"Palaver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... says, "Tair best let Injuns go thar own way when thar's a big crowd thegitter. When thar aint, as it chances hyar, it may be wisest to hev a leetle palaver wi' them. They're putty sure to a been arter some diviltry anyhow. 'S like 's not this lot's been a pilferin' somethin' from the new settlement, and air in the act o' toatin' off thar plunder. Ef arter gruppin' 'em, we find it aint so, we kin let go again, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... after our palaver with the head men, were about to return on board, we noticed two children who were wearing a number of silver coins, strung on cinnet (coir) fibre, around their necks. We called them to us, looked at the coins and found that they were rupees ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... is the gist of all this palaver? I'll be damned if I can stomach a sermon," Pancracio ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... and throwing himself into the armchair enquired politely after the health of Barbara and Susan. As far as the Persian journey was concerned the palaver was ended. He did not intend to give me his reasons for staying in England and I could not demand them more insistently. At any rate I had discovered the cause of his grumpiness. What creature of Jaffery's temperament ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... countra laird, May warstle for your favour; May claw his lug, and straik his beard, And hoast up some palaver. My bonnie maid, before ye wed Sic clumsy-witted hammers, Seek Heaven for help, and barefit ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... way through Sangnonagagy and Saamcolo (where there was a "grand palaver" to rescue Isaaco's dog, which had bitten a man and been condemned to die), on to Diggichoucoumee, a place as long as its name, which took them four days to get through. It took still longer to get ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... my home she startles me by calling me 'Brother.' Did you ever hear of anything so maddening? Twice I have let her escape because of the word. But I can stand it no longer, and I am on the way to Princess Nzambi to hold a palaver about it." (By "palaver" the slangy Crocodile ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... John, I will go up and talk with Lillie, and condole with her; and perhaps we shall bring her round. And then when my husband comes home next week, we'll have a family palaver, and he will find some ways and means of setting this business straight, that it won't be so bad as it looks now. There may be arrangements made when the creditors come together. My impression is that, whenever people find a man really determined to arrange a matter ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... English, as was his custom when in earnest, "Jeekie think they just black niggers like the rest, thief people. There ain't a white man in this house, except you and Miss Barbara and me, Major. Jeekie learnt all that in servant's hall palaver. No, not now, other time. Everyone tell everything to Jeekie, poor old African fool, and he look up an answer, 'O law! you don't say so?' but keep his eyes and ears open ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... The palaver came to me out of the darkness, like voices from a phonograph-horn, thin and far away. One told the tale of Tahiapepae, the Girl ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... messmates to the bows, and leave the helm with me, as I wished to explain the matter myself in private. He consigned his soul, in set terms, to the devil, if any other man than myself should be allowed to make a priest's palaver-box of the Saucy Sally, and sulkily retired, rolling his quid with indefatigable energy, and squirting jets of spittle ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... the curse of the long verse or prose romance. Moreover, to get point and appeal, it was especially necessary to throw up the subject—incident, emotion, or whatever it was—to bring it out; not merely to meander and palaver about it. But language and literature were both too much in a state of transition to admit of anything capital being done at this time. It was the great good fortune of England, corresponding to that experienced with Chaucer in poetry three quarters of ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, arrayed for the hunt, with buglers and dogs attending, stood across the way, and with mighty ceremony and palaver admitted her to the City. Woe betide them, for all their gold collars and maces, had they ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... as he's told and subscribe to the Cup," interposed Dick Derosne. And he added, "They are having a palaver. Old Perry's been in an hour ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... weapons, only neither side dared to begin. I asked them to do the fighting out in the open, so that I could take a picture of it, and this cooled them down considerably. They sat down and began a long palaver, which ended in nothing at all, and, indeed, no one really knew ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... he succinctly. It was like a bomb, and a bomb is the very last thing in succinctness. It comes to the point without palaver or conjecture, and it reduces havoc to a ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... last palaver with our guide; he said that the extreme denseness of the fog gave assured token of "an awful ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... sat up with your pa last night," he said, ashamed of having slept. "We had some business to palaver about." ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... with their horses and heavily laden mules, had advanced but a few days' journey, over an almost unexplored region, when they fell in with a powerful tribe of Indians, who, after a little palaver, seeing their weakness in numbers and the richness of their treasure, attacked them with great fury. The Indians had adroitly selected a spot where they could fight Indian fashion, from behind trees ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... rolling and unrolling her knitting and looking icily out of the window, as she continued to stand opposite the squire. Poyser might sit down if he liked, she thought; she wasn't going to sit down, as if she'd give in to any such smooth-tongued palaver. Mr. Poyser, who looked and felt the reverse of icy, did sit ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... days; the colour is very dark brown, and large quantities of aquatic plants and trees float down. Mologhwe, or chief Ndambo, came and mixed blood with the intensely bigoted Moslem, Hassani: this is to secure the nine canoes. He next went over to have more palaver about them, and they do not hesitate to play me false by detraction. The Manyuema, too, are untruthful, but very honest; we never lose an article by them: fowls and goats are untouched, and if a fowl is lost, we know that it has ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... half a dollar for such an hour as he had passed at Mrs. Burrage's? The sort of thing she was able to do, to say, was an article for which there was more and more demand—fluent, pretty, third-rate palaver, conscious or unconscious perfected humbug; the stupid, gregarious, gullible public, the enlightened democracy of his native land, could swallow unlimited draughts of it. He was sure she could go, like that, for several years, with her portrait in the ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... were yet able to deny His divinity. The Arians took Christ for a noble and perfect creature, superior even to the angels, because by Him God created heaven and earth. Mohammed also speaks highly of Christ. But all their praise is mere palaver to deceive men. Paul's language is different. To paraphrase him: "You are established in this belief that Christ is very God because He gives grace and peace, gifts which only God ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... see why we can't—I can," Reed asserted. "It's none of our business, Rex, and we really haven't time to palaver. Come along." ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... word; commending to the cordial warmth of Humanity my unhatched score and more of book-eggs, to perfect which I need an Eccaleobion of literature; and scorning, as heartily as any Sioux chief, to prolong palaver, when I have nothing more to say; suffer me thus courteously to take of you my leave. And forasmuch as Lord Chesterfield recommends an exit to be heralded by a pungent speech, let me steal from quaint old Norris the last word wherewith I trouble you: "These are my thoughts; I might ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... this palaver with a contemptuous but very appropriate curl of the nose; and Mealy Whitecotton offered to bet a half pint "that I couldn't do the like again with no sort o' wabbles, he didn't care what." But I had already fortified myself ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... extenuate, deny and palaver as he may, it remains true that the Socialist Party of America teaches the same treasonable doctrines of violence and insurrection as the Russian Bolshevists, but in a more covert way. We have a sample in the pamphlet, "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat," ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... not be too much delayed by this palaver regarding carriers, I had started the balance of the party ahead, and rode on alone after them. They had left at 10:15, and we all had a hot, dry, dusty, thirsty mountain ride until five o'clock in the afternoon, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... into the simple but familiar terms employed by our continental predecessors. What the early English called a king we should now-a-days call a chief; what they called a meeting of wise men we should now-a-days call a palaver. In fact, we must recollect that we are dealing with a purely barbaric race—not savage, indeed, nor without a certain rude culture of its own, the result of long centuries of previous development; yet essentially military and predatory in its habits, and akin in its material ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... the order, and once more the soldiers quietly surrounded the herd of cattle, and drove them to head-quarters as before. The old scene was re-enacted. The new sheik, Morbe, together with Allorron and many headmen, arrived. Again a long palaver took place, through the medium of Tomby, the interpreter, and the promises ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... mo' palaver, Brer Fox make a bargain dat Mr. Buzzard wuz ter watch de hole, en keep Brer Rabbit dar wiles Brer Fox went atter his axe. Den Brer Fox, he lope off, he did, en Mr. Buzzard, he tuck up his stan' at de hole. Bimeby, w'en all git still, Brer Rabbit sorter ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... After a short preliminary palaver, a feast of baked pigs and various roots was spread before us; of which we partook sparingly, and then proceeded to business. The captain stated his object in visiting the island, regretted that there had been a slight misunderstanding ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... present, both in New England and Old! May the Lord deliver us all from Cant; may the Lord, whatever else he do or forbear, teach us to look Facts honestly in the face, and to beware (with a kind of shudder) of smearing them over with our despicable and damnable palaver, into irrecognizability, and so falsifying the Lord's own Gospels to his unhappy blockheads of children, all staggering down to Gehenna and the everlasting Swine's-trough for want of Gospels.—O Heaven, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... gratefully. "What a good little soul you are, Verity—you always say just the right thing! Tell Goliath, with my love, that I am busy, so there must be no pipe and no palaver to-night. I shall have to be up betimes too;" and then he took counsel with Verity as to the hour when his breakfast ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... began to see his way to the establishment of a permanent peace, and he made arrangements to have a great palaver, a solemn treaty, and a grand ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Come, give over yer palaver, for I'm not wantin' it," said Moll roughly, yet not ill pleased at her husband's judicious tribute to her smartness and her charms. "It's all very fine—you have everythin' nicely fixed up accordin' to yer own notion," she continued mockingly; "but I'd like to know ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... is new to Past and Present (1843) or to Sartor (1831); and little of what they add is either needful or true. The world had been fully enlightened about Wind-bags, Shams, the approach to Tophet, Stump-orators, Palaver-Parliaments, Phantasm-Captains, and the rest of the Sartorian puppet-pantomime. There was a profound truth in all of these invectives, warnings, and prophecies. But the prophet's voice at last got so shrieky and monotonous, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... proposal, and her sympathy with his natural vexation at finding that a traffic which he had really ameliorated at considerable loss of profit, was still considered objectionable; but he silenced this at once as palaver, and went off to fetch his ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Before they have finished their palaver as to how the accident happened and have repaired the damage, we shall have been here a full half-hour.... Jules ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... the uncle, "you know how the case is. You must aither marry the girl, or take a long voyage, abouchal. We'll have no bouncin' or palaver." ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... plenty on hand—more'n ye ever seed in yer loife—before ye're an hour older. So lead on, and shtop your palaver. I'm not quite sure on ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... fixed for holding a grand palaver at Wolf's Hope on the subject of Caleb's requisitions, and he was invited to attend at the hamlet for ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... chooses to give him up. The Slatee was very drunk, and when I told him that I was come to pay my respects to him and would give him one jug of rum, he told me he would not allow me to pass unless I gave him ten jugs; and after a good deal of insignificant palaver, I was obliged to give ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... the end of certain years of victories, we somehow find the honest Marshal. And what then?—he went to Toulouse for the purpose of beating the English there, to be sure;—a known fact, on which comment would be superfluous. However, we shall never get to Paris at this rate; let us break off further palaver, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pass to and fro before her house. Which she observing, occupied herself for a few days in inflaming his passion, and then affecting to be dying of love for him, sent privily to him a woman that she had in her service, and who was an adept in the arts of the procuress. She, after not a little palaver, told him, while the tears all but stood in her eyes, that for his handsome person and winsome air her mistress was so enamoured of him, that she found no peace by day or by night; and therefore, if 'twere agreeable to him, there was nought ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... univiting a feast as "The Constitutions of Clarendon." I shall not easily forget my pleasure in discovering that the quotation "Nollumus leges Angliaemutari" on which Noodle relied in his immortal oration, is to be found in the record of the Barons' great "Palaver." ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the hill-tops, where there was nothing to eat. The tribe would turn out in full strength and enjoy the campaign, for they knew that their women would never be touched, that their wounded would be nursed, not mutilated, and that as soon as each man's bag of corn was spent they could surrender and palaver with the English General as though they had been a real enemy. Afterwards, years afterwards, they would pay the blood-money, driblet by driblet, to the Government, and tell their children how they had slain the redcoats by thousands. The only drawback ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... could come over, and palaver, Rowley, Keith, &c. and Coffin to abuse the Earl! Now, I can tell you, that he is ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... palaver about love and money! I shall never win my way to the old man's purse in that manner; but I'll try my skill at taming that proud, free spirit! Blast the girl! I wonder if she knows anything? But pshaw! what a thought! How could ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,—you are not an American, and therefore cannot ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... three linen shirts. This concluded the Series of Shirts. Then commenced the waistcoats. A plain woollen waistcoat without buttons—with hooks and eyes—took the lead, and kept it; it was closely pressed by what is, in common palaver, called an under-waistcoat—the body being flannel, the breast-edges bearing a pretty pattern of stripes or bars—then came a natty red waistcoat, of which we were particularly proud, and of which the effect ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... day was practically a repetition of the first. They moved very slowly with frequent stops and once they landed in the Kro-lu country to hunt. Here they were attacked by the bow-and-arrow men, whom they could not persuade to palaver with them. So belligerent were the natives that it became necessary to fire into them in order to escape their persistent ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Belgian officials in the Congo is to preside at what is technically known as a "palaver." This word means conference but it actually develops into a free-for-all riotous protestation by the natives involved. They all want to talk at the same time and it is like an Irish debating society. Years ago each village had a "palaver ground," where the chief sat in solemn judgment on ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... dragged our own two 5-inchers up the hill we were on, and got them into position for shelling the defiles ahead. They were not, however, needed. Messengers now began to arrive from the Boer laagers carrying white flags. There was a lot of palaver. These went, others came. Le Gallais, our chief of the staff, interviewed them, while Hunter strolled a little way apart, dreamily admiring the view. It was evident the Boer envoys were sticking out for terms which they couldn't get. I could see Le Gallais indicate the surroundings ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... a-plenty," rejoined Kirker. "That's all the captain's palaver. If it runs out we kin drop the weemen, and take what o' them's ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... slowly towards the camp. Their attitude was apparently friendly, but, remembering their reputation for treachery, Underhill did not trust them, and refused to leave the shelter of the barricade in answer to their invitation, expressed by signs, to come forth and palaver with them. It was well he refrained, for when they were within a few yards of the camp they suddenly darted forward with a wild whoop. Underhill ordered his men to fire a volley over their heads, hoping to scare them away without ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... soon after my arrival, amid the omnipresent murmurous palaver of conversation, there fell an unusual noise. The unusual is always formidable in jail. The noise was nothing in itself, and would have passed unheeded in a hotel dining-room. But over us, crowded ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... speech or spelling will not readily daunt us in the time-honored pursuit of "what happens next"—certainly not if we know enough of our author to feel sure he will come to the point and tell us what happens next with the least possible palaver. We have a definite want and a certainty of being satisfied promptly. But with Spenser this satisfaction may, and almost certainly will, be delayed over many pages: and though in the meanwhile a thousand casual beauties may appeal to us, the main thread of ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shoot. On the shoulder. On the fight, you understand. He didn't give a continental for any body. Beg your pardon, friend, for coming so near saying a cuss-word—but you see I'm on an awful strain, in this palaver, on account of having to cramp down and draw everything so mild. But we've got to give him up. There ain't any getting around that, I don't reckon. Now if we can get you to help ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... were not as other men are, not slaves like their grandfathers. Well, just at the height of the jubilation, the tribes within twenty miles of the town sent in to say that they, also, were holding a palaver, and it was to mark the fact that they never had been slaves and never would be, and, if the governor doubted it, to send out his fighting men and they'd prove it. It cast quite a ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... manner as when alive, his betel box is set by his side. The friends and relatives then go through the form of conversing with him, and offering the best advice concerning his future proceedings. This palaver over, the corpse is placed in a large wooden box, and kept in the house for several months. At the expiration of this time, the relatives and friends again assemble, and the coffin is taken out and deposited on ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... parts of soldiering, so he encouraged these negroes, duller than oxen, and made them useful pioneers. Here is his own simple record of the way he got to the hearts of the Levy: "How they enjoy the palaver in which I tell them that 'they are the eyes to the body of the snake which is crawling up the bush-path from the coast, and coiling for its spring! The eyes are hungry, but they will soon have meat; and the ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... have me to learn to cut capers?-and dress like a monkey?-and palaver in French gibberish?-hey, would you?-And powder, and daub, and make myself up, like some ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... "I had a palaver before he'd let me in, but when I was in I seed what de matter was. He had a sojer dere, a Linkum sojer, bad wounded, what he'd found in de woods,—he was a runaway hisself, ye see, like me,—an' he'd tuck him to dis ole cabin an'd been ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... if they sued before the ramparts actually fell, they might be granted favorable terms. But the monarch, who had now lost nearly half his men, demanded an unconditional surrender. As Norby had been conquered, and no signs of Mehlen's succor had appeared, the garrison, after much palaver, threw themselves upon the mercy of the king. The castle, on the 20th of July, passed into the monarch's hands once more, and a large portion of the rebel garrison was put to death. With this scene the conspiracy of Norby, Mehlen, and their ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... of folks wantin' to palaver," he said lowly. "An' no one is crowdin' me. That's polite an' proper. Seems you all sort of guessed there's plenty of room, an' crowdin' ain't necessary. I'd thank every specimen to hook his thumbs in the armholes of his vest—same as though ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... nihil[Lat]; "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"; "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." nonsense, utter nonsense, gibberish; jargon, jabber, mere words, hocus-pocus, fustian, rant, bombast, balderdash, palaver, flummery, verbiage, babble, baverdage, baragouin[obs3], platitude, niaiserie[obs3]; inanity; flap-doodle; rigmarole, rodomontade; truism; nugae canorae[Lat]; twaddle, twattle, fudge, trash, garbage, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... others gathered round him. This was when they were some 1,800 yards away, about on a level with the end of Incidentamba. They had evidently seen something and sniffed danger, for there was a short palaver and much pointing. A messenger then galloped back to the main body, which turned off behind Incidentamba with its wagons, etc. A small number, including a man on a white horse, rode off in a vague way to the west. The object of this move I could not quite see. They appeared to ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... proposed execution by an Ojibwa girl from the Pottawottomi village.[50] Gladwyn, thus warned, was forearmed. Pontiac and his six chiefs were admitted to the council-chamber. Pontiac began the harangue of peace and friendly palaver and was about to give the preconcerted signal when Gladwyn raised his hand and the sound of clashing arms and drum-beating was heard without. Pontiac feared he was foiled, and announcing that he would "call ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Apollo.' Sefton is excellent as a commentator on Brougham; he says that he watches him incessantly, never listens to anybody else when he is there, and rows him unmercifully afterwards for all the humbug, nonsense, and palaver he hears him talk to people. They were twenty-seven at dinner. Talleyrand was to have gone, but was frightened by being told that he would get nothing but beefsteaks and porter, so he stayed away. They dined in the brewhouse ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... of Krumen engaged themselves for a two years' term of labour on the Island of San Thome, and when they arrived there, were set to work on coffee plantations by the Portuguese. Now agricultural work is "woman's palaver," but nevertheless the Krumen made shift to get through with it, vowing the while no doubt, as they hopefully notched away the moons on their tally-sticks, that they would never let the girls at home know that they had been hoeing. But when their moons were all complete, instead of being sent home ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... native cloth and mats. Large quantities of cinnet are plaited by the old men principally. They sit at their ease in their houses, and twist away very rapidly. At political meetings also, where there are hours of formal palaver and speechifying, the old men take their work with them, and improve the time at the cleanly, useful occupation of twisting cinnet. It is a substitute for twine, and useful for many a purpose, and is ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... young scapegrace? What did you come here for anyway? Not to palaver about how thankful you are that you got knocked out, stayed a week in bed and had your salary paid all the time. I'll bet you didn't come for that. Want a raise ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... pay out of my own pocket sooner; and I'm not the sort to go from my word. The man shall want for nothing, sir. But please don't ask me to love my enemies, and all that Rot. I scorn hypocrisy. Every man hates his enemies; he may hate 'em out like a man, or palaver 'em, and beg God to forgive 'em (and that means damn 'em), and hate 'em like a sneak; but he always ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... my lad," he said. "Do you see what work these tropic fevers can make of a strong man? Why, if you had only had me to deal with you would have had it all your own way. There, come and sit down, and let's have a palaver." ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... what the peasants have told him about the bicycle. The Pasha Khan makes his appearance without having taken the trouble to open the envelope. He is a dull-faced, unintellectual-lookiug personage, and without any preliminary palaver he says: "Bin bacalem," in a dictatorial tone of voice. "Bacalem yole lazim, bacalem saba," I reply, for it is too dark to ride on unknown ground this evening. " Bin bacalem, " repeats the Pasha Khan, even ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... coldly. "Some folks may stomach 'em; we won't. Them two sermons o' yours, p'r'aps they'd do down in some city place; but they're like your wife's bunnit here, they're too flowery to suit us. What we want to hear is the plain, old-fashioned Word of God, without any palaver or 'hems and ha's. They tell me there's some parts where hell's treated as played-out—where our ministers don't like to talk much about it because people don't want to hear about it. Such preachers ought to be put out. They ain't Methodists at all. What we want here, sir, is straight-out, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... used by the chief interpreter, and both utterly without perceptible resemblance to the rolling consonants and gutturals of the savages. Marcoy imbibed a strong impression that the only terms understood in common were the words of Spanish with which the palaver was thickly interlarded. This was the first time the interpreters were put on their mettle in a strictly professional sense, and the test was not altogether triumphant. However, by a careful raising of the voice in all difficult passages, and a wild, expressive pantomime, an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... damned!" said the man. "We're going to hang you for peaching against your pals; and that's an end of the palaver." ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle
... chance was this for tongue-tied churl To shorten all palaver; "Have Patience!" cried he, "dearest girl! And may I really ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... her loose-heel'd clogs, Pushed the brass-barr'd door of a public-house; The spring went hard against her; hand and knee Shoved their weak best. As the door poised ajar, Hullabaloo of talking men burst out, A pouring babble of inflamed palaver, And overriding it and shouted down High words, jeering or downright, broken like Crests that leap and stumble in rushing water. Just as the door went wide and she stepped in, 'She cannot do it!' one was bawling out: A glaring hulk of flesh with a bull's voice. He finger'd with his neckerchief, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... to parley with the categorical native; but his attempts at palaver were eminently unsuccessful. The naked black man was ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... day was appointed for the formal election of a successor to the throne of King George. By noon, the whole of the chiefs and headmen were assembled in the Palaver House, when the Regent, or person appointed to administer the government during the interregnum, proposed, in a speech of some length, John Macaulay Wilson to be the future King of the Boollams. Previous to ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... like shillings from the Mint Sent forth to find another one's protection! Chang'd as palaver which the members print And do not follow after their election! Ah! Mr. Cross, your gratitude is low, You might have ask'd me where ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... Snobs.' Indeed, I should like to write a chapter about the Snobbish Dons very much, and another about the Snobbish Dandies. Of my dear Theatrical Snobs I think with a pang; and I can hardly break away from some Snobbish artists, with whom I have long, long intended to have a palaver. ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "O, palaver and stuff. Somebody's dreadfully ill—dying, I believe, and that somebody is wife, or mother, or son to this brute you challenged. He's got to go, the coward. If you are ever in his vicinity again, ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... more old palaver, talk is cheap, but it takes money to buy whiskey. Look as smart as you can (hands letter), and deliver this letter before it's too late. There's nothin' like doin' things with despatch when you're in a hurry. Wait, your face is none too clean. Where's your handkerchief? (Hands ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... the wind, which is just the intolerable truth. Thanks to Maga for giving them the echo of their palaver! and may the first reformed Congress vote her a gold medal for the good she ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... a man of action, not of words. There was no palaver about him, nothing superfluous in the way of orations, but he spoke strongly and to the point. Long harangues, as Mr Grattan justly observes, are not necessary to British soldiers. Metaphor and flowers of rhetoric are thrown away upon them. Something ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... sceptically, confidently, as one who could not be deceived. "Pooh!" she said. "That was only a try-on. That was only so that he could begin his palaver! Don't tell me! I may be a simpleton, but I'm not such a simpleton as he thinks for, nor as some other folks think for, either!" (At this point Hilda had to admit that in truth her mother was not completely a simpleton. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... those days, a hotel where an atmosphere congenial to Southern institutions was sedulously maintained. But there were negro waiters in the dining-room, and mulatto bell-boys, and Dick had no doubt that Grandison, with the native gregariousness and garrulousness of his race, would foregather and palaver with them sooner or later, and Dick hoped that they would speedily inoculate him with the virus of freedom. For it was not Dick's intention to say anything to his servant about his plan to free him, for obvious reasons. To mention one of them, if Grandison should go away, and ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... careless as I could, that he was just down below, hoping they'd think I meant down on the shore; but they didn't, for another spoke up and said he was far enough away, "and don't stop to palaver, I want some grub!" I'd kept backing towards the tent all the time we were talking; and when he said that, I was right in the opening, and one look inside showed me the gun almost where I could reach it, and ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... thanking me, he departed, gratified with his gratuity, rejoiced at his reception, and most undoubtedly benefited by the beer with which I had encouraged his palaver—a word, by the way, which is not inappropriate, since it contains in itself the very word of words, the lav, which means a word, and is most antiquely and excellently Gipsy. Pehlevi is old Persian, and to pen lavi is Rommany all the ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... the village warriors held a big palaver to celebrate their victories, and to choose a new chief. Since old Waziri's death Tarzan had been directing the warriors in battle, and the temporary command had been tacitly conceded to him. There had ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "better drop in an' hear the sky-pilot's palaver before you go. It'll do you a whole lot of good, an' it can't do you ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... Barracks' kitchen and prepared supper for the visitors, and after this was eaten by the strange guests, sitting where they were under the porch roof, the discarded pipes were again resumed and some sort of palaver followed. ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... quoth Dick. Then to the old black, who had stood by, saucer-eyed and speechless, the while: "Anthony, do you be as big a numbskull as you were born to be, and hold these redcoat gentlemen in palaver till we can ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... understood it, to prevent her taking him back upon a very small show of repentance if the needed emotions were in prospect. He had decided pretty finally that it would be Bessie rather than another when he received a letter from Mrs. Vostrand. It was dated at Florence, and after some pretty palaver about their old friendship, which she only hoped he remembered half as fondly as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... would it be? Come, come, I'll speak to the point. I'm no man for palaver. 'Tis an ear you've whispered more than one sweet thing into, I'll warrant. You're young, Philip, young: you think you can fall in love and nobody find it out. Why, I hadn't been landed two hours, and asked the news, when I was ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... been my ghost, cap'n," he said, "if you hadn't hurried right along. These friends of yours were bent on spoiling a good man to make bad meat. They wouldn't listen to any kind of reason. Can I have a palaver with ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... knowledge. The mind that is fed upon a diet of morning and evening newspapers, mainly or solely, will become flabby, uncertain, illogical, frivolous, and, in fact, little better than a scatterbrains. As one who listens to an endless dribble of small talk lays up nothing out of all the palaver, which, to use a common phrase, "goes in at one ear, and out at the other," so the reader who continuously absorbs all the stuff which the daily press, under the pretext of "printing the news," inflicts ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... enough of Philadelphia and its Quaker-ridden Assembly. Why, when once the war had broken out and was raging in good earnest, I longed for nothing so much as my own youth back again, that I might fight with the best of them. And the peace palaver of the Quakers sickened me. I came near to quarrelling with some of my old friends, and I grew eager to see fresh places, fresh faces. I turned it over in my mind, and I thought that if Quebec fell into our hands, English-speaking ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Betty is a grass-widow, and Penelope, the all-but-flapper, an insufficient chaperone. She expresses her disapproval with a hardy insolence which must be rare with vicars' sisters in these emancipated times. Naturally when you have a great deal of palaver about Betty's husband having deserted her two years ago after a serious tiff, and no word spoken or written since, you rightly guess that the expected new Adjutant, Captain Rymill, will be none other than the missing man. But you probably don't guess that Betty, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... to disturb you,' I began, when Buck, ever the man of action, with a scorn of palaver, strode past me, and, having prodded with the pistol that part of the bedclothes beneath which a rough calculation suggested that Mr Abney's lower ribs were concealed, uttered the ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... all done we can go to the devil and you'll take the gold. I know the palaver, Thirkle. If ye please, I'll take my chances alone ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... children crying—Haji Sunan went out to quiet them. Then a fort sentry fired at something moving on the river, and nearly killed a villager bringing in his women-folk in a canoe together with the best of his domestic utensils and a dozen fowls. This caused more confusion. Meantime the palaver inside Jim's house went on in the presence of the girl. Doramin sat fierce-faced, heavy, looking at the speakers in turn, and breathing slow like a bull. He didn't speak till the last, after Kassim had declared that the Rajah's boats would be ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... At first the palaver seemed amiable enough, and we saw Jan even go the length of making a present of grilled mutton—chiefly bone, but ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... ever meet such a girl again," he would declare piteously. "More than once I was on the point of making her an offer; the words were almost out, you know; for I don't go in for making a solemn business of the thing, with a lot of preliminary palaver. If a fellow really likes a girl, he doesn't want to preach a sermon in order to let her know it; and ever so many times, when we've been playing croquet, or when I've been hanging about the piano with her of an evening, I've been on the point of saying, 'Upon ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the banks where cod are found, and but little time is required in proceeding to the scene of their labour, therefore there is no necessity for being in a hurry, and there is lots of time for palaver. Every boat has an oracle in it, who speaks with an air of authority. He is a great talker, and a great smoker, and he chats so skilfully, that he enjoys his pipe at the same time, and manages it so as not to interrupt ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... and felt annoyed. Bayweather and his palaver! "I don't do anything for them, except give them as good wages as the business will stand, and as much responsibility for running things as they'll take. Beyond that, I let them alone. I don't believe in what's known as 'welfare work.' ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... up, young man; I distrust a fellow that has much palaver. You look too manly for it. I calculate your capital ain't much above your four hands ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... Here's tantarums! Here's palaver! Want to pick my pocket? Rob me? And so an please ee he's my dutyfool and fekshinait son! Duty fool, indeed? I say fool—Fool enough! And yet empty enough God he knoweth! You peery? You a lurcher? You know how to make your ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... too. Thet air's part o' my reezun for askin' ye out hyar. She's gin me the promise o' a meetin' 'mong these cotton woods, an' may kum at any minnit. Soon's she does, I'm agoin' to perpose to her; an' I want to do it in reg'lar, straightforrard way. As I can't palaver Spanish, an' you kin, I know'd ye wudn't mind transleetin' atween us. Ye won't, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... while you are gone, please?" And coming over and laying his hand on his father's shoulder, he repeated his request—all in the softest, winningest way you can well imagine. For, whenever he had an object near at heart, and knew he could gain it by a little palaver, Sprigg could appear as soft and winning as any young tom-cat you ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... cravat, yellow vest, and new pair of second-hand plush smalls, disappearing below to develope his calves, which are enveloped in gaiters,—gingerly beckoning the man with the bad hat, who had been tuning the piano, and Mr. Palaver, the Mizzlington Artist in hair, to follow, that they may escape by ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... man. Brought up with them 'ere fine creturs, how could you nail your nose to a desk? I'll take you without more palaver. What's your name?" ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... enterprising merchants: when they mean to trade with a town, they deliberately begin the affair by building huts, as if they knew that little business could be transacted without a liberal allowance of time for palaver. They bring Manchester goods into the heart of Africa; these cotton prints look so wonderful that the Makololo could not believe them to be the work of mortal hands. On questioning the Mambari they were answered that English manufactures came out of the sea, and beads were gathered ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... another. The delighted negroes went to mass as to their favorite Calenda; the tawdry garments and detestable drone of the priest, whose only Catholicism was his indiscriminate viciousness, appeared to them a superior sorcery; the Host was a great Gree-gree; the muttered liturgy was a palaver with the spirits; music, incense, and gilding charmed them for a while away from the barbarous ritual of their midnight serpent-worship. The priests were white men, for the negroes thought that black baptism would not stick; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... argued strenuously for the appointment of a parliamentary commission, in which they were joined by the artful and cunning suggestions and canting palaver of Mr. Wilberforce. The cry of a jacobinical conspiracy was loudly raised, and Colonel Wardle was reviled, taunted, and menacingly reminded of the great responsibility which he incurred, by making such charges against the illustrious Commander in Chief. The cunning, hypocritical Whigs ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... heard much of her stage life. At first he took all this palaver with a grain of salt, the babbling of an ardent nature interested in the flighty romance of the studio world. By degrees, however, he became curious as to the freedom of her actions, the ease with which she drifted from place to place—Lane Cross's studio; Bliss Bridge's bachelor ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... you are," said Eylwin. "Why for you palaver about breeding to the preacher? Cross I ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... ground-floor, if Darius possessed the courage to go into it, or to send others into it, The seat of deliberation had then been transferred to the alley behind. And the jobbing builder and carpenters had been fetched, and there was a palaver of tremendous length and solemnity. For hours nothing definite seemed to happen; no one ate or drank, and the current of life at the corner of Trafalgar Road and Wedgwood Street ceased to flow. Boys and men who had heard of the affair, and who had the divine gift ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... over from the blacks' camp, where she had been holding a great palaver, and asked us if we should like to see a "corroborrie," or dance; and much pleased at getting a glimpse of the native customs, and glad of anything to break the monotony of our lives, we followed her to the group of palms, and there ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... the looking-glass surprised them most. On seeing their faces reflected, some seemed dazzled, others opened their eyes like saucers, and made a rattling noise with their tongues expressive of wonder. We had quite a friendly palaver, and my watch amused them immensely. I made them understand that they were to bring the whole tribe up next morning to our camp to receive their presents, and we parted ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... speak, converse, confer, confabulate, consult; babble, prattle, prate, chatter, gabble, gibber, blather; expatiate, descant, comment, harp, rant; palaver. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... much fruitless bargaining with the native chiefs, in all of which Coker regretted that the slave-traders had so ruined the people that it seemed impossible to make any progress in a "palaver" without the offering of rum. Meanwhile a report was circulated through the country that a number of Americans had come and turned Kizell out of his own town and put some of his people in the hold of their ship. Disaster followed disaster. The marsh, the bad water, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... a quartz miner in the silver regions—a pretty hard life; I know all the palaver of that business: I know all about discovery claims and the subordinate claims; I know all about lodes, ledges, outcroppings, dips, spurs, angles, shafts, drifts, inclines, levels, tunnels, air-shafts, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... heavy dark oaken door of an ancient-looking mansion, a dull, grim old Chinese made his appearance, wondering who was disturbing his slumbers at such an early hour. The landlord, a polite little Frenchman, greeted us with many bows and much palaver and popped behind the bar, which motion was not lost on the chilled travelers who called for their favorite and drank with a satisfied smack. I felt like the dog who had gotten into bad company, ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... holler, "How'd you do?" And grasp his hand so warm he'll know he has a friend in you, An' ask him what's a-hurtin' him, and laugh his cares away, An' tell him that the darkest hour is just before the day. Don't talk in graveyard palaver, but say it right out loud, That God will sprinkle sunshine in the trail of every cloud. This world at best is but a hash of pleasures and of pain; Some days are bright and sunny, and some are sloshed with rain; An' that's jes' how it ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... "Come, come! no palaver," returned Sam, in a loud and boisterous tone (to do him justice, he had never been taught any other); "down on your marrow-bones at once, or here goes for your gizzard!" and he drew his sword ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... his home became the least dingy he was for having them torn out and sold and the house done over. If he traveled, money must go ahead of him and smooth the way. He did not want argument, useless talk, or silly palaver as he called it. Every one must discuss interesting topics with him or not talk at all. Letty understood him thoroughly. She would chuck him under the chin mornings, or shake his solid head between her hands, telling him he was a brute, but a nice kind of a brute. "Yes, yes," he would growl. "I ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... the point at issue, and the learned advocates contrived to puzzle the cause in such a manner, that, after a hearing of three days, the court broke up without coming to any determination upon it; and a second palaver was, I suppose, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... down to his conceit. I thought that he fancied he could win any woman, and me without the least palaver or trouble. I felt annoyed. I said aloud, "I will become engaged to you;" to myself I added, "Just for a little while, the more to surprise and take the conceit out of you when the ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... boys must have lighted on your own private cache, eh, fella? Don't hump your tail none 'bout it. They ain't in no mood to listen to any palaver on the subject. Better ride ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... this man go down without a hand lifted to save him. He is worth another Alma to her prestige. She can't afford to see him slaughtered here, where he's fighting the fight of civilisation. You see right through this thing, I know, and I don't need to palaver any more about it. It doesn't matter about me. I've had a lot for my money, and I'm no use—or I wouldn't be, if anything happened to the Saadat. No one would drop a knife and fork at the breakfast-table ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... The little Alice, looking very heavy and feverish, leant against her, and Mrs. Rawlins went on talking of the colds, the gruel she had made, and her care for her pupils' ailments, and Lady Temple listened so graciously that Alison feared she was succumbing to the palaver; and by way of reminder, asked to see ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the very language of our parlors would lose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are necessarily so far fetched, through slides and dumb-waiters, as it were; in other words, the parlor is so far from the kitchen ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... "Tut, tut!—such palaver. That would be the queerest way, entirely, to read the sign. Now, I should say it was Margeret the warning was for; why should the likeness of her come to hint ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... also eat it in the same way as they do rice, with palaver sauce. Fundi ought to be well washed in cold water, and afterwards rewashed in boiling water. If properly prepared it will be white, and perfectly free ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... in the world," he remarked to Bob and Oldham. "They never can be made to see sense. Between them and these confounded sheepmen—I'd like to get rid of the whole bunch, and deal only with business men. Takes too much palaver to run this outfit. If they gave me fifty rangers, I couldn't more'n make a start." He was plainly out ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Pen's chief minister, a man called Lapsang, and the Jong Pen's private secretary, were at the head of this party. I went to shake hands with them. A long and stormy palaver followed, but they kept firm and insisted on our turning away from the frontier, now that we were within a short distance of it. We must perforce proceed by the high Lumpiya Pass. Those were the Jong Pen's orders, and they, ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... 'Don't palaver me, sir,' burst forth Netta, as soon as her door was closed. 'You are all unfeeling, unnatural, cruel, selfish, hard-hearted heathens! You don't care for me or Howel any more than as if we were strangers. Father don't mind what he drives me to, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... band came upon a small palisaded village of thatched huts set in a clearing in the jungle close beside a placid river. At their approach the villagers came pouring out, and Usanga advanced with two of his warriors to palaver with the chief. The experiences of the day had so shaken the nerves of the black sergeant that he was ready to treat with these people rather than take their village by force of arms, as would ordinarily have been his preference; but now a vague conviction influenced ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... learn to bear arms, and that both man and woman must be prepared to make any sacrifice for their Fatherland. (2.) They have always held that national interests must be considered before international palaver. ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... Lord deliver us from all Cant: may the Lord, whatever else He do or forbear, teach us to look facts honestly in the face, and to beware (with a kind of shudder) of smearing them over with our despicable and damnable palaver into irrecognisability, and so falsifying the Lord's own Gospels to His unhappy blockheads of Children, all staggering down to Gehenna and the everlasting Swine's-trough, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... this morning, and am happy to say that his reception of me was as favourable as I could have wished. He began by a great deal of palaver about the obligation the Government were under to my family, and that he conceived I had an undoubted claim upon them. At the same time he said that he was not enabled to make any communication to me, but that he trusted soon to have it in his power. When I told him that I was going abroad ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos |
