"Puffing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about that," said Maurice, puffing into Johann's face. "When cabinet ministers play spy, small fry like you will not cavil at the occupation. And you are not in their pay?" Johann glared. "I want to know," Maurice went on, "what you know; what you know of Colonel Beauvais, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... them were seated the musicians. The medicine chief took up his position in the center of the circle, near a small fire, with his big pipe in his hands. Gravely filling it with k'neck k'nick, he lighted it at the flame, and began puffing great clouds in the faces of the aspirants, that the Great Spirit might give them strength to bear their tortures manfully. Directly under the aperture in the roof of the lodge was a curious arrangement ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... host; "'cause they've got the same extinguisher on; and ain't it curious to see 'em puffing and blowing at the old lamp? I get 'most tired of talking common sense and common feeling to the Deacon. You can't get it into him, and it won't stay on him. You might as well try to heap a peck ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... door was closed, and there was no one in the room but the hairy eggplant shape of the Aurigean, still puffing ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... replied, puffing luxuriously upon his pipe; "I've changed my mind. All I wanted was new scenes and occupations. I've decided to stay on awhile. But I've been thinking, Jude, you don't want to take Joyce into your shack. Let's build her another up on the sunny slope beyond the Long Meadow on the Hillcrest ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... miraculously gathered from nowhere. The fat marshal of Battle Butte was puffing up the street a block away. Beaudry judged it time to be gone. He dropped the leg of the stool ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... a trouble as the frogs were the brocachas, who committed terrible havoc in the garden and among the crops. They are about the size, and have somewhat the appearance of hares, and burrow in immense quantities in the Pampas. The only way to get rid of them was by puffing the fumes of burning sulphur down into their holes; and it was quite a part of the boys' regular work to go out with the machine for the purpose, and to suffocate these troublesome creatures. Their holes, however, are not so dangerous to horsemen as are those of the armadillos, ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... again, but she kept looking at the clock, and he walked up and down the room, puffing at his cigarette. Neither of them could think of anything further to say to the other. There is a moment at the hour of parting when the person that we love ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... the presumptuous fool who had desired to remain to glean, where he, the experienced and skilful officer, had perceived nothing. As soon as he was within speaking distance, the inspector called to Father Absinthe, who, after warning Lecoq, remained on the threshold, leaning against the door-post, puffing his pipe, as immovable ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... saint who lies yonder," he pointed to one of the towering belfries shimmering with gold that rose above the shoulder of a distant hill. "I am Gleb, the son of Gleb, and it is said that we go back a thousand years to the Holy Ones. Also, it was prophesied by a wise woman," said the peasant, puffing out a cloud of smoke and crossing himself at the same time, "that I should go the way of holiness and that after my death my ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... advertisers, had penetrated. Ever since she had summoned a Jewish florist for not paying her for the hundred and eleven bouquets with which a single week's engagement in vaudeville had enabled her to supply him, the journals had continued to paragraph her amusing, self-puffing adventures. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Greek, who had attained his present ponderous dimensions through many years of rest: "I will hasten to fetch the keys." And as he went, puffing and panting, he re-arranged with his short, fat fingers the still abundant hair on the right side of his head. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hurriedly brought, and after being fastened about her waist, the Italians were ordered to pull, while Phil and Teddy braced themselves against the Fat Woman's waist and pushed with all their might. At last they landed her, puffing and blowing and murmuring for more help, at the top of the embankment. She was quickly assisted to the handcar, when the ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... old-style barouches, such as the mayor rides in at the unveiling of the new poorhouse at Milledgeville, Alabama. Round and round the desiccated fountain in the middle of the plaza they drove, and lifted their high silk hats to their friends. The common people walked around in barefooted bunches, puffing stogies that a Pittsburg millionaire wouldn't have chewed for a dry smoke on Ladies' Day at his club. And the grandest figure in the whole turnout was Barney O'Connor. Six foot two he stood in his Fifth Avenue clothes, with his eagle eye and his black ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... Cobley broke her sad tale to her son, while he sat and sucked his pipe and listened on a winter evening, with the wind puffing the peat smoke from the fire into ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... newspaper in his lap, and crowds of people reading crowded newspapers standing round him in the aisles; but he can never be said to be seen at his best, in a spectacle like this, until the spectacle moves, until it is felt rushing over the sky of the street, puffing through space; in which delectable pell-mell and carnival of hurry—hiss in front of it, shriek under it, and dust behind it—he finds, to all appearances at least, the meaning of this present world and the hope ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... a man capable of great physical exertion. His calling often made heavy demands upon his powers of endurance; but never before had he grappled with so strenuous a task. Puffing and panting, now running at top speed, anon brought to a halt by the doubling-up tactics of his quarry, his great difficulty was the fact that citizen Chauvelin did not wish the man Rateau to be apprehended; did not wish him to know that he was being pursued. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Durazzo. What Hacket had to tell was interesting: Spargo lingered to hear all about it, and to discuss it. Altogether it was well beyond half-past two when he went out of the office, unconsciously puffing away from him as he reached the threshold the last breath of the atmosphere in which he had spent his midnight. In Fleet Street the air was fresh, almost to sweetness, and the first grey of the coming dawn was breaking faintly around ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... whom the young Indian had his attention fixed, however, seemed to be partial to his former attitude, and, still puffing his pipe, he leaned once more against the tree, as ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... two men tried by wealth; the gold gets into the one man's veins and makes him yellow as with jaundice, and kills him, destroying all that is noble, generous, impulsive, quenching his early dreams and enthusiasms, closing his heart to sweet charity, puffing him up with a false sense of Importance, and laying upon him the dreadful responsibility of misused and selfishly employed possessions. And the other man, tried in the same fashion, out of his wealth makes for himself friends that welcome him into everlasting habitations, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the river, two native vessels were lying at anchor. The crews were somewhat slow in perceiving us, and had not time to raise their anchors before we came puffing up to them. The captain did not stop, as he thought there was room to pass, but turned the steamer's head so far in shore, that he ran into the bushes, and left some of the blinds of the cabin-windows suspended as trophies ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... puffing thoughtfully throughout this discussion, his head bowed, now looked up, and shook his head ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... Willyum (puffing at a new and empty clay pipe). Zure-lie. (Jarge, a trifle jealous of Willyum's gag, pulls out a similar pipe, but smokes it with the bowl upside down to show his independence.) T' Squire's darter (Jarge frowns), her bain't ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... bad as yours looks naturally," responded Collie, puffing at a cigarette with swollen lips. ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... wait for an answer, but drove on with immense energy, puffing away at his cigar and turning his small, keen eyes swiftly from Arabian to Miss Van Tuyn and back again. The talk, which was now a monologue, fed by frequent draughts of the excellent whisky, included a dissertation on Pissaro's oil paintings, his ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... had not been having sufficient sleep. He always did his share of the work and had undoubtedly borne a great deal of pain without showing it. On several nights I noticed that he sat up in his sleeping-bag for hours puffing away at a pipe or reading. At last the pain became so acute that he asked me to lance his finger. This was successfully accomplished after breakfast on the 13th and during the day he ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... the Hudson, and through the former the produce of the teeming West pours to the Atlantic. The traffic is carried on in small sailing sloops and steamers. Sometimes a little screw-vessel of fifteen or twenty tons may be seen to hurry, puffing and panting, up to a large vessel and drag it down to the sea; but generally one paddle-tug takes six vessels down, four being towed behind and one or two lashed on either side. As both steamers ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... slipped into the eternity that lies behind—"years not lost, for we can turn the hourglass and live them all over in sweet memory," once said Gainsborough to his wife. The constant sketching had developed much skill in the artist's hand. Thicknesse had come puffing alongside, and insisted out of pure friendliness on taking the artist and wife in tow. They laughed at him behind his back, and carried on conversation over his head, and dropped jokes at his feet by looks and pantomime, and communicated in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... been in other places that I thought plenty hot enough, but never have I been so thoroughly cooked as were my companion and I perched on the lumber pile. On top of that, or rather on top of us, there poured a constant rain of cinders from the locomotive puffing away a few cars ahead of us. The road-bed was rough, and at times we had to hang on for our very lives. We can laugh about it now, but, at the time, it was no joke. At last we reached the end of the ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... four large Bears feeding on the heap. In the middle was Fatty, sprawling at full length as he feasted, a picture of placid ursine content, puffing just a little at times as he strove to save himself the trouble of moving by darting out his tongue like a long red serpent, farther and farther, in quest of the titbits ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... of railway trains across the landscape—their swift flight reduced by distance to a leisurely transition. The bright surface of the stream was furrowed by a hundred vessels; tiny rowboats creeping from shore to shore; knots of black barges following the lead of puffing tugs; sloops with languid motion tacking against the tide; white steamboats, like huge toy-houses, crowded with pygmy inhabitants, moving smoothly on their way to the great city, and disappearing ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... big, fat and awkward. He was puffing and blowing, and he began to groan as Doctor Spechaug's fists thudded into his flesh. The degenerate fell to his knees, his broken face blowing out bloody air. Finally he rolled over onto his side with a long sighing moan, lay ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... speedily sprung to her feet. "Old Liu, old Liu," she roared with a loud voice, "your eating capacity is as big as that of a buffalo! You've gorged like an old sow and can't raise your head up!" Then puffing out her cheeks, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... obtain a great deal, because both his fledglings and his mate were voracious. He had to fly sometimes as far as the river Kama, in order to catch seagulls, which hovered over the huge, white, unfamiliar, many-eyed monsters that floated over the water, puffing, and smelling strangely ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... this energetic and systematic "puffing" did a great deal of good, and wherever we went I was looked upon as a sort of wizard, entitled to very great respect, and the best of everything that ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... ruffling and puffing out the muslin curtains of the windows, and from the garden below came the long, silvery clash of eucalyptus leaves. She leaned on the high window-ledge to look downward over red roofs, over terraced green, over steep streets running abruptly to the broken blue ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... the church cut off the glow of sunset, and made it seem silent and dark. Ahead of him the Valley lay. Across at the right it stretched toward the Junction, and he could see the evening train just puffing in with a wee wisp of white misty smoke trailing against the mountain green. The people for the hotels would be swarming off, for it was Saturday night. The fat one would be there rolling trunks across and the station agent would presently close up. It would be dark ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... we heard a curious whistling, puffing sound, it was the two tanks clambering up the hill to get into position ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... puffing automobile drew up to the steps he turned quietly to survey its occupants, vividly contrasting the surprise displayed by his two companions. One of these was evidently the innkeeper from the professional air of deference which tempered even his amazement, while the other, square ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... the Cardigan Memoirs, and read, or seemed to read, a few lines; but then the drowsiness would come and the book would fall. Time and again he attempted to smoke, or in his drowse simulated the motion of placing a cigar to his lips and puffing in ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... which are slid the winning numbers of last week, form the whole outward adornment. In the poor and populous parts the lotteries flaunt out in all kinds of shabby finery: the walls about the door are pasted over with puffing inscriptions; from stands in front of the shop flutter long stripes of parti-coloured paper, inscribed with all sorts of cabalistic figures. If you like you may try the "Terno della fortuna," which is certain, ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... he doesn't want to live too high. But is that all he is entitled to? Your friend"—he waved a hand toward Verinder, puffing up the trail a hundred yards below—"draws millions of dollars in dividends from the work of these men. What does he ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... slow degrees and much puffing, Shuey got the erratic box to the next floor, where, disregarding Shuey's protestations that he could "make her mind," Mr. Armorer got out, and they left the elevator to its fate. It was a long way, through many rooms, downstairs. Shuey would have beguiled the way by describing the rooms, but ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... with blond curly hair, and beard and moustache to match—was entering the building; while the other—a much shorter and stouter figure, with a cast of features which rendered his German origin unmistakable—was standing upon the top step, puffing at a cigar, as he leisurely drew on his gloves preparatory to his emergence ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the rest, gloomily puffing rings of smoke into the air. After a while he lay down in the grass with his head buried in his hat, sleeping to all appearances, while the others talked and laughed; for he had no stories, though he put in an ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... grab for him, but he rushed into his cage and locked the door. The combatants were puffing too hard to speak, or one of them at least would probably have vented some sarcasm. Evan eyed the proceedings approvingly; it was a relief to witness a little disorder where the orderly teller-accountant ruled. Porter, with ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... dismissed the rest of them, and afterwards sat down and chatted with me, just as if we had been of the same rank, puffing a pipe furiously, and drinking amazing quantities of wine. Indeed, my head feels the effects of it this morning, although I was quite unable to drink cup for cup with him, for, had I done so, I should have been under ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... snug cabin, puffing a most excellent cigar and sipping his whiskey and soda while, amid much shouting of seamen and screaming of windlasses, the staff boat got clear. Presently they were gliding past long low moles and black, inhospitable lighthouses, threading their way through the dark shapes of war craft of ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... he had a good time in the water, swimming long distances, taking long dives, and amusing himself by sinking his enormous body to the bottom of the river, and coming up again every now and then to breathe. He made plenty of fuss over it, too, puffing and grunting ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... place for a dive," he said, standing on the edge of the flat rock and looking down into the deep pool, and then he put his hands above his head and, bending forward, dived down into the water so finely that there was hardly any splash. He came up, puffing and blowing, shaking the water from his eyes and hair, and swam up and down the pool, now on his back, now on his side, and then suddenly with a shout he would curl himself up and dive and swim beneath the water, and again come up, red and shiny and puffing ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... dress was drawn up. From her turned-up hair a dark colour fell over her back, and growing gradually paler, lost itself little by little in the shade. Then her dress fell on both sides of her chair, puffing out full of folds, and reached the ground. When Leon occasionally felt the sole of his boot resting on it, he drew back as if he ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... see this martyr to the holy cause of matrimony, puffing and blowing beneath the weight of his heavy gun, as he wends his way across the fields towards a certain spot in the forest at which he finally arrives. He looks around him with searching eyes; his brow is clouded with anxiety and impatience. ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... success because of the hum of voices that filled the room. In time, however, the gathering began to thin out, until at length there remained only this party of three, Lanyard enjoying a most delectable salad, and Roddy puffing a cigar (with such a show of enjoyment that Lanyard suspected him of the sin of smuggling) and slowly gulping down a second ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... half hour arter Rufus raced off to the Falls, back he comes as hard as he could tear, a-puffing and a blowin' like a sizeable grampus. You never seed such a figure as he was, he was wet through and through, and the dry dust stickin' to his clothes, made him look like a dog, that had jumped into the water, and then took a roll in ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... musing for a while longer. The freight was out of sight now but there came to his ears, faintly through the heavy morning air, the sound of the distant puffing. And he could see the trail ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... had gone the doctor sat there a long time, meditatively puffing the smoke from his cob pipe, and turning his own dollar in his hand. After a time he looked up at his daughter, who was present, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... on the stairs and made his way back to the Chief's office. The Chief was sitting, tiny behind his big desk, his face as serene as ever. He was puffing casually on one of the ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... stall at the theatre or a seat in a cafe. Not only had he elbow room in Marienbad, but he felt small, positively meagre, in comparison with the prize specimens he saw painfully progressing about the shaded walks or puffing like obese engines up the sloping roads to the Ruebezahl, the Egerlaender, the Panorama, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... lazily jogging along the track, which they had beaten through the snow. At the evening encampment, when others were busy gathering fuel, providing for the horses, and cooking the evening repast, this worthy Sancho of the wilderness would take his seat quietly and cosily by the fire, puffing away at his pipe, and eyeing in silence, but with wistful intensity of gaze, the savory morsels ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... there with his grandmother! He could not see the way because of his falling tears, but he heard Herr Malon's heavy step in front of him, and he followed after. At the little station house above the vine-covered church Malon stopped. Soon after the train came puffing along. Malon got in and pulled Sami after him, and they started away. Sami crouched in a corner and did not stir. They travelled thus for an hour. Sami did not understand a word that was spoken around him, although several times one and another tried to talk with him a little, for the softly ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... industries of death, and devil ships, and loud-winged devil birds, All bent on slaughter and destruction. These and yet more shameful things mine eyes beheld. Old men upon lascivious conquest bent, and young men living with no thought of God; And half clothed women puffing at a weed, aping the vices of the underworld - Engrossed in shallow pleasures and intent on being barren wives. These things I saw. (How God must ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... different in character from those already mentioned, was that with George Sand, "his brother George" he used to call her. He first made her acquaintance in 1831, and would often go puffing up the stairs of the five-storied house on the Quai Saint-Michel, at the top of which she lived. His ostensible object was to give advice about her writing, but in reality he would leave this comparatively uninteresting ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... the hope, she thinks, that she might become really crazy, as well as reputedly so. One sheriff, finding that the fumes of cigarette- smoking made her ill, treated all her follow-inmates to the little white cylinders, and set them at work puffing vigorously. Chivalry and humanity seemed, for the time being, to have ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... "Police!" cried O'Neill, puffing good-humoredly. "Why, V.V.!—They're personally some of the best people in town! If you knew 'em you'd be the first to say so. Take the Heths now, just to ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... A breeze sprang up out of the night behind them, and held steady for an hour or more. Then it dropped and became aimless and erratic, puffing gently first from one quarter and then another. French Pete remained at the tiller, while occasionally Joe or 'Frisco Kid took in ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... just before Easter, the General came puffing down the outside aisle of Old Market, with his colored man behind him with an enormous basket. The General's carriage was drawn up to the curbstone, and the gray horses were dancing little fancy dances over the asphalt street, when all at once Jimmy thrust a bunch ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... it rather a strain to start laughing again over so small a matter, he was content with puffing out a cloud of smoke from his pipe, while he reflected sadly that he could never again hope to keep pace with his wife in her Atalanta-flights across the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... most chilling reception could not damage its vitality. Principle and intention were both all right, of course, but they were clumsily carried out, and the whole effect was to remind one unpleasantly of the clockmaker puffing his wares. At the most unseasonable times and in the most incongruous places, Mr. Fullarton always had an eye to business, introducing and inculcating his tenets with an assurance and complacency peculiar to himself. Sometimes he would adopt the familiarly conversational, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... quietly collects the dust and stirs it round and ends by piling it in little heaps that she hides in the corners of the rooms; she does not rummage the bed, but restricts herself to patting it with the tip of her fingers, stroking the creases out of the sheets, puffing up the pillows and coaxing them out of their hollows. The man turned everything ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... get cold," he continued. "Chevassat said a few words to his coachman, who whipped the horse, and there he was, promenading down the boulevard, turning his cane this way, puffing out big clouds of smoke, as if he had not the colic at the thought that his friend Bagnolet ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... Diana, he sat with his plump knees well apart, staring and puffing at the curved mouthpiece of his pipe. Presently he spoke with some impatience to his niece about putting the children to bed. Mrs. Hermann, who was talking to Falk, stopped short and looked at her husband uneasily, but the girl got up at once and drove the children ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... for the delights of music and dancing, now entered, followed by Coil, the piper, dressed in the native garb, with cheeks seemingly ready blown for the occasion. After a little strutting and puffing, the pipes were fairly set a going in Coil's most spirited manner. But vain would be the attempt to describe Lady Juliana's horror and amazement at the hideous sounds that for the first time assailed her ear. Tearing herself from the grasp ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... band began puffing away at "See, the Conquering Hero Comes," and Jack, nothing averse to appearing in such a role, bowed gracefully right and ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... of the orchestra still makes me smile. You know, I suppose, it is entirely of the female gender, and that nothing is more common than to see a delicate white hand journeying across an enormous double bass, or a pair of roseate cheeks puffing, with all their efforts, at a French horn. Some that are grown old and Amazonian, who have abandoned their fiddles and their lovers, take vigorously to the kettledrum; and one poor limping lady, who had been crossed in love, now makes an ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... appearance from among the islands. Hour after hour passed away, and the boats did not return. The sun went down, and darkness came on; and at last I began to grow anxious about them. Van Graoul lighted his pipe, and sat on the deck, puffing away with more energy ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... that her disappointment may excuse. I have little doubt that I, on my part, was formal, priggish, perhaps absurd; all these faults she charged me with. You can not put great ideas in a boy's head without puffing him up; I was doing at cost to myself what I was convinced was my duty; it is only too likely that I gave myself some airs during the performance. Might I not be pardoned if I talked a little big about my position? ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... that very moment there came the opportune and unexpected answer. That plume of engine smoke which the watcher had observed in the morning had drawn nearer and nearer, as the heavy train came puffing and creaking up the steep inclines. Then, almost before it had drawn up at the Ladysmith siding, there had sprung from it a crowd of merry bearded fellows, with ready hands and strange sea cries, pulling and hauling, with rope and purchase to get out the long slim guns which they had lashed on ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not there; and instead of him a fat, short-winded, merry-looking, little old man in black, with rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees of his breeches, black stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat, came puffing up to the coach ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... her task that in a very short time the flames were leaping up the chimney, the shadows dancing cheerfully over the ceiling, the kettle hissing and puffing on the fire. The sight and sound drew Francis once more from his bed to the basket chair, where he sat and lazily watched his wife as she cut bread, made tea, fried bacon and eggs, with the ease and celerity of a woman to whom domestic offices are familiar. When at last the tea-table ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... looked at Jack, shrugged my shoulders and seemed convicted of a deception. He shook his head at me, frowned, and appeared very much offended at my delinquency. Presently I seized a small pair of bellows, and after puffing at the fire for a while, suddenly directed a rough blast at his little red hand, which hung very near it. He snatched it back, scowled at me, and when again I repeated the operation, expressed great displeasure, shivering, and letting me know ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... said Mickey, puffing away at his pipe, "whether, whin we start for home, we're going to take the pass, which seems as full of the spalpeens as me head is of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... atom," said the Premier, puffing at his cigar. "If I'd felt any regret I should have ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... he drew to the railroad crossing. He could now hear the puffing of the engine quite plainly and caught a glimpse of the long train over the rocks to his left. On he bounded until the crossing itself came into view. He was less than a hundred yards from it — and the oncoming engine was about the same ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... Chief was silent a long time, puffing gently on his pipe, and the Officer of the Yellow Rope began to sing to himself a ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... painstaking manner. We boys stood by, entering into the operation, which was supposed to prove wonderfully efficacious in increasing our boat's speed, with great interest, and Clump bent over the kettle, stirring the oil, and puffing at the short stern of ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... pretty steady. The old favourites hold their own. Every now and again an immortal joins their ranks. Puffing and pretension may win the ear of the outside public, and extort praise from the press, but inside the rooms of a Sotheby, a Puttick, or a Hodgson, these foolish persons count for nothing, and their names are seldom heard. Were an author to turn the pages ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... the truth," replied the fat boy, who was puffing as he came along. "It ain't the poison I've absorbed in my system, so much as a weakness that just makes me shiver all over. And Thad, I've walked this far before, and never felt ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... background. Yet all the actions proper to archery are suggested by the violent gestures and strained sinews of the crowd. At the foot of the terminal statue, Cupid lies asleep upon his wings, with idle bow and quiver. Two little genii of love, in the background, are lighting up a fire, puffing its flames, as though to drive the archers onward. Energy and ardour, impetuous movement and passionate desire, could not be expressed with greater force, nor the tyranny of some blind impulse be more imaginatively felt. The allegory seems to imply that happiness ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... But as he pondered his face gradually lightened with a faint glimmer of satisfaction. His mind, seeking for a straw, caught at a possible way out of this labyrinth of difficulties and in a moment he had straightened up, puffing veritable optimistic wreaths. He arose buoyantly; before he reached the inn the crumb of comfort had ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... from the darkness of the distant snow-shed, Van, all a-tremble with excitement, would begin to leap and plunge and tug at the bit and beg for the word to go. Another moment, and, carefully held until just as the puffing engine came well alongside, Van would leap like arrow from the string, and away we would speed, skimming along the springy turf. Sometimes the engineer would curb his iron horse and hold him back against the "down-grade" impetus of the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... except for a depression at the center, where the actual vortex lay. The walls of the pit were steeply, unstably irregular, varying in pitch and shape with the hardness and refractoriness of the strata composing them. Now a section would glare into an unbearably blinding white puffing away in sparkling vapor. Again, cooled by an inrushing blast of air, it would subside into an angry scarlet, its surface crawling in a sluggish flow of lava. Occasionally a part of the wall might even go black, into pock-marked ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... their entertainers, who had waited on their wants throughout with the pleased hospitality of Polynesians, made haste to bring forward a dessert of island tobacco and rolls of pandanus leaf to serve as paper; and presently all sat about the dishes puffing like ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and placed her beside the ashes. The Mequachake tribe, who were the priests of the nation, stood nearest, then the Kiskapocoke tribe, who were the greatest warriors. By and by, there was a terrible puffing and blowing in the ashes, which flew towards the sun, and the great star, and the River of Rivers, and the land of the Walkullas. At last, the priests and warriors who could see began to clap their hands, and dance, crying out "Piqua!" which in the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... returned, gracefully puffing the last whiff of cigar smoke. "You will remain here for a short time. First of all, I should like to explain to you what you are, and what I am. I cannot put my thoughts into words whilst you are twisting on the sofa in your boudoir; and besides, in your own house you take ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... train, and have plenty of time for a little nap before dressing for the german. Perhaps the most interesting question now up for discussion was, who would lead with Mr. Rollins? The train went puffing into the crowded depot: the ladies hastened forth, and in a moment were on the street; cabs and carriages were passed in disdain; a brisk walk of a block carried them to the main thoroughfare and into the heart of the shopping district; a rush of hoofs and wheels and pedestrians there ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... that it is ugly and hurry on through, But I love these impressive symbols Of man's ingenuity. Here are the great grain elevators, looming In tones and shades of grey, veiled In the clouds of black smoke from the Tugs at their feet; Puffing engines shifting strings of cars, And huge ships nosed in against each other Or riding at anchor, and canal boats In straight lines at the docks. Farther on, across a slip, there are Mountains of ore in reds and ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... more lenient than Zeus, or lacking his thunder, contented themselves with forcing the offender back by puffing the smoke of their pipes ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... Bunny said, puffing, as he pushed on the oar, with which he was trying to shove off the boat. ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... us a pretty good idea of the nautical business of Liverpool; the constant objects being the little black steamers puffing unquietly along, sometimes to our own ferry, sometimes beyond it to Eastham, and sometimes towing a long string of boats from Runcorn or otherwhere up the river, laden with goods, and sometimes gallanting a tall ship in or out. Some of these ships lie for days together in ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wee bit laddie sits wi' a bowl upon his knees, And from a cutty pipe 's puffing bubbles on the breeze; Oh, meikle is the mirth of the weans on our stair, To see the bubbles sail like balloons alang the air. Some burst before they rise, others mount the gentle wind, And leave the little band in their dizzy joy behind; And such are human pomp and ambition at the last— The wonder ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... RAKHAZ: [Puffing and blowing.] Ho! Naaman? Where have you been living? Naaman is a broken reed whose claws have been cut. Build no hopes on that foundation, for it will run away and leave you ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... said very little as they drove to the village, and even less as they stood waiting together on the platform. Betsy slipped her hand into his and he held it tight as the train whistled in the distance and came slowly and laboriously puffing ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... see northern Montana at its most beautiful best, you should see it in mid-May when the ground-swallows are nesting and the meadow larks are puffing their throats and singing of their sweet ecstasy with life; when curlews go sailing low over the green, grassy billows, peering and perking with long bills thrust rapier-wise through the sunny stillness, and calling shrilly, "Cor-r-ECK, cor-r-eck!"—which, I take it, is simply their ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... cigar with a portion of his dishonest gains, and, procuring a light, walked about in a state of high enjoyment, puffing away as coolly as a man of twice ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... was on his shirt-sleeve, and his eyes had got their hard black look, as of the flint-stone, before Romara in amazement discovered the couple to be at it in all purity of intention, on the sharp edge of the abyss. He knocked up their weapons and stood between them, puffing his cigarette leisurely. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... A dingy tug came puffing by. As she passed, a sooty figure waved a salutation, and the whistle screeched thrice. Seth Weaver ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... yard, taking her "white clothes" off the line, when the special came puffing slowly into town. To emphasize her disapproval of the whole system of politics, she turned her back square toward it, and laid violent hold of a sheet. There was a smudge of cinders upon its white surface, and it ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... the tinkle of triviality to descend from the stern business of this present time to write of night-caps: And yet while the discordant battles are puffing their cheeks upon the rumbling bass pipes, it is relief if there be intermingled a small, shrill treble—any slightest squeak outside the ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... Bell was in tow of a little puffing steam-tug, and was already some miles from Bangor down the Penobscot River. The clouds of steam rising into the cold air from the surface of the warmer water were tinged with gold by the newly-risen sun. A heavy frost rested on the spruces and balsams ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... knees were trembling and his sides puffing like a bellows. Here was Brown Rupert, the fastest horse in the Carper stable, a horse that Cynthia guarded as a man might guard the ball of his eye, run literally off his legs by this devil-may-care youngster. I would have wagered my saddle against a sheepskin that she had started ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... sighed, and threw the end of his cigar out of the window. I handed him another; for his age and charming conversation entitled him to such indulgences. He remained silent a little while, puffing away at his cigar until it was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... time it is the right key." The door flies open—Le Prun rushes puffing among the bushes. Blassemare sees something drop glittering to the ground as the door opens—a button and a little rag of velvet; he says nothing, but pockets it, and joins ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... not a great traveller," added Wallbridge, puffing away at his pipe, as he watched the sun sinking to his rest beyond ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... this fuss?" asked Mr. Burrows, puffing from the speed with which he had hurried to the scene. "We can't have the performance held up this way and the ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... puffing at his black clay pipe, with the conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would find that he held in his hands all the clews which would lead up to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... There was a puffing of the other auto truck, a grinding of the wheels, and then the "Ark" was pulled slowly out of the ditch, and on to the road again, the hind wheels running on long planks which the men put under them. Thus out on to the safe and ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... previously only a solitary one had here and there proceeded from the window of a guard-room, or of some early-rising orderly-sergeant, now glimmered in every casement; the streets were still empty, save of the trumpeters, who stood at the corners, puffing manfully at their instruments; but on all sides was audible a hum like that of a gigantic bee-hive, mingled with a slight clashing of arms, and with the neighing of numerous horses, who, as well as their masters, had heard and recognized the well-known sounds. Two or three minutes elapsed, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... could carry him. He was not alone, many wayfarers were tramping in the same direction. Close beside him marched grain-filled rye blades, blossoming corn flowers, and yellow daisies. Heavily laden apple trees went puffing along, followed by vine-covered bean stalks, big clusters of white daisies, and masses of berry bushes. Tall beeches and oaks and lindens strolled leisurely in the middle of the road, their branches swaying, and they stepped aside for none. Between ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... with beauties so divine, Ravished, stayed not, till in her golden hair They did themselves, (O sweetest prison!) twine. And fain those Aeol's youths there would their stay Have made, but forced by Nature still to fly, First did with puffing kiss those locks display. She so dishevelled, blushed. From window, I, With sight thereof, cried out, "O fair disgrace! Let Honor's self to ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... money with so lavish a hand? His name was unknown. Birmingham was as ignorant as Tamfield as to his origin or the sources of his wealth. Robert McIntyre brooded languidly over the problem as he leaned against the gate, puffing his blue clouds of bird's-eye into ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... puts down his glass and comes into the sitting-room, followed by WALTER. HECTOR is puffing at a short, ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... eyes fixed upon the bandit's ugly features, still puffing his cigar and with hands in his pockets he walked deliberately past Patsy and Beth and straight up to the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... learned of the repulse. The balls were still flying overhead, but some of our batteries had got in position and were giving the enemy a raking fire. Nor was the railroad battery idle, for I could see the great black, grim monster puffing out heaps of gray smoke, then the red flash, then the report, sending the engine and car back along the track with a fearful recoil. The lines were speedily reformed and again put in motion. Jones, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... through the doors. He was one of those men who have a leisurely build and a purely American desire for action; so that he was always hurrying and always puffing. If he mounted a horse, sweat started out from every pore; if he swallowed a glass of red-eye he breathed hard thereafter. Yet he was capable of great and sustained exertions, as many and many a man in the Three B's could testify. He was ashamed of his fat. Imagine the soul ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... had beer and tobacco brought to a spot under the trees, close at the brow of the hill, whence he could look down into the valley; and there he sat in a right glad and comfortable humour, puffing the blue clouds of genuine Holland into the air. No doubt my kindly reader is wondering greatly at this frame of mind in Master Wacht, and is at a loss to explain to himself how a mood like this was at all possible to a temperament like Wacht's. He had arrived, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... and puffing of a man exhausted from a long run, was heard, and the familiar figure of Antoine dashed into the circle of light! He glared about for a moment and then dropped down on the snow, ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... elapsed, and both the waiting boys had decided that they were legally entitled to call him whatever they thought fitting, when he burst in, puffing; and in his hands he bore a horn. It was a "real" one, and of a kind that neither Penrod nor Sam had ever seen before, though they failed to realize this, because its shape was instantly familiar to them. No horn could have been simpler: it consisted merely of one circular ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... the office is hereditary. Of the origin of the Piqua tribe, the following tradition has been recited:[A] "In ancient times, the Shawanoes had occasion to build a large fire, and after it was burned down, a great puffing and blowing was heard, when up rose a man from the ashes!—hence the name Piqua, which means a man coming out of the ashes." Mequachake, signifies a perfect man. To this tribe the priesthood is confided. The members, or rather certain individuals of it, are alone permitted to ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... received definitions of man were all erroneous; that man is neither a walking animal, nor a talking animal, nor a cooking animal, nor a lounging animal, nor a debt-incurring, animal, nor a tax-paying animal, nor a printing animal, nor a puffing animal, but a developing animal. Development is the discovery of utility. By developing the water we get fish; by developing the earth we get corn, and cash, and cotton; by developing the air we get breath; by developing the fire ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... cursing and panting with his own violence, he searched her brutally and without mercy — flung her down and tore off her spiral puttees and even her shoes and stockings, now apparently beside himself with fury, puffing, gasping, always with a fierce, nasal sort of whining undertone like an animal worrying ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... the obvious one, and Murray's fleshy shoulders answered it. He sat back in his chair moodily puffing at his cigar. His eyes were on his desk. It was moments ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... laugh at the angry Bull-Frog, who was swelling up to twice his usual size and puffing out his cheeks; but he refrained from this when he realized that he had unintentionally disturbed the frog's noonday siesta. So he answered in a friendly way, ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... involuntarily made a movement toward the door. But he turned back and continued to watch her. She stood motionless, her eyes on the trail of smoke that preceded the appearance of the boat. Then the little craft rounded the point, a dead- white object on the leaden water: a minute later it was puffing and backing ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... On my right sat George, his cheeks sunken, his eyes deep down in their sockets, his long black hair falling over his ears—there he sat stiffly erect, puffing his tea leaves with little apparent satisfaction and gazing stoically into the fire. I could guess what was passing through his mind—the stories of the ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... he lined up with the crowd to see Vardon drive off. The ball went higher than any fly 'Pop' ever saw in his life. It sailed 220 yards. Anson was first to start the applause with a 'Good boy. She's a homer.' Then he led the gallery to the first green. He was puffing when he pulled up at the eighteenth hole, but he felt better than if he had stolen second base. 'I'd like to take a crack at that golf ball,' he said. 'You can put me down for a trial the first chance I get. Wouldn't mind togging up in kilts just to give the Prince ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... them, a huge trunk began to move as though of its own accord. Hissing and crashing like some gray serpent, it glided down the hill-side, till it approached a group of figures and horses congregated at the head of the valley, near an engine puffing smoke. Then something invisible happened, and presently a trolley piled high with logs detached itself from the group, and set out on a solitary journey down the railway, watched here and there by men in queer uniforms ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... leaning over me in the most inquisitive manner, until his long nose nearly went into my eye, and humming a bow-wow tune in my ear to ascertain if I were really napping, he turned from me with a dissatisfied grunt, flung himself into a settee, and not long after was puffing and blowing like a porpoise. I was glad of this opportunity to go on deck again, and "I left him alone in his glory." But, while I was congratulating myself on my good fortune, I found him once more ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... mad! If he bites you you'll go mad, too," declared Sammy, coming puffing to the spot where the little girls ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... awoke it was the close of day. Long tender shadows lay across the fields, the sky had that wonderful clearness and kindness which is like a human eye, and the soft wind puffing in at the window was sweet with field fragrance. A glass of milk and a plate with two slices of bread lay on the window sill by me, as if some one had placed them there from the outside. I could hear birds ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... made a round of the cafes, and very grim and solemn the entertainment appeared to us. In one, for example, which was crowded with tall grave men calmly puffing at their pipes and sipping their coffee, we found a danseuse performing—a tall female figure, who glided and swayed about in the mazes of a strange dance, while the musician sat cross-legged in a corner of the room playing the inevitable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... want to be helped. I understand how to manage old gentlemen I've had experience, you see, in rather a difficult school. Poor father! I must run down to comfort him before I go to bed. I feel sure he is sitting in the library, puffing away at his pipe, and feeling absolutely retched. He always does after he has ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... rare," observed Mr. Harum dryly, rising and going to his desk, from a drawer of which he produced a couple of cigars, one of which he proffered to John, who, for the first time in his life, during the next half hour regretted that he was a smoker. David sat for two or three minutes puffing diligently, and then took the weed out of his mouth and looked contemplatively ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... stretching from the shore into the water like the extremity of some huge saurian of the Silurian period reposing on his native slime and ooze. But the lengthy monster lying in a vast curve is not at peace, for on the jagged ridge of his mighty back a puffing, snorting, smoking plague perpetually runs up and down. The apparent plague, however, is really increasing the size of the saurian. Every day hundreds of tons of stone are carried over his back-ridge and tipped into the water at the end of him, while scores ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... sat in the chair toasting my shins and lazily listening to my lads finishing the fowls. They seemed much more like themselves, sitting there grinding away at the bones and puffing with joy. In the red firelight it was such a scene of happiness that I misdoubted for a moment the wisdom of my plan to make them ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... of gardener to keep old walks and vines pruned in their antique rigidity. I admired him for coming all this way with his clean, short, gray whiskers and his black, well-brushed suit. And he made me think of a powerful locomotive stuck puffing ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... Dick shook his head, puffing at his pipe. "Not a soul I knew," he commented, "except Mathews about my job. Wish I hadn't gone; London ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... rewarded; the little steamer appeared in sight far down the bayou, came puffing along past the orange orchard, and rounded ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... ran puffing and roaring under the bridge, and as Woodward turned to follow it with his eye he saw standing upon the other side a tall, gaunt, powerful-looking man, whom he instantly recognised as Teague Poteet. Teague wore the air of awkward, recklessly-helpless independence ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... and chuckled and seized the easy pleasures within his reach. There was never a summer's day but he caught upon his brow the few faint gleams of sunlight that penetrated the gloomy yard. Hour after hour he would sit, his short fingers hardly linked across his belly, drinking his cup of ale, and puffing at a half-extinguished tobacco-pipe. Meanwhile he would reflect upon those triumphs of oratory which were his supreme delight. If it fell on a Monday that he took the air, a smile of satisfaction lit up his fat, loose features, for still he pondered ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... a wonderful experience. The big, blue-coated man saw her at once and promptly beckoned to her. He even walked to meet her. Then, through a wide lane with puffing motors and impatient horses on either hand, she walked unscathed to the further curb. It gave her a delightful sensation, so delightful that, after a minute, she walked back. Twice again, after short intervals, she trod the fascinating way ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... the cushions, puffing at my cigar, while Holmes, leaning forward, with his long, thin forefinger checking off the points upon the palm of his left hand, gave me a sketch of the events which had ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... out, with greetings in low voices, and with many a smiling nod, the banker caught sight of Lyman, and made a noise as if puffing out a mouthful of smoke. His wife, who was slightly in front, glanced ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... beauty and with it all her worldly ideas. Fate was maturing her for you, if only we had known. As for me, I ought to have been the wife of an artist, of a poet." Unconsciously a glance from her ever restless eyes flashed across the table to where Horatio Camelford sat, puffing clouds of smoke into the air from a huge black meerschaum pipe. "Bohemia is my country. Its poverty, its struggle would have been a joy to me. Breathing its free air, life would ...
— The Philosopher's Joke • Jerome K. Jerome
... vessels that were lying a few yards astern. This was a very excellent and trustworthy officer, and he immediately started upon an examination. In the mean while the Koordi governor sat rigidly upon the sofa, puffing away at his long pipe, but evidently thinking that the affair would not end ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... pathless prairies then, Now the iron-reindeer sooner carries weal or woe to men. On thy bosom, Royal River, silent sped the birch canoe, Bearing brave with bow and quiver, on his way to war or woo; Now with flaunting flags and streamers—mighty monsters of the deep— Lo the puffing, panting steamers, through thy foaming waters sweep; And behold the grain-fields golden, where the bison grazed of eld; See the fanes of forests olden by the ruthless Saxon felled,— Plumd pines that spread their shadows ere Columbus spread his sails. Firs that fringed ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon |
