He sat down at the table with his back to the light, and carefully examined the thing back and front, while the detective, glass in hand, cigar in lips, and thumb in the armhole of his waistcoat, watched him appreciatively and inquisitively.

" "I ain't makin' a move," said Alicran, thumbs hooked in the armholes of his vest.

The sleeves shall not be so tight that you can feel them, nor shall the armholes be so close as to prevent you from clasping your hands above your head with your arms extended at full length, and the waist shall be loose.

He then stood with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, waiting for the applause to die down.

People who propose to come to time before I arrive, are accustomed to arise very early in the morning,' said he, thrusting his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, and spreading the fingers, like two fans, upon his bosom.

" They visited one public-house after another, till the girl found for them the man they wanted, a shabby, sodden-visaged fellow, with a would-be jaunty air of conscious shrewdness and vanity, who stood before the bar, his thumbs in his armholes, and laying down the law to a group of coster-boys, for want of a better audience.

Mr. Spragg heard her out in silence, pulling at his beard with one sallow wrinkled hand, while the other dragged down the armhole of his waistcoat.

You could have got it just as easily as not!" He laughed and thrust his thumbs in his waistcoat armholes with the gesture she disliked.

There were no sleeves, the armholes being provided with top coverings, a sort of cape or flap, which reached to the elbows.

" "You just keep a-shovelin', Mr. Hooper, your own way," said Bill, "and if we catch anybody even daring to grin at you, why, I'll have Gus land on them with his famous grapple!" Mr. Hooper threw back his coat, thrust his thumbs into the armholes of his big, white vest and swelled out his chest.

With thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat and fingers drumming loudly on his breast he stood over the secretary, who continued making frantic notes.

Who or what could they be, those fellows in shining black broadcloth, each with a stove-pipe hat on the side of his head, his thumbs in the armholes of a satin vest, displaying a wonderful glimmer of gold chain and diamond stud, balancing himself first on his heels and then on his toes, as he rolled a cigar from one side of his mouth to the other?

"He put up his hand as though to hook his thumb into the armhole of his vest, remembered that he had only a coat buttoned round him and dropped it.

" Ted complied, nothing loth, and stalked about the place with his thumbs in his armholes and an air of proprietorship.

I hardly know whether in later life we feel grief so deep when a colleague plays us false as we have known, you and I, on detecting the mocking smile of a gaping seam in a shoe, or hearing the armhole of a coat split, I drank nothing but water; I regarded a cafe with distant respect.

Preparing himself for the effort with a wine-glass full of raw cognac, this gentleman leaned back in his chair, stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and plunged at once into a doleful ballad about one Mademoiselle Rosine, and a certain village auprès de la mer, which seemed to be in an indefinite number of verses, and amused no one but himself.