and bake your Cheesecakes ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... no air-ships available for immediate charter, nor big balloons waiting for passengers, with sand-bags ready for instant unloading, nor any underground pneumatic tubes into which he could be pumped and with a puff landed on his own doorstep in Kennedy Square, the impatient lover was obliged to content himself with the back seat of the country stage and a night ride in the train down ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... von Boobenstein, blowing a big puff of smoke. "In fact, it is these cigars that have given rise to the legend (a pure fiction, I need hardly say) that our armies are using asphyxiating gas. The truth is they are merely smoking ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... head, her black eyes fixed on the red draught of the stove with a far-away, fateful, veiled glint in them which her grandsons knew well. She had ceased to puff at her pipe for the moment, and in the failing light from the window they could see a thin reek of smoke trailing straight ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... until within rifle-shot, and then suddenly swerved away in an oblique line. The ambush had failed, and a puff of smoke issued from behind the bowlder. Two braves, in gorgeous war paint, sprang up, and at the same time a score of whooping Indians rode out of timber on the other side ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... enough," answered Blasi, and he added to himself, "The women-folk are queer creatures. No fellow can understand them. A moment ago she looked all broken-down, and as if she could be blown out with a puff of wind, and now she looks bright and strong as the ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... immaculate Lamb of God, and find as great necessity of covering your cleanest duties with it, as your foulest faults, and thus shall you be kept still humble and vile in your own eyes, and have continual employment for Christ Jesus. Your best estate should not puff you up, and your worst estate should not cast you down; therefore be much in the search of the filthiness of your holy actions. This were a spiritual study, a noble discovery to unbowel your duties, to divide them, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of the warring armies. On the beaches, certainly, there were tents and stores and men moving. But the rolling countryside beyond seemed bleak and deserted. Only occasionally a high-explosive shell threw up a spout of brown earth, or a burst of shrapnel sent a puff of white smoke to float like a Cupid's cloud along the sky. And yet two armies were hidden here, with their rifles, machine-guns, and artillery pointed ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... time, (for the labor requires activity, and consequently is exhausting,) feeds the thresher, which, with its armed teeth, moves with such velocity as to appear like a solid cylinder. Here there is no stopping for horses to take breath and rest their weary limbs,—puff, puff, onward the work,—steam as great a triumph in threshing as in printing or spinning. Men and boys are stationed at the rear of the thresher to remove the straw, and roughly separate the seed from the shattered hulm,—others again being engaged in thrusting the dried crop ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... oak.' ... 'A star appeared at noon day at his birth; he was a great mathematician, chemist, and mechanick, and wrought oft in the laboratories himselfe; he had a natural mildnesse and command over his anger, which never transported him beyond an innocent puff and spitting, and was soon over, and yet commanded more deference from his people than if he had expressed it more severely, so great respect had all to him. His clemencie was admirable, witnesse his sparing 2 of Oliver Cromwell's sones, tho on of them had usurped his throne. His firmnesse ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... suddenly, demanding an immediate answer. Under the watchful eyes of the other party the questioned party tried not to show by his expression any indication of searching for an answer, for obvious reasons. So, instead, he would take a long puff at the cigar, then a slow attentive look at the ashes on its tip, and then another moment consumed in flicking the ash into the receptacle, and then came the answer, slowly, "Well, as to that—" or some other words of that kind, prefacing the real ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... worship thinks you have to deal With men. Go straight on, in the Devil's name, Or I shall puff your flickering life out. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of liver in small slices, flour and fry them in butter or dripping, together with a calf's or pig's or sheep's brain, previously scalded and also cut up. Serve with bits of fried ham and little diamond-shaped pieces of puff pastry. ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... cheap kimona. The dresser, in keeping with the general meanness, was adorned with pictorial postcards stuck in between the mirror and the frame, and on it were all the accessories necessary to the actress—powder box and puff, a rouge box and a rabbit's paw, a hand mirror, a small alcohol curling-iron heater, and a bottle of cheap perfume, purple in color, and nearly empty. On the mantelpiece were arranged photographs of actors and actresses and pieces of cheap bric-a-brac. ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... a slender tongue of flame running up a tall reed, and quivering for a moment high above. Other flames ran in and out among the withered white sheaths that had dropped off, and mounted up the smooth stems, and then there came a wandering puff of wind, which rustled over the bending tops and fanned the little serpent-tongues of fire ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... that I came into possession of an ill tempered French poodle called Crapouillot, which the patients in our hospital insisted on clipping like a lion with an anklet, a curl over his nose and a puff at the end of his tail. A most detestable, unfortunate beast, always to be found where not needed, a ribbon in his hair, ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... Everybody who knows the House of Commons will easily guess what followed. The Major was soon considered as the greatest bore of his time. His exertions were not confined to Parliament. There was hardly a day on which the newspapers did not contain some puff upon Hastings, signed Asiaticus or Bengalensis, but known to be written by the indefatigable Scott; and hardly a month in which some bulky pamphlet on the same subject, and from the same pen, did not pass to the trunkmakers and the pastry-cooks. As to this gentleman's capacity ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... puff of wind, the smoke, lace-edged with the dawn light, swayed, seeming to twine about the figure of the King as he stood with the wand outheld, as if firmly hooked in the guts ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... shell, you can see the smoke just this side of Sharpsburg on our left," said the Colonel, addressing his companion. "There it bursts," and a puff of white smoke expanded itself in the air fifty yards above one of our batteries posted on a ridge on the left. Two pieces gave quick reply. "Officers, to your posts," shouted an aide-de-camp, and forthwith the officers galloped ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... Mayflower riding at anchor, Battered and blackened and worn by all the storms of the winter. Loosely against her masts was hanging and flapping her canvas, Rent by so many gales, and patched by the hands of the sailors. Suddenly from her side, as the sun rose over the ocean, Darted a puff of smoke, and floated seaward; anon rang Loud over field and forest the cannon's roar, and the echoes Heard and repeated the sound, the signal-gun of departure! Ah! but with louder echoes replied the hearts of the people! Meekly, in voices ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... was indefatigable in endeavouring to torment him. One time he would sing the 'Caramgnole,' and a thousand other horrors, before us; again, knowing that my mother disliked the smoke of tobacco, he would puff it in her face, as well as in that of my father, as they happened to pass him. He took care always to be in bed before we went to supper, because he knew that we must pass through his room. My father suffered it all with gentleness, forgiving the man from the bottom of his heart. My mother ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... see how romantic and foolish it was, how like a puff of wind it ought to be on your conscience. We shall ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... where I stood to see this procession, the room was hung with crimson damask and gold, and the windows were mended in ten or a dozen places with paper. At dinner they give you three courses; but a third of the dishes is patched up with salads, butter, puff-paste, or some such miscarriage of a dish. None, but Germans, wear fine clothes; but their coaches are tawdry enough for the wedding of Cupid and Psyche. You would laugh extremely at their signs: some live at the Y grec, some at Venus's toilette, and some ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... proudest devices of heraldry to incorporate them as quarterings into his arms, and this gave rise to an epigram from the pen of an ex-Jesuit, to this effect: "The eagle belongs to the Empire, the lilies of the field to France, to heaven belongs the stars—to Braschi what? Puff." ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould |
