"Unbuttoned" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every moment your uncle to launch an excommunication there and then at the black eye-patch in the window across the Plaza. But not at all. Ultimately the troops marched off. Later Barrios came down with some of the officers, and stood with his uniform all unbuttoned, discoursing at the edge of the pavement. Suddenly your uncle appeared, no longer glittering, but all black, at the cathedral door with that threatening aspect he has—you know, like a sort of avenging spirit. He gives one look, strides over straight at the group of uniforms, and leads ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... inside his boots because he always wore them so, especially when he rode. He wore his big six-shooter buckled snugly about his middle instead of dangling far down his thigh, because he had always worn it that way. He wore his sheriffs badge pinned on his vest and his coat unbuttoned, so that the wind blew it open now and then and revealed the star. Altogether he looked exactly as he had looked when he was serving one of his four terms of office. But when he faced the camera, he was inclined to strut, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... desire to win caused this gambling for gain, in spite of its attendant squalor, to contain, if you will, something intimate, something sympathetic, to my eyes: for it is always pleasant to see men dispensing with ceremony, and acting naturally, and in an unbuttoned mood.... ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Parks unbuttoned his collar and rubbed his stubbled chin unhappily. "I didn't make the choice. Neither did anyone else. Travel by warp is a little different from travel by the rocket you fiction writers make so much of. With a rocket vehicle you pick your destination, make your calculations, and off you go. The ...
— Circus • Alan Edward Nourse
... nothing is ever perfect, save himself. He entered, "Shun!" and we stood at attention by our cots. A trembling sergeant and orderly followed in his train. Upon us, one by one, he pounced, this "brave, silent (?) man" at the back. My blue fal-de-lal jacket he unbuttoned and revealed, horror of horrors, very crime of crimes, the fact that I was not wearing the monstrous red scarf which, according to the laws of the R.A.M.C., which alter not, must always be worn by all patients at all times, in life, or even in death, I presume. And further, a most perspiring ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... just in the same place, and I don't know whether it was a strange impression caused by his coming, that made me think of him, but just then there were footsteps, and, with his pipe in his mouth, and fatigue-jacket all unbuttoned, ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... at the moment she was admiring him, but she checked us, and as she was surrounded by ladies and gentlemen of the town, and particular friends of hers, we could not speak out. Heriot brought his bat to the booth for eighty-nine runs. His sleeve happened to be unbuttoned, and there, on his arm, was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her indulgently. He was warmer now, and as he leaned back in his chair and unbuttoned his coat he seemed to melt suddenly into something that was quite gentlemanly in pose and outline. "Well, it really was ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... Colonel. His hands were folded in front of him, his eyes were fixed but dimly on the forests of the Kentucky shore across the water; his hair, uncared for, fell on the shoulders of his faded blue coat, and the stained buff waistcoat was unbuttoned. For he still wore unconsciously the colors of the army of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... The child obediently unbuttoned his pajamas and stepping out of them reached for his undershirt. His mother, looking at him, fell mentally on her knees before the beautiful, living body. "Oh, my son, the straight, strong darling! My precious little son!" She shook with that foolish aching anguish of mothers, intolerable. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... ready, Dr. Smith helped her take off her shoes and tuck them into a little hammock that hung over the window; then he unbuttoned her dress and helped her climb into her berth bed. Mary Jane took off her dress, hung it on the rack just as her mother had told her to do and settled herself comfy for the night. But suddenly she remembered that she hadn't told the kind Dr. Smith "good ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson
... smitten, and I felt myself responding to it with a sort of guilty grimace. This brought back his attention in a smile which expressed for me a cheerful weary patience, a bruised noble gentleness. I had told Miss Anvoy that he had no dignity, but what did he seem to me, all unbuttoned and fatigued as he waited for me to come up, if he didn't seem unconcerned with small things, didn't seem in short majestic? There was majesty in his mere unconsciousness of our little conferences and puzzlements over his maintenance ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... and gone. With furtive blinks, Mr. Sam had unbuttoned the lower buttons of a black, Mr. Sim of a red waistcoat; they leaned back in their chairs, their sharp little features relaxed, and they stirred their coffee with the air of men at peace with ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... the caucus would ricolect this here Burnett gen'elman referred to by the Chair. And when he described him we all done so, owing to his onusual appearance. He was a little teeny feller, rising of five feet tall, with a cough that unbuttoned his vest about every three minutes. He had eyes 'way round on the side of his head like a grasshopper and the blamest, busiest, biggest, scariest, nervousest Adamses' apple I ever see. It 'peared like it tried to beat his brains ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... and saw my brother and Dimitri—their gowns unbuttoned, and their hands waving a greeting to me—threading their way through the desks. A moment's glance would have sufficed to show any one that they were second-course students—persons to whom the University was as a second home. The mere ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... The little creature awkwardly unbuttoned the garment, and took from the breast-pocket a few letters, which he handed to Kitty, talking eagerly in French ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... the heart. I knew he would; and the bullet cut the stalk of the rose in two, smashed the lower part of the miniature, leaving only the face untouched, and poor Charlie Horsingham never spoke again. As we lifted him and unbuttoned his waistcoat, the two Frenchmen gazed at the miniature with looks of anger and curiosity. Great was their astonishment to behold the portrait of another than Rosalie. The younger man was much affected; he ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... taunts of his swaggering enemy, Billy sprang to his feet, and a moment later had succeeded in closing with the boy in a rough-and-tumble fight, in which his adversary was at a disadvantage, being considerably smaller, hampered, too, with his loose, unbuttoned coat and baggy trousers. But, for all that, he did some very efficient work in the way of a deft and telling blow or two upon the nose of his overpowering foe, who sat astride his wriggling body, but wholly unable to get ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... named a few babies. Jest as we was steemin outer the depot, he dropt his red bandanner handkerchef; you'd dide to see them yung gals tumbel over each other and scrambel for it. Before they got it, it was tore all up, in little bits, and most every gal wot got a peece, unbuttoned there jerseys, and stowed it way in there bussums. Fishkill, like Yungcurs, has got a purty good name, cos it emits a perfume, very surgestive of cleenin fish, wot was fresh wen Preserdent Buckannon ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... old man had some work for me, of course. What a beastly night. Where's Whitley?" He tried to speak carelessly, but his eyes wavered and his hands trembled as he unbuttoned his heavy coat. ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... party. His face was convulsed, his gesticulation frantic, and he lashed himself into such a heat that if his body had been made of combustible matter, it would have burnt out. In the midst of his roaring, to save himself from choking, he stripped off and cast away his cravat, and unbuttoned his waist-coat, and had the air and aspect of a half-naked pugilist. And this man comes from a judicial bench, and passes ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... the hotel. Here were little iron tables and chairs, four symmetrical flower-beds containing white gravel, four palm-trees in tubs, their leaves much speckled with coal smuts; a French family at breakfast (the stout father had unbuttoned his white waistcoat); and in a corner by herself an American child sitting upon one of the puff-seated iron chairs, one leg under her, one leg, long, thin, and black, swinging free, and across her lap a copy of ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... to prove otherwise by actions." He came to his feet and, ignoring Ana, pulled out his shirt tail, unbuttoned the top two buttons of his pants and unbuckled the ...
— Revolution • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... not: an unquestionable spirit; which you have not: a beard neglected; which you have not: but I pardon you for that, for simply your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue:— then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements, as loving yourself than seeming the ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... complied with. No one was with me but a sergeant of my company, named Miller, who held my horse, and as the chances of an agreement began to grow remote, I became anxious for our safety. The conversation waxing hot and the Indians gathering close in around me, I unbuttoned the flap of my pistol holster, to be ready for any emergency. When the altercation became most bitter I put my hand to my hip to draw my pistol, but discovered it was gone—stolen by one of the rascals surrounding me. Finding myself ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... as though suddenly the world was staggering and faltering about him. The trees bent curiously and strange breathings were upon the breezes. He unbuttoned his collar that he might get more air. A thousand things he had forgotten surged suddenly to life. Slower and slower he ran, more and more the thoughts crowded his head. He thought of that first red ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... this garment as well as I. The fair one drew near the looking-glass, and it seemed to us that she was contemplating her face; then she raised her hands in the air, and, in the graceful movement she made, the sleeve, which was unbuttoned and very loose, slipped from her beautifully rounded arm, the outline of ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... consternation there was throughout the city! When the proud and fond parents attempted to unbutton their children's dresses, in order to prepare them for bed, not a single costume would come off. The buttons buttoned again as fast as they were unbuttoned; even if they pulled out a pin, in it would slip again in a twinkling; and when a string was untied it tied itself up again into a bow-knot. The parents were dreadfully frightened. But the children were so tired out they finally let ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... their mutual adventures by cross visits to each other's bedrooms while dressing: and, dinner being announced by the time they were ready, they had fallen to, and applied themselves diligently to the victuals, and now very considerately unbuttoned their many-pocketed waistcoats and stuck out their legs, to give it a fair chance of digesting. They seldom spoke much until his lordship had had his nap, which he generally took immediately after dinner; but on this particular night ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... hands with delight. She threw over her neck the silk shawl with which she had covered her head. She unbuttoned her light traveling coat, and inhaled with deep enjoyment the moist, somewhat muggy breeze that was curling along the surface of the river. Her hand trembled as it dipped into the ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... quite different from the picturesque rider he had seen at the celebration and on the summit of the Divide. That Phil Acton had been—as the cowboy himself would have said—"all togged out in his glad rags." This man wore chaps that were old and patched from hard service; his shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, was the color of the corral dirt, and a generous tear revealed one muscular shoulder; his hat was greasy and battered; his face grimed and streaked with dust and sweat, but his sunny, boyish smile would have identified Phil ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... interesting account. Ostermann, a German, had been vice chancellor to the Empress Anna, and had also brought about the downfall of Biron the Regent. Now his turn had come. He was taken to the place of execution with the rest; his gray head was laid upon the block, his collar unbuttoned and gown drawn back by the executioner—when a reprieve was announced. Her Gracious Majesty was going to permit him to go to Siberia. He arose, bowed, said: "I pray you give me back my wig," calmly put it on the head he had not lost, buttoned his shirt, ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... a-sprawl in a wicker chair in the hall, lowered his newspaper and looked up over his silver spectacles. He was comfortably unbuttoned here and there, and had omitted to shave that morning, for this was July, 1916, and since the war had turned Switzerland's tourists into Europe's cannon-fodder, he ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... He unbuttoned the old blue frock-coat he wore, disclosing a standing collar and stock, drew out his watch and ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... not dressed; there was, however, no want of finish in her elegant attitude—the same relaxed grandeur (she seemed to let you understand) for which she used to be distinguished at Castle Nugent when the house was full. She toyed incongruously, in her unbuttoned wrapper, with a large tinsel fan which resembled ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... U in the middle o' my name stand for?" he broke out, suddenly, while he was being unbuttoned for bed. "I know it's a U, but I don't know a U-what. I've 'cided I won't go to bed ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... from the hall. He is a little elderly man with bulging credulous eyes and earnest manners. He is dressed in a blue serge jacket suit with an unbuttoned mackintosh over it, and carries a soft black hat of ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... in rockers on the cramped porches, pretending to be greatly at their ease. The children played in the streets; there were so many of them that the place resembled the recreation grounds of a kindergarten. The men on the steps—all in their shirt sleeves, their vests unbuttoned—sat with their legs well apart, their stomachs comfortably protruding, and talked of the prices of things, or told anecdotes of the sagacity of their various chiefs and overlords. They occasionally looked over the multitude of squabbling children, listened affectionately ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... a big man in his shirt sleeves, wearing old riding breeches unbuttoned at the knees, and thick ploughman's boots. He had no leggings, and his fleshy calves were imperfectly covered with woollen socks. His face was large and pale, his neck bulged, and he had a gross unshaven jowl. ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... got to the inn, Branicki laid himself down in an arm-chair. We unbuttoned his clothes and lifted up his shirt, and he could see himself that he was dangerously wounded. My ball had entered his body by the seventh rib on the right hand, and had gone out by the second false rib on the left. The two wounds were ten inches apart, and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... then drew them on hastily over his wooden leg, and left them unbuttoned at the knees while he thrust his arms into coat and waistcoat. Prison fare had reduced his waist, and the garments hung limply about him. But the breeches were worst. Around his wooden leg the buttons would not meet at all. And what to do ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... He unbuttoned the overcoat, and let it slip to the ground, drew off a huge pair of rubber boots, and stood revealed in buckled pumps and stockings, silk breeches, a white waistcoat with gilt buttons, and a cut-away coat of light-blue cloth slashed with gold braid. He dipped his fingers in ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Peterkin, who made a dive at the boot, which resisted all his efforts, even after it was unbuttoned. The leather, which was soaked through, had shrunk so that it was impossible to remove the boot without cutting it away, and this they ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Bathory]—since ours came thence, who is, indeed, one of the greatest princes of this age, never wears any gloves, and in winter or whatever weather can come, never wears other cap abroad than that he wears at home. Whereas I cannot endure to go unbuttoned or untied; my neighbouring labourers would think themselves in chains, if they were so braced. Varro is of opinion, that when it was ordained we should be bare in the presence of the gods and before the magistrate, it was so ordered rather upon the score of health, and to inure us to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... time, "I haven't told Mr. Bond all about the claim—all the reasons why we want him to take you to Bismarck;"—the section-boss grunted at the "we"—"so you please tell him as you're going along. And don't let your coat get unbuttoned, or your ears froze. I heated some big rocks for the bottom of the sleigh and some little ones for your pockets. You'll both weigh so much that Shadrach can't run away if he wants to, and you can't fall out ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... on slow, quiet feet, she went to bed. Undressing vexed her. She, once so careful and punctilious, slipped her clothes like a tired Magdalen, and let them fall from her and lie where they fell. Her nightgown gaped unbuttoned at her throat. Her long hair lay scattered on her pillow, unbrushed, unbraided. Her white face stared to the ceiling. She was ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... manse she crept, sinking into the first easy chair that presented itself. With slow listless fingers she removed her wraps, dropping them on the floor beside her,—laboriously unbuttoned and removed her shoes, and in the same lifeless manner loosened her dress and took the pins from her hair. Then, holding her garments about her, she went in search of night dress, slippers and negligee. A few seconds later she returned and curled herself up with some cushions ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... turned suddenly red as a beetroot. The colour mounted slowly to his ears, from his ears to his temples, and by degrees suffused his whole face. Yevgraf Ivanovitch shifted in his chair and unbuttoned his shirt-collar to save himself from choking. He was evidently struggling with the feeling that was mastering him. A deathlike silence followed. The children held their breath. Fedosya Semyonovna, as though she did not grasp what was happening to ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... down with a hand on each knee and his head tilted back, he could see the primroses stretching in broad sheets to the very edge of the pine-woods. By frequent tilting his collar broke from its stud and his silk hat settled far back on his neck. Next he unbuttoned his waistcoat and loosened his braces; but no, he could not skip—his boots were too tight. He looked at each tree as he passed. "If I could only see"—he muttered. "I'll swear there used to be one on the ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... driving through the forest of Fontainebleau when a man, half clothed and with a demented air, sprang towards the carriage, grimacing horribly. The Duke's suite, taking him for a madman, would have kept him at bay, but the Duke, at that moment awaking from sleep, unbuttoned his shirt and showed his assailant an iron ring suspended round his neck. At this sight the man took to his heels and disappeared into the wood. The mystery of this incident was never elucidated, and the Duke, when questioned on the matter, would offer no explanation. Could this ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... It began to look like it. I was getting cold, numb, exhausted. And - listen! What is that distant sound? Rapids? Yes, rapids. My flannel shirt stuck to, and impeded me; I would have it off. I got it over my head, but hadn't unbuttoned the studs - it stuck, partly over my head. I tugged to tear it off. Got a drop of water into my windpipe; was choking; tugged till I got the shirt right again. Then tried floating on my back - to cough and get my breath. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... the little tailor, and unbuttoned his coat, and showed the giant the girdle, 'there may you read what kind of a man I am!' The giant read: 'Seven at one stroke,' and thought that they had been men whom the tailor had killed, and began to feel a little respect for the tiny fellow. Nevertheless, he wished ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... wild boys and savages from that time forth. What rebellious thoughts of the cool river, and some shady bathing-place beneath willow trees with branches dipping in the water, kept tempting and urging that sturdy boy, who, with his shirt-collar unbuttoned and flung back as far as it could go, sat fanning his flushed face with a spelling-book, wishing himself a whale, or a tittlebat, or a fly, or anything but a boy at school on that hot, broiling day! Heat! ask that other boy, whose seat being nearest ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... quarter of the heavens. In that blue light his face did not look red but very dark, his lips and the drying blood upon my hands seemed black. If possible I was in a worse plight than he, on account of the yellow fungus into which I had jumped. Our jackets were unbuttoned, and our shoes had been taken off and lay at our feet. And we were sitting with our backs to this queer bluish light, peering at such a monster ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... five would sometimes climb into the belly of a ten-man lugger, with nothing but the thwarts above them,—for the cabin was usually locked,—or chose out some hollow of the links where the wind might whistle overhead. Then the coats would be unbuttoned, and the bull's-eyes discovered; and in the chequering glimmer, under the huge, windy hall of the night, and cheered by a rich steam of toasting tinware, these fortunate young gentlemen would crouch together in the ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... in making the man merchandise, reducing him to an abject being, without the protection of common law. Presently the tears began to flow down Marston's cheeks, as he unbuttoned his shirt-collar with an air of restlessness, approached a desk that stood in one corner of the room, and drew from it a somewhat defaced bill of sale. There was something connected with that bit of paper, which, apart from anything else, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... sprawled out in an armchair beneath a spreading tree in the front yard. His coat was off and his vest unbuttoned to display a vast and billowing expanse of soiled white shirt. In his hand was a palm-leaf fan, at his elbow swung an olla, newspapers littered the ground or lay across his fat knees. When Bob and Lejeune entered, he merely nodded surlily, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... enough, but Rodney noticed that he had not neglected to make preparations for a fight. The single revolver his belt contained had been transferred to the night holster, and the strap that usually passed over the hammer to keep the weapon in place, had been unbuttoned so that the heavy Colt could be drawn in an instant. This made Rodney feel rather uneasy. Perhaps he would not have been so very frightened at the prospect of a fair stand-up fight, but the fear that somebody might cut loose on him or some member of his ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... the direction of the Bastille; the other from that of the Jardin des Plantes. The taller of the pair, arrayed in linen cloth, walked with his hat back, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and his cravat in his hand. The smaller, whose form was covered with a maroon frock-coat, wore a ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... with shirt unbuttoned and breeches and boots unlaced, Tim emerged from his iron-walled cell into the cool-shadowed main room, blinked at McKay and Knowlton lounging over their morning coffee and cigarettes, stretched his hairy arms, and advanced sluggishly ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... even at as late an epoch as the return from Detroit, had been merely a smooth fullness around the angle of the jaw was now frankly and without disguise a double chin. He was wearing a new waistcoat and it was unbuttoned. "I am rather busy," he went on. "Always glad to see you, but I am rather busy. I have a ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... published, the article was shown to Mr. Lincoln; and it was telegraphed to New York that if the article comes out, the author may accidentally find himself a boarder in Fort Lafayette. Almost the same day the President telegraphed to a patriot to whom Mr. Lincoln unbuttoned himself, not to reveal to anybody the conversation. Both these occurrences had in view only one object—it was to keep truth out of the people's knowledge. Truth is a dangerous weapon in the ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... instinctively at the rattling doorknob, and John Barclay limped into the room. His face was red with the cold and the driving mist. He walked to the stove and unbuttoned his ulster, while the colonel put the subject of the debate before him. The general amended the colonel's statement from time to time, but the young man only smiled tolerantly and shook his head. Then he went to his desk and pulled ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... flapping sail and cursed the tiller, grubbed in his pockets for a new hook, and made tiny knots with clumsy great fingers and his teeth. "An't never got no gear like I used tu," he complained, and then, standing upright, with the tiller between his legs and a line in each outstretched hand, he unbuttoned his face and broke into the merriest of smiles. "What du 'ee think o' Tony then, getting in a tear fust start out? Do 'ee think he's maazed—or obsolete? But we'll catch 'em if they'm yer. Yu ought to go 'long wi' ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... Jove!" cried one of them, waving his pipe in the air, as the new-comer halted in the low doorway, smiling in a rather bewildered manner as he unbuttoned his overcoat. "Welcome to the guerilla camp! And a dress suit! These walls haven't enclosed such a thing since you went away. ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... familiarly. Clearly they were the stragglers of some picnic from the town, the engaging type of gentleman who on such occasions is drunk by midday. They were dressed in ill-fitting Sunday clothes, great flowers beamed from their button-holes, and after the fashion of their kind their waistcoats were unbuttoned for comfort. The girl tried to go back by the way she had come, but to her horror she found that she was intercepted. The ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... Anthony's sharp "That seat taken?" he very slowly lifted the feet as though they were a breakable package, and placed them with some care upon the floor. His eyes remained on Anthony, who meanwhile sat down and unbuttoned the uniform coat issued him at Camp Upton the day before. It chafed him ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... still in deference to their calls and parried their banter with easy words. How characterless they looked: Shuley without his deep unbuttoned collar, Ennis without his scarlet belt with the snaky clasp, and Connolly without his Norfolk coat with the flapless side-pockets! It was a pain to see them, and a sword-like pain to see the signs of adolescence that made repellent their pitiable nakedness. Perhaps they had taken refuge ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... laisser aller [Fr.]; live and let live; leave to oneself; leave alone, let alone. Adj. free, free as air; out of harness, independent, at large, loose, scot-free; left alone, left to oneself. in full swing; uncaught, unconstrained, unbuttoned, unconfined, unrestrained, unchecked, unprevented^, unhindered, unobstructed, unbound, uncontrolled, untrammeled. unsubject^, ungoverned, unenslaved^, unenthralled^, unchained, unshackled, unfettered, unreined^, unbridled, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... habitues of the palace, one of those whom the dying man had summoned to his bedside, appeared in the medley, gave an order, then went away, leaving the scared expression of his face reflected on twenty others. Jenkins showed himself thus for a moment, with his cravat untied, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his cuffs crumpled, in all the disorder of the battle in which he was engaged upstairs against a terrible opponent. He was instantly surrounded, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... movement Coxeter unbuttoned his cloak and drew Nan within its folds; putting his arms round her he held her, loosely and yet how firmly clasped to his breast. "I can't help it," he muttered apologetically. "Forgive me!" As only answer she seemed to draw yet closer to him, and then she lay, ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... little tailor, and unbuttoned his coat and showed the giant the girdle. "There mayst thou read what kind of a man I am!" The giant read, "Seven at one stroke!" and thought that they had been men whom the tailor had killed, and began to feel ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... nettled by the coloured gentleman's refusal, and unbuttoned my wrath under the similitude of ironical submission. I knew nothing, I said, of the ways of American hotels; but I had no desire to give trouble. If there was nothing for it but to get to bed immediately, let him say the word, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and run us in while you two were asleep, and you don't look as if your eyes were unbuttoned yet." ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... and strongly expressive of sullenness and ill-nature. He was about the middle height, with a frame clumsily made, but denoting considerable strength. He wore a blue coat, the lappets of which were very narrow, but so long that they nearly trailed upon the ground. Yellow leathern breeches unbuttoned at the knee, dazzling white cotton stockings and shoes with ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... dreadful exclamation in the eyes of the family, who knew it implied that in all her experience Mrs. Halfpenny had never known the like! And taking Dolores by the hand, she led the wrathful and indignant girl back into her bedroom, untied and tied, unbuttoned and buttoned, brushed and combed in spite of the second bell ringing, the general scamper, and the sudden apparition of Mysie and Val, whom she bade run away and tell her leddyship that 'Miss Mohoone should come as soon as she was ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it published at our place. I'm on his side, you know; I shall do my best to help him; I can lay my hand on literary fellows who will lick his style into shape—it will be an awful exposure!" Benjulia still held out his hand. With over-acted reluctance, Lemuel unbuttoned his coat. The distant dog barked again as he gave the letter back. "Please excuse my dear old dog," he said with maudlin tenderness; "the poor dumb animal seems to know that I'm taking his side in the controversy. ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... with his high boots, bespoke the cavalry service, while the front of his battered campaign hat bore the decorations of two crossed sabres, with a gilded "7" prominent between. His attire was completed by a coarse blue shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, about which had been loosely knotted a darker colored silk handkerchief, and across the back of the saddle was fastened a uniform jacket, the single shoulder-strap revealed presenting the plain yellow ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... William if the woods and fields were not beautiful. The too familiar landscape awoke in William neither idea nor sensation; Esther interested him more, and while she gazed dreamily on the hills he admired the white curve of her neck which showed beneath the unbuttoned jacket. She never looked prettier than she did that morning, standing on the dusty road, her white dress crumpled, the ends of the blue sash hanging beneath the ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... cropped dark hair to his mud-spattered boots. And there came into her look just a hint of admiration which the man did not see as she in her swift examination noted the breadth of shoulder, the straight tallness of him, the clean, supple, sinewy form which his loose attire of soft shirt, unbuttoned vest grey with dust, and shaggy chaps, black and much ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... night the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling, a tremor vast, faint; a sound weird, appealing, suggestive, and wild—and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country. Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festive—not to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... you tucked in before a cat can say Jack Sprat," said Mrs. Alder, as she unbuttoned ...
— Clematis • Bertha B. Cobb
... much hair-oil and ointment and frankincense upon his carcass. Other old settlers say that in those days his dyed whiskers fairly glistened. And when, at State conventions, in the fervour of his passion he unbent, unbuttoned his frock-coat, grabbed the old flag, and charged up and down the platform in an oratorical frensy, it seemed that another being had emerged from the greasy little roll of adipose in which "Governor" Balderson enshrined himself. His climax ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... or five would sometimes climb into the belly of a ten-man lugger, with nothing but the thwarts above them—for the cabin was usually locked, or choose out some hollow of the links where the wind might whistle overhead. There the coats would be unbuttoned and the bull's-eyes discovered; and in the chequering glimmer, under the huge windy hall of the night, and cheered by a rich steam of toasting tinware, these fortunate young gentlemen would crouch together in the cold sand ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... his cap on a chair, unbuttoned his overcoat, lifting up his chin to unfasten the throat buttons. His short, keen hair was ruffled. He was so beautifully blond, like wheat. He pulled off ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... was shrammed with wet and cold, and half-dead with this baffling wind. It is a blessed thing a fire,' and he unbuttoned his pilot-coat, 'and needful now, if ever. My soul is very low, lad, for this place has strange memories for me; and I recollect, forty years ago (when I was just a boy like thee), old lander Jordan's gang, and I among them, were in this very cave on such ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... at another view again, unless from the Woolworth Tower, on a calm day. He thought of New York as a traveller, dying of thirst in the desert, thinks of the lush green oasis. New York in July! Dear New York in July, its furs in storage, its collar unstarched, its coat unbuttoned; even its doormen and chauffeurs almost human. Would he ever see it again? And then, as if in answer to his question, there befell an incident so harrowing, so nerve-shattering, as almost to make a negative answer ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... library, with books from the floor to the ceiling. The gas was lighted, but turned down low, and there were the smouldering embers of a fire on the hearth. Seated in an arm chair in front of the fire, with his feet up in another chair, was a big, fat policeman. He was sound asleep, with his coat unbuttoned, his gray helmet on the floor beside him, and his brass buttons and badge glittering in the gas-light. On a couch at the other side of the room lay another policeman, in his shirt-sleeves. He, too, was asleep, his ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... me that the jacket of my overalls had been unbuttoned at the neck, exposing the soaked and mud-stained prison clothes beneath. I saw that the game was up, but for the moment I was too exhausted ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... his coat, which he folded and placed on the parapet; then he unbuttoned his waistcoat. As he was about to take it off, his hand struck against something in the pocket. It was the red book which had been given him by the librarian of the House of Lords: he drew it from the pocket, examined it in the vague light of the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... motioned him close, and when he stood at his side reached out and unbuttoned his vest, then his thin shirt, and took his undershirt between his thumb and finger. Then he snorted in disgust. "Look a-here, young fellow, you an' me might's well have it out. I aint' a-goin' to have ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... laid her rosary and prayer-book on the grass, unbuttoned her blue flannel jacket, and removed from round her waist, where it was doing duty as a belt, a broad band of cherry-coloured ribbon. This, with Anthony's penknife, she slitted and ripped several times lengthwise, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... carriage, and I saw as plain as ever I saw anything, that he had no gold-chain. But two minutes after he had come into the hall, and while he was ordering dinner, he took and bottoned his coat. Well, sir, when he came in, after visiting the cathedral, his coat was partially unbuttoned and I saw that he wore a gold-chain, and, unless I am very much mistaken, the same gold-chain that I had seen peeping out of the breast of the murdered man. I could almost have sworn to that chain because of the colour of the gold, which was a particular deep yaller. It was only afterwards that ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Then he clumsily unbuttoned the wet waist, glancing rather sheepishly at the window to see if anyone ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... She unbuttoned the mackintosh and spread it on the bar of the plough and sat down. Her white dress lighted up the shadows of the shed. Outside ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... begun naturally to adjust themselves to their enforced companionship, and it wasn't such a very hard matter, though it cost him some painful wrenches and much twisting of the fingers, for Mr. Trimm to get his coat unbuttoned and his eyeglasses in their small leather case out of his upper waistcoat pocket. With the glasses on his nose he subjected his bonds to a critical examination. Each rounded steel band ran unbroken except for the smooth, almost jointless ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... gone, indeed, much longer than that, but when she came back from her kitchenette he had dropped like a log upon her divan, submerged beyond all soundings. So she tugged him around into a more comfortable position, managed to divest him of his dinner-jacket and his waistcoat, unbuttoned his collar and shirt-band, took off his shoes, and covered him up with an eiderdown quilt. Then she kissed him—it was five years since she had done that—and ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... appearance, although in very different styles. One was a young man of about six-and-twenty years, low in stature and slightly built; his features regular, without beard, and of an expression of countenance rather pleasing than otherwise. His dress was a short braided jacket, unbuttoned on account of the sultriness of the evening, and disclosing a shirt of fine texture, and a coloured silk handkerchief tied loosely about his throat, which was round and moulded as that of a woman. His cavalry overalls were strapped and topped with leather, and had rows of large bright buttons ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Poodle, whose cottage was on that very hillslope that rose so imperceptibly into sky. One morning he ran and ran, in the lifting day, but always the blue receded. Hot and unbuttoned, he came by the curate's house, just as the latter emerged to ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... and slender in build, with a pink-and-white complexion, of marvelous clearness, and fluffy, red-brown hair. Under the heavy coat which she had unbuttoned on entering the store could be seen a stylish suit of English tweeds, very tailor-made and up-to-date, and a smart tam ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... the boy's coat off, unbuttoned his collar, and pushed up his shirt-sleeves, and arming himself with a brush, he began brushing his chest and arms with all his might. Pantaleone as zealously brushed away with the other—the hair-brush—at his boots and trousers. ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... made a step forward, turned his back on the rest of the shop, unbuttoned his outer coat, lifted the lapel of the inner one, and uncovered ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in the dining-room but Roger and Poppy. Poppy was sitting in an armchair at the hearth, where she had evidently spent the night. Her uniform was unbuttoned half-way down her square bust; and on the arms of the chair there rested two objects that looked like sections of dried viscera, but which Ellen remembered to have seen labelled as pads in hair-dressers' windows. Roger was kneeling before ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... from under the skeleton hood, behind her, saw other waggons following, loaded heavily with hospital supplies and baggage, escorted by the cavalrymen, who rode as though exhausted, yellow trimmed shell jackets unbuttoned exposing sweat-soaked undershirts, caps pushed back on ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... furnished by the host. When Vandover and his friends came up between dances, to brush their hair or to rearrange their neckties, they found him enveloped in a blue haze of smoke, his feet on a chair, his shirt bosom broken, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. He would tell them that he was bored and thirsty and ask how much longer they were going to stay. He knew but few of their friends; his home was in a little town in the interior and he prided himself on being a "Native Son of the Golden West." He was a clerk in ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... they had never before had an opportunity of doing, throughout the whole harvest, as the first stroke was uniformly struck by myself. They waited while I threw off my frock and took off my spurs, and having unbuttoned the knees of my breeches, we set to; and in ten minutes after the sun had sunk below the horizon, the last swarth was laid flat, and not an oat left standing; a day's work which stands unrivalled in that country, and which is the more ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... tumbled sheaves from the stack of her heavy hair. For the widow had a certain indolent Southern negligence, which in a less pretty woman would have been untidiness, and a characteristic hook and eyeless freedom of attire which on less graceful limbs would have been slovenly. One sleeve cuff was unbuttoned, but it showed the blue veins of her delicate wrist; the neck of her dress had lost a hook, but the glimpse of a bit of edging round the white throat made amends. Of all which, however, it should be said that the widow, in her limp ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... dipped it into the water, and sitting on a bench, he wiped the blood and grime from his face, while his breath sucked between his clenched teeth. He was shivering with pain and excitement in spite of himself. He unbuttoned the band of his right sleeve, and turning it back, exposed the blue-lined, calloused whiteness of his maimed arm, now vividly streaked with contusions, while in a series of circular dots the blood oozed slowly. ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... be seen, he stood beside the gate for a moment, under the melancholy laburnum; and, taking a dirty-looking silk handkerchief out of his hat, slapped it vigorously about his boots, (from which circumstance it may be inferred that he had walked,) and replaced it in his hat. Then he unbuttoned his surtout, adjusted it nicely, and disposed his chain and eyeglass just so as to let the tip only of the latter be seen peeping out of his waistcoat; twitched up his shirt-collar, plucked down his wristbands, drew the tip of a white pocket handkerchief out of the pocket ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... result of his murderous attack, Headstone had fled down the river bank to the hut where Riderhood lived and there the villainous lock tender let him rest and sleep. As the schoolmaster tossed in his guilty slumber, Riderhood noted that his clothes were like his own. He unbuttoned the sleeping man's jacket, saw the red handkerchief, and, having heard from a passing boatman of the attempted murder, he guessed that Headstone had done it and saw how he had plotted to lay ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... with whom formerly we shared our exaltations and depressions, and je t'eu ai trop dit, dans le bon temps, mon gros Prosper, and you always listened to me too imperturbably, with your pipe in your mouth, your waistcoat unbuttoned, for me not to feel that I can count upon your sympathy to-day. Nous en sommes nous flanquees des confidences—in those happy days when my first thought in seeing an adventure poindre a l'horizon was of the pleasure I should have in relating it to the great Prosper. ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... stertorous and purple, advanced to the railing. There he unbuttoned his collar and laid his neckcloth aside, then with his eye fixed on his antagonist he drew off his blue frock coat, and thrusting one hand into his ruffled shirt front, and raising the other to the dark canopy above him, he opened his vindictive lips. The action, the attitude, were Starbottle's. ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd's check trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... wood. She hesitated a moment and looked toward Mrs. Hudson, as if for permission to leave her. But Mrs. Hudson was listening to Mr. Striker, who sat gossiping to her with relaxed magniloquence, his waistcoat unbuttoned and ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... back the blind cautiously and saw a vast strange marsh all white in the moonlight. The carriage was thick with cigar smoke, which floated round the globe with the green shade on it. The Italian gentleman lay snoring with his boots off and his waistcoat unbuttoned. ... And all this business of going to Greece seemed to Jacob an intolerable weariness—sitting in hotels by oneself and looking at monuments—he'd have done better to go to Cornwall with Timmy Durrant. ... "O—h," Jacob protested, as the darkness began breaking in front of him ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... red sky in the white landscape. Jendrek, his head in the air and his arms crossed behind his back, was walking on the left side of the road, the gospodyni in her blue Sunday skirt, and her jacket unbuttoned, so that her white chemise and bare chest were showing, on the right. The gospodarz, his cap awry, and holding up nis sukmana as for a dance, lurched from right to left and from left to right, singing. The labourer laughed, not because they were drunk, but because ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various |
