"Wag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wag of our house—indeed, he was the only Irishman we could boast of, and the fact of his being an Irishman always made us inclined to laugh whenever he spoke. We could see now by the twinkle in his eye that he was going to let off the ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... was the Colonel's dry comment, "but it's much more important at times to be loyal to the last wag of your tongue." ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... come, for you'll find no end of odd characters to amuse you." And under the very pleasant sponsorship of my senatorial friend, I was placed at once on genial terms with half the citizens of the little town—from the shirt-sleeved nabob of the county office to the droll wag of the favorite loafing- place—the rules and by-laws of which resort, by the way, being rudely charcoaled on the wall above the cutter's bench, and somewhat artistically culminating in an original ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... and to stab, And to brandish your dagger In the cause of your drab; To walk wool-ward in winter, Drink brandy, and smoke, And go fresco in summer For want of a cloak; To eke out your living By the wag of your elbow, By fulham and gourd, And by baring of bilboe; To live by your shifts, And to swear by your honour, Are the freedom and gifts Of which I am the donor."[Footnote: Of the cant words used in this inauguratory oration, some are obvious in their meaning, others, as Harman Beck (constable), ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... a delicate appetite, you do very well," laughed the Professor. "It wag less than two months ago, if I remember correctly, that the doctors thought you were not going to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... perchance—if they have human institutions, reasonable aspirations or finite intelligences. We take temperatures, make blood counts and record blood pressure, reckon the heart-beats, and think we are wondrous wise. But wig-wag as we may, signal with what mysterious wireless of evanescent youth-fire we still hold in our blood, we get nothing but vague hints, broken reminiscences, and a certain patchwork of our own subconscious chop logic of middle age in return. There is no real communication ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... on the floor from below made both jump up, and in ten minutes a shiny-faced lad and a lively dog went racing down-stairs—one to say, "Good-morning, ma'am," the other to wag his tail faster than ever tail wagged before, for ham frizzled on the stove, and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... sore, and torn, and chewed most awful, but what the pal said sounded so fine that I wanted to wag my tail, only couldn't, owing to my hanging ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... the light in The Magazine of Magazines, February, 1751. Some imaginary literary wag is made to rise in a convivial assembly, and thus announce it: 'Gentlemen, give me leave to soothe my own melancholy, and amuse you in a most noble manner, with a full copy of verses by the very ingenious Mr. Gray, of Peterhouse, Cambridge. They are stanzas written ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg, We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg, We know that the tail must wag the dog, as the horse is drawn by the cart; But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... heaps, when some loose pebbles were dislodged by his paws, and, as they rolled down, he must have been attracted by the yellow glitter in one large lump, for the next moment he had picked up the nugget and laid it, with a wag of his tail, at Donald's feet. The miner almost wept for gladness, and, taking Gum up in his arms as if he were a child, hurried home to proclaim his fortune. That night the family had a great feast, and Gum's health was drunk in the strongest tea the mining camp could ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... Wolf, with a wag of his tail, splashed into the gravelly stream bed. Hare followed on foot, leading Silvermane. There were little beds of pebbles and beaches of sand and short steps down which the water babbled. The canyon was narrow and tortuous; ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... grisly reminder of our mortality some wag—or so I suppose, but perhaps he was a cynic—had stuck a great pair of glassless barnacles or goggles. It was a loathly conceit, and yet it added vastly to the favour of the inn in the minds of those wildings that haunted it. Must I add that it ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... keener for having so few chances of plying their active tongues. When no less than four ladies had on four several occasions met Sir James and Mrs. Dangerfield walking together along the lanes, those tongues began to wag. ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... tongues ceased to wag, tankards to clink. Every man and every dog was quietly gathering about those two central figures. Not one of them all but had his score to wipe off against the Tailless Tyke; not one of them but was burning to join ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... hatred of bondage, and all that sort of thing. I get my tail up, and wish I could tell them what liberty really is. There is nothing worse in the world than this running around loose, with no one to look after you, and no one for you to look after; no one to notice you when you wag your tail, and to have no occasion for so doing. You go out and you come in, and nobody cares. If you never come back, no ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... "Too strong," he thought; "I'll give it to the lawyer in his own cool and cutting style." He began again on a clean sheet of paper. "Sir—You remind me of an Irish bull. I mean that story in 'Joe Miller' where Pat remarked, in the hearing of a wag hard by, that 'the reciprocity was all on one side.' Your reciprocity is all on one side. You take the privilege of refusing to be my lawyer, and then you complain of my taking the privilege of refusing to be your landlord." He paused fondly over those ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Climbs the green hillock to survey his flock; Then sweetly sleeps upon his favourite hill, Not conscious that his bed's a Warrior's Tomb. The ancient Mansions, deeply moated round, Where, in the iron Age of Chivalry, Redoubted Barons wag'd their little Wars; The strong Entrenchments and enormous Mounds, Rais'd to oppose the fierce, perfidious Danes; And still more ancient traces that remain Of Dykes and Camps, from the far distant date When minstrel ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... doubtless, plain enough to be well made out fifty yards away. There they came to a halt again. Then I called out to Andrew to light the fire in the skull, and set the jaw wagging, having so balanced it, that having been once set going it would wag for two or three minutes before it stopped. Then he ran one way with a brand from the fire, and I the other, and twelve green fires burst out. There was a yell of horror when the skull was made out The alarm was doubtless heightened by the green fire, they ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... got the right exposure here to the south and sou'-west," says the Sergeant, with a wag of his grizzled head, and a streak of pleasure in his melancholy voice. "This is the shape for a rosery—nothing like a circle set in a square. Yes, yes; with walks between all the beds. But they oughtn't to be gravel walks like these. Grass, ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... Ormond, That I date my good fortune from her prosperous influence, and says 'tis Astrological. [Footnote: Collier, p. 207.] I don't know whether it has that sort of Learning in't or no, but 'tis as good sense as when he says, like a Wag as he is, that the Ladies fancy is just slip-stocking high, and she seems to want sense more than her Break-fast. [Footnote: Collier, p. 92.] Fancy slip-stocking high? no, no, the merry Grig must mean her pretty Leg was seen so high, for the Master of Art, I beg pardon of the rest ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... prentit stanes that mark the deid, Wi' lengthened lip, the sarious read; Syne wag a moraleesin' heid, An' then an' there Their hirplin' practice an' their creed Try hard ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and deep-toned, and he had been well trained as to the use to make of it, but his personal actions were too vehement, and one wag remarked, 'Mr. Fox, in speaking, saws the air with his hands, but Mr. Pitt saws with his ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... strike the assembly with wonder, Miss screamed a cantata, like Boreas, That waked farmer Thrasher's dog Thunder, Who starting up, joined in the chorus: While a donkey, the melody marking, Chimed in too, which made a wag say, sir, "Attend to the Rector of Barking's Duet with ...
— Deborah Dent and Her Donkey and Madam Fig's Gala - Two Humorous Tales • Unknown
... Natheless, they are sure to die, being sons of Adam, as well as of thee, dame. But die when they will, 'twill cost them nothing, the burial fees being paid and entered in this book.' 'For all that 'twill cost them something,' quoth the miller, the greatest wag in the place, and as big a knave as any; for which was the biggest God knoweth, but no mortal man, not even the hangman. 'Miller, I tell thee nay,' quo' the cure. 'Parson, I tell you ay,' quo' the miller. ''Twill cost them their lives.' At which millstone ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... was Sir Cowasji Jehangir Readymoney, an Indian baronet, who inherited immense wealth from a long line of Parsee bankers. They have adopted as a sort of trademark, a nickname given by some wag to the founder of the family, in the last century because of his immense fortune and success in trade. Mr. Readymoney, or Sir Jehangir, as he is commonly known, the present head of the house, was accompanied by his wife, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Dr. Carothers came and blistered me from head to feet, and for three weeks I saw no one but my attendants and my phantom panther. He never left me. There was one corner of the room in which he stayed most, and sometimes there was not room for his tail to wag, and then he moved forward where I could not see his head. This troubled me, for then I could not hold him with my eyes. At night they were two balls of green fire; but they had always been, only when ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... sake of the orphan child I am able to hold up at all," she would tell us. "I would not have blamed him so much for leaving us poor, but it was hard and cruel to leave us disgraced into the bargain"; and then Miss Blake would weep, and the wag of the office would take out his handkerchief and ostentatiously ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... thou art a wag; no more of that. Thou shall want neither man's meat, nor woman's meat, as far as his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... what you are," retorted Aunt Charlotte, turning as pink as her ribbons. "The gentleman we're speaking of must be quite elderly, several years older than I am, and, for all I know, he may have a wife and half-a-dozen grown-up children by this time. You let your tongue wag a very great deal too fast, ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... the evening we were to put our money on our horse, our pick, nay, our "dead bird" for the Cup. We three met at the office. Our office boy, rather a wag in his way, had decorated my office table with flowers. My two partners, who seemed to me to have spent the week-end without any sleep, visiting training stables, waiting for the first streaks of dawn to watch the early Sunday and Monday morning gallops, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... other end, puzzled little Hetty's head for many a long hour. Her grandfather's frequent and comic references to the honest old wooden pin did not diminish her perplexities. He was something of a wag, the old Squire; and nothing came handier to him, in the way of a joke, than a joke at his own expense. When he was eighty years old, he had a stroke of paralysis: he lived six years after that; but he could not walk ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... belch'd words of my voice loos'd to the eddies of the wind, A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag, The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides, The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... her party to the play. He used to travel with a night-cap in his pocket, and having occasion for a handkerchief at the theatre, made use of his cap for that purpose. In one of his reveries, however, it fell from the side-box, where he was sitting, into the pit, where a wag, who picked it up, hoisted it upon the end of a stick, that it might be claimed by its rightful proprietor. Judge of the consternation of a large party of ladies of rank and fashion, when George Harvest rose in the midst ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... Government simply ordered the gate of the cemetery to be locked, and when the crowd could no longer approach the tomb the miracles ceased. A little Parisian ridicule helped to end the matter. A wag wrote up over the gate of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... sky-line. Perceiving nothing there—not even a swallow to be chased—he barked twice (the humbug!) for sign that he understood thoroughly, and at once fell to new capers by way of changing the subject. Tilda became severe. "Look here, Godolphus," she explained, "this is biz-strict biz. You may wag your silly Irish tail, but that don't take me in. Understand? . . . Well, the first thing you 'ave to do is take ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and her travelling companions, being all "blue," were among the first to drive off, each girl clutching the handbag which contained the immediate necessities of her toilet, and chattering away at the pitch of her voice. "Square Face" was evidently the wag of the party, and was treated with an admiring deference which seemed to bespeak a position of importance. She was professionally addressed as "Tom," and Rhoda from her seat opposite, read the words, "Thomasina Bolderston," upon the label of the bag, ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... floor in front of the open fireplace which was filled with fresh green boughs—and evidently a very sick dog indeed. He gave the boys a pathetic glance of recognition as they came in, and with a feeble wag or two of his tail tried to show them he was glad to see them; but this done, he seemed to be completely exhausted, and once more laid his head between his forepaws and seemed ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... and dried neats' tongues. It is like Camacho's wedding in Don Quixote, where Sancho ladled out whole pullets and fat geese from the soup-kettles at a pull. The flagons are setting a running, their tongues wag at the same time, and their mirth flows as a river. How Friar John roars and lays about him in the vineyard! How Panurge whines in the storm, and how dexterously he contrives to throw the sheep overboard! How much Pantagruel behaves like ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... of the plan. Luck favored him at the outset, for he met Silvertip before the council lodge. The Shawnee was leading Lance, and the dog followed at his heels. The spirit of Mose had been broken. Poor dog, Joe thought, he had been beaten until he was afraid to wag his tail at his old master. Joe's resentment blazed into fury, but he ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... and scampered off. At length one was taken. He was terribly alarmed, and crouched and trembled as if expecting instant death. Soothed, however, by caresses, he began after a time to gather confidence and wag his tail, and at length was brought to follow close at the heels of his captors, still, however, darting around furtive and suspicious glances, and evincing a disposition to scamper off upon the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... fidelity you promised me? If I had not deceived you, you would never have owned the trick which I rightly suspected you played me. You rascal! your tongue, too ready to wag, has provoked my father's wrath against me, and utterly ruined me. You shall die without ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... little dog, all eyes and fluff! How can I ever love you enough? How was it, I wonder, that any one knew I wanted a little dog, just like you? With your jet black nose, and each sharp-cut ear, And the tail you wag—O you are so dear! Did you come trotting through all the snow To find my door, I should like to know? Or did you ride with the fairy team Of Santa Claus, of which children dream, Tucked all up in the furs so warm, Driving like mad over village and farm, O'er the country drear, o'er the ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... get wiser as we grow older, you see; and when we let our tongues wag, we're apt to talk nonsense. The quieter you keep your tongue, the better for yourself, in more ways than one. To a useful old woman about the place I've no objection; but a chattering old woman I will not have at ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... be always a wag or clown among each group of animals,—some one species in which the amusing or the grotesque is prominent. Among these clownish fellows I should class the black vulture, or john-crow. He is not a crow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... wag of his tail Peter turned his bristling face up to his master. Many times Jolly Roger had seen that unfailing warning in his comrade's eyes. There was some one outside—or Peter's brain, like his own, was twisted and fooled ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... a kind of novel called "The Adventures of Twm Shon Catty, a Wild Wag of Wales." It possesses considerable literary merit, the language being pure, and many of the descriptions graphic. By far the greater part of it, however, would serve for the life of any young Welsh peasant, quite as well as for that of Twm Shon ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... people were startled in reading in the newspapers that forged notes, amounting to several millions of dollars, were flooding the street. The young man was sentenced to prison for a term of five years—one for each forged million! as remarked the wag who is now ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... "Your ears would wag, my friends, if I told you one 'alf of the spells what some of them Continental society sirens wielded, an' but for my mastery over their 'earts what might we not have igsperienced years agow? An' this, gentlemen, at the biddin' or the innuendoes ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... on David's mind to-night, for he pays no attention to the game, neither gives advice (than which nothing is more maddening) nor exchanges a wink with Alick over the parlous condition of James's crown. You can hear the wag-at-the-wall clock in the lobby ticking. Then David lets himself go; it runs out of ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... the youths who are led out, and carried home, or who stumble through the "German," this is a sober matter. My friend told us we should see the "best society." But he is a prodigious wag. Who make this country? From whom is its character of unparalleled enterprise, heroism, and success derived? Who have given it its place in the respect and the fear of the world? Who, annually, recruit its energies, confirm its progress, and secure its triumph? Who ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... stopped with his paws resting on the outer edge of the top step of the porch, the line he was not to pass, and looked wistfully after the doctor. His loneliness was to continue, and his poor master to go out into the night alone. His tail ceased to wag, only his ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... appeared to think he had offered him some sort of annoyance! But I am not sure that this is accurate. What I am sure of is that Longfellow, a few days after, in my study, stopped before a photograph of Clemens and said, "Ah, he is a wag!" and nothing more. Holmes told me, with deep emotion, such as a brother humorist might well feel, that he had not lost an instant in replying to Clemens's letter, and assuring him that there had not been the least offence, and entreating him never to think of the matter again. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... reservoirs from which the long days glowing with sunshine send down streams of water at whose touch the deserts bloom. The eye is refreshed as we make a closer acquaintance of the mountains. Where water flows and trees "wag their high tops" there is hope of homes. There are canyons that cause one to smile at remembrances of what were considered the dizzy gorges of the Alleghenies. There is a glow as of molten lead in one corner of a misty ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... say that Van der Kemp received his faithful little servant kindly, and it was quite touching to observe the monkey's intense affection for him. It could not indeed wag its tail like a dog, but it put its arms round its master's neck with a wondrously human air, and rubbed its little head in his beard and whiskers, drawing itself back now and then, putting its black paws on his cheeks, turning his face round to the light and opening its round eyes wide—as ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... Alber. Away, you wag.—And tell me now, my love, What is the cause Earle Cassimere (your father) Hath been so long importunate with me To ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... of leapfrog while the fags aren't looking," said Crossfield, a schoolhouse monitor and a wag ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... partly during its continuance, a Beckett launched out into an extraordinary series of extraordinary papers, editing for other proprietors "The Wag," "The Evangelical Penny Magazine," Dibdin's "Penny Trumpet," "The Thief" (under the engaging frankness of whose title we may see the forerunner of "Public Opinion"), "Poor Richard's Journal," and "The People's Penny Pictures;" while on his own account he ran successively "The Terrific Penny ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... some French in Tescheron after all, for he waved his arms and danced about like a man whose tongue won't wag fast ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... are as safe as we," said I. "Mistress Catherine holds her sister dearer than herself, and as for the captain of the governor's ship, lock a man's tongue with the key of his own interest if you wish it not to wag. But these goods must be moved ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... kind of Chief Justice or Chancellor. The office wag established under the rule of Harun al Rashid, who so entitled Abu Yusuf Ya'akab al-Ansari: therefore the allusion is anachronistic. The same Caliph also caused the Olema to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... a second time, the door fell back and I beheld in the black gap before me the oldest man I had ever come upon in my whole life. He was so old I was astonished when his drawn lips opened and he asked if I was the lawyer from New York. I would as soon have expected a mummy to wag its tongue and utter English, he looked so thin and dried and removed from this life and all ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... chilled the wheels and springs inside the Plush Bear, and it was not until after some warm oil had been poured on them that they worked properly again. Then, when the Plush Bear was wound up, he could growl, wag his head, and wave his ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... growl and a pathetic wag was all the answer he could make to these tender inquiries; for never would the story of his wrongs be known, and never could the glory of his doggish beauty be restored. Betty was trying to comfort him with pats and praises, when a new face appeared at the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... vegetable beds sloping down to the water, the straggling lane with the big oak at the gate. And there was Collie bounding down the lane, uttering yelping barks and twisting himself almost out of joint in his efforts to wag his tale hard enough to express his welcome. The Lad leaped down and ran to open the gate; Collie knocked him over in his ecstasy, and his father smiled indulgently as the two rolled over and ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... have his worship presently, that is, if he means to keep his hour; if not, you may wait for him, Godfrey, if you court his acquaintance. But what, after all, if it should prove but a mummery got up by Vankarp, or some such wag? I wish you had run all risks, and cudgelled the old burgomaster soundly. I'd wager a dozen of Rhenish, his worship would have unmasked, and pleaded old acquaintance ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... himself and his wine, and were served obsequiously by Nicodemus and his wife with the best the house afforded. For a while they ate and drank in silence. Then the tongue of the small old man, loosened by the wine, began to wag. He spoke abruptly, in a voice husky and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... their unnatural boniness. So I got one of my old coats and made a bed on the corner of the hearth, to which I proceeded to transfer my rescued cur. He was grateful, as dogs ever are for a kindness, and licked my hands as I put him down. And he found strength somehow to wag his tail in token of thankfulness, so I felt repaid for my act of mercy, and very well satisfied. A surreptitious visit to the dining-room resulted in a purloined chunk of cold roast beef, and two or three dry, hard biscuits, which I found in the corner ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... Dartmouth and various other colleges and medical schools, was another erudite scholar, who made a permanent impression on all he met. While yet at college, his words were so unusual and his vocabulary so full that a wag once advertised on the bulletin board on the door of Dartmouth Hall, "Five hundred new adjectives ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... because Gipsies use it, and it is to be found as "chiz" in Hindustani, in which language it means a thing. Gipsies do not, however, seem to regard it themselves, as tacho or true Rommanis, despite this testimony, and I am inclined to think that it partly originated in some wag's perversion of ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... doth wag, husband,' she said, and cried in French for the rogues to be gone. When the door closed upon the lights she said in the comfortable gloom: 'I dote upon thy words. My first was tongue-tied.' She beckoned him ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... him almost daily; it is not possible to think I can be deceived; and as long as he does me the honour to esteem my poor portion of brains by coming to me for what he is good enough to call my counsel, I shall let the world wag its tongue. Between ourselves, I trust to be doing some good. I know I am of use in various ways. No doubt there is a danger of a woman's head being turned, when she reflects that a powerful Minister governing a kingdom has not considered ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... space now. He hath still his chance to speak and avert his death, and he will do it erelong. They have increased the weights mightily. Fear not, good Master Corwin, Giles Corey will not die; erelong his old tongue will wag like a millwheel. ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... It's up-the-spout and Charley-Wag With wipes and tickers and what not! Until the squeezer nips your scrag, Booze and the blowens cop ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... myself! Mrs. Jenkin has a good heart, but her head is as soft as blubber, so I was pretty careful not to say much," Miles answered, with a wag of his own head, which he thumped with his fist to show that at least he was not ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... said a wag; "in fact, the marriage is half-made, for here's one consenting party; but the other side won't. Pooh! the oven is heating for Monsieur ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... themselves from the entangling lassos, they were instantly seized and other ropes of raw-hide were deftly twisted about their limbs and bodies, until in less than a minute they were so tightly and securely trussed up that they could scarcely wag a finger; after which they were each hoisted upon the shoulders of four Indians and borne with songs of triumph and rejoicing to the canoes, into which they were tumbled with scant ceremony. Then, with further songs of triumph, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... some eighteen months ago; and certainly one of his levees with his settlers would, if as well reported, be quite as amusing as one of those Mornings at Bow Street—that about the time I left London were styled, by some wag, the leading articles of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... hope of relief, and the nascent navy of Spain was strangled at the birth. Alberoni, in his fury, had the persons and goods seized of English residents settled in Spain, drove out the consuls, and orders were given at Madrid that no tongue should wag about the affairs of Sicily. The hope of a sudden surprise in England, on behalf of the Jacobites, had been destroyed by the death of the King of Sweden, Charles XII., killed on the 12th of December, 1718, at Freiderishalt, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... him through some secret peephole. That had been her tribute to him and her scorn of his opponents. It about closed the incident, Pan concluded. Men were now coming along the street in both directions, though not yet close. Some wag yelled from a distance: "Thar ain't no ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... is the aim and goal of all the earth. And his love for Serafina seemed to him not only to be an event in his life but to have some part in veiled and shadowy destinies and to have the blessing of most distant days: grey beards seemed to look out of graves in forgotten places to wag approval: hands seemed to beckon to him out of far-future times, where faces were smiling quietly: and, dreaming on further still, this vast approval that gave benediction to his heart's youthful fancy seemed to widen ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... disconcerted nor offended him. He was a philosopher—and, like so many of his kind, a laughing philosopher. When he was sufficiently recovered from his operation to get about on crutches he was the wag of the ward. He took a special delight in those practical jokes which are invented by patients to tease the nurses, and devoted the most painstaking ingenuity to their preparation. It was he who found a small ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... antagonist felt. His legal brother was very quietly pursuing his lunars with the paper tube, expecting soon to work up all the curious angles of the Umpire's face. To properly intersperse this amusement he would now and then bestow a good-natured and very sly wink upon a wag who sat at the opposite side of the table, ever and anon tickling with the feather of his quill the nasal organ of the Secretary, who had just melowed away into a delicious nap. Flum proceeded: 'I mean no disrespect to the proficiency, or to the very high position ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... uncomplaining, | |remembering only his joy when a visitor | |came to him, and forgetting to be bitter | |because of the wrongs done him, meeting | |his rescuer with a wag of the tail meant | |to be joyful, a St. Bernard dog set ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... glorious morning; one of those mild, mellow days of the late autumn, when unscientific people wag their heads and proclaim that the climate is changing. There was scarcely a breath of wind, and the landscape toward which our steady nag trotted sturdily wore a faint atmosphere of saffron haze, as though ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... A prophecy of Neal's that an idea or a man would succeed, has seldom failed of fulfillment. We can not say this of the many aspiring magazines and periodicals that have solicited the charity of his name. We recollect, when brass buttons were universally worn on men's coats, a wag undertook to prove that they were very unhealthy, from the fact that more than half the persons who wore them suffered from chronic or acute disease, and died before they had reached a canonical age. According to this mode of generalization, Neal could be convicted of causing the premature death ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Minister,' cried Tam in reply, as he rose up and took him by the hand; '"wag a paw," as we used to say, and take something for a sore throat. Yes,' he continued, as he sat himself down again and took a pull at his own long glass, 'I'm building up a pedigree stock at my new place—gave L500 for a bull t' other day, and ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... appointment, and appeared in shoestrings instead of buckles. 'I found,' he relates, 'to my surprise, people looking down at my feet: I could not think what they were at. At first I thought they had discovered the beauty of my legs; but at last the truth burst on me, by some wag laughing and thinking I had done it as a good joke. I was, of course, exceedingly annoyed to have been supposed capable of such a vulgar unmeaning piece of disrespect, and kept my feet as coyly under my petticoats as the veriest prude in the country till I should make my escape.' His circumstances ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... their visitor from the bitter blast into the stove lit parlour. One yet more humble welcomer was there of the vagabond tribe—petty larceny in every curve of his ungainly form, and his spirit so broken by adversity that he only ventured to wag his shabby tail in ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... repelling their invasions. Like the infidel, they knew how to preface their acts by an intelligent deliberation, so that the device of Prince Boleslas of Pomerania, was always present to them: "First weigh it; then dare:" Erst wieg's: dann wag's! Such deliberation imparted a kind of stately pride to their movements, while it left them in possession of an ease and freedom of spirit accessible to the lightest cares of tenderness, to the most trivial interests of the passing hour, to the most transient feelings of the heart. As it made ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... FIRST WAG. 'T is said they become so dazed by the noise of the city and the rush of such countless numbers, they forget ...
— Children's Classics In Dramatic Form • Augusta Stevenson
... hold it—well and welcome 'tis, 10 For that thy labours ne'er to death be doom'd. Great Gods! What horrid booklet damnable Unto thine own Catullus thou (perdie!) Did send, that ever day by day die he In Saturnalia, first of festivals. 15 No! No! thus shall't not pass wi' thee, sweet wag, For I at dawning day will scour the booths Of bibliopoles, Aquinii, Caesii and Suffenus, gather all their poison-trash And with such torments pay thee for thy pains. 20 Now for the present hence, adieu! begone Thither, whence ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... pointed at the dog. 'I've made a bet with myself he won't wag his tail within the next ten minutes. I beg of you, Harrington, to remain ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... know," replied he, "that I am Ralph Jobson? Why it knew me, and seemed to wag its tail; nay, made as though it would lick ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson • Lewis Carroll
... Lord aloud— He was a wag, though very proud, And much rejoiced to say, "You're only half a captain now— And so, my worthy friend, I vow You'll ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... like Mr. Facey Rumford, 'wouldn't tell a lie if it was ever so'. The practical result is that, while Brown's consciousness informs him, trumpet-tongued, that Green is at Rome, 'the residue of a forgotten impression' makes him (without his knowing it) wag the table, which he does not intend to do, and forces him to say through the tilts of the table, that Green is at Machrihanish, while he believes that ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... the fact that many persons knew of the preliminary attempts to buy any old bear and fake a capture, it is not strange that people who always know the "inside history" of everything that happens, wag their heads wisely and declare that Monarch was obtained from a bankrupt circus, or is an ex-dancer of the streets sold to the newspaper by a ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... Doktor is new," said Kriech, with a wag of his head. "That O Lalala! I have heard that that poker iss very dansherous. That Prince Hanoi of Papeite lose his tam headt to a Chinaman. Something comes ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... mottoes, my lad. I learned them from the wise men; but if I had not learned them, I should have invented them. What's your p-p-part of the business, says you; listen! You are to be its m-m-mouth-piece. That tongue of yours must wag like the tail of a d-d-dog; turn like a weather-vane; hiss like a serpent, drip with honey and poison, be tipped with p-p-persuasion; tell ten thousand t-t-tales, and every tale must sell ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... is he to lie down like a tired child and weep out the spark? or should he just flit to Elysium? There, seated on Elysian lawns, browsed by none but Dian's (no allusion to little Mrs. Lollipop) fawns, amid the noise of fountains wonderous and the parle of voices thunderous, some wag might scribble on his door, "Here lies Ali Baba"—as if glancing at his truthfulness. How is he to pass effectively into the golden silences? How is he to relapse into the still-world of observation? Would four thousand five hundred a month and ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... beard began to wag somewhat too fast, as he sat by Torfrida's side, when some knight near began to tell of a wonderful mare, called Swallow, which was to be found in one of the islands of the Scheldt, and was famous through all the country round; insinuating, moreover, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... face, and the features were still discernible. A merchant, travelling with the kafila, suddenly exclaimed, "That was my slave I left behind four months ago, near this spot." "Make haste! take him to the fsug (market)," said an Arab wag, "for fear any body ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... harm that the tail does when it begins to wag the dog. Don't you observe how these people set up their own standards, and get them accepted, whatever old fogies like you and me may say? They unsoul us—that's what they do, and we may scream, but we can't stop them. Their argument is that money can do everything, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... little steps and entered my Parnassus with a pleasant thrill of ownership. The terrier on the bunk jumped to the floor with a friendly wag of the tail. I piled the bunk with bedding and blankets of my own, shook out the drawers which fitted above the bunk, and put into them what few belongings I was taking with me. And we were ready ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... abuse us?" asked the Maypole, protruding her gaunt head and shoulders through the carriage window. "Ve only gom for all your goots." "And for all our chattels, too, —— you!" came the stinging retort from a wag ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... hoary-bearded deacon, it was only by the most careful self-control that the former could refrain from uttering certain blasphemous suggestions that rose into his mind, respecting the communion supper. He absolutely trembled and turned pale as ashes, lest his tongue should wag itself, in utterance of these horrible matters, and plead his own consent for so doing, without his having fairly given it. And, even with this terror in his heart, he could hardly avoid laughing, to imagine ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... well go stand upon the beach And bid the main flood bate his usual height; You may as well use question with the wolf Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb; You may as well forbid the mountain pines To wag their high tops and to make no noise, When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven; You may as well do any thing most hard, As seek to soften that—than which what's harder?— His Jewish heart: therefore, I do beseech you, Make no more offers, use no ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... she went. About two or three, again the scratching. And he found the last sheep back; badly torn; been down some ravine or gully. And the dog was plainly played. And yet she seemed to give a bit of a wag to her tired tail as though she would say, "There it is—I've done as ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... could take care of. Such was the feeling expressed by the soldiers as they discussed the situation on the march that day, and indulged in conjectures as to our probable destination and the outcome of the expedition. Of course, the company wag had a hearing while he expounded his views as to what we would do to the Confederacy or the Confederacy to us. The soldiers had confidence in General Warren, and regarded him as a prudent and ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... over the way, who passes for a woman who has failed in her career, because she is an old maid. People wag solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so great a mistake in not marrying the brilliant and famous man who was for long years her suitor. It is clear that no orange flower will ever bloom for her. The young people make their tender ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... up the aisle, take my place in front of the Chief Pharisee, wag my finger under his nose, and tell him a thing or two about the condition of ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... anything slightly unconventional or leaves undone what custom and gossip make almost obligatory, a relation or a mere interfering neighbour is always at hand to wag her head and say there must be some reason for it. Which means, of course, one specific reason. And the worst of it is that she is ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... is to the right," Jimmie quoted from the wig-wag lesson he had learned on first becoming a Boy Scout. "It should embrace an arc of ninety degrees, starting at the vertical and returning to it without pause, and should be made in a plane exactly at right angles to the line ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... to l'arn there's two sorts of characters in the world—them that is 'arned by deeds, and them that is 'arned by tongues, and so I prefar to see and judge for myself, instead of letting every jaw that chooses to wag become my judgment. Hurry Harry spoke pretty plainly of the whole family, as we journeyed this-a-way, and he did hint something consarning Thomas Hutter's having been a free-liver on the water, in his younger days. By free-liver, I mean that he made ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... my surmise be true; I must have been mad indeed to trust the rogue on such a mission. Small doubt but that he heard all which transpired here last night, for he hath a most willing ear to listen, and a tongue given to wag. 'Twould be a heaven-sent deed if something would occur to silence his speech, for his knowledge, if he hath the wit to know its value, may be a deadly menace to our cause. When he returns I'll give ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... wish. He used to say something about sister's kisses being like cold veal. I don't suppose he invented that himself. He was always picking up things like that out of a rose-coloured paper, and firing them off as his own. Uncle Tom was tall and portly, and a wag out of office hours, with a moustache that, in spite of all his efforts, would not turn up, but insisted on making a melancholy inner semicircle just a size smaller than the rubicund circle of his face. How I hated kindly, vulgar Uncle Tom! I used to pray that ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... with the highest rapture, then return into the house and cast a quick and attentive look at the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by a couple of buck horns, or little forks. His hunting dog, understanding the intentions of his master, would wag his tail, and by every blandishment in his power express his readiness to accompany ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... if you keep that noisy tongue of yours wagging, Mr. Plunger. All you've got to do is to keep quiet till to-morrow evening, and then you can let it wag again as much as you please. My scheme is this: We've first got to make good your word about the flag. If we can get it from that shed in which you say it is, we can prove that you haven't been dreaming. With the flag in our possession, we'll call a meeting of the ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... quixotic had he known. Now, as I read and pondered, I neither blamed him for his own course in fair business war with old Dan Emory, nor did I censure myself for my own hidden act of restitution. Let the world wag its head if it liked, and remain ignorant of other millions given to me before my father's death, unprobated, secret, after the fashion of my pirate parent who buried his treasures and told none but his kin how they might ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... son eventually as the spiritual director of a congregation and parish. Similarly, the laudable ambition which, in the case of a humble Scotch matron, is expressed in the wish and exertion to see her Jamie or Geordie "wag his pow in the pou'pit," produces, when realized, salutary effects in the whole family connection. These effects, which Mr. Froude would doubtless allow and commend in their case, he finds it creditable to ignore the very possibility ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... race-horse, saddled, and rode away without a word to any of the range-riders. The men round the fire gave no sign that they knew the confidence men were on the map until after they had gone. Then tongues began to wag, the foreman having gone to the edge ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... alliances above, That 'twere profaneness in us laity To offer earthly aid. I tell thee, Mufti, if the world were wise, They would not wag one finger in your quarrels. Your heaven you promise, but our earth you covet; The Phaetons of mankind, who fire that world, Which you were sent by preaching ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... most patient. Handel, being peculiarly sensitive to this unfortunate necessity, always arranged that it should take place before the audience assembled, so as to prevent any sound of scraping or blowing. Unfortunately, on one occasion, some wag got access to the orchestra where the ready-tuned instruments were lying, and with diabolical dexterity put every string and crook out of tune. Handel enters. All the bows are raised together, and at the ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... guess the world will wag along for some time yet," John laughingly replied. "Wouldn't you like to hear some music, ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... that an eclipse consists in an attempt on the part of a monstrous jaguar to swallow the sun—have as much right to their opinion as he has, he would consider the person who advanced such an argument either a wag or a fool. Only a wag or a fool, again, would argue that a Fijian has just as much right as we have to his opinions on medical matters, or on the morality of polygamy, infanticide, and cannibalism. Yet when we come across a dirty, malodorous savage, so stupid that he cannot ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... told him all of my secrets, And he kept them without fail, With never a sign that he knew them But a wag of his short, stump tail. Long years have passed since I heard them.— The sound of his gruff bow-wows, As he tagged my heels in the good old days When we ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... prompted by ill-feeling to wag his tongue a bit. A depraved son receives heavy blows with ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 'Alaa al-Din (with the Hamzah), the last only being grammatical. In Galland the Histoire de la Lampe merveilleuse is preceded by the Histoire du Dormeur Eveille which, being "The Story of Abu al-Hasan the Wag, or the Sleeper awakened," of the Bresl. Edit. (Nights cclxxi.-ccxc.), is here omitted. The Alaeddin Story exists in germ in Tale ii. of the "Dravidian Nights Entertainments," (Madana Kamara-Sankadaj), by Pandit S. M. Natisa Shastri (Madras, 1868, and London, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... "Apoplexy," and let this man see that we can't take such a risk as he is on any terms. A third caller, who really looked quite healthy except around the eyes, was also assured that he need not call again—"Because, you see," explained the clerkly wag, "it's no go for you to try to play your BRIGHT'S Disease on us!" When, however, the applicant was a robustious, long-necked, fresh individual, he was almost lifted from his feet in the rush of obliging young Boreals to show him into the room of the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... me are quite enough to carry him to his bed. I reckon the rest had better make themselves scarce when the times comes, go home, and keep their mouths shut. I need not say that anyone who lets his tongue wag about it is likely to come to a worse end than this bloodhound. We will have another glass of grog before you turn out; the streets won't be quiet for another hour yet, and there is another guinea of this worthy hawker's to be spent. ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... a little of a wag, compares her waking-life to the appearance which the sun makes above the horizon on a winter day: only, her morning is about his noon. He says, however, there appears to be no necessary end to her sleep. It is like ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... another thing comin'," said the chief, who was by way of being a neighborhood wag. "When last seen Hobart W. Trimm was only fifty-two years old. Besides which, he's dead and buried. I guess maybe you'd better think agin, grandpap, and see if you ain't Methus'lah or the ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... up and grand. He had to spend one night on the way, and as evening came on he asked a passing stranger to direct him to the best house, meaning the best in the neighborhood. The stranger happened to be the village wag, and seeing the schoolboy swagger, and the manly airs of sixteen, he, in fun, directed him to the squire's house. There the boy arrived, handed over his horse with a lordly air to a groom, marched into the house and ordered supper and a ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... pantomime his notion of dramatic music to carry on the action and tell the story of serious opera; but we don't want our Pantomimes to become Wagnerian; or, at all events, as the lamented GEORGE HODDER would have said, "Let's have plenty of the 'Wag,' and none of the 'nerian.'" What he would have exactly meant by this nobody would have known, but everyone would have laughed, as he was one of those self-patented jesters at whose witticisms the company laughed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... tal'on glu'ten de'mon cab'in wag'on cit'ron ci'on drag'on sud'den kitch'en si'phon flag'on fel'on mit'ten co'lon lin'den lem'on pis'ton o'men grav'el mel'on her'on bar'rel bev'el chan'nel flan'nel par'cel plat'en ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... eyes. "Now I know you're queer," she declared with a wag of her head that made her uneven mane quiver. "You didn't ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... idea that their distance from me was as nothing to my remoteness from them. In the last analysis, the impression they produced was that of having in common one memory so deep and dark that nothing that had happened since was worth either a growl or a wag. ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... so far from the Live Ones that she couldn't wig-wag for Help. Her C.Q.D. brought ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... deeper the quaffings the better the effects; not a compound of acids and sweets, hot water and fire-water, to steal away the brains,—but a finer mixture of subtler elements, conducive to mental and moral health; not, in a word, punch, the drink, but "Punch," the wise wag, the genial philosopher, with his brevity of stature, goodly-conditioned paunch, next-to-nothing legs, protuberant back, bill-hook nose, and twinkling eyes,—to speak respectfully, Mr. Punch, attended ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... as they go through the town, couple after couple, wandering as they list. The quiet winding closes ring with songs of love and death, so that the old townsfolk lift their heads from their pillows, and, their nightcaps pushed to one side, wag gravely at all this frivolity. But youth knows nothing of this; it plunges reveling onward, with its surging blood. And one day the old people have the best of it; the blood surges no longer, but there they are, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... said Lillie, after a pause. "I hate all these moral movements and society questions. They are always in the way of people's having a good time; and I believe the world would wag just as well as it does, if nobody had ever thought of them. People will call ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... indignation accompanied with a slight, a very slight pucker of the nose and a gleam of dazzling ivory—ha! no enemy ever saw this last piece of canine language without a full appreciation of what it meant. Then as to the tail—the modulations of meaning in the varied wag of that expressive member—oh! it's useless to attempt description. Mortal man cannot conceive of the delicate shades of sentiment expressible by a dog's tail, unless he has studied the subject—the wag, the waggle, the cock, the droop, the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... clockmakers of the Eighteenth Century made many of those jolly little wall clocks called Wag-on-the-Wall. These clocks may be still picked up in out-of-the-way towns. In construction they are very much like the old cuckoo clock which has come to us from Switzerland, and the tile clock which comes from ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... whenever his object is to flatter himself into some one's good opinion; and you may pay just as much attention to it as if it were made of wax or cardboard, never forgetting that excellent Italian proverb: non e si tristo cane che non meni la coda,—there is no dog so bad but that he will wag his tail. ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... "What might it be, sir, if I may be so bold?" "A whale's eye," replied Gainsborough. "Oh! not so; never say so, Muster Gainsborough. Laws! sir, it is a little child's skull!" "You have hit upon it," said the wag. "Why, Fowler, you are a witch! But what will you think when I tell you that it is the skull of Julius Caesar when he was a little boy?" "Do you say so!" exclaimed Fowler, "what ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... When they got there, he made Joe take them right into the parlor; and the first thing he did was to call for some red wax and a light, and he clapped a great splatch of a seal on either bag; and then he looked at Joe, and gave a little grunt of a laugh, and a smartish wag of the head, as much as to say, "Do it again, Joe, if you can." But after that he said, "Here, Joe, is five shillings for restoring my speciments, and here is another five shillings for showing me a speciment of human nature that I did not believe in until this day." [This story is told ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... disturbance, I shall think it my duty as a clergyman and a magistrate to interfere. But it wouldn't become wise people like you and me to be making a fuss about trifles, as if we thought the Church was in danger because Will Maskery lets his tongue wag rather foolishly, or a young woman talks in a serious way to a handful of people on the Green. We must 'live and let live,' Joshua, in religion as well as in other things. You go on doing your duty, as parish clerk and sexton, as well as you've always ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot |
