"Telltale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I was on the threshold of the hotel, I met Falfani full, as he came running out excitedly, holding in his hand the telltale blue envelope, which, with his elated air, indicated clearly that he had ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... emotion in the presence of her former sweetheart—only in her domineering eyes one might have seen an intenser sparkle, a glint of golden fire,—telltale evidence of yearnings unconfessed. And a happy year went rapidly by. But the money which penny by penny had been painfully assembled in the wretched store where Rosario had been born, streamed away between the fingers of the spendthrift ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... look of astonishment annoyed the Master, even while it hurt him. He took scant pleasure in rebuffing this old friend; but certainly "Captain Alden" would not bear discussing. Feeling himself in a kind of impasse regarding Alden, and fearing some telltale expression in his eyes, the Master swung up his binoculars and once more swept the cloud-horizons ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... what you like, but save appearances." A dignified hypocrisy none disobey. These men and women, with the historic names, dare not show each other what they are. There was no flirting, no romping, no loud laughter; not a loud word—no telltale glances, no sitting in corners. It was a pose throughout. Men bowed ceremoniously, and addressed as strangers ladies with whom they spent every evening. Husbands devoted themselves to wives whom they never saw but in public. Innocence may betray ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... are now under ban; which seemed at one time to have been formed almost at pleasure, the only condition being that the combination should be a happy one—I mean all those singularly expressive words formed by a combination of verb and substantive, the former governing the latter; as 'telltale', 'scapegrace', 'turncoat', 'turntail', 'skinflint', 'spendthrift', 'spitfire', 'lickspittle', 'daredevil' (wagehals), 'makebate' (stoerenfried), 'marplot', 'killjoy'. These with a certain number of others, have held their ground, and may be said to be still more or less in use; but what a number ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... thought till her cheeks burned and her temples throbbed; but she dared not ease her pain with tears. The gong sounded like a Judgment-Day trump of doom, and she trembled at the idea of confronting many eyes with such a telltale face; but she could not stay behind, for Aunt Pen must know the cause. She tried to play her hard part well; but wherever she looked, some fresh anxiety appeared, as if every fault and folly of those months had blossomed suddenly within the hour. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... strength she never dreamed she possessed, she was about to hit him again when he seized the cane and threw it away. But across his pale, handsome face lay a telltale red mark, the smart of which burned into ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... sample of the Spaniard's favorite fruit tightly clutched in my black hand, and pulling my battered straw hat lower in concealment of my telltale hair, I made awkward attempt to shuffle along behind him, as he carelessly advanced toward the after part of the vessel. But I loitered along our passage to examine so many objects of curiosity, asking such a ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... observation, Wabigoon saw at once that the old pathfinder was right. The joint of the big toe on the right foot was twisted fully half an inch outward, a deformity that left a peculiar impression in the sand, and every other track bore this telltale mark. No sooner were the two boys convinced of the correctness of Mukoki's assertion than another and still more startling surprise was sprung on them. Holding out his ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... his shoulders. "Why, I'll keep on this trail till my legs is wore off above my boots!" and he turned to guide his pony up a little branch trail at the top of which stood a tent with the telltale ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... waxed more angry, and they heard Bertha declare, "You're a horrid old telltale! Go on and tell, if you want to, and I'll tell what you stole out of father's desk ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... start on level ground," said Barrington, "the ground which was of your own suggesting—friendship. I do not believe my face is a telltale one, but would you feel confident that I would do you ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... about to break into angry tears on Elinor's neck, but the brisk and significant air with which Griffin spoke roused her to herself again. She put Elinor's arms away, and going to the mirror, smoothed her tumbled hair, and whisked away the telltale traces of her collapse, while Elinor sat quietly on the edge of the couch ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... the deck, he had heard Mark cry an order to the man at the wheel. The telltale in the after cabin ceiling told him the Nathan Ross had changed her course again ... for Mark's island.... In the face of men, he had held himself steady and calm.... But now, alone in his cabin, he strained ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... said Uncle Teddy, vainly trying to stifle a telltale yawn. Uncle Teddy was secretly wishing that Katherine had overslept with the rest of them and did not have such a tremendous idea of good sportsmanship. But, being a thorough sport, he shook himself out of his drowsiness and shouted the ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... it working out?" said Snorky at eleven P.M., producing the crackers and cheese, after having blinded the windows and hung a blanket over the telltale cracks of ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... a telltale. Now I'll go and tell papa. You got into a fine scrape for calling me ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... when the snow is on the ground, indeed, that we take our four-foot census of the woods. How often we learn with surprise from the telltale white that a fox was around our hen house last night, a mink is living even now under the wood pile, and a deer—yes! there is no mistaking its sharp-pointed un-sheep-like footprint—has wandered into our woods from the ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... could hardly believe in his escape. For the time being, at least, he stood safe. It would be easy enough later to "lose" the telltale side line in the waters of the lake. Manuelito cursed his folly in having used the knife at all. Haste prompted that piece of bad judgment. He could have unbuckled them just as well. But all the same he blessed ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... trace of guilt in the face or eyes of any of them, a clue to the guilty party. He "made faces" to try to cause the guilty one to laugh. He gesticulated, grimaced, did everything he could think of, but they looked blank and unconcerned, or all laughed together, allowing no telltale look to appear on their faces. His pantomimes sometimes brought out the guilty one, but in case they did not, his last resort was to risk a guess, and so he made his selection. If he was right he took the boy to his side; if wrong, he stayed ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... the deck of the radar bridge, and with each turn, he glanced at the radar scanner where Roger was waiting anxiously for the telltale blip of the ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... arm. Her chatter had dwindled to sighs and exclamations. He felt the need of a competing sound as the chug of the spearhead in the ditch should announce the discomfiture of the West Germans. But before committing the telltale runes to this ditch, Hauptmann scanned it carefully over Linda's curly head, and considered thoughtfully its worthiness to receive so important a deposit. The survey could not have been more reassuring. ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... was slanting toward the latitude Bridget requested. The Pacific rolled up under the atomjet's polished nose, which sparkled with myriads of brighter star reflections. Then he recalled he couldn't play over the ocean and veered slowly northward, up the coast to the telltale configuration of ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll
... she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began streaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, had already cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel the waiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the official cage had fallen to arranging the mail ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... I, furtively watching that telltale hand, "I myself should prefer a slice of roast beef—or ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... loved me—oh, what pride in the thought!—but Mr. Allison had a secret, or why did he so often break off abruptly in some telltale speech and drop his eyes, which were otherwise always upon me. Something not easy to understand lay between us—something which he alternately defied and succumbed to, something which kept him from being quite the good man I had pictured myself as marrying. Why I was so ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... lights behind them. Only the one door that he had come through showed the telltale glow from the other ...
— Viewpoint • Gordon Randall Garrett
... flowers, To justify a life of sensuous rest, A question dear as home or heaven was asked, And without language answered. I was blest! Blest with those nameless boons too sweet to trust Unto the telltale confidence of song. Love to his own glad self is sometimes coy, And even thus much doth seem to do him wrong; While in the fears which chasten mortal joy, Is one that shuts the lips, lest speech too free, With the cold touch of hard reality, Should turn its priceless ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... I came to get my umbrella, that is, to see how your father finds himself today," said Mr. Brooke, getting a trifle confused as his eyes went from one telltale face ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... The telltale flush crimsoned Donnegan's face. And if the fight had begun at that moment no power under heaven could have saved Lord Nick from the frenzy ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... never ought to have heard about it, and you never would have done if Uncle Bruce had not been such an old telltale. Just wait till I get him alone; that's all. Anyhow, he didn't think it a heinous crime did he ? I expect he gave a great laugh that startled every one ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... mother of Ottar saw that this woman, though bestained and faded, and covered with a meagre cloak, was the scion of some noble stock; and took her, and with honourable courtesy kept her by her side in a distinguished seat. For the beauty of the maiden was a sign that betrayed her birth, and her telltale features echoed her lineage. Ottar saw her, and asked why she hid her face in her robe. Also, in order to test her mind more surely, he feigned that a woman was about to become his wife, and, as he went up into the bride-bed, gave Sigrid ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the sudden brightness. He had passed along the shore within twenty yards of me, through dense underbrush,—as I found out from his tracks next morning,—yet so silently did he push his great bulk through the trees, halting, listening, trying the ground at every step for telltale twigs ere he put his weight down, that I had heard no sound, though I was listening intently in the dead hush that was ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... head and surprised Hetty looking at the lad with all her heart in her eyes. At the same moment Nathan turned, and before he could conceal the telltale ardor of his glance, it had sped to Hetty. With the instinct of self-preservation he stooped instantly as if to steady the saw on the pole, but it was too late to mend matters: his tale was told so far as Susanna was concerned; but it was better ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... as being the nearest possible point where water might be procured. The station-master gave her a tin can and filled it for her; and ten minutes later she set about scrubbing the tinker free of all the telltale make-up of melodrama. It was accomplished—after a fashion, and with persistent rebelling on the tinker's part and scolding on Patsy's. And, finally, to prove his own supreme indifference to physical disablement, he tore the can from her administering hands, threw it ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... The telltale "he" brought a flush to Alice's face and the "Dick Harding" deepened it. Alice buried her face in the fragrant posy to hide ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... into his wild horse's flanks, and dashed along the road with the lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving a wound behind it,—sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the telltale explosion,—is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, and shield, was the almost ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... jumped and Deston turned to his wife. "Stay here at the port, Bobby. Wrap one leg around that lever, to anchor you. What does your telltale read? That gauge there—your radiation meter. It reads twenty, same as mine. Just pink, so we've got a minute or so. I'll roust out some passengers and toss 'em to you—you toss 'em along in ...
— Subspace Survivors • E. E. Smith
... her; but as he moved a chair for Maud, she saw on the one ungloved hand a little scar which she remembered well, for he received it in saving her from a dangerous fall. At the sight all the happy past rose before her, and if her telltale eyes had not been averted they would have betrayed her. A sudden flush of maidenly shame dyed her cheek as she remembered that last ride, and the childish confidences then interchanged. This Helen was the little sweetheart whose picture he wore, and now, in spite of all obstacles, he had ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... a small, and, in itself, an unimportant Kingdom with Mediterranean sea-front, called Galavia," said Blanco. Benton's start was slight, and his features if they gave a telltale wince at the word became instantly casual again in expression. But his interest was no longer forced by courtesy. It hung from that ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... Virgie, breathing very fast; but she too had heard it—a sound above them, a scraping sound, as of someone lying flat along the rafters and shifting his position and, while she spoke, a telltale bit of plaster fell, and broke as it ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... how it had happened. Over and over during the past six hours he had retraced his steps mentally, trying to visualize the trail, trying to locate the telltale marks he had made with his jungle knife, and so find Major Connel, Tom, and Roger. It was dark now and the big cadet had to face the dangerous jungle alone. He laughed ironically. Connel had given him the point because he knew the jungle! And now he ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... an' not so long ago, neither?" he said, darting ferret eyes now at the telltale marks and now into the quarry beneath or through the solemn ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... spot. This he marked, and dodging and circling, like a hound on a scent, the Snipe ran his trail from his first tiny spot to the trees near the creek where the horses had been left. Doubling, he patiently tracked the telltale spots up the path that led to the cabin. Then he called ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... notion of the cause. The significant word has hit upon a subconscious association with some emotional complex. The blocking of the mind is an effort of the resistance to keep the painful ideas out of consciousness. The telltale word then furnishes a starting point for ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... herself blush for the dismay she had not been able to conceal, and to hide this embarrassment she lifted to her face—not the handkerchief or the bouquet with which beauty is wont to cover the telltale signal in the cheek, but a wee dog, as white as a handkerchief and no less sweet than a bouquet. She rubbed her nose fondlingly in the soft silk of his breast, while, tickled, he tried, with baby growls and an exposure of sharp pin teeth, to ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... I saw another sacrifice; I overtook small shrivelled forms, children they were, by the dim dawn. How their immature coughings racked my heart and gave me that strange tightening of the chest! I could not keep my eyes from the ground whence came the sound of small telltale splashes, after each cough. Many times I stopped to hold a child ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... bone and muscle in him aching from his long night of tedious exertion, the chuckle grew into a laugh as he looked upon the telltale ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... picked up the hatchet and thrust it into his belt, took one quick glance about the room to make sure that no telltale article remained, and slipped up the ladder. There was a loud knock on the door, and Menard opened it. ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... the electric illumination of the hold, the blackness was positive, with the palpable quality of an element, relieved alone by the dull glow of the binnacle housing the gyroscope telltale, from which the faintest of golden reflections struck back to pick out a pair of seemingly severed fists gripping the handles of the bridge steering wheel with a singular ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... the line in Fritz' territory we could see our shells bursting. The telltale flash meant that the Huns were getting a dose of severe medicine, though we could at that moment only guess at the destruction that was being wrought. Later we were to see the havoc worked by ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... shoes, which I will not divulge into your capacious ears until later. Suffice it to say, however, that the reason I made you people walk out on the wet grass yesterday was not because I own stock in a cough-and-cold medicine company, as you might think, but because I wanted whatever telltale stains there might be on the six pairs of shoes (indicating to my trained eye where their owner had been recently) to become moistened and to stick more firmly to the shoes, so they wouldn't dry up and get knocked off before I could grab the shoes and inspect them. You see, Watson, there are more ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... have not starved my curiosity altogether," said Clara, smiling, "but have given it a little hope to feed on for the present, I think, woman though I am, I can promise all you wish. Seriously, Basil," she continued, "that telltale locket of yours has so pleasantly brightened some very gloomy thoughts of mine about you, that I can now live happily on expectation, without once mentioning your secret again, till you give ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the stairs I fell into thought, and made a mental survey of all these people as they stood in respect to myself. Alphonse had progressed, as was visible on his telltale face, from suspicion to something near hostility. Isabella—always a puzzle—was more enigmatic than ever; for she showed herself keenly alive to my faults, and made no concealment of her distrust, though she threw open her house to me with a persistent and almost anxious hospitality. Here ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... tender touch of her maid a wilted hand, lifted by a stiffened arm, the raising of which pumped a groan from the lady. The white glove which incased the hand and arm was smutched liberally in telltale fashion. ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... protested, however, that he was quite all right really, and, as his landlady did not mention the subject again, he recovered a portion of his equilibrium. And during the following week he gradually gained more and more confidence. The telltale certificate hidden in his bureau drawer was, of course, a drawback to his peace of mind, and the recollection of his recent outbreak of prevarication and deception was always a weight upon his conscience. But, to ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... externally quite like all the others in town, and their playground, beaten bare like that of the Washington Street School, was filled with laughing, shouting children, ranging from shoe-black through coffee-color to those occasional tragic ones with white skin and blue eyes, but with the telltale kink in the fair hair and the bluish half-moon at ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the coming of the night and on account of the prevalence of the fog he would find that shipping of the ordinary sort had stopped moving. However, in a few minutes he heard telltale whistles ahead, and he signaled half speed. A lumbering old lighter with a yawing derrick passed close aboard. An auxiliary fisherman, his exhaust snapping like a machine-gun, and seeming to depend on that noise for ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... hadn't moved. Of course, he couldn't understand what Farmer Brown's boy was saying. Nor could he see what Farmer Brown's boy was doing. So he held his breath and hoped and hoped that he hadn't been discovered. And perhaps he wouldn't have been but for that telltale nest-egg on the floor. That was the cause of all his troubles. First it had angered Jimmy Skunk because as you remember, it had fallen on Jimmy's head. Then it had led Farmer Brown's boy to look in all the nests. It had ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... was certain, for during the month that she had been at the Double R—riding out almost daily with him—he had forced her to see that he had taken a liking to her—more, she herself had observed the telltale signs of something ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... shaken herself for the telltale, inevitable rush of blood that overspread her face. If Rose saw, she made no sign; she had ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... Just as the long shadows were stretching across all the valleys from hill to hill, and the sun vanished into the last gray bank of clouds on the horizon, my deer recrossed the old road, leaping it, as in the morning, so as to leave no telltale track, and climbed the hill to the dense thicket where they ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... horses were loath to run, but we urged them to it. When we had covered half this open road, we took to the sod at the roadside to avoid raising a telltale cloud of dust. After a hard gallop we reached a forest where the road again left the river. Here we halted to breathe our horses and to watch the road on the right bank. After ten minutes we became uneasy and began to fear that the duke's cavalcade had passed us, but ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... and about Baxter, sir. I am not a telltale, but certain things have happened which I think Captain Putnam should know for his own sake and for ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... dangling empty by its chain, and held firmly between its jaws was the frozen leg of a marten. The keen eyes of 'Merican Joe saw at a glance that the animal had neither gnawed nor twisted its own way out of the trap but had been torn from it by violence. The Indian scowled darkly at certain telltale tracks in the snow, and an exclamation of ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... him for several moments, until a puff of wind carried the telltale scent to the moose, who ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... in Winnipeg that he did not know; not a policeman in Winnipeg that had not seen his swift and shadowy form in the gray dawn as he passed where he would; not a Dog in Winnipeg that did not cower and bristle when the telltale wind brought proof that old Garou was crouching near. His only path was the warpath, and all the world his foes. But throughout this lurid, semi-mythic record there was one recurring pleasant thought—Garou never was ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the persons on board, should have been the object of so unusual an assault. He was in the disagreeable plight of having subjected her to danger, and as they entered the brilliant saloon he freed himself of the ulster with its telltale gash and sought to minimize her ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... book, and the photograph was back where she had first discovered it, face downward under the box of chocolates. And she was now standing by the window, her veil drawn tightly over her close little hat, so that one might not read the trouble in her telltale eyes. The daisy drooped now, as if withered ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... thing I found, it was behind the hemlocks when I quartered the sides of the road in the silence and the frost-fog: and it was nothing but a patch of shell ice. But the flimsy, crackling stuff was crushed into two cup-like marks, as plainly telltale as if I had seen a man fall on his knees in them. And by them, frozen there, were a dozen ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... of the most precious gifts ever given, if the value of gifts is gauged by the measure of self-sacrifice involved. In that little book was immortal love—old laughter—old tears—old beauty which had bloomed like a rose years ago, holding still its sweetness like old rose leaves. She removed the telltale fly-leaf; and late on the night before Sylvia's birthday, the Old Lady crept, under cover of the darkness, through byways and across fields, as if bent on some nefarious expedition, to the little Spencervale store where the post-office was kept. She slipped the thin parcel ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... those passengers who are bored from reading, or poker, or promenading, or simply are incompetent to amuse themselves without external assistance, Peter ignored the dozen pair of curious and interested eyes which were focussed on his white uniform as he passed, with those telltale chevrons of golden sparks at the sleeves, strode into the wireless cabin, hastily closed the door, locked it, and thereupon gave ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... after a pause, she continued, "I found your note, Lizzie, and I am sorry that I have such a telltale face; but I am unhappy, Lizzie; yes, I am miserable, and I cannot conceal it. I would not obtrude my sorrow upon others, but it is my face and not my tongue ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... seemed as if the record in my pocket burned—spontaneously—so intense was my feeling. There in the glass was that fatal, telltale white precipitate. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... Hepson. "Then get back to your room. Get out clean linen and get into it. While you're doing that I'll negotiate the loan of a dress coat that will fit. Then you can go to the O. C., after you've changed the telltale linen." ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... the telltale flush, and slowly shaking his head, remarked, "I don't know, Leslie, about the advisability of leaving you here; you were always inclined to be very philanthropic, and it would be like you to adopt some young man out here, thinking you had money ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... through the streets loaded with armed men. There were crowds looking for a telltale face in their own midst. Guards, deputies, coppers were surrounding houses and peering into alleys, raiding saloons, ringing doorbells. The whole city was on his heels. The city was like a pack of dogs sniffing wildly for his trail. And when they found it they ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... following them. What was that? A finger-print? Upon the left side half way up a tiny smudge was visible. Barney examined it more carefully. A round, white figure of the conventional design that was burned into the tile bore the telltale smudge. ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mean there should be some chance for discovering telltale imprints near by. Max was unusually clever with regard to such things; and always thought of them first when there was a ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... been burning for an hour and had spread so alarmingly before the gusty breeze that it threatened several claim-shacks before they noticed the telltale, brownish tint to the sunlight and smelled other smoke than the smoke of the word-battle then waging fiercely among them. They dropped stakes, flags and ditch-level and ran to where their horses waited sleepily the pleasure of ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... was plainly fencing for time to regain her composure. Jimmy looked so big and strong and DEAR there in the door of the summerhouse that she feared her eyes had been surprised into a telltale admiration, if not more. ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... objections, and having rolled himself in his blankets was almost immediately asleep and breathing heavily. The moment Dan heard his companion draw breath with a telltale regularity, he sat up again in his blankets. Bart was instantly at his side. He patted the shaggy head lightly, and pointed ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... the corpse, and gazes for a moment after the retreating form of his friend; then he picks up the handkerchief; it is of softest linen, and across one corner he reads the embroidered name of Clifford Heath. For a moment he stands with the telltale thing held loosely in his hand, and then he bends down, spreads it once more over the dead face, and turns to ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... of probable danger from the "bronchos," she had sent up those telltale puffs of smoke. During the flight across the Basin she had changed from boots to moccasins, which he now knew to be of Apache style, if not of Apache make. They would account for the moccasin print behind ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... "Three cheers for the Admiral! I don't know what he ever done, but he looks as if he could, all right!" at which everybody cheered and roared, and the Admiral to his great surprise made a speech, during which the telltale tears appeared so often in his eyes and in his voice, that Osh Popham concluded privately that if the naval hero ever did meet an opposing battleship he would be likelier to drown the enemy than ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... bud. If, however, Sir M. should come to hear that I had flown for succour to the enemy's camp, I fear it would be all over with the bargain for which Anthony and I are selling our souls. T. Slaney says he never shall know. He guarantees that Cook labels and other telltale marks shall be removed from everything, though time is short and there is much to do. He will be the power behind the tents, and I will be in them, absorbing ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Cramcroud's last sociable, I think," replied Miss Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale. ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... were given, the transom was hung with heavy black canvas; a curtain of the same was so arranged as to permit its being drawn over the telltale cracks of the door. Dennis and Stover, sent to reconnoiter from the hall, waited while the Tennessee Shad passed a lighted candle back and forth over the sealed entrance. One traitor crack was discovered and ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... contained for furniture just two things—a stone bench upon which the captive might lie or sit and, let into the wall, a great iron ring, to which his chains were made fast so that he moved always to their grating accompaniment and the guard listening outside might know by the telltale clanking whether ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... The telltale color was again in his face, and his wretched diffidence returned. Neither courtesy nor his heart would permit him to ignore her and continue his conversation with Miss Martell. And yet it had seemed ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... lighted a cigarette and was smoking, sublimely unconscious of the blue smoke swirl that rose in telltale clouds high above her head. The baby had dropped asleep, and Claribel lay still. But her eyes were not on the ceiling; they were ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... current is one of the feeblest known to science, for the dynamo that generates it is no ponderous thing of copper wire and steel castings. It is just the heart itself. The heart sends over the wire its own telltale record to the machine which registers it. The thing takes us all the way back to Galvani, who was the first to observe and study animal electricity. The heart makes only one three-thousandth of a volt of electricity ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... Overslept The Dancing Man The Collision How Albert Sat In The Treasure in the Strong Box The Old-Fashioned Prosecutor The Unruffled Wife and the Gallus Husband Books Made to Balance The Two Unfettered Birds The Telltale Tintype ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... walked over here and robbed the store," suggested Silas Tripp, with withering sarcasm, as he held up the telltale ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... The telltale color rushed up into her cheeks as Mrs. Lancaster's eyes rested on her, and as it mounted, those blue eyes grew ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... This word of Scandinavian origin seems to unite the senses of 'grinning,' 'flattering' (see Love's Labour's Lost, V, ii, 109, and Ben Jonson's "fawn and fleer" in Volpone, III, i, 20), and 'sneering,' and so is just the right epithet for a telltale, who flatters you into saying that of another which you ought not to say, and then mocks you by going to that other and telling what you have said.—/Hold, my hand:/ stay! here is my hand. As men clasp hands in sealing a ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... forward with his elbows on his knees, murmuring lover's confidences behind the shield of his tilted hat, which hid from all but Evadna his smiling lips and his telltale, glowing eyes. He looked up at that last sentence, though it is doubtful if he had heard much of what she ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... whole repulsive, rotten business came back to me. And, changed man that I had become in the last six months, I saw myself as I had been. I felt that she was looking at me, was reading the degrading confession in my telltale features. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... there was to carry back to the anxious Katy, who on the afternoon of Morris' return from New York was over at Linwood waiting to pour his tea and make his toast, she pretended, though the real reason was shining all over her telltale face, which grew so bright and eager ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... telltale suspicion had not been at fault. I had printed those same lines, years ago, in "The Contributors' Club," to which I have rarely sent any of my prose or verse. Nobody but the editor has noticed the fact, so ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... be seen of them, though had the Allied pilots been able to use their ears, which was impossible when their own motors were making such loud noises, they might have heard, in the distance and to the east, the telltale music of Teuton propellers beating the air in a rush ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... haste he had dropped several garments upon the floor, and the telltale fur that had fallen partly within the corridor had proved the means of guiding me to the very spot he would least have wished me ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not all. He—he said I was a pretty little girl and that he was sorry I could not have my own way; that his present occupation was pleasant, and that the situation had its charm. The very idea. He was most impertinent," and Betty's telltale cheeks reddened ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... down again; and would not have done so had not the measured striking of the clock upon the chimney-piece reminded him that he was expecting a visit from Max. Then a curious change came over his deportment; he stood considering, glancing from the telltale volumes upon the table to the door through which he was presently expecting his son to enter. Then with a secretive look and a shake of the head, "Oh, dear me, no," he murmured very softly; and taking up the books he put them away in a drawer and locked ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... Again that telltale flush mantled the man's cheek. He cursed himself inwardly for his lack of self-control. The girl would have his whole secret out of him in another half-hour if he were not ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... beloved BROTHER, who was in the Bounty with Captain BLIGH at the Time of the FATAL MUTINY, which happened April 28th, 1789, in the South Seas, and who, instead of returning with the Boat when she left the Ship, stayed behind. Tell me, thou busy flatt'ring Telltale, why— Why flow these tears—why heaves this deep-felt sigh,— Why is all joy from my sad bosom flown, Why lost that cheerfulness I thought my own; Why seek I now in solitude for ease. Which once ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... not down at once. She was not down until she had taken time to bathe her red eyes, powder her telltale nose, smoothe her ruffled hair, and whip herself into the calm, steady-eyed, self-controlled young woman that Arkwright finally rose to meet when she came ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... devious turns which led to Sunset Rock, and arrived there just as the party, quite satisfied with the inspection of a view they had seen a score of times before, were ready to depart, his appearance upon the scene with the telltale pocket being greatly to the discomfiture of everybody concerned except Miss Stevens, who found herself unaccountably pleased that Sam's delay had been due to an accident, and able to believe his briefly told explanation at once. Miss ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... seemed like hours. Gradually, however, the leader of the silent ships drew nearer. There was no mistaking the telltale reports in the wireless room. Basing his calculations on the chief electrician's reports, McClure figured the leader of the oncoming squadron to be now not more than half a mile away and moving steadily forward toward the desired range—-a ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... pity, he thought of poor Coira O'Hara and of the pathetic wreck her life had fallen into. The girl was so patently fit for better things! Her splendid beauty was not a cheap beauty. She was no coarse-blown, gorgeous flower, imperfect at telltale points. It was good blood that had modelled her dark perfection, good blood that had shaped her long and slim ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... plain stood a log fort, with a blockhouse at each of its four corners. As we approached, I saw a herd of cavalry horses grazing under guard outside the walls of the post. They were small, stocky horses, but the telltale saddle galls proclaimed their calling. The flag flying from a tall staff inside the palisade was one which I had never ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a fine turkey, and done to a turn. But all along Trotter had been wondering just how he was going to get rid of those telltale bones. At the merriest moments of the feast the question of the corner in which they could be secreted or the aperture out of which they could be thrust had hung over him like a veritable sword ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... of the wives of a certain Prince because her presents were the poorest. Her Majesty told me to keep that tray in her room and said she would go over them and see what they were. I knew she was not pleased, for she had a telltale face. She told us to measure the silks and ribbons in that tray, and leave it in the hall. The ribbons were all of different lengths, all too short to trim a gown, and the dress materials were not of good quality. Her Majesty said to me: "Now you look for yourself. Are these good ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... two girls enjoyed during those few days in Tinkletown, Miss Bonner found much to love in Rosalie, much to esteem and a great deal to anticipate. Purposely, she set about to learn by "deduction" just what Rosalie's feelings were for the big brother. She would not have been surprised to discover the telltale signs of a real but secret affection on Rosalie's part, but she was, on the contrary, amazed and not a little chagrined to have the young girl meet every advance with a joyous candour, that definitely set aside any possibility of love for the supposedly irresistible ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... nearer. An old Mexican, ignorant, rough, and callous as he was, begged me, with tears streaming down his face, to retrace my steps. Alas, when would impulsive youth ever listen to wise counsel and take heed! I entered the ruins and saw a dark telltale pool oozing forth from under the door of a cellar. Oh, had I but then overcome my morbid curiosity and fled! But no! I must needs open the door and look in. I saw—I saw a beautiful whiskey barrel, its belly bursted and its head ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... at the sand, where telltale traces of her cousin's presence were plainly in evidence. From the entry door to the kitchen were tracks of snow, and on the sand in the kitchen there were wet spots where the snow had melted. Clearly they ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... the flooring, which lay about a foot below the level of the sill. I pick'd myself up and listen'd. Outside, the regular tramp of the sentry prov'd he had not heard me; and I drew a long breath, for I knew that without a lantern he would never spy, in the darkness, the telltale rope ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... changing their course after the nets have been set; but there appears to have been no instance of the destroyers themselves having been picked up by the periscope. This because they set pretty nearly as low as a submarine, and with their oil-burning propulsion give forth no telltale cloud of smoke. Other nets are hung from hollow glass balls, which the periscope cannot pick up against the sea water. These nets are set in profusion in the English Channel, the North Sea, or wherever submarines lurk, and they are tended just as the North River shad fishermen ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... hearing her voice and of looking into her dear face once more had passed, his skilled eyes probed the deeper. He noted with a sinking at the heart the dark circles under the drooping lids, the drawn, pallid skin and telltale furrows that had cut their way deep into her cheeks. Her eyes, too, had lost their lustre, and her step lacked the spring and vigor of her old self. The diagnosis alarmed him. Even the mould of her face, so distinguished, and to him so beautiful, had undergone ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... lightest riders possible. Their small figures brought out the legginess of the mares; beside the compact range horses their gait was sprawling, but the wise eye of Marianne saw the springing fetlocks kiss the dust and the long, telltale muscles. She cried out softly in admiration ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... went by. Pat had a telltale voice. Clear and musical, it had ever revealed to the mother the heart of her son. And its sadness and submission smote upon her as he said at last, "You may tell ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... was short-lived. The soothing quiet of the quarry calmed her, but her eyes showed telltale marks of tears as David's steps ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... more to do here now," he concluded. "I can see nothing for the present except to go back to New York. The telltale burn may not be the only clue, but if the thief is going to profit by his spoils we shall hear about it best in New York or by cable from London, Paris, or some ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the verses of the ancient singer made famous by Irish-English Fitzgerald. Her disguise was sufficient, only that her hair was so richly assertive. There was not any like it in the cattle country; very little like it anywhere. It was a telltale, precious possession, and Major King never could have made good a plea of hidden identity ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... eyes backward. Johnson, given by nature to bravado and bluster, was even more defiant in this supreme moment. He rode with a plug of tobacco in hand, biting off huge pieces frequently, more frequently squirting brown juices between lips white as the telltale ring around his mouth—a ring as expressive as the hollows beneath his glittering eyes. And Jim, ever worried, ever conscious of himself, sat in his saddle easily, now that he was about to reap the harvest of his ill-sown ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... cabinet-work; and one does not altogether see why it should be given to the gales, and the salt-sea atmosphere, to be tossed upon the waves, and occupied by a rude shipmaster in his dreadnaught clothes, when the fairest lady in the land has no such boudoir. A telltale compass hung beneath the skylight, and a clock was fastened near it, and ticked loudly. A stewardess, with the aspect of a woman at home, went in and out of the cabin, about her domestic calls. Through the cabin door (it being a house on deck) ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... we were told, had committed many depredations and had served one term for cattle stealing. Officers, disguised as prospectors, had taken employment with him and helped him kill and skin some cattle; the skins, with their telltale brands, having been partially burned and buried. On this ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... habits of the male biped she gleaned from the telltale hints of the inanimate garments that passed through her nimble hands. She could even tell character and personality from deductions gathered at heel and toe. She knew, for example, that F.C. (in black ink) was an indefatigable ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... the whistle is opened and we enter a tunnel. The effect is far more striking than in the daytime. The light is more concentrated, and the mouth of the tunnel we have just entered might be the entrance to Hades—for there is no telltale spot of light to prove to our senses the existence of any opening at the other end. The sound echoed from the walls and roof has a tremendous quality, and resolves itself into a grand sort of Wagnerian ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... their seats the three girls darted to and fro. The telltale spelling and copy-books were flung into the drawer of the chiffonier, and the key was turned on them. Polly, her immodest sampler safely hidden at the bottom of her workbox, was the most composed of the three; and while locks were smoothed and collars adjusted in the adjoining bedroom, she remained ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... waiting was over. The ship filled with vibration as Guns opened up. Twenty-five seconds to target. His eyes flicked from the sightscreen to the sky ahead, looking for the telltale flare of rockets—ready ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... story, as soon as he could recover from the fit of laughing into which Larry's persistence had thrown him. Andy wandered away, as though his modesty forbade his remaining where he could hear his praises sung. Perhaps he also disliked the idea of having those humorous eyes of Larry keep tabs on his telltale countenance while Frank was speaking of Alice, and of course remarking how very pretty the daughter of ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... man who labored with his hands—until one looked at them. His hands were in strange contrast to the rest of him. Long, slim, mobile hands they were, with tapering nervous fingers—the hands of a thinker or of a musician. Telltale splotches of acid told of hours spent in a laboratory, a tale that was confirmed by the almost ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... thought by Calvin Ross Shelby's audience the most telling of his speech, the first and second are unmistakably plagiarisms of ideas, while the third, differing from its original in but one telltale, damning word, is shameless, flat-footed theft. Either of the first two offences committed singly might be unconscious; conjoined they betray deliberation; united with the third they 'smell to heaven.' It is high time for the voters of this congressional district to ask ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther |
