"Rakish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... native town, discovers her basket flung up against a pillar, like wreckage from a storm, and settles herself down upon it with a sigh of relief. She remains unmoved amid the turmoil, save when a passing gun-case tips her bonnet to one side, giving her a very rakish air, and a good-natured retriever on a neighbouring box is so much taken with her appearance that he offers her a friendly caress. Restless people—who remember that their train ought to have left half an hour ago, and cannot realise ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... and kind of you to say so, mum," Snac answered, setting his hat a little more on one side, and bending both knees with a rakish swagger. "You can tell the governor as I called, mother. The pony's as genuine a bit of blood as is to be found in Heydon Hay. The p'ints of a hoss and a dog is a thing as every child thinks he knows about, but bless your heart theer's nothing i' the world as is half so difficult t' understand, ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... point of the changing front that the Hun was about to lose. And as they left, the men were mostly silent; though they looked debonair enough with their swinging quickstep and easy carriage, and their frying-pan hats set at all sorts of rakish angles. Their officers would nod, glance enviously at the apple-trees and tents in our pleasant little orchard, and pass on to the front of the Front, and all that this implied in the way of mud, vermin, sudden ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... little figure to him that she was to the other soldiers. But she was none the less welcome for that, after the monotony of the day, and Roderigo as she came nearer straightened up self-consciously and tilted his black patent leather hat with its rakish cluster of cock feathers a little more ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... the corridors and the restaurant— asthmatic jets that, spluttering blue within globes obese, semi-opaque, and yellowish, went well with furnishings and decorations of the Second Empire to which years had lent a mellow and somehow rakish dinginess; since nothing was ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... of ten minutes past seven, the rakish recklessness of a quarter past, the drooping weariness of twenty-five minutes past, must have been ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... put it on; it had an appearance and an air; and now the dark surface lent itself all to contrast with her light, soft-hued hair and clear, delicate skin. It was still further improved, when, having removed it again, she set it on at a rakish artillery angle. Possibly, if hers had been the dark, nut-brown beauty, she would have seen that she looked best lurking beneath its sombre shade, and therefore have turned the rim down some way to even increase the shade; but Janet fitted that which was frank, ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... banner of the great North German empire, and the Italian and the Spanish colors—sometimes, of an afternoon, the whole scene enliven'd by a fleet of yachts, in a half calm, lazily returning from a race down at Gloucester;—the neat, rakish, revenue steamer "Hamilton" in mid-stream, with her perpendicular stripes flaunting aft—and, turning the eyes north, the long ribands of fleecy-white steam, or dingy-black smoke, stretching far, fan-shaped, slanting diagonally across from the Kensington ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... us procure some rakish fellows, and after we have made them sufficiently drunk, and given them a good sum of money, let us order them to go and debauch this virgin, promising them, if they do ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... of the chance,' replied the stranger, gazing at Fred Archer with much interest. Fred was a good looking young man, genteelly dressed, but with a dissipated, rakish air. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... pulled at a scarlet handkerchief about his neck. Adams noticed that though he was stunted and anaemic in appearance, he wore his shabby overcoat with an almost rakish swagger. His mouth was filled with chewing-gum which he rolled aside in ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... great was Odo's wonder, when the door reopened, to discover, among the party it admitted, his old acquaintance of Vercelli, the Count of Castelrovinato. The latter, whose dress and person had been refurbished, and who now wore an air of rakish prosperity, greeted him with evident pleasure, and, while their entertainer was engaged in seating the ladies of the company, gave him a brief account of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... who it was that her former pretended lover had been recommended to, and she found means to have it insinuated to her by a woman-friend, that he was not only rakish and wicked, but, in short, that he had a particular illness, and went so far as to produce letters from him to a quack-doctor, for directions to him how to take his medicines, and afterwards a receipt for money for the cure; though both the letters and receipt also, as afterwards ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... discerned the quarry—a very rakish-looking motor cutter, painted black, and speeding seaward ahead of them. He quivered ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... a stranger in a small town always attracts public attention, and many were curious about the rakish-looking man who had now for some time occupied a room ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... breast, his eyes fixed upon the glowing embers. For half an hour he was silent and still. Then, with the gesture of a man who has taken his decision, he sprang to his feet and passed into his bedroom. A little later a rakish young workman with a goatee beard and a swagger lit his clay pipe at the lamp before descending into the street. "I'll be back some time, Watson," said he, and vanished into the night. I understood that he had opened his campaign against Charles ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... looked eagerly at the approaching craft, upon the bow of which a dark-skinned man leaned carelessly against the wire-stays. He noticed that the man was tall and straight. Upon his head a gaudy red cap rested with a rakish air. His eyes were upon the Lang dock as he stood with folded arms and waited for the boat to nose up to ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... of their wit that they did not achieve between them the output of Moliere's single lifetime; and they were all (not without reason) ashamed of their profession, and preferred to be regarded as mere men of fashion with a rakish hobby. Goldsmith's was the only saved ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... at the newcomer. He was a stout fellow; not over tall, nor over big; swarthy, with prominent features. The plume of his bonnet was broken, but he wore it in a rakish fashion; and altogether he swaggered with so dare-devil an air, clinking his spurs and swinging out his long sword recklessly, that it was no wonder three or four of the nearest fellows gave ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... stood in the middle of the freight-car, looking down in wonder at the fugitives, was a tall vagabond of the most picturesque type. No ragamuffin was ever so tattered and torn as this rakish individual. His clothes barely hung together on his lank frame; he was barefoot and hatless; a great mop of black hair topped his shrewd, rugged face; coal-black eyes snapped and twinkled beneath shaggy brows and a delighted, knowing grin spread slowly over his rather boyish countenance. He was ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... to say exactly—just something." She placed her hand over a rakish green paradise plume to see if its elimination would be ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... tilted his hat at a rakish angle, stuck a tooth-pick in the corner of his mouth, put his thumbs in his jacket arm holes, shot Wayland a quick look of questioning, grinned at the old man and nodded towards a white pergola standing apart from the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... to be complimented on the cut of my coat, to be asked the address of my tailor, and to hear the rakish sit of my hat admired. I now began to think I should hear a contention between the lords of the ocean, as to who should have me as a sample middy on their quarter-decks; and I was even framing an excuse to my father's friend ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... almost becalmed, or her sails flapping about in every direction with the eddying winds. We steered for her, and were very soon in the same situation, not more than a quarter of a mile from her. The quarter-boat was lowered down, and I proceeded to board her; but as she was large and rakish, O'Brien desired me to be careful, and if there was the least show of resistance to return. As I pulled up to her bows they hailed me in French, and desired me to keep off, or they would fire. This was quite sufficient; and, in obedience to ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... was a fair-sized, ocean-going steamer. The Francisco Reyes was a dirty old tub with pretensions to the contrary; and the General Blanco—well, metaphorically speaking, the General Blanco was a coal scuttle. She was a supercilious-looking craft, sitting at a rakish angle, her engines being aft. She had a freeboard of six or seven feet, and possessed neither cabin nor staterooms, the space between the superstructure and the rail being about three feet wide. You could stay there, or, if you did not incommode the engineer, you ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... cabin wore an unwonted and a rakish air. The stools seemed to have tried to dance the lancers and have fallen out about the figure. Two were overturned. The unwashed dishes were tossed helter-skelter. A tipsy Christmas tree leaned in drunken fashion against the wall, and under its boughs lay ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... and lighter atmosphere of the contemporary social novel. We have left behind the theoretic enthusiast, perplexed by the contrast between the semi-barbarism of the country and the old-fashioned apathy of its rulers; we have no more descriptions, serious or sarcastic, of rakish subalterns and disorderly regiments under ancient, incapable colonels; we are introduced to a reformed Anglo-India, full of hard-working, efficient officers, civil and military, and sufficiently decorous, except where hill-stations foster flirting and the ordinary dissipation ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... between us. Here's my forehead low and bumpy, and my little nose, scarcely any of it, and what there is turned right up to the sky; and my wide mouth, and my little eyes, and my hair just standing straight up as rakish as you please. And look at you, with your elegant features and your—oh, but it's genteel you are!—and I love you, Nora alannah; I love you, and am not a bit ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... placed for his convenience, and resumed the inspection of a number of reports. He had a gaunt, tight-lipped face framed in luxuriant whiskers, a severely moral aspect oddly contradicted by trousers of tremendous sporting plaid, a waistcoat of green buckskin cassimere, while his silk hat held a rakish, forward angle. The Constable and Sheriff punctuated their converse by prodigious and dexterous spitting into a dangerously far receptacle, and the clerks and police murmured together. The Mayor, finally glancing at a watch enamelled, Jasper Penny saw, with a fay of the ballet, spoke to the ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... cheered by seeing the energetic Shirley reappear, pushing open the doors of the garage, which was connected with the stable. He hurried to the deserted taxicab, where he seemed busied for several minutes, the glow of his pocket lamp shooting out now and then. Through the door of the garage a long, rakish-looking racing car was being pushed out by Jim and his sleepy groom. There was a cheery shout from the taxi, and Helene heard a ripping sound. Shirley reappeared, carrying an ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... consciousness deeply, deeply depress me. My nose is of a lively scarlet, which the warmth of the room is quickly deepening into a lowering purple. My quick passage through the air has set my hat a little awry, giving me a falsely rakish air, and the wind has loosened my hair—not into a picturesque and comely disorder, but into mere untidiness. And, meanwhile, how admirably small and cool her nose looks! What rest and composure in her whole pose! What a neat refinement in the disposition of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... at night, they drove through its picturesque streets in broad daylight. Both Royson and the captain were delighted with the lines of the Aphrodite when they saw her in the spacious dock. Her tapering bows and rakish build gave her an appearance of greater size than her tonnage warranted. Royson was sailor enough to perceive that her masts and spars were intended for use, and, when he reached her deck, to which much scrubbing and ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... hand to his mouth and surreptitiously removed a chew of tobacco almost fresh. With some effort he pulled his feet closer together, and he lifted his old Stetson and reset it at a consciously rakish angle. He glanced at the car, behind it and in front, coming back to the depressed male individual before him. "Yes, ma'am, I'll get you out, ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... was going on at first, and was, therefore, extremely surprised at noticing George hurriedly smooth out his trousers, ruffle up his hair, and stick his cap on in a rakish manner at the back of his head, and then, assuming an expression of mingled affability and sadness, sit down in a graceful attitude, and try to hide ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... were shaven; a thick, square wisp of white hairs hung from his chin; its waggling gave additional point to his deep utterance; and his general contempt for mankind with its activities and moralities was expressed in the rakish set of his big soft hat of black felt with a large rim, which he kept always ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... letters. The room was worse than pokey, it was shabby; and the view from the window, of chimney pots and slate roofs, wholly uninspiring. Nevertheless, Sir John had the look of a man who was enjoying himself. He seemed years younger, and the arrangement of his tie and hair were almost rakish. He stamped his last ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... heartily. She was smartly dressed in a wine-colored velveteen, the over-short skirt of which barely reached to the tops of her freshly whitened spats. Her wide hat was tipped to a rakish angle. She was young (twenty-eight or thirty at most, but she looked less) and distinctly pretty. Her features were regular, her face oval, if too thin—with the thinness of one who is underfed. And this appearance of being poorly nourished showed in her skin, which was pallid, except ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... the rakish hat from her own head, crammed it down hard over the orange-wreathed brow and gave her strange ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... first set eyes upon it. There were more automobiles; four of them altogether. At the wheel of each sat a soldier driver in grey uniform, and with a cloth covered helmet. Each car was of the same type, a long rakish grey body, low to the ground. As he neared the house an officer wearing a long, grey coat came out, accompanied by two or three younger men. He turned to speak to them, then got into one of the cars, which immediately drove ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... was a long slender ship of extremely low freeboard, rakish rigged as a single-master, both sails and oars being used as a means of propulsion; two small cannon were mounted forward, and a round dozen arquebuses were also carried. The total company and passengers of the three ships were only 110 ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... wonder, for manse parlours are no places for dead rats. To be sure it may have been the cat who left it, there. HE is as full of the old Nick as he can be stuffed, Mrs. Dr. dear. A manse cat should at least LOOK respectable, in my opinion, whatever he really is. But I never saw such a rakish-looking beast. And he walks along the ridgepole of the manse almost every evening at sunset, Mrs. Dr. dear, and waves his tail, ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... stood to one side and the horse—well, moved. Robin gazed down at his mother with the faint hint of an almost shy smile, Dion saluted her with his whip, and the glorious day was fairly begun. Traveling with a sort of rakish deliberation the dogcart skirted the velvet lawn of the Green Court and disappeared from sight ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... young men was Harry Tuttle, the clerk in the confectionery and fancy goods store, a young man whose father had once sent him for a term to a neighbouring seminary, as a result of which classical experience he still retained a certain jaunty student air verging on the rakish, that was admired by the girls and envied by ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... flatly refused to admit Tavistock. But at half-past nine he entered, tall, lean, lithe, sharp of face, shrewd of eye, rakish of mustache; by Dumont's direction he closed and locked the door. "Why!" he exclaimed, "you don't look much of a sick man. You're thin, but your color's not bad and your eyes are clear. And down-town they have ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... window and looked out at the whole panorama of the school that ran beneath him, from the long, rakish lines of the Upper, by Memorial Hall, to the chapel and the circle of Houses that ended at the rear with the Dickinson. Below, boys were streaking across the green depths like water-bugs over limpid surfaces, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... do you honour before your fashionable friends?... And I say to you, have no fear. If my gowns are truly what I think they are, I shall conduct without a tremour—particularly if your Lana be there, and that careless, rakish friend ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... in, his left eye almost hidden by the rakish cock of his hat, one hand tucked away under the skirts of his plum-coloured coat, the other supporting the stem of a long clay pipe, at which he was pulling thoughtfully. The pipe and he were all but inseparable; indeed, the year before in London he had given ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... approaching in the distance, dipping down a hill to the creek that broke the stretch toward Guests. It was not often that motors of any distinction saw fit to travel into Bloomfield; the pike was not good enough. But this approaching car seemed to be one of some distinction—was long and rather rakish, had a deep sound to the exhaust as it started up the hill toward him. Idly he watched it. There were two passengers, a man and a woman, slouched well down in the seats. What could they be doing in the heat of the afternoon ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... which be might justly say: Whosoever dare think that he ever tasted a better schema, or ever dreamed in his deepest consciousness that a better could be made, let him be anathema maranatha! A most rakish looking wooden button, noiselessly stealthly and sly, gave entrance to this treasury of dainties; and then what a rare array of disintegrated meals intoxicated the vision! There was the Athlete of the Dairy, commonly called Fresh Butter, in his gay yellow jacket, looking ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... eyes were suddenly attracted by a large galley, with three masts—looking most rakish with its snow-white sail, its tapering spars, its large red streamer, and its low, long, and gracefully sweeping hull, which was painted jet black. On its deck were six pieces of brass ordnance; and stands of fire-arms were ranged round the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... 'e bought the last one. No; I don't know but what 'e's bought two since 'e bought that one—a soft felt, and a cowboy what he never wore but once or twice because it wasn't becomin'. You'll 'ave noticed, miss, that 'e 'ad one o' them fyces what don't look well in nothink rakish—a real gentleman's fyce ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... and lumber waggons, which had borne in the crowds of farmers from the country. The hotel was thronged with sturdy red-faced farm lads, looking hot and uncomfortable in their unaccustomed Sunday suits, gorgeous in their rainbow ties, and rakish with their hats set at all angles upon their elaborately brushed heads. Older men, too, bearded and staid, moved with silent and self-respecting dignity through the crowds, gazing with quiet and ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... went on board the brig Sarah Jane. Though of so unwarlike a name, she was a large rakish craft, evidently very fast, with square yards and taunt masts, well fitted for a blockade-runner or any work of that description; and her skipper, a dark, big-whiskered fellow, looked the man fit to command her. He and the colonel shook hands as if they had before been acquainted, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Colonel, who had been trying to look young and rakish ever since he had turned and caught sight of Viola, suggested that "Perhaps, if he had saved your British, he would not have said that ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... examining it with the deliciously foolish bewilderment of the accomplished clown. After one or two failures, brilliantly improvised, he fixed it firmly on his head. The huge gauntlet, with its limp five fingers dangling over his left ear, became a rakish kepi with a five-pointed flap. Max—I mean Prosper Panne—wore it with an "air impayable." Out of his round, soft, putty-coloured face he made fifteen other faces in rapid succession, all incomparably absurd. He lit a cigarette and held ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... long and well-furnished birds, as they always fly better, and lay more eggs than the short thick-set variety: they should have rakish-looking heads, with long bills, chrome yellow tinged with green in the case of the drake, and dull brown fringed with bright orange in the case of the duck. The eyes should be set high in the head, and the head itself appear to be ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... the ungrateful top. It was of burnished copper. A rebellious lock was then blowing in the wind, and there was a wide, rakish crown of rice-white straw. There was also a soft skin of creamy satin, lips blood red, a velvet patch near a dimple, and two gray eyes that danced behind the hat's filmy curtain. An ungrateful ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... acquaintances was a Mr. Rumbald, a maltster (which was all I thought him then), who frequented the Mitre tavern, without Aldgate, where I went one day, dressed in one of my sober country suits, wearing my hat at a somewhat rakish cock, that I might seem to be a simple fellow ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... it, no matter what outrage he had committed. His complexion was of a ruddy brown, and his hair, entirely innocent of a comb, was decorated with divers feathery tokens of his last night's rest. A cap with the front torn off, jauntily set on one side of his head, gave him a rakish and wide-awake air, his clothes were patched and torn in several places, and his shoes were already in an advanced stage of decay. As he approached the fence he took a piece of chalk from his pocket, and commenced to sketch ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... hat, who was soon enough at his ease to lie flat upon the ferry gunwale, his cheeks supported by his hands, and talk to W—— and the Doctor as if they were old friends. He was a dealer in nitroglycerin cartridges, he said, and pointed to a long, rakish-looking skiff hard by, which bore a red flag at its prow. "Ye see that? Thet there red flag? Well, thet's the law on us glysereen fellers—over five hundred poun's, two flags; un'er five hundred, one flag. I've two hundred and fifty, I have. I tell yer th' steamboats steer ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... 275: Carte suggests that Lord Cobham might have been one of Henry's [supposed] rakish companions. But such a supposition as would stain his memory with debauchery, is altogether at variance with his character. Carte has no doubt of the reality of Cobham's ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... not without a certain knowledge of human nature, particularly Skippy-nature, so without further interest he proceeded to disrobe, flipping the five-dollar bill on the table with a rakish gesture and saying carelessly: ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... illegitimate, to say nothing of the illegitimate children born in wedlock. Of the servant-girls, shop-girls, and seamstresses in the city, it is very safe to say that scarcely ten out of a hundred are chaste, while, as rakish young Swedes have coolly informed me, many girls of respectable parentage, belonging to the middle class, are not much better. The men, of course, are much worse than the women, and even in Paris one sees fewer physical signs of excessive ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... light of the candle we surveyed each other, and we were objects for mirth. Hotchkiss was taking off his sodden shoes and preparing to make himself comfortable, while I hung my muddy raincoat over the ghost in the corner. Thus habited, he presented a rakish but distinctly ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sprightly little old gentleman. With his brisk air, natty eye-glasses, cane and gloves, and other items of dress in the most correct taste, he was quite the old beau. His white hair was crispy, brushed back, and his snowy mustache had rather a rakish effect. ...
— The Old Folks' Party - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... would shoulder his mimic gun to the delight of the spectators, and proceed to march to battle to the time of the drum. Honor knew the routine perfectly. Meanwhile his expression of sleepy indifference under the rakish khaki cap as he blinked and chewed the nuts offered by the public, was human in its comprehension. When the crowd grew pressing, Honor left with her party, hearing for some distance the man's monotonous sing-song voice urging Johorun to dance for her reward, failing ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... men. His hair curled in little rings of iron gray all over his round bullet head. As for his countenance, it was strongly marked, deeply pitted with the small-pox. For the rest, there was a fierce little squint out of one eye; the nose had a rakish twist to one side; while his large mouth, and great white teeth, looked absolutely sharkish when he laughed. In a word, no one, after getting a fair look at him, would ever think of improving the ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... silver bars across his left shoulder showed that he was a lord-in-waiting. He was a handsome man, with clear-cut features, somewhat rakish from late hours and dissipation, but not the less interesting on that account. But his natural advantages were so over-run with the affectation of the Court that you did not see the man at all, being absorbed by the studied gesture to display the jewelled ring, and the peculiarly low tone ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... no doubt about it," said the master. "Observe the rakish cut of her sails; one can almost smell the niggers on ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... then lovely home of the Fitzgibbons, on the banks of the river, and just on leaving the old town of Limerick, I arrived at a rather long and steep hill, at the foot of which a jarvey was trying to induce his horse, a long, rakish, Irish-built bay, to go up. The horse absolutely refused to do so, and each time the old jarvey flogged him he exhibited very considerable agility in every direction except up the hill. I rode up to ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... them, her glance fell upon Sassy, outlined against the small square window beyond and roosted comfortably with her beak toward the manger, all unconscious of her nearing doom. The little girl was certain that it was she, for there was no mistaking the rakish lop of the serrated comb, or the once white under-feathers ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... About one o'clock, a rakish-looking schooner made her appearance, which, from her manoeuvres, such as frequently altering her course, as if she wished to avoid us, we suspected to be a slave-vessel; we, therefore, made full sail in chase, and ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... old sombrero at a rakish angle, his eyes bright with enthusiasm supplied by that which he designated as a morning "bracer," and his long gray locks bobbed in the breeze as he swayed in the saddle and droned his cheerful epic ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... something bigger than this low, black, rakish craft if you are going to be a pirate in the South Seas," ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... the office of those who wore them, degenerated towards the fifteenth century. So much was this the case, that an order of Francis I. forbad the judges from wearing pink "slashed hose" or other "rakish garments." ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... with flowers,—they don't think if she has a husband who ill-uses her, or a child dying at home. She has come there to make them sport. Well, there came an old lord,—a man of sixty or seventy,—who has led a wild rakish life all these years, and now he thinks 'tis time to settle down, and he wants me to help him to make people think he's become respectable. And they say I shall marry him. Phoebe, they say I must,—there is to be no ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... London, Tom thought, as he sat upon the box, and looked about him. Such a coachman, and such a guard, never could have existed between Salisbury and any other place. The coach was none of your steady-going, yokel coaches, but a swaggering, rakish, dissipated London coach; up all night, and lying by all day, and leading a devil of a life. It cared no more for Salisbury than if it had been a hamlet. It rattled noisily through the best streets, defied the Cathedral, took the worst corners sharpest, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Sion-College, and all other Conventions, should read Prayers before them. For then those that are afraid of stretching their Mouths, and spoiling their soft Voice, will learn to Read with Clearness, Loudness, and Strength. Others that affect a rakish negligent Air by folding their Arms, and lolling on their Book, will be taught a decent Behaviour, and comely Erection of Body. Those that Read so fast as if impatient of their Work, may learn to speak deliberately. There is another sort of Persons whom I call ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... round-eyed spectacles from her nest up there, and watches every one that goes by. I wonder what mischief she is hatching now? Do you know she has nearly ruined your character in town? She says you have a rakish look, because you carry a cane, and your hair curls. Your gloves, also, are a shade too light for a strictly ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... we moved along the bank of the river, we saw the white tops of wagons on the horizon. It was some hours before we met them, when they proved to be a train of clumsy ox-wagons, quite different from the rakish vehicles of the Santa Fe traders, and loaded with government stores for the troops. They all stopped, and the drivers gathered around us in a crowd. I thought that the whole frontier might have been ransacked in vain to furnish ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... do, some of them screaming as they crashed into it breast on and were crushed by the crowd behind. In the van of the right-hand wing, brushing the rock with his shoulder, charged an enormous bull with tusks so large that the heavier had weighed down his head to a permanent rakish angle. He caught sight of me—trumpeted like a siren in the Channel fog—and came at me with raised ears and trunk outstretched. I heard shooting to the left, and more shots from the forest, where the very active ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... have the honour of trussing you. Now, observe, I have left several of the points untied, of set purpose; and if it please you to let a small portion of your shirt be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never appears ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... visited with his father a few years before. But M. Rubempre was bent on business, and the delightful scenery was an old story to him. They took a boat at a pier, and for an hour a negro pulled them about the harbor. There were quite a number of steamers in the port, long, low, and rakish craft, built expressly for speed, and some of them must have been knocked to pieces by the blockaders before the lapse of many weeks, though a considerable proportion of them succeeded in delivering their cargoes at Wilmington or ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... hands of the amateur they are worse than useless; and even experts have great difficulty in running week in and week out without serious breaks and delays. To use a slang phrase, "They will not stand the racket." However "stunning" they look on asphalt and macadam with their low, rakish bodies, resplendent in red and polished brass, on country roads they are very frequently failures. A thirty horse-power foreign machine costing ten or twelve thousand dollars, accompanied by one or more ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... be obliged to anchor until daylight, I ordered the steam to be let down, and we were about making arrangements for getting up the propeller, when a sail was descried on the port bow, close hauled on the starboard tack. She soon proved to be a rakish-looking ship, evidently United States. Kept away from her from time to time as she passed towards our bow, and when we came near enough we showed her the United States colours. She replied with the same. I then fired a gun and hoisted our own colours (new flag). Instead of ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... her oldest black bombazine. A travel-crushed beaver bonnet was clapped tightly on her head. The black velvet band about her white hair had slipped down and now crossed her brow transversely a little above one bushy eyebrow, giving an inconceivably rakish appearance to her face. She held a small urchin, evidently from the Grassmarket or the Cowgate, firmly by the cuff of his ragged jacket. She was threatening him with ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... vessels of this design, being now in the position to contest every step that is made by Germany in this field. The type has also been embraced by the Russian military authorities. The Astra-Torres airship has a rakish appearance, and although the lines of the gas-bag are admitted to increase frictional resistance, this is regarded as a minor defect, especially when the many advantages of the ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... gentlemen under whose protection they were walking here and there; and she thought that her gentleman was handsomer and grander looking than any other gent in the place. Of course there were votaries of pleasure of all ranks there—rakish young surgeons, fast young clerks and commercialists, occasional dandies of the guard regiments, and the rest. Old Lord Colchicum was there in attendance upon Mademoiselle Caracoline, who had been riding in the ring; and who talked her native French very ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cold, quick air to which they emerged and Alonzo, daring to look at her, found that she had pulled the veil down over her face, the colour of which, in the keen wind, was like that of June roses seen through morning mists. At the curb a long, low, rakish black motor-car was in waiting, the driver a mere swaddled ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... noon, she is as liable to sail at ten o'clock, or possibly to-morrow afternoon; and although bound for Iloilo or Cebu, you can not be at all sure what her destination really is. She may return after a month from a long rambling cruise among the southern isles. The Spanish mariners, in rakish Tam o'Shanter caps, lounge at the entrance to the warehouse, or the office of the Compania Maritima, dreamily smoking cigarettes, sometimes imperiously ordering the laborers to "sigue, hombre!" (get along!) a warning that the Filipino ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... him. She appeared to be pretty, slender, elegant. I caught a rapid glimpse of blond hair, eyebrows of a darker shade, keen eyes, a bold expression of countenance, and a felt hat with blue feathers, set over one ear in rather too rakish a style. For the better understanding of what is about to follow, you should know that I was attired in a tourist's blouse stained with red ochre; besides, I must have had that haggard look and startled ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... door of his office opened and a young lady in a very stunning street dress, with a pretty little rakish hat and a tantalizing veil, stood a moment, hesitated, and then was about to turn back with an apology for intruding on what looked like ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... the likeness; even the rakish tilt of the jaunty felt hat, caused by the wind and that wild dash across country, was painstakingly reproduced. And the fanciful tucks on the sleeve of the gown—"and I didn't suppose he had deigned so much as a glance!" was ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... shaded lamp in a far corner clashed with the first glimmer of dawn; and in the dimness Evelyn's face showed pale and indistinct, save for two dusky semicircles where her lashes rested on her cheek. Desmond saw all this, because at night the shade was discarded, though the rakish bandage still eclipsed his right eye. He lay lapped in a pleasant sense of the unreality of outward things, and his wife—dimly seen and motionless—had the air of a dream-figure ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... but I shall love to play chaperon, and Stevie and I shall have a lovely time out of it. I haven't been on a horse since Dorothy came; I hope I haven't grown too stout for my habit. What are you going to wear, Rob? The blue cloth? You are perfectly irresistible in that! Do wear that rakish-looking soft hat with the scarf; it's wonderfully becoming, if it isn't quite so correct; and I'm sure Richard Kendrick won't take us to any stupid fashionable hotel. He'll arrange an outdoor affair, I'm confident, with the Kendrick chef to prepare it and the Kendrick ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... Mr. Grossman soon began to throw out hints about the sly hypocrisy of Puritan Yankees, and other innuendoes obviously intended to annoy him. At last, one day, he drew the embroidered slipper from his pocket, and, with a rakish wink of his eye, said, "I reckon you have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... his delicate pale face A quizzical thin smile is showing, His cheeks are wrinkled like fine lace, His kind blue eyes are gay and glowing. He wears a brilliant-hued cravat, A suit to match his soft gray hair, A rakish stick, a knowing hat, A manner ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... pushed on towards Gandeln. On the way we had a bit of lunch, and I left a pipe behind. As there was nothing doing I pushed on past the column, waiting for a moment to watch some infantry draw a large wood, and arrived with the cavalry at Gandeln, a rakish old town at the bottom of an absurdly steep hill. Huggie passed me with a message. Returning he told me that the road ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... had he failed to subdue. That was Teddy, a rakish sorrel that had never yet been ridden. Many had tried it, but none had stuck to the saddle to the finish; and some had been carried from the corral to ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... shoulders and was silent; but anon he asked again what I thought of a long, rakish-looking steamer lying some miles away on the starboard quarter, and when I had satisfied ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... one see the hut of rough logs and clay that denotes the settler, only occasionally is there a station, or a mill or a logging camp in this womb of loneliness. Only occasionally does one cross one of those lengthy and rakish spider bridges that give a hint of man ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... rich man for over forty years, it is hard to walk under a poor man's hat." When we reached the Astor House a complete reaction had occurred. His collar was turned down, his head came out confident and aggressive, his hat had shifted to the back of his head and on a rakish angle. The hopeful citizen fairly shouted: "Mr. Depew, the world has always gone around, it always will go around." He managed with the aid of Commodore Vanderbilt to save his assets from sacrifice. In a few years they recovered normal value, ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... all others. His coat may not have been cut by a west-end tailor, his hat may not have been a Lincoln Bennett, or his necktie the latest production of Burlington Arcade, but who could wear a tall white hat with a black band, with the least little rakish tilt, and a light grey frock coat with a rose in the buttonhole, with such an air and grace as he? He appreciated keenly all the good things that life can give and loved his fellow men. Pax vobiscum, kind, warm-hearted ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... handed Lynch his cap and disappeared without a word. Lynch stared mournfully at it. The emblem was crushed and the cap looked rather worn and useless. He put it on his head, where it assumed the rakish tilt of a hobo's favorite tam-o'-shanter, and said: "I hope you're not thinking of blaming ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... up to his hat, jerked the brim at a rakish angle over his eyes—and he sprawled himself out on a chair. He heard the Tocsin's voice at the front door, and a man's voice, low and guarded, answer her. Then the door closed, and their steps approached the room. It was ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... little body always wore the most startling of costumes. A green paddock coat, well padded, a yellow walking stick in the thin fingers, a rakish hat, patent-leather boots, striped suits, silk shirts with handkerchiefs to match, a gold cigarette case, and a watch chain like a woman's, were a few of Gaylord's daily requisites. He lived at a club called The Hunters of Arcadia, where he paid an occasional stipend and ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... Federal ships were firing at the chase; but they might as well have spared their powder and shot, for they could not reach her into at least a quarter of a mile. The wind was still at the south-west, and already there were signs of fog. The rakish steamer had probably come from the Bermudas, where she must have obtained a skilful pilot, for without one she would have had no chances at all; and she stood boldly on her course as though she had nothing to fear ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... as he spoke, and Martin took stock of him. He was a hunchback. He was seedily clad in a shiny black suit, but a modish green velvet hat, several sizes too small, perched precariously atop his very large head and gave him an oddly rakish appearance. But his face was pleasing—a wide grin, a snub nose, a pair of twinkling eyes beneath a broad, intelligent forehead. Martin immediately commenced to thaw as ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... Fifth Avenue tweeds did not fit quite so perfectly—the coat bunched a little at the shoulders, the trousers were drawn a little higher until they lost their "set." His hat was pulled still farther over his eyes, but at a more rakish angle, and his tie, tucked into his shirt bosom just below the collar, exposed blatantly a diamond shirt stud. But on Jimmie Dale's lips there was an ominous smile not wholly in keeping with the somewhat jaunty swagger he had assumed, ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... despair breaking out of all bounds, and becoming extravagant, which is not his turn. But he likes to live as well as the rest of his company, and, between ourselves, has fell into some of the finist and most rakish in England. He thinks 'tis for the honour of the family not to go back, and many a time calls for ortolans and champaign when he would as leaf dine with a stake and a mugg of beer. And in this kind of spirit I have no doubt from what he hath ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... who doubted whether his master was down, but thought he would see the gentleman if he would send in his name. Whereupon Tom handed in his card, and, in a few minutes a rakish-looking stable boy came round after his horse, and the butler appeared with his master's compliments, and a request that he would step into the breakfast-room. Tom followed this portly personage through the large handsome hall, on the walls of which hung a buff-coat ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... he became aware of something very unusual in his wife's appearance. Alma was pallid and shaking; her small felt hat had got out of position, and her hair was disordered, giving her a wild, rakish aspect. He saw, too, that the horse dripped with sweat; that it glared, panted, trembled, and could not for ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... of the German Theater stock company. He was tall and slender, and had large, handsome features. His coat was cut long over the shoulders and in at the waist to show his lines of strength and grace. He wore a pearl-gray soft hat with rakish brim, and it was set with suspicious carelessness upon bright blue, and seemed to blazon a fiery, sentimental nature. He strode along, intensely self-conscious, not in the way that causes awkwardness, but in the way that ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... white flannel trousers girt round the waist with a red silk handkerchief, very gaudy moccasins, and a rakish Panama hat with a band of ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... thirties before ever I saw a copy. Even then, it did not lack interest. And one passage, at least, richly rewarded a glance through its pages. It seems that Elsie, arriving from somewhere, reached some city in the late evening. Her father (a rakish, devil-may-care fellow who thought it was all right for Elsie to play the piano on Sunday) met her at the station and engaged a cabriolet to take her across town to whatever shelter had been selected ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... revivify it. Ancient French tragedy, red-heeled, patched, and be-periwigged, lies in the grave; and it is only the ghost of it that we see, which the fair Jewess has raised. There are classical comedies in verse, too, wherein the knavish valets, rakish heroes, stolid old guardians, and smart, free-spoken serving-women, discourse in Alexandrines, as loud as the Horaces or the Cid. An Englishman will seldom reconcile himself to the roulement of ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Spanische?" asked a young woman from her own stall or stand very near, as she involuntarily arranged her hair and adjusted her waist- belt; for the rakish-looking reprobate, with the air of having been somewhere, was making towards them; and she was young enough to care how she looked when a man, who took notice, was near. Her own husband had been a horse-doctor, farmer, and sportsman of a kind, and she herself was now a farmer of a kind; and she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... as did the English when the greedy hands of Spain were clutching at their shores. The light ships hung near the Spaniards at a distance and did not board until spars were down and the great rakish hulls were part helpless. Then—with a wild cheer—the little galleons—often two at a time—would grapple with the enemy and board—cutlasses swinging, pistols spitting, and hand-spikes hewing a way through the struggling, yellow-faced ruffians of ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... and receive my vows at the altar, at the instant of her forgiving me, that I might not have time to relapse into my old prejudices! By my soul, Belford, this dear girl gives the lie to all our rakish maxims. There must be something more than a name in virtue!—I now see that there is!— Once subdued, always subdued—'Tis an egregious falsehood!—But, O Jack, she never was subdued. What have I obtained but an increase of shame and confusion!—While her glory has been ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... came sauntering up from the boat landing, his hat at a rakish angle, and trying to balance an oar-lock on his nose. He had an air of wandering aimlessly so that his arrival at the pavilion seemed quite a matter of chance. A morning song ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... corpse was put into a velvet hearse; and eighteen mourning coaches, filled with company, attended. When they were just ready to move, the lord Jefferies, son of the lord chancellor Jefferies, with some of his rakish companions, coming by, asked whose funeral it was; and, being told Mr. Dryden's, he said, 'What, shall Dryden, the greatest honour and ornament of the nation, be buried after this private manner! No, gentlemen, let all that loved Mr. Dryden, and honour his memory, alight ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... them two old cut-ups wink at each other rakish and slap their knees. All of which ain't so illuminatin'. But they keep on, mentionin' Koster Bial's and the Cork Room, until I can patch together quite a sketch of Mrs. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... a man of style When he first began unpacking the pile Of the dollars and dimes Whose jingling chimes Had clinked to the tune of his father's smile; And he strewed his wealth with such lavish hand, His rakish ways were the talk of the land, And gossipers wise Sat winking their eyes (A ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... hevin bin a sailor, only ez a driver on the Wabash Kanal, it is possible my nautikle terms may not be altogether correct. But it makes no difference in the interior uv Kentucky.) She is strivin to make her harbor, and is workin manfully. Close behind her is the long, low, rakish skooner Dimocrisy, with all sale set, a tryin her best to overtake her and board her. For a time it seemed ez tho she wood be successful, but alas! she is fallin astern, and every minnit the distance between em is a widenin, widenin, widenin, and at present ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... the voluminous baggy ones of a Patan, and a blue shot-with-gold-thread Rajput turban. He shoved the Patan turban with its conical fez in his saddle-bags, and wound the many yards of blue material in a rakish criss-cross about his shapely head, running a fold or two beneath his chin. The Patan sheepskin coat was ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... a time, some three or four years previous to this, when a rakish fashion began to be introduced of wearing white-topped boots. It was a mere conceit of the wearers, such a fashion not existing beyond College,—except as it appeared in here and there an antiquated gentleman, a venerable ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... arm, to the baths. It was a very different Alfred Burton indeed who, an hour or two later, issued forth into the streets. Gone was the Cockney young man with the sandy moustache, the cheap silk hat worn at various angles to give himself a rakish air, the flashy clothes, cheap and pretentious, the assured, not to say bumptious air so sedulously copied from the deportment of his employer. Enter a new and completely transformed Alfred Burton, an inoffensive-looking young man in a neat gray suit, a lilac-colored ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on his hat at a comfortable but rakish angle. He looked like a music-hall humourist. A couple of the ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... two seats removed from Prince Ugo, while Savage was on the other side of the table, almost opposite Quentin. On Dickey's right sat the Duke Laselli, and next to that individual was the American millionaire. Directly across the broad table from Quentin was the tall rakish-looking Count ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... knelt and drew a large box from beneath the bed. From the box he took an immaculate and exceedingly wide-brimmed Stetson with an exceedingly high crown. He dented the crown until the hat had that rakish appearance dear to the heart of the cowboy. Then he took the foot-square looking-glass from the wall and studied the effect at various and more or less unsatisfactory angles. Again he knelt—after depositing the hat on the bed—and emerged with a ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... there very still and unresisting, her hand to her lips, uttering no word, scarcely breathing. He waited. He gave her time. After a little while her fingers strayed to the crown of her limp, rakish panama. They found the single hat-pin and drew it out. He smiled as he pushed the hat away and then pressed her dark little head against his breast. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... ye Mauchline belles, Ye're safer at your spinning-wheel; Such witching books are baited hooks For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel; Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons, They make your youthful fancies reel; They heat your brains, and fire your veins, And then you're ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... main companionway, was divided into three sections—a small lounging room, a wireless room, and the captain's cabin, over which stood the bridge and chart house. The single funnel rose between the captain's cabin and the wireless room, and had the rakish tilt of the racer. Wanderer II could upon occasion hit it up round twenty-one knots, for all her fifteen years. There was plenty of ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... vessel since we were out. She might give us some information respecting the Emu; or it was just possible that she might be the Emu herself. We stood on till we made her to be a low black brig, with a somewhat rakish appearance. This answered the description of the Emu. We had now to consider how to approach the stranger without exciting her suspicions. We first hoisted the Dutch ensign, and out flew, in return from her peak, the stars and stripes ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... handsome, with a face full of character, the strong lines and features of which were further accentuated by his silvery hair. He was a smart old gentleman, too, well and scrupulously attired and groomed, and his blue bird's-eye necktie, worn at a rakish angle, gave him the air of something of a sporting man rather than of a follower of Thespis. His fellow members of the Oliver company seemed to pay him great attention, and at various points of the proceedings whispered questions to him as to an ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... wave. Joan was in the humor to profit by any arrangement that would break her bondage to sheep; Tim Sullivan had been bringing her up, unconsciously, but none the less effectively, to fit into this scheme for marrying her to his old friend's rakish son. When the day came for Joan to know of the arrangement, she would leap toward it as toward an ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... lithographic artist. On the plate which, in size and situation, took precedence of all the rest, I read, MR. TURVEYDROP. The door was open, and the hall was blocked up by a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in cases, all in progress of removal, and all looking rakish in the daylight. Miss Jellyby informed me that the academy had been lent, last night, for ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... than thirty years, when Chicago was a tiny village, Baltimore had become the third city in the United States: a city of wealthy merchants engaged in an extensive foreign trade; for in those days there was an American merchant marine, and the swift, rakish Baltimore clippers were known ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... or nonplussed; he was not even embarrassed by his immediate environment. In fact he turned it to his own advantage, for his hairs, duly watered and soaped down on to his cranium, lost their rakish look and gave him the appearance of a gentleman of perfect integrity, great intellect and no little financial stability. As between one man and another, he did not attempt to deny the truth of my assertion, gave me to understand, with a jovial ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... Judson backed away and stared again, muttering to himself. If he had not traced Hallock almost to the door of Flemister's quarters, there might have been room for the thin edge of the doubt wedge. The unfamiliar pose and the rakish tilt of the soft hat were not among the chief clerk's remembered characteristics; but making due allowance for the distortion of the magnified facial outline, the ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... mend his Manners, Sir, that pretends to a Place at Court; but the Queen's mightily oblig'd to some People.—Has a Gentleman an impudent rakish Footman, not meaning my self, Sir, that wears his Linen, fingers his Money, and lies with his Mistress;—You Dog, you shall serve the Queen.—Has a Tradesman a Fop Prentice, that airs out his Horses, and heats his Wife, or an old Puritan a ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... impregnable, strong, invincible, invulnerable, fortified; steadfast, faithful, true; permanent, durable; rapid, swift, fleet, quick, expeditious, speedy; unrestrained, dissolute, dissipated, rakish, wanton, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... burning glance at Crevel; but, like Dubois, who gave the Regent three kicks, she affected too much, and the rakish perfumer's thoughts jumped at such profligate suggestions, that he said to himself, "Does she want to turn the tables on Hulot?—Does she think me more attractive as a Mayor than as a National Guardsman? ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... quartermaster felt very much like prisoners, though they had no evidence that the Killbright was a ship-of-war, except that she had hoisted the Confederate flag, and fired upon the Bellevite. But the rakish-looking steamer continued on her course, while the Bellevite had not moved since the first broadside. She had already made a mile, and the shots from her enemy did not seem ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... vice: for it is either a mask to deceive others, or a mist to deceive ourselves. A man that is clothed with negatives, thus argues: I am not such a drunkard as my landlord, such a thief as my tenant, such a rakish fellow, or a highwayman; No! I live a sober, regular, retired life: I am a good man, I go to church; God, I thank thee. Now, through a mans boasts of his virtue in contradiction to the vices mentioned, yet a person ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... other? Far from it; but what cannot escape from you inspires you with no haste to obtain it. Josiana wanted to remain free, David to remain young. To have no tie until as late as possible appeared to him to be a prolongation of youth. Middle-aged young men abounded in those rakish times. They grew gray as young fops. The wig was an accomplice: later on, powder became the auxiliary. At fifty-five Lord Charles Gerrard, Baron Gerrard, one of the Gerrards of Bromley, filled London with ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... felt himself that night, as he confronted his brilliant image in the glass. A Scot of the Scots, kilted in vivid plaid, a rakish cap on his black hair, a tartan draped across his shoulder, short, heavy stockings clasping his legs and low shoes ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... other, 'she's the very thing; she's a rakish-looking craft, and will do admirably. Any repair we want, a few days will effect; ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... example of the species. She had been beating about on the outskirts of society without gaining an entrance into it until she was like a faded bouquet that had lost its freshness and perfume. In short, she was a tall, rakish looking craft, with ingeniously painted head-gear, carrying an immense amount of sail, and flying colors not recognized by good society in Bowling Green—at least not ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... men, which would come out plentifully, if they only knew what they did for them. The Doctor was so used to being well dressed, that he never asked why. That his wig always sat straight and even around his ample forehead, not facetiously poked to one side, nor assuming rakish airs, unsuited to clerical dignity, was entirely owing to Mrs. Katy Scudder. That his best broadcloth coat was not illustrated with shreds and patches, fluff and dust, and hanging in ungainly folds, was owing to the same. That ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... the Stars and Bars waved within a few rods of each other. Then great shipping-houses of Liverpool sent over agents, and established branch houses. Great warehouses and wharves were built Soon great ocean ships and steamers began unloading their cargoes at these wharves. Then swift, rakish schooners began to drop into the harbor, and after discharging heavy loads of cotton would take on cargoes of English goods, and slip out at nightfall to begin the stealthy dash past the watching ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of the growing ill-feeling towards France was not confined to poor but harmless poetizing. The first open rupture took place at Savannah. In the port of that city were lying two long, rakish schooners flying the French tricolor. Their decks were crowded with men, whose rough actions and brutal countenances showed them to be no respecters of law or order. It did not need the rows of cannon protruding ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... nicknamed the ambassador's strut; still, his dignity had a touch of the theatrical. Though his features were handsome and imposing, his hat, from beneath which thick black curls stood out, was perhaps tilted a little too much over the right ear, and belied his gravity by a too rakish effect. His eyes, inattentive and half closed, looked ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... geometrically correct in their dimensions —so square and firm and exact that sections might be sliced off them like cheese, and doors and windows might be carved in them; but these French haystacks were devil-may-care haystacks wearing tufts on their polls like headdresses. The windmills had a rakish air; and the scarecrows in the truck gardens were debonair and cocky, tilting themselves back on their pins the better to enjoy the view and fluttering their ragged vestments in a most jaunty fashion. The land though looked ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb |
