"Grinning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at each step the path grew more and more narrow, pieces of his flesh were torn off by the approaching walls; at last, breathless, naked and bleeding, he reached his goal; but his mother glided farther away, and it was all to begin over again. The phantoms pursued him, grinning and screaming ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... door and every window. I retreated to the farther corner of my room, or box; but the monkey, looking in at every side, put me into such a fright that I wanted presence of mind to conceal myself under the bed, as I might have easily done. After some time spent in peeping, grinning, and chattering, he at last espied me; and reaching one of his paws in at the door, as a cat does when she plays with a mouse, although I often shifted place to avoid him, he at length seized the lappet of my coat (which being made of that country silk, was very thick ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... man, with me down in this ooze, soaked to the skin! Wait till I find a chance to get at him!" groaned Jerry, shaking his fist upward, in mock anger, though at the time he was grinning amiably. ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... tortured, perhaps, by the insolence and bragging of the Frenchmen, who set no bounds to their triumph and self-applause. Among those who had charge of the prize were two, one of whom had my watch and the other my ring; the first would hold it to me grinning, and asking if Monsieur would like to know what o'clock it was; and the other would display the ring, and tell me that his sweetheart would value it when she knew that it was taken from a conquered Englishman. This was their practice every day, and I was compelled ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... venturing to look upon the tremendous and revolting spectacle. Dead! without an hour for repentance, even a moment for reflection; dead I without the rites which even the best should have. Is there a hope for him? The glaring eyeball, the grinning mouth, the distorted brow—that unutterable look in which a painter would have sought to embody the fixed despair of the nethermost ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... look down, because then you'd see the buildings all around you. The buildings below, black and sooty, their jagged outlines like the stumps of rotten teeth. And they stretched off in all directions, as far as the eye could attain; row after row of rotten teeth grinning up from the smog-choked throat of the streets. From the maw of the city far below came this faint but endless howling, this screaming of traffic and toil. And you couldn't help it, you breathed ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... Grinning from the high shelves were the Greek masks, Comedy and Tragedy. The light from the candle gave a sickly human tint to the marble. He ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... kept grinning like he did, when he watched us go off," observed Owen, in a disgusted way. "When do you suppose he could have found a chance to do such a dirty ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... ruddy-faced infantry lads and the grizzled veterans of the Old Guard. The deep cross-country road which covered Wellington's front has practically disappeared; the Belgians have cut away the banks to build up a huge pyramid, on the summit of which is perched a Belgian lion, with tail erect, grinning defiance towards the French frontier. A lion is not exactly the animal which best represents the contribution the ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... Grinning wanly, and conscious of a weakness in the knees, he muttered: "They sure will fill the museum, if everybody gets the kick out of them that I did. A little too realistic, I'd say. Guess these are the 'stuffed monstrosities' ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... terrible things of me that I think the crowd's sympathy must have veered towards me. She was assisted to her feet. I tried to be one of the assistants. "Don't let him come near me!" she thundered. I caught sight of Braxton on the fringe of the crowd, grinning at me. "It was all HIS fault," I madly cried, pointing at him. Everybody looked at Mr. Balfour, just behind whom Braxton was standing. There was a general murmur of surprise, in which I have no doubt Mr. Balfour joined. He gave a charming, ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... came to the west country, there was no shaking them off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land ever since. There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my elbow. It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more afraid of her knowing my past than of the police. Whatever he wanted he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without question, land, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... skull which he had picked up; its white and perfect teeth showed that it must have belonged to a man who died young. A few paces farther on five or six more skulls lay on the surface of the ground; they were inclosed in by fine stalactites, and appeared as if they were grinning at us through the bars of ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... ask for my own again, he swore it was none of my own. He has taken my little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line, He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine; He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas, He has taken my grinning heathen gods — and what should he want o' these? My foremast would not mend his boom, my deckhouse patch his boats; He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, to peddle for shoe-peg oats. I could not fight for ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... grinning; "and this will be a caution to you in future, how you confide a secret of consequence to a priest. I should as soon think of trusting a woman. Tickle the ears of their reverences with any idle nonsense you please: but tell them nothing you care ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his face just like the laughing gorilla at the Zoo, and went on grinning for a matter of two minutes or more. Such a laugh caught you whether you would or no; and while I didn't care two-pence about his business, and less about the lady, yet here I was laughing as loudly as he, and seemingly just ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... to meet another comer. Little Briggs, a trifle less plump and correspondingly longer, stood before them, grinning almost sheepishly. ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... represent the city's culture and graciousness, there were advertisements of soap, stockings, and collars. At curves the wheels ground with a long, savage whine, the train heeled, and she was flung into the arms of the grinning clerk, who held her tight. She, who must never be so unladylike as to enter a polling-place, had breathed into her very mouth the clerkling's virile electoral odor of cigarettes and ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... rises over them, and through the dim obscurity one hears the ceaseless sound of the thwack! thwack! as their sticks rattle on the ground. White dust lies thick on each swarthy skin; their faces are like faces in a pantomime. There are the flashing eyes and the grinning rows of white teeth; all else is clouded in thick layers of dust, with black spots and stencillings showing here and there like a picture in sepia and chalk. As they near the end of the field they redouble their thwacking, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... bearing a shield with an oak and a lion done thereon. There was Wealth-eker, on whose shield was done a golden sheaf of wheat. There was he who bore a name great from of old, Folk-wolf to wit, bearing on his shield the axe of the hewer. There they hung, dusty, befouled, with sightless eyes and grinning mouths, in the dimmed sunlight of the Hall, before the eyes of that victorious Host, stricken silent at the ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... baby fingers had so often strained to grasp. How well she knew the ghastly ivory features, the sunken eyeless sockets—of that veritable death's head? How vividly came back the day, when asleep in her father's arms, a spark from that grinning skull had fallen on her cheek, and she awoke to find that fond father bending in remorseful tenderness over her? Years ago, she had reverently packed the pipe away, with other articles belonging to the dead, and ignorant that her mother had given it to Bertie, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... excused in one who turned from that superb head, with its insolent youth and beauty, to the painted death-mask grinning there before it. Yet the marble had not flattered, and, looking closely enough, you saw a reminiscence of its contour in the bloodless visage which, since that proud moment, had chronicled the ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... his gaze fell on the stagnant squalid waters of the canal. It was in the dirty foulness of this North Warigesui that O'Iwa had disappeared. Cho[u]bei pulled up short. A dead cur, copper hued, with swollen germinating sides and grinning teeth, bobbed at him from the green slime. Cho[u]bei slewed round—"A vile ending; but after all an ending. Iemon profits; Cho[u]bei gets the scoldings. Ah! If it was not that Ito[u] Kwaiba is engaged in this affair; Tamiya should pay dearly. There is ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... a most formidable carving-knife,) "charge that boar's head, grinning defiance at us on the side-board; it will do you good to hew his brawny neck. My mother, I am sure, for one, will thank you to do the honours there instead of me. Isn't it a comfort now, to know that I broke the handle of my hunting-whip across ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... Signorelli's usual powerful build, one, however, is an emaciated youth with little on his bones but skin, many are skeletons. To these last he has given a pathetic look of ecstasy, which is wonderfully expressive, considering it is obtained only by means of eyeless sockets and grinning jaw-bones. ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... an observant eye had been kept upon our proceedings, and the window above was re-opened, though so silently that I only perceived the action. The porter, a jolly, bluff, hearty-looking fellow, stood grinning below with a lantern, while we set the ladder (which only just reached the basket) ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the man, grinning, "'bout a fool an' his money. The house is a hunker; but w'at's the use of a house without ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... think I fell victim to their feline charm. The children were pets, but you didn't feel like patting the adults on their big grinning heads. Personally I didn't like the one I knew best. He was called—well, we called him Charley, and he was the ethnologist, ambassador, contact man, or whatever you like to call him, who came back with us. Why I disliked him was because he was always trying to get ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... the vessel, and bending over the well, he began to drink. His long beard had fallen into the water, and when he had slaked his thirst and attempted to rise, he found himself held fast by it. After vainly pulling and jerking for some time, he looked down into the water and saw a hideous face grinning at him. Its eyes were green and shining, its teeth showed from ear to ear, and it held him by the beard with two bony claws. In horror, the king tried to extricate himself, but a terrible voice came from the depths of ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... for Stephano's," Mr. Moss declared, grinning; "and the sooner the better. One of the neatest pieces of business I ever did in my life I brought off there in the old bar. To tell you the truth, I'm getting a ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on my job and be the first to meet him and get the brunt of the whole thing. And I condoned, as you might say, and as he'll probably feel. I let my porch be used for meeting and mobbing, as you might say. And he ketched me grinning over his shoulder when I read them heading words after that old lunkhead of a Prophet passed ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... negative side of the scale, and he weighed his disqualifications honestly; though he depreciated the importance of his unprepossessing appearance. Then, in contrast to the negative side, he showed me very weighty and attractive reasons for employing him. He started by grinning good-humoredly. ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... the glancing of swords, and the cleaving of shields, and the piercing of breastplates, why not represent the Greeks and Trojans like two savage tribes, tugging and tearing, and kicking and biting, and gnashing, foaming, grinning, and gouging, in all the poetry of martial nature, unencumbered with gross, prosaic, artificial arms; an equal superfluity to the natural warrior and his natural poet? Is there anything unpoetical in Ulysses striking ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... the lieutenant to his signaller, "what are you grinning at?" The submarine has hung on to ask if the destroyer will "kiss her and whisper good-night." A breaking sea smacks her tower in the middle of the insult. She closes like an oyster, but—just too late. Habet! There must be a ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... as my guest and I stood at a little distance, I leave you to imagine, if you can, the incongruous tableau; the Prince of Darkness almost touching the mourners beside the cross; the sorrowful nun and grinning dwarf side by side with a ship in full sail, which again seemed to be forcing her way into a ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was nearer, nearer, nearer, they were caught beyond a doubt, But they slipped her, into Orbetello Bay, And the lubbers gave a shout as they paid their cables out, With the guns grinning round them ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... blackened human head, and then two long, black, half-burned bones; placed the bones crosswise on the ground, and set the head atop of them, then said, "So, now you have right merry company. That is Wolde's head, as you may perceive; and now ye may conjure the devil together as ye were wont." Then, grinning maliciously, he went out, locking the prison door upon the unfortunate ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... father's health! His brothers run away—the Abbot himself runs: but Brother Bartolome stays. For he labours for the good of man, and that gives a clear conscience. Behold how just, after all, are the dispositions of Heaven: how blind are the wicked! For three weeks those bloody-minded dogs have been grinning and running about the city: and here under their feet, as in a mine, have lain the two most precious jewels of all—a clear conscience and a liquor which, upon my faith, holy father, cannot be believed in under ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... voyages on an iceberg, and of his comfortable home in the vicinity of the north pole, and of the little cubs whom he left rolling in the eternal snows. In fact, he is a bear of sentiment. But, O, those unsentimental monkeys the ugly, grinning, aping, chattering, ill-natured, mischievous, and queer little brutes. Annie does not love the monkeys. Their ugliness shocks her pure, instinctive delicacy of taste, and makes her mind unquiet, because it bears a wild and dark resemblance to humanity. But here is a little pony, ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... teeth in fury. Oh, he was an innocent—a blind baby—the joke and laughing-stock of the country around, with yokels grinning at him and pale-faced devils laughing aloud. The teachers knew; the girls knew; God knew; everybody but he knew—poor blind, deaf mole, stupid jackass that he was. He must run—run away from this world, and far off in some free land beat ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... come to him through me," said the Vicar, and retraced his steps down the hill. The Squire followed at a foot-pace, grinning as ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and looked around the room. It was like a convention, or a Boy Scout rally. The six men made up for their lack of numbers by sheer volume. The president of Southern Consolidated was talking at the top of his lungs about watchbird's enormous durability. The two presidents he was talking at were grinning, nodding, one trying to interrupt with the results of a test he had run on watchbird's resourcefulness, the other talking ...
— Watchbird • Robert Sheckley
... let me come no nearer," said a lanky, grinning individual who stood at a respectful distance, with a basket on either arm. ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... decided wisely, casting a glance above him at the sky, which was becoming rapidly overcast. "And I haven't any umbrella," he added, grinning at his own feeble joke. "Well, I've been wet before. I cannot well be any more so than I was last night. I'll bet the rainwater will be warmer than the waters in the East Fork. If it isn't I'll surely ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... twin spirits of christianity were rife in the land. There was only a fitful sleep for the small boys and girls, who were up at peep of day, stealing: from room to room crying "Christmas Gift!" Out on the back porches waited the negroes in grinning rows to follow the example. All week the cabin fires burned brightly and constant was the rejoicing over their treasures, not forgetting the grand eatables and the big ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... Country Squires in bob Wigs and white Girdles make love at the side of a Coach, and cry, Madam, this is dainty Weather. Thus she described the Diversion; for she went only to pray heartily that no body might be hurt in the Crowd, and to see if the poor Fellows Face, which was distorted with grinning, might any way be brought to it self again. She never chats over her Tea, but covers her Face, and is supposed in an Ejaculation before she taste[s] a Sup. This ostentatious Behaviour is such an Offence to true Sanctity, that it disparages it, and makes Virtue ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... often changing them so rapidly under your eye that it seems like jugglery. He is fondest of doing this at twilight, and loves the darkest corner of the room. From the half-light he will suddenly thrust out before you a grinning gargoyle head, to which he will give in an instant more a pair of spider legs, and then, with one roll, stretch it out into a crocodile, whose jaws seem so near snapping that you involuntarily draw your chair further back. Next, in a freak of ventriloquism, he startles you still more by ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... a yell for Joe the half-breed, Pedro hurried away, grinning, to prepare the six fried eggs, the ham, the coffee, the muffins, ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... spirits, which never left him, and which would always break out on sufficient provocation. Mr. Parton would have us believe that this was all, and that the common-place hero whom he describes never rose above the level of the humor conveyed by grinning through a horse-collar. Even admitting the truth of this, a real love of honest fun and of a hearty laugh is a kindly quality that ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... demoniac taylor. A greater hell than his own must have a hand in this. I am not certain that the cause which you advocate has much reason for triumph. You seem to me to substitute light headedness for light heartedness by a trick, or not to know the difference. I confess, a grinning tailor would shock me.—Enough ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... irritably. 'You'll get a husband directly, and think no more of me than other girls do when the marrying fit takes 'em. What are you grinning at now, I ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fifteen-and-sixpence that came to Southampton last month to see me dance the Highland Fling, and what's the consequence? I've never been put up at it since—never once—while the 'Infant Phenomenon' has been grinning through artificial flowers at five people and a baby in the pit, and two boys in the ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... that? What are you grinning for? I know you, the whole lot of you! I know there are thieves here, plenty of 'em, that cover themselves up in dapper clothes and sit still as if they were honest men. (to a spectator) You, sir, what do you say? I'll ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... a hideous black woman, with a sort of colored turban on her head, and who was gazing all the time from the carriage window, nodding and grinning derisively towards the ladies, with gleaming eyes and large white eyeballs, and her teeth set as if ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... li'l walk fo' the good of mah appetite," replied Unc' Billy, grinning more broadly than ever. "What are yo' doing ...
— The Adventures of Jimmy Skunk • Thornton W. Burgess
... showing a jolly red face, which indicated that he had been passing the night in the tropics, when Claudius, having said his farewell within the hospitable house where his bill had been obstinately withheld from him, took the reins in the chaise. The grinning ostler held the unbarred door of the yard ready to open it quickly and slam it behind him. At least, he had not the host's delicacy and he had accepted ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... Thousands of eyeless sockets seemed to turn toward him in blank yet questioning wonder, suggesting awfully to his mind that the eyes might still be there, fallen far back into the head from whence they yet SAW, themselves unseen,— thousands of grinning jaws seemed to mock at him, as he leaned half-fainting against the damp, weed-grown portal,—he fancied he could hear the derisive laugh of death echoing horribly through those dimly distant arches! This, . . ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... he might have observed the night before had he not been preoccupied with sudden, numerous, and powerful surprises—that the walls were hung with arms and trophies of the chase. Just opposite to him hung the skin of an enormous grisly bear, with the head and skull entire, and the mouth and teeth grinning at him in an awful manner. Near to this were the skin and horns of several buffaloes. In other places there were more horns, and heads, and hides of bears of various kinds, as well as of deer, and, conspicuous ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Courage and Principle is finely touched, and the different colours at once nicely blended and distinguished. "If Percy be alive, I'll PIERCE him. If he do come in my way, SO:—If he do not, if I come in HIS willingly, let him make a Carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath; give me life; which if I can save, SO; if not, honour comes unlook'd for, and there's an end." One cannot say which prevails most here, profligacy or courage; they are both tinged alike by the same humour, and mingled in one common mass; yet when we consider the ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... together like sardines, and were thus stunted both in body and soul. That part of the Jewish quarter which remained standing after the great fire, and which is called the Old Lane, those high blackened houses, where a grinning, sweaty race of people bargains and chaffers, is a horrible relic of the Middle Ages. The older synagogue exists no more; it was less capacious than the present one, which was built later, after the Nuremberg exiles were taken into the community, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... His grinning brothers, Reuben and Burke And Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the waxed end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk Of his wise old head, and a knowing ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... captain was bawling from the poop, and there were a dozen pikemen ready below; and then on a sudden came the crash; and I looked up and there was the Spaniards' decks above us, and the poop like a tower, with a grinning don or two looking down; and there was I looking up the muzzle of a culverin. I skipped towards the poop, shouting to the men; and the dons fired their broadside as I went.—God save us from that din! ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the least common extreme. It is much more frequently the case that articles which ought to be strongly and neatly made are sewed so that a nice sewer would rather pick out the threads and sew over again than to be annoyed with the sight of grinning stitches, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... England in one of the ships of the convoy. The dining-room was entirely of cedar, and the floor like a mirror, very spacious, and it partly projected over the river. Above the dining-table was a large punkah, which was kept in constant motion during dinner by two young grinning black girls. The table groaned with good things, and we did ample justice to our host's entertainment. He was evidently a great humourist, and amused us at dinner by relating anecdotes of Lord Rodney and Admiral Benbow's time. "There are," said he, "twelve tough ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... trust, she held out her little hand to him. The gesture was so delightfully natural that Hale, grinning boyishly, took her hand and held it as they walked ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... Barnes went on, grinning. "Let us set apart the dinner hour on Tuesday evening, say. Every time this mess gets together we hear a lot of foolish questions asked. Now, on Tuesday evening, if any member of this mess asks a question that he can't answer himself, let it be agreed that he pay ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... while you have a chance!" called Walter Perkins. Three grinning faces met the fugitive at the tent. But Stacy bowled Walter over, leaped the foot that Rector extended to trip him, and then dashed for the shelter of the tall cedars, ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... material available; the besieging party had retreated. On the top row the dishevelled president was confusedly pulling himself together, and grinning sheepishly. The rebellion ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... is," said the agent grinning. "That's why we brought the tractor out to-day. We wanted to have a good chance when your uncle wasn't home. When he gets back with his bride, we're going to show him what power can ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... the roulette tables," corrected Meakim. "Of course," he continued, grinning, "if you're fond of the game, Mr. Holcombe, it's handy having them in the same house, but I can steer you against a better one back of the French Consulate. Those at the Hotel ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... things. First, these holes in the carpet, where the six bullets have gone in. Why on earth should anybody fire at the carpet? A drunken man lets fly at his enemy's head, the thing that's grinning at him. He doesn't pick a quarrel with his feet, or lay siege to his slippers. And then there's the rope"—and having done with the carpet the speaker lifted his hands and put them in his pocket, but continued ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... after I had got rid of the old woman that I made my first acquaintance with my friend yonder," and he nodded toward the skull that seemed to be grinning down at us in the shadow of the wide mantel-shelf. "I had trekked from dawn till eleven o'clock,—a long trek,—but I wanted to get on; and then had turned the oxen out to graze, sending the voorlooper to look after them, meaning ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... you have grinning playfulness, constant open merriment? And do you see anything more impertinent than those women who laugh ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... what it feeds on," said Caderousse, grinning and showing his teeth, like a monkey laughing or a tiger growling. "And," added he, biting off with his large white teeth an enormous mouthful of bread, "I have formed a plan." Caderousse's plans alarmed Andrea still more than his ideas; ideas were but the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was grinning maliciously. "Were you looking for Lieutenant Lawton?" he inquired. "He was here a few minutes ago. He has gone back to his home. I can look him up for you if you are really anxious to see ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... just grinning because he's such a cheerful guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... building and the surrounding country would doubtless have suggested the old England rather than the new. There was something mediaeval in the massive, castellated tower that carried the eye upward past the great, arched doorway, the thin, deep-set windows, the leaded eaves and grinning gargoyles, into the cool sky ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... selfish ideas of the two men, inspired as they were by the folly and ignorance of the celibates. Seeing that Sylvie had lost all chance of establishing herself in the good society of the place, an afterthought came to the colonel. Old soldiers have seen so many horrors in all lands, so many grinning corpses on battle-fields, that no physiognomies repel them; and Gouraud began to cast his eyes on the old maid's fortune. This imperial colonel, a short, fat man, wore enormous rings in ears that were bushy ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... on the six numbers Woodseer would have selected, and they lost. He stated that the number of 17 had won before. Abrane tried the transversal enclosing this favoured number. 'Of course!' he cried, with foul resignation and a hostile glare: the ball had seated itself and was grinning at him from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the head with your gun—I guess he used your gun, I found it out there by you," said Reid, still grinning as if he could see the point of humor in it that Mackenzie could not be ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... original word-order (see lines 4 and 5 of the extract), and in part to the free use of archaic language. Mr. Brooke does not hesitate to employ such forms as, 'house-carles,' 'grit-wall,' 'ness-slopes,' 'host-shafts,' 'war-wood,' 'gold-flakd shields,' 'grinning-masked helms,' which it would seem must be quite unintelligible to the majority ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... bed-time. When he is in this fighting mood he can even drive back Laddie, chiefly because the elder is far too chivalrous to hurt him. If you want to see what Laddie can really do, put the small gloves on him and let him go for Daddy. Some of those hurricane rallies of his would stop Daddy grinning if they could get home, and he has to fall back off his stool in order to ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his corner Holliday was nodding to his handlers and grinning widely, just as he had grinned all through the fight so far. And so far it had been a mild battle, a showy thing of pretty footwork and flashy boxing. But it hadn't been harmful to either of them. Holliday, it appeared, had been quite content to let it go along ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... for all the alleged difficulty, with an untrameled and regal ease. With a sweep of hauteur she left the grinning boy and when she returned a few minutes later she was ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... waxen seals of dead and gone rulers and nobles; heavy volumes bound in leather, containing the archives. And also a most curious strong box bound in iron bands, nail studded, and with immense locks and keys, upon which reclined a strange, wooden figure with a grinning face, clad in the moth-eaten ancient dress of Malines, representing "Op Signorken" (the card states), but the attendant told me it was the "Vuyle Bridegroom," and related a story of it which cannot be set down here, Flemish ideas and speech being rather freer than ours. But the people, or rather ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... a mouthful of beef. He turned his eyes toward Red without ceasing, and grinning as well as he could under the circumstances managed to grunt out "Gu—," which was as near to "Good" as the ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... compounded of bleak, bald faces and sparsely feathered wings. One discovery, made there on a summer day, has not, I fancy, been duplicated in another New England town. On six of the larger tombstones are carved, below the grass level, a row of tiny imps, grinning faces and humanized animals. Whose was the hand that wrought? The Tivertonians know nothing about it. They say there was a certain old Veasey who, some eighty odd years ago, used to steal into the graveyard with his tools, and there, for love, scrape the mosses from the stones ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... One night I was dreaming in the usual way in the demon-sphere and they played one, of their familiar dismal pranks. We were acting a farce, some friends of my youth and I, and the stage was a cemetery and all the actors had grinning skulls. Then, firmly regarding one of these acting apparitions, I said: "There is no death," as though to resist this obtruding horror. The head grinned mockingly and, with a sarcastic expression, pointed to all the skulls and bones round about. But I repeated, now with fixed determination ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... quickly away in order that he might not see her. She had not been as much affected by his words as by another look in Jeb's grinning, sickly face which made her want to run and hide—and cry. She, more than any of those present, could read his expressions like type in a book; yet in all justice to him she had never before seen an indication of cowardice ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... more conscientiously," continued the witness, grinning sardonically; "when iron is eating into the flesh, a man is apt to swear to what he thinks will be most agreeable to his masters. Go on, 'squire, if you have anything ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hosts forget to honor me), and the gaiety began to grow somewhat noisy, when a youngster, who had, no doubt, been drinking a little more than was good for him, sprang to his feet. Waving his goblet toward Yorke (who stood behind Captain Clarke's chair grinning delightedly at every flash of wit, whether he understood it or not), he ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... end of the period mentioned he placed himself behind the bar and faced a roomful of grinning men. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... sound right on the stone walk leading to the east door, then a shrill whicker that made father drop his pencil. Leon was on his feet, Shelley beside him, while at the door stood Laddie grinning as if his face would split, and with her forefeet on the step and her nose in the room, stood the prettiest, the very prettiest horse I ever saw. She was sticking her nose toward Leon, whinnying softly, as she ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... be;—how utterly lost to every principle of morality, who would hazard an assertion in favor of intoxicating drinks as a source of benefit to mankind. The universal evidence of all ages would be against him. The horrid shrieks of suffering humanity would denounce his arguments. Millions of grinning skeletons, blackened with every crime (if permitted) would startle forth from their infernal dungeons; and in myriads of drunkards' graves the rattling of dry bones would be heard: Yea, even hell, its very self, bloated with the souls of ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... and poor aunt set her teeth and said nothing to uncle, as she knew he would only tell her stories, and they were walking on, not saying a word, when something made her look back, and there was a horrible boy with red hair, peeping through the hedge just behind, and grinning. She said it was a dreadful face, with something unnatural about it, as if it had been a dwarf, and before she had time to have a good look, it popped back like lightning, and ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... Still grinning he conjured up the vision of some grim-faced spinster-subscriber in a desolate country town starting out at last for the first time in her life, with real, cheery self-importance, rain or shine, to join the laughing, jostling, deliriously human Saturday night crowd ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... mutual understanding; the rights once relinquished which might now be urged again; the memory of things past, were all suggested in this look. She thought of Ludlow, with his lofty ideals and his great gifts, and then she looked at this little grinning, leering wretch, and remembered how he had once put his arm round her and kissed her. It seemed impossible—too cruel and unjust to be. She was scarcely more than a child, then, and that foolish affair had ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... you say!" he retorted, grinning. "Well, grab it from me, if it wasn't for the Jack Johnsons and the gas, a gun fight in the old 50th would make this war look like Luna Park! It listens like it, too, only this here show is all fi-nally, with Bingle's Band playin' circus tunes an' the supes ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... Bob heard before he recovered sufficiently from the shock to move a limb. The officers were urging their prisoner forward, grinning and nodding to each other, whilst several voices from the crowd shouted abusively at the poltroon whose first instinct was to betray his associate. Bob turned his face away and walked on. He did not dare to run, yet ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... answered the girl enthusiastically. "And I shall rely on you to keep me posted about everything that's going on. And a little later I'm going to take X-ray photographs of you and all these men." She smiled at the grinning gunners. "That's the new fad, you know, and we're going to offer prizes for the best developed skeletons in the American Province, and pick a King and Queen ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... least, just a little bit of the comforting sense of proprietorship. They had contributed of their scant pennies more than a hundred dollars toward the opening of the playground, and they felt that it was their very own. All the better. Two policemen watched the passing show, grinning; their clubs hung idly from their belts. The words of a little woman whom I met once in Chicago kept echoing in my ear. She was the "happiest woman alive," for she had striven long for a playground for her poor children, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... no one who could help grinning at Ferdinand Frog's news—he looked so comical. And old Mr. Crow, who was noted for his rudeness, even burst out ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Yesterday Hampton had wondered, grinning, what he'd look like in a dress-suit again. Hadn't had a thing on here of late but his war togs. Whereby he called attention to his turned-up overalls, soft shirt, battered hat, and flapping vest ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... reached him he involuntarily stopped short. A roar of laughter sounded in his ears. The American mate and his companions were shrieking and staggering about the deck; even the crew of the slaver were, every man Jack of them, grinning from ear to ear. ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... about I marvelled at the statuary it contained, all the statues being made of the worst stone, and executed in the worst possible taste. The names cut beneath them gave the whole the air of a practical joke. A weeping statue was Democritus; another, with grinning mouth, was labelled Heraclitus; an old man with a long beard was Sappho; and an old woman, Avicenna; and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... those days there was a wicked spirit that troubled Cerrig-y-drudion Church, and the people greatly feared this spirit, and everybody was afraid, even in the day-time, to pass the church, for there, day after day, they saw the evil one looking out of the church windows and grinning at them. They did not know what to do to get rid of this spirit, but at last they consulted a famous conjuror, who told them that no one could dislodge their enemy but the Dau ychain Banawg. They knew of the two long-horned cattle which fed on Waen Banawg. ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... are you doing there? grinning like a monkey? Go directly and make the kettle boil, and set the table. And tell that Jim, that's always loafing around you, to make himself useful as well as ornamental, and open them oysters that ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Sweeney, as he stood suddenly awakened, and grinning in an idiotic way, "how did the old thing work?" And it was in the consequent hilarity and loud and long applause, perhaps, that the Professor was relieved from the explanation of this rather astounding phenomenon of the idealistic workings of a purely practical brain—or, as my impious friend ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... brought the gun along from the bed with him and was holding it without having been in the least aware of the fact. Grinning twistedly at the old and pointless precaution, he shoved the gun into his trousers pocket, brought out matches, a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and began to smoke. Very considerate of them to see to it he wouldn't run out of minor conveniences ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... instead, turned silently away from the table, his back to the others. There was silence in the room now for a moment. Again Jimmie Dale's eyes travelled swiftly from one to another of the group—to Curley, grinning maliciously at his ex-partner again—to Haines, gnawing at his lower lip, and scowling blackly—to Barlow, obviously uncomfortable, who was uneasily tracing patterns with his forefinger on the top of the table—and back to the old lawyer, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard |
