"Martinet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most irksome duty we had to fulfil inasmuch as we were then treated to insults of every description. The Commandant was a martinet of the worst type. We were supposed to trim ourselves up and to look as spick and span as we could under the circumstances. This was more particularly demanded when a notable visitor—visitors were few and far between—came to the camp to perform a ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... message of discipline from the O.C. just because I was reported by a toy martinet like ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... Judge, but you know we have a martinet in yonder, a regular Turk, and he splits seconds ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... by the number of soldiers in the streets, and with the neatness, and indeed almost stiffness, of their uniform and bearing. Each man walked as if on parade, and the eye of the strictest martinet could not have detected a speck of dust on their equipment, or ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... expectation of emulating the intrepidity of Stanley as I had of usurping the throne of England. An orphan, both of whose parents had been drowned in a yachting accident in the Solent and whose elder brother succeeded to the estate, I was left in the care of a maternal uncle, a regular martinet, who sent me for several long and dreary years to Dr. Tregear's well-known Grammar-school at Eastbourne, and had given me to understand that I should eventually enter his office in London. Briefly, I was, when old enough, to follow the prosaic and ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... little effort was demanded of him. The Czech employees handled almost all the details. Evidently, the word of his evening on the town had somehow spread, and the fact that he was prone to a good time had relieved their fears of a martinet sent down from the central offices. They were beginning to ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... solved. Two Mexicans stood at respectful attention as he approached. Bob was dismayed for a moment, but then, seeing their awkward salute, he chuckled inwardly. They mistook him for Von Arnheim and evidently that German officer was a martinet who exacted a measure of discipline ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... popish Recusants Convict.' Among the 'Grievances and Distresses' enumerated were 'the oppressive and severely felt Military government,' the inability to 'reap the fruit of our Industry' under such a martinet as Murray, who, in one paragraph, is accused of 'suppressing dutyfull Remonstrances in Silence' and, in the next, of 'treating them with a Rage and Rudeness of Language and Demeanor as dishonourable to the Trust he holds of Your Majesty ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... committed their destiny. It would not be difficult to quote both the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, who on more than one occasion have manifested their enthusiastic adherence to the gospel of brute force. The world is not likely to forget the Crown Prince's congratulations to the brutal military martinet of the Zabern incident, and still less the shameful fact that when the Kaiser sent his punitive expedition to China, he who once stood within sight of the Mount of Olives and preached a sermon breathing the spirit of Christian humility, said ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... that cold exterior, the news inspired the hope that here was the talisman which would reveal the hidden treasures of his nature. The stiff form would now unbend; the political leader would figure as a genial host; the martinet would become a man. Assuredly their estimate was correct. Pitt's nature needed more glow, wider sympathies, a freer expression. A happy marriage would in any case have widened his outlook and matured his character. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... it a bit," continued Wheatley; "the less so since it is rumoured that old 'Rough and Ready' is to be recalled, and we're to be commanded by that book martinet Scott. It's shabby treatment of Taylor, after what the old vet has accomplished. They're afraid of him setting up for President next go. Hang their politics! It's ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... is to pass in England with Shelley. We, again, have accounts of visits to the opera, to museums, plays, dinners, and pleasant evenings spent with friends. Keats is again met, and Shelley calls on Mr. Baxter, who is not allowed by his son-in-law to say farewell to Mary Shelley: such a martinet may a Scotch schoolmaster be. Mary Lamb calls, and visits are paid and received till the last evening arrives, when Shelley, exhausted with ill-health, fatigue, and excitement, fell into one of his profound sleeps on the sofa before some of his friends ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... not a court-martial, but an informal investigation, and I shall be glad to have you and Dr. Connelly entirely free to ask any questions you please," replied the captain, who was anything but a martinet. ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... another city of you bug-eyed beasts there," said the small martinet. "You wouldn't know about it. It's been a few hundred years. We decided it was too close. Now I have decided that you are ...
— Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas • Raphael Aloysius Lafferty
... her beauty and fascinations and their destructive effects in various quarters? Had he not been compelled in silence to listen again and in detail to the story of old Sam Martindale's nephew?—Sam Martingale, the cavalry called him—"Martinet Martindale" he was dubbed by the "doughboys"—that conscientious, dutiful, and therefore none too popular veteran, whose sister's children much more than supplied ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... for though I was myself a master mariner, and my mate had been in charge of our vessel in the North Sea for many years, we had neither of us been across the Atlantic before. The skipper was a Cornishman, Trevize by name, and a martinet on discipline—an entirely new experience to a crew of North Sea fishermen. He was so particular about everything being just so that quite a few days were lost in starting, though well spent as far as preparedness went. Nothing ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Corporal, after he had communicated from his own pipe the friendly flame to his comrade's; "tell you what—talk nonsense; the commander-in-chief's no Martinet—if we're all right in action, he'll wink at a slip word or two. Come, no humbug—hold jaw. D'ye think God would sooner have snivelling fellow like you in his regiment, than a man like me, clean limbed, straight as a dart, six feet ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be recognized as such. Going, they found themselves cured. Nine of them held on their way, obedient; while the tenth, forgetting for the moment in his gratitude the word of the Master, turned back and fell at his feet. A moral martinet, a scribe, or a Pharisee, might have said "The nine were right, the tenth was wrong: he ought to have kept to the letter of the command." Not so the Master: he accepted the gratitude as the germ of an infinite obedience. Real love is obedience ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... interrupted several times in the course of his narrative by the President, General W., a severe martinet, who reminded him that an attempt to criminate his superior officers would only injure his cause before ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the command of Capt. Philip Bowes Vere Broke, a naval officer of courage, skill, and judgment. His crew was thoroughly disciplined, and his ship a model of efficiency. No officer in the service understood better than he the difference between the discipline of a martinet and the discipline of a prudent and sagacious commander. His ship might not, like the "Peacock," merit the title of "the yacht;" but for active service she was always prepared. James, an English naval ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... edged with wit. Now and then he made reprisals, for when, as happened once or twice, a load of gravel nearly swept the foreman down the bank, Kermode was engaged in the vicinity. Another time, the bullying martinet was forced to jump into the muskeg, where he sank to the waist, in order to avoid a mass of ballast sent down before its ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... ancestors were settlers in Ireland of the time of William the Third, and having won their lands by the sword, it is quite natural the love of arms should have been hereditary in the family. Mr. Dawson, therefore, had served many years as a soldier, and was a bit of a martinet, not only in military but all other affairs. His mind was of so tenacious a character, that an impression once received there became indelible; and if the Major once made up his mind, or indulged the belief, that such and such things were so and so, the waters of truth could never ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... made life a hell for my mother in those frontier posts. He deserted us in the end, after he had squandered the fortune. My mother made no effort to compel him to provide for her or for me. She was proud. She was hurt. To-day he is in India, still in the service, a martinet with a record for bravery on the field of battle that cannot be taken from him, no matter what else may befall. I hear from him once or twice a year. That is all I can tell you about him. My mother died three ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... of time was felt even by the poetic and emotional Grattan, it would not have been strange if the hardening had been quite hopeless in the rigid and reticent Kitchener. Yet it was not hopeless; and the fact became the spring of much of the national hope. The grizzled martinet from India and Egypt showed a certain power which is in nearly all great men, but of which St. Paul has become the traditional type—the power of being a great convert as well as a great crusader. It is the real power of re-forming an opinion, which is the very opposite of that mere formlessness ...
— Lord Kitchener • G. K. Chesterton
... could judge. This was very discernible on board the vessels we were allowed to inspect, where the utmost order and cleanliness prevailed. The officers, I thought, seemed to exact great deference from the men, and their martinet bearing ill accorded with a republican service, being decidedly more marked than on board British ships of war which I had visited at Deptford, Chatham, and elsewhere in England. Probably a stricter discipline may be found ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... pass the service has come to when midshipmen take such liberties with their superiors, eh, Captain Sourcrout?" he exclaimed, giving a poke in the ribs with his elbow to a stiff, old, martinet style of post-captain, who sat next to him, and had looked ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... martinet, and this a military heresy. "Keeping the troops up to the mark, fit for instant service, is not a matter of form; and that is the end of parades and inspections. But," added he, smiling, "I am not surprised at your mistake; for I find, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... musket, and the rapidity and certainty of fire vastly increased. The undisciplined independence of the officers commanding regiments and companies was suppressed by the rigorous and methodical Colonel Martinet, whose name has remained in other armies besides that of France as a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... greatly enjoyed on occasions where such gifts were in request. Though generally one of the most suave of men, he had an irascible temper at times. The flavor of his wit was tart and sometimes not altogether palatable to those who had to take it. In discipline he was something of a martinet. He established a school of instruction in his tent, where the officers assembled nightly to recite tactics, and no mercy was shown the luckless one who failed in his "lessons." Many a young fellow went away from the "school" smarting under the irony of the impatient ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... father's reign. In the period of thirty years during which he was heir-apparent, the moral atmosphere of St Petersburg was very unfavourable to the development of any originality of thought or character. It was a time of government on martinet principles, under which all freedom of thought and all private initiative were as far as possible suppressed vigorously by the administration. Political topics were studiously avoided in general conversation, and books or ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... sparks flew from cutlass blades pressed to the whirling grindstone. Tubs were filled with hand-grenades and fire-pots, the deck strewn with sand, the magazine opened and powder passed up. Stede Bonnet was careful to see for himself that all things were in order. At such times he was a martinet of a soldier. ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... not make that martinet's error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... of the Irish priest as a money-grabbing martinet, whom his flock regard with mingled sentiments of detestation and fear, is a caricature as libellous as it is grotesque. Even the high standard of sexual morality which prevails in the country is attacked as being merely the result ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... day or two later, and Ann, was sitting in a sunny corner of the garden, idly dipping into the books which Cara had lent her. The previous day the weather had been cloudy and rather cool, and Maria, the martinet, had sternly vetoed Ann's modest suggestion that she was now sufficiently ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... in then, rather a different man from the stern little martinet who had stood in the throat of the arcade. He was ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... be in condition for instant service. He formed a body-guard to attend the royal person on all occasions. It consisted at first of only two hundred men, armed and drilled after the fashion of the Swiss ordonnance, and placed under the command of his chronicler, Ayora, an experienced martinet, who made some figure at the defence of Salsas. This institution probably was immediately suggested by the garde du corps of Louis the Twelfth, at Savona, which, altogether on a more formidable scale, indeed, had excited his admiration by the magnificence of its appointments ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... rush to the rescue of those desperate men, crouching in shell-holes and fighting day and night for a week without rest. If only Jimmie could have gone right to them! If only it had not been necessary for him to go to a training-camp and submit himself to a military martinet! If only it had not been for war-profiteers, and crooked politicians, and lying, predatory newspapers, and all the other enemies of ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... peculiarities. Newcastle became head of the English government; he appointed the absurd Duke of Cumberland, captain-general of the English army, to the direction of American military affairs; and he picked out an obstinate, ruffianly, stupid martinet of a Perthshire Scotchman, sixty years old and of ruined fortunes, to lead the English forces against the French in America. Braddock went over armed with the new and despotic mutiny bill, and with directions to ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... grasp; brute force, brute strength; coercion &c 744; strong hand, tight hand. hard lines, hard measure; tender mercies [Iron.]; sharp practice; pipe-clay, officialism. tyrant, disciplinarian, precisian^, martinet, stickler, bashaw^, despot, hard master, Draco, oppressor, inquisitor, extortioner, harpy, vulture; accipitres^, birds of prey, raptorials^, raptors^. V. be severe &c adj.. assume, usurp, arrogate, take liberties; domineer, bully &c 885; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... ships, who mowed down the men every broadside. At half past eleven o'clock, having only three lower-deck guns that could defend the honour of the flag, it became necessary to put an end to so disproportioned a struggle, and Citoyen Martinet, captain of a frigate, ordered the colours ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... forest of St. Vincent. 28m. from Gap is Le Lauzet, pop. 1000, Inn: France, surrounded by great mountains, with narrow gorges and lofty waterfalls. In the neighbourhood is a lake abounding with trout. 3 m. higher up is the hamlet of Martinet, at the entrance to the beautiful valley of the Laverq, extending to the S. side of Mt. Siolane, on whose slopes the spire of the church of Meolans occupies a prominent position. From Martinet the road ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... famous phrases that grow harder to understand the more we think about them. It is a well-known fact that an immense proportion of boat accidents would never happen if people held the sheet in their hands instead of making it fast; and yet, unless it be some martinet of a professional mariner or some landsman with shattered nerves, every one of God's creatures makes it fast. A strange instance of man's unconcern and brazen boldness in ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fear. My! isn't this rippin'? How does the old soldier make the men keep such order, I wonder! Lem Hunt must be as great a martinet as he ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... dressed in a frock-coat and white trousers; a flower stuck in his button-hole, his bearded chin set forward, his mouth clenched with habitual determination. There was not much of the sailor in his looks, but plenty of the martinet; a dry, precise man, who might pass for a preacher in some rigid sect; and, whatever he was, not the Captain Trent of San Francisco. The men, too, were all new to me: the cook, an unmistakable Chinaman, in his characteristic dress, standing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he's quite pleased," she answered, whipping up the fat pony, who responded reluctantly. "But he's a fearful martinet. He nearly frightens me to death when he gets into one of his royal Italian rages—though he's always particularly sweet afterwards! Pobs, I wonder who my man in the train was?" she ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... range, there was a sudden bright flash. No smoke, only the throb of flame, and then the long sibilant scream of the shell, and the thud as it buried itself in the ground under a limber. Such judgment of range would have delighted the most martinet of inspectors at Okehampton. Bang came another, and another, and another, right into the heart of the battery. The six little guns lay back at their extremest angle, and all barked together in impotent ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Wilkes, in command of the famous United States Exploring Expedition, 1836-40. He was a noted martinet, and was called Le alii Saua ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... little more air and light should be let in upon life. I should think the world had stood long enough under the drill of Adjutant Fashion. It is hard work; the posture is wearisome, and Fashion is an awful martinet and has a quick eye, and comes down mercilessly on the unfortunate wight who cannot square his toes to the approved pattern, or who appears upon parade with a darn in his coat or with a shoulder belt insufficiently pipe-clayed. It is killing work. Suppose ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... was a strenuous rivalry between the two theatres of Milan, La Scala and the Carcano. The vocal company at the latter comprised Pasta, Lina Koser (now Mme. Balfe), Elisa Orlandi, Eugenie Martinet, and other ladies; Kubini, Mariani, and Galli being the leading male singers. The composers were Bellini, Donizetti, and Majocchi. At the Scala, which was still under the direction of Crivelli, then a very old man, ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... and a gentleman, and he maintained that without rigid discipline there could be no order and no safety at home or in the army. But between him and Don John there was all the difference that separates the born leader of men from the mere martinet. ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... indisputable Germans. One element in Germany's present efficiency must become more and more of an encumbrance as the years pass. The Germanic idea is deeply interwoven with the traditional Empire and with the martinet methods of the Prussian monarchy. The intellectual development of the Germans is defined to a very large extent by a court-directed officialdom. In many things that court is still inspired by the noble traditions of ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... MARTINET. A military term for a strict disciplinarian: from the name of a French general, famous for restoring military discipline to the French army. He first disciplined the French infantry, and regulated their method of encampment: he was killed at the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... de Belleisle would not permit even Cardinal de Fleury to put his red stockings beneath his council-table," remarked a strict martinet of La Serre; "and here we have a whole flock of black gowns darkening our regimentals! ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... been known before his accession as a mere martinet, a good colonel for parade days, wonderful in detecting soiled uniforms, terrible in administering petty punishments. It seems like the story of stupid Brutus over again. Altered circumstances made a new man of him; and few things ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... an approaching engagement; but it did not take place, and a period of comparative relaxation succeeded one of severe hardship and arduous duty. Men and officers made the most of the holiday. There was never any thing of the martinet about the Duke. He was not the man to harass with unnecessary and vexations drills, or rigidly to enforce unimportant rules. Those persons, whether military or otherwise, who consider a strictly regulation ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... than a martinet. He was known as "Bucko" Belchior in every port where the English language is spoken, having earned this prefix by the earnest readiness with which, in his days as second and chief mate, he would ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... Kincaid and when he pledged all his powers of invention to speed the bridal. Frantic to think what better to do, she waltzed with him, while he described the colonel of the departing regiment as such a martinet that to ask him to delay his going would only hasten it; waltzed on when she saw her grandmother discover the knife's absence and telegraph her a look of contemptuous wonder. But ah, how time was flying! Even now Kincaid must ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... political significance which the military martinet who commanded the post understood. It was the way the people of Piedmont expressed to him and the world their contempt for the farce of an election he had conducted, and their indifference as to the result he would celebrate with many guns ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... mighty change has come over the tastes and fashions of literary life. When The Diary of a Lover of Literature was written, Dr. Hurd, the pompous and dictatorial Bishop of Worcester, was a dreaded martinet of letters, carrying on the tradition of his yet more formidable master Warburton. As people nowadays discuss Verlaine and Ibsen, so they argued in those days about Godwin and Horne Tooke, and shuddered over each fresh incarnation of Mrs. Radcliffe. Soame Jenyns was dead, indeed, in the flesh, but ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... taste, not to say principle and affection, horrible still to think of, suspended Toby's animation beyond all hope. William instantly fell upon him, upsetting his milk and cream, and gave him a thorough licking, to his own intense relief; and, being late, he got from Pyper, who was a martinet, the customary palmies, which he bore with something approaching to pleasure. So died Toby; my father said little, but he missed and mourned ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... common good fortune, by putting boldness into our play. Pippi was a faint-hearted fellow, who was always cowardly when he began to win. My uncle (I speak with great respect of him) was too much of a devotee, and too much of a martinet at play ever to win GREATLY. His moral courage was unquestionable, but his daring was not sufficient. Both of these my seniors very soon acknowledged me to be their chief, and hence the style of splendour ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... disagreeable realities of life grow upon one; do they not? You took off my shoes and dried them for me at a woodman's cottage. I am obliged to put up with my maid's doing those things now. And Miss Blink the mild is changed for Lady Baldock the martinet. And if I rode about with you in a wood all day I should be sent to Coventry instead of to bed. And so you see everything is changed ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... its adjacent rooms, the cabin was untenanted; the watch was the mate's, and Stryker a martinet. Kirkwood found the designated locker and, opening it, saw first to his hand the familiar bulky red volume with its red garter. Taking it out he carried it to a chair near the companionway, for a better reading light: the skylight being still ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... day was spent in the tilt-yard, where his two friends, as well as himself, were anxious that he should acquire proficiency and ease such as would become his station, when he recovered it; and a martinet old squire of Oxford proved himself nearly as hard a master as ever Simon ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... went one better than this, for a man who was totally unfit for the service having one day shown him some trifling disrespect, the choleric old martinet promptly set the gang upon him and had him conveyed on board the tender, "where," says Lieut. Collingwood, writing a month later, "he has been eating the king's victuals ever since." [Footnote: Admiralty ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... brown and kind. He had a bluff weather-beaten face, lit up with a pair of shrewd blue eyes which twinkled when he was pleased; and his manner, though it was full of the habit of command, was quiet and pleasant. He was a Martinet on board his ship. Not a sailor under him would have dared dispute his orders for a moment; but he was very popular with them, notwithstanding; they liked him as much as they feared him, for they knew him to be their ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... carries a stick in his hand to prevent you from taking liberties with his good nature. The best-tempered fellow in the world, and blessed with the keenest sense of humour, he can be as uncompromising a martinet as the sternest fire-eater of old days—when there is real necessity ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... his arm round the slight, shaking form, led her to one of the doors and out into a narrow passage that ran up into the deserted street. To have gone down into the stalls and hit that oily martinet in the mouth would have been to lay himself open to a charge of cruelty to animals. He was so puny and fat and soft. Poor little Tootles, who had had a tardy and elusive recognition torn from her grasp! It ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... it!" laughed Raymonde scornfully. "I flatter myself I'm pretty good at reading faces, and I can see at a glance he's a martinet. That frown gives him away, and the kind of glare he has in his eyes. I'm a believer in first impressions, and I knew in a second I wasn't ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... a little astounded—rose, and then recovering himself, proceeded to reply with the air of a veteran martinet. ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... story to relate the trivial incidents of my first year of service in the navy. I spent five months at sea, and seven on shore, and Captain Vincent being a martinet. I had to work hard for my pay of four shillings a day (on shore it was cut down to two shillings). My diligence in studying navigation pleased him; and when a little affair in which I had been concerned came to his ears, he took me, in ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... the sublime surprises of all war. The commander, whose men sit that way in the saddle and toss those jokes shoulder over shoulder down the line, dare tackle forlorn hopes that would seem sheer leap-year lunacy to the martinet with twenty ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Napoleon's, and being thus deceived, would ever snarl at the Colonel of Dragoons. Maximilian of course knew better. What looked like toadying was only profound deference for himself. The royal favorite could discriminate. He could also be the thick-headed, intolerable martinet. The sandy lashes bristled as the American inquired a second time if he were ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Toombs was in the Senate. Mr. Toombs believed that President Davis was too partial to West Point, at which school Mr. Davis had been trained, and that in his management of the army he showed the tenacity of a martinet rather than the ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... forty-eight years his sister Caroline still had the power at times to make him feel like a small boy. She had been a great martinet in the ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... note into a neat little roll, and slipping out the back way went down to leave it at the florist's, to be sent to Dorothy— securely hidden in a big bunch of English violets, lest any martinet of a nurse should see fit to suppress it—the very first thing in the morning. On the way back to her room she danced up the stairs in her most joyous fashion, and when Mary Brooks, coming up from ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... friend, who married some ten years ago, and now has her own cares and troubles in a domestic establishment consisting of her husband and herself, five children, and two servants. Like a large majority of those similarly situated, Mrs. Martinet finds her natural stock of patience altogether inadequate to the demand therefor; and that there is an extensive demand will be at once inferred when I mention that four of ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... had been an officer stationed at the Academy who had been a source of discord among his fellow-officers, and a martinet with the midshipmen. He was small, petty, unjust, and not above resorting to methods despised by his confreres. He was loathed by the midshipmen because they could never count upon what they termed "a square deal," and consequently never knew ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... disorderly and much-neglected Irish farm assume an air of discipline, regularity, and neatness at a moment's notice, was pretty much such an exploit as it would have been to muster an Indian tribe, and pass them before some Prussian martinet as a ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Looe as beheld from a distance; and it loses none of its attractions when you look at it more closely. There is no such thing as a straight street in the place. No martinet of an architect has been here, to drill the old stone houses into regimental regularity. Sometimes you go down steps into the ground floor, sometimes you mount an outside staircase to get to the bed-rooms. Never were such places devised for hide and seek since that exciting ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... fiendishness of Williams. Were he likely to be content with the mere fact of the child's death, apart from the process and leisurely expansion of its mental agony—in that case there would be no hope. But, because our present murderer is fastidiously finical in his exactions—a sort of martinet in the scenical grouping and draping of the circumstances in his murders—therefore it is that hope becomes reasonable, since all such refinements of preparation demand time. Murders of mere necessity Williams was obliged to hurry; but, in a murder of pure voluptuousness, entirely ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... ask anyone, even a martinet at heart, whether such treatment of a boy, not thirteen years of age, putting his life into the greatest danger, taking this first step towards breaking his spirit, and in all probability making him, as most likely had been done to the poor men I had ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... what a martinet I am," she added. "There's no telling how often I'll put you under arrest and mount guard over ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... a pity to wear your pretty new hat!" exclaimed Dinah, looking up from her accounts. She was rather a martinet on the subject of dress, and had funny little old-fashioned notions of her own; but Elizabeth, who was ten ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... ordered to bring their dough there to be made into bread. The Intendant had to remind him that, in the long cold winters of the St. Lawrence valley, the dough would be frozen stiff if the habitants, with their dwellings so widely scattered, were required to do anything of the kind. Another martinet gravely informed the colonial authorities that, as a protection against Indian attacks "all the seigneuries should be palisaded." And some of the seigneurial estates were eight or ten miles square! ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... scale. From the standpoint of strict justice, the standard from which I always had tried to reason, she was perfectly justified in asking the questions before she took the place. But intuition told me that our home life would be a dreary thing with this martinet in ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... of ten inches. It was intensely dark, and we could not see to pick our way. Splashed from head to foot, and wet through for hours, we had then one of the most dismal experiences I remember. I had not been well since the terrible heat of the 15th, and Strahan, putting on the air of a martinet, sternly ordered me to mount his horse while he took charge of ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... Martinet! thought Rachel, nearly ready to advocate the boys making no toilette at any time; and the present was made to consume so much time that, urged by her, Fanny once more was obliged to summon her ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stranger. But he was a likable old fellow, full of stories of the wild, free West, an excellent listener besides, who always stopped a goodly distance on the right side of what is known in polite circles as the bore's dead-line. Warburton held for him a deep affection, martinet though he was, for he was singularly ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... between the military and civil authorities are almost inevitable; but there are, perhaps, few examples to be found where the former power has been more aggressively and offensively exercised than it has been under the martinet who is now in command at this post. It is an ancient point of settlement by the French, who are generally a mild and obliging people, and disposed to submit to authorities. Some of these are descended from persons ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... the head-quarters of the Upper Fourth. The classroom was rather quieter than the one he had left, Mr. Rowlands being somewhat of a martinet. ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... many a time before, and did not perceive his condition till she saw the blood on her gown. The cowardly assailant was never discovered; but Mel was both gallant and had, in his military career, the reputation of being a martinet. Hence, divers causes were suspected. The wound failed not to mend, the trousers were repaired: Peace about the same time was made, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of Canada, and in alleviating their difficulties by all the means in the power of his government. In these and other matters of Canadian interest he proved conclusively that he was not the mere military martinet that some Canadian writers with inadequate information would make him. When he left Canada he was succeeded by Sir Guy Carleton, then elevated to the peerage as Lord Dorchester, who was called upon to take part in great changes in the constitution of Canada which must be left for review ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... master at Rome was Orbilius Pupillus, a grammarian, who had carried into his school his martinet habits as an old soldier; and who, thanks to Horace, has become a name (plagosus Orbilius, Orbilius of the birch) eagerly applied by many a suffering urchin to modern pedagogues who have resorted to the same material means of ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... spurs rang on the stone steps, and, since Tess was standing close to the veranda rail, he turned to face her at the top. Saluting with martinet precision before removing his helmet, he did not get a clear view of the Rajputni. "As I've said many times, ma'am, the one house in the world where Tom Tripe may sit down ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... Catalepton, which mentions the poet's military service, is not pleasant reading. Written perhaps in 48 or 47 B.C., directed against some hated martinet of an officer, it bears various disagreeable traces of camp life, which was then not well-guarded by charitable organizations of every kind as now. We need quote only the ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... business, I was ushered up, perhaps after an interval of ten minutes, to a sitting-room on the first floor, and there I found myself face to face with a fat, red-faced man in evening dress; and if ever there was a martinet down Montey way, this fine gentleman was that same. He was fat, I say, and forty—but to write that he was fair would be impossible, for he hadn't more than about half a dozen hairs on his head, and those had drifted down his ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... those exceptional vessels which illustrated in the highest degree the kind and pitch of perfection to which, by unremitting severity and exaction, the appearance and drills of a ship-of-war could be brought. Her commander, Captain Creighton, had the reputation of being the greatest martinet in the navy; and being seconded by a singularly efficient and active set of officers, the ship was made to realize the extreme ideal of a naval officer of that day in smartness, order, and spotless cleanliness.[B] ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... Prince, "you are no such martinet in duty." And then seeing that the man was shaking from head to foot, Otto laid a hand upon his shoulder. "If I meant you harm," he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the body of the volunteers. But it seems that McClellan has no confidence in the volunteers. Were this true, it would denote a small, very small mind. Let us hope it is not so. One of his generals—a martinet of the first class—told me that McClellan waits for the organization of the regulars, to have them for the defence of the guns. If so, it is sheer nonsense. These narrow-minded West Point martinets will become the ruin ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... was a small, thin, sandy man, with a large upper lip that met the lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually bloodshot. His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal kind. He browbeat his officers, cuffed and kicked his men, in his best days a martinet, in his worst a madman. The only good point about him was that he never used the cat, which, as Bulger ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... cheer him up, but she was not herself very hopeful. She, perceived too clearly the martinet in him and the rebel in Cicely. If something were suddenly to throw them together, some common interest or emotion, each might find the other's heart in a way past undoing. On the other hand the ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... constable," he muttered; "I suppose I must submit. Our friend, Aylesbury," he added to me, as we walked away, "would appear to be a martinet as well as a walrus. At every step, Knox, he proves himself a tragic nuisance. This means ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her, steady gaze, her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... number of them is present—that none are in hock, I suppose. The manner of folding ingeniously insures that on making the bed at night the blankets must first be entirely shaken out; ditto in the morning. Some sanitary martinet evolved that scheme. We are told that a fourth blanket will be served out to us. Folded double lengthwise, four will allow seven thicknesses over us and one below, or any other proportion, according to the temperature. Sleeping as I do with the tent wall looped up, ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... doctor was a man of sense. If he had been a martinet, it would have been worse for us all. Of course, there is no telling how far people will accept the story; but we may as well try to act as if it were true." There was a pause. Then Bobby inquired, "Well, and now what are ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... survives{97}. The 'tontine' was conceived by an Italian named Tonti; and another Italian, Galvani, first noted the phenomena of animal electricity or 'galvanism'; while a third Italian, 'Volta', gave a name to the 'voltaic' battery. 'Martinet', 'mackintosh', 'doyly', 'brougham', 'to macadamize', 'to burke', are all names of persons or from persons, and then transferred to things, on the score of some connection existing between ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... of a great New York daily was known in the newspaper world as a martinet and severe disciplinarian. Some of his caustic and biting criticisms are classics. Once, however, the tables were turned upon him in a way that left him speechless ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... extension of the charter compelled the Company to show what it had been doing in the way of exploration; and the journey of Henry Kelsey, the London apprentice boy, to the country of the Assiniboines, was put on file in the Company records. Kelsey had not at first fitted in very well with the martinet rules of fort life at Nelson, and in 1690, after a switching for some breach of discipline, he had jumped over the walls and run away with the Indians. Where he went on this first trip is not known. Some time before the spring of the next year an Indian runner brought word back to the fort ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... temporize and say smooth things, lest he should offend and drive her away. But conscience whispered, "Now is your opportunity to speak the 'unvarnished truth,' whatever be the consequences"; and conscience with Hemstead was an imperative martinet. She waited in curious and quiet expectancy. This sincere and unconventional man was delightfully odd and interesting to her. She saw the power and fascination of her beauty upon him, and at the same time ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... guides; but no influence, repellent or attractive, could have been more disastrous for that passionate, quick-witted and yet eminently puzzle-headed mixture of Philistine and genius, than the crabbed old martinet whose regulations forbade the students access to Gluck's scores in the library, and whose only theory of art (as distinguished from his practice) is accurately formulated in the following passage from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... pointed long pencil, Sissy, a martinet for technic, assumed all the airs of her own professor and ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... for a time his behaviour rarely gave occasion for blame. But in the circle of the younger officers he let fall dark insinuations that he would be revenged for the "insult" which the hateful martinet Guentz had inflicted on him. He gradually worked up a genuine hatred of Guentz, and this hatred took an important place in his previously empty life. He vowed Guentz must stand in front of his pistol, even if it cost him his officer's sword-knot. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... was so kind that Hanlon found a measure of comfort in the looks and attitude of the officer before him, now suddenly not a dread ogre, and martinet, but a ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... flower heads may be red or white, large or small, cylindric or rounded, the leaves are broader or narrower, with or without white spots of a curious pattern. They may be more or less hairy and so forth. Even the seeds exhibit differences in size, shape or color, and of late Martinet has shown, that by the simple means of picking out seeds of the same pattern, pure strains of clover may be obtained, which are of varying cultural value. In this way the best subspecies or varieties may be sought out for separate cultivation. Even the white spots on the ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... called us by our first names, and kept himself on the most intimate terms with all. He played with us freely, and we treated him out of the class-room just about as we did one another. Yet he was a most strict disciplinarian, and enforced the rules like a martinet. He combined an affectionate and confiding manner with respect for order in a most successful manner. If he wanted to speak to a pupil, either for reproof or approbation, he would generally manage to get one arm around him, and draw him close up ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... door. How would you like that, children? My father was very particular about such matters, more so than most, perhaps, from having been many years in the army, where, I once overheard an old brother-officer say, he had been considered rather a "martinet," if you know what that means; and my dear mother, who by herself, perhaps, would have been almost too gentle to keep all her family in good order, was firm as a rock where any wish of his ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... furbished, marching in solid platoon formation, turning and wheeling with the mathematical regularity of a machine. His men were drilled and disciplined until they were automatons, for Braddock was a martinet. Their ranks ran true, their equipment was in the pink of soldierly condition; the sunlight glittered from their bayonets, you could see your face in their leather accouterments, and Braddock proudly marched them into the American woods ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... fawn, and coney, bustard, stork, crane, peacock with his tail, hern-shaw, bittern, woodcock, partridge, plovers, rabbits, great birds, larks, doucers, pampuff, white leach, amber-jelly, cream of almonds, curlew, brew, snite, quail, sparrow, martinet, pearch in jelly, petty pervis, quince baked, leach, dewgard, fruter fage, blandrells or pippins with caraways in ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... that, for one thing, Zara had found her position at the head of John's establishment—"Undertaken in the first place, my dear, at immense personal sacrifice!"—no sinecure. John had proved a regular martinet; he had countermanded her orders, interfered about the household bills—had even accused her of lining her own pocket. As for little Johnny—the bait originally thrown out to induce her to accept ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... ravenous intellect. Grammars, manuals, compends,—all the apparatus of the classes,— were only oil to its flame. The Master of the Nicolai-Schule in Leipzig, his first instructor, was a steady practitioner of the Martinet order. The pupils were ranged in classes corresponding to their civil ages,—their studies graduated according to the baptismal register. It was not a question of faculty or proficiency, how a lad should be classed and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... however unexpected, could take him by surprise; he grasped the situation in a moment, and issued his orders without hesitation, inspiring all ranks with confidence in his power and capacity. He was somewhat of a martinet, and was more feared than liked by his men until they realized what a grand leader he was, when they gave him their entire confidence, and were ready to follow him anywhere ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... "He always signs his name: Captain Sir Henry Quill, Bart. And since he's the toughest old martinet this side of the Pleiades, the 'Black' part just comes naturally. I served under him seven years ago. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... entire American race, as all good Prussians did, but he was as wax to feminine blandishments outside of his family, and Miss Terriss was pretty, diplomatic, alluring, and far cleverer than he would have admitted any woman could be. She wound the old martinet round her finger, subdued her rampant Americanism in his society, and amused herself sowing the seeds of rebellion in the minds of "those poor Niebuhr girls." As the countess also liked her, she had been "in and out of the house" ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... irregular multitude, like bees alarmed and arming in their hives, seemed to possess all the pliability of movement fitted to execute military manoeuvres. Their motions appeared spontaneous and confused, but the result was order and regularity; so that a general must have praised the conclusion, though a martinet might have ridiculed the method by which ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... adventurer of that day, just returned from Germany, seemed vain of his accoutrements, on which he had spent his all,—the king, staring at this buckled, belted, sworded, and pistolled, but ruined, martinet, observed, that "this town was so well fortified, that, were it victualled, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... they made a point of getting drunk, the whole college, from the Vice-Principal or Sub-Warden down to the scouts. Heads of houses were kept in order by their wives; but I assure you the jolly god came very near Mr. Vice-Chancellor himself. There was old Dr. Sturdy of St. Michael's, a great martinet in his time. One day the King passed through Oxford; Sturdy, a tall, upright, iron-faced man, had to meet him in procession at Magdalen Bridge, and walked down with his pokers before him, gold and silver, vergers, cocked hats, and the rest. There wasn't ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... daintily, she made us the deepest and most graceful of curtsies. Then she lifted her dark eyes shyly to Captain Clarke and with a ravishing smile bade him welcome in broken English. To me she vouchsafed not even a glance. I stood by stiff as any martinet while she made soft speeches to the captain in her adorable baby-English, and the captain responded in his most ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... in putting on a pair of cotton gloves. He was one of the old 'alaili,' Turkish officers—those whose whole knowledge of their business was derived from service in a regiment or 'alai,' instead of from instruction at a military school; and his manner towards the men had nothing of the martinet. He addressed them as 'my children,' with affection; and they, though quite respectful, conversed freely in his presence. Hasan Agha paid me many compliments, and repeatedly inquired after my health. He would not hear about my business till I had had breakfast. Luncheon ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... been struck with his sour and sullen morosity. No smile ever lights up this "humane" Czar's face. His uneasy glance is that of the misanthrope; his brow seems overcast as with the lowering shadow of a tragic fate. The harsh way in which he was brought up by his martinet father, without the slightest regard for his somewhat delicate health, no doubt laid a foundation for this pensive sadness, which, under a pernicious Court atmosphere, and with the terrible recollections crowding about his family history, gradually changed into the fierceness ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... Jacinto," and soon returned with a file of marines, who were drawn up with their muskets on the deck of the "Trent." Every British ship which carries mails carries a regularly commissioned officer of the navy, who is responsible for them. This officer on the "Trent" was somewhat of a martinet, and his protests at this violation of the rights of a neutral vessel were very vigorous. When the first gun was fired, he rushed below, and soon re-appeared in all the resplendent glory of gold lace and brass buttons ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... are presented with a completeness which, as has been pointed out in the last chapter, is almost entirely lacking before. There is, of course, not very much plot, in the martinet sense of that word: there never was in Richardson, despite his immense apparatus and elaboration. The story is not knotted and unknotted; the wheel does not come full circle on itself; it merely runs along pleasantly till it ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... liked, as a tall captain can A Titan subordinate and true sailor-man; And frequent he'd shown it—no worded advance, But flattering the Finn with a well-timed glance. But what of that now? In the martinet-mien Read the Articles of War, heed the naval routine; While, cut to the heart a dishonor there to win, Restored to his senses, stood the Anak Finn; In racked self-control the squeezed tears peeping, Scalding the eye with repressed inkeeping. Discipline must be; ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... know my father, or you wouldn't suggest it. He can be very stern, particularly with the boys. They always say he's more of a martinet at home than ever he was in the Army. Yes, I know you tell your mother everything, but mothers are much more lenient than fathers. I'd tell mine, if she weren't ill. It's no use arguing, Janie! I'm sorry if it isn't all on the ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... laugh with a story, that he said the English officers had told him of General Knyphausen, who commanded the Hessian mercenaries, in 1776. This officer, a rigid martinet, knew nothing of the sea, and not much more of geography. On the voyage between England and America, he was in the ship of Lord Howe, where he passed several uncomfortable weeks, the fleet having an unusually long passage, on account of ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... poetry, and those thousand nothings which tell for so much in society, and which it is so pleasant to find combined with much else that is valuable. A few evenings since, he kept Annie and me in the library, with his agreeable chat, till so late an hour, that Col. Donaldson, who is the least bit of a martinet in his own family, gave some very intelligible hints to us the next morning, at breakfast, on the value of early hours. With a readiness and grace which I never saw surpassed, Mr. Arlington turned to us with the exquisite apology of the poet for ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... courteously, meaning to go by him. But the Colonel stepped aside also, and so barred his way. "Mr. Asgill," he said—and there was something of the martinet in his tone—"I will trouble you to give me a ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... short, and, on permission being given, the door was thrown sharply open and a stout, dapper man walked swiftly into the room, set his silk hat with a clap on the table, and said, "Good evening, gentlemen," with a stress on the last syllable that somehow marked him out as a martinet, military, literary and social. He had a large head streaked with black and grey, and an abrupt black moustache, which gave him a look of fierceness which was contradicted by his sad ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... hundreds would engage in the contest of snow-balling, Adjutant Pope always took a leading part. It was this spirit of sport and his mingling with the common soldier, while off duty, that endeared Pope so much to the troop. With his sword and sash he could act the martinet, but when those were laid aside Adjutant Pope was one of the "boys," and engaged a "boat" with them as much as any one in the "Cross Anchors," a company noted for ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... you like, you martinet! I will put up with anything patiently, if only I know that you still love me, and that you will be mine, all mine, as soon as this terrible war no longer stands between us like a ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... two men could no more meet without striking fire than flint and steel. Moreover, Voltaire was normally satirical, restless, inclined to vanity and jealousy, and that terrible pen of his could never be brought to respect persons and places. With a martinet like Frederick, the visit was sure to end in a quarrel, despite the admiration of the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... officers I could name, when suddenly intrusted with the reins of power, there was nothing of the martinet about Tom, even on the first day he assumed his new rank, when a little extra pomposity might have been excusable. But no, he gave himself no airs or ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... instance, outside Orchard Glen, knew that young Mrs. Martin had been a perfect martinet in her teaching days, but had now lost all her old power with the rod, and her children were the terror of the village? And who but a neighbour could have known that Granny Minns scolded Mitty all day long and pretended she was much more feeble than she really ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... that the passenger-train would be held aroused all the railroad martinet's fury in the new superintendent. In Lidgerwood's calendar, time-killing on regular trains stood next to an infringement of the rules providing for the safety of life and property. His hand was ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... on as before. That is, the 'martinet' worse than the 'knout de Russe'; the 'poucettes', the 'crapaudine' on neck and ankles and wrists; all, all as bad as the 'Pater Noster' of the Inquisition, as Mayer said the other day in the face of Charpentier, the Commandant of the penitentiary. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... until the sun was about an hour high over the western hills. He found the captain waiting patiently for him to awake, and then that useful martinet instantly set his crew at tying up the bales which had been torn open, placing them once more in the hold. He was about to do the same with the weapons captured from Furstenberg, but Greusel stepped forward, and asked him ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... possession, as if he had in his vest pocket a bill of sale to every pound of my white flesh,—and Mr. Erle Palma smiled as benignly as some cast-iron statue of Pluto, freshly painted white, and glistening in the sunshine. A propos! I asked him to-night if he would loosen his martinet rein upon you, and permit you to make your debut in society as my bridesmaid? How those maddening white teeth of his glittered, as he smiled approvingly at the proposition? Whenever they gleam out, they remind me of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... pink of politeness, though a bit of a martinet after an ancient and punctilious model. If you go to select a Fiddle from his stock, you may escape a lecture of a quarter of an hour by calling it a Fiddle, and not a Violin, which is a word he detests, and is apt to excite his wrath. ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... accusation based on the missing trinkets, Waad accepted L1400 from Sir Gervase Elways, with a promise of L600 more, and vacated his office. Elways became an accomplice in Overbury's murder, and was hanged on his own Tower Hill. But he was less of a martinet than his predecessor. Perhaps his patrons were engaged in too serious crimes to waste their energy in inciting him to petty persecutions of Ralegh. At all events, Ralegh recovered the liberty of the Tower; and the restrictions on the presence of ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... open-hearted sailor, inclined to be a martinet, but with very little power to discriminate character and (like a great many other people in the world,) without painstaking sympathy, as the prisoners found to their cost in many ways, though they did not ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... and was kindly received by the master and the other officers, who had been prepossessed in my favour. Such was the successful result of my plan. The crimp we did not allow to go on shore, but discharged him into a gun-brig, the captain of which was a notorious martinet; and I have no doubt, being aware of his character and occupation, that he kept his word, when he told Captain Delmar that he would make the ship a hell to him—"and sarve him right too," said Bob Cross, when he heard of it; "the money that these rascals obtain ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... of this character. He has made efforts to lessen his expenses; but then he deals in military affairs, and that swallows up his savings, and Heaven only knows whether he will bring [Neapolitans] to fight, which the Martinet system alone will never do. His health is undermined by epileptic fits, which, with his great corpulence, make men throw their thoughts on his brother Prince Charles. It is a pity. The King is ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... said Captain Pond. "Suppose, now, he had turned out to be some cross-grained martinet . . . the type is not unknown in the ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... uniform, certainly; but regulations, like legislative acts, admit of much variety of interpretation and latitude in practice, unless there is behind them a strong public sentiment. In my earlier days there was no public sentiment of the somewhat martinet kind; such as would compel all alike to wear an overcoat because the captain felt cold. In practice, there was great laxity in details. I remember, in later days and later manners, when we were all compelled to be well buttoned up ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... was Lady Jane's uncle-in-law, whose eyes were also giving him a little anxiety. He was a charming old stoic, by no means pompous or formal, or a martinet, and declared he remembered hearing of Barty as the naughtiest boy in the Guards; and took an immediate fancy to ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... anchor to the vessel and cause endless trouble. This spirit received its name from an officer who commanded a battalion of fishermen conscripts, and who from his intense severity and general reputation as a martinet obtained a bad reputation among the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... soldier. He was sent to school at Taunton, preparatory to entering, as a cadet, the Royal Military Academy, at Woolwich. At that time, its commandant was a veteran of Waterloo, a peppery old chap who had left one of his legs on the soil of France, as a souvenir. He was a martinet as to discipline, and Charles, who had become accustomed to doing a good deal of thinking for himself, came ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... "A martinet, I suppose you mean. I don't think that makes it any better. I should not be happy till ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... a Prussian officer who had served under Frederic the Great, arrived at the headquarters of Washington. Some say that he was a mere martinet, but he was exceedingly useful in drilling the American troops, working from morning till night, both patient and laborious. From that time Washington had regular troops, on which he could rely, few in number, but loyal and true. La Fayette also was present in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... The sawdust is there in the corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn't I? Do it standing, sir! I'll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you'll find I'm a martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce |
