"Play up" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... explained the philosopher. "Play up to 'im a bit, an' you'll be able to twist 'im round your little finger. I b'lieve he's goin' dotty, an' you can trust me to see that the marriage settlement is ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... of being embarrassed and fussed. If you blush and stammer a little, she'll like it. Play up the coy stuff." ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... Keeves; women, in this world, who look for marriage, have to play up to men and persuade them they're worth the price of ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... Play up, Knype! Now, lads! Give 'em hot hell!" Different voices heartily encouraged the home team as the ball ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... Mrs. Merrill; "the attic is plenty warm and you can play up there all you like to, only you must remember to put everything away neatly when ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson
... object? I most assuredly did not, for little chills began to play up and down my spinal column, and I wasn't exactly in love with the idea of having an escaped murderer crawling out of a hay-stack at midnight and cutting my throat. The ranchman McMein had been killed on Saturday, and the cowboy had been kept on the run for two days. As I was being told ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... homage which Pop Wallis had not shown and they were not repulsive to her. Besides, the Boy was in the background, and her nerve had returned. The Boy knew how a lady should be treated. She was quite ready to "play up" to his lead. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... cantered ahead. The boys became tense with excitement. Was it Mr. Stobart? At first they could not distinguish him except that he rode a grey horse and sat it with the perfect ease of a Central Australian. The animal did not want to leave its companions and started to "play up". But nothing it could do made any difference to the superb rider; he just sat as if he were part of the horse, as if he were indeed its brain, forcing it to obey his will. When he came past the little hill where the lads were standing he was about a hundred ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... availed him with other women, did not seem to reach her at all. She really gave him no chance to prove himself. He was ready to be grave or gay—to be a light-hearted boy or a blase man of the world—to adopt any role that would suit her. But how could one play up effectively to a chill silence which took no note of him, to a depression of the soul which would not let itself be lifted? He felt that she was living up to the barest letter of the law in fulfilling their contract, and because of it he ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... bound to be a bit sick at losing, so they'll play up all the harder on Saturday to console themselves for losing ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... Keineth had begged him—and he had won and Keineth had been the first to examine the wrist watch he had received as an award. And on Friday the entire family waited eagerly near the eighteenth green of the golf course for Barbara and Carol Day to play up in the final ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... hush in the Close to-night— Ten to make and the match to win— A bumping pitch and a blinding light, An hour to play and the last man in. And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote; "Play up! Play up! ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... Allardyce. It is always unpleasant to be the only survivor of an exceptionally good team. He can't forget last year's matches, and suffers continual disappointments because the present team does not play up to ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... and soon we Cough, And chilly Streaks play up our Backs, and off Our fever'd Foreheads drips an icy Sweat —We scoffered before, but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Wayne apologized for cutting his way from Bud's tent the night he disappeared after the signal from the tower. This was the only way he could disappear and accomplish his plans, he said. And it was he who had fired and broken the bottle, and had also fired mysterious signal shots, in order to play up to his character of ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... no question. Tell them anything to get them back. Here—take this other fountain pen, sign the new certificates with that, in their presence so that they will suspect nothing. To-night I shall expect you to play up to the limit, to play into Mrs. Noble's hand and assume her losses, too. I shall meet ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... said Susie, while her black eyes sparkled at the thought. "I wonder how we could make you better, when we have been all the while at play up-stairs." ...
— The Allis Family; or, Scenes of Western Life • American Sunday School Union
... in short, use special feature stories on local topics, some papers print trivial ones, and others "play up" sensational material; whereas practically no magazine publishes articles ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... hers! A trophy of sorts, an ornament. I'm something she's made. I have a hell of a big practise. I'm the most fashionable doctor in Chicago. They come here, the women, damn them, in shoals. That's Eleanor's doing. I'm a faker, a fraud, a damned actor. I pose for them. I play up. I give them what they want. And that's her doing. They go silly about me; fancy they're in love with me. That's what she wants them to do. It increases my value ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... expectation on the part of the majority of the patrons of the game that the Bostons would rally towards the finish and that the Baltimores would fall off during the last week or two; instead, however, it was the Boston champions who failed to play up to their old mark, while it was the Baltimores who did the rallying, and in fine style, too, under the leadership of the champion manager of ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... it all," he went on, a touch of irony in his voice. "It was really quite heroic of me to follow you into Bill's place, don't you think? You probably want to tell me so, but don't quite dare. And I should play up to my part, shouldn't I? But I cannot—not satisfactorily. I'm really a bit disgusted with myself for having taken as much interest in you as I have. I write books for a living. My name is ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... come out of the oratory a spiritual creature, like a pretty girl of seven or nine years of age, attired on her head, with her hair rolled up before and hanging down behind, with a gown of silk, of changeable red and green, and with a train. She seemed to play up and down, and seemed to go in and out behind the books; and as she seemed to go between them, the books displaced themselves, and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... treated her as the child that he knew her to be, trying to induce her to join in a game of pretending that nothing had happened. Gabrielle realised his humane attempt from the first and even, for a time, tried to play up to him, but the affair ended disastrously in a flood of bitter, uncontrollable tears for which neither the parson nor the man could offer any remedy. It seemed to him that this was a woman's job, and so he and Jocelyn met in solemn consultation ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... Play up, play up thy silver flute; The crickets all are brave; Glad is the red autumnal earth And the ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... your attention; for even supposing a person clever enough to sustain his character, whatever it be, you must also supply the other personages of the drama, or, in stage phrase, he'll have nothing to "play up to." What would be Bardolph without Pistol; what Sir Lucius O'Triuger without Acres? It is the relief which throws out the disparities and contradictions of life that afford us most amusement; hence it is that one swallow can no more make a summer, than one well-sustained character can give ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... man," he said, in a voice of grave and earnest sadness, while he pushed Cameron back into a chair. "We have a desperately hard game before us, you and I,—this is my game, too,—and we must be fit; so, Cameron, I want your word that you will play up for all that's in you; that you will cut this thing out," pointing to the decanter, "and will keep fit to the last fighting minute. I am asking you this, Cameron. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to me, you owe ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... play up to the relationship in which she stood to Mama Therese in the manner prescribed by sentimentalists worried Sofia more than a little. She was as hungry to give affection as to receive it; and surely she ought ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... Bandmann's great scene advanced to its climax, so well did the young Queen Mother play up to Hamlet, that the applause was rapturous. The curtain fell, and to her utter amaze she found herself lifted high in the air and crushed to Hamlet's bosom, with a crackling sound of breaking Roman pearls and in a whirlwind ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the keys than one's competitors? Yet we have certainly met singers and players who gloried in such accomplishments. A performer may also know every device and trick of the trade, he may be well aware of what will go down with his audience, he may play up to all their little foibles and weaknesses and give them exactly what they want: we can indeed scarcely quarrel with this. But so many are apparently content to allow the matter to remain on this lowly level. A singer who is thus able to play upon ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... tube, B, supplies to the glass a coating of air that allows it to move more freely; at all events it is certain that ordinarily the readings of B become regular, only after the mercury has been allowed to play up and down the tube a number of times. This applies particularly to vacua as high 1/50,000,000 and to pressures of five millimeters and under. It is advantageous in making measurements to employ large pressures and small volumes; the correct working of the gauge can ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... as they strolled back again towards the fives court, whether the matches were really such break-neck affairs as East represented, and whether, if they were, he should ever get to like them and play up well. ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... madness to remain to be peppered, probably winged, whilst every one of ours fell short, we reluctantly kept away on our course, having the gratification of hearing a clear well blown bugle on board the schooner play up "Yankee Doodle." As the brig fell off, our long gun was run out to have a parting crack at her, when the third and last shot from the schooner struck the sill of the midship port, and made the white splinters fly from the solid oak like bright silver sparks ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... enemy's country. But he trusted to his ability to play up to his reputation for an easy-going hobo to get him out again, without trouble. He appeared unaware of the covert suspicion with which Sneed watched his ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... And afterwards did one go out or hang about to be entertained? He knew now quite clearly that those wicked blue eyes would mark his every slip. She did not like him. She did not like him, he supposed, because he was common stuff. He didn't play up to her world and her. He was a discord in this rich, cleverly elaborate household. You could see it in the servants' attitudes. And he was committed to a ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells |
