"Shaky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not have admitted fright, but his voice was a trifle shaky. It is no light thing for a boy reared on the pavements of New York to face a serpent in the midst of ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... unrolled and wiped his gun he drew a shaky chair to the pine table and sat down. His daughter watched him, and when he bent his gray head she covered her eyes ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... rise to his feet and resume his walk homeward; he was a little shaky on the legs, and was compelled to lean heavily on my shoulder as he ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... were a little shaky on the ladders. The violet moonlight had deepened to mauve, and gusty winds spun tendrils of grit across my face. The Spaceforce men shepherded me, one on either side, ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... more the little fat pocket-book. From it he extracted the cheque and looked it over lovingly. Then he hailed a passing hansom. "Drive to the Capital and Counties Bank," he said. It had struck him that since the firm was in a shaky state he had better draw the money as ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... visit to Carbury Towers, Mr. Reginald Harrington Lind called at a house in Manchester Square and found Mrs. Douglas at home. Sholto's mother was a widow lady older than Mr. Lind, with a rather glassy eye and shaky hand, who would have looked weak and shiftless in an almshouse, but who, with plenty of money, unlimited domestic service, and unhesitating deference from attendants who were all trained artists in their occupation, made a fair shew of being a dignified and interesting ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... no head for Mathematics and no gift for Languages, while his Classics had always been a trifle more than shaky. History bored him—so he ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... crying in a corner, she thought she had better fetch him. Running downstairs and across the garden, she climbed over the wall by the wood pile, and boldly knocked at the widower's back door, thereby frightening him not a little. He came very cautiously along the passage, and inquired in rather shaky ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... sir, but I'm very shaky. Legs must be a regular pair of cowards, sir, for they won't hurry a ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... and so it fell out that there was no witness to that burn-side encounter. It was a complex fight and it lasted for more than a second. Two of the men had the grace to feel ashamed of themselves half-way through, and retired from the contest with shaky limbs and aching faces. The third had to be assisted to his feet in the end by his antagonist. It was not a good fight, for the three were pasty-faced, overgrown young men, in no training and stupid with liquor. But they pressed hard on Lewis ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... reduced almost to punk by the decay of the boards of which it was built, or the bow of the cutter would not have gone through it so readily. The lieutenant had simply desired to get alongside the negro's shaky craft in order to question him, for he was satisfied from the fellow's manner that he knew more than he ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... for himself with rather a shaky hand, and drank it off without water. He shivered a little, and drew closer to the fire. "It's a very cold night," he muttered, holding his hands out to the leaping flame, and resting his forehead upon the marble mantelpiece. "It's a cold night, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... shoulder and it glitters with every step he takes, signals to heaven with gleaming flashes; it cuts the air like a weapon and shines like silver. The coal-heaver runs foul of a gentleman coming out of a gateway; the gentleman smells of liquor and looks a little shaky; his clothes are silk-lined. As soon as he has lit a cigar he saunters down the ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... bad sign, bleeding so freely, but he looks devilish shaky, you see. I've seen lots of our fellows hit, you know, and I don't like his looks—poor fellow. You'd better see Lord Chelford this minute. He could not stand being brought all the way to the town. I'll run down and send ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... saw the house was on fire. H. ran for a hatchet and I for water, and we put it out. Another (shell) came crashing near, and I snatched up my comb and brush and ran down here. It has taken all the afternoon to get the plaster out of my hair, for my hands were rather shaky. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... and with the help of the lumberman the Spider was hauled ashore, not in the least damaged. The girls were beginning to recover their nerves now, though they were a trifle shaky. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... my brother, Steven Donnell." Alan's voice was shaky with tension. "Steve, this is a friend of ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... Ivan's sake he was neglecting all his engagements for the evening and the night, that he might be the first to congratulate his chum on his engagement. The minutes passed. More than an hour, now, since Ivan had bidden him a shaky good-night! And the longer the wait, the more hopeful things must naturally look. An accepted man sits late with his fiancee, discussing the most important question in the world, while the serfs group ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... She wanted, I saw, to make me feel that I was not worth her anger, though I had been within an ace of killing her lover. I lost patience at last; a malicious allusion broke from my lips.... She started, glanced swiftly at me, got up, and going to the window, pronounced in a rather shaky voice, 'You can say anything you like, but let me tell you that I love that man, and always shall love him, and do not consider that he has done me any injury, quite the contrary.'... Her voice broke, she stopped ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... thing not altogether strange to the attentive reader of Shakespeare. Hamlet seems the natural result of the mixture of father and mother in his temperament, the resolution and persistence of the one, like sound timber wormholed and made shaky, as it were, by the other's infirmity of will and discontinuity of purpose. In natures so imperfectly mixed it is not uncommon to find vehemence of intention the prelude and counterpoise of weak performance, the conscious nature striving to keep ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... across the room to the table and, with shaky hands, took out three containers of coffee from the paper bag ...
— Rescue Squad • Thomas J. O'Hara
... he and Cyd had saved a considerable sum of money; and the Isabel having become rather shaky from old age, they proposed to procure another boat, and establish themselves at the city. With the aid of Mr. Presby, they built a yacht of forty tons, which was called the "Lily." It was a beautiful little vessel, and soon became very popular ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... spring when the river was high and I'd been out with my traps. I was coming home along the river edge, pretty tired, a big load on my back. I came around a bend of the river, and not far below me a little black bear, round as a barrel, was trying to scramble over the flood on a very shaky log. The mother was on the other side, but I didn't know that then. Well, there's nothing in God's world, Sylvie, so beguiling as a baby bear. This little fellow was scared by what he was doing, but he was bound he'd get across ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Englishmen picked out their prettiest bonbons for the same purpose; and one elderly, pompous man, who drove unmasked and with staring opera glasses up and down the Corso, quite showered her with bouquets, which he threw so poorly, and with such a shaky old hand, that the street gamins caught them all except such as he craftily flung so that they might assuredly tumble back to the carriage again. And Mae, though she had felt the pleased gaze of a good many eyes before, had never quite put its ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... lose for the moment all interest in life. Kennedy lay where he had fallen for nearly half a minute before he fully realised what it was that had happened to him. When he did realise the situation, he leapt to his feet, feeling sick and shaky, and staggered about in all directions in a manner which suggested that he fancied his assailant would be waiting politely until he had recovered. As was only natural, that wily person had vanished, and was by this ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... had somehow contrived to pick up during the war perhaps buying them of drunken soldiers. Supported by Thurstane's pugnacious presence and hurried up by his vehement orders, they began to fire. They were shaky; didn't aim very well; hardly aimed at all, in fact; blazed away at extraordinary elevations; behaved as men do who have become demoralized. However, as the pieces had a range of several hundred yards, the small bullets ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... to a tete-a-tete, after a lengthy silence, Mrs. Larcher, sitting among the collapsible spring's, began to speak in a shaky voice. ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... sinister vegetation, but at the eldritch atmosphere and odor of the dilapidated house, whose unlocked front door was often entered in quest of shudders. The small-paned windows were largely broken, and a nameless air of desolation hung round the precarious panelling, shaky interior shutters, peeling wall-paper, falling plaster, rickety staircases, and such fragments of battered furniture as still remained. The dust and cobwebs added their touch of the fearful; and brave indeed was the boy who would voluntarily ascend the ladder ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... season sir, but I trust you will keep abreast of the times. Many of our establishments are said to be in a shaky condition." ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... sometimes opened before they reach the person to whom they are addressed. These officials who have been kind enough to receive me are gentlemen so polished that I feel quite uncouth in their presence. I am a little shaky in my French, and feared that my knowledge of that language might not carry me through, but both of these officials speak English much better than I do, and they seemed rather pleased I had voluntarily ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... himself the fugitive was out of sight, and the sound of his progress had ceased. Foyle called to him to come back and, without waiting to see whether his orders were obeyed, made his way back again to the first-floor landing. Israels was still there, very white and shaky, as the superintendent ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... five minutes; he was wet with perspiration when he lay back on his pillows, a shaky smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He had a secret defense against the Terror. He giggled a little at the thought of what Aunt Bee would say if ...
— Native Son • T. D. Hamm
... chaps ain't got no sense," here interrupted Uncle, his voice evidently under control, but shaky. "I'd like to know where you were brought up. You learn it all wrong at them schools of yours, and you never get it right afterwards. You learn about the guts of engines and 'lectricity, and you ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... the government wants, most of all," he told the boys. "They were made by an old engraver who was once in the employ of the government. The man is too old and shaky to make other plates, and as Sack Todd isn't an engraver himself, it's not likely he will attempt to go into ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... foundation of four rails upon the soft muck, Russ began to lay the next tier across them, thus building a platform. It was a shaky platform, but he crept out upon it slowly and carefully and the lower rails ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... it's a bore about his religion, and his politics are more than shaky, but you know, in a way, it's rather lucky, in view of the mess Papa's got everything into, to have someone on that side," went on Judith, who was far too practical to be influenced by that malign Spirit of the Nation who had ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... had always carried their failures lightly, and even Samuel, who had died at Indianapolis amid a clutter of dead or shaky financial schemes, was spoken of kindly in Montgomery. Samuel had saved himself with the group of politicians he had persuaded to invest in the Mexican mine by selling out to a German syndicate just before he died; and ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... a pleasant walk into Bhamo, that important military station on the left bank of the Irrawaddy. We crossed the Taiping at Myothit by a bridge, a temporary and very shaky structure, which is every year carried away when the river rises, and every year renewed when the caravans take the road ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... shaky around the hams an' knees," said Box Izard; "he's been a good figger, but even figgers can lie ef they stand up ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... feet in girth, indigenous in the southern counties of England. The wood is very tough, heavy, and close grained. It is largely used in France for handles for agricultural and mining implements, and of late years has been much used in this country for lasts. The wood of large growth is apt to became shaky, and it is consequently not used as a building wood. It is said to have been used as a substitute for box in engraving, but with what success ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... gracious! my worthy old Ancient, who once held the sway of the heavens, Your realm seems a little bit shaky; what ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... was too hard for her. She couldn't face that highest rock; the one below had made her feel cold and queer and shaky as she stood on it. Besides, why was she trying, for the first time in her life, to go Nan's pace, which had always been, and was now more than ever before, too hot and mettlesome for her? She didn't know why; ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... white-hot vehemence of inspiration; tepid works! respectable versifications of very proper and even original sentiments: kind of Hayleyistic, I fear - but no, this is morbid self-depreciation. The family is all very shaky in health, but our motto is now 'Al Monte!' in the words of Don Lope, in the play the sister and I are just beating through with two bad dictionaries ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at the top of the creek-bank was singing it; some one with an exceedingly small, shaky little voice that was trying to be daring and mocking and indifferent, and that was none of these things—but only wistful and a ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... of those people," Roy confided to Allen, as they leaned against the shaky, old rail. "There's ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... assiduously as the rest, for a day or two. She was particularly shaky on her geometry. She went over her theorems until she came to triangles, then she threw the book down in disgust. "What's the use of cramming?" she said to herself. "If I keep on I won't even be able to remember that 'the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... at the edge of the forest I mounted the sentinel's stage, just in time to see the turtles retreating to the water on the opposite side of the sand-bank, after having laid their eggs. The sight was well worth the trouble of ascending the shaky ladder. They were about a mile off, but the surface of the sands was blackened with the multitudes which were waddling towards the river; the margin of the praia was rather steep, and they all seemed to tumble head first down the declivity ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... 'Bad accident here. Come at once.' I know that will bring him. . . . And it has the further merit of being the truth!" she added with a rather shaky ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... opened from the end of the balcony, and it was large and cheerless, so all hope of warmth vanished; a small, dark bathroom was at one side (with no light except when a door was opened), furnished with the regulation high round bathtub and a shaky washstand; neither of the outer doors would lock! The floors on opposite sides of both rooms contained ominous-looking square openings, suggesting the possibilities of certain reptiles which we ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... Ouvrages des Savants de d'Europe', June 1745. The discussion was revived somewhat later, however, and a few Dutch scholars were supposed to be responsible for a new theory founded on history; the foundations proving somewhat shaky, however,—a quality which it shares, we must say, with all the other theories ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Dick!" Helen repeated. "It's his own dear handwriting. How shaky it is! He's alive and well, Philippa, and ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ugly bruise on his freckled nose, a sick and shaky detachment to manoeuvre inship and the comfort of fifty scornful females to attend to, had no time to feel homesick till the Malabar reached mid-Channel, when he doubled his emotions with a little guard-visiting and a great ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... things about you, George," she said, after a moment. "Now that I look at you, you do look pretty shaky,—and pretty well threshed out. Is it true? Have you been as bad ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... I sot down and read that paper as quick as I could find my specks. And I well remember that after huntin' high and low for 'em and all over the house with tremblin' knees and shaky hands cold as a frog's, I found 'em on my own fore-top, and I sot right down ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... dismount save into the water on the one hand or into the valley thirty feet down on the other. But I think you can trust the Yunnan pony anywhere he is willing to go, and mine did not hesitate. In fact, he never balked at anything asked of him save once at a shaky "parao," or footway, constructed along the face of the cliff on timbers thrust into holes bored in the solid rock, and another time when he refused a jump from a boggy rice-field to the top of a crumbling wall hardly a ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... and if there was a rotten heart as big as his arm, he let it alone; but now they cut such a tree, and sawed it all around the rot, and it made the very best of boards, for in such a case they were never shaky. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... study of a matter that was to have a far-reaching effect, Mr. Thompson was seated on his haunches on his cabin floor, his hands stained with blood and a considerable trail of red marking his progress from woodpile to cabin. His face was white, and his hands rather shaky by the time he finished binding up the wound. The cut stung and burned. When he essayed to move he found ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... time, infidelity to trust, and impatience of application. Thin, haggard, duskily pallid, deeply wrinkled at forty, his black eyes watery and set in baggy circles of a dull brown, his lean dark hands shaky and dirty, his linen wrinkled and buttonless, his clothing frayed and unbrushed, he was an impersonation of failure. He had gone into the legislature with a desperate hope of somehow finding money in it, and as yet he had discovered nothing more than his beggarly three dollars a day, and he ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... lambs to the slaughter wherever they are led—disagree as to the path. He wants to go down one side of the tongue, I to go down the other, and I have my way, and we wade along, skirting the bushes that fringe it, trying to find our hole. I own I soon begin to feel shaky about having been right in the affair, but soon Xenia, who is leading, shouts he has got it, and we limp in, our feet sore with rugged rocks, and everything we have on, or in the loads, wringing wet, save the matches, which providentially ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... a good story of a shaky village knight of the razor who gashed the minister's cheek. "John, John!" cried the reverend sufferer, "it's a dreadful thing that drink!" "'Deed it is, sir," mildly assented John, "it ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... up the Lagunitas quartz lead? Hardin's brow is gloomy. He uses days for a decision. The letter makes him very shaky in his mind. Is the "ex-Queen of the El Dorado" ready to strike a ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... were gallant little riders. Honor would not give up the old pony, long since trained for her by Humfrey, though, maybe, that was her most undutiful proceeding towards him, as he would certainly have told her that the creature was shaky on the legs. So at last it tumbled down with her, but without any damage, save a hole in her skirt, and a dreadful crying fit of little Owen, who was frightened out of his wits. She owned that it must be degraded to light cart work, and mounted an animal which Hiltonbury agreed to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... retiring after his meal, and noted the toothpick which he uses? . . . You are right, madam; I own that the subject is revolting and terrible. I will not pursue it. Only—allow that a gentleman, in a shaky steamboat, on a dangerous river, in a far-off country, which caught fire three times during the voyage—(of course I mean the steamboat, not the country,)—seeing a giant, a voracious supercargo, a bearded lady, and a little boy, not three years of age, with a chin already quite black and curly, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... course I won't,' answered Mary in a rather shaky voice. As she spoke the room became suddenly so light that her eyes were dazzled and she could see nothing. And a few moments later, when she could see things again, she was scarcely able to believe they ...
— The Bountiful Lady - or, How Mary was changed from a very Miserable Little Girl - to a very Happy One • Thomas Cobb
... never had enough Only Time was good for sorrow Pathetic, aching hope against hope which lovers never part with Piety which was just sexual disappointment Poor old man, let um have his pleasure. Poor shaky chap. All to pieces at the first shot! Reward—what you can get for being good Selfishness of age had not set its proper grip on him Sense of justice stifled condemnation Servants knew everything, and suspected the rest ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... the Pit fear. I will write it down now, and, if anything more happens, endeavor to make a note of it, at once. I have a feeling, that there is more in this last affair, than in all those others. I am shaky and nervous, even now, as I write. Somehow, I think death is not very far away. Not that I fear death—as death is understood. Yet, there is that in the air, which bids me fear—an intangible, cold horror. I felt it last night. ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... of the Cot where she was Born, one Summer's eve, with pensive thought, when Somebody came Knocking at the Door. It was Philander. Fond Embrace and things. Thrilling emotions. P. very pale and shaky ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... better presently, for here we are," Uncle Harry said gently; and in a few minutes more they were all in a shabby, shaky, but roomy old ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... it said, in a very shaky hand, not unblurred by tears, "I know all now, and I wonder you thought it could ever matter. I know you're not the eldest son, and that somebody else is the heir of Tilgate. And I care for all that a great deal less than nothing. I love you ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... ex-United States Senator Clemens of Alabama, at Huntsville, Alabama, at the close of the Rebellion, he told the Alabamians how their State, which, as we have seen, was becoming decidedly shaky in its allegiance to the "Sham of Southern Independence," was ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... a headlong dive, the carriage swayed as if it would fly in pieces, slithered along, and with a jerk steadied itself. Harz lifted his voice in a shout of pure excitement. Mr. Treffry let out a short shaky howl, and from behind there rose a wail. But the hill was over and the startled horses were cantering with a free, smooth motion. Mr. Treffry and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... illegal enterprise unless the prize was worth having. It was unlikely that 1,000 pounds a year would compensate any one of them for the risk. But that would mean a profit of from 4,000 to 6,000 pounds a year. Hilliard realized that he was here on shaky ground, though the balance of probability ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... him sullenly up and down, then she led the way into the black chasm and up the stairs. They were so shaky as to make Calton fear they might give way. As they toiled slowly up the broken steps he held tightly to his companion's arm. At last they stopped at a door through the cracks of which a faint glimmer of light was to be seen. Here the girl gave a shrill whistle, and the door opened. Still preceded ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... decided she couldn't be frightened. The "matter"?—why, it was sufficiently the matter, with all this, that she felt a little sick. For it was not the Prince that she had been prepared to regard as primarily the shaky one. Shakiness in Charlotte she had, at the most, perhaps postulated—it would be, she somehow felt, more easy to deal with. Therefore if HE had come so far it was a different pair of sleeves. There was nothing to choose between ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... West—whom he knew well by sight—upon the Monday night, and that he went to London by the 8:15 to London Bridge. He was alone and took a single third-class ticket. The clerk was struck at the time by his excited and nervous manner. So shaky was he that he could hardly pick up his change, and the clerk had helped him with it. A reference to the timetable showed that the 8:15 was the first train which it was possible for West to take after he had left the lady ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... one another for a struggling moment, and had then broken into laughter, long and loud, until the visiting authority was limp and moist. The children waited in polite uncertainty, but when Miss Bailey, after some indecision, had contributed a wan smile, which later grew into a shaky laugh, the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... have, however, seen it stated that the greater part of a ship's cargo, brought afterwards to Paris on speculation, was suffered to lie unwrought for years in the stone-dealer's yard, and was ultimately disposed of as rubbish,—a consequence, probably, of its unfitness, from its shaky texture, for ornamental purposes on a large scale, though for ornaments of the smaller kind, such as boxes, vases, and plates, it has been pronounced unrivalled. "At Zoeblitz, in Upper Saxony," says Professor Jamieson, "several hundred people are employed in quarrying, cutting, turning, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... seemed to suspect that there was something wrong with his grandsons. Only once, moved either by affection or by the sense of proprieties, he attempted to nurse the youngest. He took the boy up from the floor, clicked his tongue at him, and essayed a shaky gallop of his bony knees. Then he looked closely with his misty eyes at the child's face and deposited him down gently on the floor again. And he sat, his lean shanks crossed, nodding at the steam escaping from the cooking-pot with a gaze ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... acquittal?" Her voice was breathless and unsteady, and she was clearly, as she had said, quite unstrung. "What a relief it is," she murmured incoherently; "and so very, very kind of you!" She wiped her eyes and laughed a queer, shaky little laugh; then, quite suddenly, she burst ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... was an old man, and very shaky on his pins. His hand trembled as with a palsy, especially noticeable when he poured his whiskey, though I never knew him to spill a drop. He had been twenty-eight years in Melanesia, ranging from German New Guinea to the German ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... the old man turned lovingly on her for a moment, his lips trembled and his voice was suspiciously shaky as he answered, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... his empty gun from him so that it fell in the water and disappeared; and he hurried out of the swamp as fast as his shaky legs would take him, splashing himself with mire and water to his eyebrows. Mucked with mud, breathing in great gulps, trembling, a suspicious figure to any eye, he burst through the weed curtain and staggered into the open, his caution all gone and a vast desperation ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... elsewhere, and the rude platform in front of it and the dry-goods boxes mounted thereon were places of refuge for all the loafers of the place. Down by the stream was a dilapidated building which served for a hemp warehouse, and a shaky wharf extended out from it, into the water. In fact a flat-boat was there moored by it, it's setting poles lying across the gunwales. Above the town the stream was crossed by a crazy wooden bridge, the supports of which leaned all ways in the soggy soil; the absence of ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... do better. Know old E.H. myself. Used to know him better—before he got rich. No—this way. Short cut. You got to get acquainted with your legs again, eh? Had a close call. A little shaky?" ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... shaky again, and looked at his tormentor earnestly, trying to discern whether there was any real knowledge beneath this innuendo. But Uncle John met his gaze with a cheerful smile ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... traveler to keep an eye on his feet. Blue jays, two or three small hawks, a solitary wild pigeon, and ruffled grouse were seen along the route. Now and then the lake gleamed through the trees, or we crossed o a shaky bridge some of its arms or inlets. After a while we began to pass dilapidated houses by the roadside. One little frame house I remembered particularly; the door was off the hinges and leaned against the jams, the windows had but a few panes left, which glared vacantly. The yard ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... told me it's my belief she can do any thing. Why, didn't she tell us of crimes that were committed before she was born? I begin to feel shaky, and it is the girl ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... right," murmured Clare, bracing herself against the chiffonier which she had moved away from the door, "just a little shaky from the drugs—but all right. Don't bother about me, now. I can take care of myself. I'll feel better in a minute. Upstairs— that is where I think that woman is. Please, please don't—I'm ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... places where practically anything was likely to happen at any instant. The people of every nation were jumpy. There was constant pressure on governments and on political parties so that all governments looked shaky and all parties helpless. Nobody could look forward to a peaceful old age, and most hardly hoped to reach middle age. The arrival of an object from outer space was nicely calculated to blow the emotional ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... expressions used which did a great deal of harm, and Lord Derby begged me to warn them very strongly and earnestly on this point; I cannot do much, but I think you might, for in fact they might unintentionally compromise us seriously. The Government are rather shaky; Disraeli has been imprudent and blundering, and has done himself harm by a Speech he made about the Duke of Wellington, which was borrowed from an eloge by Thiers ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... shouldn't we have it as well as those two boys. I wonder sometimes what God meant us to do when He made us! And I'm not going to be in the dumps because I'm not very strong. For look at Nelson: old Selby told us he was always very seedy and shaky, always ill; and not being big in body doesn't matter, for Nelson was a little man and so was Napoleon, and lots of the great men have been short and stumpy and hideous! I mean to do something before ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... me out of this, Carl," he kept saying, "and I've got something right here in my pocket I'm meaning to give back to you. I was getting shaky about it anyhow; but if you help me now you're a-goin' to have it, sure ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... die within a few miles, but the camels were still staunch in spite of the weakening effect of the sand-ridges, so there was no need for anxiety. Yet we could not help feeling anxious; one's nerves get shaky from constant wear and tear, from want of food and rest. We had been in infinitely worse positions than this; in fact, with health and strength and fresh camels no thought of danger would have been entertained, but it is a very different matter after months of constant strain on body and mind. ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... corridor and called the porter, who roused himself, opened the door and hailed the house opposite. A woman looked out in the evening light, nodded and disappeared. A few seconds later she came out of the house, a quiet little middle-aged creature in brown, with intelligent eyes, and she crossed the shaky wooden bridge over the canal to come and bring Marietta home. It would have been a scandalous thing if the daughter of Angelo Beroviero had been seen by the neighbours to walk a score of paces in the street without an attendant. She had thrown a hood of dark green cloth ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... here, James Moore!" he cried in thick, shaky, horrible voice. "Ye're big, I'm sma'; ye're strang, I'm weak; ye've ivery one to your back, I've niver a one; you tell your story, and they'll believe ye—for you gae to church; I'll tell mine, and they'll think I lie—for I dinna. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... about ten seconds in reality . . . she said faintly, "Take your Testaments, please," and sank breathlessly into her chair under cover of the rustle and clatter of desk lids that followed. While the children read their verses Anne marshalled her shaky wits into order and looked over the array of little pilgrims ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the spare room, and usually treated to warm biscuit and pie for supper. A few families were very poor, and there I was lucky to get bread and potatoes. In one house I remember the bedstead was very shaky, and in the middle of the night, as I turned over, it began to sway and lurch, and presently all went down in a heap. But I clung to the wreck till morning, and said ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... so, he acknowledged, than had she any right to be of him. And the dozen years had vindicated his attitude, so that he was as sure of her as he was of the diurnal rotation of the earth. And now, was the form his fancy took, the rotation of the earth was a shaky proposition and old Oom Paul's flat world ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... not speak well, I think, of his health; not at all well; and his Handwriting looks shaky. What a ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... from the hotel opposite the depot, came bumping across the rails, with the grips belonging to the two traveling men, in his little cart; the local expressman rattled up with a trunk in his shaky old wagon; and the sweet-faced daughter of the division track superintendent hurried out of the red section-house with a bundle of big envelopes in her hand. The platform was crowded with all kinds of people, carrying a great variety of bundles, baskets and handbags, asking all manner of questions, ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... few moments Raymond was able to stand upon his feet, but he was so shaky that Worry sent Schoonover ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... and horsedealers' oaths are never literally true; it is safer to receive them as lies. I thought it would be prudent to try this trotter before buying him, so Binns signed an order, in a very shaky hand, to the man in charge of his farm, to let me have the horse on trial. When I harnessed and put him in between the shafts he was very quiet indeed. I took a whip, not for the purpose of using it, but merely for show; a horse that had won ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... think and be hanged to 'em!" replied Captain Hamilton. "Yet," he added a moment later, "with things in the shaky condition they are and that rascal, Ditty, planning mischief, we don't want ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... don't! And therefore the foundations of the establishment are shaky. Your book-keeping is all ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... money, and an old trunk was delivered to him. Maroney did not seem to place any value on the trunk, and had it put carelessly along with his other baggage. Strange indeed, thought Roch, what can he want with that old trunk? It was an old box, painted black, and thickly studded with nails. It was a shaky looking affair, and did not look as if it would stand much of a chance with a modern "baggage smasher." It had some old tags pasted on it, which showed where it had been. One which was partly scraped off, ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... shaky poop ladder and opened the companion-way above, which let a stream of the fresh morning air and sunshine into the cabin, then, after a moment or two, descended and joined the other, who had entered from the main-deck. They were in an ordinary ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Rockville. No one knew what passed between them; but all observed that one summer day Jack drove down the main street of Red Dog in an open buggy, with the heiress of that town beside him. Jack, albeit a trifle shaky, held the reins with something of his old dash; and Mistress Peggy, in an enormous bonnet with pearl-colored ribbons a shade darker than her hair, holding in her short, pink-gloved fingers a bouquet of yellow roses, absolutely glowed crimson ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... knowingly. Aha! secret reasons. He was a man of great experience, and he wanted that white Tuan to know—he turned towards Brierly, who didn't raise his head—that he had acquired a knowledge of many things by serving white men on the sea for a great number of years—and, suddenly, with shaky excitement he poured upon our spellbound attention a lot of queer-sounding names, names of dead-and-gone skippers, names of forgotten country ships, names of familiar and distorted sound, as if the hand of dumb time had been at work on them for ages. They stopped him at last. A silence fell ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... feebly, with a very shaky hand, my request that the doctor would call at Hiram Splinter's, at his earliest convenience that evening, to perform the ceremony of marriage between his young friend, Bessie Stewart, and the subscriber. Hiram's eldest son, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... in the lane brought us out to the little clearing where Peg's house was before we were half ready to see it. In spite of my fear I looked at it with some curiosity. It was a small, shaky building with a sagging roof, set amid a perfect jungle of weeds. To our eyes, the odd thing about it was that there was no entrance on the ground floor, as there should be in any respectable house. The only door was in the upper story, and was reached by ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Foley on a blood mare. The Smalder girls'—and so forth. At the ceremony Cousin Feenix is depressed, observing, that these are the occasions to make a man think, in point of fact, that he is getting shaky; and his eyes are really moistened, when it is over. But he soon recovers; and so do the rest of Mrs Skewton's relatives and friends, of whom the Major continually tells the club that she never did wrap up enough; while the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... hardly able to decipher the shaky signature of our Uncle John, but finally made out ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... there was no mistaking Willis. Bateman stared, and was almost frightened at a burst of enthusiasm which he had been far from expecting. "Why, Willis," he said, "it is not true, then, after all, what we heard, that you were somewhat dubious, shaky, in your adherence to Romanism? I'm sure I beg your pardon; I would not for the world have annoyed you, had I ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... the young men because every young lady you meet looks better to you than the last until you meet the next an' so you go on to another until you're so old that no one would marry you at all unless you had lots of money, a bad liver, an' a shaky heart." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Wannamaker kept the books—the firm hired no superfluous help—everything that they could do personally they hired no one to do. A firm which possesses ability, and follows such business rules, will succeed. Notwithstanding that the times were unusually "shaky," they prospered. ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... let the angle of the gallows wheel over as it listed, and stood and mopped their hot foreheads, while the crowd rushed for the poor shaky subject ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... you're in no shape to work. Go home and lie down for a couple of days. You wouldn't last here two hours in your present shaky condition. You'd pinch the rolls with your tongs and probably get your neck broke. That's why they won't let you work. You can't work. So back to your bed, Bill, we will ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... too much for Husky. His objections and entreaties were unnoticed. Fully dressed but somewhat shaky, he was now sitting on the edge of his bed. Sam still slept in ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... while Mannion worked out the message, then taped it on top of their whining tone pattern. "Put plenty of horse-power behind it," I said. "If their receivers are as shaky as their transmitter, they might ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... spouse, asking support. But for once the large kindly countenance failed to beam responsive. A plaintive expression overspread its surface. Then the unhappy man stared despondently out into the misty morning sunshine, plastering down his shiny hair with a moist and shaky hand. Even the wife turned against him, making him feel an outcast at his own breakfast-table. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... pictures of crude imagery, with here and there blank pages for recording births, deaths, marriages. Here he found the names of all his brothers and sisters, and all of them were entered among the deaths. The manners of the deaths were recorded in the shaky handwriting of fresh grief: Alice Anne, scarlet fever; James Arthur, Jr., convulsions; Andrew Morton, whooping-cough; Cicely Jane, typhoid; Amos Turner, drowned while saving his brother Stephen's life; Edward ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... minded riding rough — 'Oh, not at all,' says he, 'oh, not at all! I learnt at Robbo Park, and if it comes To bumping I'm your Moses! Strike me blue!' Says he, 'I'll bump you over either rail, The inside rail or outside — which you choose Is good enough for me' — which settled Ike; For he was shaky since he near got killed From being sent a buster on the rail, When some chap bumped his horse and fetched him down At Stony Bridge, so Ikey thought it best To leave this bloke alone, and ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... but he spread such a spirit of discontent among the niggers that we have been shaky ever since. And the events of the last few weeks do not tend to quiet our fears, ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... death!" responded the skipper; and before he had fairly concluded his augury, sure enough, the halser parted, the schooner slew round and made a bee-line for Cowes and a market! This rather brought Hezekiah to his oats—he riz, tottering and feeble, on his shaky pins, and crawled forward to get ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... building, from whose open windows an aromatic breath wandered out into the summer air. As they crossed the worn threshold, Athalia stopped and caught her breath in the overpowering scent of drying herbs; then they followed Brother Nathan up a shaky flight of steps to the loft. Here some elderly women, sitting on low benches, were sorting over great piles of herbs in silence—the silence, apparently, of peace and meditation. Two of them were ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... When he behaves well I lean forward and give him a lump of sugar, and now the old boy eagerly puts around his head when I stretch out my hand. Bleistein I have ridden very little, because I think one of his forelegs is shaky, and I want to spare him all I can. Mother and I have had the most lovely ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... pleaded with her husband to spare Tricky's life, and it almost looked as if she had succeeded, for the shepherd lowered the gun from his shoulder and stood for a moment as if in doubt. But it was not because of his wife he stopped. It was partly because he was quite too shaky to aim straight; and partly because he was too much of a sportsman to shoot offhand a thing which was sitting quiet and still on his own meal-barrel; but the main reason was that he was afraid to shoot the baby, ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... his horse and went himself, and the doctor came. "No doubt," he said, "you've got some of the poison into your system and took a chill at the same time." The illness lasted six weeks, and then the shepherd resumed work, although still feeling very shaky. By and by when the opportunity came, he went to claim his sick pay—six shillings a week for the six weeks, his wages being then twelve shillings. Elijah flatly refused to pay him; his subscription, he said, had been due for several ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... with a little, shaky laugh. "You are being very good to me, but why do you frown ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... France. It'll be thy Jim that's sent it. I can tell his writin' onywhere, though his hand do seem a bit shaky like." ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... Elector's wife, Sybil, asked him 'anxiously and diligently' about his own health and that of his wife and children, he answered: 'Thank God, we are well, and better than we deserve of God. But no wonder, if I am sometimes shaky in the head. Old age is creeping on me, which in itself is cold and unsightly, and I am ill and weak. The pitcher goes to the well until it breaks. I have lived long enough; God grant me a happy end, that this useless body may reach His people beneath the earth, and go to feed the ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... the earnest and true-hearted inquirer; but to those who presume on the easiness of her service, she has a side of strong irony. You common-sense men, she seems to say, who see no difficulties in the world, you little know on what shaky ground you stand, and how easily you might be reduced to absurdity. You critical and logical intellects, who silence all comers and cannot be answered, and can show everybody to be in the wrong—into what monstrous ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... was promptly set; the big lumps of stone that served for ballast were duly shifted; the lug-sail, as black as pitch and full of holes, was hoisted, and the halyards made fast; then the sheet was hauled in by Nicol MacNicol, who had been ordered to the helm; and finally the shaky old nondescript craft began to creep through the blue waters of Erisaig Bay. It was a lovely morning; the light breeze from the land seemed steady enough; altogether, nothing could have been more auspicious for the setting out of the ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... boy to steady those shaky nerves of yours, Dawn," said Max, after I had made a shamefaced apology for my hysterical weeping, "I'm going to have Von Gerhard up here to look at you. He can run up Sunday, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... arranged that a hack should be drawn up early in the evening in front of the entrance to the office, and bags and boxes were brought out and piled upon the seat beside the driver. We then half dragged, half lifted Hawkins up the stairs and on the roof by means of a shaky ladder and conducted him across the leads to the scuttle of the tenement-house. At this juncture, by prearrangement, three of our clerks, one of whom somewhat resembled Hawkins in size and who was arrayed in the latter's coat and hat, rushed ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... bit, and you and I'll take some of the steam out of her and Longshanks. We'll hunt out no end of ostriches' nests in the farther-off part of the veldt. Here, what are you shaking your jolly old head for? It's been quite shaky enough, ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... may end marriage. Marriage shouldn't begin with law. It ought to look beautiful at the start, at least, though one may know it's a shaky scraw." ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and entered in. An old toothless grandfather, blind and shaky with age, sat upon the ground. He was not deaf however. He heard the entrance and felt ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... acquired the art of writing, was fond of exercising his still very shaky pen where and ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... time when it seems to office persons that the day's work never will end, even by a miracle, Mr. Wrenn was shaky about his duty to the firm. He was more so after an electrical interview with the manager, who spent a few minutes, which he happened to have free, in roaring "I want to know why" at Mr. Wrenn. There was no particular "why" that ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... he felt much better, and motioning to the attendant that he would like to get out of the hammock, the man assisted him on to his feet. He was a little shaky at first, feeling sore all over; but after walking up and down a few steps with the assistance of the attendant's arm, he regained his strength, and proceeded to the side of David's hammock to pay him ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... like to have a reckonin' with you, Buster Jack," he said. "I ain't dealin' the cards hyar. But somethin' tells me thet, shaky as I am in my boots, I'd liefer be ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... except that her marriage was the subject of some opposition from his powerful employer. In a matter of the sort Perrault, though a courtier, could be relied on to consider no wishes save those of his future wife and himself. Colbert's own influence with the King became shaky, and this affected his temper. So Perrault, then just fifty-five, slid quietly from his service ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... about that. And a possible answer came to him. They had been there without a light—feeling their way, almost—although he knew that they could see in the dark to a certain extent. He wondered at their courage. Here, with two lights, the staring darkness and the silent empty spaces were making him shaky. ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... is so shaky that not only must trifling divergences and shortcomings be winked at, but the meshes of the system are so wide that only a rough approximation to the ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... sinking of the Lusitania, James Farraday received a letter from the American Hospital in Paris, written in French in a shaky ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... on a mahogany desk near at hand and he toppled to the edge of the chair that stood before it. He took down the receiver in a shaky hand, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... shaky as she opened the door to confront the family enemy. She was a trifle reassured to discover that Mr. Gassett ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... see, history is easy. What I knows I knows an' can teach, an' what I don't know I let alone, an there's an end on't. There's no makin' a better o' that. Then, as to writin', though my hand is crabbed enough, and my pot-hooks are shaky and sprawly, still I know the shapes o' things, an' the youngsters are so quick that they can most of 'em write better than myself; but in regard to that 'rithmetic, it's a heartbreak altogether, for I've only just got enough ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... intellectual qualification comes the physical, the man must be in sound health, free from certain foul, avoidable, and demoralising diseases, and in good training. We reject men who are fat, or thin and flabby, or whose nerves are shaky—we refer them back to training. And finally the man or woman must ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells |
