"Puff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... due at sundown, and at sundown a puff of dust rose on the track, and as a cry of "Mail oh !" went up all round the homestead, the Fizzer rode out ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... about fifty patents for this object and with all of them before their eyes, the British Society for the Advancement of Art still hold the $5,000 reward for a pigment or covering which will perfectly protect from rust and fouling. However they may puff their products for selling, no one has the temerity to claim that they ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... said to have turned to master Juet, and uttered these remarkable words, while he pointed towards this paradise of the new world—"See! there!"—and thereupon, as was always his way when he was uncommonly pleased, he did puff out such clouds of dense tobacco smoke that in one minute the vessel was out of sight of land, and Master Juet was fain to wait until the winds dispersed this ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Under its power the sea will stretch itself out dead, the white foam on the lip, in its crystal sarcophagus, and the mountains will stagger and reel and stumble, and fall into the valleys never to rise. Under one puff of that last cyclone all the candles of the sky will be blown ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... great morass lay in white and sinister tangle under the wild spring moon, when the dark and dreadful swamps were rife with horrible croaks and snaps, the whirring of the wings of waterfowl or the noise of a disturbed puff adder, Philip stretched himself upon the seat of the music-machine and slept through the twilight and the early evening. When the camp ahead, glimmering brightly through the live oaks, was silent, Philip awoke and watched and smoked, a solitary ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... between the gloves and the sleeves; for the face a piece of wire pattern gauze net, made in the shape of a bag, to draw with a string round the hat above the brim, which will keep it from the face, and the other open end being secured under the neck handkerchief, and with the assistance of a puff or two of smoke into any hive intended to be operated upon, the bee-master may fearlessly turn up the hive, and cut out combs or dislodge bees from their ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... frequented. This morning, in reading the list aloud, the general came to the name of Sir Thomas D'Aubigny, brother to the colonel. The paragraph stated that Colonel D'Aubigny had left some manuscripts to his brother, which would soon be published, and then followed some puff in the usual style, which the general did not think it necessary to read. But one of the officers, who knew some of the D'Aubignys, went on talking of the colonel, and relating various anecdotes to prove that ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... A puff of wind had driven aside the wreaths of mist; and high above me I could see towering into the gloomy skies a pinnacle of black rock. Sharp and needle-like it sprang from its cloud-hidden base, and scarcely a flake of snow clung to its terrible precipices. Only a day or two before I ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Wonderfully small sometimes is the matter whence a grievous temptation cometh, and whilst I imagine myself safe for a little space; when I am not considering, I find myself often almost overcome by a little puff of wind. ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... stiffened. Tod saw that the eyes of the big man had fixed on the corral in which stood Diablo. A puff of wind had come, and the great black had thrown up his head into it, an imposing picture with mane and tail blown sidewise. Not until the stallion turned away from the unseen thing which he had scented in the wind, did Bull turn to his ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... announced that John's Saturday tasks would be suspended in honor of the day. He raced up to the Silveys, and found the expedition for cans starting out under the leadership of his chum. Once in the park, the quartette broke into impromptu games of tag, dashing over the moist grass, or halting to puff lustily that they might watch their breaths in the clear, frosty air. Tiring of this as they came to the site of an old exposition bicycle race-track, they ran up and down the grass-covered sides until Perry reminded them that the morning would be over before they knew it, ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... seemed like days the hand-to-hand fight continued, resolute and determined men casting water ceaselessly upon the ruins and the roofs and walls of the adjoining houses, the fire on the other side of the gap blazing furiously, and seeking to overstep it whenever a puff of wind gave it the right impetus. Had the wind shifted a point to the south, possibly nothing could have saved the bridge; but the general direction was northeast, and it was only an occasional eddy that brought a rush of flames to the southward. ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and wooden bowls of cooked rice for the men, while hollow bamboos were used equally to bring water from below, to hold sheaves of chopsticks where the traveller helped himself, and to receive the cash. Trade was busy. Muleteers are glad to rest here after the climb, if only to enjoy a puff of tobacco from the bamboo-pipe which is always carried by one member of the party for the common ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... grown-up people in the Gardens who puff and blow as if they thought themselves bigger ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... puff, and I'll blow your house in!" said the Wolf. So he huffed and he puffed, and he blew his house in, and ate ...
— The Story of the Three Little Pigs • Unknown
... pipe from his mouth, heaved a sympathizing puff, but remained silent; and Mrs. Lobkins, turning to Paul, who stood with mouth open and ears erect at ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... start out to sit hens soon after the Andersons were laid low. Now, of all unreasoning, stupid, obstinate, contrary beasts, a sitting hen is well qualified to carry off the first prize. Nannie had been told that when a hen began to puff up her feathers until she was swollen to about three times her natural size, and make a noise that sounded as if she had tried to say something and the word caught on a hook in her throat, she was ready to ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... his unusual emotion, which he was ashamed of, and which he greatly desired to hide from his companion, he blew out a puff of cigar smoke, lifted his cup, and drank the rest ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Rabbit's brother was called Bobby Tail, because his tail was so short. Yes, siree, it was so short that it looked exactly like a white powder puff. And his eyes were just like little pink beads. But they weren't any pinker than ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... moderately good wife, having seen nought of the unthrifty modes of the fine court dames, who queen it with standing ruffs a foot high, and coloured with turmeric, so please you, but who know no more how to bake a marchpane, or roll puff paste, than yonder ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... belle.' And the long hair came out of its close braids enveloping her in its glossy dark waves, while she carefully smoothed out the bits of red ribbon that served as fastenings. At this moment the door opened, and the surgeon, the wind, and a puff of snow came in together. Jeannette looked up, smiling and blushing; the falling hair gave a new softness to her face, and her eyes were as shy as the eyes of ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... put it out, ( That's positive) will increase: And any may spy, With half of an eye, That it comes from our priests and Papistical fry. Ye have one of these fellows, With fiery bellows, Come hither to blow and to puff here; Who having been toss'd From pillar to post, At last vents his rascally stuff here: Which to such as are honest must sound very oddly, When they ought to preach nothing but what's very godly; As here from this place we charge you to do, As ye'll answer to man, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... another broom and a loud BANG! to indicate the somewhat belated sound of cannon. For a few seconds the two boys plied their brooms desperately in that stifling atmosphere, accompanying each long sweep and puff of dust out of the open door with the report of explosions and loud HA'S! of defiance, until not only the store, but the veranda was obscured with a cloud which the morning sun struggled vainly to pierce. In the midst of this tumult and ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... advantage in their method of fighting. It is hardly ever possible to tell exactly where the shots come from. But I noticed one man near the top of Tinta, who evidently had an old Martini which he valued much more than new-fangled things. Whenever he fired a little puff of grey smoke followed, and I always thought I heard the growl of his bullet particularly close, as though he steadily aimed at some officer near by. He sat under a bush, and had built himself a little wall of rocks in front. Shell after shell was showered upon that rocky hillside, ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... A keen puff of wind brought Billy back to his senses, and as his longing eyes turned from the gorgeous show-bills they encountered the amused look of a gentleman who had just come out from the Opera House. He was so tall and fine-looking that Billy thought he ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... Dick," said the Bishop, quietly. "'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you'—what do you think that means? It's your very case. It may be the hardest thing in the world, but it's the simplest, most obvious." He drew a long puff at his cigar, and looked over ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... thing happened. There was a minute pink gleam among the dark trees in the distance, and a little puff of pale grey that began to drift and vanish eastward. The man in white jumped and continued running. Presently the report of ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... out. The only way the air can get in is up the hollowed mast, the bottom of which is immersed in the water in the boat. There is a small hole in the bottom of the boat through which the water in it leaks away. This lowers the water until it has cleared from the bottom of the mast through which a puff of air goes up into the shell, allowing some of the water in the shell to pour out into the water in the boat. Now the water from the shell pours out in greater volume into the boat than the water that is leaking out ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... assumed a listening attitude. Above the patter of the rain he heard the putt-putt of a motor launch. He laid the book on the table and reached for a black cigar, which he lit and began to puff quickly. Louder grew the panting of the motor. It stopped abruptly. Cleigh heard a call or two, then the creaking of the ladder. Two minutes later a man limped into the salon. He tossed his sou'wester to the floor and followed ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... Presently a puff of smoke shot out from the bow of the schooner from the weather quarter, followed almost instantaneously by one from her consort. Two round shot struck up the water, the one under the Indiaman's stern, the other under ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... a startled jack rabbit leaped up and bounced down the trail ahead of them. Fadeaway jerked his horse to a stop. "Now we'll see some real speed!" he said. There was a flash of the dog's long body, which grew smaller and smaller in the distance; then a puff of dust spurted up. Fadeaway saw the dog turn end over end, regain his feet and ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... feet; then, suddenly, from a sleeve of his robe he took a little box of the sacred tortoise-shell, pressed his lips to it, opened it, poured its contents upon the flame, leaned over with his face close to the brazier and inhaled the little puff of smoke that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hoot at me. One little wretch—forgive me for calling names—not more than five years old, had a cigar in his mouth half as long as his own arm. When I stooped down to take it from him, he gave a great puff right into my eyes, and scampered off, with his dirty fingers twirling about his face like the handle of ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... to the village?' suddenly asked the captain. He was almost hidden in clouds of tobacco-smoke, but in his eyes there was a gleam, hard and sinister, like a bullet in a puff of smoke. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... appointed Gideon Welles of Connecticut Secretary of the Navy. South Carolina had seceded from the Union. Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana had followed South Carolina. Anderson, with a handful of United States troops, was holding Fort Sumter, expecting every minute to see the puff of smoke from the distant casement of Fort Moultrie, and hear the shriek of the shell that should announce the opening of the attack. At Washington, politicians were intriguing. The loyalty of no man could be ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... that is right." He blew a puff of smoke toward the morning clouds; "the Bachs do not hurry, my child—no more ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... who could see better than any of the others, because no little puff of white powder ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... left Yorkbury, afraid she would catch cold in the draft, lose her glove out of the window, go out on the platform, or fall in stepping from car to car, Gypsy did not pay the immediate heed to his warning that she ought to have done. Before he had time to speak again, puff! came a sharp gust of wind and away went her pretty turban with its new brown feather,—over the bridge and down into ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... glass with an air weary to the borders of dejection; after which he took a pathetic puff at his pipe. I knew what had gone wrong. This was the Fifth of July. We had just survived a Fourth of unusual explosiveness, and the row and racket thereof had worn threadbare ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... It flourishes still, And who can deny that forever it will? A blending of breeding with puff and with plume; A strange sort of mixture of rick and mushroom. Some amble, some scramble, (some gamble), to fill The motley and medley of ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... gates, The Ceramites flapped him, and smacked him, and slapped him, In the ribs, and the loin, and the flank, and the groin, And still, as they spanked him, he puffed and he panted, Till at one mighty cuff, he discharged such a puff That he blew out ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... of speed was not remarkable, but he could last forever, and, if the ground were not too heavy, would gallop on easily for miles with a long, steady stride; like most Maryland-bred horses, he had wonderfully clean, flat legs: after the hardest day's work, I never saw a puff on them; he was not sulky or savage, but had a temper and will of his own; both of these, however, yielded, after a sharp wrangle or two, to the combined influence of coaxing and a pair of sharp English rowels: in the latter days of our acquaintance we ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... from the humble roof with dawning's earliest bird, And the tinkle of the anvil first of the village sounds was heard; The bellows-puff, the hammer-beat, the whistle and the song, Told, steadfastly and merrily, Toil roll'd the hours along, Till darkness fell, and the smithy then with its forge's clear deep light Through chimney, window, door, and cleft, poured blushes ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... it, and now it had assumed an ivory tint. Two breadths had been taken out of the skirt, people were so slim at present. But the court train was left. The bertha, as we should call it now, was as a cobweb, and the lace from the puff sleeve falling over the arm of the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... written probably to puff the book, that the "Encyclopaedia" was recommended for the same advantages which have since given value to scores of similar works. No other collection of general information so large and so useful was then in existence. Elaborate descriptions of mechanism abound ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... nearer. The clouds were completely overhead now, from north to south, from east to west. There was not a patch of blue to be seen. The panting earth waited in abject fear. A puff of wind came, hot and stifling, as if an oven door had suddenly been opened. It passed over the mulgas, making them sigh and moan, and then was gone again, leaving the same breathless stillness. Another puff, this time cool and fresh. It also passed away and left the men with dread in their ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... province, he had dreamed I generously made him a present of it. I can tell him his dream by contraries. I begin to find, like Joseph Surface, that too good a character is inconvenient. I don't know what I have done to gain so much credit for generosity, but I suspect I owe it to being supposed, as Puff[44] says, one of those "whom Heaven has blessed with affluence." Not too much of that neither, my dear petitioners, though I may thank myself that ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... your own dessert, Do worthily invite you to the place. For he that's so respectless in his courses, Oft sells his reputation vile and cheap. Let not your carriage and behaviour taste Of affectation, lest while you pretend To make a blaze of gentry to the world A little puff of scorn extinguish it, And you be left like an unsavoury snuff, Whose property is only to offend. Cousin, lay by such superficial forms, And entertain a perfect real substance; Stand not so much on your gentility, But moderate your expenses (now at first) As you may keep the ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... From that point the railroad was straight, leading into Savannah, and about eight hundred yards off were a rebel parapet and battery. I could see the cannoneers preparing to fire, and cautioned the officers near me to scatter, as we would likely attract a shot. Very soon I saw the white puff of smoke, and, watching close, caught sight of the ball as it rose in its flight, and, finding it coming pretty straight, I stepped a short distance to one side, but noticed a negro very near me ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... wharf cautions us mockingly to step aboard with care, lest we overset the little steamer, or break through her somewhat rickety planking. She is about the size of some of those steam-launches that puff up and down the English Thames, but she would look rather out of place among them; for the Gemini and her sister boat, the Eclipse, which carry on the steam service of the Waitemata, are neither handsome nor ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... sigh from the good-natured captain of the Actaea, a sigh which I reproduced with a good deal of added woe in its intonation and a slight dash of feminine impatience. For this easterly bearing was all wrong for us. "Anything from the south would do," but not a puff seemed inclined to come our way from the south. Seventeen days ago we scraped over the bar at the mouth of D'Urban harbor, spread our sails, and fled away before a fair wind toward the north end of Madagascar, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... mouth. Little Fuzzy looked reproachfully at him and started to get down onto the floor. Pappy Jack was mean; didn't he think a Fuzzy might want to smoke a pipe, too? Well, maybe it wouldn't hurt him. He picked Little Fuzzy up and set him back on his lap, offering the pipestem. Little Fuzzy took a puff. He didn't cough over it; evidently he had learned how ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... shade—and that through the enveloping wealth and rank of a state or the whole republic of states a sneak or sly person shall be discovered and despised ... and that the soul has never once been fooled and never can be fooled ... and thrift without the loving nod of the soul is only a foetid puff ... and there never grew up in any of the continents of the globe nor upon any planet or satellite or star, nor upon the asteroids, nor in any part of ethereal space, nor in the midst of density, nor under the fluid wet of the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... mountain; the animals are sometimes entirely hidden behind rocks, as they follow the windings and twistings of the trail down the rugged slope which the old Turk this morning thought would make me puff to climb. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... dry, heated wood is strown, Roused by a little puff, at once ascends, So burns Rogero's wrath, to fury blown, By the first word with which that king offends. "Thou thinkest," he exclaims, "to bear me down, Because his knight as well with me contends: But learn that I can win in fighting field From him ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Easter week, and Mrs. Tulliver's cheesecakes were more exquisitely light than usual. "A puff o' wind 'ud make 'em blow about like feathers," Kezia the housemaid said, feeling proud to live under a mistress who could make such pastry; so that no season or circumstances could have been more ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... puff of breeze blew from eastward toward the collie; and it bore to him a faint scent that set his ruff a-bristle and his soft brown eyes ablaze. To a dog, a scent once smelled is as recognizable again as is the sight of a once-seen face ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... youth exaltation of spirit requires but slight causes; only a soft puff of a favoring wind will send up one like a kite into the ether. Jerome, with the prospect of two shillings per week, and that great, kindly strength of the Squire's underlying his weakness, went home as if he had ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... was aroused by a strange commotion and a loud sound of hammering. She was trying to imagine the cause of all this uproar, when Madame de Fondege, already arrayed in a marvellous robe composed of three skirts and an enormous puff, entered the room. "I have come to take you away, my dear child," she exclaimed. "The owner of the house has decided to make some repairs, and the workmen have already invaded our apartments. The General has taken flight, let us follow his example—so make yourself beautiful ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... demon, and he would have had me whether or no. He would have flown away with me before this, but I caught his tail in the crack of the door, and he howled most horribly. There he is still, if you care to look, unless he has vanished in a puff of smoke." ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... the bones, and put a layer of it in a pie-dish, which sprinkle with pepper and salt; then a layer of bread crumbs, oysters, nutmeg and chopped parsley. Repeat this till the dish is quite full. You may form a covering either of bread crumbs, which should be browned, or puff-paste, which should be cut off into long strips, and laid in cross-bars over the fish, with a line of the paste first laid round the edge. Before putting on the top, pour in some made melted butter, or a little ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... with the very axes which their own sturdy hands had hammered at a former period; with the wood thus procured they prepared the charcoal which their labour demanded. Everything is in readiness; the bellows puff until the coal is excited to a furious glow; the metal, hot, pliant, and ductile, is laid on the anvil, round which stands the Cyclop group, their hammers upraised; down they descend successively, one, two, three, the sparks are scattered on every side. ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... inwardly, for the spontaneous tribute to the improvement by those two dear, stupid, discriminating men, has settled the fronts in a way in which no arguments of mine could, for to-night she came to dinner not only with her own emancipated hair, but wearing a bit of red geranium stuck fetchingly in the puff. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... he. "That old pipe of mine is not used to neglect. As a particular favor, now, I beg that you'll smoke, and puff out clouds, as I have often seen you ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the shot from above them, the bullet striking where Billy had seen a puff of smoke following the rifle shot. Then Billy ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... protection. Mr. Wallace enumerates (19. 'Journal of Travel,' edited by A. Murray, vol. i. p. 78.) a long series of groups in which this rule holds good; but it will suffice here to give, as instances, the more familiar groups of kingfishers, toucans, trogons, puff-birds (Capitonidae), plantain-eaters (Musophagae, woodpeckers, and parrots. Mr. Wallace believes that in these groups, as the males gradually acquired through sexual selection their brilliant colours, these were transferred to the females and were not eliminated by natural ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... sea air in a soft white cloud of chiffon and embroidery, removed the rose mules from her feet, helped her in between the fragrant linen sheets that were as soft as rich silk, threw over her a rose-colored puff of silk and lace and down, turned on her reading lamp, upon whose shade wanton fauns and nymphs sported, piled her pillows high and left her, the scales were about going down on the side in which was placed "The Purple Slipper," Mr. Dennis ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... be almost certain to find some fellow creeping along inside of Diamond shoals, thinking of no danger, and he'll never try to sheer off when he sees us coming, kase he'll think we're friendly. He'll think different when he sees a puff of smoke go up from our bows, but then it will be too late for him to square away. Good scheme; don't you ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... instant, the puff, the report, and the shriek were repeated; but this time the shell burst to our right in mid-air, and scattered ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... was coming. The ship that had been lying tide-rode swung to a heavier puff; and suddenly the slack of the chain cable between the windlass and the hawse-pipe clinked, slipped forward an inch, and rose gently off the deck with a startling suggestion as of unsuspected life that had been lurking stealthily in the iron. In the ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... within. The thousandth time may prove the charm.—That leaf! It can't turn either way. It needs the wind's help. But the wind didn't move it if it moved. It moved itself. The wind's at naught in here. It couldn't stir so sensitively poised A thing as that. It couldn't reach the lamp To get a puff of black smoke from the flame, Or blow a rumple in the collie's coat. You make a little foursquare block of air, Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all The illimitable dark and cold and storm, And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog, And book-leaf, ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... and muddy, was a writhing, twisting, tangled mass of snakes of dozens of kinds, though the dirty, sickening-looking, stump-tailed moccasin predominated. There must have been thousands of serpents in the mass which covered a space twenty by thirty feet, from which came the sibilant hiss of puff adders, and ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... frigate and everything about her, and very glad that I had come to sea. To be sure matters below were not quite in the same order just then. Still prouder was I when we saluted the Queen, who was at Osborne—firing away first on one side and then on the other, with a flash and a roar, and a huge puff of smoke. We passed out at the Needles with the cheese-like castle of Hurst and its red ninepin-looking lighthouses on our right, and a little further to the west on our right with the high cliffs of Alum Bay striped curiously ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... shiver ran up my spine. Many a fine ship I had seen strike that invisible network of rays, and puff into smoke. Was that to be the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... of ossified idiots runs up agin' these fortifications they shore will be disgusted. I'll bet four dollars an' seven cents they'll think their medicine-man's no good. I hopes that puff-eyed marshal will pick out that hump with th' chip on it," and ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... confidence is contagious; for has not Mr. Oscar Browning managed to fire Dr. William Smith (himself, no doubt, the modestest man alive, and never trained at Eton) with the same spirit, and made him insert in his own Review a puff, so to speak, of his own school-books, declaring that they are (as they are) meritorious and many? Nevertheless, Mr. Oscar Browning is wrong in [xiv] thinking that I wished to run down Eton; and his repetition ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... hole went Effie, as though a puff of wind had blown her away. Maya would never have thought it possible that anyone could dive into the ground ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... been unbearable but for an occasional puff of cooler air which reached us through the embrasures. Some of the guns were of Spanish manufacture, dated 1665, but most of them were lying useless on the ground. In no case would they avail much against modern ordnance; but the fort, ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... chemises hide their dazzling white necks. The Thibetan woman throws on her round shoulders a red jacket, the flaps of which are covered by tight pantaloons of green or red cloth, made in such a manner as to puff up and so protect the legs against the cold. She wears embroidered red half boots, trimmed and lined with fur. A large cloth petticoat with numerous folds completes her home toilet. Her hair is arranged in thin braids, to which, by means of pins, a large piece of floating ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... her dress, and yet it was complete in his thought. She had worn a soft silk of a dull-red shade, with a frill of cream lace about the shoulders, and there were pink roses under the brim of her dull-red hat, and under the roses was her face, shaded softly with a great puff of her dark hair. And her dark eyes under the dark hair had in them the very light of morning dew, which sparkled back both this world and heaven itself into the eyes of the looker, all reflected in tiny crystal spheres. Suddenly the man gazing across the church ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... days I turned it over in my mind, and on the third there came something which first brought all my resolutions to a head, and then blew them all to nothing like a puff of smoke ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hunter, fully expecting to see a handsome young woman sitting somewhere in the bush, and fully determined (if I did) to try her with a charge of duck-shot. And sure enough, I had not gone far when I met with a queer thing. The wind came on the top of the wood in a strong puff, the leaves in front of me burst open, and I saw for a second something hanging in a tree. It was gone in a wink, the puff blowing by and the leaves closing. I tell you the truth: I had made up ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The old theatre has not been erected five years. Our opposition rages with great violence. Much ink has already been shed. One third of the public papers are crammed with what is called Theatrical Critique; but is in fact either the barefaced puff direct in favour of one theatre, or a string of abusive epithets against the other, equally void of truth ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... a puff of white smoke spouted out from the bows of one of the Dutch ships, and a moment later the whole of their leading vessels opened fire. There was a rushing sound overhead, and a ball passed through the main topsail of ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... at him). So she tells me. And, as she has brought nothing with her except a tooth-brush and a powder-puff, I am going into the town to get her a few articles. We must make ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various
... from the stump of the one he had been smoking—inhaled a great puff, and continued. His manner was that of a man under great mental stress—as though he was struggling to recall every infinitesimal detail which might possibly have a bearing ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... a puff of wind—not a cream puff, you understand, but a wind puff—came in the window, and rolled up the wallpaper in a tight little roll, and the worst of it was that Papa No-Tail was asleep inside. Yes, fast, fast asleep, and he never ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... men continued to puff together as if they were playing a duet upon tobacco-pipes, and then Asaph, removing his reed from his lips, remarked, "What you ought to do, Thomas, is ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... Lady Jane, in her very gravest tone, "not to puff up Caroline's imagination with a parcel of romantic notions.—I never yet knew any good done by it. Depend on it you will be disappointed, if you expect a genius to descend from the clouds express for your daughters. Let them do as ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... has to answer for the almost unpardonable sin of perilling a soul. Let parents and guardians look to it. Let them mark well the unwilling files that are paraded by boarding-school keepers into the adjacent church or chapel, bringing a mercenary puff up to the very horns of the altar, and let them inquire how many are then flogged, or beaten, or otherwise evil-entreated, because they have flagged in an attention impossible in the days of childhood, and have not remembered a text, perhaps indistinctly ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... horses, and rode off down the Arkansas Lane, to have a gallop and a peep at the gunboats from the levee. But mother's entreaties prevented us from going that near, as she cried that it was well known they fired at every horse or vehicle they saw in the road, seeing a thousand guerrillas in every puff of dust, and we were sure to be killed, murdered, and all sorts of bloody deaths awaited us; so to satisfy her, we took the road about a mile from the river, in full view, however. We had not gone very far before ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... shouted; but he made no effort further to check his men, but dashed in through one of the open windows of the house, just as from another came the sharp flash and puff of smoke from a rifle, followed by a ragged volley from the creeper-covered ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... Firth and sweeps doon Badenoch, and comes ower the moor o' Rannoch and across the Grampians. There's the salt o' the sea, and the caller air o' the hills, and the smell o' the heather, and the bloom o'mony a flower in't. If there's nae disease in the organs o' the body, a puff o' Drumtochty air wud bring back a man frae the ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... in a brown study on what he had gone through. He was drawing in his breath gradually, his cheeks expanding all the while, until they reached the utmost point of distention, when he would all at once let it go with a kind of easy puff, ending in a groan, as he surveyed his naked feet, which were now quite square, and, like my own, out of all shape. I asked him how he liked the station; he gave me one of the old looks, shrugged his shoulders, but ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... ("'Buffalo Bill Puzzle,' one penny!" from another vendor behind) ... impress one fact upon your minds; this is not ... (roar and rattle of passing train) ... in the ordinary or common acceptation of ... ("Puff-puff-puff!" from engine shunting trucks) ... Many unthinking persons have said ... (Piercing and prolonged scream from same engine.) This is not so. On the contrary ... (Metallic bangs from trucks.) Men and animals ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... believe. I repeated my blows, till I felt sure that the creature was dead. I now dragged it out by the tail, prepared, should it give signs of life, to renew my attack. As I brought it into the light, I saw that it was a black variety of the puff adder, which is among the most poisonous serpents of Africa. It is said that if a person is bitten by it, death ensues within an hour. To make sure, I threw the body into the fire. Not till then did Natty sufficiently recover the ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... allers point the right trail to jedgment, an', as often as not, the blazes lead the wrong way. You're all right in your own way, Bob-Cat, but you're shy on roots, and your idees gets a windfall every time an extra puff comes along. You're like the trees settlers forgets about when they cuts on the outside of a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a deep puff on his pipe and a look of satisfaction crossed his face as he told how he had escaped from the "Paddle Rollers." It was the "Paddle-Rollers" duty to patrol the roads and the streets and to see that no slave ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... a bit, and the Reindeer went over farther than ever. For the moment I thought she was gone, and I knew that another puff like that and she surely would go. While I pressed her under and debated whether I should give up or not, the Chinese cried for mercy. I think it was the sweetest sound I have ever heard. And then, and not until ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... puff of fire shot up, colorless and clear, throwing no very satisfactory light, yet capable of dispelling the thickest of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... head, blew a delicate puff of smoke toward the ceiling and looked across at his unsympathetic hostess. Then he brought his fist down on the table; "Marry me, Belle, and sleep ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... Anne, trying to check herself, 'but I could not help it. Your speech put me in mind of the prints from Albano's four elements. Do not you remember Juno's visit to AEolus, where he is opening the door of a little corner cupboard where he keeps the puff-cheeked winds locked up? Do you mean to say that Mamma keeps her mighty powers of mind locked up in the same way, for fear they should burst out ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... barley; then in mighty wains the plenteous harvest came swaying home, leaving a largess on the roads for every bird; then the round, yellow, comfortable-looking stacks stood around the farm-houses, hiding them to the chimneys; then the woods reddened, the beech hedges became russet, and every puff of wind made rustle the withered leaves; then the sunset came before the early dark, and in the east lay banks of bleak pink vapour, which are ever a prophecy of cold; then out of a low dingy heaven came all day, thick and silent, the whirling snow,—and so by exquisite ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... unbecoming state of looks and costume significantly expressed in those days by the powder being out of a man's hair and his frills rumpled. So he absented himself for an hour, and returned freshened by a plunge in the river and a puff in his wig. But, alas! he found that Mistress Betty, without quitting Mistress Fiddy's bedchamber, and by the mere sleight of hand of tying on a worked apron with vine clusters and leaves and tendrils all in purple and green floss silks, pinning ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of the fragrant weed which Raleigh taught our gallants to puff in capacious bowls; which a royal pedant denounced in a famous 'Counterblast,' which his flattering, laureate, Ben Jonson, ridiculed to please his master; which our wives and sisters protest gives rise to the dirtiest and most unsociable habit a man can indulge in; of which some fair ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... "special" with observation-cars; then, changing into an engineer, and with a call to Toby to jump aboard, she swung herself into the caboose-rocker and opened the throttle. The bell rang; the whistle tooted; and the engine gave a final snort and puff, bounding away ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer the golden age than the present) remarks,—"Dubious and uncertain is the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental. However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... partly no. I think I told you at the time that they vanished between two days like a puff of smoke, leaving no trace behind them. How it was done I couldn't imagine. There is a wagon-road paralleling the river over there at the Siding, as you know, and the first thing I did the next morning was to look for wagon-tracks. No set of wheels carrying anything as ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... for 15 minutes. Repeat this seven times! (I do not think many food-reformers will have the time or inclination to repeat the above performance often. Speaking for myself, I have only done it once. But as no instructions about pastry are supposed to be complete without a recipe for puff-paste, I include it.) It is now ...
— The Healthy Life Cook Book, 2d ed. • Florence Daniel
... stopping for a puff of breath and looking up to the white woodwork at the top of the windows. "You got 'em all ready to put up, all sewed and everything? Why, I reckon I could put up those rods after I get across this end, and then ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... upon us heavily runs, Silent and sullen, the floating fort; Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, And leaps the terrible death, With fiery ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... Malone took a puff of his cigarette. "Maybe he just wants to be sure," he said. "Funny things are happening all over." The cigarette tasted terrible and he put it out in an ashtray ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... about my darling Cardinal. See what it is to be jealous! He gave me lovely soup, roast beef, hare and currant jelly, puff pastry like Papal pretensions—you had but to breathe on it and it was nowhere—raisins and almonds, and those lovely preserved cherries like kisses kept in amber. And told me delicious stories all through ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... found in torture voices of anguish unheard before—unnatural, strange. The appalling tempest of shells screamed on and on, while the most of them fell beyond the Crest. Penhallow looked up to note their flight. They darted overhead shrill-voiced or hissing. There was a white puff of smoke, a red flash, ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... conumdrum quaint; But I, whom griping penury surrounds, And hunger sure attendant upon want, With scanty offals, and small acid tiff (Wretched repast!) my meagre corps sustain: Then solitary walk or doze at home In garret vile, and with a warming puff. Regale chilled fingers, or from tube as black As winter chimney, or well polished jet ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... though steadily, and our uncle told us he trusted it would do so without committing further damage, though he suspected that the beauties of many of the scenes we visited round its base must have been considerably marred; indeed, now and then a puff of wind brought a quantity of fine dust in our direction, which covered everything, and ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... cliff a couple of dozen yards away, level with the stone to which his intended victim clung. Then he bounded off to descend swiftly, drawing himself up like a ball, and pass out of sight, but only to fall with a sickening crash not far from where a little puff of smoke had darted out in the bottom of the valley, to be followed by a sharp crack which echoed from the cliffs and re-echoed twice, to mingle with a chorus of yells from the edge where a score of Indians stood peering over to try and see where ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... rode easier in all my life; our horse goes as if he did not move at all. Take courage, then; for the affair is in a good way, and we have the wind astern."—"I think so, too," quoth Sancho; "for I feel the wind puff as briskly here as if a thousand pairs of bellows were blowing on me at my back." Sancho was not in the wrong; for two or three pairs of bellows were indeed giving air; so well had the plot of this adventure been laid by the duke, the duchess, and their ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... them runs through every feature, yet each is the necessary complement to the other; the abuse which they vent in the ball-room each against his dearest friend, and in the ears of almost a stranger, is in the true style of our frail affections, veering before the slightest puff of self-will; nor is there a circumstance mentioned about either, which tends not to complete the picture, and is not all but indispensable. On some occasions a whole life and character are revealed by a single ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Youth). Might I ask you, Sir, not to puff your smoke in this lady's face—it's extremely ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... that is at intervals only,— Black, from a burning house, we suppose, by the Cavalleggieri; And we believe we discern some lines of men descending Down through the vineyard-slopes, and catch a bayonet gleaming. Every ten minutes, however,—in this there is no misconception,— Comes a great white puff from behind Michel Angelo's dome, and After a space the report of a real big gun,—not the Frenchman's?— That must be doing some work. And so we watch ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... knowledge of the country by the country (the people who deal with its soil, who live separate upon its separate farms) visited each other upon horses; and horses, unlike railway trains, cannot climb hills. They puff, they heave, they snort, as do railway trains, but they ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... Sea Eagle, which was now a half mile from shore, they saw a puff of smoke, and then a shell struck into the beach below them and exploding, sent a shower of sand over them and the horses. The latter, frightened, reared and plunged, but the boys soon got their ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... slight puff of air had ruffled the sea, thereby intensifying, if possible, the blackness which already prevailed. The tiny sails caught the puff, causing the canoe to lean slightly over, and glide with a rippling sound through the water, while Moses steered ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a rather rollicking voice, with a rank puff and a shower of sparks, as the cautious steps followed the ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... whence he sprung; A mushroom in a bed of dung; A maggot in a cake of fat, The offspring of a beggar's brat. As eels delight to creep in mud, To eels we may compare his blood; His blood in mud delights to run; Witness his lazy, lousy son! Puff'd up with pride and insolence, Without a grain of common sense, See with what consequence he stalks, With what pomposity he talks; See how the gaping crowd admire The stupid blockhead and the liar. How long shall vice triumphant reign? How long shall ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... on the lamp above the dressing-table and rapidly removed the traces of her tears, contemplating in dismay a redness of her pretty nose which did not prove entirely amenable to treatment with the powder-puff. Finally, however, she switched off the light, and, going out on to the landing, descended to the door ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... on! What have you stolen? A pin from Elise's pin cushion,—or some powder from her puff-box? Another dab on your nose would greatly improve your appearance,—if you ask me! It's as ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... the serf who shrieked. The Emperor uttered no plaint. A puff of white-gray smoke rose to heaven. And those who watched there no doubt took note ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman |
