"Measly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this country by the Tories and Indians caused General Sullivan to go out against the measly enemy, whip him near Elmira, and destroy the fields of corn and villages in the Genesee country, where the Indian women were engaged in farming while their men-folks attended to ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... are laughing at me. So would Jack. And both would say it is unworthy. That's just it. It is the measly little unworthies that nag one to desperation. Besides, Mate, I shrink from any more trouble, any more heart-aches as I would from names. The terror of the by-gone years creeps over me and covers ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... I called him a son of a toad. I called him all the other things he had called me. And then I called him a few additional things. I came from the West, where men knew how to swear, and I wasn't going to let any mangy shack on a measly New England "jerk" put it over me in vividness and vigor of language. At first the shack tried to laugh it down. Then he made the mistake of attempting to reply. I let out a few more links, and I cut him to the raw and therein rubbed ...
— The Road • Jack London
... Margie, a greedy, grasping woman. Here are you with six children, four of them sons. And here am I with only one child, a miserable, measly girl, and you won't let me have even one of ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... lost the whole blamed chunk on a pair of measly aces," he said. "I was pretty sore by that time, I'm telling you! I was down to ten dollars, but I started right in to bring back that hundred and sixty. Funny, but I felt exactly as if somebody had stolen that headstall and spurs ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... yielding a hide of extraordinary thickness, lined on the inside with blubber, and scantily covered externally with short reddish brown hair, the greatest part of its skin appearing to have been denuded of this clothing by eruptive blotches, such as I presume disfigure a measly hog. Although incomparably larger, the general contour of its body resembled the figure of a seal; its frame being of the same description, though differently moulded. It was considerably more bulky in proportion to its ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... than the average age of man. The successful railroad man, if he begins telegraphing, gets so he can send or receive anything, with his eyes shut, and never makes a mistake. After a long time he gets a measly country station, where he does all kinds of work, and he is satisfied. He goes to work to increase the business of that station, to clean up around the depot, and please all the customers, as though he was going to ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... Must have cost all of ten dollars apiece to deliver them letters," chuckled the carrier. "And the people that mailed 'em stuck on a measly red two-cent stamp. I git fifty dollars for bringin' ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... John. 'On what? The Pink Un and a measly religious paper? I had to leave Browndean; I had to, I tell you. I got tick at a public, and set up to be the Great Vance; so would you, if you were leading such a beastly existence! And a card ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... declared, skipping about the room. "The stolen boy is next of succession to some measly old throne! What? And he was sent out here to get him out of the zone of danger, and ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... think what a treat it'd been to him, fellers, to stand there and check off all the animals big and little as they walked aboard the ark in pairs, the elephant and the kangaroo, and the little monkey too. But a measly storm oughtn't to keep you ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... as lief be shot as not," said Relander. "The only trouble is that these measly niggers can't hit anything they shoot at. If the darned fools would only try to miss him, they'd get him sure. The devil ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... victim. At the creek, he was going to "shoot him like a coyote." A quarter of a mile farther, he would "beat his damn' head off," and, as if those were not deaths sufficient, he was after that determined to "take him by the heels and snap his measly head off like yuh ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... Avenue, and open it up as a school—not one of 'em knows how to furnish their houses. How the devil did you—Oh, I see! Just plain yellow-wash and the reflected red light. Looks like a stained-glass window in a measly old church. Where's Sam. Oh, behind that screen. Well come out here and look at ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... yaller snakes? Must be nigh onto fifteen thousand people there now. The hills is plumb measly with prospect holes, and you can't look at a rock f'r less'n a thousand dollars. It shore is the craziest town ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... years have I fought for country and king, and now in my blind old age I'm to be sent packing from a measly public-'ouse? Mark ye, ma'am, if I go, you take the consequences. Is this a inn? Or hain't it? If it is a inn, then by act of parleyment, I'm free to sling my 'ammick. Don't you forget: this is a act of parleyment job, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... much,—a measly, sandy-haired, cheap thing. I come of respectable folks, who had a farm outer Gales City, and never worked out 'fore this happened. But now I can't settle down to nothin'; it's always that Frenchman before my eyes, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... election an' havin' a good time of it? Did you ever see a Chink go swimmin' out through the breakers at Carmel?—or boxin', wrestlin', runnin' an' jumpin' for the sport of it? Did you ever see a Chink take a shotgun on his arm, tramp six miles, an' come back happy with one measly rabbit? What does a Chink do? Work his damned head off. That's all he's good for. To hell with work, if that's the whole of the game—an' I've done my share of work, an' I can work alongside of any of 'em. But what's the good? If they's one thing I've learned solid since you an' ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... total extinction of sport in some districts. I can remember when nearly every tank was good for a few brace of mallard, duck, or teal, where never a feather is now to be seen, save the ubiquitous paddy-bird. Jungles, where a pig was a certain find, only now contain a measly jackal, and not always that; and cover in which partridge, quail, and sometimes even florican were numerous, are now only tenanted by the great ground-owl, or a colony of field rats. I am far from ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... malicious laughter. "Out in this country girls are warranted to jump clean over a measly little hack like ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... much by fighting, but I would. Sydney Bramshaw, I believe you are a miserable sneak, ay, and worse, and it would be a great satisfaction for me to get my hands on your measly ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... be rather hard luck to come through St. Mihiel and the Argonne, and then to be knocked out by a measly disease like ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... fin'ly been persuaded to begin his business career by bein' made first vice president of the General Sales Company, that handled the export end of the trust's affairs. So, right in the height of his season, he's had to scratch his Horse Show entries, drop polo practice, and move into a measly six-room suite in one of them new Fifth-ave. hotels, with three hours of soul-wearin' officework ahead of him five days out of seven. He'd been at the grind a month now, and Mother had worried so about ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... Cysticerci bovis and cellulosa are the larvae forms, occur in man. The larvae are present in meat and pork, and this form of parasitism is termed beef measles in cattle and pork measles in hogs. Man becomes host for these two forms of tapeworms through eating measly pork or beef that ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... year or two, married a woman who lived only long enough to produce this man upon whose trail we're scouting. This Kenneth was a measly little offspring and his mother's people undertook to give him a chance to live. He picked up and he and his father became pals—Hannah rooted out a picture of them riding horseback. Then the father was thrown from his horse and killed right before the eyes of the ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... he was safe. He's miles away now, and by the time we could get across the river after him he'd be in the next Province. He knows the prairie better than we do grade. We'd have about as much chance of getting him as you had of hitting him. Besides, we're track builders, not track finders. Your measly hundred a month don't half pay for my real job. Get the Police if you want ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... upper classmen, the sudden collapsing of their fistic champion shocked them even more. Scrapper Bert was rather noted for his prowess. No one cared to put on the gloves with him, nor to gain his displeasure. To see the new boy, a "measly freshman," not as tall, as heavy nor as old as Bert, catch the assailant's hard-driven fist in the palm of an instantly extended hand and then let drive with his own right a neat, short-arm uppercut that got Bert just where he had meant to get Gus, was a needed lesson to the smug conceit that ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... at the chimney, but Uncle Jim's eye followed the wall around to the bunks. There were many discolorations on the canvas, and a picture of the Goddess of Liberty from an illustrated paper had broken out in a kind of damp, measly eruption. "I'll stick that funny handbill of the 'Washin' Soda' I got at the grocery store the other day right over the Liberty gal. It's a mighty perty woman washin' with short sleeves," said Uncle Billy. "That's the comfort of them picters, you kin always get somethin' ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... to say the least of it. Some people would call it audacious. But the story of the goose with the golden eggs is one of childhood's simple lessons that we're obliged to remember in after-life. And to think that the Government of this country should have the audacity to offer a measly hundred pounds or so for the discovery of a great crime! The shabbiness of the legislature must answer for it, if criminals remain at large. My friend's a deep one, a cursedly deep one; but I shall keep my eye upon him 'My faith is strong in time,' as the poet observes. My ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... cooks for himself, when he has anything to cook. He has a little garden, but it doesn't amount to much. He has no apple trees except an old one that is nearly dead and never has but a few little, measly, knerly apples on it; that's why ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... the memories of a former Christmas at Carter Hall still fresh in mind, and knowing the dear lady's generosity, and having seen the biggest bundle of feathers and the longest pair of legs he had ever laid his eyes on hanging head down on the measly wall of the shabby yard as he entered, screwed up his eyes, cudgelled his brain by tapping his forehead with his forefinger, ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... unmitigated sweeps. Hillingdon, with his solemn, stone-jug-like face, I know to be a most infernal rogue. He fakes the firm's accounts to the detriment of the London people who are paying the piper, and who are really the firm. As for Sam Chard and this measly, sneaking, Danish skipper, they are merely minor thieves. But I didn't do so badly ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... "With what? Ye've got nothin', Nal Roberts—that is, nothin' but yer sorrel filly and a measly two, or three mebbe, hundred dollars. I vally Mandy at twenty dollars a month. At one per cent.—I allus git one per cent. a month—that makes two thousand dollars. Have ye got the cold ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... whatever do you suppose those measly old insurrectos want to chase us for in this style?" he growled. "We're attending to our private business and not bothering them one little bit. Why don't they leave a fellow alone? Goodness knows we've just got trouble enough on our ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... the common tapeworm of man. Cattle become infected from feed or water which has been contaminated by the feces of persons harboring the adult tapeworms, and human beings in turn become infected by eating raw or rare beef infested with the larval stage (measly beef). ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... "Two measly weeks out, two weeks to astrogate her back home. And once I've got my feet wet at it, it'll be like shooting ducks ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... It would take years to give you an account of what we have done and why we do it. It is like a game of whist and poker combined and we bluff on two flimsy fours, and crawl the next minute to a man that holds a measly two-spot. There is not a wire we have not pulled, or a leg, either, and we go dashing about all day in a bath-chair, with a driver in a bell hat and a blue nightgown, leaving cards and writing notes and giving drinks and having secretaries to lunch and buying flowers for wives and cigar boxes for ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... other poems didn't sell much—there was only one went, an' the man wouldn't take that till he'd made me promise he could print my letter, too, that I'd wrote with it—jest as if that was worth anything!—but he only paid a measly dollar anyhow. "Susan's voice faltered a little, though her chin was at a brave tilt. "An' I guess now I know the reason. Them kind of poems ain't stylish no longer. Rhymes has gone out. Everything's 'free ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... pulpy, like lard. If the lean be tough, and the fat flabby and spongy, feeling rough, it is old, especially if the rind be stubborn, and you cannot nip it with your nails. Little kernels, like nail-shot, in the fat, are a sign that it is measly, and dangerous to ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... cut millions off the government budget, is a lousy $100,000 too much to ask? I just wanted to go on with my researches without battling a horde of bill collectors every month. Fat chance—I didn't get a measly dime. You, your elected and appointed officials, and your kept press just gave me the all-time horse-laugh. Well, he who laughs last—you'll remember the old saw; ...
— Revenge • Arthur Porges
... some glass in one of the meetin'-house winders. Some o' them little small panes got broke somehow—yes'm, I did, but I never meant to, honest I didn't. I was jest tryin' my new catapult, and I never thought they'd have such measly glass as all that. Well, so I see—saw him get to work, and I says to Squashnose Weight—we was goin' home from school together—I says, 'Let's go up in the gallery!' Old Booby had left the door open, and 'twas ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... which become infected by eating food or drinking water which has been contaminated by the feces of persons harboring adult tapeworms. Then again, the person becomes infected by eating raw or rare flesh of cattle infected with the larva stage of Measly Beef. Great care should be exercised to prevent cattle from becoming infected with this parasite. Persons' feces should not be placed where it will infect food or drinking water ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... "Hold that measly dog's collar," he broke in. "So! I don't care to be bitten. I've had my share of knockabout stuff, for ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... advantage against attack; and there's another way out of the cave, up on top of the hill. There's just one thing against him. There wasn't even a canteen here. He took some jerky and canned stuff—but only one measly beer bottle of water. When that's used up it's going to be a dull time for him. We can't get water to him very handy without leaving some sign. We mustn't get hostile with the posse. Take it easy—you especially, ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... some of these cast-off dogs around town, so why shouldn't I do the same for a poor devil of a husband? I'll make you comfortable until you get into Davis', but don't you ever let on to these damned women that you're a failure, or that you're strapped, or that that measly little wife of yours gave you the sack. No, sir! Remember who you are. You are my nephew. I won't say as I'm proud of you, but, by thunder! I don't want anybody in Blakeville to know that I'm ashamed of you. If I feel that way about you, it's my own secret ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... and halfway decent through love. I was a gambler and a pleasure seeker through passion, I've gone to work at a mean little job and stuck to it and lived on what I've earned—through love. Do you think it's easy to give up gambling? Try it! Do you think it's easy to live in a measly little room up six flights of black, smelly stairs, with no fire in winter? Anyhow, it wasn't easy for me, but I did it—through love, yes, ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... is our Emily, even if they did both marry Smiths," insisted Mr. Clark stoutly, his obstinacy reviving. "I shall send a wire to Stanley at once asking for the dates of Emily's birth and marriage. He must have them both by this time; why on earth doesn't he send full information and not such a measly telegram as this!" and the old gentleman put on his hat and took his cane and stamped off in a rage ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... company, and if they wanted to quarrel, they might fight it out in the streets.' Whereupon they all began to barge the master at once,—one saying 'his coffee was all snuff and duckweed,' or something of the kind; whilst the other told him 'he looked as measly as a mouldy muffin;' and then all of a sudden a lot of half-pint cups and pewter spoons flew up in the air, and the three men began an indiscriminate battle all to themselves, in one of the boxes, 'fighting quite permiscus,' as the lady properly observed. I think the landlord was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 11, 1841 • Various
... Gibbs. I'm goin' to side with decent folks, who have stood by my girl, and you can do your damnedest. You take this stuff away from here. And as for you, Wash Gibbs, if you ever set foot on my place again, if you ever cross my path after to-night I'll kill you like the measly yeller hound you are." As he finished, Jim stood with his back to the corner of the room, his hand inside of the hickory shirt where the button ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... dead one in the bank's eyes from now on. To-morrow the increases come out. Just watch yourself get a lemon. Penton has blackballed you to Castle. Why couldn't it have been Inspector Ward?—he's a good head. I'll bet they give you a measly fifty ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... said Patches. "I'm just naturally obliged to 'tend to this here thing what thinks he's a hoss. Come along, you ornery, pigeon-toed, knock-kneed, sway-backed, wooly-haired excuse, you. You ain't got no more manners 'n a measly coyote." ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... if you want her to be the Princess of THAT, I'll see that she is, providing this fellow is a gentleman and worthy of her. The only Prince I ever knew was a damned rascal, and I'm going to be careful about this one. You remember that measly—" ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... thou seen two runaways by thy gate this morning, master priest—one a stalwart, dangerous fellow, the other a measly, monkish lad? And, prithee, ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... old man won't give it up," cheered "Stump," under his voice. "That's the stuff. Now, if only that measly fog lifts and we get a trifle nearer, we'll do something for the ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... and disappointed. Nothing had come out right, and Jill blamed it all on me. She said I must have made it too strong. There was no fun in anything, not even in going to church. Dick hardly thumped the pulpit at all and when he did it was only a measly little thump. But Aunt Tommy didn't seem to worry any. She sang and laughed and joked ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... tones of intense disgust. "Only eight hours, did you say? Why, man alive, if what you say be true, in those measly eight hours I have lived years of joy and delight unspeakable. I have beheld scenes of unearthly indescribable beauty; I have participated in pageants glorious and magnificent beyond conception; I have—oh! what's the use? If I were to ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... began Hazen the moment the kitchen door was shut behind them. "Use some sense, can't you? I gave you the wink, and you wouldn't catch on. So I had to make the grandstand play. I'm no more stuck on having a measly she-dog around here than you are. And we're not going to have her, ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... commonwealth; that eighteen months before every Presidential election, a cause of quarrel is made with England by both the principal political parties, for the purpose of securing the Irish rote; that measly pork is caused by too hasty insertion in brine after killing, and consequent rapid fermentation; that the people of the United States, unless they have travelled in Europe, are quite unable to appreciate wit. [Mr. Mackay's wit? If so, certainly.] These are but random pluckings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... a feller o' your manners swills it. Mebbe it'll clear some o' the filth off'n your measly chest. Have one on me; I'd be real glad to help in ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... can tell yuh why—and it ain't for killing Texas and Rawhide—two as measly, ornery cusses as there was in town—it ain't for that. It's for daring to say, last night in my place, that the Committee is rotten to the core, and that they murdered Sandy McTavish in cold blood when they took him out and hung him for ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... and struggling for breath. "Measly skunk!" he panted; "a-campin' on my trail an' lettin' me do the work, an' then shootin' me ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... headache?" she queried softly, stroking his temples soothingly. "Got the hookin'-cough, too. Get every measly thing he can think of. Even got a grouch against the Flower of the Ranch-oh!" Her voice was crooningly soft and sweet, as if she were murmuring over a ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... to the comparative orderliness of the short, narrow Street of the Merchants, itself flanked by the drunken bedlam of the Street of the Sailors. It can be understood why these men who flew, who needed a whole solar system for elbow room, disdained setting to order the measly few acres of dirt they stopped at, but it is a mystery why, when used to living through vast leagues of space, they endured such narrow streets and cluttered houses. Probably, tired from their long cramped cruises, impatient for their fling, they ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... "Puts money in the hands of the owners, you mean. They get the feast and we get the crumbs. What's our measly salary compared with what they get? I was just reading in the paper that the Giants cleaned up two hundred thousand dollars this year, net profit, and yet it's the players that bring this money in ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... "HADN'T A SINGLE PAIR IN HIS HAND. It was the stoniest, deadest, neatest BLUFF I ever saw. And when he'd frightened off the last man who held out and laid that measly hand of his face down on that pile of kings, queens, and aces, and looked around the table as he raked in the pile, there was a smile of humble self-righteousness on his face that was worth ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... some one to be banged around—and I took you on your word, didn't I? Now, if you're going out there as an egotistical, puffed-up, conceited individual who's thinking only of his own skin, who isn't willing to sacrifice his own little, measly feelings for the sake of the school, who won't fight for ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... descent, it will be readily understood that their proud old clans—and rightly proud, for who but a grovelling money grubber would not sooner be descended from a warrior, elected chief, on account of his all-round prowess, than from some measly hireling whose instincts were all mercenary?—possess ghosts that are nearly ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... is reported to have said. "Now, you measly hounds, you've got just about twenty-eight seconds to make yourselves as scarce ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... time being his wife, come right along and fix something so Nita and the kiddie ain't left lonesome and unprotected while I'm away.' That's the kind of message I'd be getting from you. And you'd be getting one from me something in this way: 'If I don't screw up the two measly cents' worth of courage I've got, and go right across to Steve, and put the proposition Millie and I are crazy to make, why—why, Millie'll beat my brains out with a flat iron, and generally make things eternally unpleasant.' ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... has no fear of 'tater bugs, Or cultivation's errors, The measly scale from San Jose, And ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... he answered. "We shan't have any more trouble with that lot, I think. You warned that pirate—I wish he had been in truth a clean, honest, straightforward pirate, instead of the measly Turkish swab he was—that something might occur before the first stroke of six bells. Well, something has occurred, and for him and all his crew that six bells will never sound. So the Lord fights for the Cross against the Crescent! ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... should have his motor car confiscated and his trunks held up on him and his plans all disarranged, just because a lot of these foreigners thought they wanted to fight one another over something. He said that he had actually been threatened with arrest by a measly army captain whom he, Mr. Botts, could buy and sell a hundred times over without ever feeling it. He was strongly in favour of wiring our Government to order the warring nations to suspend hostilities until all the Americans ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... horses. He remembered "Pansy," which had served sixteen years in the troop—and a first-rate old horse then; but a damned inspector with no soul came browsing around one day and condemned that old horse. Government got a measly ten dollars—or something like that. This ran along for a time; when one day they were trooping up some lonely valley, and, behold, there stood "Pansy," as thin as a snake, tied by a wickieup. He greeted the troop with joyful neighs. The soldiers asked the Captain to ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... always fresh problem, I had come to a side street leading to the market from which two or three small groceries draw their supplies, and stopped for a moment to look at the flabby, half-decayed vegetables, the coarse beef and measly-looking pork from which comes the sickly, heavy smell ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... let me git at him, cap'n!" came from Bahama Bill, who was being held back by Fred and Songbird. "I'll show him wot I think o' sech a measly scoundrel!" And he shook his brawny fist ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... up beside us an' calls out: "Oh, daddy, this is lovely, this is mag-ni-fi-cent"—the little scamp used to pick up big words from the Easterners, an' when she had one to fit she never wasted time on a measly little ranch word—"oh, I'm never goin' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... her mother; that measly old man we caught in the creek is 'poor white' all through." And, munching thoughtfully again on his soggy corncake, he pondered over the strange fate of this fascinating young girl, fashioned to slay the hearts of Southern chivalry—so young, so sweet, so soft of voice and manner, ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... bridesmaid, and must needs have a becoming dress but where was it to come from? Her perfidious uncle had vanished (she knew not yet who that uncle really was), and her "tips" of late had been—in Polly's language—measly. In the course of friendly chat she mentioned to Mr. Parish that the wedding was for that day week, and added, with head aside, that she couldn't imagine what she was going ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... are some of us about the world that aren't afraid of their lives, or where would you be—you and this old thing here with her plates like brown paper—brown paper, s'elp me? It's all very fine for you—you get a power of pieces out of her one way and another; but what about me—what do I get? A measly hundred and fifty dollars a month and find yourself. I wish to ask you respectfully—respectfully, mind—who wouldn't chuck a dratted job like this? 'Tain't safe, s'elp me, it ain't! Only I am one of them ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... Olson I has in my mem'ry don't have no sech manly feelin's as goes with a gun play. Olson is that cowardly he's even furtive; an' for a low-flung measly game let me tell you-all what Olson ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to be prepared, and I didn't know but what the cold you used to have might be come back," she said. "But I'm glad if it ain't—if that cough of yours is only one of the measly little hacks people get in the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... —will give you a decent lunch," was his opening. "I left instructions, but we live in a rough-and-ready way. She expects you back to tea, too, after you have had a look at Howards End. I wonder what you'll think of the place. I wouldn't touch it with tongs myself. Do sit down! It's a measly little place." ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... die and planned to do so. The only reason I did not jump off of a pier was the providential intervention of several stiff cocktails. (I am theoretically a prohibitionist, but grateful to the enemy for having saved my life.) The black cloud that shut out all sunlight was our measly total for December—$18.07. ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... grew tired of looking at the masses of houses, rising above one another in irregular tiers, and was glad my father did not propose to remain long in Boston. As I leaned over the rail in this mood, a measly-looking little boy with no shoes said that if I would come down on the wharf he'd lick me for two cents—not an exorbitant price. But I didn't go down. I climbed into the rigging, and stared at him. This, as I was ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... heard of women doing all kinds of fool things—but this is the first time I ever knew one to commit suicide over a couple of measly haystacks!" He went out and slammed the door so that the house shook, and tramped three times across the kitchen floor. "That'll make her so mad at me she won't think about anything else for a while," he reasoned shrewdly. But all the while his eyes were shiny, and when ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... not help hearing Stanley's voice. "For 'Eving's sake don't get bit and go mad by any measly pi-dog. But you can look after yourself, old man. You don't get drunk an' run about 'ittin' your friends. You takes your bones an' you eats your biscuit, an' you kills your enemy like a gentleman. I'm goin' away—don't 'owl—I'm ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... the quality of the medicine, and resolved to double the dose. He fulminated, therefore, a second proclamation more vehement than the first, forbidding all intercourse with these Yankee intruders; ordering the Dutch burghers on the frontiers to buy none of their pacing horses, measly pork, apple sweetmeats, Weathersfield onions, or wooden bowls, and to furnish them with no supplies ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... my mom sent me over in the afternoon. I didn't want to go; not much! That house gives me the creeps; and aunty has such sharp, piercing eyes. But there wasn't any getting out of it, so I went. But let me tell you, I was determined to toe the mark, and not even give a think to the measly opals that once I was silly ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... of Joan's note were vivid in his mind: "Come to me, Bert, at the Carmody place in Lenville. Believe me, I need you." Only that, but it had been sufficient to bring young Redmond across three states to this measly town that wasn't even ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... "Didn't see you. Say, I'm so mad my skin cracks. Just now some measly little shrimp called me up from a public booth. What ye suppose he wanted, now? Oh, nothin'! Just told me in so many words for me to pack up my little trunk and sail for Europe and never come back! That's all! ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... we get a deer, even if it doesn't fall to my gun," Steve continued to say. "It'd be too bad now if we spent a whole two weeks up here with Trapper Jim and never tasted any game besides measly squirrel, rabbit, or maybe partridge, if they're still ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... thinkin' of doing, Sandy?" shouted Larry, shaking his fist up at the approaching aeroplane. "Don't you dare drop that on us, or I'll take it out of your measly hide, I sure will! Look out, Frank, he's let and here it comes ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... have heads shaped like a China orange, croppy hair, chubby chins, chubby cheeks, and blazing red and chubby noses—short, pursy, apoplectic necks, like their fathers—squab, four-square figures, mounted upon turned legs, with measly skins; so that, taken altogether, they are exceedingly offensive and disagreeable. Then they eat, these young, Stubbses and Muggses, how they do eat! then they are dressed, how they are dressed! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... who was always running after the girls, and that whole crowd? Fellows of that sort, you see, don't know what to do with their money, and I wouldn't be such an ass as to give them their pay, their uniform allowance, and so on; they don't care about those measly few coins. Scheller, besides, gave me a chance to make some money outside of that. The last night before he had finished his two years, I happened to inspect his quarters, it being considerably past taps. And what ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... right. They go on the principle that the white trash who will sell their country need only to be paid with kicks and coppers. Menteith swears that he did not receive more than four pounds for the plans and description of the Rampagious. Fancy selling one's country and risking one's neck for four measly pounds sterling! If he had got four thousand, I should have had some respect for him. His home is in a wretched state, and his wife—a pretty woman, though almost a skeleton, and a very nicely mannered, honest woman—says ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... to London for more hands. I've wired the Bardsleys, telling them we've got to hurry up. It's always the way with these swells; when they want anything, they want it all in a minute. Something like ham and eggs! Rather different to the measly rasher and the antediluvian eggs from the grocer's opposite. But you don't seem to be very keen?" he added, as Nell pushed her plate away and absently took a slice of toast. "Miss the good old London air, Nell, or the appetizing smells ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... you worked so hard, maybe your dad gave you enough money for it to buy a respectable piece of chocolate with instead of that measly little sample you brought around ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... T'other callin' to which to come on. I'd give a month's pay to get some o' them broad-backed beggars in London sweatin' through a day's road-makin' an' a night's rain. They'd carry on a deal afterwards—same as we're supposed to carry on. I've bin turned out of a measly arf-license pub down Lambeth way, full o' greasy kebmen, 'fore now,' said Ortheris ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... rooms, while I slave a whole week, from eight in the morning till six at night for a measly fourteen." With a disgusted shrug of his shoulders he added: "I tell you there's something rotten ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... him busy, an' says they don't have anything out thar but pesky north winds an' sand-storms. He might have stayed away longer, as it was, but one little thing I wrote him turned the scale. You know that measly ten-cent circus that was to show here last month got stranded. The performers all quit and footed it home, an' the sheriff levied on the thing, lock, stock, and barrel, an' is to sell it piece by piece at public outcry ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... Thought you'd get it all, didn't you? and now nobody won't get nothin', unless it is the halter. Nice lot o' numbskulls you be, an' whimperin' 'round now expectin' of us to take you back—well, I reckon not, not on your measly lives," and with that he raised his revolver ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nevertheless, it is sought by all and applauded by all—and he helps do the applauding himself, having no true delicacy and a plentiful want of tact. He has lowered the tone of all our tribe. Once they were a frank and manly race, now they are measly hypocrites, and sodden with servility. In my heart of hearts I hate all the ways of millionaires! Our tribe was once plain, simple folk, and content with the bone fish-hooks of their fathers; now they are eaten up with avarice and would sacrifice every sentiment of honour and honesty ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... eat and wear a measly little house, can you? That's what I'm askin' the town right now. Sure you can't! The thing to do is to sell that place for what it'll fetch, sock the money in bank for you, and it'll be there—with interest—when you've grown ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... Widow and stood nodding her head as Virginia went on with her protests. "Oh, my Lord!" she burst out, "and I put up all my stock for a measly eight hundred dollars! That scoundrelly Blount—I saw it in his eye the minute I mentioned my stock! He's tricked me, the rascal; but I'll fool him yet—I'll pay him back ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... five pounds on the surface. That makes it a lot easier to walk around on Ceres than on, say, Raven's Rest. Even so, you always get the impression that one of the little rail cars that scoots along the corridors is climbing uphill all the way, because the acceleration is greater than any measly thirty ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... my calculations; and then, as I had changed the amount of money, he had to go over all HIS as to the amount of the lay; and altogether, a bank could be run with less effusion of figures than it took to shore up a single chapter of a measly yarn. However, it's done, and I have but one more, or at the outside two, to do, and I am Free! and can do ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tapeworm exists in the pig in little sacs not larger than a pin's head, and can be seen by the naked eye. The strong brine of the packer does not kill them, and I have known them to be taken alive from a boiled ham. The great heat of frying alone renders them harmless. When partially-cooked, measly pork is eaten by man, the gastric juice of the stomach dissolves the membranous sac which contains the living larva, and the animal soon passes into the intestines, where, clinging by its hooks, it holds on with wonderful tenacity, rapidly sending out joint after joint, until the perfect tapeworm ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... in a scoffing manner; "why, if it wasn't a waste of good time, we'd have made it a month. But we've got other fish to fry, and don't want to spend all our vacation on that measly old island." ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Pacomius Borisovitch again interrupted. "We are only getting twenty rubles for the job. The whole gang will pledge their words of honor to that. Do you think we would lie to you and stain the honor of the gang for twenty measly rubles?" ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... however, volunteer any explanation. Aggie and I were driven to speculation, in which we indulged on our way home, Aggie being my guest at the time, on account of her janitor's children having measles, and Aggie never having had them, although recalling a severe rash as a child, with other measly symptoms. ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... an Oxford hostel can be, for lack of modernity, provided one small oak-panelled private sitting-room, in which Holly sat to receive, white-frocked, shy, and alone, when the only guest arrived. Rather as one would touch a moth, Val took her hand. And wouldn't she wear this 'measly flower'? It would look ripping in her hair. He removed a gardenia from ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Damn this being under military orders. We've got to nose our way up Rock River, with a lot of those measly soldiers aboard. It's simply hell. Here you, Mapes, stop that unloading, and get steam up—we've got to put in ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... as the French resisted—because we are men. Nature can chase the measly savage fleeing naked through the bush. But nature can't run us ragged when all we have to do is put up a hard fight and conquer her. The iron workers are civilization's shock troops grappling with tyrannous nature on her own ground and conquering new territory in which man ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... great reason for keeping intimate with the captain, he immediately consented. Going forward, he met me, and I told him the secret. "That will do," replied he; "it all tends to what we wish." The doctor returned to the captain, and said, "that there was no doubt but that the pig was measly, which was a complaint very frequent on board ships, particularly in hot climates, where all pork became measly—one great reason for its there proving so unwholesome." The captain sent for the first lieutenant, and, with a deep sigh, ordered him ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... of these cases the measles went through their common course with milder symptoms than usual, and in the other the measly contagion seemed just sufficient to stop the progress of variolous contagion, but without itself throwing the constitution into any disorder. At the same time both the measles and small-pox seem to have been rendered milder. Does not this give an idea, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... "A measly little cur," he declared softly. "Crooked just because he ain't got the guts to go straight. Them's the worst kind. They get scared stiff and shoot you when you come in late, thinking you're a second-story artist, and then they're sorry. Chances are he's ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... right," Lanpher hastened to say, more than a hint of worriment in his little black eyes. One could never be sure of these Bar S boys. They were uncertain propositions, every measly one of them. "Shore it's all right," went on the 88 manager. "I ain't meaning no harm. Yo're taking a lot for granted, Racey, a whole lot ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... ordered Mr. Merriam. "You're the measly dog that barked at General Washington on that famous ride. Bark, you wretched ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... towards the broken-down fence, and sent his magnified shadow scurrying up the measly wall and halfway over to the ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... took up the tale. "Hedges of fuchsia, real live tall hedges, not measly little potted plants. Geraniums as tall as I am, and ever so many roses and violets. Oh, and we've found some lodgings. ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... 'this is what comes from pinning your faith to a woman and not appreciating the weakness of the sex. She faced the danger of being burned alive and never turned a hair; but when she saw a measly little mouse crawl under the platform she busted up ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... has amounted to something at last, Mort," said Slump. "Farrington went back on us in a measly way. Why, after all we did for him he took up with Jim Evans and others, and even refused me a few dollars when we were in hiding and trouble after that silk robbery. Here's our revenge. He's been up to some deep game for a week. He'll never know ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... do that! It's out of the question!" cried Mr. Manley. "I'm getting so to loathe the brute that I shall soon be quite unable to stand him. As it is, I sometimes have a violent desire to wring his neck. Now that I know that he played this measly trick on you, it will be more violent than ever. Besides, we must have a flat in town. It's really necessary to my work! I can do my actual writing down here fairly well. But what I really need ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... walk, and if she wasn't a saint she'd have kicked me out long ago. Why, I sneaked off and left a lie on her dresser, and never gave her a chance to get the thing straight, or anything. I tell you, Marion, if I was in her place, and had a measly cub of a son like I've been, I'd drown him in a tub, or something. Honest to John, I wouldn't have a brat like that on the place! How she's managed to put up with me all these years is more than I can figure; it gets my goat to look back at the ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... all that's bad!" yelled Hopalong. "Th' measly coyote! An' me a-fillin' his ornery hide with liquor. Well, they'll have to find him all over again now," he complained, astounded by the revelation. He fired into the chaparral to express his pugnacious disgust and scared out a huge tarantula, which alighted ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... show for it? There's lots of things money can't buy. It can't buy the little woman. It can't buy capacity. What's the good of thirty millions when I ain't got room for more than a quart of cocktails a day? If I had a hundred-quart-cocktail thirst, it'd be different. But one quart—one measly little quart! Here I am, a thirty times over millionaire, slaving harder every day than any dozen men that work for me, and all I get is two meals that don't taste good, one bed, a quart of Martini, and a hundred and forty hair bridles to look at on ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... laugh, "I 'll be sober enough to stack up with any measly kiote that's pirootin' around ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... took the sheet of paper out of its envelope. "Three pages! Used to write a book. I think John must be crazy. He'd better send nothing than a measly little thing with nothing in it, like that! And going to Norway in August! Mentions it as if it were around the corner." Her face clouded and her brow ridged perplexedly. "I don't understand John. He didn't ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... had "a roughish smile" loud cries of indignation arose. Molly first cried and then had hysterics and screamed vigorously; Bill swore vengeance on the Millville Tribune and all connected with it, while the guests gravely asserted it was "a low-down, measly trick" which the Sizers ought to resent. They all began drinking again, to calm their feelings, and after the midday dinner Bill Sizer grabbed a huge cowhide whip and started to Millville to "lick the editor to a standstill." A wagonload of his guests accompanied him, and Molly pleaded ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... "I shut off the measly thing awhile ago," she said. "There was too much cold air coming up through the pipes. Honestly, Mr. Bingle, if you happened to stand near that there radiator ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... confluent-virulent-delirious-lose-all-your-hair variety. When convalescent, I found that my hair, which had been splendidly thick and long, was coming out alarmingly, and it was advised that my head be shaved, with a promise that the hair would surely be curly and just as good as before the illness. I felt pretty measly and "meachin" and submitted. The effect was indescribably awful. I saw my bald pate once, and almost fainted. I was provided with a fearsome wig, of coarse, dark red hair, held in place by a black tape. Persons who had pitied me for having "such a big head and so much hair" now ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... steal a measly rowboat?" asked Vance Lemon, but he glanced at Faswig as he spoke, and his tone was ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... "I'm technically wrong, and I know it. But good men told me your measly old drive would hang if it stayed there two days longer; and I believed them, and I believe them yet. I don't claim to know anything about river-driving, but here your confounded drive is well on its way. I kicked that drunk off the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... toothache is, which you can put your hand on; but an indefinite, unsettled, undecided kind of pain, which went wandering about from place to place inside of me like a strange ghost lost in Cudjo's Cave. I never knew until then what the personal sensations of a haunted house are. If only the measly thing could have made up its mind to settle down somewhere and start light housekeeping I think should have been better satisfied. I never had such an uneasy tenant. Alongside of it a woman with the moving fever would be comparatively a fixed and ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... in man after eating "measly" beef or pork. "Measles" are embryo tapeworms called, from their appearance, "bladder worms." In from six to ten weeks after being received into the intestine of a man, these bladder worms become full grown, and measure from ten to thirty feet in ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... happened, he'd never be able to change his testimony. After all, it would be easy enough to abandon the charge at the present point. It was a genuine case of cold feet. He scented trouble. He wanted to renig while the renigging was good. What in hell had Froelich ever done for him, anyhow? A few measly ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... this row about a measly old 'coon sitting for his picture!" grumbled Jerry, falling back again, and apparently meaning to seek once more relief in slumber, if the bump on his forehead did not ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... which sagacious feline slinks off into the shadows covered with confoosion; all they sees is us. An' the spectacle certainly excites old Bender. "Gen'ral Jackson fit the Injuns!" he exclaims, as all of a sudden a thought strikes him; "that measly excoose for a Union Democrat out thar is seekin' to eelope with our ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... than done," replied Hamp. "I wish I had taken careful aim when I had the chance. Now the measly varmint will lurk around here all night, and keep us ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... there. So they don't. They deal in pictures—old masters, they call them. I bought two—you know the ones—those hanging in the waiting-room at the stock yards; and when I got back I found out that they had been painted by a measly little fellow who went to Paris to study art, after Bill Harris had found out that he was no good as a settling clerk. I keep 'em to remind myself that there's no fool like an old American fool when ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... measly old fraud!" howled Scotch, waving his fists in the air. "I don't believe in fighting, but this is about my time to scrap. If you don't apologize for the intrusion, may I be blown to ten thousand fragments if I don't give you a ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... all that's bad!" yelled Hopalong. "Th' measly coyote! An' me a-fillin' his ornery hide with liquor. Well, they'll have to find him all over again now," he complained, astounded by the revelation. He fired into the chaparral to express his pugnacious disgust and scared out a huge ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... the measly thing?" Josh asked, watching nervously to see if he could determine how ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... a pleasant surprise was in store. We had "train rations" on the usual measly Indian scale, but for tea on Saturday we were to rely on tea provided by Scindia at Gwalior. Happily a Maharajah's ideas of tea are superior to a Quartermaster's, and this is what we had for fifty ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer |
