"Toper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the old toper who lives up yonder among the chimney-pots?" cried the porter, suddenly, to the wife of his bosom. "I have not seen him to-day nor yesterday, nor for many days. He must be ill. I will go upstairs and make inquiries by-and-by, when ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... comfortable chairs on the balcony. They were boozing steadily, like gentlemen, and having no end of fun with the poor little Norwegian professor and his miscalculations. One of them—a venerable toper of Anacreontic youthfulness known as Charlie who turned up on Nepenthe at odd intervals and whom the oldest inhabitant of the place had never seen otherwise than in a state of benevolent fuddle—was ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... after Se-quo-yah had learned to present the bottle to his friends before he degenerated into a toper. His natural industry shielded him, and would have saved him altogether but for the vicious hospitality by which he was surrounded. With the acuteness that came of his foreign stock, he learned to buy his liquor by the keg. ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... when you know it is better to keep sober? I can no more stop plundering than a toper leave a wine-jar. Besides, perhaps some day I may see a road to amnesty open,—and, then, what will not money do for ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... gallipots, or more: Ceratum simplex—housewives oft compile The same at home, and call it "wax and ile;" Unguentum resinosum—change its name, The "drawing salve" of many an ancient dame; Argenti Nitras, also Spanish flies, Whose virtue makes the water-bladders rise— (Some say that spread upon a toper's skin They draw no water, only rum or gin); Leeches, sweet vermin! don't they charm the sick? And Sticking-plaster—how it hates to stick Emplastrum Ferri—ditto Picis, Pitch; Washes and Powders, Brimstone for the—which, Scabies ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... going over and "chiding them" if they remained too long within the cheerful portals. With constables, deacons, the parson, and that lab-o'-the-tongue—the tithing-man—each on the alert to keep every one from drinking but himself, the Puritan had little chance to be a toper an he would. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... best befits, his lair, Where is plenty, and to spare, Of her grassy feast. There she browses free On herbage of the lea, Or marsh grass, daintily, Until her haunch is greased. Her drink is of the well, Where the water-cresses swell, Nor with the flowing shell Is the toper better pleased. The bent makes nobler cheer, Or the rashes of the mere, Than all the creagh that e'er Gave surfeit to a guest. Come, see her table spread; The sorach[117] sweet display'd The ealvi,[118] and the head Of the daisy stem; The dorach[119] crested, sleek, And ringed with ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... toper alone, over his magnum of port,' said a very dark Shadow; 'and didn't I give it him! I made delirium tremens first; and then I settled into a funeral, passing slowly along the whole of the dining-room wall. I gave him ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... terrible tea toper," said Colville, stirring his cup in front of the old lady whom his relations to the ladies at Palazzo Pinti had interested so much. "I don't think I drink less than ten cups a day; seventy cups a week is a low average for me. I'm really beginning ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... the family: Jam, say, from Kiev, From Astrakhan fish, And the richer among them Some silk for the lady. You see!—as he kisses Her hand he presents her A neat little packet! And then for the children Are sweetmeats and toys; 510 For me, the old toper, Is wine from St. Petersburg— Mark you, the rascal Won't go to the Russian For that! He knows better— He runs to the Frenchman! And when we have finished Admiring the presents I go for a stroll And a chat ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... a tavern to die, Place to my dying lips the flowing bowl, May choirs of angels coming from on high Sing, 'God be gracious to the toper's soul.'[42] ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... subject further, may read at their leisure the pleasant paper in which an agreeable writer, Fontenelle, describes Aristotle and Anacreon contending for the prize of wisdom; and may decide with the essayist, giving the prize to the generous old toper of Scios, as we should have done, or to the beetlebrowed Reviewer, according to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... on you, man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam, in the miniature tophet, which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good by; and, whenever you are thirsty, remember that ...
— A Rill From the Town Pump (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... seen to pace slowly along, their poles under their left arm, their hands mutually thrust into the capacious cuffs of their watchcoats, and each with a frowzy woollen nightcap under his hat. Here and there a staggering toper might be seen on his way home from the tavern brawl or the midnight debauch, advancing, or attempting to advance, as if he wanted to trace Hogarth's line of beauty. From some quarters the wild and reckless shriek ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Master Droop," said the delighted old toper, leaning back against the wall as he beamed across the table at his companion, "look you! An you have a butt of this same brew, Sir Percevall Hart is your slave, your scullion, your foot-boy! Why, man, 'tis the elixir of life! It warms a body like a maid's ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the toper regale in his tankard of ale, Or with alcohol moisten his thrapple, Only give me, I pray, a good pipe of soft clay, Nicely tapered and thin in the stapple; And I shall puff, puff, let who will say, "Enough!" No luxury else I'm in lack o', ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... eccentricity, or simple vanity, we know not, but this brave had, among other ornamental touches to his visage, painted his nose bright red. The effect on his brother braves was solemnising. It was not so impressive to his white observers, as it suggested to them the civilised toper. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... growled the knight. "I dare swear you'll have need of it. None will hear you, call as you will. I gave your four henchmen a flagon of wine wherein to drink to my safe journey hence. They have emptied it ere this, I make no doubt, and a single glass of it would set the hardest toper asleep for ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... been Mercier's eye in place of his ear which attended the two men to the upper room, he would have remarked—perhaps with surprise, since he had gained some knowledge of Grio's temper—that in proportion as they mounted the staircase, the toper's crest drooped, and his arrogance ebbed away; until at the door of Basterga's chamber, it was but a sneaking and awkward man ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... of one piece. He was, besides, a mighty toper; he could sit at wine until the day dawned, and pass directly from the table to the Bench with a steady hand and a clear head. Beyond the third bottle, he showed the plebeian in a larger print; the low, gross accent, the low, foul mirth, grew broader and commoner; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like to see Jacob drunk," replied young Tom. "It's not like him—it's not worthy of him; as for you or me, it's nothing at all; but I feel Jacob was never meant to be a toper. I never saw a lad so altered in a short time, and I expect bad will come of it ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... German prince describes a bout with H.R.H., who in his best time was such a powerful toper that "six bottles of claret after dinner scarce made a perceptible change ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... winter, the blazing dog-star and the driving tempest, twilight with its cheerful gleam of lamps, mid-day with its sunshine—all suggest reasons for indulging in the cup. Not that we are justified in fancying Alcaeus a mere vulgar toper: he retained Aeolian sumptuousness in his pleasures, and raised the art of drinking ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... smash [U.S.]; chain lightning [Slang], champagne, cocktail; gin, ginsling^; highball [U.S.], peg, rum, rye, schnapps [U.S.], sherry, sling [U.S.], uisquebaugh [Ire.], usquebaugh [Scot.], whisky, xeres^. drunkard, sot, toper, tippler, bibber^, wine-bibber, lush; hard drinker, gin drinker, dram drinker; soaker [Slang], sponge, tun; love pot, toss pot; thirsty soul, reveler, carouser, Bacchanal, Bacchanalian; Bacchal^, Bacchante^; devotee to Bacchus^; bum [U.S.], guzzler, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... leave such savage ways To Thracians. Bacchus, shamefaced boy, Is blushing at your bloody frays. The Median sabre! lights and wine! Was stranger contrast ever seen? Cease, cease this brawling, comrades mine, And still upon your elbows lean. Well, shall I take a toper's part Of fierce Falernian? let our guest, Megilla's brother, say what dart Gave the death-wound that makes him blest. He hesitates? no other hire Shall tempt my sober brains. Whate'er The goddess tames you, no base ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... everybody feared. If it ever dawned on his befuddled mind that Gourlay turned the friendship to his own account, his vanity was flattered by the prestige he acquired because of it. Like many another robustious big toper, the Templar was a chicken at heart, and "to be in with Gourlay" lent him a consequence that covered his deficiency. "Yes, I'm sleepy," he would yawn in Skeighan Mart; "I had a sederunt yestreen wi' John Gourlay," and he would slap his boot with ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... rival, having procured his pardon from the King to prevent it being granted if applied for a second time, and keeping this stratagem secret, next forges a letter as if from the Hague which describes in detail Bellmour's execution for killing a toper during a tavern brawl. He then plies his suit with such ardour that Leticia, induced by poverty and wretchedness, reluctantly consents to marry him. On the wedding morning Bellmour returns in disguise and intercepts a letter that conveys news of the arrival of Sir Feeble's ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... them into splinters. The flour is all spilled: the whole world is white with it, white is the sea, white the heavens, and white the air. The moon peeps from the clouds, and only look how the wind covers its face with flour! It looks like some red-nosed old toper who has powdered his face. Laugh then, Noemi!" But she wrung her hands and shuddered. The poor creature was by his bed day and night. By day she sat on a chair at his side; by night she pulled her bed close to his and slept beside him: careless of the infection, she laid her head on Michael's pillow, ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, contains in the chief figure a pronounced reminiscence of Titian's picture; while the unconventional attitude of the amorino, or Bacchic figure, in attendance on the god, is imitated without alteration from that of the little toper whose action ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... his tracts—only see, not read!—every page is full of the devil and his horns, and the desperate fryings which await your impious revolutionists—and then the authority of the bishops, the power of the Pope—hang it! how could I know it all? This toper, Ninny Moulin, gives good measure enough ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the day; but on lowering it again I found that I had almost involuntarily closed my fingers round the tumbler which my adviser had pressed upon me. I drank the contents hastily off, lest anyone should come in upon us and set me down as a toper. After all there was something very amusing about the young ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... and advantages. Paris alone appears to combine them all. Every region, every corner of the globe seems to vie in hastening to forward hither the tribute of its productions. Are you an epicure? No delicacy of the table but may be eaten in Paris.—Are you a toper? No delicious wine but may be drunk, in Paris.—Are you fond of frequenting places of public entertainment? No sort of spectacle but may be seen in Paris.—Are you desirous of improving your mind? No kind ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... not the faintest resemblance?... The moon, looking like nothing whatsoever but herself, was engaged in her old and futile endeavour to mark the hours correctly on the sun-dial at the centre of the lawn. Never, except once, late one night in the eighteenth century, when the toper who was Sub-Warden had spent an hour in trying to set his watch here, had she received the slightest encouragement. Still she wanly persisted. And this was the more absurd in her because Salt Cellar offered very good scope for those legitimate ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... abstinence go further? It is well to replace girls by men, and thus subdue the bar to masculine dullness; but could not the Act of Parliament go on to declare that none save plain, grim-visaged males should be tolerated as assistants? The most inveterate toper might hesitate to enter twice if he were always met by the ugly aspect of some dark, forbidding countenance. A kind of competition might take place for the posts, which might be given to the most repulsive people the Government could select. Fearful squint would be at a premium; ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... the peace negotiations—which were delayed through the Russians firing on a truce-party, called "The Massacre of Hango"—the representation was unjustly made by Punch that the King of Prussia was a confirmed toper, and the charge was offensively maintained by pen and pencil. This so angered the King that none of the English newspaper correspondents (one of whom he supposed to be the original perpetrator of the libel) was after ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... manners, too, All that distinguishes a man from you, Pray damn at will: all shining virtues gain An added luster from a rogue's disdain. But spare the young that proselyting sin, A toper's apotheosis of gin. If not our young, at least our pigs may claim Exemption from the spectacle ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... without a portion of alcohol; they have invented a harmless mixture which they call wine. Unfortunately, many of these Temperance Societies in their zeal, will admit of no medium party—you must either abstain altogether, or be put down as a toper. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... excessive drinking in the late years of the eighteenth century. The grossness and the universality of the vice are too well known to need elaborating. All oral tradition, all contemporary literature, all satiric art, tell the same horrid tale; and the number of bottles which a single toper would consume at a sitting not only, in Burke's phrase, "outraged economy," but "staggered credibility." Even as late as 1831, Samuel Wilberforce, afterwards Bishop, wrote thus in his diary:—"A good Audit Dinner: 23 people drank 11 bottles of wine, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... upon ourselves. There are thousands who practice errors day after day, and whose pervading thought is, that everything which is agreeable and pleasing cannot be hurtful. The slothful man loves his bed; the toper his drink, because it throws him into an exhilarative and exquisite mood; the gourmand makes his stomach his god; and the sensualist thinks his delights imperishable. So we go on, and at last we stumble and break down. We then ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... returned—by her who had inspired it? Both, both. He thought, wise youth! that while he was swallowing draught after draught of this delicious poison, no one perceived the deep intoxication he was revelling in. Just as wisely some veritable toper, by putting on a grave and demure countenance, cheats himself into the belief that he conceals from every eye that delectable and irresistible confusion in which his brain is swimming. His love was seen. How ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... as old Tabaret, after shaking hands with Noel, left his house, still bewildered by what he had just heard. Obliged to restrain himself at the time, he now fully appreciated his liberty of action. It was with an unsteady gait that he took his first steps in the street, like the toper, who, after being shut up in a warm room, suddenly goes out into the open air. He was beaming with pleasure, but at the same time felt rather giddy, from that rapid succession of unexpected revelations, which, so he thought, had suddenly placed him ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... that had been flung to the ground I found that one seed still remained, together with part of the pulp and all of the broken rind. I half suspect, though, that Master Junco likes to tipple a little—never enough, however, be it remembered, to make him reel or lose his senses. No! no! a toper Master Junco is not; he is too sane a bird for that! Would that all the citizens of our republic would display as much sound judgment ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... when he saw a lady of incomparable beauty and a handsome young man sitting, with Scheich Ibrahim by them. Scheich Ibraham held a cup in his hand. "My fair lady," said he to the fair Persian, "a true toper never drinks without singing a song first: if you please to hear, I will give you one of my ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... knitting—not in a neighborly, gossipy way, chatting meanwhile, but silently, swiftly, nervously. There is a psychological reason for women knitting just now, beyond the need of socks. I know how these women feel! I, even I, have begun to crochet! I do it for the same reason that the old toper in time of stress takes to his glass. It keeps me from thinking; it atrophies the brain; and now I know why the women of the East are so slow about getting the franchise. They crochet and work in wool instead of thinking. ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... an hour later the man, who had gone on lacing his furmity more and more heavily, though he was either so strong-minded or such an intrepid toper that he still appeared fairly sober, recurred to the old strain, as in a musical fantasy the instrument fetches up the original theme. "Here—I am waiting to know about this offer of mine. The woman is no good to me. Who'll ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... members of the educated classes. At first he wandered up and down selling beer and kvass—filling the cups of all who wished to drink. . . . But he was driven to fare forth again, and again took up the life of a vagrant and a toper. In Odessa he found occupation in the harbour and the salt-works. Then he wandered through Besserabia, the Crimea, the Kuban, and eventually reached the Caucasus. At Tiflis he worked in the railway sheds. Here he once more foregathered with educated people, particularly with some young Armenians. ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... gets into my head." (I should think so, the old toper! Four bottles all but two glasses.) "To return to poor Blanche. As I sat laughing, joking with her, she let slip a word, a little word, which filled me with dismay. Some one had told her a part of the Secret—the secret which has been ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... some distance to travel this evening, and must not drink more,' I observed, for prudence told me that it was dangerous work for two sober country lads to keep pace with an experienced toper. ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... How the plodding tortoise in the race left the leaping hare behind? 'Twas because he held right on and on, steady and true, if slow, And that's the way, I'm thinking, that the moderate drinkers go! Step over step—day after day—with sleepless, tireless pace, While the toper sometimes looks behind and tarries in ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... old toper; and Griffith remained a good hour with his head on the table. Meantime the other gentlemen soon put it out of their power to ridicule him on the score ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... to "drain the bowl" all to myself: a solitary toper is a horrid creature, unless he makes ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... strong wine save at the slender dearling's hand; * Each like to other in all gifts the spirt grace: For wine can never gladden toper's heart and soul, * Unless the cup-boy show a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... his enemies, nor disparaged what he admired, nor praised what he despised. Those who knew him well had the conviction that, even with time, these literary arts would never be his. His poem, The Bothie of Toper-na-Fuosich, has some admirable Homeric qualities—out-of-doors freshness, life, naturalness, buoyant rapidity. Some of the expressions in that poem ... come back now to my ear with the true Homeric ring. But that in him of which I think ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... your accidence yet, Sir Traveller, if you call on your host for help for such a sipping matter as a quart of sack; Were it a gallon, you might lack some neighbouring aid at my hand, and yet call yourself a toper." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... smash [U.S.]; chain lightning*, champagne, cocktail; gin, ginsling[obs3]; highball [U.S.], peg, rum, rye, schnapps [U.S.], sherry, sling [U.S.], uisquebaugh[Irish], usquebaugh, whisky, xeres[obs3]. drunkard, sot, toper, tippler, bibber[obs3], wine-bibber, lush; hard drinker, gin drinker, dram drinker; soaker*, sponge, tun; love pot, toss pot; thirsty soul, reveler, carouser, Bacchanal, Bacchanalian; Bacchal[obs3], Bacchante[obs3]; devotee to Bacchus[obs3]; bum* [U.S.], guzzler, tavern haunter. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a bad bargain-driver. David's nature was of the sensitive and affectionate type that shrinks from a dispute, and gives way at once if an opponent touches his feelings. His loftiness of feeling, and the fact that the old toper had himself well in hand, put him still further at a disadvantage in a dispute about money matters with his own father, especially as he credited that father with the best intentions, and took his covetous greed for a printer's attachment ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... mentally, leagues of sea and rehabilitated past scenes in London. It would be like talking to a brother officer. But with the Gulab, and the hush and perfume of the forest-clad hills, and the gentle glamour of moonlight, his senses would smother placid intellectuality; he would be like a toper with a bottle at his elbow mocking ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... something nice to take down to his parent. Sidney had absorbing occupation and, while Peter copied off the song in a pretty hand, roamed, gurgling and sticky, about the room. In this manner he lurched like a little toper into the rear of the davenport, which stood a few steps out from the recess of the window, and, as he was fond of beating time to his intensest joys, began to bang on the surface of it with a paper- knife which at that ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... rest ain't so lovely!" said the cash girl, grinning, "for I saw Mag Brady on the street last night. She was drunk as a toper, and she says ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... scrambled on all fours through hedges and ditches, and finally forced his way through a vast morass in which he wallowed freely. In a sober condition he would have come to grief twenty times over, but Fate always protects the toper. ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... to ravage a pantry like a tame 'coon. They will devour honey, molasses, sugar, pies, cake, bread, butter, milk—anything edible. They will uncover preserve-jars as if Mrs. Leonard had given them lessons, and with the certainty of a toper uncork a bottle and get drunk on ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... Captain Harry made a second run of it, caught his foot on the prostrate toper whom Langton had dragged out of Miss Quiney's way, and fell on his brother's neck. Recovering himself with a "damn," he clapped his left hand on Sir Oliver's shoulder, seized Sir Oliver's right in his grip and started pump-handling—"as though" murmured Langton, "the room were sinking ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... engravings of various kinds,—a painting of a premium ox, a lithograph of a Turk and of a Turkish lady, . . . . and various showily engraved tailors' advertisements, and other shop-bills; among them all, a small painting of a drunken toper, sleeping on a bench beside the grog-shop,—a ragged, half-hatless, bloated, red-nosed, jolly, miserable-looking devil, very well done, and strangely suitable to the room in which it hangs. Round the walls are placed some half a dozen marble-topped tables, and a centre-table ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... reputation. He had a wife, an old, powdered and painted Filipino by the name of Dona Consolacion. The husband and several other people called her by a different name, but that does not matter. Anyway, the alferez was accustomed to drown the sorrows of unhappy wedlock by getting as drunk as a toper. Then, when he was thoroughly intoxicated he would order his men to drill in the sun, he himself remaining in the shade, or, perhaps, he would occupy ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... jug. Like the smell of roasting chestnuts and the comfortable equatorial warmth of an oyster stew, it is a consolation hard to put into words. It calls irresistibly for tobacco; in fact the true cider toper always pulls a long puff at his pipe before each drink, and blows some of the smoke into the glass so that he gulps down some of the blue reek with his draught. Just why this should be, we know not. Also some enthusiasts insist on having ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... being carried round the hall by staggering youths, screaming with alarm and laughter; if one of them lost her balance and fell she was captured with shrieks of merriment and forced to mount her insecure eminence again. Presently the car of Dionysus came to wreck over the body of an unconscious toper, but no one stopped to set it right; and though the hapless representative of the god howled loudly to them to stop while he extricated himself from the machine, in which he had stuck, it was in vain; the score or so of youths who were ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... called 'Saving the ladies.' At clubs and gatherings any member would toast his idol in a bumper, and then another champion would enter his peerless Dulcinea in two bumpers, to be routed by the original toper taking off four. The deepest drinker 'saved his lady,' as the phrase ran; though, says George Thomson speaking of the old concerts in St Cecilia's Hall, at the foot of Niddry's Wynd, which were maintained by noblemen and gentlemen, ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... was too much for him.' The Doctor entertained different opinions: he spoke with contempt of claret,—'A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk,' adding, 'Poor stuff! No, sir, claret is the liquor for boys: port for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy!' Most toper sentiments! But Ramsay did not stint his guests. And these were constantly of a noble order. Lord Bute, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Bath, Lord Chesterfield, and the Duke of Richmond were often at the painter's table, discussing all sorts of political questions ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... raised their glasses and drained them at a draft. Josh. swallowed down the brimming glass of pure whisky without a wink, and it must be admitted that, to his credit as a toper, he never noticed the difference. They had two or three drinks on about the same basis before ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... was at a loss to account for their excess of hilarity to-night. Though fond of drink, and meeting often in a crowd, they were few of them of a class—using his own phrase—"to give so much tongue over their liquors." The old toper and vagabond is usually a silent drinker. His amusements, when in a circle, and with a bottle before him, are found in cards and dice. His cares, at such a period, are too considerate to suffer ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... who smoked a half-penny clay pipe, which had become as black as coal. From six to eight beer saucers were piled up on the table in front of him, indicating the number of "bocks" he had already absorbed. With that same glance I had recognized in him a "regular toper," one of those frequenters of beer-houses, who come in the morning as soon as the place is open, and only go away in the evening when it is about to close. He was dirty, bald to about the middle of the cranium, while his long gray hair fell over the neck of his frock coat. His clothes, ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... inferior kind, Such as in any town you may find, Such as one might imagine would suit The rascal who drank wine out of a boot, And, after all, it was not a crime, For he won thereby Dorf Hueffelsheim. A jolly old toper! who at a pull Could drink a postilion's jack boot full, And ask with a laugh, when that was done, If the fellow had left the other one! This wine is as good as we can afford To the friars, who sit at the lower board, And cannot distinguish bad from good, ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... demi-god who drank unwittingly at the ocean from a horn and could not empty it, but nevertheless caused the ebb of the sea, so our toper, if he cannot contain the cask, will bring it down to the third hoop if time and credit will but serve. It would require a ganger's staff to measure his capacity—in fact, the limit of the labourer's liquor-power, especially in summer, has never yet been reached. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... her neighbors, in her absence, sent Annette to a saloon to buy her some beer. She told her in emphatic terms she must never do so again, that she wanted her girl to grow up a respectable woman, and that she ought to be ashamed of herself, not only to be guzzling beer like a toper, but to send anybody's child to a saloon to come in contact with the kind of men who frequented such places, and that any women who sent their children to such places were training their boys to be drunkards and their girls to be street-walkers. "I am poor," she said, ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... I am a toper. The wonderful clear sparkle, the subtle flavour, the brilliancy of wine, has for me a strange fascination; it seems to signify so much in life ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... kept up his reputation as a toper, and swallowed one, two, three bottles without wincing. He grew talkative and merry, and began to sing songs and to cut jokes; at which Wood laughed hugely, and Billings after him. Mrs. Cat could not ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray |
