"Bungled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attraction apparently lay in being one of the few males of her acquaintance whom Sara did not find it fatally easy to bring to heel. Anyhow, after marriage she quickly grew bored to death of him; so much so that it required an attempt (badly bungled) by another woman to get Euan to elope with her, and a providential collapse of the very unwilling Lothario, to bring about that happy ending that my experience of kind Mr. NORRIS has taught me to expect. I may add that he has never done anything more quietly entertaining than the frustrated ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... Fletcher would make no changes, and that they were free to remain on if they thought proper. Mike approved of this arrangement—it saved him from a task of finding new servants, a task which he would have bungled sadly, and which he would have had to attempt, for he had decided to enjoy all the pleasures of a country place, and to act the country gentleman until he wearied of the part. Life is but a farce, and the more different parts you play in that farce the more you enjoy. Here was a new farce—he the ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... is Professor Schillingschen," he answered, still without getting up. There was no other chair near the awning, so I had to remain standing. I told him my name, hoping that Hassan had either not done so already, or else that he might have so bungled the pronunciation as to make it unrecognizable. I detected no sign of recognition ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the packing room of the flour mill with the master's eye, he was in the cooperage, the center of a group round one of the hooping machines. It had got out of gear, and the workman had bungled in shutting off power; the result was chaos that threatened to stop the whole department for the rest of the day. Ranger brushed away the wrangling tinkerers and examined the machine. After grasping the problem in all its details, he threw himself flat upon his face, crawled under ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... other schemes which might be suggested; on the contrary, he distinctly stated his approval of the scheme developed in the bill introduced by Senator Davis and passed by Congress. Reconstruction, as it was actually conducted later on, was wretchedly bungled, and was marked chiefly by bitterness in disputation and by clumsiness in practical arrangements, which culminated in that miserable disgrace known as the regime of the "carpet-baggers." How far Lincoln would have succeeded in saving the country from these humiliating ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... hat, puffing out the big bow under her chin, smoothing her hair from the flying strings. Lucy's eyes were dancing, her face turned toward Bart's, her pretty lips near his own. There was a knot or a twist, or a collection of knots and twists, or perhaps Bart's fingers bungled, for minutes passed before the hat could be fastened to suit either of them. Martha's head had all this time been thrust out of the easement, her gaze apparently fixed on a birdcage hung from a hook near ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... niggers, and go by de tool shed and git our hoes, or maybe go hitch up de mules to de plows and lay de plows out on de side so de overseer can see iffen de points is shart. Any plow gits broke or de point gits bungled up on de rocks it goes to de blacksmith nigger, den we all git on ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... said, "I don't know whither this pretence of yours is designed to lead you, but I know well whither it will lead myself— namely, with this hoe of mine, to complete the work which I bungled in Florence. And to the achievement of that I shall instantly proceed, unless you get up from your polluted knees and tell me your real and present business with ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... deliberating in every possible way how to avoid suspicious management and faulty performance: consequently, the forgery is anything but plain and palpable; nay, it is wonderfully obscure and monstrously difficult: nevertheless, like all forged documents, it is bungled—ay, in spite of the pains taken to keep free from bad and blundering work, it is, occasionally (as will be seen in the present book, from this point until the close), ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Ross. So utterly helpless was the Democratic Administration at Washington, that during the two years of warfare hardly any steps had been taken to protect the Capitol, or the country round about; what little was done, was done entirely too late, and bungled badly in addition. History has not yet done justice to the ludicrous and painful folly and stupidity of which the government founded by Jefferson, and carried on by Madison, was guilty, both in its preparations for, and in its way of carrying ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Marian," said Lord Humphrey, "and because I mean to be less unworthy of Marian than I have been heretofore. So that I can no longer be your spy. Besides, in nature I lack aptitude for the trade. Eh, my Lord Duke, have you already forgotten how I bungled the affair of ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... lying on his back and apparently addressing the ceiling, "twice I have given this young man invaluable assistance, and each time he has bungled." ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... I myself have had my doubts, now and then, I may tell you. The horrible doubt that I may have bungled my life for the ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... and look once more, while the old gentleman, still benevolent, said, "Yer langwidge means pleasanter than it sounds, kid." He glanced at the boy's holster, and knew he need not keep a very sharp watch as to that. Its owner had bungled over it once already. All the old gentleman did was to place himself next the boy on the off side from the holster; any move the tenderfoot's hand might make for it would be green and unskilful, and easily anticipated. The company lined up along the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... smile. He even lost color with wrath. "Garvey has dared to play you some trick!—I did not dream—" he went on, eagerly, "Garvey kept the letters in his hands, and bungled over the name, so I did not once fairly ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... received him with a half-concealed frown. The countess bridled and looked at her daughter with obvious maternal meaning, as one who was saying, "There—you bungled your prince, but I have procured you ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... which are only permissible to the very highest rank of new wealth. Lucille, as I learnt from Monsieur Alphonse later—indeed, our friendship was based on the patience with which I listened to his talk of that young lady—was dressed on this particular afternoon in white, but such matters as these bungled between two men will interest no one. Her hair she wore half in curls, according to the hideous custom of that day. Is it not always safe to abuse the old fashion? And at no time safer than the present, when the whole world ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... "It's I who bungled, the other day, when I suggested your giving Mrs Polsue a duplicate list of the names and addresses. I thought it would please her and save you half the secretarial labour; and now it appears that you like ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... trained to the business, it's fearfully hard to slip your hand deftly into some one else's pocket. Margery bungled, and Janet, impatient at her slowness, loosened slightly her own hold. On the instant, Willie Jones wrenched one arm free, dived into his pocket, and before his captors knew what he was about had pulled up the nickel and popped it into ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... Henry Peters was a Prince, and a Knight, and a Lover, and a Sweetheart, and her Man; she had just agreed to all this with her soul, less than an hour ago under the red haw. No wonder she was late, no wonder she spilled and smeared; and red of face she blundered and bungled, for the first time in her life. Then in came Kate. She must lose no time, the corn must be finished before it rained. She must hurry—for the first time dinner was late, while Polly was messing like ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... stumbled on deck in the foggy dawn, the dim island five miles off seemed only dawning too, a shapeless thing, half-formed out of chaos, as if the leagues of gray ocean had grown weary of their eternal loneliness, and bungled into something like land at last. The phrase "making land" at once became the simple and necessary expression; we had come upon the very process itself. Nearer still, the cliffs five hundred feet in height, and the bare conical hills of the interior, divided everywhere by cane-hedges ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... the stables for a saddle and bridle, entering the harness room a little nervously, but relieved on finding no men about. Returning, he caught Bobs—who stood like the gentleman he was—and brought him outside, where his unaccustomed fingers bungled a little with the saddle. The one he had chosen in his haste had a breastplate, but this he could not manage at all; and at last he managed to get the bewildering array of straps off, and hang it over the fence. He buckled on a pair of spurs he had found in the harness room. Then he ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Ulyth, laying her hand on the arm of her too partial friend. "My pendant has a defect in it. I bungled, and couldn't ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... truth, the guilty ones at Centralia deliberately framed up evidence to save themselves from blame—to throw the responsibility for the Armistice Day horror onto other men. But they bungled the frame-up badly. No bolder nor cruder fabrication has ever been attempted than the ridiculous effort to fasten the killing of Warren Grimm ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... brings and the injury to the firm and to Mr. Eggleston, for I don't forget he's my partner. I didn't think it would end in ruin. I bungled it badly, maybe." ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... ages she saw his lids flicker almost imperceptibly and then, when anxiety had taken a heavy toll, his eyes looked up in uncomprehending life. Conscience bent her face close to his and there was breath on his lips and nostrils. Eben had been a Machiavelli in spirit only. In effect he had bungled. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... the hall in no pleasant frame of mind. The whole affair had been bungled by his stupidity. He passed through the door which Hartmann presently opened at the end of the hall, and found himself in a long narrow passage, lit by a single electric lamp. Hartmann closed the door carefully behind him, and ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... myself over in the Peninsula, but not having had any advice I guess I bungled the job somewhat. Anyhow, they said down in St. Louis, where I sent my bunch, that they were misfits, and I suppose it must have been so, if a fellow was to judge from the size of the check they sent on. Since ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... experience enough to warrant my trusting so important a matter to you," answered the showman, knowing how serious a bungled act might be, and how it would be likely to weaken ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... insisted on going over and speaking to the lady, in hopes she could help him out of the difficulty. I suppose he bungled it; he only wanted to ask her if she'd seen a cook here, who had an appointment to go out of town with a gentleman. I'd been joking him about it, and he thought he must do something; and I fancy he made a mess of it. He was a good deal worked up. Ha, ha, ha! Ah, ha, ...
— The Albany Depot - A Farce • W. D. Howells
... of the inviolability of American ships on the high seas; but the Admiralty maintained that some of these men are officers in the German Army and are now receiving officers' pay. I think that that is probably true. Nevertheless, the Admiralty had bungled the case badly and Sir Edward simply rode over them. They have a fine quarrel among themselves and we got all we ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... dignity that he should take in their cards at once. Others sought to ingratiate themselves by smiles of tender friendliness. He for his part employed what we would have called his knowledge of men and women upon the group, and in consequence blundered and bungled vividly, freezing with a glance an annoyed and importunate Arctic explorer who was come to talk of illustrations for an article that had been lavishly paid for in advance. The hero might have thought he was again in the northern seas. At the next moment the boy was treating almost courteously ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... outsider can,—even if I was silly enough to let my scow run into a reef to-night, that wasn't here in my day. They sent me to take charge of the job and to straighten out its mixups and to try to win where the others had bungled. I was doing it, too,—and it would have been a big feather in my cap, at Washington, when my good sense went to pieces on a reef named Claire Standish,—a reef I hadn't counted on, any more than I counted on the reef that stove in my ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... realized that their exclusive control of taxation and legislation was not inconsistent with Imperial Union, but essential to it. Grattan and his Irish friends, ignorant of the true solution, honestly thought, in the intoxication of the moment, that they had solved the problem so disastrously bungled for America. The facts of ethnology and geography seemed to have been recognized. Ireland and England, united by a Crown which both reverenced, stood together, like Britain and the Dominions of to-day, as sister nations, with the old ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... know what I ever bungled," cried Morris; "I have the best collection of signet rings ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have bungled our lives, made grave mistakes, it's better to abide by them courageously than defy—well, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... information according to the best methods at its disposal, in order to make up something like a satisfactory answer. In old times the best methods which philosophy had at its disposal for this purpose were such as now seem very crude, and accordingly ancient philosophers bungled considerably in their task, though now and then they came surprisingly near what would to-day be called the truth. It was natural that their methods should be crude, for scientific inquiry had as yet supplied but scanty ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... illustrate, the author has known the game of Three Deep, which is one of the best gymnasium games for men, to be played with great interest and ability by a class of six-year-old boys; and the same game stupidly and uninterestedly bungled over by a class of much older boys who had not had previous training in games and were not alert and resourceful. Similarly, the comparatively simple game of Bombardment may be interesting and refreshing for a class of tired business men, while high-school pupils coming to care ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... soil, that of the lowest orders, the underworld of the ancient world, and began seeking power among barbarian peoples, it no longer had to deal with exhausted men, but with men still inwardly savage and capable of self-torture—in brief, strong men, but bungled men. Here, unlike in the case of the Buddhists, the cause of discontent with self, suffering through self, is not merely a general sensitiveness and susceptibility to pain, but, on the contrary, an inordinate thirst for inflicting pain ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... and "salt" "A test-tube of H2O" and "a cup of cold water" "A pair of brogans" and "a little empty shoe" "Bump" and "collide" "A brilliant fellow" and "a flashy fellow" "Bungled it" and "did not succeed" "Tumble" and "fall" "Dawn" and "6 A.M." "Licked" and "worsted" "Fat" and "plump" "Wept" and "blubbered" "Cheek" and "self-assurance" "Stinks" and "disagreeable odors" "Steal" and "embezzle" "Thievishness" and "kleptomania" "Educated" and "highbrow" "Job" and "Position" ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... selected for the feat on the strength of his having the right of entry to the Fifth Avenue house, for John Bannister was still obeying his doctor's orders and taking his daily spell of exercise with the pugilist—and Steve bungled it hopelessly. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... disposal of the rugs, for the moment you had left a very handsome young lady came along, and, looking at me, said, with such a pleasant smile, 'Why, what a pretty rug you have there; but how the steward has bungled it about you! Let me fix it,' and with that she gave it a touch here and a smooth down there, and the result was really so nice that I hated to go down to breakfast. It is a pity you went away so quickly yesterday morning. You might ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... it, and fastened one end over the nose of the boat. Harris stood in the middle to take it from George and roll it on to me, and I kept by the stern to receive it. It was a long time coming down to me. George did his part all right, but it was new work to Harris, and he bungled it. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... manner bungled the job? Or had he passed it up? He must find out how much the greener knew. The boss guessed that if the other had unearthed the plot, he would ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... proceedings began to grow slow, was directed entirely at the dilatory Three Pointers. They hooted the Three Pointers. They urged them to go home and tuck themselves up in bed. The spectators were mostly Irishmen, and it offended them to see what should have been a spirited fight so grossly bungled. ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... the first attempt, bungled his plans badly. He would not strike at the root of things, Confucius; perhaps retained too much respect for him; perhaps simply did not understand; but at that harmless mutton Marquis Ting who Confucius had successfully ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... The game was at an end, and I had bungled my part of it like any fool. One task remained me—that of meeting Marsac at Grenade and doing justice to the memory of poor Lesperon. What might betide thereafter mattered little. I should be ruined when I had settled with Chatellerault, and Marcel de Saint-Pol, de Bardelys, that brilliant ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... again, still with no result, and then she tried the small latch. Perhaps the man had done some blundering thing when he had been examining it. She remembered hearing several clicks. She turned the handle again and again. There was no key in the keyhole, so he could not have bungled with the key. She was quite aghast at the embarrassment ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in his hands and have bungled it! To have been surprised by that simple strategy, taken off his guard by a feigned collapse! The wily old Turk for all his champagne ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... wretched wife his inefficient clumsiness in the process was—his half smothering, his half stabbing her? That man not to be able to kill that woman outright, with one hand on her throat, or one stroke of his dagger, how tortured he must have been, to have bungled so at his work! ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... all, and then her women friends would send wreaths for the coffin and carriages to the funeral, and would whisper mysteriously together in their boudoirs, and look askance upon the doctor who had attended her. For of course he had bungled shockingly, or everything would have gone off as right as rain for that ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... no friend of Poritol's; nor was it likely that, as protector of the interests of his countrymen, he would go so far as to accompany them on their errands unless much was at stake. Perhaps Poritol was Alcatrante's tool and had bungled some important commission. It occurred to Orme that the secret of the bill might be connected with the negotiation of a big business concession in Alcatrante's country. "S. R. Evans" might be trying to get control of rubber forests or mines—in the Urinaba Mountains, ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... make-believe with him that some passage of a romantic or critical kind had originally occurred. He was really almost reaching out in imagination—as against time—for something that would do, and saying to himself that if it didn't come this sketch of a fresh start would show for quite awkwardly bungled. They would separate, and now for no second or no third chance. They would have tried and not succeeded. Then it was, just at the turn, as he afterwards made it out to himself, that, everything else failing, she herself decided to take up the case and, as it were, save the situation. ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... would allow the matter to end where it stood. Even if she were willing, it was more than certain that Jusseret had not entered into the undertaking without some sufficient end in view. Having entered it, he would not relinquish it because the first attempt had been bungled. ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... manhood, with burning activities and indefatigable powers. But it had found itself without materials for work. Of the scholastic philosophy and the chivalric poetry of the Middle Ages there remained but little that could be utilized: the few bungled formulae, the few half-obsolete rhymes still remaining, were as unintelligible, in their spirit of feudalism and monasticism and mysticism, as were the Angevin English and the monkish Latin in which they were written to these men of the sixteenth century. All the intellectual wealth of ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... true. But then, the point is that you don't know the whole truth, or even half of it. That's just what he couldn't tell you. I should have told you. That's where I bungled it. You know he left it to me; he said I ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... French's first experience of actual warfare was a bitter one. If ever the British Government bungled one of their military enterprises more thoroughly than another, it was the Nile Expedition of 1884-5. What began as a forlorn hope ended in complete failure, and in three short months French experienced the miseries ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... "You bungled, you fool kids!" he said in disgust, "and Huldah, what did you want to let on to mudder for that he thought we was hers? You ought to have torn up the note he left and just said he'd put twenty-five thousand ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... black-blooded, much-condemned husband, or of keeping her own, now that she bore his name. True, her marriage had, probably, made possible her younger sister's exceptional and unhoped-for match. But Michael himself felt that he had sadly bungled a most important affair. Perceiving his wife's uselessness for his purpose, all the little admiration he had ever had for the fragile girl changed speedily into an angry despite. For the moment, he put her and his ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... was a scout. Laugh at him and make fun of him as you will, he was a scout. He was at once the littlest scout and the biggest scout that ever scouting had known. He boasted and bungled, but out of his bungling came triumph. He fell, oh such falls as he fell! But he always landed right side up. He could save the world with a blunder. And then ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... went on. At last Mr. Granger mounted the pulpit and began to read his sermon, of which the text was, "But the greatest of these is charity." Geoffrey noticed that he bungled over some of the words, then suddenly remembered Beatrice had told him that she had written the sermon, and was all attention. He was not disappointed. Notwithstanding Mr. Granger's infamous reading, and his habit of dropping ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... like to speak with an air of authority. After all, I am only a surgeon who has bungled himself into pauperdom. You must see a competent man; that much I can tell ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... annoyance. "I don't want you to; I don't, myself. I've bungled the matter as I might have known I would. I was trying to put into words an undefined uneasiness of mine, a quite formless desire to have you possessed of the whole case as it had come up in my mind. I've made a mess of it," said Ferris rising, with a rueful air. "Besides, I ought ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells |
