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More "Gab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... get our business finished, and we can talk after. I am offerin' three hundred pounds, twenty acres of land, five cows, six sheep, three clockin' hens, and a clutch of ducklin's, and want to know without any palaverin' or old gab, whether or not yourself and Sir Denis ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... Captain Zeb, mopping his forehead. "How be you, Keziah? What? You ain't all alone! Thought you'd have a cabin full of gab machines by this time. Have ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... guarantee. And to prove my impartiality, listen—here's the sum and substance of Mr. Insarov. No talents, none, no poetry, any amount of capacity for work, an immense memory, an intellect not deep nor varied, but sound and quick, dry as dust, and force, and even the gift of the gab when the talk's about his—between ourselves let it be said—tedious Bulgaria. What! do you say I am unjust? One remark more: you'll never come to Christian names with him, and none ever has been on such terms with him. I, of course, ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... and lowering herself upon the kitchen couch, the springs of which squeaked complainingly under her weight, "Wa-al, 'tain't scurcely wuth doin' the dishes now. Jason'll stop and gab 'ith some one. It takes him ferever an' a day ter git a pail o' water. You go on about your play, Niece Janice. I'll git ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... boy. I've heard of what you did, an' you don't talk much. I'm glad of that. I can do all the talkin' that's needed by the three of us. The Lord created me with a love of gab." ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... altogether talk, March," answered Remsen, "that makes a good lawyer. Brains count some. If you get where you can conduct a case to a successful result you will never miss the 'gift o' the gab.' Talking's the little end of the horn in my profession, ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... know the tricks played on poor Father Chevrel by that Monsieur Noverre, by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and especially by Monsieur Philidor! They are a set of rascals; I know them well! They all have a gab and nice manners. Ah, your ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... know exactly where I stand, you—you huzzy!" he said, grinning satyrically as she winced under the insult. "I'm your father, damn you! Your father—do you hear? And I'll not have you go back East to gab and gossip about me. You'll stay here, and you'll bear witness against Dakota, and you'll keep quiet about me!" He was trembling horribly as he came close to her, and his breath was ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... gab aber im Alterthum noch einen erlaubten Ausweg fuer die Verbindung vorneluner Maenner mit geringen (freien und selbst unfreien) Frauen, den Concubinat, der ohne feierliches Verloebniss, ohne Brautgabe und Mitgift eingegangen wurde, mithin keine wahre ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various
... down, like a turkey gobbler, an' bellered out a lot o' that high-falutin' gab. I reckon I know how to shove an idee under their hides. Ye got to raise yer voice an' look solemn an' point at the stars. A powerful lot o' Injuns trailed back to Sir Bill, but they was a few went over to the French. I kind o' mistrust thar's ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... "Stow ye gab!" growled the man Tom. "Gi'e him one for 'is nob, Jimmy." But as his nearer captor raised his cudgel, I sprang ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Paddock, making the deuce of a row at the smoking-room door. Paddock was a fellow I had done a good turn to out on the Selakwe, and I had inspanned him as my servant as soon as I got to England. He had about as much gift of the gab as a hippopotamus, and was not a great hand at valeting, but I knew I could ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... us ask him to show us the scold's, or gossip's, bridle. This is a rare curiosity, which is kept in the vestry. It would seem, from all that can be learned, that two hundred years ago there were in England viragoes so virulent, women so gifted with gab and so loaded and primed with the devil's own gunpowder, that all moral suasion was wasted on them, and simply showed, as old Reisersberg wrote, that fatue agit qui ignem conatur extinguere sulphure ('t is all nonsense ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... that way," she cried. "But from what you tell me I imagine that all a man needs is a front and plenty of punch. You've got the front all right with your looks and gift of gab, and I leave it to Young Brophy if ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I to say, your honor?" asked Chips, scratching his head. "I haven't got the gift of the gab ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... not do so; you don't see the matter in its proper light. You shall go to see her, and, with your honeyed tongue and the gift of the gab that nature has bestowed upon you, you will put some resignation into her soul, and leave her consoled for your departure; and if you tell her, in addition to this, that you love her, and that it is only for the sake of God you are leaving ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... to, aren't they?" demanded Darrin. "And now, Danny boy, we simply must stow all gab and get busy with our lessons. We've a recitation between now and the ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... scientific branches of amputation, from the scalp-lock to the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, dug ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the devil haven't you had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, mind; and don't you open your heads to talk till the grub's gone, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... shall hyeah his thundah, Lak a blas' f'om Gab'el's ho'n, Fu' de Lawd of hosts is mighty When he girds his ahmor on. But fu' feah some one mistakes me, I will pause right hyeah to say, Dat I 'm still a-preachin' ancient, I ain't talkin' ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... could pack the reserved benches from dirt to canvas. Honest, we could! Say, Mister, lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent end, while you do the polite gab at the main entrance, and if we don't lug away the daily receipts in sugar barrels I'll own the boxin' kangaroos for first cousins. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime! What do you say ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... snarled, "you'd better just stow your gab. You're lucky to be here yourself, let alone botherin' your thick head about anybody else, and you can kiss the Book on that! Do you know why you ain't with them carrion?" He jerked his thumb toward the beach. "It's because Solomon Anderson's your ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... den pfaffen raten an den triuwen min, So spraeche ir haut den armen zuo: se, daz ist din, Ir zunge suenge, unde lieze mengem man daz sin, Gedaehten daz ouch si dur Got waeren almuosenaere. Do gab ir erste teil der Kuenik Konstantin, Het er gewest, daz da von uebel kuenftik waere, So het er wol underkomen des riches swaere, Wan daz si do waren kiusche, und uebermuete laere. Hagen, Minnesinger-Sammlung, Leipsic, 1838, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... break down the ceremonious reserve of the severest old patriarch in the whole Greek Church, and completely carry him by storm; while I could only sit by and smile feebly, without being able to say a word. Great is "the gift o' gab." ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... be [1] True to this fraternity; That I will in all obey Rule and order of the lay. Never blow the gab or squeak; [2] Never snitch to bum or beak; [3] But religiously maintain Authority of those who reign Over Stop Hole Abbey green, [4] Be their tawny king, or queen. In their cause alone will fight; Think what they think, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... had taken too much to drink,—which he did, after the Danish fashion, far oftener than the rest of Baldwin's men,—he grew rude, boastful, quarrelsome. He would chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades, simply to laugh down a fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Mountain. He had gone all on a sudden as cool as Dick, and nothing but his stertorous breathing hinted of the rage which filled him. 'That's it, is it? Then, if you're finished, hear me. I ain't got the gift o' the gab as free as you, but I can mek plain my meanin', p'raps. I'd rather see her a-layin' theer '(he pointed with a trembling hand at the ground between them); 'I'd rather lay her there, dead afore my eyes, an' screw ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... had the gift of what is called "the gab," and was fond of exercising it,—"yes; it knocked me flat on ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... Gab[)a]li, an ancient people of Gaul, inhabiting the country of Givaudan. Their chief city was Anduitum, now Mende, G. vii. 64; they join the general confederacy of Vercingetorix, and give hostages ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... there? There's time for everyone to give out their chat and their gab, and to do their business and take their ease and have a comfortable life, only the King! The beasts of the field have leave to lay themselves down in the meadow and to stretch their limbs on the green grass in the heat of the day, without being ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... give you the tip: this move, you know, to Ballarat, that he's drivin' at: what'ull you bet me there isn't a woman in the case? Fact! 'Pon my word there is. And a devilish fine woman, too!" He shut one eye and laid a finger along his nose. "You won't blow the gab?—that's why you couldn't have your parleyvoo this morning. When milady comes to town H. O.'s NON EST as long as she's here. And she with a hubby of her own, too! What 'ud our old pa say ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Owd Sammy, "an' so tha'rt th' new rector, art ta? I thowt as mich as another ud spring up as soon as th' owd un wur cut down. Tha parsens is a nettle as dunnot soon dee oot. Well, I'll leave thee to th' owd lass here. Hoo's a rare un fur gab when hoo' taks th' notion, an' I'm noan so mich i' th' humor t' argufy mysen today." And he took his pipe from the mantelpiece and strolled out with an imperturbable air. But this was not the last of the matter. The Rector went again ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "Stow yer gab, Jarge," retorted Surly, more surly than ever, "you be a sight too fond o' usin' that theer voice o' your'n!" saying which he turned ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... said Dumbiedikes, 'I were as young and as supple as you, and had the gift o' the gab as ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... "Romanische Forschungen", xxiii. 401-413). These names are mentioned here in connection with the brave exploits which Christian knights, while in their cups, may boast that they will accomplish (F.). This practice of boasting was called indulging in "gabs" (Eng. "gab"), a good instance of which will be found in "Le Voyage de Charlemagne a Jeruslaem" (ed. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... that I must lead off," said Malcolm, "because I am supposed to possess the gift of gab. But, if I do, I am not going to use it for any rhetorical effect to-day. Simple, earnest words must express the deepest feelings of the heart in doing justice to its own. Brothers and sisters, we meet to-day under our own roof-tree, surrounded by the benedictions of the past years. Perhaps invisible ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... gone all on a sudden as cool as Dick, and nothing but his stertorous breathing hinted of the rage which filled him. 'That's it, is it? Then, if you're finished, hear me. I ain't got the gift o' the gab as free as you, but I can mek plain my meanin', p'raps. I'd rather see her a-layin' theer '(he pointed with a trembling hand at the ground between them); 'I'd rather lay her there, dead afore my eyes, an' screw her in her coffin a'terwards, than you or any o' your kin should as much as look at ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... lan' shall hyeah his thundah, Lak a blas' f'om Gab'el's ho'n, Fu' de Lawd of hosts is mighty When he girds his ahmor on. But fu' feah some one mistakes me, I will pause right hyeah to say, Dat I 'm still a-preachin' ancient, I ain't ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... their last dresses; And, by some devilish cantrip slight, Each in its cauld hand held a light— By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet-airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns; A thief, new cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled; A knife, a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o' life bereft, The grey hairs yet stack to the heft; Wi' mair, o' horrible and awfu', Which ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... were drinking the Duke's health, singing and speechifying with vociferous applause, shouting, and clapping of hands. I never knew before that oratory had got down into the servants' hall, but learned that it is the custom for those to whom 'the gift of the gab' has been vouchsafed to harangue the others, the palm of eloquence being universally conceded to Mr. Tapps the head coachman, a man of great abdominal dignity, and whose Ciceronian brows are adorned with an ample flaxen ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... sind die heil'gen zehn Gebot', Die uns gab unser Herre Gott Durch Mosen, seinen Diener treu, Hoch auf ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... und ein Meer von bitteren Leiden Die Italienerin gab—Seligkeit, Seligkeit nur Laessest Du mich entzuendend, begeistert, befaendig empfinden, In der Spanierin fand Liebe und Leben ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... "Gab. That's a divil of a name to call anybody. Last time I was in here Cap'n Sam Hunniwell heard you call me that and I cal'lated he'd die laughin'. Seemed to cal'late there was somethin' specially dum funny about it. I don't call it funny. Say, speakin' of Cap'n ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... too much talk nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort on any thought, just like walking, the motion just ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... Robinson, harrangue na mair, But steek your gab forever, Or try the wicked town of Ayr, For there they'll think ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... "Stow your gab!" snarled the navvy. "Here's the rum all gettin' loose." Picking up the bottle he took a pull of what was left in it. "Here's the bag, parson," he whispered, pulling a black linen bag from his pocket. "We haven't made much noise over ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... amputation, from the scalp-lock to the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, dug ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... that way," the captain warned, "so jist shet yer dirty mouths. I've heard sich gab before, and it doesn't jar me in ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... reminded him of his mother-in-law. He was a baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to understand them, but ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... stow the gab," called Buckrow from the head of the companion, but in suppressed tones. "Keep yer lip shut, the afterguards are on deck here and I don't know where Thirkle is. Slip along and give us a hand with a knife or a gun. Looks like we'll settle ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... de batalla campal! Oh! (Prestando atencin, como si oyese algn ruido, y mirando otra vez muy sobresaltado hacia la puerta del foro.) No, nada. Se me ha colgado de los faldones del gabn..., de la corbata, que si tira algo ms me ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... Vasily Karlych? Have we not labored for you? We are much satisfied with our late mistress—may she enjoy eternal life!—and we are grateful to the young Prince for thinking of us," began a red-haired peasant with a gift of gab. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... a supercargo. He is just like any mortal: he has taken a drink of their Lethe up there, and forgotten to come back to us. He'll be wrestling with the lads, or playing on his lyre, or giving his precious gift of the gab a good airing; or he's off after plunder, the rascal, for what I know: 'tis all in the day's work with him. He is getting too independent: he ought to remember that he belongs to us, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... not a preacher or a Mormon. I haven't got the gift of gab. Charleton is a good talker. Let him ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... wager you will see them Climbing upon the thatch of their low sties, With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail 400 Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps Of one another's ears between their teeth, To catch the coming hail of comfits in. You, Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab, Make them a solemn speech to this effect: 405 I go to put in readiness the feast Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine, Where, for more glory, let the ceremony Take place of the uglification ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... about," she said musingly. "Must 'a' been something mighty important, but it's slipped my memory, sure. I do ricollect, though, hearin' Sam Amos say to old Squire Bentham, 'What's the matter, anyhow? Ain't Kentucky politicians got enough gift o' gab, without sendin' down to Tennessee to git ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... members of the squadron were engaged in the usual after mess gab fest, an orderly entered with a summons for McGee and Larkin to report to Major Cowan. Larkin had just that day secured a misfitting regulation issue uniform from the Supply Officer, Robinson, and the group had been having a great ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... media, and sustenit the disputt thairupon, and was approven in both. The following ministers were present, Mr. Patrik Gillespie, Mr. David Dicksone, Doctor Jhone Strang, Mr. Zach. Boyde, Mr. George Young, Mr. Hew Blair, Mr. Gab. Conyngham, Mr. David Benett, Mr. Matthew Mackill. Mr. Wm. Young, Mr. Arch. Dennestoune, Mr. Jhone Carstaires, Mr. James Hamilton." The presbytery "ordaines Mr. Hugh Binnen to make ye exercise this daye fyfteen dayes, and the rest of his tryels to be ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... who I mean. Why, she's even taught me to cut out slang. Say, Bobby, I didn't know how much like a rough-neck I used to talk. I never opened my yawp but what I spilled a line of fricasseed gab so twisted and frazzled and shredded you could use it to stuff sofa-cushions; but now I've handed that string of talk the screw number. No more ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... here too, as well as there. Slavery speeches are all Bunkum; so are reform speeches, too. Do you think them fellers that keep up such an everlastin' gab about representation, care one cent about the extension of franchise? Why no, not they; it's only to secure their seats to gull their constituents, to get a name. Do you think them goneys that make ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... long-headed and witty for him. After now in vain endeavouring to find something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and looking fiercely at Varney, he said,—"I don't pretend to a gift of the gab. D—n me, it ain't one of my peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, you sha'n't ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... of what simple dialect-poems should be. Above all, Mrs. Tweddell has the gift of humour; this is well illustrated by the song, "Dean't mak gam o' me," and also by her well-known prose story, "Awd Gab o' Steers." Her most sustained effort in verse is the poem entitled " T' Awd Cleveland Customs," in which she gives us a delightful picture of the festive seasons of the Cleveland year from " Newery Day," with its "lucky bod," to "Kessamus," with ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... than he could stagger under; a disposition fiery, mercurial, sanguine, witty; he was made, according to Billy Fairfax's dictum, of "wire and brass tacks," and he possessed what Honey Smith (who himself had no mean gift in that direction) called "the gift of gab." He lived by writing magazine articles. Also he wrote fiction, verse, and drama. Also he was a painter. Also he was a musician. In short, ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... conciliatory demeanor of the Evangelicals, especially of Melanchthon and Brueck, had made it impossible to rouse the Emperor to such a degree as the exigency of the case demanded. (Plitt, 63.) Luther wrote: "For that shameless gab and bloodthirsty sophist, Doctor Eck, one of their chief advisers, publicly declared in the presence of our people that if the Emperor had followed the resolution made at Bononia, and, immediately on entering Germany, had courageously attacked ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... his race he possessed the gift of gab, as the silver in the tongue and the gold in the full or thick-lipped mouth are oftentimes contemptuously characterized. And like many of his race he was a devoted student of the Bible to whose interpretation he brought like many other Bible students, ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... replied Fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, Charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers—"Artful Dodger—shrieks of laughter—here the court ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... answered, 'there's some hev a talent fer sawin' wood, but we don't count that. It's war an' speakin', they are the two great talents of the Yankee. But his greatest talent is the gift o' gab. Give him a chance t' talk it over with his enemy an' he'll lick 'im without a fight. An' when his enemy is another Yankee—why, they both git licked, jest as it was in the case of the man thet sold me lightnin' rods. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... and southwest, is to be everything. Eloquence implies wisdom—at least all the wisdom which is supposed to be necessary in making lawyers and law-makers—a precious small modicum of a material by no means precious. I was supposed to have the gift of the gab in moderate perfection, and my hearers were indulgent. My name obtained circulation, and, in a short time, I discovered that, in a professional as well as personal point of view, I had no reason to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... agent. You look as if you had a gift of the gab. A successful life insurance agent will make a good deal more than ten dollars ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... leave, "to look sharp if you see a forty-five-year-old damsel, with a little bright red face, all ears an' no chin, like the ace o' hearts. That'll be Miss Pickett. She'll have with her, like as not, a stout married lady, all gab an' gizzard, like a crow, an' a mouth like a new buttonhole. That'll be Mrs. Pennycook. Look out ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... the gab!" he said. He tossed his coat aside and skimmed his cap after it. "Come on, you runt, and ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... sadly deficient in what is called the gift of gab, had no soothing words at his command, full as his heart was of compassion. And after sitting some time by the unhappy boy, patting him softly on the shoulder, he arose, and went away; concluding that his absence would be a relief to one ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... this collection are models of what simple dialect-poems should be. Above all, Mrs. Tweddell has the gift of humour; this is well illustrated by the song, "Dean't mak gam o' me," and also by her well-known prose story, "Awd Gab o' Steers." Her most sustained effort in verse is the poem entitled " T' Awd Cleveland Customs," in which she gives us a delightful picture of the festive seasons of the Cleveland year from ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... too, as well as there. Slavery speeches are all Bunkum; so are reform speeches, too. Do you think them fellers that keep up such an everlastin' gab about representation, care one cent about the extension of franchise? Why no, not they; it's only to secure their seats to gull their constituents, to get a name. Do you think them goneys that make such a touss about the Arms' Bill, care about the Irish? No, not they; they want Irish votes, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... commission. It'll pay best in the long run to have a good man, there are so many seedy duffers about," said little Sampson, drawing his faded cloak loftily around him. "You want an eloquent, persuasive man, with a gift of the gab—" ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... not the man who in new surroundings would be quick to every whisper of opinion. But he had been born and bred in Barbie, and he knew his townsmen—oh yes, he knew them. He knew they laughed because he had no gift of the gab, and could never be Provost, or Bailie, or Elder, or even Chairman of the Gasworks! Oh, verra well, verra well; let Connal and Brodie and Allardyce have the talk, and manage the town's affairs (he was damned if they should manage his!)—he, for his part, preferred the substantial ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... House of the Lord, you mean, my son, "For in my time at least there was but one; Unless such many-fold priests as these "Seek, even in their LORD, pluralities!"[3] "No time for gab," quoth the man in lace: Then slamming the door in St. Jerome's face With a curse to the single knockers all Went to finish his port in the servants' hall, And propose a toast (humanely meant To include even Curates in its extent) "To all ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Dennis," said Stover, smiling reminiscently, "I used to have the gift of gab once, almost ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... his face close to the others, his eyes burning, his breath hot in Garth's blanched face, "you queer this deal with your infernal gab ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... any of this gab be floating round at all? There ain't no sense in it, but that don't stop it. Mack,"—the Captain leaned eagerly toward his young friend,—"don't tell me nothing you don't want to, but what happened up to Jim ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... "I am going to make a balloon excursion to-morrow. I didn't mention it to the society because these fellows gab so. There'd be a great crowd round, and I'd only have been hampered. When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better. That is what I have always found. Ever ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... sure to do that," said the delighted Bailie, "for it's a fact. Ye're a fine laddie and have a fearsome power o' the gab (mouth); I expect to see ye in the pulpit yet; but keeps a' it's time I was at the Black Bull, so ye micht juist slip in and tell the Rector I'm at the ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... like a turkey gobbler, an' bellered out a lot o' that high-falutin' gab. I reckon I know how to shove an idee under their hides. Ye got to raise yer voice an' look solemn an' point at the stars. A powerful lot o' Injuns trailed back to Sir Bill, but they was a few went over to the French. I kind o' mistrust thar's some o' them runnygades ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... useter flosserfize About the ocean an' the skies; An' gab an' gas f'um morn till noon About the other side the moon; An' 'bout the natur of the place Ten miles beyend the end of space. An' if his wife she'd ask the crank Ef he wouldn't kinder try to yank Hisself out-doors an' git some wood To make her kitchen fire ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... was still a young man—a callant, the folk said—fu' o' book learnin' and grand at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae leevin' experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi' his gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the days o' the moderates—weary fa' them; ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... everything appeared up to date, and his establishment became one of the show-places in the neighbourhood. The gardener, an elderly man, was quite a character. He was an Irishman and an Orangeman as well, and had naturally what was known in those parts as "the gift of the gab." The squire's wife was also proud of her plants, and amongst the visitors to the gardens were many ladies, who often asked the gardener the name of a plant that was strange to them. As no doubt he considered it infra dig. to say he did not know, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... meanwhile, Joshua Daunton grew more and more sleek, and pale, and fat. He throve upon our miseries. He played his part at length so well, as to avoid thrashings. He possessed, in perfection, that which, in classic cockpit, is called "the gift of the gab." He was never in the wrong. Indeed, he began to get a favourite with each of the individuals over whom he was so mercilessly tyrannising, while each thought himself the tyrant. All this may seem improbable to well-nurtured, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... young paddy," said uncle Jacob, as he saw the dominie retire; "you have beaten the minister holler. Ha! ha! ha! I am really glad you silenced his gab, for he is 'tarnally blabbing about his religion; though I think he hain't much of it himself, except counterfeit stuff, like a bad bill,—ha! ha!—that he ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... quite a gab-wireless operating along-coast and sailors don't always keep their yawp closed after they have taken a man's money to keep still," stated Captain Wass, pointedly. "I wouldn't blame you for grabbing ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... talk nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort on any thought, just like walking, the motion just goes ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... forcibly. Nine Boers were shot down; three on the British side were injured. Meanwhile the force under Major Peakman was protesting at Carter's Farm. The enemy there made a bold effort to silence Peakman. But a Maxim gun has a remarkable gift of the gab; the Major had one with him, and he let it do all the talking—with results that quickly drove the Boers beyond the ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... after time I've missed scoring a point because the other man has had the gift of the gab and I haven't. Oh, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... and shifted his quid and spoke. "Tell ye what 'tis, all of ye," said he—"it's mighty easy talkin' an' givin' away gab instead of dollars. I'll bet ye anything ye'll put up that there ain't one of ye out of the whole damned lot that 'ain't got any money that would give it ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... classica quos collegit E.F. Badenhaupt, Berol, 1773, 8vo. The pithy bibliographical notes which are here and there scattered throughout this catalogue, render it of estimation in the opinion of the curious.——BALUZE. Bibliotheca Balusiana; seu catalogus librorum bibliothecae D.S. Baluzii, A. Gab. Martin, Paris, 1719, 8vo., two vols. Let any enlightened bibliographers read the eulogy upon the venerable Baluze (who died in his eighty-eighth year, and who was the great Colbert's librarian), in the preface ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... been promoted to be non-commissioned officer! That everlasting chatterer, who only owed it to his gift of the gab that he had been able to boast of himself as confidential ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... me about knowing," said the other, rather contemptuously. "Sure I gev in to you that he has a power o' prate, and the gift o' the gab, and all to that. I own to you that he has the-o-ry, and che-mis-thery, but he hasn't the craps. Now, the man that has the craps is the man for ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... Methodist ministers in the wilds of Upper Canada, and I trust they will, by all Christian means and measures, support Her Majesty's Government in Canada. May the Holy and Blessed God give us peace, and good government in our day. I have been a little vexed with the travelling gab of one of our own former friends, who is pleased to inform the people that you were the sole cause of the late rebellion. I must tell him, the first time I meet with him, that the meaning of his sing-song ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... such thing," Henley retorted, with an effort to control his rising temper. "I can't be responsible for the slap-dash way he puts things. I don't like his eternal gab, nohow." ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... arao. Thus the Tagalogs now reckon ysang arao, "one day;" dalauang arao, "two [days]," and so on until they have the difference of weeks, which they call by the name Domingo, saying "so many Domingos." [355] The night is called gab-i; and the day arao, from the name of the sun. The months were named and reckoned by the name of the moon, namely, bovan in Tagalog. Thus did they divide the seasons after their own manner, and in their own speech. Only there are ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... Cornelius was the hit of the season with Uncle Peter, though, of course, Aunt Flora didn't make good with that 'You betcher sweet!' monologue of hers. How could she? Even at that, she stands better with me than some conversational queens I know who get so busy with the gab they make ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... haven't you had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, mind; and don't you open your heads to talk till the ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... they've been building their books on. How now, my spry veteran? Only a boy On a three-legged crock? Well, I own you are older, And watching your riding's a thing to enjoy; There isn't a Jock who is defter and bolder; Your power, authority, eloquence—yes, For your gift of the gab is a caution—are splendid; But—the youngster may teach you a lesson, I guess, As to judgment of pace ere ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... Una especie de batalla campal! Oh! (Prestando atencin, como si oyese algn ruido, y mirando otra vez muy sobresaltado hacia la puerta del foro.) No, nada. Se me ha colgado de los faldones del gabn..., de la corbata, que si tira algo ms me ahoga. ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... act up to it theirselves, though. Look at them there Labour members of Parliament—a lot of b—rs what's too bloody lazy to work for their livin'! What the bloody 'ell was they before they got there? Only workin' men, the same as you and me! But they've got the gift o' the gab and—' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... fine gentleman of a supercargo. He is just like any mortal: he has taken a drink of their Lethe up there, and forgotten to come back to us. He'll be wrestling with the lads, or playing on his lyre, or giving his precious gift of the gab a good airing; or he's off after plunder, the rascal, for what I know: 'tis all in the day's work with him. He is getting too independent: he ought to remember that he belongs to us, one half ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... on the carronade—first lieutenant, says he, Send all my merry men aft here, for they must list to me: I havn't the gift of the gab, my sons—because I'm bred to the sea, That ship there is a Frenchman, who means to fight with we. Odds blood, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, I've fought 'gainst every ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... He worked there, as he said himself, 'like a horse;' spent his mornings in the schools, his afternoons in the cottages; preached four or five extempore sermons every week to overflowing congregations; took the lead, by virtue of the 'gift of the gab,' at all 'religious' meetings for ten miles round; and really did a great deal of good in his way. He had an unblushing candour about his own worldly ambition, with a tremendous brogue; and prided himself on exaggerating deliberately both of ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... noch ausserdem das Werk von der groessten Bedeutung, indem es mich an das Miterlebte theils erinnerte, theils mir manches Uebersehene nun vorfuehrte, mich auf einem unerwarteten Standpunkt versetzte, mir zu erwaegen gab was ich fuer abgeschlossen hielt, und besonders auch mich befaehigte die Gegner dieses wichtigen Werkes, an denen es nicht fehlen kann, zu beurtheilen und die Einwendungen, die sie von ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... health, singing and speechifying with vociferous applause, shouting, and clapping of hands. I never knew before that oratory had got down into the servants' hall, but learned that it is the custom for those to whom 'the gift of the gab' has been vouchsafed to harangue the others, the palm of eloquence being universally conceded to Mr. Tapps the head coachman, a man of great abdominal dignity, and whose Ciceronian brows are adorned with an ample flaxen wig, which is the peculiar distinction of the functionaries ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... 'Stow this gab,' roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. 'You, boy,' he said, addressing John, 'you look as if you had a little pluck in you. Didst never want to be ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... you will, stranger," he said sadly, "with that gift o' gab o' yourn." He turned without another word or nod of good-by and started back up the ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... had recourse to his old expedient, and unburthened the tumult of his thoughts to his confidential friend. "This," cried he, "is a new artifice of the fellow, to prove his imagined superiority. We knew well enough that he had the gift of the gab. To be sure, if the world were to be governed by words, he would be in the right box. Oh, yes, he had it all hollow! But what signifies prating? Business must be done in another guess way than that. I wonder what possessed me that I did not kick him I But that is all to come. This is ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... race he possessed the gift of gab, as the silver in the tongue and the gold in the full or thick-lipped mouth are oftentimes contemptuously characterized. And like many of his race he was a devoted student of the Bible to whose interpretation he ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent end, while you do the polite gab at the main entrance, and if we don't lug away the daily receipts in sugar barrels I'll own the boxin' kangaroos for first cousins. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime! What do you ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... hour or so to talk, Mr. Philander, sir?" he asked. "I've got a couple of ideas I'd like to gab with you about, that I think might ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... said Endicott evasively, "that Michael has a great gift of gab! Would you like to stop and ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... would serve you right," Gerald responded, slightly impatient. "You girls have no right to treat us this way. We brought you with us to give you a good time, and it seems that you might respect our wishes a little. No one can catch fish with a regular gab-fest going on on ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... say everything to you, at the risk of being scolded, or censured, or misunderstood. Your silence and seclusion in the country, at the time when you might be in Paris enjoying all the Parliamentary honors of the Comte de l'Estorade, cause me serious anxiety. You know that your husband's "gift of gab" and unsparing zeal have won for him quite a position here, and he will doubtless receive some very good post when the session is over. Pray, do you spend your life writing him letters of advice? Numa was not so far ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... he. "You were all having such a love feast gab-fest when I blew in. This is Mr. Orde, who bosses this place—and most of the country around here. If you want to do good to humanity on this meadow you'd better begin by being good to him. He controls it. He's humanity with ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... "Stow the gab, you big Finn! I'm through. Pay me off and help yourself to another second mate." And Matt put on his coat and whistled to the winchman to steady his slingload while he climbed out of the hold. Kjellin followed and Matt preceded him to his stateroom, where the captain paid ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... like it." Jock was in arms at once against any suspected criticism. "He's got more sand than many a blasted heavyweight. You ought to hear his gab—it's the newest thing in soul-saving. Sort o' homeopathic doctrine. Tastes good, but bitter as pisen under the coating. Real stuff inside, and all that. Get's working after it's taken, and the sweet taste lasts in your mouth while your innards are ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... a' in order; His doxy lay within his arm; Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm She blinkit on her sodger; An' aye he gies the tozie drab The tither skelpin' kiss, While she held up her greedy gab, Just like an aumous dish; Ilk smack still, did crack still, Just like a cadger's whip; Then staggering an' swaggering ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... aunt, yawning and lowering herself upon the kitchen couch, the springs of which squeaked complainingly under her weight, "Wa-al, 'tain't scurcely wuth doin' the dishes now. Jason'll stop and gab 'ith some one. It takes him ferever an' a day ter git a pail o' water. You go on about your play, Niece Janice. I'll git ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... call him Heliogabalus," said the doctor; "but he is generally known by the name of Gab, which is a more convenient appellation for ordinary use. I picked him up on the road to Santa Fe. I have no great faith in his honesty; but as I wanted an attendant, I engaged him—though I strongly suspect he is a runaway, and very ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... with your scarf, Jim,' said Murgatroyd. 'When Venables comes he will soon find a way to check his gab. Yes,' he continued, looking at the back of my papers, 'it is marked, as you say, "From James the Second of England, known lately as the Duke of Monmouth, to Henry Duke of Beaufort, President of Wales, by ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "of a nation that loves to laugh, and you make sport with yourselves, and with others, by telling what is impossible, and reporting what never chanced. Thou art one of the knights of France, who hold it for glee and pastime to GAB, as they term it, of exploits that are beyond human power. [Gaber. This French word signified a sort of sport much used among the French chivalry, which consisted in vying with each other in making the most romantic ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... godmothers, and a silver mug, and a knife and fork in a case, with 'GAB' written on the handles. Only I mayn't use them till I'm seven, in ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Seligkeit und ein Meer von bitteren Leiden Die Italienerin gab—Seligkeit, Seligkeit nur Laessest Du mich entzuendend, begeistert, befaendig empfinden, In der Spanierin fand Liebe und ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... experiences were trying and some were amusing. Discussion was often relieved by rare bits of eloquence and surprising use of language. Pronunciation was frequently original and unprecedented. Amazing ignorance was unconcealed and the gift of gab was unrestrained. Nothing quite equaled in fatal facility a progress report made by a former member soon after his debut: "We think we shall soon be able to bring chaos out of the present disorder, now existing." On one of our trips of investigation the City ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... Bold when they're sunny, and smooth when they're showery— Oh, but the style of you, fluent and flowery! Chesterfield's way, with a touch of the Bowery! How would they silence you, Barney machree? Naught can your gab allay, Learned as Rabelais (You in his abbey lay Once on the spree). Here's to the smile of you, (Oh, but the guile of you!) And a long while of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... devilish cantrip[78] slight, Each in its cauld hand held a light, By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;[79] Twa span-lang, wee unchristened bairns; A thief new-cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab[80] did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had strangled; A knife a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o' life bereft— The gray hairs yet stack to the heft: Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu', Which ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... opinion, too," he agreed; "but a fellow needs some help sometimes, if he ain't over handy with the gift of gab." ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... hyeah his thundah, Lak a blas' f'om Gab'el's ho'n, Fu' de Lawd of hosts is mighty When he girds his ahmor on. But fu' feah some one mistakes me, I will pause right hyeah to say, Dat I 'm still a-preachin' ancient, ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... park-trees of England, and their descendants promise to abide for as many generations to come. In size, form, and color they differ but little from the American crow, but are swifter on the wing, with greater "gift of the gab," and less dignified in general deportment, though more given to aristocratic airs. Although they emigrated from France long before "La Democratic Sociale" was ever heard of in that country, they may be considered the founders of the Socialistic theory and practice; and to this day ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... much. That man has the gift of gab. He can wrap you right around his finger, I reckon," Larry ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... devilish cantrip slight {150f} Each in its cauld hand held a light, - By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; {150g} Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted: Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled; A knife, a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o' life bereft, The grey hairs ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... raten an den triuwen min, So spraeche ir haut den armen zuo: se, daz ist din, Ir zunge suenge, unde lieze mengem man daz sin, Gedaehten daz ouch si dur Got waeren almuosenaere. Do gab ir erste teil der Kuenik Konstantin, Het er gewest, daz da von uebel kuenftik waere, So het er wol underkomen des riches swaere, Wan daz si do waren kiusche, und uebermuete laere. Hagen, Minnesinger-Sammlung, Leipsic, ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... "speech-band." If it is cut in children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot take hold of the mother's breast, but always slips off. Hofler ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... sounde. Enter Orlando, Reinaldo leading Ganelon, Oliver, Didier; two herses, one with Eldegr. & Gab., the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... Ancient, "shut thy mouth, lad hold thy gab an' give thy poor old feyther a chance—I be tellin' 'im so fast as I can! As I was a-sayin', Peter like a fur'us lion were Jarge wi' they keepers—eight on 'em, Peter—like dogs, a-growlin' an' growlin', an' leapin', and worryin' all round ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... course held to be their fault that the lines of the besiegers have not been forced. General Trochu is not a military genius, and his colleagues have not proved themselves better administrators than half a dozen lawyers who have got themselves elected to a legislative assembly by the gift of the gab were likely to be; but still this system of sacrificing the leaders whenever any disaster takes place, and accusing them of treachery and incompetence, is one of the worst features in the French character. If it continues, eventually every man of rank ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... property to a saloonkeeper, or turn it into a moving-picture house and burn people to death in the rotten old fire-trap. And if you don't raise your hand, when I come to you fair and square, with an honest story—if you dare to order me out of here, because you've got to gab a lot of your charity drivel to a board of directors, instead of taking the interest any real man would take in something that was real and vital and eating into the very heart of New York life, I'm going to show ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... have enough trouble with our telephone even with Carrie to supply discretion for the whole town. Party lines and rubber ears are the source of all our woe. You know what a party line is, of course. It's a line on which you can have a party and gab merrily back and forth for forty minutes, while some other subscriber is wildly dancing with impatience. Most of our lines have four subscribers apiece, and it's just as hard to live in friendliness on a party line as it is for four families ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... dangerous, and reminded him of his mother-in-law. He was a baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to understand them, but up to the present he had failed. And this did not surprise him exactly, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Germany. For now, said he, procrastination and the conciliatory demeanor of the Evangelicals, especially of Melanchthon and Brueck, had made it impossible to rouse the Emperor to such a degree as the exigency of the case demanded. (Plitt, 63.) Luther wrote: "For that shameless gab and bloodthirsty sophist, Doctor Eck, one of their chief advisers, publicly declared in the presence of our people that if the Emperor had followed the resolution made at Bononia, and, immediately on entering Germany, had ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... where my perception could make out the important things (Like three burly gents wearing hunting rifles, for instance.) They jounced over the rough ground and onto the lead-in road just behind us; another few seconds of gab with our friends and they'd have been ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... up, and see if we could bring any thing out of him by speering cross-questions. Tommy and Benjie trembled from top to toe, like aspen leaves, but fient a word could we make common sense of at all. I wonder who educates these foreign creatures? it was in vain to follow him, for he just gab-gabbled away, like one of the stone masons at the Tower of Babel. At first I was completely bamboozled, and almost dung stupid, though I kent one word of French which I wanted to put to him, so I cried through, "Canna ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... answered Remsen, "that makes a good lawyer. Brains count some. If you get where you can conduct a case to a successful result you will never miss the 'gift o' the gab.' Talking's the little end of the horn ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... to Ballarat, that he's drivin' at: what'ull you bet me there isn't a woman in the case? Fact! 'Pon my word there is. And a devilish fine woman, too!" He shut one eye and laid a finger along his nose. "You won't blow the gab?—that's why you couldn't have your parleyvoo this morning. When milady comes to town H. O.'s NON EST as long as she's here. And she with a hubby of her own, too! What 'ud our old pa ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Wakefield is a born leader. Of course a leader must have the gift of gab. She's a great talker, isn't she? Takes the conversation right into her own hands and keeps ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... PERNELLE You're a servant wench, my girl, and much Too full of gab, and too impertinent And free with your ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... scalp-lock to the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, dug ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... man—a callant, the folk said—fu' o' book-learnin' an' grand at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae leevin' experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi' his gifts an' his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver, an' the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the days o' the Moderates—weary fa' them; but ill things are like guid—they baith come bit by bit, a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... own wretchedness.' His hustings appearances would appear to have been at least marked by fluency, for Burns, his junior by eighteen years, declares his own inability to fight like Montgomerie or 'gab ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... shall,' replied Fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, Charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers—"Artful Dodger—shrieks of laughter—here the court was ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... hell do you know about it?" said Farrington fiercely, turning on the man. "What do you put in your gab for?" ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... Notably in his paper, entitled Literarischer Sansculottismus. See above, p. 4. Regarding Lessing he made this remark to Eckermann (February 7th, 1827): "Bedauert doch den ausserordentlichen Menschen, dass er in einer so erbaermlichen Zeit leben musste, die ihm keine bessern Stoffe gab, als in seinen ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... Walker answered, 'there's some hev a talent fer sawin' wood, but we don't count that. It's war an' speakin', they are the two great talents of the Yankee. But his greatest talent is the gift o' gab. Give him a chance t' talk it over with his enemy an' he'll lick 'im without a fight. An' when his enemy is another Yankee—why, they both git licked, jest as it was in the case of the man thet sold me lightnin' rods. He was sorry he done it before I got through with him. If we did not encourage ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... ner better reason, chile. Folks cyarn' stan' too much er de gab nohow, en' dey sez dat he 'ouldn't let up, but kep' up sech a racket dat dey couldn't git ner sleep. Den at las' ole King George over dar in England sent de hull army clear across de water jes' ter shet ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... glib of gab and fair of face, ignore not my case and men's fear of me; and well thou weetest how I assault the strongly walled place and uproot the vines from base. Wherefore, do as I bid thee, and stand before me even as ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... I suppose, for him to gab all he wants to about his cars and things. By the time we go back to the Post to-night, if we see him again, I'll bet you he tells us what his father is worth and just how many gold chairs ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... remained, who called on me to-day. One, who had shown himself very friendly, began to enlarge on the dangers of the Soudan route. I immediately observed, "God is greater than all the Touaricks." This stopped his gab, and was applauded by the rest. A Ghadamsee bawled out, "Oh! it requires a great deal—much, much, much money to go to Soudan." "How much?" I asked,—"Oh! much, much, much!" was rejoined. "What is much?" "Five hundred dollars!" was shouted out by half a dozen. I coolly observed, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... he had taken too much to drink,—which he did, after the Danish fashion, far oftener than the rest of Baldwin's men,—he grew rude, boastful, quarrelsome. He would chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades, simply to laugh down a fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty of a true knight. Bitter it was to her to hear him announcing ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... you don't see the matter in its proper light. You shall go to see her, and, with your honeyed tongue and the gift of the gab that nature has bestowed upon you, you will put some resignation into her soul, and leave her consoled for your departure; and if you tell her, in addition to this, that you love her, and that it is only for the sake of ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... years since, was pressed on board that d-d fellow Pritchard's sloop-of-war. It was he came off and gave us warning that the Shark was coming round upon us the day Kennedy was done; and he told us how Kennedy had given the information. The gipsies and Kennedy had some quarrel besides. This Gab went to the East Indies in the same ship with your younker, and, sapperment! knew him well, though the other did not remember him. Gab kept out of his eye though, as he had served the States against ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... He began coming to my place of a Sunday evenin', d'ye see, gentlemen?—he'd walk across t' valley up there to Whitcliffe and stop an hour or two, enjoyin' hisself. Well, now, as you're no doubt well aweer, Mr. Eldrick, he were a reight hand at talkin', were yon Parrawhite—he'd t' gift o' t' gab reight enough, and talked well an' all. And of course him an' me, we hed bits o' conversation at times, 'cause he come to t' house reg'lar and sometimes o' week-nights an' all. An' he tell'd me 'at he'd had a deal o' experience i' ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... who had the gift of what is called "the gab," and was fond of exercising it,—"yes; it knocked me flat ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... said the baronet. "There's a good deal in him, I believe! I dare say he's not very bright, but I don't know that we want brightness. A bright financier is the most dangerous man in the world. We've had enough of that already. Give me sound common sense, with just enough of the gab in a man to enable him to say what he's got to say! We don't want more than that nowadays." From which it became evident that Sir Cosmo was satisfied with the new ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... bunch here reckoned as I, bein' gifted with the knack of gab, it fer me to speak for 'em. They're tongue- tied when there's a ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... of his earliest period, Die Lehre (vol. iii. p. 276), published in Hamburgs Waechter, 1817 (Strodtmann, op. cit. i. 54), does seem to show it. In this the young bee, heedless of motherly advice, does not beware of the candle-flame and so "Flamme gab Flammentod." We at once recognize a familiar Persian thought, and are reminded of Goethe's fine line, "Das Lebend'ge will ich preisen das nach Flammentod sich sehnet." (Selige Sehnsucht, ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy
... what you like with," said Cashel, despairingly. "It won't matter what becomes of me. I won't go to the devil for you or any woman if I can help it; and I—but where's the good of saying IF you refuse. I know I don't express myself properly; I'm a bad hand at sentimentality; but if I had as much gab as a poet, I couldn't be any fonder of you, or think more highly ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... he wrote in conclusion, "that nothing may come of our meeting at all. So please don't say a word to anybody when you strike town. You've lived here yourself, and you know that three words hove overboard in Bayport will dredge up gab enough to sink a dictionary. So just keep mum till the business is settled ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... conceptions, to the most indefatigable industry and perseverance, and the most accurate knowledge of the phenomena of nature as they affect his peculiar labours, this man joined an utter want of the 'gift of gab;' he could no more explain to others what he meant to do and how he meant to do it, than he could fly, and therefore the members of the House of Commons, after saying 'There is a rock to be excavated to a depth of more than sixty feet, there ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... see Rebecca as a lady doctor, somehow," mused Mrs. Cobb. "Her gift o' gab is what's goin' to be the makin' of her; mebbe she'll lecture, or recite pieces, like that Portland elocutionist that come out ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... has run off the track, turned upside down and its wheels making a thousand revolutions a minute. A kite in the air without a tail. A ship without a rudder. A clock without hands. A sermon that is all text; the incarnation of gab. Handsome, vivacious, versatile, muscular, neat, clean to the marrow. A judge of the effect of clothes, frugal in food and regular only in habits. With brains enough in his head for twenty men all pulling different ways. A man not bad—a practical ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... later, while members of the squadron were engaged in the usual after mess gab fest, an orderly entered with a summons for McGee and Larkin to report to Major Cowan. Larkin had just that day secured a misfitting regulation issue uniform from the Supply Officer, Robinson, and the group had been having a great deal of fun at his expense. ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... "There's a good deal in him, I believe! I dare say he's not very bright, but I don't know that we want brightness. A bright financier is the most dangerous man in the world. We've had enough of that already. Give me sound common sense, with just enough of the gab in a man to enable him to say what he's got to say! We don't want more than that nowadays." From which it became evident that Sir Cosmo was satisfied with the new political candidate ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... ladies, we must get our business finished, and we can talk after. I am offerin' three hundred pounds, twenty acres of land, five cows, six sheep, three clockin' hens, and a clutch of ducklin's, and want to know without any palaverin' or old gab, whether or not yourself and Sir Denis are prepared ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... such ill effect. "What do you say, Mr. Stephenson?" asked Sir Robert Peel, enjoying the dean's discomfiture. "Why," returned George Stephenson, "I only say this, that of all the powers above and under earth, there seems to me no power so great as the gift of the gab." This is the story. But there are facts which contradict it. The only visit paid by George Stephenson to Drayton Manor was made in the December of 1844, not the January of 1845. The guests (invited for Dec. 14, 1844), were Lord Talbot, Lord ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... she commenced her miserable gift of the gab, that Lyddy used to be free to admit she had a fiery tongue, for all they were such friends. And I'm all for peace myself. I guess, on the whole, ma' be she ain't the one for me, perhaps, and it is as well to look further. Why! what in the world! ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... councillors tell me that my tower may never stand tall, unless its stones and lime are slaked with thy blood—the blood of a fatherless man." "Lord God," cried Merlin, "believe not that my blood will bind your tower together. I hold them for liars who told over such a gab. Bring these prophets before me who prophesy so glibly of my blood, and liars as they are, liars I will prove them to be." The king sent for his sorcerers, and set them before Merlin. After Merlin had regarded them curiously, ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... Historia ex editione Gab Brotier cum Notis et Interpretatione in usum Delphini. Varis Lectionibus Notis Variorum, 12 vols. 8vo. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 44, Saturday, August 31, 1850 • Various
... 'Twas the first thing I said to him, ma'am. 'What do ye mane, ye spalpeen, ye thief o' the world,' says I, 'by miscalling a dacent man out of his name like that?' says I. I gave him all that, miss, and a dale more, though I've forgotten it be now, for the Ryans was always famous for the gift o' the gab!" ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... across t' valley up there to Whitcliffe and stop an hour or two, enjoyin' hisself. Well, now, as you're no doubt well aweer, Mr. Eldrick, he were a reight hand at talkin', were yon Parrawhite—he'd t' gift o' t' gab reight enough, and talked well an' all. And of course him an' me, we hed bits o' conversation at times, 'cause he come to t' house reg'lar and sometimes o' week-nights an' all. An' he tell'd me 'at he'd had a deal o' experience i' racin' matters—whether it were ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... him to show us the scold's, or gossip's, bridle. This is a rare curiosity, which is kept in the vestry. It would seem, from all that can be learned, that two hundred years ago there were in England viragoes so virulent, women so gifted with gab and so loaded and primed with the devil's own gunpowder, that all moral suasion was wasted on them, and simply showed, as old Reisersberg wrote, that fatue agit qui ignem conatur extinguere sulphure ('t is all nonsense to try to quench fire with brimstone). For such diavolas they had made—what ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... choose. Them ez hez, must lose. Them ez knows, won't blab. Them ez guesses, will gab. Them ez borrows, sorrows. Them ez lends, spends. Them ez gives, lives. Them ez keeps dark, is deep. Them ez kin earn; kin keep. Them ez aims, hits. Them ez hez, gits. Them ez waits, win. Them ez ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... gone over an hour, children," said Curly. "Cards don't draw me like a good gab round the fire. And Diana's our ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... expressing what they wish to say, will—if we except the dozen leading men on each side of the House of Commons—compare with that of the more august assemblage. Nine-tenths of the Victorian members possess at least the gift of the gab. In the excitement of the moment, grammar goes to the winds, and h 's fall thick as leaves in Vallombrosa, but they neither hesitate nor falter in their speech, and are nearly all possessed of a good deal of useful practical information. Their behaviour is certainly open to exception, but so ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... was dangerous, and reminded him of his mother-in-law. He was a baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to understand them, but up to the present he had failed. And this did not surprise him exactly, since, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of many tongues, (All over tongues, like rumor) This tributary verse belongs To paint his learned humor. All kinds of gab he knows, I wis, From Latin down to Scottish— As fluent as a parrot is, But far more Polly-glottish. No grammar too abstruse he meets, However dark and verby; He gossips Greek about the streets And often Russ—in urbe. Strange tongues—whate'er you do them call; In short, the man is able To tell ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... despairingly. "It won't matter what becomes of me. I won't go to the devil for you or any woman if I can help it; and I—but where's the good of saying IF you refuse. I know I don't express myself properly; I'm a bad hand at sentimentality; but if I had as much gab as a poet, I couldn't be any fonder of you, or think more highly ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... a gab-wireless operating along-coast and sailors don't always keep their yawp closed after they have taken a man's money to keep still," stated Captain Wass, pointedly. "I wouldn't blame you for grabbing in. You're good-looking enough to do what others ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... chatter at these musters; but on the other hand one seldom seemed to find oneself much forrarder. That is the worst of getting together a swarm of thinkers who are furnished with the gift of the gab and are brimming over with brains. Nothing happens. If a decision was by any chance arrived at, it was of a non-committal nature. The spirit of compromise asserted itself and the Committee adopted a middle course, a course which no doubt fits in well with many of the problems with which governments ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... neist, wi' bleth'rin' gab, Wha speeches wove like ony wab; O' ilk ane's corn aye took a dab, And a' for a fee; Accounts he owed through a' the toun, And tradesmen's tongues nae mair could drown; But now he thought to clout his goun Wi' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... a young man—a callant, the folk said—fu' o' book learnin' and grand at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae leevin' experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi' his gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the days o' the ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... notes which are here and there scattered throughout this catalogue, render it of estimation in the opinion of the curious.——BALUZE. Bibliotheca Balusiana; seu catalogus librorum bibliothecae D.S. Baluzii, A. Gab. Martin, Paris, 1719, 8vo., two vols. Let any enlightened bibliographers read the eulogy upon the venerable Baluze (who died in his eighty-eighth year, and who was the great Colbert's librarian), in the preface of the Bibl. Colbertina (vide post), and in the Dict. Hist. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Koenig in Thule, Gar treu bis an das Grab, Dem sterbend seine Buhle Einen goldnen Becher gab. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... it would 'a' been any comfort to Ivory. I guess Aaron 'n' Jake Cochrane was both of 'em more interested in savin' the sisters' souls than the brothers'! Aaron was a fine-appearin' man, and so was Jake for that matter, 'n' they both had the gift o' gab. There's nothin' like a limber tongue if you want to please the women-folks! If report says true, Aaron died of a fever out in Ohio somewheres; Cortland's the place, I b'lieve. Seems's if he hid his trail all the way from New Hampshire somehow, for as a usual thing, a man ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the baronial park-trees of England, and their descendants promise to abide for as many generations to come. In size, form, and color they differ but little from the American crow, but are swifter on the wing, with greater "gift of the gab," and less dignified in general deportment, though more given to aristocratic airs. Although they emigrated from France long before "La Democratic Sociale" was ever heard of in that country, they may be considered the founders of the Socialistic ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... taken too much to drink,—which he did, after the Danish fashion, far oftener than the rest of Baldwin's men,—he grew rude, boastful, quarrelsome. He would chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades, simply to laugh down a fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty of a true knight. Bitter it was to ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... forty-five retainers had just done dinner and were drinking the Duke's health, singing and speechifying with vociferous applause, shouting, and clapping of hands. I never knew before that oratory had got down into the servants' hall, but learned that it is the custom for those to whom 'the gift of the gab' has been vouchsafed to harangue the others, the palm of eloquence being universally conceded to Mr. Tapps the head coachman, a man of great abdominal dignity, and whose Ciceronian brows are adorned with an ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... qlk daye Mr. Hew Binnen made his Latin lesson, de scientia media, and sustenit the disputt thairupon, and was approven in both. The following ministers were present, Mr. Patrik Gillespie, Mr. David Dicksone, Doctor Jhone Strang, Mr. Zach. Boyde, Mr. George Young, Mr. Hew Blair, Mr. Gab. Conyngham, Mr. David Benett, Mr. Matthew Mackill. Mr. Wm. Young, Mr. Arch. Dennestoune, Mr. Jhone Carstaires, Mr. James Hamilton." The presbytery "ordaines Mr. Hugh Binnen to make ye exercise this daye fyfteen dayes, and the rest of his tryels to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... knapsack a' in order; His doxy lay within his arm; Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm She blinkit on her sodger; An' aye he gies the tozie drab The tither skelpin' kiss, While she held up her greedy gab, Just like an aumous dish; Ilk smack still, did crack still, Just like a cadger's whip; Then staggering an' swaggering ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... that," said the delighted Bailie, "for it's a fact. Ye're a fine laddie and have a fearsome power o' the gab (mouth); I expect to see ye in the pulpit yet; but keeps a' it's time I was at the Black Bull, so ye micht juist slip in and tell the Rector I'm at the ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... especie de batalla campal! Oh! (Prestando atencin, como si oyese algn ruido, y mirando otra vez muy sobresaltado hacia la puerta del foro.) No, nada. Se me ha colgado de los faldones del gabn..., de la corbata, que si tira algo ms me ahoga. ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus
... came no summons to join the soldier master. There had come instead, when Nixon urged that he be permitted to lead forth both his own troop horse and Deltchay, the brief, but significant reply: "Shut yer gab, Nixon. There's no horse goes till the captain ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... gentleman of a supercargo. He is just like any mortal: he has taken a drink of their Lethe up there, and forgotten to come back to us. He'll be wrestling with the lads, or playing on his lyre, or giving his precious gift of the gab a good airing; or he's off after plunder, the rascal, for what I know: 'tis all in the day's work with him. He is getting too independent: he ought to remember that he belongs to us, one ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... he is the more watchin' he'll bear," remarked he. "There's many a villain with an oily gift of gab." ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... said his mother, "that fools spake mighty sinsible betimes; but their wisdom all goes with their gab. Why didn't you take a betther grip of your luck when you had it? You're wishing you wor a gintleman, and yet when you had the best part of a gintleman (the property, I mane) put into your way, you let it slip through your fingers; and afther lettin' a fellow take a ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... "On to more than you'll ever be. You have to empty the gab from your head to leave room ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... The crew of a certain brig came to see her on the day before sailing, and she reproached one of the lads for keeping bad company. "Avast, there, granny," interrupted another, who took the chiding to himself. "None of your slack, or I'll put a stopper on your gab." The old woman sprang erect. Levelling her skinny finger at the man, she screamed, "Moon cursers! You have set false beacons and wrecked ships for plunder. It was your fathers and mothers who decoyed a brig to these sands and left me childless and a widow. ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... "band, cord," so that the word really signifies "speech-band." If it is cut in children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot take hold of the mother's breast, but always slips off. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... light: By which heroic Tam was able To note, upon the haly table, A murderer's banes, in gibbet-airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape— Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had strangled; A knife a father's throat had mangled, Whom, his ain son o' life bereft— The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft; ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Sansculottismus. See above, p. 4. Regarding Lessing he made this remark to Eckermann (February 7th, 1827): "Bedauert doch den ausserordentlichen Menschen, dass er in einer so erbaermlichen Zeit leben musste, die ihm keine bessern Stoffe gab, als in seinen ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... Kirby had any—the one he had hardest was the belief he could talk any crowd into any notion, or out of it, either. And he loved to do it jest fur the fun of it. He'd rather have the feeling he was doing that than the money any day. He was powerful vain about that gab of his'n, ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... gets all the limelight and blank verse. He had the "gift of the gab" all right. Old Cassius referred to it later on in one of those "words-before-blows" barneys they had on the battlefield where they hurt each other a damned sight more with their tongues than they ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... wir koennen die Kinder nach unserem Willen nicht formen, So wie Gott sie uns gab, so muss man sie lieben und haben, Sie erzielen aufs best ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... boarders, it's your place to put out a hand first, and I think I can promise that the day-boys will shake it. Bah! I know I can never talk you round; it's no good attempting to. I'm not in a comic mood, and can't make you laugh, like Cadbury, and I haven't Vickers's gift of the gab. But wasn't last Friday's lesson enough? Wasn't the ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... benches from dirt to canvas. Honest, we could! Say, Mister, lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent end, while you do the polite gab at the main entrance, and if we don't lug away the daily receipts in sugar barrels I'll own the boxin' kangaroos for first cousins. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime! What do ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... vodka, he would break down the ceremonious reserve of the severest old patriarch in the whole Greek Church, and completely carry him by storm; while I could only sit by and smile feebly, without being able to say a word. Great is "the gift o' gab." ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... is the real Hotspur did not talk much, but Shakespeare had the gift of the gab, if ever a man had, and Hotspur was a mouthpiece. It is worth noting that though the dramatist usually works himself into a character gradually, Hotspur is best presented in the earlier scenes: Shakespeare began the work with the Hotspur of history and tradition ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... exquisite! It is worth coming a thousand miles by stage coach and flatboat, to meet so droll an adventure with such a nondescript amphibian. He has a prodigious gift of gab, plain and ornamental. Did you take note of his metaphors? 'Rose of Sharon' is good.—By the way, we can't be far from the Bower of Bliss. We must tie up our Argo there as Brackenridge recommended, and go in quest of those ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... his jaw with your scarf, Jim,' said Murgatroyd. 'When Venables comes he will soon find a way to check his gab. Yes,' he continued, looking at the back of my papers, 'it is marked, as you say, "From James the Second of England, known lately as the Duke of Monmouth, to Henry Duke of Beaufort, President of Wales, by the hand of Captain Micah Clarke, of Saxon's regiment of Wiltshire foot." Cast off the lashings, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... About the ocean an' the skies; An' gab an' gas f'um morn till noon About the other side the moon; An' 'bout the natur of the place Ten miles beyend the end of space. An' if his wife she'd ask the crank Ef he wouldn't kinder try to yank Hisself out-doors an' git some wood To make her kitchen fire good, So she c'd bake ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... 'like a horse;' spent his mornings in the schools, his afternoons in the cottages; preached four or five extempore sermons every week to overflowing congregations; took the lead, by virtue of the 'gift of the gab,' at all 'religious' meetings for ten miles round; and really did a great deal of good in his way. He had an unblushing candour about his own worldly ambition, with a tremendous brogue; and prided himself on exaggerating ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... privation which left its impress so deeply on the German as to make thrift his first characteristic. A spirit of lofty, self-sacrificing patriotism imbued the whole people. Young girls cut off their long golden hair to be sold for the Fatherland. Jewels were given by all who possessed them. "Gold gab ich fuer Eisen" (I gave gold for iron) became a saying based on the readiness with which the rich made sacrifices to the cause of country. And with this patriotism, and with this penury, came into every home a more intimate ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... everything. Eloquence implies wisdom—at least all the wisdom which is supposed to be necessary in making lawyers and law-makers—a precious small modicum of a material by no means precious. I was supposed to have the gift of the gab in moderate perfection, and my hearers were indulgent. My name obtained circulation, and, in a short time, I discovered that, in a professional as well as personal point of view, I had no reason to regret the change of residence which I had made. Business began to flow in upon me. Applications ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... will be all the breakfast he wants," Elizabeth's uncle said, with his meager chuckle. "David's as big a donkey as any of 'em, though he hasn't the gift of gab on the subject." ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... all this queer gab?" he asked. "An' you're takin' some liberty with Miss Hammond, who never seen you before. Sure I'm makin' allowance fer amazin' strange talk. I see you're not drinkin'. Mebbe you're plumb locoed. Come, ease up ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... Ross had sech a gift o' gab," said Shif'less Sol. "He stirs me all up, he makes me want to hev some lady buy a ship fur me an' start me out to discoverin' continents. Do you think, Paul, thar's any lady who would sell her earrings an' finger rings fur me ez that Spanish ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Miss. The bunch here reckoned as I, bein' gifted with the knack of gab, it fer me to speak for 'em. They're tongue- tied when there's a woman on ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... more of your gab to me," returned the Scotsman, "and I'll show ye the wrong side of a jyle. I've heard tell of the three of ye. Ye're not long for here, I can tell ye that. The Government has their eyes upon ye. They make short work of damned beachcombers, I'll say ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... phrases that have come directly to us from England may be mentioned "throw up the sponge," "draw it mild," "give us a rest," "dead beat," "on the shelf," "up the spout," "stunning," "gift of the gab," etc. ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... take from the profits of his faces. A son of his, one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He has his gift—he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and Biting Giles, but that grin ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... British side were injured. Meanwhile the force under Major Peakman was protesting at Carter's Farm. The enemy there made a bold effort to silence Peakman. But a Maxim gun has a remarkable gift of the gab; the Major had one with him, and he let it do all the talking—with results that quickly drove the Boers beyond the range of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... a half hour or so to talk, Mr. Philander, sir?" he asked. "I've got a couple of ideas I'd like to gab with you about, that I think might speed ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it, I could git boosted into th' House or Sennit,— Nut while the twolegged gab-machine's so plenty, 'nablin' one man to du the talk o' twenty; I'm one o' them thet finds it ruther hard To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard, An' maysure off, accordin' to demand, The piece-goods el'kence that I keep on hand, The same ole pattern runnin' thru an' thru, An' nothin' ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to be [1] True to this fraternity; That I will in all obey Rule and order of the lay. Never blow the gab or squeak; [2] Never snitch to bum or beak; [3] But religiously maintain Authority of those who reign Over Stop Hole Abbey green, [4] Be their tawny king, or queen. In their cause alone will fight; Think what they think, wrong or right; ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... he agreed; "but a fellow needs some help sometimes, if he ain't over handy with the gift of gab." ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... they don't act up to it theirselves, though. Look at them there Labour members of Parliament—a lot of b—rs what's too bloody lazy to work for their livin'! What the bloody 'ell was they before they got there? Only workin' men, the same as you and me! But they've got the gift o' the gab and—' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... ey hadn," replied Ashbead. "Theawst hear aw abowt it if t' will. Ey wur sent be t' abbut down t' hill to Owen o' Gab's, o' Perkin's, o' Dannel's, o' Noll's, o' Oamfrey's orchert i' Warston lone, to luk efter him. Weel, whon ey gets ower t' stoan wa', whot dun yo think ey sees! twanty or throtty poikemen stonding behint it, an they deshes ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... had gone all on a sudden as cool as Dick, and nothing but his stertorous breathing hinted of the rage which filled him. 'That's it, is it? Then, if you're finished, hear me. I ain't got the gift o' the gab as free as you, but I can mek plain my meanin', p'raps. I'd rather see her a-layin' theer '(he pointed with a trembling hand at the ground between them); 'I'd rather lay her there, dead afore my eyes, an' screw her in her coffin a'terwards, than you or any o' ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... leader," replied Dunkirk. "Roebuck is far too shrewd for that. No, he has put forward as the decoy my colleague, Croffut,—perhaps you know him? If so, I needn't tell you what a vain, shallow, venal fellow he is, with his gift of gab ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... The mouth. Gift of the gab; a facility of speech, nimble tongued eloquence. To blow the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... been, old lady? Where are you going? We know, we know! She's been to gab with spirits. Look at the old fool! getting ready to cry! What have you got in an envelope, old lady? A lock of hair? An ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... here in connection with the brave exploits which Christian knights, while in their cups, may boast that they will accomplish (F.). This practice of boasting was called indulging in "gabs" (Eng. "gab"), a good instance of which will be found in "Le Voyage de Charlemagne a Jeruslaem" ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... It's the gift of the gab, nothing more and nothing less. What has your knack of fine talking to do with the truth, any more than playing the organ has? I've never been in your church; but I've been to your political meetings; and I've seen you do what's ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... Uncle Gab. (to himself). For all the notice that stuck-up young swell takes of me, I might be a block of wood! I'll make him listen to me. (Aloud.) Ahem! My Lord, I've just been telling my niece here the latest scandal in high-life. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... look up this business of securities, and then if the young feller's talked straight, we'll try to work it through him, if we can get to him, and I guess we can, so long as I ain't lost the gift of the gab in twenty years. We'll be as good, sorrowing heirs as ever Jimmy ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... do you know about it?" said Farrington fiercely, turning on the man. "What do you put in your gab for?" ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... a nation that loves to laugh, and you make sport with yourselves, and with others, by telling what is impossible, and reporting what never chanced. Thou art one of the knights of France, who hold it for glee and pastime to GAB, as they term it, of exploits that are beyond human power. [Gaber. This French word signified a sort of sport much used among the French chivalry, which consisted in vying with each other in making ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the late Monsieur Noverre. Oh, if you could only know the tricks played on poor Father Chevrel by that Monsieur Noverre, by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and especially by Monsieur Philidor! They are a set of rascals; I know them well! They all have a gab and nice manners. Ah, your ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... as much. That man has the gift of gab. He can wrap you right around his finger, I ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... arrow-heads hired a chap with a gift of the gab to tell the others how wrong it was to want things someone else had collared. That was the first lesson in morality, and the preacher, seeing there was money in the game, started the first priesthood. Yes, morality owes its existence to the fact of the well-to-do requiring ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... the scientific branches of amputation, from the scalp-lock to the heel-tap, upon Emperors, Kings, Queens, and common folks; but upon his science in the dental way, he spread and grew luminous! In short, Dr. Wangbanger had not been long in Rockbottom before his "gift of gab," and unadulterated propensity to elongate the blanket, set every body, including poor Bill Whiffletree, in a furor to have their teeth cut, filed, scraped, rasped, reset, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... damned!" cries he. "It's the Campbells, man! You'll have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will the Advocate too, poor body! It's extraordinar ye cannot see where ye stand! If there's no fair way to stop your gab, there's a foul one gaping. They can put ye in the dock, do ye no' see that?" he cried, and stabbed me with one ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... guarded growl, "quit your gab there! We're gettin' nigh, bhoys—here's th' brush forninst his place . . . must go mighty quiet ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... 'My father has some winter fruit that in December grew; My mither has a silk mantil the waft gaed never through; A sparrow's horn ye soon may find, there's ane on ev'ry claw, And twa upo' the gab o' it, and ye shall get ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... is there? There's time for everyone to give out their chat and their gab, and to do their business and take their ease and have a comfortable life, only the King! The beasts of the field have leave to lay themselves down in the meadow and to stretch their limbs on the green grass ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... every one in the whole room burst out laughing, and even dowager lady Chia broke out in laughter while she observed: "Do you listen to that mouth? I myself am looked upon as having the gift of the gab, but why is it that I can't talk in such a wise as to put down this monkey? Your mother-in-law herself doesn't dare to be so overbearing in her speech; and here you are ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... he possessed the gift of gab, as the silver in the tongue and the gold in the full or thick-lipped mouth are oftentimes contemptuously characterized. And like many of his race he was a devoted student of the Bible to whose interpretation he brought like many other Bible students, not confined to the ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... off the track, turned upside down and its wheels making a thousand revolutions a minute. A kite in the air without a tail. A ship without a rudder. A clock without hands. A sermon that is all text; the incarnation of gab. Handsome, vivacious, versatile, muscular, neat, clean to the marrow. A judge of the effect of clothes, frugal in food and regular only in habits. With brains enough in his head for twenty men all pulling different ways. A man not ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... to acknowledgin' Him, deacon, only—I'm not the man to talk out much before them that I know is my betters. I ain't got the gift o' gab. I couldn't never say much to the fellers in the saloon along around about election-times, though I b'lieved in the ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... brave boy. I've heard of what you did, an' you don't talk much. I'm glad of that. I can do all the talkin' that's needed by the three of us. The Lord created me with a love of gab." ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... has to toil at that and really to know things. But a Prime Minister should never go beyond generalities about commerce, agriculture, peace, and general philanthropy. Of course he should have the gift of the gab, and that Plantagenet hasn't got. He never wants to say anything unless he has got something to say. I could do a Mansion House ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... didn't mean it that way," she cried. "But from what you tell me I imagine that all a man needs is a front and plenty of punch. You've got the front all right with your looks and gift of gab, and I leave it to Young Brophy if you haven't got ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... say that since the tremendous enlargement of the American colony, the whole pace of London drawing-room talk has enormously improved. We British are not by nature a sprightly and speechful race, with the gift of gay gab, but under the American woman's cheerful influence we are enjoying ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... delegation. The mouth may be opened for two purposes, viz., speech-making and swallowing; and it never appeared to us that there was any lack either of Bolting or Bellering in the House of Representatives. However notably Honorable Gentlemen may play the game either of Gab or Grab, it isn't so clear that their constituents are much benefited by these accomplishments. If all they want is an open-mouthed Member, why don't the Massachusetts men import a first-class crocodile, and send him to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... erhob das Wort, Heribrands Sohn: 30 "Das wisse Allvater oben im Himmel, Dass nimmer du Worte bis heute gewechselt Mit so nah gesipptem Mann." ... Da wand er vom Arme gewundene Ringe, Aus Kaisermnzen[5] gemacht, wie der Knig sie ihm gab, 35 Der Herrscher der Hunnen: "Dass ich um Huld dir's gebe!" Hadubrand erhob das Wort, Hildebrands Sohn: "Mit dem Ger soll man Gabe empfahen,[6] Spitze wider Spitze. Ein Spher bist du, Alter Hunne, (heimlich)[7] lockst du mich 40 Mit ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... would begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, "Come have a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up." And so they would drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently wretched-looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might have two; and if they were to discover that they were from the same country, or had lived in the same city or worked at the same trade, they might sit down at a table and spend an hour or two in talk—and before they got through the saloon-keeper would have taken ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... 'broke,' and you're twenty-five and pretty. He evidently, being a newspaper man, has that peculiar gift of gab that we call romantic expression. So I guess I'm not blind. You both think you've fallen in ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... he said, "I am going to make a balloon excursion to-morrow. I didn't mention it to the society because these fellows gab so. There'd be a great crowd round, and I'd only have been hampered. When you mean work, the less you say about it beforehand the better. That is what I have always found. Ever ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... expedient, and unburthened the tumult of his thoughts to his confidential friend. "This," cried he, "is a new artifice of the fellow, to prove his imagined superiority. We knew well enough that he had the gift of the gab. To be sure, if the world were to be governed by words, he would be in the right box. Oh, yes, he had it all hollow! But what signifies prating? Business must be done in another guess way than that. I wonder what possessed me that I did not kick him ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... prepared to leave, "to look sharp if you see a forty-five-year-old damsel, with a little bright red face, all ears an' no chin, like the ace o' hearts. That'll be Miss Pickett. She'll have with her, like as not, a stout married lady, all gab an' gizzard, like a crow, an' a mouth like a new buttonhole. That'll be Mrs. Pennycook. Look out ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... rouse him up, and see if we could bring any thing out of him by speering cross-questions. Tommy and Benjie trembled from top to toe, like aspen leaves, but fient a word could we make common sense of at all. I wonder who educates these foreign creatures? it was in vain to follow him, for he just gab-gabbled away, like one of the stone masons at the Tower of Babel. At first I was completely bamboozled, and almost dung stupid, though I kent one word of French which I wanted to put to him, so I cried through, "Canna ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... putting on the brogue so easily that it seemed natural to him—which indeed it was, as he was born not twenty miles from Cork, in the neighbourhood of which is situated the far-famed "Blarney stone," that is supposed to endow those who kiss it with the "gift of the gab;" and Charley must have "osculated it," as a Yankee would say, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... zehn Gebot', Die uns gab unser Herre Gott Durch Mosen, seinen Diener treu, Hoch auf ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... him," said he. "You were all having such a love feast gab-fest when I blew in. This is Mr. Orde, who bosses this place—and most of the country around here. If you want to do good to humanity on this meadow you'd better begin by being good to him. He controls it. He's humanity with ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... under; a disposition fiery, mercurial, sanguine, witty; he was made, according to Billy Fairfax's dictum, of "wire and brass tacks," and he possessed what Honey Smith (who himself had no mean gift in that direction) called "the gift of gab." He lived by writing magazine articles. Also he wrote fiction, verse, and drama. Also he was a painter. Also he was a musician. In short, he was ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... we have enough trouble with our telephone even with Carrie to supply discretion for the whole town. Party lines and rubber ears are the source of all our woe. You know what a party line is, of course. It's a line on which you can have a party and gab merrily back and forth for forty minutes, while some other subscriber is wildly dancing with impatience. Most of our lines have four subscribers apiece, and it's just as hard to live in friendliness on a party ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... didn't know," said Endicott evasively, "that Michael has a great gift of gab! Would you like to stop and have ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... was not the man who in new surroundings would be quick to every whisper of opinion. But he had been born and bred in Barbie, and he knew his townsmen—oh yes, he knew them. He knew they laughed because he had no gift of the gab, and could never be Provost, or Bailie, or Elder, or even Chairman of the Gasworks! Oh, verra well, verra well; let Connal and Brodie and Allardyce have the talk, and manage the town's affairs (he was damned if they should manage his!)—he, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... into you?" he hissed. "You're cross-grained lately. You're sore. Any more of this and I'll swear you're a disorganizer.... Now, Budd, you keep your mouth shut. And you, Cleve, you pay no heed to Budd if he does gab.... We're in bad and all the men have chips on their shoulders. We've got ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... called, and, for 'arf-a-quid, say, he'd frighten Uncle Dick 'arf to death. He's big and ugly, and picks up a living by selling meerschaum pipes he's found to small men wot don't want 'em. Wonderful gift o' the gab ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... anent the Bradley-Martin ball—all the preachers and teachers, editors and other able idiots pouring forth voluminous opinions. A tidal wave of printer's ink has swept across the continent, churned to atrous foam by hurricanes of lawless gibberish and wild gusts of resounding gab. The empyrean has been ripped and the tympana of the too patient gods ravished with fulsome commendation and foolish curse, showers of Parthian arrows and wholesale consignments of soft-soap darkening the sun as they hurtled hither and yon through the shrinking atmosphere. A man dropping ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... rode into Pitt just before we left, that you had new friends here by that name. This fellow was a handsome chap, no common sort, but lordly, dissipated and reckless as the devil. He had a servant traveling with him, a sailor, by his gab, who was about the toughest customer I've met in many a day. He cut a fellow in bad shape at Pitt. These two will be on the next boat, due here in a day or so, according to river and weather conditions, an' ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... From gab of jay and chatter of crake The dusk wood covered me utterly. And here the tongue of the thrush was awake. Flame-floods out of the low bright sky Lighted the gloom with gold-brown dye, Before dark; and a manifold chorussing ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the defensive, her chin thrust out, her features convulsed, said nothing, not having yet acquired the Paris gift of street gab. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... 'I were as young and as supple as you, and had the gift o' the gab as weel.'"—Heart ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... little cook-shop where he habitually took his meals, the people round him had taken to taunt him with the remissness of the police. More than that one of his pals, a man he'd always looked up to, because the young fellow had the gift of the gab, had actually been among those who had spoken at the big demonstration in Victoria Park, making a violent speech, not only against the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, but also ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Dinna claver in that feckless fashion! It's months, lad, sin' ye opened y'r mouth wi' onything but daft gab." ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... veteran? Only a boy On a three-legged crock? Well, I own you are older, And watching your riding's a thing to enjoy; There isn't a Jock who is defter and bolder; Your power, authority, eloquence—yes, For your gift of the gab is a caution—are splendid; But—the youngster may teach you a lesson, I guess, As to judgment of pace ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... captain stood on the carronade: 'First lieutenant,' says he, 'Send all my merry men aft here, for they must list to me; I haven't the gift of the gab, my sons—because I'm bred to the sea; That ship there is a Frenchman, who means to fight with we. And odds bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, I've fought 'gainst every odds—but ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... of their low sties, With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail 400 Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps Of one another's ears between their teeth, To catch the coming hail of comfits in. You, Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab, Make them a solemn speech to this effect: 405 I go to put in readiness the feast Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine, Where, for more glory, let the ceremony Take place of the uglification of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... For now, said he, procrastination and the conciliatory demeanor of the Evangelicals, especially of Melanchthon and Brueck, had made it impossible to rouse the Emperor to such a degree as the exigency of the case demanded. (Plitt, 63.) Luther wrote: "For that shameless gab and bloodthirsty sophist, Doctor Eck, one of their chief advisers, publicly declared in the presence of our people that if the Emperor had followed the resolution made at Bononia, and, immediately on entering Germany, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... Canada, and I trust they will, by all Christian means and measures, support Her Majesty's Government in Canada. May the Holy and Blessed God give us peace, and good government in our day. I have been a little vexed with the travelling gab of one of our own former friends, who is pleased to inform the people that you were the sole cause of the late rebellion. I must tell him, the first time I meet with him, that the meaning of his sing-song is not understood, and that if he will explain his hidden meaning, it will ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Er gab dem Knaben warmes Blut, Des Rosses Kraft, des Adlers Muth, Im Felsennacken freien Sinn, 15 Des Falken ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... easy to tackle, and Mrs. Biggs was there with her gab, if she is my niece, and said I got ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... the delightful stranger, "let's you and me have a talk. There's a nice cool spot under these laurels; I'll stake out Pepita, and we'll just lie off there and gab, and not care if ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... within the Gab-ri[1] wild, A seer is resting on a rock; exiled By his own will from all the haunts of men, Beside a pool within a rocky glen He sits; a turban rests upon his brow, And meets the lengthened beard of whitest snow. This morn an omen comes before his eyes, And ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... to talk, eh?" jibed the slattern. "Well, before you get out of here you'll be tickled enough to shoot off your gab. Bah! You an' your airs! If you want any grub this mawnin' you'll come down an' grab it ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... misunderstood. Your silence and seclusion in the country, at the time when you might be in Paris enjoying all the Parliamentary honors of the Comte de l'Estorade, cause me serious anxiety. You know that your husband's "gift of gab" and unsparing zeal have won for him quite a position here, and he will doubtless receive some very good post when the session is over. Pray, do you spend your life writing him letters of advice? Numa was not so ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... Daunton grew more and more sleek, and pale, and fat. He throve upon our miseries. He played his part at length so well, as to avoid thrashings. He possessed, in perfection, that which, in classic cockpit, is called "the gift of the gab." He was never in the wrong. Indeed, he began to get a favourite with each of the individuals over whom he was so mercilessly tyrannising, while each thought himself the tyrant. All this may seem improbable to well-nurtured, shore-bred young gentlemen ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Hey!" roared Mr. Pawket, with sudden severity. "None of that talk here! You mind your own business, young man. Don't you give us none of that gab." He turned to Mrs. Pawket: "What did I say about that new young feller that's come to teach school? He ain't here for no good—that's what I said!" Mr. Pawket studied the face on the envelope with a sort of curious horror, concluding, "Ef she's what you say she is, see to it that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... provocative Elias and pin him down to something definite; the flashes of shrewd sanity in the fanatic's mouthings had encouraged Frank to believe that the Prophet was not quite as much of an ingenuous lunatic as his gab and ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... over my mistake," grinned Sanderson. "You couldn't be anybody but Bransford, or you wouldn't shoot off your gab that reckless. If you're Bransford, I'm apologizin' to you for talkin' back to you. But if you ain't Bransford, get off your hind legs an' talk like ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... him. He calls himself 'a curious old bitch', but he is a flat old dog. I should like to employ Caliph Vathek to kick him. Oh, the flummery of a birthplace! Cant! cant! cant! It is enough to give a spirit the guts-ache. Many a true word, they say, is spoken in jest—this may be because his gab hindered my sublimity: the flat dog made me write a flat sonnet. My dear Reynolds, I cannot write about scenery and visitings. Fancy is indeed less than a present palpable reality, but it is greater than remembrance. You would lift your eyes from Homer only to see close ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Treu' versprochen, 5 Gab mir ein'n Ring dabei, Sie hat die Treu' gebrochen, Mein ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... Mr Walker answered, 'there's some hev a talent fer sawin' wood, but we don't count that. It's war an' speakin', they are the two great talents of the Yankee. But his greatest talent is the gift o' gab. Give him a chance t' talk it over with his enemy an' he'll lick 'im without a fight. An' when his enemy is another Yankee—why, they both git licked, jest as it was in the case of the man thet sold me lightnin' rods. He was sorry he ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... talk that way," the captain warned, "so jist shet yer dirty mouths. I've heard sich gab before, and it doesn't jar me in ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... ein Koenig in Thule, Gar treu bis an das Grab, Dem sterbend seine Buhle Einen goldnen Becher gab. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... trouble with our telephone even with Carrie to supply discretion for the whole town. Party lines and rubber ears are the source of all our woe. You know what a party line is, of course. It's a line on which you can have a party and gab merrily back and forth for forty minutes, while some other subscriber is wildly dancing with impatience. Most of our lines have four subscribers apiece, and it's just as hard to live in friendliness on a party line as it is for four families to get along ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... there fer the ranch mail," began Lloyd, "an' Nick Porter was crookin' his elbow a-plenty. And talking a heap, too. In front of the Red Light he had a feller in flashy clothes with a sandy mustache, and the two was goin' it some in the gab line. I was leanin' against the front of the Red Light, at the time, a-readin' a letter, an' I couldn't help hear a little of what them two said. 'Sam'll put down a hole an' blow out a bag o' samples,' says Porter, ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... I guess Aaron 'n' Jake Cochrane was both of 'em more interested in savin' the sisters' souls than the brothers'! Aaron was a fine-appearin' man, and so was Jake for that matter, 'n' they both had the gift o' gab. There's nothin' like a limber tongue if you want to please the women-folks! If report says true, Aaron died of a fever out in Ohio somewheres; Cortland's the place, I b'lieve. Seems's if he hid his trail all the way from New Hampshire somehow, ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... it's so killing you are, you assassinate— Murder's the word for you, Barney McGee! Bold when they're sunny, and smooth when they're showery— Oh, but the style of you, fluent and flowery! Chesterfield's way, with a touch of the Bowery! How would they silence you, Barney machree? Naught can your gab allay, Learned as Rabelais (You in his abbey lay Once on the spree). Here's to the smile of you, (Oh, but the guile of you!) And a long while of you, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... him no such thing," Henley retorted, with an effort to control his rising temper. "I can't be responsible for the slap-dash way he puts things. I don't like his eternal gab, nohow." ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... length the excitement had subsided, Gab Rauchad rose slowly to his feet. He was a wiry little half-breed, with a cunning, fox-like face. He spoke in French, and he addressed himself chiefly to his own people. He took them back to the expulsion of the Acadians by the English in 1755, a tale ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... said the delightful stranger, "let's you and me have a talk. There's a nice cool spot under these laurels; I'll stake out Pepita, and we'll just lie off there and gab, and not care if ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... and most of us, I think, with wet eyes and tight throats. It seemed a cruel and awful thing to see one of our number disappear forever, and Holy Joe's words, spoken so softly and clearly, were of a kind to squeeze the hearts of even bad men. That parson had the gift of gab; he was a skilled orator and he could play upon our heartstrings as a ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... other crows hear it and flock together over the same carcass. "Oh, I have heard something rich! Sit down and let me tell you all about it." And the first guffaw increases the gathering, and it has to be told all over again, and as they separate each carries a spark from the altar of Gab to some other circle, until from the coal-heaver in the cellar to the maid in the top room of the garret all are aware of the defamation, and that evening all who leave the house will bear it to other houses, until autumnal fires sweeping across Illinois prairies are less raging and swift than ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... must choose. Them ez hez, must lose. Them ez knows, won't blab. Them ez guesses, will gab. Them ez borrows, sorrows. Them ez lends, spends. Them ez gives, lives. Them ez keeps dark, is deep. Them ez kin earn; kin keep. Them ez aims, hits. Them ez hez, gits. Them ez waits, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... too much to drink,—which he did, after the Danish fashion, far oftener than the rest of Baldwin's men,—he grew rude, boastful, quarrelsome. He would chant his own doughty deeds, and "gab," as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades, simply to laugh down a fashion which was held inconsistent with the modesty of a true knight. Bitter it was to her to hear him announcing to ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... by the devil haven't you had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... good speaker, in the south and southwest, is to be everything. Eloquence implies wisdom—at least all the wisdom which is supposed to be necessary in making lawyers and law-makers—a precious small modicum of a material by no means precious. I was supposed to have the gift of the gab in moderate perfection, and my hearers were indulgent. My name obtained circulation, and, in a short time, I discovered that, in a professional as well as personal point of view, I had no reason to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... light— By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet-airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns; A thief, new cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled; A knife, a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o' life bereft, The grey hairs yet stack to ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... young man—a callant, the folk said—fu' o' book learnin' and grand at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae leevin' experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi' his gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the days o' the moderates—weary fa' them; ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suppose, for him to gab all he wants to about his cars and things. By the time we go back to the Post to-night, if we see him again, I'll bet you he tells us what his father is worth and just how many gold chairs they have at ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... know," said Endicott evasively, "that Michael has a great gift of gab! Would you like to stop and have ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... Basset spat, and shifted his quid and spoke. "Tell ye what 'tis, all of ye," said he—"it's mighty easy talkin' an' givin' away gab instead of dollars. I'll bet ye anything ye'll put up that there ain't one of ye out of the whole damned lot that 'ain't got any money that would give it away if ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ich mehr, dass er wandelt auf Erden." Hildebrand erhob das Wort, Heribrands Sohn: 30 "Das wisse Allvater oben im Himmel, Dass nimmer du Worte bis heute gewechselt Mit so nah gesipptem Mann." ... Da wand er vom Arme gewundene Ringe, Aus Kaisermnzen[5] gemacht, wie der Knig sie ihm gab, 35 Der Herrscher der Hunnen: "Dass ich um Huld dir's gebe!" Hadubrand erhob das Wort, Hildebrands Sohn: "Mit dem Ger soll man Gabe empfahen,[6] Spitze wider Spitze. Ein Spher bist du, Alter Hunne, (heimlich)[7] lockst du mich 40 Mit deinen Worten, ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... the Ancient, "shut thy mouth, lad hold thy gab an' give thy poor old feyther a chance—I be tellin' 'im so fast as I can! As I was a-sayin', Peter like a fur'us lion were Jarge wi' they keepers—eight on 'em, Peter—like dogs, a-growlin' an' growlin', an' leapin', and worryin' all round ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... eh?" jibed the slattern. "Well, before you get out of here you'll be tickled enough to shoot off your gab. Bah! You an' your airs! If you want any grub this mawnin' you'll come down an' grab it ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... day-boys will shake it. Bah! I know I can never talk you round; it's no good attempting to. I'm not in a comic mood, and can't make you laugh, like Cadbury, and I haven't Vickers's gift of the gab. But wasn't last Friday's lesson enough? Wasn't the sight ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... it into a moving-picture house and burn people to death in the rotten old fire-trap. And if you don't raise your hand, when I come to you fair and square, with an honest story—if you dare to order me out of here, because you've got to gab a lot of your charity drivel to a board of directors, instead of taking the interest any real man would take in something that was real and vital and eating into the very heart of New York life, I'm going to show you up, and put you ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... lived in New York a long time—what kind of a song-and-dance does this old town give you? What I mean is, doesn't the gab of it seem to kind of bunch up and slide over the bar to you in a sort of amalgamated tip that hits off the burg in a kind of an epigram with a dash of ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... a lady doctor, somehow," mused Mrs. Cobb. "Her gift o' gab is what's goin' to be the makin' of her; mebbe she'll lecture, or recite pieces, like that Portland elocutionist that come out here ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... deficient in what is called the gift of gab, had no soothing words at his command, full as his heart was of compassion. And after sitting some time by the unhappy boy, patting him softly on the shoulder, he arose, and went away; concluding that his absence would be a relief to one ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... believe! I dare say he's not very bright, but I don't know that we want brightness. A bright financier is the most dangerous man in the world. We've had enough of that already. Give me sound common sense, with just enough of the gab in a man to enable him to say what he's got to say! We don't want more than that nowadays." From which it became evident that Sir Cosmo was satisfied with the new political candidate for ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Sammy, "an' so tha'rt th' new rector, art ta? I thowt as mich as another ud spring up as soon as th' owd un wur cut down. Tha parsens is a nettle as dunnot soon dee oot. Well, I'll leave thee to th' owd lass here. Hoo's a rare un fur gab when hoo' taks th' notion, an' I'm noan so mich i' th' humor t' argufy mysen today." And he took his pipe from the mantelpiece and strolled out with an imperturbable air. But this was not the last of ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... good care they don't act up to it theirselves, though. Look at them there Labour members of Parliament—a lot of b—rs what's too bloody lazy to work for their livin'! What the bloody 'ell was they before they got there? Only workin' men, the same as you and me! But they've got the gift o' the gab and—' ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Sir Francis Varney was by far too long-headed and witty for him. After now in vain endeavouring to find something to say, the old man buttoned up his coat in a great passion, and looking fiercely at Varney, he said,—"I don't pretend to a gift of the gab. D—n me, it ain't one of my peculiarities; but though you may talk me down, you ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Carlyle hatte schon den Wilhelm Meister uebersetzt und gab sodann vorliegendes Leben Schillers ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... envy. In five minutes, with the assistance of a little vodka, he would break down the ceremonious reserve of the severest old patriarch in the whole Greek Church, and completely carry him by storm; while I could only sit by and smile feebly, without being able to say a word. Great is "the gift o' gab." ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... man who in new surroundings would be quick to every whisper of opinion. But he had been born and bred in Barbie, and he knew his townsmen—oh yes, he knew them. He knew they laughed because he had no gift of the gab, and could never be Provost, or Bailie, or Elder, or even Chairman of the Gasworks! Oh, verra well, verra well; let Connal and Brodie and Allardyce have the talk, and manage the town's affairs (he was damned if they should manage his!)—he, for ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... scientia media, and sustenit the disputt thairupon, and was approven in both. The following ministers were present, Mr. Patrik Gillespie, Mr. David Dicksone, Doctor Jhone Strang, Mr. Zach. Boyde, Mr. George Young, Mr. Hew Blair, Mr. Gab. Conyngham, Mr. David Benett, Mr. Matthew Mackill. Mr. Wm. Young, Mr. Arch. Dennestoune, Mr. Jhone Carstaires, Mr. James Hamilton." The presbytery "ordaines Mr. Hugh Binnen to make ye exercise this daye fyfteen dayes, and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the eccentric rod of a steam-engine for fitting a pin in the gab-lever to break the connection with the slide-valves. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... roared Mr. Pawket, with sudden severity. "None of that talk here! You mind your own business, young man. Don't you give us none of that gab." He turned to Mrs. Pawket: "What did I say about that new young feller that's come to teach school? He ain't here for no good—that's what I said!" Mr. Pawket studied the face on the envelope with a sort of curious horror, concluding, "Ef she's what ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... would claim that he was the delegate and put the thing through. Wasn't Al Davis the busy party! Corbett thought the thing all out and Davis did the hard work, and then every Friar for miles around put in their little gab and told Davis ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... the sergeant's back-flung, guarded growl, "quit your gab there! We're gettin' nigh, bhoys—here's th' brush forninst his place . . . must go mighty quiet ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... register his protest very forcibly. Nine Boers were shot down; three on the British side were injured. Meanwhile the force under Major Peakman was protesting at Carter's Farm. The enemy there made a bold effort to silence Peakman. But a Maxim gun has a remarkable gift of the gab; the Major had one with him, and he let it do all the talking—with results that quickly drove the Boers beyond the range ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... signifies "speech-band." If it is cut in children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... [U.S.]. oratory; elocution, eloquence; rhetoric, declamation; grandiloquence, multiloquence^; burst of eloquence; facundity^; flow of words, command of words, command of language; copia verborum [Lat.]; power of speech, gift of the gab; usus loquendi [Lat.]. speaker &c v.; spokesman; prolocutor, interlocutor; mouthpiece, Hermes; orator, oratrix^, oratress^; Demosthenes, Cicero; rhetorician; stump orator, platform orator; speechmaker, patterer^, improvisatore^. V. speak of; say, utter, pronounce, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... him of his mother-in-law. He was a baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to understand them, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... could stagger under; a disposition fiery, mercurial, sanguine, witty; he was made, according to Billy Fairfax's dictum, of "wire and brass tacks," and he possessed what Honey Smith (who himself had no mean gift in that direction) called "the gift of gab." He lived by writing magazine articles. Also he wrote fiction, verse, and drama. Also he was a painter. Also he was a musician. In short, ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... knew him," said he. "You were all having such a love feast gab-fest when I blew in. This is Mr. Orde, who bosses this place—and most of the country around here. If you want to do good to humanity on this meadow you'd better begin by being good to him. He controls it. He's humanity with a ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Kemper, too, 'bout eight miles from Stephenson. Us come dere endurin' of de war. Dat were when my mammy marry one of de McAllum Niggers. My new pappy went to de war wid Mr. McAllum an' were wid 'im when he were wounded at Mamassas Gab Battle. He brung 'im home to die—an' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... so; you don't see the matter in its proper light. You shall go to see her, and, with your honeyed tongue and the gift of the gab that nature has bestowed upon you, you will put some resignation into her soul, and leave her consoled for your departure; and if you tell her, in addition to this, that you love her, and that it is only for the sake of God ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... is exquisite! It is worth coming a thousand miles by stage coach and flatboat, to meet so droll an adventure with such a nondescript amphibian. He has a prodigious gift of gab, plain and ornamental. Did you take note of his metaphors? 'Rose of Sharon' is good.—By the way, we can't be far from the Bower of Bliss. We must tie up our Argo there as Brackenridge recommended, and go in quest of those exotic and ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... ma?—did you hear me? You'll be puttin' in your gab, an' me spakin'? How-an-iver, as I was sayin', our house was the first ye came to, an' they say there's a great blessin' to thim that gives, the first charity to a poor man or woman settin' out to look ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... we could! Say, Mister, lemme put it to you on the level. You buy in with me on this Great Australian Hippodrome, a half int'rest for twelve thou cash, leave me the transportation and talent end, while you do the polite gab at the main entrance, and if we don't lug away the daily receipts in sugar barrels I'll own the boxin' kangaroos for first cousins. Why, it's the chance of a lifetime! What do you say ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... against it!" And then the other would begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, "Come have a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up." And so they would drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently wretched-looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might have two; and if they were to discover that they were from the same country, or had lived in the same city or worked at the same trade, they might sit down at a table and spend an hour or two in talk—and before they got through the saloon-keeper would have ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... isn't easy to tackle, and Mrs. Biggs was there with her gab, if she is my niece, and said I got ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... the more watchin' he'll bear," remarked he. "There's many a villain with an oily gift of gab." ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... ye hae dune," whispered Cuddie; "there's the Philistines, as ye ca' them, are gaun to whirry awa' Mr Henry, and a' wi' your nash-gab, deil be on't!" ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it, I could git boosted into th' House or Sennit,— Nut while the twolegged gab-machine's so plenty, 'nablin' one man to du the talk o' twenty; I'm one o' them thet finds it ruther hard To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard, An' maysure off, accordin' to demand, The piece-goods el'kence that I keep on hand, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... heil'gen zehn Gebot', Die uns gab unser Herre Gott Durch Mosen, seinen Diener treu, Hoch ...
— The Hymns of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... wouldn't ha' noticed. An' yo're not fur wrong either. I ha' reasons o' my own, tho' I'm loike to keep 'em to mysen most o' toimes. Th' fellows as throws their slurs on me would na understond 'em if I were loike to gab, which I never were. But happen th' toime 'll come when Surly Tim 'll tell his own tale, though I often think its loike it wunnot come till th' ...
— "Surly Tim" - A Lancashire Story • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... got into you?" he hissed. "You're cross-grained lately. You're sore. Any more of this and I'll swear you're a disorganizer.... Now, Budd, you keep your mouth shut. And you, Cleve, you pay no heed to Budd if he does gab.... We're in bad and all the men have chips on their shoulders. We've got to stop ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... much talk nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort on any thought, just like walking, the ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... name. 'No,' I said, 'gentlemen; I feel much honoured, but I do not like extremes;' and they went away. They are making a little more noise now, because they have got a man who has the gift of the gab, and the people like to go and hear him speak. But as I said to a friend of mine, who seemed half inclined to join them, 'Well; if I did anything of that sort, I would be led by a Lancashire lad. They have got a foreigner ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... of a school could not manage the gab, they being exceedingly contumacious. Beat them, he dared not; so he hit upon an expedient. He made a very strong decoction of wormwood, and for a slight offence, poured one spoonful down their throats: for a more serious one, he made them ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... swear to be [1] True to this fraternity; That I will in all obey Rule and order of the lay. Never blow the gab or squeak; [2] Never snitch to bum or beak; [3] But religiously maintain Authority of those who reign Over Stop Hole Abbey green, [4] Be their tawny king, or queen. In their cause alone will fight; Think what they ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... Heliogabalus," said the doctor; "but he is generally known by the name of Gab, which is a more convenient appellation for ordinary use. I picked him up on the road to Santa Fe. I have no great faith in his honesty; but as I wanted an attendant, I engaged him—though I strongly suspect he is a runaway, and very likely may be ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... have you been, old lady? Where are you going? We know, we know! She's been to gab with spirits. Look at the old fool! getting ready to cry! What have you got in an envelope, old lady? A lock of hair? An ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... see Delitzsch, Handwoerterbuch, p. 678. Hommel (e.g., Altisraelitische Ueberlieferung, p. 39) regards Gilgamesh as a contraction from Gibil (the fire-god) and Gam (or Gab), together with ish, an 'Elamitic' ending. If the name is Elamitic, one should hardly expect a Babylonian deity entering as one ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... about 'm, Tom—cut your gab an' finish 'im," and here came the clatter of chairs as ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... had a "gift of the gab," as his mother said. "Ladies and gentlemen, the program for this evening is as follows: games, tea, and taffy, in the order mentioned. In the first, all MUST take part; in the second, all MAY take part; but in the third, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... ears for you. Look here, I'll give you the tip: this move, you know, to Ballarat, that he's drivin' at: what'ull you bet me there isn't a woman in the case? Fact! 'Pon my word there is. And a devilish fine woman, too!" He shut one eye and laid a finger along his nose. "You won't blow the gab?—that's why you couldn't have your parleyvoo this morning. When milady comes to town H. O.'s NON EST as long as she's here. And she with a hubby of her own, too! What 'ud our old pa say ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... just like any mortal: he has taken a drink of their Lethe up there, and forgotten to come back to us. He'll be wrestling with the lads, or playing on his lyre, or giving his precious gift of the gab a good airing; or he's off after plunder, the rascal, for what I know: 'tis all in the day's work with him. He is getting too independent: he ought to remember that he belongs to us, one half ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... look as if you had a gift of the gab. A successful life insurance agent will make a good deal more ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... seclusion in the country, at the time when you might be in Paris enjoying all the Parliamentary honors of the Comte de l'Estorade, cause me serious anxiety. You know that your husband's "gift of gab" and unsparing zeal have won for him quite a position here, and he will doubtless receive some very good post when the session is over. Pray, do you spend your life writing him letters of advice? Numa was not so far ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... faces. A son of his, one of the children he was making faces to when my comrades entered his door, is at present a barrister, and a very rising one. He has his gift—he has not, it is true, the gift of the gab, but he has something better, he was born with a grin on his face, a quiet grin; he would not have done to grin through a collar like his father, and would never have been taken up by Hopping Ned and Biting Giles, but that grin of his caused him to be noticed by ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Literarischer Sansculottismus. See above, p. 4. Regarding Lessing he made this remark to Eckermann (February 7th, 1827): "Bedauert doch den ausserordentlichen Menschen, dass er in einer so erbaermlichen Zeit leben musste, die ihm keine bessern Stoffe gab, als in ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... {150f} Each in its cauld hand held a light, - By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; {150g} Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted: Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled; A knife, a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o' life bereft, The grey hairs yet stack to the heft: Wi' mair ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... who had just returned after a considerable absence on account of ill health, congratulated him on his convalescence, and added, anticipatory of the pleasure he would have in hearing him again, "I'm unco yuckie to hear a blaud o' your gab." This is an untranslatable form of saying how glad he should be to hear his minister's voice again speaking to him the words of salvation and of ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... as had crossed her palm. The crew of a certain brig came to see her on the day before sailing, and she reproached one of the lads for keeping bad company. "Avast, there, granny," interrupted another, who took the chiding to himself. "None of your slack, or I'll put a stopper on your gab." The old woman sprang erect. Levelling her skinny finger at the man, she screamed, "Moon cursers! You have set false beacons and wrecked ships for plunder. It was your fathers and mothers who decoyed a brig to these sands and left ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... talk, March," answered Remsen, "that makes a good lawyer. Brains count some. If you get where you can conduct a case to a successful result you will never miss the 'gift o' the gab.' Talking's the little end of the horn in ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... few words like him should have succeeded as a salesman was a riddle to me. I subsequently realized that his reticence accentuated an effect of solidity and helped to inspire confidence in the few words which he did utter. But at the time in question I was sure that the "gift of the gab" was an indispensable element ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... been sent us—Independents, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchy men, dour Scotch Whigamores—dangerous fanatics all! Many are Naseby or Worcester rogues, Ironsides who worship the memory of that devil's lieutenant, Oliver. All have the gift of the gab. We disperse them as much as possible, not allowing above five or six to any one plantation, we of the Council realizing that they form a dangerous leaven. Should there be trouble, which heaven forbid! they would be the instigators, restless ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
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