"Puffing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the red earth of the foothills, still showing signs of the gold hunters of 1849. The puffing and wheezing of the engine told they were climbing steep grades, and soon they were in the snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The train entered the forty-two mile snow shed and when half way through struck a ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... A black, soggy exhaust-pipe stuck out of a hole in its side, like a nicotine-soaked pipe in an Irishman's mouth, and so natural and matter-of-fact was the entire structure that at evening, in the uncertain light, when the smoke was puffing out of its stack, and the dirty water running from its pipes, and the reflected fire from the engine's furnace blazed through the sunken eyes of the windows, begrizzled and begrimed, nothing was ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... that an old and excellent book is ousted by new and bad ones, which, written for money, appear with an air of great pretension and much puffing on the part of friends. In science a man tries to make his mark by bringing out something fresh. This often means nothing more than that he attacks some received theory which is quite correct, in order to make room ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... an early May evening was puffing in and out the curtains of the room where Naomi Holland lay dying. The air was moist and chill, but the sick woman would not have ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... him, for he has to carry that wherever he goes, and it would have been hard enough to have climbed that bank without carrying anything. Every time he had climbed up three steps he slipped back two steps, but he kept at it, puffing and blowing, saying over ...
— The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat • Thornton W. Burgess
... next trip, with results satisfactory to himself. The climax came when he was discovered sitting at the open skylight, under which Mrs. Hoffman and her husband were working at their tailoring trade, calmly puffing away at Mr. Hoffman's cherished meerschaum, and leisurely picking the putty from the glass and dropping it upon the heads of ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... somebody at this crisis who is neither too old to dance nor too young to smoke a gossipping pipe, and so he does both at intervals—rushing now into the dance, drawn by the irresistible attraction of the fiddle, and now sidling back again to his smoke-puffing chums, impelled by the equally resistless charms of tobacco. Then and therefore he is branded as a deserter, and a file of young lasses lay hands on him, and drag him forth in custody to the dance; and after a good scolding from laughing lips, and a good drubbing from white ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... [Footnote: Rushworth, VI. 42, 43. Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 176.—It came to be an assertion with the Presbyterians, thought I do not believe they believed it themselves, that Cromwell's military fame had been gained by systematic puffing on the part of the Independents. "The news books taught to speak no language but Cromwell and his party, and were mute on such actions as he and they could claim no share in," wrote Clement Walker ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... it, old man," returned the young fellow, puffing cloudlets with the utmost vigour; "but come, Ben, won't ye spin us a yarn about ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the pale light of the alcohol lamp, puffing out tobacco smoke, and with that odd twist of a smile about his ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... his head, puffing at his pipe. "Not a soul I knew," he commented, "except Mathews about my job. Wish I hadn't gone; London is ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... that at the end of the three weeks he will want to help us as much as we want to be helped. I understand how to manage old gentlemen I've had experience, you see, in rather a difficult school. Poor father! I must run down to comfort him before I go to bed. I feel sure he is sitting in the library, puffing away at his pipe, and feeling absolutely retched. He always does ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... order to paint him a ceiling, and proposed to pay him by the day. The Government has plenty to attend to without encouraging the arts: the four little newspapers which circulate at remote periods amuse themselves by puffing their particular ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... streets with my parrot, Pippity was constantly obliged to inhale the fumes of tobacco. He could not endure it, and frequently asked me in his own fashion why people persisted in puffing such sickening smoke from their mouths. I explained the matter to him, but he never could see any sense in it. It was known on board the ship that Pippity disliked the fumes of tobacco, and he was such a general favorite that no ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... be very few and far between. The train passed through a few fairly large towns, at first, and she noted that the people were unfamiliarly clad, wearing much fur, and the inflections of their voices were strange to her. By this time the train was running more slowly, puffing up long grades and sliding down again with a harsh grinding of brakes that seemed to complain. When the moon rose it shone over endless snow, broken only by dim, solid-looking masses of conifers. Here and there she could ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... very wearisome, through dirt and slabbiness. Nor was there on all this ground so much as one inn, or victualling house, therein to refresh the feebler sort. Here, therefore, was grunting, and puffing, and sighing. While one tumbleth over a bush, another sticks fast in the dirt; and the children, some of them, lost their shoes in the mire. While one cries out, I am down; and another, Ho! where are you? and a third, The bushes have got such fast hold on me, I think I cannot get away ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... said contentedly, puffing more smoke. "So we made a testing engineer out of you. And you may amount to something, to hear Fred Stone ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... Uncle George was puffing and blowing about you when we dined there last Sunday, and Sally Mickleborough told me to bring you to her party on ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... do. Thanks." Then, after a pause, and some puffing and tasting: "Sorry, old man, but this baccy ain't my sort. It tastes queer. What is it? Flor de Cabbagio? ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... swaggering sea roll he came striding across the wide arid space between the wharf side and the buildings, puffing at a big black cigar as he walked, and glancing about him curiously, as though he could not quite understand the utter quietude and deserted aspect of the place. Apparently, however, this was not sufficiently marked to arouse his suspicion, for he betrayed no hesitation as he ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... human being who can read think that the salvation of his body and soul depends on his reading "Les Miserables." The glory and the obloquy of the author have both been forced into aids to a system of puffing at which Barnum himself would stare amazed, and confess that he had never conceived of "a dodge" in which literary genius and philanthropy could be allied with the grossest bookselling humbug. But we trust, that, after our American showman ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... till one evening, in sheer nerve-break, she would say or do some fearful thing, and he would come no more. 'No, Jimmy!' she thought; 'find her, and stay with her. You're not worth all that!' And puffing to the curtains, as though with that gesture she could shut out her creeping fate, she turned up the light and sat down at her writing table. She stayed some minutes motionless, her chin resting on her hands, the dark silk fallen down from her arms. A little mirror, framed in curiously ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that time, the good old Squire returned, puffing and panting, with a great bunch of flowers, and a ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... Bunny said, puffing, as he pushed on the oar, with which he was trying to shove off the boat. ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... sorry I am" he exclaimed thoughtfully as he finished reading, then puffing his cigar, now vigorously then allowing it to die out, he thought silently. "Detained on this afternoon by Simpson, my new steward. Then my club dinner having guests I could not go to Park lane, afterwards ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... specimen of the genus was a wilted and smoke-dried man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly cut, brown, bobtailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for a length of time unknown, had kept his desk and corner in the bar-room, and was still puffing what seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty years before. He had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less on account of any intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor of brandy-toddy ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... besieged have not seen this. The powder-smoke puffing up from their own guns, discharged in quick repetition, obscures everything in a thick, sulphurous cloud; so that even the white covers of the waggons are scarce distinguishable, much less the spots where it has ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... I came right upon the door before I was aware of it. I saw his thin face with the little upturned mustache and the cold sneer about the mouth; and I think I should have shot him if he had looked up. But he neither heard nor saw me, but wrote steadily, puffing at a vile cigar, and I crept back from ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... orthodox toes Are seldom withdrawn from the stirrup. Dr. Humdrum, whose eloquence flows, Like droppings of sweet poppy syrup; Dr. Rosygill puffing and fanning, And wiping away perspiration; Dr. Humbug, who proved Mr. Canning The beast in St. ...
— English Satires • Various
... beyond a long cool drink. Here I rested for an hour or so, amused by the bustle at the small wayside station we had just built, and idly watching our tiny construction engine forging its way, with a great deal of clanking and puffing, up a steep gradient just across the river. It was touch-and-go whether it would manage to get its heavy load of rails and sleepers to the top of the incline or not, and I became so interested in the contest between steam and friction and ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... when, from the extreme sultriness of the morning, he found it impossible to advance without refreshment. Max, also, to his rider's surprise, was much distressed; and, on turning round to his servant, Vivian found Essper's hack panting and puffing, and breaking out, as if, instead of commencing their day's work, they were near reaching ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Adriatic mourns her lord," Ay, and yet worse, Venetian souls grow rude. The Gondola lies rotting unrestored, The Gondolier unhired must lounge and brood, Or stoop to "stoking" for his daily food, On board a puffing fiend that by "horse pow'r" Measures its might. Oh! base ingratitude! Dogs! ye one day shall howl for the lost hour, When Venice was a Queen, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... stopped for a while. He was puffing and snorting, tired from the hard walk uphill. Having reached the summit, he turned around, looked downhill, straightened up, and took a deep breath. "This is an excellent way of getting rid of your tired feeling," said he. "Turn around ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg
... green. He looked out. Stables and hay-barns filled two sides of the farmyard below him. Behind them was a mass of rustling oak-trees. On the lichen-greened tile roofs pigeons strutted about, putting their coral feet daintily one before the other, puffing out their glittering breasts. He breathed deep of the smell of hay and manure and cows ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... an old sailor on a chest just under me was puffing out volumes of tobacco smoke. My supper finished, he brushed the stem of his sooty pipe against the sleeve of his frock, and politely waved it toward me. The attention was sailor-like; as for the nicety of the thing, no man who has ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... up the hill, Philip was forced to slow down, and panting and puffing,—for he was a big man,—he turned to look for Patty. She came along, and swung past him with an easy stride, flinging back over her shoulder, "Take another sprint, and you may catch ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... down to the little station and took a through train that came puffing out of the Royal Gorge on its way to the plains. Through the crowd at the Denver depot he passed into the city, moving up Seventeenth Street without definite aim or purpose. His parole had come unexpectedly, so that ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... up the lawn puffing at their cigars. The others sat watching, knowing that the opportunity had come for ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... "If one could come wandering here alone—stumble upon it by chance, as it were—and find one's self in absolute solitude in the dim light of the temple, with these grotesque figures all round, it would be perfectly overwhelming. A man would be prostrated with wonder and awe. But when Belmont is puffing his bulldog pipe, and Stuart is wheezing, and Miss Sadie Adams ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... crossed the hall of the palace and knocked on the door of another girl named Trot, also a guest and friend of Ozma. When told to enter, Dorothy found that Trot had company, an old sailor-man with one wooden leg and one meat leg, who was sitting by the open window puffing smoke from a corn-cob pipe. This sailor-man was named Cap'n Bill, and he had accompanied Trot to the Land of Oz and was her oldest and most faithful comrade and friend. Dorothy liked Cap'n Bill, too, and after she had greeted ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... got a great lump and a pipe, and Joe lay blissfully puffing, in a cloud of smoke, when we left him, promising to come again. We did go nearly every day, and had lovely times; for Joe told us his adventures, and we got so interested in the war that I began to read up evenings, ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... hand by the editor of the society paper The World. With rare unselfishness, or, if you will, with Celtic clannishness, he did a good deal to make Oscar's name known. Every clever thing that Oscar said or that could be attributed to him, Willie reported in The World. This puffing and Oscar's own uncommon power as a talker; but chiefly perhaps a whispered reputation for strange sins, had thus early begun to form a sort of myth around him. He was already on the way to becoming a personage; there was a certain curiosity about him, ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... little of their correspondence has ever reached America. A man like Ludwig Ganghofer, for instance, became so much of an institution that papers even joked about him, and I remember a cartoon—in "Jugend," I think—picturing him puffing up a hill where a staff was waiting and the commanding officer saying "Ganghofer's here. The ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... care; that is, as far as his arm was concerned, but there appeared to be a concussion of the brain. Captain Wilson looked at the cut and blood-smeared faces of the two young men, and waited with anxiety the arrival of his own surgeon, who came at last, puffing with the haste he had made, and received the report of the brothers ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of my own in my pocket; I fetched a small block of the black tobacco that was in the pantry, and, with some trouble, for it was as hard and dry as glass, chipped off a bowlful and fell a-puffing with all the satisfaction of a hardened lover of tobacco who has long been denied his favourite relish. The punch diffused a pleasing glow through my frame, the tobacco was lulling, the heat of the fire very soothing, the hearty meal I had eaten had also marvellously invigorated me, so that I found ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... painted and smeared red with anatto. The ringleader enacted the part of the Tushaua, or chief, and carried a sceptre, richly decorated with the orange, red, and green feathers of toucans and parrots. The paje or medicine-man came along, puffing at a long tauari cigar, the instrument by which he professes to make his wonderful cures. Others blew harsh, jarring blasts with the ture, a horn made of long and thick bamboo, with a split reed in the mouthpiece. This is the war trumpet of many tribes of Indians, with which ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... dropped from Roger's hand. He snatched it up before it was out and lit his cigar, and puffing smoke in a vigilant way again he eyed ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... patiently to learn from some who might emerge from the crowd what the precise amount of the edicts might be. We stood not long, before one struggling and pushing about at all adventures, red and puffing with his efforts, extricated himself from the mass, and adjusting his dress which was half torn from his back, began swearing and cursing the Emperor and his ministers for a ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... from my horse, and, leaving it and Mistress Percy in Sparrow's charge, hastened up to the fort. As I passed through the palisade I heard my name called, and turning waited for Master Pory to come up. He was panting and puffing, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... four of the clock in the afternoon, and the captain (off duty) paced the deck, puffing a cigar, and talking idly with a passenger on ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... Herr Pauer drew a penknife from his pocket and impaled the last inch of his cigar with it. He sat puffing there, and sat looking at his guest, or prisoner, and Paul looked at him drowsily in turn until Herr Pauer's head seemed to swell and fill the canvas box. The noise of the band came in gushes, as if his ears were now under water and now clear of it The head went on swelling, and the sound ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... WITLER, puffing and perspiring freely), "help me in, and fill me a stiff glass o' Speshal Scotch; for I'm out of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... of him. When the old Frog missed him, she asked his brother where he was. "He is dead, mother," said the little Frog; "an enormous big creature with four legs came to our pool this morning and trampled him down in the mud." "Enormous, was he? Was he as big as this?" said the Frog, puffing herself out to look as big as possible. "Oh! yes, much bigger," was the answer. The Frog puffed herself out still more. "Was he as big as this?" said she. "Oh! yes, yes, mother, MUCH bigger," said the little Frog. And yet again she puffed and puffed ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... While quietly puffing away, his attention was attracted by some animals standing at a distance off upon the plain. The brilliant colour of their bodies had ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... a stroke, and was much hampered by his heavy clothes and boots. At the first plunge he was carried far beneath the surface, but quickly rose again, puffing and blowing like a grampus, and making desperate efforts to ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... a good deal of puffing and snorting, glided on its way again. The children stood to watch it, but they saw it depart without any of the regret they had expected to feel, and then the little party turned out of the station, on the last stage of their pilgrimage to ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... for him, but he rushed into his cage and locked the door. The combatants were puffing too hard to speak, or one of them at least would probably have vented some sarcasm. Evan eyed the proceedings approvingly; it was a relief to witness a little disorder where the orderly teller-accountant ruled. Porter, with all his boneheadedness, was a match for any man ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... Once or twice he had pulled it off and conveyed it to his mouth, but his father intercepted it, and angrily buttoned it on again in its rightful place. He wanted, too, to slither off the horrid seat, and crawl all over the deck, and explore the ground under the seats, and see where the puffing noise came from; but there was that iron grasp on his coat that no amount of wriggling would move. No wonder ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... the hut, upon the shady side of which they found a Mexican squatting puffing upon a cigarette, while upon the doorstep sat a woman, evidently his wife, busily engaged in the preparation of some manner of foodstuff contained in a large, shallow vessel. About them played a couple of half-naked children. A baby sprawled upon a blanket just ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 'a party,' and as unlike Balzac's younger brother as only Sarah Gamp's elder sister could be. How, I wondered in my hotel, came the elder sister of Sarah Gamp to be here in Liguria and in the twentieth century? How clomb she, puffing and panting, on to that pedestal? For what argosy of gin was she straining her old eyes seaward? I knew there would be no sleep for me until I had solved these problems; and I went forth afoot along the way I had come. The moon had risen; and presently I saw ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... my uncle, stamping about his study and puffing with indignation. "You should have knocked that blasted ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... what I calls happiness," said Big Ben, puffing out a cloud, through the hazy curls of which he gazed at a ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... more the sort of gardener to keep old walks and vines pruned in their antique rigidity. I admired him for coming all this way with his clean, short, gray whiskers and his black, well-brushed suit. And he made me think of a powerful locomotive stuck puffing ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... he beckoned, and two elves puffing and panting like little men with a heavy load, dragged forward a droll little box about the size of a pumpkin-seed. One of them lifted ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... towards us, yet in a state of hurry and confusion which impressed us with a belief that the balls had inflicted desperate, if not immediately mortal wounds. Nevertheless, it displayed determination enough to enter into close conflict with its foes, and came on, puffing and snorting, with a savage though bewildered look. Seeing this disposition to assail us, we backed astern; but before the walrus had made much progress, the guns were reloaded, and another bullet struck it on the head, which ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... the creek in our ear on the right. I approached it once, and found it swarming with trout. The water was as cold as one ever need wish. After a while the ascent grew steeper, the creek became a mere rill that issued from beneath loose, moss-covered rocks and stones, and with much labor and puffing we drew ourselves up the rugged declivity. Every mountain has its steepest point, which is usually near the summit, in keeping, I suppose, with the providence that makes the darkest hour just before day. It is steep, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... took his legs from the chair. He rose, and brought himself to an anchor on a seat facing Lionel, puffing still at his ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... upper part of Mr. Buller rose from the water. He was dripping and puffing, and Mr. Podington could not but think what a difference it made in the appearance of his friend to have his hair plastered close ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... did you speak?" he said. "Well, yes," drawled the dark man, puffing a long white cloud from his lips, "I did make an observation regardin' the weather. It looks fine, ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... The puffing, panting engine that dragged the long train of heavy cars into the busy little city of Bradford, in the State of Pennsylvania, one day last summer, witnessed through its one white, staring eye, sometimes called the head-light, many happy meetings between waiting and coming ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... she rode old Yellowjacket puffing up the grade, following the wagon marks, and knew that she was nearing the end of her journey,—for which Yellowjacket, she supposed, would be thankful. She had started not more than an hour later than her father, but the team had trotted ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... are used in climbing the Alps, and managed to propel himself forward by little right-legged shunts, his left leg not daring to do anything but slide, and stopped like an engine nearing a station, puffing and out of breath. Prince Murat moved aside, and his Majesty looked at me, then at Prince Murat, who, in an introductory manner, said "This is Madame Moulton, your Majesty, the daughter-in-law of our neighbor, whom you know." "Ah!" ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... "Well," said Sapt, puffing away, "it wouldn't be exactly inconvenient for Black Michael if you disappeared. With you gone, the old game that we stopped would be played—or he'd ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... about to speak, but, thinking better of it, turned and blundered into the kitchen. Sounds of splashing and puffing ensued, and the steward going to the door saw him with his head under the tap. He followed him in and at the right time handed him a towel. Despite the disordered appearance of his hair the improvement in Mr. Nugent's condition was so manifest that the steward, hoping for similar results, ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... of shares was disastrous. The great banks remained hostile, and capitalists were mistrustful. Herzog landed a few million francs. Doorkeepers and cooks brought him their savings. He covered expenses. But it was no use advertising and puffing in the newspapers, as a word had gone forth which paralyzed the speculation. Ugly rumors were afloat. Herzog's German origin was made use of by the bankers, who whispered that the aim of the Universal Credit Company was ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... then for the buffoon, who wore the mattress cloth suit. In France the Paillasse, as I have said, was the same as Pagliaccio. Sometimes he wore a red checked suit, but the genuine one was known by the colors, white and blue. He wore blue stockings, short breeches puffing out a la blouse, a belted blouse and a black, close-fitting cap. This buffoon was seen at shows of strolling mountebanks. He stood outside the booth and by his jests and antics and grimaces strove to attract the attention of the people, and he told them of the wonders performed ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... had seen the porter kissing our housemaid, and what a nice fellow he was, with no airs, or affectation about him, and anything I thought would be of interest; but he didn't seem to pay much attention, but walked along puffing his cigar, and once I thought—I'm not certain, but I THOUGHT—I heard him say, 'Well, thank God, that's over!' When we got to the station he stopped suddenly, and said, 'Hold on a minute!' Then he shoved these into my hand in a frightened sort of way; ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... flowed on placidly, all unruffled by the arrival of this strange monument upon its shores—the same Hudson Arthur knew as a busy thoroughfare of puffing steamers and chugging launches. Two or three small streams wandered unconcernedly across the land that Arthur had known as the most closely built-up territory on earth. And far, far below him—Arthur had to lean well out of his window to see it—stood a collection of tiny wigwams. Those small ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... clothes, and the colored sister in sun-bonnet or turban, lending themselves readily to the picturesque; the scene changed every minute, the sail of a tiny boat was hoisted or lowered under the window, a dashing cutter with its uniformed crew was pulling off to the German man-of-war, a puffing little tug dragged along a line of barges in the distance, and on the horizon a fleet of coasters was working out between the capes to sea. In the open window came the fresh morning breeze, and only the softened sounds of the life outside. The ladies ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... secret of the trade I follow. Among friends and brother authors, I love to be frank on the subject, and to advertise myself viv voc. I am, sir, a practitioner in panegyric; or, to speak more plainly, a professor of the art of puffing, at your service—or anybody's else. I dare say, now, you conceive half the very civil paragraphs and advertisements you see to be written by the parties concerned, or their friends. No such thing; nine out of ten manufactured by me, in the way of business. Yon must know, sir, that from the first ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Whitechapel way when I was a small boy. Here they come, though, patter, patter, and the chaps have done it splendid; they haven't made a sound. Here they come; they must be half in by now. There's some on 'em close under the winder, sir. Hear 'em puffing and breathing?" ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... stoops, and all his medals hang out from his tunic like little dried-up breasts. He bends down, puffing and pouting, without removing his gold-trimmed KEPI, and lays a deaf ear on Carre's chest with ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... Puffing contentedly at my cigar I proceeded to make a tour of the house. It was constructed irregularly. Practically the entire building was of gray stone, which created a depressing effect even in the blazing sunlight, lending Cray's Folly something of an austere ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... like the tinkle of triviality to descend from the stern business of this present time to write of night-caps: And yet while the discordant battles are puffing their cheeks upon the rumbling bass pipes, it is relief if there be intermingled a small, shrill treble—any slightest squeak outside the ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... but I met the other Day in the five Fields towards Chelsea, a pleasanter Tyrant than either of the above represented. A fat Fellow was puffing on in his open Waistcoat; a Boy of fourteen in a Livery, carrying after him his Cloak, upper Coat, Hat, Wig, and Sword. The poor Lad was ready to sink with the Weight, and could not keep up with his Master, who turned back every half Furlong, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... was aback on the main, her way lost for the moment. Abeam, a tug was puffing away from us, carrying the port crew—who had lifted anchor and taken the Golden Bough to sea—back to San Francisco. And we were fairly to sea; the rugged coast of Marin was miles astern, and the Golden Gate was lost in a distant haze. The voyage ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... some more—leaf-lard," declared the trainer with vulgarity. He lumbered into the cook-house, radiating heat waves, puffing like a traction-engine, while his companion staggered to the gymnasium, and sank into a chair. A moment later he appeared with two bottles of beer, one glued to his lips. Both were evidently ice cold, judging from ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... 'gator was by long odds the more scared of the two, but then Jerry, being a greenhorn, did not know that. When finally the others managed to drag him, dripping, one deck, he was panting like a tired dog and puffing like a grampus. ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... Hepsy?" asked Uncle Josh, serenely puffing away at his pipe. "You was allus the worst at her and at the children. Ye put upon that Lucy in ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... and delight I put my head into the small of the back of the puffing old man who blocked the way in front and forced him forward, until at last—before we expected it—the cleft suddenly ended, and he and I tumbled headlong over each other on to a glittering, frozen snowslope; the sky azure overhead, the sunshine warm as a tepid bath, and ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... as he listened to the rumbling of the wheels, to the puffing of the engine, to the rubble-double-double of the train. Every mile it covered was a mile northward; every hour was a good day's journeying; every post it flew by was a post the less to pass of the hundred-thousand ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... third morning that the train, puffing and shrieking, ran into the Springfield depot. Other trains stood waiting; and there was such a chorus of snorts and whistles, and such clouds of smoke, that Katy was half frightened. Papa, who was half asleep, jumped ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... sober earnest, Arnaut?" asked Leon, who, in his astonishment, had risen to his feet, and was puffing away vigorously ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... with fresh leaves thrown on it, put the miscreant insects to the rout. Cigars and pipes were produced, and the midshipmen thought not of troubles, past or future. Sofas and chairs served them for couches. Old Higson sat up lustily puffing away at his pipe, and thereby escaped the countless punctures and furious itching, of which every one else complained when they got up in the morning. After breakfast their host sent them across the lagoon in two clumsy fishing-boats to see a ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... I sit in my cozy den Puffing one of my many pipes That I've served with all of my fellow men The glorious Stars and Stripes. Then I see a troop in the faded blue And a few in the dusty gray, And I have to laugh at the deeds I do For the ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... in that case I'll go in and see." James threw the door open. Old Mr. Bowdoin was standing, still puffing, in front of the fire, evidently quite breathless. In the corner by the window, too rapt to notice her father's entrance, sat Miss Abby, intently gazing into a round glass crystal that, with a carved ebony frame, formed one of the Oriental ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... Philip and the mob—quite large, inquisitive and eager by this time—searched for a trace of the man, but without avail. The count, de Cartier and the Honorable Mr. Knowlton, with several of Mrs. Garrison's servants, came puffing up and, to his amazement and rage, criticised him for allowing the man to escape. They argued that a concerted attack on the recess amongst the palms would have overwhelmed the fellow and he would now be in the hands of the authorities instead of as free as air. Quentin endured ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... he drawled, puffing languidly on a cigarette and turning slowly toward the window to watch the passing throng under the lights of the avenue, "really I don't see how I can be of any assistance. You see, except for a mere passing acquaintance Miss Gilbert ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... garage where the murdered man was lying, shook out and folded the rugs that had been scattered in the struggle, picked up the cushions, and replaced them in the car. Then, borrowing a ruse from the enemy, I set the door wide open, and, puffing and panting, pushed the blue automobile into the courtyard, through the passage, and a considerable ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... wonderful stories, and got so excited over them that his pipe always went out; I used then to light it for him with a spill, and this formed my chief amusement. Often, again, he would give us picture-books to look at, whilst he sat silent and motionless in his easy-chair, puffing out such dense clouds of smoke that we were all as it were enveloped in mist. On such evenings mother was very sad; and directly it struck nine she said, "Come, children! off to bed! Come! The 'Sand-man' ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... seen an American state paper before," he remarked, puffing a cigarette. "What a droll looking affair! So different from ours. Would you mind if I just glanced ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... the moon had gone down and a storm was gathering. The Carondelet cast loose and steamed slowly down the river. The machinery was adjusted so as to permit the steam to escape through the wheel-house, and avoid the noise of puffing through the pipes. The boat glided noiseless and invisible through the darkness. Scarcely had it advanced half a mile when the soot in the chimneys caught fire, a blaze shot up five feet above the smoke-stack. The flue-caps were opened, the blaze subsided, and all was yet silent along ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... the play at railway speed, like a night express—puffing out volumes of smoke as he panted along. "I dip my pen in their blood," he said from time to time, and threw back his head and laughed aloud in the silence of the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... on,—"about the time I stood on the sidewalk to see the procession go by, in Boston, when we commemorated Bunker Hill?" And she went on with a favorite reminiscence: how she had held on to her inch of standing-room, in spite of a fat and puffing man, a ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... not going," he replied, puffing luxuriously upon his pipe; "I've changed my mind. All I wanted was new scenes and occupations. I've decided to stay on awhile. But I've been thinking, Jude, you don't want to take Joyce into your shack. Let's build her another up on the sunny slope beyond the Long Meadow on the Hillcrest ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... was greater than he who took a city. Beranger's Roi d'Yvetot, who ate four meals a day,—the Esquimaux, with his daily twenty-pound quantum of train-oil, gravy, and tallow-candles,—the alderman puffing over callipash and callipee,—the backwoodsman hungering after fattest of pork,—such men as these were no common sinners: they were assassins who struck at the very fountain of life, and throttled a human stomach. Pancreatic meant pancreative. Gastric juice was the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... and put it to his eye, and tried to see through it a little tug that was sturdily puffing up Channel. He failed to find the tug, and found himself gazing at a little cloud on the horizon. As he looked it grew larger and darker, and presently a spot of rain fell on his nose. He rubbed it off—on his jersey ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... glass and comes into the sitting-room, followed by WALTER. HECTOR is puffing at a short, stumpy ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... Almost as great a trouble as the frogs were the brocachas, who committed terrible havoc in the garden and among the crops. They are about the size, and have somewhat the appearance of hares, and burrow in immense quantities in the Pampas. The only way to get rid of them was by puffing the fumes of burning sulphur down into their holes; and it was quite a part of the boys' regular work to go out with the machine for the purpose, and to suffocate these troublesome creatures. Their holes, however, are not so dangerous to horsemen as are those of the armadillos, as ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... something of the ludicrous, to see three white Americans, and one Indian, with a disarmed British red coat under their feet, in the jolly-boat, not daring to raise his head, while about thirty boats, with above 250 seamen, and nearly as many marines, were rowing, and puffing and blowing, and firing and loading, and loading and firing at a small boat, containing three American seamen and one Indian, without any weapon or instrument, except the oars they rowed with! While the British marines ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... woman, as she ran out of the house, throwing about her long arms, (now freed from slavery's chains,) and making sundry other uncouth manifestations of her joy, so characteristic of her race, which caused a policeman to realize the dignity of his station, by actually opening one eye, and puffing diligently at the cloud of tobacco smoke ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... gale, that we were nearly an hour setting the sail; carried away the outhaul in doing it, and came very near snapping off the swinging boom. No sooner was it set than the ship tore on again like one that was mad, and began to steer as wild as a hawk. The men at the wheel were puffing and blowing at their work, and the helm was going hard up and hard down, constantly. Add to this, the gale did not lessen as the day came on, but the sun rose in clouds. A sudden lurch threw the man from the weather wheel across the deck and against the side. The mate ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... servant?" said Phil Evans, pointing to Frycollin, who was puffing like a grampus. "We must set ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... law that makes a passenger-boat hold up for scows," grumbled Fogg. "If there is one, a good man knows how to get around it and keep up his schedule." He paced the pilot-house at the extreme rear, puffing his cigar. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... myself without scruple of both of these occasions, having formerly neglected to drive to the place in a post-chaise. But frankly, the railway-station being in the plain and the town on the summit of an extraordinary hill, you have time to forget the puffing indiscretion while you wind upwards to the city-gate. The position of Orvieto is superb—worthy of the "middle distance" of an eighteenth-century landscape. But, as every one knows, the splendid Cathedral is the proper attraction of the spot, which, indeed, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... was Mount Olympus, and here were the gods: the female ones in a state of divine semi-nudity, the male ones mostly clad in black coats with pleated shirt-fronts puffing out. Every time one of them moved up to the desk Peter would watch and wonder, was this Mr. Lackman? He might have been able to pick out a millionaire from an ordinary crowd; but here every male god was got up for the precise purpose of looking like ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... in that state of hurly-burly which may be witnessed only at the sailing of a transatlantic liner. The last of the freight was being got aboard with frantic haste; the boat and pier were crowded with people who had come to bid their friends good-by; two tugs were puffing noisily alongside, ready to pull us out into the stream. My companion appeared quite strong, and seemed to enjoy the bustle and hubbub as much as I did. He flushed with pleasure, as he caught sight of our senior pushing his ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... shot.) "No, sir," said he, "I thought you would repent it, so I fired between the two." "Where were they, man?" said I. "Close to the boat, sir; and when they heard me, they swam into the river, and dived as soon as I fired between them." This account was verified by one of them puffing as he rose below us, over whose head I fired a shot. Where the other got to I could not tell. This watchfulness, on our part, however, prevented any further attempts ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... be the death of the whole council, and that more of them would poison themselves, he took up one of the segars—every one knows segars now, for they are fashionable among the very sweeps—which he lighted at the candle, and commenced puffing ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... door open—the speckled horses are on the road!—make a leap on the horse as it goes by, the horse that is without a rider. Can't you hear them puffing and roaring? Their breath is like a fog upon ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... appetising little paragraphs into the papers about your wanderings, and when you are ready to come back to England, all England will be ready to listen to you. You know how interest is worked up in the theatrical business by judicious puffing in the papers, and I imagine African exploration requires much the same treatment. If it were not for the Press, my boy, you could explore Africa till you were blind and nobody would hear a word about it, so I will be your advance agent and make ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... ships till the morning, and then the work of towing off the "Guadala" began. With the help of her own engines, and the tugging and puffing of the flat-iron, she slid off the mud-bank sideways into the deep water, the flatiron immediately under her stern, and the big eye of the four-inch gun almost peering through the window of the ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... the blue-birds and robins are out. The steamboats are crowded with troops, who are waiting for orders to sail, they know not where. Groups stand upon the topmost deck. Some lie at full length in the warm sunshine. The bands are playing, the drums beating. Tug-boats are dancing, wheezing, and puffing in the stream, flitting from ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... few minutes they whipped forward, Sneak in advance, and again they were passing through the army of snakes. This time Joe did good service. He massacred one of the coiled rattlesnakes at a blow, and his pony kicked a puffing viper to atoms. Sneak paused a moment at the pool, and dealt his blows with such rapidity that nearly all the black racers that survived glided swiftly into the tall grass, and one of the largest was seen by Joe to run up the trunk of a solitary ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... the door of Merwin's house. He kicked it open and fell over an old valise lying in the middle of the floor. A sunburned, firm-jawed youth, stained by travel, lay upon the bed puffing at a brown cigarette. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... host; "'cause they've got the same extinguisher on; and ain't it curious to see 'em puffing and blowing at the old lamp? I get 'most tired of talking common sense and common feeling to the Deacon. You can't get it into him, and it won't stay on him. You might as well try to heap a peck o' flax-seed. He keeps eating his own words, too; though they don't seem ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... nearer, puffing and blowing, strong though he was, beneath the mighty weight. He was about to lay it at Thor's feet (for he thought it so heavy that no maiden could lift it or hold it in her lap), when suddenly Thor's heart swelled, ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... of breath from hurrying up the hill in the late afternoon heat, and fearful that the gathering would break up before she could say what she wanted to say, and entirely unable to control her gasping and puffing, was a sight at once funny and pitiable. As she sank into a comfortable chair she held up one fat hand to command attention, and with the other laid forcible hold upon Barry Valentine. Three or four of the younger women hurried to ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... Frank cried a note of warning. The steep icy bank above Green Lake was below the scientist's heel. Before he had time to heed the boys' warning cry the professor, with a yell of amazement, slid backwards into the green pool, from which he emerged, blowing and puffing as if he had been a seal. Luckily, the water was warm and he suffered no serious consequences, but thereafter he ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the corner of the building and mingled with the throngs waiting for the train. It came puffing in, and as the crowd pressed forward, Warren heard a familiar, coarse, whining voice behind him. He looked; and as he did so, he was conscious of Ivan who, with the quickness of a bird, slipped between two people, and was out of sight. Instantly Warren followed him. They met ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... side the wagoner Is slouching slowly at his ease, Half-hidden in the windless blur Of white dust puffing to his knees. This wagon on the height above, From sky to sky on either hand, Is the sole thing that seems to move In all ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... part in politics, he should impartially turn out those who had worked to secure the election of General Jackson, as well as those who had labored to re-elect Mr. Adams. To his General Jackson at first made no reply, but rose from his seat, puffing away at his pipe; and after walking up and down the floor two or three times, he stopped in front of his rebellious Postmaster-General, and said, "Mr. McLean, will you accept a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court?" The judicial position ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... had miraculously gathered from nowhere. The fat marshal of Battle Butte was puffing up the street a block away. Beaudry judged it time to be gone. He dropped the leg of the stool and strode toward ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... top first, while the other clambers up almost on all fours, gets hot and exhausted and has gained nothing. If I am leading an elementary run uphill, I can soon pick out the experienced runners by the line they take and the pace at which they climb. The puffing, panting, stumbling people, who forge ahead, herring-boning or turning their ankles over their Skis so as to get a grip with their boots, are not ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... superior. Even in her few months of training she had learned to keep herself calm and serviceable, and not to let her mind speculate idly. She was gazing out of the window into the dull night. Some locomotives in the railroad yards just outside were puffing lazily, breathing themselves deeply in the damp, spring air. One hoarser note than the others struck familiarly on the nurse's ear. That was the voice of the engine on the ten-thirty through express, which was waiting to take its train to the east. She knew that engine's ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Puffing and tugging;— And hauling John, As fishermen, on shore, haul up a boat; Till, after a great deal of lugging, He lugg'd him to the edge of the Knight's moat; And stuck him up so straight upon his rear, ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... and look. Occasionally I would unconsciously increase my pace until I was warned to desist by the puffing of Mr. Purdy. He gave an essential impression of genial timidity: and how ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... stood before him, puffing, and dripping, and regarding, with greedy eyes, the bread and cheese which the old man was eating. The shepherd was very, very old, and deaf, but he understood the language of the boy's eyes, and as he had just milked the goats, he held out a cup of the milk to him with a friendly gesture, and broke ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 'I'm jealous of my little friend. I'm pining away Sir. The Bagstock breed is degenerating in the forsaken person of old Joe.' And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and puffing his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his tight cravat, stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were at that moment being overdone before the slow fire at ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... taken up his place on the curb; and a big black cat had taken advantage of the warmth offered by the charcoal fire and was curled up, sleeping peacefully in the pan nearest the fire. The old man paid no attention to the cat, but went on rotating his ball of coffee and puffing away pensively on his cigarette. When his coffee had become blackened and burned, and blackened and burned it was, he stopped rotating the ball, opened the slide in the top, turned it over, and the hot, burned coffee rolled out, and much to his delight, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... some time, puffing away at his pipe, the fresher air began to have its effect; and soon I judged that he was calm enough to talk the matter over and discuss the ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... than with the Villain and Sweetclover, he made after him, but Kernel Cob had a good start this time and had turned another corner, and seeing an open doorway, leaped in and was well-hidden by the time the Showman came puffing by. ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... saw the mill it was spring, and the puffing smoke and white heaps of lumber that graced the point and met our vision as we rounded Breakheart Point will not soon be forgotten. Only one trouble had proved insurmountable. The log-hauler would not deliver the goods to the rotary saw. Later, with the knowledge that ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... are exquisite. First, the chasubles have not the shapes of a miner's apron, and they do not hoist themselves up on the shoulders of the priest, that excrescence, that puffing like the ear of a little donkey lying back, which the vestment makers ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... and all my pocket-money too. But I've taken to helping myself, and I've got some splendid cigars. Try one, Blyth," said the young gentleman, luxuriously puffing out a stream ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... up to the brown mare, which was eying the big car with some resentment. She patted the velvet nose as she spoke. "Don't you mind, Bess," she reproached the mare. "It's nothing but a puffing, noisy car. It's not half so nice ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... incomparable sugar and cotton ground, full sixteen feet deep of river slime—Egypt was a sandy desert compared to it—and as to the climate, the zephyrs that disported themselves there were only to be paralleled in Eldorado and Arcadia. I, like a ninny as I was, although fully aware of the puffing propensities of our newspaper editors, especially when their tongues, or rather pens, have been oiled by a few handfuls of dollars, fell into the trap, and purchased land in the fever-hole in question, where I was assured that a habitable house and two ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... frame! High-eminent amid the works divine, Where heaven's far-beaming brazen mansions shine. There the lame architect the goddess found, Obscure in smoke, his forges flaming round, While bathed in sweat from fire to fire he flew; And puffing loud, the roaring billows blew. That day no common task his labour claim'd: Full twenty tripods for his hall he framed, That placed on living wheels of massy gold, (Wondrous to tell,) instinct with spirit roll'd From place to place, around ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... gone half-a-dozen steps when Rogers came out, crimson, puffing with excitement, leading Vernon ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... I wouldn't wonder if that's the very one for you," said J.C., puffing leisurely at his cigar, and still keeping his eyes fixed upon the figure in white, as if to one of his fastidious taste there was nothing very revolting in seeing Maude Remington wash the supper dishes, even though her hands were brown and ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... between heaven and sea, one hundred feet above the water, on all sides were piled the immense masses of masonry, the ruins of which are all that remains of the once proud Castle of Doon. Gazing in awe down the horrid depths of the "Puffing ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... with her, and our bamboo oars are pulled in and we go slipping across the water in silence, only the bows talking to the small waves. Now, how sorry we feel for those other globe trotters on the launch, birring along behind a hot, bubbling, puffing, steam kettle—and so crowded, and in this heat too, whilst we extend at our ease in a white and sky-blue boat, with pink cushions, and dreamily listen to the silky frou frou of the southern sea. The crew rest; ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... it is prepared to go," he echoed quietly, sinking back in his chair and puffing at the pipe. "It's a nice point that we have been discussing together, my flute and I, and I won't say but that I've got the worst of it. By the way, what do you mean to do now that you have a ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... panting through the doors. He was one of those men who have a leisurely build and a purely American desire for action; so that he was always hurrying and always puffing. If he mounted a horse, sweat started out from every pore; if he swallowed a glass of red-eye he breathed hard thereafter. Yet he was capable of great and sustained exertions, as many and many a man in the Three ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... buzz of the approaching throng which was blackening the roads. The invasion was beginning again, but with a refluent movement. For hours at a time great strings of gray trucks went puffing by; then regiments of infantry, squadrons, rolling stock. They were marching very slowly with a deliberation that puzzled Desnoyers, who could not make out whether this recessional meant flight or change of position. The only ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... her head in the blanket, and sat down on the steps. A strange earthy smell lingered in that faded old rug, and with it a faint perfume of tobacco. Instantly the young girl's senses were transported as they had never been before to those far-off Southern battle-fields. She saw men lying in swamps, puffing their kindly pipes, drawing their blankets closer, canopied with the same luminous dusk that shone down upon her comfortable weakness. Her mind wandered amid these scenes till recalled to the present ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... had to admit, and I was not surprised that Aunt Dahlia, hearing them, should have uttered a cry like the wail of a master of hounds seeing a fox shot. Anatole had begun to wave his fists again at Gussie, and she now joined him. Seppings, who was puffing respectfully in the background, didn't actually wave his fists, but he gave Gussie a pretty austere look. It was plain to the thoughtful observer that this Fink-Nottle, in getting on to that skylight, had done ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... sounds came now. The Indians were busy and silent. Within the house it was so still that Ambrose could hear Gordon Strange puffing at his pipe. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... that night we heard a curious whistling, puffing sound, it was the two tanks clambering up the hill to get into position near ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... the professor, with a grim smile, as he went upstairs. He ascended slowly, puffing out the smoke of his cigar before him with a certain skill, so that his progress was a form of fumigation. The fear of infection is the only fear to which men will own, and it is hard to understand why this form of cowardice should be less despicable than others. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... making iron at Cinderford Furnaces of quality and in quantities which had never been anticipated. There are now four blast furnaces, three of which are always in use, and a new blast engine of considerable power is in course of erection, in addition to the old engine, which has been puffing ...
— Iron Making in the Olden Times - as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean • H. G. Nicholls
... the lost or damaged pieces in the engine are carefully replaced with new ones which will do as well or better, the joints and bearings are lubricated, the whistle of the first invitation is heard, there is some puffing and a little creaking at first, and then the big wheels begin to go slowly round, solemnly and regularly as ever, while all the little wheels run as fast as they can and set fire to their axles in the attempt to keep up the speed, and are finally ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... thud, and I was half buried under the bale of our possessions, and for a space everything was still. Then I could hear Cavor puffing and grunting, and the snapping of a shutter in its sash. I made an effort, thrust back our blanket-wrapped luggage, and emerged from beneath it. Our open windows were just visible as a deeper black ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... fighting for an opportunity, and now that the opportunity had come he was sure that he would succeed. Swiftly, with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, he walked down the one main street of Prince Albert, puffing out odorous clouds of smoke from his cigar, every fiber in him tingling with the new joy that had come into his life. Another night would see him in Le Pas, the little outpost sixty miles farther east on the Saskatchewan. ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... enthusiasm for white walls, and wherever he discovered one he would sketch, with a piece of coal, processions of men, women and horses, houses puffing smoke, soldiers, vessels at sea, weaklings engaging in struggle with burly giants, ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... began to dress, puffing and whistling with desperation. As soon as she was dressed she ran to the door and opened it. All was still a world of green and white. "The fire is almost out," she reported, "and I can see ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... throat and tore open her shirt. Then, hissing and cursing and panting with his own violence, he searched her brutally and without mercy — flung her down and tore off her spiral puttees and even her shoes and stockings, now apparently beside himself with fury, puffing, gasping, always with a fierce, nasal sort of whining undertone like an animal worrying ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... sometimes I think that Mary there, with all her bringing up, would edge away from me if she knew that my father had kept saloons and gambling places and all that." Weston spoke carelessly, puffing at his cigar, for he had recovered his easy demeanor. "I think a world of Mary, Mark. She is beautiful, and good, and honest. Sometimes I suspect that I've stayed here just for her. Sometimes I think I will not leave till she ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... by tossing the books into the middle of the bed. "We're going to have tea directly," he explained. "Can't you hear her puffing up the stairs? I expect a catastrophe every time she does it." He set two chairs at the table and gazed eagerly ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche |
