"Gingerly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way gingerly on. Bob looked back. Against the light the two graceful, erect figures, immobile, but carried back and forth over thirty feet with lightning rapidity; the brute masses of the logs; the swift decisive forays of the "nigger," the unobtrusive figures of the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... as gingerly out of his mouth as if it had been a hot potato. At last he had summoned up courage enough to do what it had long been his ambition to do—call his employer by his first name. He felt it would be a victory for him—a triumph over the other men at the office to be on such terms of intimacy. ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... was sufficiently quick-witted to realize that his companion desired him to strike a blow with his fist at the grinning face painted on the leathern pad, and he did so without hesitation. At the same time, as he had no idea of what resistance he should encounter, he struck out rather gingerly, and the ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... Gladys,' observed Mr. Hamilton gaily. And indeed it was a pretty picture when we were all seated: a pleasant breeze stirred the leaves over our head, the rooks cawed and circled round us, Nap laid himself at his master's feet, and a little gray kitten came gingerly over the grass, followed ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... through—sat there in the broadening daylight, and in that new evening suit of mine with the Braxtonised shirtfront and waistcoat that by day were more than ever loathsome. Literature's Ambassador at Keeb.... I rose gingerly from my chair, and caught sight of my face, of my Braxtonised cheek, in the mirror. I heard the twittering of birds in distant trees. I saw through my window the elaborate landscape of the Duke's grounds, all soft in ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... transmission and made coffee for himself while he waited for an answer. Murgatroyd wanted a cup of coffee too. Murgatroyd adored coffee. He held a tiny cup in a furry small paw and sipped gingerly at the hot liquid. ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... tiger-cat screams now, that whined before, That pried and tried and trod so gingerly, Till in its silkiness the trap-teeth join; Then you know how the bristling fury foams. They listen, this wrapped in his folds of red, While his feet fumble for the filth below; The other, as beseems a stouter heart, Working his best with beads and ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... found her sitting on the grass among her ladies, advanced with great ceremony and many bows. Madama did not get up; no one did; so Angioletto had to step gingerly into a ring of roguish women to deliver his letter. Lionella scampered through it, reddening with pleasure; she beckoned him with smiles to ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... you with a funeral or a christening," Filmer felt his way gingerly, "I wouldn't care a durn. You can't hurt the dead and the kid might outgrow it; but when it comes to tying folks together tight, it's a blamed lot like trusting something brittle in a baby's hand. It ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... so unaccustomed a miner by now but what the sight there in the Gulch had its effect upon him,—"Well," he said gingerly, "if you are right, Uncle Bernique, if the face doesn't cut blind, why, Mr. Crittenton Madeira and old Grierson have ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... the water which filled the cabin and reached her hands toward the bowed helmet of the prisoner. Gingerly, her blunted talons scraping across metal, she pulled it up to ...
— The Gifts of Asti • Andre Alice Norton
... Gingerly he balanced the emblazoned case, fascinated. Then he replaced the empty tray, closed the box, thrust it into the bosom of his flannel shirt and ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... down upon his belly and stretched his hand as far down as he could reach. His fingers brushed a level surface which appeared to extend outwards for two or three feet. Gingerly he lowered himself to this ledge and began to feel his way along the wall. Nor was he greatly surprised (for hardly anything surprised Mr. Wordsley any more) that it neatly circumnavigated the pit and deposited him safely upon the other side, where he quickly groped toward the ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... I descended gingerly, holding as a guide a sodden painter which ended in a small boat, and conscious that I was collecting slime ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... George wanted to do for at least another fifty years or so; and it seemed to him as he stood there in the starlight, gingerly fingering this flimsy linen thing, that if he were to suspend his hundred and eighty pounds of bone and sinew at the end of it over the black gulf outside the balcony he would look alive for about five seconds, and after that goodness only knew how he would look. He knew ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... he suddenly saw a pair of eyes gleaming from the dark cavern. And soon he beheld a long, pointed snout, which its owner thrust outside in a gingerly manner. ...
— The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... had been gone a good hour ere the model secretary imbibed the notion that Creation expected Cloterman to drink the health of all good fellows, and nommement of the Duke of Burgundy there present. With this view he filled bumper nine, and rose gingerly but solemnly and slowly. Having reached his full height, he instantly rolled upon the grass, goblet in hand, spilling the cold liquor on more than one ankle—whose owners frisked—but not disturbing a muscle in his own long face, which, in the total eclipse of reason, retained its gravity, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... gingerly touched upon, Anthony felt that he was expected to outline his intentions—and simultaneously a glimmer in the old man's eye warned him against broaching, for the present, his desire to live abroad. He wished that Shuttleworth would have tact enough to leave the room—he detested Shuttleworth—but ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... been talked over before, of course; and it would be talked over again before a fortnight was past and the Black Eagle had set sail for the French Shore with a valuable cargo. Tom Tulk had begun gingerly; he had proceeded with exquisite caution; he had ventured a bit more; at last he had come boldly out with the plan. Manned with care—manned as she could be and as Tom Tulk would take care to have her—the Black Eagle was the ship for the purpose; ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... gingerly, and stepped suddenly away from an isolated speaking-tube. Captain Blake's stern face softened. His mind went back to his midshipman days, to a stormy night and a heavy sea, an icy foot-rope, a fall, a plunge, and a cold, hopeless swim toward a shadowy ship hove to against the dark background, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... the others. Stepped out gingerly, caps in hand. A corridor full of women. A corridor a-flutter with girls. Talk. Laughter. Animation. In another moment the two would have turned and fled, terrified. But in that half-moment of hesitation and ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... the compass, Opechanchanough took it again in his hand, holding it gingerly as he would have held a papoose if a squaw had given one to his care. This was something precious and he meant to keep it, yet he did not know what it might do to him. At any rate, it would be a good thing to take with him the ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... fear religious questions, lest offence be given to this sect or that. So let such denominations as are in the habit of cooperating, themselves take over this medium, not gingerly, but whole-heartedly, as in mediaeval time the hierarchy strengthened its hold on the people with the marvels of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. This matter is further discussed in the seventeenth chapter, ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... earnestly, was the reply; but Jewel was already sitting on the grass pulling off her shoes and stockings. She leaped nimbly into the wet boat, and Mr. Evringham stepped gingerly after her, seeking for dry spots for his ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... bench, Simson carefully wrapping a blanket about him, and the fellows made room for him a little way from where Neil sat. He stretched his long legs out gingerly because of the aches, sighed contentedly, and looked about him. His eyes ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... their walks abroad, they stepped very gingerly as they approached the village of Marsden. It never occurred to them to enter Donald's home. They might have found him half-a-dozen times a day. They never once crossed the threshold ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... with ejaculations of pain between every stretch, and put his handkerchief on very gingerly. He looked sulky and said nothing. The other watched him keenly, for there was something about him that showed his ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... carrying a bucket of water, into which the lumps were placed by Walker, who handled them very gingerly. After a slight delay, he began to crumble one in his fingers, still keeping it in the water, until finally he drew forth what Elsie recognized at once as a stick of dynamite. Though it was blackened ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... Brown carried the package gingerly to Mrs. Martin, for the boy who had delivered it was not over clean, and Mrs. Martin opened it with some suspicion, but when she saw the clothes she recognised them instantly, and finding the note in the pocket ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... looked towards her. Presently she thrust out a moist little hand, and out of the moisture produced a half-melted peppermint drop. Just for a second Kathleen's bright eyes fell upon the sweetmeat with disgust; then she took it up gingerly and popped it into ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... a long, significant silence. Both men had to travel back to the commonplace and they felt their way gingerly. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... moved gingerly up to the hatchway that led down to the forecastle. If disease had smitten the Minnie B they hoped to get some clew from the taint of the sailors' quarters. Greer stuck a nose down the ladder first. Beyond the usual close ship smells there seemed to ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... started so abruptly that he narrowly missed the jar at his side. On noiseless sandals Pahul had approached, and stood before him nodding his head with an air of assured conviction. The ape had fled and a stork stepped gingerly away. ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... overwhelmed with money and benefices, did what he liked for his family, lived always publicly as the master with Monsieur; and as he had, with the pride of the Guises, their art and cleverness, he contrived to get between the King and Monsieur, to be dealt with gingerly, if not feared by both, and was almost as important a man with the one as with the other. He had the finest apartments in the Palais Royal and Saint Cloud, and a pension of ten thousand crowns. He remained in his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... this flaying heat Miss Becker stepped gingerly, almost immediately rejoined by Mr. Leon Kessler, crowningly touched with the correct thing ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... 'M. Loke' whom he felt himself obliged to touch so gingerly; the remarkable movement towards Deism, which was then beginning in England, Voltaire only dared to allude to in a hardly perceivable hint. He just mentions, almost in a parenthesis, the names of Shaftesbury, Collins, and Toland, and then quickly passes on. In this ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... with mock seriousness, "but the fact is, we are all invited out. We lunch on the Chelton to-day," and he strutted around with such wide sweeping curves, and twists, that he knocked from the narrow board table every last bit of butter the "Couldn'ts" had in their camp. Gingerly he scooped up the top lump, that lay on the store dish, but the scraps had to be scraped up with the egg turner, and the spot on the floor (they had a board floor in the camp) had to be washed up with the dish water, when Walter ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... Casey lifted it gingerly and placed it on his head. Not feeling any immediate effect, he said, "There, 'tis satisfied ...
— Off Course • Mack Reynolds (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... seen the sheriff so cheerful. He sat down gingerly, knowing well that some task of great ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... approaches gingerly with apprehensive side glances at Mrs. Brennan, who watches her grimly. Eileen's arms reach out for her hungrily. She grasps her about the waist and seems trying to press the unwilling child to ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... kindly," commented Butler, softening the least bit in a gingerly way. "I'm much obliged to you. I'll take it as a great ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... box of tapes. Travis touched the edge of that box gingerly, half expecting it to crumble into nothingness. This was a place long deserted. Stone table, bench, the towers could survive through centuries of abandonment, but ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... true, and it may be a wily statement to again throw men off the track; at any rate it contains the old assumption of a mystery, practically insoluble, about the gentler sex. Women generally encourage this notion, and men by their gingerly treatment of it seemed to accept it. But is it well-founded, is there any more mystery about women—than about men? Is the feminine nature any more difficult to understand than the masculine nature? Have women, conscious of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... strong man's companion then chose a spot where the grass was very short and smooth, where there were no stones, twigs or inequalities, and where the light of the setting sun fell sideways upon the combatants—who tip-toed gingerly, and rather ridiculously, in their stockinged feet, to their respective positions. Facing each other, they saluted with their swords and then stood with the right arm pointing downwards and across the body so that the hilt of the sword ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... so slippery, the Man dismounted; the horse could carry him no further. Having commanded the animals to go on shouting for at least half-an-hour, he left them and commenced to climb the steep and narrow path. He had to go gingerly on his hands and knees. There were places where he slipped back two steps for every one he advanced. By snatching at rocks and bushes, he dragged himself slowly to the turning which brought him in sight of the entrance. ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... slightest indication of an alarm ashore, Lanyard ventured to continue rowing, but with utmost caution, lifting and dipping his blades as gingerly as though they were fashioned of brittle glass, and for want of a better guide keeping the stern of the dory square to the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... the guests march into the village, where a crowd of men, also armed for war, await the new-comers beside the dead man's hut. After a short parley the men divide into two opposite camps, and thereupon a sham fight takes place. However, the combatants go to work very gingerly and make no use of their spears. But dozens of arrows are continually discharged, and not a few are wounded in the sham fight, though not seriously. The nearest relations and friends of the deceased appear especially excited and behave as if they were frantic. When all are hot and tired and ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... shook her hand in a very gingerly fashion and chirruped to her as you might to a pup. Sophie took not the slightest notice of him, but turned her back, and buried her face in my neck. He shrugged his shoulders, supposed that they could take her on trial. She ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... this way and that, to see if he had been observed. A lighted car crashed up Madison Avenue, but otherwise the street remained empty. Creeping nearer the steps he bent over his victim, whose left hand lay helpless and outstretched. Timidly, gingerly, he put his fingers to the pulse, starting back from it with a shock. He spoke but two words, but ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... filled with terror. Her son sprang protectingly in front of her. But the danger was past. A second policeman was now holding the maniac by the wrists, forcing his arms above his head; Philip's arms, like a lariat, were wound around his chest; and from his pocket the first policeman gingerly drew forth a round, black object of the size of a glass fire-grenade. He held it high in the air, and waved his free hand warningly. But the warning was unobserved. There was no one remaining to observe it. Leaving the would-be ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... this; but it was hard to brace himself up to try it. Three times he stretched his hand a little way out into the dark, gingerly; and snatched it suddenly back, with a gasp—not because it had encountered anything, but because he had felt so sure it was just GOING to. But the fourth time, he groped a little further, and his hand lightly swept against something soft and warm. This petrified him, nearly, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to bite the moon's light on the water. The fault was mine," said Mowgli, who spoke as though he knew all about everything. "I will never again bring into the Jungle strange things—not though they be as beautiful as flowers. This"—he handled the ankus gingerly—"goes back to the Father of Cobras. But first we must sleep, and we cannot sleep near these sleepers. Also we must bury HIM, lest he run away and kill another six. Dig me a hole ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... his thick coat and heavy boots; Harry ran towards their large boat. The sails and oars were on shore. "No, no,—the canoe!" cried Philip. An Indian hunter, a friend of D'Arcy's, had left his canoe on the beach in the morning. The paddles were in her. To launch her and step gingerly in was the work of an instant; and fast as Philip and Harry could ply their paddles, the light canoe ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... my eyes are as sharp as the needle. Besides, I had reason to doubt; and Sebastian himself gave me the clue by selecting his instrument with too great deliberation. He had put it there with the rest, but it lay a little apart; and as he picked it up gingerly, I began to doubt. When I saw the blue gleam, my doubt was at once converted into certainty. Then his eyes, too, had the look which I know means victory. Benign or baleful, it goes with his triumphs. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the hearthrug still inflated as it were with his own eloquence. Meanwhile Lucy was washing up the tea things. The little servant had brought her a bowl of water and an apron, and Lucy was going gingerly through an operation she detested. Why shouldn't Mary Ann do it? What was the good of going to school and coming back with Claribel's songs and Blumenthal's Deux Anges lying on the top of your ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... first experience with a native craft. It looked cranky. He let himself carefully over the bank on his stomach. Finding the floor of the dugout with his feet, he gingerly stood up. It staggered alarmingly under him, and he hastily embraced the bank again, unhappily conscious ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... a long, steady blow of the call, piping "sway-away," and the boat, with all in her, rose from the water, and ascended as high as the hammock-cloths in the waist, when the stay-tackles took the strain, the yard-tackles "eased-off," and the boat was landed in the waist of the ship as gingerly as if it were made of glass, and as steadily as if it had no more weight than a seaman's hammock. Ghita uttered a faint scream when she found herself rising into the air, and then she hid her face, awaiting the result with dread. As for Carlo Giuntotardi, the movement aroused him a ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said, handing it gingerly to Stern. "You can't leave here without permission." And he ...
— Martians Never Die • Lucius Daniel
... rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large, heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born leader, and, by the look of him, not ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... the silk trousers and jacket lying just inside the nearest trunk, and the farm-wife picked them up gingerly, letting them unfold as she did so. Just for one moment she inspected them, then she hurriedly let them drop back into the trunk as though they were some dangerous reptile, and, folding her arms, glared into the girl's smiling face ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... butler took Andy to the sideboard and pushed a small soda into his hand, saying, "Cut the cord, you fool!" Andy took it gingerly, and holding it over the table, carried out the order. Bang I went the bottle, and the cork, after knocking out two of the lights, struck the squire in the eye, while the hostess had a cold bath down her back. Poor Andy, frightened by the soda-water ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... mitten off, and was gingerly applying that hand to the narrow stretch of upper lip. There was blood there. Hen, catching only an imperfect view as he gazed down past the end of his nose, was sure that he had been badly ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... not like Arthur, she told herself, to disappoint a friend even in fun, and she felt convinced that the joke would not end as it had begun. One by one she picked up the scattered articles and examined them gingerly. The mouse-trap was guiltless of bait, the spice-box empty as when it left the shop, but the matchbox felt strangely heavy. She shook it, and felt something tilt forward, peeped inside, and spied ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... returned the stranger with a musical laugh, "I never forget my little friend, whose harmonies have often been my only company. Here it comes," pointing to a lad who just then came up, bearing a handsome though outlandish-looking guitar gingerly across his arm. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... observing it for a while he concluded that it must be nothing more than some new kind of mouse or similar creature. It was dark and danced back and forth in a dainty manner as if inviting pursuit. The cub retraced his steps and reached for it gingerly with one paw but it evaded him and fled lightly to one side. Again he reached and again there was nothing in which to fasten his sharp, little claws. Then he became more eager than ever to capture the elusive something. He struck ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... scuttled back himself. Juno fortunately intervened and Eric just got home in time. But he realised now what he was up against. His next ball he hit towards mid-wicket, and shouting "Come on!" he galloped up the pitch. Charles came on gingerly, expecting to be sent back, but Eric duly passed him; he then turned round and just raced Charles back to the wicket-keeper's end. Charles was only a Soccer Blue (and a goal-keeper ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... gingerly with Sir ARTHUR FELL'S inquiry as to whether "any ordinary individual can understand the forms now sent out by the Income Tax Department?" Fearing that if he replied in the affirmative he would be asked to solve some particularly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... Germany, they put a notice-board in the middle of the place, "Hunden verboten," and a dog that has German blood in its veins looks at that notice-board and walks away. In a German park I have seen a gardener step gingerly with felt boots on to grass-plot, and removing therefrom a beetle, place it gravely but firmly on the gravel; which done, he stood sternly watching the beetle, to see that it did not try to get back on the ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... the boy pulls him out, he will be just so much ahead. Finally the boy thinks of his bait, and pulls it out, and the bullhead is landed on the bank, and the boy cuts him open to get the hook out. Some fish only take the bait gingerly, and are only caught around the selvage of the mouth, and they are comparatively easy to dislodge. Not so with the bullhead. He says if liver is a good thing you can't have too much of it, and it tastes good all the way ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... hearth, in full possession of the shack, and me out in the weather. Once when I looked in he was missing, but while I was watching he sprang through a hole in the roof, alighting in the fire, from which he walked out gingerly, shaking his feet as if he had just been out in the wet. I shot away every cartridge I had at him, but in the middle of the shooting he would just coil up before the ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... in each hand; he holds them gingerly and looks at them for a moment, and you would even say that he was squeezing ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... Kennon gingerly approached the ship. It was half buried in the loose debris and ash that had fallen or blown into the pit during the centuries it had rested there. It was old—incredibly old. The hull design was ancient—riveted ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... begun by Irving, but was in that day a venture so new and startling, that Irving, gentleman and scholar, went at it gingerly and with many inferential deprecations. His hand, however, first broke the ice, and to-day we can see the live and human Washington, full length. He does not lose an inch by it, and we gain a progenitor of ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... sent a man forward to heave the lead under the nose of the Aphrodite, which was edging in gingerly toward the voice. He had a searchlight but he did not attempt to use it, knowing full well that in such a fog it would be of no avail. Guided, therefore, by the bellowings of Mr. Gibney, reinforced by the shrill yips of Captain Scraggs, the tug crept in closer and closer, and when ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... train started. He was not a bit sleepy; he had, in fact, dozed most of the way from Washington, and the idea of threshing about in the hot berth was not agreeable. Finally, he took a short thick pipe from his pocket, and picking his way gingerly between the funereal swaying curtains and protruding shoes, he went outside to talk ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... sit down," said I, nodding to each, as I blew up the fire, "come in." For a moment they hesitated, then John stepped gingerly into the smithy, closely followed by Job, and, watching them beneath my brows as I stooped above the shaft of the bellows, I saw each of them ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... the blackness of the cab's interior gingerly stepped Musa, holding a violin case in ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... a doorway, down a short corridor into a room of private quarters. Vye sat down gingerly on the foam seat extending from the wall as he neared. He stared about. Dimly he could just remember rooms which had this degree of comfort, but so dimly now he could not be sure they did not exist only in his vivid ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... I stepped very gingerly and cautiously on the mud, for shore there was none; and I had the satisfaction of descending at once, mid-leg deep in the odious slime; but this being endured the worst was over, and, at the head of my sticking and floundering party, I waded on, putting to flight ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... muttered ejaculation (which Billy, to her sorrow, could not catch) Cyril laid down the watch and flung the Teddy bear aside. Then, in very evident despair, he gingerly picked up one of the rumpled rolls of flannel, lace, and linen, and held it straight out before him. After a moment's indecision he began awkwardly to jounce it, teeter it, rock it back and forth, and to ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... the public-house corner, with its half-open door, and its fly-blown theatre-bills in the windows; at the drivers of the vans and carts, sleepily overlooking the huge horses, gigantic to the near view as some survival from the age of mammoths, which pushed gingerly, ploddingly, their tufted feet over the greasy stones; at foul interiors where through the blackness one discerned bent old hags picking over refuse; at the faces which, as he passed, made some special human appeal to ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... great commotion. They had rigged themselves out in hired suits which might be described as an average fit, for that of the mother was as much too small as those of the children were too large. They trotted gingerly out into the surf, wholly unconscious that the crowd of beach loungers had, for the time, turned their attention from each other to the quartet in the water. By degrees the four worked out farther ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... chameleon-hued question; now analyzing the amendment and the laws to enforce it, turning aside here to answer the cavil of some carping critic, then to demolish and bury some blatant political defender of the whisky element; arraigning the Governor, Senate and House of Representatives for their gingerly treatment of the great question, and sending a trumpet-call to the honest, brave, and sincere temperance workers, both men and women, urging them to greater vigilance and closer compact. These, with numerous short and pithy articles, ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... man was a walking air-cushion!" He gingerly fingered two strange rubber appliances. "For distending the cheeks," he muttered, dropping them disgustedly on the floor. "His hands and wrists betrayed him, Petrie. He wore his cuff unusually long but he could not entirely hide his ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... over the very gingerly way in which he reached out for her elbow to guide her around the rail and toward the step. Technically, the action constituted putting her off the car. She heard the crisp voice once more, this time repeating a number, "twenty-two-naught-five," or something like that, just as she splashed ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Gingerly I turned. I had been lying, I now saw, head toward and prone at the base of one of the crater's walls. As my gaze swept away I noted with a curious relief that the tiny eye-points were no longer sparkling with their enigmatic life, that they were ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... unsmiling and bored as anybody anywhere. Consequently they are either greatly admired, or greatly hated and feared, as the case happens to be, by all the other tribes. The Kikuyu young men frankly ape the customs and ornaments of their powerful neighbours. Even the British Government treats them very gingerly indeed, and allows these economically useless savages a latitude the more agricultural tribes do not enjoy. Yet I submit that any people whose property is in immense herds can more easily be brought to terms than those who have nothing so valuable ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... I put the awful atom on it gingerly, while the foster-mother reiterated her counsel to "tchuck'm ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... smiled as she set for him a chair, toward which he trod gingerly, and picking every step, for his own sake as well as of the garniture. For the black oak floor was so oiled and polished, to set off the pattern of the sea-flowers on it (which really were laid with no mean taste and no small sense of color), that for slippery boots there ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... genially.) Ah, there you are, TOM, my lad. Bring out dear old Bogey, and show it to my friend here. [Boy leads out a rusty roan Rosinante, high in bone, and low in flesh, with prominent hocks, and splay hoofs, which stumble gingerly over the cobbles.] (Patting the horse affectionately.) Ah, poor old Bogey, he doesn't like these lumpy stones, does he? Not used to them, Sir. My stable-yard at Wickham-in-the-Wold, is as smoothly paved as—as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... comfort I handled it very gingerly, and it seems to be sound yet, after I saw what this ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... left the valley, our route lay across a region where no blade of grass had ever grown. As far as the eye reached, the scene was one of utter desolation. The horses picked their steps gingerly, and the foot-soldiers stumbled along as best they could, tripping now and then over the stones and boulders that strewed the path. All day long, with intervals for rest, we tramped, and the coming of night still found ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... after taking the mussels from the shell, put them in the stew-pan and let them boil for a short time, then putting them on the broiler, he held them over the live wood coals. "Squeeze a little of that lemon juice over them, Shawn, and season 'em up—now try one." Shawn took one of them and nibbled it gingerly ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... intimation of a definite seasonal change came from our old friend Danny Randall, who hailed us at once when he saw us picking our way gingerly along the edge of the street. In answer to his summons we entered ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... and scornful laugh, and exclaimed that the idea was too ridiculous. "What, see better with this thing!" and he took them gingerly in his hand, and held them up to examine them, and finally put them on his nose—something in the spirit of the person who takes a newspaper twisted into the shape of an extinguisher, and puts it on his head. He looked at the other, then at me, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... the spoor, we slip across the veld; my mount treads gingerly, but what odds? After to-day he ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... In a gingerly way he moved to one side the heavy object he had been carrying, and then, as if taking shelter behind her, he followed the old ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... over several bridges which the Germans had destroyed, but which had been made temporarily good again by the French engineers. Over these our train had to travel gingerly. As we neared the fighting zone the booming of the guns could be heard, and a little further on things became more warlike. We noticed the devastated stations, villages, and large shell holes in the ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... green mules were the worst. It was often found necessary to lash the stage to a tree—if one could be found near the station, and if not to the corral fence—while the long-eared brutes were being hooked up. When the last trace had been snapped into place the hostlers would very gingerly free the vehicle from its moorings and, as the ropes came slack, ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... flickered in through the doorway. It made the ascent of the first flight of creaking stairs quite easy. At least Rose-Marie could step aside from the piles of rubbish and avoid the rickety places. She wondered, as she went up, her fingers gingerly touching the dirty hand-rail, how people could exist ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... to reconnoitre, but not being driven back, came closer. His nose shot swiftly to the side, nostrils a-tremble and bristles rising along the spine; and straight and true, he followed the sudden scent to his master's head. He sniffed it gingerly at first and licked the forehead with his red lolling tongue. Then he sat abruptly down, pointed his nose up at the first faint star, and raised ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... Mr. Ryder, cordially motioning his visitor to a chair. The man sat down gingerly on one of the rich leather-upholstered chairs. His manner was nervous and awkward, as if intimidated in the ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... fellers gone?" quavered the old man, craning his neck to look gingerly in. "I never seen nothin' movin' up here, but—they was a gal or so come norratin' past on the path; I 'lowed when I seed calicker that it mought be Huldy, you named her ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... was dark. They were cold. Their legs were stiff. They lay each along one edge of a tremendously wide bed, between them a tangle of narrow sheets and blankets. Telemachus raised himself to a sitting position and put his feet, that were still swollen, gingerly to the floor. He drew them up again with a jerk and sat with his teeth chattering hunched on the edge of the bed. Lyaeus burrowed into the blankets and went back to sleep. For a long while Telemachus could not thaw his frozen wits enough to discover what noise had waked him up. Then ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... the hall and into a prim, fleckless parlor. Anne and Diana sat down gingerly on the nearest chairs and explained their errand. Mrs. White heard them politely, interrupting only twice, once to chase out an adventurous fly, and once to pick up a tiny wisp of grass that had fallen on the carpet from Anne's dress. Anne felt wretchedly guilty; but Mrs. White subscribed two dollars ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Gingerly is good King Tarquin shaving. Gently glides the razor o'er his chin, Near him stands a grim Haruspex raving, And with nasal whine he pitches in Church extension hints, Till the monarch squints, Snicks his chin, ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... (our country), "your condescending to instruct" (your words), "I dare not obey your commands" (we will not do what you ask), probably involved nothing more in the way of humility than the terms of our own gingerly worded diplomatic notes, each term of which may, nevertheless, offend if it ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... hurt us! Come on. Close the panel—there, like that. I'll go first." She led the way, Jerry tiptoeing gingerly behind her. ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... more, but followed the cuckoo, walking rather "gingerly," notwithstanding his assurances that the butterflies could take care of themselves. At last the cuckoo stopped, in front of a sort of banked-up terrace, in the centre of which grew a strange-looking plant with large, ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... us more than do many learned volumes. It bids us lean on God, rest the whole weight of our needs, our weaknesses, and our sins on Him. Like any human friend or helper, He is better pleased when we lean hard on Him than when we gingerly put a finger on His arm, and lay no pressure on it, as we do when in ceremonial fashion we seem to accept another's support, and hold ourselves back from putting a weight on the offered arm. We cannot rely too utterly on Him. We honour Him most ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Maggie had taken the letter and the picture rather gingerly in her hands. Mr. Smith had gone over to the stove suddenly—to turn a damper, apparently, though a close observer might have noticed that he turned it back to its former position ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... will let you in. But allow me to state that you are acting very foolishly," answered the doctor, and dropped the window. A few minutes later he appeared at the door, which he opened very gingerly. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... to the strange and wonderful old house, as all the Merryweathers persisted in calling Braeside. Gertrude was always falling and dropping things. At home nobody expected anything else; but here it was different, and the poor child was conscious of every finger and toe as she stepped along gingerly. Gerald's parting words were still ringing ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... days afterward, the subject was as a sealed book between them. Then Catie broke the seals, and gingerly. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... was not a watch, because it had no dial or works, but something which was quite foreign to them. First they dropped it as if fearing it might explode. Then finding that the fall brought about no ill-effects they approached it warily, picked it up gingerly, and held it to their ears. It did not tick. Then they shook it, banged it on the desk, studied it closely with a wise, old-owlish look, and at last, shaking their heads quizzically, consigned it to wrapping paper and sealed it with ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... pleased, and, going out to see for himself, heard a great hammering and sawing from within the building; while carpenters were just emerging gingerly upon the dangerous roof. He walked out over the dried mud of his deep lot, crossed the street, and spoke genially to a workman who was removing the broken glass of a window on ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... Ever notice some women when a cat's around? They pretend to like 'em and say 'Nice kitty!' but you can see they're viewin' 'em with bitter hate and suspicion. If they have to stroke 'em they do it plenty gingerly and you can see 'em shudderin' inside like. It means they're catty themselves. But when one grabs a cat up as if she was goin' to eat it and cuddles it in her neck and talks baby-talk to it, you play her fur bein' sound and true. Pass up the ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... dust coats, he was obliged to endure the greatest of man's amazements—the knowledge that there was a well of truth within him. Leicester Square was swathed in an ivory fleece, and he was obliged to gain Berkeley Square on foot, treading gingerly in pumps, escorted by linkmen with flaring golden torches, and preceded by tipsy but assiduous ruffians armed with shovels, who, with many a lusty oath and horrid imprecation, cleared a thin thread of path between the towering walls of snow that ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... this, but an old man dozing in the porch of a little house opposite did. As Gregory reached up his cane to detach from its spray a great, yellow-cheeked fellow, his hand was arrested, and he was almost startled off his perch by such a volley of oaths as shocked even his hardened ears. Turning gingerly around so as not to lose his footing, he faced this masked battery that had opened so unexpectedly upon him, and saw a white-haired old man balancing himself on one crutch and brandishing the other ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... half-open door. The room was filled with dolls in rows and tiers; every piece of furniture was covered with them; and in a far corner, at the end of a long vista of dolls, appeared Mr. Algernon Vivian Todhunter, gingerly sitting on the edge of a sofa, surrounded by flaxen-haired baby dolls, and awkwardly holding in his lap ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... barred the door and closed the lattice; then with stealthy step thrust back the scarlet wall tapestry to disclose a small door let into the plaster. A key made the door open into a cupboard, out of which Democrates drew a brass-bound box of no great size, which he carried gingerly to a table and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... gingerly to move his arms and legs; they were still functioning though stiff and weak from disuse. He raised himself slowly and stood swaying on his feet, then made his uncertain way to his companion and shook ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... fifteen or twenty feet, swung slowly, headed out to sea, and then backed gingerly in until her stern was within a few feet of the side of ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... in darkness, the great brute stepped gingerly about, taking care not to tread upon the two prostrate forms on the floor, until she came to the cradle. There she stooped and investigated, passing her tongue caressingly over the little sleeper's face. Then with her great clumsy paws she drew the blanket in which the baby had been wrapped about ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... was delighted at the exchange, and though the pipkin was just a trifle awkward for him to manage, he succeeded after infinite trouble in balancing it on his head, and went away gingerly, tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink, down the road, with his tail over his arm for fear he should trip on it. And all the time he kept saying to himself, 'What a lucky fellow I am! and clever too! Such ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations and other important matters might be necessary to the common interest and permanent harmony of the several states." And other important matters,—thus again was the weightiest part of the business relegated to a subordinate clause. So gingerly was the great question—so dreaded, yet so inevitable—approached! This reference to "other matters" was pronounced by the commissioners to be a vast improvement on the original plan; and Hamilton's address now urged that commissioners be appointed by all the states, to meet in convention ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... moment. What if she trusted to it,—with neither sail nor rudder, as before, but now with neither oar nor pole? On shore, for her there were only ravening wolves; waterfalls were no worse than they, and perhaps there were no more waterfalls. She stepped gingerly upon the fragment, seated and balanced herself, paddled with her two hands, and thought to slip away. In spite of everything, a kind of exultation bubbled up within her,—she felt as if she were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... only one," said Nan, as she swung her other foot over the edge of the berth and felt gingerly for a footing on the one below. "I didn't sleep very well myself. But never mind," she added, as she slipped safely to the floor, unharmed by her perilous descent. "We'll forget all about such little things as sleepless ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... and got out quietly. Jill did not waken. He visited the chicken house, and horrendous squawkings came out of it. He found eggs. He went to the house, stepping gingerly from grass patch to grass patch, avoiding the puddles between them. He found bread, jars of preserves and cans of food. He inspected the lane. The car's tracks had been washed ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the hour found them on their way, the ponies picking their path gingerly over the bad ground until they reached the range. Here the three rustlers drew up short, for in the distance could be seen the ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... are driven to carry. We shirk and complain. We do just as little as possible and only threat or catastrophe induces us to do more than a minimum. If the ignorant mass, panting to know, revolts, we dole them gingerly enough knowledge to pacify them temporarily. If, as in the Great War, we discover soldiers too ignorant to use our machines of murder and destruction, we train them—to use machines of murder and destruction. If mounting wealth calls for intelligent workmen, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois |
