"Skipper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... putrid biscuit-dust and drops of water, till the water was washed overboard and gone; and then notice after notice, "On this day such an one died," "On this day such an one was washed away"—the log kept up to the last, even when there was only that to tell, by the stern business-like merchant skipper, whoever he was; and how at last, when there was neither food nor water, the strong man's heart seemed to have quailed, or perhaps risen, into a prayer, jotted down in the log—"The Lord have mercy on us!"—and then a blank of several pages, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... was weak for some moments, and cried; but only one hope was in life; The hood upon baby I tied—I fastened the shawl on my wife. The skipper took charge of the child—he stuck to his word till the last; But only this hood on the wild, bitter shore of the sea ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... may be more people than Chatfield and the Squire in at this business," continued Vickers. "Just so! We—Copplestone and myself—know very well that the skipper of the Pike, Andrius, is in it: that's undeniable. But there may be others—or one other, or two—on shore here. And as the Pike can communicate by wireless, those on board her may have sent a message to their shore confederates ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... be added that in contradistinction to the nicknames of Skipper conferred upon Evans, and Mate on Campbell, Scott himself was known among the afterguard ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... through thick and thin (Clear are his old eyes burning), Steers the course with his trusty "grin," Straight, where the others are turning! Thanks gave to him I know not who, For he scolded the skipper, too!— Back he went to his home right ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the skipper demanded. "This man," said one of them, pointing to D'ri. "He's a British sailor. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... the gallant sailor of the day who always at the risk of his life sticks to the skipper to ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... ordered that all officers who may fall into their hands are to be kept as hostages, so that he can open negotiations with the skipper. If he gets what he wants, he hands us back; if not, there is no manner of doubt that he will put us out of the ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... rode in hurriedly. He reported that, while he was riding along the road to the 15th, he had been shot at by Uhlans whom he had seen distinctly. At the moment it was of the utmost importance to get a despatch through to the 15th. The Skipper offered to take it, but the ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... More like a display of my rhythmical trinkets; My plot, like an icicle's slender and slippery, 320 Every moment more slender, and likely to slip awry, And the reader unwilling in loco desipere Is free to jump over as much of my frippery As he fancies, and, if he's a provident skipper, he May have like Odysseus control of the gales, And get safe to port, ere his patience quite fails; Moreover, although 'tis a slender return For your toil and expense, yet my paper will burn, And, if you have manfully struggled thus far with me, You may e'en twist me up, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... animus mutatas dicere formas[7]. Tis the mind of man, and woman to affect new fashions; but to our Mynsatives[8] for sooth, if he come like to your Besognio,[9] or your bore, so he be rich, or emphaticall, they care not; would I might never excell a dutch Skipper in Courtship, if I did not put distaste into my cariage of purpose; I knew I should not please them. Lacquay? ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... suggest it," said the skipper of the Dora, and soon they were turning toward shore. A good landing place was found and the houseboat was tied up near several ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... the medicines numbered instead of named. A book of directions goes with this. It describes diseases and symptoms, and says, "Give a teaspoonful of No. 9 once an hour," or "Give ten grains of No. 12 every half-hour," etc. One of our sea-captains came across a skipper in the North Pacific who was in a state of great surprise ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... having to part from that serenity which fostered the adventurous freedom of his thoughts. He was a little sleepy too, and felt a pleasurable languor running through every limb as though all the blood in his body had turned to warm milk. His skipper had come up noiselessly, in pyjamas and with his sleeping-jacket flung wide open. Red of face, only half awake, the left eye partly closed, the right staring stupid and glassy, he hung his big head over the chart and scratched his ribs sleepily. There was something obscene in the sight of his naked ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... lieutenant of Royal Engineers, in Major Gore's time, and went about a good deal among the people, in surveying for Government. One of my old friends there was Skipper Benjie Westham, of Brigus, a shortish, stout, bald man, with a cheerful, honest face and a kind voice; and he, mending a caplin-seine one day, told me this story, which I will try to tell ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... Faithful this day, with my consent, promised herself to John Clark, skipper of the ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... the gate and entered. She had crossed to the landing-place, beyond which a lumpy craft lay moored. Drawing nearer, he discovered her to be engaged in conversation with the skipper and an elderly woman—both come straight from the oolitic isle, as was apparent in a moment from their accent. Pierston felt no hesitation in making himself known as a native, the ruptured engagement between Avice's mother ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... Queen Mary's pupil, he wrapped his cloak about him and went out to study the weather, and inquire for lodgings to which he might remove Cicely. He saw nothing he liked, and determined on consulting his old mate, Goatley, who generally acted as skipper, but he had first to return so as not to delay the morning meal. He found, on coming in, Cicely helping Oil-of-Gladness in making griddle cakes, and buttering them, so as to make Mr. Heatherthwayte declare that he had not tasted the like ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... happy bridegroom, was evidently still in the adoring stage, so he listened complacently to his wife's silly badinage with the skipper, whom she informed, apparently for the information of the company, that she was just nineteen, but winced a little at her further admission that they had ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... When Skipper Smith (whose usual goal Is Campbeltown with Ayrshire coal) Is labouring thro' Kilbrannan Sound, He sighs for Troon and solid ground, And swears, if he were safe on shore, He'd never be a sailor more. But once on shore—he thinks ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Dutch skipper once more to himself, "thirty thousand piastres are a trifle to this man; surely these sheep must be laden with an immense treasure; let us say no more about it. First of all, let him pay down the thirty thousand ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... as if he had been asked an inaudible question, and tried again. Nothing happened. "Skipper," he said over his shoulder, "Have a quick look at the meters behind you there. Are ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... anchor, but the dark faces on her yards, when they furled the sails, and the Babel on deck, soon made known that she was from the Islands. Immediately afterwards, a boat's crew came aboard, bringing her skipper, and from them we learned that she was from Oahu, and was engaged in the same trade with the Ayacucho, Loriotte, etc., between the coast, the Sandwich Islands, and the leeward coast of Peru and Chili. Her captain and officers were Americans, and also ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... cheap jewelry, and tight boots. He quotes poetry on the weather yard-arm, to the great dissatisfaction of Mr. Brewster, (to whom you will shortly be introduced,) who often confidentially assures the skipper that the third mate would have turned out a natural fool if his parents had not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... was never so glad to get near a fire in my life. The skipper of the cheese let us get in the engine room and dry out. Can you see that wet bunch of fluffs with all the highlight off and their marcels around their necks. I'll bet there was a whole lot of surprises sprung when the true complexion began to show up. We got ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... are really Mr. Landale," he began, adding hastily, as if to cover an implied admission—"of course I have heard the name: it is well known in Lancashire—you had better see the skipper. It must have been some damnable mistake that has caused a man of your standing to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... "The skipper is on board," he said. "We're rather busy, as you see. Get on with that, you sea-cooks," he bawled at two fellows who were doing nothing. All over the ship, men were hauling, splicing, and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Hastings and Tony to take the child to Mantes, then to make all possible haste for Calais, and there to keep in close touch with the Day-Dream; the skipper will contrive to open communication. Tell him to remain in Calais waters. I hope I may have need ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... L-B when he was a boy, he had buried the ship's officer under a pile of rocks, managed to survive by himself because he had applied the aids in the boat to learn how. This morning he had been hunting a strong-jaw, tempting it out of its hiding by a hook and line and a bait of fresh killed skipper. ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... still afield, bringing back to their lines and, let us hope, to their senses, the remnant of Stabber's band, chased far into the Sweetwater Hills before they would stop, while Henry's column kept Lame Wolf in such active movement the misnamed chieftain richly won his later sobriquet "The Skipper." The general had come whirling back from Beecher in his Concord wagon, to meet Mr. Hay as they bore that invalid homeward from the Big Horn. Between the fever-weakened trader and the famous frontier ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... skipper with a sudden start, next morning, as he saw Eric's recumbent figure on the ratlin stuff, "who be this ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... Robert Lowerry John Lowery Philip Lowett John Lowring Pierre Lozalie Jacques Lubard James Lucas Lucian Lucas Jean Lucie William Lucker William Luckey (2) W. Ludds Samuel Luder David Ludwith Peter Lumbard Francois Lumbrick Joseph Lunt (3) Skipper Lunt Philip Lute Nehemiah Luther Reuben Luther Benjamin Luyster Augustin Luzard Alexander Lyelar Charles Lyle Witsby Linbick Jean Lynton Peter Lyon Samuel Lyon Archibald Lyons Daniel Lyons Ephraim Lyons Ezekiel Lyons Jonathan Lyons ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... done it. I arsked a deck steward 'o she was and 'e told me. 'Er old man's a bleedin' millionaire, a bloody Capitalist! 'E's got enuf bloody gold to sink this bleedin' ship! 'E makes arf the bloody steel in the world! 'E owns this bloody boat! And you and me, comrades, we're 'is slaves! And the skipper and mates and engineers, they're 'is slaves! And she's 'is bloody daughter and we're all 'er slaves, too! And she gives 'er orders as 'ow she wants to see the bloody animals below decks and down they takes 'er! [There is a roar of ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... But the name had been painted over, because it was the former English name. As I thought, 'You're rid of the fellow' the ship came up again in the evening, and steamed within a hundred yards of us. I sent all my men below deck, and I promenaded the deck as the solitary skipper. Through Morse signals the stranger gave her identity. She proved to be the Hollandish torpedo boat Lynx. I asked by signals, 'Why do you follow me?' No answer. The next morning I found myself in Hollandish waters, so I raised pennant and war flag. Now the Lynx came at top speed ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... night-watchman, as he watched in an abstracted fashion the efforts of a skipper to reach a brother skipper on a passing barge with a boathook. Don't talk to me about love, because I've suffered enough through it. There ought to be teetotalers for love the same as wot there is for drink, and they ought to wear a piece o' ribbon to ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... them places out o' the spice-box,—an' he took her home, an' hunted up her parents an' guardeens, an' handed her over safe an' sound. They—the guardeens—was gret people whar they lived, an' they wanted to give Father a pot o' money; but he said he warn't that kind. 'I'm a Yankee skipper!' says he. ''Twas as good as a meal o' vittles to me to smash that black feller!' says he. 'I don't want no pay for it. An' as for the lady, 'twas a pleasure to obleege her,' he says; 'an' I'd do it agin any day in ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... and the skipper's sent him up to ride on a boom, and he's got to stay there till ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... any questions which it is given to us to decide by dint of learning. As though a man should inquire, "Am I to choose an expert driver as my coachman, or one who has never handled the reins?" "Shall I appoint a mariner to be skipper of my vessel, or a landsman?" And so with respect to all we may know by numbering, weighing, and measuring. To seek advice from Heaven on such points was a sort of profanity. "Our duty is plain," he would observe; "where ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... skipper a bringing 'ome 'ere with him? Dooks and duchesses and all the blamed airistorkracy?—English too, or I'm a blooming nigger.—Tea for a lidy?—I should rather think it.—Partington, I'm off to put meself inside of a clean jacket and make sure the cockroaches ain't holding a ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... said Curlie; "the trip's got to be made. I thought you might be afraid to undertake it; that's why I wanted to know at once. I'll go out and hunt another skipper. There's surely plenty of them idle ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... honest skipper in the trade than Eli," said the clerk. "I would lippen to[5] Eli's word—ay, if it was the Chevalier, or Appin himsel'," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he went on, "that the skipper did not happen to mention a cat, a yellow cat, in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... were posted at three or four points, and every thirty or forty feet sentries met and parted, so indifferent to us, apparently, that we wondered if we might get nearer. We ventured, but at a certain moment a sentry called to us, "Fifty yards off, please!" Our young skipper answered, "All right," and as the sentry had a gun on his shoulder which we had every reason to believe was loaded, it was easily our pleasure to retreat to the specified limit. In fact, we came away altogether, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... ye what it is, men. If the skipper dies, all agree to obey my orders, and in less than three weeks I'll engage to have five hundred barrels of sperm oil under hatches: enough to give every mother's son of ye a handful of dollars when we get to Sydney. If ye don't ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... in the South Pacific that his supply of older officers ran out, and twelve-year old David Farragut was appointed prize-master of one of them, with orders to take her to Valparaiso. When Farragut gave his first order, her skipper, a hot-tempered old sea-dog, flew into a rage, and declaring that he had "no idea of trusting himself with a blamed nutshell," rushed below for his pistols. The twelve-year-old commander shouted after him that, if he came on deck again, he would ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... happened, even down here in St. Lucia. It turned almost as black as night for a few minutes, an' our skipper, who was ashore, said he had felt a slight earthquake. But we saw enough ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... appear, and it was getting darker and darker every minute. Something must have attracted the attention of the skipper on shore, and he had doubtless landed. But while Corny was waiting for his cousin, he saw two men making their way through the grove on the other side of the fence towards the river. One of them he recognized, and gave ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... parsons," said the shipping-master, as he turned to the man, the slightest trace of a smile on his seamy face. "You're Mr. Becker, the second mate, I take it; you'll find 'em all right, sir. They're sailors, and good ones, too. No, Mr. Jackson, the skipper didn't pick 'em—just asked me for sixteen good men, and there you are. Muster up to the capstan here, boys," he ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... birdlike lightness and swiftness which were part of his manner, the Sicilian skipper bent forward and laid a brown ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... is the skipper,' one of 'em said, 'and hasn't got a soft place about him. Well, my lad, I'm sorry for what's happened, but talking won't do it any good. You've got a long voyage before you, and you'd best turn in and make yourself ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... officer did not make his appearance, he went below again, and found him slumbering as peacefully as before. He threatened to do no more pumping if the mate did not get up and lend a hand at once. Moreover, it was intimated to him that the skipper would have to be called if he lay there skulking while other people were being worked to death. This brought the mate out of his berth, but he got no further than the after-lockers, where he sat down with the object of lighting his pipe. Being ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... cursed longshore tricks. I won't stand by and see an Englishman kicked, d'ye see, by a tub-bellied, round-starned, schnapps-swilling, chicken-hearted son of an Amsterdam lust-vrouw. Hang him, if the skipper likes. That's all above board, but by thunder, if it's a fight that you will have, touch that ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... three white men shoot like hell. We no fright. We come alongside, we go up side, plenty fella, maybe I think fifty-ten (five hundred). One fella white Mary (woman) belong that fella ship. Never before I see 'm white Mary. Bime by plenty white man finish. One fella skipper he no die. Five fella, six fella white man no die. Skipper he sing out. Some fella white man he fight. Some fella white man he lower away boat. After that, all together over the side they go. Skipper he sling white Mary down. After that they washee (row) strong ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... said the reindeer, 'I know you can bind all the winds of the world with a bit of sewing cotton. When a skipper unties one knot he gets a good wind, when he unties two it blows hard, and if he undoes the third and the fourth he brings a storm about his head wild enough to blow down the forest trees. Won't you give the little girl a drink, ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... on the dappled water, The broad green lily-pads dip and sway, While like a skipper a gray frog rides The biggest leaf in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Harry, "laid up in a little bit of a stifling cabin, just like an oven, without the possibility of a breath of air! The skin-flint skipper carried no medicine; the water—shocking stuff it was—was getting so low, that there was only a pint a day served out to each, and though all of us Alcestes clubbed every drop we could spare for him—it was bad work! Owen and I never ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... she had never before seen. And their speech, plentifully sprinkled with colloquialisms of a salt flavor, amused her, and sometimes puzzled her. Some of the men who rode short distances in the car wore fishermen's boots and jerseys. They called the conductor "skipper," and hailed each other ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... water. She had the dregs of a mixed crew of Lascars and Portuguese, who said they had lost the rest of their men by desertion, and that the captain and mate had been carried off by fever. There was something so queer in their story that our skipper took the law in his own hands, and put me on board of her with a salvage crew. But that night the French crew mutinied, cut the cables, and would have got to sea if we had not been armed and prepared, and managed to drive them below. When we had got them under hatches for a few hours they parleyed, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... a fine young fellow, the skipper, Jean Martin. I believe his father is a large wine merchant, at Nantes. I suppose ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... away, When, doomed in upper floors to star it. The bard inscribed to lords his lay,— Himself, the while, my Lord Mountgarret. No more he begs with air dependent. His "little bark may sail attendant" Under some lordly skipper's steerage; But launched triumphant in the Row, Or taken by Murray's self in tow. Cuts both Star Chamber ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... A skipper gray, whose eye's were dim, Could tell by tasting, just the spot, And so below, he'd "dowse the glim,"— After, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... king sits in Dunfermline town, Drinking the blude-red wine; 'O whare will I get a skeely skipper, To sail this new ship ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... Way down from aloft," answered the skipper, who was already halfway up the main rigging; and 5 like squirrels we slipped out of our hoops and down the backstays, passing the skipper like a flash as he toiled upwards, bellowing orders as he went. Short as our journey down had been, when we arrived on deck we found all ready for a start. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... our worthy and able skipper, we landed on the soil of the giant Republic at Jersey city, where the wharves, &c., of the Cunard line are established, they not having been able to procure sufficient space on the New York side. The ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... "collected by, and printed for Patrick Walker, in the Bristo-Port of Edinburgh," the early part of last century. In that entitled "Some remarkable Passages in the Life, &c. of Mr. Daniel Cargill:" 12mo. Edin. 1732, A. N. will find the original story of the crazy skipper and his band of "three men and twenty-six women," whom worthy Mr. Cargill endeavoured unsuccessfully to reclaim. From this it would appear that the sweet singers went far greater lengths than ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... skipper. "What o' the Barbary rovers, then! They lack slaves and are ever ready to trade, though they be niggardly payers. I never heard of none that returned once they had him safe aboard their galleys. I ha' done some trading with them, bartering human freights ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... there came a skipper who wanted to see the quern; he asked if it could grind salt. Yes, that it could, said he who owned it; and when the skipper heard this he wanted the quern by hook or by crook, cost what it might, for if he had it he thought he need not sail far away ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... down," he advised, testily, when she followed him down the ladder. He stood at the foot and offered his hand, but she leaped down the last two steps and did not accept his assistance. "Now, you have twisted that skipper of ours until he doesn't know ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... gangway was pointed out to him, he showed signs of irritability and threatened an adverse report on the handling of the troops. On being informed that it was his privilege to make such a report he left the ship. However, he was later observed in altercation with the skipper of the smaller vessel and eventually a second gangway was rigged. When this move was commenced there was room on the main deck for two companies only. The other two were kept clear and their officers ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... merchantmen. In January 1866, somewhere south of Australia, she overhauled the British bark Baracouta, taking her for a Yankee man-o'-war flying the British flag as a ruse. Young Scales was sent in command of a boarding party, and was informed by the skipper of the Baracouta that the Civil War had terminated months and months ago. The Shenandoah then made for Liverpool. In the meantime a Federal court had ruled that her officers were guilty of piracy—a hanging ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... The skipper rolled his quid of tobacco in his cheek reflectively a moment. "Well, no," he said, "I guess nothin' to speak of. They're too busy answering the batteries; it's only the stray shot that comes our way. There's ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... will. I told you I was born at sea. My father was a merchant skipper of Boston. I don't remember him very well, for he died when I was seven, but I have a vague sort of an idea that he was a big man with big dark eyes and a great nose like the beak of a bird. He had run away to sea when—well, Napoleon ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... English, he is Irish. Now, he will file off these handcuffs and give me the file. By working at every opportunity we can all be free in a few days; then all we have to do is to force our way out and seize the skipper. We will throw him overboard, and kill all who oppose us; then the ship will be ours and we can sell it and divide the ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... the other, the whole ship's company, except the skipper and myself, call her 'missus.' She gazed on him like an ox-eyed Juno; ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... I set sail (I didn't set sail myself, you understand, but the men did it for me, or rather for my friends, Mr and Mrs. SKIPPER, to whose kindness I owe my present position—which is far from a secure one,—but no matter), you said to me, YORICK Yotting has no buffoonery left in him? I too, who was once the life of all the Lifes and Souls of a party! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... you mean?" said Vince excitedly. "Now, younkers," said a voice behind them, "skipper says I'm to show you ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... instances, live together; for all that, the punctilious externals, at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed, and in no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in which you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated grandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting almost as much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. This suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock his brains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty generally known, very favourite and common recreations among gentleman of that class. The more the case presented ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... sing t'other side of your mouth afore long," bawled back the skipper. "We ain't fur from the Cormorant Rocks; the wind p'r'aps will shove ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... are there who could name even half-a-dozen varieties? We all know the tortoiseshell and the white and the blue—the little blue butterflies that flutter over the gold and red of the cornfields. But the average man does not even know by name such varieties as the Camberwell Beauty, the Dingy Skipper, the Pearl-bordered Fritillary, and the White-letter Hairstreak. As for the moth, are there not as many sorts of moths as there are words in a dictionary? Many men give all the pleasant hours of their lives to ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... battering sails frozen stiff as iron. It was Peru we were bound for,—Peru where the submarine city lay beneath uncounted fathoms waiting for us. The captain and I were the only ones Acuma, the half-breed, had taken into his confidence; all the others sailed on a blind errand, trusting to the skipper, who was a shrewd man and severe. And the brigantine wallowed around the Cape and toiled on and on up the coast, and every day Acuma grew more restless; every day he cast about the water with eyes that seemed to pierce to the very bottom of ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... a hermetically sealed atoll. When there wasn't any inlet he would wait for a seventh wave—which is always extra large—and take her over on the crest, disregarding the ragged coral below. The Kawa was a tight little craft, built for rough work. She stood up nobly under the punishment her skipper gave her. ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... dinner-bell rang, and I was not sorry, for it is a dreadful thing to have to listen to an officer of the Royal Navy when he gets on to that subject. I only know one worse thing, and that is to hear a merchant skipper express his candid opinion of ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... ever one to take any risk, but I will not hear of such a venture as this. Do you think I will allow the hope of all England to be staked for a pirate? And would you break our commander of her rank? All that Dorothy need do at Portsmouth is to curtsey to the first skipper she meets, and I'll warrant he will carry us all ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... there are so few ropes on an ordinary sloop that my weak head could carry the names and uses of all without confusion. There was not much wind up there in the lagoon, or the river, as it is more politely called; but what there was came from the westward, and the skipper said it was fair to take ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... wave, or sometimes wondering at some large ship as it passed by, on which men live for weeks and months without ever touching land. We used to sail long distances, and occasionally be out for several days and nights together. My brother-in-law's skipper could tell me what country almost every vessel that we saw was bound for. Some were sailing to climates where the heat is so great that our most sultry summer in England is comparatively cold; others were off northward, perhaps whale-fishing, where they would see ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... instructions to bring me back off foreign soil dead or alive, but in practice that is just what he would have done. Theory and practice have a habit of differing, especially in the actions of an irate skipper who sees one of his best ward-room stewards vanishing from ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... prowess at football, had left a very different impression. Fred worked hard at his studies because he had to; and even with persistence and industry he had not shone brilliantly in the scientific courses he had elected. The venerable dean once said that Fred was a digger, not a skimmer and skipper, and that he would be all right if only he dug long enough. He was graduated without honors and went South to throw in his fortunes with his father's Mexican projects. He was mourned at the college as the best all-round player ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... to make this fellow mend his behaviour?" inquired Bob of the skipper as they separated from the rest of the working party and walked toward the cottage on landing ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... "Well, skipper!" greeted Mr. Gilman, jauntily and spryly. In one moment, in one second, Mr. Gilman had grown at least twenty ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... indifference common to the wretched. They had squatted down close to each other when they got on board, on chests at the foot of the mast. They talked to each other. Irish and Basque are, as we have said, kindred languages. The Basque woman's hair was scented with onions and basil. The skipper of the hooker was a Basque of Guipuzcoa. One sailor was a Basque of the northern slope of the Pyrenees, the other was of the southern slope—that is to say, they were of the same nation, although the first ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... miles (American measure seventy-five miles) on both sides of the river, upwards." In another document we learn that "The West India Company being chartered, a vessel of 130 lasts, called the 'New Netherland' (whereof Cornelius Jacobs, of Hoorn, was skipper), with thirty families, mostly Walloons, was equipped in ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... course, we've got a real white man for a Skipper—and the Commander, too: that goes a long way. And they're away from drink and—other things that ain't good for 'em. Everybody has more leisure to devote to them than in peace-time: their amusements and recreations generally. Cinema shows and regattas, boxing championships, and ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... I am only a man of letters, either tradition errs or I was present when there landed at St. Andrews a French barber- surgeon, to tend the health and the beard of the great Cardinal Beaton; I have shaken a spear in the Debateable Land and shouted the slogan of the Elliots; I was present when a skipper, plying from Dundee, smuggled Jacobites to France after the '15; I was in a West India merchant's office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol Jarvie's, and managed the business of a plantation in St. Kitt's; I was with my engineer-grandfather (the son-in-law of the lamp and oil man) when he ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the hardened skipper, with the same dull unconcern that a cabman might show in saying "To ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... weather. No, Ted Barry, my boy, the funds won't run it. But that brig is my fancy. She's all ready for sea—all her boats up with the gripes lashed, and the Custom House fellow doing his dog-trot under the awning, waiting for the skipper to come aboard, and the tug to range alongside as soon as this howling gale takes off a bit. I'll wait here for another hour and watch ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... ten years Captain Hanks—Skipper Sam he was generally called—had sailed out of Halifax Harbour with his schooner Maid of the North to work his way into the Gulf of St. Lawrence when the waters were clear of ice, and trade a general cargo of merchandise for ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... at the poop deck, seeking to gain glimpse of the skipper, but was unable to determine his presence among the others. There were a number of persons gathered along the low rail, attracted by the unusual spectacle, and curiously watching us being herded aboard, and dispatched ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... his head, he glittered with shining arms and sword, his heart warmed and throbbed with visions of conflict and bold emprise. The commonplace assumed an aspect of grandeur and magnificence in harmony with his chivalric mania. The leaky craft in which he sat became a majestic barge; the skipper, some wrinkled Charon who doubtless had ferried many a brave knight to his death beneath yonder castle's walls. That seeming birch-stump on the farther shore was the castle champion, armed cap-a-pie in silver harness and ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... consider, I say, what my state of mind might be. Of course, I was thankful that I had been picked up; yet if the weather settled I might have safely made my way back home in the Wavecrest. And it was easy to see that the skipper of the Scarboro considered the sloop his property in return for ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... Master Lirriper hailed the skipper as he appeared on the deck of the Susan. "I have brought you two more passengers for London. They are going ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... dealings, and whose suggestions he generally considers as his own ideas. Whenever I would possess myself of a landward baron, I address myself to such a confidant, who, in the present case, is called Kitt Henshaw, an old skipper upon the Tay, and who, having in his time sailed as far as Campvere, holds with Sir Patrick Charteris the respect due to one who has seen foreign countries. This his agent I have made my own, and by his means have insinuated various apologies in order to postpone ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... feeling himself once more at liberty, took his passage from Rotterdam in a sloop bound for Dartmouth, and with only the letter of Captain Paling in his pocket to pay for his conveyance. He perceived that the skipper frequently cast suspicious glances towards him, as though he were about to ask, "Where is your money, sir?" But George saw this, and he bore it down with a high hand. He knew that the certain way ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... once a skipper of Dyrevig called Bardun. He was so headstrong that there was no doing anything with him. Whatever he set his mind upon, that should be done, he said, and done it ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... civil; and, upon inquiring of the skipper of the boat who he was, I found that my friend was a man of large fortune, who lived somewhere near Utica, on ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... one afternoon, it began to rain, and after the rain came a gale from the eastward. The watchful skipper saw it purple the water to windward, and ordered the topsails to be reefed and the lee ports closed. This last order seemed an excess of precaution; but Dodd was not yet thoroughly acquainted with his ship's qualities: and the hard cash round his neck made him cautious. The lee ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... at the rain. It'll be a bowlers' wicket, and the Skipper's done a daring thing. The school's never known it, but Ray's been our difficulty, ever since Radley started ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... come before morning, unless something has happened to him, for I never knew Plum to break his word," said Jack to the skipper. ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... "You're the skipper, lieutenant. You'd better make sure, though, that as soon as the bomb-off signal is flashed, your engineer hits his auxiliary rocket-propulsion button. We want to be about fifteen miles from where that ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... Retriever under Captain Matt Peasley. Subsequently, when Matt Peasley presented in his person indubitable evidence of the wisdom of the old saw that you cannot keep a good man down, Michael J. became skipper of the Retriever. This berth he continued to occupy with pleasure and profit to all concerned, until a small financial tidal wave, which began with Matt Peasley's purchase, at a ridiculously low ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... boat that was to take 'em out to the vessel late at night. Why did he wait fur dark to be druv down there? You bet, he was makin' his flittin' as silent as possible. He'd prob'ly squared it with a skipper to take 'im aboard on the dead quiet. That's why there ain't much use our knowin' what vessels sailed about that time. I do know, but much good we'll get out o' that. What port he gets off at, who'll ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... he had six vessels, two of which, the Jesus of Lubeck and the Minion, were Queen's ships hired out for the voyage. The skipper of one of the smaller vessels, the Judith, was Francis Drake, a relative and protege of the Hawkins family, and then a youth of twenty-two. On September 16, 1567, after a series of encounters stormier than ever in ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... breakfasting at the railway station, chartered a cab and drove down to the Joliet, where we found our ship, the Matsuma Maru, lying alongside a wharf piled yards high with crates, bales, and cases of all sorts and sizes waiting to be stowed in the ship's holds. The skipper was somewhere ashore, it appeared, but we hunted up the chief officer and introduced ourselves, upon which we learned that every effort was being made to have the ship ready for sea by three o'clock that afternoon, but that it would be impossible for her to get ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... a pleasant run down to Havana, passing Moro Castle and dropping anchor on the seventh day out from New York, but found some trouble there in getting a cargo for the home voyage. The delay worried our skipper considerably, for he had calculated on being home with his wife and baby at Christmas; but we of the crew enjoyed the city, and I for one got leave to go ashore whenever I could, and made the most of my opportunity to ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... did. The result of which was that at the end of a week's tossing and seasickness, Elijah Curtis was landed at Santa Barbara, pale, thin, but self-contained and resolute. And having found favor in the eyes of the skipper of the Kitty Hawk, general trader, lumber-dealer, and ranch-man, a week later he was located on the skipper's land and installed in the skipper's service. And from that day, for five years Sidon and Tasajara knew ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... got to the ferry-house at the waterside, where they found two boats taking passengers on board, one for Dundee and the other for Perth. Here my grandfather's great gift of foreknowledge was again proven, for he proposed that they should bargain with the skipper of the Dundee boat to take them to that town and pay him like the other passengers, at once, in an open manner, but that, as the night was cloudy and dark, they should go cannily aboard the boat for Perth, as it were in mistake, and feign not to discover their error till ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Skippers.—Foreign trade at Athens is fairly well systematized, but it still partakes of the nature of an adventure. The name for "skipper" (naukleros) is often used interchangeably for "merchant." Nearly all commerce is by sea, for land routes are usually slow, unsafe, and inconvenient[*]; the average foreign trader is also a shipowner, probably too the actual ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... boas'ful, after the tone you took with me this mornin'"—Bill spoke with scarcely dissembled pride—"but that's where the cleverness comes in. You see, there ain't no skipper to 'er— leastways not till ter-morrow. The old man's taken train an' off to Bristol, to attend a revival meetin', or something o' the sort—bein' turned pious since 'is wife died, w'ich is about eighteen months ago. I got that from the mate, when 'e shipped me. ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... clerk of the weather," the skipper replied. "At present there is not a breath of wind stirring, and from the look of the sky I see no chance of ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... the wind it moaned, And the white caps flecked the sea; "An' I would to God," the skipper groaned, "I had not my boy ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... into the road, I cast a look back. He was still standing by the cart, yawning and rubbing his eyes as before. That man would make money in California—if money could be made by a bet on laziness. He is lazier than the old Dutch skipper who was too lazy to go below, and gave orders to the man at the helm to follow the sun so as to keep him in the shade of the main-sail, by reason of which he sailed round the horizon till his tobacco gave ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... chest in the house for any money; I'll warrant he'd come racketing after it at nights, and making a haunted house of the inn. And as to his going to sea in his chest, I recollect what happened to Skipper Onderdonk's ship on his ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... "The pirates knew these waters. The average merchant skipper didn't. They'd build signal flares on the keys to lure ships onto the rocks, and then loot them. At least that was the everyday (or everynight) amusement of their less venturesome members and their ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... it was the skipper of the Panther, a big and burly Dane. He raised the lantern a little. The dim light on his face showed it bruised and swollen. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... with emphasis, that he thought well of it. He began to realize that this woman, with her blunt common sense, was likely to be a pilot worth having in the difficult waters which he must navigate as skipper of the Regular church in Trumet. Also, he began to realize that, as such a skipper, he was most inexperienced. And Captain Daniels had spoken highly—condescendingly but highly—of his housekeeper's qualifications ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... their task and the barge swept on by the forts. A Yankee sloop overhauled and surveyed them. If its skipper had entertained suspicions they were dissipated by the presence of Solomon Binkus in ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... at Bill curiously. 'What's the idea?' he said. 'I could have understood it if you had told me that you were going to New York for pleasure, instructing your man Willoughby to see that the trunks were jolly well packed and wiring to the skipper of your yacht to meet you at Liverpool. But you seem to have sordid motives. You talk about making money. What do you want ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... the wide sweep and subtle co-ordination of this ocean hunting; for the beginning of any tale may be known only to an admiral in a London office, the middle of it only to a commander at Kirkwall, and the end of it only to a trawler skipper off the coast of Ireland. But here and there it is possible to piece the fragments together into a complete adventure, as in the following record of a successful chase, where the glorious facts outrun all the imaginations ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... I was drifting, a nasal hail suddenly roused me to the fact that there were other navigators in those seas. "Bo-oat ahoy! Whar' ye bo-ound?" Giving a stroke with the larboard oar, I saw, hove to, a fishing-schooner,—her whole crew of skipper, three men, and a boy standing at the gangway and looking with all their ten eyes to make out, if possible, what strange kind of sea-monster had turned up. My boat could not have seemed very seaworthy, only seven inches ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... cream-white canvas snugly furled upon them and the booms; the red ensign streamed from the gaff-end; and the burgee, or house flag—a red star in a white diamond upon a blue field—cut with a swallow tail in the present instance to indicate that her skipper was the commodore of ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... alongside the vessel, When a life-saving dingey was lowered With the pick of the crew, and her relatives, too, And the mate and the skipper aboard. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... called Charlie, and when he had got his parent on to the deck, he said: "Skipper, this is ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... watchman," hallooed out the accused, "the b—counter-skipper never had any watch! he only filched a twopenny-halfpenny gilt chain out of his master, Levi, the pawnbroker's window, and stuck it in his eel-skin to make a show: ye did, ye pitiful, lanky-chopped son of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... you sing," said Batavius, with all the authority of a skipper to his mate. "How can a woman fly when she has no wings? And to say any bark has wings is not the truth. And what kind of rose is the rose of love? Twelve kinds of roses I have chosen for my new garden, but that kind I never heard of; and I will not believe ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... on the upper gate of the last lock just as she passed out from the lower gate. The horses were just put on, and a reckless boy gave them their first blow after two hours of rest and corn. As the heavy boat started off under the new motion, I saw, and her skipper saw at the same instant, that a long new tow-rope of his, which had lain coiled on deck, was suddenly flying out to its full length. The outer end of it had been carried upon the lock-side by some chance or blunder, and there some idle loafer had thrown the looped ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... of these men was Francis Drake. He was son of a chaplain in the navy and as a boy played in the rigging of the great ships-of-war, as other boys play in the streets. In time young Drake was apprenticed to the skipper of a small trading vessel. Fortune smiled on the lad early in life. His master died, and out of love for the apprentice who had served him so well, left him the vessel. Francis Drake became thus a shipmaster on his own account, ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... far, far from forgiveness as he read that letter. His first mate, who was beside him when he opened and read it, was actually frightened when he saw the look on the skipper's face. "He went white," said the mate; "not pale, but white, same as a dead man, or—or the underside of a flatfish, or somethin'. 'For the Lord sakes, Cap'n,' says I, 'what's the matter?' He never ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... had been able in part to strip her before they left her alone upon the sea. What I wanted, however, they had not taken away. In a locker I found a case made to hold six big bottles, in which the skipper had carried his private stock of liquors very likely; and two of the bottles, no doubt being empty when the cabin was cleared, had been left behind. They served my turn exactly, and I brought them on deck and filled them from my pool of ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... a routine training flight that had taken them to the moons of Jupiter, the three cadets, Corbett, Manning, and Astro, and their unit skipper, Captain Steve Strong, completed the delicate task of setting the great ship down on ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... of the afternoon Lund had related his sixth story, being the veracious history of how one Louis McGraw, a famous fishing-skipper of Mingan, rode out a tremendous gale on the Orphan Bank, with both cables out, the storm-sail set, her helm lashed amidships, and the crew fastened below as tightly as possible. It is hardly worth while to detail how the crew were bruised and battered ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... to sound the deep spots in this little harbor," said the young skipper, as he dropped down once more into the bow of the shore boat. "Row about, Hal, over the places where the submarine could go ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... 'to say the truth, the lad's not been used to this kind of living, and it was the worst thing as ever happened to him to be brought on board the "Neptune," with our skipper for a master. You see, madam,' he continued, 'his father was a parson; but he is dead, and the mother tried hard to persuade the lad (for, poor thing, he is her only boy,) to turn parson too, when his father died. But ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... we go in for yachting in a kind of winged punt, called a 'lark.' For five pounds you can become a ship-owner. I fancy myself as a skipper, and I have already won two races. But more often we escape from the burble of the diplomats, and take our sandwiches and thermata—or is thermoi the plural?—to the untenanted shores of the lake, and picnic a deux. Then, if the wind does not fall we are lucky; but if it does, I have to row ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... knew the way to swear, He'd got the habit of it here and there and everywhere; He'd some samples from the Baltic and some more from Mozambique; Chinook and Chink and double-Dutch and Mexican and Greek; He'd a word or two in Russian, but he learned the best he'd got Off a pious preachin' skipper—and he had to use ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... which she wrung her hands. Then they fared forth at once from the city, and Allah spread over them His veil of protection, so that they reached the river-bank where they found a vessel ready for sea. Her skipper was standing amidships and crying, "Whoso hath aught to do, whether in the way of provisioning or taking leave of his people; or whoso hath forgotten any needful thing, let him do it at once and return, for we are about to sail"; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... every bone in your body," he roared suddenly at the miserable mulatto lad, "if you ever dare to disturb me before half- past three for anybody. D'ye hear? For anybody! . . . Let alone any damned skipper," he added, in a ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... old; and the skipper, although the most honest of men (and Irish too), was one of the least capable. The wind blew very boisterous, and the sea raged extremely. All that day we had little heart whether to eat or drink; went early to rest in some concern of mind; and (as if to give ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... afraid of starting something!" He stared at both of us with an almost startled expression, as if he could not believe his own verdict, yet could not get away from it. "Else you'd give the Bundesrath story to the papers! That German skipper's conduct ought to be bruited round the world! You said you'd do it. You promised us! You told the man ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... wheel and giving it several vigorous turns, "keep her off, did you say, skipper? Ay, ay, we'll clear the breakers now, with ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... to be a shipowner at the same time was quite a tale. He came out third in a home ship nearly fifteen years ago, Captain Eliott remembered, and got paid off after a bad sort of row both with his skipper and his chief. Anyway, they seemed jolly glad to get rid of him at all costs. Clearly a mutinous sort of chap. Well, he remained out here, a perfect nuisance, everlastingly shipped and unshipped, unable to keep a berth very long; pretty nigh went through every ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... unmindful alike of queries and of jeers. I found time to post additional letters now. Indeed, I was preparing for a long and determined enterprise. It was the Sea Rover against the Belle Helene; and, did the skipper of the latter loll along in flanneled ease and luxury, not so with the hardy band of cutthroats who manned our smaller and more mobile craft, men used to hardships, content to drink spring water instead of sparkling wines, and to eat the ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... without paying duty. In the month of June another cargo arrived at Boston, and when the excise-officer stepped on board he was seized and confined below, while the wine was sent on shore. The officer was afterwards liberated, and on the following morning the skipper of the sloop entered four or five pipes at the custom-house, declaring that this was the whole of his cargo. Aware of the falsehood of this statement, the commissioners ordered a comptroller to seize the sloop, and to fix the king's broad arrow upon her. This was the signal for a riot. A ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the subject in tropical countries, many more would be discovered. Mr. H.O. Forbes has described a most interesting example of this kind of simulation in Java. While pursuing a large butterfly through the jungle, he was stopped by a dense bush, on a leaf of which he observed one of the skipper butterflies sitting on a bird's dropping. "I had often," he says, "observed small Blues at rest on similar spots on the ground, and have wondered what such a refined and beautiful family as the Lycaenidae could find to enjoy, in food apparently ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... were dressed alike; a thick blue woollen jersey clung to the body, drawn in by the waist-belt; on the head was worn the waterproof helmet, known as the sou'-wester. These men were of different ages. The skipper might have been about forty; the three others between twenty-five and thirty. The youngest, whom they called Sylvestre or "Lurlu," was only seventeen, yet already a man for height and strength; a fine curly black beard covered his ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... running rigging of the Lively Polly than I was. Captain Booden was, therefore, the main reliance of the little twenty-ton schooner, and if her deck-load of firewood and cargo of butter and eggs ever reached a market, the skilful and profane skipper should have all the ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... davit blocks. This took time, but when it was done he was not yet satisfied; the mate had to get out gear and rig a couple of preventer funnel stays. The men looked ahead at the weather and wondered what the skipper saw in it to make such a bother; the second and third mates winked at one another behind Arthur Price's back; and he, the chief ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... do to support life until I can be off on my next little travel-plan. It's me for a leisurely cruise around the world, in the governor's little old boat—the Ariel—painted up within an inch of her life, brass all shining, lockers filled, a first-class cook engaged, and a brand-new skipper and crew—picked men. Sounds pretty good to me. How about you? Shop keeping in it with ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond |
