"Wobbly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dignity and defiance. Shaw's heart was touched. The spectacle was enough to melt the prejudice of any adversary. Lord Cecil's knees trembled; his hand shook as if in a chill. Mud-covered, water-soaked, and bruised, their clothes rent in many places, their hats gone and their hair matted, their legs wobbly, the trio certainly inspired ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... to be a princess, comes out of a wobbly thing that we agree to pretend is a castle; and old man Johnson, pretending to be a pirate, is pushed up and down on another wobbly thing that we agree to pretend is the ocean. Mrs. Johnson pretends ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... Dr. Blythe put his foot down and said a thing must be, that thing was. Rilla set her teeth and went ahead. In the name of goodness, how many wrinkles and kinks did a baby have? Why, there wasn't enough of it to take hold of. Oh, suppose she let it slip into the water—it was so wobbly! If it would only stop howling like that! How could such a tiny morsel make such an enormous noise. Its shrieks could be heard over Ingleside from ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... said Major Kingman, in his deep voice, that united the Southern drawl with the rhythmic twang of the West; "We will go over them together. Nobody in the bank knows those notes as I do. Some of 'em are a little wobbly on their legs, and some are mavericks without extra many brands on their backs, but they'll most all ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... it—talk the thing over with me again," she ended rather vaguely and wistfully; for it had been her heart's desire to wed Sylvia's beauty and Quarrier's fortune, and the suitability of the one for the other was apparent enough to make even sterner moralists wobbly in their creed. Quarrier, as a detail of modern human architecture, she supposed might fit in somewhere, and took that for granted in laying the corner stone for her fairy palace which Sylvia was to inhabit. And now!—oh, vexation!—the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... to the fish-houses and flakes that crop out like queer mushrooms on stilts all over the edges of the cove, and it was a shaky damsel who shuddered over the passing of a wobbly plank. The crew of two waited below in the boat, and smiled encouragingly, so that I had to try and show more bravery than I really felt. I had no desire to intrude among the squids; one sees them dimly through the clear water and they impress one, as they move about, ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... explained, "shows the difference between the alpha, beta, and gamma rays. You see those weak and wobbly rays that seem to fall to one side? Those are the alpha rays. They have a strong action, though, on tissues and cells. Those falling in the other direction are the beta rays. The gamma rays ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... in bone and animal matter; close confinement; lack of exercise; over-heating in brooders. Symptoms: Chicks walk in a wobbly, weak-kneed fashion, often resting or hobbling along on the joints. Treatment: Feed young chicks on Pratts Baby Chick Food. Give fair amount of beef or fish scrap and bone meal. Afford opportunity for exercise, especially on the ground. ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... heavens. That is to say, the sun, which is the timekeeper for men, doesn't run on time. When I discovered this, I fell into deep gloom and all the Cosmos was filled with doubt. Immutable laws, such as gravitation and the conservation of energy, became wobbly, and I was prepared to witness their violation at any moment and to remain unastonished. For see, if the compass lied and the sun did not keep its engagements, why should not objects lose their ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... faced his five cards. They were all black. He had drawn two more clubs. Do you know, he just about broke Schultz's nerve as a poker player. He never played in the same form again. He lacked confidence after that, and was a bit wobbly." ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... gloom. He did not know that his own eyes, popping half out of his head, were equally terrifying in that pit of silence, nor that from him emanated a still more terrifying thing—the scent of dog. He trembled on his wobbly legs as the green eyes stared at him, and his back seemed to break in the middle, so that he sank helplessly down upon the soft spruce needles, waiting for his doom. In another flash the twin balls of green fire were gone. In a moment ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... He ran in a wobbly fashion, as though utterly fatigued, a fact that was apparent to everyone. They could hear the far-off howls of those who had waited up the track to welcome the runners. A crowd followed his progress, ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... to stop beating as she saw the wobbly little boat careen with the laughing baby leaning far over the edge. She knew she must not alarm the child and so in a desperate endeavour to speak naturally, she called out, "Sit up straight, baby; see how straight ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... native grimaces and a waste of tribal vocabulary, to have a satisfying breakfast ready in half an hour. Then Godwin drew Major Ross and Ned to one side, his good-natured face assuming a grave expression as he seated them in a private room of the rambling and wobbly old house. ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... out of this wobbly thing; I want to lie on my own bed." The walking-doctor promptly lifted her in his arms like a little child and deposited her on one of the cots. Her hands were cold, and he covered her with a Roman blanket that lay on the foot of the bed. ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... on the island watched with deep interest while Mackenzie launched his shallop, clambered in, and seizing the clothes-prop from Cook, pushed off cautiously. His craft was very low in the water and looked particularly wobbly, and they were terribly afraid it would upset. In spite of their anxiety they could not help seeing the humorous side of the episode, and they choked with laughter as the tub gyrated and bobbed about, and the old man clutched frantically at his pole. He made first of all for the floating ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... like a russet pippin apple, about sixty-five years old, but made of iron. He was going to marry a third wife, and six young women had already come up from S. Ambrogio to be looked at. I saw one of them. She was a Visigoth-looking sort of person and wore a large wobbly-brimmed straw hat; she was about forty, and gave me the impression of being familiar with labour of all kinds. He pressed me to give my opinion of her, but I sneaked out of it by declaring that I must see a good deal more of the lady than ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... stronger ev'ry day. This mornin' he walked to the bridge an' back, but he was ruther wobbly on his legs. Ma said she wouldn't have left him, just now, if she wasn't ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... in a pitiful ululation. He fell forward from the chair, asprawl on wobbly hands and knees, on elbows and knees as he tried to press away the torrent of agony that hammered back and forth from temple to temple. James watched Brennan with cold detachment, Professor White and Jack Cowling looked on in paralyzed horror. Slowly, oh, so slowly, Paul Brennan managed ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Lemage triumphantly, "no 'a'! Of all the stupid pigs I am he. But I had not given you the credit of such nerve, M. Rohscheimer. I had forgotten how once you lived the rough life in South Africa. It is so? I did not think you had the courage to write—though wobbly—those lying words in presence of the dead Gottschalk. Why did you do it, you bad, foolish fellow? The yataghan already was stuck in the desk, eh? That Legun is a fury when the blood thirst is upon him, when the big vein throb. And you saw the blank ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... old times' sake, with dinner at the Belvedere and a jaunt later to River View, Electric Park or the Suburban, Daniel's demur that he already had an engagement was a very weak one indeed. It was, in fact, such a wobbly little demur that one more word from Tom and he had promised to call up and break the date. He did not mention that it was with Jennie, for Jennie had come into Daniel's life after Tom had ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... you?" Penny gave him a wobbly smile in which, however, there was no reproof. "I think I can go on now—. Where ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... Jim worked upon it, the stone began to sag. An edge caught upon the adjacent flagging. The two men, perched upon the wobbly bricks, manipulated the stone, working it loose, until, finally, it ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... and by he awoke with a start, and he was very wide awake indeed. Something had wakened him, though just what it was he couldn't say. His long ears stood straight up as he listened with all his might for some little sound which might mean danger. His wobbly little nose wobbled very fast indeed as it tested the air for the scent of a possible enemy. Very alert was ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... walks most of the time," said Lil Artha; "he wobbles even worse than Landy here, which goes to show he's getting pretty tuckered out. Can you blame the poor fellow when p'raps he's weak from hunger? If any of us had to go without a bite to eat all day we'd get wobbly on our ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... wounded," the lieutenant observed to a man near him; to which the other replied, "Yes, he does seem wobbly, ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... the same afternoon studying some scratched hieroglyphics on the gravel in front of the house. It was quite an elaborate design with squares and circles and curving lines, and with a wobbly streak running through it. And that evening she announced once and for all that the house was bewitched and she gave it up. She had found a loofah, two sponges and some cakes of soap elaborately arranged in a pattern on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... glorious crown, the unfading beauty of her womanhood? She was hardly a month old, yet she seemed to understand—Mammy Lou said she did-that she must look her "beau'fulest"; so when her father came and bent over her little crib, she smiled, then coyly ducked her wobbly head, to smile again at Mother, the dear mother who only to-day had been allowed by the doctor to sit up for an hour. Mammy Lou must have been right, for there Baby lay playing with her fingers and the disappointed pink ribbons of her booties, while, ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... badinage was silenced in the York-boat behind us. On board the Primrose the mate sleeps, and Captain Prothero has the wheel. I creep along the wobbly gunwale to sit out a four hours' watch with him. "I never saw any one navigate as you do, captain, you seem to have ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... smell of wet, healthy puppies? Nothing is more agreeable. You are cold-blooded: I don't believe you are fond of puppies. Think of their wobbly black noses. Consider how pink is the little cleft between their toes and the main cushion of their feet. Their ears are like silk. Inside their upper jaws are parallel black ridges, most remarkable. I never realized before how beautifully and ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... hammer!" cried Hilda, as Patty was about to nail some branches of paper roses on to a wobbly green arbour. "Patty Fairfield, are you crazy? The idea of attempting carpenter work with that delicate frock on! Do for pity's sake keep yourself decent until after you've ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... idea of how to proceed. The first three slices came off readily enough, though they were somewhat ragged, and Irving was aware that Westby was surveying his operations with a critical interest. The knife seemed to grow more dull, the meat more wobbly, more tough, the bone got more and more in the way; the maid who was passing the vegetables was waiting, all the boys except the three who had been helped first were waiting, coldly critical, anxiously apprehensive; silence at this table ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... gone, she picked up the shining weapon and gingerly dropped it out on the adjoining roof. Then her knees felt suddenly wobbly, and she sat down. What if she had been a minute later and Mr. Snawdor had pulled the trigger? She shivered as her quick imagination pictured the scene. If Mr. Snawdor felt like that about it, there was but one thing to do; to get ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... through the inner workings of the skeleton. I had the sensation that it was dropping away from under my feet, and that as I dangled above it like a wobbly little balloon my head had been left behind somewhere near the top. But I didn't leave my heart behind in ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... it, fellows?" asked Owen, more to find out how the others felt than because his faith was becoming wobbly. ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... or even start; so she must have known, all along, that I was headed her way. She went on making a lot of marks that didn't seem to fit anywhere, and that seemed to me a bit wobbly and uncertain. I caught just the least hint of a smile twitching the corner of her mouth—I wanted awfully to ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... I fancy," answered Amy. "I hate undecided things. I like either a cheerful downpour or else sunshine. I think wobbly weather is as bad as wobbly ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... the day, and Mrs. Rose invited a girl-cousin down for the afternoon; and to do honour to her, I imagine, she had provided a sumptuous tea, including shrimps and one of those wobbly white things that ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... someone else would have done it sooner or later. At that the man had taught me something about sewer gas and that is when you begin to feel dizzy fifty feet below the street, it's time to go up the ladder about as fast as your wobbly legs will let you, even if ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... tightly to his pumpkin head, was running as fast as his wooden feet and wobbly legs would take him from Dorothy. A game of blind-man's-buff was in full swing, and Scraps and Tik-Tok, the Scarecrow and Nick Chopper, the Glass Cat and the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard of Oz and the wooden Sawhorse, Cap'n Bill and Betsy Bobbin, Billina and the Hungry Tiger were ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... a rival courtier came— A dashing dapper Lieut. R.N.; And, as this paragon pressed his claim, Oh, what could William hope for then? How could a wobbly-braided swain Vie with the actual Royal Navy, Whose stripes were half as broad again And straight, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... knew what he was about, she gave up trying to deceive him and let him lead off the horse he wanted. So the Prince walked away dragging the poor mangy creature after him. When he was out of sight of the Old Woman's house, he turned to the horse and began rubbing down his rough coat and patting his wobbly legs. ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... of her to work up all this mystery about herself. No doubt she is a wobbly old fatty, instead of the ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... and people found them very refreshing. A fleet of Zeppelins found, on approaching the mouth of the Thames, a very warm reception. Powerful searchlights, and shells from new anti-aircraft guns, played all round them. At length a shot got home. One of the Zeppelins, "winged" by a shell, began a wobbly retreat which ended in the waters of the estuary. The navy finished the business. The wrecked air-ship was quickly surrounded by a little fleet of destroyers and patrol-boats, and the crew were brought ashore, prisoners. That same night yet another Zeppelin was hit ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... the Art Galleries a few minutes later, Archie was glad of the moral support of even such a wobbly reed as Reggie van Tuyl. There is something about an auction room which weighs heavily upon the novice. The hushed interior was bathed in a dim, religious light; and the congregation, seated on small wooden chairs, gazed in reverent silence at the pulpit, ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... advance guard, panic-stricken, suddenly disappeared—officers, men, and savages—leaving twenty-one wagon loads of rich spoil. This heroic deed was a part of Willett's stock in trade, and, although he was wobbly in his politics, the people could not forget his courage and good judgment in war. But Willett's influence was confined to the wards of a city. The rural counties believed in New York's mayor rather ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... p'lite. He were a leetle runt of a sergeant. I jest laughed at him an' went to t' other feller an' took the papers out o' his pockets. I see then a number o' British boys was makin' fer me on the wobbly top o' the river. They'd see me goin' as easy as a hoss on a turnpike an' they was tryin' fer to git the knack o' it. In a minute they begun poppin' at me. But shootin' on logs is like tryin' to ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... a kind of wobbly wave That she was standing on, And high aloft she flung a scarf That must have weighed a ton; And she was rather tall—at least She reached ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... forgotten me, Mr. Pawson, but I have not forgotten you—my name is Rutter. I lived here with Mr. Temple before I went to sea, three years ago. I am just home—I left the ship an hour ago. I'll sit down if you don't mind—I've still got my sea-legs on and am a little wobbly." ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... people become contemptuous of danger. The horses that were tethered by the roadside seemed to take it all as a matter of course, and munched away at their hay, as though all the world were at peace. A wobbly cart came creaking by with an infantryman, who had had a good part of his face shot away. He had been bandaged after a fashion and sat up blinking at us stupidly as the cart lumbered by, bumping into holes and ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... of her, are you? You never seemed so before. I thought—I thought you and she were rather good friends." There was a vague tinge of sarcasm in her words and tone but like a wobbly legged pup trying to catch a butterfly he mentally leaped at this offering and began cudgeling his memory in quest of women who ran chocolate shops. Could it be that she was the daughter of the widow Haynes who owned the Bon-Ton in Detroit? Impossible! The widow was ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... feelings about his rough bunk filled with cedar boughs and his pine table as he had about this iron bed, with its scratched enamel and tin knobs, which deceived nobody into thinking them brass, or the wobbly dresser that he swore at heartily each time he turned back a fingernail trying to ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... I s'pose I'd better go back," sighed the wobbly animal with the long tusks. "I'll see you again, Uncle Wiggily." So the elephant said good-bye to the rabbit, and went back to the circus with the man, while the rabbit gentleman hopped ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... of a "wobbly" sort of person: "That fellow is no use, you can't depend on him." We say of a person whose ideas, intentions, and methods are subject to continual variations under all sorts of outside influences, whether of opinions or circumstances, that he has "no backbone," ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... stifle, a sense of humor mocking, but good-tempered. She wears a man's cap, double-breasted man's jacket, and a grimy, calico skirt. Her bare feet are encased in a man's brogans several sizes too large for her, which gives her a shuffling, wobbly gait.] ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... and Lucy who still wore her fairy dress, packed with all their belongings on the top of a very large and wobbly camel, and being led out of the city by the usual procession, with seven bands of music all playing 'See the Conquering Hero goes,' quite a different tune from the one you know, which has a ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... looks awfully old," she said abruptly, pausing before a square high Dutch affair with a ridiculous picture of Mount Vernon, wobbly-columned, let in at ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... boats," moored a mile or two below the business part of Canton's foreshore, are the antithesis of the sampans, for they cater to a pleasure-loving class, to men and women possessing wobbly morals, who love good dinners and suppers and a game of fan-tan without too much publicity, with singing and dancing as adjuncts. In build these craft are like the house-boats of the Thames, and the custom of tricking them out with flowering plants suggests the scene ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... rather wobbly?" said Nancy. "I thought pea-sticks wouldn't be strong enough, but Andrew wouldn't ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... disappointment when she said regretfully, "I hadn't an idea they looked like that to start with. I thought they'd be fluffy and cute, like the chickens on Easter cards." Peggy, who had herself found the appearance of the wobbly, shrill-voiced mites a distinct shock, said bravely that they would undoubtedly be prettier when ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... steady as a rock!" affirmed the one who carried the flashlight; but it must have been a very wobbly rock then, if his bodily condition corresponded with the decided quaver ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... dear," concluded Straws, "those feet are pretty wobbly to walk, but flattery moves on lame legs faster than truth will travel on two good ones. Besides, I haven't time to polish them properly, or the mess in the frying-pan will spoil. Better spoil the poem than the contents of the flesh pots! Now if—dear ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... that he was very tired, and that his legs were weak and wobbly. Stubs and sticks protruded everywhere; stones rolled from under his feet. Once on a steep shale, he fell and rolled ten feet out of sheer weariness. In addition he was again very thirsty, and his canteen empty. A chill gray of dawn was abroad; the smell of stale burning ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... man was a very seedy-looking individual. An old faded overcoat hung about his thin figure, and a torn and dusty hat fell over his left eye. He seemed also to be much the worse for liquor and very wobbly on his feet. And yet he seemed anxious to hurry onward in spite of the unevenness of ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... for conceit! I will be the first to undergo the ordeal!" cried Glogowski, and with brimming glass, already a bit wobbly on his ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... an enormous hanging stone perched on the edge of a volcano's crater—the highest summit in the whole island. Although it was very far below us, we could see it quite plainly, and it looked wobbly enough to be pushed off its perch with the hand. There was a legend among the people, they said, that when the greatest of all Popsipetel kings should be crowned in the ivory chair, this hanging stone would tumble into the volcano's mouth and go ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting |
