United States or Aruba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She turned toward the shelves. "How many air-tights did you say?" "I didn't say." He leaned forward across the counter. "What's the hurry, little girl?" "My name is Melissy Lee," she told him over her shoulder. "Mine is Phil Norris. Glad to give it to you, Melissy Lee," the man retorted glibly. "Can't use it, thank you," came her swift saucy answer. "Or to lend it to you say, for a week or two."
Fathers and mothers made fatherly and motherly stays, with the hottest of air-tights put up for their benefit in the front room; sisters and sisters-in-law brought the fashions and got up tableaux; cousins came on the jump; Miss Jones, Pauline Dallas, and I were invited in turn, and the children had the mumps at cheerful intervals between.
"Field mice," growled Tex, as the half-breed held up an empty canvas bag with its corner gnawed to shreds. Another gnawed bag followed, and another. "We don't draw no flour, nor rice, not jerky, anyhow," said the puncher, examining the bags. "Nor bacon, either. The only chance we stand to make a haul is on the air-tights." "What are air-tights?" asked the girl.
The days of our story were before the advent of those sullen gnomes, the "air-tights," or even those more sociable and cheery domestic genii, the cooking-stoves.
Talking of Yellow Journalism, by the way, the expressions "a beat," and "a scoop," for what we in England call an "exclusive" item of news, were unknown to me until I went to America. I was a little bewildered, too, when I was told of a family which "lived on air-tights." The most popular slang expression of the day is "to rubberneck," or, more concisely, "to rubber."
If it ain' so mooch danger for Win to git hang " He paused and looked at Tex with owlish solemnity. "A'm no lak we cross dem bad lands. Better A'm lak we gon' back t'rough de mountaine." "You dig out them air-tights, if there's any in there, an' quit your croakin'!" ordered the cowboy. And with a grin Bat thrust in his arm to the shoulder.
But as you says: how about Crawfish Jim gettin' killed? "One day Crawfish allows all alone by himse'f he'll hop into Wolfville an' buy some stuff for his camp, flour, whiskey, tobacker, air-tights, an' sech. "What's air-tights? Which you Eastern shorthorns is shore ignorant. Air-tights is can peaches, can tomatters, an' sim'lar bluffs.
"'Now stand your hand a second, says Enright, 'don't let's overlook no bets. Whatever has you Red Dog hold-ups got to eat, anyhow? "'Ain't got nothin' to eat much maybe some can stuff what you-alls calls air-tights, says the Red Dog man. 'But we has liquid, no limit. "'Got any can tomatters? says Boggs. "'Can tomatters we-alls is 'speshul strong on, says the Red Dog man.
He laughed grimly. "I have to be all eyes and ears in my business." "Is your business of a nature so sensitive?" "As much so as stocks on Wall Street. And we haven't any ticker to warn us to get under cover. Do you take cream in your coffee, Miss Messiter?" She looked round in surprise. "Cream?" "We're in tin-can land, you know, and live on air-tights. I milk my cow with a can-opener.
The Chicago "air-tights" and bottled beers and table-waters fetched from the steamer are relished to the full by appetites not always satisfied by the culinary achievements of a Delmonico. Travelers insist that Canton is more essentially Chinese in an educational sense than any other city in China.
Word Of The Day