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More "Waistcoat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this tradition, and affect the style of the prosperous stockbroker. Sir Charles Russell is different, for he dresses in thorough taste; but when one saw him in the House of Commons in a grey suit and a deep-cut waistcoat, one might have taken him for a gentleman squire with a taste for study, varied by ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... nations. They adopted our costume, but after the Tahaitian fashion; considering a complete suit as an unnecessary luxury. Even Tameamea himself, for his usual attire, wore only a shirt, trowsers, and red waistcoat, without a coat; he possessed, however, many richly embroidered uniforms, but kept ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... party, but seeing that we were all meek and quite willing to be eaten, he roared to us rather than at us. It was a fine sight to see him tucking his napkin under his rosy old gills, and letting it fall over his capacious waistcoat while the high light from the chandelier danced about the bump of benevolence on his bald old head like a star ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... intelligence of the Burke-and-Hare revolution in the art, went mad upon the spot; and, instead of a pension to the express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavored to burke him; in consequence of which he was put into a strait waistcoat. And that was the reason we had no dinner then. But now all of us were alive and kicking, strait-waistcoaters and others; in fact, not one absentee was reported upon the entire roll. There were also ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... coat and waistcoat and the many interesting patent appliances for holding his tie in the correct position—where it never remained—then he threw himself violently on the berth, face towards the wall, and grumbled the greater part of the night on the ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... unrolled a Havana cigar from its lead-foil covering, and calmly cutting off the end, I proceeded to light it. The bull saw it. With a bound he was upon me, and as I turned to leap aside his horns passed clean under my waistcoat and shirt, and ripped them open to the flesh. Hurled aside by the impact, I lost my balance and staggered wildly, but faced the brute again, whilst deafening yells—whether of delight at possible disaster or encouragement to go on, I could not tell—arose from the spectators ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... Hot climate and country work have brought in a fashion among bushmen of wearing a belt or leather strap round the top of trousers instead of braces. This often causes a fold in the shirt protruding all round from under the waistcoat, which is playfully known as ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... after, I missed the flower. I did not see it on the grass, but a leaf strangely similar peeped out of Thornton's waistcoat-pocket. When we passed by the well, on leaving the knoll, 'Promise me,' said he again, 'that you will not reach over the well for flowers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... placed the jug and cup on the table. Larry was, I must own, as odd-looking an individual as ever played the part of valet. His shock head of hair was unacquainted with comb or brush; his grey coat reached to his calves; his breeches were open at the knees; his green waistcoat, too short to reach the latter garment, was buttoned awry; huge brogues encased his feet, and a red handkerchief, big enough to serve as the royal of a frigate, was tied loosely round his neck. He stood waiting for further orders, when the major, turning ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... attracted by the constant arrival of steam-boats, had a motley appearance; many of these were rough-looking fellows, fit for any occupation, most of them being armed with bowie knives, the silver hilts of which could often be seen peering suspiciously from under the waistcoat, in the inner lining of which a case or scabbard of leather is sewn for the reception of the weapon. The vast proportion of blacks in the streets soon struck me. I should think they were five to one of the white population. These, for the most part, wore in wretched plight; many of them ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... better indeed: and I only hope I may have Courage to face my Death as he had. Dickens loved him, who did not love Humbugs: and Chorley would have two strips of Gadshill Yew {54} put with him in his Coffin. Which again reminds me that—a propos of your comments on Dickens' crimson waistcoat, etc., Thackeray told me thirty years ago, that Dickens did it, not from any idea of Cockney fashion: but from a veritable passion for Colours—which I can well sympathize with, though I should not exhibit them on my ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... look of comical despair, was shaking his head, while he counted the parcels on his fingers. The other showed Hansie how impossible it was for him to fasten his coat and waistcoat, for he had on three woollen shirts and three pairs of trousers, of different sizes. So had the other two, and Hansie could not refrain from expressing her amazement at their being so heavily laden on an expedition ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... as it was high in the neck,—so that Dick's head resembled a block of coal in a sheet of white paper,—a blue coat with gilt buttons, and long tails that reached to his heels,—a present from his master,—a red silk cravat fringed at the ends, a green waistcoat ornamented with an orange patch at the spot where the watch-pocket formerly was, boots which had seen their best days, and a wide-awake hat,—such was the elegant and excessively fashionable attire of Dick, the old black fiddler, who, when dressed in these ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... idly with a paper knife. His gaze seemed to be directed to the lower buttons of his head clerk's waistcoat. "Interference?" he repeated. "Interference? Mr. Grump, you have a reputation for humor, or so I judge. I've been listening to you trying to bedevil that man out there, but I'm afraid your humor is a little on the slap-stick ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... nose, while Ordinsky explained that he had not had his dress clothes on for a long time, and to-night, when he was going to play for a concert, his waistcoat had split down the back. He thought he could pin it together until he got ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... a key from his waistcoat pocket, and, unlocking the bag, shook its contents upon the tablecloth. His daughter looked at the pile with a faint show of interest. There were one or two invitations, which he tossed over to her, a few business letters, which he put on one side for more leisurely perusal later on, and a little ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... off his oilskin coat and felt in the pocket of his waistcoat (which he had retained when he had changed his clothes in the fo'c'sle) for his watch. He drew it out. It was just nine o'clock. All at once an idea occurred to him. He fumbled in another pocket of the waistcoat and brought out one ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... reminiscent pleasure how he groomed one of his students to defeat a local politician, known as "Old Statistics," who was characterized by his senatorial aspirations and his carefully appropriate garb, tall hat, blue swallow-tail and buff waistcoat with brass buttons. The wrath of this worthy, as a disciple of Henry Clay, had been aroused by the teachings of Professor White, who at that time was opposed to a protective tariff, and a public debate was to clinch the discussion. The result was a complete ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... she was drawn down, and all in her were thrown into the water. Mr Durham had just time to throw off his coat before the ship sank and left him floating among men and hammocks. A drowning marine caught hold of his waistcoat, and drew him several times under water. Finding that he could not free himself, and that both would be drowned, he threw his legs round a hammock, and, unbuttoning his waistcoat with one hand, he allowed it to be drawn off, and then swam for the main-shrouds. When there ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... mine worthy host, firm and well set up on his limbs, smoking his long churchwarden and caring nothing for nobody at home, and despising everybody abroad. He wore the typical scarlet waistcoat, with shiny brass buttons, the corduroy breeches, and grey worsted stockings and smart buckled shoes, that characterised every self-respecting innkeeper in Great Britain in these days—and while pretty, motherless Sally had need of four ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... answer. He hadn't the slightest idea what he had paid for the villa. It happened this way. He had won a lot of money at poker ("Tchk! Tchk!" said Mr. Philip, half shocked, but showing by the way he put one thumb in his waistcoat arm-hole that he was so far sensible of the change in the atmosphere that he felt the need of some romantic gesture), and had felt no shame in pocketing it since it came from a man who was gambling to try to show that he wasn't ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... party, at a moment when suspicion lost all its doubts, and death followed close upon the heels of certainty. To use his own words, 'I was arrested for having the same name and the same colored coat and waistcoat as another Ward, guilty of treason; was ordered without trial to Paris, to be guillotined; and only escaped by their catching the real traitor: I was, however, banished the republic, merely ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... was at times given by the Pope to a faithful son of Mother Church, to protect him from violence of every description. The manner of making a charmed waistcoat is thus explained:—On Christmas night, flax thread was spun by a virgin girl, and afterwards woven by her. After the garment was sewn by the same little hands which had spun the thread and woven the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... went over to England and came back in raptures with everything, and tried to turn everything upside down at home without accommodating his new ideas to the circumstances that were firmly rooted here. You may see him now sit down to dinner with an English dresscoat over his red Hungarian waistcoat. His freaks went far beyond this, and he came to be known as the ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... these heavy and impervious clothes, made of india-rubber without seam, and constructed expressly to resist considerable pressure. One would have thought it a suit of armour, both supple and resisting. This suit formed trousers and waistcoat. The trousers were finished off with thick boots, weighted with heavy leaden soles. The texture of the waistcoat was held together by bands of copper, which crossed the chest, protecting it from the ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... day after my arrival I visited the president, accompanied by some democratic members. In a few moments after our arrival a tall, high-boned man came into the room. He was dressed, or rather undressed, in an old brown coat, red waistcoat, old corduroy smallclothes, much soiled, woollen hose, and slippers without heels. I thought him a servant, when General Varnum surprised me by announcing it ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... and, by way of denouncing himself, Mr. Amidon clapped his waistcoat shut and buttoned it, snapped the catches of the bags, and pretended to busy himself with the letters in his pockets; and in doing so, he found in an inside vest-pocket a long thin pocket-book filled with hundred-dollar ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... and looked at Janet as he lifted from the dressing-table before him rings—rare jewelled—and adjusted them on his white fingers. At his side was a valet, placing fresh sachets filled with civet within false pockets of the satin lining of his lord's waistcoat. The cold, proud gleam from Cedric's dark orbs daunted not Janet. She courtesied with grave respect. There was that in her eyes, as she raised them, that called for the dismissal of the lackeys. As they passed beyond to the ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... was mighty well pleased to see himself almost as well clothed as his master. It is true, he went awkwardly in these clothes at first: wearing the drawers was very awkward to him, and the sleeves of the waistcoat galled his shoulders and the inside of his arms; but a little easing them where he complained they hurt him, and using himself to them, at length he ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... as sist." I sprang from the hustings upon the table appropriated for the inspectors, and from thence into the box where Watson was, and seized the ruffian by the collar, and almost in the twinkling of an eye I threw him out of the box upon the table. In the effort I had stripped his coat, waistcoat and shirt, off his back, nearly down to his waist; there he stood riveted in my grasp, with his brawney shoulders naked and exposed to the whole assembly; and the Sheriff and Sir Samuel Romilly appeared to be thunderstruck for the moment. The Sheriff ordered him into the custody ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... hands. NORWOOD is sleek and prosperous, in a morning coat with a white slip to his waistcoat. He is good-looking in rather an obvious way with rather an obvious moustache. Most women like him—at least, so he will ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... Sometimes the little household was united. A bit of luck in the City or the West had been achieved, and Happy Jack issued cards for 'At Homes,' and behaved, and looked, and spoke like an alderman, or the member of a house of fifty years' standing. When strangers saw his white waistcoat, and blue coat with brass buttons, and heard him talk of a glut of gold, and money being a mere drug, they speculated as to whether he was the governor or the vice-governor of the Bank of England, or only the man who signs the five-pound notes. That day six weeks, Jack had probably ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... initiate us in the art of drinking, recounting the feats of his youth, and his drinking-bouts with my father, adding, with a smile, "But you'll never be a par with, your Uncle, Ned, till you can carry the six bottles under your waistcoat." ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... Mathieu and whispered in his ear: "She will be raving mad and shut up in a padded cell before a week is over." And, indeed, a week later the Baroness de Lowicz was wearing a straight waistcoat. In her case Dr. Gaude's treatment had led ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... classes to wear any furs except cat and rabbit.[442] Edward III. buys of master Paul de Monteflor gowns for the queen, in "stuffs from over the sea," to the enormous amount of 1,330 pounds. He himself wears a velvet waistcoat, on which he has caused golden pelicans to be embroidered by William Courtenay, a London embroiderer. He gives his mistress Alice Perrers 21,868 large pearls, and thirty ounces of smaller ones. His daughter Margaret receives from him two thousand pearls as a wedding present; he buys his sister ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... out, but it was a comfort that the presence of a comparative stranger deprived us of the dreary duty of suggesting to each other, in respect of his errand, edifying possibilities in which we didn't ourselves believe. At ten o'clock he came into the drawing-room with his waistcoat much awry but his eyes sending out great signals. It was precisely with his entrance that I ceased to be vividly conscious of him. I saw that the crystal, as I had called it, had begun to swing, and I had need of my immediate ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... weight of the grip it wasn't mine," said Dexter, "and I was the most surprised guy in Great Britain and Ireland when I found whose it was! I opened it, of course! And right on top was a waistcoat and right in the first pocket was a telegram. Here ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... no fashionable gathering would have been felt complete had it not been graced by the presence of the young and fascinating Lovelace, Sir John Oxon. Women favoured him, and men made themselves his boon companions; his wit was repeated; the fashion of his hair and the cut of his waistcoat copied. He was at first rich and gay enough to be courted and made a favourite; but when his fortune was squandered, and his marriage with the heiress came to naught, those qualities which were vicious and base in him were ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a sleepy clerk at Hampstead, a very portly man, who did ample justice to his bright red waistcoat and brass buttons. The church had a model old-time three-decker. The lower deck was occupied by the clerk, the upper deck by the reader, and the quarter-deck by the preacher. The clerk, during the sermon, would often fall asleep and make known his state by a snore. Then the reader would ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... nature is under his hand, St. Martin, with his customary serenity, takes off his own episcopal stole, or whatsoever flowing stateliness it might be, throws it on the destitute shoulders, and passes on to perform indecorous public service in his waistcoat, or such mediaeval nether attire as ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... which he had cut from Chauvenet's coat pinned into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and since boarding the King Edward he had examined it twice daily to see that it was intact. The three red wax seals were in blank, replacing those of like size that had originally been affixed to the envelope; and at once after the attack on the dark deck he opened ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... were crouching under a tree, the former without coat or waistcoat, which he had thrown round the shivering and now senseless ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Purviance, his man James Black and two other men towards the Falls of the Ohio, the party was taken by a band of about twenty Indians. Ridout was claimed by an elderly man, apparently a chief, who protected him from injury, but could not save his hat, coat and waistcoat. Soon he saw tied two other young men who had been taken that morning and set aside for death. Ridout was able to secure their release. The Indians were Shawanese, Pottawatamies, Ottawas and Cherokees. One prisoner, William ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... has produced, he would be amazed. It was in Manchester that the famous Dr. Dalton, the founder of the atomic theory in chemistry, lived; he was a devout Quaker, like so many of the townspeople, but unfortunately was color-blind; he appeared on one occasion in a scarlet waistcoat, and when taken to task declared it seemed to him a very quiet, unobtrusive color, just like his own coat. Several fine parks grace the suburbs of Manchester, and King Cotton has made this thriving community ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... He was narrow-chested, round-shouldered, long-legged. His tie looked like a piece of string, he had no waistcoat, and his boots were worse than mine—with the heels worn down. He blinked with his eyes and had an eager expression as though he were trying to catch something and he was in a ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... the laced coat and waistcoat, chapeau, boots, lace ruffles, sash, and rapier of the period—a martial costume befitting brave and handsome men. Their names were household words in every cottage in New France, and many of them as frequently spoken ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Auld Licht in Thrums when you passed him, his dull vacant face wrinkled over a heavy wob. He wore tags of yarn round his trousers beneath the knee, that looked like ostentatious garters, and frequently his jacket of corduroy was put on beneath his waistcoat. If he was too old to carry his load on his back, he wheeled it on a creaking barrow, and when he met a friend they said, "Ay, Jeames," and "Ay, Davit," and then could think of nothing else. At long intervals they passed through the square, disappearing or coming into ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... said Arthur, determined to be beforehand with the stranger, whoever he might be. 'I'll take the bed.' And he handed the five shillings to the landlord, who nodded, dropped the money carelessly into his waistcoat-pocket, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... forewornd against it, levelld his gun and killd B: and afterwards it should be forgot, that the witness also swore that A immediately advancd & pushd his bayonet at C, which passd between his waistcoat and his skin; if this I say should be forgot, and should be overlookd by the jury when they are together, perhaps instead of bringing it in murder according to the rules of the law laid down by the bench, they would bring it in manslaughter—I do not here ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... sit on chairs that swing round like office chairs, only they are fixed into the floor, and as they only swing one way, there are some funny scenes till people get used to them. We have hardly taken our seats when a very magnificent man with a white waistcoat and gold shoulder straps and much gold lace on his uniform comes and sits down too, and smiles and bows to everyone. This is the captain, and we must be more distinguished than we guessed, for we have been put at his table, where the honoured ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... did not speak. He was wearing, arranged across his heavy paunch, a handsome chain of gold. With fingers stiff from their hold upon the dock-rail he began, bunglingly, to detach this chain from his waistcoat. His watch came out with it—a big watch, with a double gold case. He opened the outer case in an aimless way, mechanically, and for no object, it seemed, for he did not look at the time. Then, without a word he held out the watch and chain to his friend, and lifted the fingers which had fumbled ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... and then out on the big green lily-pad climbed Grandfather Frog. If Peter had stared before he doubly stared now, eyes and mouth wide open. Grandfather Frog was looking his very best in his handsome green coat and white-and-yellow waistcoat. But Peter had hardly noticed these ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... waves her hand to a chair in the centre, with a table before it. Mr Seedy sits down, pulls the will out of his pocket, lays it on the table, takes out his snuff-box, takes a pinch, then his handkerchief, blows his nose, snuffs the candles, takes his spectacles from his waistcoat pocket, puts them on, breaks the seals, and bows to the company; Mrs Jellybags has taken her seat on the left next to him, and Doctor Gumarabic by her side. Mrs Jellybags sobs very loud, with her handkerchief to ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... his sex, and he permitted art to supplement the acknowledged gifts of nature so far as to perfume his glossy black hair, to wear a couple of large diamond rings, and to carry upon the watch chain that clanked heavily across the broad and arching acreage of his waistcoat a begemmed lodge emblem in size a trifle ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... never before had realized how handsome Carol the Meadow Lark was. As he faced Peter, the latter saw a beautiful yellow throat and waistcoat, with a broad black crescent on his breast. There was a yellow line above each eye. His back was of brown with black markings. His sides were whitish, with spats and streaks of black. The outer edges of his tail were white. Altogether he was really handsome, far handsomer than one would ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... Jane were married the following autumn with the ring which Toffy had kept wrapped up in a piece of tissue paper in his waistcoat pocket. ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... Had they had the teaching—well, listen to the story of this very superior young "gentleman," one time deputy chief stomach bender of Mogg's Mammoth Millinery Emporium—terms. Strictly Cash. What the sub deputy chief waistcoat creaser will say if he reads these words I shudder to think. You see, the very superior ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... prepared for, Garth brought up Buffalo, looking, as he always did, a grand horse, and amongst the more horsey of the Danes there was much praise of him. John Hardy mounted; he had taken off his coat, waistcoat, and braces, and Garth had tied a blue silk handkerchief on his head. There was a quiet look of efficiency about John Hardy that was a contrast to the heavy mustachios cultivated by the cavalry officers and their rather weedy steeds. There ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... one of the drawing-room doors opened and old Morestal appeared on his wife's arm. Dressed in a pair of trousers and a waistcoat, bare-headed, tangle-haired, with a handkerchief fastened round his neck, he staggered on his wavering legs. Nevertheless, a sort of gladness, like an inward ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... It seems as if her shade were even now passing before my eyes. Yes; I fancy I see her in the same dress, the riding-habit which used to be worn in those days. The skirt of it was of cloth and very full; round the waist was a red sash, while a waistcoat of pearl-gray satin, fastened with buttons, fitted closely to the figure; over this was a hunting-jacket, trimmed with lace, short and open in front; the hat, of gray felt, with a broad brim turned up in front, was crowned with half a dozen red feathers. The hair, which was not powdered, ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... acquaintance, the housekeeper at the Grange," I answered. She would gladly have gathered it up at this information, but Hareton beat her. He seized and put it in his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliff should look at it first; but later he pulled out the letter, and flung it on the floor as ungraciously as he could. Catherine perused it eagerly, and then asked, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... are theory-tailors, not politicians. They are the men who make the "strait-waistcoat for humanity." They would fix us to first principles like tethered sheep or hobbled horses. I should enjoy replying to him, if I had time. The whole letter is composed of variations upon one idea. Still I must say the man interests me; I should ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pouther'd, and as gude as new; His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue; He put on a ring, a sword, and cock'd hat, And wha' could refuse the Laird ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the arrest of Victor Danegre, the servant of the Countess d'Andillot. The evidence against him is clear and convincing. On the silken sleeve of his liveried waistcoat, which chief detective Dudouis found in his garret between the mattresses of his bed, several spots of blood were discovered. In addition, a cloth-covered button was missing from that garment, and this button was found beneath the ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... Frenchman's face when he found his master waiting for him on the sill of Caroline's pantry, silhouetted against row on row of shining glass and silver, and wearing at noon-day the purple and fine linen, the white waistcoat and thin boots of last night. But his French breeding triumphed and he remained, except for that one furtive twinkle, the conscientious valet, nescient and urbane. Lawrence did not give him even so much explanation ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... know how long it was that Breckenridge Sewall continued to gaze at me, how long I sat undisturbed beneath the fire of his eyes. At any rate it was he who broke the tension first. He leaned forward and drew from his waistcoat pocket a ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... moment's reflection] Yes, I agree with you. Funny—are you losing your sense of the romantic? [He looks at PASQUINOT and says, aside] His waistcoat often lacks a button! It's disgusting! [He rises and walks back ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... shop round which a score or more of gallants were lounging. In the doorway itself stood a very fine youth, at least he was fine as to his raiment, although he wore no wig and was but an apprentice of better figure and deportment than most. He was displaying to the admiring crowd a mighty fine waistcoat of embroidered satin, worked in gold and colours very cunningly, and trimmed with a frosted-gold cord of new design and workmanship. It was this waistcoat, which the young man called the Blenheim vest, that had attracted the crowd, and Tom could not at first get near the ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... commission and manned for action. The pirate captain, himself, was at the lanyard; and I perceived that he now rested an extraordinarily large six-shooter in the fork of a short staff, which was fixed in the bow. Along this, with a three-cornered gray eye, he now sighted at the lower button of my waistcoat, and in a fashion that gave me goose-flesh underneath the button, in spite of all my mingled emotions. Had I not "halted," as ordered, to the extent of sitting on quietly as I was, he no doubt would have pulled the lanyard, with consequences such as ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... adventurers like the then member for Shrewsbury, there is probably not a man in the House who is not well born or at least rich. Mr. Keir Hardie would look strange indeed in these serried ranks of portly gentlemen with high coat collars, cravats up to their chin, short-bodied coats showing the waistcoat beneath, and the tightly trousered legs. Yet this House, and its equally prim successors, had its obstruction, its personal wrangles, and its occasional duel. Peel was attacked by Disraeli in a fashion and in language that would not be ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... fortifications of the city and that Paris the beautiful would be Paris the infernal. It needed a good deal of resolution on my part to go deliberately to a city from which the population was fleeing, and I confess quite honestly that I had a nasty sensation in the neighborhood of my waistcoat buttons at the thought. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... disorder which strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of a brown body-coat with a great many brass buttons up the front and only one behind, a bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the cleanest end of a very large and very ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... testimony as to the appearance of Disraeli in his manhood may not here be amiss. Says N.P. Willis: "He was sitting in a window looking on Hyde Park, the last rays of sunlight reflected from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered waistcoat. Patent-leather pumps, a white stick with a black cord and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck and pockets, served to make him a conspicuous object. He has one of the most remarkable faces I ever saw. He is lividly ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... stirrup. His rider appears in a short leather jacket, bedizened with silver buttons, tight pantaloons of the same material, also heavy with silver buttons, being partially opened at the side and flaring at the bottom. He does not wear a waistcoat, but has a mountain of frills on the linen bosom of his shirt, set off by a red scarf tied about the waist. The spurs upon his heels are of silver, weighing at least half a pound each, while the rowels are an inch long. On his head is a sombrero ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... buy some remedy for the bites of certain animals which abound in Venice. Crawling animals, skipping animals, and humming, flying animals; all three will have at you at once; and one night nearly drove me into a strait-waistcoat. Well, as I was coming out of the apothecary's with the bottle of spirits of hartshorn in my hand (it really does do the bites a great deal of good), whom should I light upon but one of ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... knew that he loathed that long-skirted, womanlike garment, that dangling, ostentatious symbol, that air of secrecy and mystery, and he inflated his chest above his loosely tied cravat and unbuttoned waistcoat with a contrasted sense of freedom. But he was conscious the next day of weakly avoiding a recurrence of this meeting, and in his self-examination put it down to his self-disciplined observance of his doctor's orders. But when ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Tintaghoda is called, a very fine gold-embroidered waistcoat was brought by the escort of En-Noor to me, to ask what it was worth. I guessed about two hundred reals; Yusuf thought the same. It appeared that this waistcoat was the property of Abd-el-Galeel, and was taken as plunder during the last expedition of the Kailouees against the ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... northern Climates, it would be right to allow every Soldier on Service a Flannel Waistcoat, a Pair of worsted Gloves, and a warm woollen Stock, or a Neckcloth, to wear when on Duty in cold and wet Weather, as soon as the Winter begins to set in[119]. Dr. Pringle mentions the Advantage the Troops received from the Flannel Waistcoats supplied by the Quakers, in the ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... still would call it mine. I'm old, and fain would live at ease; Make me the parson if you please." He spoke, and presently he feels His grazier's coat fall down his heels: He sees, yet hardly can believe, About each arm a pudding sleeve; His waistcoat to a cassock grew, And both assumed a sable hue; But, being old, continued just As threadbare, and as full of dust. His talk was now of tithes and dues: Could smoke his pipe, and read the news; Knew how to preach old sermons next, Vamp'd in the preface and the text; At christ'nings ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... waters; and, in all, about five or six gallons of arrack. These I stowed by themselves, there being no need to put them into the chest, nor any room for them. While I was doing this, I found the tide began to flow, though very calm; and I had the mortification to see my coat, shirt, and waistcoat, which I had left on shore upon the sand, swim away. As for my breeches, which were only linen, and open-kneed, I swam on board in them and my stockings. However, this put me upon rummaging for clothes, of which I found enough, but took ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... to himself, as his eye traveled from the high-bred face, where refinement blended with authority, to the essentially gentlemanly figure, on which the delicately tied cravat sat with the elegance of an orchid, while the white waistcoat, of the latest and most youthful cut, was as neatly adjusted to the person as the calyx to a bud. The mere sight of so much ease and distinction made Davenant himself feel like a rustic in his Sunday clothes, though he seized the opportunity of being in such company to enlarge his perception ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... ran a thin hand through his hair and then sharply desisted; he mustn't let the boy know that he was nervous. Then he settled his horn-rimmed pince-nez more firmly on his nose and felt in his waistcoat for a cigar. Why didn't Hugh say something? He snipped the end of the cigar with a silver knife. Slowly he lighted the cigar, inhaled once or twice, coughed mildly, and finally found ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... warmed, was then given to the first lord. He presented it to the dauphin, who approached and presented it to the king. Some one of the higher lords, previously designated for the honor, assisted the king in the arrangement of his shirt and breeches. A duke enjoyed the honor of putting on his inner waistcoat. Two valets presented the king with his sword, vest, and blue ribbon. A nobleman then stepped forward and buckled on the sword, assisted in putting on the vest, and placed over his shoulders a scarf bearing the cross of the ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... or hear of you again,"—he put his finger in his waistcoat pocket, significantly. "And there are other ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... them to him. Then I walked off to a seat at the end of the platform to do a little thinking, but before I had really got settled I saw Fred walking towards me with his head somewhere near the second button of his waistcoat. I shouted to him, and after we had sat on the bench for quite a minute without speaking we both began to laugh at the same time, until a porter and a ticket-collector came to see what was happening. The porter ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... and then smile grimly. He saw the face of a man who had not slept three hours in as many days and nights—a haggard, unshaven face, drawn as much with the pain of others as with its own weariness. His hair stood up in long tufts, his eyes had black circles under them. He wore neither coat nor waistcoat, and his regimental trousers were tied round the waist by a bit of rope. On the sleeve of his collarless shirt were three dark dry splashes; he noticed them as he raised his arm to put on his pith helmet. The words did not reach his ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... put into breeches and into philosophy at the same time. Why, one might as well stick a brier pipe in the mouth of a boy who is crying for his first gun and tell him to go sit in the chimney-corner and be happy. When I was twenty-five I travelled all the way to New York for the latest Parisian waistcoat, but I can't remember that I ever strolled round the corner to see a peach-tree in full bloom. I'm a lot happier now, heaven knows, in my homespun coat, than I was then in that waistcoat of satin brocade, so I sometimes catch myself wishing that I could see again the ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... positively that his uncle would be proud and happy to see him (Joel), was to spend the recess at school, since he felt he could not afford the expense of the trip home. West hesitated long over a blue-checked waistcoat and at length sighed ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... left that, it might be worth it. But there's the new white waistcoat. An audience soon gets tired of a lecture, and then there's nothing for the wakeful ones to concentrate on but the white waistcoat of the lecturer. It must be of a virgin whiteness. Say thirty-five shillings. So I lose thirty shillings ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... that older, more complex civilization she had always longed for in her prairie limitations. His horizon had been broader than hers, she felt, though he was a mere boy in worldly knowledge. He even dressed differently from the men she knew, with a dash of daring color in waistcoat and ties that proclaimed the budding artist. And above all he embodied the Romance of Art,—that fatal lure for aspiring womankind. The sphere of creation is hermaphroditic: he too was fine and feminine, unlike the coarser types of men. He craved Reputation and would have it, Milly ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... beans. Flora wore an obsolete turban-shaped hat of black straw which had belonged to the dead aunt; it set high like a crown, revealing her forehead. Her dress was an ancient purple-and-white print, too long and too large except over the chest, where it held her like a straight waistcoat. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... pimples on his face, and that Emma Barney—not an inappropriate name, by the way—said she could cure these by means of a certain herb, the name of which she would divulge 'for a consideration.' Before doing so, however, she required Richard's coat and waistcoat, and some silver to 'steam in hot water,' after which the name of the herb would be given—on the following day. It is needless to say that the coat, waistcoat, and silver did not return to the Oliver home, and that the pimples did not depart ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... sixty, with long grey hair and a red complexion, with hard eyes, a well-cut nose, and full lips. He was nearly six feet high, stood quite upright, and always wore a black swallow-tail coat, black trousers, and a black silk waistcoat. In the House, at least, he was always so dressed, and at dinner tables. What difference there might be in his costume when at home at Staleybridge few of those who saw him in London had the means of ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... which he had seen so many bridegrooms make: with his ungloved right hand he felt in the pocket of his dark grey waistcoat, and assured himself that the little gold circlet (engraved inside: Newland to May, April —-, 187-) was in its place; then, resuming his former attitude, his tall hat and pearl-grey gloves with black stitchings grasped in his left hand, ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... evening was over he made the discovery that "swopping" was a favourite pastime of the leisure hours of the Den. He was startled at one period of the evening to notice Heathcote's steel chain adorning the waistcoat of Gosse, and an hour later to find it in the possession of Raggles, who came over to Dick with ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... the dear, dead days beyond recall, when but a happy child, George had been smitten unexpectedly by a sportive playmate a bare half-inch below his third waistcoat-button. The resulting emotions were still green in his memory. As he had felt then, ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... principle, I suppose, that they have changed the treatment of lunatics; and whereas they used to condemn poor distempered wretches to straw and darkness, stripes and a strait waistcoat, they now send them to sunshine and green fields, to wander in gardens among birds and flowers, and soothe them with soft ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... member of the Virginia delegation. Jack wrote that he was in uniform, blue coat and red waistcoat and breeches; that he was a big man standing very erect and about six feet, two inches in height; that his eyes were blue, his complexion light and rather florid, his face slightly pock-marked, his brown hair tinged with ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... folly to ignore these discussions in the market places of the world, because they are literature, and not couched in scholastic syllogisms. Dear me! I am philosophizing,—I, old Daddy Dan, with the children plucking at my coat-tails and the brown snuff staining my waistcoat, and, ah, yes! the place already marked in my little chapel, where I shall sleep at last. I must have been angry, or gloomy, that day, thirty years ago, when I stepped on the platform at M——, after my interview with the Bishop, and met my friends, who had already become aware that I was ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... and kitchen. There was a bed against the wall, and near the window was a small stock of tobacco, snuff, and groceries all mixed up. My host's back was much bent and his face deeply furrowed. He wore a shirt with a high collar, and a blue waistcoat. He was an honest, kindly man, and seemed to take pleasure in doing what he could for me apart from the thought ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... armies of the King. He was a tall, graceful man, upright and soldierly of carriage, with his head disdainfully set upon his shoulders. He was magnificently dressed in a full-skirted coat of mulberry velvet that was laced with gold. His waistcoat, of velvet too, was of a golden apricot colour; his breeches and stockings were of black silk, and his lacquered, red-heeled shoes were buckled in diamonds. His powdered hair was tied behind in a broad ribbon of watered silk; he carried a little three-cornered ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... fear of losing the diamonds, but because I wanted to smoke. He had locked the door, and as the last bell had rung I supposed I was to travel alone, so I began to arrange my traps and make myself comfortable. The diamonds in the cigar-case were in the inside pocket of my waistcoat, and as they made a bulky package, I took them out, intending to put them in my hand-bag. It is a small satchel like a bookmaker's, or those hand-bags that couriers carry. I wear it slung from a strap across my shoulders, and, no matter ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... side of the road, and looked up in the air as they walked along. In those days Marjolin wore a big scarlet waistcoat which hung down to his knees; it had belonged to the defunct Monsieur Chantemesse, who had been a cab-driver. Cadine for her part wore a white and blue check gown, made out of an old tartan of Madame Chantemesse's. All the canaries in the garrets of the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... case in my room, locked, and the key in my waistcoat pocket; in the right-hand side-pocket of my overcoat I carried my Deane and Adams, loaded in every chamber; also my right hand, as innocently as you could wish. And just that night I was not followed! I walked across Regent's Park, and I dawdled on Primrose Hill, without the least result. Down I ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... companions thought of nothing but the search for the source of the golden sands, but I was interested only in the ruby rock. There lay the fortune, if I could find it. I carried the specimen of corundum in my waistcoat pocket. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... both were fired by the murderer I don't know yet. One of them may have been fired by Sir Horace. Just behind you in the wall is the mark of one of the bullets. I dug it out of the plaster yesterday and here it is." He produced from a waistcoat pocket a flattened bullet. "The other is inside him at present." He waved his hand in the direction of the room in which ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... a walking-stick. It was all very dusty and fluey. I had our porter up to get under the bed and fetch it out; and though he habitually wallows in dust,—swims in it from morning to night, and wears a close-fitting waistcoat with black calimanco sleeves for the purpose,—it made him sneeze again, and his throat was that hot with it that it was obliged to be cooled with a ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... that was all. At length the chill air began to tell, and he plainly heard the chatter of her teeth, the rustling of her dress as her body shivered. He arose, stiff and cold, drew off his coat and threw it about her shoulders. She resisted at first, but he was master. Later his waistcoat was wrapped about her throat and the warm lantern was placed at her feet, but she never gave him one look ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... desperately trying to catch the steadily progressing figure of Clark. He felt almost like murder. Ten minutes more and the Philadelphians had lost all traces of refinement. Wimperley's trousers were torn at the knee and his white, scratched skin showed through. Riggs had dropped coat and waistcoat beside the trail, his collar was off, his small body tired and twisted, and from his lips streamed language to which he had long been a stranger. Birch had lagged far behind but plowed on with a cold determination. He was breathing audibly through his nose, his watch chain was dangling ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... him a few seconds Tembarom slipped two fingers into his waistcoat pocket and produced a small tube ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... walked along the country road. There were many other people besides the church-going throng in their Sunday best, but they seemed isolated, although closely watched. Presently, however, a young man, well dressed in light gray, with a white waistcoat, ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... waistcoat, and stockings, and breeches were white; His cap had a new cherry ribbon to tie't. The maids to the doors and the balconies ran, And said, "Lack-a-day, he's a proper young man!" But as from the windows the ladies he spied, Like a beau in a box, he ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... deliberate and unruffled in his speech, though some of his expressions were not very qualified. His figure is tall and portly. He has a good, sensible face—rather full, with little grey eyes, a hard, square forehead, a ruddy complexion, with hair grey or powdered; and had on a scarlet broadcloth waistcoat with the flaps of the pockets hanging down, as was the custom for gentlemen-farmers in the last century, or as we see it in the pictures of Members of Parliament in the reign of George I. I certainly did not think less favourably ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... difficulty that he restrained his smiles during the next half hour. A more appreciative observer would have noticed and enjoyed the subtler points. Stephen's glare of disgust at his uncle when the latter tucked his napkin in the opening of his waistcoat; Caroline's embarrassment when the captain complimented the soup, declaring that it was almost as good as one of Abbie's chowders; the visitor's obvious uneasiness at being waited upon attentively, and the like. These Edwards missed, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the countenance cheerful, good-humoured, and very sensible. He is in brown, lined with orange, and many black ribands, a large flapped hat, dark wig, not tied up, nor yet bushy, a point cravat, no waistcoat, and a tasselled handkerchief, hanging from a low pocket. The whole is of the smaller landscape size, and extremely well coloured, with perfect harmony. It was a legacy from London, grandson of him who was partner ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... for Poussette seemed careless as to which lady he attended and he still bore the cornelian ring upon his finger. Ringfield, forgetting his scruples, had promised to take the chair and introduce the artists; Antoine was door-keeper, and Poussette, clad in tweeds, a white waistcoat and tie of bright blue, would receive the guests in his own effusive way, seating the ladies carefully on the fresh yellow planks ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... and No. 18 achieved imperishable fame and popular renown. The pay of the Captains was sixty dollars a month. The uniform was: Blue cloth with red lapels, slash cuff, stand-up collar, flat yellow buttons, blue breeches, red waistcoat with yellow lace. ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... left that, it might be worth it. But there's a new white waistcoat. An audience soon gets tired of a lecture, and then there's nothing for the wakeful ones to concentrate on but the white waistcoat of the lecturer. It must be of a virgin whiteness. Say thirty-five shillings. So I lose thirty shillings ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... me less, as I had already experimented on the sex by going abroad through a suburban part of London simply attired in a sleeve-waistcoat. The result was curious. I then learned for the first time, and by the exhaustive process, how much attention ladies are accustomed to bestow on all male creatures of their own station; for, in my humble rig, each one who went by me caused me a certain shock of surprise and a sense of something ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rest, there is something touching in recording the futile efforts made by Philip to win from Sylvia the love he yearned for. But, at the time, any one who had watched him might have been amused to see the grave, awkward, plain young man studying patterns and colours for a new waistcoat, with his head a little on one side, after the meditative manner common to those who are choosing a new article of dress. They might have smiled could they have read in his imagination the frequent rehearsals of the coming evening, when he and she should each be dressed in their ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... well. Louise sat at a little table sewing a pattern of beads on a green bag. Becky had some rose-colored knitting. The Admiral was in his big chair by the fire with his hands folded across his waistcoat and his eyes shut. The colorful work of the two women, the light of the fire, the glow of the little lamp at Cope's elbow, the warmth of the red furniture saved the room from dreariness in spite of ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... and does not terminate until the condition is very shaky indeed—crimpled, pierced with pinholes, corner creases torn, soft, tarnished, decrepit while yet young. Some have been half-burned; one has been found half-digested in the stomach of a goat, and one boiled in a waistcoat-pocket by a laundress. No matter; the cashier at the bank will do his best to decipher it; he will indeed take an infinity of trouble to put together the ashes of a burned note, and will give the owner a new note or the value in coin, if satisfied of the integrity of the old one. The bank authorities ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... mad, and must be humoured. Dance upon nothing for an idea! Well, it's not without plenty of parallels in history!—I wonder whether his one idea would give way now, if it were brought to the actual test of hanging! It is a pity it couldn't be tried, just for experiment's sake. But a strait-waistcoat would be better." ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... chewed the end of the enormous Havana he had lighted, he stuck his feet out straight in front of him, resting his heels on the floor and turning his shining patent leather toes straight up, he folded his hands upon the magnificent curve of his white waistcoat, and leaning his head well back he looked steadily at the ceiling. All these were very bad signs, as his wife could have told Malipieri if she had stayed ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the whole battery before breakfast; enjoyed it very much. Marching-order parade later. Argentine very troublesome: bites like a mad dog and kicks like a cow: can't be groomed. To-day she tried to bite me in the stomach, but as I had on a vest, shirt, body belt, money belt, and waistcoat, she didn't do much damage, and only got a waistcoat button and ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... into the arena. His costume was of cherry-colored satin, with shoulder-knots and silver embroidery in profusion. From the little pockets of his vest stuck out the points of orange-colored scarfs. A waistcoat of rich tissue of silver and a pretty little cap of velvet completed his coquettish ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... that put an end to all sentiment, and Rose emerged laughing from Dr. Alec's bosom, with the mark of a waistcoat button nicely imprinted on her left cheek. He saw it, and said with a merry kiss that half effaced it, "This is my ewe lamb, and I have set my mark on her, so no one can ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... Opp, thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, "I am considering of a great variety of different things. I been in the dry-goods business twice, and I can't say but what it ain't a pretty business. Of course," he added with a twinge, ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... was not the least extraordinary feature of his appearance. He constantly wore a full-trimmed scarlet waistcoat of most uncommon dimensions, a light grey coat, which altogether gave him an air of singularity and whim as ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... photograph to make a morning call. His pantaloons were hitched up by a belt; braces, John said, were not fashionable at the diggings, and he had learned the comfort of doing without them; a loose sort of round drab coat without tails; no waistcoat; a round brown hat, much bent, and a pair of slippers. Such was John Massingbird's favourite costume, and he might be seen in it at all hours of the day. When he wanted to go abroad, his toilette was made, as the French say, by the exchanging of the slippers for boots, ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... clocks are wont to do an hour before twelve, De Wette Number Two manifested signs of retiring to rest,—took out his watch, the identical large gold one the other Doctor in the other chamber felt sure was at that moment safe in his waistcoat-pocket, and wound it up, removed a portion of his clothing, came to the window, closed the curtains, and in a few moments the light disappeared. De Wette Number One, waiting a little time until convinced that Number Two had disposed himself to sleep, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... prodigiously occupied at Berlin. He often did not retire to rest till one in the morning, but regularly rose at five, even in the midst of severe winter. Without anything on but a simple quilted dressing-gown, without stockings or waistcoat, he worked away without even calling up his servant to light a fire. Besides his correspondence in cypher, which occupied him much, he worked assiduously at his "Prussian Monarchy," which was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket. I am gently mad myself, and am resolved to live cleanly. George Ripley is talking up a colony of agriculturists and scholars, with whom he threatens to take the field and the book. One man renounces the use of animal food; and another ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... scandalised shafts in horror to the sky!—Hang care!—A barleycorn—Eat and be merry.—The gear upon my head and under my eye is a far more gorgeous red, when I puff out my chest and strut, than any robin's waistcoat or finch's tie.—A fine day. All is well. I curvet—I blow my horn. Conscious of having done my duty, I may quite properly assume the swagger of a musketeer, and the calm commanding bearing ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... Nathan—wore a queer hat, bushy, white hair, and long, pen-wiper cloak: it was the same cloak, or another just like it; the same, no doubt; few new clothes had been bought during the war. And the other—and this was his own dear father—wore a buff waistcoat, high white silk scarf, and brown frock coat, with velvet collar. Neither of them were every-day sights around the corridors of the New York Hotel: even among a collection of human oddities representing ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... What do you think? I'm supposed to be sampling in the city at this very moment. The junior clerk's doing the work for me; and he's to have one of my dress-waistcoats to compensate him for the trouble. First my shirts; then my waistcoat; then my—confound it, sir, I shall be stripped to the skin, if this sort of thing goes ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... you hear a still small voice Under your waistcoat, where your heart is: "We fought by contract, not by choice, Ay, and the spoils are not our party's; The Tories may be beat, but we know This is not ASQUITH'S, it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... next two years in a triumphal progress. Her appearance in Cairo caused the greatest sensation, and she was received in state by the Pasha, Mehemet Ali. Her costume on this occasion was gorgeous: she wore a turban of cashmere, a brocaded waistcoat, a priceless pelisse, and a vast pair of purple velvet pantaloons embroidered all over in gold. She was ushered by chamberlains with silver wands through the inner courts of the palace to a pavilion in the harem, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... much to soothe the mental irritation which Miller had set up in him. They at least were of the world of understandable things. Miller, slouching in his chair, with a cheap tie-clip showing underneath his waistcoat, a bulging mass of sock descending over the top of his boot, rolling a cigarette with yellow-stained, objectionable fingers, still involved him in introspective speculation as to ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tall fellow, with dark hair and a very fresh color, and, being just arrived from a journey, he wore a white cap; his thick, black beard flowed down on his sky-blue waistcoat; and a short olive-colored velvet shooting-coat, with extravagantly large plaid trousers, completed his costume. As for the accessories which had provoked a smile from Adrienne, they consisted: first, of a portmanteau tucked under his ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the corpse of the swordsman, as one or two of the guests raised him from the ground; but, when they began to open his waistcoat to search for the wound which nowhere existed, the man of war collected, his scattered spirits; and, conscious that the ordinary was no longer a stage on which to display his valour, took to his heels as fast as he could run, pursued by the laughter ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... to urge that he should be allowed to try it and, at last, Captain Lockett agreed to his doing so. It was already almost dark enough for the attempt to be made, and Bob prepared at once for the swim. He took off his coat, waistcoat, and shirt; and put on a dark knitted jersey, fastened a belt tightly round his waist, over his breeches, ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... without particularly noticing the bed when I first got into the room. Then there was the marble-topped wash-hand stand, from which the water I had spilled, in my hurry to pour it out, was still dripping, slowly and more slowly, on to the brick floor. Then two small chairs, with my coat, waistcoat, and trousers flung on them. Then a large elbow-chair covered with dirty-white dimity, with my cravat and shirt collar thrown over the back. Then a chest of drawers with two of the brass handles off, and ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... like a hoarse symphony or running bass to the rustling of the leaves. The wind goes hurrying down the country, gleaning every loose straw that is left in the fields, while every farmer lad too appears to scud before it,—having donned his best pea-jacket and pepper-and-salt waistcoat, his unbent trousers, outstanding rigging of duck or kerseymere or corduroy, and his furry hat withal,—to country fairs and cattle-shows, to that Rome among the villages where the treasures of the year are gathered. ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... stand erect with horror at Nan's wild ways?" asked Mr. Bhaer, presently, when Teddy had swarmed up his waistcoat, and Rob up his back, for they always flew at their father the minute ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... counter weighing a little cone of white powder in his apothecary's scales. He looked far from well. There were great pouches under his eyes; his beard was unkempt; his waistcoat spotted with food stains. The lady waiting received her package, and went out. ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... like Mr. William, was a simple, innocent-looking person, in whose smooth cheeks the cheerful red of her husband's official waistcoat was very pleasantly repeated. But whereas Mr. William's light hair stood on end all over his head, and seemed to draw his eyes up with it in an excess of bustling readiness for anything, the dark brown hair of Mrs. William was carefully smoothed down, and waved away under a trim tidy cap, in the ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... might choose, who wished to send his photograph to make a morning call. His pantaloons were hitched up by a belt; braces, John said, were not fashionable at the diggings, and he had learned the comfort of doing without them; a loose sort of round drab coat without tails; no waistcoat; a round brown hat, much bent, and a pair of slippers. Such was John Massingbird's favourite costume, and he might be seen in it at all hours of the day. When he wanted to go abroad, his toilette was made, as the French say, by the exchanging of the slippers for boots, and the taking in his hand ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... with blond hair almost ripe enough to be auburn; he wore a gray suit of rather loose and careless material, a belt, but no waistcoat; his trousers were reefed up from a pair of saddle-brown shoes, and the silk band around his small straw hat was tricolored. In his hand was a paper-covered book. Swung over his shoulder was a camera ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... was six feet tall, or thereabouts, and more than half as wide. His hair and beard were grayish red and his face reddish brown. He was dressed in the regulation "shore togs" of a deep sea sailor, blue double-breasted jacket, blue trousers and waistcoat, white "biled" shirt, low collar—celluloid, by the look—and a "made" bow tie which hung from the button by a worn loop of elastic. His hands were as red as his face and of a size proportionate to the rest of him. He seized ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of Nemours, to use the common abbreviation of the country, wore a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green linen with great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat's skin, in the pocket of which might be discerned the round outline of a monstrous snuff-box. A snuff-box to a pug nose ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... in the least disconcerted by the presence of the large man. They always enjoyed visitors, and they liked the heavy gold chain which festooned the wide waistcoat of this guest; and, as they watched him, the Associate Superintendent began ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... earth another trouser so compact and love-compelling? Thou canst find it, stranger, only, if thou seek'st the DOUDNEYS' dwelling! Hark, from Windsor's royal palace, what sweet voice enchants the ear? "Goodness, what a lovely waistcoat! Oh, who made it, Albert dear? 'Tis the very prettiest pattern! You must get a dozen others!" And the Prince, in rapture, answers—"'Tis ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... government has suspended all conscription. Still it is possible, that, in the hour of danger, Austria might profit more from the devoted loyalty of this armed and stalwart peasantry, than if her ranks were filled with its forced recruits. Their dress consists of a coarse brown jacket, and a waistcoat of red cloth, both ornamented on the edges, and made to sit close on the shoulders, without any collar, and which advantageously display their well put on head and neck. They wear a small red skull-cap, round at top; but, when married, they usually surround this with a white ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... pull on his coat and waistcoat. Lord Caversham, lending a hand, noted the waistcoat ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... word 'land-louper' alone was distinctly audible. He had disappeared before Waverley reached the house, in order to greet the worthy Baron of Bradwardine. The uniform in which he was now attired, a blue coat, namely, with gold lace, a scarlet waistcoat and breeches, and immense jack-boots, seemed to have added fresh stiffness and rigidity to his tall, perpendicular figure; and the consciousness of military command and authority had increased, in the same proportion, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Indians, who were strung along the river at every little rapid where fish are to be caught, and the cry haggai, haggai, (fish,) was constantly heard whenever we passed near their huts, or met them in the road. Very many of them were oddly and partially dressed in overcoat, shirt, waistcoat, or pantaloons, or whatever article of clothing they had been able to procure in trade from the emigrants; for we had now entirely quitted the country where hawks' bells, beads, and vermilion were the current coin, and found that here only useful articles, ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... cunning feminine imitation of resignation, and that, through some untraceable process of transition, she was now taking more comfort in the opinions of this insinuating stranger than in his own tough dogmas. He rose to his feet, without pulling down his waistcoat, but with a wrinkled grin at the inconsistency of women. "Well, sir, Mr. Roderick's powers are nothing to me," he said, "nor no use he makes of them. Good or bad, he 's no son of mine. But, in a friendly way, I 'm glad to hear so fine an account of him. I 'm glad, madam, you ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... quiet after the appearance and disappearance of Mr. John Blake, when the clerk and the telephone-girl were again interrupted by an excited gentleman. His white whiskers framed an anxious, kindly face, his white waistcoat bound ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... hurriedly, his teeth chattering. Sidorov has already heard the news, and can see from his face too that he has been taken. He wants to ask him questions, but they hurry him and tell him to make haste and undress. He throws off his pelisse, slips his boots off his feet, takes off his waistcoat and draws his shirt over his head, and naked, trembling all over, and exhaling an odor of tobacco, spirits, and sweat, goes into the revision office, not knowing what to do ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... a young man of reserved appearance, in a coat and waistcoat of black, and pantaloons of pepper and salt. He had come into the office of the station, from its interior, in an unsettled way, immediately after Lightwood had gone out to the train; and he had been hurriedly reading the printed hills and notices on the wall. He had had a wandering interest ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... an unappreciative world the existence of superb tailors who made amazingly cheap dresses. For two years she had been vainly advising her friends to go to the man who had made her the frock she still wore for morning; a skirt and coat of tweed with a large green check in it, a green waistcoat with gilt buttons, and green gaiters to match. In this costume and coiffed with a man's wig, of the vague color peculiar to such articles, Tims came down at her usual hour, prepared to ask Milly what she thought of hypnotism now. But there was no Milly over ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... tried. Mr. Wakley was again the operator; but, before commencing, he stated privately to Mr. Clarke, that instead of using nickel only, he would not employ the nickel at all. Mr. Clarke, unseen by any person present, took the piece of nickel; put it into his waistcoat pocket; and walked to the window, where he remained during the whole of the experiment. Mr. Wakley again sat down, employing both hands, but placing his fingers in such a manner, that it was impossible for any person to see what substance he held. Presently, on applying his left hand, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... streaming with perspiration, and when he took off his overcoat there rose the sweetish sourish scent of a hot goatskin waistcoat. It reached below his waist, and would have kept cold out from a man standing in a blizzard, and he had been carrying a baby, a rifle, a bundle, a basket, and running, on ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... of his own wagon, and then this chivalrous Confederate officer picked a man's pocket—deliberately and with malice aforethought. But he did not take much—only a piece of paper with a little writing on it, which he put in the pocket of his waistcoat. Moreover, as a sort of compensation he pulled off the man's overcoat—which was a poor one—and putting it on his own shoulders, wrapped his heavy military cloak around the prostrate farmer. Then he stretched him out in a comfortable place ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... of the house came to the door. He had on his breeches, or drawers, and a yellow flannel waistcoat, no stockings, a pair of slip shoes, a white cap on his head, and, as the young man ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... in the town ran away in 1764, or, as it was worded on the police notice, "did elope from service." He was described as a "lusty young fellow, wearing a light-coloured surtout coat, a snuff-coloured undercoat, a straw-coloured waistcoat, newish leather breeches, and wears his own dark brown hair tied behind," so it appeared to us that he had not left his best clothes at home when he "did elope," and would be easily recognised by his smart appearance. We also noticed that about the same period ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... ceremony to Mr. Dockwrath, "the honour of a glass of wine with you, sir," and the president, to give more importance to the occasion, put down his knife and fork, leaned back in his chair, and put both his hands upon his waistcoat, looking intently at the attorney out of ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... and painful excitement to us spectators on shore. Each man moved nearer to the water, and cast off some article of clothing, or gave a last look to the line, or a final adjustment to the life-buoy round his waist. For myself, I had stripped off my jacket and waistcoat, and placed them, together with my hat, in the hands of my friend Bob; and I now stood with the end of a line, knotted into a bowline, in my hand, ready to do anything which the emergency of the moment ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... pleasant dinner-party, too, in the mess-room of the Royal Irish Artillery. Lord Castlemallard was there in the place of honour, next to jolly old General Chattesworth, and the worthy rector, Doctor Walsingham, and Father Roach, the dapper, florid little priest of the parish, with his silk waistcoat and well-placed paunch, and his keen relish for funny stories, side-dishes, and convivial glass; and Dan Loftus, that simple, meek, semi-barbarous young scholar, his head in a state of chronic dishevelment, his harmless little round light-blue eyes, pinkish from late night reading, generally ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... see or hear of you again,"—he put his finger in his waistcoat pocket, significantly. "And there are other ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... been found by Mrs. French in a very excited state on that occasion. He had wept, and pulled his hair, and torn open his waistcoat, had spoken of himself as a wretch,—pleading, however, at the same time, that he was more sinned against than sinning, had paced about the room with his hands dashing against his brows, and at last had flung himself ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... that it expressed him-self; for he had put himself—his hope, his ambition, his sense of right and fitness—into every stroke and line. Now that it was done, it was more his than the man's who paid the bills,—"out of his waistcoat pocket," as he exultingly said to his wife. The designer and the builder had paid for it out of brain and heart and will, and were the real men who had got a new creation and possession of their own, though they should turn their ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... women among these Bakwiri are tattooed, and also painted, on the body, face and arms, but as far as I have seen not on the legs. The patterns are handsome, and more elaborate than any such that I have seen. One man who came with the party had two figures of men tattooed on the region where his waistcoat should have been. I gave the chief some tobacco though he never begged for anything. He accepted it thankfully, and handing it to his wives preceded us on our path for about a mile and a half and then having reached the end ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... does I," cried O'Connor, stripping off his waistcoat, and for once in his life agreeing ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... much. They went about their business almost as usual and enjoyed the many entertainments arranged by "society people" for any object, however remotely connected with the war—"Sheepskin Waistcoat Funds," "Comfort for Horses Fund," "Knitted Socks Fund," and others. It was all so much work and gave people opportunity to have a busy time, flavored with the knowledge that it was ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... dark figure, which seemed to have arisen from the underworld, appeared upon the stage. It was Paganini in his black costume—the black dress-coat and the black waistcoat of a horrible cut, such as is prescribed by infernal etiquette at the court of Proserpine. The black trousers hung anxiously around the thin legs. The long arms appeared to grow still longer, as, holding the violin in one hand and the bow in the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... Zinzendorf, who knew him: "His face is like that of a European, but marked with a broad Indian ring of bear's-grease and paint drawn completely round it. He wears a coat of fine cloth of cinnamon color, a black necktie with silver spangles, a red satin waistcoat, trousers over which hangs his shirt, shoes and stockings, a hat, and brass ornaments, something like the handle of a basket, suspended from his ears."[16] He was an excellent interpreter, and held in high ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... sitting at the open door of his cage, when I gave him offence by approaching too near and inspecting him too narrowly. He made a spring at me, and if the keeper had not pulled me back would have treated me unhandsomely, like a quadrumanous rough, as he was. He succeeded in stripping my waistcoat of its buttons, as one would strip a pea-pod of ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... across the little table. An angry flush rose in Sir Aubrey's face, and his eyeglass fell with a little sharp tinkle against a waistcoat button. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... prospectus,—"Knowledge is Power," "To cry the state of the political atmosphere,"—and so forth, I set off on a tour to the North, from Bristol to Sheffield, for the purpose of procuring customers, preaching by the way in most of the great towns, as an hireless volunteer, in a blue coat and white waistcoat, that not a rag of the woman of Babylon might be seen on me. For I was at that time and long after, though a Trinitarian (that is ad normam Platonis) in philosophy, yet a zealous Unitarian in religion; more accurately, I was a Psilanthropist, one of those ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... little wild here with numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket. I am gently mad myself, and am resolved to live cleanly. George Ripley is talking up a colony of agriculturists and scholars, with whom he threatens to take the field and the book. One man renounces the use of animal food; and another of coin; and another of domestic ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Piccadilly Circus he saw two men standing before the cigar shop on the corner. One was young and boyish looking. The other, a few years older, was of medium height and stout beyond proportion; he wore a tweed suit of a rather big check pattern, and the coat was buttoned over a scarlet waistcoat; the straw hat, gaudily beribboned, shaded a fat, jolly, half-comical face, of the type that readily inspires confidence. He was talking to his companion animatedly when he saw Jack approaching. With a boisterous exclamation of delight he rushed up to him and clapped him ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... drill-jacket, Fritz in a black coat, and Wilhelm, adorned with a scarlet waistcoat with red flowers, were busy welcoming the guests; Wilhelm had charge of the barrel ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... of indecision until the day of the ball. Late in the evening he put on his black cutaway coat, which was getting a little small, trousers to match, and a white waistcoat, and started to town on horseback so as to arrive in time for the ball, in case he should decide, at the last moment, ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and then, parting his legs, and putting his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets, delivered himself thus: "Well, old girl, am I to give you my harm round to the kitchen, or do you know the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... forgotten! I have posterity will put a good slab over me. Not like some would be left without a monument, unless it might be the rags of a cast waistcoat would be put on sticks in a barley garden, to go flapping at the thieves ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... it, when he observed among gentleman coming out, dressed in a white frock and a red laced waistcoat, with a small switch in his hand, which he seemed to manage with a particular good grace. As he passed him on the steps, the stranger very politely made him a bow, which Harley returned, though he could not remember ever having seen him ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... frien's leanin' 'gins' de choir banisters, an' I ain' gwine say no mo'. I was lookin' fur you ter come up wid some sort o' wheel, an' maybe a silver wheel ter match dat watch-chain hangin' out'n yo' waistcoat-pocket; but maybe you right! ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... actors;—those passions common to men in all stages of society, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under the steel corslet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present day. [Footnote: Alas' that attire, respectable and gentlemanlike in 1805, or thereabouts, is now as antiquated as the Author of Waverley has himself become since that period! The reader of fashion will please to fill up the costume ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... My kitchen-garden party will be famous! [To the HAMBURG COCK, whose breast is striped with black and yellow.] Oh, what a wonderful waistcoat! May I ask ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... away from him, replied, "Oh, dear, no; there are just packs of gentlemen whenever she likes. But she is tired of them all." She escaped and he settled his waistcoat. ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Felicia was paler than ever. She seemed to be struggling, as she sat there, to conceal her fear and aversion for the man who leaned toward her, talking in rapid French, with many gesticulations. He was badly dressed in a travelling suit of French cut, with a waistcoat buttoned almost to the chin. A floppy black tie hung down over the lapels of his coat. His black moustache, which seemed to have suffered from the crossing, was drooping, and gave to his mouth a particularly ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... It chanced that Jean was the first lad to step into the boat; he stumbled, rolled to one side, the boat revolted at his weight and capsized. Vandenhuten sank like lead, rose, sank again. My coat and waistcoat were off in an instant; I had not been brought up at Eton and boated and bathed and swam there ten long years for nothing; it was a natural and easy act for me to leap to the rescue. The lads and the boatmen yelled; they thought there would be two ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... lirruping hobble-de-hoy chap into a solemn preaching man with no corrupt passions, they'll do it, if it can be done, and polish un off like the workmen they be, and turn un out wi' a long face, and a long black coat and waistcoat, and a religious collar and hat, same as they used to wear in the Scriptures, so that his own mother wouldn't know un sometimes.... There, 'tis their ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... once more, had put on a blue coat and trousers, a white waistcoat, a black stock, and gloves. When the Baroness had taken her seat in the vehicle, Atala slipped ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... arises from the exhibition of the fine picture gallery here to be seen. Here is quite enough to please any one who is curious, and to gratify boys amazingly; and this you will credit when I tell you some things that we saw. The coat and waistcoat worn by Nelson when he was killed, on the Victory, at Trafalgar; models of celebrated ships; original painting of Sir Walter Raleigh; Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who was lost, with all his crew, on the Scilly Islands, in Queen Anne's reign; Admiral Kempenfeldt, ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... purred. Was she married? There was a general movement—a surreptitious smoothing of back hair—an apologetic fumbling at the spot sacred to neckties. The judge buttoned up the two remaining buttons of his waistcoat. Lannigan concealed ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... in clothes, pitied him, and against the next night provided him a waistcoat. Robin, coming the next night to work, as he did before, espied the waistcoat, whereat ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... cigar with the air of a young paladin about to conquer the world. In spite of my own depression, I could not help smiling with gladness at the sight of him. With his extravagantly cut waistcoat, his elaborately exquisite white tie, his perfectly fitting evening clothes, with his supple ease of body, his charming manner, the preposterous fellow made as gallant a show as any ruffling blade in powder and red-heeled ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... shirt, more thin Than ever spider since could spin. Changed to the whiteness of the snow, By the stormy winds that blow In the vast and frozen air, No shirt half so fine, so fair; A rich waistcoat they did bring, Made of the Trout-fly's gilded wing: At which his Elveship 'gan to fret The wearing it would make him sweat Even with its weight: he needs would wear A waistcoat made of downy hair New shaven off an Eunuch's chin, That pleased him well, 'twas ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... his toilet the special elegance of powdering his hair, arrayed himself in his finest flowered waistcoat, and critically disposed his laces, Germain took seat in de Bailleul's coach ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... they were sitting, father and daughter, in the garden, behind the brick house, he with a St. Louis paper on his knee, his head bare, his waistcoat loose, his feet in slippers. His chair was tilted back against a crab-apple tree at the side of one of the garden walks. For several weeks his face had been showing some sort of strain, but at this moment he looked comfortable. She had ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... village the sovereign and his army rode out to meet us, and with many protestations of fidelity, expressed his joy at our safe arrival. He was a fine-looking man and sat well on a stamping roan stallion. His dress was imposing. A waistcoat of gorgeous crimson, thickly covered with gold lace, displayed flowing sleeves of white linen, buttoned at the wrist. Long, loose, baggy, linen trousers, also fastened above the ankle, and curiously pointed shoes clothed his nether limbs. This ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... need not even do that. Am I not on mine? It would be too fine an irony. Remain as you are, lounging back in your chair, with your thumbs in your waistcoat." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... home on his vacation. A second undeceived me. I scrambled to my feet and stared hard at the stranger who stood with his hands behind him, still smiling, but not saying a word. He was nattily dressed in a blue cloth coat and trousers, and a white waistcoat. A white satin stock of the latest style encircled a slender neck; he wore shiny boots, a leghorn hat was set jauntily above a crop of black curls. I was never shy, having been accustomed from my birth to meeting strangers and to "entertaining company" when called upon to do ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... and come straight toward us and pulled up by the wagon. One of them was a slim, red cheeked young feller about twenty-three years old. He wore top boots and spurs and a broad brimmed black hat and gloves and a fur waistcoat and purty linen. He looked at the tires of the wagon and said: ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... rested his immediate hopes on the fashionable clothes he intended to wear. He put on, for this sacred interview, where everything depended on a first impression, a pair of black trousers and carefully polished boots, a sulphur-colored waistcoat, which left to sight an exquisitely fine shirt with opal buttons, a black cravat, and a small blue surtout coat which seemed glued to his back and shoulders by some newly-invented process. The ribbon of the Legion of honor was in his buttonhole. He wore a well-fitting pair of kid ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... said Captain Bluenose, nodding his head approvingly, and filling his pipe from a supply of tobacco he always carried in the right pocket of his capacious blue waistcoat. The Captain gazed with a look of grave solemnity in the manly countenance of the young sailor, for whom he entertained feelings of unbounded admiration. He had dandled Bax on his knee when he was a baby, had taught him to make boats and to swim and ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... "with that nice pink sash, "And that waistcoat of vivid blue?" Then he tried to teach them the way to sing— A thing ...
— Merry Words for Merry Children • A. Hoatson
... protectors of the feet, but of the honour of the wearer. Quarrel with a man if you like, let your passion get its steam up even to blood-heat, be magnificent while glancing at your adversary's Brutus, grand as you survey his chin, heroic at the last button of his waistcoat, unappeased at the very knees of his superior kersey continuations, inexorable at the commencement of his straps, and about to become abusive at his shoe-ties, the first cooler of your wrath will be the Hoby-like arched instep of his genuine Wellingtons, which, even as a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... what she thought would be a correct sum, and immediately afterwards the old gentleman produced the money from his waistcoat pocket. ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... in terrestrial lavenders and supercelestial blues—not, in fact, dressed with the remarkable taste which he has seen in her at other times. Her usual costume is both pretty and quiet, and the fashionable waistcoat and jacket (which are a spectacle in all the 'Ladies' Companions' of the day) make the only approach to masculine wearings to be observed in her. She has great nicety and refinement in her personal ways, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... I suppose, that they have changed the treatment of lunatics; and whereas they used to condemn poor distempered wretches to straw and darkness, stripes and a strait waistcoat, they now send them to sunshine and green fields, to wander in gardens among birds and flowers, and soothe them with soft music ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... could agree to this satisfactory arrangement, Thorny appeared, singing, as he aimed at a fat robin, whose red waistcoat looked rather warm ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... himself in at the front door, and stood for some time wiping his boots on the mat. The little house was ominously still, and a faint feeling, only partially due to the lapse of time since breakfast, manifested itself behind his waistcoat. He coughed—a matter- of-fact cough—and, with an attempt to hum a tune, hung his hat on the ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... being more heavily clad than a lumberman working in the woods. During the march our clothing was usually the following: two sets of woollen underclothes, of which that nearest the skin was quite thin. Outside the shirt we wore either an ordinary waistcoat or a comparatively light knitted woollen jersey. Outside all came our excellent Burberry clothes — trousers and jacket. When it was calm, with full sunshine, the Burberry jacket was too warm; we could then go all day in our shirt-sleeves. To be provided for emergencies, we all had our thinnest ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat; "I wouldn't wonder a bit now if you wass to pick up a sweet'arr amongst the gentry, because you are beginning to speak English as good as the Vicare, and you are not quite like the ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... made the attempt. She went up to the porter's lodge, and asked the little girl sweeping out the place if she might see Abraham Dixon. The child stared at her, and ran into the house, bringing out her father, a great burly man, who had not yet donned either coat or waistcoat, and who, consequently, felt the morning air as rather nipping. To him Ellinor repeated ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... picture of the first Sir William Pepperell, painted in 1751 by Smibert, when the baronet was in London. Of this picture, Hawthorne once wrote the humourous description which follows: "Sir William Pepperell, in coat, waistcoat and breeches, all of scarlet broadcloth, is in the cabinet of the Society; he holds a general's truncheon in his right hand, and points his left toward the army of New Englanders before the walls of Louisburg. A bomb ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... short lengths after it had fulfilled its ordained purpose, and carried the pieces away for souvenirs. So always there was a new rope provided, and its dependability must be ascertained by prolonged and exhaustive tests before Uncle Tobe would approve of it. Seeing him at his task, with his coat and waistcoat off, his sleeves rolled back, and his intent mien, one realised why, as a hangman, he had been a success. He left absolutely nothing to chance. When he was through with his experimenting, the possibility of an exhibition of the proneness of inanimate objects to misbehave in emergencies had been ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... first into an awkward imitation of it himself, and then into an angry self-examination. He knew that he loathed that long-skirted, womanlike garment, that dangling, ostentatious symbol, that air of secrecy and mystery, and he inflated his chest above his loosely tied cravat and unbuttoned waistcoat with a contrasted sense of freedom. But he was conscious the next day of weakly avoiding a recurrence of this meeting, and in his self-examination put it down to his self-disciplined observance of his doctor's ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... his nose is coarse and devoid of character; but his jaws are massive, his lips firm, and his chin determined. He is dressed like the better class of peasant, wears sandals, canvas trousers, a light brownish-gray waistcoat, and has a large leathern belt, like a horse's girth, round his waist. His expression is severe, as of one immersed in thought; with an occasional frown, as if the thought were disagreeable. His brows knit, and a shadow ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... from the window, shut it, lighted the candle, put on his waistcoat, his overcoat and his hat and went out, carrying the candle, into the passage to look for the ragged attendant who would be asleep somewhere in the midst of candle-ends and all sorts of rubbish, to pay him for the room ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... town to draw a five guinea cheque for his eldest daughter. He also had to do a little shopping on her account. All his instructions were written down in Dot's fair round hand-writing upon a piece of foreign notepaper and slipped into his waistcoat pocket. ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... wife, and his visits to Washington were not infrequent. Mrs. Clemens was not always able to accompany him, and he has told us how once (it was his first visit after the President's marriage) she put a little note in the pocket of his evening waistcoat, which he would be sure to find when dressing, warning him about his deportment. Being presented to Mrs. Cleveland, he handed her a card on which he had written "He didn't," and asked her to sign her name below those words. Mrs. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... chenille, and her successful discovery of it at last. Albert's gratitude was extreme; his sister would be delighted and flattered, the work would receive an additional value in the eyes of all, and he might well say so, he was a party concerned, the material was for a waistcoat, to be worn on an occasion—but his sister ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that he was dressed very richly—having no design at all to make conquests; no, not he!—O this wicked love of intrigue!—A kind of olive-coloured velvet, and fine brocaded waistcoat. I said, when he took leave of me, "You're a charming Mr. B.," and saluted him, more pressingly than he returned it; but little did I think, when I plaited so smooth his rich laced ruffles, and bosom, where he was going, or what ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... him consequently, and found him sitting up in bed in a green baize waistcoat and a red Toledo cap, and so withered and dried up that he looked as if he had been turned into a mummy. They were very cordially received by him; they asked him after his health, and he talked to them about himself very naturally and in very well-chosen language. In the course of their conversation ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... story with amazement. The phrases quoted told their own tale; they were plainly from the shyster's mint. A few hours back I had seen him a mere bedlamite and fit for a strait-waistcoat; he was penniless in a strange country; it was highly probable he had gone without breakfast; the absence of Norris must have been a crushing blow; the man (by all reason) should have been despairing. And now I heard of him, clothed and in his right mind, deliberate, insinuating, admiring vistas, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it. He also had double and triple shirt frills, and while the brass buttons of his coat were no larger than cherry pips, the monstrously puffed sleeves rose as high as his shoulders. The wax-yellow waistcoat was almost half concealed by the huge projecting ruffles. The whole costume was set off by hose a la cosaque, which appeared to amplify downwards, bulged over the boots, and were slit up in front so as to allow them to be stuffed therein. Above the waistcoat dangled all sorts of jingling-jangling ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... because now I learn the nuances of English words. But to spite him I agreed. "Ah, yes, it is in the waist a little, I suppose!" That was the cat in me, for it is true he is growing fat just at his waistcoat. But I remembered in time my promise to Larry and dropped the cat to be the meek mouse, while Mr. C. explained with care that it was his mind which had ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy grey shepherd's check trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... neared London, Selingman awoke, smiled blandly upon them, brushed the cigar ash from his coat and waistcoat, put on his hat and looked about ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... carven table, then to the gorgeous pattern of the Kermansha at his feet. Once more he studied the face of his companion, with the keen, soul-gripping scrutiny of the skilled physician. As last he arrived at a definite conclusion. He cleared his throat, and fumbled in his waistcoat pocket for a cigar. A swiftly struck match in Monty's hand was held up so promptly to the end of the cigar, that the doctor's lips had not closed about it. This deftness, simple in itself, did not escape the observation of the scientist. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... a word of his character, of himself. But this is impossible with him who has written much. Of such a person we get, from his books, not merely a just, but the most just representation. Bulwer, the individual, personal man, in a green velvet waistcoat and amber gloves, is not by any means the veritable Sir Edward Lytton, who is discoverable only in 'Ernest Maltravers,' where his soul is deliberately and nakedly set forth. And who would ever know Dickens by looking at him or talking with him, or doing ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... places of the world, because they are literature, and not couched in scholastic syllogisms. Dear me! I am philosophizing,—I, old Daddy Dan, with the children plucking at my coat-tails and the brown snuff staining my waistcoat, and, ah, yes! the place already marked in my little chapel, where I shall sleep at last. I must have been angry, or gloomy, that day, thirty years ago, when I stepped on the platform at M——, after ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... before it. Mr SEEDY sits down, pulls the will out of his pocket, lays it on the table, takes out his snuff-box, takes a pinch, then his handkerchief, blows his nose, snuffs the candles, takes his spectacles from his waistcoat pocket, puts them on, breaks the seals, and bows to the company: Mrs JELLYBAGS has taken her seat on the left next to him, and Dr GUMARABIC by her side. Mrs JELLYBAGS sobs very loud, with her handkerchief ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... are as fitted for women and girls as for men and boys. Gracefully used, they give a good carriage and deportment, not always obtained by other means. Dumb-bell practice should precede the use of the Indian clubs. In beginning with the latter, take off your coat and cravat, loosen your braces and waistcoat, and put ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... pity," she said regretfully, "but it would never do to leave them about. Think what a waistcoat I could have made for you, Jules, out of this scarlet cloth. With the gold buttons it would have been superb, and it would have been the envy of the quarter; ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... now openly declares his resolution to be a gentleman; says that his soul is too great for a counting-house; ridicules the conversation of city taverns; talks of new plays, and boxes and ladies; gives duchesses for his toasts; carries silver, for readiness, in his waistcoat-pocket; and comes home at night in a chair, with such thunders at the door, as have more than once brought the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... inns—of no less celebrated a one than the White Hart—that a man was busily employed in brushing the dirt off a pair of boots, early on the morning succeeding the events narrated in the last chapter. He was habited in a coarse-striped waistcoat, with black calico sleeves, and blue glass buttons; drab breeches and leggings. A bright red handkerchief was wound in a very loose and unstudied style round his neck, and an old white hat was carelessly thrown on one side of ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... say there are plenty of pet parsons who answer to this description. Wait a little—I have kept his chief distinction till the last. His beautiful light hair flows in profusion over his shoulders; and his glossy beard waves, at apostolic length, down to the lower buttons of his waistcoat. ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... Dutton, an exceeding coxcomb, fresh from his travels, whom I have taken upon trial — The fellow wears a solitaire, uses paint, and takes rappee with all the grimace of a French marquis. At present, however, he is in a ridingdress, jack-boots, leather breeches, a scarlet waistcoat, with gold binding, a laced hat, a hanger, a French posting-whip in his hand, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... chain out of sight you are pretty safe as long as you are sober, and every man who gets drunk ought to lose his watch; the thief should get a reward for doing that job. It's safer of course to carry the watch in the fob than in the waistcoat pocket, particularly if the chain is exposed, but it can easily be taken from any part, if the chain is seen, unless you have a catch in your pocket to hold it. You know the way we do is to twist the bow of the watch and it breaks ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... Lord Liverpool, a respectable looking old gentleman, in a brown wig. Later still, I saw Mr. Fox, fat and jovial, though he was then declining. He, who had been a "bean" in his youth, then looked something quaker-like as to dress, with plain colored clothes, a broad round hat, white waistcoat, and, if I am not mistaken, white stockings. He was standing in Parliament street, just where the street commences as you leave Whitehall; and was making two young gentlemen laugh heartily at something which ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... European gear. I told them that now the Turks dressed in the same manner, or nearly so; at which they were greatly surprised. I had on a black surtout, tight trousers, and varnished boots, gloves, neckerchief, waistcoat; everything European but the hat, wearing instead of this ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... the navvy wandered about from one public work to another—apparently belonging to no country and having no home. He usually wore a white felt hat with the brim turned up, a velveteen or jean square-tailed coat, a scarlet plush waistcoat with little black spots, and a bright-coloured kerchief round his herculean neck, when, as often happened, it was not left entirely bare. His corduroy breeches were retained in position by a leathern strap round the waist, and were ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... Percival. "As you say, it's a good thing I have some of my own." He had his fingers in his waistcoat pocket, and was wondering which of the coins that he felt there would prove to be gold. It was an important question. "Don't vex yourself about me, Aunt Harriet. Kiss me and say good-bye: there isn't much time, is there? Tell Sissy—" he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... vest, waistcoat charla, prattle, gossip chanclos, goloshes chapa, plate (metal) chelin, shilling cheque, cheque chillones, gaudy (colours) chimenea, chimney chocolate, ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... was evidently one of no small consideration in his profession. He was of a strong and powerful build, with a head set close to his shoulders, and upon a round, short bull neck. He wore a black cravat, loosely tied into a knot, and a red waistcoat elaborately trimmed with gold braid; a leather belt with a brass buckle and hanger, and huge sea-boots completed a costume singularly suggestive of his occupation in life. His face was round and broad, like that of a cat, and a complexion stained, by constant exposure to the sun ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... contemporaries, he had "a short, thick neck, stooped in the shoulders, and had fat, short arms, which he rarely lifted higher than his stomach. His left hand frequently lodged in his breast, between his coat and waistcoat, while with his right hand he prepared his speech." Yet the same critic is obliged to confess that, at seventy years of age, a younger man might have personated but could not have acted, Hamlet better. He calls his voice "low and grumbling," ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... vallit was as well as any genlmn in service; and this I can tell you, he's genrally a hapier, idler, handsomer, mor genlmnly man than his master. He has more money to spend, for genlmn WILL leave their silver in their waistcoat pockets; more suxess among the gals; as good dinners, and as good wine—that is, if he's friends with the butler: and friends in corse they will be if they know which ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Ah! but his Uncle Samuel knows what baby wants to see." (I squeezed Myra's arm. 4 hrs. 3 mins. 10 secs. There was just time.) "I wonder if it's anything in his uncle's waistcoat?" ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... tenderly in his waistcoat pocket; and, after he had wept, and quoted poetry to the stars, forgot it. He began to wish that he had not mixed his liquors quite so impartially; and, on the morrow, when he woke, he was mindful of nothing more ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... rather like that, I imagine, of a swarm of rats climbing up one's trousers. However, it was over in a few seconds, and all of them—over a dozen—were with Wag and Slim on the table, except one, who, whether by mistake or on purpose, went on climbing me by way of my waistcoat buttons, rather deliberately, until he reached my shoulder. I didn't object, of course, but I turned round (which made him catch at my ear) and went back to my chair, seated in which I felt rather ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... on hearing Willy speaking. Roger Bollard repeated what he had before said. "Clap a strait-waistcoat on him, and keep his head cool," cried the doctor, sitting up. "I'll see him in the morning; I cannot do him ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... he happened to reach into his pocket for a cigar, and Hal observed a silver shield on the breast of his waistcoat. "That a deputy's badge?" he inquired, and then turned to examine the School-commissioner's ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... Johnny Bower a decent-looking little old man, in blue coat and red waistcoat. He received us with much greeting, and seemed delighted to see my young companion, who was full of merriment and waggery, drawing out his peculiarities for my amusement. The old man was one of the most authentic and particular of cicerones; he pointed out everything ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... must be tilted a little to one side. One eyebrow must be raised and the opposite corner of the mouth turned down. One knee should be slightly bent; the first finger and thumb of one hand should rest gracefully in the waistcoat pocket, and the other hand should ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... exactions of the native temperament. On the ecclesiastical side he was conscientiously uncompromising, but personally he was as simple-mannered as he was simple-hearted. He was a tall lean man in rusty black, with a clerical waistcoat that buttoned high, and scholarly glasses, but with a belated straw hat that had counted more than one summer, and a farmer's tan on his face and hands. He pronounced the church-letter, though quite outside ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... in Josiah's office, a young man entered and was warmly greeted by her father. He carried a walking stick, sported a white edging on his waistcoat and had just the least suspicion of perfumery on him—a faint scent that reminded ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... Councillor Batchgrew had provided himself—doubtless by purchase, since he had not been home—with a dandiacal spotted white waistcoat in honour of the warm and sunny weather. This waistcoat by its sprightly unsuitability to his aged uncouthness, somehow intensified the sinister ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... pulls off the old one and swallows it. This fact has been doubted; but why should It be deemed incredible? Are there not parallel cases in the human family? GOLDSMITH tells us that he once lived for a fortnight on his coat and waistcoat; and every pawnbroker knows that a cast-off suit often furnishes the material for a family dinner. Why should not a frog sustain life with his Pants ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... question of dress. He had, perhaps, been making money in journalism, for he was no longer good looking in spite of his clothes. He had the most excellent grey flannels, or something of the sort; just the right kind of collar (I know it must be right, for Stan always wears it) and a waistcoat Potter himself might have envied. I didn't exactly think of these things then, but I must have unconsciously taken them all in, in a flash, for I ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Le Mot d'Ordre, "you know of what infamous machinations I have been the victim." I suppose M. Rochefort does, but I am obliged to confess that I have not the least idea, unless indeed M. Lullier means by "machinations" the order that was given him to bring Mont Valerien in his waistcoat pocket. "Imprisoned without motive," he continues, "by order of the Central Committee, I was thrown ..." (Oh! you should not have thrown M. Lullier) "into the Prefecture of Police," (the ex-Prefecture, if you please), "and put in solitary confinement at the very ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... not say that a man was properly dressed with only a coat on! You would expect him to have on a coat, waistcoat and trousers!" And the day was won ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... and waistcoat. [Going to help him on with his Clothes] This is the waistcoat young mistress work'd with her own hands, for your birth-day, five years ago. Come, get into it, as ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... to me, my summer-child!" said the mother, smiling affectionately as she saw Henrik had placed her shoes under his waistcoat, to ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... I had put on a white waistcoat for coolness, and while walking past with my thumbs in my waistcoat pockets (a habit I have), one man, seated in the cart, and looking like an American, commenced singing some vulgar nonsense about "I HAD THIRTEEN DOLLARS IN MY WAISTCOAT POCKET." I fancied it was meant for me, and my suspicions were ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... pipe and sat himself upon the disselboom of the waggon, looking extremely handsome and picturesque in the flare of the firelight which fell upon his dark face, long black hair and curious garments, for although he had replaced his lion-skin by an old coat, his zebra-hide trousers and waistcoat made of an otter's pelt still remained. Contemplating him, Rachel felt sure that whatever his present and past might be, he had spoken the truth when he hinted that he was well-born. Indeed, this might be gathered ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... an express from Edinburgh brought him the earliest intelligence of the Burke-and-Hare revolution in the art, went mad upon the spot; and, instead of a pension to the express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavored to burke him; in consequence of which he was put into a strait waistcoat. And that was the reason we had no dinner then. But now all of us were alive and kicking, strait-waistcoaters and others; in fact, not one absentee was reported upon the entire roll. There were also many ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... began. My wife being near her time, and very weak, I lay in the next chamber. A little after eleven I heard "Fire!" cried in the street, next to which I lay. If I had been in my own chamber, as usual, we had all been lost. I threw myself out of bed, got on my waistcoat and nightgown, and looked out of window; saw the reflection of the flame, but knew not where it was; ran to my wife's chamber with one stocking on and my breeches in my hand; would have broken open the door, which was bolted within, but could not. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... excellent law-book still re-edited and republished. Whether he was originally big or little is more than I can guess. When I knew him he was all fallen away and fallen in; crooked and shrunken; buckled into a stiff waistcoat for support; troubled by ailments, which kept him hobbling in and out of the room; one foot gouty; a wig for decency, not for deception, on his head; close shaved, except under his chin—and for that he never failed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... felled her brutally to the ground. They were only just in time to save her. Don't look so pale, Anna, I am not going to harrow up your feelings. It is not a nice story. Westbrook was raving in a strait waistcoat before night, but he did not live many months afterwards;" and then Malcolm related ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the pistols were on the table with the Statutes of the United States. Secretary and Treasurer Hewley's lay on his strong-box immediately behind him. The Governor's was a light one, and always hung in the arm hole of his waistcoat. The graveyard of Boise City this year had twenty-seven tenants, two brought there by meningitis, and twenty-five by difference of opinion. Many denizens of the Territory were miners, and the unsettling element of gold-dust hung in the air, breeding argument. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... man changed his coat, his collar, his waistcoat, and tie. He put on a pair of spectacles, and when my aunt dared to look at him he was for all the world like a clergyman—an ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... is evidently waiting for somebody, and though she may have made up her mind to go to church with him one of these mornings, I don't think they have any such intention on this particular afternoon. Here he is, at last. The white trousers, blue coat, and yellow waistcoat—and more especially that cock of the hat—indicate, as surely as inanimate objects can, that Chalk Farm and not the parish church, is their destination. The girl colours up, and puts out her hand with a very awkward affectation of indifference. He gives it a gallant ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... he was, as they say, born with a golden spoon in his mouth, and had never so many a thousand a-year, to make up to him for never so few brains! He was uncommon well-dressed, though, I must own. What trousers!—they stuck so natural to him, he might have been born in them. And his waistcoat, and satin stock—what an air! And yet, his figure was nothing very out of the way! His gloves, as white as snow; I've no doubt he wears a pair of them a-day—my stars! that's three-and-sixpence a-day; for don't ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... mind; then starting up, and flinging his heavy shoes aside, he took his place at the end of the space cleared for him, his ragged corduroy trousers hanging in tatters round his bare ankles. With his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, he began the dance, singing all the time an old refrain descriptive of its measure; keeping at a little distance from the group of candles, but gradually approaching nearer and nearer, and at length flinging his ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... gold from his flap waistcoat pocket, and handed it to his uncle, who looked at him so curiously ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... her reputed daintiness, clung to the arm of Bearskin, who, despite the fact that his furry coat was that of a buffalo instead of a bear, was a unique success in his line. One suspected, too that the Brave Little Tailor, whose waistcoat bore the modest inscription, "Seven at One Blow," and who tripped over his long sword at regular two-minute intervals, had an impish, freckled countenance. The straight, lithe figure of the youth with the Magic Fiddle reminded one of Lawrence Armitage, while his constant companion, Aladdin, ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... his lips and blew softly a little gold whistle which hung from a chain attached to his waistcoat. Almost immediately the door opened. A man entered, dressed somberly in black, whose bearing and demeanour alike denoted the servant, but whose physique was the physique of a prize-fighter. He was scarcely more than five feet six in height, but his shoulders were ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... looks for a moment; till, with a queer grin, Donovan began to fumble in his waistcoat-pocket, and drew out, in close company with a rounded plug of tobacco, seven or ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... long-flapped coat, and stands up in a long-flapped waistcoat, which Sir Roger de Coverley might have worn when it was new, picks out a stick, and is ready for Master Joe, who loses no time, but begins his old game, whack, whack, whack, trying to break down the old man's guard by sheer strength. But it won't do; he catches every blow close by the basket, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... I must tell you exactly what we took up. A pair of large double blankets to make the tent of,—that was one swag, and a very unwieldy one it was, strapped knapsack fashion, with straps of flax-leaves, on the back, and the bearer's coat and waistcoat fastened on the top of the whole. The next load consisted of one small single blanket for my sole use, inside of which was packed a cold leg of lamb. I carried the luncheon basket, also strapped on my shoulders, filled with two large bottles of cream, some tea ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... all over. For a moment later Captain Bunker began to fumble in his waistcoat pocket with the one hand that was not clasping his wife's waist. "One thing more, Mollie; when I left her and refused to take any of her dimons, she put a queer sort o' ring into my hand, and told me with a kind o' mischievious, bedevilin' smile, that I must keep it ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... his coffee, and his cup fell into the saucer with a crash, breaking both fragile pieces into fragments. The contents were sprayed over the linen, and drops stained the Elder's white waistcoat. ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... a person. However, I liked his face; he could speak Turkish and Arabic fluently: Greek was his mother-tongue, and he had a smattering of French. I sent for the tailor, and had him measured for a suit of clothes to match those of Amarn—a tunic, waistcoat, knickerbockers, and gaiters of navy-blue serge. In a few days Georgi was transformed into a respectable-looking ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... toad smiles affably and comfortably, possibly meditating a liqueur. I have an especial regard for the giant toad in one of the cases against the inner wall of the reptile-house lobby. There is a pimpliness of countenance and a comfortable capaciousness of waistcoat about him that always make me wonder what he has done with his churchwarden and pewter. He has a serene, confidential, well-old-pal-how-are-you way of regarding Tyrrell, his keeper. Of late (for some few months, that is) the giant toad has been turning something over in his mind, ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... my waistcoat was off, and both men looking at my shoulder, which the horse's hoof must have barely grazed, though no more, or I should have been in a worse plight. Still the shoulder was a sorry sight enough, and the great black woman with the little fair baby in her ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... banter, speaks of the origin of the ancient and mysterious brotherhood. "And now," he says, in ending, "I introduce to you him who, whenever and wherever he speaks, is the orator of the day." Mr. Phillips rises, and buttons his frock-coat across his white waistcoat as he moves to the front of the platform. Seen from the theatre, his hair is gray, and his face looks older, but there is the same patrician air; and with the familiar tranquillity and colloquial ease he begins ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... eye, not the memory, and men find out the science of their achievements afterwards, like the mathematical law in the Greek column. The stiffness rather than firmness of mind, the surrender of all spontaneous action in the strait-waistcoat of a preconceived plan, to which we have before alluded, unfitted him for that rapid change of combinations on the great chess-board of battle which enabled General Rosecrans at Murfreesboro to turn defeat into victory, an achievement without ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... was, as I remember, delightfully comfortable, old-fashioned, and in a way beautiful. There was their daughter Rebecca, who was pretty and gentle, so that several wild birds came every morning to feed from her hand and perch on her fingers. Uncle Seth himself wore a scarlet waistcoat, and, as I recall him, seemed altogether in figure to belong to the time of Cromwell, or to earlier days. There was a hall, hung round with many old family portraits in antique dresses, and an immense dairy—the pride of Aunt Betsy's heart—and a garden, ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... did you say?" A shrewd look came into his eyes. "Some of the cutest devils I know are Greeks." He pulled down a shirt-cuff and took a diamond-studded pencil from his waistcoat pocket. "How do you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... may go well with a coach and four, but not with the automobile. Imagine an engineer driving his locomotive in blue coat, yellow waistcoat, and ruffles,—quite as appropriate as a ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and processes of working, bottling, and cellaring,—tasted remarkably strong; but it did not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, presently the stranger in cinder gray at the table, moved by its creeping influence, unbuttoned his waistcoat, threw himself back in his chair, spread his legs, and made his presence felt ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
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