"Shuffling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the finishing touches to the last of the batch, when there was a shuffling of feet in the outer room, followed by a knock on the door. The next moment there entered a short, burly young man, around whom there hung, like an aroma, an indescribable air of toughness, partly due, perhaps, to the fact ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... retorted Phemie pertly. But here a pushing of chairs and shuffling of feet in the kitchen checked her. Clementina fixed an abstracted gaze on the ceiling; Phemie regarded a leaf on the window sill with photographic rigidity as the door opened to the strangers ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... expected, from the title of this chapter, that I shall introduce a set of ruffians armed with missive weapons; or, having named a trump, a set of gamblers shuffling and dealing out the cards: But whatever veneration I may entertain for these two fag ends of our species, I shall certainly introduce a class of people, which, though of the lower orders, are ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... a sudden cloud had come over his bright face, his figure seemed to have collapsed, the light seemed to have faded out of his hair. With a shuffling step, the very antithesis of his brisk, elastic tread, he turned to the door and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... not worth having, without the means of gratifying it. For weeks I lived in a state of continual fever; my nights were turned into days; and, during the few hours of sleep—but not of repose—which gave me strength to return to the gaming-table, the rattling of the dice and the shuffling of the cards haunted me in my dreams, with alternations of exultation and despair, as vivid though not as distinct, as in my waking hours. At first, (the old history of all such cases,) I won immensely, and this encouraged ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... requested. While he was shuffling the cards for a new deal, the players beat time with their feet to the music that floated in from the dance-hall. The tune seemed to have an unusually exhilarating effect on Happy Halliday, for ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... fearful mistake of attacking the animal. My friend Mr. Ernest Gibson, of Buenos Ayres, in a communication to the Ibis, describes an encounter he actually witnessed between a carancho and a skunk. Riding home one afternoon, he spied a skunk "shuffling along in the erratic manner usual to that odoriferous quadruped;" following it at a very short distance was an eagle-vulture, evidently bent on mischief. Every time the bird came near the bushy ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... comes back in their dreams to those who are left, that long night's march in the desert. It was like a dream itself, the silence of it as they were borne forward upon those soft, shuffling sponge feet, and the flitting, flickering figures which oscillated upon every side of them. The whole universe seemed to be hung as a monstrous time-dial in front of them. A star would glimmer like a lantern on ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her walk home, although Arnold Sherman laid himself out to be especially entertaining. Her heart yearned after Ludovic, whose shuffling footsteps she heard behind her. She feared that she had been very cruel, but she was in for it now. She steeled herself by the reflection that it was all for his own good, and she talked to Arnold Sherman as if he were the one man in the world. Poor, deserted Ludovic, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... rapping was, it brought no immediate answer. Again I knocked; then feet came shuffling along the passage. I had aroused my sleepy wretch; doubtless he would come groaning (for Jonah might not curse save in the way of religion), and rubbing his eyes, to let me in. The door opened and Jonah appeared; his eyes were ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... crown, mine own ambition and my queen. May one be pardoned and retain the offence? In the corrupted currents of this world Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice. And oft 't is seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but 't is not so above; There is no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence. What then? what rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it when one cannot repent? O wretched ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... almost reached the limit of their strength. He had just reached the conclusion, having been interrupted several times by Abner's exclamations, when, ahead of them, on the road, they spied a figure shuffling along in the dust. The two boys were on the rear seat of the rig, so that the man, when he saw the rig approaching, having turned his head at the sound of hoofs, did not ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Lady Muriel had to stop through sheer exhaustion, but Mr Bunker, merely letting her go, pursued his solitary way, double-shuffling ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... no reply. I was wondering what The Author would have said had he seen us at that moment—The Jinnee shuffling ahead in heelless slippers and Oriental dress, upon his woolly head a red fez with a silver crescent on it, and on his breast a string of saphies, verses from the Koran, in exquisite Arabic script, framed in flat ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... question, Mama Therese preferred personally to receive all letters and contrived to be on hand at the postman's customary hours of call. But to-night she only realized that he had come and gone when, happening to glance toward the caisse, she saw Sofia shuffling the half-dozen envelopes which ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... something seemed to tell her that here she might find help. So, after waiting a little longer, she screwed up her courage again, and rapped once more, this time more loudly; and this time, at any rate, her knock called forth response. There were sounds of hasty shuffling steps across the floor, and then a voice, old and evidently trembling, called through ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... love, and the lights and the fire, And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet; For there in a while shall be rest and desire, And there shall the morrow's ...
— Chants for Socialists • William Morris
... Turks were back at school in Constantinople, shuffling their feet and throwing ink pellets at one another; Raisuli, home again in the old mountains, was working up the kidnapping business, which had fallen off sadly in his absence under the charge of an incompetent locum tenens; and the Chinese, the Bollygollans, and the ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... Now I come to think of it, I expect Hart is at home; I heard him shuffling about ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... a rude table, was food and a jack of small-beer. Whether the time was morning or evening he could not tell, but it was very dark; what little light entered the room came through a narrow slit, high up in the wall, and all things smelled strangely of damp. Somewhere he could hear faintly a slow, shuffling step and the rustle of a dress; then the mew of ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... torrent-like importunity. "I'll try, sir," said the peace-loving old man, "but I have no hope," and he hobbled from the room. He left the door open as he went, and Harry, tortured by impatience, heard him shuffling over the hall floor ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Trinity must have been shuffling china plates like cards, from the clatter that could be heard in the Great Court. Jacob's rooms, however, were in Neville's Court; at the top; so that reaching his door one went in a little out ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... every man within hearing, from oldest to youngest, would be wriggling and shuffling, as if through some magic piper's bewitchment; for even those who at first affected contemptuous indifference would be drawn ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... dropping the log into place he may have made some little sound that reached the ears of the crazy man within the cabin. Max heard a shuffling of feet. Then the door was shaken, at first gently, and then with more and more violence, until the very walls of the cabin seemed to quiver ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... swiftly about. It came from the door of a noisy and crowded mart of chance recently erected, but already the scene of many quarrels. The blare of music which had issued from it swiftly ceased. There was a momentary silence; then a sound of shuffling feet, of ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... couple of notes, and the cotillon paused in the very act of the break. The shuffling of feet grew still, and the conversation ceased. A diamond brooch had been found, no doubt, or some supper announcement was to be made. But Jerry Haight, with a great sweep of his arm, the forgotten cigarette between his ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... and 'Stoneborough' was the cry. Hastily springing out, shuffling the tickets into the porter's hand, and grappling Leonard's arm as if he feared an escape, Dr. May hurried him into the empty streets, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... went into the drawing-room. The drawing-room was even smaller than the dining-room. On the walls hung some monstrosities of portraits; in front of the sofa, of which the stuffing protruded in several places, stood a green table; on the sofa sat Ivan Semyonitch, already shuffling the cards. Near him on the extreme edge of a low chair sat a spare woman in a white cap and a black gown, yellow and wrinkled, with short-sighted eyes and thin cat-like lips. 'Here,' said Ivan Semyonitch, 'let me introduce him; the first man's dead; ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... brutes lived on before they came to gaol. Besworded warders guarded the entrances to the various outbuildings. From twenty to thirty poor human beings were manacled in their cells, condemned to die, knowing not how soon the pleasure of the emperor may permit of them shuffling off this mortal coil: one grey-haired old man was among the number, and to see him stolidly waiting for his doom ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... came shuffling into the room in a pair of old bedroom slippers. She had on a skirt that she used to go skating in, and a somewhat tumbled middy-blouse. Her hair was wopsed around her head anyhow—it really takes one of Rose's own words to describe it. As a toilet ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... gold, lay where he had made his lonely camps; orchards nestled by little lakes and in mountain valleys where he had trapped the beaver; strings of brass-bound, vestibuled coaches whirled where he had ridden his pony with the pack train shuffling behind. And here, on the Coldstream, he had made his last stand, taken up land, and turned, when past his prime, to the quiet life of ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... seem to play with each other much," commented Colin as the two walked among the holluschickie, who showed neither fear nor excitement, merely shuffling aside a foot or ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a glimpse into futurity; so, after shuffling the cards, and when the fair damsel had cut them, I dealt a portion to the prophetic beggar. Like others of his profession, before predicting the shadowy events that were moving on to meet me, he gave proof of his preternatural science, by describing scenes ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... strayed, to infer our opulence. Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no cant in it, no excess of explanation, and it is full of suggestion,— the raw material of possible poems and histories. Nothing is wanting but a little shuffling, sorting, ligature, and cartilage. Out of a hundred examples, Cornelius Agrippa "On the Vanity of Arts and Sciences" is a specimen of that scribatious-ness which grew to be the habit of the gluttonous readers of his time. Like the modern Germans, they read ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... adverse for the moment to Arthur Berkeley's well meant designs for shuffling off the trammels of his ecclesiastical habit. He was destined to appear in public at least once more, not only in the black coat and white tie of his everyday professional costume, but even in the flowing snowy surplice of a solemn and decorous spiritual function. The very next morning's ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... stout-hearted one," said the ostler admiringly. "Tony and I a-watched her and the dog a-driving him through the gates. With his bundle on his back, he was a-shuffling along, a-nigh on his all-fours; and the madam at his heels, with her head up in the air, and her ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... Allard and William, shuffling into the recruiting office in Palos, doubtless think that this is a strange place for them to meet, and rather a wild business that they are embarked upon, among all these bloody Spaniards. Some how I feel more confidence in Allard than in William, knowing, as I do so well, this William of Galway, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... said, holding up the big roan's head. "Don't you hang your head with me." He eased the horse to a jerky start and they were off for Brill's at a shuffling trot. Three times in the first mile Blue bunched himself nervously and made a few stiff jumps but each time Harris held him steady. The pace was increased to a long, swinging trot and he felt the play of powerful muscles under him as the ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... More visitors came. Shuffling and self-conscious mill-workers, walking on their toes; draggled women; a Chinese boy; a girl with a rouged face and a too confident manner. A hum of conversation hung over the long room. The sunlight came in and turned to glory, not only the tulips and the red tablecloth, but also the brass ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he had struggled to this upright position, he was making frantic, miserable efforts to raise himself still further. He, too, had heard the dull thud of feet, the shuffling gait of men when carrying a ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Our representatives in Congress have acted with such consummate unwisdom that one may say we have no future there. Mr. —— and Mr. —— (as precious a pair of rascals as ever wrought upon the ignorance of a country) have disgusted all thoughtful men of whatever party; while the shuffling of our better men on the question of public honesty, their folly in allowing such people as Blaine and Conkling to taunt them into cheap hurlings back of defiance (as the silly Southern newspapers term it), their inconceivable mistake in ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... everything,—the formal arrangements, further than as they promote the moral principles of government, and the keeping desperately wicked persons as the subjects of laws and not the makers of them, to be of little importance. What signifies the cutting and shuffling of cards, while the pack still remains the same? As a basis for such a connection as has subsisted between the powers of Europe, we had nothing to fear, but from the lapses and frailties of men,—and that was enough; but this new ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... us all. Mr. Tyler half rose and half frowned as he noticed Mr. Pakenham shuffling as though he ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... himself to his feet by means of any chair, table, or indeed anything that he may get hold of. To avoid injuring him, no flimsy chairs or spindle-legged tables should be allowed in his nursery. He will next begin to sidle around a chair, shuffling his feet in a vague fashion, and sometimes, needing both of his hands to seize some coveted object, he will stand without clinging, leaning on his stomach. An unhurried child may remain ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... station was reached. An engine was shunting up and down, piecing the troop trains together, and in twenty minutes the Battalion was shuffling down the platform, the empty trains on either side. Two companies were to go to each train, twelve men to a third-class compartment, N.C.O.s second class, Officers first. As soon as the men were in their seats, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... said the dealer, pausing in shuffling the cards, "I s'pose ye hev all hearn 'bout Walter Wyatt's ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... dread regalia, gifted with a charm Potent to the rebellious. When the bell Tinkles the school hour, inward streams the crowd, And bending heads proclaim the task commenc'd. Upon his throne with magisterial brow The teacher sits, round casting frowning looks As the low giggle and the shuffling foot Betray the covert jest, or idleness. Oft does he call with deep and pompous voice, The class before him, and shrill chattering tones In pert or blundering answers, break the soft And dreamy hum of study, heretofore Like ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... shuffling patter, one after the other, down the ladder, the sounds of a door being unbarred softly, and then no other sound but that incessant ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... shaft of sunshine pierced the rosy glass windows and fell upon the hieratic figure of the bearded Christ, which glowed supernally. In the chancel the Psalms had died away and the only sound was that of sandals shuffling over marble floors. The man turned the lock. It was a return to the world as if one had participated in ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... beneath the desk came sounds of gasps, heavy breathing, then shuffling footsteps. Clayton pushed the picture back into place, then took off the skin-painted vest he wore, with the flat box on its inside. He snapped a switch on the side ...
— The Fourth Invasion • Henry Josephs
... about a hundred yards from the house, now scampering along and beating up the dew from the morning grass, now crouched nearly flat so as hardly to be seen among the tall green blades, then hopping quietly along with an awkward, shuffling gait, or sitting up on its hind legs, with raised ears, listening to some distant sound; but still as it resumed its gambols, again going round and round, tracing upon the green sward a labyrinth of meandering lines. Sir Philip watched it for several moments with a faint smile, and then said to himself, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... in the kitchen when the two ladies came to pay her a visit. She was sitting in a low, stoutly made chair which had been fashioned expressly for her huge frame, and was shuffling a pack of ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... nature." During these excursions, we might suppose some varieties, which had the skin of the webbed intervals of their toes less developed, to succeed best in walking on the land, and in the course of several generations they might exchange their present gait or manner of shuffling along and jumping by aid of the tail and their fin-like extremities, for feet better ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... knew by their shuffling, Clubs would be Trump; mass, here's the Knave, and he can do any good upon 'em: Clubs, ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... far behind, just emerging from the scrub, are seen those who, from their wandering habits, must wear the bracelets, hurrying and shuffling along with a rattle of chains, tripping up in their eagerness to be even with their mates in the scramble for water: presently they pause to look about and neigh—a delay resented by those behind by a friendly bite, answered ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... No shuffling, no evasion, no embarrassment, even under this crucial test. The Colonel was nonplussed. He led Tracy to a chromo which had suffered damage in a former owner's hands through being used as a lamp mat, and said, with a flourish of his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... silence she Would mumble a sentence audibly, Or shake her head as if to say, "You silly souls, to act this way!" And never a sound from night I'd hear, Unless some far-off cock crowed clear; Or her old shuffling thumb should turn Another page; and rapt and stern, Through her great glasses bent on me She'd glance into reality; And shake her round old silvery head, With—"You!—I thought you was in bed!"— Only to tilt her book again, And rooted in ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... thrusting-spear, and the third, an exceeding tall man, bore a long broad-bladed war-sword. Thus they went, brown of skin beneath their flower-garlands, their long hair bleached by the sun falling about their shoulders; high they strode amongst the shuffling carles and tripping women of the later-come thralls. But when they heard the music, and saw that they were coming to the Gate in triumph, strange thoughts of old memories swelled up in their hearts, and they refrained them not from weeping, ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... hostile distance. To smoke or to converse was forbidden. In the dark, the black mass of the regiment, bristling with its bayonets like some huge, porcupine-like creature, crawled steadily onward, filling the air with the shuffling of innumerable feet. The men kept stumbling over each other, and swore viciously in half tones; they slipped in the mud and sank knee-deep into the wheel-tracks filled with cold water. "Some ...
— The Shield • Various
... Three, with a look on his face that could only bear one interpretation. Belinda had been perverse, unkind, icy—had, in fact, thrown him over. You could read it in the angle of his cap, in the broken lace dragging from his boots, in his shuffling progress, and in the dulled gleam of his brass-mounted cans. From that date he became a frowning pessimist, perpetrating wheezes and squeaks and mumblings, quaverings and hoarse murmurs, instead of the customary sportive yelp. 'Tis an unkind world, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... thunders of the cascade. She began to fear lest madness seize her if she remained longer thus supinely crouching amid the terrors of this place. Obeying a sudden impulse, she got up, and gropingly, with shuffling, cautious steps, moved across the cavern. When she reached the opposite wall, she got down on hands and knees, and crawled until her searching fingers found the emptiness of the hole through which the men had passed. Then, she drew back a little, and sat with ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... some of the higher officers, while three or four other young aides were near. The sifts of snow turned after a while into a fine but steady snow, which continued half an hour. The backs of the soldiers were covered with white, while their faces burned. Then there was a shuffling sound at every fire, as the men turned their backs to the blaze and their ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and shuffling into the next room, he whispers, "Washington!" The girl is sent out to get refreshments. It is in vain that she seeks to sign or speak to the man who sits there so calmly before the fire, for her father is never out of sight or hearing. After ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... day of October, 1851, there was shuffling about the streets of Syracuse, in the quiet pursuit of his simple avocations, a colored person, as nearly "of no account'' as any ever seen. So far as was known he had no surname, and, indeed, no Christian name, save the fragment ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... when I saw that in the curious shuffling of cards he had been chosen as the dinner escort of a tall and stately Russian beauty. I watched them walk across the waxen floor and heard him say to her, "Sure if I had time I would telegraph for me roller ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... my memory. I can still see the scene in its every detail, and I know I shall carry the picture with me to the grave; the long, low room with its blackened ceiling, the garish yellow gaslight, the smoke haze, the crowded tables, Otto, shuffling hither and hither with his mean and sulky air, Frau Hedwig, preoccupied at her desk, red-eyed, a graven image of woe, and Haase, presiding over the beer-engine, silent, defiant, calm, but watchful every ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... grapes fall; she then literally rolls over them until many are attached to her spines, and marches back to her babies in the cave. "One day," says Plutarch, "when we were all together, we had the chance of seeing this with our own eyes—it looked as if a bunch of grapes was shuffling along the ground, so thickly covered was ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... depending on manual dexterity rather than physical force) is held by a woman; and anyone who will watch girls making change before the pneumatic tubes in the great department stores about Christmas time will experience the same wonder one feels on first seeing a professional gambler shuffling cards. ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... which I have not added a word. We shall see soon how Madame de Maintenon kept her word to me, and if I am not right in owing her a grudge for this promise with a double meaning, with which it was her caprice to decoy me by her shuffling. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... she heard the cautious, stuffless tread of his rubber-soled shoes shuffling along the hall. But Bunting only woke to the fact when the ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... but I do not think it could have been later than the 20th. It had been four months since the day of arrival, a long, marvelous summer such as I would hardly know again. When I think of that time I shall always hear the ceaseless slippered, shuffling walk, and see the white figure with its rocking, rolling movement passing up and down the long gallery, with that preternaturally beautiful landscape behind, and I shall hear his deliberate speech—always deliberate, save at rare intervals; always impressive, whatever ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... from Kaluna brought out a man with a female horde behind him, all shuffling into clothes as we approached, and we stiffly dismounted from the wet saddles in which we had sat for ten hours, and stiffly hobbled up into the littered verandah, the water dripping from our clothes, and squeezing out of our boots at every step. Inside there was one room about 18 x 14 ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... A shuffling of feet was heard at the door, and a colourless, feeble old man was assisted into the room. It was Ghysbrecht Van Swieten. At sight of him Catherine shrieked, and threw her apron over her head, and Margaret shuddered violently, and turned her head ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... different substance from the Father, but nevertheless agreed with Arius in thinking that the Son had a beginning of existence, were called Semi-Arians; and were received into communion by Athanasius, in spite of this disagreement. To me it seemed to be a most unworthy shuffling with words, to say that the Son was begotten, but was never begotten. The very form of our past participle is invented to indicate an event in past time. If the Athanasians alleged that the phrase does not allude to "a coming ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... to fourteen; afterwards folding the pieces identically, so that the numbers written upon them were concealed, and it became impossible to distinguish one piece from another. These papers I put on the ground in one of the men's caps, mixing and shuffling them all together; and next I called for a square of canvas. They brought me a boat's lug sail, which I caused to be spread flat and smooth upon the ground; and then I had the chest lifted on to the ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... he said irritably; "she knew she might have them if she wanted." It was as though he were giving a shuffling excuse for some fault of his own ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... and the singular vision faded with the reflected light which had filled the room. The moment after, I heard the shuffling feet of the slattern girl coming to show us out of the room, but, singularly enough, as you will think, not out of the house! Without a word we followed her—Adolph, who knew the customs of the place, merely slipping a five-franc ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... would return, shuffling, smoking a dangling cigarette, his hat cocked against the sun; he would give her full particulars and then return to his bell. . . . She had come to San Juan to make a home here, to become a part of it, to make it a portion of her. To arrive upon a day like this was ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... now connecting Lake Champlain with the Hudson River at Albany, N.Y. There he turned architect, then returned to Europe, settled, married, and was knighted in England. He occupied eighteen years of his life in building an unproductive tunnel beneath the river Thames at London; invented a method of shuffling cards without using the hands, and several of her devices for dispensing with labor, which, upon completion, were abandoned from economical motives. On his decease, his son and heir, I.K. Brunel, whose practical experience in the Thames Tunnel job, where his biographers assert ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... might be, consenting, no doubt, to come out without being dragged; congratulating, perhaps (as the manner was), the searchers on their success. A murmur of answer came back, and then one sharp, peevish voice by itself. Again Mr. Garlick spoke, and there followed the shuffling of movements for a long while; and then, so far as the little chamber was concerned, empty silence. But from the hall rose up a steady murmur of talk ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... friend, and a short colloquy ensued, which ended in the latter shuffling off in the direction of the other revellers. Such is the buoyancy of youth that a moment later he was dancing a two-step with every appearance of careless enjoyment. The future, with its storms, seemed to have ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... the brother came rushing over him and he yielded himself again to the wonder of the situation till he was reawakened to realities by the shuffling of feet on the stairway and the raised tones of Mrs. Deo as she tried to make herself understood by her new and somewhat difficult guest. A maid followed in their wake, and from some as yet unexplored region below there rose the ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... anything soft underfoot frightens a locomotive as it does an elephant. But the men behind seemed quite calm. The wrecking-crew were climbing carelessly from the caboose to the tender—even jesting with the engineer, for he heard a shuffling of feet among the coal, and the snatch of ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... still in the dark. You speak of shuffling and dealing; pray, for what end? And since you seem rather unwilling to die than otherwise, I must own that I cannot conceive what brings ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... say you couldn't have done better than send him there,' replied Thistlewood, shuffling his feet and fidgeting with his hands. 'Mrs. Abbott is an admirable teacher. She quite agrees with me—I should say that I quite agree with her. But I am forgetting, Mrs. Rolfe, that you know her better than ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... M. Georges began shuffling them; the other turned to Graham and asked politely if he ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... on the night preceding his wedding was an Auld Licht ever known to stay out after ten o'clock. So weekly conclaves at street-corners came to an end at a comparatively early hour, one Coelebs after another shuffling silently from the square until it echoed, deserted, to the town-house clock. The last of the gallants, gradually discovering that he was alone, would look around him musingly, and, taking in the situation, slowly wend his way home. On no other night of the week was ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... affirmed that the law applies both to Europeans and Natives, the conclusion cannot be avoided that it is directed exclusively against the Native. This is the naked truth that turns all other explanations of the fact into mere shuffling and juggling. And the reader will find that in Section 11, at the end of the statute which is here reproduced (whether the omission of Europeans was a mistake of the Parliamentary draftsmen, or the printers, we know not), it is expressly stated that "this Act may be cited for all purposes ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... window, then quickly disappeared. He paid no attention to this, but soon he heard the vestibule door open. He thought it was his orderly, returning late, drunk as usual. The step was an unfamiliar one, and he heard the shuffling sound of ...
— The Queen Of Spades - 1901 • Alexander Sergeievitch Poushkin
... some. They go shuffling along, precisely as if their shoes were down at the heel—"slipshod"—and they could not lift up their feet in consequence. If it is dusty or sandy, they kick up the dust before them and fill their skirts with it. This is exceedingly ungraceful. If I were a gentleman, I really do not think I could ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... man lived many years,—lived to hear tender voices bless him, and to see pale faces brighten at the sound of his footfall. Yes, for many years the quaint, shuffling figure moved about our streets, and his hoarse but kindly voice—oh, very kindly now!—was heard repeating to the children that pathetic old story of "Once ther' wuz a littl' boy." And where the dear old feet trod the grass grew greenest, ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... light in the distance which marked their destination. In five minutes the horses dashed into a wide clearing. An immense log fire burned in front of a two-story structure. Streams of light poured from the small windows; the squeaking of fiddles, the shuffling of many feet, and gay laughter came ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... i. Shuffling—-Each person has a right to shuffle the cards before the deal; but it is usual for the elder hand only; ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... and tried to read, but the late fall wind swirled mournfully about the house and beat down the chimney, causing the fire to cast disturbing shadows across the walls. Her loneliness, and her nervousness, grew sharper. The restless, shuffling footsteps stimulated her imagination. Perhaps a mental breakdown was responsible for this alteration. She was tempted to ring for Jenkins, the butler, to share her vigil; or for one of the two women servants, now far at the ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... seen him when he stood up to sing at our concerts—his tight little figure stepping to and fro, and his feet shuffling to the air, his eyes seeking and bestowing encouragement—and to have enjoyed the bow, so nicely calculated between jest and earnest, between grace and clumsiness, with which he brought each song to a conclusion. He was not only a great favourite among ourselves, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... across the backs of chairs, evidently intending a serious session. In this procedure the last of the party now followed suit,—the Honorable William Jones, state senator from Belmont, Missouri. Seating himself, the latter now in turn began shuffling a pack between fingers short, puffy, freckled and experienced. His stooped shoulders thrust forward a beardless round face, whose permanently arched eyebrows seemed to ask a continuous question, his short, dark hair receded from a high forehead, and a thick mid-body ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... the governor seem to act the part of a ruler. He threw off, as with a violent effort, all of his shuffling and weakness, and stood before us a man. Perhaps the little sympathy which he saw expressed upon the faces of his suite was the cause ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... they were sitting in a group before the hotel when a man was seen approaching them with shuffling steps. Uncle John looked at him closely and Mumbles leaped from Patsy's lap and rushed at the stranger ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... A or B are such curious workmen, and can make a sham shuffle with a pack of cards so artfully, that you would believe they were splitting them, when at the time they will not displace a single card from its order! Such is the SHARPER'S shuffling. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... returned with a pair of cocoa nuts lined with leather, which she put on her feet. Now all limping and shuffling was at an end. She threw away her stick and walked briskly across the glass floor, drawing little Jem after her. At last she paused in a room which looked almost like a kitchen, it was so full of pots and pans, but the tables were of mahogany and the ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... Timewell ended his tale a general shuffling and rising announced the conclusion of the meal. The company filed slowly out in order of seniority, all wearing the same gloomy and earnest expression, with grave gait and downcast eyes. These Puritan ways were, it is true, familiar to me from childhood, yet I had never before ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... door. There was no response. He knocked again, and listened intently. Now he heard a sound—like a smothered cry or groan. He opened the door quickly and entered. It was dark. In another room beyond was a light. From it came the same sound he had heard before, but louder; also there was a shuffling footstep. Springing forward to the half-open door, he pushed it wide, and met the terror-stricken eyes of Constantine Jopp—the same look that he had seen at the theatre when his hands were on ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... pedal, Upward, downward, hither, thither, How the weaver makes them go: As the weaver wills they go. Up and down the web is plying, And across the woof is flying; What a rattling! What a battling! What a shuffling! What a scuffling! As the weaver makes his shuttle Hither, thither, scud and scuttle. Threads in single, threads in double; How they mingle, what a trouble! Every color, what profusion! Every motion, what confusion! While the web and woof are mingling, Signal bells ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... in Alfred's throat, and a good deal of shuffling done with his boots. It was so much more of a struggle for the sturdy boy than the gentle little girl; but he stood manfully on his feet at last, and his words, though few, were fraught with as much meaning as any which had been spoken there that evening, ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... pains to finish undressing with dignified deliberation. Sophia's behaviour under the blow seemed too good to be true; but it gave her courage. At length she turned out the gas and lay down by Sophia. And there was a little shuffling, and then stillness ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... midwinter rains swept drearily past the windows, and the children must have the lights lighted for their writing lesson. She was tired of it all, with an utter and hopeless weariness. Tired of the bells, and the whispering, and the shuffling feet, of the books that smelled of pencil-dust and ink and little dusty fingers; tired of the blackboards, cleaned in great irregular scallops by small and zealous arms; of the clear-ticking big clock; of little girls ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... of New Comedy. Assuredly he rates it too highly, as later investigations have indicated.[38] But here for the first time we are able to quote a well-balanced appreciation of some essential features of Plautine drama: a "capricious shuffling of incidents" and "caricature." In fact it will be our endeavor to show that the palliata was not a true art form, but merely an outer shell or mold into which Plautus poured ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... boys clambering down the stairs from the conning tower and called out, feebly, yet with sufficient strength to make himself heard above the sound of shuffling feet. ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... so that wherever one goes, in every quarter and at every hour, among the busy confident strongly-stepping Parisians one sees these other people, dazed and slowly moving—men and women with sordid bundles on their backs, shuffling along hesitatingly in their tattered shoes, children dragging at their hands and tired-out babies pressed against their shoulders: the great army of the Refugees. Their faces are unmistakable and unforgettable. ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers; I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree; And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry: 'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag. ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... sides, and nearly to the ceiling, with carved bookcases of walnut blackened with age to the colour of old mahogany. There were a number of massive tables in the room, upon which the light fell agreeably from high clerestory windows at each end of the apartment. Meschini himself was shuffling along in a pair of ancient leather slippers with a large volume under his arm, clad in very threadbare black clothes and wearing a dingy skullcap on his head. He was a man somewhat under the middle size, badly made, though possessing considerable physical ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... light grew, and the gas-lamps of Tyre beaconed with fading gleam. Overhead began a restlessness in the clouds, as of a giant drowsily shuffling off some of his bedclothes; but as yet he slept, and only the silver bosom of his spouse the ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... to bed. The shadows move about, And some one seems to overhear our talk. The fire is low; the candles flicker out; The ghosts of former tenants want to walk. Already they are shuffling through the gloom. I felt an old man touch my shoulder-blade; Once he was married here; they love this room, He and his woman and the child they made. Dead, dead, they are, yet some familiar sound, Creeping along the brink of happy life, Revives their ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... jacket, with a rusty velvet cap on his head, and very bright short-sighted eyes behind round spectacles. This figure appeared in the doorway, stood looking at them a moment, as if bewildered as to why he or they were there at all; and then, with a hasty shuffling movement, darted across the floor ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... heavy, shuffling step passed into the adjoining bedroom, and soon the wretched man was in stupor. As Mildred came out she saw Belle, who had returned from her work, looking toward the room in which her father slept, with a lowering, reckless expression that made her ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... glitters with flames and reflections. A cloak brushes aside, And the yellow of satin Licks out over the coloured inlays of the pavement. Under the gold crucifixes There is a meeting of hands Reaching from black mantles. Sighing embraces, bold investigations, Hide in confessionals, Sheltered by the shuffling of feet. Gorgeous—barbaric In its mail of jewels and gold, Saint Mark's looks down at the swarm of black masks; And outside in the palace gardens brown leaves fall, Flutter, Fall. Brown, ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... sing in passing. I hear them in the orchards, in the groves, in the woods, as they pause to feed in their northward journey, their brief, lisping, shuffling, insect-like notes requiring to be searched for by the ear, as their forms by the eye. But the ear is not tasked to identify the songs of the kinglets, as they tarry briefly with us in spring. In fact, there is generally a week in April or ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... equipped with the thousand feet of sensitive celluloid film, and the operating handle, they had risen from the ranks of mere helpers to be expert operators. And now they were qualified to take moving pictures of anything from a crowd, shuffling along the street, to a more complicated scene, such as a flood, earthquake or volcanic eruption. And, incidentally, I might mention that they had been in all three of these ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... They surrendered, shuffling out and down the slippery stone steps. Each man dropped his gun in the little pile that grew and grew until the old Ranger shook his head, pondering. That men of this kind should have access to arms and ammunition of the ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... and musicians slowly, with shuffling steps. The quiet is broken by a note on a gong, struck softly, and there is an almost inaudible flute melody on reeds, and liquid notes struck on empty bamboos. These dusky figures are Kachin men, with red turbans, and short, white, very loose kilts and bolero ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... small stock of patience was nearly exhausted, we were rewarded by hearing the study-door slowly open, followed by the tread of a well-known footstep in the passage. The next sound that reached 60our ears was a quick shuffling of feet upon the oil-cloth, as if the person advancing had "shyed" at some unexpected object; then came the muttered exclamation, "Bless my heart, what's this?" And immediately afterwards Dr. Mildman's face, wearing an expression of the most thorough perplexity and bewilderment, appeared ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Now, the snout of a bear is its most precious and tender organ, and a blow upon that will rouse even the most timid species of them to fury. So it was with this one. She saw whence the shot came; and, as soon as she had given her head a few shakes, she came in a shuffling gallop ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... myself of such contempt, I made a communication to the French ambassador, Prince Polignac, and offered to go to France, and transfer to the French government, the entire advantages of the discovery; but after deluding me, and shuffling for some time, I found it necessary to treat him with the same contempt as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various
... doggery well worthy of the gallows, think Lehwald and I. "Could n't help it; ferocity of wild men," says Nadasti. "Well; but why not attack, then, with your ferocity?" Confused Court-martial put these questions, at Vienna subsequently; and Ruffian Trenck, some say, got injustice, Nadasti shuffling things upon him; for which one cares almost nothing. Lehwald, lying at Trautenau, had heard the firing at sunrise; and instantly marched to help: he only arrived to give Nadasti a slash or two, and was too ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... where the old city had been the ghastly sight of Turks cut down by yeomanry during a hot pursuit offended the senses of sight and smell, and when you saw natives moving towards their village at a rate somewhat in excess of their customary shuffling gait you were almost led to think that their superstitious fears were driving them home before sundown lest darkness should raise the ghosts of the Turkish dead. A few of the Jewish settlers, whose ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... had their effect with the angry, pushing, shuffling, elbowing, wailing, weeping crowd, in a pause like ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... the servant was contagious. Uel began to believe the master would come. He was congratulating himself upon the precaution he had taken in leaving a man at the port to conduct him rightly when he heard a shuffling of feet below stairs. He listened startled. There were several men in the company. Steps shook the floor. Uel and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... THAN FOR LIQUOR.—This appetite is far stronger and more uncontrollable than that for liquor, and we can spot its victim as readily as though he were an ordinary bummer. He has a pallid complexion, a shifting, shuffling manner and can't look you in the face. If you manage to catch his eye for an instant you will observe that its pupil is contracted to an almost invisible point. It is no exaggeration to say that he would barter his very soul for that which indulgence has made him too poor to purchase, and where ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... they told him that it was the Sultan's custom to make a banquet for the people on the first of each month and that all the lieges were bound to go and eat of it. Furthermore the women directed him to the racing-ground, where the feast was spread. So he entered at a shuffling trot; and, finding no place empty, save that before the dish of sweet rice already noticed, took his seat right opposite it and stretched out his hand towards the dish; whereupon the folk cried out to him, saying, "O our brother, what wouldst thou do?" Quoth he, "I would eat my fill of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... herself at the table and was shuffling a pack of cards. "Fifty-cent reading?" she asked, as he took the chair ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... the air of one considering deeply. Then he gave Thekla one of the surprises of her life; he rose from his chair, he walked in his shuffling, unheeled slippers across the room to where the old woman sat; he put one arm on the back of the chair and stiffly bent over her and ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... favours, fuss and fluster, incense, 'The Voice that breathed o'er Eden,' suppressed nervous excitement, maddening delay, shuffling and whispers, acute long-drawn-out boredom of the men, sentimental interest of the women, tears of emotion from dressmakers in the background, disgusted resignation on the part of people who wanted to be at Kempton (and couldn't hear results as soon as they wished), envy and jealousy, admiration ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... left, Felipe heard the door of old Spooner's room open and close, following which there was a faltering, shuffling step on the stairs and the thump, thump, thump of a cane, growing fainter until it could be heard ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... of what is right, what is just, what is honourable, what is lovely in goodness. The man who imitates the God of the Calvinist, that phantasm of a morbid or dreaming imagination, cannot fail to have his moral sentiments corrupted, and to become deceptive, shuffling, treacherous, and eventually insensible to the misery ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... find Mr. Millard, a Frenchman, who is an employe of Mr. Bowling's, and is going back to Tezcuco with us; and we walk down to the canal with him, half a dozen Indian porters with baskets following us, and trotting along in the queer shuffling way that is habitual to them. At the landing-place we find a number of canoes, and a crowd of Indians, men and women, in scanty cotton garments which show the dirt in an unpleasant manner. A canoe is going ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... Deerfoot could not stifle a feeling of resentment over the contemptuous behavior of Taggarak toward him. Instead of contenting himself with merely challenging the Shawanoe to mortal combat, he sent him word that all that was left for him to do was to choose between two methods of shuffling off the mortal coil. It was to be the Spirit Circle or by the knife of the Blackfoot. This scornful treatment of the youth angered him, and it was one of the reasons why he decided to adopt a policy which in other circumstances he would have ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... to his father, who, dropping the plow-line with which he had intended to tie Simon's hands, turned his back to that individual, in order to prevent his witnessing the operation of mixing. He then sat down, and very leisurely commenced shuffling the cards, making, however, an exceedingly awkward job of it. Restive kings and queens jumped from his hands, or obstinately refused to slide into the company of the rest of the pack. Occasionally a sprightly knave would insist on facing his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... really a matter of common sense: We expect third graders to read and do math at the third grade level — and that's not asking too much. Testing is the only way to identify and help students who are falling behind. This nation will not go back to the days of simply shuffling children along from grade to grade without them learning the basics. I refuse to give up on any child — and the No Child Left Behind Act is opening the door of opportunity to all of America's ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... expedients must necessarily prove false and hollow. "Though a lie be ever so well dressed," says George Herbert, "it is ever overcome." Downright lying, though bolder and more vicious, is even less contemptible than such kind of shuffling and equivocation. ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... have the big front chamber?" said the little boy, shuffling his feet, and looking down at ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... manuscript on the pulpit, the lecturer began to read in a mechanical voice. The restless shuffling of feet and a volley of dry coughs soon spoke the hostile attitude of the audience, a longing for the coming of Valerian Harassan. The Professor did not heed them. He read on, pompous phrases such as might have come from the lips of ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... he could not estimate. When the door was closed the prisoner lay with his head leaning against it, and for a time the silence was intense. By and by he found that by turning his head so that his ear was placed against the panel of the door, he heard distinctly the footfalls outside, and even a shuffling sound near him, which seemed to indicate that a man was on guard at the other side of the oak. Presently some one approached, and in spite of the low tones used, Wilhelm not only heard what was being said, but recognised the voice of von Brent, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... a glare of ice. Matilda was afraid, and went cautiously; Maria and the others took the opportunity for a grand slide, and ran and slipped and slid and sailed away homewards, like mad things. One after another, they passed her and rushed along, till Matilda was left the last, slowly shuffling her little feet over the track the feet of the others had made doubly slippery; when quick steps came up behind her, and a pleasant ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner
... reached to within an inch or so of the pavement, that it would have been impossible for a passer-by to have decided whether it was that of a man or a woman; but the manner in which it bent, added to a shuffling uncertainty of gait—a sort of "feeling the way" movement of the feet—as Mr. Narkom guided it across the pavement to the door, suggested either great age or a state of total blindness: an affliction, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... cracked a special signal. Whereupon, instead of ignoring the hoop as he had done before, he stuck his head through it and marched off with it hanging on his neck. All four hoops he gathered up in this way, and, retiring with them to his place, stood shuffling restlessly and grunting with impatience until he was relieved of the ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... come in, when Edith and the doctor appeared at the bottom of the alley, but her tone changed when she recognized the doctor, and she said, by way of apology, that she didn't like her daughter to dance before strangers. So the music and the dance went on, even little dots of girls and boys shuffling about in a stiff-legged fashion, with applause from all the windows, and at last a largesse of pennies—as many as five altogether—for the musicians. And the sun fell ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Judge's bench sat John C. Underwood, a crawling, shambling, shuffling, ignorant demagogue who had set a new standard of judicial honor and dignity. He had selected one of the handsomest homes in Virginia, ordered it confiscated as a Federal judge, and made his wife buy it in and convey it to ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... the prisoner, the shuffling of the jury, the calling over and swearing in of the witnesses, the reading of the charge began. The narrow-chested, pale-faced secretary, far too thin for his uniform, and with sticking plaster on his check, read it in a low, thick bass, rapidly ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... He sat up and listened, putting out his hand to where his rifle stood in the corner near his bunk. The lad heard stealthy footsteps pattering about on the deck of the airship. There was a soft, shuffling sound, such as a lion or a tiger makes, when walking on bare boards. In spite of himself, Tom felt the hair on his head beginning to creep, and a shiver ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... here almost excluded. With great difficulty and much entreaty, the visitors prevailed on three grown-up ladies to stand up to perform the Otaheitan dance, which they consented to with a reluctance that showed it was done only to oblige them. It was little more than a shuffling of the feet, sliding past each other, and snapping their fingers. They did not long continue this diversion, considering it as too great a levity, and only the three beforementioned ladies could be prevailed on ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... of rice from each village. They are accustomed to carry burdens of from sixty to ninety pounds weight on journeys that take them twenty or thirty days; and it astonishes a lowlander to see with what ease they walk over these hills, generally going a shuffling or ambling pace. Their loads are placed in a long triangular basket, supported by a fillet across the forehead, resting upon the back and back part of the head, the broadest end of the triangle being uppermost, considerably above the head, and the small end coming down as low as the loins. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the Red Schoolhouse. Examinations were over; books laid aside. And the walls re-echoed to thrilling sounds,—to happy voices and shuffling feet, to poetry, marches, and songs. They were practising for Commencement, for Closing Day. And at home the parents were busy, too, making white dresses and sashes for the girls, buying new suits for the boys in town, or making some over ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... glad to make you my compliments," said Mr. Gusher, making one of his best bows, and moving backward with a shuffling motion, "I am so glad to make you my friend," he continued, bowing and placing his right hand on his heart. Mattie's beauty was quite up to the picture Mr. Gusher had drawn of it in his imagination. But her manner was so cold and formal that it not only disappointed but annoyed him. Instead of ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... Instinctively she approached him, and for the first and last time he touched lightly with his cold lips the forehead of her he loved so well. They mounted the steps, she leaning on his arm, and entered the rose-coloured boudoir where the marchioness was seated, impatiently shuffling the cards, while ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... in predicting a crisis; much less to tell when it begins to be nascent, or is fairly midwived into the world. But I should say the world was at the eve of the highest scene of earthly power and grandeur, that has ever yet been displayed to the view of mankind. The cards are shuffling fast through all Europe. Who will win the prize is with God. This, however, I know, detur digniori. The next universal monarchy will be favorable to the human race; for it must be founded on the principles of equity, ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... eye of the setting sun, beautiful, yet weird and menacing. It broadened, deepened, and every day countless streams swelled its volume. Islands waded in it greenly. Always we heard it singing, a seething, hissing noise supposed to be the pebbles shuffling on the bottom. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... for a long time he lay, listening. Was there another person in the room? Mr. Grimm's ears were keenly alive for the inadvertent shuffling of a foot; or the sound of breathing. Nothing. Even the night roar of the city was missing; the silence was oppressive. At last he opened his eyes. A pall of gloom encompassed him—a pall without one rift of light. His fingers, moving slowly, ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... southern side of the Seine. Then came the clatter of cavalry—the rattle of horses' feet, and the ominous clank of empty scabbards against spur and buckle. A word of command, and a scrambling halt. Then silence again, broken only by the shuffling of feet (not too well clad) in ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... have possessed—were extortion and the uprooting of the last vestiges of civilization and law; his instruments, the dagger and the lash; his amusement, the torture of unwitting offenders; his serious occupation, the shuffling of cards. For gambling the man had an insatiable thirst; he played once for forty hours without intermission; it was death to refuse a game with him; no one might cease playing without his express commands; no one durst win the stakes; and as a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... pale yellow light of the oil lamp on the Commandants desk fell on the military faces, figures and trappings of the men in the room. The shuffling tramp of soldiers in the dark street below died away in the direction of the river. I felt the military tenseness of the scene. I realised that I was inside the German lines on a bluff that was succeeding but might ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... eldest with him until little Flora's head dropped, heavy with sleep, on his breast. Then a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and he sent them, almost hurriedly, away. He had scarcely done so when there was a shuffling noise in the hall, the parlor-door was flung open with a jar, ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... one class, and all the penuriousness and rapacity in another, which met in the dissolute indolence of a peace of twenty years. But a more striking feature in these "Ordinaries" showed itself as soon as "the voyder had cleared the table." Then began "the shuffling and cutting on one side, and the bones rattling on the other." The "Ordinarie," in fact, was a gambling-house, like those now expressively termed "Hells," and I doubt if the present "Infernos" exceed the whole diablerie ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... A shuffling of feet on the stairs told that she had been heard, and presently the not unkindly face of Samanthy Hobbs made its way into ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... the shuffling of many feet for an instant—then a pause, a pause which was full of awe—then, with a roar like thunder, six hundred throats broke into wild applause for Jesus, whom such people ever gladly heard; and straightway, for the first time in the history of organized ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... see clearly the quiet upper lights, His sure guides. These forty days gave Him the true perspective. Things worked into proportion. He never lost this wilderness perspective. The wilderness means to Him alone with God, the false perspective, the flaming of near lights, the noise of men's shuffling feet all gone. And when He went out among men for work, that wilderness atmosphere went with Him. And when the crowds thickened, and work piled up, and dangers intensified, off He would go for a ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... crookedness and collusion between the Crown officers and Sir Peregrine Maitland. Each of the two officers concerned, immediately upon receiving his summons, caused the fact to be communicated to the Lieutenant-Governor, and each wrote a shuffling letter to the Chairman of the Committee. Later in the day the Lieutenant-Governor positively declined to permit the attendance of the persons summoned, assigning as a reason that he had not been made acquainted with ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... features are regular. His beard is worn around the throat and under the chin, and is perfectly white. His hands are small and soft; but his feet and legs are awkward and clumsy, and this gives to him a peculiar shuffling motion in walking. He is abstracted in manner, and when accosted suddenly replies abruptly, and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe |
