"Jerky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sandy-complexioned man, with a straggling beard and light blue eyes. He appeared competent enough, a bundle of nervous energy, and yet there was something about the fellow which instantly impressed me unfavorably—probably his short, jerky manner of speech, and his inability to ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... ought to have been enough, but Hardman did not appear to think so. He stepped somewhat closer, and he, too, spoke, still gesticulating with one of his hands. The man addressed was impatient. He nodded again in a jerky fashion, and made answer with less caution, as a consequence of which the eavesdropper caught the words, "Yes, ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... the front classroom windows he was to be seen every morning disappearing through the front gates at about eleven o'clock; very shiny top hat; very tight tail coat; very tight grey trousers; very tight yellow gloves; very tight grey-yellow moustache; very tight pasty face; curiously constricted, jerky gait as though his boots, too, were very tight. Precisely the sort of chronic, half-tipsy hanger-on one used to see in billiard rooms or eating cloves in West End bars. By association of ideas with the orientalism ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... break into some good old tune myself, if there hadn't been so much rustling and talking and flirting all around me. As it was, there arose a clatter of confusing sounds that gave one's nerves a jerky feeling that I for one haven't got over yet. I do wonder why city people have no better manners. I should just as soon think of speaking out in meeting, as of chattering when others wanted to ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... plastering it with clay. The top of the chimney was surrounded by a barrel with both ends open, through which the smoke climbed lazily up into the air. Near by stood an oak-tree, in which a jay-bird was screaming and dancing in a jerky way. Sukey then looked away into the blue sky, and the clouds seemed to become pagodas, and palm-trees, and golden ships floating drowsily away. All at once she heard somebody say, in a ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... been justified in describing the imperative duty of work as the theme of many an hour of strenuous idleness, and the superiority of golden silence over silver speech as the text of endless bursts of jerky rapture, while a too constant invective against cant had its usual effect of developing cant with a difference. To the incorrigibly sentimental all this was sheer poison, which continues tenaciously in the system. Others of robuster character no sooner came into contact with the world and its fortifying ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... loss, had already climbed upon a low projection in the wall of one of the houses opposite. From this point of vantage he could more easily observe what went on inside the cabaret, and in short, jerky sentences he gave a description of what he saw to ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... humour, was capable of sinking into a theatrical mannerism and cockney vulgarities of wretched taste; Disraeli, with all his wit and savoir faire, has printed some rank fustian, and much slip-slop gossip; and George Meredith at times can be as jerky and mysterious as a prose Browning. Charlotte Bronte and Kingsley could both descend to blue fire and demoniac incoherences. Macaulay is brilliant and emphatic, but we weary at last of his everlasting staccato on the trumpet; and even the magnificent symphonies ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... Gertie, impressed by his deferential manner. "Only it seemed to me rather odd. And just now my nerves are somewhat jerky." He touched his cap, and was shuffling off, when she recalled him. "Stroll along with me, and let's have a talk. What do ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... sigh of relief, flashed across the room on tiptoe, and went down on his knees beside the monstrous thing, moving the candle this way and that along the length of it, as if searching for something, and laughing in little jerky gasps of relief when he found nothing that was not as it had been—as it should be—as he wanted it to be. And then, as he rose and patted the clay, and laughed aloud as he realized how hard it had set, then, at that instant, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... above the tight waistband, as fancy took him, and enjoying the warmth of his master's body. It was very interesting and amusing to see him poke his little head out between the buttons, or through a buttonhole of the blouse at intervals to ask, with glittering eye and jerky movement, for an occasional fly from his master's hand caught on the shafts or cover ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Wilbur Cowan, who was going to war, had invited her to be present that evening at the opening of Newbern's new and gorgeous restaurant, where the diners, between courses and until late after dinner, would dance to the strains of exotic and jerky music, precisely as they did in the ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... first met, it seems, in saddle. The winter weather was glorious at Averill. They had a fine pack of hounds; coursing for jack-rabbit was their favorite sport, and, despite the fact that Foster had a beautiful and speedy horse, "his seat was so poor and his hand so jerky he never managed to get up to the ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... panted Bunny, in a sort of jerky way, for the cart rattled over some bumps just then, and if Bunny had not been careful how he spoke he might have bitten his ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... parts. The whole is laid upon bands of straw designed to bring out the sounds and render them stronger and purer. The sounds are produced by striking the pieces of wood with a couple of small hammers. They are short and jerky, and, as they cannot be prolonged, nothing but pieces possessing a quick rhythm can be executed upon the instrument. Dances, marches, variations, etc., are played upon it by preference, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... responded the officer, in his usual short, jerky way. "Lucky to catch you here, too, before ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... said to possess American characteristics. It is dashing and rapid, and as clear as the water in Southern seas. The man has a penchant for short and nervous sentences, but they are never jerky. They explode like so many firecrackers and remind one of the great national holiday!... Nevertheless Edgar Saltus should have ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... not have an abrupt and jerky ending. It is not uncommon especially in class room debate, to hear a student at the close of his discussion say, "This is my proof; I leave the decision to the judges"; or "Thus you see I have established my proposition." ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... came. You read blunt, jerky sentences that told you Mark had died suddenly, in the mess room, of heart failure. Captain Symonds said he thought you would want to know exactly how it happened.... "Well, we were 'cock-fighting,' if you know what that is, after dinner. Peters is the heaviest ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... Dick saw a long, snake-like head and neck thrust out of the water by the bank. The head twisted about with a quick, jerky motion till the bird's eyes rested on the canoe, when it disappeared as suddenly as it ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... me know when you want some more money. Write to the office, not to the house. I only wish you had asked me before this happened. I've been pretty successful, at least in business; but that's not everything." He paused and then went on, in short, jerky sentences. "Don't marry a saint, Jimmy. They're better to watch than to live with. Your sister never forgives anything, and that's a big mistake. It makes life hard sometimes. I suppose I'm getting a bit old, and I feel things. The doctor says ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... them away with that, and turned again, with his jerky suddenness, to his telegrams and letters. The colonel had not meant for Macdonald to pass out of the door through which he had entered. That was the military portal; the other one, opening into the hall from which Frances came, was the world's door for entering that house. ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... group included four Heavies besides the flagship, with twelve Mediums and twenty Lights. They slanted down in a jerky evasive course while pictures flashed on screens to be compared ...
— Tulan • Carroll Mather Capps
... the red squirrel are quick, sharp, jerky, machine-like. He does nothing slowly or gently; everything with a snap and a jerk. His progression is a series of interrupted sallies. When he pauses on the stone wall he faces this way and that with a sudden ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... into the "office," Magnus locking the door behind him. "Very complete you are here, Governor," observed the editor in his alert, jerky manner, his black, bead-like eyes twinkling around the room from behind his glasses. "Telephone, safe, ticker, account-books—well, that's progress, isn't it? Only way to manage a big ranch these days. But the day of the big ranch is over. As the land appreciates in value, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... You head that pony for camp mighty quick. Ride for it! You will have no difficulty in following my trail back. Don't drink much at a time. Take it in little sips," commanded the foreman in short, jerky sentences. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... along; what strange, twisted and jerky movements they have; what sufferings they must endure, and what pain they must have had. All these thoughts come to us as we look at the march of the disabled as they ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... the little Hamilton girl trotted importantly forward to the superintendent's table, where she let seven pennies drop from her fat fingers into a yawning frog, receiving in exchange a printed text. Acknowledging this courtesy with a jerky bow, she switched her way back to the pew she had left, and crumpled herself into a space not half wide enough to hold her. The minister rose to lead in prayer. Hannah bowed her head devoutly, trusting in the power of example. ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... into that approved tonsorial ornament known in barrack-room parlance as a "quiff." His complexion was of that peculiar olive-brown shade especially noticeable in most Anglo-Indians. In his smart, soldierly aspect, biting, jerky Cockney speech and clipped, wax-pointed moustache he betrayed unmistakably the ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... lonesome up there all by myself, with nobody to speak to. Besides, not since I was a boy, I reflected, had I enjoyed a run down a really steep hill. I thought I would see if I could revive the sensation. It is a jerky exercise, but good, I ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... to have deserted him, and as he went on with his revelation he spoke in jerky sentences, with some confusion ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... desk by the window, came forward and welcomed him. Glory held his hand with her long hand-clasp and looked steadfastly into his eyes. His face twitched and her own blushed deeply, and then she talked in a nervous and jerky way, reproaching him for ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... husband. He had never complained about her want of good looks, and had never gone after those who were considered good-looking. In expressing this opinion she always first bent forward, then drew herself up to her full length, and finally gave a little jerky nod sideways, so as to clench the statement. Then Ivan's bright eye would twinkle more brightly than usual, and he would ask her how she knew that—reminding her that he was not always at home. This was Ivan's stereotyped mode of teasing his wife, and every time he employed it he was called an "old ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... of the launch sounded a series of sharp, jerky calls, followed by the firing of a Mauser bullet. Venning's heart was pumping blood at express speed under the violence of his efforts, and his eyes in a wild stare were fixed on the approaching craft, which ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... upon him, watching for the least word, the least modulation of the voice. The curiosity-dealer was now laughing, with a nervous laugh, while resuming the self-control of a man who feels sure of himself: and he walked up to Renine with jerky movements ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... found the little dame in possession, and generally the lord and master gleaning food in redstart fashion; flitting around a branch, darting behind a leaf, over and under a twig, tail spread to keep his balance during these jerky movements, his bright oriole colors flashing as he dashed through a patch of sunlight,—a beautiful object, but a perfectly silent one. When his happiness demanded expression he flew to a maple-tree, and poured ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... Dimsdale made a jerky movement, as if pulling himself together. He put an unsteady hand into his breast-pocket. "It came this afternoon, my lady, about an hour ago. I am afraid it's bad news—very bad news. Yes, my lady, I'm telling you, I'm telling you. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... I've forgotten a little the order in which things happened, for a scene of confusion followed. Stepan Trofimovitch uttered some exclamation in French, clasping his hands, but Varvara Petrovna had no thought for him. Even Mavriky Nikolaevitch muttered some rapid, jerky comment. But Pyotr Stepanovitch was the most excited of all. He was trying desperately with bold gesticulations to persuade Varvara Petrovna of something, but it was a long time before I could make out what it was. He appealed to Praskovya Ivanovna, and Lizaveta Nikolaevna ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... preparatory to and during the utterance there is a tremulous motion about the muscles of the mouth. The hesitation increases, and instead of a steady flow of modulated, articulate sounds, speech is broken up into a succession of irregular, jerky, syllabic fragments, without modulation, and often accompanied by a tremulous vibration of the voice. Syllables are unconsciously dropped out, blurred, or run into one another, or imperfectly uttered; especially is difficulty found with consonants, ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... a favourite hunting-ground of those insect desperadoes, the mason-wasps, that flew about loudly buzzing in their splendid gold and scarlet uniform. There were also many little shy birds here, and my favourite was the wren, for in its appearance and its scolding, jerky, gesticulating ways it is precisely like our house-wren, though it has a richer and more powerful song than the English bird. On the other side of the hedge was the potrero, or paddock, where a milch-cow with two or three horses were kept. ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... dark now and the electric street lamps were lit round the pedestal of the Spanish Duke. The organisation of the town was jerky, and often the lights would come on when it was daylight and often disappear when it was dark. Where Germans had been there were always electric light and telephones. No matter how sparse the furniture ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... wisps of gray to her shoulders. Her eyeglasses dropped from her nose and swayed dizzily on their slender chain. Her gloves split across the back and showed the white, tense knuckles. Her breath came in gasps, and only a moaning "whoa—whoa" fell in jerky rhythm from her white lips. Ashamed, frightened, and dismayed, Miss Prue clung to the reins and kept her straining eyes on the ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... his clothes have fallen on the wet floor; he cannot force his blue toes into his oozy socks. At the moment he is attempting to wriggle himself into his trousers the horse is hitched-to again, and the jerky and jolty journey back up the beach begins. If the hair of a boy of ten could turn white in a single morning, there would be many a hoary-headed youngster in British watering-places. John Leech, in Punch, used to make pictures of the experiences I have outlined, and I studied them with ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... the children and chuckles from some of the older members interfered with Mr. Badger's fervent but jerky discourse. Captain ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the other without moving, "but in the same jerky fashion. Every time I get it, it seems to have gone back to the beginning—just ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... large, with great white cotton coverings, and generally drawn by six mules: the driver, usually a colored man, rides the first nigh mule, and has one rein, called the 'jerky rein,' running over the head of the mule before him, through a ring fastened to his headstall, and dividing on the back of the leader, and fastening to his bit. The mule is directed to one side or another by the driver twitching the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... trees. The brick walls of many of the houses round were pitted and pocked and scarred by the shell fragments. The face of one house was marked by a huge splash, with solid center and a ragged-edged outline of radiating jerky rays, reminding one immediately of a famous ink-maker's advertisement. The bricks had taken the impression of the explosion's splash exactly as paper would take the ink's. Practically every window in the square had been broken, and in the case of ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... was a thin, querulous, and withered-looking little man, who twitched his eyebrows as he spoke, and spoke in short, jerky phrases. ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... not, or I should not have dreamed of asking you to help me to-night," Katherine said, with a nervous laugh; then in a jerky tone she went on: "I want you to get the store shut up as soon as possible, then, directly the people have cleared off, we have got to go and bring those stores home that ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... Aix, and the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and are therefore familiar with Browning's custom of leaving out words, using odd, informal words which another man might think out of place in poetry, and employing strange, sometimes jerky, meters. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... he could into a series of short jerky strokes, using the muscles of his arms, failing altogether to get the weight of his body on the oar. At the end of twenty minutes ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... As they entered the comfortable little sitting-room of the suite, a young woman rose gracefully from the desk at which she had been writing. With perfect composure she smiled and extended her slim hand to the American as he crossed the room with Medcroft's jerky introduction dinging in ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... correcting, judgment of Mr. E. DROOD, I make bold to guess that the modern true lover's mind, such as it is, is rendered jerky by contemplation of the lady who has made him the object of her virgin affectations," proceeded Mr. DIBBLE, looking intently at EDWIN, but still making farther and farther reaches toward the distant crackers, even to the increased tilting of his chair. "I venture the conjecture, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... Catcher (Muscicapa Grisola) is fairly common on our lawns, where it will sit quietly on a garden seat, or roller, and thence take its short jerky flight after the flies. I have known it to nest year after year, at the Vicarage, in a hole in the wall, where an iron ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... jerky voice, without seeking his words, which, on the contrary, seemed to crowd through the portal of his brain, he dictated ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... must picture me, when first it was given into my care, turning it over, curiously, and making a swift, jerky examination. A small book it is; but thick, and all, save the last few pages, filled with a quaint but legible handwriting, and writ very close. I have the queer, faint, pit-water smell of it in my nostrils now as I write, and my fingers have subconscious ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... his characteristic habit of phrase making and became more jerky and real. "I respected you, Alice," he went on. "I didn't love you but I hoped I might, and I played the game. I liked to see you in my house. You fitted in and made it more of a home than that barrack had ever been. I began to collect prints and first editions, ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the same time pale, a thing which always displeases me and which is, in fact, unpleasant; it impresses me as a sort of diseased healthfulness. Moreover, he had the slow yet jerky way of speaking that characterizes the pedant. Even his manner of walking, which was not that of youth and health, repelled me; as for his glance, it might be said that he had none. I do not know what to think of a man whose eyes have nothing to say. These are the signs which led me to an unfavorable ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Maine woods. Now he was foreman of an East River lumber-yard, and he was prospering. In a year or two he would have enough laid by to go home to Bucksport and buy a share in a ship-building business. All this dribbled out in the course of a jerky but variegated correspondence, in which autobiographic details were mixed ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... you and Ward white," said Stockton. "You'll have good grub. Herky-Jerky's the best cook this side of Holston, and you'll be left untied in the daytime. But if either of you attempts to get away it means a leg shot off. Do you ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... was, so I rolled up my stuff, loaded up Starlight, an' said good-bye to little Barbie. That was the hard part of it. She didn't cry when I told her I was goin'—that would 'a' been too girlish-like for her; she just breathed hard an' jerky for a couple o' minutes while we looked in opposite directions, an' then she said, "How'll you come back next time, Happy? It's over three years ago since you left that other time, an' you came back just as you said, ridin' on a black hoss with silver trimmed ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... left. With a despairing sigh she turns the great faucet of the bath-tub and holds her head under it till she is upon the verge of a watery grave. This experiment is her forlorn hope. Perhaps about three or four o'clock she falls into a series of jerky naps, and dreams that she is editor of a popular Hebrew magazine, wandering frantically through a warehouse full of aspirant MSS. (chiefly from the junior classes of theological seminaries) of which she cannot ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... draw no flour, nor rice, not jerky, anyhow," said the puncher, examining the bags. "Nor bacon, either. The only chance we stand to make a haul is on ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... to be done. They couldn't go on like this.... Her mind went to and fro, quickly, with short jerky movements, distressed; it had to do so much thinking in so ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... Chu understood English quite as well as he understood Cantonese, and Whiteside was able from time to time to interject a word, or correct some little slip on Tarling's part. The Chinaman listened without comment and when Tarling had finished he made one of his queer jerky bows and went ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... of yellow and bluish nimbus I see men encircling the flashing machine and closing in on it. Near to me I make out the silhouette of Mesnil Joseph, who is steering straight and with no effort of concealment for the spot whence the barking explosions come in jerky sequence. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... give all chance for the other lung to work, cheeks are flushed, with anxious expression; the wings of the nostrils move in and out with each breath. The cough is short, dry and painful. Rapid, shallow, jerky breathing, increasing to difficult breathing. On the first day the characteristic expectoration mixed with blood appears (called rusty). Pulse runs from 100 to 116, full bounding, but may be feeble and small in serious cases. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... go. Charlotte looked round the corner of the hood and saw him running with brief, jerky strides. ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... royal mind speedily wearying of all things in turn, he wished the numbers that made up an anthem to be short. So Purcell wasted his time and magnificent thematic material on mere strings of scrappy, jerky sections. The true Purcell touch is on them all, but no sooner has one entered fairly into the spirit of a passage than it is finished. Instrumental interludes—if, indeed, they can be called interludes, for they are as important as the vocal sections—abound, and might almost be curtain-tunes ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... Chicago to work on the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and he was a part of the art department force of that paper. At that time—and he never seemed to change later even so much as a hair's worth until he died in 1908—he was short, stocky and yet quick and even jerky in his manner, with a bushy, tramp-like "get-up" of hair and beard, most swiftly and astonishingly disposed of at times only to be regrown at others, and always, and intentionally, I am sure, most amusing to contemplate. ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... have been bitten off round the edge here and there, just at the stiffest zigs and zags of the nightmare road. And far down the mountain the way went winding under our eyes, like the loops of a lasso; short, jerky loops, as we came to each new turn, to which the length of our chassis forced us to bow and curtsey on our slippery, sliding skates. Forward the Aigle had to go until her bonnet hung over the precipice, then to be cautiously backed for a foot or two, before she could glide ticklishly down the ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... toes, upheld in the air by naught but her outstretched arms, her face raised in a fleeting attitude in which nothing was visible but the smile, she came quickly forward toward the light, or receded with little jerky steps, so rapid that one constantly expected to hear the crash of glass and see her glide backward up the slope of the broad moonbeam that shone aslant into the studio. There was one fact that imparted a ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... on the other side. Perhaps the old woman has locked this by accident. And perhaps they are not far off. I shake it. A deep, low savage growl follows this, and I hear within two inches of my toes, a series of jerky and inquisitive sniffs. The sniffs say, as it were, "There's no doubt about it, I know you're there;" the growl adds, "Show yourself, and ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... of the elevator is necessary. A jerky movement may change the direction of motion so suddenly as to produce dangerous air stresses upon the surfaces, in which case there is a ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... congregation cannot hear his words. Certainly yes, when the feeling of the speaker behind the phrase makes him enforce his meaning by a suitable movement. In speaking today fewer gestures are indulged in than years ago. There should never be many. Senseless, jerky, agitated pokings and twitchings should be eradicated completely. Insincere flourishes should be inhibited. Beginners should beware of gestures until they become such practised masters of their minds and bodies that physical emphasis may be added to ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... forget it, especially when Charlie's adventures in the Green River under-world cheated it of exercise too long, was remembering it now, and bolting down the hilly little street, settled at last into a jerky and tentative gait with the air of accepting their guidance until it could arrange further plans, but remembering ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... unfortunate tramp, who in the meanwhile had managed to got on to his feet again, made no attempt to get away; probably he thought he would stand but a poor chance. But the man in the shirt had partly recovered his power of speech, and was now blurting out jerky, half—intelligible sentences: ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... know you," Jack broke in with a jerky bow. "Your daughter's a smart gal," he said. "She made everything as clear as daylight t' me. I'm goin' ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... face when she sank into a chair, nor shall I feel again so near like dying as when she suggested that you might have fallen from the train. I sent Hedrick ahead to summon the conductor, but he had hardly left us when the engine whistled sharply and the train began to slow up in a jerky fashion. We were very pale as we looked at each other, for something told us that the stop was unusual. I rushed to the platform meeting Hedrick, who was as much alarmed as I. He said the train had been flagged, and that there must be something wrong. Your aunt came out ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... scolding all the while, and running about with short, jerky movements, trying her best to get out of the room; but the door ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... upon his handsome face, and he turned presently to regard his companion with an enquiry which might have been darkly furtive had not the luminous publicity in which he moved rendered the smallest of his mental processes so brilliantly overt. It was immediately plain to Adams that the jerky sentences were shot out at random in order that Perry's slow mind might gain a larger space in which to grope for the word he really wanted. There was something evidently behind it all, and until the situation should disclose itself they walked on in an embarrassed ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... with their old nervous habit, and the answer came in an odd, jerky, half-connected way: "I dunnot know why it should ha' done. I mun be mad, or summat. I nivver had no hope nor nothin': theer nivver wur no reason why I should ha' had. Ay, I mun be wrong somehow, or it wouldna stick to me i' this road. I conna get rid on it, an' I conna feel as if I want to. ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... have their moments of depression. R. Jones' face clouded, and jerky remarks about hardness of times and losses on the Stock Exchange began to proceed from him. As Scotland Yard had discovered, he lent money on occasion; but he did not lend it to youths in Freddie's ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... laid up Chauvin got two more bucks, several tree squirrels and some mountain quail. We made plenty of jerky, while living off the fat of ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... obstacle grazing against or bumping the side of the yacht. He looked, and saw, to his surprise, a small rowing boat close under the gunwale, so close indeed that the slow motion of the tide heaved it every now and then into a jerky collision with the lower framework of the Eulalie—a circumstance which explained the sound which had attracted his attention. The boat was not unoccupied—there was some one in it lying straight across the seats, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... in and took her by both hands, and gave her the most friendly greeting. "I heard Elinor's voice, and I stopped in the middle of my sermon," he said. "You will remark in church on Sunday a jerky piece, which shows how I stopped to reflect whether it could be you—and then went on for another sentence, and then decided that it must be you. There is a big Elinor written across my sermon paper." He laughed, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... had settled over the land, Eben left the boat and made his way slowly up the track. Reaching the main highway, he moved forward with a long jerky stride until he came to the little clearing where the Dobbins' shack was situated. He stopped and peered cautiously around. A light shone from the one window facing the road, and toward this Eben stealthily moved. There was no blind to the window, ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... that caused him to bite his lips to bleeding-point, to keep back his groans, Frobisher contrived to raise himself to a sitting posture, and he then discovered that he was in a closed litter of some sort, or palanquin, which, he could tell by its short, jerky motion, was being borne over very ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... on his lips—Old Tom Peters—Old Jack Summers—Old Bob—Old Dick. Good fellows every one. All the pet names in the family had been his. To him belonged Pippa and Sancie, Melot and Vicky. "My girls," or "My rascals," he used to call them to Tom Peters or Jack Summers, and bring them home jerky little tin pedestrians from the city, or emus pulling little carts; or (later on) bowls of goldfish or violet nosegays from Covent Garden. If he had a nearer passion, it was to stand well with all the world. That's two passions, however, to his score; and the struggle ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... thing we haven't got is meat," Bill told her, "except a little jerky; but there's plenty of that in the woods if we can just find it. And I don't intend to delay about that. If the snow gets much deeper, we'd have to have snowshoes to hunt ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... think that London has agreed with you," rumbled Selwyn discontentedly. "Your pulse is as jerky as a primitive cinema film. You'd better not be in such a hurry to run away from us again. Besides, we can't do without you, ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... another lover present—the favoured lover. He sat with Alice near the piano where Francie and her governess were playing duets, listening without listening to his companion's jerky talk—those pathetic attempts to attract him which so many second-rate girls were not too proud to make obvious to his keen apprehension. Claud Dalzell's distinction was that he was the most polished young man of his social ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... bravado. The bibacious drongo can be as demure as any. When he comes to dart among the eddying insects, glorying in the first cool gleams of the sunshine, he will take his ease on a mango branch, make jerky bows and flick the fine feathers of his tail, and "cheep" in timorous accents. He is sober then, quite parsonified in demeanour; his speech "all in the set phrase of peace," and would be scandalised by the mere ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... her back in the morning," proffered Dick after a few moments. Then, as this elicited no remark, "We can stock her up with jerky, and there's no reason she shouldn't make it." Sam remained grimly silent. "Is there?" insisted Dick. He waited a minute for a reply. Then, as none came, "Hell!" he exclaimed, disgustedly, and turned away to sit on a log the other side of the fire with all ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... with his helmet tossed backwards on his shaggy head, his heavy kit swinging in disordered fashion from his shoulders, his mouth open, shouting meaningless things to the passers-by, and his steps very short, jerky and unsteady. Thus it happened, that many people, seeing him in this condition, shuddered, and asked what France had come to, when she must place her faith in such men as that. Other people, however, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... with the lieutenant in the peopleless city of Belgrade and waited for his captors. They came then, timidly reassured by his non-violence. While he talked to them pleasantly the citizens of London and Paris suddenly began to dance jerky and grotesque jigs on the pavements of their cities. In the same moment the Chief Justice of the Court of the Nations, at a cocktail party in Washington, writhed in the exquisite pain of total muscle cramp, his august features twisted into a mask of ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... rising. Stiffly, she put Baby Newcomb back into his basket. As she did so, a ripple of shrill, jerky laughter crackled through the room. Lorry put her hands to her ears. "You know I can't say anything. You'd keep quiet. They'd ...
— I'll Kill You Tomorrow • Helen Huber
... One wound itself around the front leg of my mule, and for a moment I was anxious lest the animal had been bitten; but fortunately the snake, which had been trodden upon, did no damage. Only rarely did we see a bird anywhere, except in villages, where an occasional crow, with its dried-up neck and jerky motions, could be seen. How like ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Jerky, little by little, Wilfred sketches out the answer. Army life wasn't what he'd expected. Not at all. He was sore on the whole business. He'd been let in for it, that was all. It wasn't so bad for some of the fellows, but they'd been lucky. As for him—well, he'd come ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... your outfit somewhere back on the trail," he said eagerly. "I'll go back with you; and we can talk things over quietly there!" He actually started toward the watercourse, walking with jerky, uneven steps. ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the drawing room where I am writing, and are playing, one the fiddle, and the other the guitar. Perhaps they are trying to get up a "hop," later, but there do not seem materials enough for it, and their tune is at present squeaky—jerky—with an attempt at an adagio. The nigger is now playing "Comin' thro' the Rye," with much expression, both of face and fiddle! Oh, such, squeaks! I wish Louisa heard them. Here come the variations with accompaniment ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... brain scream with the immensity of the sound. Luminous, white disks, three feet in diameter, glared at him, and the creature, which progressed with jerky leaps toward him, almost filled ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... he finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence which was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like distance from the wall ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... on, so as to keep his charge under constant survey. Even in that moment of acute despair he arrested Robert's attention. There was something odd about him—something distressful and indignant. Whilst he prayed he made jerky, irritable movements which fluttered out the wings of his gown, so that with his sleek black hair and pointed face he looked like a large angry blackbird, trapped and tied by ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... ago. I next place in the cage a bluebottle, one only, to avoid confusion. Her fat belly proclaims the advent of a laying time. An hour later, when the excitement of being put in prison is allayed, my captive is in labor. With eager, jerky steps, she explores the morsel of game, goes from the head to the tail, returns from the tail to the head, repeats the action several times and at last settles near an eye, a dimmed eye ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... down in two minutes, Syd, I'm off," said I, pulling out my watch, and nervously noting the jerky springs of the spidery second-hand that seemed to be in a ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... drive fast, and while the horses trotted rapidly along the Rue Royale and the boulevards, she told what had happened to Nana in jerky, breathless sentences. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... glittering, mineralogical flavour. The verse is not so much easy as facile. And not all the grace of internals can atone for external monotony. That trick—that full stop at the end of nearly every fourth line—it impairs the charm of the music and renders its flow jerky; coming, as it does, like an ever-repeated blow, it grows wearisome to the ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... sinking to repose, Marcella felt herself a naked soul, alone on a wide sea, with shapes of pain and agony and revolt. She looked at the sleeping wife. "He, too, is probably asleep," she thought, remembering some information which a kindly warder had given her in a few jerky, well-meant sentences, while she was waiting downstairs in the gaol for Minta Hurd. "Incredible! only so many hours, minutes left—so far as any mortal knows—of living, thinking, recollecting, of all that makes us something as against the nothing of ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a mass of somewhat jerky, contradictory information, had gleaned that the new leading part at the London theatre had been gained through the middle-aged bridegroom's influence, her ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... slowed down, in a jerky, hiccoughy sort of way, and crept on till the car in which Mr. Graves was seated was abreast the lighted windows of a small station, where it stopped. Peering through the water-streaked pane at the end of his seat, the lawyer saw dim silhouettes of uncertain outline moving about. They moved with ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... (de la Meuse): "Anecdotes relatives a la Revolution." "He was dressed like a tough cab-driver. He had a disturbed look and an eye always in motion; he acted in an abrupt, quick and jerky way. A constant restlessness gave a convulsive contraction to his muscles and features which likewise affected his manner of walking so that ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... you musn't worry! Reuben Olmstead's a good sailor yet, and, better than all, a good man. His Father will look after him more tenderly than you can," giving her cap an odd little jerky nod, which caused the parrot ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... the Whistle,'" said the musician seriously, and at once struck up a jerky Frankish tune, with eyes intently fixed on the Emir, garnering his every smile and sign of pleasure. When his Honour showed a disposition to sing the words of the refrain, he played more loudly than before in triumph. All present flung back their heads and bawled in discord, producing a din ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... occasion. Arrayed in superb raiment, with his opera hat under his arm, he concluded his self-examination hopefully, awaited the arrival of Miss Podsnap, and talked small-talk with Mrs Lammle. In facetious homage to the smallness of his talk, and the jerky nature of his manners, Fledgeby's familiars had agreed to confer upon him (behind his back) the honorary title of ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... stage there is great pain aggravated by movement, and the animal is usually stiff as though foundered, the pulse is quick and hard, the breathing abdominal, the chest being fixed so far as possible, the inspiration short and jerky, the expiration longer. The pain is caused by the friction of the dry, inflamed pleural surfaces of the lung and chest on each other. At this stage the ear detects a dry friction murmur, resembling somewhat the sound made by rubbing two pieces of sole leather together. Pressure between the ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... except that he was staying at the Parador de las Diligencias, and would call in a week's time. He left his card—Mr. Osmund Manvers, Filcote Hall, Taunton; Oxford and Cambridge Club—elegantly engraved. And then he departed, with a jerky salute to Don Luis, ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... sunlight of ten o'clock in the morning the mother runs up and down the chosen pod, first on one side, then on the other, with a jerky, capricious, unmethodical gait. She repeatedly extrudes a short oviduct, which oscillates right and left as though to graze the skin of the pod. An egg follows, which is abandoned as ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... toucan, with its enormous scarlet and yellow beak, would suddenly appear and fly up with peculiar jerky swoops, at the same time uttering its yelping cry. Several times I saw light green lizards of from three to four feet in length stretched out on branches of dead trees and staring ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... the religious developement of the British mind becomes strangely jerky and irregular. The arrival of Sunday is suddenly revealed to the group round the breakfast-table by the severity with which the spinster's eye is fixed on an announcement over the stove that the English service in the hotel is at ten o'clock. But the announcement ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... pay or not before Moll's succession is made sure. And I have good reason to fear they will not, for I observed yesterday when I called upon Farmer Giles to invite him to our feast, he seemed very jerky and ill at ease, which perplexed me greatly, until, on quitting, I perceived through a door that stood ajar old Simon seated in a side room. And 'tis but natural that if they find prudent excuse for withholding their rents they will keep their money in pocket, which ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... an imploring hand on Flora Clark's arm when she manifested symptoms of rising and interrupting the reading. Flora was getting angry—I knew by the way her forehead was knitted and by the jerky way she sewed. Poor Harriet Jameson looked more and more distressed. I was sure she saw Mrs. White holding back Flora, and knew just what it meant. Harriet was sitting quite idle with her little hands in her lap; we had set her to hemming a ruffle for ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of twenty or more birds flew over; some were the bright-yellow males and others the more plainly colored females. They did not fly straight, but in a jerky way, constantly dropping down and then lifting up again, and calling out "wait for me" on every down-grade curve, until by common consent they alighted among some wild grasses, where the early yellow thistles were already going ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... replied the person addressed as Bob. He spoke in short, jerky sentences. He was dressed as a seafaring man; had wide, helpless-looking brown eyes, an apologetic smile, and a bass voice of appalling depth and power. "Boat's aground," he repeated, seating himself on the ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... remained silent, tapping the gravel path with her satin slippers. After a few minutes she sat up, moved her arms about in an unconscious way as though she were scarcely awake, then quickly, and in a jerky way, she put her hand between her dress and waistband, pressing the back of her hand against the ribbon as though she were going to burst it. Finally she rose and began ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... all very dream-like and strange: the awful, overwhelming, crushing sound of the wind seemed to press upon my brain so that I could not for a long time think, only lie and try to breathe without catching each inspiration in a jerky, spasmodic way. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... suggestions. Food—and a bath! What he wouldn't give for a bath! Hay to sleep on was fine; he had had far worse beds during the past four years. But a hot bath to be followed by a meal which was not the jerky, corn meal, bitter coffee of trail cooking! His pace quickened into a trot but slackened again as he neared the Four Jacks and remembered all the precautions he must take ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... reached simultaneously with the word "suddenly" that when Mr. Logan got that note he thought it was "severely," and that the bad penmanship and generally disgraceful appearance of the loose-leaf sheet, the jerky hand, and the rather elderly envelope which was all Francis could find—it had been living in a pocket with many other things for some time—gave him a wrong idea. Mr. Logan, to anticipate a little, by this erroneous means, acquired an idea very near the truth. He thought that Marjorie Ellison ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... her; watch her like a cat, or she'll get away from you. When she fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky, greasy sort of way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you at night that the water is too shoal; but keep edging her up, little by little, toward the point. You are well up on the bar, now; there is a bar under every point, because the water that comes down around ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... yourself, Thanny," said his father kindly, "and do not speak your syllables in that jerky manner." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... seafaring men. It provided them with a wealth of facilities for the expeditious disposal of money that had been earned at great hazard, and not infrequently by the sweat of anguish. One chilly November morning a sailor was walking down the Highway. His step was jerky and uncertain, for his feet were bare; his sole articles of dress consisted of a cotton shirt and a pair of trousers that seemed large enough to take another person inside of them. These were kept from dropping off by what is known as a soul-and-body lashing—that ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... position long enough to allow any moisture outside the tube to run down, and then the liquid is allowed to run out to the level of the upper mark; this is easily effected by lessening the pressure. If the finger is wet, the flow will be jerky, and good work impossible. The pipette is next held over the vessel into which the 100 c.c. are to be put, and the liquid allowed to run out. When the bulb is nearly empty, the flow should be checked by replacing ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... pursued, she proved herself no agreeable companion, and laid aside the respectful tone and manner with which she had hitherto treated Miss Trevor, till the old lady began to feel uneasy in her turn, and her manner and speech became more queer, jerky, and confused ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... aside their thanks and drew up the one chair in the room, talking all the time in his quick, jerky fashion. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... can almost tell whether or not, in the week of its composition, I was reading good literature. In the former case the language is apt to be full and harmonious, and sprinkled over with gay flowers of maxim and illustration, whereas in the latter the style of the performance is apt to be bald and jerky.[35] ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... it is too jerky, and her voice is too loud," returned Dot; but his countenance smoothed when I got the book and read to him, and soon he fell into ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... upper row where several teeth at some time had been knocked out. He breathed stertorously, at times grunting and moaning with the pain of his sleep. Also, he was very restless, tossing his arms about, making jerky, half-convulsive movements, and at times rolling his head from side to side in the burrs. This restlessness seemed occasioned partly by some internal discomfort, and partly by the sun that streamed down on ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... you think I'm going to do?" Nelson was on his feet now and pacing his office with jerky strides. "Take a loss like that?" He paused and glared at the bearer of bad tidings, then growled: "What are you grinning about? Oh, you needn't say it. You want yours, eh? Is ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... bewilderment the Fire Eater leaped upon the flat plain, made insulting gestures and shouted defiant words in his own language at the flashing guns. Above the turmoil could be heard the harsh, jerky voice which came from the bowels of the warrior rather than from his lips. No bullet found him as he stepped back into cover, more composed than when he had gone out. The nervous thrill had expanded itself in the speech. To his ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... monster was walking with long, jerky strides. The pressure against his ribs brought a gasp of agony from his lips. Each jarring step was an individual and excruciating torture. His breath was cut off by the relentless constriction of one of the tentacles which now encircled his neck. ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... man in doing so, that his ideas of literature and my own are entirely dissimilar. Possibly his book has had a little larger sale than mine, but that makes no difference. When I write a book it must engage the interest of the reader, and show some plot to it. It must not be jerky in its style ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... merrily enough, if in a somewhat jerky fashion, but Martin attempted no talk. Only as he proceeded he was heard to mutter between his teeth, "Lucky the Pastor Arentz can't see us now. He would never understand, he is so one-sided." So at least Foy declared ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... his nervous, jerky fashion, 'that is not the proper way from your schoolroom to ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... his head a short, jerky nod for nearly every word, and describing a circle round his crown—as if he were stirring a pint of hot tea—with his forefinger, at the ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... traffic, because, as soon as an extra strain is to be met, there is always the resource of coupling up fresh batteries held in reserve—a process which amounts to the same as yoking new horses to the vehicle in order to take it up a hill. In practice, however, it is found that the jerky vibratory motion of the gasoline automobile provides for this in a way almost as convenient, although not ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... pauses and awkward silences, and then, at what should have been the supreme moment, the lady in white had asked for a cigarette. And the two hasty little kisses that had a sort of perfunctory air, and the queer, jerky "good-byes," and the last stop near the door of the hotel—it all had an air of being very badly done. It could not have been a success on the stage, ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... there alone, when she had come out for the sole purpose of not being alone; but the will to do anything else had suddenly forsaken her. Her mind, however, had become curiously active all at once, in a jerky, disconnected sort of way. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... engaged in composition, he walks about the room, sometimes excitedly, his mind engrossed with his subject, until he has composed an entire paragraph, when he sits down and writes it, never retouching, nor composing sentence by sentence, which he thinks has a tendency to give an abrupt and jerky effect to what is written. Traces of this, he thinks, may ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various |
