"Splutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for some matches, and found one remaining. He tried to strike this, but the floor was wet, and it spat and went out. He cursed. He could not see where the door was situated. In his struggle he had quite lost his bearings. The strange beast, disturbed by the splutter of the match, began to move again. "Time!" called Woodhouse, with a sudden gleam of mirth, but the thing was not coming at him again. He must have hurt it, he thought, with the broken bottle. He felt a dull pain in his ankle. Probably he was ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... went the musket-strocks; blows, kicks, cuffs, scratches, black eyes, and bloody noses swelling the horrors of the scene! Thick thwack, cut and hack, helter skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, head over heels, rough and tumble! Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter and splutter! cried the Swedes. Storm the works, shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the mine, roared stout Risingh. Tanta-ra-ra-ra! twanged the trumpet of Antony Van Corlear, until all voice and sound became unintelligible; grunts of pain, yells of fury, and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... in Wales is, Saint Taph be her speed, Gott splutter her taste, some Welsh ale her had need; For her ride in great haste, and * * For fear of her being catched up by the fishes: But the lord of Flint castle's no lord worth a louse, For he keeps ne'er a drop of good drink in his house; But ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... in the back door of a cottage, Andrews caught a glimpse of the billowy line of a tile roof against the lighter darkness of the sky. They sat down on a bench built into a chimney where a few sticks made a splutter of flames. ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... the splutter of arc welders, the slow banging of iron workers, the cough and hissing of jet sleds, the roar of activity that meant deadly danger to the Solar Alliance. Connel noticed as he moved across the canyon floor that the workers were in good spirits. The morale of the rebels, ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... met and differed with Munoz, the two coming to a knife duel, promptly suppressed by the gun butts of the guard. None the less was Munoz called into requisition as interpreter, for between peril, exhaustion and defective English the "dago" could only splutter an unintelligible jargon that might have been Sicilian, Maltese, or Calabrian, but could not be Spanish. Bennett, it seems, had picked him up for dead on the Verde road, early in the spring of the year, and Mrs. Bennett had nursed ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... Goats came in from the hills with their hair clipped in layers, which gave them the appearance of ladies in five-decker skirts; and children were playing a queer game. They jumped loosely round in circles with bent knees, making a whooping-cough noise followed by a splutter. We saw it often afterwards, and decided that it must be the equivalent to our ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... serenity infinitely ominous for those whom they attack. We instinctively associate serenity with the highest types of power among men, seeing in it the poise of knowledge and calm vision, the supreme heat and mastery which is without splutter or noise of any kind. The art of power in this sort is no doubt learned in hours of reflection, by those who are not born with it. What rebuke of aimless excitement there is to be got out of a little reflection, when ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... high pressure; fire; rush. acrimony, acritude^; causiticity^, virulence; poignancy; harshness &c adj.; severity, edge, point; pungency &c 392. cantharides; seasoning &c (condiment) 393. activity, agitation, effervescence; ferment, fermentation; ebullition, splutter, perturbation, stir, bustle; voluntary energy &c 682; quicksilver. resolution &c (mental energy) 604; exertion &c (effort) 686; excitation &c (mental) 824. V. give energy &c n.; energize, stimulate, kindle, excite, exert; sharpen, intensify; inflame &c (render violent) 173; wind ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... splutter of hatred, and even found it laughable as I made my escape good. At the same time, our encounter had put me out of humour for gaping at the review, and I turned back and recrossed the river, to seek the Rue du Fouarre ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... violent splutter of sparks, accompanied by a fizzing noise, and Jim knew that no power on earth could now avert the imminent explosion. Like a cat he worked his way backwards along the spar, which bent and heaved under his weight, until presently he stood once more ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... and his companion followed, and with a whirr of wheels and a splutter of sparks where the motor brush caught the rail, the little trolley drove forward at ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... straightened up. "Now! Look out, everybody!" he bawled. He struck a match and applied it to something that immediately began to splutter, and then he retreated a safe distance northward. All eyes were glued, as if fascinated, to the deadly, sputtering fuse. Soon came the dull, muffled roar of an explosion. The walls of the building sagged outwards, the roof caved in, and the whole structure seemed ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... a terrible muddle, The deputy deities all are at fault They splutter and splash like a pig in a puddle And dickens a one of 'em's earning his salt. For Thespis as Jove is a terrible blunder, Too nervous and timid—too easy and weak— Whenever he's called on to lighten or thunder, The thought of it keeps ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... in the swaying cage now saw that a tremendous rocket was hung to the peak of the other crane. He lighted the fuse.... An instant of deathly suspense!... And then with a terrific and a shattering bang and splutter the rocket shot towards the kingdom of heaven and there burst into a vast dome of red blossoms which, irradiating a square mile of roofs, descended slowly and softly on the West ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... to splutter and all watched it as if fascinated, and the girls put their hands to their ears in anticipation of a fearful explosion. Then came a tiny flash, a strange clicking, and off flew the top of the cannon cracker, sending a shower of confetti of ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... Pete's arrival at the Concho ranch, Andy White rode in with a companion, dusty, tired, and hungry from a sojourn over near the Apache line. White made his report to the foreman, unsaddled, and was washing with a great deal of splutter and elbow-motion, when some one slapped him on the back. He turned a dripping face to behold Pete ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... apartment was disturbed by the sounds of Monsieur de Tressan's slumbers, the scratch and splutter of the secretary's pen, and the occasional hiss and crackle of the logs that burned in the great, cavern-like fireplace. Suddenly to these another sound was added. With a rasp and rattle the heavy ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... two, three, four—and still the slips flew about all round him; still the untiring pen scraped its way ceaselessly from top to bottom of the page, still the white chaos of paper rose higher and higher all round his chair. At four o'clock I heard a sudden splutter of the pen, indicative of the flourish with which he signed his name. "Bravo!" he cried, springing to his feet with the activity of a young man, and looking me straight in the face with a smile of ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... replied to this speech need not be repeated, as the widow's answer was made up of a great number of incoherent ejaculations, embraces, and other irrelative matter. But the two women slept well after that talk; and when the night-lamp went out with a splutter, and the sun rose gloriously over the purple hills, and the birds began to sing and pipe cheerfully amidst the leafless trees and glistening evergreens on Fairoaks lawn, Helen woke too, and as she ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... doubtfully, we enter a dark, narrow doorway; pass along a dark, harrow hall, walled and floored with stone; catch a passing vista of a kitchen, a white-jacketed and white-capped cook, and a vast amount of steam and crackle and splutter near the stove; and going up the curving stairs are led into a neat little front dining-room overlooking the square. The carpet is of unpainted pine; so are the table and chairs; but both are clean, and this fact cheers. With misgivings we ask ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... least to my surprise, made no attempt to interfere. Jack couldn't, for I was in the way. His father began to splutter helplessly. I shot out my foot, and swept the Major heavily to the floor. I plucked him up by his collar as if he were a rabbit, and choked him till his face was nearly black. Then I put him back in his chair, where he sat huddled up ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... his sword; and will force egress. Confused splutter. M. de Malseigne's sword breaks; he snatches Commandant Denoue's: the sentry is wounded. M. de Malseigne, whom one is loath to kill, does force egress,—followed by Chateau-Vieux all in disarray; a spectacle to Nanci. M. de Malseigne walks at ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... them; a spiral wreath of light shot upwards, and the log was reduced to a mass of glowing ashes and half-burnt embers. At this critical moment the stranger deliberately approached the hearth. He threw a whole flagon of liquor wilfully upon the waning faggots, and in a moment fiz, splutter, and smoke proclaimed that the warfare of the elements, like many others, had ended in the destruction of both the contending belligerents. The yule-log was extinguished. There was a general rush, and a consternation of so unequivocal a nature, that ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... and then came the splutter of a match. The pale glow of a single candle lit the room dimly. Christopher jumped at the sight of a third man in the room. No! There were but two people there. But where, then, was the man who had led him hither? Here before him was a merry-looking youngster ...
— Cruel Barbara Allen - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... splutter. "Conceited chump! He makes me tired. Of all the fresh things—to sit up there and talk about the 'kids' ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... seals were much more formidable to look at than anything that any of them had ever seen in the Arctic Seas; and when Joe brought his club down on the skull of the foremost with a terrible thwack, it refused to tumble over, but continued to splutter and flounder towards the sea. Dr Hayward, however, used his spear at this moment with such effect that the seal fell, and another blow from the Herculean ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... stupider than you really are," replied the Badger, crossly; "and don't chuckle and splutter in your coffee while you're talking; it's not manners. What I mean is, the Banquet will be at night, of course, but the invitations will have to be written and got off at once, and you've got to write 'em. Now sit down at that table—there's stacks of letter-paper on it, with 'Toad Hall' ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... saw that it annoyed Mrs. Lyndsay, was sure to lead the conversation slily to some circumstance which never failed to place the honest-hearted Scotchwoman on her high-horse: and then she would talk,—ye gods!—how she would talk—and splutter away in her broad provincial dialect, until the wicked boy ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... time—tried to throttle him. The scientific manager was making some ineffectual attempts to claw something with his hands and to kick, when the welcome sound of quick footsteps sounded on the floor. The next moment Azuma-zi had left him and darted towards the big dynamo. There was a splutter amid the roar. ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Flemish architecture, the London Tower Bridge. When before this, temerarious anticipators have written of the mighty buildings that might someday be, the illustrator has blended with the poor ineffectual splutter of the author's words, his powerful suggestion that it amounted simply to something bulbous, florid and fluent in the vein of the onion, and L'Art Nouveau. But here, it may be, the illustrator ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks, but the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a gray, bleak look came upon him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could, but though seven times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... water suited the mink well enough. A hunter of fish in their holes, he was almost as much at home in the water as a fish. But the raccoon it did not suit at all. With a splutter he relinquished his hold on the mink's loins; and the latter, perceiving the advantage, let go and snapped again for the throat. But again he miscalculated the alertness of the raccoon's sturdy muscles. The latter had turned his head the instant that the mink's jaws ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... was at his lip, but at this moment he choked with a great splutter; and Mr. Archer, as if startled by the noise, made so sudden a movement that one corner of the sheet tore off and stayed between his finger and thumb. It was some little time before the old man was sufficiently recovered to beg the ostler ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Prince; and there stood the most perfect little real cannon, loaded with real shot, and in his hand was a lighted match ready to fire it with. He lost no time in pointing it straight at the clump of furze bushes, and the real gunpowder made a flash and a splutter, and the shot went right into the middle of the yellow gorse and blew it all away so completely that not a trace of it was left, except one small bush that the Prince had no difficulty in jumping over. The cannon went back to nowhere ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... morning. His big guns have suddenly become nervously active. Then, a little murmur along the pits and trenches, and from somewhere over behind us, this air-shark drives up the sky. The enemy's balloons splutter a little, retract, and go rushing down, and we send a spray of bullets as they drop. Then against our aerostat, and with the wind driving them clean overhead of us, come the antagonistic flying-machines. I incline ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... can imagine the times that he had with his companions, ducking under the rollers; or coming in on top of a comber and landing with a swash and a splutter as the big wave went whirling far up the beach; or standing up on his tail and scratching his head as the old people did; or playing "I'm the King of the Castle" on slippery, weedy rocks that just stuck out of the wash. ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... decided to splutter once more, and give up the struggle. The long wick curled over, the tiny beam ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... about us between themselves in a continuous splutter of Chinese. We could tell, by their grimaces and gestures ... we rather liked their harmless, human impudence ... as long as they did the work, while we lazed about, talking ... while up and down the yellow sweep of the Pei-ho the little ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... spoke the guttering tallow candle, swaying in its socket, suddenly went out with a loud splutter and a sizzle that echoed through the desolate room like the ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... that?' he yells, for the boy was talking again. He listened a minute, and it was right entertaining to watch his face work as the words come along. It registered all the evil that Scotland has suffered from her oppressors since they first thought up the name for it. Finally he begun to splutter back—it must have sounded fine at the other end—but he had to hang up, he was that emotional. After he got his face human ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... should be here, your majesty—very remarkable.' And then he subsided—happily unheard—into hopeless embarrassment. That is exactly how I feel, Stephen. I feel I can't stand it much longer, that presently I shall splutter ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... that the young American looked behind him for the first time, and realized that he had a passenger. Promptly he throttled down his engine into a slow splutter, and turned in his seat as the machine ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... that wonderful clearness and refinement which people who have been brought up in a damp climate and among smudged outlines so often mistake for hardness. Our great ammunition fire in the hollow of the hill burned merrily, and by-and-by a furious splutter of Mauser cartridges began, with every now and then the louder report of shells and great smoke balls hanging in the air. But sheer above all, above yellow veldt and ruined Boer laager, rose the hill, the position we had carried, grim and rigid against the sunset and all black. And, ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... could not hold back altogether, and he got what little sport he could out of it by putting some red pepper on Fatty's last mouthful of pie. He used a liberal dose, and the pie had scarcely disappeared within the stout youth's mouth when the boy began to splutter. ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... which slipped from under it; such occasional sea-quakes came probably from the swell of some steamer that had passed it in the dark; otherwise the waves were harmless though restless. But it was piercingly cold, and there was, from time to time, a splutter of rain like the splutter of the spray, which seemed almost to freeze as it fell. MacIan, more at home than his companion in this quite barbarous and elemental sort of adventure, had rowed toilsomely with ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... men seized an arquebuse, and levelled it at the struggling form in the water. He pulled the trigger, but no sooner did the powder splutter in the pan than the gun burst in his hands, and a piece of the metal, entering his brain, laid him dead ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... a splutter, a stream of fire ran along the ground, and, as they gazed, an enormous flash of brilliant white light blazed up, nearly blinding them, followed by a deafening report and a tremendous concussion that seemed to make the very earth tremble. And with it came ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... their painted pasteboard. It is the desire to conquer. Hours pass by. Night glooms. Dawn, it may be, rises unheeded; and they sit calling for fresh cards at the "Portland," or the "Union," while waning candles splutter in the sockets, and languid waiters snooze in the ante-room. Sol rises. Jones has lost four pounds: Brown has won two; Robinson lurks away to his family house and (mayhap indignant) Mrs. R. Hours of evening, night, morning, have passed away ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... point the black-mustached man began to splutter words and threats so fast that nobody could quite understand him. Mr. Damon, however, did not shrink in the least. He stood adamant in the ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... through the trumpet; and when they manned the breaks and began to pump, he roared at them, "Down on her, down on her, boys!" so that you would have thought the Neptune could put out the world if it was burning up. Instead of that there was usually a feeble splutter from the nozzle, and sometimes none at all, even if the hose did not break; it was fun to see the hose break. The Neptune was a favorite with the boys, though they believed that the Tremont could squirt ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... at Michael, wondering if the strangely spent night had upset his reason. He could only splutter out ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... I saw Roger and the cook leap ahead, then the man doused the light. There was a sound of scuffling, a crash, a splutter of angry words. A moment later I heard the click of flint on steel, a tiny blaze sprang from the tinder, and the candle again ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... a pump, and hoot like an owl, From the coffin shape with its brooding face That stands on the stair, (you know the place,) Saying, "Click, cluck," like an ancient hen, A-gathering the minutes home again, To the kitchen knave with its wooden stutter, Doing equal work with double splutter, Yelping, "Click, clack," with a vulgar jerk, As much as to say, "Just ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... suspense for the fatal attack. They wait; unconsciously the primitive instinct is awakened in them. They crave fight, they want to feel the delicious shiver produced by the sight of two bodies intertwining, the splutter of blood and pieces of torn, steaming human flesh flying through the cage and falling on the floor. They want to hear the roar, the cries, the shrieks of agony. . . . Then the crowd breaks into dark pieces, and disperses over the slimy marsh ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... I fired under the plane-trees failed to trouble the concert of the Cicadae; to-day, the dazzling light of the fire-wheels and the splutter of the crackers do not avail to distract the Spider from her weaving. And, after all, what difference would it make to my neighbour if the world fell in! The village could be blown up with dynamite, without her losing her head for such a trifle. She would calmly ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... your servant," he began, in a voice that was as fat as his abdomen. Then went on, in a splutter of rapture, "Why, what a company! Here is all Florence, from base to apex." He paused for a moment, and said behind his hand, in a loud whisper which came easily to my ears, "Is the mysterious poet of your fellowship?" And he glanced around knowingly, as if he hoped ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... lines of supports in the cover of intrenchments. It is a spectacle entirely typical of a modern battle, for there is scarcely anything to see at all. If it were not for those shells being tossed to and fro on the right there, and an occasional splutter of rifle fire, one might easily suppose that the lines of blue-coated men lying about on the stubble were all dozing in the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... avenue in a splutter of wet gravel. The gate still stood open. They wheeled furiously into the side road and regained the chaussee. As yet there was no sign of pursuit. The car rocked dangerously over the broken pave, so Robin, ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... musical cluck, and at first sight I was glad that I had met her, but a moment later I was afraid that she was going to laugh at me. The old man did not introduce me; his wife did not know my name, and I sought to speak my name, but had lost it just at that moment and could merely splutter something. I was not much embarrassed, though; I recalled what I had heard the two men say, and behind me was the strong brace ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... took some sheets of blue official paper from a drawer, and his quill pen travelled furiously over them with many a screech and splutter. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... head one minute, and the next, put it sound again on my shoulders: you shall see an example." He then took hold of the knife, ripped up the leathern bag, and all the hasty-pudding tumbled out upon the floor. "Ods splutter hur nails," cried the Welsh giant, who was ashamed to be outdone by such a little fellow as Jack, "hur can do that hurself." So he snatched up the knife, plunged it into his stomach, and in a ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... silent. Shoop rolled a cigarette. The splutter of the sulphur-match, as it burned from blue to yellow, startled them. They relaxed, cursing off their ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... upon which I tapped the crystal gently with the tomahawk. It quivered. A shaft of rainbow tints dazzled my sight. I tapped again. As I touched it it third time, the fragile finger with which the gaunt old rock had scorned the plodding centuries vanished in a splutter of spangles! ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... daily life at General Headquarters the Commander's character is impressed. After lunch, for example, he spends an hour alone, and in this period of meditation the whole fateful panorama of the war passes before him. When it is over the wires splutter and the fierce life of the coming night—the Army does not begin to fight until most ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... among men. Sometimes, when the canoe rounded a point of rocks a flock of geese were found floating peacefully among the sedges, sound asleep, with their heads under their wings. These would leap into the air and fly off in great alarm, with much difficulty and tremendous splutter, reminding one of the proverb, "The more haste the less speed." At other times they would come upon a flock of ducks so suddenly, that they had no time to take wing, so they dived instead, and thus ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... adjourn this meeting," said Cupid, recovering from a fresh cough and splutter. "Or old Gurley'll be coming in to put me on a mustard plaster.—As for you, Infant, if you take the advice of a chap who has seen life, you'll keep your ideas to yourself: they're too crude for this ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... "don't splutter and mumble like that, old fellow. You don't have to say a word. Just make a bow to the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... Dick encouragingly, when, splash! Tom went overboard like a flash, the lower end of his pole having slipped on a smooth rock of the river bottom. There was a grand splutter, and it was fully a minute before Tom reappeared — twenty feet away and ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... there, trying to express the view newly opened to his sympathies of the human and equine misery in close association. But it was very difficult. "Poor brute, poor people!" was all he could repeat. It did not seem forcible enough, and he came to a stop with an angry splutter: "Shame!" Stevie was no master of phrases, and perhaps for that very reason his thoughts lacked clearness and precision. But he felt with greater completeness and some profundity. That little word ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... turning in the middle of the room, then two, then none. There was a lack of arm-chairs for the men; the ladies hid their yawns behind their fans. At last the music ceased, and as no one said anything, a dead silence spread through the room. Candles began to splutter and ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... ambitious and aspiring soul. As certain liquors, confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions, will ferment, and fret, and chafe in their imprisonment, so the spiritual essence or soul of Mr Tappertit would sometimes fume within that precious cask, his body, until, with great foam and froth and splutter, it would force a vent, and carry all before it. It was his custom to remark, in reference to any one of these occasions, that his soul had got into his head; and in this novel kind of intoxication many scrapes and mishaps befell him, which he had frequently concealed with no small difficulty ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... fooling. See, the gas-jet here beside the dresser. Look—I can't turn it no higher. Hear it sing and splutter. You ain't awake good ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... these ultra-red rays in Nature may be thus illustrated: I remove the iodine filter, and concentrate the total beam upon a test tube containing water. It immediately begins to splutter, and in a minute or two it boils. What boils it? Placing the alum solution in front of the lamp, the boiling instantly ceases. Now, the alum is pervious to all the luminous rays; hence it cannot be these rays that caused the boiling. I now introduce the iodine, and remove the alum: vigorous ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... short as the allowance was, he made a great deal of it. For even while jumping out his wits for wickedness came to him, and he just kicked the edge of the pot, so that it spilled all the scalding hot water into the fire, and threw up the ashes with a great splutter. They flew into the eyes of Dame Bear and ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... ranks of the silent, awe-stricken company, each member of which was wondering by how much of the loss his own meagre pay would be mulcted, there came a splutter of laughter. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... applied a flaming torch to the tar-smeared faggots, which began to hiss and splutter in the still, frosty, ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... child, and she was in such terror from her really terrific experience that she threatened to go into convulsions. Andrew went over for his mother, whom he had always regarded as an incontestable authority about children. She, after one sharp splutter of wrath at the whole situation, went to work with the ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... when I reproached myself with not thinking of her for a whole day. These were the moments when a letter came from Father Dan, telling me she was less well than before and her spark of life had to be coaxed and trimmed or it would splutter out altogether. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... comment. None was forthcoming. His only reply was the splutter of the small fire which they ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... goodwill, and happiness, and men had ceased to strain all the powers and talents which the God of Mercy has bestowed upon them for their mutual benefit to one another's destruction; then sudden darkness, and silence broken only at long intervals by a fitful splutter of musketry. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... with the most sedulous care, and should any of the same quality be left, to forward it to him at once. Expense is no consideration. The importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be exaggerated." So far the letter had run composedly enough, but here, with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had broken loose. "For God's sake," he had added, "find me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... forgot it; I should certainly ha' forgot it!' said Sam; so saying, he at once stepped into the stationer's shop, and requested to be served with a sheet of the best gilt-edged letter-paper, and a hard-nibbed pen which could be warranted not to splutter. These articles having been promptly supplied, he walked on direct towards Leadenhall Market at a good round pace, very different from his recent lingering one. Looking round him, he there beheld a signboard on which the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... but when we picked him up it was obvious that he was dying. The violet beam vanished as his body struck it—vanished with a hiss and splutter, and a puff of sulphuric smoke that mingled with the smell of burning garments ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... be undignified for a Special Constable to sit down. It is possible that a penalty of three days in a dark cell awaits the transgressor. We do not know, and we do not enquire. In that deadliest hour beyond the dawn, when the street lamps splutter out and the ruthless morning light reveals us to one another unwashed, unshaven and horribly all-nighty in appearance, it is indeed a grateful relief to sit down on the wooden Windsor chair and wait the six o'clock of release ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... that patience would coax a flame from those twigs without my paper's aid, but to be patient does not afford the posturing which youth loves. So it was a comfort to wreck all magnificently: and I knew that, too, as we three drew back upon the western bank and watched the writhing twigs splutter ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... scattered on the table in front of him, looking as if he had been robbed; and as old Svendsen's eye rested on the ruined letter, he discovered that he had a smudge of ink on one of his fingers. Now, it was thirty years since old Svendsen had had any ink on his fingers. Mr. Worse must have made a splutter with his pen when he snatched it so hurriedly; and as the old bookkeeper's eye wandered from the smudge of ink, to the frightful confusion which reigned in the office, and back again to the smudge, he repeated, slowly and majestically, the ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... tongue, Jim," he said. "We've worry enough to go on with just at present. I mean it, my lad. If you've anything important to proclaim, leave it to me to give you the tip when to splutter at ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... from struggling to come to the surface. Then he felt himself lying on his back in the water, supported by Frank. The motion was not unpleasant as he rose and fell on the waves, although now and then a splash of water came over his face, and made him cough and splutter for breath. He could see nothing but the blue sky overhead, could feel nothing except that occasionally he received a blow from one or other of Frank's knees, as the latter swam beneath him, with Ruthven's ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... to the world like a bird to his nest, Now is the drone of his coming the roaring of hell, Now with a splutter and crash are the engines at ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... other, dropping the match on the wet stone, where it went out with a faint splutter. 'What's ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... or recklessly, threw themselves away. Divided thus between injury and gratitude she speedily answered her father's letter, writing upon a sheet of scented grass-green note-paper, deeply ribbed, which made her pen blot, splutter, and sprawl far more than it would have done on ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... "Ods splutter hur nails!" cried the Welsh Giant, who was ashamed to be outdone by such a little fellow as Jack, "hur can do that hurself;" so he snatched up the knife, plunged it into his own stomach, and in a ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... stereotyped passports to friendship, letters of introduction from friends at home, are as needless to introduce him as a life-preserver or a Colt's revolver to protect him. He had better amuse himself while in mid-ocean by presenting them to the porpoises that dive and splutter round the ship, for the only object they will accomplish will be the filling of his waste-paper basket on his ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... and jostle, whirl and flutter! They whisper, babble, twirl, and splutter! They glimmer, sparkle, stink and flare— A true witch-element! Beware! Stick close! else we shall severed ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... man's discomfiture before it occurred; I knew what a terrible splutter there would be when the stuff began to melt and run down his windpipe. I should have laughed aloud, but the bandage was hurting me terribly. With a vague hope of getting some relief from pain, I opened the door as softly as I could, went out and ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... paper, duly witnessed, lay on the table; the landlady and her daughter had gone; John Steele only waited for the ink to dry. He had no blotter, or sand; the fluid was old, thick; the principal signature in its big strokes, with here and there a splutter, would be unintelligible if the paper were folded now. So he lingered; both men were silent; a few tense minutes passed. John Steele leaned against the wall; his temples throbbed; the fog seemed creeping into the room and yet the door was closed. ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being Secretary ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the great red globe when her friend joined her. There had been a race of sloops that afternoon, and there was unusual animation on the quay and at the little club house. A small power boat, on which were the starter and judges and others, had just put in with a good deal of splutter and fuss. On the stoop of the club a small band was playing, and a bevy of young people were dancing. Following in the wake of the last sloop a yawl with a dingey in tow ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... effective resistance out of the question. Four of them pressed down each arm on to the bed, four each leg, three pressed on his head. Their animal faces champed and gibbered at him; the animal smell of them made him splutter ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Russia—the country where the state, more than ordinarily artificial and ill-balanced, was correspondingly weak—Fate had interpolated a blood-stained page of red and white terror in the years 1906-08. Although fitful, unorganized, and abortive, that wild splutter was one of the foretokens of the impending cataclysm, and was recognized as such by the writer of these pages. During the foregoing quarter of a century he had watched with interest the sowing of the dragon's teeth from which was one day to spring up a race of armed and frenzied men. Few observers, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... section of Northern France, keeping a mile and more above the surface of the earth, when Jack called out in this fashion. Talking is never easy aboard a working plane. The splutter of the motor, added to the noise caused by the spinning propellers, as well as the fact that as a rule pilot and observer keep well muffled up because of the chill in the rarified air, all combine to make ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... so, slowly and with much reluctance. He wiped his forehead vigorously the instant the flame began to splutter, but as the clear, steady light of the argand gradually spread over the little room Armitage could see the sweat again beading his forehead, and the dark eyes were glancing nervously about, and the hands that were ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... What's this? You let me go!" cried Codfish, and then began to splutter as the dry cornmeal got into his mouth ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... with a final scratch and splutter Joseph flung down his pen. With the sandbox tilted in the air, like a dicer about to make his throw, he ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... blind, strengthless—still keeps the valley. The windows which once, like eyes, watched men and horses creeping through the snow, braved the splutter of guns and the gleam of torches, are now holes for the birds to nest in. Tangled creepers have spread to the very summits of the walls. In the keep, instead of grim men in armour, there is a wooden board recording the history of the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... which I lay. It was wonderful to see so great a bulk passing like a shadow, with hardly the softest thudding of velvety pads. The candle was burning low—so low that I could hardly see the creature. And then, with a last flare and splutter it went out altogether. I was alone with the ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had lain in this new situation for the space of two minutes more, he got up again and sought the tiny kitchen, where he could be heard drawing water from the tap. "Ugh—warm as dish water!" Uncle Timothy could hear his distant splutter. ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... our men in the trenches stood in their waders, and the dawn of Christmas Day was greeted, not by angelic songs, but by the splutter of rifle-bullets all ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the Court that evening. Absence had made his heart grow fonder, and it was beating much faster than usual as he stood on the station platform awaiting the arrival of the train, and, when it ran in with much splutter and fuss, not even by a turn of her head did Miss Rose show herself aware of Tom's presence. Instead, she was looking after her ladies, lifting out their various belongings—not a few in number—and ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... gaunt column which the clustering ivy and shrubs at its base will some day topple down among the grass and heather—and to reach the Bishop's Gate through the single narrow stretch of Windsor Great Park that lies in Surrey. In winter, pheasants crouch under the brushwood or splutter through the trees; in summer the rhododendrons scent and empurple ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack- crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... will have no more of you, divorces you, spurns you, thrusts you from her, and, after the first splutter of wrath is done, then come ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... with the greatest benignity; Convincing her guests of a flow of geniality, As great as the stream of her large hospitality. Her dutiful husband was close at her side; And, though in his house, it could scarce be denied, He wasn't 'at home,' in the splutter and jargon, As much as in driving an excellent bargain. He suited his wife pretty well, for, at times, She found he was useful to furnish 'the dimes.' The most of his value she found in his pocket, And now he was playing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... I had before me as I walked back to my own house led inevitably to one verdict. I could almost reconstruct the ignoble pidgin-splutter in which Ching Po had told Stires, and was even now telling Follet. The wonder to me was that any one believed the miserable creature. Truth wouldn't be truth if it came from Ching Po. Yet if two men who were obviously prepossessed in the lady's favor were so easily to be convinced by ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... be considerably deeper than either brother had anticipated, and Waldo vanished from sight for a few seconds, then reappearing with lusty puff and splutter, shaking the pearly drops from ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... did. I can't say. For it was somewhere in the middle of the second or third hill after this that the little roadster began to splutter and cough like it had ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... machines set up a most exhilarating splutter, flaring and crackling all along the edge of the wood, and even attracted the attention of the Boers. All of a sudden there was a furious rush and roar overhead; two or three little cassarina trees and a shower of branches fell to the ground. What on earth could this be? The main action ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... They gobbled up their pies and cake, And everything the mice could bake; They stuffed themselves with good fresh meal, And ruined all they could not steal; They slapped their long tails in the butter Until they made a frightful splutter; Then, sleek and fine in coats of silk, They swam about in buttermilk. They ate up everything they found, And flung the plates upon the ground. And catching three mice by their tails, They drowned them in the water-pails; Then ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... One evening, while conversing peacefully with Therese and Laurent, she remained in the middle of a sentence with her mouth wide open: she felt as if she was being throttled. When she wanted to cry out and call for help, she could only splutter a few hoarse sounds. Her hands and feet were rigid. She found herself struck ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola |
