"Sputtering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... just finished five strenuous years in the Cabinet of the Slav Republic, dropped back a step to watch, with amused eyes, strolling through the doorway, the two splendid old boys, the Judge's arm around the Senator's shoulders, fighting, sputtering, arguing with each other as they had fought and argued forty odd years ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... lying down, and there were tiny lamps sputtering on the low stools, or tables, set close to their heads. They held long-stemmed pipes with small brass bowls, and had begun to smoke something that had a very pungent ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... against their ponies' necks and, those who could use their arms at all, pumping wild shots that whistled harmless over the heads of the defenders and bit the blackened prairie many a rod beyond. Only jeers rewarded the stirring spectacle,—jeers and a few low-aimed, sputtering volleys that brought other luckless ponies to their knees and sprawled a few red riders. But in less than five minutes from the warning cry that hailed their coming, Lame Wolf and his hosts were lining Elk Tooth ridge and ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... and struck a match on his sleeve, but it broke short off at the head, and the sputtering sulphur dropped into the stream and was quenched. He struck another, this time with success. He saw the heading; the way was clear; and he started on, holding one hand out before him, touching at frequent intervals the lower wall of the passage with ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... of the Ohio over his face, and night closed in with dark, low hanging clouds. An electric storm began to rage about him. Flashing sheets of lightning ran over the surface of the water, cracking and sputtering as though angry at his presence. It was a grand, though fearful sight. Tree after tree along the shore was splintered by the sharp flashes and peals of thunder added to the terrific grandeur of nature's display. Fearing that his copper bugle would ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... by the creek did as Billy asked him, while the latter sat with his eyes upon the fire seeing in the sputtering little flames the oval face of her ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... feeling the water occasionally with her screw to keep the hawsers taut. About the forward gangway a band of overworked stevedores were stowing in the last of the cargo, aided by a donkey engine, which every now and then broke out into a spasm of sputtering coughs. At the passenger gangway a great crowd was gathered, laughing and exchanging remarks with the other crowd that leaned over the railings ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... greater distance between terminal points being offset by advantages such as solidity, width and gentler grades. In one of the turns of this very crooked way there is now a murky flush cast by flambeaux sputtering and borne in hand. On either side one may see the fronts of houses without tenants, and in the way itself long lines of men tugging with united effort at some cumbrous body behind them. There is ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... swiftly from house to house, and, when he had done, at the apices of the triangle he had traced three glowing coals were sputtering. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... Van's two oxen, Buck and Bright, manifested the usual variety and contrariety of disposition. They were all right when well handled, and this Rolf could do better than Van, for he was "raised on oxen," and Van's over voluble, sputtering, Dutch-English seemed ill comprehended of the massive yoke beasts. The simpler whip-waving and fewer orders of the Yankee were so obviously successful that Van had resigned the whip of authority ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... tub, and a very deep one too; and what did little Emma know about being careful? She lost her balance, and down into the water she went, with a great splash that wrecked all the boats in the same instant. "Mother, mother!" screamed a choking, sputtering voice, as Emma managed ...
— The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... a kettle to boil up the river. If it sees that you are waiting for it and are anxious, it will never even sing. You have to go away and begin your meal, as if you were not going to have any tea at all. You must not even look round at it. Then you will soon hear it sputtering away, mad to be ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... thing. He took another parchment, exactly like the old will, out of his breast coat pocket, and managed, unperceived, to exchange it for the document; so that the object which Mr Burke and the lawyer watched curling, blazing, sputtering, till it was consumed, was not the old will at all, but a spoilt skin of some other matter, and the old will was lying ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... hard half-day's work to bring the craft to land, but at last the task was done and the mechanics were hammering merrily away on the steel with acetylene torch sputtering, and forty natives standing about open-mouthed, exclaiming at everything that happened, and offering profound explanations in their ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... or hearing. I sat still, and combated that which I knew was there. In the profound stillness, I heard the wind stir the naked branches of the trees, the flowing water through the fragments of the one-time dam, the sputtering of my candle which needed trimming. Sweat ran down my face and body, drenching me with cold. It crouched against the empty window, ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... despondency and something like invalidism; but that involuntary bubble of laughter reassured him. "Quiet, wholesome, cheerful life will restore her to health," he thought, as he put his favorite beverage and the sputtering steak on the table. "Now," he said, placing a chair at the table, "you can pour me a ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... alone. The final detail he was taking into his own hands. The few that could still command the point saw the red light moving, and beside it a figure vaguely outlined making its way. When the red light paused, a spark could be seen, a sputtering blaze would run slowly from it, hesitate, flare and die. Another and another of the fuses were touched and passed. With quickening steps tier after tier was covered, until those looking saw the red light flung at last into the air. It circled ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... It isn't a question of "shall I,"—it is "can I"? Through how many turnings have we come? No—I should never find my way back again. Better push on. I shout again: desperately but nervously. There is not even an echo. And now my candle, which has been guttering and sputtering for the last few moments, is threatening dissolution. It is the beginning of the end—of the candle-end. If the candle goes out before I do—Heavens! but I must move very cautiously. What a subject for a Jules-Verne novel! ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... dint of hand. It was indeed a hard and heavy tug; and I had pretty tough work, what between the exertion of the ascent, and the incessant fits of laughter into which I was thrown by the grotesquely agile movements of fat Tom; who, grunting, panting, sputtering, and launching forth from time to time the strangest and most blasphemously horrid oaths, contrived to make way to the summit faster than either of us—crashing through the dense underwood of juniper and sumac, uprooting the oak saplings as ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... forbade corporal punishment, and principles—and the Principal—forbade noisy upbraidings. And so with long, strange words, to supply the element of dread uncertainty, she began to speak, slowly and coldly as one ever should when addressing ears accustomed to much sputtering profanity. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... hand for silence and pulled his head-set closer about his ears. For a moment his attention was held by the instrument. Then his hand again sought the key. When the sputtering of the radio had died ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... funny Teresina would look, choking and sputtering like a volcano pouring forth fire, smoke, and lava," chuckled Beppo, who was studying geography and liked it much better than ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... It fell twisting itself out of the darkness. Familiar faces, buildings, snow. Theater facades making a jangle of light through the storm. Entrances, exits, cars clanging, figures hurrying, signs sputtering confusion in the snow. All familiar, all a part of the ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... away with awkward alacrity, but still keeping his hold on the salmon-twine. Consequently, by the time he had nearly reached the end of the limb, the still sputtering fire-ball emerged from the hole in the crotch. At the sound of it behind them the young raccoons turned in terror, and straightway dropped from the tree; but the old mother, undaunted, darted savagely upon her foe. The boy gave a cry of fear. The next instant ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... could answer someone shouted, "They're getting ready for the start," and everybody looked down the hill toward the place where the racing machines were sputtering and roaring in their clouds of ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... by the vileness of the name the German had called him and took it merely as a challenge that he had been expecting and that he meant to accept. With a grim smile on his lips he walked toward the German and when but one apple barrel lay between them reached across and dragged the foreman sputtering and swearing down the passageway to a window at the end of the room. By the window he stopped and putting his hand to the throat of the struggling man began to choke him into submission. Blows fell on his ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... had been cheated and Sam, although he thought his friend in the wrong, striking out with his fist and dragging Prince through the door and into a passing street car in time to avoid a rush of other waiters hurrying to the aid of the one who lay dazed and sputtering on the ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... but Mr. Pericles, sputtering a laugh of "Sanks!" presented a postured supplication ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... southward to the Arkansas. On the bank of this rivulet, and under one of its bluffs, we chose a spot for our bivouac. The bois de vache was collected, a fire was kindled, and hump steaks, spitted on sticks, were soon sputtering in the blaze. Luckily, Saint Vrain and I had our flasks along; and as each of them contained a pint of pure Cognac, we managed to make a tolerable supper. The old hunters had their pipes and tobacco, my friend and I our cigars, and we ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... analyst gives the following excellent way of distinguishing genuine butter from oleomargarine:—"When true butter is heated over a clear flame, it 'browns' and gives out a pleasant odor,—that of browned butter. In heating there is more or less sputtering, caused by minute particles of water retained in washing the butter. On the bottom of the pan or vessel in which true butter is heated, a yellowish-brown crust is formed, consisting of roasted or toasted ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... the covers of a polyglot dictionary. Then suddenly I landed a Russian! It was the final straw. I like to speak Spanish, I can endure the creaking of Turks attempting to talk Italian, I can bend an ear to the excruciating "French" of Martinique negroes, I have boldly faced sputtering Arabs, but I will NOT run the risk of talking Russian. It was the second and last case during my census days when I was forced to ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker and tongs were, however, gathered round the fire-place, as was a saucepan over a feeble sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese and bread, and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ludicrous association. It was at Possagno, among the Euganean Hills, and I was at a poor house in the town—an old woman was before a little picture of the Virgin, and at every fresh clap she lighted, with the oddest sputtering muttering mouthful of prayer imaginable, an inch of guttery candle, which, the instant the last echo had rolled away, she as constantly blew out again for saving's sake—having, of course, to light the smoke of it, about an instant after that: the expenditure ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... off to chase Daly to-morrow, don't you fret," put in His Highness. "He was only sputtering. What good could he do? He wouldn't have any right to search the Siren even if he overtook her; nor could he arrest the criminals aboard her. Daly would pitch Lola over the side of the boat before he would stand by and let your father board his ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... start and looked into the sputtering glare of a torch. Its light wove across the crags and gullies of the troll-wife's face and shimmered wetly off the great tusks in ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... the sweat of the honest man's brow unprofitable, the honest man had shufflingly declined to moisten his brow for nothing, with that severe exertion which is known in legal circles as swearing your way through a stone wall. Consequently, that new light had gone sputtering out. But, the airing of the old facts had led some one concerned to suggest that it would be well before they were reconsigned to their gloomy shelf—now probably for ever—to induce or compel that Mr Julius Handford to reappear and be questioned. And all traces of Mr Julius Handford ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... It was a very near thing, and when they found their legs and looked into each other's faces, gasping, dripping, spouting water from ears, nose, and mouth, Dick gathered breath to exclaim, "You trump! I should have been drowned, to a moral!" Whereat the other, choking, coughing, and sputtering, answered faintly, "You old muff! I believe we were never out of our ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... disagreeable Mr. Rain it was! All that night it went on pouring, till the little beck in the garden was so full it was almost choked, and could only get along by sputtering and foaming as if some wicked water-fairies were driving it along and tormenting it. And all the little pools on the mountain, the "tarns," as Becky and Tiza called them, filled up, and the rain made the mountain itself so wet that it was like one ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the McPherson gate by this time, where an arc light, high up in its leafy perch, was sputtering away shedding a white glow over the side-walk and embroidering it with an exquisite pattern worked out in leaf-shadows. Lawyer Ed paused under the lamp and opened the Book ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... but it was filled with soft ooze, which filled the ears, and eyes, and nose, and mouth of the fellow, so that, when he rose to his feet, he was sputtering and spitting, and coughing and swearing when ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... cave or mess-room, as the host styled it, combined dining-room and kitchen, for while in one corner stood a deal table with plates, cups, etc., but no tablecloth, in another stood a small stove, heated by an oil lamp, from which issued puffing and sputtering sounds, and the savoury odours ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... aft, exhibits another Fleury Ray, but inverted and more green than violet. Its function is to shunt the lift out of the gas, and this it will do without watching. That is all! A tiny pump-rod wheezing and whining to itself beside a sputtering green lamp. A hundred and fifty feet aft down the flat-topped tunnel of the tanks a violet light, restless and irresolute. Between the two, three white-painted turbine-trunks, like eel-baskets laid on their side, accentuate the empty perspectives. You can hear the trickle of the liquefied gas ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... the effects of the mad race up the hill. The sputtering flame in the lantern called her into action. Clutching it from the floor of the porch, she softly began a tour of inspection, first looking at her watch to find that it was the unholy hour of two! Had some one yelled boo! she would have swooned, so tense was every nerve. Now that ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... inserted head of a safety match, that between the time of touching it off with the live cigar to the time of the explosion not more than three seconds could elapse. This required quick cool work on Van Horn's part, in case need arose. In three seconds he would have to light the fuse and throw the sputtering stick with directed aim to its objective. However, he did not expect to use it, and had it ready merely as ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... the guide, to whom he imparted his doubts of the safety of the ford; "there is more danger in one single skulking Shawnee than ten thousand such sputtering brooks. Verily, the ford is good enough, though deep and rough; and if the water should soil thee young women's garments a little, thee should remember it will not make so ugly a stain as the bood-mark of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... the words meant: but he seemed to know the sound of them, and to know the voice which spoke them; and he saw on the bank three great two-legged creatures, one of whom held the light, flaring and sputtering, and another a long pole. And he knew that they were men, and was frightened, and crept into a hole in the rock, from which he could ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... any of them who came fooling around within range provided they came to the surface. I was with the forward guns and, as we had several days of pretty rough weather, it was a wet job. Our wireless was continually cracking and sputtering so I suppose the skipper was getting his sailing orders from the Admiralty as we changed direction several times a day. We had no convoying war-ships and sighted but few boats, mostly Norwegian sailing vessels, until, one night about ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... Carne, whose troubles were faintly illuminated by a sputtering wick. "Get out, you scoundrel, as you love plain English. Go direct to the devil—only let me die ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... deemed no response necessary and a silence fell between them, broken only by the simmering water in the iron kettle, the sputtering of the sap in the burning logs and the creaking without of the long balancing pole that suspended the moss-covered bucket. The wind sighed in the chimney and the wooing flames sprang to meet it, while the heart of the fire glowed in a mass of coals ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... critically examined, in turn, by the gossamer dogs, hoping against hope. A smoking brand in the fireplace fell suddenly upon a bed of hot coals, where, lacking the fortitude of Guatimozin, it emitted a sputtering protest, followed by a thin flame like a visible agony. In the resulting light Tony's haggard face shone competitively with a ruddy blush, which spread over his entire scalp, to the imminent danger of firing ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... the stream,—parrots screamed, monkeys chattered, and scampered from one tree to another. The kitchen, the Professor, vanished from my sight. I was unconscious of the hard, uncomfortable chair in which I sat, and of the dim, sputtering light ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... also the dried apples spread out on a board beside his bed, and the broken spinning-wheel, and the wasp's nest. He was sure, too, there were many other fascinating relics stored away in this old attic. But for the sputtering tallow-candle, which the night before was nearly burnt out, he would have examined everything else about him ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Sputtering, gasping, and actually crying with rage, the bully stumbled to his feet and charged blindly for Bob. That agile youth had turned and dashed for the train, which was now slowly moving. He caught the steps of the baggage car and drew himself up. Once on ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... dripping rain, and they all quickened their pace in the desire to rid themselves of the jungle. Piang attempted to guide them across, but he walked into the water and sank from sight, and there was a cry of horror, for it seemed that one of the many crocodiles had dragged him under. When he came up sputtering and splashing, none the worse for his dip, he chided them for their little faith and pointed significantly to his charm. He had miscalculated in the blackness of the night and could not locate the ford. A drizzling rain was still falling; great hairy-legged spiders ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... the leaves, and pinning them down, and that anyone could put on the ink; in vain did Mary represent the dirtiness of the work: this was the beauty of it in her eyes; and the sight of the black dashes sputtering through the comb filled her with emulation; so that she entreated, almost piteously, to be allowed to "do" an ivy loaf, which she had hastily, and not very carefully, pinned out with Mary's assistance—that is, she ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... when your classmates are singing Once more for good-by the old glees, And the round painted lanterns are swinging And sputtering out ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... group of New York firemen. "Passing a bow, like an enlarged violin bow, swiftly across an aluminum tuning fork, he produced a screech like intense radio static. Instantly the yellow gas flame, two feet high, leaping inside a hollow glass tube, subsided to a height of six inches and became a sputtering blue flare. Another attempt with the bow, and another screech ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... by Mr Malone in supposing, that Hunt himself is the Templar alluded to. But Dryden seems obviously to talk of the author of the Defence, and the two Reflectors, as three separate persons. He calls them, "the sputtering triumvirate, Mr Hunt, and the two Reflectors;" and again, "What says my lord chief baron (i.e. Hunt) to the business? What says the livery-man Templar? What says Og, the king of Basan (i.e. Shadwell) to it?" The Templar may be discovered, when we learn, who hired a livery-gown to give a vote ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... stinging well into the second century after his death. His writings resemble those fireworks which, after they have fallen to the ground and been apparently quenched, suddenly break out again into sputtering explosions. The waters of a literary revolution have passed over him without putting him out. Though much of his poetry has ceased to interest us, so many of his brilliant couplets still survive that probably no dead writer, with the solitary exception of Shakespeare, is more frequently quoted ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... when there came a gentle bump upon Gadabout's guard and the rattle of a chain upon her cleat, we went out to see what the supply boat had brought. As soon as we heard the troubled sputtering, "An' I mos' give up gittin' anything," we knew that the little shore-boat was a nautical horn of plenty. And so she proved as her cargo came aboard to an accompaniment of ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... she glide?" Johnny shouted above the sputtering cough of the motor. But Bland only shook his head slowly from right to left and back again. Bland's ears were a waxy white now, and the line of his jaw had sharpened. Johnny believed that ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... but did not seem to be approaching us. It was a long weary wait, we were cold, wet, hungry, and tired; F., the cause of our misfortunes, had taken off his saddle, and with it for a pillow was now fast asleep. H. and I cowered over the miserable sputtering flame, and longed and wished for the morning. It was a miserable night, the hours seemed interminable, the dense volumes of smoke from the water-sodden wood nearly choked us. At last, after some hours ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... group of willows. They came down gently, bouncing toward the willows as though they meant to drive up to the very doorway of the nearest hut. As they came on, their great wings out-spread rigidly, the propeller whirring at slackened speed, the motor sputtering unevenly, the doorway spewed forth three fat squaws and some naked papooses who fled shrieking into the brush ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Formerly a mechanician, afterwards a gendarme, he had gained quick promotion under the Czar's regime. He was always nervously jerking and wriggling his body and talking ceaselessly, making most unattractive sounds in his throat and sputtering with saliva all over his lips, his whole face often contracted with spasms. He was mad and Baron Ungern twice appointed a commission of surgeons to examine him and ordered him to rest in the hope he could rid the man of his evil genius. Undoubtedly Sepailoff was a sadist. I heard afterwards ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... hair singed close to his head, his face and hands seared and his clothing soaked, smoking, and a general wreck, was striving to evade his handlers and stand attention to the colonel, who for his part was bending over Bob Lanier just emerging from his third involuntary plunge in the drifts, and sputtering objurgations ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... in which all things looked much more charming than they really were. And Don Loris, reduced to peevish sputtering by pure mystery, summoned Thal to him. It should be remembered that Don Loris knew nothing of the disappearance of the spaceboat from his neighbor's land. He knew nothing of Thal's journey with Hoddan. But ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Siege; shipped to the Rock to make stand there; and would have done so with the boldest,—only he got into duel (hot-tempered, though of lamb-like innocence), and was run through the body; not entirely killed, but within a hair's breadth of it; and unable for service while this sputtering went on. Little Lorry is still living; gone to school in Yorkshire, after pranks enough, and misventures,—half-drowning 'in the mill-race at Annamoe in Ireland,' for one. [Laurence Sterne's Autobiography (cited above).] The poor Lieutenant ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a new man; I am a new man!" he exclaimed. Then he glanced at the pitiful figure, maundering and sputtering across the way. "I am going home," he went on, "and will put father to bed and nurse him and take care of him just as if—well, just as ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... scatters them scalded and half-digested at your feet. So irritated has the poor thing's stomach become by the discipline it has undergone, that even long after all the foreign matter has been thrown off, it goes on retching and sputtering, until at last nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... The sputtering was not yet loud enough for the warriors on the bank to hear it, and he ventured to rise high enough for another look over the edge of the canoe. In two minutes, he calculated, the fire would reach the powder horn. Then he drew from his belt his hunting knife, ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... need for a second shell, for the sputtering rifle-fire ceased as if by magic, the Boers retiring, leaving the colonel's force at liberty to go on at leisure strengthening the emplacement of the enemy's heavy Creusot gun, and forming a magazine for the ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... stone-bramble, or the rasp. "Hang it!" I once heard a countryman exclaim, on helping himself at table to a spoonful of Caviare, which he had mistaken for a sweet-meat, and instantly, according to Milton, "with sputtering noise rejected,"—"Hang it for nasty stuff!—I took it for ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... behind the bar, and a hissing vessel of hot water ready, to make punch, and three or four loggerheads (long irons clubbed at the end) were always lying in the fire in the cold season, waiting to be plunged into sputtering and foaming mugs of flip,—-a goodly compound, speaking according to the flesh, made with beer and sugar, and a certain suspicion of strong waters, over which a little nutmeg being grated, and in it the hot iron being then allowed to sizzle, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... taken completely by surprise, and went sprawling; but the sword did not pitch from his hand. He had received a stiff, shrewd blow, but only a glancing one, for he had twisted his body at the last second. Now, sputtering with wrath, he scrambled to his feet and whipped back his blade for a killing slice ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... destination finally without any mishap. The island was thickly wooded, except for a small clearing where we landed. The first thing we did was to unpack our eatables, and Jack, the cook, soon had an appetizing pan of bacon and eggs sputtering on the ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... I ran to a stand on which stood a basin and a small ewer of water. I filled the basin, and plunged my head into the icy water. I drew it out, sputtering and shivering, and, seizing a towel, gave my head and neck and hair so vigorous a rubbing that I did not see Yorke slip out of the room. When I turned to speak to him I found him gone, afraid either of being a partner in my disobedience to the ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... all suddenly made up your minds to do something. My dear Olivier, you French people have plenty of brains and plenty of good qualities: but you lack blood. You most of all. There's nothing the matter with your mind or your heart. It's your life that's all wrong. You're sputtering out." ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... the lamp, and carried it once more through the ground-floor of the Tower. Save for the dying fires, and the sputtering lamp, everything was dark and still in the spacious house. The storm was dying down in fitful gusts that seemed at intervals to invade the shadowy spaces of the corridor, driving before them the wisps of straw and paper that had been left here and there by the unpacking of ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that, Festing struck the wedge squarely and drove it home with a few heavy blows. Then he fastened the cross-bolt and Charnock filled a ladle with the melted lead. A blue flame flickered about the cavity as he poured in the stuff, there was an angry sputtering, and he afterwards found some holes in his coat. Festing dropped his hammer with a ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... on the vowel, and it should be known that, without right vowel, or tone, formation, efforts at good articulation are futile. Every technical vocal fault must be referred back to the fundamental condition of right formation of tone, that is, the vowel. Sputtering, hissing, biting, snapping, of consonants is not enunciation. The student should learn how without constraint, to prolong vowels; learn, if you please, the fundamentals of singing, and articulation, the formation of consonants, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... none other wouldest thou go unto the feast, neither take meat in the hall, till that I had set thee upon my knees and stayed thee with the savoury morsel cut first for thee, and put the wine-cup to thy lips. Oft hast thou stained the doublet on my breast with sputtering of wine in thy sorry helplessness. Thus I suffered much with thee, and much I toiled, being mindful that the gods in nowise created any issue of my body; but I made thee my son, thou godlike Achilles, that thou mayest ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... tweaking up the glowing shoe in his great pincers, and sweeping a sputtering half-circle in front of the cowering lad. "Droive slow through the cro-owd! What hath youngster here ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... while we scraped out the dirt from under him. At length, after what seemed an age of staring at his legs, the ground caved on him, and he would have smothered if we had not dragged him out by the heels, sputtering and all powdered brown. But there was the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a candle stuck upon a board; it had almost burned itself out, and was sputtering and smoking as Jurgis rushed up the ladder. He could make out dimly in one corner a pallet of rags and old blankets, spread upon the floor; at the foot of it was a crucifix, and near it a priest muttering a prayer. ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Kennedy's eyes followed out the wires quickly. Then, motioning to me to help, he wheeled one of the heavy stands around and adjusted the hood so that the full strength of the light would be cast upon Stella. The arc in place, he threw the switch, and in the sputtering flood of illumination dropped to his knees, taking a powerful pocket lens from his waistcoat and beginning an inch by inch examination ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... a gate for the metal. Pour melted lead into the gate until it is full, then, when cool, shake it out from the sand and remove the charred paper. A file can be used to remove any rough places. The dry paper ball prevents any sputtering of the hot lead. —Contributed by W. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... harshly, bringing his dirty fist down on the other's knee. "Did you ever hear of Frank Pixley weakenin'? Did you ever see the man that said Frank Pixley wasn't game?" He rose to his feet, a ragged and sinister silhouette against the sputtering electric light at the alley mouth. "Didn't you ever hear that Frank Pixley had a barrel of schemes to any other man's bucket o' wind? What's Frank Pixley's repitation, lemme ast you that? I git what I go after, don't I? Now look here, you listen to me," ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... terrace, where the air blew shrewdly: beneath lay cottage roofs, and in front a limitless gloom, which by daylight would have been an extensive northward view, comprising the towns of Bilston and Wolverhampton. It was now a black gulf, without form and void, sputtering fire. Flames that leapt out of nothing, and as suddenly disappeared; tongues of yellow or of crimson, quivering, lambent, seeming to snatch and devour and then fall back in satiety. When a cluster of these fires shot forth together, the sky above became illumined with a broad ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... stood alone, his back turned to the Master. Moonlight still flooded the earth, the lanterns were flickering and sputtering. Some had gone out, leaving gaps of darkness in the lighted walls. Many of the guests retired without bidding farewell to their host; he liked them to feel at their ease, to take "French leave" whenever ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... moment. He waded in quickly up to his waist, and then took an intrepid header. His lithe young legs and arms threw themselves about hither and yon. After a moment or two he got on his feet and made his way back across a yard of fine shingle to the sand itself. He was sputtering and gasping, and the long yellow hair, which usually lay in a flat clean sweep from forehead to occiput, now sprawled in a grotesque pattern ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... until the candles had attained sufficient size, when they were put aside to harden, and then taken off the sticks and put away. It required considerable practical experience to make a smooth candle which would burn evenly; and a sputtering candle was an abomination. The cloth with which the male members of the family were clad, as well as the flannel that made the dresses and underclothing for both, was carded, spun, and often woven at home, as was also the flax ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... suddenly checked their horses, bringing them plunging on their haunches in the dust, and then swung round upon their pursuers, while from every crag and bush at the side of the gorge the concealed riflemen sprang into view—and the sputtering of the machine guns swept the advancing column with ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... wildly overhead, they bravely followed the guide. The long passage was but three feet in width and we wondered why the dragoman had brought us down into its close and gloomy recesses; but when magnesium wires were lit, our wonder turned into admiration, for the sputtering white light revealed on the smooth sidewalls most beautiful reliefs ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... the desolate forlornness of a habitation in which no human being has dwelt for a very long time; there was dust on the mantelpiece, a melancholy sputtering of coal choked with cinders and gasping for breath in the fireplace, stuffy hot clamminess beating about the unopened windows. Along the breadth of the faded brown carpet some fifty cane-bottomed chairs were pressed tightly in rows together, and in front of the window, facing the chairs, was a little ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... frame. But at last, tired nature asserts her supremacy, and they sleep. Sleep soundly, for a couple of hours; when the bonfire, having reached the point of disintegration, suddenly collapses with a sputtering and crackling that brings them to their head's antipodes, and four dazed, sleepy faces look out with a bewildered air, to see what has caused the rumpus. All take a hand in putting the brands together and rearranging the ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... sought the shelter of their hut, which still stood unhurt; but the fir branches of the floor were soaked with water, for a wave or two had risen above the ledge of the door. After much difficulty, with the aid of a candle, the Esquimaux lamp was lighted, and after much sputtering, the six wicks diffused their cheering light and grateful warmth through the hut. Then Peter, with his axe, cut a gutter through the doorway, letting off the standing water, and in the course of an hour ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... that now presented. Poor, silly Fayette, looking more foolish and grotesque than ever, climbing upwards into the daylight, blinking and sputtering, his back against the stones of one side the shaft, his feet against the other, his hands clutching, pulling; both feet and hands almost prehensile, like the creature's to which Cleena had likened him, yet safe, unbruised, and only mud-splashed ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... the foolish creature thought he could frighten me, for he kept right on scolding and sputtering until I got my paw on his neck, and of course that settled him. I left him a good deal worse off than Mrs. Lioness did Mr. Rat, when she wanted to ...
— Mouser Cats' Story • Amy Prentice
... sheltering the sputtering blaze with one hand. The light illuminated his face for an instant, and then went out, leaving the night blacker ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... seemed to have preceded them by a few seconds; she was standing in front of the desk sputtering incoherently. Mallin, starting to rise from his chair, froze, hunched forward over the desk. Juan Jimenez, standing in the middle of the room, seemed to have seen them first; he was looking about wildly as though for some way ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... into a deep pool at its foot, the Doctor's boat struck a snag, and he, having a resisting power equal to that of a billiard-ball, put his heels where his head had been, and disappeared under the water, to pop up again instantly, sputtering and spitting, like a jug full of yeast ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... velvet binding, with illustrations by Darley, and with favorable notices in all the newspapers. I should cut a fine figure, metaphorically, if not arithmetically speaking; whereas my farthing rush-light is now sputtering, clinkering, and guttering to waste, and all because I have not a pair of silver snuffers. If you wish me to move the world, produce your lever! Your wealthy bard has at least audience; and if he cannot sing, he may thank his own hoarse ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... going to the bathroom in our home one day to draw some water. But none came. There were a few drops, and some sputtering—there's very apt to be sputtering when there is nothing else—but no flow of water. And I wondered why. Soon I found that the main pipe in the street was being fixed, and the water had been cut off at the curb. There was water in the pipe clear from the curbstone up to the spigot, but I ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... a half stupor, he was not aware of the man sitting alone in the booth until his mop spattered the ankle of one of the drinking girls. She struck him sharply across the face with a sputtering curse ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... opened the door of her little room she drew back astonished at the sight that presented itself. A brisk fire was roaring in the stove, and the tea-kettle was sputtering and sending out clouds of steam. A table with a white cloth on it was drawn out before the fire, and a new tea set of pure white cups and saucers, with teapot, sugar-bowl, and creamer, complete, gave a festive air to the whole. There were bread, and butter, and ham-sandwiches, ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a medley of sound: wailing music, rumbling tom-toms and sputtering firecrackers. She had never before heard the noise of firecrackers, and in the beginning the sputtering racket caused her to wince. Presently the odour of burnt powder mingled agreeably ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... top swung earthward, Raoul jumped clear of the crashing branches and landed safely in the feather-bed of snow, buried up to his neck. Nothing was to be seen of him but his head, like some new kind of fire-work—sputtering bad words. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... "pine-knots"—and both were standing by it, smoking all over in their wet leggings. They had got nearly dry when Norman returned, and they proceeded to assist in butchering the antelope. The skin was whipped off in a trice; and the venison, cut into steaks and ribs, was soon spitted and sputtering cheerily in the blaze of the pine-knots. Everything looked pleasant and promising, and it only wanted the presence of Basil to make them all feel quite happy again. Basil, however, did not make his appearance; and as they were all as hungry as wolves, they could not wait for him, but set upon ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid |
