"Grouch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... come down with a full-grown grouch upon him—that was plainly to be seen. But when he had taken in a great draught of the sweet odor of the flowers, and found his niece with her lips puckered, and standing on tiptoe to kiss him on his unshaven cheek, he ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... Corporal Shrimp any more than you have to," advised one of the uniformed rookies, coming over to them after a few moments. "Shrimp is a terror and a grouch all the time. Sergeant Brimmer you'll find a real old soldier, and a ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... given was that life on the farm was "too slow, too lonely, and no fun." In country neighborhoods family life means more than it does in the city. The members of a family are at each other's mercy; and so, if the "father" always has a grouch, and the "mother" is worried, and tired, and cross, small wonder that the children try to get away. In the city there is always the "movie" to go to, and congenial companionship down the street, and so we mourn the depopulation of our ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... fair return of work for pay, so much as I did a beggar. This may have been my fault; but after you've sat around in offices and corridors and been scowled at as an intruder for three or four hours and then been greeted with a surly "What do you want?" you can't help having a grouch. There wasn't a man who treated my offer ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... idea, that no wild animal should be made to work on the stage or in the show-ring, as illogical and absurd. Human beings who sanely work are much happier per capita than those who do nothing but loaf and grouch. I have worked, horse-hard, throughout all the adult years of my life; and it has been good for me. I know that it is no more wrong or wicked for a horse to work for his living,—of course on a humane basis,—either on the stage or on the street, than it is ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... appearance than the court-martial I had previously encountered. Four of the men I did not know, but the fifth I recognized at once, having often seen his portrait. He is Admiral Sir John Pendergest, popularly known in the service as 'Old Grouch,' a blue terror who knows absolutely nothing of mercy. The lads in the service say he looks so disagreeable because he is sorry he wasn't born a hanging judge. Picture a face as cleanly cut as that of some severe ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... a grouch, Mart. For Heaven's sake, cheer up!" Wallace, rumpling and kissing his daughter, would give ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... wicked, little greenish-grey eyes, and their stare was uninviting as he fixed them on his quondam partner. "If you want to grouch, go ahead and grouch! We've been pretty good friends for a pretty good number of years, but I ain't a fool. Sure, it's mine now! I didn't ask you to employ Grenville, did I? I was satisfied to take any old piece of paper with your fist on it, saying you'd sold out to me; but no, you were for ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... sitting down there in the punt. The river's silver. Come down for a while," he implored. "All evening I've been as lonely as a leper. Ever since you motored off with Kenny, Don's been a grouch. Can't you climb down ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... Geoff, she's got a grouch on because I was out last night, so, if she gives you the gimlet eye at first, just josh her along a bit. Now slick yourself up an' come on." Obediently Mr. Ravenslee arose and having tightened his neckerchief and smoothed his curly hair, crossed the landing ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... production is an experiment, a novelty? We shall but show Macbeth as it might have been costumed at the court of King James. In the clothes of the day, but gaudier, as was then the stage fashion. Hold, dove, I've somewhat for thee." He fumbled his grouch bag from under his doublet and dipped finger and thumb in it, and put in my palm a silver model of the Empire State Building, charm bracelet size, and one of the new ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... next town every man in the show had a grouch and a Katzenjammer, and their hair was so sore it was murder and suicide combined to ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... the little village called Matilda "Matilda Grouch" and they called Katrinka "Katrinka Sunshine". All the children of the little village loved Katrinka, for she always had a cooky or a dainty in her apron pocket to give them, or she would pat them on their curly heads and smile cheerily at them through her glasses. ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... we've got into it and make it win. That goes for me, and for the principals, and right down through to the last girl in the chorus. Every night there'll be a new audience out there that you will have to fight—shake up out of the grouch they get when they pay for their tickets; persuade to laugh and loosen up and come and play ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Bernard, grouch, truth teller. An English writer who made money by being honest enough to tell people what they knew. S.'s enemies claim he would have to work should his theories be put into practice. Believes in socialism and wants everything. Author of considerable sarcasm, wit, and divided ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... were inclined to score Phil's folly in making a hermit of himself. His sisters attacked him that very night on the subject of Sue Emerson's dance and accused him of being a "Grumpy Grandpa" and a grouch and various other uncomplimentary things when he announced that he wasn't going to ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... save it. You ought to thank the old grouch for calling you up. He put two secret service men on the train with Flynn? Just like Hite. You'll have to admit that it takes a newspaper man to ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... be a "hummer" from the very start. Everybody was in high spirits. Even Dud Fielding, with his nose happily reduced to its normal color and size, had lost his "grouch," and was quite himself again, in a sporting suit of English tweed, ordered from his tailors for "roughing it." Easy-going Jim was in comfortable khaki; so was little Fred; while Dan had been privately presented by the Brother wardrobian with two suits of the same,—"left ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... consider that the natural form of companionship. He must be getting queer like all other hermits he had ever heard of. It occurred to him that possibly Marion Rose was not really feather-brained, but that the trouble was in himself, because he was getting a chronic grouch. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... Pete had some sort of a special grouch; I guess he was just beginning to get his snowshoes off after a fight with his ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... a grouch on me," laughed George. "Nothing much. That's our house just beyond grandfather's." He waved a sealskin gauntlet to indicate the house Major Amberson had built for Isabel as a wedding gift. "It's almost ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... "Mr. Grouch, I'm sorry indeed that I can't vote for you, and I'd like to be able to wish you success, but of course you know I'm on the other side and always have ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... self-esteem for him, and handed it over in its pristine vigor. Before he had sat half an hour at the merry table, he could look back at his profound depression of the morning with smiling wonder. Where in the world had he gotten his terrible grouch? Not a thing in the world had happened, except that the mayoralty was not going to be handed to him on a large silver platter. Was that such a fearful loss after all? On the contrary, was it not rather a good riddance? Being Mayor, in ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... little Noel and his sister Mooka were going on wonderful sledge journeys, meeting wolves and polar bears and caribou and all sorts of adventures, more wonderful by far than any that ever came to imagination astride of a rocking-horse. They had a rare team of dogs, Caesar and Wolf and Grouch and the rest,—five or six uneasy crabs which they had caught and harnessed to a tiny sledge made from a curved root and a shingle tied together with a bit of sea-kelp. And when the crabs scurried away over the hard sand, waving their claws wildly, Noel and Mooka would caper alongside, cracking ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... have a little patience. If you like your man so well, you had better live at home, but don't come around here with a grouch ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... that he was here then. He may be a hundred miles off by this time. Still, it won't do a bit of harm to keep our eyes peeled and make sure that our guns are in good working order. He's probably got a perpetual grouch, and he might be peevish if he should turn up and find us poaching ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... Dave's sudden grouch against the eats," Tom mused aloud. "I've seen him at a few meals, and he was always a ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... churlishness &c (discourtesy) 895; irascibility &c 901. moodiness &c adj.; perversity; obstinacy &c 606; torvity^, spinosity^; crabbedness &c adj.. ill temper, bad temper, ill humor, bad humor; sulks, dudgeon, mumps^, dumps, doldrums, fit of the sulks, bouderie [Fr.], black looks, scowl; grouch; huff &c (resentment) 900. V. be sullen &c adj.; sulk; frown, scowl, lower, glower, gloam^, pout, have a hangdog look, glout^. Adj. sullen, sulky; ill-tempered, ill-humored, ill-affected, ill- disposed; grouty [U.S.]; in an ill temper, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... one man, the Czar Ivan. If anybody but Richard Mansfield played the part, there would be nothing in it. We simply get a glimpse into the life of a tyrant who has run the full gamut of goosedom, grumpiness, selfishness and grouch. Incidentally this man had the power to put other men to death, and this he does and has done as his whim and temper might dictate. He has been vindictive, cruel, quarrelsome, tyrannical and terrible. Now that he feels the approach of death, ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... sentiment toward him, but somehow he didn't seem to care so much today. Watching practice had brought back the smart, and being liked or disliked seemed a little thing beside the bigger trouble. Still, he thought, if Roy was right perhaps he had better meet fellows half-way. There was no use in being a grouch. As a starter and in order to test the accuracy of Roy's statement, he decided that he would drop in on Carl Bennett, who roomed in Number 3. Bennett was a chap he rather respected and, while they had never been very close friends, Tom had seen a good deal of the other during the Fall. But Bennett ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... to fully face the lad, the grouch caustically inquired: "What 'n seven kinds of blue blazes do you think I want with ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... advised Kyle, whetting his new grouch. "If they ain't running away with girls in this region, they're running away ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... him in the morning about 11:30. On going over to my other man's store I found that he was still in bed. Pretty soon he came in with his before-breakfast grouch. It was afternoon before I got him over to my sample room. Meantime I had gone to sell another man and sold him a bunch of children's and misses' goods—such stuff as a clothing ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... the grouch get richer quicker than the friendly sort of man? Can the grumbler labor better than the cheerful fellow can? Is the mean and churlish neighbor any cleverer than the one Who shouts a glad "good morning," and then smiling ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... happened to have intelligence from pristine sources that they went walking. And after that Peg had a grouch on and was off her feed the rest of the vacation—nobody knew why—I didn't myself, even, and it didn't occur to me that Aunt Elizabeth had probably been rubbing it in how well she knew Dr. Denbigh. The last day Peggy was home, at the table, they were chaffing Aunt Elizabeth ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... an' told her that it was fine for her to come out an' see how swell Ed was prancin' round under the light of Miss Dot's brown eyes. Beulah calls over Ed, figgertively speakin', ropes him for a minnit. Ed comes back huggin' a grouch as big as a hill. Oh, it was funny! He was goin' to punch Monty's haid off. An' Monty stands there an' laughs. Says Monty, sarcastic as alkali water: 'Ed, we-all knowed you was a heap married man, but you're some locoed to give yourself away.' That settled ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... glittering, soul-soothing, warmed hearted, inanimate friend! What wife can fail to admit the peace and serenity she owes to you? To you, who stand between her and all her early morning troubles— Between her and the before-breakfast grouch— Between her and the morning-after headache— Between her and the cold-gray-dawn scrutiny? To you, who supply the golden nectar that stimulates the jaded masculine soul, Soothes the shaky masculine ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... drink penetrates to his intelligence he makes a flurried fool of himself, rushing madly and frantically here and there in a hysterical effort either to destroy or get away from the cause of disturbance. He is the incarnation of a living and perpetual Grouch. ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... few sneers in my direction, so I made up my mind the other day I'd coax him down to the foundry and throw the anvil at him. If ever I do cut loose on that Birmingham gent he'll think he has swallowed one of his own harpoons. He's a case of Perpetual Grouch because it gets the dough ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... and, anyway, it would be impossible to generalize to the extent of asserting that slow heart beat always gave a pleasant state of feeling, and rapid heart beat an unpleasant; for there is slow heart beat during a "morning grouch", and rapid during joyful expectation. Or, in regard to breathing, try this experiment: hasten your breathing and see whether a feeling of pleasantness results; slacken it and see whether unpleasantness results. The fact is that pleasantness ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... difference in these two men? Their thoughts have made the difference. The grouch has, for years, entertained grouchy thoughts. The sunshiny man has cultivated the habit of seeing the bright side of things. That's all ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... pityingly. "Go and apologize and make friends again, Terry. You've got a grouch, that's all. These women have the virtue of humanity, with less of its faults than any folks I ever saw. As for patience—they'd have pitched us over the cliffs the first day we lit among 'em, if ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... we come to them, Gib. Cheer up, my boy, cheer up. I got a new engineer. He won't last, but he'll last long enough for Mac to forget his grouch an' listen to reason," and with this optimistic remark Captain Scraggs dropped into the engine room to get up enough steam to keep ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... "grouch" against the Jews was partly due to the irruption into her Society of three new and attractive Israelites of her own sex—an event happening about that time. In one of these newcomers, Terry, it appears, was somewhat interested, and Marie has often admitted that ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... anything. I kept thinking of various kinds of drinks and how good they would taste. I tried out the club. I may have imagined it, but I thought my old friends lacked interest in my advent at the table. One of them said: "Oh, for Heaven's sake, take a drink! You've got a terrible grouch on." ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... money, you're a grouch; if you spend it, you're a loafer; if you get it, you're a grafter, and if you don't get it, you're ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... "No grouch at all, Dick," answered Frank. "We owe you too much for that. We're only sorry that you happened to make a mistake and down a French plane ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... apartment. We'll probably have quite a long wait. I've found it takes some little time to wake the head of the house and get him to the 'phone. And say, he's the darndest grouch I've ever tackled. Get's sore as a crab. But we've got him where we want him. He knows darned well if he kicks up a row, she'll quit and his wife couldn't get anybody in her place for love or money these days. I was sayin' ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... gone hard with her. She's probably got a grouch, as the American boys over here say. We must try and do something to soften her down, and make her see things through rosier spectacles, if she and her brother join on to our party for ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... he set his elbows on his knees and proceeded to nurse his private grouch in silence, quite excluding his companion from his thoughts. Now that he had been snatched so summarily from his hateful position on board the Olenia, his desire to leave her was not so keen. After Mayo's declaration to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the old geezer," he informed Hal and Ellis. "Seems to have a grouch. Says he's coming over, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the pace for the twenty-four hours. A cheerful start in the morning may give an optimistic momentum for all-day hill-climbing; or, one may slip dejectedly down hill if leaden-weighted with a "morning grouch" (one's own, or somebody else's). Even fellow "boarders" might reflect on this, with profit. Preoccupied with our own affairs, we forget to be mutually considerate. We habitually wake to rush and worry, ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... Melissa flatly. "The worst grouch I've ever seen, Mr. Bingle, even if he is your own flesh and blood uncle. He's almost as bad as ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... Sickles, and even better did I know his kind, who only go to battle when certain victory lies before them. The only chance I was taking was with my firm's interests. It might be that he'd have such a grouch against me that he'd carry no more coal for my firm than he could ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... asking Mr. Carter," he returned slowly. "I don't believe Melville did, either. He's kind of a grouch. Still, he couldn't do more than refuse. Of course the Echo is pretty highbrow. Mr. Carter might feel ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... says to you, girl. Think of the minus number of times girls like us get that little word whispered to 'em. Think of the short season. Moncrieff's grouch. The back muscles of your legs! Marry, he says to you, ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... go to sleep and forget them both, and the trains and the cars and the man in the park and Miss Stein, who still had against her a "grouch." If only she could forget even big, blundering Ursus, who wanted to treat her to oyster stews that he couldn't afford and take her to a dance hall next Sunday! And Sadie, too, who knew such strange and awful things ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... asked Mr. Pepper Sneed, who was known as "the actor with the grouch." He was always finding fault. "Lovely alligators!" he sneered. "If you want to go to Florida, and be eaten ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... and get over your grouch," a third adjured him. "You are worse than O'Brien was, the morning after he was shoved in kink. Were you in Cape ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... certainly not welcome even if they were willing to take my money for a meal. And I came away all up in the air. There was something about you—the tone of your voice, the way your proud little head is set on your shoulders, your make-up in general—that sent me away with a large-sized grouch at myself, at Cariboo Meadows, and at you ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... I'm the man with the big stick in Mervo. Pretty near every adult on this island is dependent on my Casino for his weekly envelope, and what I say goes—without argument. I want a prince, so I gotta have a prince, and if any gazook makes a noise like a man with a grouch, he'll find ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... demeanor toward us was that of a systematic grouch and his appearance did not belie his disposition—as surly and sulky looking as a whipped criminal. He would stand in the doorway, watching us continually, as if he feared we were going to steal his house from over his head, and about the only thing he would say was to warn us not ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... Merton Gill, though but half respectfully. The "Oh, all right" had been tainted with a trace of sullenness. He was tired of this continual nagging and fussing over small matters; some day he would tell the old grouch so. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... I gets it from the Boss was like this: Her father, the old brigand pantanta, couldn't get over the way we'd bansheed his bunch of third rate kidnappers with our tin armor play. He accumulated a sort of ingrowin' grouch and soured on the whole push because they wouldn't turn state's evidence as to who had given us the dope to ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... air-baths, cold water plunges, or cold water sponges, every morning. Fix your mind upon having a sound and energized body and you will attract it. Exercise, walk, run, play, work, and learn to rest. Change your habits of living. Cut out the grouch. Stop nagging. You're sour because your pores are stopped up; get a buck-saw and take a sweat. You're morbidly blue because your solar plexus has gone to sleep; give it half an hour of internal vibration. Don't knock the weather, like it, get ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... "He is an early-morning grouch," James explained, as they sat down at the table. "Not fit to associate with man or beast—not even his own dog, if he had one—when he first gets up. How come you were smart enough to get the answer ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... a rare chance it goes down for a few hours, they become nervous, panicky, and apprehensive, always listening, expecting something to happen. But we of the windless North, with our sunlit spaces, our quiet days and nights, grow peevish, petulant, and full of grouch when the wind blows. We will stand anything but that. We resent wind; it is not in the bond; we will have ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... was Pepper Sneed, the "grouch" of the company. Nothing ever went the way Pepper wanted it to go, from the depiction of a play to the meals he ate. No wonder he had dyspepsia. He was always apprehensive of something going to happen and when it did—well, they used to say that Pepper ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... arnychists somewhere, an' why they ain't in other places. It minds me iv what happened wanst in me cousin Terence's fam'ly. They was livin' down near Healey's slough in wan iv thim ol' Doherty's houses,—not Doherty that ye know, th' j'iner, a good man whin he don't dhrink. No, 'twas an ol' grouch iv a man be th' name iv Malachi Doherty that used to keep five-day notices in his thrunk, an' ownded his own privit justice iv th' peace. Me cousin Terence was as dacint a man as iver shoed a hor-rse; an his wife was a good woman, too, though I niver ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... mean Harold, of course," said Harriet. "He's gone around all winter with a grouch and a face a mile long. What's the ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to seem such a grouch, but I don't like your grade of paper either. And why not enlarge the magazine to about 11" x 9" by 1/2", and charge 25 cents for your thoroughly good magazine, apart from the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... of it?" said Mr. Spike in my ear. "Nothin' but an old stone barn, where he can set all day nursin' a grouch and keepin' his daughter Anita—they do say he does—under lock and key for fear somebody's goin' to marry ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... does feed the lines to his opposite, and Bebe happy is worth twice Bebe in a grouch. You see what the whole blamed thing is like and—" Mr. Vandeford was interrupted by the tinkle of ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... not for bacon. Alas! Our hunger was the healthier one! We talked of New York. "Mother's in Paris," he volunteered, "and Dad's in New York meeting her bills. But the Old Man's got a grouch at me, and so he sent me 'way out here in this God-forsaken country! Say, what did they make this country for? Got any tailor-made cigarettes about you? How did Broadway look when you were there last? Lights all there yet at night? ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... with Bowers here? Do you like the old grouch? So do I. I've come to tell him about a new soprano I heard at Bayreuth. He'll pretend not to care, but he does. Do you warble with him? Have you anything of a voice? Honest? You look it, you know. What are you going in for, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... respected the competent young worker, Robinson. They all knew that he had been discharged largely because Joe Lathrop was jealous and somewhat afraid of him, and because Joe had had a bad headache and grouch. They resented the injustice. Their respect for their foreman dropped several degrees. Their interest in their work slackened. "What is the use," they thought, "to do our best when superior workmanship might get us thrown out of here instead ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... there is so much of Mademoiselle Simone in my story of Cagnes, and why the Artist had a grouch. His afternoon's work should have pleased him, should have satisfied him. He would not have finished it had he met Mademoiselle Simone. He knows more of Cagnes than I do, but he would rather have known more of ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... carefully on my kitchen table, as on any part of the house. If I find later that the winning plans include these things I shall believe that Henry Anderson is a mind reader, or that lost plans naturally gravitate to him. But there is no use to grouch further. I seem to be born a loser. Anyway, I haven't lost you and I still ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... fox-trot your grouch away with Shine Taylor. Here comes the wine I ordered—What's your name, girlie? Where did ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... privilege was an iniquitous encroachment upon HIS sacred rights. Those rights he proposed to safeguard, to fight for if necessary. He would shed his last drop of blood in their defense. No cantankerous old grouch could refuse him free speech ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... I hope some woman puts the hook into you some day. Where did you pick up the grouch? Some of your dusky princesses give ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... between a grouch caused by a cootie-lined bunk and a desire to place a bomb under the Capitol ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... got a grouch. Come with me and walk it off," Neil said uneasily, but he did not press the invitation, and his friend had little more to say. His silence was perhaps the most unusual thing about his behaviour, which was all ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... then for the first time what a bitterly hard thing it is for a man in a large and wicked city to keep from soda when once he has got the habit. Everything was against me. The old convivial circle began to shun me. I could not join in their revels and they began to look on me as a grouch. In the end, I fell, and in one wild orgy undid all the good of a month's abstinence. I was desperate then. I felt that nothing could save me, and I might as well give up the struggle. I drank two pin-ap-o-lades, ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... and tell stories the whole night long, but never a cuss gave he. You could feed him turkey at Christmastime—and Tony the cook's no slouch— But Jim wouldn't join in "Three cheers for the cook!" Gosh, but he had a grouch! ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... admitted it to himself or not, the sober Bud Moore who lay on his bunk nursing a headache and a grouch against the world was ashamed of the drunken Bud Moore who had paraded his drunkenness before the man who knew Marie. He did not want Marie to hear what Joe might tell There was no use, he told himself miserably, in making Marie despise him as well as hate him. There was a difference. She ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... responsiveness under an influence of unnatural solemnity. Lincoln is quoted as having declared, "You can catch more flies with a drop of honey than with a gallon of vinegar"—a homely expression, but full of suggestion. A grouch is no magnet. ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... manners are specially marked. At table every one is supposed to be at his best, not to bring any grouch, or a long or sad face to it, but to contribute his best thought, his wittiest sayings, to the conversation. Every member of the family is expected to do his best to make the meal a really happy occasion. There is a sort of rivalry to see who can be the most entertaining, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... matter, anyhow?" the other demanded. "It's not like you to load up with a grouch. Has one of those blasted oil ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... is seen completely shrouded in his blanket, standing or sitting a little apart from the camp, he either has a grouch or he is praying. In either case it is not good ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... I answered, "it's about time you cast off your grouch. Look! The sky is so beautiful, the mountains so majestic. Cheer up, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... East, too—even the one little corner of it that we've seen," retorted Sergeant Hal. "Don't be a grouch or a knocker, Noll. Own up that you wouldn't start for the United States to-morrow if you were offered double pay back in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... after day the same, Only a little worse; No one to grouch or blame— Oh, for a loving curse! Oh, in the night I fear, Haunted by nameless things, Just for a voice to cheer, Just ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... occur to him that this was merely the doctor's way of saying that Charley had handled the situation about as well as he could have done it himself. Evidently the forester did not propose to enlighten Charley, for all he said was, "Don't let him worry you, Charley. He's just naturally lazy and a grouch. He doesn't like it because I made him hustle for once, and he's disappointed not to find Jim at the point of death. These doctors are strange animals, Charley. But with all their faults we love them still." And he slapped the physician ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... of the Centipede fixed that! Don't you see? This was their seat! They leaned out of this place as I leaned out just now, and they gripped the ankles of any poor devil they had a grouch ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... both boys were within hearing, distance. The men were not talking much, however. In fact, they both seemed to be harboring a grouch, from the infrequent low, grumbling complaints ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... was. I've no use for the smart-aleck school of criticism. But, at least, what Gurney wrote was his own. And Haslett, even if he is an old grouch, was honest. You couldn't buy their opinions ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... reached out and caught her by the arm. "Virginia," he said, "I've tried to be good to you, but maybe you don't appreciate it. And maybe I've made a mistake. There's something about you when I'm around that reminds me of a man with a grouch—only a man would speak out his mind. Now I've given you a chance to clean up twenty thousand dollars and I expect something more ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... it's too bad you've had to bother with their troubles. Bassett was on the boat as I came over. He had a grouch. He doesn't look like a ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... rivulets of wheel-tracks that crisscrossed on a slushy street-crossing Mr. Wrenn regained his advantage by crying, "Say, don't you think that play 'd have been better if the promoter 'd had an awful grouch on the young miner and 'd had to crawfish when the ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... card on his desk that says, "Do it Now," and so he lays down his book with a patient sigh, and comes back to it with a patent grouch. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... a grouch on 'cos you're late!" called out the head of the line. "No doin' nothin' when 'e's got a ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you to read that letter from Washington to-night," said Ernest, feebly, "but I feel that I need immediate rest. I'll go up in the morning to see Dick and if he still has his grouch with him, I'll bring him back to ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... self-starter appears to have gone on a strike. I had left my crank at the camp and my only hope seemed to be to buy or borrow one somewhere. I asked the two or three fellows standing about the telegraph office where I might be likely to find one. No one seemed to know, but just then the old grouch—excuse me, person who keeps the hardware store ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... looks exactly like him, when it is having a terrible spell of colic and Ned is in the midst of a sick headache, with all the other children cold, hungry, and cross, the cook gone to a funeral, and the nurse in a grouch because she couldn't go and—and he knowing that Mamie was attired in a lovely, cool muslin dress, sitting up here on the porch with us sipping a mint julep and smoking a ten-cent cigar, resting and getting up an appetite for supper. I want him to have about five ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... right," he said, when I met him out again in it, a week later. "It was gummed up, so to speak; but it's working like a charm to-day. Get in and I'll take you a few miles. That other fellow got an awful grouch." ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... and shadows. Against the background of lights he could see the slender figure of the girl passing among the huge fishermen who towered like giants above her. Radiating energy wherever she went, criticizing some, commending others and joking away the early-morning grouch, she directed the movements of the constantly increasing stream of men who thronged the dock and despatched the boats one by one ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... essentials of a successful camping-out trip are personal. One must have the receptive and acceptive spirit. No matter what comes it is for the best; an experience worth having. Nothing must be complained of. The "grouch" has no place on a camping-trip, and one who is a "grouch," a "sissy," a "faultfinder," a "worrier," a "quitter," or who cannot or will not enter fully into the spirit of the thing ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... old grouch," chaffed Billy. "At any rate the prisoner didn't escape, and so there's no ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... have preferences, even if I CAN'T afford them. If you were a tippler instead of a plain grouch I could tell you precisely how you'd act and what you'd talk about as the evening goes on. First you'd be gallant and attentive; then you'd forget me and talk business with Mr. Wharton—he's nearest you. About that time I'd begin to learn the real names of these lords of finance. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... sake, Henry, she'll be in a conniption fit! You go bring her in here—and tell her to stop worryin'. I'm sore as the devil, and I'm goin' to make an example out of you, but that ain't any reason to act like a grouch, is it? Sound sensible to you? Bring her in here. ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... there you are," said Raffles Holmes. "By-the- way, you've come at an interesting moment. There'll be things doing before the evening is over. I've had an anxious caller here five times already to- day. I've been standing in the barber-shop opposite getting a line on him. His card name is Grouch, his ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... said Leverage. "President of the Capitol City Woolen Mills. Rated about a hundred thousand—maybe a little more. He's on the Board of Directors of the Second National. Has the reputation of being hard, fearless—and considerable of a grouch. Age forty-two. ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... airily, jumping into the seat beside him. "Though what has given you a grouch I really am at a loss to imagine!" she added under ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... Holmes had a grouch on just then,—for some reason or other,—and he answered me by throwing one of his shoes in my direction, which I hastily dodged by shoving my head under the ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... found in the person of a nondescript elderly man who received a dollar a day from the town funds to act as jailer when the lockup was in use. His name was Moody, his chief characteristic the determined grouch he had cherished ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... is no time to nurse a grouch. Perhaps they didn't get the telegram. I'll risk it. Is there a side door ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... your wood-carving, while you stuck around by your lonesome and watched him—eh?" Danglar's tones were jocularly facetious. "Don't grouch, Skeeny! We're not killing for fun—it doesn't pay. Supposing anything had broken wrong up the Avenue—eh? We wouldn't have had our friend the Sparrow there for the ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... Well, sleep your grouch off. I've got a date with Finnegan. The election's coming on, and I have to work—lining up the vote and getting the repeaters ready. It all means good money for me. Look out about the booze, lady. It'll float you into trouble—trouble with me, I mean." And he patted her bare shoulders, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... man! Don't get sore. You've been a grouch ever since we asked you to come along. One would think you didn't have any interests tied up ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... throwed that guy's trombone away, well his name is Lahey but we call him Shorty on acct. of him being so short. Well I hadn't payed much attention to this here Sebastian because he has always got a grouch and don't say nothing only to mumble at the officers when they ask him some question but Shorty knows him and last night he told me all about him and he has been pinched 50 times for stabbing people but he has got some pull or something and they can't never do nothing to him except once ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... Film Company, had to portray many different scenes in the course of a season's work, and though some of it was distasteful, it was seldom objected to by anyone, unless perhaps by Pepper Sneed, the "grouch," or perhaps by Mr. Wellington Bunn, an actor of the old school, who could not reconcile himself ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... of Ora and Detis came to his ears. The booming speech of Mado. Why couldn't he be sensible and companionable as they were? But a perverse demon kept him at the controls. They'd think him a grouch. Well, maybe he was! But the vastness of the universe beckoned. New worlds to explore; mysteries to be solved; a life of countless new experiences! Anyone'd think he was the owner of the Nomad, the way he ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... mused Tom, on his way back, after settling the score, "he could have shown us the way through his hay field, and we might have gotten into the Hall on time. The old grouch!" ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... yuh up a day or two; wouldn't be su'prised if yuh had to stay on the bed-ground two or three meals. But look at Slim, here. Shot through the leg—shattered a bone, by cripes!—las' night, only; and here he's makin' a hand and ridin' and cussin' same as any of us t'day. We ain't goin' to let yuh grouch around, that's all. We claim we got a vacation comm' to us; you're shot up, now, and that's fun enough for one man, without throwin' it into the whole bunch. Why, a little nick like that ain't nothin'; nothin' a-tall. Why, I've been shot right through here, by cripes"—Big ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... I had got out of the business, I got a mighty grouch on. I used to go round town licking private citizens and all kinds of unprofessionals just to please myself. I'd lick cops in dark streets and car-conductors and cab-drivers and draymen whenever I could start a row with 'em. It didn't make any difference ...
— Options • O. Henry
... watched the price of porterhouse steak climb the ladder of fame, was deep in the throes of an unusually bad grouch when a would-be customer, eight years old, approached him and handed him ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... slapping him vigorously on the shoulder as the train drew into Bryne Haven. "Come off that grouch and get busy! You're on leave, man! If you can't visit one woman there's plenty more, and time enough to get married, too, before you go to France. Marriage is only an incident, anyway. Why make ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... what Billy just said about him and his chains!" cried Bobby. "'He's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all right.' Didn't you hear him? And he's had a grouch against Pretty Sweet ever since the ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... and forth he could not stand, while if he made a really human remark it found no response. She did not appreciate what he said; she misunderstood, misinterpreted everything. She laughed, shrugged her shoulders, pouted, called him an old grouch, or cooed like a dove. She did not look at him with real eyes; there was no flow of soul in ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... anywheres," he reflected. "This here's a swell head with a grouch. I reckon he ain't a serious friend of hers, or she wouldn't have stood for me rescuin' her when he offered himself that generous." The recollection convulsed him, and he bowed his head over the pony's neck to hide the laugh. When he looked ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... see me," returned Wyn, placidly. "Or, at least, I hope you will see Bessie's mind changed, whether by my efforts, or not. Oh, dear! it's so much easier to get along pleasantly in this world if folks only thought so. Query: Why is a grouch?" ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... means it keeps goin' without stoppin'—the rheumatism, I mean, not the folks that's got it. THEY don't go at all, sometimes. Old Dr. Cole don't, and that's what he's got. But when I asked ma what a grouch was, she said little boys should be seen and not heard. Ma always says that when she don't want to answer my questions. Do you? Have you got any ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... barely polite to Miss West and me when we chance to address him. His replies are grunted in monosyllables, and his face is set in superlative sourness. Miss West who is unaware of the occurrence, laughs and calls it a "sea grouch"—a phenomenon with which she claims ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... up the elevator he sighed and said: "It takes all kinds of people to make up a world—Mr. Hummockstone is wan of the t'others. He has a grouch agin the universe. Sure but he's been housin' a gnawin' serpent. How 'twill all end ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland |
