"Concertina" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sold by auction, and she grew anxious for her father's return, fearing prices might have fallen before he arrived. Great periods of silence lay between the ringings of the bell, and at such times only faint laughter floated out from shore, or blocks chipped and rattled as a sail came down or a concertina squeaked fitfully where it was played on a Norwegian iceboat at the harbor quay. The tide ran high, and Joan watched the lights reflected in the harbor and wondered why the gold of them contrasted so ill with ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... says he, waving his hand again. 'Good-night!' and with that he fell down between a new bureau and a patent portable blacksmith's forge, and putting his head on a concertina, went sound asleep. ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... regular custom to visit the camps where these people were quartered, with the avowed object of "studying human nature," but really for the purpose of spying out the shoeless, or worse than shoeless, feet. He was a notable performer on the concertina, and I well remember seeing him in the middle of a pea-field, surrounded by as sorry a group of human wreckage as civilisation could produce, listening, or dancing to his strains. Hankin's eyes were on their feet all the time. When the performance was over he went round to one and another, ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... convenience of work the blowpipe should be mounted on a special table connected up with cylindrical bellows operated by a pedal. That figured (Fig. 12) is made by mounting a teak top 60 cm. square upon the uprights of an enclosed double-action concertina bellows (Enfer's) and provided with a ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... Margaret on a big turbine mail boat; they had reached Calais just as an excursion steamer from Margate came up, gay with flags and light dresses, with a band playing ragtime on the well-deck, and people dancing to a concertina at the stern. Now they zig-zagged across, sometimes at full speed, sometimes stopping dead or altering their course in obedience to the destroyer nosing ahead of them through the Channel mist; and she ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... at him with quick interest and nodding] Just so. How did you come to understand that? [Lomax is heard at the door trying the concertina]. ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... dark now, and there was no moon. Suddenly we heard the sound of a concertina from a house up on a hillside; we could see there was dancing within, from the way the light came and went like ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... extricated himself from his precarious position will never be known, as, at this juncture, Ben and La Salle, respectively, weary of playing a limited repertoire of psalm-tunes on the concertina, and reading the musty records of a long-forgotten "Sederunt of the quarterly Synod," as detailed in an old number of the Presbyterian Witness, interrupted the prolonged passage at arms by an invitation, to all so disposed, "to take a walk ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... half-hour of an evening, we consider ourselves no mean instrumentalists, and sometimes give public performances, as will appear hereafter. We have two flutes, a clarionet, a cornet, and a French horn, often supplemented by two violins and a concertina. Old Colonial does not play, neither does O'Gaygun. They fiercely decline to add to what they term ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... insisted that they should be allowed to enjoy themselves to the utmost. To this the captain, knowing only too well what that would mean, reluctantly gave his consent. A general pandemonium at once ensued, one of the men producing a mouth accordion and another a concertina, whilst the rest, selecting partners with much mock gallantry, danced to the air of a popular Vaudeville song till they ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... your smash up. Ours came last night when they were joining us up to go out again. They put an engine on to each end of one-half of the train (not the one our car is in), and then did a tug-of-war. That wasn't a success, so they did the concertina touch, and put three coaches out of action, including the kitchen. So we're stuck here now (Boulogne) till Heaven knows when. ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... some sixteen feet long by an inch in diameter. Through it ran the light copper pipe which was connected at its other end to the pump. At the end of the passage this pipe had several joints like those of a gas bracket, and was folded on itself concertina-wise. ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... In sheer terror Bob clung like a leech. The animal left the ground and jolted down stiff-legged on all fours. The impact was terrific. He felt as though a piledriver had fallen on his head and propelled his vital organs together like a concertina. Before he could set himself the sorrel went up again with a weaving, humpbacked twist. The rider shot from ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... particular tones. (33. Several accounts have been published to this effect. Mr. Peach writes to me that an old dog of his howls when B flat is sounded on the flute, and to no other note. I may add another instance of a dog always whining, when one note on a concertina, which was out of tune, was played.) Seals apparently appreciate music, and their fondness for it "was well known to the ancients, and is often taken advantage of by the hunters at the present day." (34. Mr. R. Brown, in 'Proc. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... platform. When Tom was introduced to the prim, beneficent Joseph his enthusiasm overcame him; he brought his colossal paw down on Mr. Naylor's shoulder so that the poor man showed signs of shutting up like a concertina inside the frock-coat; he squeezed Joseph's hand so fervently that the poor victim looked like a dentist's patient, and Thomas roared like an amiable Bull of Bashan, "Bah! Aw'm glad to see this day, sir. To think we should meet at last! ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Of course one does have some fun with a cook now and then to while away the time. One plays the concertina and gets her to ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... ornamented with pillars, past the shops.... It was Saturday night and the streets were already deserted—only the taverns were still filled with people. Hoarse drunken voices issued from them, singing, accompanied by the hideous sounds of a concertina. Every now and again a door opened suddenly, letting forth the red reflection of a rush-light and a filthy, overpowering smell of alcohol. Almost before every tavern door stood little peasant carts, harnessed with shaggy, big-bellied, miserable-looking hacks, whose ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... at his suspicion, and we passed on. The orchestra was tuning up. There were two violins, a concertina, and the 'cello. Billy Breen was lovingly fingering his instrument, now and then indulging himself in a little snatch of some air that came to him out of his happier past. He looked perfectly delighted, and as I paused to listen he ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... not invented for some thirty years after the harmonium. The timbre of the accordion is coarse and devoid of beauty, but in the hands of a skilful performer the best instruments are not entirely without artistic merit. Improvements in the construction of the accordion produced the concertina (q.v.), melodion and melophone. las Accordion in kurzer Zeit richtig spielen zu erlernen (Wien, 1834). See also FREE ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and cheering broke out from the sailors, and redoubled as a private of Marines, holding a concertina in his gnarled fists, walked on to the stage. Even the officers put their hands up to smile behind them; one or two nearest the First Lieutenant leaned over and patted him on the back as if ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... is commence a line Of fluffy cream souffle, My vife it mak' her very diz', She's not a vord to say. An' den com' yard of crepe de chine, Vit omelette stripe beneadt', All fill it op vit fine guimpe jew'ls An' concertina pleat. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... received with such favor that she was forced to sing the six verses twice and for a third encore the entire family responded with "The Washington Post March" which enabled Mr. Snow, who had tottered down from his aerie, to again demonstrate his versatility by playing the concertina with long, yellow fingers, beating the cymbals and working the snare-drum ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... the thrick, for I crawled back into the palanquin, steppin' on me right ear wid me left foot, an' thin slept like the dead. Wanst I half-roused, an' begad the noise in my head was tremenjus—roarin' and rattlin' an' poundin', such as was quite new to me. 'Mother av Mercy,' thinks I, 'phwat a concertina I will have on my shoulders whin I wake!' An' wid that I curls mysilf up to sleep before ut should get hould on me. Bhoys, that noise was not dhrink, 'twas the rattle ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... Jupe's taunting voice followed her about all that day, and late at night, when they were going to bed and the streets were quiet, and there was only the jingle of a passing hansom or a drunken shout or the screech of a concertina, she could hear it again from the other side of the plaster partition, interrupted occasionally by the sound of Mr. Jupe's attempts to excuse and apologize for her. No matter! Anything to escape from the atmosphere of that woman's house, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the palanquin, steppin' on me right ear wid me left foot, an' thin I slept like the dead. Wanst I half roused, an' begad the noise in my head was tremenjus—roarin' and rattlin' an' poundin', such as was quite new to me. "Mother av Mercy," thinks I, "phwat a concertina I will have on my shoulders whin I wake!" An' wid that I curls mysilf up to sleep before ut should get hould on me. Bhoys, that noise was not dhrink, 'twas the rattle av ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... were dancing to the music of a concertina, many of them, more especially the Italians, joining in the merriment with a gay fervor born of their elation at approach to the rich mysteries of the new land they sought. Much cheap wine had been consumed among them, and ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... sat tight. No shrimp ever had as many wrinkles as I. 5 I pulled my hand in a fraction of an inch, braced my legs against nothing in particular, while my back assumed the characteristics of a concertina, closed. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... morosely. The younger men of this interesting community were elsewhere—perhaps mending saucepans, or reassuring ducks alarmed by the thunderstorm. A musician of the party must have been kept in by the bad weather, for from one of the caravans came the diabolic screech of a wheezing concertina that had got rid of all its ideals and ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... so interested that he had forgotten his concertina—his one possession saved from shipwreck, for which he had offered to fight the whole of Zanzibar one-handed rather than ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... downfall of a fellow-creature—and that a woman!) went into the front room as he had been bidden. On one of the family of chairs, in a corner, was a black octagonal case. He opened this case, which was not locked, and drew from it a concertina, all inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Then he went to the desk, and from under a pile of rent books he extracted several pieces of music, and selected one. This selected piece he reared up on the mantelpiece against two brass candlesticks. It was obvious, from the certainty and ease of his movements, ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... head, he said—and mostly wooden; there were two puppets on the stage, which were made to dance most vigorously by means of cords attached secretly to the ganger's foot, whilst his hands were no less vigorously employed on the concertina which provided the accompanying dance music. This delighted old man was the oddest figure of the three, as the perspiration poured down his grimy face. To light on such a comedy when on the war path would have been enough to make Momus laugh; and when the laugh was spent we swept the floor, for ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... "We ought to have had five nice wins on form. But they weren't trying, Joan. The way Camomile was pulled. I expected to see his neck shut up like a concertina." ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... reproduces the droning of the priest in a little chapel, recreates the scene almost cruelly. And the score of "Petruchka" is alive marvelously with the rank, garish life of a cheap fair. Its bubbling flutes, seething instrumental caldron, concertina-rhythms and bright, gaudy colors conjure up the movement of the crowds that surge about the amusement booths, paint to the life the little flying flags, the gestures of the showmen, the bright balloons, the shooting-galleries, the gipsy tents, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... Eurasians. In one a children's party—pretty children in white, girls with great tails of dark hair—they were pulling crackers and all wore coloured paper hats—next door in a room with chintz covered European furniture and photographs, a pretty girl—just a little dark, played a concertina to an immaculately dressed youth, who twirled the latest ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... sloping roof leaving the middle and the other side free for table and chair. Circles of hooks for clothes should be attached to the poles and large pockets in the walls of the tent itself are useful. It is needless to specify particulars about furniture, and I will only say that the folding or concertina pattern bed, bath, washhandstand and table proved very comfortable and withstood the great strain of being packed and unpacked nearly every day for six months without breaking down. A strong, long lounge chair is absolutely ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... Swedish melodies, chiefly in the minor. He had paid nine dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he had deserted a ship and two months' wages; and he was ready at any time to walk ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play. On board he had three treasures: a canary bird, a concertina, and a blinding copy of the works of Shakespeare. He had a gift, peculiarly Scandinavian, of making friends at sight: an elemental innocence commended him; he was without fear, without reproach, and without money or the hope of ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the file concertina-wise, and turned to the section lettered "R." I drew out the correspondence that related to the sale of the first series of the Martin Renards. As I did so I glanced at the movable calendar on my table. The date ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... Strike the concertina's melancholy string! Blow the spirit-stirring harp like any thing! Let the piano's martial blast Rouse the Echoes of the Past, For of Agib, Prince ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... to come, Johnny. There's no get out of it. Here's Jim Mason with me, and we've got orders to stun you and pack you if you show fight. The blessed fiddler from Mudgee didn't turn up. Dave Regan burst his concertina, and they're ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... musical instrument caused many home scenes to flash across her mind, and she did not know whether it was from curiosity or a desire to please him that she asked the name of the strange little instrument he was repairing. It looked like an overgrown concertina, and he explained that it was a tiny virginal, and pointed out the date; it was made in 1631, in ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... ain't a mouth organ nor an accordion nor a concertina nor a fiddle. It is a guitar, a Spanish ...
— Rootabaga Stories • Carl Sandburg
... stillness and lack of excitement in the neighbourhood encouraged the hope that, as yet, the inhabitants were unaware that so formidable a guest traversed their highways. The heat had driven them indoors, whence outdrifted occasional shrill laughs, or the depressing whine of a maltreated concertina. In the shade a few Mexican children, like vivified stolid idols in clay, stared from their play, vision-struck and silent, as Alvarita came and went. Here and there a woman peeped from a door and stood dumb, reduced to silence by the aspect of the ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... Grock's gift for musicianship is a singular combination to find with the rest of his artistry. It goes with the remarkably refined look in his face, however, as he sits upon the back of the seatless chair, and plays the little concertina with superb execution. There are no "jumps" in Grock's performance. His moods flow from one into another with a masterly smoothness, and you are aware when he is finished that you have never seen that sort of foolery before. Not just that sort. It is the good ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... loft where a ball could have been held—and where, indeed, many a one was held, when all the young farmers and stockmen and shearers from far and near brought each his lass and tripped it from early night to early dawn, to the strains of old Andy Ferguson's fiddle and young Dave Boone's concertina. Norah had been allowed to look on at one or two of these gatherings. She thought them the height of human bliss, and was only sorry that sheer inability to dance prevented her from "taking the floor" with Mick Shanahan, the horse breaker, who had paid ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... our silver buckles and French cocked hats and our skirted coats (they were growing greener, But green and gold look well when spliced! We'd trimmed 'em up wi' some fine fresh lace) Bravely over the seas we danced to the horn-pipe tune of a concertina, Cutlasses jetting beneath our skirts and cambric ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... centre," continued his dragoman, "is occupied by the small yet noisy Fifth Party. These are they who play the cornet and tambourine, big drum and concertina, descendants of the Old Prophet, and survivors of those who, following a younger prophet, joined them at the time of the Great Skirmish. In a form ever modifying with scientific discovery they hold that 'the good' is a superman, bodiless yet bodily, with a beginning ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... practise the tongue of their profession and discuss the news. Clad in the gayest Oriental clothing to attract the foreigner, their talk was all of Europe and its social splendours. At the moment of Iskender's entrance, a man named Khalil was gravely playing English music-hall airs on a concertina, having acquired the art by instruction from an English sailor ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... marched in step up and down his staircase. Bars of it were softly hummed in his ear while he tried to note the important truths which the lecturers impressed upon their classes. One night five musicians relieved each other at the task of playing the tune on a concertina outside his door. They commenced briskly at eight o'clock in the evening, and the final sleepy version only died away ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... was finished and father and mother had been toasted with cheers and a flourish of trumpets, executed on a concertina, accompanied by the rattling of all cups and saucers that happened to be empty, the party rose to play "Third Man," while mother and mother-in-law ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Fred did nothing to our quarters —stirred no finger, claiming convalescence with his tongue in his cheek, and strolling about until he fell utterly in love with the khan and its crowd, and the khan with him. That very first night he brought out his concertina on the balcony, and yowled songs to its clamor; and whether or not the various crowd agreed on naming the noise music, all were delighted ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... stood in front of him critically, with her head on one side. Without knowing it, the child had come to look upon the state of the poor king's hat as emblematical of his state of mind. When it shut up like a closed concertina ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... from which it was impossible to escape, and as travellers to Earley were almost invariably on pleasure bent, the usual satellites were in attendance. There was an old man in a long coat who had played the same ballads on the same old concertina with the same incredibly dirty fingers for as long as memory could recall; there was an old woman with a clean apron and a tray of gingerbread biscuits slung pendant from her shoulders, who presented them to you ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... career, not unconnected with the worship of Bacchus. In this I believe I was right; otherwise a man of such attainments would have been commanding something bigger than a private yacht. The first mate, Jacobsen, was a melancholy Dane, a spiritualist who played the concertina, and seemed to be able to do without sleep. The crew were a mixed lot, good men for the most part and quite unobjectionable, more than half of them being Scandinavian. I think that is all I need say about ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... in his cottage by Fo'c's'le Head, that had a big blaze, an' a cake, an' a tale, an' a tune on the concertina, for the ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... a climax when, having exchanged hats, James and Miss Jensen cleared a space in the middle of the floor and danced a nigger-dance, the lady with her skirts tucked up above her ankles. In the adjoining room, some one began to play a concertina, and then two or three couples stood up and danced, with much laughter and many outcries at the narrowness of the space. Even Dove joined in, his partner being a very pretty American, whom Miss Martin had brought with her, and whose side Dove had ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... grouped up in the bow, and one of them was playing a concertina. Mr. Rogers paced the deck, casting a look aloft from time to time to see that the sails were drawing well. The wind had a slight musical sound as it swept through the rigging, and this blended with the regular slapping ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... two men that Dickens—I believe it was Dickens—tells about: Somebody gives A a concertina, but he can't play on it; winter coming on and no overcoat; he can't wear the concertina any more than he can tootle it. A few blocks away is a fellow, Mr. B. He can play a concertina something grand, but he hasn't got one and his ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes
... room until nine or ten o'clock, whereas now they can come here and sit until 10 or 11 o'clock, where they are not only hentertained, but hedicated and hedified. With thease few remarks, I call upon the first reader for a solo on the German concertina." ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... liveliness was to be got out of any of his instruments! She could understand his disgust with them. But let him get something really musical, and he would see. She was musical herself, and liked a tune as well as anybody. Now, "In Berlin Sagt Er," on a concertina, say;—ah! There was something possible, to ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... his concertina, and the bullock-drivers went For the corpse of Joe the Fiddler, who was sleeping in his tent; Joe was tired and had lumbago, and he wouldn't come, he said, But the case was very urgent, so they pulled him ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... take the card with me since I was kicked out of a miner's hop at Broken Hill because I forgot it. 'No gentleman will be admitted in a paper shirt' was mentioned on it, I remember. A concertina, and candles in bottles. Ripping while it lasted. I wish ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... a very pleasant place. My father wouldn't permit a piano, nor could I afford one; but I smuggled in a guitar (for Barty), and also a concertina, which I could play a little myself. Barty often came with friends of his, of whom my father did not approve—mostly Guardsmen; also friends of my own—medical students, and one or two fellow-chemists, who were serious, and pleased my ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... a thing as a concertina forward?' said he. 'Bully for you, Uncle Ned. Fetch it aft, ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... her, betrayed her class. Eblis and she met. Says Eblis: "I consider I must have considerably damaged this cruiser, as 20 feet of her side plating was left in my foc'sle." Twenty feet of ragged rivet-slinging steel, razoring and reaping about in the dark on a foc'sle that had collapsed like a concertina! It was very fair plating too. There were side-scuttle holes in it—what we passengers would call portholes. But it might have been better, for Eblis reports sorrowfully, "by the thickness of the coats of paint (duly given in 32nds of the inch) she ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... grand bulk seemed to outface the narrow limits of the cottage. The tiny house was exceedingly clean, and comfortably furnished. Everything seemed to be in its appointed place, even to the sleek cat sleeping on the hearth. There were a few books on a shelf, and a concertina upon a little table in the corner. When we entered, the old collier was busy with the slate and pencil, and an arithmetic before him; but he laid them aside, and, doffing his spectacles, began to talk with us. He said ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... time. Many years. He used to be the happiest little space joker in the system, singing all the time, playing a concertina. And then he lost that credit pouch. It bothered him ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... in a cloth and she had a small hat on. She had a dark brown mantle with a fringe of beads round it and a black dress; and I noticed when she got into the cab at the station that one of her stockings looked like the bellows of a concertina. That's all I can ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... the fishbone for an instant, Gipsy laid back his ears in a chilling way, beginning to shrink into himself like a concertina, but rising amidships so high that he appeared to be giving an imitation of that peaceful beast, the dromedary. Such was not his purpose, however, for, having attained his greatest possible altitude, he partially sat down and elevated his right arm after the manner of ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... bank-'oliday at the Welsh 'Arp, "wich is down 'Endon wy," is no longer a spree for him, however uproarious the "shindy," and however ready his "gal" may be to sit on his knee and "change 'ats" to the accompaniment of cornet and concertina. He travels—on the cheap, of course—but still he travels, and discusses Venus of Milo, and 'Igh Art, and the philosophic questions of the "dy," and resolves all his meditations into the "motter" that "Socierty's all right." Without soul, without ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... practised jumping from the ground to the roof. The cabin was papered with posters of a circus, and skins of bear and silver fox lay upon the floor. Until nine o'clock one man talked to the Virginian, and one played gayly upon a concertina; and then we all went to bed. The air was like December, but in my blankets and a buffalo robe I kept warm, and luxuriated in the Rocky Mountain silence. Going to wash before breakfast at sunrise, I found needles of ice in a pail. Yet it was hard ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... remained facing the American, Madden might have done so, but it feels foolish to rail at a profile. Madden wheeled angrily, tramped across the bridge, then down the high side of the dock toward the ladder. From far below him came Hogan's voice, a concertina, and the sound of clacking feet. Apparently the Irishman had induced someone to ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... any way whatever. This advice I accepted meekly, as I was greatly in awe of her, though I should have much preferred to spend my half holiday in my home locality and to dance there with other stupid boys and girls in Lammer's Hall, where the entrancing strains of the concertina were to be heard every Sunday afternoon. The young folks out that way were not strong on religion; or, if they were, they would receive all the soul's medicine necessary by attending church in the morning, no doubt thereby ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... tropical voyage were fully realized. Bright skies, smooth seas, a steady breeze abeam keeping all cool, porpoises frolicking around the ship by hundreds, gay-plumaged birds alighting in the rigging, and a dance on deck every night to the music of fiddle and concertina, with a roaring accompaniment of sea-chorus that might have pleased Captain Marryat himself. Frank's throat was sore for a whole day after his patriotic efforts to "give full mouth" to one of ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Square playing a concertina. That sound of the careless world came strangely in upon their lonely tragedy. By contrast the cheerful, silly noise out there seemed to intensify their darkness and isolation here. Occasional far-off shouts were ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... their temperate habits, they are not led into the commission of offences by the influence of drink. Of course, the popular idea in Great Britain of the negro is that he is a person who commonly wears a dilapidated tall hat, cotton garments of brilliant hue, carries a banjo or concertina, and indulges in extraordinary cachinnations at the smallest pretext; but this is as far from the truth as the creature of imagination in the opposite extreme, evoked by the vivid fancy of Mrs. ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... Oh, nothing—there was nothing he could say, but I could see he was struck. She behaved very mean to the last—she wouldn't send back the German concertina. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... exclamations to which the former "huks" and "hos" were mere child's play. But when the roll was unrolled, and assumed a flat shape not unlike the skin of a huge walrus, they gave a shout. Then, when the Captain, opening a smaller package, displayed a pair of bellows like a concertina, they gave a gasp. When he applied these to a hole in the flat object, and caused it slowly to swell, they uttered a roar, and when, finally, they saw the flat thing transformed into a goodly-sized boat, they absolutely squealed with delight, and ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... morocco slippers, adorned his lower extremities. He was singing Figaro's famous song in the Barber of Seville, with that crisply fluent vocalisation which is never heard from any other than an Italian throat, accompanying himself on the concertina, which he played with ecstatic throwings-up of his arms, and graceful twistings and turnings of his head, like a fat St. Cecilia masquerading in male attire. "Figaro qua! Figaro la! Figaro su! Figaro giu!" sang the Count, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... aboot the gomitry, or what like a thing it is; but if you bring ony o' your triangles here, wi' there ping ping-pinkey-pingin', I'll pet them doon the syre; that's what I'll do. I like music o' near ony kind. I can pet up wi' the melodian or the concertina; but yon triangle thing I wudna hae i' the hoose. You can tell Bandy Wobster he can keep his triangles for his parrots swingin' on. We want neen o' ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... their part of the business on the Slag Heap, while the 7th and 6th worked on their right. The first night was a great success, there was not a whisper of protest from the Boche, and we had cut through an almost continuous line, adequately protected by concertina barbed wire, and particularly strengthened at various points where posts had to be held during the next day. The enemy must have rubbed his eyes rather vigorously next morning when he saw what had been accomplished during one ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... heat of the room, the cheap tobacco, and the effects of his heavy meal, he dropped off to sleep. Late in the afternoon his canary bird, in its gilt cage just over his head, began to sing. He woke slowly, finished the rest of his beer—very flat and stale by this time—and taking down his concertina from the bookcase, where in week days it kept the company of seven volumes of "Allen's Practical Dentist," played upon it some half-dozen very ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... only just got your hair done; but he said he could not help that. Uncle Charles,"—peeping through the door—"is going down now, and he's got on a beautiful white waistcoat. He's brought that nice Mr. Brown with him that unpacks his things and plays on the concertina. Ah! there's the bell;" and Molly hurried down to give a description of the exact stage at which Ruth's toilet had arrived, which Ruth cut short by appearing hard upon ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... guinea-pig between her hands, as it might be a concertina, little Ann jigged it gently above the pointers, who, wrinkling horribly their long noses, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... room—in fact, made off. One of the poor patients was an artist, and showed me his sketch-book, the work of many, many months—a number of drawings in colour, stuck one on top of the other, resembling an elongated concertina, so that only the corners of the pages could be seen. The patients wore costumes designed and made by themselves, in marked contrast to their stylish keepers. Among the guests the county families were well represented, and garrison ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... was sloping, stretched broad green water-meadows with sheets of water glistening in them. The boats had floated a hundred yards when, behind the mournfully drooping willows on the sloping banks, huts and a herd of cows came into sight; they began to hear songs, drunken shouts, and the strains of a concertina. ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... illustrations of old Sunday newspapers and county-fair posters. To its side was fastened an improvised lever, made from a broken cart-wheel. Under this barrel, concealed so that no one could see within, were placed three most prominent musicians of the village, Ivan with his violin, Semen with his concertina and Nicholas with his drum. As soon as the conductor outside pulled a string, the lever began to turn around and the musicians in the barrel had to start to play. In the corner of the house this strange instrument looked like a mysterious engine, one knew not whether ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... address the wily Pathan on occasion, but, hang it all, I can't make puns in Pushtu, or top off my arguments with a smutty story, as he did. He played on those two old dogs o' war like a—like a concertina. Stalky said—and the other two backed up his knowledge of Oriental nature—that the Khye-Kheens and the Malo'ts between 'em would organize a combined attack on us that night, as a proof of good faith. They wouldn't drive it home, though, because neither side would trust the other on account, ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Jingo drum, Nor the "Imperial" trumpet. (The country to their call won't come, However much you stump it.) They're out of fashion; 'tis not now As in the days of "BEAKEY." People dislike the Drum's tow-row. And call the Trumpet squeaky. So I the Concertina try, As valued friends advise me. What's that you say? It's all my eye? Well, well,—you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 19, 1890 • Various
... flexible, and obviously well-trained; besides which she had the great natural gift of putting "feeling" into her singing. The children sat spellbound. The station-hands and house-servants, who had been playing the concertina and yarning on the wood-heap at the back of the kitchen, stole down to the corner of the house to listen; in the stillness that wonderful voice floated out into the night. So it chanced that Gavan Blake, arriving, heard the singing, stole softly to the ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... to show a bit o' fancy shootin' and lay 'im out in turn. That's 'ow it was, Sir. An' now"—the voice grew shaky—"they've corked me. Corked me, by God I—an' there's not a bloke among the lot of us but me can play the concertina." With his undamaged arm he swung round his haversack, bulging at the top with a cheap, bone-keyed, rosewood-veneered, gaudy-paper-sided instrument of German make, and hung his head over ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Brutus—a concertina?" he suddenly asked, stopping before the collapsible case in which I kept my rather ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... stout that when 'e's blowin' 'ard you think 'e must go pop; And 'is nose is like the lamp (what's red) outside a chemist's shop. And another blows the penny-pipe,—I allus thinks it's thin, And I much prefers the cornet when 'e ain't bin drinkin' gin. And there's Concertina-JIMMY, it makes yer want to shout When 'e acts just like a windmill and waves 'is arms about. Oh, I'll lay you 'alf a tanner, you'll find it 'ard to beat The good old 'eaps of music that they gives us in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... to listen to the niggers. I am going to have my photograph taken. I am going to drink ginger-beer out of its original bottle. I will buy some picture postcards. I do want a boat. I am ready to listen to a concertina, and but for the defects of my education should be ready to play it. I am willing to ride on a donkey; that is, if the donkey is willing. I am willing to be a donkey; for all this was commanded me by the ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... was ruthlessly shorn of his right to distinction and dubbed professor, which sobriquet clung to him for many, many years. However, this did not annoy Herr Von Barwig, for he had not yet realised that in America every concertina and rag-time piano-player, as well as barber, corn-doctor, and teacher of the manly art of boxing, is entitled to the distinction of ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... Alyoshka came into the yard from the street and ran out of breath into the house, not looking at any one. A minute later he ran out of the house with a concertina. Jingling some coppers in his pocket, and cracking sunflower seeds as he ran, he went out at ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of freedom; enthusiastic sisters; and no matter how things were going—whether the corn would n't come up, or the wheat had failed, or the pumpkins had given out, or the water-hole run dry—we always had a concertina in the house. It never failed to attract company. Paddy Maloney and the well-sinkers, after belting and blasting all day long, used to drop in at night, and throw the table outside, and take the girls up, and prance about the floor with them ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... the order of the words—the natural order of the words: and (remember this) though the harp be superseded, the voice never forgets it. You may take up a Barrack Room Ballad of Kipling's, and it is there, though you affect to despise it for a banjo or concertina:— ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the chart-house bulkhead, the trolley line, the buckling decks, and the radio operator who was confined—this night he was on watch in the fire-room. Was it rough? He thought so. When he looked down at his feet, there were the fire-room deck-plates folding in and out like a concertina. ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... companions in misfortune, the side-lights, green or red according to the position of the vessel, gleaming brightly and throwing long, wavering, tremulous lines of colour along the polished surface of the water. On board one of these vessels, about a mile distant, someone was playing a concertina—very creditably, too—and singing a favourite forecastle ditty to its accompaniment; and it was surprising how softly yet clearly the sounds were conveyed across the intervening space of water. Singing and playing was also going on among the more distant ships; but the sounds were ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... the hilarious party burst open the door, discovering the master of the house seated astride a wooden chair, concertina in hand; his face wore a most serious, not to say dismal, expression, and his whole attitude ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... was solved by the arrival of two Malay bricklayers to build the new parsonage, and I heard with my own ears the proof of what I had been told as to their extraordinary musical gifts. When I went into the hall, a Dutchman was SCREECHING a concertina hideously. Presently in walked a yellow Malay, with a blue cotton handkerchief on his head, and a half-bred of negro blood (very dark brown), with a red handkerchief, and holding a rough tambourine. The handsome yellow man took the concertina which seemed so discordant, ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... laugh, and drove the spurs home. The animal humped like a camel, head and tail down, went into the air and back to earth, with four feet set like pile-drivers. It was a shock to drive a man's spine together like a concertina; but Pedro took it limply, giving to the jar of the impact as the pony came down ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... his dull old friend, Lord Sampford), who don't believe in class distinctions. Monica's young man is the son of a yeoman farmer, personable, certainly, on horseback and of a blood older than the Sampfords', but an essential resilient, and altogether impossible when playing the concertina or after mixing his drinks (or both). Eva's follower is a brilliant raw young man from Glasgow, recently ordained, with professional ambitions as pronounced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... Mile, and the customary activity prevailed inside that flat-roofed cube of mud. Sounds of singing, shooting, dancing, and Mexican tunes on the concertina came out of the windows hand in hand, to widen and die among the hills. A limber, pretty boy, who might be nineteen, was dancing energetically, while a grave old gentleman, with tobacco running ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Larkyns and Ned Anstruther, both of whom, like myself, had passed through the chrysalis stage of midshipmen and came within the category of oldsters, the one with a banjo, and the other handling a broken-down concertina, very wheezy about the gills; with little Tommy Mills, who was only a "midshipmite" still, in every sense of the word, accompanying them with a rattling refrain from a pair of ivory castanets which he had purchased for a paper dollar in ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... could play any better instrument—such as the violin, or the concertina; though I should in any case avoid the piano, for fear of flattening the ends of my fingers. Still, the jews-harp is a jews-harp; and this is the very best I could find in the market. Humble as it looks, and humble as it undeniably is, it has ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... like this! Different to Miss Jubb's! Sally gave a sort of internal giggle, a noiseless affair that was almost just a wriggle of delight. Miss Jubb! Did you ever see anything like the dress she made for Mrs. Miller, of 17 Tavistock! Chronic, it was! Like a concertina! And poor old Annie Jubb getting flurried when the material frayed in the scissors! Cooh! Call her a dressmaker! More like a figure ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... peculiar gait which varied between an uncertain lockstep and a stampede—but can best be described by the word "halting." The camel had a halting gait—and as he walked he alternately elongated and contracted like a gigantic concertina. ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the public-houses during church time in order to fetch out those who were wasting the precious hours. At Christmas time the waits still enliven the early hours with their welcomes to each individual member of every family. The two men, whose names are Beavers and Stockdale, carry a concertina and greet the household after this well-known fashion, "Drawing to ——- o'clock and a fine frosty morning. Good morrow morning, Mr ——-. Good morrow morning, Mrs ——-," and so through the entire family. This process commences a week before Christmas and is continued until a week afterwards. ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... where their cargoes lie. All day long I can see them faring up and down past the mouth of my creek; and all the year round I listen to the sounds of them—the dropping or lifting of anchors, the wh-h-ing! of a siren-whistle cutting the air like a twanged bow, the concertina that plays at night, the rush of the clay cargo shot from the jetty into the lading ship. But all this is too far remote to vex me. Only one vessel lies beneath my terrace; and she has lain there for a dozen years. After many voyages she was purchased by the Board of Guardians in ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had given her somebody else's crumby plate. She thought: I'm not greedy. I'm really and truly hungry. She could draw herself in at the waist with a flat, exhausted feeling, like the two ends of a concertina ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... to a little somethingness of highly self- conscious, arduous performance, and thence to the unselfconsciousness of easy mastery. I saw one year a poor blind lad of about eighteen sitting on a wall by the wayside at Varese, playing the concertina with his whole body, and snorting like a child. The next year the boy no longer snorted, and he played with his fingers only; the year after that he seemed hardly to know whether he was playing or not, it came so easily to him. I know no exception ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler |
