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More "Curt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... however, are met with the curt rebuff: "Women know nothing of politics, and most of them don't want to, either; neither do they know how to use the ballot." True, and not true. True enough, until now, very few women, in Germany at least, have ventured to demand political equality also. The first woman, who, as a writer, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... the saddle, with a curt, "Here, Bertie! Take the brute for me. Mind her teeth! She's ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... it is hardly possible for us to go out." It was clear that some new scheme must be devised, and on the 23d of June the king applied to certain members of his Cabinet. "We have now," he wrote, "as frequently before, had letters from Lubeck demanding in curt language the payment of her debt. You are aware that we have often, especially in Cabinet meetings, asked you to suggest some mode of meeting this requirement, and have never yet been able to elicit any tangible response. Indeed, you have not had the matter much at heart, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... back of the square, and heard him say something to an officer, but what he did not catch. If he had only known, he was describing a particular characteristic of the Duke. Wellington, when in action, was the dumbest of dumb things, and it would have required a moral earthquake to get more than some curt order out of him. Even a "tinker's curse" or "a tuppenny damn" would have seemed loquacious in him on such an occasion. The not very sensational "Up Guards and at 'em!" was in later life disputed by the Duke. Under great ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... see my benefactor's letters; and my mother, unconscious of the pain she was about to inflict, showed me not only the last one, but all she had received from him. Oh, Vance, they were terrible, those letters! The first began by a dry acquiescence in the claims of kindred, a curt proposal to pay my schooling; but not one word of kindness, and a stern proviso that the writer was never to see nor hear from me. He wanted no gratitude; he disbelieved in all professions of it. His favours would cease if I molested him. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he would go in without speaking to the others, but George Hamon planted himself in the doorway with a curt, "No, you don't!" ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... came out of a personal discussion less favourable than the noble minister for the colonies on this occasion. The simple truth evoked was, that while a committee of the house supposed that they were possessed of full and complete reports, they were supplied with only curt and crude extracts, calculated to place matters in the ministerial light, but not really affording the committee the opinions of those whose views they purported to be. This practice was, unfortunately, common with great officers of state; but it seemed to be ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... sensitive, always imagining insults. Polly was curt and businesslike. The two departments were for ever at war, and Paul was always finding Fanny in tears. Then he was made the recipient of all her woes, and he had to plead ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... dangerous and appalling creation, still plunged and kicked violently to rid himself of it. The man who had stepped out of the depths of the wheat quickly crossed the road, unhitched the traces, drew back the vehicle, and, glancing at the traveler's dusty and disordered clothes, said, with curt sympathy:— ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... Mr. Ben Chase," interrupted Belding, in curt and ringing voice. "That blast was a mistake, the biggest you ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... The words fell curt and stern, but if she had seen his face at the moment she would have realized something of what the utterance ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... gave a curt assent. "I daresay his natives will prove useful, sir. As for the man himself, I don't think he will be much of an acquisition, if he is to be judged by first impressions. He's as drunk as a pig, and I don't wonder at the Ponape natives wanting to ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... listened. He was military and official and harassed and curt and tired. Joe'd known Sally and therefore her father all his life, but the Major wasn't an easy man to be relaxed with. He spoke into thin air, and immediately his sad-seeming secretary wrote out a pass for Joe. ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... beautiful embroidery. That industry ministered to it. Her heart was set on having those little sums to send him every week; for that was the only way she could hope to approach him of her own movement. She loved the curt little notes in which Majendie acknowledged the receipt of each postal order. She tied them together with white ribbon, and treasured them in a little box under lock and key. All the time, she knew he had a wife and child, but her fancy refused to recognise Mrs. Majendie's existence. ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... character. The affections are strong and their foundations lie deep: but they are not—such affections seldom are—wide-spreading; nor do they show themselves on the surface. Indeed, there is little display of any of the amenities of life among this wild, rough population. Their accost is curt; their accent and tone of speech blunt and harsh. Something of this may, probably, be attributed to the freedom of mountain air and of isolated hill-side life; something be derived from their rough Norse ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... toast it," returned Ellen in a curt tone. "Hot bread an' melted butter's bad for folks, 'specially in ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... he shrugged his shoulders, gave a short laugh, and, glancing at the clock, went off in his curt, purposeful manner. ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... room. A lump came into his throat as he looked at the ring. He remembered so distinctly the time he gave it to her and all the words then said. It seemed impossible that she had returned it now in this curt manner. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... hath, and modest heed, Is piquant too, and sharp withal. Her cheek's soft light, her rosy lips, No length of time will e'er eclipse! Her downward glance in passing by, Deep in my heart is stamp'd for aye; How curt and sharp her answer too, ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... men. Good-night again. Remember that One whom we both acknowledge as the source of all true light said: 'If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.'" He shook hands first with the mother, then with the son, who turned away from him with a curt ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... to make his fortune in literature, only too speedily to be disillusioned. Exhibition of manuscripts to a leading literary light merely evoked curt advice to learn a trade or go into business. He would have none of either and studied medicine instead, earning his way by teaching as he learned. In the laboratories, he made the acquaintance of people who more than once were to be his salvation ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... the impression of being what country folk call a crusty person—curt and forbidding in manner—seems pretty well established. His friend Alcott says he was deficient in the human sentiments. Emerson, who, on the whole, loved and admired him, says: "Thoreau sometimes appears only as a gendarme, good to knock down ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... broken only by the click of instruments and the curt, crisp commands. The minutes, weighted with concentration, ran into the hour. Not a body in that room was aware of fatigue or anxiety. A life was at stake, and every one knew it. It did not matter that the man upon the table was important and ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... curt reply the perspiring one had him by the arm in friendly familiarity, and with the president's last word the answer came in a low, confidential tone of complete understanding. "Of course you understand that I have arranged this little affair simply to encourage every one to ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... of infantry training contains some very curt and calm directions for getting a "good point" in bayonet exercise. The bayonet has to be correctly driven in, left in the enemy for a reasonable time, and extracted with a minimum of effort to the practitioner and a maximum of damage to the subject. Disabling ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... if afterward prevented from going a short note of explanation or regret should be despatched. It is well known that a few words make all the difference between a polite and an impolite regret. "Mrs. Gordon regrets that she cannot accept Mrs. Sydney's invitation for Tuesday evening," is not only curt, but would be considered by many positively rude. The mistake arises, however, more frequently from ignorance than from intentional rudeness. "Mrs. Gordon regrets extremely that she cannot accept Mrs. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... are bitter, and the reopened wound throbs and burns. Carew strode up to his hut, with only a curt good night to the trooper, and when Stanley arrived back there was no light burning, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... I was referred to the Postmaster himself, who, in his-capacity of leading citizen, was standing by. Asking if there were any letters lying at his office for me, I was answered in a very curt negative, the postmaster retiring immediately up the steep bank towards the collection of huts which calls itself Pembina. The boat soon cast off her moorings and steamed on into British territory. We were at ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... instant Edward Henry might have rushed from the room and taken the night-mail back to the Five Towns, and never any more have ventured into the perils of London, if Carlo Trent had not turned his head, and signified by a curt, reluctant laugh that he saw the joke. For Edward Henry could no longer depend on Mr. Seven Sachs. Mr. Seven Sachs had to take the greatest pains to keep the muscles of his face in strict order. The slightest laxity with them—and ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... I would know," said the officer, and with a curt command to his men to follow him he ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... demanded in fluent French an explanation from Bond Moore in a manner which was peremptory in the extreme. Bond Moore knew no more of French than he did of Turkish, but my interpreter having explained the position, the Pasha turned round upon the complainant and, after a few curt and angry questions, set about him with the malacca cane until he roared: "Amaan, Eccellenza, amaan!" (which, being interpreted, is "have pity,") and finally took to his heels and ran for it with the irate little Pasha in full cry ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... method of square, mosaic-like paint areas which melt into a soft harmony of tender grays and greens. Stuck's "Nocturne" is affected and unconvincing and scarcely representative of this master's style. The many other men give a good account of themselves, particularly Curt Agthe, whose classic "Nude at the Spring" is of wonderful surface quality. Wenk has an Italian marine and Benno Becker a landscape from the same country. Ghler's "Castle Terrace" has a particularly fine sky and a true rococo atmosphere. Hans von Volkmann's "Field of Ripe ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... in curt sentences. "Of course the case is far more desperate than our last, Miss Merriman. It's the proverbial 'one chance in a thousand.' On that single thread ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... two prisoners differed greatly. Vaucheray was gloomy, silent, hard-faced. He cynically, in curt, sneering, almost defiant phrases, admitted the crimes of which he had formerly been guilty. But, with an inconsistency which puzzled everybody except Lupin, he denied any participation in the murder of Leonard the valet and violently accused ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... of New York. Europeans are apt to assume that to tack numbers instead of names on to the thoroughfares of a city is to impair their identities and individualities. Not a bit! The numbers grow into names. That is all. Such is the mysterious poetic force of the human mind! That curt word "Fifth" signifies as much to the New-Yorker as "Boulevard des Italiens" to the Parisian. As for the possibility of confusion, would any New-Yorker ever confuse Fourteenth with Thirteenth or Fifteenth Street, or Twenty-third with Twenty-second or Twenty-fourth, or Forty-second with ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... and William Rand, Esq., of the Tribune had been informed by the writer of the general intent of the organization. But to return to the secret convention at the hall. The explanation of J.A. Wilkinson not being satisfactory to Mr. Hull, some curt remarks were banded between the speakers, which Obadiah Jackson, Jr., Esq., the Grand Seignior could not well control, Brig.-Gen. Charlie Walsh rose to his feet and said unhesitatingly, that he had by his own order "brought these men here to vote and to fight," ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... 1937, von Holleuffer arranged a meeting in Mexico City with Julio Rosenberg of 13 San Juan de Letran and Curt Kaiser at 34 Bolivar, the latter's home. He offered them fifty thousand pesos to take the contraband off the boat and transport it through the chicle jungles to the destination he would ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... precision of the Colonel, both boys began to wonder at a quarter-past eleven why they had not been summoned, for the Colonel had said in his curt epistle to Glyn—which "looked cross," so the boy said—that he would be at ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... "It's all one. I suppose he's not come over." At this moment the mate came on deck with the carpenter, carrying a model ship which they had been making together in their spare time. They nodded to the stranger, who gave them a curt "How do?" as though they had parted from him only the night before. The mate growled at me for wasting time on deck when I should be at work. He sent me down to my usual job of getting the cabin ready for the breakfast of the gentlemen. As ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... miles from speculating on what was really happening, and when I received a curt uncharacteristic note from Paragot a fortnight later begging me to return to Paris at once, a day or two before the formal expiry of my visit, it only occurred to me that he might ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... by Mrs. Butt in the drama was vehement and momentous, it was nevertheless so brief that a description of Mrs. Butt is hardly called for. Suffice it to say that she had so much waist as to have no waist, and that she possessed both a beard and a moustache. This curt catalogue of her charms is unfair to her; but Mrs. Butt was ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... to feel as he wants to. Are you tired of sitting in prison? Go. Are you tired of going? Sit. They robbed you? Keep still. They beat you? Bear it. They have killed you? Stay dead. That's certain. And I'll carry off Savka; I'll carry him off!" His curt, barking phrases, full of good-natured irony, perplexed the mother. But his last words ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... Johnson, who lost both father and mother. They had a terrible experience in the flood, and were two of the forty-three people pulled in on the roof of the house of the late General Campbell and his two sons, James and Curt. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... and went on arguing in his curt, pugnacious way with the suitors, who looked at him as if ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... vocal reply to this. He nodded carelessly and passed into the store. Factor Rodwell looked round as he entered, and surveyed him with a measuring eye, as if taking stock of a new acquaintance, then gave him a curt nod and resumed his barter with the Indian. His assistant being also busy for the moment, Stane turned towards the Indian girl whose liquid eyes were regarding him shyly, and addressed her in ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... him a dense and disagreeable pupil, and one who seemingly had forgotten everything he had learned during previous lessons. His replies at times were so curt as to be uncivil, and a feeling of indignation gradually rose within her. She was at a loss to understand his mood, unless it was due to the result of the morning's race; yet she could scarcely believe that his disappointment, ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... fifty winters long Has bronzed and shrivelled sere her face and neck; Her locks are wild and grey, her teeth a wreck; Her foot is vast, her bowed leg spare and strong. A wide blue cloak, a squat and sturdy throng Of curt blue coats, a mutch without a speck, A white vest broidered black, her person deck, Nor seems their picked, stern, old-world quaintness wrong. Her great creel forehead-slung, she wanders nigh, Easing ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... his words had been curt, no grace or kindness had he shown me of countenance. I felt in my heart that to him I was but a pawn in the game of battle. Now I seemed as far off as ever I was from my foolish dream of winning my spurs; nay, perchance never had I sunk lower in my own conceit. Till this hour I had been, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... The author of the curt epistles tossed restlessly on his couch, but the reader of them stared, incredulous and dumfounded, uncertain of his command of gravity. His jaw fell, and his open mouth might have betokened a being smit to imbecility; and, haply, he might be, for Helen had written him from ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... departure. The change had occurred with such abruptness, West was unable as yet to realize its full significance, but, with no attempt to combat her decision, left the room, closing the door behind him. In that moment his mood changed. The dismissal had been so curt, his pride rose in rebellion. Finding Sexton in the front hall, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... canvas, of the old regime that had been swept into the ash heap by modern civilization. The letters revealed the old Don frankly. He was proud, imperious, heady, and intrepid. To his inferiors he was curt but kind. They flocked to him with their troubles and their quarrels. The judgment of their overlord was final with his tenants. Clearly he had a strong sense of his responsibilities to them and to the state. A quaint flavor of old-world courtesy ran through ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... next few years will enable us to clear up and settle definitely matters which were shrouded in mystery in the time of the Theban Pharaohs. As a fact, the forms of such of their names as have been handed down to us by later tradition, are curt and rugged, indicative of an early state of society, and harmonizing with the more primitive civilization to which they belong: Ati the Wrestler, Teti the Runner, Qenqoni the Crusher, are suitable rulers for a people, the first duty of whose chief ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... pressed. But there are unconscionable people who will not be put off, and who, either out of malice or out of stupidity, ply you with questions against all rules of good breeding. This direct assault may sometimes be retaliated, and a rude question met by a curt answer. But such a reply is not always prudent or charitable, and would not unfrequently convey the very information required. Silence would serve no better, for silence gives consent, and is eloquent ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... tender emotions; we don't wish to be reminded of his presence at all. For, as we can know nothing (effectively) of Maria's sorrows except as given in her appearance—the historical recital of them and their cause being too curt and bald to be able to move us—the best chance for moving our compassion for her is to make the illusion of her presence as dramatically real as possible; a chance which is, therefore, completely destroyed when the author of the illusion insists ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... were treated with every consideration by its captain. We were three months upon the homeward voyage and the captain called it smooth sailing. We fell in with many vessels en route and, to quote our skipper, we found them "like human beings, some very friendly and others stern and curt." When in mid-ocean we passed an American vessel, the Anna Decatur, which seemed like a welcome from home as it was named after a former New York friend of mine, Anna Pine Decatur, a niece of Commodore Stephen Decatur, who married Captain William H. Parsons of ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... Senator Huff kept running up the articles by pretended bids, and was evidently in league with him, in fact a confederate. This auctioneer was the very emblem of buffoonery and blackguardism; the rapidity with which he repeated the sums, supposed by the bystanders to be bid, the curt yet extravagant praise bestowed on his wares, and his insulting and unsparing remarks if a comment were made on the goods he offered, or if the company did not respond in bidding, stamped him as one of the baser ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... pages long is likely to have its weak points. The volume before us is rather the plea of an advocate retained to defend the General's professional character and expound his political opinions than the curt, colorless, unimpassioned statement of facts which is usually so refreshing in the official papers of military men, and has much more the air of being addressed to a jury than to the War Department at ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... cried for vexation—when a curt and sour note from Southend told her the issue. The blow struck down her excitement and her exultation. Away went all joy in her encounter with Mr Disney, all pride in the skill with which she had negotiated with the Prime Minister. The ending was pitiful—disgusting and pitiful. She poured ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... Chatterton; and her eyebrows intimated that she saw pathos in his appearance. As for Frida, her good-by was so curt and cold that Durant, who had suffered many things in redeeming the discourtesy of his former attitude to her, was startled and not a little hurt. His plain, lean face, that seemed to have grown still plainer and leaner under the lashing of the rain, set again in ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... father was even more brusque with him than before, and the Bishop, who was to travel with us, was curt almost to rudeness. But Martin did not seem to mind that this morning, for his lower lip had the stiff setting which I had seen in it when he was a boy, and after I stepped into the carriage he stepped in after me, leaving the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... most foolish thing you ever did in your life," he said, and his words came curt and clipped as though he spoke them ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... minute of the appearance of each stranger what is his purpose there,—whether he be going or has just come, whether he is himself on the way or waiting for others, whether he should be treated with civility or with some curt command,—so that if his purport be honest all necessary assistance may be rendered him. As Lopez was walking up and down, with smiling face and leisurely pace, now reading an advertisement and now watching the contortions of some amazed passenger, a certain pundit asked him his business. He was ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... on the stone floor of the wide kitchen at Heathknowes, where all the business of the house was transacted, fell with little raps of defiance, curt and dry. Her nose in the air told of contempt louder than any words. She laid down the porridge spurtle like a queen abdicating her sceptre. She tabled the plates like so many protests, signed and witnessed. ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... Philip's "Good-night" was more curt than courteous, and he made his way to the club, where, according to his habit, he crouched his small form into one of the great chairs, drawing his head down between his shoulders, which were thrust upward ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... what is my lady's diagnosis?" He had not noticed her curt reply, for he was thinking of something else and was not really interested in Lawrence as a ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... as were wanting by conjectures, often in a very improbable manner. It is quite possible that they were unable to gather from the memory of the past the names of those individuals of which they made up the first two dynasties. The forms of these names are curt and rugged, and indicative of a rude and savage state, harmonizing with the semi-barbaric period to which they are relegated: Ati the Wrestler, Teti the Runner, Qeunqoni the Crusher, are suitable rulers for a people the first duty of whose chief was to lead his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... head master. "I am afraid I have no more time to listen to you. Good day. I shall keep the pin, since you refuse to take it," and the doctor, with a curt nod to the farmer, and a smile at the lads, ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... letters and retired to his room, glad to escape the persistent stare of the cow-hands. The despatch was from his father, and was curt and specific as a command: "Shall be in Denver on the 23d, meet me at the Palmer House. Am on my way to California. Come prepared to ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... answered Frettlby, quickly, putting on his hat. "I don't care about seeing a man whom I have had at my dinner-table, in the prisoner's dock, much as I sympathise with him. Good-day;" and with a curt nod he took his leave. When the door closed on her father, Madge placed ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... attitude of the young instructor, Ransom Thayer, was reflected in the appearance of the boys; and from the first crisp greeting of Mr. Thayer to his curt dismissal an hour and a half later, the interest and attention of his auditors ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... the French language, he had a decided brusqueness of manner and a curt turn of voice not in the least Gallic. True, the soft Virginian intonation marked every word, and his obeisance was as low as if Madame Roussillon had been a queen; but the light French ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... kindly—professional in his bearing it had been in this home of great wealth, where it would have gone against his inmost grain to have seemed to court liking. If anything, his orders had been more curt, his concessions fewer, his whole treatment of the case on simpler lines than it might have been in almost any less pretentious home with ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... source of great embarrassment to the Government at Washington, and of harm to the Union cause. The President was in constant receipt of remonstrances and protests from the contesting parties, to one of which he made the following curt reply: ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... own ideals when he, assuming without question that she was the usual capitalistic snob with the itch for gratifying vanity by patronizing the "poor dear lower classes," had been almost insultingly curt and mocking. ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... the Inn; and there they all were, slapping, stamping, saying, "After you," clipped, curt, jocose, red as the wattles of turkeys, using free speech until Mrs. Horsefield and her friend Miss Dudding appeared at the doorway with their skirts hitched up, and hair looping down. Then Tom Dudding rapped at the window with his whip. A motor car throbbed in the courtyard. ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... "Yuh." Mr. Wrenn was curt for a second.... "I know how it is, Charley. But you'll get over it, honest you will. Say, I've got some news. Some land that my dad left me has sold for nearly a thousand plunks. By the way, this lunch is on me. Let me ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... Griffith, in his first displeasure, curt wishes that he might not have reason to repent of the step he had taken, though he had not gone the right way to obtain a blessing. As it was not suitable that a man should be totally dependent on his wife, his allowance should ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one shall propose in a speech (curt Tuscan, Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an "issimo"), To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan, And turn the bell-tower's ALT to ALTISSIMO; And, fine as the beak of a young beccaccia, The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally, Shall soar up in gold ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Brand had left the house in Lisle Street, Reitzei and Beratinsky left also. On shutting the street-door behind them, Beratinsky bade a curt good-night to his companion, and turned to go; but Reitzei, who seemed to be in ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... of something grand or lovely, followed rather abruptly by something curiously contemptible or absurd, we are tempted to give utterance to the thoughts that are too complicated and deep for rapid analysis, in the curt expression "Such ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... to swear at the luckless youngster again, and I relaxed. He evidently hadn't recognized me, either. I took the strap in my hand, guiding it through the saddle loop. "Like that," I told the kid, and Cuinn stopped swearing long enough to give me a curt nod of acknowledgment and point out a heap of boxed ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... come off after all," said his son. "Postponed till next Sunday." With this curt announcement, and without further comment he sat ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... this report, Olivier sent back the somewhat curt and abrupt reply: "That if the British wanted his rifle they would have to capture him as a man, for he would not surrender like an old woman. And he would receive no more white flags on this matter." Consequently the third messenger was ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... was in rifle fire. Two were getting individual treatment: Simba and Cazi Moto were putting them through a careful course in aiming and pulling the trigger on empty guns. Kingozi sat on a chop box in the shade, gripping his eternal pipe, and issuing curt orders and criticisms to the baker's dozen, before him. When he saw the Leopard Woman he arose and ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... occupied by the head clerk of the Lack Vale Coal Company, and that worthy, without waiting to finish the word he begun writing, slipped from his stool and hurried to the office door of his chief, where he knocked softly and entered in obedience to a curt order. The room was a simplified edition of the room on the top floor; everything was there, but in a less luxurious degree, and the result was insignificant. The manager of the Lack Vale Coal Company, who sat at the table, was a hard-featured, thin-lipped ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... girl was virgo intacta, he declined and she went away. A fortnight or so later he received a letter from her in the country, making no reference to what had passed, but giving an account of her work with her Sunday-school class. He did not reply, and then came a curt note asking him to return her letter. My friend feels sure she was devoted to auto-erotic performances, but, having become attracted to him, came to the conclusion she would like ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... mouth was watering for draughts of the precious liquid. Joy pervaded him that, for once at least, the iron rule of the Master was to be broken, and that the journey was to begin with proper libations. The Master's curt syllables, however, instantly dispelled any illusions he might have ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... conversation with his daughter, told his employe frankly that he had better give up any such ideas as evidently possessed him. Stelton, who had with some right formerly felt he might count on the favorable attitude of his chief, was astounded, and took the venom of the curt refusal to heart. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... Pierre to take her place. The change was made on March 6. On leaving Courbevoie the widow was taken to the office of Mace. There the commissary informed her that she must consider herself under provisional arrest. "But who," she asked indignantly, "is to look after my Georges?" "His family," was the curt reply. The widow, walking up and down the room like a panther, stormed and threatened. When she had in some degree recovered herself, Mace asked her certain questions. Why had she insisted on her lover going ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... on sullenly, mistook the new boss's frown for more to follow, with himself for the target, and was moving away. Lidgerwood pointed to a chair with a curt, "Sit down!" and the ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... poor thing that night, and he felt tired and worn when, as usual, he went early to the yard. He was there before Cotherstone; when Cotherstone came, no more than a curt nod was exchanged between them. They had never spoken to each other except on business since the angry scene of a few days before, and now Mallalieu, after a glance at some letters which had come in the previous evening, ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... why nuzzle and cry? "Swinehood hath no remedy" Say many men, and hasten by, Clamping the nose and blinking the eye. But who said once, in the lordly tone, "Man shall not live by bread alone But all that cometh from the throne"? Hath God said so? But Trade saith "No": And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say "Go: There's plenty that can, if you can't: we know. Move out, if you think you're underpaid. The poor are prolific; we're not afraid; Trade is Trade."' "Thereat this passionate protesting Meekly changed, and softened till It sank to sad requesting And suggesting sadder ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... pilgrimage in the Holy Land was holy and new, and superior to his former behavior, albeit, even in his youth, he had ever been good and guileless, and worthy of high esteem." These are the words written about St. Louis by his confessor Geoffrey de Beaulieu, a chronicler, curt and simple even to dryness, but at the same time well informed. An attempt will be made presently to give a fair idea of the character of St. Louis's government during the last fifteen years of his reign, and of the place he fills in the history of the kingship and of politics in France; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... he said by way of introduction, and Kent became aware that the tall man lounging with his back to him in one of the leather covered chairs was Barbara's father. Colonel McIntyre returned Kent's bow with a curt nod, and then Clymer pushed ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... Curt snorted: "Yes. Found 'em couple hours ago. An' now I've lost the Wind Bag. Them mares was grazin' right plumb in plain sight of where I'd sent him circlin', an' doggone if he not only couldn't find ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... He stopped short in confusion on beholding Christina Shine, and Chris blushed warmly in answering his curt 'Good evening.' ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... in the city to-day," returned Saidie calmly. How odious they were, these Englishwomen, with their short skirts and big boots, and red, hot faces, with great black straw houses over them, and their curt manners, and the impertinent way ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... of the most certain, the most deadly kind she never doubted for one moment. Even had her instinct not warned her, she would have guessed. One glance at the five men had sufficed to tell her: their attitude, their curt word of command, their air of authority as they crossed the hall—everything revealed the purpose of their visit: a domiciliary search in the house ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... reasonable, man. We can't both marry the maid, and by your leave I think the best man wins. Abrupt I may be, but every Katherine is the better for her Petruchio." He turned to her, dropping his irony for tones of curt command. "I'll be back in twenty minutes with the parson. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... character of the writer which the letters of literary men so often furnish. They were, for the most part, letters of mere business, relating to works in progress, parliamentary contests, new surveys, estimates of cost, and railway policy,—curt, and to the point; in short, the letters of a man every moment of whose time was precious. He was also frequently called upon to inspect and report upon colliery works, salt works, brass and copper works, and such like, in addition to his own colliery and railway ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... subject, you must next consider the tone, or manner, of your narration. There is the tone didactic, the tone enthusiastic, the tone natural—all common—place enough. But then there is the tone laconic, or curt, which has lately come much into use. It consists in short sentences. Somehow thus: Can't be too brief. Can't be too snappish. Always a full stop. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... said of him, he had, in his capacity of the first political journalist in the country, associated so much with gentlemen, that he had learned to be something of a gentleman himself. Accordingly he replied to Mr. Grabster, in a note more curt than courteous, that it was impossible to comply with his request. So the indignant host was obliged to content himself for the time with ordering The Sewer to abuse the incognito. Before many days, however, he ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... made his companion hesitate to ask questions, or to offer comment with the freedom that he had learned to feel that first day of their riding together. During the hours that followed Phil said very little, and when he did speak his words were brief and often curt, while, to Patches, he seemed to study the country over which they rode with unusual care. When they had eaten their rather gloomy lunch, he was in the saddle again almost before Patches had finished, with seemingly no inclination ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... It was a curt dismissal, coupled with a plain threat, easy to understand. I obeyed the order gladly enough, slinking away into the black shadows forward, realizing my good fortune, and seeking some spot where I could be alone. The result was all ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... amiability, meant to irritate. "You can send him in here, Juliar. You're open to." But when in compliance with the woman's curt:—"You hear—you can go in," the boy entered the little back-parlour, he turned on him suddenly and fiercely, saying:—"You're the * * * young nark of some damned teck—some * * ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the mill was unsatisfactory. The elder Gaspard was away, and young Pierre was curt and surly. The sight of Victorine riding familiarly, and with an evident joyous pride, by the side of one of the richest men in the country, and a young man at that,—and a young man, moreover, who looked and behaved as ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... ruin which you prepare for the Church and for us all, not only the archbishopric but ten times as much, if it were possible, you should yield to him. It may be that seeing in you this humility he may yet restore all." To this argument Thomas had curt answer. "Enough—it is well enough known how you, being consulted, would answer!" "You know the king better than we," urged Hilary of Chichester; "in the chancery, in peace and war, you served him faithfully, but not without envy. ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... Here, too, last, but certainly not least in any way, might almost nightly be seen the towering figure of John Walsh Walsh: his commanding stature; his massive head, with its surrounding abundant fringe of wavy hair, looking like a mane; his mobile face, his bright—almost fierce—eye; his curt, incisive, and confident style of speech, showing him to be, beyond all question, the most masterful and ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... was no love lost between Bunker Hill and Professor Diffenderfer was evident by their curt greetings, but as they began to bandy words Denver became suddenly aware that he was the cause of their feud. He and his eight hundred dollars, a sum so small that a shoestring promoter would hardly notice it; and yet these two men with their superfluity of claims were fighting ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... novelty lasted. But he went from task to task that next day in a methodical, dogged fashion that was farthest of all from amiability. Two or three times Steve, trying to spare him needless effort, attempting to show him how to favor blistered hands and aching back, met with rebuffs so curt that he learned to keep his advice to himself. He knew what end Garry was working to achieve; he would have allowed himself to smile over the thought that the other man would be tired enough, before night came, without trying to make that work any harder, only ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... tired. 'No,' he said; but the tone was more than half-sullen; and at the thought of the meeting between the brothers, poor Phoebe's heart seemed to die within her. Against their dark looks and curt sayings to one another she ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... former tyrants, the deputy governors of cities and generals of provinces, who used to be so offensively proud, insolent, and profusely luxurious, now trembling before a man who walked about in a plain cloak, and altering their whole conduct in obedience to his curt Laconian sayings. Many used to quote the proverb of Timotheus, that "Ares alone is king, and Hellas fears not the power ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... no effect upon the intrepid young Englishman, Sung-wan—for so the officer was named—gave a few curt orders to the men who were guarding him, and Frobisher was hurried from the room, conducted down several long, gloomy corridors, and finally thrust into a large cell. This, as soon as his eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness, ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... he was desired, and found Madame de Flahaut a very entertaining lady, but who, in spite of her charms, he was not sorry to see go, as she did presently, with Madame de Coigny and Monsieur de Curt. And soon after she retired the company broke up and only Mr. Morris remained behind to have a last glass of wine and a few moments' quiet chat with Mr. Jefferson and Calvert. It was while they were thus engaged in the ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... witnessed in one of the bureaux of the prefecture only the day before. A German official was at his desk. Enter an Alsatian to make an inquiry about some point in a bankruptcy case. The German answered him with the curt rudeness which was the common official tone in old days, and finally, impatiently told the applicant to go. The Alsatian first opened his eyes in astonishment, and then—suddenly—flamed up. "What!—you think nothing is changed?—that ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... them, and honestly, that an aged man had rented the house for a month and had paid him in advance. What more could the agent say? Only one bit of puzzlement: why hadn't the blond stranger appeared? Who was he, in truth, and what had been his game? All this waiting and wondering, and then a curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the better. What his employer's motives were did not interest him half so much as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and that ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... spectacles stared at Milt's wind-reddened eyes; his jaunty patch-pocket outing clothes sniffed at Milt's sweater; his even voice followed Milt's grunt of surprise with a curt "Ah. Mr. Daggett." ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... parts of the town which were less openly engaged in business, legitimate, questionable, or beyond question, Harris inquired at many doors for lodgings for himself and wife, or for his wife alone. The response ranged from curt announcements that the inmates "ain't takin' boarders" to sympathetic assurances that if it were possible to find room for another it would be done, but the house was already crowded to suffocation. Great lines of washing in the back yards, ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... place in five or six days, was advertised, he wondered vaguely whether it was about that that Hermann wanted to see him, and, if so, why he could not have said whatever he had to say on the telephone, instead of cutting things short with the curt statement that he wished to see him urgently, and would come round at once. Then remembering that Francis had been playing cricket for the Guards yesterday, he turned briskly over to the last page of sporting news, and found that his cousin had distinguished ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... on the opposite side of the Governor's table as Barclay entered the room. He acknowledged the latter's curt nod with an ironical bow, slipped his hands into the pockets of his checked trousers, and stood waiting, with his square head thrust forward, for what ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... smile faded, but he gave a curt little nod to Shann as if approving that thought. "That is something we are going to look into, and now! If we have to convince some stubborn females, as well as fight Throgs, well"—he shrugged—"we'll have ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... He had no time for formalities or courteous exchange of views. In an instant there flashed back over the wires the curt reply: ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... crops grow on certain soils, and at what seasons the different plants flower and bear fruit. He made me see with my own eyes, and hear with my own ears, for which I shall ever be grateful to him. I fancy I can hear his voice now, saying in his curt cutting fashion— ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... “Wood-haulers,” they replied; “taking building logs down the road”; followed by “Who are you, and where are you going this late at night?” I told them who I was, and that I had now finished my journey, as I intended to stop there. I was immediately informed in a curt manner that they guessed I was rather “mixed” about staying there, if I had any stock along, for the stables were full, and the ranch, too; and they had no room for any additional people or stock. I told them that I had two teams standing ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... deck, with patched sides, in a belt of chips, shavings, and sawdust; a few pensive sailors stood about, gazing down at her with serious eyes. Sebright, bent double, circled slowly on a prowl of minute inspection. Suddenly straightening himself up, he pronounced a curt "She'll do"; and, without looking at us at all, went off busily with his ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... sound as of many suppressed sighs of relief when Heinrich walked into the cutting room, but no man grinned or gave more than a curt nod of greeting—for the forbidding eye of Louis Ersten glared fiercely upon them. He strode across to the table held sacred to himself and spread down a piece of cloth, bounded by many curves. Heinrich Schnitt gave ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... the name whilst it was a kind of chapel. St. James's church is situated between Knowsley and Berry-streets, and directly faces the National school in Avenham-lane. "Who erected the building?" said we one day to a churchman, and the curt reply, with a neatly curled lip, was, "A parcel ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... particular evening when Sarah had been instructed to put a hot-water bottle in his bed, Henry's tone, in greeting his aunt, had been curt, fretful, peevish, nearly cantankerous. 'Don't worry me!' he had irascibly protested, well knowing that his good aunt was guiltless of the slightest intention to worry him. Here was a problem, an ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... With that absurd sense of unwieldiness of mind and body weighing him down, he would have not known how to pursue the conversation beyond this curt rejoinder, but that the child was always ready ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... military precision of the Colonel, both boys began to wonder at a quarter-past eleven why they had not been summoned, for the Colonel had said in his curt epistle to Glyn—which "looked cross," so the boy said—that he would be ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... remarked that Charles was haughty and supercilious, and thought himself better than others with whom he was brought into contact; that he was needlessly curt sometimes to those with whom he ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... Honey's mental turmoil than the fact that he talked in broken phrases rather than in his usual clear, swift-footed curt sentences. ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... in representing Hartwick as slovenly in his habits, often preaching in his blanket coat, and not always with the cleanest linen; eccentric in his manners, curt, and at times irritable in his intercourse with others—an exceedingly undesirable addition to the social and domestic circle, so that his hosts were accustomed to tell him plainly, at the beginning of a visit, "You may stay here so many days, and then you must ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... his breakfast impatiently, as if exasperated by being made a party to some monstrous foolishness, muttered a curt excuse, and went on deck. Shortly afterwards the second mate took his smooth red countenance out of the cabin. With the appetite of a schoolboy, and after two months of sea-fare, he appreciated the generous spread. But I did not. It smacked of extravagance. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... Mother-Superior's manner a little curt in speaking them. But where Lynette chose to sit was on the cheap drugget that covered the beeswaxed boards, with her squirrel-coloured hair and soft cheek pressed against the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... where we keep peace. It's the place where we oppose the foolish and suicidal policy of President Madison," was the curt answer. ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... better by now than to ask questions. Presently there entered a tall, thin, iron-gray gentleman, the very type of a Prussian bureaucrat. Walking with quick nervous steps to his desk he acknowledged our bows with a curt nod and ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... looked with doubt and curiosity and suspicion at a new-comer, with an obvious disposition to hope and believe that others knew more of the matter than they, and thus were more liable to accusation. Occasionally, a low-toned, husky query would be met by a curt rejoinder suggesting a cautious reticence and a rising enmity, blockading all investigation save the obligatory inquisition of a coroner's jury. An object of ever-recurrent scrutiny was a stranger in the vicinity, who had been subpoenaed also. The facial effect ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the young instructor, Ransom Thayer, was reflected in the appearance of the boys; and from the first crisp greeting of Mr. Thayer to his curt dismissal an hour and a half later, the interest and attention of ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... unshaken even in the excitement of the fight. At one time an officer rode up to him from another portion of the field and exclaimed, "General, I think the day is going against us!" To which Jackson replied in his usual curt manner, "If you think so, sir, you had better not say ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... Leavenworth. My wife accompanies me!" he answered her promptly and clearly and with a curt bow left her and went ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... upon tact. She judged that if she asked Miss Morley, tired at the end of a busy morning, she would probably meet with a curt refusal, but that if she found her, seated in her own bed-sitting-room, soothed with afternoon tea and reading a delectable book, her sympathy would be much more readily aroused. On this occasion Delia's judgment was correct. After a perfectly harmonious interview with the Principal she scurried ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... little hanger with a curt nod in his enemy's direction. "For the Countess's sake I spare you to the Count, Captain Mosca; though what precisely your value may be to his Excellency I do not at ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... and angry. He replied to Jenssen's friendly advances in curt monosyllables. To Meriem he did not speak, but on several occasions she discovered him glaring at her from beneath half closed lids—greedily. The look sent a shudder through her. She hugged Geeka closer to her breast ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... feeling well; a wrangle with her was out of the question; besides, he would make himself hoarse. So he waited and waited, and re-read the princess' letter. At dinner he ate nothing; his replies were curt and surly. The Honorable Betty also ate nothing. She sat, wondering if her maid could pack five ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... American Ambassador at Paris called upon the imperial Foreign Secretary, M. Drouyn de L'huys. News of this resolution had preceded him. He was met by the curt question, "Do you bring peace or war?" Again, the Washington Government was skillfully evasive. The Ambassador was instructed to explain that the resolution had not been inspired by the President and "the French Government would be seasonably apprized ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... note, and passing a hand over her eyes, as if to clear away some mist that obscured her vision, she read it. Then she considered the curt summons that gave no clue, and ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... tattered, dirty uniforms crowding one another, treading on one another's heels, with bowed heads and sidelong, hang-dog looks, the dejected gait and bearing of the vanquished to whom had been left not even so much as a knife with which to cut their throat. The harsh, curt orders of the guard urging them forward resounded like the cracking of a whip in the silence, which was unbroken save for the plashing of their coarse shoes through the semi-liquid mud. Another shower began to fall, and there could be no more sorrowful sight than that band of disheartened soldiers, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... the softness of her gaze, by the set of the gracious curve of her lips, by the coldness or the sweetness of her smile. When Emilie meant to conquer a heart, her pure voice did not lack melody; but she could also give it a sort of curt clearness when she was minded to paralyze a partner's indiscreet tongue. Her colorless face and alabaster brow were like the limpid surface of a lake, which by turns is rippled by the impulse of a breeze and recovers its glad serenity when the air is still. More than ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... female sex, and sat down to dine alone in the stricken house. The dinner was extremely frugal, this being the opening day of Mrs. Prohack's new era of intensive economy, but the obvious pleasure of Machin in serving only men brightened up somewhat its brief course. Charlie was taciturn and curt, though not impolite. Mr. Prohack, whose private high spirits not even the amazing and inexcusable absence of his daughter could impair, pretended to a decent woe, and chatted as he might have done to a fellow-clubman on a wet Sunday night at ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... holiday, miss!' was Alick's grim rejoinder. 'A pretty long one too, I expect.' Then he added in a curt, sharp tone, as though to stop further questions, 'Now, look here, Queenie! Have you got any of your family that wants mending, eh? Any sick and wounded? Any broken legs or heads lying about? Because if you have, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... and instinctively clenched his fist, but Ernestine already had moved on and was huskily chaffing the young man with the budding beard. Julot sat with sombre face and angry eyes, only replying in curt monosyllables to the occasional remarks of his next neighbour, Billy Tom. Marie, the waitress, was passing near him and he signed to ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... with tablets, and by a mounted trooper for the sake of his official dignity, rode out from the city and took the report from the guards' decurion, a half-breed Dacian-Italian, black-bearded and taciturn, who dictated it to the slave in curt, staccato sentences, grudging the very gesture that he made toward the wounded men. The tribune glanced at the report, signed it, turned his horse and rode into the city, disregarding the decurion's salute, his military cloak ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... afternoon looking weary and untidy, and flung himself into an easy-chair, giving a curt nod of greeting to Gideon Birkenshaw, who had strolled down from the homestead to have ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every consideration that we both burst out ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... melt into a soft harmony of tender grays and greens. Stuck's "Nocturne" is affected and unconvincing and scarcely representative of this master's style. The many other men give a good account of themselves, particularly Curt Agthe, whose classic "Nude at the Spring" is of wonderful surface quality. Wenk has an Italian marine and Benno Becker a landscape from the same country. Ghler's "Castle Terrace" has a particularly fine sky and a true rococo ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... and height of the bedsteads used by the early colonists, I find no accurate nor very suggestive descriptions. The terms used in wills, inventories, and letters seem too vague and curt to give us a correct picture. What was the "half-headed bedstead" left with "Curtaince & Valance of Dornix" by will by Simon Eire in Boston in 1658? Or, to give a fuller description of a similar one in the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... with the anger which this curt epistle had excited, Lashmar broke an envelope on the flap of which was printed in red letters the Pont Street address so familiar to him. Mrs. Toplady wrote more at length; she took the trouble to express ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... whistle for the dog or cat, Will squeak like chicken, hurt, And cluck and crow and bark and mew, So comical and curt. ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... intolerant shrug. It had been her maiden trip on the road for the T.A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. She was secretary of that company now, and moving spirit in its policy. But the wound of that first insult still ached. A word from her would have placed the boy and saved him from curt refusals. She withheld that word. He ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... by a deference she was not accustomed to. Then she took his hands in hers and dragged him out a little away from Brown, whom she gave a curt nod. Again she looked Pan up ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... rode back to his ruins in a very grim state of mind. He had received from the Emperor a curt and haughty answer to his last appeal for immediate action, and the prospect of another gloomy winter here, with dangers thickening round him, and no motion to enliven them, was almost more than he could ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... bal de l'Opera, d'Athis had taken her to sup with him, and though this was two years ago, the supper still continued. But, whereas Irma had become completely a part of the poet's life, this intimation of the child's birth, curt and haughty as it was, sufficiently indicated how little she was considered by him. And in truth, in this temporary household, the woman was scarcely more than a housekeeper, showing in the management of the gentleman-poet's ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... mother's appeal to the world, he did not mention the key to Block Ten. He told the story of Walker Farr's devotion to a child. He did not dare to reveal to this stranger the identity of that child, because the telltale letter had been hidden from the coroner, and old Etienne stood in awe of the curt and domineering men who enforced the laws. But with simple earnestness and in halting speech he revealed the tenderness of Farr's nature and gave further testimony to her woman's understanding that ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... A curt voice suddenly called from the shore behind her, "Here, girl, girl! Stop that. Be quiet, and probably you'll ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... Marsa Laszlo's reflections, full of anguish, fever, revolt and despair as they were, during the few weeks preceding the day upon which she had promised to tell Prince Andras if she would consent to become his wife or not. It was a yes, almost as curt as another refusal, which fell at last from the lips of the Tzigana. But the Prince was not cool ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... said a curt voice, and looking around with a start, Mrs. Lamont beheld her dutiful niece between ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... always evanescent, and he was sorry a moment afterward for what he had said. Andy Byers exchanged no more words with him, and skillfully combined a curt and crusty manner toward him with an aspect of contemplative dreariness. Occasionally, as they paused to rest, ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... books who neither pay income-tax nor live on terms of dependent equality with those who pay it. I see at the counters people on whose foreheads it is written that they know themselves to be the salt of the earth. Their assured, curt voices, their proud carriage, their clothes, the similarity of their manners, all show that they belong to a caste and that the caste has been successful in the struggle for life. It is called the middle-class, but it ought to be called the upper-class, for nearly everything is below it. ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... graciously to right and left. Once she rose for an instant and addressed a curt sentence to the crowd, and in answer they cheered, a full-mouthed chorus of ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... order was curt; but as he brought up, and turned about once more, Mrs. Milo spoke almost confidentially. "As you very well know," she reminded, her face slightly averted, "there is a ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... little. He was apt to be rather curt these days, and almost irritable. Fanny attributed it to the reaction following the strain of ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... look, as penetrating as a rapier, and the two creases which extend from the base of the nose to the brow as if in a frown of suppressed anger and determined will. Add to this the accounts of his contemporaries who saw or heard the curt accent, or the sharp, abrupt gesture, the interrogating, imperious, absolute tone of voice, and we comprehend how, the moment they accosted him, they felt the dominating hand which seizes them, presses them down, holds them firmly, and never ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... thus early by invitation of one of the Committee to take a good look over the ship before the proceedings began. Apparently, too, the Committee-man had sent Commander Headworthy no warning—to judge from that officer's wrathful face and the curt tone in which he invited ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the curt reply, and both relapsed again into silence, receiving in monosyllables or with simple shrugs of the shoulders every attempt of mine—and I made many—to renew ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... and embittered it, my passion rises in my throat to choke me. Never did I hate them more than in the days which followed; for they had made me outcast, and what the future held for me, I could not guess. The question was answered of a sudden a week later, when there came from my grandfather a curt note bidding me be sent to Riverview. It was decided at once that I must go. I myself looked forward to the change with a boy's blind longing for adventure, and said farewell to the man who had been so much to me with a willingness I wince to ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... school by him. But though she hates mathematics,—my subject,—she works at it desperately so I can't keep her in. She sits on Mr. Duke's table and chats with him by the hour. But she passes me up with a curt, 'Good night, ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... all day, every way he turned: "Fame dies and honours perish, but loving-kindness is immortal." He seemed to hear them when a poor woman came into his office, asking for a position for her son. They stopped the curt refusal on his lips, and caused him to take half an hour of his precious ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... he might have been the giant-killer in the old nursery tale, carrying poor little Jack, by the way he took up his burden, and struck away for the boundary of the park; a curt "No, thank you," ringing back over his shoulder in scant courtesy as ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... tears. She was so touched by his curt story, and by the grotesquerie of his appearance in the faint light from the exterior lamp which lit the dial of the taximeter, that she lost control of herself. And the man gave a sob, or possibly it was only a gulp to hide a sob. And she leaned against him in her thin garments. ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... disguise his dislike. This is not, as you may imagine, inspiring to the performers. In fact, just to look at him takes all the life out of you. He is a veritable wet blanket. I have read all his works in the original. I think they lose a great deal in being translated. The Norwegian language is very curt and concise, each word conveying almost the meaning of two in English, which enables the author to paint a whole situation in a few words. I can see the difference, in reading the English translations, and where they fail to convey his real meaning. Strangers who ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... mansion, curiously misnamed "The Towers," to be transferred to his portfolio. Here, oddly enough, he had been rebuffed. A note to the owner, Mortimer Fenley, banker and super City man, asking permission to enter the park of an afternoon, had met with a curt refusal. ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... At this curt threat the surgeon relapsed into silence, his brow showing plainly that he was in deep thought. The cabin was soon left behind, and Columbus Washington showed the most direct route to the Ruthven plantation. ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... within a minute of the appearance of each stranger what is his purpose there,—whether he be going or has just come, whether he is himself on the way or waiting for others, whether he should be treated with civility or with some curt command,—so that if his purport be honest all necessary assistance may be rendered him. As Lopez was walking up and down, with smiling face and leisurely pace, now reading an advertisement and now watching the contortions of some amazed passenger, a certain pundit asked him his business. He ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... instant the letter might dissolve into a curt request to keep her scientific jottings strictly within the limits of a column, Helen sat with it lying open on her lap, and searched the pages of a tattered guidebook for particulars of the Upper Engadine. She ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... abundance of ridiculous pride, though having nothing to be proud of; and one of the daughters, Miss Belinda, was remarkable for holding up her head as if she had been the finest lady in the land, besides having a curt, snappish way of speaking, that made me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... as it affected me personally and promised to do everything he could on my behalf. But evidently, subsequent conversation with the Teuton authorities exercised the desired German effect. A few days later I received a curt acknowledgment saying that my affair, which was somewhat unusual, was purely one for military decision. I was also informed that the papers referring to my case were at Wesel fortress, and I was advised ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... his guest a curt good night and left the room. A minute later Gavin got up and stole to the door to verify a faint sound he fancied he had heard. And he found he had been correct in his guess. For the door was locked from ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... him to me and left us together, but at first he was almost curt in his effort to hide his sensibility to my beauty—as if that were a weakness!—and I was furiously shy, and felt somehow that I must hold him ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... with the vexed scowl on his face, and walked the room. In a minute the library door opened again, and a pale, thin, rigid, frozen-looking little woman, scantily clad, the weather being considered, entered, and dropped a curt, awkward bow to ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... was unsatisfactory. The elder Gaspard was away, and young Pierre was curt and surly. The sight of Victorine riding familiarly, and with an evident joyous pride, by the side of one of the richest men in the country, and a young man at that,—and a young man, moreover, who looked ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... believe that on the receipt of Mr. Motley's resignation Mr. Seward had written to him declining to accept it, and that this letter, by a telegraphic order of President Johnson, had been arrested in the hands of a dispatch agent before its delivery to Mr. Motley, and that the curt letter of the 18th of April had been substituted in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... foolish thing you ever did in your life," he said, and his words came curt and clipped as though he spoke them through ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... impossible, and all the virtues thrive by mere necessity under the reign of this perfected Science of the Soul. Yet, roam where she would, there were always two mysteries that allured her back again, as Thone's curt sentence told,—"Tonkunst und Arzenei"; and to these might be added Race, in defiance of Mr. Buckle. Assuredly the Hebrew owes acknowledgment to her, and not George Borrow, with all his weird learning, enters more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... month and had paid him in advance. What more could the agent say? Only one bit of puzzlement: why hadn't the blond stranger appeared? Who was he, in truth, and what had been his game? All this waiting and wondering, and then a curt telegram of the night before, saying, "Release her." So much the better. What his employer's motives were did not interest him half so much as the fact that he had a thousand francs in his pocket, and that all element of danger ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... hundreds of the second, I wrote with painful care, pen carefully chosen, the one-inch margin down the left hand side of the paper first portioned off with dots. To three or four I received a curt reply, instructing me to call. But the shyness that had stood so in my way during the earlier half of my school days had now, I know not why, returned upon me, hampering me at every turn. A shy child grown-up folks at all events can understand ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... encourage hope by delay, in forcing Rion to depart, flattering himself that the declaration would be put off much more easily in his absence than in his presence. I strongly approved this idea, and on the morrow, Rion received at Meudon a curt and positive order to depart at once and join his regiment in the army of the Duc de Berwick. Madame la Duchesse de Berry was all the more outraged, because she knew the cause of this order, and consequently felt her inability to hinder its execution. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... clergyman in question really said no more than the printed reports of the Conference represent him to have done, he rather reversed the conduct of Balaam, and cursed those he came to bless. This is the curt resume ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... under scrutiny. The latter unfolded itself as a unique example of pure deduction, aided by utter lack of discrimination in the value of evidence. It was all synthesis, and no analysis. A certain hypothesis had to be established, and it was established. The style was directly antithetical to that curt, blunt, and simple pronouncement aimed at by innocents who deceive no one by denouncing Socialism, Trades-Unionism, &c., over the signature of "A Working Man." But the Essay. I am debarred from transcribing it, not only because of its length, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... him. But we were silenced at once by a shout from above us, and a command to "Stop that noise." I looked up and saw a man in semi-uniform and wearing an officer's sash and sword stepping from one rock to another and breaking his way through the laurel. He greeted Aiken with a curt wave of the hand. "Glad to see you, Consul," he called. "You will dismount, please, and lead your horses this way." He looked at me suspiciously and then turned ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... benefactor's letters; and my mother, unconscious of the pain she was about to inflict, showed me not only the last one, but all she had received from him. Oh, Vance, they were terrible, those letters! The first began by a dry acquiescence in the claims of kindred, a curt proposal to pay my schooling; but not one word of kindness, and a stern proviso that the writer was never to see nor hear from me. He wanted no gratitude; he disbelieved in all professions of it. His favours would cease ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with victory and peace. After him came Jess, now white from age, with her cart; and in it a woman, carefully wrapped up—the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and looking back. When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) made a curt and grotesque "boo," and said, "Maister John, this is the mistress; she's got a trouble in her breest—some kind ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... gas-charged water: forcibly restrained for a time, then there's a pop and a bang, and in wild freedom the water is foaming thinly over everything in sight. This man didn't kowtow in the early acts, but was curt, cold, showing signs of rebellion more than once, and in the big ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... was eager to learn the truth. She might be put to some use. At any rate he had been unworthy of his own ideals when he, assuming without question that she was the usual capitalistic snob with the itch for gratifying vanity by patronizing the "poor dear lower classes," had been almost insultingly curt and mocking. ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... with well-defined fears for her cherished reputation, and so it was that Miss Von Taer had almost decided to telephone Madame Cerise and order her to escort Louise Merrick to her own home when Beth's card came up with a curt ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... carried entirely round the base in parallel horizontal circles. [PLATE L., Fig. 2.] In front of the pillar bases, at the distance of about twenty-three feet from the nearest, is a square column, still upright, on which is sculptured a curious mythological figure, together with the same curt legend, which appears on the larger building—"I am Cyrus, the King, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... seems clear enough at sea," he observed, finally, and stopped to drink a long draught. Lingard, bending over the table, had been listening with eager attention. Carter went on in his curt ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... the striking improvement in the visitor's attire effected by temperance, allowed a curt refusal to remain unspoken. Mr. Vickers ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... some period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to tantalize a listener by circumlocution. The speaker is aware that he displeases; he has every intention to please, he is usually curt, precise, and clear, the most laconic and luminous language is struggling for utterance upon his tongue, it is only with difficulty that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he dreads and deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet, the thought strikes him, that by certain involutions ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... figure some grotesque indignity: thrown a pillow at it, or hailed it in tones of mocking offence. He was profoundly and exquisitely ashamed even before he ceased to tell the story for his listeners' idle amusement. When he stopped doing so, and snubbed solicitation with the curt answer that everybody had heard that story, he was retrospectively ashamed; and mixed with the expectation of seeing the vision again was the formless wish to offer it some sort of reparation, ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... trying to make himself agreeable now saying a few words to the dame, who generally gave him curt answers, and now addressing Nelly. As he had plenty to say for himself, she could not help being amused, and his conversation served to beguile the way over the somewhat dreary country they had to pass till the neighbourhood ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... drifted into the camp to find Thorpe already out. With a curt nod the Indian seated himself by the fire, and, producing a square plug of tobacco and a knife, began leisurely to fill his pipe. Thorpe watched him in silence. Finally Injin Charley spoke in the red man's clear-cut, imitative English, a pause ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... began to buzz. He found himself wondering why Warde was speaking in this smooth, quiet voice, so different from his usual curt, incisive tones. ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... of being what country folk call a crusty person—curt and forbidding in manner—seems pretty well established. His friend Alcott says he was deficient in the human sentiments. Emerson, who, on the whole, loved and admired him, says: "Thoreau sometimes appears only as a gendarme, good to knock down a cockney with, but without that power ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... and his bride were out walking one day. A beautiful young woman crossed their path. Jack addressed her, but she gave him a very curt reply. ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... at me you said that beauty was my curse." Charley laughed a curt, distant little laugh which was no more the spontaneous humour lying for ever behind his thoughts than his eye-glass was the real sight of his eyes, though since childhood this laugh and his eye-glass were as natural to all expression of himself as John Brown's outward and showy ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to hell," returned Thornton, and his coolness had grown into curt insolence. "I never saw the man yet that I'm going to do that for." He came on two more quick, long strides, thrust his face forward and cried in a voice that rang out commandingly above the crash of the wind, ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... inauguration as Governor of Iowa a general officer of one of the oldest and strongest Western railroads called at his office and importuned him with unreasonable requests. When he found that he had utterly failed to impress the author with his arguments, he left abruptly, with the curt remark that these matters could be settled on election day, and he emphasized his statement by ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... remembered her aunt's injunctions and threats; but, partly from a kind of paralysis caused by his coolness, partly from its being impossible to her nature to be curt with any one with whom she was not angry, partly from mere lack of presence of mind, not knowing what to do, yet feeling she ought to run to the house, what should she do but drop down again on the ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... De Luxe Dora and Paul Balcom stepped into the room. With a curt command Paul called Long Fang to him and the Chinaman, important as he was, ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... he now asks, with soul-harrowing indifference to all my counter inquiries." To bin," I reply, desperately, curt and indifferent, beginning to see through his game. " Bin, bin! bacalem." he says; supplementing the request with a coaxing smile. At the same moment my long-suffering digestive apparatus favors me with an unusually ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... him and the keeper, was impracticable. The Hon. Balder suddenly turned up in the landscape, leaning against a gate set in a hedgerow, and their course was deflected toward him, but even when they came up to him, the expedition seemed to gain nothing of a social character. The few curt words that were exchanged, as they halted here to distribute cartridges and hold brief consultation, bore exclusively upon the subject ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... my own affair," was the curt reply, "and I don't tell news over the telephone, anyway. Watch the market, and go ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this; and this is the fate which will be meted out to all such pretenders." The authorities were indignant, and did their utmost to induce Pilate to alter it. But in vain. He would be master this time, and dismissed them with the curt reply, "What I have written I have written." Each man is writing his conception of the nature and claims of Christ by the way in which he treats Him, either acknowledging His Divine glory as he enthrones Him, or repudiating His claims ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... model, except in a few phrases, which were quite appropriate as Scott used them, but are ludicrously out of place in his own verse. In adopting the brief lines and irregularly recurring rhymes of Scott, he has taken a hazardous step. The curt lines are excellent with Sir Walter's liveliness and dash; but when dull commonplaces are to be written, their feebleness would be more decorously concealed by a longer and more conventional dress. The cutty sark, so appropriate when displaying the free, vigorous stops of Maggie ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... doubt. She had returned his perfunctory bow with a curt nod, and after a brief interval—during which she appeared to be making a communication that was received with joyous hilarity—she left her seat and ran across the room. She might have been in her own house for all the notice she took of the ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Megget gave a curt order for his own men to follow and galloped in the same direction the ranch owners and cowboys ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... earth?" Saltash's hand suddenly found and fondled the fair head. His speech was no longer curt, but gentle, with a half-quizzical tenderness. "Aren't you rather an ass, boy? What was there to ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... interest, as obliging my lady to practise certain economies which, though she took care to make them as personal as possible, he disliked as derogatory to the family. Poor Mr. Horner! He was so cold and hard in his manner, so curt and decisive in his speech, that I don't think we any of us did him justice. Miss Galindo was almost the first, at this time, to speak a kind word of him, or to take thought of him at all, any farther than to get out of his way ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... a much higher style of man. As Benson once said of him, he had, in his capacity of the first political journalist in the country, associated so much with gentlemen, that he had learned to be something of a gentleman himself. Accordingly he replied to Mr. Grabster, in a note more curt than courteous, that it was impossible to comply with his request. So the indignant host was obliged to content himself for the time with ordering The Sewer to abuse the incognito. Before many days, however, he obtained the desired information ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... cannot pour out letter after letter to a lady without any acknowledgment save from oneself. And when even my own acknowledgments began to lose their first warmth—when, for instance, I answered four pages about my new pianola with the curt reminder that I was learning to walk and couldn't be bothered with music, why, then at last I saw that a correspondence so one-sided would have to come to an end. I wrote a farewell letter and replied to it ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... shoulders; I thought he was going to be impatient, but although he gave curt answers at first he slowly broadened out, until, at the end, no one else could get a word ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... French editions are costly and difficult of access, so the collection cannot readily be compared by readers with the signs now made by the same tribes. The translation, now presented is based upon the German original, but in a few cases where the language was so curt as not to give a clear idea, was collated with the French edition of the succeeding year, which, from some internal evidence, appears to have been published with the assistance or supervision of the author. Many of the descriptions ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... at 15, Poynings Road and your letter of 14th curt., we are surprised to receive same. We sent out a tradesman on January 11, who reported same date that he had oiled and adjusted the cowl, and that it would give no further trouble. If you are still troubled, some other cowl ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... given the proprietor such an opinion of his hostelry that common folk were not wont to be overwhelmed with welcome. In the present instance the man showed a disposition to scrutinize too closely the modest attire of the new-comers and the plain housings of their chargers, when the curt voice of the jester recalled him sharply from this ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... himself. He had never been afraid of anything and this perhaps had given him more than the average boy's good opinion of himself. Nothing could have appealed to him more subtly than this man's bluff, curt flattery. He was being met man to man by a man of the world. No boy is proof against the compliment that he is a man, to be dealt with as a man and equal of older, more experienced men. Jeffrey was ready ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... the volume met in some quarters with anything but a cordial reception; the criticisms upon it were curt and depreciatory. Its representation of the Christian life was censured as gloomy and false. It was even intimated that in her expressions of pain and sorrow, there was more or less poetical affectation. Alluding to this in a letter to a ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... were three months upon the homeward voyage and the captain called it smooth sailing. We fell in with many vessels en route and, to quote our skipper, we found them "like human beings, some very friendly and others stern and curt." When in mid-ocean we passed an American vessel, the Anna Decatur, which seemed like a welcome from home as it was named after a former New York friend of mine, Anna Pine Decatur, a niece of Commodore Stephen Decatur, who married Captain William H. Parsons of the merchant service. Lieutenant ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... become a member during his last visit to England, and there was Sir Barnes, as usual, on his way homewards from the City. Barnes was writing at a table, and sealing and closing a letter, as he saw the Colonel enter; he thought he had been a little inattentive and curt with his uncle in the morning; had remarked, perhaps, the expression of disapproval on the Colonel's countenance. He simpered up to his uncle as the latter entered the clubroom, and apologised for his haste when they met in the City in the morning—all City men were so busy! "And I have been writing ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with his hand the pretty limb, and even ventured so far as to verify if the polished knee and its surroundings were satin. At this sight the poor child, armed against his desire, so great was his fear, dared only to make brief devotion and curt caresses, and although he kissed softly this fair surface, he remained bashful, the which, feeling by the senses of her soul and the intelligence of her body, the seneschal's lady who took great care not to move, called out to him—"Ah, Rene, I ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... immediately revealing them, as people used to say of ancient crystals. Unfortunately, and for reasons which have not yet been given, these intentions of the Imperial Government could not be carried out because they met with a curt refusal on the part of the Holy See. I can truly say that such a case does not often happen. When a sovereign has made his choice of an ambassador, it is customary for him to inquire, from courtesy, whether the ambassador will be persona grata with the sovereign to whom he ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... well resign Killicrankie to some younger politician. Poor Sir Marmaduke remembered his defeat with soreness long after it had been forgotten by all others who had been present, and was astonished when he found that the journals of the day, though they did in some curt fashion report the proceedings of the Committee, never uttered a word of censure against him, as they had not before uttered a word of praise for that pearl of a Governor who had been examined ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... after George Brand had left the house in Lisle Street, Reitzei and Beratinsky left also. On shutting the street-door behind them, Beratinsky bade a curt good-night to his companion, and turned to go; but Reitzei, who seemed to be in very ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... to whom Risler often spoke of her little neighbor's beauty and intelligence, asked him to bring her to the children's ball she intended to give at Christmas. At first Monsieur Chebe replied by a curt refusal. Even in those days, the Fromonts, whose name was always on Rider's lips, irritated and humiliated him by their wealth. Moreover, it was to be a fancy ball, and M. Chebe—who did not sell wallpapers, not he!—could not afford to dress his daughter as ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... no mind to comply, though he said little in answer to her persuading. The incoming of Elsa to the castle merely convinced him that some trick was meditated on the part of the Outlaw, and the sentimental consideration urged by the Countess had small weight with him. He gave a curt order to his captain to double his guards around the stronghold, and relax no vigilance until the case of the prisoner had been finally dealt with. He refused permission for Elsa to see her cousin, even in the presence of witnesses, as he was certain that her coming ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... much earlier than he thought. But, whichever it was, a letter had been slipped into his box, and he brought it in. The gum on the envelope was still wet, which saved trouble in opening it. Inside was a half sheet containing but a few words. This curt epistle ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... bespurred riding-boots. On his head he had a dirty tapster's bonnet, and his face was completely hidden by a rudely-cut crape vizard. This singular person was evidently the leader of the gang. He threatened Master Freake with a glittering, long-barrelled pistol, and in gruff, curt tones ordered him to dismount on pain of ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... had his answer, curt and to the point, rode forth at once to London to carry the tale to ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... who says common things. He said little of himself, but as he went on in short, curt sentences the picture grew more distinct, and to Virginia the man became more and more prominent in it. She saw the dying and exhausted dogs, the frost-rimed, weary men; she heard the quick crunch, crunch, crunch of the snow-shoes ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... and disagreeable pupil, and one who seemingly had forgotten everything he had learned during previous lessons. His replies at times were so curt as to be uncivil, and a feeling of indignation gradually rose within her. She was at a loss to understand his mood, unless it was due to the result of the morning's race; yet she could scarcely believe that his disappointment, perhaps chagrin, could ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... down at him emptily. "No," she said, "don't get up. I'm leaving, Major Mauser." He began to rise, to protest, but she said, her voice curt, "I have seen only one fracas on Telly in my entire life, and was so repelled that I vowed never to watch again. However, I am going to make an exception. I am going to follow this one, and if, as a result of your actions, even a single person meets death, I wish never to see you again. ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... he had no other family or relatives in existence. The Plague left no man in its neighbourhood much leisure for explanations. Stowe records that the one of that autumn was such "a great death" that the Law Courts had to be transferred to St. Albans. But two things seem to speak in this curt document. First, that by the transference of his uncle Sigmund's little fortune to Franz Schmidt (as trustee for Elsbeth and the children of her marriage with Holbein), which the archives prove took place three years earlier, and by his other arrangements for his family at Basel ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... ridin' in these nights," he growled by way of explanation for his curt welcome. "Set up and eat a bite ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... the nose and blinking the eye. But who said once, in the lordly tone, "Man shall not live by bread alone But all that cometh from the Throne?" Hath God said so? But Trade saith "No:" And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say "Go! There's plenty that can, if you can't: we know. Move out, if you think you're underpaid. The poor are prolific; we're not afraid; Trade is trade."'" Thereat this passionate ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... on a certain day the droning of the mill told that its wheels had resumed their interrupted grinding, there might have been seen, within, the burly form of Colonel Witham, moving about as one with authority. Short, curt were his answers. There was little to be made out of him by Lawyer Estes or anyone else. What was his business was his—and nobody else's. There were the deeds, duly signed. If anyone had a better claim to ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... cover-coat above it; but now, under the glare of the mid-day sun, with those faces gathered round them, it appeared rather to add a grotesque horror to the scene. The dragoman salaamed and salaamed like some ungainly automatic doll, and then, as the chief rasped out a curt word or two, he fell suddenly upon his face, rubbing his forehead into the sand, and flapping upon ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Vespasian's enquiring "Where to?" the other had responded "to the devil." [Footnote: This sentiment is expressed in the Greek by "to the crows."] Now when Phoebus apologized for this speech the monarch did him no harm, in fact vouchsafed him no answer at all, save a curt "Go to the devil yourself!"—Again, when Vologaesus forwarded a letter to the emperor addressed as follows: "Arsaces, King of Kings, to Flavius Vespasian, Greeting," the recipient did not rebuke him but wrote a ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... sheer acute nervousness, I uttered them roughly, in a tone of surly command. I was astonished at myself. I was astonished at my own voice. She glanced up at me and hesitated. No doubt she was unaccustomed to such curt orders. ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... I did not catch what. The abominable notary made a very curt bow to Madame Guerard. The Duc de Morny was very gracious, for the new-comer was so pretty. My godfather merely bent his head, as Madame Guerard was nothing to him. Aunt Rosine glanced at her from head to foot. Mlle. de Brabender shook hands cordially ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... Some fellows belonging to his watch set about securing him better. Without a word or a glance he lifted his arms one after another to facilitate the operation, and not a muscle moved in his stern, young face. They asked him with solicitude:—"Easier now, sir?" He answered with a curt:—"That'll do." He was a hard young officer, but many of his watch used to say they liked him well enough because he had "such a gentlemanly way of damning us up and down the deck." Others unable to discern such fine shades of refinement, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... stout boots, a spoon and fork, and a few other small articles, and be ready for the second visit in half an hour. When the officer returned, the family were marshaled before him, and he picked out those whom he wanted with a curt "You will come," "And you," "And you." Without even time for leave-taking, the selected victims were paraded in the street and marched to a mill on the outskirts of the town. There they were imprisoned for three days, without ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... received no correction.' The question 'Wherefore?' is asked in very various tones, but none of them has in it the accent of true conviction; and there is a whole world of difference between the lowly petition, 'Show me wherefore Thou contendest with me,' and the curt, self-complacent brushing aside of God's merciful threatenings in the text. The last thing which most of us think of as the cause of our misfortunes is ourselves; and we resent as almost an insult the word, which if we were wise, we should welcome as the crowning proof ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... be very serious, and no joke, I assure you, if you were actually obliged to listen to my whistling," was the curt reply, and he turned once more to scan the ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... be so curt and sharply sweet, my dear. Here I have been listening to marvellous accounts of your ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
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