"Mess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... make her some tea and to bring it up with some bread and butter and preserves, and a light. She also ordered her to be careful that the people in the parlor should see her as she went up-stairs. "I guess they'll know I'm in earnest when they see the tea," she said. "I've set out a mess of 'em, and it won't take long ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... occasion to try them; when, if they prove their abilities, I will promote them; but if not, I will put them to death." He then allotted them an apartment, with an allowance of three cakes of bread and a mess of pottage daily; but placed spies over them, fearing lest they ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... made, indeed! Nothing would beguile her from it; only its fulfilment would bend her to yield to his importunities. It was a shocking mess that Reid had set for himself to drink some day, for Swan Carlson would come upon them in their hand-holding in his hour, ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... Flamaran a visit. I had been thinking about it for the last week, as I wanted him to help my Junian Latins out of a mess. I am acquiring a passion for that interesting class of freedmen. And really it is only natural. These Junian Latins were poor slaves, whose liberation was not recognized by the strict and ancient laws of Rome, because their masters chose ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of March our battery moved half a mile back of the line of breastworks. Two or more incidents recall, very distinctly to my memory, the camp which we there occupied. The colored boy Joe, who had cooked for my mess when rations were more abundant, was on hand again to pay his respects and furnish music for our dances. If we had been tramping on a hard floor never a sound of his weak violin could have been heard; but on the soft, pine tags we could go through the mazes of a cotillion, or the lancers, ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... of a very angry kind to vex the Ministry, and they will meet sooner by a fortnight than the Commons; and they say, are preparing some knocking addresses. Morrow, sirrahs. I'll sit at home, and when I go to bed I will tell you how I am.—I have sat at home all day, and eaten only a mess of broth and a roll. I have written a Prophecy,(7) which I design to print; I did it to-day, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... down, Marse call us and slip us way back into de woods, where it so black and deep. Next day, when de fight over, Marse come out with great big wagons piles full of mess-poke for us to eat. Dat what us call hog meat. Us sho' glad ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... its festival to elect its own warden, it will make the council seem a much more important business. We'd like to be allowed to stay till about half-past five, if we may, so that there would be time to have some fun over it. We'd promise not to make a mess with our picnicking." ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... on both sides, to prevent escape of juices. In a covered baking pan make a bed of chopped vegetables (potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, etc.); season well. Place upon it the beef with enough water to keep the mess steaming for four hours. ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... thing was, though, in all the mess I didn't feel a bit astonished or frightened. It seemed as if I'd been in a good many fights, because I told my next man so when the row began. But that cad of an overseer on my deck wouldn't unloose our chains and give us a chance. He always said that we'd all ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... doubt. A rare 'ard liver, cock-fighting, 'unting, 'orse-racing from one year's end to the other. Then after 'im came my grandfather; he went to the law, and a sad mess he made of it—went stony-broke and left my father without a sixpence; that is why mother didn't want me to go into livery. The family 'ad been coming down for generations, and mother thought that I was born to restore it; and so I was, but not as she thought, ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... no reply, but the muttering voice ceased, and Pen laid his hand upon the boy's forehead, as he said to himself, "Poor fellow! A good mess of bread-and-milk would save his life. I wonder how long ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... respect for some of the commandments in the Decalogue. Between the long-boat and the fore-hatch is the galley, where the "Doctor" (as the cook is universally called in the merchant service) is busily employed in dishing up a steaming supper, prepared for the cabin mess; the steward, a genteel-looking mulatto, dressed in a white apron, stands waiting at the galley-door, ready to receive the aforementioned supper, whensoever it may be ready, and to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... times, I'm a little doubtful. She's in a bad way, I admit. It has its bad side as well as its pretty side, this religion. It unhinges a lot of people, and I reckon Clarke's a little off or he wouldn't have got my folks into that mess." ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... itself a species of intoxication occasioned by the fumes of tobacco, but, undoubtedly, occasions drinking and tippling by those who acquire the habit; and he intreats the Officers commanding Regiments to prevent smoking in the Mess Rooms of their several Regiments, and in the adjoining apartments, and to discourage the practice among the Officers of Junior ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... them talking, I tell you," explained Steve, persistently. "This is how it came about. You see, yesterday, as Toby here couldn't go fishing with me I started off alone, taking my bait pail and rod along, and bent on getting a mess of perch at a favorite old fishin' hole I knew along the shore of the lake about a mile ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... right then! He'll follow me like a lamb. He doesn't want to mess around with such. But she's got some ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... navy, the men liberally mess on tables, which, between meals, are triced up out of the way. The American sailors mess on deck, and pick up their broken biscuit, or midshipman's nuts, like fowls ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... keep him and the rest so closely confined, but I know that they are a slippery lot—every one of them has deserted before—and if I should let them get away now that I have got a grip on them, the colonel would give me Hail Columbia. Gus has got himself into a mess, George. The first time he deserted he was simply put into the guard-house and fined, but this escapade is going to land him at Leavenworth. Now I will make you acquainted with our boys, and then I will go down and tell Gus that ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... either guess or understand. The following would have been his summing up of her: "Flaringly handsome girl, brought up by her mother to one end. Bad temper to begin with. Girl who might, if she lost her head, get into some frightful mess. Meets a fascinating devil in the first season. A regular Romeo and Juliet passion blazes up—all for love and the world well lost. All London looking on. Lady Mallowe frantic and furious. Suddenly the fascinating devil ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... except that it missed on high speed, so he humored it and they ambled along at "sumpty-sump miles an hour," as Roy said, "but what care we," he added, "as long as she goes." They anchored for several hours in the middle of the day and fished, and had a mess of ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... try to be satirical!" said the sprightly youth; "you'll only make a mess of it. What is the use dropping one drop of vinegar into such a ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Silesia is theirs, though Friedrich were here twice over. "What is Friedrich? We beat him at Kolin. His Prussians at Zittau, at Moys, at Breslau in the new Malplaquet, were we beaten by them? Hnh!"—and snort (in the Austrian mess-rooms), and snap their fingers ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... has got at least a quarter wildcat in it. Its grandmother, or mebbe its great-grandmother, was took up to the Tuttle Ranch when there wasn't another cat within forty miles, and it got to running round nights; and quite a long time after that they found it with a mess of kittens in a box out in the harness room. One look at their feet and ears was all you'd want to see that their pa was a bobcat. They all become famous fighting characters, and was marked just like this descendant of theirs that Cousin Egbert has. And, ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... along the wide corridor of the great ship toward the mess hall in Section C, thinking about his brother. It had been only about six weeks before, when the Valhalla had made its last previous stop on Earth, that Steve had decided to ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... now," he said, "and if after this I hear of a single perversion, woe be unto that pervert, for it is better for his miserable soul that he had never been born. Is there a man here base enough to sell his birthright for a mess of Mr. Lucre's pottage? Is there a man here, who is not too strongly imbued with a hatred of heresy, to laugh to scorn their bribes and their Bibles. Not a man, or, if there is, let him go out from amongst us, in order that we may know him—that we may avoid ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... name for it," assented Vandover. "She thought she was too damned high-toned for me. As soon as I got into that mess about Ida Wade, she threw me over. No, she didn't want to be associated with me any longer. Well, she can go to the devil. Geary's welcome ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... the Hebrews; for that is an abomination unto the Egyptians. And they sat before him, the firstborn according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth; and the men marveled one at another. And he took and sent messes unto them from before him, but Benjamin's mess was five times as much as any of theirs. And they drank, and ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... not yours," said Dan, hotly. Then he came nearer, and the anger died out of his eyes. "Don't let's quarrel, grandpa," he pleaded. "I've gotten into a mess, and I'm sorry for it—on ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... kitchen, is here, and she delights in cooking all sorts of things on that day, so for the remaining six days our home smells of her culinary operations—most abominable, this odour of stale cookery! And what a mess our rooms are in on Monday morning! You wouldn't comprehend, even if I told you. I have to clean up all this, and I wish I could fly away every Sunday. At times I get so tired of this way of living. I hope ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... existence, the smallest mercies in the form of distraction were thankfully received. Life just then, even for the officers, was not roseate—the messes had a ubiquitous menu of bully beef and bread, and the mess-tents were made of the tarpaulins of the big mule-waggons. Repose was a beautiful name. The torture of sleeping on a valise on the ground for weeks at a stretch was—so an officer declared—much the same as that produced by some beds in Irish inns—after lying ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... myself. You see, I come from California, and there's no country lovelier, but when it comes to towns—! I have often groaned at home to see the offensive mess man made in the face of nature, even though I'm no art sharp, like Jeff. But this place! It was built mostly of a sort of dull rose-colored stone, with here and there some clear white houses; and it lay abroad among ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... that ought to have been discussed and explained, if, indeed, the real truth was to be arrived at. Personally, Monferrand felt quite at ease, for he had written nothing, signed nothing, and knew that one could always extricate oneself from a mess by showing some audacity, and never confessing. Nevertheless, what a commotion it would all cause in the parliamentary duck-pond. He at once realised the inevitable consequences, the ministry overthrown and swept away by this fresh whirlwind of denunciation and tittle-tattle. Mege would renew his ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... sealed it. The long-drawn, subtle corners of Ranny's eyes and mouth were lifted in that irrepressible smile of his, while Mr. Ransome asserted his pharmaceutical dignity by acrimonious comment. "Now then! You might have club feet instead of hands. Tha's right—mess the sealin'-wax, waste the string, spoil anything you haven't got ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... Ah! dear me, I wish I could putt like that," though occasionally his chorus of praise betrayed him into error, and from habit he found himself saying: "Good shot, my lord," when my lord had just made an egregious mess of things. But on the whole he devised so pleasantly sycophantic an atmosphere as to procure a substantial tip for himself, and to make Lord Ashbridge conscious of being a very superior performer. Whether ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... fact that you have no ill-feelings against the enemy, and may not even fear him, you destroy him as best you can. On the evening before our first battle we were sitting about the mess table—most of us officers of the line. None of us had ever killed a man. I said: 'Friends, when I meet the first Russian officer tomorrow my impulse will be to shake his hand.' My comrades agreed ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... to know my opinion," spoke up Toby, briskly, "I've got my mouth made up for another mess of those fine and frisky Paradise River bass; and I'd like a whole lot to have one of you fellows go over ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... imminent hazards: For, by virtue of a new modelled council June 4th, 1764. there were orders to send out parties in quest of all conventicle preachers (as they were called, who accepted not of the indulgence), amongst whom were Mess. Dickson, Welch, and Blackadder, &c. 400 pounds sterling were offered for Mr. Welch, and 1000 merks for Mr. Dickson and each of the rest. Nay, the soldiers were indemnified and their assistants, if any slaughter was committed in apprehending them, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... that way, red-handed from their work, and they too prepared to pass the night under the tree. So they cut them down firewood, and made them a roaring fire beneath a huge cauldron, and in this cauldron they began to boil their supper. They boiled and boiled till their mess of pottage was ready, and then they all sat down round the cauldron and took out their large ladles, and were just about to fall to—in fact they were blowing their food because it was so boiling hot—when Ivan let his big millstone plump ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... every one thinks at first. Why should you thrust your nose into the mess? The neck ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... caught you peering from the bushes at the Devil's Hole, do you? Yes, I am quick-eyed enough to read every thought in your black heart. Do I not know that you came in the canoe with the white medicine man from Oswego? Do I not know that you listened outside the open window of the mess-room at Fort Niagara, while the white chiefs talked at night? Do I not know that you painted your face, with the thought that the white man was a fool and would no longer recognize you? Then you came in this canoe that you might ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... obscenity his lack of concern for the tribulations of his survivors. "The world could do with a good deal more mess, if ...
— 2 B R 0 2 B • Kurt Vonnegut
... Michu. "In my opinion, instead of letting the young man out on bail, we ought to pull him out of this mess at once. Everything turns on the examination of du Croisier and his wife. You might summons them to appear while the court is sitting, M. Camusot; take down their depositions before four o'clock, send in your report to-night, and we will give our decision in the morning before ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... a fleeting lyrical emotion which expresses itself in a flash, usually in connection with love of country and kindred across the sea. I had a touching illustration of it the other morning. The despot who reigns over our kitchen was gathering a mess of dandelions on the rear lawn. It was one of those blue and gold days which seem especially to belong New England. "It's in County Westmeath I 'd be this day," she said, looking up at me. "I'd go cool my hands in the grass on my ould mother's grave ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... to heart bitterly enough, God knows; but the lesson was a useful one, and it served its turn. I have never trusted myself to love any woman since that day, till I met the pure young creature who is to be my wife. Her truth is above all doubt; she will not sell her birthright for a mess of pottage.' ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... got you into an awful mess, haven't I? I usually do make a mess of everything I undertake. You'd better beware ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... of doing it when her fingers were in such a tremor, and with the mysterious package in her pocket; and though it may be an ungallant and improper thing to say of a lady's performance, she "made a mess of it." ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... "would be a purgatory for one of my pigs." The senses, in short, are paralyzed. The primitive man is content so long as he can sleep and get something to eat. He gets something to eat, but what kind of food? To put up with the indigestible mess a peasant here requires a still tougher stomach than in Limousin; in certain villages where, ten years later, every year twenty or twenty-five hogs are to be slaughtered, they now slaughter but three[5144].—On contemplating this temperament, rude and intact ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... came back into the room they found the tables drawn apart with a wide space between. The Belgian orderlies were removing plates and cups from one to the other, establishing under the Commandant's directions a separate mess. By tea-time two chauffeurs had added ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... he, 'our wedgment's so DOOTHID exthpenthif. Must hunt, you know. A man couldn't live in the wedgment if he didn't. Mess expenses enawmuth. Must dine at mess. Must drink champagne and claret. Ours ain't a port and sherry light-infantry mess. Uniform's awful. Fitzstultz, our Colonel, will have 'em so. Must be a distinction you know. At his ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hips, thigh, leg, and partially the hair of her cunt. "I can see your cunt," said I staunching my nose. She snatched up the torn chemise, hiding herself with it. "Oh! go, go," said she, "oh! that mess, what shall I do!" and she stopped to set up the piss-pot which was laying on one side; I rushed forward, nose still bleeding, and tried to feel the half naked thigh. "For God's sake go," said she, "here is Eliza coming." I heard Tom lumping ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... Henry added, "to salve the nervous wreckage that our unspeakable Western civilisation produces with every generation; if it's doing good to render the disastrous mess which we have made of human life possible for a few years longer, by bringing relief to the principal victims of it; then, indeed, I am a desirable member of society. But I question the whole thing. I question very much whether ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... hints as to the kind of dinner they'd like to have on Christmas Day. But the landlady was astute. "What's the difference," she asked the solemn man at the end of the table, "between a turkey dinner and a mess of stewed prunes?" ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... pleased with the Duke. The Duke, disturbed, asked his reason for thinking so. "Do you wish to learn it?" said the Chevalier; "well, then, you must know that, disgusted by your compliments, I went up into the bedroom in which you slept, and made a filthy mess on the floor, which the landlady will no doubt attribute to you, despite all your ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Nightingale. These works are written in new styles and they demand a new technique. Put Mme. Melba, Mme. Destinn, Mme. Sembrich, or Mme. Galli-Curci to work on these scores and you will simply have a sad mess. ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... the main road in a cloud of dust. It sped on the fleeting tires of a high-powered motor which flew from its dust-grey hood a red flag with two white stars. It blew into the villages and out, through the billets and cook tents, mess halls, and picket lines. The whirlwind ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... a mess of it," Harry said, "a hopeless mess of it. I've tried everything, and it's all failed. I'd better back out of it—" Then, after a ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... without being condemned," he gasped. "You will use your influence, I know, and you will get me out of this mess. I shall be grateful to you for ever, and will do anything you like! But don't leave me, it would ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... speculator previously to Queen Anne's reign, he would have been scouted as a dreamer and a visionary, who calculated upon men being generally somewhat worse than Esau, viz., giving up their birthrights, and without the mess of pottage." However, on this memorable day, thus it was the union was ratified; the bill received the royal assent without a muttering, or a whispering, or the protesting echo of a sigh. Perhaps there might be a little pause—a silence like that which follows an earthquake; but there was no plain-spoken ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... galley, which was also the mess-room of the crew when she had any. Forward of this, and under the forward deck, was the forecastle, to which the inquirer descended. It was fitted up with bunks, and there was only one entrance to it, by a ladder from ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... of human affairs. If the men and women of the Renaissance were moved by Art and Nature, that was because in Art and Nature they saw their own reflections. The Classical Renaissance was not a re-birth but a re-discovery; and that superb mess of thought and observation, lust, rhetoric, and pedantry, that we call Renaissance literature, is its best and most characteristic monument. What it rediscovered were the ideas from the heights of which the ancients had gained a view ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... lie down on the hearthrug—it was in Mr. Hornby's study, which I was tidying up at the time. Here I was found by Reuben, and a dreadful fright it gave him at first; and then he tore up his handkerchief to tie up the wounded finger, and you never saw such an awful mess as he got his hands in. He might have been arrested as a murderer, poor boy, from the condition he was in. It will make your professional gorge rise to learn that he fastened up the extemporised bandage with red tape, which he got from the writing table after rooting ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... requires a more even surface in order not to hurt the larva's tender skin, is covered with a coat of pure mortar. This inner whitewash, however, is put on without any attempt at art, indeed one might say that it is ladled on in great splashes; and the grub takes care, after finishing its mess of honey, to make itself a cocoon and hang the rude walls of its abode with silk. On the other hand, the Anthophorae and the Halicti, two species of Wild Bees whose grubs weave no cocoon, delicately glaze the inside ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... came out in an explosion. "All right," Mars said. "Discounting the training end of things, and assuming that Hermes can fix up the glandular mess, I think ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... defend himself! He flung his arms out wildly into his eternal night, and then burst suddenly into tears. He cried for some time, but it was the thought of Ken which made him stop. Ken would have said, "Isn't there enough salt water around here already, without such a mess of tears?" ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... sailor was to all appearance working his passage, he should not venture to make himself so familiar with those who were above him in rank and position. For his part, he was surprised that Captain Lyford allowed him to dine in the cabin, when he ought to mess with the other ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... of seven o'clock on this momentous evening of the 1st of April, a 'mess' of sailors on board a Danish ship of the line, the outermost of all in the harbour, had just received, in common with their shipmates, an extra allowance of braendeviin—white corn-brandy, somewhat ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... it back to me, and the legate commanded, "Don't mess him up any more. Give him back his knife and take him to the gates. But make sure he ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... have been a mousse with Hollandaise sauce, is a huge mound, much too big for the platter, with a narrow gutter of water around the edge and the center dabbed over with a curdled yellow mess. You realize that not only is the food itself awful, but that the quantity is too great for one dish. You don't know what to do next; you know there is no use in apologizing, there is no way of dropping through the floor, or waking yourself up. You have collected the smartest and the most critical ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... played at Athlone was your suggestion, and as we never could find out how that alarm originated, of course you put it down to me, whereas it is just as likely to have been your own work. Colonel Corcoran knows that Dicky and I were in the mess-room at the convent at the time when the alarm ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over it. The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished. Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted. Thanks ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... beach, and covered her completely over with branches of palm and other broad-leaved trees, so as to save her from being yet more destroyed by the heat of the sun. We then set to work and built ourselves two huts for sleeping in, and a shed which served us as a mess-room, open on every side. Mr Henley and I intended to occupy one of the huts and the crew the other. We had found a pure, abundant stream of water, so that we were in no ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... not feel like sleeping, himself. He lay down on his bed, but his thoughts seemed dancing from one thing to another,—to Brother Joe, travelling homeward now, he hoped, after a week's absence; to Mira's goodness, her patience with his wayward self, her kindness in letting him mess with chemicals, and turn the shed into a laboratory, and frighten her with explosions; to Dan'l Brown and ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... in molecules, he demonstrated From the mess hash to many a listening classful; Great as a botanist, he separated Three kinds of "Mentha" in one julep's glassful; High in astronomy, it has been stated He was the first at West Point to discover Mars' missing satellites, and calculated Their true positions, not the heavens ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... and make a mess of flapjacks for breakfast," for it was admitted by the boys that Dick was the best ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... she cried in despair. "Roxy has made a frightful mess of it, after all. He has not taken a compartment for you. I'm—I'm afraid you'll have to take this one and—and let ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... 4/10 of an inch in the squalls. Mr G.F. relates an interesting enough alarm that occurred during this stormy weather. "A petty officer in the forepart of the vessel, awaking suddenly, heard a noise of water streaming through his birth, and breaking itself against his own and his mess-mates' chests; he leaped out of his bed, and found himself to the middle of his leg in water. He instantly acquainted the officer of the quarter-deck with the dreadful circumstances, and in a few moments almost ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... head of the train, I couldn't stop her with the hand-brake; should I succeed in locking the wheels, the brute would be doing fifty miles an hour by that time—the front truck would slide and skid, leave the tracks and pile up with me at the bottom of a mess of wrecked rolling-stock ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... had gone, "you are a pig if you don't go on that sub-committee as to entrance arrangements. You know what the Albert Hall is. They'll make a horrible mess of it, and it's just the sort of thing you ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... neatly spitting a leaf on the pavement with his stick. "Afterward she had various adventures with various wealthy men, and always won. Her particularly spectacular adventure was posing, at the instigation of the Duke of Lotzen, as the wife of the Archduke Armand of Valeria; and she stirred up a mess of turmoil until the ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... cried; and a stoutly built sailor amidships cried, "Cheer ho, sir! Haul away, sir! Will it be a mess o' ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... well, Roger!" replied Leigh. "I have nearly filled the bag, as you may see, and some of the birds are fine big fellows, and should be excellent eating. At any rate we will sample them at mess this evening. But I must be off and get the men together. As you two have liberty until we start for the ship, you may take this musket and ammunition, if you like, and try to shoot something on your own account. One's own shooting always tastes best, I am told," he added ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Mess the song of the bomb-bird is heard. The searchlights stab and slash about the sky like tin swords in a stage duel; presently they pick up the bomb-bird—a glittering flake of tinsel—and the racket begins. Archibalds pop, machine guns chatter, rifles crack, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... little later on, Steve, never fear," he was assured. "I'm not more than half certain even now that it can be so, and I never like to make a mess of things. Besides, you know, it wouldn't be just fair to Obed to have us all suspecting him of playing tricks. Just go on as you've been doing. Take my word for it, this new friend we've made is all to the good, and will never turn out to be ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... would rather you had not seen this; and if it had been any other man in my company, I should perhaps have offered him money, to insure that there was no idle chattering at the mess-tables; but you I ask, as a man I can trust, to give me your word of honour as a soldier to let what you have ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... from my earliest years a love for the military life, and there is in it an animation and relish of existence which I have never found amongst any other set of men, except players, with whom you know I once lived a great deal. At the mess of Colonel Stuart's regiment I was quite the great man, as we used to say; and I was at the same time all joyous and gay ... I never found myself so well received anywhere. The young ladies there were delightful, and many ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... went off just by chance?" said a comrade, who was on the staff that evening, to the officer of the Horse Guards, referring to Ermolov. "It was a trick. It was done on purpose to get Konovnitsyn into trouble. You'll see what a mess there'll be tomorrow." ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... has chanted the Psalms under the arches of Melrose Abbey, but the vampire priest had never lived aught but a worldly, carnal life. He held a post that suited him well, as chaplain to a certain illustrious lady whose property lay near the Eildons, and who, so long as her Mess John performed his duties as family priest, paid no heed to his mode of occupying his ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... trying amid many groans to expose the disgusting mess he had made around his knee, when a step was heard outside. The door opened and in ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Mr. PUNCH! who is that tall, fair-haired, somewhat parrot-faced gentleman, smiling like a schoolboy over a mess of treacle, and now kissing the tips of his five fingers as gingerly as if he were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... pan washed and put in its place. Helen said that was the rule in domestic science school, so although they were both tired with their labors and Rosanna wished in her heart that she could tell Minnie to clean up as she usually did whenever a mess was made, they stuck to their task and it did not take very long to finish the work and make the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... girl whom the slightest breath of scandal would fairly kill. I can't let her name be dragged into this mess; I can't answer her note, and send the reply away from under your very nose without a word to you. And the reporters! Gracious heavens! Swift, Stodger wanted to know what to do with 'em: for pity's sake, tell him ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... hero," said the general shortly. "Now, Grant, will you take me to it? I can't mess ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... old Mansfield put you in my care. No; I know you weren't aware of it, but he did. Anyhow, it has given me a sense of responsibility over you, and I hate the notion of lying here on my back, and seeing you preparing to make a mess of your whole life, at just this stage ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... for this, however. The son of an artist, Frank Reynolds inherited his native talent, and this was developed in no small measure during boyhood under his father's guidance. It was the chief delight of Reynolds junior to "mess about" (as he himself succinctly puts it) with the palette and tools of Reynolds senior, and the licence thus permitted enabled him to discover for himself much of the rudiments of the craft of the draughtsman and painter. More was learned from long ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... she to herself, "If there were any impropriety in my situation here, Papa would not open his house so freely to the officers of the brigade." For she loved and admired him far too much to doubt his judgment on such a point. Now, Lord Strathern had dined the better part of his life at a regimental mess table; and when promotion at length removed him from that genial sphere, he felt selfish and solitary, if he took his dinner and wine without, at least, a corporal's guard of his brother officers around him. So far from deeming his daughter's arrival a reason for excluding ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... "I leave my all with you. I go from your door, Ikey, like one who treads alone some banquet hall deserted. I have sold you my birthright, dear boy, for a mess of pottage—a mere mess of pottage—a paltry two ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... certain substance, which the steam alone is incapable of doing, and by retaining which, the flavour of the root is injured, and they afterwards become dry by being put over the fire a second time without water.—With a little butter, or milk, of fish, they make an excellent mess. ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... as soon as our barrage gets in working order," was the answer. "I expect that will be any minute, now. See to it that every man in your squad has his gas mask, his pick and shovel, his canteen and mess gear. We may be several days under fire, and the supply wagons won't be able to get up if the Huns start shelling the roads, as they're ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... her book and went out to investigate. "At any rate, they will be good for the pigs," she remarked on returning. "I shall have Behavior boil them in that great pot of hers and give them a mess every day. It ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... brook to catch a mess of fish. He took off his boots, took his seat on the bank, and ...
— The Nursery, June 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... and then—the monotonous grey. They seem too hard for me, at times. The clash between ideas and interests makes our inheritance a grim battlefield, and there are moments of mortification when one may feel tempted to sell it—not for a mess of pottage, but for the promise of a mess of pottage. Tempted, I said. There is always a course left, if you have the courage to face it. It may avail you; I cannot insure you even that. But if I were in ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... me yesterday as I met him when I was going home to dinner, 'fore I'd work in the factory, Charlie, and never know any thing. You look as if you come out of a cotton-bale. I'll bet if your father should plant you, you'd come up cotton,' and a whole mess of ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... Mr Fortescue?" questioned the skipper, pointing to the inscription. "I hope there is no mistake as to the accuracy of your information; because, if there is, you know, we shall have got ourselves into a rather awkward mess by firing ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... change places with me for just five minutes! Then you'd know how it feels to always put your worst foot first and make a mess of everything!" ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... chief feature of the dangerous sexual properties mutually feared. When fully ceremonial, the idea takes on the meaning that satisfaction of these feelings will lead to their neutralization, as, in fact, it does. The bridegroom in ancient Sparta supped on the wedding night at the men's mess, and then visited his bride, leaving her before daybreak. This practice was continued, and sometimes children were born before the pair had ever seen each other's faces by day. At weddings in the Babar Islands, the bridegroom has to hunt for his bride in a darkened room. This lasts a good while if ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... it, sir. Who's a-goin' to touch me? Called in a watchman. Whole mess of 'em had cut. Who knows 'em? Nobody knows 'em. Man that was stuck never see the fellers as stuck him in all his life till then. Didn't know which one of 'em did it. Didn't know nothing. Don't now, an' never will, ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... the Carlton and the Piccadilly, the Bing Boys and the Bing Girls, all the delights of London were ready to their hands, while poor devils like himself, shorn of leave, were condemned to languish in a moth-eaten Mess in the society of such people as the Adjutant. Where was the sense in it, where the justice, and when the deuce were they, any of them, going to get a chance at ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... with you," he said, waving aside the other's denials. "I've got you out of this mess, and now I've done with you. It's no good talking, because I don't want to ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... our troubles commenced. Seated in Mexican saddles, and mounted on raw-boned mustangs, whose energy had been a good deal impaired by a month's steady travelling on bad food, M'Carthy and I left the hospitable mess-tent about midnight, and started in search of Mr Sargent and his vehicle. We were under the guidance of ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... tranquilly looking death in the eye and refusing him any concession one naturally has a good opinion of one's self. I don't know if it was this feeling that in Thurston found expression in a stiffish attitude and folded arms; at the mess table one day, in his absence, another explanation was suggested by our quartermaster, an irreclaimable stammerer when the wine was in: "It's h—is w—ay of m-m-mastering a c-c-consti-t-tu-tional ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... where you're going?" he exclaimed, and his grimace turned into a respectful smile. "Well, I congratulate you! You're going into the very thickest of the lousy mess. For three days the Italians have been trying to break through at that point. I wouldn't hold you back for a moment! The poor devils there now will make good use of the relief. ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... its origin, he came to a pair of swinging doors at the end of a cork-paved passage. Beyond, he saw on peering through, was the mess-room, and there at the table, among a number of uniformed officers, sat Professor Stevens ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... news spread, which it did quickly, as the captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving an invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess with them. But after a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his usual magnanimity by sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I would continue to live ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... true, your reverence, were not some throats so much wider than others. You will always see that one porker half empties the trough before others have moistened their snouts in the mess." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... quavering mess-call sounded for the midday meal, when the sun was shining almost perpendicularly, a boat's crew from one of the cruisers were sent over to the supply-ship for a load of beef. Not a breath was stirring, the smooth surface of ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... for an hour, not longer, and on waking up would sit opposite one another again, drinking bilberry wine or an effervescent drink called "forty-minds," which nearly always squirted out of the bottle, affording them great amusement, much to the disgust of Kalliopitch, who had to wipe up the mess afterwards. He grumbled at the cook and housekeeper as if they had invented this dreadful drink on purpose. "What pleasure does it give one?" he asked; "it only spoils the furniture." Then the old people again read something, ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... desert the bus," complained the other, giving his wrecked plane a wry look. "But then what's the use of sticking it out? Chances are we'll be through the mess before they ever get it in fighting trim again. Yes, I'll go along, boys, if you'll lend me a shoulder. Gave that game leg another little knock in falling; but then, I might have broken my ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... nation like the English discovers the perfectly patent fact that it is making a ludicrous mess of the government of a poorer nation like the Irish, it pauses for a moment in consternation, and then begins to talk about Celts and Teutons. As far as I can understand the theory, the Irish are Celts and the English are ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... original letter of Sir Ralph Winwood's in French, addressed "A Monsieur Mons^r Charles Huyghens, Secretaire du Conseil d'estat de Mess^{rs} les Estats a la Haye," which, as it may possibly be interesting to your correspondent H. P. W. R., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... it. Delia may be a good cook, but she left a mess of a closet up-stairs. Please give me one of those warm cookies. I'm so used up and hungry I can't ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... shipwrecks, among soldiers; and, at the same time, there is just as much, or even more, grog-drinking, jollifying, care-killing fun around a canteen and an open knapsack, than there is on the end of a mess-chest, with a full can and a Saturday- night's breeze. I have crossed the ocean several times, and I must own that a ship, in good weather, is very much the same as a camp or comfortable barracks; mind, I say only in very ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... because they sought "first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." As it was, their favorite measure, "negro suffrage," was defeated for that time, and several of those who sold their birthright of truth and justice for a miserable mess of pottage in the shape of office and emoluments, lost even the poor reward for ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... might as well tell you," he said almost savagely. "You know so damn much now, you better know it all. You're in too deep already to wiggle out. We made rather a mess of it in New York, and only a bit of luck helped us through. We had the plans ready for three months, but nothing occurred to give us a chance. Then all at once Cavendish got his first telegram from Westcott, and decided to pull out, not telling any one where he was going. ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... after three with ugly news that they'd seen nobody, but they'd found a great pool of blood inside the bungalow—as if somebody had been sticking a pig there. 'Twas daylight by then and I motored out instanter. The mess is in the room that will be the kitchen, and there's blood on the lintel of the back door which opens into ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... no use for the alleged romance of marriage. We were confident that the little god whose image, with bow and arrow, stood in the garden of Dahlia's ancestral home, would put things right for us in the end. Yet we were not greatly annoyed when he made a mess of his business and married her to the wrong man; for in the meantime such strange things had been allowed to occur and the right man had proved such a disappointment that we didn't much ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... not had any chance to take anything away," I said; and my wife remarked that whether they had stolen anything or not, they had made a dreadful mess on the floor, and had broken the table. They should certainly ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... only last week. It was, my fortune to fall in with the commanding officer of a Saskatchewan unit. I found him in a rage against the church and all its officials. His chaplain had become so hilarious at the mess that he was ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... in a place like this is much like a jail sentence unless you're hard at work. Are things in pretty much of a mess?" ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... this business, and you'll see, once for all, just precisely how much lark there is to it," said Davis. "I'm captain, and I'm going to be it. One thing of three. First, you take my orders here as cabin steward, in which case you mess with us. Or, second, you refuse, and I pack you forward—and you get as quick as the word's said. Or, third and last, I'll signal that man-of-war and send you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for turning in, and nearly all of the troops aboard were still on the mess deck. Ken got his things from his bag and went down the passage to the bathroom. The 'Cardigan Castle' had been a swagger liner until she was impounded by Government to act as troopship, and she was provided with ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... Headmaster, is this mate of the Benvenuto. The trim beard, the keen, blue, deep-set eyes, the smile—how often have I seen them from my vantage-point at the bottom of the Sixth Form! On his head is an old uniform cap with two gold bands and an obliterated badge. He wears a soiled mess-jacket with brass buttons in the breast-pocket of which I see the mouthpiece of a certain ivory-stemmed pipe. His hands are in his trouser pockets, and he turns from me to howl into the cavernous hold some directions to the cargo-men below. In the gathering gloom of a short January afternoon, ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... feelings, so that he might be in love or debt or goodness knows what scrape, and yet talk like that;' and Mr William Howroyd had a deeply rooted conviction that all young men did at the universities was to get into mischief of some sort. So he said, 'Come, George, be frank with me. Have you got into any mess? You know if you have I'll be ready to do all I can to get you ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... notion that, although all persons may not be endowed with histrionic gifts, it is open to everybody to perform the duties of a prompter without preparation or study. Still the office requires some exercise of care and judgment. "Here's a nice mess you've got me into," said once a tragedian, imperfect in his text, to an inexperienced or incautious prompter. "What am I to do now? Thanks to you, I've been and spoken all the next act!" And the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... she must be very anxious to hear from home?' Now, you know, when mother says, 'Sadie, my dear child,' and looks at me from out those reproachful eyes of hers, there is nothing short of mixing a mess of bread that I would not do for her. So here I am—place, third story front; time, 11:30 P.M.; position, foot of the bed (Julia being soundly sleeping at the head), one gaiter off and one gaiter on, somewhat after the manner of 'my son John' so renowned ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... wished for excitement. Discipline had fallen loose; the officers' quarters were the scene of extravagance and amusement. Jugurtha recommended himself on the one side to Scipio by activity and good service, while on the other he made acquaintances among the high-bred gentlemen in the mess-rooms. He found them in themselves dissolute and unscrupulous. He discovered, through communications which he was able with their assistance to open with their fathers and relatives at Rome, that a man with ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... she, chuckin' away the brushes. "What's the use pretending I'm an artist when I'm not? Look at that hideous mess! It's too awful for words. Take away that fire-screen, ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... partic'lar mess, Vot vill mother say to me now? For he vas her lap-dog and pet, Oh! I've ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... fallen several times and covered myself with a mixture that looked like grey condensed milk mixed with butter and felt like a poultice, I got my second wind. I was still recognizable as a human being. All fear of making myself in a worse mess had vanished, and thus, freed from nervousness, I began to get quite daring. The Chief saw in me the making of a first-class pipe walker, and prophesied that I should be able to attain the speed of three miles an hour. I still fell off, however, enough not to get a ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... issuing rations we were divided into messes of twenty, each mess electing a Sergeant as its head, and each floor electing a Sergeant-of-the-Floor, who drew rations and enforced what little ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... to marry, you know, but you just would do it in spite of anything that any one could say, and all we could do was to be sorry for it, and sorry for you when you were unhappy, as we all knew that you would be beforehand. And that was the one mess that no one could get you out of. Well, then he died, and you had another show." Jack paused and jarred his cigarette ash off with his finger-tip. "You know and I know just who there was waiting there at home, but you elected to turn them all down and come over here to travel around alone. ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner |
