"Sniff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... already secured several bottles-full, and shall exhibit it at the next meeting of the Association: of course you shall have a sniff in advance. I should have returned before this, but unhappily the chain by which we descended gave way a few days ago near the top, in hoisting out the first series of my observations, and as yet there has been no opportunity of replacing it. Communication ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... one got the biggest bid. They said that they was a market in North Ca'lina but I never see'd it. The ones I saw was jest sold like I told you. Then they went home with they marsters. If they tried to run away they sont the hounds after them. Them dogs would sniff around an' first news you knowed they caught them niggers. Marster's niggers run away some but they always come back. They'd hear that they could have a better time up north so they think they try it. But they found out that they wasn't ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... doorway under the mossy stone, where he is safe. Above him the owls watch by night and the hawks by day; around him not a prowler of the wilderness, from Mooween the bear down through a score of gradations, to Kagax the bloodthirsty little weasel, but will sniff under every old log in the hope of finding a wood mouse; and if he takes a swim, as he is fond of doing, not a big trout in the river but leaves his eddy to rush at the tiny ripple holding bravely across the current. ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... a rag like this to us ravening wolves? Is it seriously supposable that we will stop to chew it and let our prey escape? No, we are getting to expect this kind of device, and to give it merely a sniff for certainty's sake and then walk around it and leave it lying. Shelley was not after the aged Zonoras; he was pointed for Cornelia and the Italian lessons, for his warm nature ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he cried. "My God, what brutes! Don't raise your voice, for they have long ears—sharp eyes, too, but no power of scent, so far as I could judge, so I don't think they can sniff us out. Where have you been, young fellah? You were well ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... got a sniff of the venison and is following us up," Charley declared. "We can never get away from it, and there is small chance of our being able to kill it in the dark. We may as well stop right here where there is a little wood and build a fire, that is our ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... I lit up, and presently I began to notice that the one next to me, towards whose face the smoke sometimes drifted, seemed to like it very much, and, I would almost have said that she was trying to sniff some of it herself. A little later on, when we came to an unusually big rut in the road, we all went up as usual against the roof, and all came down again, missing the narrow seat. Extracting ourselves from our awkward positions, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... saw him sniff the air and then dart forward like an arrow, and stop barking beside some dark object, which was partially hidden ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... up drinking wine and all kinds of alcoholic liquors, as has been related, before coming to Chicago. And yet I have seen him sniff the bouquet of some rare wine or liquor with the quivering nostril of a connoisseur, but—and this was the marvel to his associates—without "the ruby," as Dick Swiveller termed it, being the least temptation ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... find of 'en," put in Arch'laus Spry, "was a shin-bone and a pint of ashes. I don't know if the others noticed it, but to my notion there was a sniff of brimstone about the premises; and I've always been remarkable ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... case the run may continue till the rain sets in. The rough-coated old trees,—one would not think they could scent a change so quickly through that wrapper of dead, dry bark an inch or more thick. I have to wait till I put my head out of doors, and feel the air on my bare cheek, and sniff it with my nose; but their nerves of taste and smell are no doubt under ground, imbedded in the moisture, and if there is anything that responds quickly to atmospheric changes, it is water. Do not the fish, think you, down deep in the streams, feel every wind that blows, whether it ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... to sniff around Jack, the monkey, with which pet the Curlytops' dog was well acquainted, so the ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... feeling that he had not only settled himself but his too inquisitive little sister also. But if he had seen her face as she listened to the soft wailing of his flute he would not have been so sure, for she looked as cunning as a magpie as she said, with a scornful sniff: 'Pooh, you can't deceive me; I know Dick ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... attractions in their best light, pleading with him in that natural language which makes any contumacious bachelor feel as guilty as Cain before any single woman. If Mr. Gridley had been alone, he would have taken a good sniff at his own bottle of sal volatile; for his kind heart sunk within him as he thought of the errand upon which he had come. It would not do to leave the subject of his vivisection under any illusion as to the nature ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... near the windows, as all ballrooms are. Her neck and her throat, her bosom and arms are bare. Her frock is of the filmiest gossamer stuff; her slippers are paper thin, her stockings the sheerest of textures, yet she doesn't sniff and her nose doesn't turn red and the skin upon her exposed shoulders refuses to goose-flesh. She is the marvel of the ages. She is neither too warm nor too cold; she is just right. Consider now her male companion in his gala ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... satisfy me as little as anybody. In fine, my dear Constantine, I'm going back to my pictures, my books, my hills, and my friends." Constantine read with a genuine sorrow and criticised with a contemptuous sniff. Pictures, books—and hills! Hills! It was insulting his intelligence. And though friends were all very well, yet where was the use of them if a man deprived himself of all the sources of entertaining conversation? But there was nothing to be done—except to tell ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... low down," says she with a sniff. "Men? They're all alike. I don't care who they are or what their wives and pastors think of them or what their mothers think of them. I got them pegged regardless. Young and old, and some of them so old they've gone back to the milk diet, they all make ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... never worked too hard that she was aware of; but—she had always worked, and never done anything else. No lover had ever looked into her eyes or taken her hand tenderly. Not likely! she would say to herself with a scornful sniff, eyeing her homely face in the glass. Men weren't ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... she," returned Hannah with a sniff of contempt. "Catch her a-cryin' over anything 'cept when she hasn't won a prize in a lottery. But come you in. I've ever so much to tell you. You'd best be off ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... many nights, in time to come; but nothing worse, I will engage. The same Ghost will occasionally sail away, as I did one pleasant autumn evening, into the bright prospect, and sniff the morning ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... of food that went into our mouths, and refused to eat it if it "smelt bad," we should avoid many an attack of indigestion and ptomaine poisoning. It is really a great pity that it is not considered polite to "sniff" at the table. ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... old woman from France Who taught grown-up children to dance; But they were so stiff, She sent them home in a sniff, This sprightly old woman ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... I saw the dog stir uneasily and lift his head to sniff the air to windward; thereafter, being on his legs, he growled in his throat, staring ever in the one direction, and uttered a loud, deep bay, whereupon up started Sir Richard, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... latch of the first door and asking the woman who lived behind it what she had given the family for dinner. This, I was instructed on my first round by the Frau Inspector, is the proper thing to ask; and if you can follow it up by an examination of the contents of the saucepan, and a gentle sniff indicative of your appreciation of their savouriness, so much the better. I was diffident at first about this, but the gratification on their faces at the interest displayed is so unmistakable that I never now omit going through the whole business. This woman, the wife of one of the men who clean ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... a sniff and with head in air, walked out of the library; and my friend summoned in the seventh servant so far, ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... hate him either!" cried Lydia, divining at once the shade of depreciation. "He is the kindest, dearest fellow! I agree—it's provoking not to be able to sniff at him—such a Prince Charming—with all the world at his feet. But ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... my girl, it will be the worse for you if you come not," said La Testolina, with a tragic sniff. "Eh, you little fool, don't you know that it is you and your brat have set all ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... this world has ever known Were wrought beneath Euterpe's mystic spell. When War's deep thunders boom and nations groan And rolling thunders tales of terror tell, Then—then the heart rebounds within its cell, As th' charger halts to sniff the gory fray And, with the fiery mettle nought can quell, Bounds o'er the dead and dying on his way To plunge amid the foe and meet ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... great double strawberry roll off the top of my heap, and a cat darted at it to give it a sniff; but old Brownsmith picked it up and laid it on the top of a post ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... a little sniff. He thought it was over. But it wasn't over. "If you ask me, I call it a funny letter. You say your Christian name, but it isn't your Christian name—Marko! And then saying, 'How are ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... owned, fat was true aneuch, that the fush had fairly bestit her. Weel, amo' the veesitors at the Castle was the Dowager Leddy Breadanham; an' it seemed that whan Leddy Carline was through wi' her narrateeve, the dowager be tae gie a kin' o' a scornfu' sniff an' cock her neb i' the air; an' she said, wha but she, that she didna hae muckle opingin o' Leddy Carline as a saumon fisher, an' that she hersel' didna believe there was a fush in the run o' Spey that ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... the star wreath was paling about the head of Night, and ever more wonderful on Morning's brow appeared the mark of power. And at the moment when the camp fires pale and the smoke goes grey to the sky, and camels sniff the dawn, suddenly Morning forgot Night. And out of that arbour of the gods, and away to the haunts of the dark, Night with his swart cloak slunk away; and Morning placed her hand upon the mists and drew them upward and ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... mislaid the key. I sniff the spray And think of nothing; I see and hear nothing; Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait For what I should, yet never can, remember. No garden appears, no path, no child beside, Neither father nor mother, nor any ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... in the front room a-pantin' an' a-gaspin', an' a wond'rin' whether it wuz true. As he wuz thinkin', up comes the girl to git a clean tablecloth out of the clothespress, an' she left the door ajar as she come in. Bill he gave a sniff, an' his eyes grew more natural like; he gathered together all the strength he had, an' he raised himself up on one ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... complaint against the weather were the preliminaries. In two minutes they were discussing Helen, and General Wragg was drawn into their chat. Georgie and the Misses Wragg, of course, came uninvited. They scented scandal as jackals sniff the feast provided ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... passageway open in front. It was nonsense to go on their hands and knees any longer, for even Rudolf, who was tallest, could not touch the arched white roof when he stood up and stretched his arm above his head. He could not see Ann's face clearly, but he could hear her beginning to sniff. ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... the low, dull brow. Watching with horrified fascination, Stern and Beatrice beheld—and heard—the creature sniff the air, as though taking up some scent of danger or ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... I gave him as good as he sent; but short measure at that; for I just lifted my head as if taking a sniff at the flowers, and that was all. If that young man thought I was brought up in the woods to be scared by owls, he found out his mistake. He was standing with his back towards me when I heard E. E. say, in one of those whispers that ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... appeared to sniff water even in the hot air, for they bent their sturdy necks to the yoke with renewed energy, and plodded along at a rate that required all of our exertions ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... drowned, and that Mrs. Minster and young Griscom should be hanged side by side on twin gallows. In fact, this woman of peace, who had seen only peace, argued constantly for a creed of illimitable ferocity. She was invulnerable on these questions, because eventually she overrode all opponents with a sniff. This sniff was an active force. It was to her antagonists like a bang over the head, and none was known to recover from this expression of exalted contempt. It left them windless and conquered. They never again came ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... Ruffle Riff; Hear her snuffle! Hear her sniff! Hear her sniffle! Hear her snuff!— See her—well, I've said enough. You have seen her, I suppose, The Goop who seldom ...
— The Goop Directory • Gelett Burgess
... sticks come out of the street of houses and advance in a spreading line along the several paths towards him. They advanced slowly, speaking frequently to one another, and ever and again the whole cordon would halt and sniff the air ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... on the point of overrunning Italy: and then came the first awful news of the Battle of Jutland, which the Germans claimed as a great victory. Susan was the only one who carried on. 'You need never tell me that the Kaiser has defeated the British Navy,' she said, with a contemptuous sniff. 'It is all a German lie and that you may tie to.' And when a couple of days later we found out that she was right and that it had been a British victory instead of a British defeat, we had to put up with a great many ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... whiskers—I didn't know there was so many chin whiskers outside of East Harniss, or some other back number place—and I say, 'Pardon, Monseer. Place delay Concorde?' Just like that with a question mark after it. After I say it two or three times he begins to get a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin' at and says he: 'Place delay Concorde? Oh, we, we, we, Madame!' Then a whole string of jabber and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle of it. Now I've learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he means for me to keep ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a marked difference from his usual sensuous condition. It was unnatural, preternatural,—and yet, a state which could be produced at will. It was easily done. Just homoeopathy, in fact. A little sniff, a minute dose, and he could see and hear with a miraculous clearness; but people would take a dozen, and then ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... implored him to throw away the "detestable things," he said, with characteristic humour, that he thought he would keep them for a rainy day. It was much simpler to go from General Manager to fireman than vice versa, and it might be that he would need the suit again. It pleased him to hear his wife sniff contemptuously. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... oozed out through the imperfect thatch of dried palm leaves. An indescribable and complicated smell, made up of the exhalation of damp earth below, of the taint of dried fish and of the effluvia of rotting vegetable matter, pervaded the place and caused Lingard to sniff strongly as he strode over, sat on the chest, and, leaning his elbows on his knees, took his head between his hands and stared ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... they sent the Snimmy to sniff out the neighborhood carefully with his debilitating nose, to see if there were any spies about; and when he returned, Pirlaps carefully ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... thinking up souvenirs for the one hundred and fiftieth, and the prima donna had, as usual, began to hint for a new set of costumes. The stage-door keeper hesitated and was lost, and Van Bibber stepped into the unsuppressed excitement of the place with a pleased sniff at the familiar smell of paint and burning gas, and the dusty odor that came from the ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... paper. He picked it up and discovered that one end was still moist from the lips of the smoker, and the other end was still warm from the fire that had half consumed it. Starr gave an enlightened sniff and knew it was his olfactory nerves that had warned him of an alien presence there; for the tobacco in this cigarette was not the ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... sniff. She was one of those people who regard the Church of England with patronising affection, as if it were something that had grown ...
— Reginald • Saki
... a-goin' ter ask ye no questions. But, ef ye sees fit ter face hit out, I'd love ter prove ter these hyar men thet us Souths don't break our word. We done agreed ter this truce. I'd like ter invite 'em in, an' let them damn dawgs sniff round the feet of every man in my house—an' then, when they're plumb teetotally damn satisfied, I'd like ter tell 'em all ter go ter hell. Thet's the way I feels, but I'm a-goin' ter do jest what ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... had been gaping at the door, came in for some Scots sniff; and I would serve her. The wench was plaguy homely; and I told her so; or else, I said, I would have treated her. She, in anger, [no woman is homely in her own opinion,] threw down her penny; and I ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... waddled once more to the girl's side. He turned her over upon her back, and stooping commenced to sniff and listen about her face and breast. She lived. The monkeys were returning. They came in swarms, and from above hurled ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... well lighted through the skylight over it, I felt less creepy and uncomfortable as I went down the companion-way than I had felt when I went below into the old brig's dusky cabin in the early dawn. But for all that I walked gingerly, and stopped to sniff at every step that I took downward; for I could not by any means get rid of my dread of coming upon some grewsome thing. However, the air was sweet enough—the slide of the hatch being closed, but the doors open and ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... but just let me ketch her puttin' on airs 'n pertendin' to live like her betters, that's all! She's done it before, but I couldn't never ketch her at it. The idee of her keepin' up a house like this!" and with a superb sniff like that of a battle-horse, she disappeared from the front window of her ancestral mansion and sought one at the back which might command a view of ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the scene, two seasick navvies tottered out on deck to sniff the clean air. They dismally surveyed the traces of the storm. Then they moved weakly toward the boy, who was now scrutinizing the horizon ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... falling shriek of the saws, the trampling of the falls, and the obscurely rhythmic rush of the torrent around the island base. They were presently joined by Susan, shambling on her ungainly legs, wagging her big ears, and stretching out her long, ugly, flexible, overhanging nose to sniff inquiringly at the Boy's jacket. A comparatively new member of MacPhairrson's family, she was still full of curiosity about every one and everything, and obviously considered it her mission in life to acquire knowledge. It was her firm conviction that the only way to ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... going on through the woods once more, he gave a sniff and a whiff, and, all of a sudden, ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... very rude old woman,' he cried out. 'First you mess all our nice herbs about with your horrid brown fingers and sniff at them with your long nose till no one else will care to buy them, and then you say it's all bad stuff, though the duke's cook himself buys ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... as I can, Mrs. Wilson. That boy Jim is a treasure. I will warrant, if there are any black fellows about, he will sniff them out somehow. That fellow has a nose like a hound. He has always been most useful to me, but he will be ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... the pride of the Polytechnic as he walked round the studio examining the draperies, the pictures, and the drawings on the wall. Whenever his eye rested on one signed by Hilary Vance he sniffed a bitter, contemptuous sniff. For these he had but three words of criticism; they were: "Rot!" ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... of the bandolining by Our Young Ladies, and of Our Missis's lecture on Foreign Refreshmenting, and of Sniff's corkscrew and his servile disposition, it is intentionally fooling, no doubt, but it is—excellent fooling! As was admirably said in the number of Macmillan for January, 1871, by the anonymous writer of a Reminiscence of the Amateur Theatricals ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... length, and for some moments drank her tea in silence save for an occasional grunt which was half sniff, half snort; then as she put down her glass and took up a sandwich she waved the ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... introduction to my father, and made his first acquaintance with me in my grave-clothes. Besides my esteem and regard for Sir George's more valuable qualities, I had a particular liking for some excellent snuff he always had, and used constantly to borrow his snuff-box to sniff at it like a perfume, not having attained a sufficiently mature age to venture upon "pinches;" and a snuff-taking Juliet being inadmissible, I used to wish myself at the elderly lady age when the indulgence might be becoming: but before I attained it, snuff was no longer taken ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... on a passage in the speech of Mr. Balfour, who had made the statement that such a policy as Home Rule had always led to the disintegration and destruction of empires. He rolled out the case of Austria, which had been preserved from ruin by Home Rule; and when there was a sniff from the Tory benches, Mr. Gladstone, in tones of thunder, referred to the speech of Lord Salisbury in 1885, when he was angling for the Irish vote, and when he pointed to Austria as perhaps supplying some indication of the method of settling ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... well-disposed people and those not wanting in sense, or the citizens who argued about everything, people who found lice in bald heads, demanded why the devil rested under the form of a canon, went to the Church of Notre Dame at the hours when the canons usually go, and ventured so far as to sniff the perfume of the incense, taste the holy water, and a thousand other things. To these heretical propositions some said that doubtless the devil wished to convert himself, and others that he remained in the shape of the canon to mock at the three nephews and ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... the prophet Agabus before (chap, xi. 28). Why he is introduced here, as if a stranger, we cannot tell, and it is useless to guess, and absurd to sniff suspicion of genuineness in the peculiarity. His prophecy is more definite than any that preceded it. That is God's way. He makes things clearer as we go on, and warnings more emphatic as danger approaches. The source of the 'afflictions' was now for the first time declared, and the shape ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... moustachios, about one yard in width and one hundred and twenty kilograms in weight (but very active), ruled Vermichel with a rod of iron. Thrashed by her when drunk, he allowed her to thrash him still when sober; which caused Pere Fourchon to say, with a sniff at Vermichel's clothes, "It is the livery of ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Lord and His goodness, no!" said Priscilla, with an emphatic sniff—"I've never been troubled with the whimsies of a man, which is worse than all the megrims of a woman any day. I've looked arter Mr. Jocelyn in a way—but he's no sort of a man to worry about—he just goes reglar to ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... every night at my snug tea, Margarina! Over my toast I muse on thee, Margarina! I sniff that smell, I see that dab, That greasy, grimy, marble slab. And thou art still the same I know, The slum's strange love, the slum's strange love. The poor man's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, February 4, 1893 • Various
... in the audience, at the sound of the name, there was an audible sniff which was immediately drowned by loud hand-clapping on the part of the Riverbeds. But Colonel Butler was not yet quite through. Avoiding any ominous look which might have been aimed at him by his daughter, ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... Father Payne, "life will do that hard enough. Turn your back on it all, look at the beautiful things, leave a thief to catch a thief, and the dead to bury the dead. Don't sniff at the evil thing; go and get a ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... house in the dreary suburban street, Mrs. Benn accepted a week's notice from Jimmy with a sniff of anger. ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... prime? I've jist 'ad some," said another much smaller and very ragged street-boy who had noticed the sniff. ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... worry him, apparently, just as what he can tell us would worry the others interested in the hotels. To tell the truth, I think she is a drug fiend. Why, my men tell me that they have seen her take just a sniff of something and change instantly—become ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... I only sniff once more That aroma sweet and rare Of my dear and dusky mate— Scent as ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... its saddle sheath, leaned against the door. His father took it up and, half pulling it out, looked at it by the starlight. "Forty-four, eh? Wal, wal, there's shore no better, if a man can hold straight." At the moment a big gray dog trotted up to sniff at Jean. "An' heah's your bunkmate, Shepp. He's part lofer, Jean. His mother was a favorite shepherd dog of mine. His father was a big timber wolf that took us two years to kill. Some bad wolf packs runnin' ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... smell, and any other animal, happening to pass by the spot, within a certain time (in favourable weather), will at once be attracted by the smell, and be able to interpret it. That is the reason one so often sees an animal suddenly stop at a spot and sniff it—it is reading some message left there by some other animal. All this, and more, Kelson explained to his audience, who were exceedingly interested, many of them getting up to ask him questions. He also reported to them the tiger's conversation, which consisted ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... Helen's old familiar sniff was his answer. The matter, he was to know, was of no moment to her. But she knew otherwise, and looked at him swiftly hoping he had something ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Sniff the fetid sewer Smells— Loathsome Smells! What a lot of typhoid their intensity foretells! Through the pleasant air of night, How they spread, a noxious blight! Full of bad bacterian motes, Quickening soon. What a lethal vapour ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... pretty, beady black eyes. It seemed very far off from everywhere and everybody, this desert—but I knew there was a camp somewhere awaiting us, and our mules trotted patiently on. Towards noon they began to raise their heads and sniff the air; they knew that water was near. They quickened their pace, and we soon drew up before a large wooden structure. There were no trees nor grass around it. A Mexican worked the machinery with the aid of ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... the velvet in case I rub it the wrong way. But, don't you see, I really had to fasten the flowers; they would have fallen out if I hadn't. Like that, now; if I just push them a little farther down.... Seriously, I'm not annoying you, am I? And if I just sniff them to see whether they've really lost all their scent? I don't believe I ever smelt any before; may ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the air simply flows along the lower nasal passages into the pharynx, scarcely entering the olfactory chamber at all. This is the reason why, when we wish to perceive a faint odor, we sniff up the air sharply. By so doing, the air which is forcibly drawn into the nostrils passes up even into the higher olfactory chamber, where some of the floating particles of the odorous material come into contact with the nerves ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... empty vial was produced he opened it and took a short sniff. Then he drew his breath in sharply. A faint odor was perceptible, the same odor he had detected in the carpet on the upper ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... still going on in Liverpool, or wherever else that red herring led your pack. In the meantime I will do a little quiet work at your own doors, and perhaps the scent is not so cold but that two old hounds like Watson and myself may get a sniff ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Miss Grant. Her family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona's eyes, and even named her for their colour; and she herself had been much in the habit to address me with a broad pronunciation, by way of a sniff, I supposed, at my rusticity. No doubt, besides, but she lived in the same house as this letter came from. So there remained but one step to be accounted for; and that was how Prestongrange should have permitted her at all in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... would not fire an artist's eye, This View whereof I sing; Poets, no doubt, would pass it by As quite a common thing; The Tourist with belittling sniff Would find no beauties there— He couldn't if he would, and if He ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... his head, and then cautiously unbuttoned his collar and rolled up the front of his helmet. Then, after delicately sampling the atmosphere by a cautious sniff, he removed his helmet altogether. Bobby followed his example. The air was not by any means so pure as might have been desired, but it was infinitely preferable ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... his nose through the bars of the window, trying to sniff the cooking-smells that came from the palace-kitchen. She told the pig to bring the Doctor to the window because she wanted to speak to him. So Gub-Gub went and woke the Doctor who ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... hoped instruction might prove as unwelcome to Barney and Tommie as it was to him. And as they jounced down into their seats the moment the steaming supper was put upon the table, and gazed at it with eager, hungry eyes, and even gave a sniff or two, he felt that here was a field for improvement, indeed. And he smiled. Not that Jim was a bad boy, or a malicious one, but when Barney and Tommie were wrong, it was the thing that they should ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... furnished house overlooking Regent's Park, an excellent and devoted cook and house-keeper, and relatives mostly settled in the Colonies, Joseph Loveredge, though inexperienced girls might pass him by with a contemptuous sniff, was recognised by ladies of maturer judgment as a prize not too often dangled before the eyes of spinsterhood. Old foxes—so we are assured by kind- hearted country gentlemen—rather enjoy than otherwise a day with the hounds. However that may be, certain it is that Joseph Loveredge, confident ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... who are left in town in the dull days will seem, in reading these pages, to sniff the fresh sea-breezes, to hear the cries of the sea-bird and the songs of the wood-bird, to be conscious of the murmuring stream and waving forests, and all the wild life that is ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... all the more,' said Trent. 'And now as to the house itself. What I propose to do, to begin with, is to sniff about a little in this room, where I am told Manderson spent a great deal of his time, and in his bedroom; especially the bedroom. But since we're in this room, let's start here. You seem to be at the same stage ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... is with calf she has strong sympathetic feelings. The foetus and after-birth from a cow that has slinked are very offensive, and if left within reach, the other cows will sniff at it, and bellow around it; and in a short time more of the cows will abort. Many reasons have been given as the cause of abortion; from my own observations, frosty turnips are one great cause, and I never allow my cows to get these. ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... Daggett bade her sharply. "There ain't any such nonsense in Famous People! I wouldn't be canvassing for it, if there was." And she shifted her pointed nose to one side with a slight, genteel sniff. ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... new weapon did not bother Nick much, but from his profound studies of atom smashing he decided anything can happen these days even to a top devil. He continued briskly: "Hereafter, sniff all your customers and make sure they don't smell like a Red. You know the aroma by now—sweet peas with an underlying stink—so keep your nose peeled. When you spot a comrade, radio-phone the guard. Those lads will know what to do you can bet ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... noticed that the Queen grew wan, was often heard to sniff, and seen to wipe her eyes, would not eat, could not sleep,—in short, the ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... I'd like a sniff of the water. Come on. There's nothing else like that smell of the shore with the tide ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... the inn and, returning to Baghdad met Pestilence Hasan and his followers, to whom said he, "Hath the Caliph asked after me?"; and he replied, "No, nor hast thou come to his thought." So he resumed his service about the Caliph's person and set himself to sniff about for news of Ala al-Din's case, till one day he heard the Caliph say to the Watir, "See, O Ja'afar, how Ala al-Din dealt with me!" Replied the Minister, "O Commander of the Faithful, thou hast requited him with hanging and hath he not ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... grown very small toward the end. It trailed off into a stifled but unmistakable sniff. And a moment later, when she ceased fumbling with the reins and glanced with resolute brightness up at him, the film of hot tears in his eyes brought her hands to her throat. But even then in the face of that light which she had never before glimpsed ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... people had it down to a fine science. Not a rivet fell, but that its fall was noted—in quintuplicate. And later followed up with a memo, rivet, wastage, query. The facts I needed were all neatly tucked away in their paper catacombs. All I had to do was sniff them out. I didn't try to look for first causes, this would have taken too long. Instead I concentrated my attention on the recent modifications, like the gun turret, that would quickly give me a trail to ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... serving-women in a state bound to offend all a lover's susceptibilities. The citoyen Brotteaux read the lines, though not without casting a surreptitious glance at the golden pate of the pretty girl in front of him and enjoying a sniff of the heady perfume of the little slut's hot skin. The poet Lucretius was a wise man, but he had only one string to his bow; ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... more dangerous than being without food," declared the horse, with a sniff at the rebuke of his young master; "and just at present no one can tell whether there are any oats in this queer country or not. If there are, they are liable to be ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... with a sniff of disgust, as the boy threw open the door. "You must get somebody to scrub it for you, Tode, and then whitewash the walls. That will ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... Calmly the sentinels are changed, uniforms and houses shine in the quiet sunshine, swallows flit over the flagstones, fat Court-counciloresses smile from the windows; while along the echoing streets there is room enough for the dogs to sniff at each other, and for men to stand at ease and chat about the theatre, and bow deeply—oh, how deeply!—when some small aristocratic scamp or vice-scamp, with colored ribbons on his shabby coat, or some Court-marshal-low-brow ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... to be good, sir!" retorted Sally, with a decided sniff and toss of the head. Old Zekle gave ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... him, as was also a certain languid grace of movement. He possessed an irritating mannerism of continually elevating his chin and dilating his curved nostrils disdainfully in a sort of soundless sniff. Beyond a slight flush he showed little trace of his previous ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... choose the flat rocks mostly. His huge right paw, with its long claws, was as clever as a human hand. The stone lifted, a sniff or two, a lick of his hot, flat tongue, and he ambled on to ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... Veronica told Ben Helen's opinion of him; he reddened slightly, and said that such a sage could not be contradicted. When father remarked that the opinions of women were whimsical, Fanny gave an audible sniff, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... or grows up an idiot. I would have gone away with my baby, but the princess was from home, and I thought I might wait until I was a little stronger. But she must have taken the beast with her, and been on her way home when I left, and come across my track. I heard the SNIFF-SNUFF of the leopardess behind me, and ran;—oh, how I ran!—But my darling will not die! There ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... Company Officers who insist upon kit-inspections, far from keen-nosed Sergeants who sniff the pipe stuffed into the bedding-roll, two miles from the tumult of the barracks, lies the Trap. It is an old dry well, shadowed by a twisted pipal tree and fenced with high grass. Here, in the years gone by, did Private Ortheris ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... particularly valued friend, Professor Sniff, curator of Mahon's Museum of Marvels—but I'll let that affair pass; for Professor Sniff certainly did not intend to wound my feelings by his apparent indifference; moreover, he has promised to send me for my private collection all the duplicates ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... glass of good wine. They will pour it slowly and hold the glass up against the light and admire its color!" In her gay mood she pinched together thumb and forefinger and lifted an imaginary glass to the sun. "Then they will sniff the bouquet. Ah-h-h, how fragrant! And after a time they will take a little sip—just a weeny little sip and hold it on the tongue for ever so long. For, when it is swallowed, what good? Oh, boy, here are you—talking first of all ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... they were still reluctant to leave camp, but stood around for several hours, evidently feeling more secure in our presence. Now and then one of the free ones would graze out a little distance, cautiously sniff the air, then trot back to the others. We built up a big fire to scare away any bear or wolves that might he in the vicinity, but the horses stayed like invited guests, perfectly contented as long as we would pet them and talk to ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... but endured it as a passageway to the sight of the Grand Fleet, had found warmth, if not comfort. Not for him that invitation to come below given by the chief engineer, who rose out of a round hole with a pleasant "How d'y' do!" air to get a sniff of the fresh breeze, wizard of the mysterious power of the turbines which sent the destroyer marching so noiselessly. He was the one who transferred the commander's orders into that symphony in mechanism. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... are being flogged along. A great deal of the carrying is done by half-naked sweating porters; for, after all, slave-flesh is almost as cheap as beast-flesh. So by degrees the two walls open away from us: before us now expands the humming port town; we catch the sniff of the salt brine, and see the tangle of spars of the multifarious shipping. Right ahead, however, dominating the whole scene, is a craggy height,—the hill of Munychia, crowned with strong fortifications, ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... creatures grazing there, great deer with branching horns; they moved slowly forwards, cropping the grass, and the child was lost in wonder at the sight. Presently one of them stopped feeding, began to sniff the air, and then looking round, espied the child, and began slowly to approach him. The child had no terror of the great dappled stag, and held out his hand to him, when the great beast suddenly bent his head ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... from Mr. Wyndham, I think, Maria. Shall I light a candle?" "Not yet; it is so warm I like the twilight." "But won't you read the letter?" "Oh, presently. There's time enough." Miss Saidie came to the window and leaned out to sniff the climbing roses, her shapeless figure outlined against the purple dusk spangled with fireflies. Her presence irritated the girl, who stirred restlessly in her chair. "Is he coming, Maria, ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... a sea captain," said Andy, "but I once was on a whaling voyage and I learned to sniff ice in the air. I saved the ship from ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... that day with the crowd of other guests, there was a more than ordinarily groomed look, an alert, inquisitive assurance, a brilliant respectability, as though they were attired in defiance of something. The habitual sniff on the face of Soames Forsyte had spread through their ranks; they ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of Loch Lein appeared and sank down into a chair before the fireplace. He began to sniff the air and ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... apologetic drooping sort that always has its tail sagging and matted with burrs, crawled out and sidled past Billy with a deprecating wag or two when he caught his unfriendly glance, and shambled over to the door that he might sniff suspiciously the cold air coming ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... With a sniff of amusement Stanton collapsed again into his pillows. For almost an hour then he lay considering solemnly whether a red-headed girl could possibly be pretty. By two o'clock he had finally visualized quite a striking, Juno-esque type of beauty ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... good purposes: amongst the rest, for sending missionaries to the heathen, teaching them to divorce their wives and wear trowsers. And now he had been asked to pray, and had prayed with much propriety and considerable unction. To be sure Tibbie Dyster did sniff a good deal during the performance; but then that was a way she had of relieving her feelings, next best to ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... he replied. It was not until after dinner, when they were playing sniff, that he realized that she omitted the young man's name. He intended to ask it, but, his mind and hand hovering over an ivory domino, he forgot. "Twenty," he announced, reaching for the scoring pad. "Oh, hell, Howat!" she protested. "That's ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... canines are exposed, and the ears are drawn backwards; but the general appearance of the animal clearly shows that anger is not felt. Sir C. Bell[3] remarks "Dogs, in their expression of fondness, have a slight eversion of the lips, and grin and sniff amidst their gambols, in a way that resembles laughter." Some persons speak of the grin as a smile, but if it had been really a smile, we should see a similar, though more pronounced, movement of the lips and ears, when dogs utter their bark of joy; but this is not the case, ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... table with her left foot—"that is what you call powers of observation—noticing the small things about birds and animals: the way they walk and move their heads and flip their wings; the way they sniff the air and twitch their whiskers and wiggle their tails. You have to notice all those little things if you want to learn animal language. For you see, lots of the animals hardly talk at all with their tongues; ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... man, Farfrae—it is about him. I've seen him talking to you two or three times—he danced with 'ee at the rejoicings, and came home with 'ee. Now, now, no blame to you. But just harken: Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone the least bit beyond sniff and snaff at all?" ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... basket!" cried Robin, suddenly darting to the door where Brina had, with a sniff, dropped their precious offering. "We brought these—for a ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... a sniff of the fragrant blossoms, Polly proposed moving a little table to the side of David's cot, and placing the flowers ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... smoke in this room sometimes?" she asked, with a barely perceptible sniff the merest contraction of ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... being two of us for dinner," continued the detective, blandly ignoring the sniff, "there's a matter I'd like to clear up. Where is Mr. Varr's son? Was the trouble between them so bitter that it is to be ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... was well spent by that time, and the party was invited to pass the night in the village, which they decided to do. The chief gave the Professor a cordial invitation to share his ha-wa with him, but after a sniff at the opening of the hovel Professor Zepplin decided that he would much prefer to sleep outside on the ground. The others concluded that they would do the same. The odors coming from the ha-was of the tribe were not ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin |
