"Splutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the shade became aware of my presence for the first time, and threw his head back for a moment, and sidewise, to see me. I caught a momentary glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then he began to cough and splutter again. ...
— The Red Room • H. G. Wells
... was none of my business; and he flew into a rage about it—worse than he was in here this morning. He looked like a crazy man. I watched him gesticulate and get red in the face and foam and splutter. Why, he looked like a man who might ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... trouser-pocket for some matches, and found one remaining. He tried to strike this, but the floor was wet, and it spat and went out. He cursed. He could not see where the door was situated. In his struggle he had quite lost his bearings. The strange beast, disturbed by the splutter of the match, began to move again. "Time!" called Woodhouse, with a sudden gleam of mirth, but the thing was not coming at him again. He must have hurt it, he thought, with the broken bottle. He felt a dull pain in his ankle. Probably he was bleeding there. He wondered ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... cast off half a dozen whiffs when the fire, reaching his fingers, burned them severely, causing him to remove them suddenly from the cigar. The wrapper then burst open; and the loose pulverised tobacco by a sudden inhalation rushed into his mouth and down his throat, causing him to cough and splutter in the ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... companions in the swaying cage now saw that a tremendous rocket was hung to the peak of the other crane. He lighted the fuse.... An instant of deathly suspense!... And then with a terrific and a shattering bang and splutter the rocket shot towards the kingdom of heaven and there burst into a vast dome of red blossoms which, irradiating a square mile of roofs, descended slowly and softly on the ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... may be. See how they crowd round the huge and open fire, for there is no cooking range. See how they elbow each other as they want space for this pan or that fork. See how the bloaters curl and twist as if trying to escape from the forks and the fire. See how the sausages burst and splutter in their different pans. See how stolidly the tough steaks brown, refusing either to splutter, yield fat, or find gravy to assist in their ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... dead; but when we picked him up it was obvious that he was dying. The violet beam vanished as his body struck it—vanished with a hiss and splutter, and a puff of sulphuric smoke that mingled with the smell of burning ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... Dolly! (Dolly catches her lips with her finger tips, suppressing a little splutter ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... come to the surface. Then he felt himself lying on his back in the water, supported by Frank. The motion was not unpleasant as he rose and fell on the waves, although now and then a splash of water came over his face, and made him cough and splutter for breath. He could see nothing but the blue sky overhead, could feel nothing except that occasionally he received a blow from one or other of Frank's knees, as the latter swam beneath him, with Ruthven's head on his chest. It was a dreamy sensation, and looking back upon it ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... in the least to my surprise, made no attempt to interfere. Jack couldn't, for I was in the way. His father began to splutter helplessly. I shot out my foot, and swept the Major heavily to the floor. I plucked him up by his collar as if he were a rabbit, and choked him till his face was nearly black. Then I put him back in his chair, where he ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... official bustlings and activities, giving orders, delivering judgments, discharging directions here, there, everywhere that he could find a target. The librarian "showed off"—running hither and thither with his arms full of books and making a deal of the splutter and fuss that insect authority delights in. The young lady teachers "showed off" —bending sweetly over pupils that were lately being boxed, lifting pretty warning fingers at bad little boys and patting good ones lovingly. The young gentlemen teachers "showed off" with small scoldings and other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... gun which I fired under the plane-trees failed to trouble the concert of the Cicadae; to-day, the dazzling light of the fire-wheels and the splutter of the crackers do not avail to distract the Spider from her weaving. And, after all, what difference would it make to my neighbour if the world fell in! The village could be blown up with dynamite, without her losing her head for such a trifle. She would ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... A splutter of laughter greeted this denouement, for in truth Hannah Vernon was not distinguished for her beauty, being one of the plainest, and at the same time the most good-natured ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Pete's arrival at the Concho ranch, Andy White rode in with a companion, dusty, tired, and hungry from a sojourn over near the Apache line. White made his report to the foreman, unsaddled, and was washing with a great deal of splutter and elbow-motion, when some one slapped him on the back. He turned a dripping face to ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... inconvenient and gawky muddle of ironwork and Flemish architecture, the London Tower Bridge. When before this, temerarious anticipators have written of the mighty buildings that might someday be, the illustrator has blended with the poor ineffectual splutter of the author's words, his powerful suggestion that it amounted simply to something bulbous, florid and fluent in the vein of the onion, and L'Art Nouveau. But here, it may be, the illustrator will ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... I ain't fooling. See, the gas-jet here beside the dresser. Look—I can't turn it no higher. Hear it sing and splutter. You ain't ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... splutter of sparks, accompanied by a fizzing noise, and Jim knew that no power on earth could now avert the imminent explosion. Like a cat he worked his way backwards along the spar, which bent and heaved under his weight, until presently he stood once more ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... narrow doorway; pass along a dark, harrow hall, walled and floored with stone; catch a passing vista of a kitchen, a white-jacketed and white-capped cook, and a vast amount of steam and crackle and splutter near the stove; and going up the curving stairs are led into a neat little front dining-room overlooking the square. The carpet is of unpainted pine; so are the table and chairs; but both are clean, and this fact cheers. With misgivings we ask for a lunch for seven; without misgivings it is promptly ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... full, crested with foam beneath the osier hedges. We hear it break with a sudden dash and splutter against the cliff parapets. And ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... assigning a fine picture to a wrong church or gallery, he denied all your pretensions to judge of the picture itself. He had a reindeer's length of tongue, (how often did we wish it salted and dried!) and the splutter of words it sent forth, took off, as often happens, sufficient observation of the miserably small stock of ideas that he had to work upon. He enjoyed, as we all do, the blameless pleasure of dining out as often as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... remnant of water from his mouth with a wrathful splutter, and cleared his eyes with the back of his hand. I confess to a slight feeling of apprehension as I met his gaze. Nor was my uneasiness diminished by the spectacle of Ukridge splashing tactfully in the background like a large seal. Ukridge so far had made no remarks. ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... deal of it. For even while jumping out his wits for wickedness came to him, and he just kicked the edge of the pot, so that it spilled all the scalding hot water into the fire, and threw up the ashes with a great splutter. They flew into the eyes of Dame Bear ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... is BUCHANAN, slops over tremenjous, he do; Kinder poet, dear boy, I believe, and they always do flop round a few, Make a rare lot o' splash and no progress, like ducks in a tub, dontcher know, But cackle and splutter ain't swimming; so ROBERT, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... ominous for those whom they attack. We instinctively associate serenity with the highest types of power among men, seeing in it the poise of knowledge and calm vision, the supreme heat and mastery which is without splutter or noise of any kind. The art of power in this sort is no doubt learned in hours of reflection, by those who are not born with it. What rebuke of aimless excitement there is to be got out of a little reflection, when we have been inveighing against the corruption and ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... in sheer amazement at Michael, wondering if the strangely spent night had upset his reason. He could only splutter out between ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... overtook us as we reached the plain. A moving form was revealed to us on the bank of the irrigating-canal which skirted the edge of the road. Backward it fell as we dashed by, and then the sound of a splash and splutter reached us as we disappeared in the darkness. On the morrow we learned that the spirits of Hassan and Hussein were seen skimming the earth in their flight toward the Holy City. We reached the bridge, and crossed the moat, but the gates were ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... mood. 'No, it is not settled,' thought Isabelle. 'Poor Margaret!' She went about her many duties with the same silent sureness, the same poise as before. Whatever was happening to her was according to the discipline of her nature, controlled, suppressed. 'If she would only splutter,' Isabelle wished, 'instead of looking ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... stupider than you really are," replied the Badger, crossly; "and don't chuckle and splutter in your coffee while you're talking; it's not manners. What I mean is, the Banquet will be at night, of course, but the invitations will have to be written and got off at once, and you've got to write 'em. ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... reproached myself with not thinking of her for a whole day. These were the moments when a letter came from Father Dan, telling me she was less well than before and her spark of life had to be coaxed and trimmed or it would splutter out altogether. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... state of nature, great ladies suckle their young like animals, and the peasantry own their land like nobles. Luckily you'll hear little of this infectious talk in Turin: the King stamps out the philosophers like vermin or packs them off to splutter their heresies in Milan or Venice. But to a nobleman mindful of the privileges of his condition there is no more agreeable sojourn in Europe. The wines are delicious, the women—er—accomplished—and though the sbirri may hug one a trifle ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... to put all thoughts of fighting out of their heads. They began to cough, and choke, and splutter, and finally found themselves beside the dogs, where the four of them had ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... he wrote, "I'm writing this in Soho with a pen that was made in hell." Then there was a splutter of ink. "There," the letter went on, "that's the sort of thing it does. I believe this pen was brought to Soho by the first Frenchman to open a cafe here, and it's been handed down from proprietor to proprietor ever since. Ninian and I have been dining together, and as he's going ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... him. The scientific manager was making some ineffectual attempts to claw something with his hands and to kick, when the welcome sound of quick footsteps sounded on the floor. The next moment Azuma-zi had left him and darted towards the big dynamo. There was a splutter amid the roar. ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... burlesquing, took the whole affair to be intended humour, and tittered politely without cessation—except at such times as he thought it proper to appear quite wrung with laughter. Then he would rock himself, clasp his mouth with both hands and splutter through his fingers. Linski accused him of being in the pay ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... the appetite," said Reeves, raising his glass, "of Mr. Williams!" Morgan's laugh and his drink encountering sent him into a choking splutter. All began to pay attention to the dinner, which was ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... then, with a final scratch and splutter Joseph flung down his pen. With the sandbox tilted in the air, like a dicer about to make his throw, ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... blows, kicks, cuffs, scratches, black eyes and bloody noses swelling the horrors of the scene! Thick, thwack, cut and hack, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, heads-over-heels, rough-and-tumble! Dunder and blixum! swore the Dutchmen; splitter and splutter! cried the Swedes. Storm the works! shouted Hardkoppig Peter. Fire the mine! roared stout Rising—Tantarar-ra-ra! twanged the trumpet of Antony Van Corlear;—until all voice and sound became unintelligible,—grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... has written a friendly attack on "Administrative Nihilism," which I will send you; in the same number of the "Fortnightly" there is an absurd epicene splutter on the same subject by Mill's step-daughter, Miss Helen Taylor. I intended to publish the paper separately, with a note about Spencer's criticism, but I have had no energy nor ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... we adjourn this meeting," said Cupid, recovering from a fresh cough and splutter. "Or old Gurley'll be coming in to put me on a mustard plaster.—As for you, Infant, if you take the advice of a chap who has seen life, you'll keep your ideas to yourself: they're too crude ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... these ultra-red rays in Nature may be thus illustrated: I remove the iodine filter, and concentrate the total beam upon a test tube containing water. It immediately begins to splutter, and in a minute or two it boils. What boils it? Placing the alum solution in front of the lamp, the boiling instantly ceases. Now, the alum is pervious to all the luminous rays; hence it cannot be these rays that caused the boiling. I now introduce the iodine, ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... of blue official paper from a drawer, and his quill pen travelled furiously over them with many a screech and splutter. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for any Art that's 'Igh! I talks as quite as I can splutter; I keeps a Dado on the sly; In fact, my form's the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... to splutter and all watched it as if fascinated, and the girls put their hands to their ears in anticipation of a fearful explosion. Then came a tiny flash, a strange clicking, and off flew the top of the cannon cracker, sending a shower of confetti of various ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... encouragingly, when, splash! Tom went overboard like a flash, the lower end of his pole having slipped on a smooth rock of the river bottom. There was a grand splutter, and it was fully a minute before Tom reappeared — twenty feet away and minus ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... clearness and refinement which people who have been brought up in a damp climate and among smudged outlines so often mistake for hardness. Our great ammunition fire in the hollow of the hill burned merrily, and by-and-by a furious splutter of Mauser cartridges began, with every now and then the louder report of shells and great smoke balls hanging in the air. But sheer above all, above yellow veldt and ruined Boer laager, rose the hill, the position we had carried, grim and rigid against the sunset and all ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... ancientest one. Some red lilies I carried brought on the fit. An hour ago I gathered a few from the rice fields and took them to my room. When the old dame saw their crimson petals she began to foam at the mouth and splutter a lot of nonsense about the flowers being tongues of flame; she said they would set the house on fire and burn us all to a cinder. If I thought that I'd bring a cartload, and then run. She took them away and threw them in the hot bath. The lovely things shriveled like scalded baby hands. About ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... of his wrath. He entered snorting and puffing, flung his hat on the settle, his stick into the corner; then, dropping into a seat by the fire, he began taking off his gaiters with much snuffling and mumbling and repeated inarticulate explosions of breath. This cat-like splutter always indicated deep feeling in Mr. Blee, and Phoebe asked with concern ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Artillery. Shortly after daybreak on the 16th the flotilla approached the enemy's position. So silently had they moved that a small Dervish outpost a few miles to the north of Shendi was surprised still sleeping, and the negligent guards, aroused by a splutter of firing from the Maxim guns, awoke to find three terrible machines close upon them. The gunboats pursued their way, and, disdaining a few shots which were fired from the ruins of Shendi, arrived, at about seven o'clock, within range of Metemma. The town itself stood more than a thousand ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... was in the middle of a line of eight destroyers. Two hundred yards ahead of him he could just discern the dim black blur of the next ahead and the occasional splutter of whity-grey foam in her wake as her stern lifted to the seas. At times, when a driving rain squall came down from windward, he seemed to lose sight of her altogether, and, through inexperience and in his anxiety ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... good time—why there isn't a man, Sir, Or at most one or two, whom the universe misses. You strut for a moment, and then, like poor Anser, You vanish, uncared-for, with splutter ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... before him, he took from the tiny bag around his neck a pinch of the magic powder that was included in his jujus, and pronouncing words that conveyed some mystical meaning, slowly let the powder fall into the flickering flame, causing it to hiss and splutter. ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... mother took him in hand to help her in balancing her accounts, and ascertaining that she owed no one a penny, before she ventured upon any new purchase. Then my worthy friend was in his glory; and it was delightful to see how he enjoyed his work. He had but one fault, which was a slight tendency to splutter; and as he was obliged to keep that under restraint while engaged in writing, he made himself amends by a little praise of himself, when relating his exploits to a sympathising friend like myself. On his return with the inkstand to the corner of ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... then? In a little after, having taken a gentleman prisoner, he went with him to a public house near Clunie in the parish of Kinglassie to see some public matters accommodated; but not agreeing, Wylie made a great splutter, and amongst other imprecations said, The devil take me, if I carry him not to Couper tolbooth this night. The gentleman's man, a young hardy fellow, told him roundly, his master should not go there. Upon ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... the window and saw him playing with his face all shiny with perspiration and a silk handkerchief tucked under his chin. I would have liked to have knocked at his door and told him that I knew all about these things, but I was afraid that he would think me cheeky and splutter in my face. ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... embayed, and was evidently in a state of consternation, for in its efforts to regain deep water it rushed hither and thither, thrusting its blunt snout continually on some shoal, and wriggling off again with difficulty and enormous splutter. The shouts of men, shrieks of women, and yells of children co-mingled in ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... should any of the same quality be left, to forward it to him at once. Expense is no consideration. The importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be exaggerated." So far the letter had run composedly enough, but here, with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had broken loose. "For God's sake," he had added, "find me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tendency. In the case of Russia—the country where the state, more than ordinarily artificial and ill-balanced, was correspondingly weak—Fate had interpolated a blood-stained page of red and white terror in the years 1906-08. Although fitful, unorganized, and abortive, that wild splutter was one of the foretokens of the impending cataclysm, and was recognized as such by the writer of these pages. During the foregoing quarter of a century he had watched with interest the sowing of the dragon's teeth from which was one day to spring up a race of ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... I can't say. For it was somewhere in the middle of the second or third hill after this that the little roadster began to splutter and cough like it ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... entertaining to watch his face work as the words come along. It registered all the evil that Scotland has suffered from her oppressors since they first thought up the name for it. Finally he begun to splutter back—it must have sounded fine at the other end—but he had to hang up, he was that emotional. After he got his face human again he ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... bucket 's the bicker that keeps a man sicker, The bucket 's a shield an' a buckler to me; In pool or in gutter nae langer I 'll splutter, But walk like a freeman wha feels he ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Saxham went on, in the cold, clear voice that cut like a knife to the intelligence. "Known in every liquor-saloon, and familiar to every constable, and a standing butt for the clumsy jests that the most utter dolt of a Police Magistrate might splutter from the Bench." His jarring laugh hurt her. "The Man in the Street, and the Woman of the Street, for that matter—pardon me if I offend your ears, but the truth must be told—were my godfather and my godmother, and they gave me that name between them. You ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... with laughter. And underneath the thin flooring, as though roused by her irreverent merriment, the big car shook itself awake with a roar and splutter of indignation. But the sliding doors were thrown open, and its rage died down at the prospect of release. It began ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... new leg, and then he had four. And now, by plain dint of hard spurring and whipping, Dry-shod we came where folks sometimes take shipping. And now hur in Wales is, Saint Taph be hur speed, Gott splutter hur taste, some Welsh ale hur had need: Yet surely the Welsh are not wise of their fuddle, For this had the taste and complexion of puddle. From thence then we marched, full as dry as we came, My guide before prancing, his steed ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... to the men, he shouted everything through the trumpet; and when they manned the breaks and began to pump, he roared at them, "Down on her, down on her, boys!" so that you would have thought the Neptune could put out the world if it was burning up. Instead of that there was usually a feeble splutter from the nozzle, and sometimes none at all, even if the hose did not break; it was fun to see the hose break. The Neptune was a favorite with the boys, though they believed that the Tremont could squirt farther, and they had a belief ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... volition whatever. "Escort the party," were his orders, and that meant that he must govern the movements of his horses and men by the wishes of the senior staff official. And so they jogged along perhaps twenty minutes more, and then there was a sudden splutter and plunge and stumble ahead, a sharp pull on the traces, a marvelously quick jerk back on the reins that threw the wheel team on their haunches, and thereby saved the "outfit," for when men and matches were hurried ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... with the splutter of arc welders, the slow banging of iron workers, the cough and hissing of jet sleds, the roar of activity that meant deadly danger to the Solar Alliance. Connel noticed as he moved across the canyon floor that the workers were in good spirits. The morale of the rebels, thought the space officer, ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... It does not buzz once long and three short. Then he returns to his work. The buzzer goes on and on in impatient jerks which mount in anger. Several times ANTHONY is almost compelled by this insistence, but the thing that holds him back is stronger. At last, after a particularly mad splutter, to which ANTHONY longs to make retort, the buzzer gives it up. ANTHONY ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... splutter. "Conceited chump! He makes me tired. Of all the fresh things—to sit up there and talk about the 'kids' in ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... and differed with Munoz, the two coming to a knife duel, promptly suppressed by the gun butts of the guard. None the less was Munoz called into requisition as interpreter, for between peril, exhaustion and defective English the "dago" could only splutter an unintelligible jargon that might have been Sicilian, Maltese, or Calabrian, but could not be Spanish. Bennett, it seems, had picked him up for dead on the Verde road, early in the spring of the year, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... were silent. Shoop rolled a cigarette. The splutter of the sulphur-match, as it burned from blue to yellow, startled them. They relaxed, cursing off ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... a splutter of wet gravel. The gate still stood open. They wheeled furiously into the side road and regained the chaussee. As yet there was no sign of pursuit. The car rocked dangerously over the broken pave, so Robin, after a glance behind, steadied her down to an easier pace. Mary, who looked very pale ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... or recklessly, threw themselves away. Divided thus between injury and gratitude she speedily answered her father's letter, writing upon a sheet of scented grass-green note-paper, deeply ribbed, which made her pen blot, splutter, and sprawl far more than it would have done ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... his mastery of the situation, calmly quartered them as he had said. "An' let 'em splutter all they want to," he commented comfortably ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... next over a ploughed field, then broke down a slap, as he called it, in a drystone fence, and lugged the unresisting animal through the breach, about a rood of the simple masonry giving way in the splutter with which he passed. Finally, he led the way through a wicket into something which had still the air of an avenue, though many of the trees were felled. The roar of the ocean was now near and full, and the moon, which began to make her appearance, gleamed on a ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... night our men in the trenches stood in their waders, and the dawn of Christmas Day was greeted, not by angelic songs, but by the splutter of rifle-bullets all ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... animals. The crowd regards the capers of the man, and waits in suspense for the fatal attack. They wait; unconsciously the primitive instinct is awakened in them. They crave fight, they want to feel the delicious shiver produced by the sight of two bodies intertwining, the splutter of blood and pieces of torn, steaming human flesh flying through the cage and falling on the floor. They want to hear the roar, the cries, the shrieks of agony. . . . Then the crowd breaks into dark pieces, and disperses over the slimy marsh ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... foot!" exclaimed Amy, linking her arm in Jessie's. "Let her splutter, Jess. We'll go to the Dainties Shop and have a ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... of the body, and it is an absolute sin to put ourselves into a condition that makes others miserable. It is also wretched economy to burn the candle at both ends every day. When it is needed to aid us in some large piece of work the wick will be consumed, and the light will faintly flicker, or splutter feebly and die. ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... some distance from the shore. What had become of the third? There he is, close to the border of the lake, and only about fifty yards from my position! My first shot at a swan! — Now then — present! fire! — bang! What a splutter! The shots pepper the water around him. He tries to rise, He cannot! his wing is broken! Hurrah! hurrah! "Here Jonathan! Toby! what's your name? here! bring the dogs — I've hit him — I've done ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... replied to this speech need not be repeated, as the widow's answer was made up of a great number of incoherent ejaculations, embraces, and other irrelative matter. But the two women slept well after that talk; and when the night-lamp went out with a splutter, and the sun rose gloriously over the purple hills, and the birds began to sing and pipe cheerfully amidst the leafless trees and glistening evergreens on Fairoaks lawn, Helen woke too, and as she looked at the sweet face ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a most exhilarating splutter, flaring and crackling all along the edge of the wood, and even attracted the attention of the Boers. All of a sudden there was a furious rush and roar overhead; two or three little cassarina trees and a shower of branches fell to the ground. What on earth ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... this "lie" so fetched Holmes that he opened his head and emitted a howl of laughter. He made such a row, in fact, that neither of them heard the convulsively half-repressed splutter which burst forth ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... up their pies and cake, And everything the mice could bake; They stuffed themselves with good fresh meal, And ruined all they could not steal; They slapped their long tails in the butter Until they made a frightful splutter; Then, sleek and fine in coats of silk, They swam about in buttermilk. They ate up everything they found, And flung the plates upon the ground. And catching three mice by their tails, They drowned them in the water-pails; Then seeing it was morning light, They scampered home with all their might. ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... our berth among the other drifters that were on the ground. We shot two hundred and forty fathom of net with a swishing plash of the yarn and a smack-smack-splutter of the buoys. We had our supper of sandwiches ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... others, sound and wounded alike, upon our hands and at our mercy. But I was careful to keep Oahika until the last, and it was not until the schooner was fairly under way and heading out to sea that I cast him adrift and permitted him to go over the side, which he did in a splutter of mingled wrath and fear, pouring out a long string of what were probably native curses as he seized the steering paddle and violently thrust the canoe off the ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... passing over a section of Northern France, keeping a mile and more above the surface of the earth, when Jack called out in this fashion. Talking is never easy aboard a working plane. The splutter of the motor, added to the noise caused by the spinning propellers, as well as the fact that as a rule pilot and observer keep well muffled up because of the chill in the rarified air, all combine to make ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... until he found the best one. "Yes, Splutter, don't you know that when you are so frank you defy every law of your sex, and wild eyes will take ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... cluck, and at first sight I was glad that I had met her, but a moment later I was afraid that she was going to laugh at me. The old man did not introduce me; his wife did not know my name, and I sought to speak my name, but had lost it just at that moment and could merely splutter something. I was not much embarrassed, though; I recalled what I had heard the two men say, and behind me was the strong brace ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... strained attention of all of them: their hands held the glasses, but they did not drink, looking mostly at the wet rings on the polished table, or the little heaps of white ashes. A servant passing through scratched a match with a rasping splutter, and they twitched angrily at the interruption, fearing it would throw him off the track—he was so easily quieted, and when once one of his great gulfs of silence received him, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... be considerably deeper than either brother had anticipated, and Waldo vanished from sight for a few seconds, then reappearing with lusty puff and splutter, shaking the pearly drops from his close-clipped curls, ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... can imagine the times that he had with his companions, ducking under the rollers; or coming in on top of a comber and landing with a swash and a splutter as the big wave went whirling far up the beach; or standing up on his tail and scratching his head as the old people did; or playing "I'm the King of the Castle" on slippery, weedy rocks that just stuck out of the wash. Now and then he would see a ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... was swooped to the world like a bird to his nest, Now is the drone of his coming the roaring of hell, Now with a splutter and crash are the engines at rest— ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... blind, strengthless—still keeps the valley. The windows which once, like eyes, watched men and horses creeping through the snow, braved the splutter of guns and the gleam of torches, are now holes for the birds to nest in. Tangled creepers have spread to the very summits of the walls. In the keep, instead of grim men in armour, there is a wooden board recording the history of the castle and instructing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... blue smoke curls up from the censer and plays in the slanting sunbeams, the lighted candles faintly splutter. The singing, at first harsh and deafening, soon becomes quiet and musical as the choir gradually adapt themselves to the acoustic conditions of the rooms. . . . The tunes are all mournful and sad. . . . The guests are gradually brought to a melancholy mood and ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was at his lip, but at this moment he choked with a great splutter; and Mr. Archer, as if startled by the noise, made so sudden a movement that one corner of the sheet tore off and stayed between his finger and thumb. It was some little time before the old man was sufficiently recovered to beg the ostler to go on, and he still kept coughing and crying and rubbing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Provost, when he read the bill, "we've a new departure here! This is an unco splutter, as the oald sow said when she ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... sea-birds, specially some 'steamer-ducks,' so called from their peculiar mode of progression through the water. They neither swim nor fly, but use their wings like the paddles of a steamer, with a great noise and splutter, and go along very fast. On reaching the plains we had an opportunity of testing the speed of our horses, which warmed us up a little after our slow progress by the water's edge in the bitter wind. We rode all round the stockades, outside the town, before dismounting; but I saw ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... thin and dirty-looking rope of different lengths from a couple of inches to about a foot. He had (an idiot might have amused himself in that way) set fire to the ends of them. They smouldered with amazing energy, emitting now and then a splutter, and in the calm air within the bulwarks sent up very slender, exactly parallel threads of smoke, each with a vanishing curl at the end; and the absorption with which Jorgenson gave himself up to that pastime was enough to shake all confidence ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... Lyndsay, was sure to lead the conversation slily to some circumstance which never failed to place the honest-hearted Scotchwoman on her high-horse: and then she would talk,—ye gods!—how she would talk—and splutter away in her broad provincial dialect, until the wicked boy was ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... of weather was coming, a change that neither the Old Man nor the Mate liked, to judge by their frequent visits to the barometers. At noon the wind hauled into the sou'-west and freshened, white tops curled out of the mist and broke in a splutter of foam under the quarter, Channel gulls came screaming and circling high o'er our heads—a sure sign of windy weather. A gale was in the making; a rushing westerly gale, to clear the Channel and blow the ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... fallen, was not deep, he soon splashed across it, to the amazement of the assembled party who witnessed the feat, which a fresh blue-light, just then ignited, afforded them ample means of doing—the heavy souse he had made in tumbling in, and the splutter he made in floundering out again, having already attracted their attention to the spot—which, as he seemed to have selected the very widest part of the whole pool, was the very last of all others any one could have suspected an entry to have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... feverishly. Only three couples were now turning in the middle of the room, then two, then none. There was a lack of arm-chairs for the men; the ladies hid their yawns behind their fans. At last the music ceased, and as no one said anything, a dead silence spread through the room. Candles began to splutter and went out, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... pause, and then came the splutter of a match. The pale glow of a single candle lit the room dimly. Christopher jumped at the sight of a third man in the room. No! There were but two people there. But where, then, was the man who had led him hither? ...
— Cruel Barbara Allen - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... onslaught of artillery fire slackened towards mid-day, sharper crack of rifles and wicked splutter of machine guns becoming for the first time noticeable. Enemy shells became fewer and fewer, his power of resistance—weak from the opening—deteriorated to little more than a rout. The prisoners were swelling an already long ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... he spluttered. Galors let him splutter till they were within the courtyard. Then he ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... scenery-hunters of all sorts getting first views of yosemites, glaciers. While Mountain ranges, etc. Mixed with the enthusiasm which such scenery naturally excites, there is often weak gushing, and many splutter aloud like little waterfalls. Here, for a few moments at least, there is silence, and all are in dead earnest, as if awed and hushed by an earthquake—perhaps until the cook cries "Breakfast!" or the stable-boy "Horses are ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir
... to good eyes, especially when the flame is in a mood to flicker and splutter, as gas sometimes does. Take a faint, wavering light and a piece of embroidery and you have as fine a recipe for premature blindness as can be unearthed in a month of Sundays. Sewing in the twilight is equally disastrous, as is the ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... morning. His big guns have suddenly become nervously active. Then, a little murmur along the pits and trenches, and from somewhere over behind us, this air-shark drives up the sky. The enemy's balloons splutter a little, retract, and go rushing down, and we send a spray of bullets as they drop. Then against our aerostat, and with the wind driving them clean overhead of us, come the antagonistic flying-machines. I incline to imagine there will be a steel prow with a ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... the splutter of the motorcycles behind them, drew to one side of the road so as to allow the trio of boys to pass. Instead of doing this ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... was returning to the Court that evening. Absence had made his heart grow fonder, and it was beating much faster than usual as he stood on the station platform awaiting the arrival of the train, and, when it ran in with much splutter and fuss, not even by a turn of her head did Miss Rose show herself aware of Tom's presence. Instead, she was looking after her ladies, lifting out their various belongings—not a few in number—and ordering round the porters with a pretty pertness as she counted out the ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... Ormiston's salutation, "and a furious one. There go the fires—hiss and splutter. I ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... yard-arm there came a splutter of a match, and then, straightaway, a great spurt of fire as the ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... perfect little real cannon, loaded with real shot, and in his hand was a lighted match ready to fire it with. He lost no time in pointing it straight at the clump of furze bushes, and the real gunpowder made a flash and a splutter, and the shot went right into the middle of the yellow gorse and blew it all away so completely that not a trace of it was left, except one small bush that the Prince had no difficulty in jumping over. The cannon went back to nowhere at all, just as ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... caboose pervaded the ship; and we could easily guess how it would be under such circumstances when a fever breaks out on board—how impossible it must be to get rid of the infected atmosphere, unless perhaps by powerful and general fumigation. The seams in the deck began to splutter and hiss, and the pitch stuck to our feet as we walked about; while any piece of iron we touched seemed almost as hot as if it had been put in a furnace. We had a good supply of water on board; but it seemed, at the rate ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... him to look up and, seeing the anger on her face, he smiled amusedly, insufferably. The next second she sprang at him like a cat and slapped him across his insolently smiling face, and then flung Spanish oaths at him with such force and heat that they seemed to splutter in falling upon the chill of the air. Then she flashed from ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... vastly self-complacent, convinced, no doubt, that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred "Anglais." In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in rotation, and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss, and mumble, I solemnly laid ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... behind them, farther down the hill, are thick lines of supports in the cover of intrenchments. It is a spectacle entirely typical of a modern battle, for there is scarcely anything to see at all. If it were not for those shells being tossed to and fro on the right there, and an occasional splutter of rifle fire, one might easily suppose that the lines of blue-coated men lying about on the stubble were all dozing in the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... diminished head firmly against the wood, he drew it downward vigorously and long. There was a faint crackle, a little splutter, and—glory of glories!—a tiny flame faltered out into ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Rabbit! The water got in his eyes and up his nose and into his mouth and made him choke and splutter, and then he couldn't get back on the bank, for you ...
— Old Mother West Wind • Thornton W. Burgess
... up, as on a huge shoulder which slipped from under it; such occasional sea-quakes came probably from the swell of some steamer that had passed it in the dark; otherwise the waves were harmless though restless. But it was piercingly cold, and there was, from time to time, a splutter of rain like the splutter of the spray, which seemed almost to freeze as it fell. MacIan, more at home than his companion in this quite barbarous and elemental sort of adventure, had rowed toilsomely with the heavy oars whenever he saw anything that looked like ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... torch; its splutter Was extinguished in the gutter. "At my torch and crown of roses These young minxes cock their noses. Who'll buy my love-knots? Who'll buy my love-knots?" What's the use? 'Twixt Law and Passion, HYMEN's plainly out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... Rats"—things that represent us better. That is what the foreigner is always doing; he spends his time in wondering at our monkey tricks; there is no nation can do them so well as we; and the great France—the undying France!—disappears in a splutter ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mind to keep hold of it and to swim quickly away from the vessel, trying to shout as he swam; but the sudden ducking had filled his mouth with water and he could do little more than splutter. ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... was thus engaged, he chanced to raise his eyes towards the south-western horizon, and there saw something which caused him to splutter, for his mouth was too full to speak, but his speaking eyes and pointing finger caused his companions to turn their faces quickly ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... dropping the match on the wet stone, where it went out with a faint splutter. 'What's ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... Greenly, that Comte de Vervillin!" murmured Sir Gervaise, in a tone of admiration, "and so have I always found him, and so have I always reported him, too! The fools about the Gazettes, and the knaves about the offices, may splutter as they will; Mr. de Vervillin would give them plenty of occupation were they here. I question if he mean to keep off in the least, but insists on holding every ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... splutter of rage, "do I live to hear a Walda Nagasta suggest that the first prince of the land, her uncle and affianced husband, should be surrendered to our hereditary foes to be hanged like a worn-out hound, and do ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... let me go!" cried Codfish, and then began to splutter as the dry cornmeal got into his mouth ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... light shot upwards, and the log was reduced to a mass of glowing ashes and half-burnt embers. At this critical moment the stranger deliberately approached the hearth. He threw a whole flagon of liquor wilfully upon the waning faggots, and in a moment fiz, splutter, and smoke proclaimed that the warfare of the elements, like many others, had ended in the destruction of both the contending belligerents. The yule-log was extinguished. There was a general rush, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... ranks of the silent, awe-stricken company, each member of which was wondering by how much of the loss his own meagre pay would be mulcted, there came a splutter of laughter. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... northern diver put up his long neck here and there to gaze for an instant inquisitively, and then sank, as if for ever, into the calm water, to reappear long after in some totally new and unexpected quarter. A napping duck or two, being wellnigh run over by the canoe, took wing with a tremendous splutter and a perfectly idiotical compound of a quack and a roar, while numerous flocks of plover, which had evidently meant to lie still among the sedges and hide while the canoe passed, sprang into the air at the unwonted hullabaloo, and ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... grandest of heathen mythical creations, being caricatured in pencil and pen and ink, under every ludicrous aspect that can be conceived. Some of the entries are brief and absurd, "Not much of a fizz," "a grand splutter," "Madam Pele in the dumps," and so forth. These generally have English signatures. The American wit is far racier, but depends mainly on the profane use of certain passages of scripture, a species of wit which is at once easy and ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Tu'n me loose! I'm ole man Spewter-Splutter wid long claws, en scales on my back! I'm ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris |
