"Raff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... away as muckle pouther as wad hae shot a' the wild-fowl that we'll want atween and Candlemas—and then ganging majoring to the piper's Howff wi' a' the idle loons in the country, and sitting there birling, at your poor uncle's cost, nae doubt, wi' a' the scaff and raff o' the water-side, till sun-down, and then coming hame and crying for ale, as if ye were maister ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... books, that makes you the laziest man that a poor woman ever had tinder one roof wid her? ay, an' that sent you out of our dacent shop an' house, in the heart of the town below, an' banished us here, Jer Mulcahy, to sell drams o' whisky an' pots o' beer to all the riff-raff o' the counthry-side, instead o' the nate boots an' shoes you served your ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... had the audacity to require his confirmation of his story. He said that he had dared the mob, and, to shield the soldiers, marched at their head, etc. But the officer, still warm from his baptism of fire, truly replied that he could not give a certificate of character. He related how the riff-raff had assailed the volunteers, wonderfully forbearing about not using their guns, and that the police and other officials had sworn that they should not pass alive, while the head and front, as he called himself, marched only a few yards—quitting on the pretext ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... was Luneburg and there the young musician had such success that a second concert was at once announced. Two were next given at Hildesheim. Then came Leipsic, Hanover and after that Weimer, where Franz Liszt and his retinue of famous pupils held court. Here Johannes became acquainted with Raff, Klindworth, Mason, Pruekner ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... to circuit, where found my old friend and schoolfellow, D. Monypenny.[510] Nothing to-day but a pack of riff-raff cases of petty larceny and trash. Dined as usual with the Judge, and slept at my old friend ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... for have we dragged into our company this peach off the street? We must needs tie up with all sorts of riff-raff? The devil knows what he is—perhaps he's even a dinny? Who can vouch for him? And ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... eccentric, the ill-balanced, the blackguardly, the unprincipled, the hapless, the shiftless, the unclassed, the sensual and the besotted that shoulder and hustle one another in the world of the theatre; all the riff-raff recruited from the greater world without by the fascinating ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... I care if you are base or not? He thinks he has only to say, 'I am base,' and there is an end of it. As to you, prince, are you not ashamed?—I repeat, are you not ashamed, to mix with such riff-raff? I ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... good-looking, shore-going, company-hunting, gallivanting, riff-raff set of reckless youths, who, having got rid of the entanglement of parents and guardians, and having no great restraint of principle or anything else to check them, seem to hold that his Majesty's service is merely a convenience for ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... you, captain," the insurgent chief ran on quickly. "This riff-raff of mine can't hit a hillside. Hammer the artillery into shape and ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... of the Bill so much to heart, Brooke; you've got all the riff-raff of the country ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... had been strongly moved by an American missionary. His originality lay in carrying down the doctrine not only to the highways and hedges, but to the slums, the homes of the very poor, the haunts of criminals and riff-raff; in getting hold of these people; in using the worst of them—'converted,' as he honestly believed—as a triumphant advertisement; and then in organising his followers into a vast Army, with himself as absolute Chief. On ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... incendiaries; they constitute the solid, worthy, estimable yeomanry of the South. Their influence in government would be infinitely more wholesome than the influence of the white sansculotte, the riff-raff, the idlers, the rowdies, and the outlaws. As between the Negro, no matter how illiterate he may be, and the "poor white," the property-holders of the South prefer the former. Excepting a few impudent, half-educated, and pestiferous pretenders, the Negro masses of the South are honest, ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... wait. I'm not supposed to give out mail to all the riff-raff who comes fer it. Why doesn't he ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... with all that riff-raff?" exclaimed Pao-yue; "we've really had it over there; in fact, I now come after having had ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... people, who have secretly denounced them, and who now regain courage on finding themselves rid of them. You must do the same at Madrid. Five-sixths of the town are good, but honest folks should be encouraged, and they cannot be so except by keeping in check the riff- raff. Unless a hundred or so of rioters and ruffians are got rid of, nothing is done. Of that hundred, get twelve or fourteen shot or hanged, and send the rest into France to the galleys. I think it necessary, especially at the first start, that your government ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... was crippled with debts, everything he had of any value was pawned, but he managed always to be cheerful, extravagant, and generous. He was the adventurer by nature. He loved people of doubtful occupations and shifty purposes; and his acquaintance among the riff-raff that frequents the bars of London was enormous. Loose women, treating him as a friend, told him the troubles, difficulties, and successes of their lives; and card-sharpers, respecting his impecuniosity, stood him dinners and lent him five-pound notes. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... found a convenient place outside Sarepta, and here he awaited his opponent. It is a height which a steep mountain footpath divides, and this path is intersected by another. Pugasceff placed a portion of his best troops on the ascending path, whilst to the riff- raff he entrusted his two wings. If Michelson had caught the bull by the horns with his ordinary tactics he ought to have cut through the little footpath leading to the steep road, and if he had succeeded then, the troops ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... lavished his good-byes upon the landlord and the "riff-raff" who gathered to welcome the coming or speed the parting guest at the door of the country tavern. He drove a pair of beautiful, spirited horses, and had the satisfaction of knowing that he excited the envy of every beholder, as he took the ribbons in his ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... poverty and starvation staring them in the face—still they came. Doors slammed in their faces, dogs set upon their heels, and ignorant babblers hooting at them—still they came; and the worst of it is they are reducing our own "riff-raff" to their level. The novelist has written about them; the preacher has preached against them; the drunkards have garbled them over in their mouths, and yelped out "Gipsy," and stuttered "scamp" in disgust; the swearer has sworn at them, and our ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... restless populace, the majority here to-day, disappearing to-morrow—cowboys, half-breeds, trackmen, graders, desperadoes, gamblers, saloon-keepers, merchants, generally Jewish, petty officials, and a riff-raff no one could account for, mere floating debris. The town was an eddy catching odd bits of driftwood such as only the frontier ever knew. Queer characters were everywhere, wrecks of dissipation, derelicts of the East, seeking ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... Hennage of the Cardinal's household. To this Hennage, Arden grants the wardship of his son Peter; and, if he should die, the wardship of Raffe; failing whom, the wardship of John, his third son, 1533. His wife was Margery. Sir Raff Ellerker married Jane, daughter of John Arden, Esq. (Visitation, Yorks, 1563). There is also noted the Inquis. P. M., of Peter Arden, of York, 22 Henry VIII.,[542] and William Arden's lease of Yaresthorpe, ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... kribrilo. Riddle enigmo, logogrifo. Ride rajdi. Ridge supro, pinto. Ridge (agricul.) sulko. Ridicule moki. Ridiculous ridinda. Riding-master cxevalestro, rajdmastro. Riding-school rajdejo. Rife gxenerala. Riff-raff forjxetajxo. [Error in book: fojxetajxo] Rifle pafilo. Rifle (plunder) rabi. Rift fendo. Rig sxnurarmi. Rigging sxnurarmilaro. Right dekstra. Right (justice) rajto. Right (straight) rekta. Right (correct) prava. Righteous justa, pia. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... responsibility of disposing of the United States bond issue?" Nevins inquires with a semblance of interest. "What would that Republic do if it were not for its public spirited men of wealth? Republics are all right when they are curbed by the conservative elements, but when the riff-raff gets the reins in hand, then there ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... old-fashioned corsets and was abdominally correct for her years; a long gown of black voile with white polka dots, and a guimpe of white net whose raff of chiffon somewhat disguised the wreck of her throat. On her shoulders, disposed to rheumatism, she wore a tippet of brown marabout feathers, and in her ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... did their work for them until they returned, repentant, to be forgiven by her; who acted always on her instinct and never on her reason; who cared nothing for legal principles; who openly used her feminine influence with the Trinity; who filled heaven with riff-raff; and who had never on any pretext driven a soul out of heaven. Christine made peace with this jealous and divine creature. She felt unmistakably that she was forgiven for her infidelity due to the Infant in the ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... reached the drawing-room, Marion was seated at the piano, playing a rhapsody of Raff's, and Mrs. Armour and Lali were seated side by side. Frank thrilled at seeing his wife's hand in his mother's. Marion nodded over the piano at the men, and presently played a snatch of Carmen, then wandered off into the barbaric strength of Tannhauser, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... long in passing through the twelve signs, as the son of a fool hath been disputing here about had I wist.[55] Out of doubt, the poet is bribed of some that have a mess of cream to eat, before my lord go to bed yet, to hold him half the night with raff-raff of the rumming of Elinor.[56] If I can tell what it means, pray God I may never get breakfast more, when I am hungry. Troth, I am of opinion he is one of those hieroglyphical writers, that by the figures of beasts, plants, and of stones, express the mind, as we do in ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... the crazy building formerly known as the Joy-Shop and once the nightly resort of the Asiatic riff-raff from the docks— was silent, save for the squealing and scuffling of the rats. The melancholy lapping of the water frequently reached my ears, and a more or less continuous din from the wharves and workshops upon the further ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... favor of having a suffrage amendment incorporated in the constitution. "Oh, if those who attend our meetings could do the voting," wrote Miss Anthony, "it would carry overwhelmingly, but alas, the riff-raff, the paupers, the drunkards, the very chain-gang that I see passing the house on their way to and from the jail, will make their influence felt on the members of the Constitutional Convention." In another letter she said: "I am in the midst of as severe a treadmill as I ever experienced, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... most reckless manner, regardless of their interests and their rights. Women are well-educated; they are graduating from our colleges; they are reading and thinking and writing; and yet they are the political inferiors of all the riff-raff of Europe that is poured upon our shores. It is unbearable. There is no language that can express the enormous injustice done ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Raff, Beethoven. Y'u ce'tainly have the music here; I wonder if y'u have the musician." He looked her over with a bold, unscrupulous gaze. "It's an old trick to have classical music on the rack and ragtime in your soul. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... called an "ominum gatherum," of "bigots," "hay-seed politicians," "fake philosophers," "cranks," "scamps," "professional sharps," "mad caps of destruction," "preachers who would sell corner lots in heaven," "a riff-raff of ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... were apparently carried out, for no further intimation was given to the gypsies that they were to vacate Abbot's Wood. The master of The Manor grumbled a good deal at the high tone taken by his brother-in-law, as, having the instincts of a landlord, he strongly objected to the presence of such riff-raff on his estates. However, as Pine had the whip-hand of him, he was obliged to yield, although he could not understand why the man should favor the Romany ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... interspersed with an occasional pathetic long- drawn whine, suggested dimly the idea that somebody was playing, or trying to play, on a refractory stringed instrument, the well- worn composition known as Raff's "Cavatina." And, in fact, had the vexed wind been able to break through the wall and embody itself into a substantial being, it would have discovered the producer of the half-fierce, half-mournful noise, in the person of the Honorable Frank Villiers, who, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... vilest of voluptuaries: men in whom the only passion excited by a beautiful woman is a lust to see her tortured and torn shrieking limb from limb. It is a crime to dignify that passion. It is offering yourself for violation by the whole rabble of the streets and the riff-raff of the court at the same time. Why will you not choose rather a kindly love and an ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... men, in uniforms begrimed and tattered, disorganized, swearing at each other, casting frightened glances backward with no other thought or desire save to escape the pursuing terror behind. They were the riff-raff of the battle, the skulkers, the cowards, the slightly wounded, making pin pricks an excuse for escape. Wagons toiled along in the midst of them, the gaunt mules urged on by whip and voice, while occasionally an ambulance ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... do not wish to be Sosia, be Sosia yourself, by all means. Now that I am he, you either pack, or take a thrashing, you unknown riff raff. ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... The riff-raff of the world was moving there, and when not apathetic they took their pleasures with drawn brows and eyes alert for a fight; but the only types Magdalena recognised were the drunken sailors and the occasional blank-faced ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... get even with them, though all the early settlers lived and died still expecting to see the day when Plattville would go over and pay off the score. It's the same now as it was then, good stock with us, bad stock over here; and all the country riff-raff in creation come and live with 'em when other places get too hot to hold them. Only one or two of us old folks know what the original trouble was about; but you ask a Plattville man, to-day, what he ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... face—he was not tattooed above a certain ring low on his neck—was yellow and flat and basking with one eye open, like some age-old serpent. She felt he was smiling horribly all the time: lewd, unthinkable. A strange sight he was in Woodhouse, on a sunny morning; a shabby-looking bit of riff-raff of the East, rather down at the heel. Who could have imagined the terrible eagle of his shoulders, the serpent of his loins, his supple, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... son, I'll uphod thee," said Gubblum. "And yon riff-raff, his spitten picter, is no'but some ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... had taken possession of the land. But it soon became plain that it would be impossible to found a colony with the wild riff-raff of the sea of which his company was formed. Troubles began at once. A few indeed went about their business quietly, but others spent their time in plotting mischief. They had no desire to stay in that far country; so some hid in the woods waiting a chance to steal away in ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... Berlin, discussing its mounted police, naively remarked that what most struck him about them was the look of intelligence on the faces of the horses. Judgments of this kind are too sweeping. It should be remembered that Germany is surrounded by countries of which the riff-raff is at all times seeking refuge in it or passing through it, that polyglot swindlers of every kind, the most refined as well as the most commonplace, abound, and that Anarchists are not yet an extinct species. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... etudes of Czerny, Cramer, Clementi, Heller; the mazurkas, nocturnes, and preludes of Chopin; and miscellaneous pieces by modern writers,—Grieg, Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky (and other Russians), Sgambati, Saint-Saens, Moszkowski, Raff, Reinecke, Scharwenka, Schuette, MacDowell,—or any other compositions, vocal or instrumental, in which the student may be interested, or which ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... as to be inaudible to all but the occupants of the sleigh. "Ge wug, Joggles! What is the land coming to, when such doctrines are preached in the pulpits; when those in authority are told 't is their duty to do what the riff-raff think best? As well let their brats and bunters tell us what to do. They'll not force me to attend their meeting, nor to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... poverty than in many a neglected quarter of the East End, with all its untold misery. Spirit-vaults flourished; the low lodging-houses were crowded to excess; rents rose rapidly; and the narrow ill lighted streets swarmed with riff-raff after nightfall, when the greater part of the wealthy district-visitors were spending their evening hours in their comfortable homes, satisfied with their day's ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... said his lordship. "And now, if you please, we shall approach this business with a little more parteecularity. I hear that at the hanging of Duncan Jopp - and, man! ye had a fine client there - in the middle of all the riff-raff of the ceety, ye thought fit to cry out, 'This is a damned murder, and my gorge rises at the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... many windy platitudes abroad, and much indulgence in empty mouthing, the very fact of debate being considered necessary to the settlement of all questions makes the public mind less hasty and more cautious. "Thus saith the Lord" men can only succeed at present among the intellectual riff-raff of ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... Voltaire and Rameau, Duprez and Joachim Raff, History of Saint-Saens's opera, et seq.—Henri Regnault, First performances, As oratorio and opera in New York, An inquiry into the story of Samson, Samson and Herakles, The Hebrew hero in legend, A true type ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... end of his verses when there came out upon him from among the trees a horseman of terrible mien covered and clad in steely sheen, who cried out to him, saying, "Stand, O riff-raff of the Arabs! Doff thy dress and ground thine arms gear and dismount thy destrier and be off with thy life!" When Jawamard heard this, the light in his eyes became darkest night and he drew his sabre and drove at Jamrkan, for he it was, saying, "O thief of the Arabs, wilt thou cut the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... Dr. nor any way Lettered, but a man odious to the Vulgar, for some Rumors that went of him, that he was a Conjurer or Sorcerer, and he was quarrelled with in the Streets in London, and as the people more and more gathered about him, so they pelted him with rotten Eggs, Stones, and other riff raff, justled him, beat him, bruised him, and so continued pursuing him from Street to Street, till they were five hundred people together following him. This continued three hours together until Night, and no Magistrate or Officer of the Peace once showed himself to stop this Tumult: so the poor man ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... tells him that Big Jem and the pack o' blackguard riff-raff come and 'sulted yer and said what you wouldn't tell me. The captain wouldn't want you to put up with that. I know the captain 'most as well as you do. 'Hullo!' he says; 'what ha' you been doing—how ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... anything with all that riff-raff?" exclaimed Pao-y; "we've really had it over there; in fact, I now come after having had mine with dowager ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... was a "mess," as Bill expressed it. The floor was covered with scattered heaps of riff-raff, oilskins, coats, empty bottles, and papers. On the table a box stood, its hinged ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... four bad-rooking men with brasters, and Sonig hire four more that are his countrymen, and they bring these men back and now they are hiding in the woods. And they awrso bring back movie cameras with terescope renses. And Rord Narf raff and say he wirr marry Princess Ryra today before your dead body ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... on passing her one evening in the Folkestone High Street with a Panama hat upon her head (my Panama hat), and a soldier's arm round her waist. She was one of a mob, composed of all the unoccupied riff-raff of Folkestone, who were following the band of the Third Berkshire Infantry, then in camp at Sandgate. There was an ecstatic, far-away look in her eyes. She was dancing rather than walking, and with her left hand she beat time ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... drive a dogcart with slender success and complaining loudly of obstruction. Respectable working women were there, together with their husbands, having finished the day's work; country folk who dropped into town on the Saturday had been attracted to the scene; the riff-raff of Muirtown had come out from their dens and lodging-houses, together with that casual population which has nothing particular to do and is glad of any excitement. They were of various kinds and different degrees of respectability, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... which happily closed a very exciting day. I went to bed in my cell. It was a fine, moonlight night, and a three-cornered contest soon started between donkeys braying, jackals howling and dogs barking; but we were very tired, and they made no more impression on us than would Raff's Cavatina played on the ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... Kharu of the old Egyptians, meaning a "mixed multitude," were originally Phoenicians and domiciled from earliest ages about Lake Menzalah. So the "mixed multitude," or mingled people, which followed Israel from Egypt would be a riff-raff of strangers. D'Herbelot says (sub voce Midian): "Quoyque les Madianites soient reputez pour Arabes, neanmoins ils ne sont pas du nombre des Tribus qui partageoient l'Arabie, et dont les Auteurs nous ont rendu un compte exact dans leur Histoire ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... along the line where, presently, I recognized his two familiars, Heinie Baum and Pick-em-up Joe Brady with whom he had started off to "Parus" on a month's summer junket, and with whom he had stumbled so ludicrously into the riff-raff ranks of the 3rd Foreign Legion. Doubtless the 1st and 2nd Legions couldn't stand him and his two friends, although in one company ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... The figures here given are based on those of Papee, Wwednesky, Raff, Sederholm, and others. The recently published investigations of the Baltimore Vice Commission showed that 63.7 per cent of 289 prostitutes examined by the Wassermann test had syphilis. Of 266 examined for gonorrhea, 92.1 per cent showed its presence. Nearly half the girls ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... untouched. "Picasso?" queries someone. I shall come to Picasso presently. The great modern painters—Derain, Matisse, Picasso, Bonnard, Friesz, Braque, etc.—were firmly settled on their own lines of development before ever Jazz was heard of: only the riff-raff has been affected. Italian Futurism is the nearest approach to a pictorial ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... see the worthy soul will respond at once with alacrity. Do you not note your brother's character, proud and frank and sensitive to honour? He is not a mean and sorry rascal to be caught by a bribe—no better way indeed for such riff-raff. No! gentle natures need a finer treatment. You can best hope to work on ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... that girl's jib," Mrs. Purchase announced after a pause. "She's good-looking, and she has pluck. But I don't take back what I said, that it's a wrong you're doing to Clem and Myra, putting them to school with all the riff-raff of the parish." ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fills. One day is so like another that to see one is to have seen all. The length of the Corso there saunters listlessly an idle, cloak-wrapt, hands-in-pocket-wearing, cigar-smoking, shivering crowd, composed of French soldiers and the rif-raff of Rome, the proportion being one of the former to every two or three of the latter. The balconies, which grow like mushrooms on the fronts of every house, in all out-of-the-way places and positions, are every now and then adorned with red ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... the waterside held no interest for Craven, he was too used to them, too familiar with the riff-raff of foreign ports even to glance at them. But he lingered for a moment to look up at the church of Notre Dame d'Afrique that, set high above the harbour and standing out sharply against the skyline, was glowing warmly in the golden rays of ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... the patio of a private house, with a stage at one end, in which chairs and tables have been placed. On holiday nights it is crammed with students, with countrymen and artisans, with the general riff-raff of the town, and with women of no particular reputation. Now and then appears a gang of soldiers, giving a peculiar note with the uniformity of their brown holland suits; and occasionally a couple of British ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... was a bit of private business I wanted a word with you about. This boat's too full of what I call riff-raff. Mouth-organs. Bad taste. Can't hear yourself speak. But we get an hour at Ramsgate, and if you'll take a snack with me there, I can tell you ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... the people there concealed his runaway slaves; by remaining I think that I have put a stop to this, as he did not like to pillage while I was in company: Mpamari also turned round towards peace, though he called all the riff-raff to muster, and caracoled among them like an old broken-winded horse. One man became so excited with yelling, that the others had to disarm him, and he then fell down as if in a fit; water poured on his head brought him to calmness. We ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... riff-raff of many ports they were; and now with them it was every man for himself. This feeling without proper knowledge worked their undoing. The ropes were released, one before the other, and the loaded boat bumped ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... bounds. Whether it be merely a suggestive title, as in the case of some of the compositions of Beethoven, Schumann, and Mendelssohn, or an extended commentary, as in the symphonic poems of Liszt and the symphonies of Berlioz and Raff, the programme has a distinct value to the composer as well as the hearer. It can make the perceptive sense more impressible to the influence of the music; it can quicken the fancy, and fire the imagination; it can prevent a gross ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Colin Clout, much learning has made thee mad. A good old fishwives' ballad jingle is worth all your sapphics and trimeters, and 'riff-raff thurlery bouncing.' Hey? have I you there, old lad? Do ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... three chief numbers of this fine programme were a trio in C-minor, op. 102, by Raff; a sonata in F-major, No. 9, by Mozart; and Schubert's posthumous quartette in D-minor. The Raff trio was new to Boston. It is a long and elaborate work, the absolute merit of which is not to be pronounced ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... you, if you won't have Wagstaff, or Pugsby, or Sniggins, or Goldman, or somebody that's respectable, to do what's proper, the child sha'n't be christened at all. As for Prettyman, or any such raff—no, never! I'm sure there's a certain set of people that poverty's catching from, and that Prettyman's one of 'em. Now, Caudle, I won't have my dear child lost by any of your spittoon acquaintance, I can ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... Jenkins, formerly interpreter at the U.S. Consulate, had, at his own expense, chartered a ship and hurriedly fitted out an expedition, taking under his command eight other Europeans, all of a more or less dubious character, and a suite of about 150 Chinamen and Manillamen, the riff-raff of the Treaty Port, who were to be the crew and military escort of the expedition. A man called Oppert, a North German Jew, and believed by everybody to be an adventurer under the guise of a trader, was in command of the 'fleet'—which was composed of a steamer, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... the new rector of Trinity Church, had brought some strange ideas from London, where he had worked in the slums. He had founded a workman's club, and smoked his pipe with the members; formed a brigade of newsboys and riff-raff, and taught them elementary morality with the aid of boxing-gloves; and offended his congregation by treating the poor with the same consideration as themselves. And then, astonished by the number of mothers who were not wives, that he discovered on his rounds, he had ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... because the shopmen are mobilised; no anything, because everyone is out watching the fun. So you go into the square to watch also. You see little groups of revolutionaries looking sullen and laboriously class-hating. You see a lot of soldiers looking very ordinary but trying not to. The riff-raff scowl at the soldiers, who are ordered out to shoot at them. The soldiers scowl at the riff-raff at whom they are ordered not to shoot. And, for some reason which the experts have not yet fathomed, it always pours ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... please a taste fastidious and exacting in such matters—"Oah, my dear fallow, surely you appreciate danger of venturing into nateeve quarters in European dress? As regular-out-and-out sahib, I am meaning, of course. It is permeesible for riff-raff, sailors and Tommies from the Fort, and soa on, to indulge in debauchery among nateeves, but first-class sahib—Oah, noah! You would be mobbed in no-time-at-all, where ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... shifting nervously from group to group of huddling spectators, their shoulders hunched up to their ears—the riff-raff of the garrison—the few desperate, dangerous characters from the surrounding camps, an uncouth, uncanny lot at any time, but looking its worst in the drip of the floating fog-wreaths and the gloom and despond of the dying day. The boom of the sunset gun from Alcatraz fell sullenly ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... Moscow until next spring, and I daresay we could make ourselves comfortable enough in either place; but when you come to winter six hundred and fifty thousand men, and a couple of hundred thousand horses, it is a tremendous job; and I should think the Emperor would send all this riff-raff of Spaniards, Germans, and Poles back, and keep only the French as a garrison through the winter. Still, I would much rather that we should all be back here before the first snow falls. I don't like these long campaigns. Men are ready to fight, ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... do for himself," added Eskew, "is deliverin' the Daily Tocsin on a second-hand Star bicycle and gamblin' with niggers and riff-raff! None of the nice young folks invite him to ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... north-west from Maryborough, which my uncle held as a station. He was taking an active part in the great developments which, at this time, were being carried out by the squatters. I was directed by my uncle's agents, George Raff and Co., to engage five or six of the immigrants as shepherds. These accompanied me to Maryborough by the old steamer "Queensland." On arrival at Maryborough the shepherds were taken charge of by the local agents, and I was instructed to ride on to the station. I left ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... impressed me more than any German acting had ever done. I now began to calculate on the possibility of making suitable friends in the neighbourhood of Biebrich, so as not to be entirely dependent on the Schott family or on my hotel-keeper for society. I had already looked up the Raff family in Wiesbaden, where Frau Raff had an engagement at the court theatre. She was a sister of Emilie Genast, with whom I had been on friendly terms during my stay in Weimar. One excellent piece of information I heard about her was that by extraordinary thrift and good management she had ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... the night-houses were always crowded, and you might re-visit them at midday and find the same occupants still out of bed, drinking, smoking, and gambling, yet as quiet and orderly in their demeanour as a company of Quakers. For, notwithstanding its large percentage of the riff-raff element, crime is very rare in Nome. I frequently visited the gambling saloons, where gum-booted, mud-stained prospectors elbowed women in dainty Parisian gowns and men in the conventional swallowtail, but I never once saw a shot fired, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... to-night I got as far as the manor house, being fool enough to risk my neck for another sight of her. God help me, Jack! I had it. They have scraped together all the Tory riff-raff this side of the river—Falconnet and the others—and are holding high revel at Appleby. Since it is still our true-blue borderland, they are scant enough of women of their own kidney, and I saw Madge dancing like any light o' love with ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... said his friend, "I wouldn't hang my picture in this little bit of a hole, nor let my boy waste his time with all the riff-raff in the room. There's Smith's girl and Robinson's niece, both of them worth a cool hundred thousand; and you leave him to flourish about all over the place with a chit in a white frock, and another in a black one. I call that waste, not ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... on the farm and in the workshop and begat the new generations. "Vir gave place to Homo," says the Latin author. Men of good stock were replaced by the sons of slaves and camp-followers, the riff-raff of those the army sucked in but could ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... full of the riff-raff of all the countryside, who had no sooner clapped eyes on Mr. Henry than the hissing began, and the hooting, and the cries of "Judas!" and "Where was the Master?" and "Where were the poor lads that rode with him?" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... works may be named those of Stephen Heller, Raff, Rubinstein, Bargiel, and Grieg. The sonatas of Heller are failures, so far as the name sonata means anything. He was not a composer de longue haleine, and his opening and closing movements are ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... pleased people to make—I speak literally—a football of his head, to throw his heart to the dogs. And no doubt it had fallen in with the Vidame's grim humour that the bearer of Pavannes' first love letter should enter his mistress's presence, bleeding and plaistered with mud. And that the riff-raff about our own gates should have ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Leonie who was riding straight and apparently making no effort to check the Devil, and policemen, forgetful of their dignity, their status, and their red turbans, hung over the rails near the grand-stand entrance with a riff-raff of taxi chauffeurs, pukka ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... that he cannot disburden his soul within the three hours' limit, and cannot produce plays intelligible or endurable to any audience but a band of adepts. A popular audience, however, does not necessarily mean the mere riff-raff of the theatrical public. There is a large class of playgoers, both in England and America, which is capable of appreciating work of a high intellectual order, if only it does not ignore the fundamental conditions of theatrical presentation. It is an audience of this class ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... feeding? The queen knows a mighty sight better, and wouldn't ax any body to her table as had done nothing but write books or paint picters. No; old Pits is the boy for patronizing them there fellers; but mark ye, Snipe, he takes the wrong chaps. If a man is to demean himself by axing a riff-raff of authors to his house, let it be the big 'uns; I should not care to give a bit of dinner to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... world of thought and being. And when she mentioned work he always replied as if she meant an undefined something called doing good. He never doubted the failure of that foolish concert of ladies and gentlemen given to the riff-raff of London, had taught her that whether man be equal in the sight of God or not, any attempt on the part of their natural superiors to treat them as such could not ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... rest for him till summat's done, none; tak my word for that. But yance they hang some riff-raff for him it will soon be forgotten. Then all will be as dead as hissel', back and end. What's it to thee, man, who they tak for't? Nowt, Theer's nea sel' ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... dress and gave me a lesson in deportment, assuring me that trade had accustomed him to easy manners by the continuous obligation he was under to greet his customers like gentlemen, if as a fact they were only vile riff-raff. He gave me, as a precept, to round off the elbows and to turn my toes outward and counselled me, beyond this, to go and see Leandre at the fair of Saint Germain and to ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... passing on the turbid, brown current of the Mississippi and he heard snatches of strange, foreign songs. The night had fully come and heavy darkness hung over land and water, but New Orleans did not sleep. The smugglers, the adventurers, the former galley slaves, the riff-raff of Europe, and the mixed bloods of the West Indies were abroad in pursuit of either business or pleasure, each equally ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... that his claim to a position in the history of the novel mainly consists. Some might add a third audacity, that of being "middle-class." Scarron had dealt with barn-mummers and innkeepers and some mere riff-raff; but he had included not a few nobles, and had indulged in fighting and other "noble" subjects. There is no fighting in Furetiere, and his chief "noble" figure—the rascal who robbed Lucrece of her virtue and her keys—is the sole figure ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... which the classification was the result was not so deliberate as may be supposed. Sometimes, when an important client would get into trouble, the affair took me into the police court, where I saw the riff-raff of the city penned up, waiting to have justice doled out to them: weary women who had spent the night in cells, indifferent now as to the front they presented to the world, the finery rued that they had tended so carefully to catch the eyes of men on the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... by Jove! a runaway cab. No, all right. But a crazy cab it is, and fit to do mischief in narrow Drury. Except that it's sheer riff-raff here to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... worthe Loumle, a knyghte of great renowen, Ser Raff, the ryche Rugbe, with dyntes wear ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... the lady he made acquaintance with the officials and all sorts of riff-raff. And of course he had to give food and drink to all that crew, and there had to be a piano and a shaggy lapdog on the sofa—plague take it!... Luxury, in fact, self-indulgence. The lady did not stay with him long. How could she? ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... hadn't the requisite toughness for work, they even took to drink, or went to the bad. But they are the people of quality and tone, about whom one wants to know much more than about sun-burnt and positive Generals—the strong silent sort—or overworked politicians bent on conciliating the riff-raff. I don't want to know about men simply because they did honest work, and still less about men who never dared to say what they thought and felt. You can't make a striking picture out of a sense of responsibility! I'm not underrating good work—it's fine in every way, but it can't ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Bedouin, who use to lie in wait, by the way, to steal children and virgin girls and sell them to merchants; and this I did for many a year until these latter days, when Satan incited me to join these two gallows-birds in gathering together all the riff-raff of the Arabs and other peoples, that we might waylay merchants and plunder caravans." Said the two Kings, "Tell us the rarest of the adventures that have befallen thee in kidnapping children and girls." "O Kings of the age," ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... could," I answered. "But I came here by choice because I have brought Miss Gibson with me." "I am sorry for that," he rejoined, with evident disapproval; "she oughtn't to have come among these riff-raff." ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... oral substitutes for kitchenware. "Ye can apollygise to riff-raff of the streets for settin' yer unhandy feet on the tails of their frocks, but ye'd walk on the neck of yer wife the length of a clothes-line without so much as a 'Kiss me fut,' and I'm sure it's that long from rubberin' out the windy for ye and the victuals cold such as ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Tankard, there was a prime fight of five rounds between Tammy Bowsie, the snab, and auld Thrashem, the dominie, about their drawing cuts which was to get Dalkeith Palace, and which Newbottle Abbey! Oh, sic riff-raff! ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... when we passed the day at Greenwich, and were at the renowned Greenwich Fair, which lasts for three days. The scene of revelry takes place in the Park, a royal one, and really a noble one. Here all the riff-raff and bobtail of London repair in their finery, and have a time. You can form no notion of the affair; it cannot be described. The upper part of the Park, towards the Royal Observatory, is very steep, and down this boys and girls, men and women, ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... from her her tale, which was much what I had anticipated: a tale of a schoolhouse, a walled garden, a fruit-tree that concealed a bench, an impudent raff posturing in church, an exchange of flowers and vows over the garden wall, a silly schoolmate for a confidante, a chaise and four, and the most immediate and perfect disenchantment on the part of the little lady. "And there is nothing to be done!" she wailed in conclusion. "My error is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spring, she made a second journey to London, and sailed from Rotterdam. Unknown to her, the passenger list was to have included another fallen star. This was Metternich, who, with the riff-raff of Vienna thundering at the doors of his palace, was preparing to seek sanctuary in England. Thinking, however, that the times were not altogether propitious, he decided ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... days at the burning of heather, and when I would be running with a kindling here and there, and watching the lowes lick into the dry scrog with a hiss before the breeze, I would be thinking much of Dan and Ronny McKinnon and me in the blazing whins, and the gangers and excisemen and riff-raff of that kidney hallooing round us. Belle loved this burning and the very fierceness of the flames, with the eerie gloaming falling, and she would not be heeding the cries of Old Betty (for Betty was much with her these days for company) to ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... gesture of disgust. "Oh, we won't talk of him. He is an oaf. I dare say he doesn't know any better, but he'll never have a chance of doing it again. I don't mix with the riff-raff." ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... mucor, rubigo^. slovenry^; slovenliness &c adj.; squalor. dowdy, drab, slut, malkin^, slattern, sloven, slammerkin^, slammock^, slummock^, scrub, draggle-tail, mudlark^, dust-man, sweep; beast. dirt, filth, soil, slop; dust, cobweb, flue; smoke, soot, smudge, smut, grit, grime, raff^; sossle^, sozzle^. sordes^, dregs, grounds, lees; argol^; sediment, settlement heeltap^; dross, drossiness^; mother^, precipitate, scoriae, ashes, cinders. recrement^, slag; scum, froth. hogwash; ditchwater^, dishwater, bilgewater^; rinsings, cheeseparings; sweepings &c (useless refuse) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Verdurins. But he had entirely severed his connection with what he called "young Verdurin," taking a general view of him as one who had fallen—though without losing hold of his millions—among the riff-raff of Bohemia. One day he received a letter from Swann asking whether my grandfather could put him in touch with the Verdurins. "On guard! on guard!" he exclaimed as he read it, "I am not at all surprised; ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Shakespeare, there will never be such another—Nature exhausted herself in producing him. Bulwer used the word "stretch" for hang, as to stretch his neck. Don't follow his example in such use of the word. Above all, avoid the low, coarse, vulgar slang, which is made to pass for wit among the riff-raff of the street. If you are speaking or writing of a person having died last night don't say or write: "He hopped the twig," or "he kicked the bucket." If you are compelled to listen to a person discoursing on a subject of which he knows little or nothing, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... two thousand of the riff-raff and putting them at work on roads, piers, and prisons, applied himself with special energy to the suppression of Marti, the most daring, yet the slyest and most cautious of all the robbers in the country. ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... wi' a' the fine flichtering fools that come yonder; and clapping palms wi' them, and linking at their dances and daffings. I wuss nae ill come o't, but it's a shame her father's daughter should keep company wi' a' that scauff and raff of physic-students, and writers' prentices, and bagmen, and siclike trash as are ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... kidnapping was sent to the foreign jail to await trial. The Chinese assessor insisted, not without reason, that she ought to be kept in a native jail. No attention being given to his protest, though supported by the taotai or local governor, a mob of riff-raff from beyond the limits burst into the settlement, put the foreign police to flight, and began to burn and pillage. Happily a body of marines with gatling guns and fire-engines succeeded in quelling the flames and suppressing the ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... of certain scribblers, to give to every individual a share in the throne or to adopt certain revolutionary ideas, which are mere Punch and Judy shows for the public, manipulated by a band of self-styled patriots, riff-raff, always ready to sell their conscience for a million francs, for an honest woman, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... in daily fear of a raid at Haase's. Why the place had escaped so long, with all that riff-raff assembled there nightly, I couldn't imagine. It was one of those defects in German organization which puzzle the best of us at times. In the meantime, I was powerless to escape. The first thing Haase had done was to take away my papers—to send them to the police, as he explained—but ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... squalor. dowdy, drab, slut, malkin[obs3], slattern, sloven, slammerkin|, slammock[obs3], slummock[obs3], scrub, draggle-tail, mudlark[obs3], dust- man, sweep; beast. dirt, filth, soil, slop; dust, cobweb, flue; smoke, soot, smudge, smut, grit, grime, raff[obs3]; sossle[obs3], sozzle[obs3]. sordes[obs3], dregs, grounds, lees; argol[obs3]; sediment, settlement heeltap[obs3]; dross, drossiness[obs3]; mother|, precipitate, scoriae, ashes, cinders. recrement[obs3], slag; scum, froth. hogwash; ditchwater[obs3], dishwater, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... brought a great heap of old posters and picture papers to her. Captain Morton brought a beloved picture of his army Colonel to adorn the room, and deaf John Kollander, who had a low opinion of the ignorant foreigners and the riff-raff and scum of society, which Laura was trying to help, wished none the less to help her, and came down one day with a flag for the schoolroom and insisted upon making a speech to the tots about patriotism. He made nothing clear to them but he made it quite clear to himself ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... unfitted for their former occupations. Having acquired habits of idleness and a taste for excitement and adventure, no peaceful pursuit can content them. Released from the army, they can turn to no useful work. But it is usually the social riff-raff, discharged prisoners and the like, whom either the struggle for life or their own inclination drives into the ranks. These, their military term over, again turn to their former life of crime, more brutalized and degraded than before. It is a well-known fact that in our prisons ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman |
