dirty-blue

Updated: May 27, 2025

I answered that I had not the slightest idea, and that nobody knew, or appeared to care at all. I personally was going on; I had had enough of it.... To my surprise, as I turned to go, I found that the men of the Infanterie Coloniale, in their dirty-blue suits, had pushed up as close as possible to overhear what was being said, and now surrounded us.

- Indiscreet Letters From Peking : Being the Notes of an Eye-Witness, Which Set Forth in Some Detail, from Day to Day, the Real Story of the Siege and Sack of a Distressed Capital in 1900—The Year of Great Tribulation

"Prendick be damned!" said he. "Shut-up, that's your name. Mister Shut-up." It was no good answering the brute; but I certainly did not expect his next move. He held out his hand to the gangway by which Montgomery stood talking to a massive grey-haired man in dirty-blue flannels, who had apparently just come aboard. "That way, Mister Blasted Shut-up! that way!" roared the captain.

H. G. (Herbert George) Wells - The Island of Doctor Moreau