"Toss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would have dismissed the whole subject from my mind if my eyes had not detected at that moment on one of the tables an unusually thin paper-knife. This gave me an idea. Carrying it back with me into the recess, I got down on my knees, and first taking the precaution to toss a little stick-pin of mine under the cabinet to be reached after in case I was detected there by Nixon, I insinuated the cutter between the base-board and the floor and found that I could not only push it in an ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... earliest youth so riotous and wild, that he was often severely scourged by his father. He was said to run about in the night-time, and seize upon any one he met, who was either drunk or too feeble to make resistance, and toss him in a blanket [673]. After his father's death, to make his court the more effectually to a freedwoman about the palace, who was in great favour, he pretended to be in love with her, though she was old, and almost decrepit. Having ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... a wanderer far away From England, from England, Will toss upon his couch and say— Though Spain is proud and France is gay, And there's many a foot on the primrose way, The world has never a Queen o' the May ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... hills of Newbury rolling away, With the many tints of the season gay, Dreamily blending in autumn mist Crimson and gold and amethyst. Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, A stone's toss over the narrow sound. Inland, as far as the eye can go, The hills curve round, like a bended bow; A silver arrow from out them sprung, I see the shine of the Quasycung; And, round and round, over valley ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... said Sancho, "see what marten and sable, and pads of carded cotton he is putting into the bags, that our heads may not be broken and our bones beaten to jelly! But even if they are filled with toss silk, I can tell you, senor, I am not going to fight; let our masters fight, that's their lookout, and let us drink and live; for time will take care to ease us of our lives, without our going to look for fillips so that they ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... playing members of teams they represent and shall toss for choice of ends of tank. The ends shall be changed ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... garnished with three small oval silver buttons, the exact mate of one which Mr. Hargrove had noticed the previous evening, when the visitor held up the ring for his inspection. Exulting in the unanswerable logic of this latest fact, Hannah quite unintentionally gave the glove a scornful toss, which caused it to fall into the fireplace, and down between two oak logs, where it shrivelled instantaneously. Unfortunately science is not chivalric, and divulges the unamiable and ungraceful truth, that perverted female natures from even the lower beastly types are more implacably vindictive, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... matter of that, in helping him to try it on." But POTTLE only hooked up his nose and looked scornful. Well, when the coat came home the Slavey brought it up, and put it on my best three-legged chair, and then flung out of the room with a toss of her head, as much as to say, "'Ere's extravagance!" First I looked at the coat, and then the coat seemed to look at me. Then I lifted it up and put it down again, and sent out for three-ha'porth of gin. Then I tackled the blooming thing again. One arm went in with a ten-horse power ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... mere weakness must be, and the horror of not having the power to rest. He wished to go to bed before the hour when Hilbrook commonly appeared, but this was so early that Ewbert knew he should merely toss about and grow more and more wakeful from his premature effort to sleep. He trembled at every step outside, and at the sound of feet approaching the door on the short brick walk from the gate, he and his wife arrested themselves with their teacups poised in the air. Ewbert was aware of feebly ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... watched. I know you think that I am being foolish. I am not. I am a person with a very great deal of common sense, and I tell you that Prince Shan has never desired a thing in life to which he has not helped himself. Maggie is a clever child, but she cannot toss knives with ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 'knock-out,' for in one of the Althorp Caxtons Lord Spencer has written: 'The Duke and I had agreed not to oppose one another at the [George Mason] sale, but after the book [a Caxton] was bought, to toss up who should win it, when I lost it. I bought it at the Roxburghe sale on the 17 of ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... craft from sunny Smyrna Glazed with ice in Boston Bay; Out they toss the fig-drums cheerly, Livelier for the ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... sick, and as I lay I saw him toss the revolver into a seal hole. Then, as he stood staring at me, I must ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... told his guests on the field, "we four on the corners will toss the ball back and forth amongst ourselves, shouting Hah,Oh,Tay, with each pitch. Whoever has the ball on Tay has to fling it at one of the two men inside the square. If he misses, he's Out; and one of the other ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... bank through the junipers and then hurried along the pebbly margin of the stream toward the village. She smiled to see lying side by side a flint arrowhead and a water-logged bobbin that had floated down from one of the mills, and gave one a toss over the water, while she put the other in her pocket. Her thoughts were busy enough, and though some reasons against the carrying out of her plan ventured to assert themselves, they had no hope of ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... like that! If you knew what a silver fox costs and how long I had to coax before I got this one you would be more careful in your language," she declared, with a toss of her head. ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... cliff overlooked the sea, and below it was a jumble of rocks with which the waves played hide and seek. On many afternoons and mornings they returned to this place, and, while Latimer read to her, Helen would sit with her back to a tree and toss pine-cones into the water. Sometimes the poets whose works he read made love so charmingly that Latimer was most grateful to them for rendering such excellent first aid to the wounded, and into his voice he would throw all that feeling and music that from juries and mass meetings had ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... where we were confronted by the sexton dressed in long blue coat, and holding in his hand a wand. This functionary motioned towards the lower end of the church, where were certain benches, partly occupied by poor people and boys. Mrs. Petulengro, however, with a toss of her head, directed her course to a magnificent pew, which was unoccupied, which she opened and entered, followed closely by Tawno Chikno, Mr. Petulengro, and myself. The sexton did not appear by any means to approve of the arrangement, and as I ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... of Virginia and Louisa—secretly marvelling how his hosts had brought themselves down to such fare. Isabel was dining without apparently seeing anything amiss, and James attempted nothing but a despairing toss of his chin, as he pronounced the carrots underdone. After the first course there was a long interval, during which Isabel and Louis composedly talked about the public meeting which he had been attending, and James fidgetted in the ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... toss among the dreadful waves, with that cry ringing in my ears; or I strive to clutch at a man's form, as it pitches headlong; or take again that fearful leap, and, at the shock, wake ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... the grand stand, ain't ye? instead o' gettin' down to work. That'll do for ketch and toss. Play the ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... at the word, and, giving her black hair a toss from her shoulder, muttered, "To sell me!-Had you measured the depth of pain in that word, Franconia, your lips had never given it utterance. To sell me!-'tis that. The difference is wide indeed, but the point ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... central height of vision above the mists, which this Book of Ecclesiastes puts forth at last as the conclusion of the whole matter—'Fear God, and keep His commandments.' If transitory things with their multitudinous and successive waves toss us to solid safety on the Rock of Ages, then all is well, and many mysteries will be clear. But if not, if we have not found, or rather followed, the one God-given way of harmonising these two sets of experiences—life in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... delight. "The poor shild, did she do that now? I 've thought manny 's the time since I got me lameness how well I 'd like one o' those old-fashioned thorn sticks. Me own is one o' them sticks a man 'd carry tin years and toss it into a brook at the ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... priests who had run out of Spain, and broken Germans, and foot-foundered Irish, like myself. It was said to be a blackguard regiment, that same regiment of the Faith; but, 'faith, I saw nothing blackguardly going on in it, for ye would hardly reckon card-playing and dominoes, and pitch and toss blackguardly, and I saw nothing else going on in it. There was one thing in it which I disliked—the priests drawing their Spanish knives occasionally, when they lost their money. After we had been some time at Pau, the Army of the Faith was sent across the mountains into ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... shall. But, in the mean time, I cannot but know that my career is perfectly reckless. No woman ought to join her lot to mine unless she has within her courage to be as reckless as I am. You know what men do when they toss up for shillings?" ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... her to "Come an' feed your pale face." His comrades laughed, not loudly, but guardedly, as if noise was something to avoid. Nevertheless, they awoke Tad Jorth, who began to toss and ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... an incriminating document, I do not send the possessor a carte postale to inform him of my desire, and in this procedure the French people sanely acquiesce. I have known men who, when they go out to spend an evening on the boulevards, toss their bunch of keys to ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... moment Charley was back with the painters from the two canvas canoes knotted together. His first toss confirmed the captain's fears, the rope foil ten ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... a day of mirth: And, where the week-days trail on ground, Thy flight is higher, as thy birth. Oh, let me take thee at the bound, Leaping with thee from seven to seven; Till that we both, being toss'd from earth, Fly ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... and struggles passed through her mind with great rapidity. Her hesitation had lasted less than five seconds: Chauvelin still wore the look of doubting entreaty with which he had first begged permission to take her hand in his. With an impulsive toss of the head, she had turned straight towards him, ready with the phrase with which she meant to dismiss him from her sight now and forever, when suddenly a well-known laugh broke in upon her ear, and a lazy, drawly voice ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a type of the wrath of God that in the day of judgment shall fall upon ungodly men: So they were also a type of those afflictions and persecutions that attend the church; for that very water that did drown the ungodly, that did also toss and tumble the ark about; wherefore by the increase of the waters, we may also understand, how mighty and numerous sometimes the afflictions and afflictors of the godly be: As David said, "Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? many are they that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Lo! it sweeps, The Wind we invoke the while! And crackles, and darts, and leaps The light on the holy pile! It rises! its wings interweave With the flames—how they howl and heave! Toss'd, whirl'd to and fro, How the flame-serpents glow! Rushing higher and higher, On—on, fearful Fire! Thy giant limbs twined With the arms of the Wind! Lo! the elements meet on the throne Of death—to ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... and the decided toss Mom Beck gave her head settled the matter for the Little Colonel. She wiped her eyes and stood up ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of that? You are going with me. It may be to some rough out-of-the-way place; we never can tell; you know we are a sort of football for Uncle Sam to toss about as he pleases; but you are not afraid of being a soldier's ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... some pictures here of bears that a friend of mine has just shot. Look at that whopper, fifteen hundred pounds—that's as much as a horse weighs, you know. Now, my friend shot him"—and it was a toss-up who was the more keenly interested, the real boy or the man-boy, as picture after picture came out and bear adventure crowded upon the ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... the room with a toss of the head, and Phoebe smiled as she turned to climb the stairs. Immediately she turned again and held out one hand ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... at this present at Trident? It had been more wisdom and better, at least it had been a much nearer way and handsomer, to have brought all things rather before the Pope, and to have come straight forth, and have asked counsel at his divine breast. Secondly, it is also an unlawful dealing to toss our matter from so many bishops and abbots, and to bring it at last to the trial of one only man, specially of him who himself is appeached by us of heinous and foul enormities, and hath not yet put in his answer; who hath also aforehand condemned us without judgment by order pronounced, ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... caring what, and with a savage "Scat!" That scrapes my throat, let drive. I would it were A millstone! Swiftly through the garden beds And o'er the fence on either side they fly; I to my couch return, but not to sleep. Weary I toss, and think 't is almost dawn, So still the streets; but now the latest train, Whistling melodiously, comes in; the tramp Of feet, and hum of voices, echo far In the still night air. Now with joy I feel My eyelids droop once ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... collection of Smarlinghue's paint tubes. His fingers were working swiftly now with sure, deft touches, supplying to his face, his neck, his hands and wrists, not the unhealthy pallor of Smarlinghue, but the grimy, unwashed, dirty appearance of Larry the Bat. It was the toss of a coin, heads or tails, whether the Magpie was at the bottom of this or not. The Magpie knew that Silver Mag had been in the affair that night when Larry the Bat was discovered to be the Gray Seal; the Magpie knew that Silver Mag ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... when you turn away and will not comfort us. How long the dawn seems coming when we cannot sleep! Oh! those hideous nights when we toss and turn in fever and pain, when we lie, like living men among the dead, staring out into the dark hours that drift so slowly between us and the light. And oh! those still more hideous nights when we sit by another in pain, when the low fire startles us every now and then with a ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... she said, "I give you my word I'm frightened—I who've never been frightened at any man yet. In my own little way I've played pitch and toss with their hearts and made footballs of them—except that poor young fellow—I told you about him the first time we met— who gave me the scarf, and whose people wouldn't let him marry me. But this affair with you is different. It goes very far, it means—it ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... over his plantation. I think that my grandmother prepared meals for him on some of these visits to the plantation. I also remember that after the death of grandmother, when I was sick and living with my aunt Rina, some days he would see me lying on the roadside and would toss me a coin. ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... darkness. The prim garden with its formal beds of flowers seemed an impertinence almost—some little colored insect that sought to settle on a sleeping monster—some gaudy fly that danced impudently down the edge of a great river that could engulf it with a toss of its smallest wave. That Forest with its thousand years of growth and its deep spreading being was some such slumbering monster, yes. Their cottage and garden stood too near its running lip. When the winds were strong and lifted its shadowy skirts of black and purple.... He loved this feeling of ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... the toss, Sandy," says he, "an' the Collie Park's genna handle the willa first. We've sent them in ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... man, indeed!" said Elaine, with a toss of her head. "There's not a young man in England I would tell anything save to ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... again the crowd groaned; for Nelson made a hair-raising, one-hand, diving jab and got the sphere. He nearly sprawled at full length upon the ground in doing this, but finally regained his equilibrium in time to toss the ball to Crane for the ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... Not one of us had been to Pau, much less to Paris. The Vicomte held stricter views than were common then, upon young people's education; and though we had learned to ride and shoot, to use our swords and toss a hawk, and to read and write, we knew little more than Catherine herself of the world; little more of the pleasures and sins of court life, and not one-tenth as much as she did of its graces. Still she had taught us to dance ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... these small ragamuffins will pursue you, with a sheepish-looking coachman and disreputable vehicle in tow. Then twenty boys crowd round and claim rewards for having found a rig for you; as they all look alike, you toss a ten-cent piece among the crowd and let them ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... a hard choice," said the young man, with a short laugh, turning toward the door. "According to you there's very little difference—a fool's paradise or a fool's hell! Well, it's one or the other for me, and I'll toss up for it to-night: heads, I lose; tails, the devil wins. Anyway, I'm sick of this, and ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... freedom was exhilarating. The sunlit alley beckoned to a delightful journey of discovery. With a happy laugh and a toss of her yellow curls she hurried along the narrow way and into the street which crossed it a short distance beyond. Here she paused and looked in each direction, uncertain which way to continue. In one direction, far in the distance, she saw trees. They looked ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... ghostly outlines of the Coast Range, beyond which lay the invisible Pacific. The snow had piled itself, in the open spaces along the bottom of the gulch, into long ridges that seemed to heave, and into hills that appeared to toss and scatter spray. The spray was sunlight, twice reflected: dashed once from the moon, once ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... mind. Dogs I never cared for. It's been a toss-up between setting up a mind and setting up a soul. It's jolly lucky for Him and you it's a mind. I've joined the London Library, and I'm going in for the Royal Institution and every blessed lecture that comes along next winter. You'd better ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... biscuit tin to contain this record, and we will toss it out upon this world of ice, so that if any adventurer ever gets this far north he may find that we have already been here," said the doctor, bringing down a freshly-written page for me to sign. It ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... the unconscious John. He advanced toward her still reading; not only did he not see her, but he failed to notice that Paul had got under his feet. He fell over Paul, and as he stumbled the letter fluttered out of his hand. Paul seized it and began to toss it about ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... wind as a factor in obtaining the swerve. It was a head-wind that Stott required. I have seen him, for sport, toss a cricket ball into the teeth of a gale, and make it describe the trajectory of a badly sliced golf-ball. This is why the big pavilion at Ailesworth is set at such a curious angle to the ground. It was built in the winter following Hampdenshire's second season of first-class ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... submit, whether he liked, it or not. He wondered a little what Emma Guthrie would say at having the mine invaded, but personally he did not care a toss. The narcotizing spell had fallen suddenly from him again, and life and his future fortunes looked uninterestingly grey. He became aware of the shrouded figure tapping for attention at the back of his brain. Gay was the cause of it, somehow. He abruptly got up to go, saying he ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... exclaimed the former, stamping the floor in the violence of his passion. "To the battlements with them, Innes!—to the battlements with them instantly, and toss them over into the deep sea! Let the waves of Loch Sonoran rock them to sleep, and the winds that rush against Inch Caillach sing their lullaby. Let it be done—done instantly, Innes, as you value your own life; and I will witness the fidelity with ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... saluted stiffly. Themistocles stood before them, his hands closed over the packet. The first time he started to speak his lips closed desperately. The silence grew awkward. Then the admiral gave his head a toss, and drew his form together as a ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... practice, if it is not so even now, in some of the European lazarets—in which the plague-patient used to be condemned to the horrors of filth, overcrowding, and want of ventilation, while the medical attendant was ordered to examine the patient's tongue through an opera-glass and to toss him a lancet ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... I went on. 'She fills every hour with information, and then throws on some more. It keeps coming. Your seams open, and then it's every hand to the pumps! Dora Perkins and Rebecca Ford are just as extravagant. They toss out gems of thought and chunks of knowledge as if they ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... of lightning drew the exclamation from her, and made even quiet old Prue toss her head; and immediately after the flash came a violent peal of thunder just above their heads, so violent that it seemed as though the heavens themselves were being rent and shaken and the house tumbling about them. Then came a quick ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... you propose, Madam?" he sneered. He seemed to toss the torn paper on the table, none the less. "The ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... the door, to see if it was closed, shook his head, and then said, with a look of despair, 'He has ordered a haunch of venison for dinner, miss, and he has twice threatened to toss me overboard.' ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... show, sir,' rejoined Tacker. 'The horses are prouder and fresher than ever I see 'em; and toss their heads, they do, as if they knowed how much their plumes cost. One, two, three, four,' said Mr Tacker, heaping that number of black ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the Austrian court, especially the Hungarian women, are notably beautiful and fascinating as well. It is the Magyar elan, that abandon which prompts a woman to toss her jewelled bangle to a Gypsy leader of the orchestra, when his violin moans and ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... girl whom I had chosen for my devotions was from the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She wore her hair in long curls, that fell over her neck and shoulders, and were constantly straggling over her face. Then with a toss of her comely head and a pretty gesture of her hand she would throw them back. This little trick captivated me and fixed my fate. She constantly came between me and the Latin declensions and conjugations that I was trying to memorize. However, I was saved from anything like a ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... flying glimpses of twilight that chequered the pitch darkness of the night. He was standing up behind the parapet, his head thrown back and the bottle to his mouth. As he put it down, he saw and recognised us with a toss of one hand fleeringly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in undertones, and at this point Schomberg, exasperated at our secrecy, went out of the room slamming the door with a crash that positively lifted us in our chairs. This, or else what I had said, huffed my Hermann, He supposed, with a contemptuous toss of his head towards the door which trembled yet, that I had got hold of some of that man's silly tales. It looked, indeed, as though his mind had been thoroughly poisoned against Schomberg. "His tales were—they were," he repeated, ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... who overheard these words and who could not help giving her little head a toss; "I doubt it. Oh, if it were not for father I don't think I could go ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... maid-servant; she was always a lady, as she is now," answered the girl, with a toss of her head, again attempting to slam to ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... was angry—and very prone he was to anger by that lonely shore, and very quick to wrath; often have I known him sink to sleep with a peaceful smile on his rippling waves, to wake in fierce fury before the night was spent—he would snatch up giant handfuls of these pebbles and fling and toss them here and there, till the noise of their rolling and crashing could be heard by the watchers in ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... deriding his own artificers and engineers, "What," said he, "must we give up fighting with this geometrical Briareus, who plays pitch and toss with our ships, and, with the multitude of darts which he showers at a single moment upon us, really outdoes the hundred-handed giants of mythology?" And, doubtless, the rest of the Syracusans were but the body of Archimedes' designs, one soul moving and governing all; for, laying ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... soft, rushing sound excited his curiosity to such a pitch that once he hobbled painfully up the court till he could see into the trees; and once his eager eyes caught glimpses of a little creature, all blue and white and gold, who peeped out from the green fans, and nodded, and tried to toss him a cluster of the chestnut flowers. He stretched his hands to her with speechless delight, forgetting his crutches, and would have fallen if he had not caught by the shutter of a window so quickly that he ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... of the booths a monkey, with a tail two or three feet long. He is fastened by a cord, which, getting tangled with the flag over the booth, he takes hold and tries to free it. He is the object of much attention from the crowd, and played with by the boys, who toss up gingerbread to him, while he nibbles and throws it down again. He reciprocates notice, of some kind or other, with all who notice him. There is a sort of gravity about him. A boy pulls his long tail, whereat he gives a slight squeak, and for the future ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Higginbotham had taken what he conceived, if a desperate, at least a certain, step for the preservation of his property. If the golden horn could not be had without the heifer, why, he must take the heifer into the bargain. He had never formed to himself an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and fling him over. The blow was stunning. But no one compassionates the misfortunes of the covetous, though few perhaps are in greater need of compassion. And leaving poor Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes as he best may among "the expectations" ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... might have gone on to the end: 'he wished, we wished'—-and so forth, like the children at school at Rome, when we were learning Greek; but, Papias came to the rescue, for he ran up to Marcus and asked him to toss him up high, as he used to do on board ship. Marcus did as he was asked, and then he suddenly broke out into such a torrent of words that I was quite terrified. First he said so many fine things that I quite expected ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... count the sticks!" I cried, as the boat made a sudden move and was kept going for nearly a dozen feet. "Toss out about half of the case and be ready to jump on board ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... comes low down. Why they do not grind off their noses I cannot imagine. Some of the players hardly ever failed to catch and return the ball if it came in their neighborhood, and with such a vigorous toss of the head that it often flew in a great curve for ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... Gallants, Family of Love, More Dissemblers than Women, the Game at Chess, the Mayor of Quinborough, a mad world my Masters, Michaelmas Term, No Wit like a womans, the Roaring Girl, any thing for a quiet Life, the Phenix and a new Trick to catch the old one, Comedies; The world toss'd at Tennis, and the Inner Temple, Masques; and Women beware Women, a Tragedy. Besides what, he was an Associate with William Rowley in several Comedies and Tragi-Comedies; as, the Spanish Gypsies, the Changeling, the Old Law, the fair Quarrel, the ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... present at the concoction of this conspiracy, or this agreement, private or public, or who else was there. When and where did it take place? Ought I not, at all events, to have the advantage of being-able to prove an alibi? No; but you must go over nine months, and toss up which time or place you may select. Do you not believe that if there was a conspiracy it would be proved, and that the only reason it was not proved, is, because it did not exist? The attorney-general told ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... but I confess that I forgot this fact out there on the prow of that ship. Some folks might say that Reuben and I were wasting our time, but I can't think so. I like, even now, to stand out in the clear during a thunder-storm. I want the head uncovered, too, that the wind may toss my hair about while I look the lightning-flashes straight in the eye and stand erect and unafraid as the thunder crashes and rolls and reverberates about me. I like to watch the trees swaying to and fro, keeping time to the majestic rhythm of the elements. ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... correcting statements of his father and volunteering other information. Eleven days after the operation he was reported to have had no more epileptic seizures. "Doesn't talk in sleep. Doesn't snore. Doesn't toss about the bed. Has more self-control. Tries to read the paper. His ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... gone old Lady Lufton confided to young Lady Lufton her very strong opinion that many months would not be gone by before Grace Crawley would be mistress of Cosby Lodge. "It will be a great promotion," said the old lady, with a little toss of her head. When Grace was interrogated afterwards by Mrs Robarts as to what had passed between her and the archdeacon she had very little to say as to the interview. "No, he did not scold me," she replied to an inquiry from her friend. "But he spoke about your engagement?" said Mrs Robarts. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... fellow could only toss his head from side to side and rub his legs, into which the bulk of the shot had been fired by the ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... you, Sir,' he said. 'For a week after I was wounded it was a toss up whether they took the leg off or not. Then a parcel arrived for me. It was the other stocking. My aunt had discovered that she had left it out. That evening the surgeon decided that they need not amputate. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... before he shook his head, tossed the sand away, and selected another spot in the stream, where he went through the same process, while we lay and watched him till the final examination. This time, just as I fully expected to see him toss out the sand, he rose up with a triumphant look on his yellow face, and caught sight of us. His jaw dropped, and he appeared frightened, but the dread seemed to pass away, and he came towards ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... said Jack, "but I insist on having a shot at it myself. If they catch me, it may leave a chance for you two to get clear away. I know it's a mere toss-up whether the plan comes off or not, but ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... of folly, when I own that, (next to the restoration of my King,) I beg of heaven that he may be spared to tear the polluted ermine from the shoulders of this branded rebel, and to purify the coronet of Bellingham from the foul contamination it receives by binding a villain's brow. Toss this storm-beaten carcase into any trench where it may in future serve as a mound against traitors; but let my young nursling be planted where the tempest that unroots the cedars shall pass over without injuring his tender growth. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within, as the first traceable beginning of our love. Something of that sort happened to Lydgate. He was a quick fellow, and when hot from play, would toss himself in a corner, and in five minutes be deep in any sort of book that he could lay his hands on: if it were Rasselas or Gulliver, so much the better, but Bailey's Dictionary would do, or the Bible with the Apocrypha in it. Something he must read, when ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... you? And I've been peppering you with letters every few days! But I've been so excited about all these new adventures that I MUST talk to somebody; and you're the only one I know. Please excuse my exuberance; I'll settle pretty soon. If my letters bore you, you can always toss them into the wastebasket. I promise not to write another till the middle ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... guinea, a pocket piece I've carried for years. You've heard, no doubt, of vital things turning upon the tossing of a coin. Well, if you see me toss this coin to-morrow, something of that sort will occur. It will be tossed up in the midst of a riddle, Major; when it comes down it will ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the glowing splendor of the Venetian masterpiece and gave a little toss of her head. "I don't like that woman. She ...
— The American • Henry James
... by the United States; and, in case of a disagreement, an umpire was to be chosen by lot. That is to say, a great National controversy, involving grave questions of international law, and claims of undoubted validity, amounting to millions of money, was to be decided by the toss of a copper! The administration of General Grant crushed the disgraceful treaty, and proposes to deal with England on the principle laid down in General Grant's inaugural. The United States will treat all other Nations "as equitable law requires individuals to deal with each ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... I've got pistols. I'll give my word that you've never fired them. His second will give his word about his. There'll be two pairs of pistols, and we'll toss ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... bore, by striving to establish their descent from houses stained with crime and denied with blood; let them disown their fathers and spit in their mothers' faces,—but let them not call themselves free, nor give themselves the airs of men. They toss their foolish heads in scorn of all that a man holds truest and best. We can afford to let them speak, if they please, even words of contempt and dishonor; we can afford to let them say that in laboring for our country we are groveling in mud and defiling our hands with impurity; but we cannot afford ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... Presently the trick is repeated on the other side. A young woman, rather pretty and dressed in long skirts, is thrown up, and falls back into the arms of the crowd, who turn her over, envelop her head in her own skirts, and again toss her up temporarily denuded. The more exactly this proceeding outrages decency, the better it is liked. One or two repetitions of it occurred which exceeded the limits of proper recital. The women were bundled into the boxes, and there they were fallen upon by the ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... the batrachian family are known (irrespective of sex) as Pollywogs, and are the meanest of all the reptile race except the radical Scaliwags. They are all heads and tails, and then, not the toss of a copper to choose between the two ends, as regards hideousness. The manner in which the tails are gradually developed into legs is very curious, but, as this is not a Caudal lecture, it is unnecessary ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... Occasionally she had a pretty coquettish manner towards me, the memory of which is charming. She often used exaggerated language, and when I quizzed her by exaggerating what she had said, how clearly can I now see the little toss of the head, and exclamation of "Oh, papa, what a shame of you!" In the last short illness, her conduct in simple truth was angelic. She never once complained; never became fretful; was ever considerate of others, and was thankful in the most gentle, pathetic manner for everything ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... giggle outside the door, a knock, and in answer to Percival's "Come in," the landlady's daughter appeared. She explained that Emma had gone out shopping—Emma was the grimy girl who ordinarily waited on him—so, with a nervous little laugh, with a toss of the long curl, which was supposed to have got in the way somehow, and with the turquoise earrings quivering in the candlelight, she brought in the tray. She conveyed by her manner that it was a new and amusing experience in her life, but that the burden was almost more ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... fellow cadets he would separate from them to spend hours in the botanical gardens. Once, after his downfall began, at a riotous dinner party he had broken into a temper with a man who had torn a rose to pieces in order to toss ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... story all over the town at any rate, and in the lane, and all about the courts; and they declare it don't matter a toss of a halfpenny which way the matter goes, as you're to become Lady Ball the very moment ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... cruises to reduce the time one-half. So intense was the cold that each man upon entering the chain would bathe his hands in warm grease, provided for the purpose of enabling him to heave the lead. Here is a little story in connection with this 'trick.' Two men agreed one night to toss up a penny and to decide thereby as to which of them should do the full hour, in order that one of them might be relieved from his work—for, be it said, unless there are yards to trim, or sails to furl or set, the watch on ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... I will sell to the parson's wife. With the money that I get from the sale of these eggs I'll buy myself a new dimity frock and a chip hat; and when I go to market, won't all the young men come up and speak to me! Polly Shaw will be that jealous; but I don't care. I shall just look at her and toss my head like this." As she spoke, she tossed her head back, the Pail fell off it and all the milk was spilt. So she had to go home and tell her mother what had occurred. "Ah, my child," said ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... I might have a little pleasant company. As for these here, I am their betters.” “I have no objection,” said I; “who shall it be? Shall it be a Cooper or a Stanley?” “A Cooper or a Stanley!” said she, with a toss of her head, “I might as well keep my present company as theirs; none of your rubbish; let it be a gorgie, one that I can speak an idea with”—that was her word, I think. Now I am thinking that this here Bess of yours would be just the kind ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... the only alternative left, as the challenging eyes of "Zephir" or "Chasse-Marais" flashed death across the barriere, in a combat where only one might live, though the root of the quarrel had been nothing more than a toss too much of brandy, a puff of tobacco smoke construed into insult, or a fille de joie's maliciously cast fire-brand of taunt or laugh. Hours of severe discipline, of relentless routine, of bitter deprivation, of campaigns hard as steel in the endurance they needed, in the miseries they entailed; ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... impertinent little toss of her bobbed-off black hair, said: "Oh, Pen, why do you waste your time on a commonplace architect? He will never satisfy you—not in a thousand years. Bye-bye, I'll see you at the party." Then away ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... air as high as a house, vanish into space, and then, a few minutes after, will come smiling around the nearest street corner. Or, if that is not wonderful enough, they will take an ordinary rope, whirl it around their head, toss it into the air, and it will stand upright, as if fastened to some invisible bar, so taut and firm that a heavy man ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... the second to the right, down below there, you'd have been on the main track; but you're not more than a half mile out of the way. And——" She stopped, suddenly bent forward, and peered at Jimmy. "Oh, it's you, is it?" she said with a toss of contempt. "You that believes women ain't got sense enough to vote! Oh, I was down to the court house this afternoon and heard you! And what's more, I can tell you it was mighty good for your precious hide that they didn't ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... toss of his head, "this is very good stump oratory, and if you ever run agin a doctor at an election, I shouldn't wonder if you won it, for most people will join you ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Tournevau started off with the handsome Jewess, whom he held up in the air, without letting her feet touch the ground. Monsieur Pinipesse and Monsieur Vasse had started off with renewed vigor, and from time to time one or other couple would stop to toss off a long glass of sparkling wine, and that dance was threatening to become never-ending, when Rosa opened ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... spreads as thy veil, And mists in winter sudden screen thy sight, When at thy feet the galley-breakers wail And toss their tops high o'er the lofty flight Of horrid storm-worn steps with shark-like bite, That only ope to swallow up ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... more red ones drawn the smaller the chance of drawing another red one. But if the balls are put back in the bag after being drawn the chances of drawing a red one after three have been drawn are exactly the same as ever. If we toss a cent and heads appear twelve times, that does not have the slightest effect on the thirteenth toss—there is still an even chance that it, too, will be heads. So if '17' had come up five times to-night, it would be just as likely to come the sixth as if the previous ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... water, drinking hard, and many other strange customs. He is very tyrannical and cruel to his subjects, daily cutting off the hands, arms, and legs of many, on very small and frivolous causes; or causing them to be thrown to the elephants, he himself commanding a sagacious elephant to toss the culprits so high and so often, as either to bruise or kill them, according to his caprice at the time. No one that arrives at his port may land without his chop or licence. On one occasion, a Dutch general came on shore without his licence, by desire of the principal factor, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr |
