"Rummage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a witness he is not bound to answer a question, until I see that it has some bearing and probable tendency to accuse him; otherwise I must rummage all the statute books for penalties to put the witnesses on their guard—I must not only carry all the penal laws in my head, but mention them to every witness who comes before me ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?" said ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... I've been having a solitary rummage among old things. It is my last night here. We're leaving for ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... of corn bread! Try, my old cock, and rummage up a crust or two, for hung beef is devilish tight work for the teeth, without a little bread of some sort for ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... frail and treacherous; and we think many excellent things, which for want of making a deep impression, we can never recover afterwards. In vain we hunt for the stragling Idea, and rummage all the Solitudes and Retirements of our Soul, for a lost Thought, which has left no Track or Foot-steps behind it: The swift Off-spring of the Mind is gone; 'tis dead as soon as born; nay, often proves abortive in the moment it was conceiv'd: The only way therefore to retain our ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... ammunition, we put them all to the sword. Not a soul of them escaped, except some that were drowned in an adjacent bog, and, in a very short time, nothing was to be heard but silence. Their uniforms were all different colors, but mostly green. After the action we went to rummage a sort of camp, which they had left behind them. All we found was a few pikes, without heads, a parcel of empty bottles full of water, and a bundle of French commissions filled up with Irish names. Troops are now ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... matches used as tapers for a minute when something had to be found, drawers or boxes half-turned out and left unfinished; in short, all the confusion and vacancies resulting from plans for order never carried out. The lawyer's private room, especially disordered by this incessant rummage, bore witness to his unresting pace, the hurry of a man overwhelmed with business, hunted by contradictory necessities. The bookcase looked as if it had been sacked; there were books scattered over everything, some piled up open, one on another, others on the floor face downwards; registers ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... There were no books in the rear room; of this he was presently assured. He came back into the front shop and began to rummage. A few trade catalogues rewarded him and he solemnly laid them ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... She is intellectual, but with a disarming smile, religious, but so charitable, masterful, and yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage among her many adornments as there is now no time for. Perhaps we may come upon it accidentally in the course ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... in the darkness of the earth's interior; only when they fell sick were they taken up to see the sunlight and to roll about in green pastures. There was one of them called "Dago Charlie," who had learned to chew tobacco, and to rummage in the pockets of the miners and their "buddies." Not knowing how to spit out the juice, he would make himself ill, and then he would swear off from indulgence. But the drivers and the pit-boys knew his failing, and would tempt "Dago Charlie" ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... and wiped the dog's eyes with the flaps of its ears, for it looked as though it had wept. But when the dog heard what the pilgrim said, it understood, for animals understood all languages merely by the tone. It then began to rummage in the rubbish heap. And behold! there lay, between two cabbage leaves, a pomegranate and a piece of white bread. The pilgrim, who was accustomed to all kinds of miracles, praised God, and ate. And when he had eaten, he thanked God the Merciful. The dog stood by the whole time, and watched ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... Bertrand; "as soon as a shell's burst they sprint and rummage for the fuse is the hole, for the position of the fuse gives the direction of its battery, you see, by the way it's dug itself in; and as for the distance, you've only got to read it—it's shown on the range-figures cut on the time-fuse which is set ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... wouldn't mind coming up to the Grange, we might have a rehearsal this afternoon, rummage up the properties, and all the rest of it," ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... to the beloved roses, prairie climber, Baltimore bell, and General Jacqueminot. A neighbour's cat, war-scarred and bold, traversing the fences in search of single combat, halted to watch her; an early bee, with no blossoms yet to rummage, passed and ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... the old lady did was to go to an oak chest which was in the room, and rummage there. With many grunts and wheezes (for she was eaten with rheumatism) she drew out a bundle done up in an old shawl. This she opened upon ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... to an end. He had soon withdrawn his eyes from Stephen's agitated face, then partially averted his own face, then left his seat, and advanced to a side table, where he began to rummage among some papers, ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... one—pushed the said weasel into your burrow. Which thing he could never have done without your help, and if you had resisted but ever so little he would never have effected his purpose. If his weasel was allowed to rummage in your burrow, that is not his fault, and he ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... went down the steps and turned in the direction of a large oak cupboard. Crouching on his knees behind the tapestry that covered the rail of the gallery, Shears watched and saw the man rummage among the papers with which the cupboard was crammed. What ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... Canadian, "you must let us see first what we can do to fit your honour out a little better. Come, Bibi, let us have supper, and I will try what I can rummage out that may be of use to monsieur. If I can do nothing else, I can at all events furnish him ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... all her jewels and valuables on the spot. The poor woman accordingly had to open her great linen chest, in the bottom of which her little store of silver was hidden, and in this the ruffian began to rummage. Just when he had almost emptied it, and was stooping to reach the last articles from the bottom, a happy thought came into the brave woman's mind. She seized the robber unexpectedly by the legs and tipped him head first into the mighty chest; then she slammed down the ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... "clamant" than carmine, vermilion, crimson, Costlier than diamond or ultramarine— A deuce of a theme to chant lyrics or hymns on, Or rummage for orotund ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... and Rosenthal shall rummage the German quarter and even go through Williamsburgh and Hoboken. The end justifies any amount of labor that can be spent ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... pluck up one's heart and spirit. One works all the same, even if only turning napkin rings, as you say: and, as for me, while serving the public, I think about it as little as possible. Le Temps has done me the service of making me rummage in my waste basket. I find there the prophecies that the conscience of each of us has inspired in him, and these little returns to the past ought to give us courage; but it is not at all so. The lessons of experience are of no use ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... so anxious to return to Salemina that I wished I had ordered the car at ten thirty instead of eleven; but I made up my mind, as we ladies went to the drawing-room for coffee, that I would seize the first favourable opportunity to explore the secret chambers of Dr. La Touche's being. I love to rummage in out-of-the-way corners of people's brains and hearts if they will let me. I like to follow a courteous host through the public corridors of his house and come upon a little chamber closed to the casual visitor. If I have known him long enough I put my hand on the ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... spirit-power and spirit-speech, And thus the bitter task forego Of saying the things I do not know,— That I may detect the inmost force Which binds the world, and guides its course; Its germs, productive powers explore, And rummage in ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... my stay I felt a desire, one I had never known before, to rummage in the old Louis XV bookcase that stood near my bed. There among the volumes in their century-old bindings, where the worms, never disturbed, slowly bored their galleries, I found a book made of thick rough old-fashioned paper, and this I opened carelessly. . . . In it I read, ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... burned to an even blue-black tint—civilised people with bleached hair and sparkling eyes. They explained themselves as 'diggers'—just diggers—and opened me a new world. Granted that all Egypt is one big undertaker's emporium, what could be more fascinating than to get Government leave to rummage in a corner of it, to form a little company and spend the cold weather trying to pay dividends in the shape of amethyst necklaces, lapis-lazuli scarabs, pots of pure gold, and priceless bits of statuary? Or, if one is rich, what better fun than to grub-stake an expedition ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... fellows,' cried Allan, 'we're going crab fishing. Come along and let's rummage out the lines, Reggie. We must be sure and get enough for all. Tricksy, you might ask Duncan to put some provisions in a basket for us, as we shan't be home for tea or supper. Let's hurry up or we'll lose the ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... reality, wrapped in its authentic habiliments. Dr. Hickson of the psychopathic laboratory would give these curious rainy day phantasts identities as weird as the volumes they caress. But the old book store clerk is more kind. He lets them rummage. Before the rain ends they will buy "The Cradle of the Giants," "The Key to Satanism," Cornelius Agrippa's "Natural Magic," "The Astral Chord," "Occultism and Its Usages." They will buy books by Jacob ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... time, and rummage sales had not yet found their way into East Greenfield; so it was not very wonderful that by noon Gerry really had enough things promised her to furnish the barn with a comfort that would seem luxury to the young Jimsons and ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... beginning to rummage about. "What are these? Old exercise-books, as I live! Oh, do look here; isn't this wonderful? Here's a translation: 'Horace, Liber I, Satire 5.' How brown the ink is. Aricia a little town on the way to Appia received me coming ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... forget our needles and thread," said Silver Ears. "I mean to rummage in these trunks and get a whole lot of stuff for dresses and bonnets and patchwork. And our shopping bag—we must not ...
— The Graymouse Family • Nellie M. Leonard
... it.... Neither you nor I, nor all the critics in the world, have any trustworthy data that would give them the right to reject such literature. I do not know which are right: Homer, Shakespeare, Lopez da Vega, and, speaking generally, the ancients who were not afraid to rummage in the "muck heap," but were morally far more stable than we are, or the modern writers, priggish on paper but coldly cynical in their souls and in life. I do not know which has bad taste—the Greeks who were not ashamed to describe love as it really is in beautiful ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... to leave them stuck in your box, as if to invite all the servants to come and have a rummage, when you go out to ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... saw such a boy. You can't ride and you can't skate. You are just good for nothing. You're just fit to be sold at a rummage-sale." ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... the darkey disappeared like a flash. He was gone about half an hour, and when he returned he handed Jack the breastpin, which was wrapped in a piece of newspaper. The overseer being away in the field and his cabin unlocked, it was a matter of no difficulty for the darkey to rummage his bureau drawers until he found the object of which he was in search. Whether or not Hanson ever discovered that he had been robbed of the "charm" that gave him such power over Julius, Jack never knew. If he did, ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... so stupid," retorted Sprague, beginning to rummage his chaotic desk. "There, sir," he went on, dragging a bundle of newspaper clippings to the surface, "there is the world's opinion of the exposure. Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Troy—you'll find the comments of every important city in the state voiced by ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... both, and came to the conclusion that Forrest was correct in his supposition. Next, mounting one of the chairs, he proceeded to rummage amongst the rubbish piled on the shelf. A moment later he observed triumphantly, albeit in subdued tones, "Another piece of evidence," and descending from his perch, he handed me a box of cartridges. A glance at the label had apparently been enough, nevertheless, to make ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... a very ghastly look at night. They suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that are yet so dear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... though, mother, your coming in here both times? I wonder if you had me on your mind and wanted to see how I was. But you did not seem to. You kept groping your way toward that old closet as though you wished to rummage about in it. But do come and let me take you back to bed now, and I will stay with you so you will behave yourself and give ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... himself, Rufus began to rummage the pockets of his frockcoat—a long, loose, and dingy garment which had become friendly and comfortable to him by dint of ancient use. Producing a handful of correspondence, he selected the largest envelope of all; shook out on the table ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... laughing at himself and me too, and yet kind o' enthusiastic, "well, then, the first thing you have to do is learn how to sell corn salve. Any one that can sell corn salve can sell anything. There's a farmhouse right over there, and I'll give you your first lesson right now. Rummage around in that satchel there under the seat and get me a tin box and some corn ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... cat!" he said. "That sham stroke of apoplexy was your doing, lynx eyes!... Two words from me, and your throat would be cut in less than a week, but I forgive you, I am a Christian. You did not sell me either. But who did?——Aha! you may rummage upstairs," he shouted, hearing the police officers opening his cupboards and taking possession of his effects. "The nest is empty, the birds flew away yesterday, and you will be none the wiser. My ledgers are here," he said tapping his forehead. "Now I know who sold me! It could ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... the keys. I'm the proper person to put things in order if you did not replace them properly. You are just making an excuse to rummage yourself. My motive for inspecting is very different ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... of which were gathered to a head no one knew how. Not only were one's actions observed, but they probed into one's inmost heart. In that town no man had the right to keep the secrets of his conscience, and everybody had the right to rummage amongst his intimate thoughts, and, if they were offensive to public opinion, to call him to account. The invisible despotism of the collective mind dominated the individual: all his life he remained like a child in a state of tutelage: he could call nothing ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... be food in the cupboard," said Breton, beginning to rummage. "They've generally had a good stock of tinned things. Here we are, Spargo—these are tongues and sardines. Make some hot coffee while I open one of ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... could have been so gluttonous as to stir the stinking filthy flesh, or rummage in the foul back of a bird with ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... well?" It would have been unlike him not to have remembered that he had seen children at her house. "Hammy and Berta made great friends with me the other day.... Tell them I haven't forgotten the promise to rummage up some odd native toys I picked up in Rhodesia—made of mud and feathers and bits of fur and queerly-shaped seed-pods—the most enchanting collection of birds and beasts that ever came out of the Ark. And the Makalaka ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... memory with regard to events, I will, then, just rummage about its lumber-room, and see if I cannot tumble out some long-forgotten recollection on the subject, if I may so express myself; but I sincerely trust that it may not turn out to be a tendency for the poet, or some such inclination incompatible with the ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... boys entered the barabbara to look after their rifles, and began to rummage among the piles of klipsies which they found thrown back under the eaves, they unearthed a broken cast-iron frying-pan and, what caused them even greater delight, a little, dirty sack, which contained perhaps three ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... stop, stand still in the middle of the room, cast a mathematical glance of survey over its cubic contents, and then dart off in another inwardly suggested direction of search. Shargar, on the other hand, appeared to rummage blindly without a notion of casting the illumination of thought upon the field of search. Yet to him fell the success. When hope was growing dim, after an hour and a half of vain endeavour, a scream of utter discordance heralded the resurrection of the lady of harmony. Taught by his experience ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... whining; had to change the plan when they waked up; you done all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you; come, help rummage.' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... friends. The entrance-hall was full of things—bags, portmanteaus, and leather articles of every sort. The boxes had to be got out of their covers, and that was infinite trouble; and of luggage and of rummage there was no end. At intervals, moreover, there were violent showers, giving rise to much inconvenience. Ottilie encountered all this confusion with the easiest equanimity, and her happy talent showed in its fairest light. In a very little time she ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... eyes to the picture which was the one incongruous touch to the dainty perfection of his octagonal sitting-room. He had bought it at a rummage sale; it was unsigned, and the canvas, overcrowded with figures, had grown sombre and blurred; yet queerly Dickie liked the suggestion of powerful, half-naked men; the foreign quay-side street, with a slatternly woman silent against a doorway, and the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... European celebrity but now consigned to oblivion, will impress the reader with the transitory nature of merely mediocre literary reputation. One has now to search for the very names of most of the popular authors of Pushkin's day and rummage biographical dictionaries for the dates of their births and deaths. Yet the poet's prime was but fifty years ago, and had he lived to a ripe old age he would have been amongst us still. He was four years younger ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... received a large legacy from a brother, and spent it in the publication of a work 'from which nothing of exterior pomp and beauty should be wanting'; the ink and paper were procured from Holland; and Carte the historian was sent to France 'to rummage ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... Scriptural simile came to him with startling emphasis, bringing on a return of the prickling dismay. The stopping of the paddle-wheels and the rattling clangor of the gang-plank winch aroused him to action and he shook off the creeping numbness and ran aft to rummage under the cargo on the engine-room guards for his precious bundle. When his hand reached the place where it should have been, the blood surged to his brain and set up a clamorous dinning in his ears like the roaring of a cataract. ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... curious. I was just telling the young ones about an adventure of my youth, when Gonsales Zarco touched there on his way to Madeira. With your good permission I will leave you for a few minutes and rummage in an old sea-chest, and see whether there is any flotsam in it to compare ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... I, I will go to bed with you, Mrs. Jewkes. Said she, I wonder what you can find to write about so much! and am sure you have better conveniences of that kind, and more paper than I am aware of; and I had intended to rummage you, if my master had not come down; for I spied a broken tea-cup with ink, which gave me suspicion: but as he is come, let him look after you, if he will; and if you deceive him, it will ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... second-hand bookshop, kept by an old snuffy spectacled German in a long shabby black coat. I remember him well because he was a very important person to me. It was the first shop of the kind I had seen—I doubt if there was another in the town; and to be allowed to rummage by the hour among this mass of old books on the dusty shelves and heaped on the brick floor was a novel and delightful experience. The books were mostly in Spanish, French, and German, but there were some in English, and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Allah's aid and conjure thee by the oath of divorce saying, 'Thou must assuredly come,' do thou reply, 'By Allah, I will not go, unless the Chief also go with me.' Then, as soon as thou comest to the house, begin by searching the terrace-roofs; then rummage the closets and cabinets; and if thou find naught, humble thyself before the Kazi and be abject and feign thyself subjected, and after stand at the door and look as if thou soughtest a place wherein to make water,[FN35] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... had accrued in the latter years of the last clergyman's lifetime. These threatened to be of even less interest than the elder works a century hence to any curious inquirer who should then rummage then as I was doing now. Volumes of the Liberal Preacher and Christian Examiner, occasional sermons, controversial pamphlets, tracts, and other productions of a like fugitive nature, took the place of the thick and ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to the cabin, to get his belongings and to cache the whiskey. If it come into our friend's heads to rummage we might have a poor ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But Oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, he sprang into ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... turned swiftly to gather a ball of worsted, and when it was secured began to rummage in her work-basket for something that seemed from her intentness to be vitally necessary to ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... let 1 lb. of alum be just covered with water, and dissolved by boiling; rummage the whole well together, and pour in the alum, and the whole will be ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... delicate intimacies of her traveling bag with the keen, impersonal manner which always distinguished him; then he found her beaded handbag and proceeded to rummage through that. Suddenly he paused as he unfolded a piece of note paper, and we gathered ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... often when I heard things that would entertain you, and thought I had collected a great store, but when I rummage in my head, for want of having had, or taken time to keep the drawers of my cabinet of memory tidy, I cannot find one single thing that I want, except that it is said that plants raised from cuttings do not bear such fine flowers as ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... at me in surprise, growled something through his teeth, and began to rummage in his portmanteau. Out he drew a writing-book and threw it contemptuously on the ground; then a second—a third—a tenth shared the same fate. There was something childish in his vexation, and it struck me as ridiculous ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... gradually strengthened her, and she began to form in her mind the first words of the letter she meant to write to Harney. She wanted to write it at once, and with feverish hands she began to rummage in her drawer for a sheet of letter paper. But there was none left; she must go downstairs to get it. She had a superstitious feeling that the letter must be written on the instant, that setting down her secret in words would ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... wrapping a shawl around her, threw herself heavily and sullenly on the bed. But inaction was not a characteristic of Minty's emotion; she presently rose again, and, taking an old work-box from her trunk, began to rummage in its recesses. It was an old shell-incrusted affair, and the apparent receptacle of such cheap odds and ends of jewelry as she possessed; a hideous cameo ring, the property of the late Mrs. Sharpe, was missing. She again rapidly explored the contents of ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... sad it is to-day to contemplate the situation occupied by Henry, forced thus to rummage the kingdom for the dust of two murdered princes, that he might, by unearthing a most wicked crime, prevent the success of a young pretender, and yet fearing to do so lest he might call the attention of the police to the royal record of homicide, ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... "help yourself." He continued his dressing as the man began to rummage in the empty drawers. The consul had his back towards him, but, looking in the glass of the dressing-table, he saw that the gillie was stealthily watching him. Suddenly he passed before the mantelpiece and quickly slipped the rose from ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... aunty," Bea said, easily. "Of course Steve's a wonderful old dear and all that—I wish I had asked him for the moon. I do believe he'd have gotten an option on it." She laughed and reached over to a bonbon dish to rummage for a favourite flavour. She selected a fat, deadly looking affair, only to bite into it and discover her mistake. She tossed it on the floor so that Monster could creep out of her silk-lined ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... of phenomena; the value of such measurements depending greatly upon the skill and conscientiousness of the man who makes them. Vitellio appears to have been both skilful and conscientious, while Kepler's habit was to rummage through the observations of his predecessors, to look at them in all lights, and thus distil from them the principles which united them. He had done this with the astronomical measurements of Tycho Brahe, and had extracted from them the celebrated 'laws of Kepler.' ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... remember she had been permitted to play with the contents of the late Herr Conrad Wilner's wonder-box. The programme on such occasions varied little; the child was permitted to rummage among the treasures in the box until she had satisfied her perennial curiosity; conversation with her absent-minded father ensued, which ultimately included a personal narrative, dragged out piecemeal from the reticent, dreamy invalid. Then always ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... brink of a superb adventure. To rummage about in the lumber-room of a bygone period: to wipe away the dust from long-neglected annals: to burnish up old facts and fancies: to piece together the life-story of some loved hero long dead: that is a work of reverent ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... news began to rummage under the pile of ruins, and managed to collect quite a respectable quantity of fireworks. There were enough left to make a display with in the evening, though not near so splendid ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... avail thee, even when thy mouth says, 'Give food in addition to water, that I may reach my goal in safety,' they are deaf and will not hear. They say not yes to thy words. The iron-workers enter into the smithy; they rummage in the workshops of the carpenters; the handicraftsmen and saddlers are at hand; they do whatever thou requirest. They put together thy chariot; they put aside the parts of it that are made useless; thy spokes are faconne ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... present. "I've two or three trunkfuls of old-fashioned clothes, that ought to fit you girls fairly well. They're not antiques, you know; they're some I had before I was married,—but they're pretty. Go in the trunk room and rummage." ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... uncle, in a surprised but kind tone, as one who respected yet resented her feeling; "you may trust me not to rummage, as you call it, unnecessarily; but I know that I am executor, if you understand ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... would have been rash to have termed it a man— turning its eye upwards to the place from whence the voice came, answered with a dreadful grin and shaking of its fist, yet presently began to undo a parcel, and rummage in the pockets of a sort of jerkin and pantaloons which it wore, seeking, it appeared, a bunch of keys, which at length it produced, while it took from the pocket a loaf of bread. Heating the stone of the wall, it affixed the torch to it by ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... told you I was poor?" she demanded. "Did I ever come a-begging to you? Did I ever walk into your house to pry and rummage, and tell you that your things were no use? When I do you'll have a right to come here and behave as you have, but not a minute before. Use! They are of use. They remind me of my family,—of the time I was young, when we all lived in this house together, before Newport grew to ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... something more to be said, and it is always so difficult to turn up the splice neatly at the edges. On this account there are regular models for ending a book or a Poem, as there are for beginning one; but, for my part, I think the best way of ending a book is to rummage about among one's manuscripts till one has found a bit of Fine Writing (no matter upon what subject), to lead up the last paragraphs by no matter what violent shocks to the thing it deals with, to introduce a row of asterisks, and then to paste on to the paper below these the piece ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... "Blythe. I'll rummage around in my memory and see if I can place him. There was a fellow named Bright up there at one time,—at least I got the name as Bright. It may have been Blythe. I'll be tickled to death to meet him, ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... rummage the basket for those songs which had the most tragical pictures—for Sally had a most tender heart, and delighted in whatever was mournful—Rachel looked steadfastly in her face, and told her she knew by her art that she was born to good fortune, ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... stood when I had been landed, my chest heaving, my teeth set fast, and my apparel still in disorder. The school was dismissed, and I was left alone with the savage pedagogue, who immediately took up my basket, and began to rummage the contents. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... A rummage sale of toys added quite a large sum to the general fund. There was a 5-cent table, a 10-cent table and a ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... down near the docks, and here I used to rummage among the gilded Siamese idols, and the painted African gods and drums. I discovered some odd parts of A Thousand-and-One Arabian Nights, which I bought for a penny or two, and took back to my barrack-room ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... donned his spectacles, and once more started to rummage in the cupboard, and to smother his guest with dust as he untied successive packages of papers—so much so that his victim burst out sneezing. Finally he extracted a much-scribbled document in which the ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... ask you what you had planned for us to have this noon," explained Lucy. "So I had to rummage through the refrigerator ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... renascence of history which is in a manner the characteristic of our time, the Middle Ages have been the object of peculiar fondness with both criticism and erudition. We rummage all the dark corners of the libraries, we bring old parchments to light, and in the zeal and ardor we put into our search there is an indefinable ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... rummage in a voluminous pocket, and the production of several articles irrelevant to the occasion—a thimble, a bit of ginger, and part of a tract—Mrs Gray brought to light a piece of paper, on which ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... cherished in her heart. Some day she meant to burn that photograph lest unsympathetic hands should touch it when she died; but death still seemed far off, and sometimes, even while she was talking to Caroline, she would pretend to rummage in the drawer, and for a moment she would close her hand upon the photograph to tell him she had not forgotten. She loved her little romance, and the gaiety in which she had persisted, even on the day when she heard of his death and which at first had seemed a necessary but cruel ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... A swift rummage of the dusty closet set them all sneezing, but they triumphantly brought forth an armful of defunct trousers and carried them up to their room. For the next fifteen minutes such giggles and exclamations and shrieks of ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the pilot when we had the Scilly Islands over the taffrail, and Mr. Poke took command of the vessel in good earnest. Coming down channel, he had done little more than rummage about in the cabin, examine the lockers, and make his foot acquainted with the anatomy of poor Bob, as the cabin-boy was called; who, judging from the amount of the captain's practice, was admirably well suited for his station, in the great ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the child ran off, the stout lady began to rummage in her closet, saying, as she rattled ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... of Cimmeria had deeper shadows. Not even the underground stall of the neighbor's cow, which showed a gloomy window on the garden, gave quite the chill. It was only on the brightest days that the child dared to rummage in this box. The top of it was high and it was blind fumbling unless he stood upon a chair. Then he bent over, jack-knife fashion, until the upper part of him—all above the legs—disappeared. In the obscurity—his head being gone—it must have seemed that Solomon lived upon ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... disappearance, that I obtained the first insight into the character of the mysterious Italian. After my father's death, and the winding up of his affairs, his papers and letters had been put in boxes and locked up in a closet. I one day took it into my head to rummage these papers. There were vast numbers of bills of lading and exchange, insurance papers and the like, all matters of no interest to me; but at last, upon untying a bundle of miscellaneous documents, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... love." She sits on the ground to reassure me, making herself little like me—lies down altogether and I go wild with delight at the sight of her face under mine, thrown back in her fragrant hair. My feelings overflow, I can't resist such a chance for a jolly good game. I rummage and fumble about, excitedly poking my nose everywhere, till I find the crispy tip of a pink ear—Her ear. I nibble it just enough to tickle her—to make her cry out: "Stop, Toby! That's awful! Help! Help! This ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... chaffinch. Long-tailed caper, long-tailed tit. Yaffil, green woodpecker. "The yaffil laughed loud."—See Peacock at Home. Smellfox, anemone. Dead men's fingers, orchis. Granny's night-cap, water avens. Jacob's ladder, Solomon's seal. Lady's slipper, Prunella vulgaris. Poppy, foxglove. To routle, to rummage (like a pig in straw). To terrify, to worry or disturb. "Poor old man, the children did terrify him so, he is gone into the Union." Wind-list, white streak of faint cloud across a blue sky, showing the direction of the wind. Shuffler, man employed about a farmyard. Randy go, uproar. "I could ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... in possession of a document, which he is prepared to deposit with the lender—a document calculated, he cannot doubt, to remove any feeling of anxiety which the most prudent person could experience in the circumstances. After a rummage in his pockets, which develops miscellaneous and varied, but as yet by no means valuable possessions, he at last comes to the object of his search, a crumpled bit of paper, and spreads it out—a fifty-pound bank-note! The friend, who knew him well, was of opinion that, had he, on delivering ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... evening they pitched their camp down in the plain fields amidst tall elmtrees, and had their banners still flying over the tents to warn all comers of what they were. But the next morning the chapmen and their folk were up betimes to rummage their loads, and to array their wares for the market; and they gat not to the road before mid-morning. Meantime of their riding Ralph had more talk with Bull, who said to him: "Fair lord, I rede thee when thou art in the market of Cheaping Knowe, bid master Clement bring thee to the thrall-merchant, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... benevolence and charity. Her deceased husband had been a medical man of eminence, and left her, with other valuable property, a small and well-selected library. This the kind old lady permitted me to rummage at pleasure, and carry home what volumes I chose, on condition that I should take, at the same time, some of the tracts printed for encouraging and extending the doctrines of her own sect. She did not even exact any promise that I would ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... is luncheon time now. I am glad you came to-day, my daughter, for Nancy, the housemaid, has gone home for a week's rest, and there is a meeting of the women of the church this afternoon to arrange about a rummage sale, and a loan exhibition, and they are rather depending upon me to contribute to both; but as Nancy is away, I cannot well leave for I am a little overtired with more duties than usual. So I have made a ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... he was long because of having to seek for the keys; but my own conviction was that he found the keys easily and stayed to rummage the boxes for such jewels and articles of value as he might there find. I think he was gone near half an hour; he then returned to the cook-house, saying briefly, "I have the keys," and jingling them, and after warming himself, said, ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... contrive thou shalt have some token of approach. St Anthony! but thou hast bestirred thee bravely; such another guest, and I might as well set fire to the whole budget. If thou be'st bent on such another rummage in the kitchen, the cook will whack thy pate with the spit, holy ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the Rhine Valley is a matter of two thousand years; for the Western Mediterranean of three; but the things of which I speak are to be reckoned in tens of thousands of years. Their interest does not lie only nor even chiefly in things that have disappeared. It is indeed a great pleasure to rummage in the earth and find polished stones wrought by men who came so many centuries before us, and of whose blood we certainly are; and it is a great pleasure to find, or to guess that we find, under Canterbury the piles of a lake or marsh dwelling, proving that Canterbury has been there from all time; ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... to rummage. First she found a collar box with a cover. She took this to her mother and asked if she might have it. Her mother readily gave it to her, but apparently the child was not satisfied. She looked it over dubiously. "I don't believe it could breathe," ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... on the bed and walked to the table. She had experienced her share of battle for the day. "No children to rummage," passed through her brain. It was the final week of hot, dry August weather, while a point had been made of calling her attention to the extra cover when the room had been shown her. She might have said these things, but why say them? The shamed face of the woman convicted her of "rummaging," ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... certainly untidy. Every chair was occupied by an assortment of clothes, for before she had gone out that morning Fanny had had a rummage for a special pair of silk stockings that were the pride of her heart. She bundled most of the garments on to the bed and wheeled forward the armchair for ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... hungry young men sat down to their morning meal with a hearty goodwill. The host began to rummage among his correspondence, and finally extracted an unstamped note, which he opened. His face brightened as he read, and he laid it down with a broad smile and ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... at the plank with a knowing frown. A rummage through the old corner cupboard where the provisions were kept provided him with a wide strip of bacon rind, such as Uncle Billy used to rub on his saw. John Jay carried it out of doors and carefully ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... boats when it rains, leads thither from the town. A wooden gate, and a fence, half stone and half bamboo, seem to separate the cemetery from the people in the town, but not from the goats and sheep of the parochial priest of the immediate vicinity. These animals go in and out to rummage among the tombs or to make that solitary place ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... sadness akin to that with which one leaves home and family. He looked at the manuscripts in the corner. That was it. He was going away from them, his pitiful, dishonored children that were welcome nowhere. He went over and began to rummage among them, reading snatches here and there, his favorite portions. "The Pot" he honored with reading aloud, as he did "Adventure." "Joy," his latest-born, completed the day before and tossed into the corner for lack of stamps, won ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... small pit just before their hut and set about the making of a pocket-sized fire. He was hungry and looked longingly now and again to the supply bag Thorvald had brought with him. Dared he rummage in that for rations? Surely the other ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... that Nikolai Petrovitch had in his possession rather interesting letters, written by Madame Odintsov's mother to his wife, and he gave him no rest till he got hold of the letters, for which Nikolai Petrovitch had to rummage in twenty drawers and boxes. Having gained possession of these half-crumbling papers, Arkady felt, as it were, soothed, just as though he had caught a glimpse of the goal towards which he ought now to go. 'I mean that for both ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... book that always makes me hungry," said Phil. "There's so much good eating in it. The characters seem always to be reveling on ham and eggs and milk punch. I generally go on a cupboard rummage after reading Pickwick. The mere thought reminds me that I'm starving. Is there any tidbit in the ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... going on with violence to its acme, it would be necessary to begin with copious phlebotomy, and then to empty the intestinal canal. So saying, he began to strip the arm of the captain, who perceiving his aim, "Avast, brother," cried he, "you go the wrong way to work; you may as well rummage the afterhold when the damage is in the forecastle; I shall right again when my ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett |
