"Piper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that is! I thought he was better known than the Duke of Wellington or the travelling piper. Well, I must tell you the story, for it has a moral, too—indeed several morals; but you'll find that out for yourself. Well, it seems that one day the Knight of Kerry was walking along the Strand in London, killing an hour's time, till the house was done prayers, and Hume tired of hearing ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... words. If the mere sound of freedom can operate thus powerfully, let no man, hereafter, doubt the story of the Pied Piper. The removal of the people of Boston into the country, seems, even to the congress, not only difficult in its execution, but important in its consequences. The difficulty of execution is best known to the Bostonians themselves; the consequence alas! will only ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... Hamlin followed the Pied Piper to the sea, so the black browed children of Eze followed the Christmas visitors from crooked street to crooked street, up to the castle ruins and back again. They did not shout as they took their gifts; but still ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... which would avenge him well. One day, while thus wandering among the trees, he met Old Pipes. The Echo-dwarf did not generally care to see or speak to ordinary people; but now he was so anxious to find the object of his search, that he stopped and asked Old Pipes if he had seen the Dryad. The piper had not noticed the little fellow, and he looked down on ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... rint; and whin I cum home yisterday evenin, throth, barrin I tuck the bit from the woman and childre, sorra a taste I could get—so sis I, Biddy jewel, I'm mighty sick intirely, an I cant ate any thing. Well, she coxed me—but I didn't. So afther sittin a while, I bethought me that there wus to be a piper at the Crass-roads, an I was thin gettin morthul hungery; so sis I t'meeself I'll go dance the hunger off—and so I did:—an that wus the way I wus divartin meeself." Now, I have no doubt, that many an Irishman has danced the thought of hunger away as well as Jack. ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... have been so long in possession. They almost blessed me for saying so. There, however, can be very little doubt that the title and estate, more than a million acres, belong to the claimant by strict law. Old Fraser's brother was called Black John of the Tasser. The man whom he killed was a piper who sang an insulting song to him at a wedding. I have heard the words and have translated them; he was dressed very finely, and ...
— Letters to his wife Mary Borrow • George Borrow
... bidding at the roup and some business thegither. I think Mr. Laidlaw means to buy Cornhaven off Mr. Borthwick and give it to his son John, wha's married on a Glasca girl, a shelpit wee thing wi' a Glesca accent like skirling pipes played by a drunken piper." They watched her while she set the table with tea and scones and strawberry jam and cheese, and smiled rather vacantly at her stream of gossip, their natural liking for the woman struggling against their sense of the superfluity ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... The name, a corruption of Moorish, refers to its origin in Spain. The Morris dance was especially associated with May Day and was danced round a May pole to a lively and capering step. The performers represented Robin Hood, Maid Marian, his wife, Tom the Piper, and other traditional characters. On their garments they wore bells tuned to different notes, so ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... boy. He was distinguished too both by land and by water; for while he was amongst the most informed of his time, in school hours, in the playing fields, on the water, with the celebrated boatman, my guinea piper at cricket, or in rowing, he was always the foremost. He used to boast, that he should in time be as good a boxer as his father was, though he used to add, that never could be exactly known, as he could not decently have a set-to ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... magical charm about it. Sometimes, indeed, Ingram had himself a letter from Sheila, and that was immediately shown to Lavender. Was he pleased to find that these communications were excessively business-like—describing how the fishing was going on, what was doing in the schools, and how John the Piper was conducting himself, with talk about the projected telegraphic cable, the shooting in Harris, the health of Bras, and other ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... read with wondrous satisfaction, Feeling in this your hands are far from tied, That you propose to emulate the action Of Hamelin's Piper (Pied). ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... are taken with the things themselves well enough, but do not think dyers and perfumers otherwise than low and sordid people. It was not said amiss by Antisthenes, when people told him that one Ismenias was an excellent piper, "It may be so," said he, "but he is but a wretched human being, otherwise he would not have been an excellent piper." And king Philip, to the same purpose, told his son Alexander, who once at a merry-meeting played a ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... you, man," replied Jack, "and ask you to come to the Irvine games. You know I am the piper of the place. There will ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... "By the piper that played before Moses, and ye're right, Dick Doherty," exclaimed another Irishman; "sure, and it isn't the officer at all! Just look at the great black fist of him too, and never call me Phil Shehan, if it ever was made for the handling of an ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... or of a sound, as Bray; or the name of a month, as March, May; or of a place, as Barnet, Baldock, Hitchen; or the name of a coin, as Farthing, Penny, Twopenny; or of a profession, as Butcher, Baker, Carpenter, Piper, Fisher, Fletcher, Fowler, Glover; or a Jew's name, as Solomons, Isaacs, Jacobs; or a personal name, as Foot, Leg, Crookshanks, Heaviside, Sidebottom, Longbottom, Ramsbottom, Winterbottom; or a long name, as Blanchenhagen, or Blanchenhausen; or a short name, as Crib, Crisp, Crips, Tag, Trot, Tub, ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... had to come, the arrogant Americans; they had to swarm like rats to the pied piper. He could draw them at will, the haughty heathen—draw them by the magic of his finger-touch on pieces of ivory. Lo, they were coming, more and more of them! Through the corner of his eye he espied ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... certain Bishop Hatto, as a judgment for his sins, was attacked by an army of rats which swam across the Rhine and invaded him in his island tower, where they made short work of their victim.[4] Another tells how a town called Hamelin was overrun with rats until a magic piper appeared who so charmed them with his enchanted music that they gathered about him and followed his leading till they came to ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Sheila's place as much as you like, but you will mind this—not to mention her name, not once. Now go away, Mairi, and find Scarlett Macdonald, and she will give you some dry clothes; and you will tell her to send Duncan down to Borvabost, and bring up John the Piper and Alister-nan-Each, and the lads of the Nighean dubh, if they are not gone home to Habost yet. But it iss John ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... to William Sharp and grand son to the piper of —— so much famed for his skill in playing a spring called Coffee. However, the wind of the bag procured James a handsome education, after which he obtained a regent's post in the university of St. Andrew's. To relate every thing in the black and dismal ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... apocalypse. There will be cloud pillars miles high, snow-capped, glorified, and preserving an orderly perspective before the unbarred door of the sun, or perhaps mere ghosts of clouds that dance to some pied piper of an unfelt wind. But be it day or night, once they have settled to their work, one sees from the valley only the blank wall of their tents stretched along the ranges. To get the real effect of a mountain storm you must ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... every Calvinist, which seems reasonable; but then also, which is intolerable, every Arminian. Is philosophy able to account for this morbid affection, and particularly when it takes the restricted form (as sometimes it does, in the bagpipe case) of seeking furiously to kick the piper, instead of paying him? In this case, my brother was urgent with me to mount en croupe behind himself. But weak as I usually was, this proposal I resisted as an immediate suggestion of the fiend; for I had heard, and have since known proofs of it, that a horse, when ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... period. It is odd to be on so strict a regimen; it is a week for instance since I have bought myself a drink, and unless times change, I do not suppose I shall ever buy myself another. The health improves. The Pied Piper is an idea; it shall have my thoughts, and so shall you. The character of the P. P. would be highly comic, I seem to see. Had you looked at the Pavilion, I do not think you would have sent it to Stephen; 'tis ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sabbath had fallen into a decadent condition; but the Scotch and French trials prove that it was an integral part of the celebration. The Devil himself was the usual performer, but other members of the society could also supply the music, and occasionally one person held the position of piper to the Devil. The music was always as an accompaniment of the dance; the instrument in general use was a pipe, varied in England by a cittern, in Scotland by 'the trump' or Jew's harp, also an instrument played with ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... glow'red,[81] amazed and curious, The mirth and fun grew fast and furious: The piper loud and louder blew; The dancers quick and quicker flew; They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,[82] Till ilka carlin[83] swat and reekit,[84] And coost[85] her duddies[86] to the wark, And linket[87] ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... be cut off when they begin hiring themselves," added the major. "No; you can't decently thrust such an incubus on Hetty and Thursday—or on anyone else. You've been willing to pay the piper for the sake of the dance, but no one else would ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... name for the dunlin, Tringa alpina, a species of sand-piper frequenting our shores and the banks ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... tum) more vetusto; Wintoniaeque (puer tum) piperatus eram. Si quid inest nostro piperisve salisve libello, Oxoniense sal est, Wintoniense piper." ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... as their reception was over, the piper—to the discomfort of Mr. Sercombe's English ears—began his invitation to the dance, and in a few moments the floor was, in a tumult of reels. The girls, unacquainted with their own country's dances, preferred looking on, and after ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... child of wisdom, Kept his counsel, took his toll; Ayrshire's vagrant paid the piper, Lost the game—God save ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... his Person. He requests the Favour of all enraged Brethren, who shall chuse to display their Talents for the future, that they will be so kind as to pay the Postage of their Letters for there can be no Reason why he should put up with their ill Treatment and pay the Piper into the Bargain. Surely there must be something in this Book very extraordinary; a something they cannot digest, thus to excite the Wrath and Ire of these hot-brained Mason-bit Gentry." One letter he has received calls him "a ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... These advices add, that his Excellency the Czarish Ambassador has communicated to the States-General, and the foreign Ministers residing at the Hague, a copy of a letter from his master's camp, which gives an account of the entire defeat of the Swedish army. They further say, that Count Piper is taken prisoner, and that it is doubted whether the King of Sweden himself was not killed in the action. We hear from Savoy, that Count Thaun having amused the enemy by a march as far as the Tarantaise, had suddenly repassed Mount Cenis, and moved towards Briancon. This unexpected ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... few poems which have interested children more than Robert Browning's "Pied Piper of Hamelin." The story runs that long ago, in the year 1284, the old German town of Hamelin was so overrun with rats that there was no peace for the people living in it. When things were at their worst a strange man appeared in the place and offered, for a sum of money, to clear it of these ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... stared at the Adam's apple which showed above the white necktie. She was trying to puzzle out the connection between Mr O'Shaughnessy's throat and the Pied Piper, but the difficulty was too great. She heaved a sigh, and ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... it, didn't he? He's got to pay the piper, hasn't he? Women don't know anything about the awful struggles and temptations of the rotten business world. He didn't do it because he wanted to, you can bet your life on that. He's just another poor victim of a vicious system. A fly in the same old web; same old fat spider in the middle!. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... steamer Rob Roy; and, setting forth on our voyage, a Highland piper made music for us the better part of ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he had expected to pay for the whole house. His heart was set on having a loggia or sun-parlour; and when it seemed that he would have to sacrifice this apple of his eye through lack of funds, he threw discretion to the winds, hauled out Captain Stormfield and made the old tar pay the piper. His fears as to its reception were wholly unwarranted; for it was generously enjoyed for its shrewd and vastly suggestive ideas on religion and heaven as popularly taught nowadays from the pulpits. This book ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... he hugged me, and nearly suffocated me with his maudlin caresses, "I trundles wid you too, my darling, by the piper!" ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... V——n. It was so early that he was not arisen. I went into his chamber, and, opening a shutter, sat down in the window-seat. Before the rails was a fellow playing upon the hautboy. A man with a barrow full of onions offered the piper an onion if he would play him a tune. That ended, he offered a second onion for a second tune; the same for a third, and was going on: but this was too much; I could not bear it; it angered my very soul—'Zounds!' said I, 'stop here! This fellow is ridiculing my profession; ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... piper he piped on the hill-top high, (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) Till the cow said "I die" and the goose asked "Why;" And the dog said nothing, but ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... house,—that is, on the first floor,—with the rain pattering against the window as though it were December, the wind howling dismally, a cold damp mist on everything without, a blazing fire within half way up the chimney, and a most infernal Piper practicing under the window for a competition of pipers which is to come off shortly. . . . The store of anecdotes of Fletcher with which we shall return will last a long time. It seems that the F.'s are an extensive clan, and that his father was a Highlander. Accordingly, wherever ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... poems are best for the beginner, who should read Rabbi Ben Ezra, Abt Vogler, Home Thoughts from Abroad, Prospice, Saul, The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Baker's Browning's Shorter Poems (Macmillan's Pocket Classics) contains a very good collection of his shorter poems. Representative selections from Browning's poems are given in Page's British Poets of the Nineteenth ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... had more courage than I, To accost a young maid with a drop in her eye; I'd as soon catch a snake or a viper: She, while wiping her tears, gives Apollo some wipes; And when a young lady has set up her pipes, Her lover will soon pay the piper. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... d——d superiority," he muttered. "I suppose he thinks I am blind. Well, Mr. Iredale, we've made a pleasant start from my point of view. If you intend to marry Prudence you'll have to pay the piper. Guess I'm that piper. It's money I want, and it's money you'll ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... for the night under the lee of reef e of King's chart—one of the most extensive we had hitherto seen, being fourteen miles in length—on September 26th, the ship anchored under the largest of the Piper Islets. ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... he proposed that his son and daughter and I should act a charade. Napier was the audience, and Marryat himself the orchestra - that is, he played on his fiddle such tunes as a ship's fiddler or piper plays to the heaving of the anchor, or for hoisting in cargo. Everyone was in romping spirits, and notwithstanding the cheery Captain's signs of fatigue and worn looks, which he evidently strove to conceal, the evening ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... man within hearing, from oldest to youngest, would be wriggling and shuffling, as if through some magic piper's bewitchment; for even those who at first affected contemptuous indifference would be drawn into ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... look!" said Nora, and as she spoke, just above the line of shadow a door opened out, and through its portals came a little piper dressed in green and gold. He stepped down, followed by another and another, until they were nine in all, and then the door slung back again. Down through the heather marched the pipers in single file, and all the time they played a music ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... they are his horn and drum to draw the crowd. I once knew a side-show man who bent iron bars between his teeth and who summoned stout men from his audience to swing upon the bar, but I cannot believe that he has discharged the bawling rascal at his door. I rather choose to think that the piper was one of those self-same artists who, on lesser days, squeeze comic rubber faces in their fingers, or make the monkey ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... her body quivered with the fever in her aching eyes. She passed the orchestra, trudging back to Saint-Lys along the gravel drive, the two fat violinists stolidly smoking their Alsacian pipes, the harp-player muttering to the aged piper, the little biniou man from the Cote-d'Or, excited, mercurial, gesticulating at every step. War! war! war! The burden of the ghastly monotone was in her brain, her tired heart kept beating out the cadence that her little slippered feet echoed along ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... "Why, be the holy piper," says Larder, "I think you are dthrawing a little on your imagination. Not read Fraser! Don't believe him, my lord duke; he reads every word of it, the rogue! The boys about that magazine baste him as if he was a sack of oatmale. ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... old Prussian town and fortress in the province of Hanover, situated at the junction of the Hamel with the Weser, 25 m. SW. of Hanover city; associated with the legend of the Pied Piper; a fine chain bridge spans the Weser; there are prosperous iron, paper, and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... written are disembodied, and, like spirits, have no power to speak to you, unless you give them the voice of your sympathy; and without that, I question which touches you most deeply, a thousand rats following the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and wondering, as he neared the wharves, where the Deuse they were going, or the thousand Union soldiers standing stunned before a gate from which should have wailed forth, as they filed through, "Leave ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... the sea-daffodil, and the sea-stocks, which would blossom later, were pricking upward to the Lenten light; great clusters of southern-wood waved in the wind, and the pungent sea-rush grew in long lines along the shore, where the sand-piper was dropping her eggs, and the blue-rock was carrying dry twigs and grass to his home in the ruins above or the caverns beneath, and the stock-doves in large companies were winging their way over sea towards the Maritime or the ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... of his superiority that she had hesitated to speak of anything so intimate as eggs... "Yes, I must give her something extra," Maurice thought, remembering the "cost" of living. "Talk about paying the piper! I bet I'm ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... city was a nightmare. The passengers in the car gave me gold watches an' champagne suppers, the Jew doctor wore himself to a bone tryin' to find out whether it was me, the lumber company, or the tobacco firm which had to pay the piper; while the newspaper reporters pumped me as dry as the desert. The tobacco company kept me on double pay, because when it came to what they call a publicity agent I had played every winnin' number open an' coppered ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... Fancies and fashions come and go, but stamp collecting flourishes from decade to decade. Princes and peers, merchants and members of Parliament, solicitors and barristers, schoolboys and octogenarians, all follow this postal Pied Piper ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell
... "It's Piper Lauchie McDonald!" cried Auntie Flora, coming up to the surface again; "he's been comin' here pretendin' he wanted to teach Gavie the pipes, but we can see it's Elspie ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... he complained that in his own particular, the effects had ceased when the cause was taken away — The 'squire said, he would lay a tea-drinking on his head, that he should dance a Scotch measure, without making a false step; and the advocate grinning, called for the piper — A fidler being at hand, this original started up, with his bloody napkin over his black tye-periwig, and acquitted himself in such a manner as excited the mirth of the whole company; but he could not regain the good graces of Mrs Tabby, who did not understand the principle ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... paid the piper then stood on his rights to call the tune. Acting upon the wide power conferred by the British North America Act, the Dominion government in 1883 sweepingly designated as 'works for the general advantage of Canada,' and therefore subject to federal ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... songs for you. Ye black swine, ye could not be happy till I was brought in to be the piper while ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... But what is worse They know not yet who broke the code, And the dread Chiswick Fathers' curse Still hovers sadly, unbestowed Nay, there are wild false tales about And hideous accusations made; Men say old Piper led the rout With that young fellow from "The Glade," While old maids murmur with a tear, "I'm told it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... to take care of their own money, may send it to a patron duly appointed by the college, who will then pay all bills and keep the accounts, receiving, as compensation two and a half per cent. I think the expenses of this establishment will astonish those who have had to "pay the piper" for a smart young man at Oxford, as much as the said young man would have been astonished, had his allowance, while there, been paid into the hands of some prudent and trusty patron. Tandems and tin horns would have been rather at a ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... governing precedence of Peter Piper, alleged to have picked the peck of pickled pepper, it was held physically desirable to have evidence of the existence of the peck of pickled pepper which Peter Piper was alleged to have picked; so, in this case, it was held psychologically ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... harvesting was done with the sickle, reapers from the Highlands and from Ireland came in large numbers to the Scottish Lowlands and cut the crops. At one time a piper played characteristic melodies behind the reapers to give them spirit for ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... such a night, how sweet, how sweet is life, Even to the insect piper with his fife! And must your troubled face still bear the blight Of strength that runs itself to waste in strife? For love's own heart should throb through all the light ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... that time will never arrive then, my beauty," answered the faithful Terence, making a spring, and leaping nimbly on the crocodile's back. "It's not exactly the sort of steed I'd choose, except for the honour of riding, but I'll make him pay the piper, at all events;" whereupon he began slashing away with his trusty sword most furiously on the neck and shoulders of the crocodile. A delicate maiden might as well have tried to pierce the hide of an aged ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... Al-Rashid replied, "By Allah, I have not seen thy clothes nor know aught of them!" Now the Caliph had large cheeks and a small mouth; [FN221] so Khalifah said to him, "Belike, thou art by trade a singer or a piper on pipes? But bring me back my clothes fairly and without more ado, or I will bash thee with this my staff till thou bepiss thyself and befoul they clothes." When Al-Rashid saw the staff in the Fisherman's hand and that he had ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... up to my bairn that he was a bastard?—troth he was na blate—my certie, your father was a better man than ever stood on the Doctor's shanks—a handsome grand gentleman, with an ee like a gled's, and a step like a Highland piper." ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... ordered by the company. Crow like a cock. Say "Gig whip" ten times very rapidly. Say "Mixed biscuits" ten times very rapidly. Say rapidly: "She stood on the steps of Burgess's Fish Sauce Shop selling shell fish." Say rapidly: "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper. A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper, where is the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?" Count fifty backward. ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... before she enters into partnership. But "ruffle" they do. Also they think that you have insulted the sex, rather as if you had accosted a goddess with a "tickler," or stood before the Sphynx and, regarding her mysterious smile, said, "Give it up, old Bean!" For, after all, if the man has to pay the piper, it's up to the woman to know how to make a tune! As it is, so many husbands seem to make money for their wives to waste it. No wonder there are so many bachelors about, and no wonder there is an outcry to "tax them." ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... does as he pleases; I don't know how far Mr. Thibaudier has got with you, but Mr. Thibaudier is no example for me. I don't like to pay the piper for ...
— The Countess of Escarbagnas • Moliere
... "By the piper, but I'll teach you to keep a taughter gripe of the beef for the future, you spalpeen," exclaimed O'Grady, recovering himself, and about to hurl back the joint at the head of the unfortunate boy, when his arm was grasped by ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... die; when thou art mad, I'll run out of my wits, and thereupon I strike thee good luck. Well said, i' faith. O, I could find in my hose to pocket thee in my heart! Come, my heart of gold, let's have a dance at the making up of this match. Strike up, Tom Piper. [They dance. Come, Peg, I'll take the pains to bring thee homeward; and at twilight look for me ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... of a Norman man-at-arms. They were armed indiscriminately with long pikes and ancient flint-locks, and marched to the music of fife and drum. The leader of the band danced a sort of shimmy as he marched, at the same time tootling on a flute. He looked like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Perhaps the most curious feature of the procession was provided by the clowns, both men and women—an interesting survival of the court-jesters of the Middle Ages—powdered and painted like their fellows of the circus, and ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... "That's piper's news," interrupted one of the young men. "Captain Ralph told us all about that; but he said thar war nobody at Lexington ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... had a thorough overhaul two years ago. She is kept in excellent order, and requires no outlay. The Piper Island lightship will be the next vessel to be relieved. The metal on her bottom is becoming thin, and the caulking in her topsides defective. After a careful examination I consider she may remain another year or eighteen months at ...
— Report on the Department of Ports and Harbours for the Year 1890-1891 • Department of Ports and Harbours
... Forsaking fresh and bowery fields, For "pastures new"—upon the Bowery! You've piped at home, where none could pay, Till now, I trust, your wits are riper. Make no delay, but come this way, And pipe for them that pay the piper! ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Jane! love me lak you useter, O Jane! chew me lak you useter, Ev'y time I figger, my heart gits bigger, Sorry, sorry, can't be yo' piper ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... replied the critic, "with a perfect recollection of Canova's Venus, and even Moggs's Pandean Piper, which I reviewed in last number of the Universal, in declaring that Stickleback's work (it is a female, not a jack-ass) is the noblest effort of the English chisel; there is life about it—a power—a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... meriting the term exquisite: nothing can be finer than the dark luxuriant hair contrasted with the alabaster delicacy and elegance of the features; the eyes too beam with benignant expressiveness. Wilkie's Bag-Piper has been powerfully engraved by Aug. Fox; and a Portrait of Lady Jane Grey, after De Heere, is an interesting variety. Milton composing Paradise Lost, from a drawing by Stothard, is far from our taste; but the Blue Bell, by Fox, from a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various
... however, the young chieftain returned to the charge. The widow frowned, and wept, and declared that nothing on earth should ever tempt her to such a breach of decorum. But the more she frowned, the more he smiled, and pressed his suit: 'Just one reel,' he repeated, 'only one! Allan of Mull, the best piper in the Isles, was only waiting her bidding to strike up.' The plea was irresistible. 'Weel, weel,' sighed the widow, rising, and giving him her hand, 'what maun be, maun be! But, hech, sirs, let it be a lightsome spring, for I hae a heavy, heavy ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... halted long In tattered cloak of army pattern, And Galatea joined the throng,— A blowsy apple-vending slattern; While old Silenus staggered out From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, And bade the piper, with a shout, To ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... must be a pagan. I love the sun and the moon and I know it's all true about the little folk and the pied piper and—" ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... couldn't have told him, if I hadn't had you to keep me in countenance. He looked so shocked that he made me feel as if it were you and I, instead of Terry, who were doing the eloping. I'm sure that's what he thought. There'll be gossip. I shall have to pay the piper; but I'm too happy to-night ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... piper, but it's true, though," put in Paddy O'Grady, who had also been deprived of the larger portion of ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... no longer, but broke in with what he called a d—d good song, composed by Gibby Gaethroughwi't, the piper of Cupar; and, without ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... later plans. And immediately the chief difficulties that were to embarrass all his plans appeared. He was a minority President; and he was the Executive of a democracy. Many things were to happen; many mistakes were to be made; many times the piper was to be paid, ere Lincoln felt sufficiently sure of his support to enforce a policy of his own, defiant of opposition. Throughout the spring of 1861 his imperative need was to secure the favor of the Northern mass, to shape his policy with that end in view. At least, in ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... Crows, may actually have been settled on the spot, and may even have resisted invasion. {114b} Another myth of the Troad accounted for the worship of the mouse Apollo on the hypothesis that he had once freed the land from mice, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, whose pipe (still serviceable) is said to have been found in his grave by men who were digging ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... having to eat poor meals was all the discomfiture that came his way, he was getting off light and easy. She might even go so far as to remind him that the one who asks the guests must always pay the piper. ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... the piper's son, Stole a pig and away he run; Pig was eat, and Tom was beat, And Tom went roaring down ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... estate—anarchos, without a head. Perhaps he is a superman also, and the world doesn't know it. His admirers and pupils think so, however, and several of them have recorded their opinion in a little book, published at Munich, 1912, by R. Piper ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... hands. I suppose you would take a large magnet and with it pull all of the German warships out of the Kiel Canal, and hold them while you went on board and explained to Bernhardi and von Bulow the horrors of war, and if they did not listen to you, you would, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin lead them off with all the other disagreeable odds and ends, submarines and Zeppelins, to an island, way, way out in the ocean, where they would have to stay until they promised ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... AUGUSTUS HARRIS, and the scene-painter, only know—and here comes on a mighty illigant shepherd with a pipe—to play, not to smoke—and one clever person near me was sure it was Miss EAMES in disguise, but it turned out to be Miss REGINA PINKERT, a piper of whom some present would willingly have paid to hear a little more; but she vanished, probably in search of her flock in the desert,—by the way, an excellent place for golf this desert,—and then in came Mireille and Taven, when the latter, I fancy, tells Mireille of the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... girdles. Even more charming is the letter which he wrote the same day to Sir William Stonor. He is a little incoherent with joy and gratitude, full of regrets that business keeps him from Stonor and good wishes for the health of the family. 'I fare like a sorry piper,' he says. 'When I begin I cannot leave, but yet once again our blessed Lord be your speed and your help,' ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... should be bound to have another one sooner or later, and the sooner the better. She went straight off to Oldcastle and bought me a spaniel pup, and there was such a to-do training it that we hadn't too much time to think about Piper." ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... at Norcester all day. I went early. By the way, here is the ribbon you wanted; I think it's exactly the same as the pattern.' As he spoke he took a tissue-piper parcel from his pocket and handed it ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... for you, and I hope you will like the stories and ballads, and spend many happy hours over them. One story, "The Middle Daughter," was originally published in Harper's "Round Table," and is inserted here by consent of Messrs. Harper and Brothers. Two of the ballads, "Horatius," and "The Pied Piper," belong to literature, and you cannot afford not to know them, and some of the fairy stories are like bits of golden coin, worth treasuring up and reading often. Miss Mary Joanna Porter deserves the thanks of the ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... Nostrodamus. What, I warrant my son thought nothing belonged to a father but forgiveness and affection; no authority, no correction, no arbitrary power; nothing to be done, but for him to offend and me to pardon. I warrant you, if he danced till doomsday he thought I was to pay the piper. Well, but here it is under black and white, signatum, sigillatum, and deliberatum; that as soon as my son Benjamin is arrived, he's to make over to him his right of inheritance. Where's my daughter that is to be?—Hah! old Merlin! body o' me, I'm so glad I'm ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... among the poor people, almost universal in every cabin. Dancing-masters of their own rank travel through the country from cabin to cabin, with a piper or blind fiddler, and the pay is sixpence a quarter. It is an absolute system of education. Weddings are always celebrated with much dancing, and a Sunday rarely passes without a dance. There are very few among them who will not, after a hard day's work, gladly walk seven miles to have a dance. ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... Piper," he began. "And pray what might you be willing to pay me, if I rid you of ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... the Knight, "thou shouldst have used thy strength with more discretion. I had mumbled but a lame mass an thou hadst broken my jaw, for the piper plays ill that wants the nether chops. Nevertheless, there is my hand, in friendly witness, that I will exchange no more cuffs with thee, having been a loser by the barter. End now all unkindness. Let us put the Jew to ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... of a fine lawn under the shade of some shaddock trees. The floor was covered with mats, on which the guests were invited to be seated, the people arranging themselves on the ground in a circle outside. The piper having landed, Captain Cook ordered the bagpipes to be played, and, in return, three young women sang with a very good grace. A present being made to each of these, all the other women commenced singing. ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... O excellent! two-pence a piece boyes, two-pence a piece. Give the boys some drink there. Piper, wet your whistle, Canst tell me a way now, how to cut ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... to deal with the body's eliminative efforts is to accept that disease is an opportunity to pay the piper for past indiscretions. You should go to bed, rest, and drink nothing but water or dilute juice until the condition has passed. This allows the body to conserve its vital energy, direct this energy toward healing the disordered ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... me, whither do they go, All the Little Ones we know? They "grow up" before our eyes, And the fairy spirit flies. Time the Piper, pied and gay— Does he lure them all away? Do they follow after ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... brought that friendly action, and the clever counsel tried To prove to FAUDELL PHILLIPS that the law was on his side. But the oyster-dealer found the law for him was one too many, So he had to pay the piper—to be quite exact, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... it is just level with the deck of the boat at high tide. The lower wharf is for low tide, but of course we have to pretend the tides. That round place is the bandstand, and there the pipers play when there is a troop-ship starting. Sometimes only the Favourite Piper plays, striding up and down the little bowling-green at the top here, but not often, because the work of keeping him going interferes with the disembarkation. We never let the Highlanders go abroad, because Murray loves them so. He is afraid ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... is the Acacia suma; Pippala is the Piper longum; and Palasa is the Butea frondosa. Udumvara is the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... what could be the cause? Had that impudent sand-piper frightened all the fish on his way up? Had an otter paralysed them with terror for the morning? Or had a stag been down to drink? We saw the fresh slot of his broad claws, by the bye, in the mud a few ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Don't get mad. Keep yer shirt on," interposed McGowan, as a peacemaker. "Myles, you and Dinny Dempsey, the blind piper, used to be good friends. Now, suppose we get Dinny. How ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... over-confident of its power. I feel a grandmotherly interest in the world and its ways; and much as I should like to amuse it, I shall never be content with that. You may not like to be instructed, my dear children, but instructed you shall be. You read long ago, in your story-book, that little Tommy Piper didn't want his face washed, though he was very willing to be amused with soap-bubbles; but his face needed washing and got it. I come to you with soap-bubbles indeed, but with scrubbing-brushes also. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... glad in having had the opportunity of helping to make it known, and the task has been pleasant, although toil-some. Just now, indeed, on the 6th October, I am tired enough, and I think with sympathy of the old Highland piper, who complained that he was "withered with yelping ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... was as cool and collected as if she had been going to see John the Piper. He believed she could have gone to be presented to the queen without a single tremor of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... this John Hayward's care, and within his bounds, that the story of the piper, with which people have made themselves so merry, happened, and he assured me that it was true. It is said that it was a blind piper; but, as John told me, the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant, ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... loose ways of living and doing business. All that I am going to keep as a sort of saving fund that I can draw on when I feel like it, and let it alone when I don't feel like it. We are going to travel,—she is wild on that point,—and she expects to pay the piper. She can't do it, but I shall let her think she's doing it. She takes me for a rattling scapegrace, and I needn't put on the sober and respectable unless I choose to; and when I do choose it will be a big card in my hand. By George! sir, I know Calthea so well that I can ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton |
