"Skipper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the town, among them one of forty years, a spinster, Mdlle. Gravier, daughter of an old contractor for the royal works at the Arsenal. This lady had a shadow who never left her, her cousin La Reboul, daughter of a skipper and sole heiress to herself; a woman, too, who really meant to succeed her, though very nearly her own age, being five-and-thirty. Around these gradually grew a small roomful of Girard's admirers, who became his regular penitents. Among ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... far from forgiveness as he read that letter. His first mate, who was beside him when he opened and read it, was actually frightened when he saw the look on the skipper's face. "He went white," said the mate; "not pale, but white, same as a dead man, or—or the underside of a flatfish, or somethin'. 'For the Lord sakes, Cap'n,' says I, 'what's the matter?' He never answered me, stood starin' at the letter. ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... the burden of my song for these last four-and-twenty hours, as I have sat in the Tontine Tower, drinking the bad port wine, for, after spending a fortune in telegraphic messages to Holyhead, it has been decided that B— cannot come on, and I have been forced to rig up a Glasgow merchant skipper into a jury sailing-master. ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... upon our hut to impart the finishing touches speedily, because rain was falling, I stumbled across three of the disgraced and disfigured fishermen. They were alone and forlorn. They had no hut and did not know what would happen if another wet night swept over them. One happened to be the skipper of one of the trawlers which had been sunk and he vehemently denied the charge that they had been guilty of laying or sweeping mines. They were attending to their trawls when they were surprised ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... The skipper handled the rudder of his craft so clumsily that the boat struck a rock and sank, drowning the mate who was ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... everyday purposes of carrying water; and we also know that all the simplest and earliest pottery is moulded on the shape of just such natural jars and bottles. The fact and the theory based on it are no novelties. Early in the sixteenth century, indeed, the Sieur Gonneville, skipper of Honfleur, sailing round the Cape of Good Hope, made his way right across the Southern Ocean to some vague point of South America where he found the people still just in the intermediate stage between the use of natural vessels and the invention of pottery. For these ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... some white lettering on its body, it was officially one of His Majesty's land ships. It no more occurred to anyone to suggest that it move on and clear the road than to argue with a bulldog which confronts you on a path. I imagined that the feelings of the young officer who was its skipper must have been much the same as those of a man acting as his own chauffeur and having a breakdown on a holiday in a section of town where the population was as dense as it was curious in the early days of motoring. For months ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the formation of metallic sulphides, as above. A skipper one night anchored his newly painted vessel near the Boston gas-house, where the refuse was deposited, with its escaping H2S. In the morning, to his consternation, the craft was found to be black. H2S had come in contact with the ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... as'll keep her steady," answered the skipper. "'Seems to me nobody ain't a wantin' nothin' up our ways. I guess you're the heaviest article on board, Winthrop; — she never ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... there, without food. Our hero thought they could stand it better without any supper than he could, for he had had only half a dinner, and besides, everybody thinks his own misfortunes are infinitely more trying than those of other people. But we must do our young skipper the justice to add that he sympathized with the excursionists in case they had ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... schooner Hesperus, That sail'd the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... think," muttered one. "The skipper has his wife on board," remarked another; and the light of the crimson sunset all ablaze behind the London smoke, throwing a glow of Bengal light upon the barque's spars, faded away ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... skipper of Dyrevig called Bardun. He was so headstrong that there was no doing anything with him. Whatever he set his mind upon, that should be done, he said, and done it ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... nameless jargon—the rude compromise between guttural Dutch, and husky English—which has served them as a medium of communication during the long voyage. It is a good harbor, they think, and a likely country. They are impatient for the skipper to let them go ashore, and find out what grows ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... of this very power of clinging to the same places and the old loves, and what an incomparable group they make! "Telling the Bees," "Skipper Ireson's Ride," "My Playmate," "In School Days," are sufficient in themselves to set the seal to ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... the skipper's head," he said one afternoon to Winnie, when she told of Captain Inglis's genuine satisfaction. "He's a thoroughly good old chap, and not one of the crew could say a word against him. But I say, Win, what makes him come poking about here so ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... "It's the skipper's business, I suppose, but I don't hold with takin' any chances you don't have to," was the gruff comment, "an' if you'll take the advice of an old hand at the game you'll ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... four or five feet of water over the sands. The sea was nearly abeam now, and several times Jack almost held his breath as the waves lifted the Bessy bodily to leeward and threatened to cast her into the breaking waters but a few fathoms away. But the skipper knew his boat well and humoured her through the waves, taking advantage of every squall to eat up a little to windward, but always keeping her sails full and plenty of way on her. At last they were through the swashway; and though the sea was again heavier, and the waves ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... on the trumpet again, and, having set the machine going, told me to press on a certain knob, at first gently, afterward as hard as I pleased. I did so, and found that the effect of the "skipper," as he called the knob, was to quicken the utterance of the phonograph in proportion to the pressure to at least tenfold the usual rate of speed, while at any moment, if a word of interest caught the ear, the ordinary rate ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... suspense, a thousand times more cruel for their being unable to do anything, was broken by even the welcome incident of a new danger. Breakers were visible in the direct course of their drift. "Maybe she'll turn over, Jim," whispered the skipper. "I reckon we must loose t' children for fear she does." This being effected as promptly as their condition allowed, Tom was told off to do nothing but watch them and keep them safe. For already the men had planned, if the slightest chance offered, to try and get the masts ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... rolled her further over by this time, and given her decks a pretty sharp slope; but a dozen men still held on, seven by the ropes near the ship's waist, a couple near the break of the poop, and three on the quarterdeck. Of these three my father made out one to be the skipper; close by him clung an officer in full regimentals—his name, they heard after, was Captain Dun-canfield; and last came the tall trumpeter; and if you'll believe me, the fellow was making shift there, at the very last, to blow 'God Save ...
— The Roll-Call Of The Reef • A. T. Quiller-Couch (AKA "Q.")
... with a sodden, brutal face fixed as by some sorcery into an expression of eternal calm. He wore the uniform of an English skipper. It was dirty and sea-stained as though picked up at some sailor's auction. He was speaking to my uncle and his careful precise sentences in the English tongue, coming from the creature, seemed thereby to take ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... it grew, And still harder it blew, And the thunder kick'd up such a hullballoo, That even the Skipper began to look blue; While the crew, who were few, Look'd very queer, too, And seem'd not to know what exactly to do, And they who'd the charge of them wrote in the logs, "Wind N. E.—blows a hurricane—rains cats and ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... She was about sixty feet long, and having been built at Shanghai, rejoiced in a Chinese name—the Yuen Hung. But as something was the matter with her engines, which coughed and wheezed most disgracefully, the flippant Americans had rechristened her the One Lung, much to the chagrin of her skipper. ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... When there wasn't any inlet he would wait for a seventh wave—which is always extra large—and take her over on the crest, disregarding the ragged coral below. The Kawa was a tight little craft, built for rough work. She stood up nobly under the punishment her skipper ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... all vessels bound for a French port with corn, flour, and meal, and to purchase such supplies as were needed. Such vessels were then to be allowed to proceed to any port of a state with which His Majesty was living in amity. The skipper who had anything worth taking to a foreign port after an experience of this sort was lucky indeed. In November orders were issued for the seizure of all vessels laden with French colonial products or carrying provisions ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... The skipper of the Curlew climbed aboard before replying. Drawing the girl to one side, he said quietly: "Thing's pretty well shot, miss. Took ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... anchored the boat, and lit pipes, preparatory to passing as comfortable a night as might be under the circumstances, the only thing troubling me being the anxiety of the skipper on our behalf. Presently the blackness beneath was lit up by a wide band of phosphoric light, shed in the wake of no ordinary-sized fish, probably an immense shark. Another and another followed in rapid succession, until the depths beneath were all ablaze with brilliant foot-wide ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... feel, Mack. That's where a skipper is hog-tied against taking any action. You just sort of feel that there's something devilish afoot, but you don't know enough what it is to be ready to meet it. Puts me in mind of a song I heard once aboard one of my ships. One of the new mates sang ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... of hard work is what you will find most of aboard ship. Carry on and do your duty; keep a sharp lookout, all gear shipshape, salute the bridge when going on watch, that is the whole duty of a good officer. That's plenty theology for a seaman." But the skipper's eye turned brightly toward his bookshelves, where he had several volumes of sermons, mostly of ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... Chronometers are in request. It is only a matter of fifty seconds that the nearest rival, now coming sweeping along, has to make up. But what is this that happens just as the enemy has got round the Nore? There is a cry of "Man overboard!" The spinnaker boom has caught the careless skipper and pitched him clean into the plashing waters, where he floats about, not as yet certain, probably, what course his vessel will take. She at once brings her head up to wind and puts about; but meanwhile a small ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... sprinkled with colloquialisms of a salt flavor, amused her, and sometimes puzzled her. Some of the men who rode short distances in the car wore fishermen's boots and jerseys. They called the conductor "skipper," and hailed each ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... about two hours, in the water stage, our skipper run us on a sand bank. As there was no remedy but to wait patiently for the flow of tide, a party of us borrowed a boat, and went a shooting on the islands with which this part of the Delaware abounds. We landed at Fort Miflin, which was the principal obstruction to general Howe's progress ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... him the more he attempted to get near me, so much so that we were near running on board each other." The Hope's captain asked Grant very peremptorily who he was and where he came from, to which Grant replied by hoisting his colours and pendant; but even this did not satisfy the irate merchant skipper, who appeared to have had very decided intentions of running down the Lady Nelson. Eventually, however, he rejoined the convoy, which stood to the westward under ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... laughed right out. She was afraid of 'im, and by and by I noticed that she daren't even get off the ship and walk up and down the wharf without asking 'im. When she went out 'e was with 'er, and, from one or two nasty little snacks I 'appened to overhear when the skipper thought I was too far away, I began to see ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... against sea life. Silly sort of life, he called it. No opportunities, no experience, no variety, nothing. Some fine men came out of it—he admitted—but no more chance in the world if put to it than fly. Kids. So Captain Harry Dunbar. Good sailor. Great name as a skipper. Big man; short side- whiskers going grey, fine face, loud voice. A good fellow, but no more up to people's tricks ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... of light draught. These inlets are so influenced by the action of storms, and their shores and locations are so changed by them, that the cattle may graze to-day in tranquil happiness where only a generation ago the old skipper navigated his craft. During June of the year 1821 a fierce gale opened Sandy Point Inlet with a foot depth of water, but it closed in 1831. Green Point Inlet was cut through the beach during a gale in 1837, and was closed up seven years later. Old Sinepuxent Inlet, which was forced ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... waters of the grim North Sea, his keen eyes ever on the alert fore and aft, and occasionally on the sister ship to his, coupled along with the "broom." They were "carrying on," as usual. This skipper was a man just in his thirties. His face was cheery and round, and body was muscular and thick-set. In spite of the watch he and his first mate kept on this particular occasion, he found time to give me his opinion on certain things interesting to the men who go down to the sea in ships, ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... have been to anchor, but unfortunately that part of the river was the most unfavourable possible for our purpose, from the extraordinary strength of the current, and the rocky nature of the bottom. Our skipper seemed quite at a loss, but accident decided. The vessel struck, altered her course a little, struck again, put about, and struck again and again. The anchor was dropped as the only chance of escaping the dangers in which we were involved. The anchor dragged a short time, ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... the skipper lit his pipe, "I daresay you would like to hear how we came to be fugitives on ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... laughing—"Let's see; that's about lat. — deg. —", and long. — deg. —". There can be no known land thereaway, as even captain Cook did not succeed in getting as far south. That's been a favourite spot with the skipper for taking hold of his chart. I've known one of those old-fashioned chaps put his hand on a chart, in that way, and never miss his holding ground for three years on a stretch. Mighty go-by-rule people are some of our whaling-masters, in particular, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... so many prizes in the South Pacific that his supply of older officers ran out, and twelve-year old David Farragut was appointed prize-master of one of them, with orders to take her to Valparaiso. When Farragut gave his first order, her skipper, a hot-tempered old sea-dog, flew into a rage, and declaring that he had "no idea of trusting himself with a blamed nutshell," rushed below for his pistols. The twelve-year-old commander shouted after him that, if he came on deck again, he ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... skipper, blithe and kind, O mariners, bold and true, Sorry at heart, right sorry am I, ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... of the cold, we was noticing how Phil was sailing that three-cornered sneak-box—noticing and criticising; at least, I was, and Cap'n Jonadab, being, as I've said, the best skipper of small craft from Provincetown to Cohasset Narrows, must have had some ideas on the subject. Your old chum, Catesby-Stuart, thought he was mast-high so fur's sailing was concerned, anybody could see that, but he had something to larn. He wasn't beginning ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... was something manly, resolute, and even daring in his actions. There was no such thing as fear in his nature. He had acquired such a knowledge of seamanship that he could handle the good sloop Heinrich quite as skilfully as the skipper, and, indeed, make the voyage to New York as promptly as the greatest navigator on the Tappan Zee. He was expert, too, at taking in and delivering out cargo, could keep the sloop's account, and drive as good a trade as any of them with the merchants ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... the Alert he came to a landing stage which fitted the description given by the skipper of the Squalla. Thompson hauled his canoe out on the float, gained the shore, and found a path bordering the bank. He followed this. Not greatly distant he could hear the blows of chopping, the shrill blasts of a donkey-engine whistle and the whirr of the engine itself as it shuddered and strained ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... A skipper gray, whose eye's were dim, Could tell by tasting, just the spot, And so below, he'd "dowse the glim,"— After, of course, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... cutter was checked, and the boat placed in a convenient position for a further conference with the sloop. Either by intention or carelessness the skipper of the sail-boat had permitted her to broach to, probably because he was giving too much attention to the boat and too little to the sloop. When the cutter lost its headway, it was not more than fifty feet ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... excepting that it bore evident traces of past habits of intemperance; as far as his features went, they certainly reminded Harry of Mr. Stanley's portrait. The sailor's dress was that which might have been worn by a mate, or skipper, on shore; he appeared not in the least daunted, on the contrary he was quite self-possessed, with an air of determination about him which ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... had happened, even down here in St. Lucia. It turned almost as black as night for a few minutes, an' our skipper, who was ashore, said he had felt a slight earthquake. But we saw ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... eddy where the feeling lingers and reflects a bit of scenery, but for the most part it can only catch gleams of color that mingle with the prevailing tone and enrich without usurping on it. This volume contains some of the best of Mr. Whittier's productions in this kind. "Skipper Ireson's Ride" we hold to be by long odds the best of modern ballads. There are others nearly as good in their way, and all, with a single exception, embodying native legends. In "Telling the Bees," Mr. Whittier has enshrined ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... The politic skipper for once preferred to answer Lady Tozer. "There is no cause for uneasiness," he said. "Of course, typhoons in the China Sea are nasty things while they last, but a ship like the Sirdar is not troubled by them. She will drive through the worst gale she is likely to meet here ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... more and we can all breathe easy." He smiled down at her. She laid her small palm over his fingers which grasped the steering-oar, whereupon he cried with pretended sternness: "Avast there! Don't distract the attention of the skipper or he'll sail his boat in circles. Look out or ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... rode in the rude tide-rip, to left and right she rolled, And the skipper sat on the scuttle-butt and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... Khair-ed-Din. It was no doubt a nickname given to the family on account of their red or tawny beards (Lat. barba). The founder of the family was Yakub, a Roumeliot, probably of Albanian blood, who settled in Mitylene after its conquest by the Turks. He was a coasting trader and skipper, and had four sons—Elias, Isaak, Arouj and Khizr, all said to have been born after 1482. Khizr became a potter and Isaak a trader. Elias and Arouj took to sea roving. In an action with a galley of the Knights of Saint John, then established at Rhodes, Elias was killed and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... agreed the skipper of the disabled craft. "Hit a submerged log," he explained to Tom, as the work of rescue proceeded. "Stove a hole in the bow, but we stuffed coats and things in, and made it a slow leak. Kept the engine going as long as we could, but I thought no one would ever come! Lucky you happened ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... have a bit of breakfast along with me? I can give you a nice bit I've cut off the skipper's ham and ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... thither, they had the opportunity of commanding the ship and escaping, but would not adventure upon it without his advice. He said, Let all alone, for the Lord will set all at liberty in a way more conducive to his own glory and our own safety. Accordingly when they arrived, the skipper who received them at Leith, being to carry them no farther, delivered them to another to carry them to Virginia, to whom they were represented as thieves and robbers. But when he came to see them, and found they were all grave sober ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... that my landlord was serving notice to pay or move. What should I do? Suppose the old skipper should discharge me for asking for wages before the end of the week? But when I told him what I wanted the money for, the old man's eyes moistened. Without a word he gave me more money than I had asked for, and that night ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... still as he worked at the toy on his knee He would spin his old yarns of the ships and the sea, Thermopylae, Lightning, Lothair and Red Jacket, With many another such famous old packet, And many a bucko and dare-devil skipper In Liverpool blood-boat or Colonies' clipper; The sail that they carried aboard the Black Ball, Their skysails and stunsails and ringtail and all, And storms that they weathered and races they won And records they broke in the days that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... fish of the north of New South Wales and of Queensland, Periophthalmus australis, Castln., family Gobiidae. Called also Skipper. ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... up. The skipper, most likely, had finished his tea, and the mate was hard at work at his, when the leak had been discovered, or some derelict had been run into, or whatever it was ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... be the gallant sailor of the day who always at the risk of his life sticks to the skipper to the ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... promise that!" she burst out, showing at length her emotion. The observant skipper on the bridge noted that there were a boy and a girl forward having a bit of ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... at the rain. It'll be a bowlers' wicket, and the Skipper's done a daring thing. The school's never known it, but Ray's been our difficulty, ever since Radley started ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... dear old skipper would be sure to give me away, though his orders are not to mention my name in connection ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... till he had first examined the catalogue; and, finding it was done by an Englishman, he pulled out his eye-glass. "Oh, sir," says he, "those English fellows have no more idea of genius than a Dutch skipper has of dancing a cotillion. The dog has spoiled a fine piece of canvas; he is worse than a Harp Alley signpost dauber. There's no keeping, no perspective, no foreground. Why, there now, the fellow has actually ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... was made up at length; he would creep out of the house in the dead of the night and make his way down to the Docks. At every hour ships of various size and tonnage put out of the port of London, and, no doubt, the skipper of one of these for a consideration would take him wherever he wanted to go; and Fenwick knew, moreover, that there were scores of public-houses along the side of the river which are practically never closed, and which are run entirely for the benefit of seafaring men. It would ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... The skipper, a sun-burned young fellow, was showing a row of strong white teeth at some sally from the lady when Sylvia's eyes fell ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... diligence had gone. A fishing-boat was starting for Audierne. He decided to go by it. Breton fishermen are usually shy of storm to foolishness, and one or two of the crew urged the drunken skipper not to start, for there were signs of a south-west wind, too friendly to the Bay des Trepasses. The skipper was, however, cheerfully ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that U-boat fight the skipper, first officer, chief engineer, and myself were trying our French on a waiter in a cafe ashore, but not quite putting it over; we had to resort to a little English to get action for one important ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... mainland; which, poor girl, she would have been happier without. For Aros was no place for her, with old Rorie the servant, and her father, who was one of the unhappiest men in Scotland, plainly bred up in a country place among Cameronians, long a skipper sailing out of the Clyde about the islands, and now, with infinite discontent, managing his sheep and a little 'long shore fishing for the necessary bread. If it was sometimes weariful to me, who was there but a month or two, you ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Mission ship, and the speaking of a new language was to him only a matter of weeks. His earliest letters show how quickly he came to understand the natives. He was ready to meet any and every demand made upon him, and to fulfil duties as different from one another as those of teacher, skipper, and storekeeper. His head-quarters, during his early months in New Zealand, were either on board ship or else at St. John's College, five miles from Auckland. But, before he had completed a year, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Hudson, and a right good skipper was I; and my name will last to the world's end, in spite of all the wrong I did. For I discovered Hudson River, and I named Hudson's Bay; and many have come in my wake that dared not have shown me the way. But I was a hard man in my time, that's truth, and stole the poor ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... well doesn't extend over mine," said Percival with pride. "Frederick's 'Enery doesn't get the better of my Elfred. This morning a queue, consisting of two perfectly good Loots, a really excellent Skipper and a priceless Major were waiting for vacant baths. But was Elfred Fry dismayed? To forestall an answer that might possibly be wrong I may say that he wasn't. He promptly appropriated a cubicle that happened to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... sight of so many clasped, entreating hands, even by such a rigid disciplinarian as this fine skipper. For not only Miss Greatorex upon the wharf, but the two girls and Mrs. Hungerford had clasped theirs, also, begging a ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... have explained the gossip and made this man put his wife right, forcing through her an elucidation of the silly affair in such a way as to spare Helen's feelings and cover the busy-tongued magpies with confusion. Yet he hesitated. It is a wise skipper who trims his sails to every breeze. He thanked his informant and left him. Entering the lobby, he saw ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... and then eleven miles back to Deer's Castle, is a great undertaking for so small an animal. In the meanwhile, we will ourselves rest and take some "home-brewed" with the landlord, who is harbor-master, inn-keeper, store-keeper, fisherman, shipper, skipper, mayor, and corporation of Three Fathom Harbor, beside being father of the town, for all the children in it are his own. A draught of foaming ale, a whiff or two from a clay pipe, a look out of the ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... the writing guy. It was plain he thought the skipper was stringing him. But I knew how difficult it was to get our Old Man to spin a yarn, and I was determined he should not be shunted off on a new tack. I interrupted the author, hurriedly. "Did you ever make a voyage in the Golden Bough, ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... inhabited by a female which was paired with a smaller male; but the latter was soon dispossessed. Mr. Bate adds, "if they fought, the victory was a bloodless one, for I saw no wounds." This same naturalist separated a male sand-skipper (so common on our sea-shores), Gammarus marinus, from its female, both of whom were imprisoned in the same vessel with many individuals of the same species. The female, when thus divorced, soon joined the others. After a time the male was put again into the same vessel; and he then, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... wheel and giving it several vigorous turns, "keep her off, did you say, skipper? Ay, ay, we'll clear the breakers now, with ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... before morning, unless something has happened to him, for I never knew Plum to break his word," said Jack to the skipper. ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... forest behind and the waste of shining sea in front, Culm Rock seemed shut out from all the rest of the world. True, sails flitted along the horizon, and the smoke of foreign-bound steamers trailed against the sky, giving token of the great world's life and stir; and there were Skipper Ben and the "White Gull" who touched at the little wharf at Culm every week; but for these, the people—for there were people who dwelt here—might have lived in another sphere for aught they knew or were conscious of what was transpiring in the wonderful land which lay beyond the ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... "Hard-a-lee!" screamed the skipper, and at the same instant executed the order himself by jamming the tiller hard down to leeward. "Haul the fore sheet to windward! Clear away the long-boat! Be handy, lads! We'll save the poor ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... unrestrained imaging may produce a rudderless steamer, while the trained faculty is the graceful sloop, skimming the seas at her skipper's will, her course steadied by the helm of reason and her lightsome wings catching every ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... great difficulty, and by the help of many signs, he made himself understood; possibly if any of our people had spoken Dutch, he might have been found equally deficient in that language. He asked for the captain however by the name of the skipper, and enquired whether we were Hollanders; whether our ship was intended for merchandize or for war; how many guns and men she carried; and whether she had been, or was going to Batavia. When we had satisfied him in all these particulars, he said that we should go to the town, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... set sail (I didn't set sail myself, you understand, but the men did it for me, or rather for my friends, Mr and Mrs. SKIPPER, to whose kindness I owe my present position—which is far from a secure one,—but no matter), you said to me, YORICK Yotting has no buffoonery left in him? I too, who was once the life of all the Lifes and Souls of a party! Where is that party now? Where am I? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... it was striking twelve, and I wondered what means of reaching Glasgow I should find at midnight. But I walked straight to the pier, and there was a small steamer with her steam up. She was blowing her whistle impatiently, and when the skipper saw me coming, he called to me, in a passion, 'Well, then, is it all night I shall ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... poet has been traced back to a certain Danish skipper, Peter Ibsen, who, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, made his way over from Stege, the capital of the island of Moeen, and became a citizen of Bergen. From that time forth the men of the ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... Landale," he began, adding hastily, as if to cover an implied admission—"of course I have heard the name: it is well known in Lancashire—you had better see the skipper. It must have been some damnable mistake that has caused a man of your standing ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... any inn, or visit any treacherous hunter of the picturesque. He offered himself to no temptations now, nor to any risks. Right onwards he went to the docks, addressed himself to a grave, elderly master of a trading vessel, bound upon a distant voyage, and instantly procured an engagement. The skipper was a good and sensible man, and (as it turned out) a sailor accomplished in all parts of his profession. The ship which he commanded was a South Sea whaler, belonging to Lord Grenville—whether lying at Liverpool or in the Thames at that moment, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... something at this moment to prove it. At the top of the lane here you'll find a horse: mount him, and ride to Helford Ferry for dear life. Two hundred yards up the shore towards Frenchman's Creek there's a boat made fast, and down off Durgan a ketch anchored. She's bound for Havre, and the skipper will weigh as soon as you're aboard. Mount and ride like a sensible fellow, and I'll walk into your kitchen and convince every man Jack that you have done well and wisely. Reach France and lie quiet for a time, till this storm blows ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... um, little brother," said Mooka, her black eyes dancing; and in a wink crabs and sledges were forgotten. The old punt was off in a shake, the tattered sail up, skipper Noel lounging in the stern, like an old salt, with the steering oar, while the crew, forgetting her nipped finger, tugged valiantly ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... fearful fuss, and sending them on to the bank with extra ropes and holdfasts to make all secure. An elderly lady, with a dirty red cap and very untidy ringlets, superintended the business with much clamour. We take her to be the wife or grandmother (not sure which) of the skipper. ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... and it acted like a charm, and, bringing up on another reef, we were ready for another tussle. Fortunately, this proved only a short lift. In the mean time the schooner had passed through the first reef by an opening, as her skipper was undoubtedly familiar with these waters. Still another shoal was ahead; instead of again lifting our sloop over it, I hauled by the wind, and stood for what looked like an opening to the eastward. Our pursuers were on the opposite tack and fast approaching; a reef ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... from the coasters, which are fit for the open sea. They will carry from twenty-five to fifty cords of wood, on which a profit is expected of a dollar and upwards. They have usually about three hands, the captain, or skipper, included. The men used to be hired, when I entered the business, for eight or ten dollars the month, but they now get nearly or quite twice as much. The captain usually sails the vessel on shares (unless ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... when the crew saw him, they came to him and bore the two chests on board. Then the Persian called out to the Rais or Captain, saying, "Up and let us be off, for I have done my desire and won my wish." So the skipper sang out to the sailors, saying, "Weigh anchor and set sail!" And the ship put out to sea with a fair wind. So far concerning the Persian; but as regards Hasan's mother, she awaited him till supper-time ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... Point of Graves (a burial-place of the colonial period), a battered and aged native fisherman boiling lobsters on a little gravelly bench, where the river whispers and lisps among the pebbles as the tide creeps in. It is a weather-beaten ex-skipper or ex-pilot, with strands of coarse hair, like seaweed, falling about a face that has the expression of a half-open clam. He is always ready to talk with you, this amphibious person; and if he is not the most entertaining of gossips—more weather-wise that Old ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... suggest it," said the skipper of the Dora, and soon they were turning toward shore. A good landing place was found and the houseboat was tied up near several large trees ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... many a long year, however, ere George Fairburn was destined to see the mighty capital. Once fairly at sea, the skipper brought out and mounted his four little guns, to ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... discussed the matter of the vessel that Crispin would require, and it was arranged between them that Hogan should send a message to the skipper, bidding him come to Harwich, and there await and place himself at the command of Sir Crispin Galliard. For fifty pounds Hogan thought that he would undertake to land Sir Crispin in France. The messenger might ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... There had been some barley and wheat together; but, to my great disappointment, I found afterwards that the rats had eaten or spoiled it all. As for liquors, I found several, cases of bottles belonging to our skipper, in which were some cordial waters; and, in all, about five or six gallons of rack. These I stowed by themselves, there being no need to put them into the chest, nor any room for them. While I was doing this, I found the tide begin to ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... was born at Tromsoe in 1855, where his father was a ship's captain, afterwards harbor-master and head pilot. At the age of fifteen he went to sea, and passed his mate's examination four years later. He spent two years in New Zealand, and from 1886-90 he went on voyages to the Arctic Sea as skipper of a Tromsoe sloop. He is married, and ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... ship, as before related; but his conscience upbraiding him for serving the one enemies of his country, he quitted the ship at the same place where he first listed, and got to Curacoa in a Dutch vessel; there he bargained with a skipper, bound to Europe, to work for his passage to Holland, from whence he was in hopes of hearing from his friends in England; but was cast away, as he mentioned before, on the French coast, and must have been reduced to the necessity of travelling on foot ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... launches, tugs, and other vessels. The fact that the water in that vicinity was crested with currency had not escaped the notice of these navigators, and they had gone to it as one man. First in the race came the tug "Reuben S. Watson," the skipper of which, following a famous precedent, had taken his little daughter to bear him company. It was to this fact that Marlowe really owed his rescue. Women often have a vein of sentiment in them where men can only see the hard business side of a situation; and it ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... I care for Science then? I was a man with fellow-men, And called the Bear the Dipper; Segment meant piece of pie,—no more; Cosine, the parallelogram that bore JOHN SMITH & CO. above a door; Arc, what called Noah skipper. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... her burning cottage, and made his father house the old creature, and worked at farming, though he hated it, to pay for her subsistence. He vindicated the honour of Warbeach by drinking a match against a Yorkshire skipper till four o'clock in the morning, when it was a gallant sight, my boys, to see Hampshire steadying the defeated North-countryman on his astonished zigzag to his flattish-bottomed billyboy, all in the cheery sunrise on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "Skipper," said Trelyon to Mr. Grainger's man, "we'll put her about now and let her drift. Here is a cigar for you: you can take it up to the bow and smoke it, and keep a good ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... woman Sal o' the Dune, and the men were three to one, Bill the Skipper and Ned the Nipper and Sam that was Son of a Gun; Bill was a Skipper and Ned was a Nipper and Sam was the Son of a Gun, And the woman was Sal o' the Dune, as I said, and the men were ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... owners!" exclaimed Kitchell. "I ain't a skipper of no oil-boat any longer. I'm a beach-comber." He fixed the wallowing bark with glistening eyes. "Gawd strike me," he murmured, "ain't she a daisy? It's a little Klondike. Come ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... had not looked at what Captain Luke Miller had given me, I handed the certificate to this skipper, who ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... The skipper made answer: Be not afraid, my lord; we are on the confines of the Frozen Sea, on which, about the beginning of last winter, happened a great and bloody fight between the Arimaspians and the Nephelibates. Then ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... of our worthy and able skipper, we landed on the soil of the giant Republic at Jersey city, where the wharves, &c., of the Cunard line are established, they not having been able to procure sufficient space on the New York side. The first thing we ran our heads against was, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... "One skipper should show courtesy to another," said he, "and sink me if Captain Sharkey would be behind in good manners! I have held you to the last, as you see, where a brave man should be; so now, my bully, you have seen the end of them, and may step ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle |
