"Unbuttoned" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brought him face to face with hell? You pointed him out to me one night; and we wondered what was the matter with him—until he fell off his horse that day you and I were riding with him? Do you remember how, when we had unbuttoned his riding-shirt, we found the 'D' that had been branded on his chest? We knew then what was the matter with him. He had been a deserter. The pain of hot iron had died out long ago, but the scar remained. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... careful to execute the salute exactly as prescribed. The civilian or the imitation soldier who tries to imitate the military salute invariably makes some mistake which shows that he is not a real soldier; he gives it in an apologetic manner, he fails to stand or march at attention, his coat is unbuttoned or hat on awry, or he falls to look the person saluted in the eye. There is a wide difference in the method of rendering and meaning between the civilian salute as used by friends in passing, or by servants to their employers, and the MILITARY SALUTE, the symbol and sign ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... perched herself on the bed with the artless freedom of an animal, the yearning of a plant for the sun, the airy motion of a branch waltzing to the breeze. As she unbuttoned the wristbands of her sleeves, she began to sing, not in the pitch that won her the applause of an audience at the Fenice, but in a warble tender with emotion. Her song was a zephyr carrying the caresses of ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... evening silently smoking the cigars and cigarettes furnished by the host. When Vandover and his friends came up between dances, to brush their hair or to rearrange their neckties, they found him enveloped in a blue haze of smoke, his feet on a chair, his shirt bosom broken, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. He would tell them that he was bored and thirsty and ask how much longer they were going to stay. He knew but few of their friends; his home was in a little town in the interior and he prided himself on being a "Native Son of the ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... Chipmunk took off his little, short coat, folded it carefully, and laid it down upon the grass. Then he pulled off his necktie and unbuttoned his collar. Just because he was going to dig in the ground there was no reason why he should ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... been traced[66] to a scene in the Mogul Tales, where Aboul Assam saw three men standing mute in postures of sorrow before a book on which were inscribed the words: "Let no man touch this divine treatise who is not perfectly pure." When Aboul Assam enquired of their fate they unbuttoned their waistcoats, and through their skin, which appeared like crystal, he saw their hearts encompassed with fire. In Beckford's story this grotesque scene assumes an awful and moving dignity. From The Adventure of Abdallah, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... tailor, and unbuttoned his coat and showed the giant the girdle. "There mayst thou read what kind of a man I am!" The giant read, "Seven at one stroke!" and thought that they had been men whom the tailor had killed, and began to feel ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... reminded a scattered score of other ewes to do the same, now turned his attention to the problem of carrying the little stranger. As this visitation was entirely unlooked-for, he had not brought the lamb-bag along, so he had to find some other way. His coat, unbuttoned at the top for the better insertion of his hand, he had been using as a sort of capacious breast-pocket in which he stowed his lunch and other incumbrances. One side of it now bulged out with the carcass of a cotton-tail which he had scared out of the marsh grass, together with various ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... the left side of the unbuttoned coat (or blanket) with the right hand, and, either standing or sitting in position so that the signal can be seen, wave it to the left and right as often as may be necessary for the sign to be recognized. When made standing the person should not ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... more of ostentation than the simple act seemed to warrant, Boyle unbuttoned his coat, displaying his revolver as he made an exploration of his vest-pockets for a match to light ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... before, knew that he would never wake again. He waited a moment, listening in the silence. Once he touched the old man's hand; once, he bent nearer, still listening. And then, without hesitation, and with fingers that remained as steady as if nothing had happened, he unbuttoned Antony Bartle's coat, and drew a folded paper from ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... jacket all unbuttoned, Sarudine slowly paced up and down the room languidly smoking a cigarette, and displaying his large white teeth. Tanaroff, in just his shirt and riding-breeches, lay at full length on the sofa, furtively watching Sarudine with his little black eyes. He was in ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... as Liputin had once said when Stepan Trofimovitch reproached him in jest for being untidy. The captain had perfectly new black gloves too, of which he held the right one in his hand, while the left, tightly stretched and unbuttoned, covered part of the huge fleshy fist in which he held a bran-new, glossy round hat, probably worn for the first time that day. It appeared therefore that "the garb of love," of which he had shouted to Shatov the ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... spectators into the doorway of the kitchen, and quickly stooped and unbuttoned her right boot, and then planted her foot on the damaged shoulder and caught up the hand and gave a quick pull, the secret of which nobody understood; but there was an unpleasant cluck as the bone ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... wrists, usually shrouded beneath their snowy cuffs, now stuck out like skewers from two very short, very tight, and very shabby sleeves. Fred had not attempted to don the shirt and collar which had been left for him, and it was pretty evident by the way he shivered that if any one had unbuttoned the coat and grimy waistcoat he would not have discovered much more in the shape of vestments. But he had Jack's great muddy boots on, and his disgracefully caved-in hat. In this guise he had to perambulate the village, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... flowered waistcoat, his ruffled shirt, white trousers strapped beneath his highly polished, high-heeled boots, high hat and frock coat, with only the lowest button fastened, in order to give a glimpse of that wonderful waistcoat, just as that, too, was unbuttoned at the top that the ruffles might peep out upon the world. Chad's raiment, too, was a Solomon's—for him. He had protested, but in vain; and he, too, wore white trousers with straps, high-heeled boots, and a wine-colored waistcoat and slouch hat, and a ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... fluids might drain from the mouth. The day was clear and moderately warm. Respiration had ceased, but no time was lost in commencing artificial respiration. The patient had on a shirt and pantaloons, which were immediately unbuttoned and made loose, and placing myself at his head, I used the Silvester method, because I was more accustomed to it than any other. It seems to me more easy of application than any other, and I have often found it of service in the asphyxia of ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... yesterday; virile thinkers in philosophy, in science; enfranchised poets who had stridden out upon Olympus only yesterday to defy the old god's lightning with unshackled strophes—and sometimes unbuttoned themes. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... shoved a hand into his trousers pocket. He pulled out a handful of bills and silver. "Well, what do you know? And I came near putting that into the safe last night!" He unbuttoned his coat and from his vest pocket he pulled out a cigar. "Well, what do you know?" He next drew out a metallic match-case. "Well, well—dry too!" He lit his cigar, took three or four puffs, contentedly sat down, and began smoothing out and counting the damp bills. "Well, ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... striding at me with open palms: 'There is no God to hold me! Do you understand, you useless carcase. I will do what I like.' And he took me by the shoulders. Then I, Messieurs, called to God for help, and next minute, while he was shaking me, I felt my long scissors in my hand. His shirt was unbuttoned, and, by the candle-light, I saw the hollow of his throat. I cried: 'Let go!' He was crushing my shoulders. He was strong, my man was! Then I thought: No! . . . Must I? . . . Then take!—and I struck in the hollow place. I never saw him fall. . . . The old father never turned ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... towards which Wrayson had somewhat impatiently pointed, and unbuttoned his coat. It was obvious that he was not a ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... standing to one side, overlooked and forgotten, continued to sip steadily at his glass, solemn, reserved. Garnett of the Ruby rancho, Keast from the ranch of the same name, Gethings of the San Pablo, and Chattern of the Bonanza, leaned back in their chairs, their waist-coats unbuttoned, their legs spread wide, laughing—they could not tell why. Other ranchers, men whom Annixter had never seen, appeared in the room, wheat growers from places as far distant as Goshen and Pixley; young men and old, proprietors of veritable principalities, hundreds of thousands of acres of wheat lands, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... runs,—"his gesticulation frantic, and he lashed himself into such a heat that if his body had been made of combustible matter it would have burnt out. In the midst of his roaring, to save himself from choking, he stripped and cast away his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and had the air and aspect of a half-naked pugilist. And this man comes from a judicial bench, and passes for an eloquent orator!" On another occasion, the same critic tells us, Douglas "raved an hour about democracy and anglophobia and universal ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... laxity in details. I remember, in later days and later manners, when we were all compelled to be well buttoned up to the throat, a young officer remarked to me disparagingly of another, "He's the sort of man, you know, who would wear a frock-coat unbuttoned." There's nothing like classification. My friend had achieved a feat in natural history; in ten words he had defined a species. On another occasion the same man remorselessly wiped out of existence another species, consecrated by generations ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... excuse of thinking. His black cap shone like a buttered roll, his linen shirt was neither an Egyptian nor a Swiss fabric, and his chest, overgrown with long black hair, always showed bare through the slit of his unbuttoned shirt. His linen trousers had been white once upon a time, but now they were picturesquely variegated from the dust and soot clinging to them, and by the stains added by his young hopeful, when he ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... still putting in its silent, deadly work on the Hope of the American Theatre. What, even at as late an epoch as the return from Detroit, had been merely a smooth fullness around the angle of the jaw was now frankly and without disguise a double chin. He was wearing a new waistcoat and it was unbuttoned. "I am rather busy," he went on. "Always glad to see you, but I am rather busy. I have a hundred ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... having laid her rosary and prayer-book on the grass, unbuttoned her blue flannel jacket, and removed from round her waist, where it was doing duty as a belt, a broad band of cherry-coloured ribbon. This, with Anthony's penknife, she slitted and ripped several times lengthwise, till she had obtained a yard or ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... little Swiss unbuttoned his pockets, to pull out a new four-pistole piece, and presenting it to me, he asked my pardon for his great freedom, and seemed as if he wished to retire. This was not what I wanted. I told him we only played for amusement; that I had no design upon his money; and that, if he pleased, I would ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... at full speed, Andrey hoped to pass the mine zone, even though some of his men succumbed for lack of air. Pale and excited, his hair in disorder, and his coat unbuttoned, he was everywhere at once, and his voice sustained the failing strength of the half-suffocated crew. Seeing the prince stretched unconscious on a berth, Andrey poured a few drops of brandy in his mouth and kissed ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... slipped cautiously, inch by inch, under my pillow. It was the Egyptian god's hand. But I knew suddenly that the dream-god had turned into a thief: that the silver-glimmering square of light was one of the tent flaps unbuttoned and turned back. That the man must stealthily have pulled up a peg or two while we slept our heavy sleep, must have crept into the tent, soft-footed over the thick rugs, and now here he was, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... unbuttoned, she was jerked out of it, and it was turned around and fastened as it was meant to be. When she was finally started, with her aunts' parting admonition echoing after her, she felt sad and doubtful, but soon her merry disposition ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... and savages from that time forth. What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on that hot, broiling day! Heat! ask that ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... This was not enough for the sturdy bully of Clary's Grove. He seized his follower and flung him so roughly on the ground that the latter lay for a moment stunned. Armstrong had got his blood warm and was now ready for action. With a wild whoop he threw off his coat, unbuttoned his right shirtsleeve and rolled it to the shoulder and declared in a loud voice, as he swung his arm in the air, that he could "outjump, outhop, outrun, throw down, drag out an' lick any ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... one of that kind," said Winston, as Ben slowly unbuttoned the last strap. "I have been long accustomed to wait upon myself. I'll only trouble you to bring me up a glass of fresh water, and then I shall have done ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... looking intently before him at some object. Though he seems to have been carefully dressed for some special occasion he has been enjoying himself in boy fashion in spite of that. His ringletted hair is blown about by the wind, and the coat is unbuttoned at the throat, as he drops down to rest, hot and panting from some ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... dinner that night in his usual costume of shirt and trousers only. He had not dressed, and during dinner, so Darcy remembered, he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to above the elbow. Later, as they sat and talked after dinner on the close sultriness of the evening, he had unbuttoned the front of his shirt to let what little breath of wind there was play on his skin. The sleeves were rolled up now, the front of the shirt was unbuttoned, and on his arms and on the brown skin of his chest were strange discolorations ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... absolutely correct. The stripes in the coat were almost invisible. I had not noticed his teeth or the loss of a finger and we had to count the buttons to make sure of their number owing to their partial concealment by the folds of the unbuttoned coat. The shoe-strings I am sure under the conditions would have ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... sometimes stood sentry; but then, Harry Lant sometimes stood just in the same place, and I don't know whether it was a strange impression caused by his coming, that made me think of him, but just then there were footsteps, and, with his pipe in his mouth, and fatigue-jacket all unbuttoned, Harry entered the room. ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... October afternoon, Frank had gone to the station, and Lizzie, to appease the baby, had unbuttoned her dress. The little servant-girl who assisted with the house-work was busy in the kitchen; for the fatted calf had been killed—that is to say, a pair of soles, a steak, and a partridge were in course of preparation. ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... with which he touched his cap informed her fully as to the amount of knowledge possessed by the Flagg household. He unbuttoned, one after the other, his overcoat, his inner coat, his waistcoat, and from the deepest recess in his garments produced a sealed letter; his precautions in regard to it attested the value he put on a communication from the ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... faint glimmer of the torches, shiny from sweat, his eyes starting out of their sockets, his coat unbuttoned, and his big belly half out of his breeches, he looked a fellow not easy to be got rid of. The ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... of finish in her elegant attitude—the same relaxed grandeur (she seemed to let you understand) for which she used to be distinguished at Castle Nugent when the house was full. She toyed incongruously, in her unbuttoned wrapper, with a large tinsel fan which resembled a ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... visit her in woman's clothes, a Spanish Moor, called from his disguise 'the Spanish lady from Barbary!' As a punishment, both of them were led through the town, the woman without petticoat or skirt, but wearing only the Moor's dress unbuttoned in front; the man wore his woman's garb; his hands were tied behind his back, and the skirt fastened up to his middle, with a view to complete exposure before the eyes of all. When in this attire they had made the circuit of the town, the Corsetta was sent back to the prison with the ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... small, and apparently occupied by persons of an indigent class. At one of these was a sign denoting it to be the residence of a tailor. Seated on a bench at the door was a young man, with coarse uncombed locks, breeches knee-unbuttoned, stockings ungartered, shoes slipshod and unbuckled, and a face unwashed, gazing stupidly from hollow eyes. His aspect was embellished with good ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... pushed back his slouched hat, had unbuttoned his light overcoat, and was standing with his arms crooked over the railing. He looked out upon the sea. He felt the pulse beats of the engines, his ears were filled with the pliant, melodious chords of the Viennese waltz; the whole world had turned ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the yard, her legs gleaming white through her half-silk hose (that were always coming down, and that she was always twisting up, just under her knees, before my abashed eyes). She wore shoes much too little for her plump feet ... and, when not abroad, let them yawn open unbuttoned. And her plump body was alive and bursting ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... plaintively two shades of blue—lighter blue of the older pair, very light blue of the oldest pair—the effect of exposure to desert suns. So Felipe had on three pairs of overalls. Yet this was not all of distinction. Around his brown throat was a bright red neckerchief, while between the unbuttoned edges of his vest was an expanse of bright green—the coloring of a ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... eight times. The first sneeze unbuttoned his waistcoat, the second unparted his hair, and the third one almost pulled his shoes off; and after that they grew really violent, until the last sneeze shifted his cargo and left him with a list to port and his lee scuppers awash. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... shrilled somewhere in the shop. A hundred machines stopped their whirring. A hundred heads came up with a sigh of relief. Chairs were pushed back, aprons unbuttoned. ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... to adjust themselves to their enforced companionship, and it wasn't such a very hard matter, though it cost him some painful wrenches and much twisting of the fingers, for Mr. Trimm to get his coat unbuttoned and his eyeglasses in their small leather case out of his upper waistcoat pocket. With the glasses on his nose he subjected his bonds to a critical examination. Each rounded steel band ran unbroken except for the smooth, almost jointless ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... 'I was shrammed with wet and cold, and half-dead with this baffling wind. It is a blessed thing a fire,' and he unbuttoned his pilot-coat, 'and needful now, if ever. My soul is very low, lad, for this place has strange memories for me; and I recollect, forty years ago (when I was just a boy like thee), old lander Jordan's gang, and I among them, were in this very cave on such another night. ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... did not buffet nor struggle with the man. It just went on pouring forth its heat. And it seemed as if it could never win, any more than the northwind. But soon the traveller took out his handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his face. Then, before long, he took off his hat. Soon he unbuttoned his coat, and finally he took it off of his own accord. The sun had won ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley
... and obvious falsehood is told by the leaders of his own ytrap, and nobody listens for a moment to the exposures of their rascality. Reason has flown shrieking from the scene; Caution slumbers by the wayside with unbuttoned pocket. It is ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... New York by my dear friend Fitz, and completed here to-day, results in the discov'ry that what you have always considered as slight outcroppin's of coal, and wuthless, is really of vehy great value." The colonel here unbuttoned his coat, and threw out his chest. "A syndicate of English capitalists have, through our guest, offered you the sum of one hundred thousand dollars for the coal-hill, with a royalty of ten cents per ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... covered were exposed to view. The majority of them had red hair and wide hanging-open mouths. Mrs M'Swat was a great, fat, ignorant, pleasant-looking woman, shockingly dirty and untidy. Her tremendous, flabby, stockingless ankles bulged over her unlaced hobnailed boots; her dress was torn and unbuttoned at the throat, displaying one of the dirtiest necks I have seen. It did not seem to worry her that the infant she hold under her arm like a roll of cloth howled killingly, while the other little ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... and unbuttoned one coat-button: then, for lack of something to do with the hand, did the button up again. I decided to keep the miserable member fingering the button. To make matters worse Salome rested his eyes like a searchlight on the hand. At last he looked ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... 'Gentlemen,' pipes up the young man again, 'I am a stranger, this moment arrived by the coach; and it would be a real kindness to direct me to a comfortable lodging." By this time he'd unwound the muffler about his neck and unbuttoned his outer wraps generally, and we saw he was rigged out in genuine sky-pilot's uniform. We hadn't seen one of that profession in Eucalyptus for more'n two years. 'I'm afraid, your reverence,' says one of the boys, mimicking the poor lad's talk, 'I'm afraid the accommodation of this ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a sponge and water. Sarrion was already busy at Marcos' collar, which he had unbuttoned. Suddenly he changed his mind and ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... had been sent out of the house that morning on account of the diphtheria. Kirilov went to open the door just as he was, without his coat on, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, without wiping his wet face or his hands which were scalded with carbolic. It was dark in the entry and nothing could be distinguished in the man who came in but medium height, a white scarf, and a large, extremely pale face, ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... you going to brush your hair? Got a fancy for it like that, have you? My! What a man! With his shirt unbuttoned and his tie out. Come here! Let's have a look at you!" Although her words were unkind, her tone was not, and as she rectified his omissions and put her arm round him Jenny gave her father a light hug. "All right, are you? Been ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... in the back of John Randall's mind as he prepared to deal efficiently with the catastrophe. Having unbuttoned his coat and taken off his gloves with exasperating, slow, and measured movements, he fairly sat down to it at the table, preserving his very finest military air. The situation required before all things a policy. And the policy which most appealed to Mr. Randall, ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... intimidating; he must have adopted it as a defense against this entire gigantic equation. At Anthony's sharp "That seat taken?" he very slowly lifted the feet as though they were a breakable package, and placed them with some care upon the floor. His eyes remained on Anthony, who meanwhile sat down and unbuttoned the uniform coat issued him at Camp Upton the day before. It chafed him ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... expressive of sullenness and ill-nature. He was about the middle height, with a frame clumsily made, but denoting considerable strength. He wore a blue coat, the lappets of which were very narrow, but so long that they nearly trailed upon the ground. Yellow leathern breeches unbuttoned at the knee, dazzling white cotton stockings and shoes with buckles, adorned his ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... tribes. A great warrior he was, a great politician also, and he wished to unite the Iroquois in a firm league with the tribes of the Ohio valley. The coals from the great fire glowed and threw out an intense heat. Thayendanegea unbuttoned his military coat and threw it back, revealing a bare bronze chest, upon which was painted the device of the Mohawks, a flint and steel. The chests of the Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca head chiefs were also bared to the glow. The device on the chest of the Onondaga ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... keep Church so duly; rise early, before his servants, and e'en for Religious hast, go ungartered, unbuttoned, nay, sir ...
— The Puritain Widow • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... his head, and then cautiously unbuttoned his collar and rolled up the front of his helmet. Then, after delicately sampling the atmosphere by a cautious sniff, he removed his helmet altogether. Bobby followed his example. The air was not by any means so pure as might ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... took the boy's coat off, unbuttoned his collar, and pushed up his shirt-sleeves, and arming himself with a brush, he began brushing his chest and arms with all his might. Pantaleone as zealously brushed away with the other—the hair-brush—at ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... the shopping center, a row of spacers on planet-leave came rollicking cheerily toward her, uniform jackets unbuttoned, three Ceyce girls in arm-linked formation among them, all happily high. Trigger shifted toward the edge of the sidewalk to let them pass. As the line swayed up on her left, there was a shadowy settling of an aircar at ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... and catch the train. Somehow he did it, for fortunately his bill had been paid. Always in after days a tumultuous vision remained in his mind of himself, a long, lank youth with unbrushed hair and unbuttoned waistcoat, carrying a bag and a coat, followed by an hotel porter with his luggage, rushing wildly down an interminable platform with his ticket in his teeth towards an already moving train. At an open carriage door stood a lady in whom he recognized Miss Ogilvy, who was imploring ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... took a seat upon the divan, which was privately a coal-box, and unbuttoned her jacket at the throat. "Is ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... Father Jerome, horrified at the catastrophe his imprudence had occasioned, begged for the prisoner's life. But the undaunted youth received the sentence with courage and resignation. In the court-yard he unbuttoned his collar, and knelt down to his prayers. As he stooped, his shirt slipped down below his shoulder and disclosed the mark of a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... had pockets in my waistcoat. I unbuttoned my coat, and there at the bottom in the left-hand pocket of my waistcoat I found my flint and steel. They were of more value to me just then than a purse ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... first, Rowdy did not like the look of things—though for himself it did not matter; he was used to such scenes. It was the presence of the girl which made him uncomfortable. He unbuttoned his coat that the warmth might reach his ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... city. When the proud and fond parents attempted to unbutton their children's dresses, in order to prepare them for bed, not a single costume would come off. The buttons buttoned again as fast as they were unbuttoned; even if they pulled out a pin, in it would slip again in a twinkling; and when a string was untied it tied itself up again into a bowknot. The parents were dreadfully frightened. But the children were so tired out they finally let them go to bed in their fancy costumes and thought ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... one other person in the room: a microscopically small footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got into the Post-Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a distant adherent of the Barnacle family, already to aspire to a ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... his eyes hard on Quinnion's. He moved a little, so that the wall was at his back. His coat was unbuttoned; his left hand was in his pocket, his arm holding back his coat a little on that side. The right hand was lax at his ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... never look at another view again, unless from the Woolworth Tower, on a calm day. He thought of New York as a traveller, dying of thirst in the desert, thinks of the lush green oasis. New York in July! Dear New York in July, its furs in storage, its collar unstarched, its coat unbuttoned; even its doormen and chauffeurs almost human. Would he ever see it again? And then, as if in answer to his question, there befell an incident so harrowing, so nerve-shattering, as almost to make a negative answer ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... the nerve to state that I was coming along the corridor with my blouse unbuttoned. He ordered me to button it up, which I couldn't do since it was already buttoned. But he declared that I buttoned it up while facing him, and so I'm on my way to place myself on report for an offense ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... little above six feet in height, and was of that deep-chested, lean, but full-muscled build that so often marks the mountain bred. He wore no coat. At his hip, a heavy Colt revolver hung in its worn holster from a full, loosely buckled, cartridge belt. Upon his unbuttoned vest was the shield of the United States Forest Service. From under the brim of his slouch hat, he gazed at Aaron King ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... to a stop, between myself and the waggons. He was quite young, probably not more than one or two and twenty, tall and well-built, although he walked with a slouching gait. He wore corduroy trousers fastened round the waist by a narrow strap, and a blue shirt, with an unbuttoned jacket of fustian. On his head was a limp-brimmed, dirty, drab felt hat, and in his left hand he carried a red handkerchief, which apparently contained all his possessions, and in his right a stout ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... out in the garden and sat down on the same place where his father had died. The feeling of loneliness and grief oppressed his heart. He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt to make his breathing easier, rested his elbows on the table, and with his head tightly pressed between his hands, he sat motionless. It was drizzling and the leaves of ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... damascened, darted upwards gracefully from the midst of the brown ruins of the ancient edifice; whose huge and ancient towers, rounded by age like casks, sinking together with old age, and rending themselves from top to bottom, resembled great bellies unbuttoned. Behind rose the forest of spires of the Palais des Tournelles. Not a view in the world, either at Chambord or at the Alhambra, is more magic, more aerial, more enchanting, than that thicket of spires, tiny bell towers, chimneys, weather-vanes, winding staircases, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... lace. I believe it was the first time that many of them had ever worn it. At any rate, they certainly had never learned to put it on properly. It would have driven to distraction the tailor who made them, to see tight-fitting uniforms either left unbuttoned altogether, or hooked askew from top to bottom, and to behold the trousers turned up and disfigured by the projecting tags of immense side-spring boots, generally put on the wrong feet. Some of the visitors ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... direction of the Bastille; the other from that of the Jardin des Plantes. The taller of the pair, arrayed in linen cloth, walked with his hat back, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and his cravat in his hand. The smaller, whose form was covered with a maroon frock-coat, wore a cap ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... dry Martinis were brought, and the talk grew a little more lively. Braybrooke, who seldom took a cocktail, was good enough to allow it to go to his head, and became, for him, almost unbuttoned. Craven, entertained by his elderly friend's unwonted exuberance, talked more freely and a little more intimately to him than usual, and presently alluded to the events of the previous night, and ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... day before the eve of the unveiling; he was as busy as a bee, and looked almost handsome. "The boys are coming in by every train," he said. "Look here." He pulled me aside, and unbuttoned his vest. A piece of faded gray cloth was disclosed. He had the old gray jacket on under his other coat. "I know the boys will like to see it," he said. "I'm going down to the train now to meet one—Binford Terrell. I don't know whether I shall know ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... Poodle, whose cottage was on that very hillslope that rose so imperceptibly into sky. One morning he ran and ran, in the lifting day, but always the blue receded. Hot and unbuttoned, he came by the curate's house, just as the latter emerged to pick up ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... words were out of his lips, they all saw Guy Morgan coming with flying feet,—a race for life. He unbuttoned coat and vest as he ran, and cast them off as he neared the bridge. He kicked off his shoes, and threw ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... chairs round this table, sat down in one of them, unbuttoned the bosom of his coat and took out a big oblong jewel case. The case was in an Oriental design and of great age. The embroidered silk cover was falling apart. He opened the case carefully, delicately, like one handling fragile treasure. Inside, lying each in a little pocket ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... spectators, and Benjamin Tresco, wearing an air of supreme wisdom, and with a manner which would not have disgraced a medico celebrated for his "good bedside manner," commenced to examine the prostrate man. First, he unbuttoned the insensible digger's waistcoat, and placed his hand over his heart; next, he felt his pulse. "This man," he said deliberately, like an oracle, "has been grossly manhandled; he is seriously injured, but with care we shall pull him round. My dear"—to ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... gone, indeed, much longer than that, but when she came back from her kitchenette he had dropped like a log upon her divan, submerged beyond all soundings. So she tugged him around into a more comfortable position, managed to divest him of his dinner-jacket and his waistcoat, unbuttoned his collar and shirt-band, took off his shoes, and covered him up with an eiderdown quilt. Then she kissed him—it was five years since she had done that—and went, herself, ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... in the window-seat in a white silk shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, and gray flannel trousers, and one white shoe, was very pleasant to look upon. His hair was as black and curly as a Neapolitan's; he had a smiling, humorous mouth, and black eyes—of an extraordinary twinkling alertness. His clean-shaven face, brown in its ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... Ed, now a tail and slouchily dressed man of thirty-two or -three; his face still handsome in a certain dark, cleanly cut style, but he wore a surly loo'k and lounged along in a sort of hangdog style, in greasy overalls and vest unbuttoned. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... time, "I haven't told Mr. Bond all about the claim—all the reasons why we want him to take you to Bismarck;"—the section-boss grunted at the "we"—"so you please tell him as you're going along. And don't let your coat get unbuttoned, or your ears froze. I heated some big rocks for the bottom of the sleigh and some little ones for your pockets. You'll both weigh so much that Shadrach can't run away if he wants to, and you can't ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... I could see their hands fiddling with the sights, slipping along the barrels and stocks, opening and snapping shut the magazines. The men were nervous, but, except for the movements of their hands, they showed no signs of great excitement. One man, near the end of the line, deliberately unbuttoned his collar and threw it away. Another took off his coat, folded it up carefully, and laid it on the ground behind him. It struck me that it was his vest coat, a Sunday garment which he was unwilling to soil. Bob walked slowly along ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... proud assent as he stuck a biscuit in his mouth and looked at the lights with the greatest pleasure. I took off his new cap with its two blue bows over the ears, unbuttoned his little pique coat, which I had almost entirely built myself, and which was of excellent cut, and settled down to dine with ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... She unbuttoned the mackintosh and spread it on the bar of the plough and sat down. Her white dress lighted up the shadows of the shed. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... aller [Fr.]; live and let live; leave to oneself; leave alone, let alone. Adj. free, free as air; out of harness, independent, at large, loose, scot-free; left alone, left to oneself. in full swing; uncaught, unconstrained, unbuttoned, unconfined, unrestrained, unchecked, unprevented^, unhindered, unobstructed, unbound, uncontrolled, untrammeled. unsubject^, ungoverned, unenslaved^, unenthralled^, unchained, unshackled, unfettered, unreined^, unbridled, uncurbed, unmuzzled. unrestricted, unlimited, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... unbuttoned the riding-coat, pulled at the small black boots. She was also talking to ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... in, and, finding Dora alone, came in with a look of relief. Settling herself in a chair opposite Dora, she took off her hat, smoothed the coils of hair to which it had been pinned, unbuttoned the smart little jacket of pilot cloth, and threw back the silk handkerchief inside; and all with a feverish haste and irritation as though everything ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... great silence around and above. Perhaps on some quiet night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive, and wild—and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country. Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festive—not to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... market-place upon the seventh excursion the Commissary was pointed out to him, where he stood, with his waistcoat unbuttoned and his hands behind his back, to superintend the sale and measurement of butter. Berthelini threaded his way through the market-stalls and baskets, and accosted the dignitary with a bow which was a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... leaning against the central pillar that supported it, with one hand above her head, in a lazy attitude strongly suggestive of the colonel's Southern indolence, yet with a grace entirely her own. Indeed, it overcame the negligence of her creased and faded yellow cotton frock and unbuttoned collar, and suggested—at least to the eyes of ONE man—the curving and clinging of the jasmine vine against the outer column of the veranda. Larry Hawkins rose awkwardly ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... travel-stained buckskin miner's belt and laid it on the floor. All the many pockets were empty save the long one in the middle. He unbuttoned the flap and took out some soiled, worn-looking papers. "Are zese in proper form?" he asked, but the man seemed to have dropped into unconsciousness. Hurriedly the priest added: "Zere is no time to read zem. ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... that is, nearly twenty-four hours later, a shepherd had found him in a ravine near the Herson high road, a mile and a half from Nikolaev, with a broken head and crimson bruises on his neck. His uniform and waistcoat had been unbuttoned, all his pockets turned inside out, his cap and cutlass were not to be found, nor his leather money belt. From the trampled grass, from the broad track upon the grass and the clay, it could be inferred that the luckless ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... pushed back her chair; her glove was unbuttoned and she slowly fastened it. In her heart was a great compassion for ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... through the same hole, and at thirty-five paces, moreover! With that little accomplishment you might think yourself certain of killing your man, mightn't you. Well, I have fired, at twenty paces, and missed, and the rogue who had never handled a pistol in his life—look here!"—(he unbuttoned his waistcoat and exposed his chest, covered, like a bear's back, with a shaggy fell; the student gave a startled shudder)—"he was a raw lad, but he made his mark on me," the extraordinary man went on, drawing Rastignac's ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... is that you spend so much time getting ready that you never have any time for real fighting," he remarked. "It took you an awfully long time to get your coat unbuttoned." ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... her hand down in the tree-hole, beside Bunny's leg, the hole being big enough for this. Then, with her fingers, Mrs. Brown unbuttoned ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... Wanning unbuttoned his overcoat, but did not take it off. He stood folding his muffler slowly and carefully. What he did not understand was, how he could go while other people stayed. Sam would be moving about the table ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... fair moustache that walks about at the rate of seven miles an hour, with his frock-coat all unbuttoned. Harding the novelist—the fellow I was sitting with the other night, said such a good thing—he said he was a sort of apotheosis of sherry and bitters. I don't know why it is good, but it is; whether it is the colour ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... obediently unbuttoned his pajamas and stepping out of them reached for his undershirt. His mother, looking at him, fell mentally on her knees before the beautiful, living body. "Oh, my son, the straight, strong darling! My precious little ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the confusion to disappear. He went up into the deserted dressing-room, chose a cigar, unbuttoned his vest and sat down in one chair, putting his feet upon another. The hum of the dance came to him in a prolonged and soothing murmur and he enjoyed it in some strange way of his own, listening and smoking, stretched out at ease ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... that the "crack" girls stopped writing. Laura was to be allowed an extra twenty minutes, and it was on this she relied. At last, she was alone with the master. But though he was already dipping into the examination-papers, he was not safe. She had unbuttoned two buttons and was at a third, when he looked up so unexpectedly that she was scared out of her senses, and fastened her dress again with all the haste she could. Three or four of the precious minutes ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... barrister had drawn upon me a client from some remote region, I desired him to walk in. He did so, and introduced himself to my acquaintance by telling me that he was the farmer with whom my brother lodged at Orpington. After this preliminary information he unbuttoned his great coat, and I observed a quantity of long feathers projected from an inside pocket. He thrust in his hand, and with great difficulty extricated a great fat capon. He then proceeded to lighten the other side of him, by dragging out just such another, and begged ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... turned suddenly red as a beetroot. The colour mounted slowly to his ears, from his ears to his temples, and by degrees suffused his whole face. Yevgraf Ivanovitch shifted in his chair and unbuttoned his shirt-collar to save himself from choking. He was evidently struggling with the feeling that was mastering him. A deathlike silence followed. The children held their breath. Fedosya Semyonovna, as though she did ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... any meeting with Joseph, it would be no unwise thing to let that worthy see at once that he had to deal with an armed man. He accordingly saw to it that his revolver, already loaded, was easily get-at-able, and the flap of his hip-pocket unbuttoned: under the circumstances, he was not going to be slow in producing that revolver in suggestive, if not precisely menacing fashion. This done, he opened his box of chocolate, calculated its resources, ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... bishop to himself, "I would never have let her go out alone, and she can't be trusted in that boat another minute longer. She will do something desperate." So saying, the bishop took off his hat and threw it on the ground. Then he unbuttoned his coat and began to take it off, but he suddenly changed his mind. Even in that wilderness and under these circumstances he must appear respectable, so he buttoned his coat again, hastily took off his shoes, and, without hesitating, walked into ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... she could, unseen, enter her own rooms. Here she found Samba lying idly on a heap of mats; but he raised his head uneasily as the door opened and looked at his wife, not feeling sure how she might act towards him. However, he need not have been afraid of harsh words: she merely unbuttoned her armour as fast as possible, and bade him put it on with all speed. Samba obeyed, not daring to ask any questions; and when he had finished the princess told him to follow her, and led him on to the flat roof of the house, below which a crowd had ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... shoulders, in ringlets tied behind with a ribbon. His coat, consisting of pink-coloured silk, lined with white, by the elegance of the cut retired backward, as it were, to discover a white satin waistcoat embroidered with gold, unbuttoned at the upper part to display a brooch set with garnets, that glittered in the breast of his shirt, which was of the finest cambric, edged with right Mechlin: the knees of his crimson velvet breeches scarce descended so low as to meet his ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... was partly amusement, but mostly hysterical. Both he and the captain regarded McCoy with incredulity and amazement. That this barefooted beachcomber should possess such high-sounding dignity was inconceivable. His cotton shirt, unbuttoned, exposed a grizzled chest and the fact that there ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... conversation, Thompson insisted upon my lighting a pipe and joining him in the gin and water. We smoked for many minutes in silence. My friend had unbuttoned his waistcoat, and had drawn the table nearer to his warm and hospitable fire. A log of wood was burning slowly and steadily away, and a small, bright—very bright—copper kettle overlooked it from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... no change in him; he sat and breathed just the same. Instinctively feeling that something ought to be done immediately for his relief, with trembling fingers she loosened his neck-tie, unbuttoned his collar, then drenching her handkerchief with water from an ice pitcher, she began to bathe his flushed and ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... gospodarz and his family returning from church. They were silhouetted against the red sky in the white landscape. Jendrek, his head in the air and his arms crossed behind his back, was walking on the left side of the road, the gospodyni in her blue Sunday skirt, and her jacket unbuttoned, so that her white chemise and bare chest were showing, on the right. The gospodarz, his cap awry, and holding up nis sukmana as for a dance, lurched from right to left and from left to right, singing. The labourer laughed, not because they were drunk, but because ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... dressed; her age is between forty and fifty; her forehead is bound with a red checkered handkerchief, from which hang meshes of uncombed hair. The face is red and the eyes blurred, and she moves with her look bent down on the ground. Her right hand is in her pocket, or in the bosom of her half-unbuttoned dress; in the other hand she holds one of the high, narrow tin cans in which milk is carried in Paris, but which now, in the hands of this woman, contains the dreadful petroleum liquid. As she passes a poste of regulars, she smiles and nods; when they speak to ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... Matilda, "Graham's girl," who stood thus, with the wind from the snow-caps blowing down fresh upon her, tossing to and fro the slim feather in her worn hat, and making its way under the lapels of her unbuttoned jacket—Martha Matilda Graham, aged ten, with a wistful face that might have been sweet and dimpled had not care and loneliness robbed it of its rightful possessions. Further back there had been a mother who called the ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... woods, and we could make good time. It was near midnight when we drove in at our gate. There was a light in the sitting-room and Uncle Eb and I went in with Gerald at once. Elizabeth Brower knelt at the feet of her son, unbuttoned his coat and took off his muffler. Then she put her arms about his neck while neither spoke nor uttered any sound. Both mother and son felt and understood and were silent. The ancient law of God, that rends asunder and makes ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... hand up to his waistcoat buttons, and when Adam had unbuttoned it, he took a longer breath. "Lay my head down," he said, faintly, "and get me some water if ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... knees, whistled by the window, jangling a can of bait, his pole balanced prettily on one ragged shoulder. As he reached the puddle, a pure inconsequence of good feeling seized him, and he splashed deliberately in it, grinning around him. Caroline mechanically bent and unbuttoned the top button of her stout ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... stood about six feet three; his face was long and brown and grave; his figure was spare and strong. Atop his head he wore the sacred Arizona high-crowned hat, around his neck a bright bandana; no coat, but an unbuttoned vest; skinny trousers, and boots. Save for lack of spurs and chaps and revolver he might have been a moving-picture cowboy. The spurs alone were lacking from the ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... Roony. Politely Officer Roony removed his cap, politely he unbuttoned several yards of blue overcoat and fumbled in the caverns beneath. Eventually he brought forth a square sheet of paper—it had a certain familiarity of aspect for Mrs. Pumpelly—and handed it ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... it on my head by holding the corners between my teeth. It was equally impossible to refasten my overcoat, only a thin tweed (for I had dressed lightly, in expectation of hard exercise), which had become unbuttoned in my last fall. It may seem absurd to mention it, but the cravings of hunger grew so keen, stimulated as they were by the cold and the great exertion, that it actually occurred to me whether I could eat one of my old dogskin gloves. ...
— A Night in the Snow - or, A Struggle for Life • Rev. E. Donald Carr
... such foolish conceits at such times persist in shouldering death itself out of a man's thoughts. And meanwhile, there stood the precursor of his end, in the emblematic person of a very brown John the Baptist. The fellow's gorgeous red jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a sordid dirty shirt. He was officer of the guard, and had a curiosity as to how a Gringo about to be shot would act. He waited clumsily, lantern in hand. But he was disappointed. There seemed to be nothing out of the commonplace. Some condemned Mexican, though a ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... said to John Franken, "See that he does not come near me," pointing to the executioner who stood in the background grasping his long double-handed sword. Barneveld then rapidly unbuttoned his doublet with his own hands and the valet helped him off with it. "Make haste! make haste!" ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy grey shepherd's check trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... blacked up as an African king and prince of the blood, and we did stunts in the cage at afternoon and evening performances, and the crowd could not keep away from our cage, until pa got hot and unbuttoned his shirt and, before we knew it, everybody saw pa's white skin below where his face and neck were blacked, and while we were talking gibberish to each other a country jake got mad and he led a crowd to open the cage and make us remove our shirts to prove ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... With tie flapping, shirt unbuttoned, shoes unlaced, Kear followed the boss through the living room and down the flagstone walk to the street. The boss opened the doors of the Honeychile Bakery truck ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert
... pretending to be greatly at their ease. The children played in the streets; there were so many of them that the place resembled the recreation grounds of a kindergarten. The men on the steps—all in their shirt sleeves, their vests unbuttoned—sat with their legs well apart, their stomachs comfortably protruding, and talked of the prices of things, or told anecdotes of the sagacity of their various chiefs and overlords. They occasionally looked over the multitude of squabbling children, listened affectionately to their high-pitched, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... lantern-bearer, unless (like the pole-cat) by the smell. Four or five would sometimes climb into the belly of a ten-man lugger, with nothing but the thwarts above them—for the cabin was usually locked, or choose out some hollow of the links where the wind might whistle overhead. There the coats would be unbuttoned and the bull's-eyes discovered; and in the chequering glimmer, under the huge windy hall of the night, and cheered by a rich steam of toasting tinware, these fortunate young gentlemen would crouch together in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... with the book in one hand, and the bamboo cane in the other: in a perfect phrenzy of rage and defiance. He reached the yard; and his passion vanished in a moment. Little Oliver Twist lay on his back on the pavement, with his shirt unbuttoned, and his temples bathed with water; his face a deadly white; and a cold tremble convulsing his ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens |
