"Mess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ship full of eager passengers, freighted with a rich cargo, steaming at full speed from England to America. Two thirds of a prosperous voyage thus far were over, as in our mess we were beginning to talk of home. Fore and aft the songs of good cheer and hearty merriment rose from deck ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Natalie. "Look at it. It's horrified at something. I think it must be the mess the roses have made. Can't you see what it's saying? It's ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... red coats; some of them fond of high play, others fond of drinking: so I have formed no intimacy but with Gascoigne and Henry. My father will see that I do not yet think that the officers of my own mess must all be the first men ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... be all right then! He'll follow me like a lamb. He doesn't want to mess around with such. But she's got some ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... English was very fluent, luckily untouched by a Scottish accent. He was always bubbling over with vitality and go, and plunged into English with the recklessness of his race; when he couldn't express himself clearly he invented words which were the joy of the Mess,—"pilliate," "whizzle," "contemporative," and dozens of others that I can't remember; and what used to charm us particularly was that he so often went out of his way to put the accent on the wrong syllable, such as in bilyetting, brigade, attack, ambassador, &c. He ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... terrible mess of this, lads," he said gloomily. "I don't say that it is any of our faults, but it is a horrible affair. I have not the least doubt that Mr. Thorndyke has been killed, and it is no satisfaction to us that we have pretty nearly done for a dozen ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... "that is it. Gertie and I have known each other for years, ever since we were children, in fact; and, you see—you see—" he paused once more, began again, and then broke out impatiently with, "I'm making an awful mess of ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Mess. O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall's dead; Slain by his servant, going to put out The other eye ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... consisted of four tiny compartments, two on each side of the after corridor. The first two were the mess room and chart room, and the second pair were the cabins of the commander—a lieutenant—and his second in command, an ensign. Behind them was an electric kitchen, and next came the engines, first two sets of Diesel engines, one on ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... find out tomorrer," said our skipper, "now we're headin' for Pingree's Beach to see if we can get a mess of clams of old man Haskell. Then we'll have dinner, and we can run over to the inlet at Little Duck in an hour, any ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... Holmes, what funny questions you do ask!" said the Countess, smiling. "The Earl's room was swept out about half-past eleven that noon, as soon as I came down and ordered Natalie to do it, after I saw the mess of cigar-ashes the Earl had left on ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... course, in that lovely mess. Who wouldn't? But this girl lost hers before she got here—in Chicago or Albany, or maybe it was Omaha. She lives in Los Angeles, so she might have lost them almost anywhere, ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... There was a mortgage and there were three notes of hand and the transcript of a judgment that I got in a court action a little while ago. I can't collect on any of them, unless I have the papers to show. I'm in a pretty mess!" he groaned, as he went around the room ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... Annyhow, the money's in the bank, an' it's proper dhrunk'll be Batty the Fool this night, an' likewise the Hon. Cubberd Allen Wiggit-Galt, Etcetera. There's two of me now, an' it's twice the amount I must be dhrinkin'. I swear, I feel a thirst risin' that minds me o' Ingy in the hills, an' the mess o' the ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... He was wakefully mournful, recalling each ungraceful incident of the afternoon's failure in turn and more particularly his dispute with the ticket clerk, and thinking over all the things he might have done—if only he hadn't done the things he had done. He had made an atrocious mess of things. He felt he had hopelessly shattered the fair fabric of impressions of him that Lady Harman had been building up, that image of a wise humane capable man to whom a woman would gladly turn; he had been flurried, he had been incompetent, he had been ridiculously ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... water for the purpose of condensation; and the water so distilled escaped at the nipple of the gun-barrel, and was conducted into a bottle placed to receive it." The accompanying sketch is taken from a model which I made, with a soldier's mess-tin for a boiler, and a tin tube in the place of a gun barrel. The knob represents the breech; and the projection, through which the water is dropping, the nipple. I may remark that there is nothing in the arrangement which would hurt the most highly-finished gun barrel; and that ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... week in a place like this is much like a jail sentence unless you're hard at work. Are things in pretty much of a mess?" ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Scott wrote: 'Reached the ship this morning, and this afternoon assembled all hands on the mess-deck, where I told them exactly how matters stood. There was a stony silence. I have not heard a laugh in ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... enough to question him without Soh Hay's interference, but I shall only make a mess of it, and, perhaps, get a wrong idea altogether of his message. Now, Soh Hay," he broke off as the interpreter entered, "you will ask this man the questions exactly as I put them, and tell me his answer word for word. It may ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... look so frightfully ill," she whispered. "Have you been missing me? My dear, what a mess I seem to have made of our lives! Sit down! Let me take care of you! Let me do what I can for ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... perhaps be permitted to state his personal view of her action. While the negotiations lasted, her position was scarcely a dignified one. It seemed that she was willing, not, indeed, to sell her birthright for a mess of pottage, but to buy her birthright at the cost of complicity in monstrous crime. Neither Italy nor Europe would have profited in the long run by the substitution of "Belgia Irredenta" for "Italia Irredenta." But now that she has repudiated the sops offered to her honor and conscience, her ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... have been that he was about to murder me when vengeance came on him, whether from man or God, or the Gods of Old, I know not. Suffice it, that when I found my Ruby Jewel, which shone up as a living star from the mess of blood wherein it lay, I paused not, but fled from the place. I journeyed on alone through the hot desert, till, by God's grace, I came upon an Arab tribe camping by a well, who gave me salt. With them I rested till they had ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... Higginbotham and that other scoundrel were the vanguard of the returning party. When they shouted on being attacked by you and Bob, and Frank, the rest who were behind them in the woods were given the alarm, sneaked up quietly, and bagged us all. A pretty mess." ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... go away as I did—and about a couple of paltry two thousand pound houses, too! Ah, well, I don't grudge you your luck, though it does seem rather—— It was worth waiting for; you'll be cutting me out before long—if you don't make a mess of this job. I mean, you know, old chap, if you don't go and give your City man a Gothic castle when what he wants is something with plenty of plate-glass windows and a Corinthian portico. That's ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... it? In these, or not much wiser Thoughts, I had like to have lost my Place at the Chop-House, where every Man according to the natural Bashfulness or Sullenness of our Nation, eats in a publick Room a Mess of Broth, or Chop of Meat, in dumb Silence, as if they had no pretence to speak to each other on the Foot of being Men, except they were of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... deep down into the savory mess, and seemed for a moment to forget her friend in the selfish gratification of her appetite. If she had fully realized the unpleasant fact that Harry was going, perhaps she might have been less selfish, ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... this is an awful mess," he said, in a shocked voice. "The woman sent for me—Levenson, that actress. There's some mystery. A man dead—his head knocked in. And Grimshaw sound asleep. It may be hysterical, but I can't wake him. Have a look before ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... the whole house in a mess, as you did last time; turn everything upside down. I tell you, Beatrice, I can't have it done. I shall want the study to put ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... imagine that he has subsisted principally on credit and gambling since he squandered his money, for he is certainly not the type of man to live on his pay as an officer. As a matter of fact, he was in serious trouble with the Army authorities recently for not paying his mess bills in France. He was not brought up to the Army, and he has seen very little active service. He got his captain's commission about twelve months after the war commenced, when the War Office was handing out commissions like boxes of matches, but he managed to keep under the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... himself!" "Green Hand!" says Bill, sulky enough, "who's the Green Hand? Blow me Bob, if I don't think we're the green hands ourselves, if that's what you're upon!" So I told him the story about Ned Collins. "Well," says he, "if a fellow was green as China rice, cuss me if the reefers' mess wouldn't take it all out on him in a dozen watches. The softest thing I know, as you say, Bob, just now, it's to come the smart hand when you're a lubber; but to sham green after that style, ye know, why, 'tis a mark or two above either you or I, messmate. So for my part, I forgives the young scamp, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... very likely, had you wished to enter the navy, have placed you on the quarter-deck. I cannot, of course, alter your rating now, but I will appoint you to act as my clerk, and I will let Mr Stewart and Mr Ashurst know that you are to mess with us, and that they are to treat you as a ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... The mess-waiter took charge of the post-mortem. Like the Duke of Plaza Toro, he "likes an interment" and rarely misses a last rite. A keen fisherman, he had little difficulty in extracting an exhibit for the Court's inspection, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... a mess. It would have looked better if someone had simply tossed a grenade in it and had done with it. At least the results would have been random and more ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... went down to the market where Mrs. Haggerty keeps a stand, and told her that I was going to leave for a few days until this mess would be settled, for fear there would be any arrest, and I should be a witness; she told me all I had to say was that I knew nothing about it; I told her a false oath I would not give; what I saw with my eyes I would swear to; she told me I could do ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the veal, the conductor knew, instinctively, that the surface indications showed that there was a woman in there. Then he thought that the engine had probably struck a female, and tore her all to pieces, and of course he knew that the company would expect him to bring home enough for a mess, or a funeral. Spitting on his hands he called a brakeman with a transom hook out of the sleeper, to fish with, they rolled up their trousers and waded in, after telling a porter to bring a blanket to put the pieces in. The brakeman got there first and took hold of one foot, when the ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... Sergeant Glenn Winslow, who made out the medical record for every wounded and sick man of the Americans who went through the various hospitals at Archangel, and who was frequently present at the British sergeant's mess at the hospital, relates that there were plenty of fine foods and delicacies and drink for the sergeant's messes, corroborated by Mess Sgt. Vincent of. "F" Company. And a similar story was told by an American medical officer who was invalided home in charge of over fifty ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... great fool," said Agatha, sitting down and twisting her hands perplexedly. "I believe I said something; but I really did not intend to. He surprised me into speaking before I knew what I was saying. A pretty mess I have got ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... I am," said Hughes. "Captain Fraser-Freer got in rather a mess in India and failed of promotion. It was suspected that he was discontented, soured on the Service; and the Countess Sophie de Graf was set to beguile him with her charms, to kill his loyalty and win ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... prowess of the nation sat expectant on the bare earth. Each long, bare arm thrust forth its dish in turn as the host served out the banquet, in which, as courtesy enjoined, he himself was to have no share. First, a mess of pounded maize, in which were boiled, without salt, morsels of fish and dark scraps of meat; then, fish and flesh broiled on the embers, with a kettle of cold water from the river. Champlain, in wise distrust of Ottawa cookery, confined himself to the simpler and less doubtful viands. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... trust even my worst enemy—if I had one—to Mrs. Briggs' "kind heart." I walked off in disgust. I found a cab at the next corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's, threw myself back on the cushions. This was a lovely mess! This was a beautiful climax to the first act—no, merely the prologue—of the drama of Hephzy's and my pilgrimage. What would Jim Campbell say to this? I was to be absolutely care-free; I was not to worry about myself or anyone else. That ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... blue jacket, with the black braid down the front, lighted a cigar, and wrote letters on every other than official matters, and forgot about recruits. He was to have leave of absence on Christmas, and though the others had denounced him for leaving the mess-table on that day, they had forgiven him when he explained that he was going to spend it with his people at home. The others had homes as far away as San Francisco and as far inland as Milwaukee, and some called the big ship of war home; ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... I'll explain this business, and you'll see, once for all, just precisely how much lark there is to it," said Davis. "I'm captain, and I'm going to be it. One thing of three. First, you take my orders here as cabin steward, in which case you mess with us. Or, second, you refuse, and I pack you forward—and you get as quick as the word's said. Or, third and last, I'll signal that man-of-war and send you ashore under ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sung by the solo voices alone, but nowadays choirs of five hundred voices attack such choruses as "For unto us a Child is Born," without the slightest hesitation, even if they sometimes make a mournful mess of the "divisions." ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... talking to a boy who lived near his own home, who was on his way to the front and "over the top" in the Argonne mess. Three days afterward, at a hospital base where a hospital train was just discharging its load of wounded, Bok walked among the boys as they lay on their stretchers on the railroad platform waiting for bearers to carry ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... our spirits began to revive, nature commenced to reassert herself, and we made our way to the cookhouse. We got our mess-tins filled with bread, cheese and jam, puddled our way to the dugout and fell to with the relish of healthy, hungry, tired men who had fasted several hours. We gathered in the dugout occupied by Billy and myself. Feeling thoroughly rejuvenated, someone ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... high-strung girl whom the slightest breath of scandal would fairly kill. I can't let her name be dragged into this mess; I can't answer her note, and send the reply away from under your very nose without a word to you. And the reporters! Gracious heavens! Swift, Stodger wanted to know what to do with 'em: for pity's sake, tell him ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... ship should "not be responsible for leakage, breakage, or rust." This clause was well for the ship, as one of those wild pampeiros overtook her, on the voyage, throwing her violently on her beam-ends, and shaking the motley cargo into a confused and mixed-up mess. The vessel remaining tight, however, no very serious damage was done, and she righted herself after a while, but without her lofty topgallant-masts, which went with a crash at the ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... that if old Daney wasn't the most loyal fellow breathing, he'd have thrown you over, and owned that the whole mess was of your own brewing, and that he had nothing to ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... mess," he panted. "I don't know how many hurt, but some of 'em are broken all to pieces. Come right away and bring what bandages you have. O, it's ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... breathing hard and feeling his eye. Charlie leant forward and peered out into the darkness. They were nearly at the club before they spoke. Then he said, "Well, I'm blessed! We made a nice mess of ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... Classics can today afford to dispense with Romance: French, Italian, and Spanish are the Latin—and one might add the Greek—of today. But to return to our theme: to deny our interest in the past is to throw away our heritage, to sell our mess of pottage to the lowest bidder. If the Romance languages have one function in our American colleges, it is this: To keep alive the old humanistic lesson: nihil humani a me alienum puto; to the end that the modern college graduate may continue to say with Montaigne: ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... said reprovingly, 'you do make such a mess.' She brushed tobacco ashes from his coat. Mother, without looking up, went on talking to him about the bills-washing, school-books, boots, blouses, oil, and peat. And as she did so a puzzled expression was visible in his eyes akin to the expression in Jane Anne's. Both enjoyed a similar mental ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... squeaking at a mighty hawk. "Indeed! I fancy you will find that a rather difficult matter!" he answered, contemptuously. "She is one of our best nurses! James!" to a passing assistant, "escort this person and her—belongings"—looking doubtfully at the mess on the floor—"down ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... Harris seemed almost sulky. Harris had added silence to dignity, and spent long hours of a sunny day sprawled in a hammock, smoking his pipe and studying 'Tonio, who squatted in the shade at the end of the narrow porch of the old officers' mess building, still more silent and absorbed than ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... almost dying of hunger, they are to be fed upon broth made of serpents and vinegar, which broth is to be thickened with wheat and bran." Various ceremonies are to be performed in the cooking of this mess, which those may see in the book of M. Harcouet, who are at all interested in the matter; and the chickens are to be fed upon it for two months. They are then fit for table, and are to be washed down with moderate quantities ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... warred against me over our mess of hash of lights in rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. In words of words for words, palabras. Oisin with Patrick. Faunman he met in Clamart woods, brandishing a winebottle. C'est vendredi saint! Murthering ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of "the Quenis (Magdalene's) saull mess and dirige, quham God assolze," Maister George Balquhanan received a goun of Paryse blak, lyned with blak satyne, &c. Also L20, at the ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... It might have been worse, though. They went in for giving us all more or less cloth-of-gold sort of names, though mine smacks rather of the cloister than of the lists. One of my brothers they dubbed Aylmer. He was in a regiment, and the mess would persist in calling him Jack, for short. He resented it at first—afterwards came to prefer it. Said it was more convenient. Well, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... be back till the evening, and my brother will take his dinner at the school. Here is a fowl, a ham, some cheese, and two bottles of Scopolo wine. We will take our mess whenever you like:" ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... eggs. His aspect was so preposterously absurd that the helmsman, rendered almost imbecile by laughter, let the boat drive into a second pile, when, as I live to write it, the mate, who was cleaning himself near to the basket, was thrown a second time into the glutinous mess! I will not attempt to repeat the sea-blessings he bestowed upon the steersman. Happily eggs were cheap, and a dollar might have represented a more considerable smash. Now it was two days following this that the captain sent the long-boat to ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... arrive. At last there came a day so squally that all the prize-crew were kept busy with the sails all the morning. Much exhausted, the sailors sat down to their dinner on the forecastle at noon, while the three British officers spread their mess amidships. Barney saw that the moment had arrived; and, giving the signal to his men, the plotters went below for their weapons. Barney was the first to re-appear,—the blunderbuss, loaded and cocked, in his hand, and the naked cutlass under his arm. Hardly had he stepped on deck when ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... he took a plate, and went begging from door to door, and sat down in the street to eat. At the first mouthful he took of this disgusting mess, he felt a nausea in his stomach, which made him recoil. Animated at the same instant by the love of poverty, he became ashamed of his weakness, and reproached himself for the feeling; after which, he ate the remainder without reluctance, and with so much relish, that he ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... I guess it's my hunt too," he said coolly. "And I guess this is where a prison bird horns in with the goods. Ever since I've been looking for that Danglar guy, I've been carryin' a full kit—because I didn't know what might break, or what kind of a mess I might want to get out of. Come on! We ain't got no time. There's a couple of broken pickets down there. We might be seen climbin' ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... to take up his pen and settle himself to work; "I'll let you know what to— Look here. Crow," he broke off, in a rage, pointing to one of the ink puddles which that hero had made, "here's the same beastly mess again! Every Monday it's the same—ink all over the place! Why on earth don't you ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... our looking at him, as if we admired his idle pomp, we pursued our journey. Father Simon had the curiosity to stay to inform himself what dainties the country justice had to feed on in all his state, which he had the honour to taste of, and which was, I think, a mess of boiled rice, with a great piece of garlic in it, and a little bag filled with green pepper, and another plant which they have there, something like our ginger, but smelling like musk, and tasting like ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... afeard he didn't have nothin' to eat, an' oncet in a while I'd kerry him up a mess o' vittles; but it allers seemed drefful hard for him to take 'em, an' fin'ly he told me not to do so no more, an' said suthin' to himself about devourin' widders. So I didn't darst to go up agin, he looked so kind o' furce an' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... say Pollock and Maitland (loc. cit.), "made a capricious mess of the marriage law." "Seldom," says Howard (op. cit., vol i, p. 340), "have mere theory and subtle quibbling had more disastrous consequences in practical life than in the case of the distinction between sponsalia ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... my friend, and I did not have to watch very long. There was a crowd ahead, the street was blocked, and a premonition came to me: "Good Lord, I'm too late—he's got into some new mess!" I leaned out of the window, and sure enough, there he was standing on the tail-end of a truck, haranguing a crowd which packed the street from one line of houses to the other. "And before he got half way to the Labor ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... the vote. Seeing what a mess the members of my own sex so often make of the job of trying to run the country, I don't anticipate that the Republic will go upon the shoals immediately after women begin voting and campaigning and running for office. At the helm of the ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... a mess for both our folks," said Dab, "we'll quit this, and go for some fish. The clams are good bait, and we can try ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... "Free? You'll never be free again, my lord. I can see that in madame's eye. What, you ha' sold your birthright for a mess of pottage, ain't you? And mighty savoury pottage, too, says you." He rolled his eyes and smacked his lips. "Softly now, softly, madame wants her certificate. Madame wants to warrant herself a lawful married wife, if you don't ... There, my lady. And ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... it quite soon enough.—Let her sleep till morning. Elizabeth, look here." He wrote upon a card the address of the place he was to be taken to. "Give Aunt Hilary this. Say if she can think of a way to get me out of this horrid mess; but I don't deserve—Never ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... into. You didn't need to marry, you know, but you just would do it in spite of anything that any one could say, and all we could do was to be sorry for it, and sorry for you when you were unhappy, as we all knew that you would be beforehand. And that was the one mess that no one could get you out of. Well, then he died, and you had another show." Jack paused and jarred his cigarette ash off with his finger-tip. "You know and I know just who there was waiting there at home, but you elected to turn them all down and come over here ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... William Howroyd had a deeply rooted conviction that all young men did at the universities was to get into mischief of some sort. So he said, 'Come, George, be frank with me. Have you got into any mess? You know if you have I'll be ready to do all I can to get you out ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... a good unwholesome climate to try 'em, and make 'em hardy. Here is this Hicks, then—Captain Launcelot Hicks, if you please—whose life is nothing but breakfast, smoking, riding-school, billiards, mess, polking, billiards, and smoking again, and da capo—pulling down his moustaches, and going to take a tour after the immense labors of ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... s'pose," she went on to herself; "all my best frocks in a mess of wrinkles, all my best hats smashed to windmills! No broad ocean to look at! Nothing but mountains with trees all over their sides! Nothing to do but walk up rocky, steep paths to a spring, take a drink of ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... Anarchists should not be stupid enough to take any one into their confidence in such matters," returned Carter. "It is merely encouraging mouchards and police plots. However, the question now is—What can be done to help the comrades out of the mess?" ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... a mess of honey now. I see the hole where they are—its in a limb, and we won't have to cut down the tree," and before Sneak could interpose, Joe mounted up among the branches, and asked for the axe, saying ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... vampire," said Searles musingly, "landing at the Grand Central with enough hand-luggage to fill a freight-car; a big, raw-boned creature, with a horse face and a horrible mess as to clothes. You will be there to meet her, deferential, anxious to please. You will pilot her up the coast to Barton, tip the servants heavily to keep them from murdering her, and twiddle your thumbs in your garage as you await her further pleasure. ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... it!" Shorty cried, holding out the pan. "Look at it! A nasty mess of gold. Two hundred right there if it's a cent. She runs rich from the top of the wash-gravel. I've churned around placers some, but I never got butter like what's ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... requested his commissary to endeavour to get them some provisions, for they were famishing. Cantey's father lived not far off, and recollecting he had some bacon and corn meal hid in a swamp, he immediately went and brought enough for the general's mess, and in a short time after, drove in beeves, such as they were, sufficient for a supper for the men; but so destitute was the neighbourhood, that Cantey recommended it to Gen. Greene to move above Camden, where provisions might be collected from the ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... She took a pail of water and a cloth, cleaned away the mess from beside the bed and then went ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... Young Gent would go out and spread 40 cents around among the tradesmen for a mess of water-lilies and a bag of ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... the mess of crumbs on the floor in this room. And then it saves Barker a good deal of trouble to have ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... ventured on. Mr. James was a heavy, thick-set man; and one day, when endeavouring to obtain a stand for his theodolite, he felt himself suddenly sinking. He immediately threw himself down, and rolled over and over until he reached firm ground again, in a sad mess. Other attempts which he subsequently made to enter upon the Moss for the same purpose, were abandoned for the same reason—the want of a ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... regular army has never been so nearly reached as by that of Sparta. The Spartan spent his life in the barrack and the mess-room; his amusements were the exercises of the parade ground. For many generations a Spartan force had never been defeated in a pitched battle. We have had, in modern times, some instances of a hectoring soldiery arrogantly prancing amongst ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... buildings, with the exception of the ranchhouse, which was constructed of logs, with a gable roof and plastered interstices—were built of adobe, low, squat structures with flat roofs. There were six of them—the bunkhouse, mess house, blacksmith shop, the range boss's private shack (from which Norton and his wife had removed after the death of the elder Hollis), the stable, and one other building for the storing of miscellaneous articles. Hollis inspected them ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... saw me, he stuck both arms up and said, "Here comes the man with the iron nerve." I answered him, "No, here comes the man with a little good common sense and faith in God Almighty." "Yes," he said, "common sense, but I thought it could not be done, when it was in such a mess and had been broken so long." I answered him, "Yes, but a good arm is better than an iron hook on it." He said, "Indeed, but I did not think it could be done." (I have nothing against doctors, but the Lord can ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... in the evening, where there was nobody left but Sefton baiting Ferguson for having been out of the division. He told me that it was not impossible Lord Spencer would be put at the head of Government. They will manage to make a confounded mess of it, I dare say. Billy Holmes came to the Duke last night with the news of the division, and implored him to let nothing prevent ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... "They're a plagued mess of beasts, that's what they are," he exclaimed, "but the little lad sets a heap of store by 'em, and when he comes down tomorrow he'll find that I got some of ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... latch, with the privilege of friendship. HE was not there, but his mother was standing by the fire, stirring some little mess or other. Never mind! he would come soon: and with an unmixed desire to do her graceful duty to all belonging to him, she stepped lightly forwards, unheard by the old lady, who was partly occupied by the simmering, bubbling ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... so high," one of them relates, "that I stopped firing. They looked like gray worms squirming about in a bait-box. I can shoot men coming at me on their feet, but not a mess of ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... table with Penn and his friend Bright. You see," he explained, "there may be times when you are forced into doing a thing that fundamentally you disapprove of and you know is wrong. I disapprove of this war, and I know it's wrong—it's a foul mess that we've been got into by those who should have known better—but I ain't like Fenn about it. We're in it, and we've got to get out of it, not like cowards but like Englishmen, and if fighting had been the only way through, ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Ogilvie," said he, "for I have not much mastery over myself. I am going away now—I am going back now to the Highlands—oh! you do not know what I have become since I met that woman—a coward and a liar! They wouldn't have you sit down at the mess-table, Ogilvie, if you were that, would they? I dare not stay in London now. I must run away now—like a hare that is hunted. It would not be good for her or for me that I should stay any longer ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... beer," cried the major radiantly. "Bedad, it's just the time for a quart of fourpinny. I remimber ould Gilder, when he was our chief in India, used to say that a man who got beyond enjoying beer and a clay pipe at a pinch was either an ass or a coxcomb. He smoked a clay at the mess table himself. Draper, who commanded the division, told him it was unsoldier-like. 'Unsoldier-like be demned,' he said. Ged, they nearly court-martialled the ould man for it. He got the V.C. at the Quarries, and was killed at ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... construction of these items did not involve so large an expenditure as the National Army camps, as provision was made for fewer units and only tentage quarters for the men in the National Guard camps was provided. Modern storehouses, kitchens, mess shelters, lavatories, shower baths, base hospitals, and remount depots were built, and water, sewerage, heating, and light systems installed at an expenditure of about ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... as Bill got to the pump the shell burst on him—it made a proper mess of him"—this with a stare of horror. And they never criticise or rant about it, but accept it as their share for ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... brink were conspicuous. The beaver now went very cautiously, sniffing the air for any hint of peril. After winding along for some twenty or thirty yards, the new canal shoaled out to nothingness behind a screen of alder; and here, in a mess of mud and water, the beaver found one of his comrades hard at work. There was much of the new canal yet to do, and winter ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... religion at all, as yet, and ready to be made Lutheran or Roman, according as the husband might be whom her parents should find for her? This talk, very idle and abusive much of it was, went on at a hundred mess-tables in the army; there was scarce an ensign that did not hear it, or join in it, and everybody knew, or affected to know, that the Commander-in-Chief himself had relations with his nephew, the Duke ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... he was seated at supper. The viands before him were in striking contrast to the food upon which the army was then subsisting. There was no gravel gritting between the major's teeth as he masticated mess-pork or mouldy biscuit. He found no debris of sand and small rocks at the bottom of his ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... "don't! Please don't! I appreciate your proposition, and I thank you, but I can't accept. I agree with you about Addicks, the position I am in, and the mistake or foolish recklessness I was guilty of when I linked up with this Boston mess, but that doesn't alter the case an iota. I am enlisted with this man. I knew what he was when I consented to take charge of his affairs, and I should hate myself if I sold him out, even though I knew he would without hesitation sell me out. I must ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... life,—men of shrewdness and sagacity, in whose homely conversation Park felt much pleasure. He enrolled himself a member of a volunteer corps raised in the district, and proved a great acquisition to the mess-table. One thing was remarkable about Park, that, go where he would, he never introduced his own adventures, seldom ever answering queries concerning them, unless when asked by intimate friends. He shewed the true modesty of a brave man, in never reminding those around him that ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... she said, 'and go and buy yourself a female elsewhere—there are plenty to be had, who will be quite glad to share your spiritual mess,—or to have your physical mess, and leave your ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... the point. "You are experiencing the same difficulty as the sailor who acted as billiard marker in the naval mess at Portsmouth," he said. "One evening the Prince of Wales came in to play pool, and Jack whispered to the mess president, 'Beg pardon, sir, but am I to call 'im Yer R'yal 'Ighness or ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... of time, money, and trouble that has been caused by his not having been content to appear as descending with modification like other people from those who went before him. It will take years to get the evolution theory out of the mess in which Mr. Darwin has left it. He was heir to a discredited truth; he left behind him an accredited fallacy. Mr. Romanes, if he is not stopped in time, will get the theory connecting heredity and memory into just such another muddle as Mr. Darwin has got Evolution, for surely ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... rock salt while the water which stood at their bases was the strongest brine. After this discovery I took my way back to the road made by the Jayhawkers and found it quite level, but sandy. Following this I came to a campfire soon after dark at which E. Doty and mess were camped. As I was better acquainted I camped with them. They said the water there was brackish and I soon found out the same thing for myself. It was a poor camp; no grass, poor water and scattering, bitter sage brush for food for ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... out in hammer raps, "the fate of this land, boys, with all time lookin' on since ever Time began! Y're the fiery furnace of all the world's hopes and fears, of all earth's people, of all poets' dreams; an' God only knows what a mess o' slag y're turning out! Y'r muck rakers are belching y'r failures to the four corners of earth! Justice perverted! Courts in fee to the highest bidder! More murders—murders in this fresh new clean land than all the stew pots o' filth the old nations have brewed in a ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... like to drop down dead suddenly," he would say with the air of a philosopher, who had thought it all out. "I shouldn't care to lie up in bed and mess about with medicine and doctors. To make a long job ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... beaten! Either content me or die at once!" We are forced to give, for else the old man tramples on us and makes us spew forth all our body contains. There must be an end to it, friend. Let us see! what can be done? Who will get us out of this mess? ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... yes! the prisoner. Well, you fellows might have more sense than heap yourselves up in a crowd like this. One solitary Krupp dropping in here, and we'd have a pretty-looking mess. Open out along the trench there, and keep low down. You can be ready to move in a few minutes now; we are being relieved here and are going further back. Now what about this prisoner? ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... grooves— no internal nares— fins, spiracle, scales passing over lips, and cloaca. Cut off tail below the cloacal opening. The males are distinguished by the large claspers along the inner edge of the pelvic fin. Open up body cavity. Usually this is in a terrible mess in the fish supplied by dealers, through the post-mortem digestion of the stomach. Wash out all this under a stream of water from a tap or water-bottle. Frequently the testes are washed out of the male in this operation and ova from the loose ovaries in the female. Now compare with ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... bell, and a valet entered, bearing a dish containing a highly nutritious broth, which he had caused to be prepared on account of its invigorating properties. After partaking of this rich and savory mess, and having drank a glass of a certain cordial celebrated for its renovating influence, he arose, and his valet rubbed him vigorously with a coarse towel, then slipping on a few garments and a dressing-gown, he repaired to the bridal chamber ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... situation dispassionately. Here was I, who had scarcely been at all to blame, humiliated, an outcast, so to speak, while Angel, who had made the beastly mess, went unscathed. As for The Seraph! I could scarcely bear to think of him with his tell-tale ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... train, but it would surely burn the bridge down," Westy said. "The ties are wooden. There's enough wood to curl the steel all up into a mess of wreckage. And all that might happen before ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... of chap who lives to be a hundred and fifty. I'll say that for him," Alec Osborn had said at mess after dinner had made him careless of speech, and he had grinned not too pleasantly when he uttered the words. "The only thing that would completely wipe my eye isn't as likely to happen to him as to ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... bought photographs of actresses who pleased him. These he had solemnly burnt when he became engaged to Mary; he remembered the evening well; his heart had been so full of joy and wonder, and the landlady had complained bitterly of the mess in the grate when he came home from the City the next night. Still, the money was lost, as far as he could recollect, ten or twelve shillings; and it annoyed him all the more to reflect that if he had put it by, ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... have to cook some of it the best we can, although I expect we'll make a sorry mess of it without Chris. I guess broiling some of it will be the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely |
