"Measly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mighty much mistaken in your make-up," said the other boy, promptly. "Remember what we agreed to do about that Bones Shadduck, for getting us knocked down with that measly old Delta Pi business? Well, there's a pair ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... ill-smelling bunk, and his hours of repose were broken by calls on the telephone or by some one beating at the door late at night or early in the morning; but he always responded without a word of complaint. It was all lovely discipline. It was like batting a measly bronco over the head in correction of some grievous fault (like nipping your calf, for example), and he took a grim satisfaction in going about degraded and forgotten of his fellows, for no one in Keno knew that this grimy hostler was cow-boss on the Perco. This, in a certain degree, softened ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... always fresh problem, I had come to a side street leading to the market from which two or three small groceries draw their supplies, and stopped for a moment to look at the flabby, half-decayed vegetables, the coarse beef and measly-looking pork from which comes the sickly, heavy smell preceding ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... mischief-making upper classmen, the sudden collapsing of their fistic champion shocked them even more. Scrapper Bert was rather noted for his prowess. No one cared to put on the gloves with him, nor to gain his displeasure. To see the new boy, a "measly freshman," not as tall, as heavy nor as old as Bert, catch the assailant's hard-driven fist in the palm of an instantly extended hand and then let drive with his own right a neat, short-arm uppercut that got Bert just ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... in the street and gazed at the work of our hands. The rosettes were a failure, and the old lady admitted it. I have forgotten whether she said they looked "mangy," or "measly," or "peaky;" but she conveyed her idea in some such graphic phrase. But I must ask you to believe me when I tell you that, from the distant street, that poor, weather-worn old front seemed to have taken on the very grandeur of mourning, with its great, clean, strong columns simply wreathed ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... of a former Christmas at Carter Hall still fresh in mind, and knowing the dear lady's generosity, and having seen the biggest bundle of feathers and the longest pair of legs he had ever laid his eyes on hanging head down on the measly wall of the shabby yard as he entered, screwed up his eyes, cudgelled his brain by tapping his forehead with his forefinger, ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Gwalior a pleasant surprise was in store. We had "train rations" on the usual measly Indian scale, but for tea on Saturday we were to rely on tea provided by Scindia at Gwalior. Happily a Maharajah's ideas of tea are superior to a Quartermaster's, and this is what we had for fifty men! Unlimited tea, with ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... give it up," cheered "Stump," under his voice. "That's the stuff. Now, if only that measly fog lifts and we get a trifle nearer, we'll do something ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... than done," replied Hamp. "I wish I had taken careful aim when I had the chance. Now the measly varmint will lurk around here all night, and ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... two, married a woman who lived only long enough to produce this man upon whose trail we're scouting. This Kenneth was a measly little offspring and his mother's people undertook to give him a chance to live. He picked up and he and his father became pals—Hannah rooted out a picture of them riding horseback. Then the father was thrown from ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... fear of 'tater bugs, Or cultivation's errors, The measly scale from San Jose, And Green bug bring ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... on his lips died down to measly insignificance, he stammered, stumbled, and sat down with a red face, his eyes darting rage ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... solemn, stone-jug-like face, I know to be a most infernal rogue. He fakes the firm's accounts to the detriment of the London people who are paying the piper, and who are really the firm. As for Sam Chard and this measly, sneaking, Danish skipper, they are merely minor thieves. But I didn't do so badly with them, did ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... whatever do you suppose those measly old insurrectos want to chase us for in this style?" he growled. "We're attending to our private business and not bothering them one little bit. Why don't they leave a fellow alone? Goodness knows we've just got trouble enough on ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... The Pink Un and a measly religious paper? I had to leave Browndean; I had to, I tell you. I got tick at a public, and set up to be the Great Vance; so would you, if you were leading such a beastly existence! And a card stood me a lot of ale and stuff, and we got swipey, talking about music-halls ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... developed in man after eating "measly" beef or pork. "Measles" are embryo tapeworms called, from their appearance, "bladder worms." In from six to ten weeks after being received into the intestine of a man, these bladder worms become full grown, and measure from ten to ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... his glass-settin' tools, and go to work settin' some glass in one of the meetin'-house winders. Some o' them little small panes got broke somehow—yes'm, I did, but I never meant to, honest I didn't. I was jest tryin' my new catapult, and I never thought they'd have such measly glass as all that. Well, so I see—saw him get to work, and I says to Squashnose Weight—we was goin' home from school together—I says, 'Let's go up in the gallery!' Old Booby had left the door open, and 'twas right under the gallery that he was ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... lunatic!" roared Simpson. "Do you call yourself a white man, and then throw your life away for a measly, rascally cat?" ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... of the General Sales Company, that handled the export end of the trust's affairs. So, right in the height of his season, he's had to scratch his Horse Show entries, drop polo practice, and move into a measly six-room suite in one of them new Fifth-ave. hotels, with three hours of soul-wearin' officework ahead of him five days out of seven. He'd been at the grind a month now, and Mother had worried so about his health that Joshua Q. himself had come down to observe the awful results. Meanwhile ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... the whole blamed chunk on a pair of measly aces," he said. "I was pretty sore by that time, I'm telling you! I was down to ten dollars, but I started right in to bring back that hundred and sixty. Funny, but I felt exactly as if somebody had stolen that headstall and spurs right out of my hand, and I just had to get it back pronto. ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... quality of the medicine, and resolved to double the dose. He fulminated, therefore, a second proclamation more vehement than the first, forbidding all intercourse with these Yankee intruders; ordering the Dutch burghers on the frontiers to buy none of their pacing horses, measly pork, apple sweetmeats, Weathersfield onions, or wooden bowls, and to furnish them with no supplies of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... which Mr. Bills was waving in the air like a flag, with a feeling that he had nearly exhausted his vocabulary and didn't know what next to say. Four dollars was a great deal for an apron, he knew, but he kept on ringing the changes on the four dollars,—a measly price for so fine an article, and for so good a cause as a Public Library. And while he talked and repeated his going, going, faster and faster, Tim stood like a hound on a leash fretting for ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... all fours," ordered Mr. Merriam. "You're the measly dog that barked at General Washington on that famous ride. Bark, you wretched yellow cur—bark, ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... Bandy-legs, almost out of breath from his violent exertions, "he's only struck a mud turtle, or something like that, and wants us to come and see. It's a burning shame to give us all such a scare over a measly turtle." ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... these cases the measles went through their common course with milder symptoms than usual, and in the other the measly contagion seemed just sufficient to stop the progress of variolous contagion, but without itself throwing the constitution into any disorder. At the same time both the measles and small-pox seem to have been rendered milder. Does not this give ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... took the money in his open hands, placed scoopwise together, and said, "All this mine, is it? You're too kind. What do I want the blanky money for, eh? Didn't I tell you I could get money for the pickin' of it up? Well, you're all a pretty measly crowd, all as poor as church rats, by the manners of yer. Well, you pick it up." And he flung the money among the crowd, lay back on the couch, and ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... decent lunch," was his opening. "I left instructions, but we live in a rough-and-ready way. She expects you back to tea, too, after you have had a look at Howards End. I wonder what you'll think of the place. I wouldn't touch it with tongs myself. Do sit down! It's a measly little place." ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... are so minded pursue this latter game But not repine if they should lose a boodle in the same; For an example to you all one paragon should serve— He towers a very monument to valor and to nerve; No bob-tail flush, no nine-spot high, no measly pair can wring A groan of ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... since I could walk, and if she wasn't a saint she'd have kicked me out long ago. Why, I sneaked off and left a lie on her dresser, and never gave her a chance to get the thing straight, or anything. I tell you, Marion, if I was in her place, and had a measly cub of a son like I've been, I'd drown him in a tub, or something. Honest to John, I wouldn't have a brat like that on the place! How she's managed to put up with me all these years is more than I can figure; it gets my goat to look back at the kinda mark I've been—strutting around, spending ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... this row about a measly old 'coon sitting for his picture!" grumbled Jerry, falling back again, and apparently meaning to seek once more relief in slumber, if the bump on his forehead ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... be spelled! Don't I know your history, Mr. Gratz? Don't I know you had your name changed from Gratzensteinburgher? And you pretend to be worried because our President and the most talented men in the country want to drop a few useless letters out of a measly three hundred words! I tell you these changes in spelling should have been made long ago. Long ago. This is the business man's age, Mr. Gratz-and-the-rest-of-it. Yes, sir! And you, as a business man, should be proud of ...
— Mike Flannery On Duty and Off • Ellis Parker Butler
... you worked so hard, maybe your dad gave you enough money for it to buy a respectable piece of chocolate with instead of that measly little sample you brought around ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... girl, and you can do your damnedest. You take this stuff away from here. And as for you, Wash Gibbs, if you ever set foot on my place again, if you ever cross my path after to-night I'll kill you like the measly yeller hound you are." As he finished, Jim stood with his back to the corner of the room, his hand inside of the hickory shirt where the button ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... you measly old fraud!" howled Scotch, waving his fists in the air. "I don't believe in fighting, but this is about my time to scrap. If you don't apologize for the intrusion, may I be blown to ten thousand fragments if I don't give you a pair of beautiful ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... hastened to say, more than a hint of worriment in his little black eyes. One could never be sure of these Bar S boys. They were uncertain propositions, every measly one of them. "Shore it's all right," went on the 88 manager. "I ain't meaning no harm. Yo're taking a lot for granted, Racey, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... by fighting, but I would. Sydney Bramshaw, I believe you are a miserable sneak, ay, and worse, and it would be a great satisfaction for me to get my hands on your measly carcass just ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... to die and planned to do so. The only reason I did not jump off of a pier was the providential intervention of several stiff cocktails. (I am theoretically a prohibitionist, but grateful to the enemy for having saved my life.) The black cloud that shut out all sunlight was our measly total for December—$18.07. ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... introduced into this country by the Tories and Indians caused General Sullivan to go out against the measly enemy, whip him near Elmira, and destroy the fields of corn and villages in the Genesee country, where the Indian women were engaged in farming while their men-folks attended to the ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... aren't afraid of their lives, or where would you be—you and this old thing here with her plates like brown paper—brown paper, s'elp me? It's all very fine for you—you get a power of pieces out of her one way and another; but what about me—what do I get? A measly hundred and fifty dollars a month and find yourself. I wish to ask you respectfully—respectfully, mind—who wouldn't chuck a dratted job like this? 'Tain't safe, s'elp me, it ain't! Only I am one of them fearless fellows . ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... upon her fiercely. "I s'pose you'd let him freeze to death 'fore you'd let me buy him any clothes," he burst out, angrily. "I sh'd like ter know w'at's the matter with ye, anyhow. Has that measly Dick Hunt ben ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... lard. If the lean be tough, and the fat flabby and spongy, feeling rough, it is old, especially if the rind be stubborn, and you cannot nip it with your nails. Little kernels, like nail-shot, in the fat, are a sign that it is measly, and dangerous to ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... as lief be shot as not," said Relander. "The only trouble is that these measly niggers can't hit anything they shoot at. If the darned fools would only try to miss him, they'd get him sure. The devil and ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... the thousand things we have had to do. It would take years to give you an account of what we have done and why we do it. It is like a game of whist and poker combined and we bluff on two flimsy fours, and crawl the next minute to a man that holds a measly two-spot. There is not a wire we have not pulled, or a leg, either, and we go dashing about all day in a bath-chair, with a driver in a bell hat and a blue nightgown, leaving cards and writing notes and giving drinks and having secretaries to lunch and buying flowers for wives and cigar boxes ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... who knew history and horses. He remembered "Pansy," which had served sixteen years in the troop—and a first-rate old horse then; but a damned inspector with no soul came browsing around one day and condemned that old horse. Government got a measly ten dollars—or something like that. This ran along for a time; when one day they were trooping up some lonely valley, and, behold, there stood "Pansy," as thin as a snake, tied by a wickieup. He greeted ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... fifty. "Better make it eight hundred," I wrote, and so, in my triumph, I led Zulime to Vantine's and there purchased for her a carved gold ring set with three rose diamonds, the handsomest present I had ever dared to buy for her. "This is to make amends for the measly little engagement ring you were forced to accept," I remarked by ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... circulars up and down Fifth Avenue, and open it up as a school—not one of 'em knows how to furnish their houses. How the devil did you—Oh, I see! Just plain yellow-wash and the reflected red light. Looks like a stained-glass window in a measly old church. Where's Sam. Oh, behind that screen. Well come out here and look at ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... you've got enough liquor without waiting for it to break your injectors, I'll ask the old man to let you finger the plug on Old Baldy whilst I'm gone. But I'm damned if I don't feel as if you was like that measly old 19—jest fit to be jacked up to ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... that had fallen upon the two as they stared at the empty trap. "Well, we won't move!" he cried. "There's no measly carcajo going to run me out of here! We'll get busy, and in two or three days from now we'll have that scoundrel's hide hanging up on the cache ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... thinkin' about a vacation. None of your measly little two weeks' affairs, with one week on salary, and th' other without. I ain't goin' t' take my vacation for a while—not till fall, p'raps, or maybe winter. But w'en I do take it, sa-a-ay, girl, it's goin' t' be ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... Earle, in tones of intense disgust. "Only eight hours, did you say? Why, man alive, if what you say be true, in those measly eight hours I have lived years of joy and delight unspeakable. I have beheld scenes of unearthly indescribable beauty; I have participated in pageants glorious and magnificent beyond conception; I have—oh! what's the use? If I were to talk from now until doomsday I couldn't even ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... pack o' boys along up to the Eagles; p'raps it kim in a letter he hed from somebody, I don't know jest how thet mout be; but he seemed to know it, all right, Jim. Sez he to me, 'Hen, ef ye happens to run acrost thet thar measly little skunk what sails by the name o' Jim Hasty, jest you tell him fur me thet if he dares to put his foot up hyar in my deestrick, I'm bound to pin his ears to a tree, and leave 'em thar to give him a lesson.' An' Jim, I guess ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... same for a poor devil of a husband? I'll make you comfortable until you get into Davis', but don't you ever let on to these damned women that you're a failure, or that you're strapped, or that that measly little wife of yours gave you the sack. No, sir! Remember who you are. You are my nephew. I won't say as I'm proud of you, but, by thunder! I don't want anybody in Blakeville to know that I'm ashamed of you. If I feel that way about you, it's ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon |
