"Wriggle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trouble is a very easy thing. I notice that to others it will always worries bring. But getting out of trouble's always quite the other way— The more you try to wriggle out, the longer you ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... so if you knew as much about it as I do," answered Ben, with a sudden frown and wriggle, as if he still felt the smart of the blows he had received. "We don't call it splendid; do we, Sancho?" he added, making a queer noise, which caused the poodle to growl and bang the floor irefully with his tail, as he lay close to his ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... no better success; and then again, with a similar result. It was to no purpose. Stretch my arms as I would, and wriggle my limbs as I might, I could not get my body higher than the point where the staff was set, and could only extend my hand half-way up the rounded swell of the cask. Of course I could not keep there, as there was nothing to rest my weight upon, and I was forced ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... Chinese fluttered here and there like blue and red marsh fires a mile or so back from the main road. Once as she flew along she shied like a horse and twisted the wheel as a wild screaming and twittering rose at the side of the car, and glancing back she saw three figures wriggle and laugh in mockery and astonishment. They had risen round the embers of a dead fire, and stood swaying on their feet and showing white teeth in orange faces. One had the long hair of a ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... Brown and Laura Nelson ought to have more principle than engage in anything so dishonorable. They've managed to wriggle out of it at Marian's expense, but they have both lost caste by it. Depend upon it, a great many girls here will have their own opinion of the whole affair and it won't be complimentary to Marian, Selina ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... himself staring down at a red smashed thing on the ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle unavailing legs. Then, when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was like a fog bank torn to rags. He ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... little beggars one at a time—go for them, throttle them, wring their necks, jump on them; and if they wriggle, stamp!" ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... cat that saved the situation and its life at the same time. Mary-'Gusta was near the edge of the pine grove and Con was close at her heels. David gave one more convulsive, desperate wriggle, slid from the girl's arms and disappeared through the ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... within a dozen feet of the entrance, and, like the rest, it presently narrowed down through a slope in the roof; but just at its narrowest, when he feared he had come to the end, there came a dip in the flooring corresponding to the slope up above, and he found he could wriggle through. Once through, the passage widened and continued to widen, and the going became very rough and broken, with piles of ragged rock and deep black pitfalls ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... the Secret Service net is around the place, and no suspected person can get away?" muttered the submarine boy. "Well, that's it should be. I wonder if there are any more of this strange crew—men or women spies that don't happen to have suspected so far? If there are, I don't believe they'll wriggle through the meshes of old Uncle ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... not afterward agree, but once I lay prone for minutes together, with both arms buried in the treacherous snow, which was slipping under me, and the end of the lariat a foot or two away. Then with a snake-like wriggle I grasped it, and there was a cry of relief from the watchers. I got a bight around Ormond's shoulders, and after some difficulty fastened it. One cannot use ordinary knots on hide. Ready hands gathered in the slack, and my rival was drawn up swiftly, while ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... now Luck Is fat, And wise men take her as she comes: The Bowler may be sure the Bat Will share the sugarplums. So never wriggle, nor protest, Nor eye the zenith in disgust, But, Johnson, bowl your level best, And recollect, what must ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... "descent with modification," under such circumstances that no one who had not been brought up in the school of Mr. Gladstone could doubt that the two expressions referred to the same thing. He seems to have felt that he must be a poor wriggler if he could not wriggle out of this; give him any loophole, however small, and Mr. Darwin could trust himself to get out through it; but he did not like saying what left no loophole at all, and "my theory of descent with modification" closed ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... him by Joseph Hynes, journalist) My dear fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to a beggar) Please accept. (He takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples) Come on, boys! Wriggle ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... allude to that little innocent playfulness on your part, my dear sir," said Rodin, in his softest tone, approaching the two sisters with a wriggle which was peculiar to him; "if I allude to it, you see, it was suggested by the involuntary recollection of the little services I was happy enough to render you." Dagobert looked fixedly at Rodin, who instantly veiled his glance ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... same. Hold not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at the right hand of plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not.... Smell not of thy Meat; make not a noise with thy Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking.... When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavour to ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... good, I believe," said Nancy, "but I don't expect ever to be, myself I don't think I could be. You might as well teach a snake not to wriggle." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... 25). These "gray flies," as they are sometimes called, lay a mass of three or four hundred eggs on the surface of wounds. The larvae which in a few hours hatch from these make their way directly into the wound where they feed on the surrounding tissue until full grown when they wriggle out and drop to the ground where they transform to the pupa and later to the adult fly. Of course their presence in the wounds is very distressing to the infected animal, and great suffering results. Slight scratches that might otherwise quickly heal often become ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... Galloway was quick to follow up his stroke, shaking his head fiercely, like a dog worrying a rat. "You were seen carrying the body downstairs, the night of the murder. You might as well own up to it, first as last. Lies will not help you. We know too much for you to wriggle out of it. And never mind smoothing your hair down like that. We know all about that scar on your forehead, and ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... "What is there to go wrong? I've got a big day in court to-morrow and I've struck a snag, and I've got to wriggle out of it somehow, before I quit. It's nothing for you to worry about. Go to your dinner and have a good ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... the boudoir, the singer found that Madame Hulot had fainted; but in spite of having lost consciousness, her nervous trembling kept her still perpetually shaking, as the pieces of a snake that has been cut up still wriggle and move. Strong salts, cold water, and all the ordinary remedies were applied to recall the Baroness to her senses, or rather, to the apprehension ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... inheritance, on the other hand, will show clearly by the violence of the response provoked that their nervous system is easily stimulated and exhausted. They will wriggle and squirm for hours together, emitting the same constant reflex cry. The whole body will start convulsively at a sudden touch or a loud sound which would evoke no response from a more stolid infant. ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... into the temple. But without paying the least homage to the image of the 'Lo' spirit, he simply kept his eyes fixed intently on it; for albeit made of clay, it actually seemed, nevertheless, to flutter as does a terror-stricken swan, and to wriggle as a dragon in motion. It looked like a lotus, peeping its head out of the green stream, or like the sun, pouring its rays upon the russet clouds in the early morn. Pao-yue's tears unwittingly ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... balance," said Jim; "these fish are fierce." They were, in the wilder parts. They would bite like mad, and then wriggle and wrench themselves off the hook before you could get them up the bank. I never saw or heard of such ferocity, except in the celebrated scaly warrior which chased an equally famous fisherman all over ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... with that gang in town. He was simply devoted to Miss Beaubien until Alice Renwick came; then he dropped her like a hot brick. By the Eternal, Rollins, he hasn't gotten off with that old love yet, you mark my words. There's Indian blood in her veins, and a look in her eye that makes me wriggle, sometimes. I watched her last night at parade when she drove out here with that copper-faced old squaw, her mother. For all her French and Italian education and her years in New York and Paris, that girl's got a wild ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... see you, my pretty one,' said Winifred, fondly. 'Are you well, are you strong? No, don't wriggle your head away, I shall believe nothing but ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah—you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. You'll find that ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... in, slip into, slip in, pop into, pop in, break into, break in, burst into, burst in; set foot on; ingress; burst in upon, break in upon; invade, intrude; insinuate itself; interpenetrate, penetrate; infiltrate; find one's way into, wriggle into, worm oneself into. give entrance to &c (receive) 296; insert &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dead hush in the house as often as the wind of conversation veers in that direction. This is nothing, though, to the white awe in the air when visitors call and I am questioned how I earn my living in London. I hardly know whether to laugh or cry at the long-drawn breath of relief when I wriggle out of a tight place without telling a lie. But you can't hide an eel in a sack, and I know the truth will pop out one of these days. Only yesterday I went district-visiting with Aunt Rachel, and one of the Balaams of life, who keeps a tavern for fishermen, lured ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... air, an' 'e ought to 'ave a permanent chimney-sweep detailed to clear the soot out of 'is lungs an' breathin' toobs. But if Pint-o'-Bass does smoke more'n is good for 'im or any other respectable factory chimney, I'll admit the smoke 'asn't sooted up 'is intelleck none, an' 'e can wriggle 'is way out of a hole where a double-jointed snake 'ud stick. An' durin' the Retreat, when, as you knows, cigarettes in the Expeditionary Force was scarcer'n snowballs in 'ell, ole Pint-o'-Bass managed to carry on, an' wasn't never seen without 'is fag, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... Marquis, taking a great bite out of a slice of bread and jam, "whether it wouldn't be better for me to do it with a knife. Most of the best things have been brought off with a knife. And it would be a new emotion to get a knife into a French President and wriggle it round." ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... of the Anthrax, whose pupa, armed with trepans, bores through rock on the feeble Fly's behalf. Urged by a presentiment that to us remains an unfathomable mystery, the Cerambyx-grub leaves the inside of the oak, its peaceful retreat, its unassailable stronghold, to wriggle towards the outside, where lives the foe, the Woodpecker, who may gobble up the succulent little sausage. At the risk of its life, it stubbornly digs and gnaws to the very bark, of which it leaves no more intact than the thinnest film, a slender screen. Sometimes, even, the rash one opens ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... glance around; she was looking for something. Spying a stout stake that had been broken off and was lying on the ground, she caught it up, and the next moment had thrown herself flat on her face. Lying flat, she began slowly and cautiously to wriggle out across the surface of the quaking bog. The black water seethed and bubbled under her; but her weight, evenly distributed, did not bear on any one spot heavily enough to press her down. Slowly, carefully, she worked her way out, while the other girls ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... wriggle and Twaddles deftly backed out of the oven, turning to show a flushed face and a ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... thread of silk. But still he followed the dreadful roar of the Minotaur, which now grew louder and louder, and finally so very loud that Theseus fully expected to come close upon him, at every new zizgag and wriggle of the path. And at last, in an open space, at the very center of the labyrinth, he did discern ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Tennison, that you need have nothing further to fear from him," said the Superintendent with satisfaction. "He has no doubt, very powerful friends, and if the evidence were not so damning and direct as that collected after so much patience and perseverance by Mr. Garfield, he might perhaps wriggle out of it. But once we have him he can hope for no escape," he added. "And we shall arrest him before an hour is out. Fortunately he is still quite unsuspicious, though his chief fear is of Mr. Garfield, and of the ugly revelations which either Moroni ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... Children are wilted into silence and slumberous nonentity; boys do not bathe to-day—they welter, hour after hour, in the dark water near the shaded rock. Even they and the tadpoles can hardly be seen to wriggle. The cow has found a shade, and, preferring repose to munching, lies contented under the one great elm mercifully left in the middle ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... rushing into a clinch, and Tad found himself gripped in those arms of steel. Wriggle and twist as be would he could not free himself from their embrace. His adversary, on the other hand, found himself fully occupied in holding on to his slippery young antagonist, giving him neither time nor opportunity effectually to dispose of the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... of anger, although tempestuous, were never very prolonged. The curious convulsive wriggle of one of his arms, which always showed when he was excited, gradually died away, and after looking for some time at the papers of de Meneval—who had written away like an automaton during all this uproar—he came across to the fire with ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Griselda gave a little wriggle. "Cuckoo, you're laughing at me," she said. "I mean, have you come back to stay and cuckoo as usual and make my ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... was bitter anger in his voice now. "You see the game! He wanted to get me in deep enough so that I couldn't wriggle out, deeper than ten thousand that I could get at any time on my insurance, he wanted me where I couldn't get away—and he got me. The first ten thousand wasn't enough. I went to him for a second, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... have one if only they can disentangle it from the unrealities which have somehow got coiled up with it. All the odd little eccentricities in the form of service and the recent fashion of spicing sermons with unexpected swear-words are just pathetic efforts to wriggle out of ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... throw the chunks of plaster in front of me in such a way that their fall made no noise. When the moment came, at the very second when my swooning features vanished before your eyes, I simply jumped into my retreat, thanks to a rather plucky little wriggle of the loins. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... eyes but the History papers. I am a fish out of water.... It makes me feel growly all the time.... I can not get away from my ball and chain.... I think we'll make things snap and crackle a little.... This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... four or five men on guard close by; as it was, when the men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and I came running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see a crocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feet first. Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, and that ended ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... gasping snuffle, a small, sharp bark. Then he was on the bed before I saw his good brindled head, almost, and in my arms. I pressed my face against his dear, quivering coat, I surrendered my cheek to his warm, rough tongue, I translated each happy convulsive wriggle. ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... you going to say to me? For the last hour I have been asking you to marry me, and you have said nothing; only just 'wriggle, wriggle,' talking off on ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... together exactly, either; for Rollo who was usually pretty alert and ready in emergencies of difficulty or danger, when he found himself rolling down the slope, though he could not stop, still contrived to wriggle and twist himself off to one side, so as to get clear of the horse and roll off himself in a different direction. They both, however, the animal and the boy, soon came to a stop. Rollo was up in an instant. The horse, too, contrived, after some scrambling, to gain his feet. ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... residence for this species. The habit of a Dapper, when he is at home, is a light broad-cloth, with calamanco or red waistcoat and breeches; and it is remarkable that their wigs seldom hide the collar of their coats. They have always a peculiar spring in their arms, a wriggle in their bodies, and a trip in their gait. All which motions they express at once in their drinking, bowing or saluting ladies; for a distant imitation of a forward fop, and a resolution to overtop him in his way, are the ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... consciousness of his protege's danger, "but we must think of you all the same first." And kneeling down by the injured man's side, he proceeded, with Ernest Wilton's assistance, to cut away Seth's shirt, and then the end of the arrow, holding it firmly the while so that it should not wriggle about, and hurt him more than they could help, after which the barbed head was drawn out of the wound—which was just between the third and fourth ribs, and not very serious, as the ex-mate had thought— ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... and still for several moments, then managed to wriggle away. I can give you no account of my feelings now, so many years have passed; besides, I don't think I felt at all. Every day I became more and more thoughtful, and Leontine and the manager rallied me ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... enchantment, of a beauty which not alone beguiles the senses—I speak from the standpoint of the ten-year-old—but throws wide to fancy the gate of dreams. Directly I was seated—in the body—and had had my hat taken off and been told not to wriggle, I vaulted airily over the unconscious audience, over an orchestra engaged in tuning up, and was lost in the marvelous landscape of the drop-curtain. The adventures which I had there put to shame any which the raising ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... He began to wriggle back from the brushwood screen. He was filled with the sort of sick rage that comes when you can't actively resent insolence and arrogance. He hated the people who wanted the world to collapse, and this was part of their effort ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... want to," said Polly. "But why don't you be the kangaroo, then, Joe, and let Davie be something else? Give him the snake, then he won't have to jump, and it's easier to wriggle." ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... of the world gathered together and danced and capered before the frog in order to make him laugh, but all to no purpose. Then they called up the fishes to see if they could accomplish anything, but the frog preserved a solemn face until the eel began to wriggle. ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... of it. Only the eyes. Creeping, creeping, creeping. No noise. One raised. Waggons drawn up in laager. Oxen out-spanned in the middle. Trekking all day. Tired out; dog tired. Crawl, crawl, crawl! Hands and knees. Might be snakes. A wriggle. Men sitting about the camp fire. Smoking. Gleam of their eyes! Under the waggons. Nearer, nearer, nearer! Then, the throwing ones in your midst. Shower of 'em. Right and left. 'Halloa! stand by, boys!' ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... brought by the hand he repeatedly and somewhat distressfully passed over them closer to the question of which of the alien objects presented to his choice it would cost him least to profess to handle. What he had already paid, a spectator would easily have gathered from the long, the suppressed wriggle that had ended in his falling back, was some sacrifice of his habit of not privately depreciating those to whom he was publicly civil. It was plain, however, that when he presently spoke his thought had taken a stretch. "I'm sure I've fully ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... not wriggle and twist to try to avoid admitting that the calling of the martyred Zacharias, 'the son of Barachias,' is an error of some one who confused the author of the prophetic book with the person whose murder is narrated in 2 Chronicles xxiv. We do not know who made the mistake, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... and modern ideas, and I am fond of listening to clever conversation; masculine conversation, though, I warn you. But to listen to these women, these nightly windmills—no, that makes me ache all over! Don't wriggle about!" he shouted to the girl, who was leaping up from her chair. "No, it's my turn ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... view was a set of speculators. It was natural enough, however, in a man whose kink for repudiation in general led him to promulgate the theory that one generation cannot bind another for the payment of a debt. Hamilton, having disposed of Jefferson's attempts, under the signature of Aristides, to wriggle out of both these accusations, discoursed upon the disloyal fact that the Secretary of State was the declared opponent of every important measure which had been devised by the Government, and proceeded to lash him for his hypocrisy in sitting daily at the ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Some of the small tradesmen's houses, such as the crockery-shop and the harness-maker, had a Cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some forlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and scant the village, that one might have thought the village had sown and planted everything it once possessed, to convert the ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... sit still, but wriggle restlessly about on their seats, pick their nostrils, and bite their nails. They are always wanting to be doing something, but soon tire of it, and start something else, which is as quickly cast aside; their energy is feverish but ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... diverting beyond all comparison, or example, I ever saw. They would cut so many negroish capers in tragedy, grin and distort their countenances in such a variety of inhuman expressions, while they kept their bodies either stiff as so many stakes, or in a monkeyish wriggle, and ever and anon such a baboon stare at Desdemona, whose face, neck and hands, were covered with chalk and red paint, to make him look like a beautiful white lady—was altogether, considering that they themselves were very serious, the most ludicrous exhibition ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... to himself; but presently he began to wriggle backward, keeping the greasewood clump, and afterwards certain rocks and little ridges, between himself and a view of the point he had fixed upon as the spot where the ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... been dark days last fall when he had been so closely cornered by his creditors that it took many a writhe and a wriggle to get through. Nobody but himself, unless it was the dour Tom Barton, knew how overwhelmingly ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... first place," began Drina, "you are to lie down flat on the floor and creep about and show us how the Moros wriggle through the grass to bolo ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... for swift as lightning his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. As it approached, Medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide-open throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle—flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again—the dragon fell at full length upon the ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... commonplace Briton roar himself purple with impassioned platitude at a political meeting; but I perceive that all my neighbours take him with the utmost seriousness. Again, your literary journalist professes to wriggle in his chair over the humour of Jane Austen; to me she is the dullest lady that ever faithfully photographed the trivial. Years ago I happened to be crossing Putney Bridge, in a frock-coat and silk hat, when a passing member of ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the chin and rocked the four hundred pounds of bone and muscle that made up the Viceroy. For a moment Glavour staggered and then his hand fell on Damis' shoulder. Exerting all of his huge strength, he pulled his opponent toward him and threw his massive arms about him. Damis made no attempt to wriggle out of the bone-crushing grip, but, instead, threw his arms about the Jovian and matched muscle against muscle. The Jovian guards, who had witnessed the feats of strength which were the Viceroy's boast, expected only one outcome, ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... so tragical. A Hottentot was carried off by a lion during the night, wrapped up in his sheep-skin kaross, sleeping, as they usually do, with his face to the ground. As the lion trotted away with him, the fellow contrived to wriggle out of his kaross, and the lion went off with only ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sound lovable, but I cannot make him sound good. Of course I might leave out his doubtful qualities, and describe him merely as beautiful and affectionate; I might ... but I couldn't. I think Chum's habitual smile would get larger, he would wriggle the end of himself more ecstatically than ever if he heard himself summed up as beautiful and affectionate. Anyway, I couldn't do it, for I get carried away when I speak of him and I reveal ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... your brother and all heirs to estates joy, for old Shutz is dead, and cannot wriggle himself into any more wills. The ministry is not yet hatched; the King of Prussia is conquering the world; Mr. Chute has some murmurs of the gout; and I am ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... see, it's this way," began the mate, with a preliminary wriggle: "there's a certain ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... or toad in its young state, and having just entered upon its terrestrial life, is a small creature, which could, with the utmost ease, wriggle into crevices and crannies of a size which would almost preclude such apertures being noticed at all. Gaining access to a roomier crevice or nook within, and finding there a due supply of air, along with a dietary consisting chiefly of insects, the animal would grow ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... would not violate his conscience; he would be faithful to the traditions of his house and the memory of his father,—and so on, until the patience of Wellington and Peel was exhausted, and they told him he must sign the bill at once, or they would immediately resign. "The king could no longer wriggle off the hook," and surrendered. O'Connell was instantly re-elected, and took his seat in Parliament,—a position which he occupied for the rest of his life. George IV. was the last of the monarchs of England who attempted to rule by personal government. Henceforward the monarch's duty ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... this is the end of me," he thought in his little round head as he tried to wriggle across the road and couldn't because his back was so stiff. "Now I am an old man and I shall never see another summer. Good-bye." And Fuzzy Caterpillar rolled himself up in a gray blanket and hung himself on the end of a dried twig. "This is the last of me," he said once more ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... to shoot out a thousand serpentine heads or knots of water, which wriggle down deliberately through the air and expend themselves in mist before half the descent is over. Then a new set burst from the body and sides of the fall, with the same fortune on the remaining distance; and thus the most charming fretwork of watery ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... of Paris, was, and is, and probably will long be, the Rue St Denis. Beginning at the bank of the Seine, and running due north, it spins out its length like a tape-worm, with every now and then a gentle wriggle, right across the capital, till it reaches the furthest barrier, and thence has a kind of suburban tail prolonged into the wide, straight road, a league in length, that stretches to the town of Sainct-Denys-en-France. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... made such a delight with her childish clinging, her soft nestling against him, that he would hold his breath to listen to her quiet breathing and move a little away as though in sleep, so as to feel her kitten-like, half-unconscious wriggle into the curve of his arm again. It was sweet at such times to feel such utter dependence upon him as the protective male, and the best in him was stirred to response. The next morning she might jar again from the hour of getting up in their ugly hotel room, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... as she was under the glaring light, the letter still clutched stiffly in her hand, her eyes still staring widely at the irregular, un-English writing. The letters seemed to writhe and squirm into life before her distorted vision, to wriggle like a procession of monstrous insects across the page. Were they insects or were they reptiles? She asked ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... never expected the tiger to be where we found him, and were on our way home) had seated himself on another tree. In a low tone he said to me "Load, load!" but the moment I took my eye off the tiger to do so he began to wriggle into the jungle, and I only got a snap shot at his hind leg. Now when the tiger roared, which he did as he approached me, and he lay watching me, I felt no sensation of the heart, though I felt a distinct ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... man a whole day. Haven't you sense enough to see it's going to be nip and tuck if we ever get out of this? You've shown yourself, from start to finish, a miserable cheat; there's no trust to be put in either your judgment or your intentions. Be still," he commanded, as she sought to wriggle out of his grasp, to avoid the direct blaze of his eyes. "I am going to do what I can for you; to see you safe through this, if I can. Not because you are anything to me, but just because you are Ben Gaynor's, and he is ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Dan, with a twinkle in his eye, "the pigs were swine." Roseen gave an impatient wriggle. "Well, well, it's too bad to be tormentin' ye that way. I'll begin right now.—Well, very well then. There was wan time the Spider an' the Gout was thravellin' together, goin' to seek their fortun's. Well, they come to the crass roads. 'Lookit ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... very incessantly and very objectionably," Molly says, thoughtfully. "I hate a man who sneezes publicly; and his sneeze is so unpleasant,—so exactly like that of a cat. A little wriggle of the entire body, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... man made an effort to wriggle himself into a sitting position, but a light tap with the conger bat sent ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... it served him as a signal. In a harsh, untuneful voice he began to chant an old coon-ditty. The effect of his music was instantaneous as regards the more sensitive ears of the pup. Its eyes opened, and it lifted its head alertly. Then, with a quick wriggle, he sat up on his hind quarters, and, throwing his lean, half-grown muzzle in the air, set up such a howl of dismay that Sunny's melody became entirely lost in a jangle of discords. He caught up his empty sack and flung ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... leopard and Scroope were fighting each other. The leopard, standing on one hind leg, for the other was broken, seemed to be boxing Scroope, whilst Scroope was driving his big hunting knife into the brute's carcase. They went down, Scroope undermost, the leopard tearing at him. I gave a wriggle and came out of that mossy bed—I recall the sucking sound my body made as it left ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... that Ben could barely get his head and shoulders through it. There was no possibility of his getting on his feet or his knees to make a leap. The only course that remained for him, therefore, was to expand the umbrella, hold on tight, and then wriggle out until he should lose his balance and fall head foremost! It was an awful position. Bold though the seaman was, and desperate the circumstances, his strong frame quivered when he gazed down and felt himself gradually toppling. The ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... Large fish and small, pink fish, blue, yellow, orange, striped fish and mottled, wriggled together, and flapped their tails in the well of the little boat. There were even too many to lie there and wriggle. The bottom of the boat was well covered with them, and, if she had not shipped waves enough to keep them cool, the boy Battista had bailed a plenty on them. Father and son hurried on shore, and Battista on board began to fling the scaly fellows ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... again was promptly checkmated by the clear and repeated declaration of the Colonial representatives that they did not expect us to tax raw materials. And so nothing was left to Ministers, determined as they were to wriggle out of any agreement with the Colonies at all costs, except to fall back on the old, weary parrot-cry—"Will you tax corn?" "Will you tax butter?" and so on through the whole list of articles of common consumption, the taxation of any one ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... telescope. The foremast across which he lay was complete almost to the royal-mast, though the yards were gone; and to his left, just above the battered fore-top, five men were lashed, dead and drowned. Most of them had their eyes wide open, and seemed to stare at Zeb and wriggle about in the stir of the sea as if they lived. Spent and wretched as he was, it lifted his hair. He almost called out to them at first, and then he dragged his gaze off them, and turned it to the right. The survivor still clung here, and Zeb—who had been vaguely ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... doffed hat and low bow; they would waylay us on our way downstairs with demure "Good morning"; they would go to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord Charles—who possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin of the scalp—would wriggle his hair up and down till we were choking with laughter, to our own imminent risk. After a month of this Auntie was literally driven out of the pretty chateau, and took refuge in a girls' school, much to our disgust; but still ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... savages, wet, cross, weary, all anxious to get in—eager for home and dinner; five hundred stiffened and cramped folk equally eager to get out—mix on a narrow platform, with a train running off one side, and a detached engine gliding gently after it. Push, wriggle, wind in and out, bumps from portmanteaus, and so at last out ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... when they saw the launch wriggle off the bank where she was stuck, and steam away down stream, were filled with exasperation, because they had confidently anticipated making a barbecue out of Commandant Balliot in return for many cruelties received, and doing the same by any other Europeans whom ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... off her trousers and seized my hand and led me up to the couch, saying, "There is no sin in a lawful put in." She lay down on the couch outspread upon her back; and, drawing me on to her breast, heaved a sigh and followed it up with a wriggle by way of being coy. Then she pulled up the shift above her breasts, and when I saw her in this pose, I could not withhold myself from thrusting it into her, after I had sucked her lips, whilst she whimpered and shammed shame and wept when no tears came, and then said she, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... wealthier and younger members of the male community. They poison the air round them with sickly perfumes; they assume titles, and speak of one another as "cette chere comtesse;" their walk is something between a prance and a wriggle; they prowl about the terrace whilst the music is playing, seeking whom they may devour, or rather whom they may inveigle into paying for their devouring: and, bon Dieu! how they do gorge themselves with food and drink when some silly lad or aged roue allows ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... alert eye and without end. It was all so realistic and endowed with such benignity and such gentleness of motion that I gazed at it with the gladness of a discoverer. In response to a slight motion of the hand, the sea-serpent wriggled as though in haste; but wriggle as it might ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... laughed the old man, trying to wriggle out of his son's grasp; "only not just yet a whiles. I'm agoin' in here to drink your good health, Adam lad, and all here's a-comin' with me—ain't ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... Israel-England. From Dr. Storrs we have not heard what he now thinks of his child of promise, Russia. From the Herald we did hear, for, by the way, the Herald is one of our morning papers. By an editorial of a column and a half the Herald struggled nobly to wriggle out of the tight corner in which its sympathies for Russia had crowded it. We like and admire the Herald, because of its tact and ingenuity in getting news first from any part of the world. Still this time she was behind time. Two years ago, ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... sufferer was passing away and would recommend Rushton & Co. to the bereaved and distracted relatives. By these means often—after first carefully inquiring into the financial position of the stricken family—Misery would contrive to wriggle his unsavoury carcass into the house of sorrow, seeking, even in the chamber of death, to further the interests of Rushton & Co. and to earn his miserable two ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... discontent, a feeling that they had been lured to the house under false pretences, grew among Lady Dauntrey's visitors and was expressed stealthily, a word here, a word there, and sullen looks behind the backs of host and hostess. Even on the first day disappointment began to wriggle from guest to guest, like a little cold, sharp-nosed snake, leaving its clammy trail ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... on my feet in such a way that I was very uncomfortable and tried to readjust matters, but the slightest wriggle of my toe was enough to make him snap at it so fiercely that nothing but thick woollen bedclothes saved me ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... wet raincoats. Two opened umbrellas wheeled in the current of air that came around the house; the porch ran water. While Margaret was adding her own rainy-day equipment to the others, a golden brown setter, one ecstatic wriggle from nose to tail, flashed into view, and came fawning ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... a reward should be offered, but that young man, backed by Lucy, declined to throw away good money after bad. Braddock took this refusal so ill, that Hope felt perfectly convinced he would try and wriggle out of his promise to permit the marriage and persuade Lucy to engage herself to Sir Frank Random, should the baronet be willing to offer a reward. And Hope was also certain that Braddock, a singularly obstinate man, would never rest until he once more had the mummy in ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... give the other boys. He used to give me much as a pound a day. Some days he used to give me much as five pounds." Then Eddy Carroll, after delivering himself of this statement, could not get his young, black eyes away from the fixed regard of the man's keen, blue ones, and he began to wriggle as to his body, with his eyes held firm by that unswerving gaze. "What you looking at me that way for?" he stammered. "I ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman |
