"After-dinner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... much what you ought to say, as what you ought not to say, and your discretion shall be the admiration of a whole country-side. "The Smoking-room: with which is incorporated 'Anecdotes.'" What a rollicking, cheerful, after-dinner sound there is about it. SHABRACK might say it was like the title of a cheap weekly, which as a matter of fact, it does resemble. But what of that? Next week we will begin upon ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 103, November 26, 1892 • Various
... explained the hostility to the Americans. Meares was short of provisions to go to China, and Gray supplied them. In return Meares set his workmen to help clean the keel of the Lady Washington from barnacles; but the Englishman was a true fur trader to the core. In after-dinner talks, on the day of the launch, he tried to frighten the Americans away from the coast. Not fifty skins in a year were to be had, he said. Only the palisades and cannon protected him from the Indians, of whom there were more than two thousand hostiles ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... serving him with an after-dinner cup of tea, which she had brought into the drawing-room, and in putting the second lump of sugar into his saucer she paused again, thoughtfully, holding the little cube in the tongs. She was rather elaborately dressed for so simple an occasion, and her silken train coiled itself far out ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... you, that's good," he sighed, when he had finished. "Real, live, after-dinner coffee, too. Why, gentlemen, I haven't eaten a civilised meal, with all the trimmings, for over two years. Doctor, do you think a little of the real stuff would hurt me? It's a ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... cheap after the remark, for Mrs. Socrates, nee Xanthippe, covered five sheets of paper with laughter, with an occasional bracketing of the word "derisively," such as we find in the daily newspapers interspersed throughout the after-dinner speeches of a candidate of another party. Finally, to my relief, the oft-repeated "Ha-ha-ha!" ceased, and the line, "I never should have guessed it," closed her immediate contribution to our ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... towering sea-front hotels look American, but they are a great deal more substantially built. There are two rivals for popular favour, the Grand and the Metropole. They are much alike in all their appointments, but there are fewer tea-drinkers and after-dinner sleepers (and snorers) at the Metropole. There is also a famous old coaching house, the Ship Hotel (most curiously named), which caters ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... reveling in her droll account of how, in the train coming up from Chicago, Mrs. Judge Porterfield had worn the negro porter's coat over her chilly shoulders in mistake for her husband's. Kate O'Malley can tell a funny story in a way to make the after-dinner pleasantries of a Washington diplomat sound like the clumsy jests told around the village ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... conveniently arranged for reference. The scope of the subjects is wide and the variety such that this book is all that could be desired in a book of toasts. The latter half of the book is a collection of side-splitting and clever stories as told by the great humorists and well-known after-dinner speakers. Here again the wide range of subjects makes this book especially useful and withal highly entertaining. The idea of a combination of toasts and stories ...
— The Little Lame Prince - Rewritten for Young Readers by Margaret Waters • Dinah Maria Mulock
... islands. To this speech President Spalding responded in well-chosen words, thanking both the King and the residents of Honolulu for the hospitality shown us, after which, at the King's request, Lincoln entertained the guests with his satire on after-dinner speeches, his "A B C" orations, and his mixing of a soda cocktail, all of which provoked roars of laughter. After the banquet the King and the members of his court and family held a levee beneath his birth-tree, ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... faith in God, occurred at the alumni dinner of Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn. At the close of the Commencement, Rev. H.H. Holloway, of Turin, Ga., the father of one of the graduates, was called upon for an after-dinner speech. Mr. Holloway told of a letter he received from President Cravath when he felt compelled, owing to the hard times, to have his son John, who had been in the University only four months, return home. Mr. Holloway, being unable ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various
... the writer took part in an after-dinner discussion at the American Art Association of Paris over the expression "the rules of composition." A number of artists joined in the debate, all giving their opinion without premeditation. Some maintained that the principles of composition ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... double life which she had been leading of late, Wych Hazel heard Mr. Falkirk's announcement and poured out his 'after-dinner coffee' with a steady hand. Then asked when Mr. Rollo was to go. He had gone already, that very day. And till when must this other business wait? Till the second week in October. Then she knew that he had thrown her off. No other earthly ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... in his cosy study smoking his after-dinner cigar. It was unusual for him to be alone at this hour of the evening, as his wife and children were generally with him. But he had been late coming from the office and by the time he had finished his dinner the children were put to bed, ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... novelle, and the fantastic beings of Pulci's epic: there walked the Fay Morgana, Regulus the loyal knight, the giant Morgante, Trajan the just Emperor and the proud figure of King Conrad; so that, escaping thither from the after-dinner dullness of the tapestry parlour, the boy seemed to pass from the most oppressive solitude to a world of warmth ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... view to practical questions. The speeches touched upon all these interests, and were received with enthusiasm, each one closing with a toast and music, for our little band of the night before had been brought in to enliven the scene. The Brazilians are very happy in their after-dinner speeches, and have great facility in them, whether from a natural gift or from much practice. The habit of drinking healths and giving toasts is very general throughout the country; and the most informal dinner among intimate friends does not conclude ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... wronged him, wronged France also: and to crush an adversary, he would in perfectly good faith have overthrown the Government. However, he was by no means incapable of generosity. He was an idealist of the after-dinner order, and loved to be a sort of God Almighty, and to lift some poor devil or other out of the mire, by way of demonstrating the greatness of his power, whereby he could make something out of nothing, make and unmake Ministers, and, if he had cared to, make and unmake ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Rowchester, and I dined alone. I must have dozed over my after-dinner cigarette, for at first that soft rapping seemed to come to me from a long way off. Then I sat up in my chair with a start. My cigarette had burnt out, my coffee was cold. I had been asleep, and outside some one was ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... heritage' had given many an after-dinner speaker a peroration, but it had given very few new settlers a living. The Conservative Government had achieved one great task of constructive patriotism, in providing for the {219} building of a railway ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... had my after-dinner smoke yet," he commented. "Better light up with me. It always tastes ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... monologues. The favorite numbers of favorite authors and entertainers. The book also contains practical advice on the delivery of the selections. The latest and best book for family reading, for teachers, elocutionists, orators, after-dinner ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... principles of etiquette and intercourse and common customs of amusement and fashion. Taken in this wide sense of the word, no personage in the history of Europe during the nineteenth century wielded so great an influence as His Royal Highness. He helped to make the unbounded after-dinner drinking of a previous period unpopular and socially un-orthodox; he encouraged in his more youthful days and always enjoyed the pleasures of dancing; he introduced very largely the popular fashion of a cigarette after dinner ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... James II. had feasted; and on some of these occasions the Warden's table had been honored with illustrious guests; especially when any of them happened to be wanting an opportunity to come before the public in an after-dinner speech. Just at present there was no occasion of that sort; and the good Warden fancied that he might give considerable eclat to his hereditary feast by bringing forward the young American envoy, a distinguished and eloquent man, to speak on the well- worn topic ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... generations with their strength and motive power. He saw with his own eyes knights preparing for war as if it were a hunt; learned men consider the mysteries of religion as fit subjects to exercise one's minds in after-dinner discussions; the chief guardians of the flock busy themselves with their "owelles" only to shear, not to feed them. Meed was everywhere triumphant; her misdeeds had been vainly denounced; her reign had come; under ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... told that story of dream-transference on a sleeping-car at Christmas-time was again at the club on Easter Eve. Halson had put him up for the winter, under the easy rule we had, and he had taken very naturally to the Turkish room for his after-dinner coffee and cigar. We all rather liked him, though it was Minver's pose to be critical of the simple friendliness with which he made himself at home among us, and to feign a wish that there were fewer trains between ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... bite it, the egg having previously been fried on both sides until it is as stiff and as hard as a piece of bristol board, who would not recognize a salad if they saw one, and who have never heard of after-dinner coffee. ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... to sip, the scent of the wine quirked time for him, making this for a fleeting moment the dining room at Red Springs during a customary after-dinner gathering of the men of the household. The talk there, too, had been of horses—always horses. Then Drew came back in a twitch of eyelid to the here and now, to Hunt Rennie watching him with a measuring ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... manners are no longer quite so hideous as in the little Tweedside watering-place. The extinction of duelling has destroyed, or nearly destroyed, the swaggering style of truculence; people could not behave as Mowbray and Sir Bingo behave to Tyrrel, in the after-dinner scene. The Man of Peace, the great MacTurk, with his harangues translated from the language of Ossian, is no longer needed, and no longer possible. Supposing manners to be correctly described in "St. Ronan's," the pessimist himself must admit that manners have improved. But it is not without ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... one hundred and seven pieces, and include one dozen each of dinner, breakfast, tea, soup, and butter plates, and cups and saucers of medium size, three platters of various sizes, vegetable dishes, covered and coverless, and a gravy boat. Tureen, sugar bowl, and cream pitcher, and after-dinner coffees are not included, but ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... out to talk in the moonlight, while I smoked an after-dinner cigar. We were gone for some time, and on our return decided to go straight upstairs to bed. I noticed that lights still burned in the coffee-room, and heard the sound of voices from that direction. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... forced to listen, now and then, to a kind of talk which makes him feel as if this were the after-dinner time of the world, and mankind were doomed hereafter forever to that kind of contented materialism which comes to good stomachs with the nuts and raisins. The dozy old world has nothing to do now but stretch its ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... shortcomings, was comfortable enough, and Mr. Bultitude's attitude—he was lying back in a well-wadded leather arm-chair, with a glass of claret at his elbow and his feet stretched out towards the ruddy blaze of the fire—seemed at first sight to imply that happy after-dinner condition of perfect satisfaction with oneself and things in general, which is the natural outcome of a good cook, a good ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... and yachting trips. His intimate pals seem to be middle-aged millionaires who are known to me in only the most casual way; and he is a sort of gentleman-in-waiting—I believe the accepted term is "pet cat"—to several society women, for whom he devises new cotillion figures, arranges original after-dinner entertainments ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... Keene, speaking for the after-dinner loungers, "you must take a little human advice. Go, get the air on the Plaza. We will keep shop for you. Stay as long as you like and come home in any condition you think best." And Joseph, tormented into this course, put on ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... James once wrote a leading article in the train between Paddington and Maidenhead. Many of the little poems which he contributed to periodicals were improvised. He was famous for wit and readiness as an after-dinner speaker; and showed an oratorical power in electioneering speeches which gave the highest hopes of parliamentary success. Indeed, from all that I have heard, I think that his powers in this direction made the greatest impression upon his friends, and ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... having been richly amused. If he does more, if he really says something droll, no matter how much below the average of the give and take of common talk, the listener's gratitude is frantic. It is so eager, it so outruns utterance, that it is not strange the after-dinner speech should be the favorite field of the fake-humorist, who reaps a full and ever-ripened harvest in it, and prospers on to a celebrity for brilliancy which there is little danger of his ever forfeiting so long ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... attention was paid to Mr. Desmond Mulligan. Political enthusiasm is his forte. He lives and writes in a rapture. He is, of course, a member of an inn of court, and greatly addicted to after-dinner speaking as a preparation for the bar, where as a young man of genius he hopes one day to shine. He is almost the only man to whom Bludyer is civil; for, if the latter will fight doggedly when there is a necessity for so doing, the former fights like an Irishman, and has a pleasure in it. He ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the registering telegraph did not rise from the perusal of any brilliant paper; he happened to be at leisure on shipboard, ready to contribute and share in the after-dinner conversation of a ship's cabin, when the occasion arose. Morse's electro-magnetic telegraph was mainly an invention employing powers and agencies through mechanical devices to produce a given end. It involved the combination ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... free, I have arranged for my wife to go to dinner at her sister's, where she'll spend all the after-dinner hours. ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... not fail to be duly grateful. Let us not fail to give thanks for the fact that setting forever is the conception of music as an after-dinner cordial, a box of assorted bonbons, bric-a-brac, a titillation, a tepid bath, a performance that amuses and caresses and whiles away a half-hour, an enchantment for boarding-school misses, an opportunity for virtuosi to ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... of course, an after-dinner speech. Being the last speech of the campaign it was also a highly important one. But George Remington felt, as he sat listening to the din of the applause, that he had answered rather neatly those who said he was wabbling ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... "After-Dinner Stories from Balzac, done into English by Myndart Verelst (obviously E. S.) with an introduction by Edgar Saltus"[8] contains four of the Frenchman's tales, "The Red Inn," "Madame Firmiani," "The 'Grande Breteche'," ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... at a great rate, and am glad to be disturbed from an indigestive after-dinner sleep. Not to mention that ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... know but Mme de Coulanges has already sent you word of our after-dinner conversations at Gourville's about people who have taste above or below their intelligence. Mme. Scarron and the Abbe Tetu were there; we lost ourselves in subtleties until we no longer understood anything. If the air of Provence, which subtilizes things still more, magnifies for you our visions, ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... move and spoil the picture," he cried. "Oh, you idyllic pair! And what are you playing? Cribbage! If I had been challenged to guess the game you would have selected for your after-dinner entertainment, I should have ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... least our Protestant, custom is in direct contrast. We tend on great religious festivals rather to close than to open our theatres. Another point of contrast is in the time allotted to the performance. We give to the theatre our after-dinner hours, when work is done, or at best a couple of hours in the afternoon. The theatre is for us a recreation. The Greek theatre opened at sunrise, and the whole day was consecrated to high and strenuous religious attention. During the five or six days of the great Dionysia, the whole ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... with the hot pudding and the after-dinner coffee things. "This has come on us so suddenly that we must make our plans at once," she explained. "I should think your mother would be glad to keep Rose for us; she is such a good cow. And then you can have ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... praise or formal tribute of any kind. It makes my skin hot even to recall the one or two such episodes I have faced. The wretched inability to think where to dispose of one's hands and gaze during the genial delivery of after-dinner encomiums; the distressing difficulty of replying! Upon the whole, I think I was better at receiving punishment. But it is true, the latter one received in privacy, and was under no obligation to answer; since replying to printed ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... myself—who alleged that Joseph Hooker was drunk at Chancellorsville, or at any other time. This denunciation began with a devout curse in the chaplain's prayer, culminated in a set of fierce resolutions, and ended with the last after-dinner speech. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... later, six men were smoking their after-dinner cigars at the same round table in the dining-room at the Sheridan Club. As a rule, it was the hour when, with all the reserve of the day thrown aside, badinage and jest reigned supreme, and the humourist came to his own. To-night chairs were drawn a little closer together, voices ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... listened to my nonsense with a good deal of rapping, and my speech seemed to give great satisfaction; my chief difficulty being in not knowing how to pitch my voice to the size of the room. As for the matter, it is not of the slightest consequence. Anybody may make an after-dinner speech who will be content to talk onward without saying anything. My speech was not more than two or three inches long; and, considering that I did not know a soul there, except the Mayor himself, and that I am wholly unpractised in all sorts of oratory, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... after-dinner loafers of the tavern's purlieus. Mr. Britt did not seem to mind them. He even looked about, as if to make ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... the British Ambassador, who was living on one of the British battleships, sat on his right and I sat on his left. During the evening a curious incident happened. The Prince and I were talking of the dangers of after-dinner speaking and what a dangerous sport it was. In the midst of our conversation some one whispered to the Prince and he rose to his feet, proposed the health of the visiting British Admiral and fleet, and made a little speech. As he concluded, he said, addressing the officers of the ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... had fewer than fifteen patients a day, half of them with eye diseases, and I acquired a considerable reputation as a doctor. We used to dine at seven o'clock on the terrace. After dinner divans were spread on the housetop, and we would watch the moon lighting up Hermon whilst the after-dinner pipe was being smoked. A pianette from Damascus enabled us to have a little music. Then I would assemble the servants, read the night prayers to them, with a little bit of Scripture or of Thomas a Kempis. The last thing ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... little after noon, and the boys were eating dinner at the camp set up close to the creek at Sinkhole cabin. Sudden, sprawled in the shade of the wagon, was staring glumly at the sluggish little stream, smoking his after-dinner cigar and trying to formulate some plan that would promise results where results were most vital to his bank account. It would, of course, take two or three days to gather in all the horses on Sinkhole ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... office. Why, my countrymen, I can show by statistics—and statistics never lie—that Ohio never had her fair share of the public offices. I have not brought any of the statistics with me, for fear some know-nothing might cry at our after-dinner speech 'Figures.' Still we never had our share of the public offices, or if we had we always filled them well, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... from the cab, where he still kept the engineer and fireman covered, "a little hunt is like an after-dinner ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... That dinner! That after-dinner in the drawing-room upstairs! It is a nightmare to be imagined, not to be described. Imagine walking from the darkness and the frightful secret of the passage into the blazing dazzle and the glittering eyes of the resplendent ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... created so much interest or won so much regard. He had already been honored by degrees from Oxford and Cambridge, and now many similar honors were thrust upon him. He was acknowledged to be the best after-dinner speaker in England, and no one was called upon so often for addresses at dedications, the unveiling of tablets, and other civic occasions. It is not strange that he became attached to England with an increasing affection, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... when he was making believe paint pictures, in the first freshness of early morning, or when he was smoking his after-dinner cigar, in the lingering June twilight, the face that interfered with the one occupation and lent charm to the other, was not framed in golden hair, nor animated with the lively and bird-like intelligence which he found so amusing. And not only was it ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... capital, which has been so often and eloquently described by grave and wise historians, but rather to follow the fortunes of an humble private in the ranks, and relate the events of a certain court-martial, as I learned them from the after-dinner talk of a gallant officer who had ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the best stream in the State, the first morning of the trout season; the type of man whose machine noses in the closest to the judge's stand when a big race is on; the type of man who dances most, collects the most picture postals of pretty girls, laughs most at after-dinner speeches; the type of man who either does not marry at all, or attains much notoriety when the question of alimony is being fought out to the last cipher; the last man you would point out as a possible conspirator against anything save the peace and dignity of some other man's home. But ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... Thomas Hood with his galloping stanzas in the "Bridge of Sighs," but an ordinary mortal must produce his effects more obviously. The greater skill one has the greater liberties one can take in his choice of materials, just as a clever after-dinner speaker may say many things which from a less tactful person would be deemed offensive. Thomas Hood can write his dirges in dactylics with triple rhymes, but we must model ours on ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... The after-dinner scene was very charming. Chinese lanterns were hung in the trees, the ladies in evening dress, the officers of the Imperial Army in mess dress of ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... let me tell you, sir, that I always went in the company of gentlemen—that is, when I did go, which was very seldom." The baronet in some after-dinner half-hour had allowed this secret of his youth ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... evening. ... No, I'm quite sure such a patronising thought never entered my Betty's head. After all, my upper half is sound, and I can talk sense or nonsense with anybody. What have one's legs to do with a pleasant after-dinner conversation? Years ago I swore a great oath that I would see them damned before they got in the way of ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... from a monster. Ptolemy realized that the show was a failure, and the Egyptians proof against mere novelty, preferring harmony and beauty. So he withdrew and ceased to prize them; the camel died forgotten, and the parti-coloured man became the reward of Thespis the fluteplayer for a successful after-dinner performance. ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... gentleman, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and refilling it so as to be ready for an after-dinner smoke, "Redfeather has come, and the parson's come too; and I look upon it as quite miraculous that they have come, considering the thing they came in. What they've come for is more than I can tell, but I suppose it's connected with church affairs.—Now then, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... share the coming tide of benefits? Only two things can prevent her: first, lack of preparation—too much "hot air" and not enough hustle; too much after-dinner aviating in the empyrean and not enough muddy mess out on the harbor dredge with "sand hogs" and "shovel stiffs"; then, second, lack of adequate labor to prepare. After-dinner speeches don't make the dirt fly. ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... it. Well, I'll be around to the Waldorf in the course of a day or two No, much obliged, but I don't care to go into the club-rooms to-night; in fact, I haven't been in there since the governor made that after-dinner speech of ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... one member of the United States Senate staggering through the streets, from what cause the reader will have no difficulty in judging. I have seen a great statesman, since deceased, carried from an after-dinner table to his chamber. I have seen the honorable Secretary of one of the National departments engaged in a brawl in a brothel. I have seen Representatives fighting in a bar-room like so many rowdies, and I have heard them use ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... convictorium, or a dinner at the Palais Royal a deux francs, the dinners to which I was invited by some of the Fellows in Hall, or in Common Room, surprised me not a little. The old plate, the old furniture, and the whole style of living, impressed me deeply, particularly the after-dinner railway, an ingenious invention for lightening the trouble of the guests who took wine in Common Room. There was a small railway fixed before the fireplace, and on it a wagon containing the bottles went backwards and forwards, halting before every guest till he had helped himself. ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... dispassionate sort of longevity. And Jenkins Hollis's feat of riding stolidly—one could hardly say bravely—up an almost sheer precipice to a flame-belching battery came suddenly into the landed magnate's recollection with the gentle vapors and soothing aroma of a meditative after-dinner pipe. Quivering with party spirit, Squire Goodlet sent for Hollis and offered to lend him the best horse on the place, and a saddle and bridle, if he would go down to Colbury and beat those town fellows out on their ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... tonight," he spoke, after the fashion of introducing after-dinner speakers, "Mr. Thomas Haviland Hicks, Jr., the celebrated Magician and Mystifier, who will present for your approval his world-famous Billion-Dollar Mystery, and give the correct solution to Thor, the problem no one ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Carpathia's crew was unsparing in his efforts to assist, to tenderly comfort each and every survivor. In all, sixteen boatloads were receives, containing altogether 720 persons, many in simply their night attire, others in evening dress, as if direct from an after-dinner reception, or concert. Most conspicuous was the coolness and self-possession, particularly of ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... meditatively. The fancy seized me that it had been left there on purpose—my last chance! Eastford House was barely a mile and a half away—a very reasonable after-dinner stroll. I smiled to myself as I summoned Wallace ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mask of cheerfulness, keeping it on until after the evening meal and her aunt's early retiring. But when she was released, she was glad enough to go out on the promenade just forward of the starboard paddle-box, where there were no after-dinner loungers, to be alone with her problem and free to plunge once more ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... later, Elsie sat reading in the abode of the vine-covered porch, while her aunt enjoyed her customary after-dinner nap. She presently heard the gate swing to, and the next moment Mr. Egerton was helping himself to a ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... stream of history on which we floated; so it was fun for those having no special mission, to feel that once again bazaars and more or less sophisticated "Sights" awaited their pleasure. I had given my after-dinner lecture the night before, trying to behave as if I were not boiling with emotion, and had told those who deigned to listen that Asiut, "City of the Wolves," was the capital of a province. I had babbled, too, about the tombs which self-respecting tourists ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... passed wearily, and her usual ride into the upland canyon did not reanimate her. For reasons known best to herself she did not take her after-dinner stroll along the shore to watch the outlying fog. At a comparatively early hour, while there was still a roseate glow in the western sky, she appeared with grim deliberation, and the blue lamp-shade in her hand, ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... Bartolome, between whom the last months had established a cordial basis of esteem. The village priest had dined with them; it was in deference to his presence that Flavia wore a gown whose lace collar came up to her round chin, and now had left the two gentlemen to after-dinner conversation instead of herself entertaining her father. She had the sense of being horribly alone; her longing for Corrie became physical pain, so that she crushed the letter in her fingers, catching her breath with difficulty. Close to one another they always had been, still closer ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... of the second week in January, the bills were out advertising the sale, under a decree of Chancery, of Mr. Tulliver's farming and other stock, to be followed by a sale of the mill and land, held in the proper after-dinner hour at the Golden Lion. The miller himself, unaware of the lapse of time, fancied himself still in that first stage of his misfortunes when expedients might be thought of; and often in his conscious ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... the command, "Thou shalt not steal," does not apply to a kiss, a heart, an umbrella, an hotel or an after-dinner story. ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... on to Verrieres, they turned about with their empty baskets and went back home, a sorry party, scolding and crying all the way. But long before they reached their homes and their angry husbands Madame Fox was comfortably snoozing her after-dinner nap under the hedge; while the happy Blackbird picked up juicy bugs in the neighboring meadow, with one eye cocked to guard against being surprised a second time by any ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Dowling, and how Dowling served him A look-out Indians seen advancing A moment of fear A yell Arrows and rifles A wounded chief carried off The field of battle The return to the camp Horses driven off by Indians Where Jose was found The wounded attended to An after-dinner discussion How the watch went to sleep, and how they were woke up McPhail missing Wolves, deer, and a puma A party set out ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... dinner after a morning's frighting. His object is to get an hour or so for sleep before the visitors come out from their later lunch. Mam 'Idger says we are lazy; that she 'don't gie way to it, she don't!' (She did a couple of days ago.) When the after-dinner tea is finished, Tony makes a start for 'up over!' Mrs Widger enquires if I have some writing to do—and asks also if I would like to ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... careful training added delicacy to his diction. He became remarkably dexterous in rhyme, and grew to be the recognized celebrant of class reunions and public dinners. Urbane, felicitous and possessing an unflagging humor, he was the prince of after-dinner poets—not a lofty position, be it observed, nor one making for immortal fame. His highwater mark was reached in three poems, "The Chambered Nautilus," "The Deacon's Masterpiece," and that faultless piece of familiar verse, "The Last Leaf," all of which are widely and affectionately ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... Frank was so kind and attentive and agreeable I couldn't find it in my heart to be cross to him. So it ended in our making up any little imaginary differences we may have had and becoming better friends than ever. As we sat in the balcony over the river—the two gentlemen smoking their after-dinner cigars, and we ladies sipping our coffee—I thought I had never enjoyed an evening so much; and even John, who was generally dreadfully afraid of Lady Scapegrace, became quite lively and gallant (for him), and they laughed and talked and joked about all sorts of things; ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... of the 6th, just at dusk, I had started up the road for a lazy after-dinner saunter, when I was brought to a sudden halt by what on the instant I took for the cry of a night-hawk. But no night-hawk could be here thus early in the season, and listening further, I perceived that the bird, if bird it ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... follows the salad sometimes, and sometimes accompanies it. Then the ices and sweets. When the ices are removed, the desert plates, overlaid with a dainty doily, upon which is set a finger-bowl, are passed, and the fruits appear. Confections are then served, to be followed with black coffee in tiny after-dinner coffee-cups, which are passed on a salver, together with lump sugar, and small gold or silver spoons; no cream. The strong, French Cafe et noir [Transcriber's Note: Cafe noir], or black coffee, is ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... address, that the ideas I had carefully gathered together have, I fear, rather taken flight; but I shall give them to you as they come, though they may not be in quite as good order as I should like them. The gift of after-dinner speaking is one I heard illustrated the other day very well at a dinner at which my friend, Judge Bartlett and I were present. A gentleman told a story of an English bishop travelling in a third-class railway ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... the barn yawning; he had been having an after-dinner nap. There were bits of clover and hay in his tousled hair. "Where do you come from?" he cried gaily ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... was passed and that we were getting along toward the shank-end of the Christian era mighty fast. I was afraid my turn would come next and afraid it would not. Perhaps you know this sensation. You get it at the dentist's, and when you are on the list of after-dinner speakers at a large banquet, and when you are waiting for the father of the Only Girl in the World to make up his mind whether he is willing to try to endure you as ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... thought, calling itself dyspepsia, had tried to tyrannize over our forefathers, it would have 175:18 been routed by their independence and in- dustry. Then people had less time for self- ishness, coddling, and sickly after-dinner talk. The ex- 175:21 act amount of food the stomach could digest was not discussed according to Cutter nor referred to sanitary laws. A man's belief in those days was not so severe 175:24 upon the gastric juices. Beaumont's "Medical ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... many other discoverers besides Columbus, but he seems to have made more satisfactory arrangements with the historians than any of the others. He had genius, and was also a married man. He was a good after-dinner speaker, and was first to use the egg trick, which so many after-dinner speakers have since wished they had thought of before ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... public. So says WALTER. They mumble, stumble, hammer, stammer, falter! BESANT, why grumble at fate's distribution? To writers, sense; to speakers, elocution! Some books are bosh, but all experience teaches "Rot's" native realm is—After-dinner Speeches! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... Peter this evening to escape their usual after-dinner talk, and went to his room. He was there now, with his face white ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... both of them. Then we set out again. The day was intensely hot (March 24), and my oarsman was more than half sick with a sudden cold. I begged him to take things easily, but he soon experienced an almost miraculous renewal of his forces. In one of the first of our after-dinner bonnet patches, he seized his gun, fired, and began to shout, "A purple! a purple!" He drew the bird in, as proud as a prince. "There, sir!" he said; "didn't I tell you it was handsome? It has every color there is." And indeed it was handsome, worthy to be called the "Sultana;" with the most ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... eloquent speaker. He dealt in pulpit and on platform, with many public questions, such as temperance, capital and labor, civic righteousness, and the purifying of East Side slum life. He advocated personal freedom, and invariably spoke with authority. He was particularly happy as an after-dinner speaker. He died ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... the light, pandemonium broke out in the land of thinkers and poets. "What," cried the moralists, "workingmen, dirty, filthy slaves, to be put on the stage! Poverty in all its horrors and ugliness to be dished out as an after-dinner amusement? That is ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... great dining-room of the Riggs House. Miss Anthony occupied the place of honor, on her right Senator Blair and Mrs. Stanton, on her left Robert Purvis, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker and Mrs. Sewall, who presided. In addition to the after-dinner speeches of these distinguished guests there were clever and sparkling responses to toasts by the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, Miss Phoebe W. Couzins, the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, Representative J. A. Pickler (S. D.), Mrs. Colby, Mrs. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... thinly-disguised form, attended the assiduous efforts of the Shalems to play a leading role in the world that they had climbed into. The Baron began to observe to his acquaintances that "gadding about" and entertaining on a big scale was not much in his line; a quiet after-dinner pipe and talk with some brother legislator was his ideal way ...
— When William Came • Saki
... democracy of America is seen at its best in Chicago, though not unknown in other large cities. On the evening of a hot summer day cushions and rugs are spread on the front steps of the houses, and the occupants take possession of these, the men to enjoy their after-dinner cigars, the women to talk and scan the passers-by. The general effect is very genial and picturesque, and decidedly suggestive of democratic sociability. The same American indifference to the exaggerated British love of privacy which leads John Bull ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... work alone, for Mr. Badger usually indulged himself in the luxury of an after-dinner nap, lasting ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... small, are cunning, and wise in their generation. For the most part they toil not, (save at pleasure-seeking and lion-hunting), neither do they spin (anything beyond the edifying yarns they call "after-dinner stories"). But they manage to live on the fat of the land. The larger aborigines (called the Whirkirs) are very industrious, and form the clearings and cultivate the various produce of the place. The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... the next day, while Miss Wealthy was taking her after-dinner nap, the two girls presented themselves at the door of Martha's little sewing-room, where she sat with her sleeves rolled up, hemming pillow-cases. It was a sunny little room, with a pleasant smell of pennyroyal about ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... prayers and sermon were philosophically dull, and respectable as any after-dinner speech. Nor could it well be otherwise: one of the favourite sayings of its minister was, that a clergyman is nothing but a moral policeman. As such, however, he more resembled one of Dogberry's watch. He could not even preach hell with any vigour; for as a gentleman he recoiled from the vulgarity ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... to the Front. Mr. Davis' Labors and Responsibilities. His Personal Popularity. Social Feeling at the new Capital. "Pawnee Sunday" Panic. Richmond Society. An After-dinner Object Lesson. How Good Blood did not Lie. Western Virginia. Society's Pets go to the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... the walls; a wood fire burnt on the hob-grate, and beside it stood a vast arm chair, considerably worn, with depressions shewing where its owner had been leaning his head, day after day, when he smoked his pipe, or took his after-dinner nap. The bookshelves were stocked with scientific works, and some volumes on philosophy of a materialistic character. With the exception of Robert Burns, not one ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... MONTAGU WILLIAMS's third volume of Reminiscences, published by MACMILLAN & Co. His cheery after-dinner conversational style of telling capital stories is excellent. He is not writing a book, he is talking to us; he is telling us a series of good things, and, quoth the Baron, let me advise you to light your cigar and sit down in your armchair ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... Mrs Rendell, smiling again; and as she spoke she lifted her head in a listening gesture, and pushed her stool from the fire. She had heard the opening of a door, and knew that her husband had finished his after-dinner cigar and was on his way to the drawing-room; and the next moment he appeared on the threshold, looked round the group by the fire, and threw himself in ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and without one human dwelling in sight, Turkey and I lay that afternoon, in a bliss enhanced to me, I am afraid, by the contrasted thought of the close, hot, dusty schoolroom, where my class-fellows were talking, laughing, and wrangling, or perhaps trying to work in spite of the difficulties of after-dinner disinclination. A fitful little breeze, as if itself subject to the influence of the heat, would wake up for a few moments, wave a few heads of horse-daisies, waft a few strains of odour from the blossoms of the white clover, and then die away ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... to the moonlight on Zanzibar roadstead while you fellows were merely after-dinner mundane. D'you suppose the landlord 'ud make trouble if we let him ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... tranquillity at Versailles, and even at Meudon, everything had changed its aspect at the chateau. The King had seen Monseigneur several times during the day; but in his after-dinner visit he was so much struck with the extraordinary swelling of the face and of the head, that he shortened his stay, and on leaving the chateau, shed tears. He was reassured as much as possible, and after the council he took a walk ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... West" was received with enthusiasm, not only by the general public, but by royalty. Gladstone made a call upon Will, in company with the Marquis of Lorne, and in return a lunch was tendered to the "Grand Old Man" by the American visitors. In an after-dinner speech, the English statesman spoke in the warmest terms of America. He thanked Will for the good he was doing in presenting to the English public a picture of the wild life of the Western continent, which served to illustrate the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... that we were ages at table; I was impatient to know the end. My father finally gave the signal, and we rose, but while we were each saying the after-dinner grace, Mr. Kochanowski slipped out at a small side door, and did ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... elected to the Wolves, but he had only attended one dinner and had then remained severely and unpleasantly sober. There was no other possible rival to Cardillac, to his distinction, his power of witty and malicious after-dinner speaking, his wonderful clothes, his admirable football, his haughty indifference. He would of ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... out a dull practice among his neighbors by a sharp practice on his guests,) we again mounted the stage. We had proceeded to within eighteen miles of Newbern, when suddenly, as the Squire and I were lighting our second after-dinner segars, 'kerchunk' went one of the forward wheels, and over went the coach in a twinkling. I saved myself by clinging to the seat, but Preston was not so fortunate. The first I saw of him he was immersed in a pool ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... gone around to Broome Street on his undeclared errand, and while the ladies are making an excuse to while away the time until his return, in the discussion of the after-dinner provocatives to indigestion recommended, let us enter a little more closely upon a subject merely indicated in the foregoing chapter, and then sneered at by at least one of the conversationists—that of the fortune-telling ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... made at least one beginning there: at a printers' banquet he delivered his first after-dinner speech; a hilarious speech—its humor of a primitive kind. Whatever its shortcomings, it delighted his audience, and raised him many points in the public regard. He had entered a field of entertainment in which ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine |
