"Boss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I found out later the F.B.I. had checked up on me to find out if I was a liar or a screwball. They went around to my boss, people in my neighborhood—even the pilots in my outfit. My outfit's still razzing me. I wouldn't report another saucer if one flew ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... all the leading astronomers of the country united in a petition to Congress, asking that the recommendation of the Secretary of the Navy should be carried into effect. After a very patient hearing of arguments on the subject by Professor Boss and others, the House Naval Committee reported unanimously against the measure, claiming that the navy had plenty of officers able to administer the observatory in a satisfactory way, and that there was therefore no ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... himself up into a more decorous position, and turned his eyes towards his boss. "I never knew yuh took any interest in ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... mercy sakes, ma'am," exclaimed Imogene, "you needn't be afraid so far as Kenelm's concerned. I do boss him around some, when I think it's needful, but it ain't my bossin' that worries him, it's that Hannah woman's. He says she's at him all the time. Don't give him the peace of his life, he says. He's a misunderstood man, he tells me. Maybe he is; there are such, you know. I've read ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... no yellow iron—I mean gold. Came sort of near starving before I got out. I sold my outfit and went back to Cripple and struck another job with the shovel and pick, digging prospect ditches. It was pretty tiresome work and pretty cold, too. So when I'd got a month's wages I told the boss he'd either have to put me underground or I'd quit. I said I was a miner and not a Dago. You see, I felt independently rich with a month's wages in my jeans—pockets, that is. The boss said I could quit. I've been wondering ever since," ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... boss," she thought, with a lazy little pout, as she shook off the blanket, flung her slippers free ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... the place," he said once, in a certain tone of exultation. "It must be; I've followed the directions to the letter, and there couldn't be two such dandy houses as that round here. And it is hers, in her own right, to boss over and to keep or to sell or to do as we ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... that young Turk who's boss around this house!" he magisterially proclaims almost every night when the youthful wails of protest start to come from the Blue Room ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... Duquesne afterward made Dad the boss of the mine, and when Mother, a girl of sixteen, came home from the California convent, where she had been at school, she saw him and fell in love with him. Grandfather Duquesne made an awful fuss, but ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... my company," groaned the rancher, causing a scramble at his words. The cow-punchers whipped off their hats to salute and the miners shuffled behind the daring cow-boys, the better to hide their faces from the "Boss." ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Carlun's, as he has heard it said, So Preciuse he bad his own be clept; Twas their ensign when they to battle went, His chevaliers'; he gave that cry to them. His own broad shield he hangs upon his neck, (Round its gold boss a band of crystal went, The strap of it was a good silken web;) He grasps his spear, the which he calls Maltet;— So great its shaft as is a stout cudgel, Beneath its steel alone, a mule had bent; ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... "He's boss of his district, they say. Runs a gambling-house of his own, I've heard. You can't prove ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... with an important "Huh, I know her brother John is a boss in the Mill. He was in the war, too, with Captain Charlie. Did he live in the old house when ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... "What! the boss? Ain't he got here yet?" asked the foreman. Tall and lean, with hardened muscles, Sage-brush Charley was as lithe as a panther on horseback. His first toy had been a rope with which, as a toddler, he had practised on the ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... modern to base his influence on religion alone, and he actually had the cleverness to become not only a banker, manufacturer, hotel-keeper, newspaper proprietor, editor and multi-millionaire, but also the principal of a college and the "boss" of a political party which acknowledged him as spiritual and temporal pope and numbered over sixty thousand adherents. He had ten tabernacles in Chicago, and ruled despotically the municipal affairs of one of the suburbs ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... a Discussion about the Reformatory between Editor West and his Dog-like Admirer, the City Boss; and a Briefer Conversation between West and Prof. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... 'Scuse me!" dat li'l' black Mose beg' an' plead, an' de ghostes ain't know whuther to eat him all up or not, 'ca'se he step' on de boss ghostes's chest dat a-way. But byme-by they 'low they let him go 'ca'se dat was an accident, an' de captain ghost he say', "Mose, you Mose, Ah gwine let you off dis time, 'ca'se you ain't nuffin' but a misabul li'l' tremblin' nigger; but Ah want you should ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... all my entries over again. Fifty thousand entries a year that poor wretch makes; and not ten out of the fifty thousand ever has to be referred to again; and when all the figures are counted up and the balance sheet made out, the boss isnt a penny the richer than he'd be if bookkeeping had never been invented. Of all the damnable waste of human life that ever was invented, clerking ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... grooved for twenty-seven ropes, which transmit the power direct to the various line shafts in the mill. The rope grooves are made on Hick, Hargreaves & Co.'s standard pattern of deep groove, and the wheel, which is built up, is constructed on their improved plan with separate arms and boss, and twelve segments in the rim with joints planed to the true angle by a special machine designed and made by themselves. The weight of the fly-wheel is about 60 tons. The condensing apparatus is arranged below, so that there is complete drainage from the cylinder to the condenser. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... said, hiding his mangled hand from the baggageman, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle. "I'm takin' 'm up for the boss to 'Frisco. A crack dog-doctor there thinks ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... Grinstun man, the owner of this sagacious dog, that buried this box till he had time to bring a waggon for it. These are samples of grindstone rock, and, if I am not a Dutchman, F means fair, M, middling, P, poor, and P.B., prime boss, and that is Miss Du Plessis. Gad! we've got her now, Jewplesshy, Do Please, Do Please-us, are just Du Plessis. It's a pleasant sort ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Massachusetts had been concerned, with the exception of General Butler, a different policy had been adopted. We had never attempted to make a political instrument of official patronage. There had never been anything like a "boss" or a machine. Our State politics had been conducted, and our candidates for office nominated, after the old fashion of a New England town meeting. When an election approached, or when a great measure or political ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... man I detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head of a family—the man who thinks he is "boss!" The fellow in the dug-out used that word "boss;" that was one of his ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... first he'd just bring her to the door when they'd be out to the theater, but by and by she got to taking him up to her room. Now it's none of my business to interfere with people's comings and goings in this house, being as I'm only the janitress. I have my orders from the boss—who's a real nice sort of man—to only rent rooms to respectable people, and to put anybody out where I knows there's bad conduct going on. He's strong on morals, the boss is. He used to be a saloon-keeper, and the Salvation Army converted him; and then ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... And my mama too and the two youngest sisters and the youngest brother stayed with me. I run away from him in '86. I went down the railroad about five miles and an old colored fellow give me a job. He used to belong to the railroad boss. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Malprimis of Brigal So his good shield is nothing worth at all, Shatters the boss, was fashioned of crystal, One half of it downward to earth flies off; Right to the flesh has through his hauberk torn, On his good spear he has the carcass caught. And with one blow that pagan downward falls; The soul of him ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... took it and got drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight; then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed him again for a week. But he said HE was satisfied; said he was boss of his son, and he'd make ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... boss?" sarcastically inquired Doubler. "Ain't you scared he'll git lost—runnin' around alone without ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the Republican "Boss" of the Twenty-first District, evidently eyed Roosevelt with some suspicion, for the newcomer belonged to a class which Jake did not desire to see largely represented in the business of "practical politics," and so he ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... Sir David Boss?' Mr Killegrew and Sir David were gentlemen of high standing, and destined for important offices in the Conservative party. 'There are ever so many people not here. Why, there's not above half of them down the room. What's up, Alfred? I ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Peter Cody, driven to speech by curiosity. "Say, Fom, do you let your sister boss you like that? I thought you ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... coverage or financial ruin. It means every morning millions of Americans go to work without any health insurance at all—something the workers in no other advanced country in the world do. It means that every year more and more hard working people are told to pick a new doctor because their boss has had to pick a new plan. And countless others turndown better jobs because they know, if they take the better job, they'll lose ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... United States. They want to know everything, but they stand on what they think is their right to tell a man nothing. That kind of attitude just doesn't wash. In fact, the chief value of such conversations is that it permits the junior to see his superior as a man rather than as a boss. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... better understanding about who is boss aboard here, I don't know as I'm afraid to have you at large," admitted the skipper. "I only warn you to remember your manners and ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... small cowry shell of remarkable beauty on dead coral in the Bay. At first sight it appeared as a brilliant scarlet boss on the brown coral, and upon touching it the mantle slowly parted and was withdrawn, revealing a shell of lavender in two shades in irregular bands and irregularly dotted with reddish brown spots; the apertures were richly ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Sunday, but it ain't Sunday and I've got it on. She said 'twas becomin' and the one I've been wearin' wasn't and that she crocheted it for me and I don't know what all. So here I am. Got so I ain't even boss ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... them assimilate that, and continued: "Now get this, all of you! Our boss, and—if he lives—our next senator, was the victim of a deliberate murder attempt, by Literate First Class Bayne, who threw out his supply of nitrocaine bulbs and then goaded him into a heart ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... more than two controlling spirits appear at a time, and as these pass into apogee younger men of approved capacity are ready to take their places. None had a meteoric rise, but in his day each became an absolute party boss; for the Constitution of 1777, by creating the Council of Appointment, opened wide the door to bossism. The abolition of the Council in 1821 doubtless made individual control more difficult, but the system left its methods so deeply impressed upon party management that what before was done ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... ones at that. They've had their time. Eh! They should have kept to the clever ones. But twice they held election. And Ostrog. And now it has burst out and nothing can stay it, nothing can stay it. Twice they rejected Ostrog—Ostrog the Boss. I heard of his rages at the time—he was terrible. Heaven save them! For nothing on earth can now, he has raised the Labour Companies upon them. No one else would have dared. All the blue canvas armed and marching! He will go through with it. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... as his wife was concerned Merle Duggan was gone. Dead and buried. She could get a divorce if she wanted and marry that podgy, pink-skulled boss of hers at ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... did not get near that apparatus in a hurry, not until the time came for fixing up the window. My first talk in regard to it had no reference to services in a scientific capacity on my part. I had rather hoped that the boss would come around and consult with, me as to how to adjust the apparatus. But that was not it. He said: "John, clean out that window. Everything is full of dust, and be careful and don't break anything!" So I ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... Boss" at Secret Service Headquarters in Washington sent Jack Ralston and his pal, Gabe Perkiser, to Florida with orders to comb the entire Gulf Coast from the Ten Thousand Islands as far north as Pensacola and break up the defiant league ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... Baas [Boss] Volckert Jan Pietersen Van Amsterdam kept a bake-shop in Albany, and lives in history as the man who invented New Year cakes and made gingerbread babies in the likeness of his own fat offspring. Good churchman though he was, the bane of his life was ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... that this is from the tenderloin of the three-year-old fat buffalo cow that I killed this morning," said he. "I always did like buffalo. We will break open some marrow bones about midnight, and I'll grill some boss ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... and Zwanziger grinned. His boss was a source of humour. At night, when he sat in his favourite tap-rooms over his beer, he would entertain his boon companions with the witticisms of Schimmelweis, and ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... they heat them not in the fire as we do; but hath a pretty device. They make the body of the iron a great deall thicker then ours, which is boss,[190] and which opens at the hand, which boss they fil wt charcoall, which heats the bottom of the iron, which besydes that its very cleanly, they can not burn themselfes so readily, since the hands ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... utter,—and I should have been false to all that is true and sacred, if I had let it pass. I said to them that there was one more word for me to add, and that was, that every one of them was as much entitled to his freedom as I was to mine, and I hoped they would all now secure it. "Believe you, boss," was the general response, and each one with his rough gravelly hand grasped mine, and with tearful eyes and broken utterances said, "God bless you!" "May we meet in Heaven!" "My name is Jack Allen, don't forget me!" "Remember me, Kent Anderson!" and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... note how he accounts for the fate of the Negro voter. He says that the Negro rising with the tide of democracy was about to be incorporated into the body politic, but that the habit of implicit obedience to overseers and a boss proved too strong. "These results," says he, "seemed to necessitate and to anticipate the elimination of the Negro as a voter." The decline of the political power of the Negro in Virginia is unfortunately considered ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... your life!" the boy replied. "I've got to stay here and boss the show. You'd better hurry along, too. It's Thursday morning and you know the people come in early. Lord, what a ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... boss—he go away sun-up but will come back pretty-dam-quick, yes, I think," the man explained, with many bows and smiles. Actually it was not English he spoke but a queer mixture of Spanish and American. "The boss Cojuelo, he makka the business with the Ingles at El Castillo de Ruiz. You no need ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... town. Never was there such a place—such organized success built on so much individual failure. From boss to water-boy we were failures all; so we understood each other. We haven't sworn brotherhood, but we're pulling together. Some of us had known no law, and most of us had a prejudice against it, but now we're making our own laws and we rather enjoy ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... know all about circuses, Toby, an' you shall be the chief boss of this one, an' we'll do just ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... become so; but they have not the consolation of feeling that their being thus immolated on the altar of an outraged but non-existent morality is doing them or anybody else any good. A prominent business man was put in a cell yesterday; a political boss arrives to-day; a college graduate, a judge, and a religious fanatic are expected next week. But business, politics, the Four Hundred, the Law and religion are no ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... is a grand winding river with fearfully steep banks, 380 feet almost straight up, which was a pull for our horses, the tracks being very, bad, and not well engineered, going perpendicularly up the hill. Mr. Macdonald is the "boss" at the fort, and had known two of our friends who were ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... not. I'm boss of the Blue Star Navigation Company, am I not? The man was in charge of the Shanghai office before you ever opened your mouth to discharge your ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... turning to Carter, "I could swing a maul and send a railroad spike into five inches of seasoned oak, and never miss once a week, and I'll bet that if I had to I could do it again. That was what your father used to do for a living, and if he hadn't worked up from a section boss to the presidency of a railroad you would have something else to do besides batting balls around a farm and then hunting for 'em. But I suppose you must like it ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... gazed in wondering delight at the stately trees, heavy with summer foliage, the herds of deer, the calm lake, with kingly swans gliding over it. Perhaps her greatest surprise was that all this fair domain belonged to one individual. Why, the richest "boss" in Canada possessed no more than a few acres of lawn and pleasure ground, with ornamental trees and shrubs,—all looking new,—the production of a self made man, grown rich within a few years. These stately oaks and beeches ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... let my work interfere with my pleasure! Anyway, that's the beauty of my line—I work when I please, not when my boss pleases." ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... mail and telegrams were also censored by the Superintendent and practically all of them denied the prisoners. Superintendent Whittaker openly boasted of holding up the suffragists' mail: "I am boss down here," he said to visitors who asked to see the prisoners, or to send in a note. "I consider the letters and telegrams these prisoners get are treasonable. They cannot have them." He referred to messages commending the women for choosing prison to silence, and bidding ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... asked, 'What is the color of your soul?' he returned his stereotyped 'Nothing to give out on that subject,' and then added, 'But it would be violating no confidence to tell you that Boss ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... me, from personal experience, which road to select, although their remarks on the subject recalled the darkie's advice to the cyclist as to the best of two pathways across a swamp: "Whichebber one you travels, Boss, I guess you'll be d——d sorry ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... to git you a horse, Duke; you'll have to ride up to the boss when you hit him for a job. He never was known to hire a man off the ground, and I guess if you was to head at him on that bicycle, he'd blow a hole through you as big as a can of salmon. Any of you fellers got a horse you want to trade the ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... real hummers, your boss and mine, when it comes to sheddin' the mazuma an' never mindin' other folks' feelin's. What did they do when they hit Linderman? The carpenters was just putting in the last licks on a boat they'd contracted to a 'Frisco bunch for six hundred. Sprague and Stine slipped ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... again, remembering that there was something about its bosses, too. He looked closely at them, then pressed. One boss slid a little under his finger and he felt a faint, ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... either stop altogether or run on half-time, or do with less hands. I thought I would call you together and ask your advice.' There may be a halt for a minute or two, and then one of the men will step up and say, 'Boss, you have been good to us; we have got to sympathise with you. I don't know how the others feel, but I propose we take off 20 per cent. from our wages, and when times get better, you can raise us,' and the ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... the porters called him "Bwana Mkubwa," which means "Great Master," and is applied to the chief man of a safari, regardless of who or what he is. It is merely a title that is always used to designate the boss. We told him that many natives we had met would invariably refer to him as the Sultana Mkubwa, or Great Sultan, because they had heard that he was a big chief ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... quit of the battle, and Sir Robin back on the land which he held. Nevertheless he put forth all his might and drew nigh, and fell on Sir Robin much hardly, and gave him a great stroke upon his shield so that he sheared it to the boss thereof. But Sir Robin laid a great stroke upon his helm, but he threw his shield betwixt and Sir Robin sheared it amidst, and the sword fell upon the neck of the horse, and sheared it amidst, and beat down straightway both horse and man. Then Sir ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... no work going on, which was a puzzle till Rolf remembered it was Sunday. He went boldly up and asked for the boss. His whole appearance was that of a hunter and as such the boss ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... thing," said Millard, "if Marshmallow, who pretends to be the boss of society, were to include more people of artistic and literary distinction such as we ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... fish, doesn't it? But he isn't." And then more slowly, "Shad's all right. He's just a plain woodsman, but he doesn't know anything about making the trees grow," she put in with prim irony. "You'll be his boss, I guess. He ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... swan to man!" cried the Captain, who always swore a little when his feelings got beyond his control; "Ardan, the Boss has got the rig on both of us this time, but rough as it is on you it is a darned sight more so on me. Be hanged if I did not think you were talking English the whole time, and I put the whole blame for not understanding you on the ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... own provisions were exhausted; and after that, we may be very sure their appetites would lose all delicacy, and they would necessarily and easily conform to the usages, as regards food, of the natives around them. We may strengthen our opinion by the direct and decisive testimony of Sir John Boss himself, who says: 'I have little doubt, indeed, that many of the unhappy men who have perished from wintering in these climates, and whose histories are well known, might have been saved had they conformed, as is so generally ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... stepped forward and now stood beside Greasy. Whatever excitement had resulted from the sudden discovery that his men had captured a rustler and were about to hang him, together with the strain of his hard ride to the cottonwood, had disappeared, and Hollis's voice was quiet as he addressed his range boss. ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Bluff, starting up from the soft, mossy cushion he had fashioned, after doing his little stunt with the ax; "count me in, please, and especially if your sister put it up, Frank, for I reckon it must be the boss feed then." ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... intervene between the proposal and the marriage, the young woman each day selects the choicest parts of the meat brought to the lodge,—the tongue, "boss ribs," some choice berry pemmican or what not,—cooks these things in the best style, and, either alone, or in company with a young sister, or a young friend, goes over to the lodge where the young man lives, ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... was called to order, and the boss carpenter naled a lot of old seccund hand planks togethur, wot they called a platform. Then the onherabel members, got orful full of 'nthusyasm, cos the nommernashun for Guvner, was in order, jest then my chum jimmy, wots workin for the Districk Telergraf Corn-penny ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... Americans entered and immediately after them a party of English officers, and then some more Americans. Each time the boss would gather up the lobster and personally introduce him to the newcomers, just as he had done in our case, by poking the monster under their noses and making him wriggle to show that he was really alive and not operated by clockwork, and ...
— Eating in Two or Three Languages • Irvin S. Cobb
... was reckoned the most popular man in the district (outside the principal township)—a white man and a straight man—a white boss and a straight sportsman. He was a squatter, though a small one; a real squatter who lived on his run and worked with his men—no dummy, super, manager for a bank, or swollen cockatoo about Jack Denver. ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... added Reuben, "that I wish every boy in this world had such a boss mother as I have. Ned Bolton says so, too;" with which unique expression of love and gratitude he kissed his mother "Good night" and went off to bed to dream of, well, what do you think? Of rattle-snakes, of mountains, or even of geography? Oh, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... said Fulkerson, disordering his hair. "Well, it's nuts for the colonel nowadays. He says if he was boss of this town he would seize the roads on behalf of the people, and man 'em with policemen, and run 'em till the managers had come to terms with the strikers; and he'd do that every time there ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Robert would gib me a pass. I wanted him to sell her, but he wouldn't hear to it, so I had to put up wid what I could git. Marse Robert war mighty good to me, but ole Gundover's wife war de meanest woman dat I eber did see. She used to go out on de plantation an' boss things like a man. Arter I war married, I had a baby. It war de dearest, cutest little thing you eber did see; but, pore thing, it got sick and died. It died 'bout three o'clock; and in de mornin', Katie, habbin her cows to milk, lef her dead baby ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... him there afterwards. It seemed to me he'd always been weedy in the chest, but he'd been working waist-deep in an icy creek, building a dam at a mine, until his lungs had given out. The mining boss was a hard case and had no mercy on him, but the lad, who seemed to have had a rough time in the Mountain Province, stayed with it until he ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay, I hope that it won't be hell-fire, as some of the parsons say. And I hope that it won't be heaven, with some of the parsons I've met— All I want is just quiet, just to rest and forget. Look at my face, toil-furrowed; look at my calloused hands; Master, I've done ...
— Songs of a Sourdough • Robert W. Service
... he said to the lady secretary when they were in the outer office, "I'll be your boss. And his, too. And I'll ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... leaned in at the door and whispered: "Ellen, I cain't boss this outfit. So let's y'u an' me shake 'em. I've got your dad's gold. Let's ride off ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... great suffering, but grandfather was a man of monumental patience, and no word of complaint passed his lips. It was just at this time that a crushing blow had been dealt the hopeful, cheery little wifey, who had always been laughingly termed "boss of the ranch," "head of the house," and suchlike terms, but whose right to these titles had never been disputed by the indulgent husband or devoted sons and daughters, for her ready hand always carried with it relief, and her merry laugh ...
— Grandfather's Love Pie • Miriam Gaines
... point home through the joints of the armour. But even therewith, as he drave a great stroke at a lord of the Dusky Ones, a cast-spear came flying and smote him on the breast, so that he staggered, and the stroke fell flatlings on the shield-boss of his foe, and Chip-driver brake atwain nigh the hilts; but Hart closed with him, and smote him on the face with the pommel, and tore his axe from his hand and clave his skull therewith, and slew him with his own weapon, and fought on valiantly ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... the bush rangers like poison, I saddles up and rides into the station; and when I had told the boss, he said I better ride and find you, if I could. You would be at one of the stations this way. I stopped at three of them, and at the last they ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... that fellow Quantrell out. He won't long be throubled wid that shinin' stuff as seems burnin' the bottom out av his pocket. I wudn't be surrprized if they putt both him an' 'tother fool past tillin' tales afore ayther sees sun. Will, boss, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... speak for myself," said Jack. It was the voice of what men call a good sport—cheerful, determined, weary, not unduly confident. "I am the oldest man here, but not an old man yet by a long shot. I am boss of this ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... and master" by the hair of the head, and dragged him out of the door. The company fully appreciated the situation, and with one voice shouted, "Stamp, Flintergill, stamp!" But there was no stamping. "Martha" pre-eminently proved her authority as "boss," whether poor, hen-pecked "Flintergill" came in as "foreman" or "deputy," or merely "apprentice" or what.—Another remarkable feature about "Flintergill" was that he never came back to his work in the afternoon except that he had had ham, veal, beef, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... in 1882 from Georgia with a Mr. Rogers brought him and six other men, their wives and children, to work on the railroad; he was made the section "boss" which job he held until a white man threatened to "dock" him because he was wearing a stiff shirt and "setting over a white man" when he should have a shovel. This was the opinion of a man in the vicinity, but another white friend, ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... In Philadelphia, Widener and Elkins dominated the City Hall and also became part of the Quay machine of Pennsylvania. Mark Hanna, the most active force in Cleveland railways, was also the political boss of the State. Roswell P. Flower, chief agent in developing Brooklyn Rapid Transit, had been Governor of New York; Patrick Calhoun, who monopolized the utilities of San Francisco and other cities, presided likewise ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... my ole boss I 'd look out fer a man, an' ef you reckon you kin fill de 'quirements er de situation, I 'll take yo' roun' dere ter-morrer mornin'. You wants ter put on yo' bes' clothes an' slick up, fer dey 're partic'lar people. Ef you git de place I 'll expec' you ter pay ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... hall, that echoes still, Pass as lightly as you will! 155 The brands were flat, the brands were dying, Amid their own white ashes lying; But when the lady passed, there came A tongue of light, a fit of flame; And Christabel saw the lady's eye, 160 And nothing else saw she thereby, Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall, Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall. "O softly tread," said Christabel, "My father seldom sleepeth ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the boss around here. He does just as he pleases. If anybody crosses him Bill 'most ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... Ricker, of Brooklyn, later of Minneapolis, introduced to the trade in the United States a "minute coffee pot" and urn known as the Boss, the name being subsequently changed to Minute. He improved and patented the device in 1901 as the Half-Minute coffee pot. It is a filtration device employing a cotton sack with ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... compartments. Let one represent to himself the pillars retreating step by step, accompanied by little, slender, light-pillared, pointed structures, likewise striving upwards, and furnished with canopies to shelter the images of the saints, and how at last every rib, every boss, seems like a flower-head and row of leaves, or some other natural object transformed into stone. One may compare, if not the building itself, yet representations of the whole and of its parts, for the purpose of reviewing and giving life to what I have said. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... be," returned Mulrady, shortly. "Why, it's only their one day out of 364; and I can have 363 days off, as I am their boss. I don't mind a man's being independent," he continued, taking off his coat and beginning to unpack his sack—a common "gunny bag"—used for potatoes. "We're independent ourselves, ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... the emancipado of Cuba or the Brazil; with a superior development of 'sass,' he is often an inveterate thief. He has fits of drinking, when he becomes mad as a Malay. He gambles, he overdresses himself, and he indulges in love-intrigues till he has exhausted his means, and then he makes 'boss' pay for all. With a terrible love of summonsing, and a thorough enjoyment of a law-court, he enters into the spirit of the thing like an attorney's clerk. He soon wearies of the less exciting life in the wilder settlements, where orgies and debauchery are not fully developed; home-sickness ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... my explaining; you wouldn't get me," she went on, impatiently. "But here's something even you can understand. I'd look nice opening the boss's mail, wouldn't I? Now you've read the worst of it you might as well dip into it far enough to find out just when she's coming. Somebody'll have to drive over to Conejo for her as long ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... We were looking not for the evils of Big Business, but for its anatomy. Mr. Steffens came to the subject with a first-hand knowledge of politics. He knew the "invisible government" of cities, states, and the nation. He knew how the boss worked, how he organized his power. When Mr. Steffens approached the vast confusion and complication of big business, he needed some hypothesis to guide him through that maze of facts. He made a bold and brilliant guess, an hypothesis. To govern a life insurance company, Mr. Steffens argued, ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... witty youth, a little precocious, perhaps, and able to take care of himself. Some five and twenty years after the date of which I am now writing I was at a large political dinner in New York and was there introduced to a Mr. Thompson, who was the commissioner of public works, and a party boss of no small caliber and power. He was an immense personage, physically likewise, weighing fully three hundred pounds, and, though not apparently advanced in years, a thorough man of the world and of municipal politics. After we ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... mind the figure if you're ashamed of it," said the stranger, calmly. "This is my offer. If you'll shake your boss and come to me, I'll double your pay every year so long as you stick to that 'Yes, sir, thank you, sir,' talk and manner. What do you say? Is ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... to London, I found that the committee had taken into their own body T.F. Forster, B.M. Forster, and James West, Esqrs., as members; and that they had elected Hercules Boss, Esq., an honorary and corresponding member, in consequence of the handsome manner in which he had come forward as an evidence, and of the peculiar benefit which had resulted from ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... finally opened by a remark made at the club by Digby, Reggie de Pelt's valet, who asked me how I liked my new boss, and whose explanation of the question led to a complete revelation of the true facts in the case. Everybody knew, he said, that from the moment she had met him Mrs. Van Raffles had set her cap for Colonel Scrappe, and that meeting her for the first time he had fallen ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... he hesitated. "The boss—Prince Joro's sending you away. You see, she's going to get hitched up-big important guy. They didn't want you around, bustin' up things every time you turn around. So they're sendin' ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... of his camp. After these repeated insults he sought another white friend, and told of his grievances. "Look here," said Satank, "I asked Peacock to write me a good letter, and he gave me this; but I don't understand it! Every time I hand it to a wagon-boss, he gives me the devil! Read it to me and tell me just what it ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... the only remarkable site on the trip, famous for bodice-making and infamous for elephantiasis. Here a huge column of curiously contorted basalt has been connected by a solid high-arched causeway with the cliff, which is equally remarkable, showing a central boss of stone with lines radiating quaquaversally. There are outer steps and an inner flight leading under a blind archway, the latter supplied with a crane. The landing in the levadia, or surf, is abominable and a life-boat waits accidents outside. It ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... fellows as being, so to speak, colonnades in the Arcade. They are all on their own hook; fighting for their own hand; won't take the lead from me; must go foraging for themselves. HANBURY thinks he can boss a show better than most men. BARTLEY'S obstreperous. TOMMY BOWLES would be all right if he were left to himself, free from the companionship of designing men. He is young, ingenuous, not wholly lost ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... briefly explained, the usual System, and back of it the usual Boss: one Ryan, owner of the Ottoman saloon and the city of Hunston, who held the town in the hollow of his coarse hand, and was slowly ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... their cries and by the flapping of their wings, hasted forth, catching up his arms, and calling all the rest to do likewise. And they indeed were at first in great confusion, but Manlius drave the boss of his shield against a Gaul, for one was now standing on the very top of the hill. And the man fell and overthrew them that stood close at hand; and when the others in great fear dropped their arms and laid hold ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... rest, an' keep your thoughts to yerself till I come agin. Don't tell nobody I've be'n here, and don't ask leave of nobody. I'll settle with the old boss if he makes any sort of a row; and ye know when Jim Fenton says he'll stand between ye and all harm he means it, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... to say a fellar's uther 'clever' or 'good.' I 'low little stutterin' Monty Sturtevant could ha' done the chores well enough till I get 'round again, an' I could ha' bossed him." Then, after a moment: "But I can't boss the deacon." ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... would learn Italian before the year was done, and know something more about these people and their ways. They were the key to the contractor's problem and it would pay a man to know how to handle them. As I watched the boss over us that day it did not seem to me that he ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... open formation, with their guns ready. I set apart with my eye the one I opinionated to be the boss muck-raker of this ...
— Options • O. Henry |
