"Concertina" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disembark troops on American soil would be capable of heaving a shovelful of mud into the Atlantic in the hope of filling it up. Consequently, the authorities are fascinated with the idea of the sliding scale or concertina army. This is an hereditary instinct, for you know that when we English have got together two companies, one machine gun, a sick bullock, forty generals, and a mass of W. O. forms, we say we possess "an army corps capable ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... Anstruther, both of whom, like myself, had passed through the chrysalis stage of midshipmen and came within the category of oldsters, the one with a banjo, and the other handling a broken-down concertina, very wheezy about the gills; with little Tommy Mills, who was only a "midshipmite" still, in every sense of the word, accompanying them with a rattling refrain from a pair of ivory castanets which he had purchased for a paper dollar in ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... time for practice is limited to an occasional half-hour of an evening, we consider ourselves no mean instrumentalists, and sometimes give public performances, as will appear hereafter. We have two flutes, a clarionet, a cornet, and a French horn, often supplemented by two violins and a concertina. Old Colonial does not play, neither does O'Gaygun. They fiercely decline to add to what they ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... it,' said the creature; 'there's one of the strongest charms in the world not a stone's throw from where you bought me yesterday. The man that I bit so—the first one, I mean—went into a shop to ask how much something cost—I think he said it was a concertina—and while he was telling the man in the shop how much too much he wanted for it, I saw the charm in a sort of tray, with a lot of other things. If you can only buy THAT, you will be able ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... his staircase. Bars of it were softly hummed in his ear while he tried to note the important truths which the lecturers impressed upon their classes. One night five musicians relieved each other at the task of playing the tune on a concertina outside his door. They commenced briskly at eight o'clock in the evening, and the final sleepy version only died away at six ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... of a furlough was lost. She said she would have to hold on now for another winter—or go up higher. In September she completed thirty-six years as a missionary, and took humorous stock of herself: "I'm lame and feeble and foolish; the wrinkles are wonderful-no concertina is so wonderfully folded and convulated. I'm a wee, wee wifie, verra little buikit—but I grip on well, none the less." "Ay," said an old doctor friend to her, "you are a strong woman, 'Ma.' You ought to have been dead by ordinary rule long ago—any ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... apparently by the hundred, in a month or two, if we may believe what we read. Imagine him here—the very end of the world, a sea the colour of lead, a sky the colour of smoke, a kind of ship about as rigid as a concertina—and going up this river with stores, or orders, or what you like. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages,—precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink. No Falernian wine here, no going ashore. Here and there a military ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... of work the blowpipe should be mounted on a special table connected up with cylindrical bellows operated by a pedal. That figured (Fig. 12) is made by mounting a teak top 60 cm. square upon the uprights of an enclosed double-action concertina bellows (Enfer's) and provided with ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... ear wid me left foot, an' thin I slept like the dead. Wanst I half roused, an' begad the noise in my head was tremenjus—roarin' and rattlin' an' poundin', such as was quite new to me. "Mother av Mercy," thinks I, "phwat a concertina I will have on my shoulders whin I wake!" An' wid that I curls mysilf up to sleep before ut should get hould on me. Bhoys, that noise was not dhrink, 'twas ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... Bush a long time. Many years. He used to be the happiest little space joker in the system, singing all the time, playing a concertina. And then he lost that credit pouch. It bothered ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... constructed a new support line known as Parallel B., in which was accommodated, when it was complete, a portion of the front line garrison. The wire needed attention as well. The French had covered the front with a chain of chevaux de frise, but this was not considered a sufficient obstacle, so that concertina wire and "gooseberries" had to be put out in front of the chevaux de frise. The wiring parties had a very difficult task, as they had to work about forty yards away from the enemy, who were often engaged on similar work. ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... to be careful; he said a great deal more, and as for Inger, 'twas strange how he managed to win her for himself, for all that he never seemed to put himself forward that way. One of the other lads played a concertina, but 'twas not like Gustaf's mouth-organ; another lad again, and a smart fellow he was too, tried to draw attention to himself by singing a song off by heart to the music, but that was nothing either, for all ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... the two men that Dickens—I believe it was Dickens—tells about: Somebody gives A a concertina, but he can't play on it; winter coming on and no overcoat; he can't wear the concertina any more than he can tootle it. A few blocks away is a fellow, Mr. B. He can play a concertina something grand, ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes
... chiefly in the minor. He had paid nine dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he had deserted a ship and two months' wages; and he was ready at any time to walk ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play. On board he had three treasures: a canary bird, a concertina, and a blinding copy of the works of Shakespeare. He had a gift, peculiarly Scandinavian, of making friends at sight: an elemental innocence commended him; he was without fear, without reproach, and without money or the hope of ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... interested that he had forgotten his concertina—his one possession saved from shipwreck, for which he had offered to fight the whole of Zanzibar one-handed rather than ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... delight in music, and when he had mastered his lessons, he was very fond of playing on the concertina, and singing to his own accompaniment. He could already play "The Bells go a-ringing for Sarah!" with considerable finish and expression, and since his Uncle DODDLEWIG had presented him with half-a-crown for his performance, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... Jimmy burst his concertina, and the bullock-drivers went For the corpse of Joe the Fiddler, who was sleeping in his tent; Joe was tired and had lumbago, and he wouldn't come, he said, But the case was very urgent, so they pulled him out of bed; And they fetched him, for the bushmen knew that Something-in-Disguise ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson |
