"Flustered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... meantime Mrs. Haines was flustered not only by the prospect of meeting her distinguished friend, but by the tumultuous staging of the great hold-up scene that was to mark Pauline's welcome. Hal had been up at three o'clock in the morning rehearsing the boys in their parts. He had set off at five ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... and be the most quick and most prevailing method of giving young people a turn of sense and breeding. But as I have set up for a weekly historian, I resolve to be a faithful one; and therefore take this public occasion to admonish a young nobleman, who came flustered into the box last night, and let him know, how much all his friends were out of countenance for him. The women sat in terror of hearing something that should shock their modesty, and all the gentlemen in as much pain, out of compassion to the ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... noticed that he looked better and that he did not go to the remote rooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher. He went into the library and sent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him somewhat excited and curious and flustered. ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... post she had coveted for years—that of receiving a fashionable assemblage in her own house; and if her choicest guests courted her notice as little as they would have done any where else, she was too much elated and flustered, and overheated to think about it. One of her principal concerns was to keep her eye on her husband, who, being a shy, timid man, with very little tact, was not much calculated for playing the host on such an occasion. He had, however, been doing better ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... that look as if they ought to accompany butterfly nets and contain entomological specimens. But they are usually in the hands of a stout alpaca-clad middle-class mater-familias, who looks rather anxious and flustered while she herds her flock and hunts for a garden with the announcement, "Hier koennen Familien Kaffee kochen." There for a trifling indemnity she can be accommodated with seats, cups and saucers, and hot water; just as people can in an English tea-garden. Provisions she has with her in her Pickenick ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... was coming, and at what directed. Her tone and attitude and deprecation of self were new to him. He had never seen her so; always she was the embodification of calm, self-reliance, poise, never flustered, never disturbed. A weak woman! It was so absurd as to be ridiculous, and she was aware of it. So what was the play with so bald a ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... one of the shrewdest promoters in the country, and a big man in Wall Street. There was only one bigger man and that was John Ryder. But, to-day, Mr. Herts was not in good condition. His face was pale and his manner flustered and nervous. He was ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... would know without the assistance of Miss Bettie Simcoe or Mrs. Caperton (she is a frisky little widow who has no use for young girls) or any other Twickenham-Towner. And then, perhaps because he was so flustered he didn't know what he was saying, he told me riches were a great temptation to any young man, and everybody, of course, knew my father was wealthy, though he must say it had not been learned from the family. And that Whythe, being poor from a money standpoint, ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... plans Larkin learned from Juliet and her mother, who looked after most of his wants. The latter, good woman, quite flustered at having what she termed a "regular boarder," became rather fond of the patient young man from the East who never failed to listen attentively to her narrative of the famous trip to ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... into the clean little kitchen, half amused, half flustered. Already he had hooked off the top of the kitchen range. "Ah! a good fire. And your frying-pan?" ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... Iry, who was put to bed at a neighbor's, went to the recital. The Boarder took Lily Rose, who was quite flustered at her first ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... got away from the wretches who'd done it. By the time I'd found out all this, her baby was quite quiet, and ready to go to sleep. I gave it her back. She said nothing, but took and kissed my hand, her lips feeling like burning coals on my flesh. 'You're kindly welcome,' says I, a little flustered at such a queer way of thanking me. 'Just wait a bit while I speak to my husband.' Though she'd been and done wrong, I couldn't for the life of me help pitying her, for her fierce ways. She was so young, and so forlorn and ill, and had such a beautiful ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... cordial enough, though a trifle flustered. Whatever thrifty, hard-working farmer folk might think of gay, Bohemian Blair Stanley in his absence, in his presence even they liked him, by the grace of some winsome, lovable quality in the soul of him. He had "a way with him"—revealed even in the manner with which he caught staid Aunt Janet ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... hurried down the street, not bothering to glance after Robina. She had crossed the street and was passing a saloon when the omnipresent voice commanded her, "GIRL IN THE GREEN SLACKS GET OUT OF SIGHT." She became so flustered she dashed ...
— The Premiere • Richard Sabia
... entered that house of death. The maid, all flustered and red-eyed with emotional unrest, told us that Jane was upstairs, and Clare too. We went up the narrow stairs, now become so tragic in their associations. On which step, I wondered, had ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... wi' one thing an' another, w'en it comes to a chit o' sixteen talkin' like that about 'er mother bein' an 'umbug, let alone sayin' she doesn't respect 'er father; an' w'at 'e'd say if 'e 'eard 'er I couldn't say, I'm sure,' she said, flustered. ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... rash when no one is looking. Emile will not be foolhardy, though all the world were watching him. As the exercise does not depend on its danger, he will learn to swim the Hellespont by swimming, without any danger, a stream in his father's park; but he must get used to danger too, so as not to be flustered by it. This is an essential part of the apprenticeship I spoke of just now. Moreover, I shall take care to proportion the danger to his strength, and I shall always share it myself, so that I need scarcely ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... and their intelligence while they took their food, just as a perfect rider sits his horse with absolute composure, and can look and listen and talk to some purpose while he puts him through his paces. To be excited or flustered by meat and drink was in their eyes something altogether swinish and bestial. [18] Nor did Gobryas fail to notice that they only asked questions which were pleasant to answer, and only jested in a manner to please; all their mirth was as far from impertinence and malice ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... stared: he was always adventurously ready to unmake plans, but it flustered him to be called on to remake them. "Eh—what? Now—at once? But Gaines was to have gone with us, and how on earth are we to get at him? He telephoned me that, as the visit was given up, he should ride ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... flustered Mrs. Leveret to be late at the Lunch Club: she liked to collect her thoughts and gather a hint, as the others assembled, of the turn the conversation was likely to take. To-day, however, she felt herself completely ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... fence; and so reaches Denoue's house, unhurt; which house Chateau-Vieux, in an agitated manner, invests,—hindered as yet from entering, by a crowd of officers formed on the staircase. M. de Malseigne retreats by back ways to the Townhall, flustered though undaunted; amid an escort of National Guards. From the Townhall he, on the morrow, emits fresh orders, fresh plans of settlement with Chateau-Vieux; to none of which will Chateau-Vieux listen: whereupon finally he, amid noise enough, emits order ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... befits a Good Fellow that he almost disgraced himself with "Rather than make trouble, and always providin' there ain't any enforcement officers hiding in the waste-basket—" The words died choking in his throat. He bowed in flustered ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... went up to his study at the top of the house. Half way down he met his housekeeper, Mrs. Fewings. She was flustered and excited, and her face was very ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... said, she was not only ready, but anxious to hear all that Rupert could have to say for himself; and, smoothing down her black satin apron with a shaking hand, the old lady prepared to listen with as much judicial dignity as her flustered state allowed her to assume. Rupert drew his chair opposite to hers and leant his elbow on the table, and fixed his bright, hard ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... attorney's clerk. I took upon myself the more ungrateful part of arriving last; and by the time I entered on the scene the Major was already served at a side table. Some general conversation must have passed, and I smelled danger in the air. The Major looked flustered, the attorney's clerk triumphant, and three or four peasants in smock-frocks (who sat about the fire to play chorus) had let ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... contact with this gross earth. I too witnessed the ascent; at the moment, I grant you, I saw neither chariot nor horses, and almost all those present shared my own temporary blindness; the whole action from the moment when the balloon left the earth, moved so rapidly, that we were flustered, and hardly knew what it was that we were really seeing. It was not till two or three years later that I found the scene presenting itself to my soul's imaginary sight in the full splendour which was no doubt witnessed, but not apprehended, by my ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... display her ability, and, feeling every confidence in herself, was not the least bit flustered when she met Herr Deichenberg at the door and ushered ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... Moyle's there, with the rest of 'em; doin' ther little sewin' work, an' hearin' the news, an' aggravatin' the ladies. Yer'll see 'em come in,—betune ten an' eleven's the time, when the cars arrives,—hot and flustered, an' not knowin' for their lives which way to turn; an' yer talks 'em all up and down, deliberate; an' makes 'em answer all the questions yer like, and then yer tells 'em, quite perlite, at the end, that yer don't think 'twould suit yer expectash'ns; it's not ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... "Yes," said Dalhousie, flustered, for he was not so deeply skilled in the arts of deception as to carry them on without some compunction; "but I left the key in ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... was soon called, and all were assembled in the church, where the cure, booted and spurred, came, much flustered, God knows. He mounted into the pupil, and ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... impertinent answer, accompanied with an execrable oath, which was paid on the spot by the Captain, who pistolled him in the head, swearing before God that he would do the same to the first man who failed in respect for the Holy Sacrifice. The cur was a little flustered, as it happened very close to him. But Daniel said to him, 'Don't be troubled, father; 't was a rascal whom I had to punish to teach his duty': a very efficacious way to prevent the recurrence of a similar fault. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... give it myself; and it'll be the last that ever I will give, for it isn't my business," added Phillis, flustered and indignant, so much so that she dropped the letter on ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... his own astonishment, John Warner found his mind dwelling on a wife once more—the last thing as ever he expected to happen to him. Indeed the discovery flustered the man not a little, and he set himself to consider such an upheaval most careful and weigh it, as he weighed everything, in the scales of his own future comfort and success. He was a calculating man in all things, and yet ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... would be against me, unless my own hands helped me before my enemies came. My first thought was to get the table down the steps, to make a bridge across the bath, from which I could reach the skylight. This I could not do at first; for being much flustered, I did not put the table-leaves down. Until I knocked them down in my hurry they kept me from dragging the table from the dining room. When I got it at last into the bath-room, I found that it would not stretch across the water: the legs were too close together, as I might ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... But it done her good. It changed her idees. She got over her high an' mighty ways, they say, an' I hear she's one of the nicest, sweetest old ladies in Boggs City nowadays. But Blootch Peabody says that to this day she looks flustered when anybody notices her back hair. The Lord knows I wa'n't laughin' at her hair. I don't see why she thought so, ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... flitted through the hall and into the room, which Hodder recognized as Miss Grower's. She reminded him of a flying shuttle across the warp of Mr. Bentley's threads, weaving them together; swift, sure, yet never hurried or flustered. One glance at the speechless woman seemed to suffice her for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... said, with the promptitude of one who had anticipated the invitation. "I must hurry home. There are accounts to be made up. And Robinson and others will be telegraphing to Knoleworth and London. I must attend to all that, because dad gets flustered if several messages are handed in ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Karen, obviously flustered, too, reached to the dummy for the Ace of Diamonds, to which Penny played the three, Karen herself discarding the ten of Clubs, and Mrs. Drake ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... the old professor, who seemed in a somewhat nervous and flustered state. "Tell me all about it—give the full particulars ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... heard, as an eastern caliph or sultan is heard of by his subjects, and felt some degree of timidity at the idea of encountering a person, of whose unsocial habits and stern manners so many stories were told, that her fear kept at least pace with her curiosity. The aged housekeeper was no less flustered and hurried in obeying the numerous and contradictory commands of her mistress, concerning preserves, pastry and fruit, the mode of marshalling and dishing the dinner, the necessity of not permitting the melted butter to run to oil, and the danger ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... curator of some collection in the zoo, a flustered old woman, was introducing him. There were a few laudatory references to his great talents as an actor, and he managed to look properly modest as he listened. The remarks about his knowledge of wild and ferocious beasts were a little harder ...
— The Hunters • William Morrison
... flustered at the announcement, and by her haste to produce the required letters indicated the esteem in which her employer ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... say, "should practice 'sans intermission,' until they can drink four bottles without being flustered, then they will be sober people; for it won't be easy to make them tipsy—a drunken ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... Peak's Four Corners. It seemed that the train did not usually stop there, but it appeared afterwards that the obliging conductor had told her to get aboard and he would let her off at Peak's. When she stepped into the car, in a flustered condition, carrying her large bandbox, she began to ask all the passengers, in turn, if this was the right train, and if it stopped at Peak's. The information she received was various, but the weight ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... don't—an' if you don't—don't lemme hear you makin' any cracks about it 'round this store so't she'll hear ye," growled Cap'n Amazon, boring into the very soul of the flustered ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... with a vengeance; and, of course, it flustered him a good deal, when he rightly saw how matters stood, to have to make his excuses to all them grand gentlemen for not being a murdered corpse. But as I says to him afterward, he'd no one but himself to blame; first for being so troublesome as to have the toothache, and then for being so ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... not claim more than was its due. Anders wanted to rub his leg, but made a mistake and caught hold of Lively Sara's, and made her scream; and this so flustered his hand that it could not find its way up, but went on making mistakes, and there ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... gospel trufe; but I'se kinder flustered 'bout dat yaller cat caze ole miss sutney do set a heap er sto' by 'er. She ain' never let de dawgs come in de 'oom, nohow, caze once she done feel Beulah rar 'er back at Spy. She's des stone blin', is ole miss, but I d'clar she kin smell pow'ful keen, an' 'taro' no use tryin' ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Foxes. But their last fire went out as it was lighted, and a flustered scout prepared to try again amid cries of, "Not more than two matches." This time his wood took the flame. But now the Eagles and the Wolves also had their fires going. Mr. Wall declared ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... came in with her arms full of them. But there I stopped, as I never discuss my lodgers. Yet I must acknowledge that my curiosity had been roused by all this talk, and I began to watch the woman, who I soon saw was in what I would call a flustered state of mind, and as unhappy as anyone could be who hadn't suffered some great bereavement. But still I wasn't really alarmed, being misled by the name she gave, ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... matter of fact, had been considerably flustered by the ardour of Merriam the detective's wooing. The rehearsal had not prepared her for anything so realistic, and she was annoyed. Art was art, of course, but she was no Duse, and she didn't care to be the object of such public passion. The fact that she was obliged to reciprocate ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... in morals, manners, and intelligence; Pollyooly's report on it was always dispirited. But he was surprised, on returning home from Littlestone to tea one evening, to find Pollyooly entertaining royalty in the parlour of the flustered Mrs. Wilson. ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... only babble protestingly. "She she" he began in a flustered indignation. Captain Hahn laughed again. He had the advantage of the single mind over ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... with the king (he was very young), the ministers and the court, while horsemen stationed at intervals blew their trumpets. I had written a religious march especially for this event, and the Queen kindly accepted its dedication to her. I was a little flustered when she asked me to play the too familiar melody from Samson et Dalila which begins Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix. I had to improvise a transposition suited for the organ, something I had never ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... men shook hands and mouthed the usual pleasantries, Colonel Lord Sorban watched them with an amusement that didn't show on his placid face. Young Senesin was rather angry that the tete-a-tete had been interrupted, while Heywood seemed flustered and a ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... turned their valves, threw their controls and disengaged their boron control rods, and the great cruiser flashed into space—while the deputy commander and the safety officer were completely tangled with a very flustered and unhappy new ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... girl so flustered," Mrs. Camden would remark, complacently. "Perhaps our city style rather oppressed her; and as for Mr. Walton, he put on so much dignity that he leaned over backward. They evidently don't belong ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... grounds, he was in a great hurry. "Look at his shoes," he said to me: "Mr. Manderson was always specially neat about his footwear. But those shoe-laces were tied in a hurry." I agreed. "And he left his false teeth in his room," said the manager. "Doesn't that prove he was flustered and hurried?" I allowed that it looked like it. But I said, "Look here: if he was so very much pressed, why did he part his hair so carefully? That parting is a work of art. Why did he put on so much? for he had on a complete outfit of underclothing, ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... of eatin' might do the saint good. So he goes an' takes two o' them feesh 'stead o' wan as the angel said. An' he b'iled wan feesh, an' fried t'other, an' took 'em to St. Neot; an' when he seed what his man been 'bout, he was flustered, I tell 'e. Then the saint up and done a marvelous straange thing, for he flinged them feesh back in the well, just as they was, and began praayin' to the Lard to forgive his man. An' the feesh comed alive ag'in and swimmed around, ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... remained in his village of Bukit Betong, on the banks of the Jelai river, and Wan Bong, with his army, speedily conquered the whole of Pahang as far as Kuala Semantan. Thus more than half the country was his, almost without a struggle; and Wan Bong, flustered with victory, returned up river to receive the congratulations of his friends, leaving Panglima Raja Sebidi, his principal General, in charge of the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... a chuckle. "Well, young man, to begin with, you were much too flustered. It made you appear overanxious. On the other hand, I am at an age where I can be strictly platonic. She was on guard against you, but she knows she has very ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... be greatly flustered and in pain. His left arm was helpless from a wound in the shoulder, and from the fleshy part of it an arrow protruded. It probably had been less painful to leave it there than to pull it out. ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... a bit flustered for a moment, but then he saw there was no use beating about the bush, so ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle
... he slipped down that chimbly an' run away he wasn't a bit flustered, an' he didn't play hookey the balance of the day neither. He thess went down to the crik, an' washed the soot off his face, though they say he didn't no more 'n smear it round, an' then he went down to Miss Phoebe's school, an' stayed there till it was out. An' she took ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... that Polly Ann was a-eyin' Jeb sort o' flustered like, an' she come might' nigh splittin' right thar an' a-sp'ilin' the fun, fer she knowed what a skeery fool Jeb was. An' when the ole folks goes to bed, Nance lays thar under a quilt a-watchin' an' a-listenin'. Well, Jeb knowed the premises, ef he couldn't talk, an' purty soon ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... on the light of a lamp by the vestibule door. It is now seen that BERTRAM is greatly flustered and excited. ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... The Chief Medical Officer, a tall raw-boned personage, very evidently hailed from North of the Tweed. "I'm obliged to ye, ma'am," he addressed the flustered matron, "but the warr'ds an' the contents o' the beds in them are no' to say of the firr'st importance—at least, whaur I'm concerr'ned. With your permeesion we'll tak' a look at the Operating Theatre, and overhaul the sterileezing plant, and the sanitary arrangements, and maybe, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Mr. Higgins drove up in the democrat. Helena, marvelously garbed, in the extreme of fashion, was demurely surveying her surroundings; while Mr. Higgins was very evidently excited and not a little flustered. A huge trunk and two smaller ones occupied the rear of the democrat, with the dismantled back seat lashed on top ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... I said, not much scared, I think, but a little flustered, and quite undecided whether to get into a row on the spot by striking the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... a muffled exclamation. Instantly there arose at his very feet the sound as of a motor-engine being wound up, and a flustered and protesting cock-pheasant hoisted itself tumultuously clear of the undergrowth and sailed away, shrieking, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... Nevertheless, all flustered and breathless as she was, she held Walker back when he would have left her in the shelter of ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... discomposed than usual, and, being put on to construe soon after entering the school, acquitted himself very well and with the most perfect sang froid. Fortunately Saurin was not subjected to the same ordeal or he would have been considerably flustered, if not totally unable to fix his mind on the subject; and he might have excited suspicion as to something unusual going on, which again might have caused inquiry, and so spoiled sport. But he was not called up, the redness of Crawley's brow remained ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... him. The master called me in to prayers, but I can't say I could put my mind to them, for my heart was beating so. However, it was a comfort to have had an offer of holy matrimony; and though it flustered me, it made me think more of myself. In the night, I began to wonder if I'd not been cruel and hard to him. You see, I were feverish-like; and the old song of Barbary Allen would keep running in my head, and I thought I were Barbary, and he were young Jemmy ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a little flustered as Miss Amesbury came smiling into their midst. She didn't in the least mind being initiated, but she did rather hate to have Miss Amesbury see her made ridiculous. She would much rather ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... meeting between the mayor and Murphy when they assembled at Second and Spring streets that night at ten o'clock. Oddly it was the mayor who was flustered when the two were introduced by Brennan, probably because he felt he owed so much to the scrawny youth who ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... confusion; when Mrs. Parks has hysterics and Miss Simmons is crying for her mother, and Mrs. Bell's hot-water bottle has burst in the bed, and Miss Phipps has discovered that the undergraduate has bandaged the wrong ankle, Miss Blossom sometimes becomes flustered and hurried and calls her patient Mrs. Follett, whereupon she says, "Chittenden-Ffollette, ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was trying her best to cudgel her cow into going up a ladder to eat the grass. But the poor thing was afraid and durst not go. Then the old woman tried coaxing, but it wouldn't go. You never saw such a sight! The cow getting more and more flustered and obstinate, the old woman getting ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... realizing, apparently for the first time, that they had come within rifle-shot of strangers. We could see her talking to them, but could not hear what she said. Perhaps that was as well. I think that even Grim with his poker face in perfect working order would have been flustered if he had been given time to think. The surprise, when it came, made him brace himself to meet it; and, once committed, he played with the sky for ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... herself face to face with a man and a wheelbarrow. Trix came to a standstill, a standstill at once sudden and unpremeditated. The man dropped the wheelbarrow. They stared blankly at each other. And Trix was far too flustered to realize that his stare was infinitely more amazed ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... flustered by this instant agreement, began to hedge. He did not pretend, he said, to be always right; he could recollect many occasions when he had been considerably wide of the mark. In fact, a bigger blunderhead, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... the poet's wife expressed her surprise that the man of genius had failed to dedicate any one of his volumes to the said wife. Whereupon, said wife became flustered, and ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... bewildered and blank. "Well, all I know is, last year he worked out some kind of plan so's to parade the county conference in platoons, and got 'em all flustered up tryin' to sense his ideas of a holler square," she burst forth. "They was holler enough anyway after ridin' 'way down from up country into the salt air, and they'd been treated to a sermon on faith an' works from old ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... on her own account, for this unusual girl who was not afraid of him. He had found that she was what he called "a good head." She could take a detached view; she was absolutely fair; she was not easily flustered. ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... a farm-house near the railroad. They ate dinner with the farmer and his wife, who seemed to realize that they were entertaining some one out of the ordinary, and were much flustered thereby. Especially did the farmer struggle with his vague memory of personalities, asking many round-about questions and "supposing" many possibilities that the ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... manage at breead-bakin best; Soa one day aw bethowt me to try, But aw gate soa flustered, aw ne'er thowt o'th' yeast, Soa aw mud as ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... wailed and screamed overhead; and our guns began, until it seemed that all the sounds of the universe had broken forth. In the midst of it all the gas alarm sounded, the great electric horns screeching wildly above the babel of sound. The women hurried into their gas masks, a bit flustered perhaps, but bearing their excitement quietly and helping each other until all were safely ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... we to do?" flustered Wendy. "Toddlekins will be furious if we don't go; and yet how can we ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... hard against the spell. She was badly flustered. "Please catch my horse for me," she said with, under the ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... on Jonah into the bush, unobserved of Christmas, who had never beheld one of his species so hampered by a human being. While George was away it occurred to one of us to suggest that a high-mettled, never-ridden steed might be flustered when confronted with novel and incomprehensible circumstances. When George cantered home, Christmas gazed, horror-struck, for a moment, bounded into the air, snorted, and with flowing mane and flying tail fled to the most secluded ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... tipsy; intoxicated; inebrious^, inebriate, inebriated; in one's cups; in a state of intoxication &c n.; temulent^, temulentive^; bombed, smashed; fuddled, mellow, cut, boozy, fou^, fresh, merry, elevated; flustered, disguised, groggy, beery; top-heavy; potvaliant^, glorious; potulent^; squiffy [Slang]; overcome, overtaken; whittled, screwed [Slang], tight, primed, corned, raddled^, sewed up [Slang], lushy [Slang], nappy^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... appreciated by the tinker, for his face was an odd mixture of grotesque solemnity and keen enjoyment. Patsy was altogether too flustered to diagnose his expression, but it added considerably to the temperature of the O'Connell temper. In view of the civilized surroundings and her state of dignity Patsy had taken to King's English with barely a ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... title of Firemen Hot (METHUEN). Combining the stedfast affection and loyalty of the Three Musketeers or the imperishable soldiers of Mr. KIPLING with a faculty, when planning an escapade, for faultless English, only equalled by that of the flustered client explaining what has happened to the lynx-eyed sleuth, they are as stout a trio as ever thrust coal into a furnace or fist into a first mate's jaw. English, American and Scotch (and this would seem to be another injustice to the Green Island), in many ports and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... mother, too, was a surprise when she came from her ironing, and, pushing her wavy gray hair back from a furrowed brow lifted intelligent eyes that reminded him of Jane, to search his face. Ma did not appear flustered. She seemed to be taking account of him and deciding whether or not she ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... looked a little flustered one morning when I came in,- -so much so, that I inquired of my neighbor, the divinity-student,) what had been going on. It appears that the young fellow whom they call John had taken advantage of my being a little late (I having been rather longer than usual ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... he flung her at Liebchen, and she went through the air squawking and fluttering. She lit on Liebchen's slippery back, and she slid till she struck the bamboo, and roosted. If she had had time to think she might have flopped ashore, but she was flustered, and Liebchen got out of the channel and steered into the Pacific. Veronica squawked a few times, and no more. The sea was quiet. The two moved off, going eastward very slow. Kamelillo went back to his camp fire and made poi, but Kreps and I watched, expecting ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... advertised to go at 2.22, and at 2.20 Ronald joined the Easter holiday crowd upon the platform. A porter put down his luggage and was then swallowed up in a sea of perambulators and flustered parents. Ronald never saw him again. At 2.40, amidst some ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... got very flustered. Well I am seeking the Earl of Clincham he began in a trembly voice are you by any chance him he added ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford
... browse around him while he ate some of the lunch that was wrapped up in his blanket, and then put out again. He was satisfied that by this time he had got beyond the men, and now he wanted to get to the fort and put the people there on their guard. Was Elam flustered while he was doing all this? Not a bit of it. He went about his work as he would have tried to compass the death of some wild animal that had escaped him. When the first gray streaks of dawn were seen in the east, he camped in a sheep-herder's dugout, but ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... about it and sit upon everything within reach, mantel-pieces included, and begin to bid. Hot, humming, and dusty are the rooms all day; and—high above the heat, hum, and dust—the head and shoulders, voice and hammer, of the Auctioneer, are ever at work. The men in the carpet caps get flustered and vicious with tumbling the Lots about, and still the Lots are going, going, gone; still coming on. Sometimes there is joking and a general roar. This lasts all day and three days following. The Capital Modern Household Furniture, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Rather flustered, she watched the stage with anxious eyes. Brangaene—an ugly, large person in a terra-cotta cheese-cloth peplum—had already warned the desperate pair beneath the trees that dawn and danger were at hand. But the lovers sang of ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... talk English. I did feel bad to come away from there; I 'most wished I could be sick a while longer. I never said much of anything either, and I don't know but she thought it was queer, but I am a dreadful clumsy man to say anything, and I got flustered. I don't know's I mind telling you; I was 'most a-crying. I used to think I'd lay by some money and ship for there and carry her something real pretty. But I don't rank able-bodied seaman like I used, ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... suppose I should call you Will? I am so flustered—not expecting you—and it's been so warm to-day. Won't you come in and take a chair?" wound up Miss Mattie in desperation, and fury at herself for saying things so different from ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... He was a slender young man, with strikingly regular features and delicate complexion; his mobile mouth was covered by a fringy moustache, and his small keen eyes were restless to a painful degree. The sudden summons appeared to have flustered him; for his eyes danced more than usual, giving him the startled and perplexed look of a hunted animal at bay. He was speedily reassured by Sandford's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... Twenty-eighth Street near Sixth Avenue. In the office he chuckled at his ink-well and the untorn blotters on his orderly desk. Though he sat under the weary unnatural brilliance of a mercury-vapor light, he dashed into his work, and was too keen about this business of living merrily to be much flustered by the bustle of the lady buyer's superior "Good morning." Even up to ten-thirty he was still slamming down papers on his desk. Just let any one try to stop his course, his readiness for snapping fingers at The Job; ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... standing on end, "but nothing happened. There was deep silence. Then the door opened and Mr. Joselyn walked out. I never interfere with other people's business, but attend strictly to my own, yet that day I was so flustered that I peeked through a crack of my door at Mr. Joselyn and he seemed cool as a cucumber. Then Mr. Cragg slammed the door of his room—which is z very unusual thing for him ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... too flustered to do more than return the pressure of the small, firm hand. His first impression returned to him again, and he beheld Henriette in the light in which she had first appeared to him, with her bright hair of the hue of ripe golden ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... and spur," said the lad, who seemed flustered and confused with drink; "you may burst your best horse betwixt this and London, and all to get there before you're wanted. A dollar to drink, Sir Hugh, like handsome Ned gave me this morning—a dollar to drink, and I'll save you a journey for the sake of the ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... had last been seen. Haggis and the dog Bannock quickly followed, and the former moved with all the quiet swiftness of a native who was used to meeting the unexpected emergencies of life without being in any degree flustered. That life had many times been in danger, and its safety had only been attained by being in a constant state ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... of assistance with shy acquiescence. The blue car was not easy to get out of, as the seat was low and there was no step, so Jeff must swing the lady out, lifting her up bodily and jumping her to the curbing. She came down lightly but flustered. ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... none of us knows of this yere letter the postmaster mentions, an' which is later read by all; but it's about that time Slim Jim acts queer an' locoed. He's flustered an' stampeded about somethin', we-alls notes that; an' Dave Tutt even forgets himse'f as a gent so far as to ask Slim ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... beauty!' cried the gay Jackal, when he had eaten as much as he could. Then the blushing Miss Crocodile carried him back again, and bade him be quick about his business, like a dear good creature, for really she felt so flustered at the very idea that she ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... hastily, and down more hastily still; so that her hand shook, and the needle slipped, and Martin said "Ow!" and clutched the hand with the needle and held it tightly just where it was. And Jane got flustered ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... about the same brand of bipeds that tramp around in Cheyenne and Amarillo, At first I was sort of rattled by the crowds, but I soon says to myself, 'Here, now, Bud; they're just plain folks like you and Geronimo and Grover Cleveland and the Watson boys, so don't get all flustered up with consternation under your saddle blanket,' and then I feels calm and peaceful, like I was back in the Nation again at a ghost dance ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... sought for an acquaintance, while the steam was puffing, and panting, and screeching, as if in mortal pain until it was allowed to have its own way, and send the train along at the rate of forty miles an hour, can understand the flustered, bewildered feelings of young Russell, as, with the child in one hand, he perambulated the cars. "Is any gentleman here willing to take charge of this little girl?" said he. "What's to be done with her when we get to New York?" ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... He soon found that he could keep pretty busy, and win many a grateful smile from anxious mothers, by capturing and picking up little toddlers who would persist in running about and falling down right in the way of hurrying passengers. He also kept an eye on the old ladies, who were so flustered and bewildered, and asked such meaningless questions of everybody, that he wondered how they were ever to reach their destinations ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... animal. But the stranger ended his fall in a sitting position and then the girl saw it was really a man. He held an apple in his hand, which he had evidently been eating when he fell, and so little was he jarred or flustered by the accident that he continued to munch this apple as ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... could be saved without, 'Tis odds but I might have borne in quiet A qualm or two at my spiritual diet, Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon: But the flock sat on, divinely flustered, Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon With such content in every snuffle, As the devil inside us loves to ruffle. My old fat woman purred with pleasure, And thumb round thumb went twirling faster, While she, to his periods keeping measure, Maternally devoured the pastor. The man ...
— Christmas Eve • Robert Browning
... had Sage-brush rattled. The coolest man on the ranch was flustered by the mere thought of attending ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... was on the surface serene. She was dressed in her simplest, having purposely avoided any appearance of desiring to appear at her best. Her aunt, who stood with her, on the other side of the fireplace, was perceptibly flustered, being got up for the occasion, with ribbons in evidence and smiles ready for production on the instant. When the west door opened, and the awaited hero entered, pale but well groomed, using his cane in such fashion ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... flustered to react either to the danger or to the novelty of this experience, or even to think to any good purpose, Sally dropped mechanically into the chair held for her, wondering as much at herself for accepting the situation as at the masterful creature opposite, earnestly but amiably ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... or whatever it was, was broken by Fred's voice, flustered and out of breath, coming nearer at ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... fancy. He first proposed that we should "camp someveres around, ain't it?" waving his hand cheerily as though to weave a spell; and when that was firmly rejected, he decided that we must take up house with the Hansons. Mrs. Hanson had been, from the first, flustered, subdued, and a little pale; but from this proposition she recoiled with haggard indignation. So did we, who would have preferred, in a manner of speaking, death. But Kelmar was not to be put by. He edged Mrs. Hanson into a corner, where for a long time he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her courtesy, her undeniable air of distinction, and a certain gracious gaiety which belonged to her, had, combined with unaccustomed indulgence in claret cup, gone far to turn the good man's head during the afternoon. Regardless of the slightly flustered remonstrances of his wife and daughters, he lingered, expending himself in innocently confused compliment, supplemented by prophecies regarding the blessings destined to descend upon Brockhurst and the mother parish of Sandyfield in virtue of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... above all flustered and excited—at my presuming to suppose her relations with my son not the very simplest in the world. I might scold him as much as I liked—that was between ourselves; but she didn't see why I should mention such matters to herself. ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James |
