"Button" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... different. Nancy, in her own real and naked person, was a small child with a good flow of flaxen hair and light-blue eyes. All her features were small and delicate, and she gave you the impression that if you only pulled a string or pushed a button somewhere in the middle of her back you could evoke any cry, smile or exclamation that you cared to arouse. Her eyes were old and weary, her attitude always that of one who had learnt the ways of this world, ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... there was a glint of gold in his teeth. He had poor teeth, but luxuriant hair, ruthlessly cut and disciplined and subjugated. His trousers were clipped tightly at the ankles, and his jacket loosely buttoned by the correct button; his soft felt hat achieved the architect's ideal of combining the perfectly artistic with the perfectly modish. But the most remarkable and envy-raising portion of his attire was the loose, washable, yellow gloves, with large gauntlets, designed to protect the delicately tended ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... preserved at forty-five, is comfortably seated at a writing-table with his heels on it, reading The Morning Post. The door faces him, a little to his left, at the other side of the room. The window is behind him. In the fireplace, a gas stove. On the table a bell button and a telephone. Portraits of past Mayors, in robes and gold chains, adorn the walls. An elderly clerk with a short white beard and whiskers, and a very red ...
— Augustus Does His Bit • George Bernard Shaw
... put in Ethelwyn, "only when we stood up and fussed to see who'd push the button to get off, the man slowed up so fast we both fell through a fat man's newspaper into his lap and upon his toes. He was angry too, for he just said 'ugh,' when we asked him to excuse us, please. The trunk man gave us back four big silver nickels with the trunk; we put them ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... entered, he was saluted with a shout of applause. Some time after he had taken his seat, he put on a round beaver, ornamented with white plumes, the part in front turned up, with a large diamond button in the center. He read his speech well, and was interrupted at a part which affected his audience by a loud shout of Vive le Roi. After this had subsided, he finished his speech, and received again an animated acclamation of applause. He then took off his hat, and after a while put it on again, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... repeated the Tisch, pushing the button and disclosing Henry's miniature with the legend "To my ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... nightcap, dressing-gown, or pair of slippers [TRUE]; only a kind of cloth cloak [NOT QUITE], much worn and very dirty, for being powdered in. The whole year round he goes in the uniform of his First Battalion of Guards:—blue with red facings, button-hole trimmings in silver, frogs at the inner end; his coat buttons close to the shape; waistcoat is plain yellow [straw-color]; hat [three-cornered] has edging of Spanish lace, white plume [horizontal, resting on the lace all round]: boots on ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... Orion was a spoiler. When he took the field there was no room for the rest of the race. Why does he rise? Because it is a habit. They could always get a rise out of Orion. The Athens Eirenicon said that yeast might fail to rise, but touch the button and Orion would ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... heart leap toward his mouth, as he observed the present state of the wreck. It was dead to windward of him, in the first place, and it seemed to be entirely submerged. He saw the shawl fluttering as before; for Tier had fastened one corner to a button-hole of his own jacket, and another to the dress of Biddy, leaving the part which might be called the fly, to rise at moments almost perpendicularly in the air, in a way to render it visible at some distance. He saw also the heads and the bodies of those on the schooner's ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... sort of woman to whom one had to return. Peer's romantic return to his mother was, however, much stressed, as in the Greig music. The sentiment that Peer "had women behind him and, therefore, could not perish" appealed strongly to the German mood, though the application of the button-moulder idea to the plight of Germany just now appeared to have been missed. Peer ought to have been a shining button on the vest of the Lord, but has missed his chance, and now is to be melted down with other buttons into something else—into a Polish button, a Czech ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... unfastened the button, and produced from inside her crimson robe, a crystal-like locket, set with pearls and gems, and with a brilliant golden fringe. Pao-y promptly received it from her, and upon minute examination, found that there were in fact four characters ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... occasion, Alexis and I were at a ball in his house—I was already married—and what magnificent diamond buttons he wore! And I could not restrain myself, but praised them. 'What splendid diamonds you have, Count!' And thereupon he took a knife from the table, cut off one button and presented it to me—saying: 'You have in your eyes, my dear little dove, diamonds a hundredfold finer; just stand before the mirror and compare them.' And I did stand there, and he stood beside me.—'Well? Who is right?'—says he—and ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... many-coloured stripes fitted closely on her hips, and fell to her ankles, where two tin rings clashed together. Her somewhat flat face was yellow like her tunic. Silver bodkins of great length formed a sun behind her head. She wore a coral button on the nostril, and she stood beside the bed more erect than a Hermes, and ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... very hard, and began to examine his pockets. The prospect of a bonfire is cheering even to a hungry boy. First a dull jackknife was laid on the rock, then two nails, then a little rusty hinge, then a piece of slate-pencil, then a brass button with an eagle on it, then more slate-pencil, then a piece of string wound into a ball, then half of a match—the end that wouldn't go! Then happily he thought of his inside pocket, and the hole that ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the brass handle of a poker, a pot that had held cold-cream, a smoked pearl button off her winter coat, and ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... impertinent talker is almost as objectionable as the hail-fellow-well-met, slap-on-the-back fellow. Charles Dickens has a record of this kind of American in the book which he wrote after his visit in this country: "Every button in his clothes said, 'Eh, what's that? Did you speak? Say that again, will you?' He was always wide awake, always restless; always thirsting for answers; perpetually ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... Countess, I had requested her description. Pushing a button, Count von Wedel had given the answering secretary an order; within three minutes I was shown the photograph of the lady and her signature, of which I took a copy. Having no further requests ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... cool and patient to-morrow," said Dr. Fisher decidedly, and patting Alexia's bandages. "Now run off, little girl, and we'll see you bright as a button in the morning." ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... fearful of facing eternity and judgment—if drown he must—without them, that, although the time was short and the danger instant, and the man by this time a coward, he had stripped off oilskin coat and pea-jacket to indue them again and button them over his treasure. ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the toilet table. On the white cloth lay now two gold-backed brushes, a gold-backed mirror and a gold button-hook, a little clock in silver and a framed photograph of me; over the chair by the dressing-table was thrown what seemed a mass of mauve silk and piles of lace. I lifted it very gently, fearing it would almost fall to pieces, it seemed so fragile, and discovered it was her ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... lynx climbing into the hen-roost. Here and there a branch sank behind him; the outlines of his body became fainter and fainter. Then there was one final flash through the foliage; it was a steel button on his hunting jacket; and now he was gone. During this gradual disappearance Frederick's face had lost its expression of coldness, and his features had finally become anxious and restless. Was he sorry, perhaps, that he had not asked the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... genuine left hind foot. I know all about it, because when my regiment was ordered to the front, my old colored Mammy—Ma'm Judy—who nursed me, sewed one just like that, inside the lining of my coat skirt. But, Dyce, that rabbit's foot was not worth a button; for the very first battle I was in, a cannon ball killed my horse under me, and carried away my coat tail—rabbit's foot and all. Don't pin your faith to left hind feet, they are fatal frauds. You are positive, this is the handkerchief Bedney found? It smells of asafoetida and camphor, and looks ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... over-hand work. The next grade has put together four outsides (running). The upper classes have made fifty pillow-cases, twelve sheets, forty aprons, hemstitched three tray cloths, outlined one tidy and made three night-dresses. Darning, button-hole making and hem-stitching were taught in one class. The girls in another room have tied six comfortables. The boys in the carpenter shop are doing excellent work, and they like it very much. One class of ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... house. He was wearing finer clothes than she had ever seen him in before—a frock coat, quite new but fitting him badly, so that it was buttoned too tightly across his stomach and loose across the back. He had a white flower in his button-hole, and a rather soiled white handkerchief protruded from his breast-pocket. One leg of his dark grey trousers had been creased in two places, and there were little spots of blood on his high white collar because he had cut himself shaving. His complexion was of the same old suppressed purple, ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... much cowardly evasion. Vulgarians all, they are yet too complex to be pinned down by a formula. Old wine in these three new bottles makes for disaster. Undine Spragg is the worst failure of the three. She got what she wanted for she wanted only dross. Ibsen's Button-Moulder will meet her at the Cross-Roads when her time comes. Hedda, like Strindberg's Julia, may escape him because, coward as she was when facing harsh reality, she had the courage to rid her family of a worthless encumbrance. If she had been a robust egoist, and realised ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... of boiled potatoes chopped fine. Season to taste and saute in hot Simon Pure Lard until brown, and pour over the following sauce: Boil together for ten minutes one can of Armour's Veribest Tomato Soup, one half can of shredded pimentoes, one half can of button mushrooms; season with salt, paprika, butter and a small amount of onion juice.—MRS. J. M. AINGELL, 2704 ...
— Armour's Monthly Cook Book, Volume 2, No. 12, October 1913 - A Monthly Magazine of Household Interest • Various
... the inner chambers, and the more he closes the doors, the more he is alone with the law. The social machinery which makes such a State uniform and submissive will be worked outwards from the household as from a handle, or a single mechanical knob or button. In a horrible sense, loaded with fear and shame and every detail of dishonour, it will be true to say that charity begins ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... swiftly selected an outfit that was not half bad for ready-to-wear garments. There was a black morning-coat, snug at the waist, moderately broad at the shoulders, closing with two buttons, its skirt sharply cut away from the lower button and reaching to the bend of the knee. The lapels were, of course, soft-rolled and joined the collar with a triangular notch. It is a coat of immense character when properly worn, and I was delighted to observe in the ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... but use white stock, no beef, and only pheasant or fowl trimmings, button mushrooms, cream instead of ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... he began; but he stopped at once, with an odd laugh. "Well, I sha'n't say that," he finished, flinging open the door of his studio, and pressing a button that flooded the room with light. The next moment, as they stood before those plaques and panels and canvases—on each of which was a pictured "Billy"—they understood the change in his ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... the cloak did fly, Like streamer long and gay, Till loop and button failing both, At last it ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... "Every man carries a button in his knapsack, by which he may rise sooner or later to higher things. It was said by a Frenchman, and a politer nation ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... increased to a steady downpour, which drove Lermontoff to his cabin, and that room being unprovided with either window or electric light, the Prince struck a match to one of the candles newly placed on the washstand. He pushed the electric button summoning the steward, and, giving him some money, asked if there was such a thing as a piece of stone on board, carried as ballast, or for any other reason. The steward said he would inquire, and finally returned ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... elderly man and a girl. The old fellow was a fine type of manhood; perhaps in the sixties, white-haired, and the ruddy enamel on his cheeks spoke eloquently of sea changes and many angles of the sun. There was a button in the lapel of his coat, and from this Fitzgerald assumed that he was a naval ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... aristocrat. When customers were rude, when Mr. John or Mr. Robert was overbearing, this idea enabled David to rise above their ill-temper, and he would smile and say to himself: "If they knew the meaning of the blue rosette in my button-hole, how differently they would treat me! How easily with a word ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... would be a very nice dress for Charley. [Footnote: His youngest brother, at home.] I should wear it myself if I were in England. It ought to be made with a good-sized collar, and open at the breast, like a waistcoat, only to button at the neck, if required. We brought out the wrong sort of straw hat, as they are only fit for summer, but we sold all but two. One I made six shillings of, but the cabbage-tree hat is worth a pound. No one should bring out more than he can carry ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... equally disfigured. We purchased from one of the men a mouth-piece, measuring an inch and a half in diameter. The ornaments used by these people are pieces of wood perfectly circular, which are inserted into the slit of the lip or ear, like a button, and are extremely frightful, especially when they are eating. It gives the mouth the appearance of an ape's; and the peculiar mumping it occasions is so hideously unnatural, that it gives credit to, if it did not originally suggest, the stories of their cannibalism.[123] ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... "Mrs. Medlock said I was to carry tha' breakfast an' tea an' dinner into th' room next to this. It's been made into a nursery for thee. I'll help thee on with thy clothes if tha'll get out o' bed. If th' buttons are at th' back tha' cannot button them up tha'self." ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... out a "feeler" about the matter, when he remembered Zoie's solemn injunction to "say nothing to anybody." Perhaps it was even worse than suicide. He dared let his imagination go no further. By the time he had put out his hand to touch the electric button at Zoie's front door, his finger was trembling so that he wondered whether he could hit the mark. The result was a very faint note from the bell, but not so faint that it escaped the ear of the anxious young wife, who had been pacing up and down the floor ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... with some reason, a pride among the boys on their appearance on certain occasions. It went by the name of "good form." Thus on Sundays at morning chapel, we always wore a button-hole flower if we could. My dear mother used to post me along a little box of flowers every week—nor was it by any means wasted energy, for not only did the love for flowers become a hobby and a custom with many of us through ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... harmonics may be combined in exactly the same way. Students should never get the idea that you press down the string as you press a button and—presto—the magic harmonics appear! They are a simple and natural result of the proper application of scientific principles; and the sooner the student learns to form and combine harmonics himself instead ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... he sought and found the electric torch. He pressed the button. No light came. It was broken! He drew a hissing breath, and began to grope about the little room. At last his hand touched the telephone, and, ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... Then he pressed a button on his desk and bade the clerk who came bring all the letters they had received from Lord Loudwater during the last three months of his life and bring ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... inclined to say that in that case Rushton would have to wait, but he remained silent, for he remembered that although he personally did not care a brass button whether he got the sack or not, the others ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... a journal of psychology points out the strong psychic link existing between a certain short expletive of condemnation and a refractory collar-button. These words seem to come at times charged with the very marrow of the mind, and, if the letters of a man who occasionally indulges in them be wholly purged of them, the letters lose one of their most distinctive characteristics. The point to be made ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... "Yes, a button—a marble;" but he did not; he only rose slowly, and his late quadrupedal aspect was emphasised by ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... my treatment. He had a wart on his nose. You know that wart. You remember how the minister told him if other peoples business had a button-hole in it, Pa could button the wart in the button-hole, as he always had his nose there. Well, I told Pa I could cure that wart with caustic, and he said he would give five dollars if I could cure it, so I took a stick of caustic and burned the wart off, but I guess I burned down into the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... Connie at length, and I was beside her in a moment. Her face looked almost glorified with delight: there was a hush of that awe upon it which is perhaps one of the deepest kinds of delight. She put out her thin white hand, took hold of a button of my coat, drew me down towards her, and said in ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... said, with a brilliant, welcoming smile, giving him her dainty little hand; "and George Grosvenor has been looking this way, and pulling his mustache and blushing redder than the carnations in his button-hole. He wants to take me in to dinner, poor fellow, and he hasn't ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... of it; for though I have met more learned book-worms in the world, especially a great hulking, clumsy, blear-eyed old doctor, whom they called Johnson, and who lived in a court off Fleet Street, in London, yet I pretty soon silenced him in an argument (at 'Button's Coffeehouse'); and in that, and in poetry, and what I call natural philosophy, or the science of life, and in riding, music, leaping, the small-sword, the knowledge of a horse, or a main of cocks, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a committee of the whole, gentlemen, adjourn to the stable, and have a little game of 'Button, button, who's got the button?' You first, Mr. Hardman. If you'll kindly shuck your coat ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... his room early after a restless night, saw a black-haired young man wearing a shade over his eyes fumbling about for the elevator button. He had the thin, nervous mouth and the square jaw of ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... in the stream well off Fisherman's wharf. In the forward part of the schooner a Chinaman in brown duck was mixing paint. Wilbur was conscious that he still wore his high hat and long coat, but his stick was gone and one gray glove was slit to the button. In front of him towered the enormous red-faced man. A pungent reek of some kind of rancid fat or oil assailed his nostrils. Over by Alcatraz a ferry-boat whistled for its slip as it elbowed its way ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... corner by the stove and wiped his face on a coarse bandana handkerchief. I could scarcely accept the verdict of my senses. The Bishop, black as a coal-heaver, in a workingman's cheap cotton shirt (one button was missing from the throat), and in overalls! That was the most incongruous of all—the overalls, frayed at the bottoms, dragged down at the heels, and held up by a narrow leather belt around the ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... from them roughly, he did not observe that he had left a fragment of his brown jeans clothing hanging upon the thorns, as a witness to his presence here close to the Conscripts' Hollow, where the stolen goods lay hidden. There was a coarse, dark-colored horn button attached to the bit of brown jeans, which was a three-cornered scrap of his coat. No! of Barney's coat. And was it to be a witness against poor Barney, who had not gone near the Conscripts' Hollow, but was lying asleep on the ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Tatler" is occupied with gay attacks upon the foppery of the beaux, whom it calls "pretty fellows," or "smart fellows." The red-heeled shoes and the cane hung by its blue ribbon on the last button of the coat, came in for an especial share of ridicule. A letter purporting to be from Oxford, and reporting some improvement effected in the conversation ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... Jove!" adds Prince Ruspoli. Ruspoli was leaning up against a pillar, watching Orazio as he would a mischievous cur. "A most suitable marriage. Not that I care a button ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... figures bide,— Grey and Miss Kitty. Surely Nature hath No fairer mirror for a might-be bride Than this same pool that caught our gentle belle To its dark heart one moment. At her side Grey bent. A something trembled o'er the well, Bright, spherical—a tear? Ah no! a button fell! ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... wi' her near forty year, Fine acquaint wi' her weel-soopled jaw, Sae he lowsed his tap button for ease till his wame, Wi' a gant at the wag-at-the-wa'. "Weel Isie," says he, "an' it's me that should ken, That's the ae place ye niver hae cramp. The lamp's bidin' here: if he's seekin' a sicht O' yer tongue he can pull't to ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... proper Season for pickling them. Indeed, where we have Mushroom-Beds, we may do these Works at any time of the Year. It is to be remark'd, that the best Mushrooms have their Gills of a Flesh Colour, even while the Mushrooms are in button; and as they tend to spread in their Head, or to open their Cap, the Gills turn redder, till at length, when their Heads are fully spread open, they will become quite black. These large-flap Mushrooms are still good for stewing or broiling, so long as they have no Worms ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... Wall Street. We've took that slide, but we didn't know exactly what was at the bottom of it. Now, you ought to be wise, but you ain't. You've got New York wiseness, which means that you judge a man by the outside of his clothes. That ain't right. You ought to look at the lining and seams and the button-holes. While we are waiting for the patrol wagon you might get out your little stub pencil and take notes for another ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... "Button the flaps tighter over the pistol-holsters! The portmanteau behind the young master's saddle isn't exactly even. There! Did the cook fill the flask ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... curiously, without answering for a moment. "I'm not a liar, Withers; but I'm not going to quarrel either. You're the only chap I care a button for; or, at any rate, you're the only chap that's ever come here; and it's something to tell a fellow what you feel. I don't care a fig for fifty thousand ghosts, although I swear on my solemn oath that I know they're here. But she"—he turned deliberately—"you laid a tanner she's in bed, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... Scotland was a long way off, and he said yes, that had occurred to him, but that we must make sacrifices for Willie's good. He was very brave and cheerful about it. Well, I mustn't stay. There's quite a nip in the air, and Rammikins will get a nasty cold in his precious little button of a nose if I don't walk him about. Say 'Bye-bye' to the ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... not do!" ejaculated Master Herman, spreading out his fat fingers and beringed thumbs. "Then belike we must de jewels try. It is a young lady, de shild? Gut! den look you here. Here is de botoner of perry [button-hook of goldsmith's work], and de bottons— twelf—wrought wid garters, wid lilies, wid bears, wid leetle bells, or wid a reason [motto]—you can haf what reason you like. Look you here again, Madam—de ouches [brooches]—an eagle of gold and enamel, Saint George and de dragon, de white ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... trouble." Slowly Kootanie George slipped his heavy coat from his shoulders. His deep, hairy chest, swelling to the breath which fairly whistled through his distended nostrils, popped a button back through a frayed button hole and stood out like an inflated bellows. "I just say, 'Damn you.' That is nothin' for a man to fight. You look for trouble, an' by ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... sight of the boys, the captain lumbered towards them, waving a dirty piece of paper. "Read that," he roared, "just brought in by that copper-faced, shoe-button-eyed ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... their own inefficiency. When we hear that a people have declared their intention of being henceforward better than their neighbors, and going upon a new theory that shall lead them direct to a terrestrial paradise, we button up our pockets and lock up our spoons. And that is what we have done very much as regards the Americans. We have walked with them and talked with them, and bought with them and sold with them; but we have mistrusted them as to their ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... me? I am unhappy, I die—how does that look, what will the others say to that? Death and life—a question of attire, and a pretty girl that loves us is also simply a part of our toilet, like a gardenia that we put into our button-hole: and we are bringing up our girls to be gardenias for such worthless fops. And then they call it Love; with that word they are fed and made drunk. A pretty estate this love and life and dying have reached, if they have come ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the most probable method of raising a large sum for the payment of the troops of the electorate, I should, instead of the tax and lottery now proposed, advise them to establish a certain number of licensed wheelbarrows, on which the laudable trade of thimble and button might be carried on for the support of the war, and shoeboys might contribute to the defence of the house of Austria, by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... a little; don't answer yet," would have occurred to the common mind. But that was not Friedrich's resource: he answers by return of post, as always in such cases;—and in the following adroit manner brushes off, without hurt to it, with kisses to it rather, the beautiful hand that has him by the button:— ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... However, fever or no fever, we had to go. As it was necessary to travel rapidly, we could only take four riding-horses, three for ourselves and the fourth for a Zulu named "Lankiboy," who also led a pack-horse, and carried an enormous "knob-kerry," or shillelagh, stuck in his button-hole, as ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... the lightkeeper's own, and, although Seth was a good-sized man, it fitted the castaway almost too tightly for comfort. However, it was dry and warm and, by leaving a button or two unfastened at the neck, answered the purpose well enough. The stranger was piloted to the bedroom, assisted into the depths of a feather bed, and covered with several layers of blankets and ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... gentlemen wear the pantalon collant, which is a most unbecoming and trying costume, being of black cloth fitting very tight and tapering down to the ankle, where it finishes abruptly with a button. Any one with a protruding ankle and thin ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... in letting you come out into the desert here to me, you whose place is by the waters of Damascus. But I need not tell you over again—you know. May God bless you till to-morrow and past it for ever. Mr. Kenyon brought me your note yesterday to read about the 'order in the button-hole'—ah!—or 'oh, you,' may I not re-echo? It enrages me to think of Mr. Forster; publishing too as he does, at a moment, the very sweepings of Landor's desk! Is the motive of the reticence to be looked for somewhere among the cinders?—Too ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... has often remarked since—for he is quite an artist now—that of all scenes in art or nature that boutique was to him the rarest. He has tried to put it into color—the miniature counter, the show-case, the background of boxes, each with a button looking mischievously at him, or a glove shaking its forefinger, or a shapely pair of hose making him blush, and the daintiest child in the world, flushing and flirting and gossiping before him; but the sketch recalls matters which he would forget, his hands ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... the following recipe make one of the most delicious of breakfast dishes: It is not necessary to use large mushrooms for stewing—small button ones will do. Take the mushrooms left in the basket after having selected those for broiling, and also use the stems cut from the mushrooms prepared for boiling. After cleaning and skinning them put them in cold water with ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... invasion" was authorized; and provision was made for the purchase of arms and ammunition. Throughout the State a martial tone resounded. Threats of secession and war were heard on every side. Nightly meetings were held and demonstrations were organized. Blue cockades with a palmetto button in the center became the most popular of ornaments. Medals were struck bearing the inscription: "John C. Calhoun, First President of the Southern Confederacy." The Legislature, reassembling in December, elected Hayne as Governor and chose Calhoun—who now resigned the vice presidency—to take ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... the platform I see Josiah furtively on-button his stiff linen cuffs as if preparin' to throw 'em off for life. His face radiant, and hummin' sotey ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... reply. Instead, he pushed a button and Wells, of the City Hall squad, entered, pausing abruptly at sight of Anderson. Giving the latter no time for words, Mr. Burns issued his instructions. On the instant he was the trained newspaper man again, cheating ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... scene recurred to him. We have said that Uncle Dozie had managed his love affairs thus far so slyly, that no one suspected him; that very afternoon, however, one of the most distinguished gossips of Longbridge, Mrs. Tibbs's mother, saw him napping in Mrs. Wyllys's parlour, with a rose-bud in his button-hole, and the Ancient Mariner in his hand. She was quite too experienced in her vocation, not to draw her own conclusions; and a suspicion, once excited, was instantly communicated to others. The news spread like wild-fire; and when the evening-bell rang, it had become ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... she saw that, Lady Holme passed the two men and went quickly out of the room, shutting the door behind her. Holding her hands over her ears, she hurried upstairs to her bedroom. It was in darkness. She felt about on the wall for the button that turned on the electric light, but could not find it. Her hands, usually deft and certain in their movements, seemed to have lost the sense of touch. It was as if they had abruptly been deprived of their minds. She felt and felt. She knew the ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... little old face and turned up his button of a nose, and gave a long whistle. You might not believe it, seeing he lived in a coal cellar; but really he liked tidiness, and always played his pranks upon ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... dish. Put in a layer of veal, seasoned with pepper and salt, then a layer of cold ham sliced thin, then more veal, more ham, and so on till the dish is full; interspersing the meat with yolks of eggs boiled hard. If you can procure some small button mushrooms they will be found an improvement. Pour in, at the last, the gravy you have drawn from the trimmings, and put on the lid of the pie, notching the edge handsomely, and ornamenting the centre with ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... forward in a rocking-chair; for to her other faults Carrie added that of laziness, and when the other girls had gone down town, and had urged her to go with them, she had been quite too lazy to go for her hat or to hunt up her boot button-hook. ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... a button loose!" cried Florence Hissop, the careful housewife. "Where's some black ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... mind telling you. You know I tried to mark Merriwell for life by punching my foil through the mask that protected his face while we were engaged in a fencing bout. I had prepared my foil for that in advance by fixing the button so I could remove it, and by sharpening the point of the foil. I wanted to spoil the fellow's ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... wasn't his first destination. Montague Nevitt, besides being a man of business and a man of taste, was also in due season a man of feeling. A heart beat beneath that white rosebud in his left top button-hole. All his thoughts were not thoughts of greed and of gain. He was bound to Tilgate to-day, and to ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... can be taken with a shutter speed of one one-hundredth. You should find out the speed of the shutter when you buy your camera, then you will not throw away films on things beyond its possibilities. "You press the button and we'll do the rest" doesn't work ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... my pupil pursues with great application. He is twice a day in the Mall, where he studies the dress of every man splendid enough to attract his notice, and never comes home without some observation upon sleeves, button-holes, and embroidery. At his return from the theatre, he can give an account of the gallantries, glances, whispers, smiles, sighs, flirts, and blushes of every box, so much to his mother's satisfaction, that ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... vote was announced, the ladies sent the pages with bouquets to the leading speakers in behalf of the bill, and button-hole sprigs to the fifty-four who ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... apartment in Paris he received a visit from Frohman. The flat was five flights up, but there was an elevator that worked by pushing a button. ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... in his button-hole opened to her, and, while he went to deliver her urgent message, she peered in wistfully from the dreary world without, catching glimpses of home-love and happiness that made her heart ache for very pity of its own loneliness. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... the winter clothes for the farm hands. The madam and I had cut out these clothes before she left, and it was my principal duty to run the sewing machine in their manufacture. Many whole days I spent in this work. My wife made the button holes and sewed on the buttons. I made hundreds of sacks for use in picking cotton. This work was always done in summer. When the garments were all finished they were shipped to the farm at Bolivar, to be ready for the fall and winter wear. In like manner ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... of a man whose mind is intensely preoccupied, I studied minutely the reflection, my own bearing, my dress, my weapons. I even noted a button off my coat, and tried dimly to remember where I had lost it, until—great God—this chamber of death and ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... being appointed for Whitelocke's last audience, he was habited in a plain suit of very fine English cloth of musk-colour, the buttons of gold, enamelled, and in each button a ruby, and rich points and ribbons of gold; his gentlemen were in their richest clothes; his pages and lacqueys, above twenty, in their liveries. In the afternoon two of the Ricks-Senators, with the master of the ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... in quick succession. There were "Pillow," "Roll the Cover," "Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?" "Copenhagen," and finally "Post Office." From all of these games Alice begged to be excused. She told the Professor that she was not bashful nor diffident, but that her eyesight was so poor that she knew she would detract from the pleasure of ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... under surveillance, was even at that moment surrounded by the police, deterred me, and I threw myself toward the bell instead, crying out that I would raise the house if he moved, and laid my finger on the button. ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... raging thirst. He punched an electric button with his fleshy thumb, and prowled around, waiting. Nobody came; he punched again, and looked at his watch. It astonished him to find the hour was three o'clock in the morning. That discovery, however, ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... the bell rang and the room was in immediate tumult, instead of taking my hat and starting from the estrade, I sat still a moment. I looked at Frances, she was putting her books into her cabas; having fastened the button, she raised her head; encountering my eye, she made a quiet, respectful obeisance, as bidding good afternoon, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... uniformed bell boy, who paused at the elevator shaft and pressed a button. In a moment the elevator came gliding noiselessly down, the door slid open, a lady and a gentleman stepped out and Diamond ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... the end of her," said Margery Burton, with a comical gesture of despair. "You've touched the button, Bessie, and Dolly will keep on telling us about the Eleanor, and how fast she is, until ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... ladies? There is another basket ready outside if the supply gives out. Dick, I would like you to carry around the thimbles. Jake, here are the needles and the spools and the scissors. If I may be permitted, ladies, I would suggest that we should all begin with the button-holes." ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... away, in order to find ourselves the following noon, seated at a comfortable meal on the heights of the Rigi. We have crossed the Atlantic Ocean in six days, we talk and listen to a friend, and it is nothing to us that he is a thousand kilometres distant. By pressing a button, we illuminate our house, by pulling a lever, we light up a whole town. From the birds we have purloined the art of flying, and many other wonders have the past fifty years showered upon us, and yet, all this is not the real monument of ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer
... degrees, as that swells, the skin cleaves, and at length falls off, with its thorny top and all (which is a part of it) and leaves the seed Case to ripen, and by degrees, to shatter out its seed at a place underneath this cap, B, which before the seed is ripe, appears like a flat barr'd button, without any hole in the middle; but as it ripens, the button grows bigger, and a hole appears in the middle of it, E, out of which, in all probability, the seed falls: For as it ripens by a provision of Nature, that end of this Case turns downward after the same manner as the ears of Wheat ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... and professions he encountered in daily contact with mankind. He thought what he was and was what he thought! To him a sermon was a preacher, a writ a lawyer, a pill a doctor, a sail a sailor, a sword a soldier, a button a tailor, a nail a carpenter, a hammer a blacksmith, a trowel a stone mason, a pebble a geologist, a flower a botanist, a ray of light an astronomer, and even a word gave him ample suggestion to build up an ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... pocketbook. Meantime, Dominicus Pike, being an extremely polite young man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer's, had handed the lady out of the coach. She was a fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a button, and had such a sweet, pretty mouth that Dominicus would almost as lief have heard a love-tale from it as a tale ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... corporal's only crime, but to clear up this one it may be added that the hand of the corpse clutched a button which, in the struggle, the girl had torn off the man's coat; this led to his identification, and in prison he met the brigand, who shot him and thus avenged the murder. I have seen happy ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... would be fool enough to give half a crown for them all. He threatened to call his servants to throw me out of the window. Until then I had been very composed; but on this threat, anger and indignation seized me in my turn. I sprang to the door, and after having turned a button which fastened it within: "No, count," said I, returning to him with a grave step, "Your servants shall have nothing to do with this affair; please to let it be settled between ourselves." My action and manner ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... movements. He avoided encounters; but the blows from which he escaped fell with destructive force upon the vessel. A piece of broken chain remained attached to the carronade. This bit of chain had twisted in some incomprehensible way around the breech button. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... shouts of victory. Soon the last Frenchman had emerged from the trees, but the French commander waited until the Germans were all in the mined area. They were just beginning to debouch on the other side when he pressed the button. There was a tremendous roar, drowning for a moment even the boom of the cannon. The wood was covered with a cloud of smoke, and even on the French trenches in Beaumont "there rained a ghastly dew." When the French re-entered ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... much before midday, it was not the mere luxury of repose that kept her in her chamber. As a rule, she awoke from refreshing sleep at eight o'clock. A touch on the electric button near her hand summoned a maid, who appeared with tea, the morning's post, and a mass of printed matter: newspapers, reviews, magazines, volumes, which had arrived by various channels since noon on the previous day. Apparatus of perfected ingenuity, speedily attached to the bed, enabled ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... in his own mind every possible cause of offence. He couldn't perceive that it was he himself that was not wanted, and that she cared not a button for anything he had done ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... southern islands, we beat up through the magnificent scenery of the Beagle Channel to Jemmy Button's country. (Jemmy Button, York Minster, and Fuegia Basket, were natives of Tierra del Fuego, brought to England by Captain Fitz-Roy in his former voyage, and restored to their country by him in 1832.) We could hardly recognise poor Jemmy. Instead of the clean, well-dressed stout ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... but you must drink! But I was going to say, you should see grandmother! She goes round peeping at everything with her one eye; if it's only a button, she keeps on staring at it. So that's what that looks like, and that! She's forgotten what the things look like, and when she sees a thing, she goes to it to feel it afterward —to find out what it is, she actually says. She would have nothing to do with ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... bury the light of the Word under cowardly and sheepish and indifferent silence. I wonder how many of us have done that? Like blue-ribbon men that button their great-coats over their blue ribbons when they go into company where they are afraid to show them, there are many Christian people that are devout Christians at the Communion Table, but would ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... it is very disagreeable to find a button giving way, with no studs at hand to fall back upon; but it is worse still in a large company to be conscious that your wife and mother-in-law are talking nonsense, and that you cannot depend upon yourself to produce ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... was clear at the other end of the house from us we heard her moanin' and takin' on even before we got the hall door open. And, of course, we made another mad dash. Once more I pushes the switch button and reveals Auntie in a new plight. Some situation, ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... could, every time the situation had pickled on you and you'd had to fight your way out as best you could. They'd tell you about it, their eyes gleaming, sometimes a slightest trickle of spittle at the sides of their mouths. They usually wanted an autograph, or a souvenir such as a uniform button. ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... in dresses more or less brown, lightly embroidered, but never at the edges, sometimes with nothing but a gold button, sometimes black velvet. He wore always a vest of cloth, or of red, blue, or green satin, much embroidered. He used no ring; and no jewels, except in the buckles of his shoes, garters, and hat, the latter always trimmed with Spanish point, with a white feather. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the islanders comes from the sea. They are expert divers and gather large quantities of pearl shells, which find a ready market with the button-makers of Europe. Fish are caught, dried, and sold in China. One sea product, the beche-de-mer, a marine animal commonly called "sea-cucumber," is highly prized by the Chinese, who use large quantities; most of it is ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... down, but as he crossed to the chair beside Cappy's desk, the old gentleman noticed that his visitor walked with a slight limp, and that his left forearm had been amputated half way to the elbow. To the observant Cappy, the American Legion button in Mr. Peck's lapel ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... the sentiment of heroism! Pride and laziness had made you almost insupportable, O my Uncle Victor!—but a great heart used to beat under those frogs upon your coat. You always used to wear, I now remember, a rose in your button-hole. That rose which you allowed, as I now have reason to believe, the shop-girls to pluck for you—that, large, open-hearted flower, scattering its petals to all the winds, was the symbol of your glorious youth. You despised neither absinthe nor tobacco; but you despised life. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... chair by the broker's desk, and for the moment the two talked of trivialities. Gretry was a large, placid, smooth-faced man, stolid as an ox; inevitably dressed in blue serge, a quill tooth-pick behind his ear, a Grand Army button in his lapel. He and Jadwin were intimates. The two had come to Chicago almost simultaneously, and had risen together to become the wealthy men they were at the moment. They belonged to the same club, lunched together every day at Kinsley's, and took each other driving behind ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... dress properly that morning—and particularly hard to wash behind one's ears. Jehosophat put on one stocking inside out; Marmaduke his union suit outside in; and one of his shoes was button and the other lace. But they were all covered up, anyway, and Ole Northwind couldn't nip their flesh, and the Constable couldn't arrest them, so it ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... with my table-napkin? Why, I did like the rest of the guests: I shook it out of the folds, spread it before me, and fastened one corner to my button-hole.' ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... threw his guns to Hopalong, who caught them in the air and turning, faced Tex, who stood white of face and completely lost in the forgetfulness of admiration and amazement. The guns jerked again and a button flew from the buckskin shirt of his enemy; another tore a flower from his breast and another drove it into the ground at his feet as others stirred his hair and cut the buckle off his pretty sombrero. Tex, dazed, but wise enough to stand quiet, ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... to say, suspended from it by a cord, which is called the umbilical cord. When the child is born, the umbilical cord is cut, and the scar or depression in the abdomen where the umbilical cord was attached constitutes the navel or umbilicus (in slang language—button or belly button). The umbilical cord consists of two arteries and one vein embedded in a gelatin like substance and enveloped by a membrane, and it is through the umbilical cord that the blood from the placenta is brought to and carried from the fetus. The blood of the fetus and the blood ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... casting a shadow so deep that the ground it covered looked like a bottomless abyss. But nevertheless, something bright moved in it—perhaps the sheen of that lone light in an upper window reflected on a knife-hilt or a button—something that moved in time to a ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... and pressed a button. The young man who responded was James Stiles, bookkeeper and general office clerk. As he stood in the doorway, respectful enquiry in his whole attitude, pen in hand, linen office jacket sagging at the pockets, forearms encased in black sateen ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Military coat was a star, and something suspended either from the neck or the button, I do not know which, something which he told me was some honor of a ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... may bend upwards in two Manners; the best Way for it to bend, is from the Middle towards the Button; the other Way is, when almost all the Blade makes a Semi-circle. The first has a better Effect, the Feeble being stronger, the other makes a greater Show; but the Point being feeble, there is not the same Advantage in ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... I'm down here briefing you instead of sitting back on a flagship. I got you into the I-A. Now, you listen carefully: If you push the panic button on this one without cause, I will personally flay you alive. We both know the advantages of an alien contact. But if you get into a hot spot, and call for help, I'll dive this cruiser into that city ...
— Missing Link • Frank Patrick Herbert
... secured a lover; and such a lover—handsome, young, and gallant,—the very hero of her dreams. She almost fainted in delighted surprise, and unfastening the flowers with trembling fingers, gave them to Gaston. He placed them in a button-hole of his flannel coat, then before she could scream, or even draw back in time, this audacious young man put his arm round her and kissed her virginal lips. Miss Twexby was so taken by surprise, that she could offer no resistance, and by the time she had recovered herself, Gaston ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... English. We changed boats four times in the tour of the lake, and each boat brought us a fresh accession of passengers. By-and-by there came aboard a brave Italian, with birds in cages and gold-fish in vases, with a gay Southern face, a coral neck button, a brown mustache and imperial, and a black-tasselled red fez that consoled. He was the vividest bit of color in our composition, though we were not wanting in life without him. There began to be some Americans besides ourselves, and a pretty girl of our nation, who occupied a public station ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... rest and doctoring up," thought the young inventor as he turned the electric chandelier off by a button on the wall, in order to darken the room, so that he might peer out to better advantage. "I think he's been working too hard on his wireless motor. I must get Dr. Gladby to come over and see dad. But now I want to find out who that was ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... O'Halloran Tarpy Cabee Is in the political swim. He cares not a button for men, not he: Great principles captivate him— Principles cleverly cut out and fitted To Percy's capacity, duly submitted, And fought ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... together together; embody, reembody^; roll into one. attach, fix, affix, saddle on, fasten, bind, secure, clinch, twist, make fast &c adj.; tie, pinion, string, strap, sew, lace, tat, stitch, tack, knit, button, buckle, hitch, lash, truss, bandage, braid, splice, swathe, gird, tether, moor, picket, harness, chain; fetter &c (restrain) 751; lock, latch, belay, brace, hook, grapple, leash, couple, accouple^, link, yoke, bracket; marry &c (wed) 903; bridge over, span. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... handsome bay horse would go with another in her carriage instead of his. Besides, he wouldn't be so fond of his pointers if he had anything else to care for; and above all, Kate," added my aunt conclusively, "his silk handkerchief wasn't hemmed, and he'd a button wanting in the ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... fantastic nature had fastened round the tail of a white angora cat. She knew all the little tricks of a girl who seeks to marry; her fingers arranged her curls which were not in the least out of order; she entreated Rogron to fasten a cuff-button, thus showing him her wrist, a request which that dazzled fool rudely refused, hiding his emotions under the mask of indifference. The timidity of the only love he was ever to feel in the whole course of his life took an external appearance of dislike. Sylvie and her friend Celeste ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... had a box of blacking and a brush, and two scouts were polishing their shoes. The Eagles had a needle and thread, and one scout, under the watchful eye of his patrol leader, was sewing on a button. ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... up something that lay in the bottom of one of them. It was a battered tan khaki hat with the frayed cord hanging down over one side and a picture of a Kewpie drawn on the big button in front. There was no mistaking it. ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... of the tailor had not been sent, so Popinot put on his old stained coat, and was the Popinot unadorned whose appearance made those laugh who did not know the secrets of his private life. Bianchon, however, obtained permission to pull his cravat straight, and to button his coat, and he hid the stains by crossing the breast of it with the right side over the left, and so displaying the new front of the cloth. But in a minute the judge rucked the coat up over his chest by the way in which he stuffed his hands into his pockets, ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... door, he went up to the bed and tried to move it; but it was fixed to the wall, and had not been moved for more than half a century, apparently. Then the brigadier stooped, and made his uniform crack. A button had ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... what the Irish call a fairy smith—had done all he could to soothe the creature, and had at last succeeded by giving it gingerbread-buttons, of which the cob became passionately fond. Invariably, however, before giving it a button, he said, 'Deaghblasda,' with which word the cob by degrees associated an idea of unmixed enjoyment: so if he could rouse the cob to madness by the word which recalled the torture to its remembrance, he could as easily soothe it by the other ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... in Australia just now is the man who raves about getting the people on the land, and button-holes you in the street with a little scheme of his own. He generally does not know what he is ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... amazement was a perfectly modern and up-to-date "ascenseur," nicely upholstered and lighted by electricity. Mr. Bond ushered his visitors inside, closed the door, pressed a button, and immediately they shot aloft, landing ultimately in a kiosk in Count Sutri's garden at the top of the cliff. Feeling as if a magician had used occult means to transport them back to safety, the girls gazed round highly ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... not touch me! You walking clay! who button your coats about three meals a day and think you have belted in the universe! Go listen to the sea lapping rock and bone to her oblivious mill, and know your hearts shall sleep as sand within her shells! ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... perceptible diminution of the warmth with which he had welcomed the other, the major looked around the room for seats for his visitors, and perceiving only one chair, piled with exchanges, and a broken stool propped against the wall, pushed a button, which rang a bell in the hall, summoning the colored ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... to admire her outfit, and reiterate instructions; there were the two younger girls altering the position of chairs according to their mother's directions; there were actually two guests—not very alarming ones, only the curate and his wife, both rather gaunt, bony people. He was button-holing the Canon, and she was trying to do the same by the Canoness about some parish casualty. The Canon hoped to escape in the welcome to his sister-in-law and niece, but he was immediately secured again, while his wife found it ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge |
