"Mumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his knees trying to mumble a prayer, while the minister sat with bowed head. The lantern cast flickering shadows in the corners of the room, and the firelight danced and fell. A water bug crawled over the floor; a spider dropped from the rude rafters; and from without came the sound of the wind among the bare branches ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... to give a truly appreciative and affectionate sketch of young Arthur Mynors; and then he quotes the sentence about the Master of the Beagles, and on this he comments thus: "The aged Barbarian will, upon this, admiringly mumble to us his story how the battle of Waterloo was won in the playing-fields of Eton. Alas! disasters have been prepared in those playing-fields as well as victories; disasters due to inadequate mental training—to want of application, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... the surface be everlastingly damned!" said the other man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver heard the mumble and did not distinguish the words, and he felt a pleasing sense of having duly asserted the wide sympathy that binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as becomes one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... the midst of Betty's consolations, she broke into a flood of tears, and seemed in some sort relieved; and Betty gave her her drops again, and she began to mumble to herself, and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... climbing the slope. For almost half an hour he kept his position, and behind him Roger muttered on, staring up at the sky. Amid the mutterings from time to time the old man heard a curse. They sank at length to a mumble, senseless, rambling on ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... men appeared to be talking earnestly, only a mumble of voices reached Dick's ears when the men were no more than thirty feet away. Then they stepped into the road, where they halted hardly more than a dozen feet away ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... box," she presently said. "If you get tired, or—annoyed, you may go out on the balcony and look down upon the lights of Paris, though I fear it will be a dark night. There is no moon," she added, her voice dropping to a mumble.... ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... She put her hand to her mouth to suppress an exclamation. Pinto was talking, but his voice was a mumble. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... Afterwards the master said to me in a shy mumble, "She wouldn't luff up in time, somehow. What's the matter with her?" ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... boy was past speech-making now. He managed to mumble a few words of thanks, got to the ground somehow and mingled with the crowd as quickly ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... to you in a loud voice and in a tongue which you do not understand. Appear to listen intently to what I say, and occasionally mumble something as though replying in the same language—our escape may hinge upon the success ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... suddenly cornered, turned first red, then white, and tried to mumble out some evasion. But Mr Barnacle was not the man to be put ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... carrying on animated conversations with one and another in much the same way. Polly had initiated him in the mysteries of a discovery of mine, that it is not necessary to finish your sentences in a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech,—but better where other talking is going on. Thus,—"We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... jealous ire, and his voice, a low mumble before, now burst into a loud roar. "Yes, Crankin makes money, has a sight o' incubators, makes 'em himself, sells a lot, but some say they don't act like his do when they git off his place; most on 'em seem possessed, but Crankin, he can manage 'em ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... of St. Thomas a Becket, the traitor, wherein you pray, That you may be saved by the blood of St. Thomas. And as for your Latin service, what are we of the laity the better for it? I think if any one were to hear your priests mumble up their service, although he well understood Latin, yet he would understand very few words of it, the priests so champ them and chew them, and post so fast, that they neither understand what they say, nor they that ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... head! Sa-ay, where's—" He trailed off into a mumble, speaking always from the viewpoint of a flyer. Johnny, listening while he led the way down a blind trail to the bottom, caught a word now and then and decided that Bland Halliday must surely be what he claimed to be, or he would choose different ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... obliger? Then let me tell thee, Belford, it is impossible so far to hurt the morals of this lady, as thou and thy brother varlets have hurt others of the sex, who now are casting about the town firebrands and double death. Take ye that thistle to mumble upon. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... boy, as Tennyson describes the lotus country, "a land of streams." In school-days and in town he acknowledged the sway of those mysterious and irresistible forces which produce tops at one season, and marbles at another, and kites at another, and bind all boyish hearts to play mumble-the-peg at the due time more certainly than the stars are bound to their orbits. But when vacation came, with its annual exodus from the city, there was only one sign in the zodiac, and that ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... stood looking at the scene in silent horror; they heard not Chouteau's appeals for assistance; were powerless to raise a hand. And Pache, in a sudden outburst of piety and pity, dropped on his knees, joined his hands, and began to mumble the prayers that are repeated at the bedside ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... describe. For the Antiquarian Society, I shall leave them in peace with Whittington and his Cat. As my contempt for them has not, however, made me disgusted with what they do not understand, antiquities, I have published two numbers of "Miscellanies," and they are very welcome to mumble them with their toothless gums. I want to send you these—not their gums, but my pieces, and a "Grammont,"[2] of which I have printed only a hundred copies, and which will be extremely scarce, as twenty-five copies are gone to France. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... these lunatics was as simple as it was irritating. Bonds and confinement in a darkened room were the specifics; and the monotony of this treatment was relieved by occasional visits from the sage who had charge of the case, to mumble a prayer or mutter an exorcism. Another popular but unpleasant cure was by ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... past. Still no noise from the town, no suspicious move on the other shore. Then from the tambo itself came a low mumble of voices. Knowlton stepped swiftly into it. As noiselessly as they had gone the ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... his mission, Adrian had been treated with the consideration which he felt to be his due. Even his stepfather had taken the opportunity to mumble some words of regret for what had happened, and to express a hope that nothing more would be said about the matter, while his mother was sympathetic and Elsa most charming and attentive. Now, as he knew well, all this would be changed. Foy, the exuberant, unrefined, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... all through that 9th of November his lordship has had a racking rheumatism, or a toothache, let us say, during all dinner-time—through which he has been obliged to grin and mumble his poor old speeches. Is he enviable? Would you like to change with his lordship? Suppose that bumper which his golden footman brings him, instead i'fackins of ypocras or canary, contains some abomination ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fearless simplicity into her love. Caponsacchi falters and recoils in his adorations of her, with the compunction of the voluptuary turned ascetic; he hardly dares to call his passion by a name which the vulgar will mumble and misinterpret: she, utterly unconscious of such peril, glories in the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... fretted her so, what was wearing her down to the point of fatigue, was the patent imbecility of her reluctance. There would have been some sense of it if Cutty had proposed a real marriage. All she had to do was mumble a few words, sign her name to a document, live out West for a few months, and be in comfortable circumstances all the rest of ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... make out no words. Suddenly the low, even mumble was broken. Some one cried out "There's got to be a divvy soon. There's no use letting Morse hold that whole seventy-five thousand any longer. I'm going to get what's ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... mean these stale moralities, Sir Preacher, from your desk you mumble? Why rail against the great and wise, And tire ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... heard that a crazy man, who appeared very harmless, had by the side of the brook piled a great number of stones; he would wade into the river for them, followed by a cur dog, whom he would frequently call his Jacky, and even his Nancy; and then mumble to himself, 'Thou wilt not leave me. We will dwell with the owl in the ivy.' A number of owls had taken shelter in it. The stones he waded for he carried to the mouth of the hole, and only left just room enough to go in. Some of the neighbors at last recollected ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... presently every one of the listeners had gone off to sleep. The reader, whose back was toward the new-comer, did not see him. He was the only one left awake, and Bobby looked to see him drop over at any moment. But the little fat man read right along in a drawling, sleepy mumble, something about the Athenians until Bob cried out: "Hello, Ole Puddin'-bag, everybody'th gone to thleep; you'd jeth as well hole up yer readin' ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... sound adult mental activity which is the cardinal element in human life. After all, in spite of the pretentious impostors who trade upon the claim, literature, contemporary literature, is the breath of civilized life, and those who sincerely think and write the salt of the social body. To mumble over the past, to live on the classics, however splendid, is senility. The New Republic, therefore, will sustain its authors. In the past the author lived within the limits of his patron's susceptibility, and led the world, so far as he did lead it, from that cage. ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... for I'm up before any of 'em; you may always find me and my pitcher at one exact spot, every morning by six o'clock.' 'You wear vastly well, my old friend, pray what age may you be'? 'Only eighty-eight, sir; in fact, eighty-nine come next Christmas pudding; aye, and though I've lost my teeth I can mumble it with as good relish and hearty appetite as anybody.' 'I'm glad to hear it; Brighton would not look like itself without you, Martha,' said I. 'Oh, I don't know, it's like to do without me, some day,' answered she, 'but while ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... mumble so. I hear my man, Adolph. I trained him.... You ought to have an ear-trumpet. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... is what he did, for I could hear the low mumble of his voice and occasionally catch a scriptural phrase, but neither my aunt nor myself participated in this mockery of family prayers. She said she had too much to do, and she could not spare me from the cheese tub and the churn. She scolded her husband for his contributions ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... heard of some that make a circle, and mumble over some uncouth words; and some that have been spiteful and suspicious persons, that have sent for a handful of thatch from the house or barn of him that they have owed a spite to, and the house have been burnt as they had burnt the thatch that ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Arethusa was so utterly bewildered long before she had ever reached the end of it, by this way she was shoved, so to speak, from person to person, without ever really finding out who half of them were, for it would seem as if there had been a conspiracy to mumble the names spoken to Arethusa, that she could almost have fled the Party. "The Advice to Young Ladies" had said nothing of such a proceeding as being part of the Routine of Parties, nor had Elinor made any mention of it. Arethusa was ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... ain't one of the scared-mouse kind. She looks you square in the eye when there's any call for it and she don't mumble her remarks when she has something to say. Not Miss Joyce. Her words come out clear and crisp, with a slight roll to the r's and all the final letters sounded, like she'd been ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... achievement. 'Those who have money exist only to be fleeced.' Thus he spake with a reckless revelation of self. Yet the mystery of his being is still unpierced. He is traitor, schemer, spy; but is he an Abbe? Perhaps not. At any rate, he once attended the 'Messe des Morts,' and was heard to mumble a 'Credo,' which, as every good Catholic remembers, has no place in that ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... the official reports of the Lords' debates a speech begins thus: "Lord —— (who was indistinctly heard)." The Commons' report might well adopt this salutary practice as a warning to Members who persistently mumble, or who address their remarks to the body of the House instead of to the SPEAKER. Ministers are the worst offenders. One of them was asked this afternoon, for example, whether the Judicial Adviser to the SULTAN had discouraged ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... back, until he was sure they were in camp. Then as cautiously he crawled up the bank. Through the scrub with his uninjured eye he could make out the figures around the yellow of the fire which had gone down considerably. Now what would they do? He could hear the mumble of the corporal's voice. Would they be sufficiently sobered to be ready for the chase in the morning? Birnier did not think so with that case of brandy there; the corporal would not, at all events. There was a scream of pain and the chatter of ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... above a whisper; and brown children fondled each other, laughing noiselessly, or lay asleep on rugs which would be costly elsewhere. In the bazaars nothing was selling, and no man did anything but mumble or eat, save the few scholars who, cross-legged on their mats, read and laboured towards Nirvana. Priests in their yellow robes and with bare shoulders went ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... college; only, in the Kursaal the warning struck the ear, not the eye. They provided French clocks with a singularly clear metallic striking tick; their blows upon the life of Time rang sharp above the chant, the mumble, and the jingle. These clocks seemed to cry aloud, and say of the hours, whose waste they recorded, "Pereunt - et - impu-tantur, pere - ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... been so much worse for him that the memory of the episode had in it hardly a trace of misfortune. Then, steam navigation expanding in these seas and men of his craft being scarce at first, he had 'got on' after a sort. He was eager to let strangers know in a dismal mumble that he was 'an old stager out here.' When he moved, a skeleton seemed to sway loose in his clothes; his walk was mere wandering, and he was given to wander thus around the engine-room skylight, smoking, without relish, doctored tobacco in a brass bowl at the end of a cherrywood ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... about. There was a new sound in the air, a low mumble, a vague murmur. Men's voices. Outside, coming nearer swiftly, were men. Her first thought was of King; then she knew that it was too soon for him to have gotten out of the mountains, found assistance, and returned. A deep, heavy bass voice drowned out the others; it ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... 68 to mumble painful guilty the dormitory the tie the chin he got off with a good fright without appearing to do so, he was looking at them ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... and uttered a half-articulate answer. In an instant the man was at his side, and had quickly gagged him. This had the further effect of awakening the unfortunate lad; and he struggled to loosen his bonds, but they were too strongly tied. He endeavored to answer Jack, but only a meaningless mumble resulted, for ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... needn't come back at all. And this is on the condition that neither you nor she are to mention her sister Diana to me ever again, whether she is ill, or well, or anything about her. As to your reading to me, I've no doubt you either mumble or squeak, and I couldn't bear it, so pray don't imagine you'll be the least use while she's away, or let her ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... Sherwood made polite murmurs, smiling at him in quite a warm and almost, indeed, maternal manner. Even Sir Charles, who had been staring at the food on his plate as if he did not quite know what to make of it, came to the surface long enough to mumble, "Yes, yes, very good idea. Countries must carry ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... and the viper thrust his head between his lips; upon which the old man closes them and makes believe to mumble the horrid head, the body appearing violently convulsed, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... "He tried to mumble and I stooped low but he relaxed suddenly and seemed to shrink. I felt his heart but it was still. I tried his eyes and they were sightless. Patsy sent up a heartrending wail and crawled over behind his master's gun and knapsack, so I knew ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in her chair staring at him. Her mouth opened and a mumble came from it. Then there was silence a moment, and then she began to shake, and one hand beat upon the table with its rings. So they waited a while, watching the tremulous, shapeless mass of her, and the tap, tap, tap of her hand beat through ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... when he barks down the lonnin—haven't you seen her then—her breast heaving, the fingers of that hand of hers twitching, and the mumble of her poor lost voice, as though she'd say, 'Come, Rotha, my lass, be quick with the supper—he's here, my ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... "Alas! there is no one that knows me," and a disciple asked what was meant, he replied, "I do not murmur against God. I do not mumble against man. My studies lie low, and my penetration lies high. But there ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... The maid started to mumble an explanation, burst into tears and fled in alarm, never again to emerge from the back regions. My father commanded me to the bell again, but as I rose Thompson entered. He was even then a stately and dignified person, and it was with a measured tread and slow that ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... wants, he wants right now. He's been res'less as a cat in a bulldog's den ever sence he come home fuh dinner. Dunno whut's come into he ole bones, runnin' th'ugh his dinner lak a razo'-back." She withdrew in a continued mumble of censure. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... him he could hear Earle poking the fire. He could hear the low mumble of his voice, the soft treble of Marian's. They avoided him now as if he were a plague. He did not try to make it out. His master was providence. He could not question the decrees of providence, but he would circumvent them ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... of mumble-te-peg that me and Mr. Martin played, he did not come to our house for two weeks. Mr. Travers said perhaps the earth he had to gnaw while he was drawing the peg had struck to his insides and made him sick, but I knew it couldn't ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... never saw such a lot of people to pray as these pirates are. Just before they rob a man they get down on their knees on a rug, and mumble something to some god, and after they have got you robbed good and plenty, they get down and pray while they are concealing the money they took from you. Gee, but when I get home I am going to steer the train robbers and burglars onto the idea of ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... an indistinct mumble of relief from Jot's quarter, followed by another silence. Then again Old Tilly's contented voice crept through ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... the 22nd of July. I tried to be cheerful, and said, "Hello, Galbreath, old fellow, I thought you were in heaven long before this." He laughed a sort of dry, cracking laugh, and asked me to hand him a drink of water. I handed it to him. He then began to mumble and tell me something in a rambling and incoherent way, but all I could catch was for me to write to his family, who were living near Mt. Pleasant. I asked him if he was badly wounded. He only pulled down the blanket, that was all. I get sick when I think of it. The lower part of his ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... jailer," grunted Wampus, without moving. "Him want to steal; Mumble he make bark noise; for me, I ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... you?" she said. "'Tis but a mumble, his little tongue is not nimble enough for clearness, but he says it his pretty best. 'Tis Mother Anne, he ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dog on the floor, and Peg put a piece of meat under his nose. In her excitement, Jinnie rushed away to Lafe. Peg's mumble followed her even through ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... would give 'em Sadday afternoon off, and they'd have them Sadday night breakdowns. We played a few games such as marbles, mumble peg, and cards—jest anything to pass off the time. Heahs one of the games we'd play an' I ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... understand half you say," he cried in accents shrill with irritability; "you mouth and mumble like an Englishman. You say you ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... resist the impression that he was playing a part, nor help saying to ourselves, as we turned to leave the scene, "This man is not sincere in this: he is a humbug." And when, some years later, we saw him present himself before a large audience in a state not far removed from intoxication, and mumble incoherence for ten minutes, and when, in the course of the evening, we saw him make a great show of approval whenever the clergy were complimented, the impression was renewed that the man had expended his sincerity, and that ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the knight, screaming and clenching her hands. But he cried out, "Hold! or I will cleave thee in twain, even as thy cat." And in truth she stopped stone-still, but soon began to spit and murmur. Whereupon he cried out again, "Ay, spit and mumble; but know that my good friend, of whom I told thee, stands without, and if but a finger of mine aches, now or in future, he hath sworn ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... you had enough—with such a salary—to give yourself a little rope on a trip like this, considering you've nobody but yourself to look out for, and that I do that and pay you heavily for the privilege"—his voice had become a mumble—"and all you do is to take vacations in New York or sit on a horse and watch an army of men plant trout and pheasants, and cut out ripe ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... of a tooth to that of a mistress there's no pang that is not bearable. The apprehension is much more cruel than the certainty; and we make up our mind to the misfortune when 'tis irremediable, part with the tormentor, and mumble our crust on t'other side of the jaws. I think Colonel Esmond was relieved when a ducal coach and six came and whisked his charmer away out of his reach, and placed her in a higher sphere. As you have seen the nymph in the opera-machine go up to the clouds at the end of the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... return. Then another hour followed, and Anthony, who had now begun to feel the effect of his drubbing more keenly, renewed his clamor, with the result that a half-dozen policemen appeared, causing Allan to retreat to a corner and mumble prayers. From their demeanor it looked as though they were really bent upon mischief, but Kirk soon saw that an official had come in answer to his call. He felt less reassured when he perceived that the person in uniform who now stepped forward was the same upon whom he had turned ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... Cease then to mumble rotten bones; and strive to clothe with flesh and blood The skeleton; and to shape a Form that all shall hail ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Fanny's account of her visit to the Law Courts. At her first visit she had come to the conclusion that the Judges were either made of wood or were impersonated by large animals resembling man who had been trained to move with extreme dignity, mumble and nod their heads. To test her theory she had liberated a handkerchief of bluebottles at the critical moment of a trial, but was unable to judge whether the creatures gave signs of humanity for the buzzing of the ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... when the ladies had left the studio and the dull mumble of the car and the tooting of the horn had died away, the master and his friend would talk of Lopez de Sosa. A good fellow, somewhat foolish, but well-meaning; this was the judgment of Renovales and his old friend. He was proud ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... doubts. After he had been some time on the paper, things went so badly that two reporters had to be got rid of. The editor kept Pulitzer on the staff, because he felt that if anyone was destined to force him out of the editorial chair it was not a young, uneducated foreigner, who could hardly mumble half-a-dozen words of English. The editor was mistaken. Within a few years J. P. not only supplanted him but became ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... have come to this—you dare not speak, you dare not utter the name of 'Bonaparte' aloud; you barely mumble a few words in a whisper here, in this street, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where, from all the doors, from all the windows, from all the pavements, from all the very stones, ought to be ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... presented to my cat—for I had got into the habit of talking to him quite as much as he talked to me—while we sat at supper together on the last evening that we were to pass on board of the Ville de Saint Remy; and while he did not make much of a reply to me he did mumble some sort of a purring answer that I took to mean he was willing, if I were, to make ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... did she find in listening to his bad French? and in her native Hungarian he could not even say, "I love." Why had she not come to him, Gregorio Livadas, who could talk to her well and would not mumble like an idiot and look red and uncomfortable! Then he saw she was drinking champagne, and he sighed. Ah, yes, these English were rich, and women only cared for money; they were unable to give up their luxuries for the ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... at the eating-counter below-stairs was exhausted, the oysters were soon after minus, and those who had brought no lunch had to mumble ginger-cakes. It was remarked by good judges that as the morning advanced the coffee grew weaker, suggesting a possibility that the caterer could not distinguish between cocoa and cold water, and only replenished his boiler with the latter. There ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... to edge his way in and speak a word to Connie on his own account—for Chet liked Connie Danvers very much—but he could not do any more than shake hands with her over Billie's shoulder and mumble one or two words which neither ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... aboot me shall be seen To mumble prayers baith morn and e'en, I'll swap them a' for Mary Quean! I'll bid nae mess for me be sung, Dies ille, dies irae, Nor clanking bells for me be rung, Sic semper solet fieri! I'll gang my ways ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... relief when the gate clicked. Edwards had been effective that time. Oliphant was trying to say something, but the hot August day had been too much for him—it all ended in a mumble. Then she pulled in the blinds, settled the pillows nervously, and left the ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... under the Devolution's stern. Pyecroft held something in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, "Our ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... not of age; and we keep the secret even from her father. In this village you will mumble over the bans without one of your congregation ever taking heed of the name. I shall stay here a month for the purpose. She is in London, on a visit to a relation in the city. The bans on her side will be published with equal privacy in a little church near the Tower, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... glistening nails, clawed the keys with a dreadful mechanical motion. There were stacks of music-sheets on counters, and shelves, and dangling from overhead wires. The girl at the piano never ceased playing. She played mostly by request. A prospective purchaser would mumble something in the ear of one of the clerks. The fat man with the megaphone would bawl out, "'Hicky Bloo!' Miss Ryan." And Miss Ryan would oblige. She made a hideous rattle and crash and clatter of sound compared to which an Indian tom-tom would have seemed as dulcet as the strumming ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... for a moment, and then tried to mumble something, that the boys could not understand. After a few attempts he fairly shrieked out: ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... remit both twain. I see the trick on't: here was a consent, Knowing aforehand of our merriment, To dash it like a Christmas comedy. Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany, Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick, That smiles his cheek in years, and knows the trick To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd, Told our intents before; which once disclos'd, The ladies did change favours, and then we, Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she. Now, to our perjury to ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... the other. "We're in a position to make a move any old way from here. There isn't one chance in ten of his coming around the corner; and if he does make a show of doing that, why we can be sitting here, playing mumble-de-peg, or something like that, just as if we didn't care whether ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... blameless dictates of nature. The remembrance of those childish reproaches haunts me yet oftentimes in my dreams. My school-days come again, and the horror I used to feel, when in some silent corner, retired from the notice of my unfeeling playfellows, I have sat to mumble the solitary slice of gingerbread allotted me by the bounty of considerate friends, and have ached at heart because I could not spare a portion of it, as I saw other boys do, to some favorite boy; ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... her very loving and gentle that she give me so great a work, because that she have her hands so little. And truly, she presently to stop me of my mocking; for she put her pretty hands upon my mouth, and I then to have to mumble and to laugh, and so she to go forward again ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... time the Reverend Jedediah was close at hand—he continued, "But may be daddy don't know, right down sure, what we've been doin'. Let's try him with a lie—'twon't hurt, noway: let's tell him we've been playin' mumble-peg." ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... laid out for the heir of a kingdom. It is of Canton flannel, a plain, homely thing, in one piece, buttoning ignominiously down the back, and having no apertures for the august hands and feet to come through. In vain the little king-to-be may mumble the Canton flannel with his mouth. He cannot bite his royal nails; and, hush! in the next crib a princess asleep. Why that cruel, tight cap down over her ears? It's because she will double them forward and lie on them, so that ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, And hither and thither fly; Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their Condor wings ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... you speak up?" he exclaimed. "Why do you mumble your words, and why do you stand in such a slouching manner. Remember that a soldier ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he heard her voice, imperious and clear, and the mumble of Mr. Waters's unavailing if never-ending excuses. He laughed softly to himself, and touched the strings of the guitar that she had struck. "I shall save the worthy Thomas much," he murmured to himself, "and of course I do it to reform ...
— A Philanthropist • Josephine Daskam
... elapsed; and then, being down in the waist, right under the break of the poop, the quarter-master having set me to work flemishing down the slack ends of some of the sheets that he did not think were tidily arranged, I heard the signalman mumble some exclamation or other which he could not get out properly ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... from a distant mumble to a shrieking roar, and the next thing, each man had landed upon the concrete-and-paint bull's-eye before ...
— Minor Detail • John Michael Sharkey
... past speaking, so I tried to make 'im understand, but 'e only mumbled in reply. W'en I was about to go 'e seemed to mumble very 'ard, so I put down my ear to listen, and 'e w'ispered quite distinct tho' very low—'All right, my 'eartie. I'm too cute for 'em by a long way; go aboard an' say nothin'.' So I came away, and ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... this?" exclaimed the youth, almost frightened, and hotly began to mumble to her some words about her beauty, about her kindness, telling her how sorry he was for her and how bashful in her presence. And she listened and kept on kissing his cheeks, his neck, his head ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... little French boys are again in the way of becoming good Catholics. In another side chapel the confessional box bears a large white card on which is printed in bold letters, "M. le Cure." He is on duty at the present time, for, from behind the curtained lattices, the stranger hears a soft mumble of words, and he is constrained to move silently towards the patch of blazing whiteness that betokens the free air and sunshine without. The cheerful clatter of the traffic on the cobbles is typical of all the towns of ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... wanting to babble pious and holy things as they did in the world, but unable to do so. For in the spiritual world everyone is compelled to speak as he thinks. A hypocrite, however, wants to speak otherwise than he thinks, but there is impediment in the tongue as a result of which he can only mumble. Hypocrisies are lighter or more grave in the measure of the confirmation against God and of the outward ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... and completed what he had to say in a sort of mumble, but his meaning was wholly clear. He would not accept the offer of Pauline in marriage, even though she was the sister of ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... he forgot, more or less, all about his duty, and meditatively regarded the whirling wave as it seethed away into the darkness. All was silence, except for the mumble, mumble, mumble of the propellers. They were in the AEgean Archipelago and islands passed in an unbroken procession of indistinct shadows. Mac's thoughts were far away, and he was thinking of just such a night off Pelorus Sound, when a "Wake up, old sport! Time's up!" brought him ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... too fly. You've got only to pass a remark on his sail-cloth coat to make him shut up. All the town knows it. But he's got you to listen to his crazy talk whenever he chooses. Don't I hear you two at it, jabber, jabber, mumble, mumble——— ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... feasted well Began to snarl and grumble, That he should be so taken in With nuts he scarce could mumble. "Dear me," he said, "how they are burnt," And at poor pussy looking, "I cannot think how I could bear Such ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... to hear so many words from that rigid shadow. Its monotonous mumble was fascinating, its sudden loquacity was shocking. And in the profound stillness that reigned outside it was as if there had been no one left in the world with her but the phantom of that old adventurer. ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... was diseased-looking and unkempt-looking and she ironed very badly. Everyone tried to help her out. They instructed her with a flow of English. When Lucia would but shake her head they used the same flow, only much louder, several at once. Then Lucia would mumble to herself for several minutes over her ironing. At times, late in the afternoon, Miss ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... I will not mumble it. You all know colonial law on homicide. In the case of any person killed while in commission of a felony, no prosecution may be brought in any degree, against anybody. I'm going to contend that Leonard Kellogg was murdering a sapient being, that Jack Holloway acted ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... is good, quiet fun for a rainy day is Jack-stones. Although not played much nowadays it is very interesting and is to indoors what "mumble-the-peg" is to outdoors. It is played usually with small pieces of iron with six little feet: but it can also be played with small pebbles all of a size. All kinds of exercises can be used, many of which ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... seats. When at length it became possible Keate rose: that is to say, his head was projected slightly over the heads of his two neighbours. He struggled to speak; I will not say I heard every syllable, for there were no syllables; speak he could not. He tried in vain to mumble a word or two, but wholly failed, recommenced the vain struggle and sat down. It was certainly one of the most moving spectacles that in my whole life I ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... man, who was gazing stupidly at Patches, returned the salutation with an unintelligible mumble, and proceeded to ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... to his feet muttering of treachery from Governor Brigdar of the Hudson's Bay Company, and put himself in front of the intruders so that Ben could not see. But the poor fellows were so frozen that they could only mumble out something about the Prince Rupert having foundered, carrying half the crew to the river bottom. Hurrying the two Englishmen to another part of the fort, M. Groseillers ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... half an hour to spare, but he was sorry to see so little merriment among us; that all fellow travellers were for the time upon the level, and that it was always his way to make himself one of the company. "I remember," says he, "it was on just such a morning as this, that I and my Lord Mumble and the Duke of Tenterden were out upon a ramble: we called at a little house as it might be this; and my landlady, I warrant you, not suspecting to whom she was talking, was so jocular and facetious, and made so many merry answers to our questions, that we were all ready to burst ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... the bushes at the side of the road their pulses throbbed in great excitement as they observed that the peddler addressed some one inside the car. His tone was low so they did not catch the words, but they heard a mumble ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... round the great, roaring fires, Roaring louder than they, With their strong wines, And their concubines, And never a bell, With its swagger and swell, Calling you up with a start of affright In the dead of night, To send you grumbling down dark stairs, To mumble your prayers; But the cheery crow Of cocks in the yard below, After daybreak, an hour or so, And the barking of deep-mouthed hounds, These are the sounds That, instead of bells, salute the ear. And then all day Up and away Through the forest, hunting the deer! Ah, my ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... believe, that if they pay their devotion to St. Christopher in the morning, they shall be guarded and secured the day following from all dangers and misfortunes: if soldiers, when they first take arms, shall come and mumble over such a set prayer before the picture of St. Barbara, they shall return safe from all engagements: or if any pray to Erasmus on such particular holidays, with the ceremony of wax candles, and other fopperies, he shall in a short time be rewarded with a plentiful ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... there worn into cart-tracks, and tufted with rosemary, box, lavender, and lentisk. On the way it passes the Abbaye de Mont Majeur, a ruin of gigantic size, embracing all periods of architecture; where nothing seems to flourish now but henbane and the wild cucumber, or to breathe but a mumble-toothed and terrible old hag. The ruin stands above a desolate marsh, its vast Italian buildings of Palladian splendour looking more forlorn in their decay than the older and austerer mediaeval towers, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds |
