"Wag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arriere ban of the relations of the young couple, guzzled in a wedged and weltering mass. Wizened grandfathers and stolid large-eyed children ate and panted in the suffocating heat, and gorged again. Not till half way through the repast did tongues begin to wag freely. At last the tisane of champagne—syrupy paradise to my uncultivated palate—was handed round and the toasts were drunk. The bride's garter was secured amid boisterous shouts and innuendos, and then we left the stifling room and entered ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... have no need at all of the capitalists and no more yield to them any profit, but all the fruit of your labor shall ye share as brethren, every one having the same; and so shall the tank never overflow until every man is full, and would not wag the tongue for more, and afterward shall ye with the overflow make pleasant fountains and fish ponds to delight yourselves withal even as did the capitalists; but these shall be for the ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... distributed into such as Drolls, Clowns, Pantaloons, Punches, Scaramouches, and the like. In the Italian Comedy, of purely native growth, the original characters were Pantaloon, a Venetian Merchant; Dottore, a Bolognese physician; Spavento, a Neapolitan braggart; Pulcinello, a wag of Apalia; Giangurgoto and Corviello, two Clowns of Cala-simpleton; and Arlechino, a ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... just enough at a time to disguise the water which, when thickened with bread, a handful of haricots, and some scraps of other vegetables, made her daily soup. She was a widow now, but although whenever she spoke of her dead husband her head began to wag and the tears to start from her eyes, she had less care and worry and pain as a lonely woman than when she was bearing children and working harder than any pack-mule to bring them up. Her husband was a fisherman ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... not ashamed to wag a tongue Stiff with ten years' disuse of Parliaments; Why, when the last ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... of this dry prose, Must play the devil again out hollow. [Aloud.] The healing art is quickly comprehended; Through great and little world you look abroad, And let it wag, when all is ended, As pleases God. Vain is it that your science sweeps the skies, Each, after all, learns only what he can; Who grasps the moment as it flies He is the real man. Your person somewhat takes ...
— Faust • Goethe
... under the solid influence of porridge, tinned fruit, fresh bread, butter and tea and the soothing aroma of innumerable pipes, other public heroes arose and ousted this upstart of the night. Meanwhile, the latter began to show signs of abating energy after twelve hours' work. Soon some wag had caught him having a private nap, a whispered signal was passed round and the unfortunate hero was startled into life with a rousing "Rise and shine!" in which all past scores were ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... by multitudes as the political leader of his time, Peck was noted at Albany for his shabbiness of dress. He wore coarse boots, which he never blackened. On one occasion, on the eve of an important debate, some wag at the tavern blackened one of Peck's boots. Peck, in dressing for the fray, did not recognize the shining boot, and having put on one began to search high and low for the other. At last, enlightened by the laughter of his comrades, he drew on the polished boot, and with his feet ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... found,' he relates, 'to my surprise, people looking down at my feet: I could not think what they were at. At first I thought they had discovered the beauty of my legs; but at last the truth burst on me, by some wag laughing and thinking I had done it as a good joke. I was, of course, exceedingly annoyed to have been supposed capable of such a vulgar unmeaning piece of disrespect, and kept my feet as coyly under my petticoats as the veriest prude in the country till I should make ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... large brown eyes upon Vernon's face, and attempted to wag its stumpy tail. As it did so the lads discovered that its hind ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... with his force, he was unfortunate enough to meet with a wag, who at once told him he was afraid that he, the Colonel, would meet or rather come ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... again, each after the manner of the character he had assumed. The ass brayed, the owl hooted, the ghost groaned. The ape leaped on the back of the throne whereon the young man still sat, and seized him by the hair, chattering idiotically after the manner of apes, and began to wag his head back and forth. In the midst of the uproar Demosthenes stepped forward and took the envelopes from the palette, and, tearing them open, began reading them aloud by the light of a candle held for him by Lady Macbeth, who now and then interrupted with the remark that "her little ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... rapture by the audience. These were soon, however, renewed at the expense of the jester himself, when the insulted maiden extricated, ere the paroxysm was well over, one hand from the folds of her mantle, and bestowed on the wag a buffet, which made him reel fully his own length from the pardoner, and then acknowledge the favour by ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... then the steamer absorbed their whole attention. Talkative as he was, Holm quite forgot to wag his tongue. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... tail was once a waving flag Of welcome. Now I cannot wag It for the weight I have ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... Allah, O my lord!" answered he. "Thou in this time art Commander of the Faithful and Vicar of the Lord of the Worlds." Aboulhusn laughed at himself and misdoubted of his reason and was perplexed at what he saw and said, "In one night I am become Khalif! Yesterday I was Aboulhusn the Wag, and to-day I am Commander of the Faithful." Then the chief eunuch came up to him and said, "O Commander of the Faithful, (the name of God encompass thee!) thou art indeed Commander of the Faithful and Vicar of the Lord of the Worlds!" And the slave-girls ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... added a sense of distrust when Dr. Jameson's importunity and impatience became known; and when the question of the flag was raised there were few, if any, among those concerned in the movement who did not feel that the tail was trying to wag the dog. The feeling was so strong that many were prepared to abandon the whole scheme and start de novo rather than continue an undertaking in which it looked as though they were being fooled. Hence the despatch of Messrs. Leonard and ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... is the joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, 'I am, and there is none besides me!' How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! Every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand." ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... Mr. Sturgis. How are you?" Father Murray stopped to shake hands. Mr. Sturgis was a justice of the peace and the wag of the town. He always insisted on being elected to the office as a joke, for he was ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... the railroad magnates of the eighties, and they had built their huge and hideous mansions upon the hill that rose almost perpendicularly above the section where they made and lost their millions. Some wag or toady had named it Nob Hill and the inhabitants had complacently accepted the title, although they refrained from putting it on their cards. And now it ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... Kirby's fer sendin' the mulatter gurl 'long. She's a free nigger an' might let her tongue wag. Now listen, Moffett, I'm a goin' out putty soon ter git things ready, an' I'll leave Sal yere ter tend bar. Now git this; thar's a right smart trail back o' the cabin, leadin' straight down ter the crick, with a spring ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... is it in aspect, in construction, and in function, a hundred different things and yet one. Some are of feathers and some of hair, and some bare and skinny; some are long and some are short, some stick up and some hang down, some wag for ever and some are still; the uses that they serve cannot be numbered, but one name covers them all. In the course of evolution they came in with the fishes and went out with man. What was their purpose and mission? What place have they filled in the scheme of things? In short, what ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... is not the mere mischievous wag of the farm-house or the country shop. It is possible that a few "interpolations" of false objects have been made by another and less expert hand, but the weight of the problem rests on these alternatives,—the disputed relics which were found ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... Richard Pope Master, Marke Carter Masters mate, Henry Morgan Purser, George Draward, Iohn Mandie, Hugh Broken, Philip Iane, Hugh Hempson, Richard Borden, Iohn Philpe, Andrew Madock, William Wolcome, Robert Wag carpenter, Iohn Bruskome, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... warble roll its tiny waves of golden sound through the atmosphere. Their little bodies are as busy as their voices; they are all a constant flutter and restlessness. Even when two or three retreat to a tree-top to hold council, they wag their tails and heads all the time with the irrepressible activity of their nature, which perhaps renders their brief span of life in reality as long as the patriarchal age of sluggish man. The blackbirds, three ...
— Buds and Bird Voices (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... did listen readily to one singular piece of information which brought much ridicule upon them. She chanced to say to Wilson Gregg, who is something of a wag, and had just sold the Jamesons a nice little white pig, that she thought that ham was very nice in alternate streaks of fat and lean, though she never ate it herself, and only bought the pig for the sake of her mother, who had ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Oh, this rotund reverence of morality! 'Meagre minds,' mutters George Moore, and my gorge rises in stuttering rage to get action on them. Verily such morality as your ordinary conservative person professes has an organic basis: it has its seat in those vestiges of muscles that would still wag our abortive tails, and often do ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... outside of his own gate, took off his hat, and, closing his eyes, dozed a little. When he got up, he found a silver quarter in his hat. Whether it was put there by some one who really thought he was an object of charity, or by a wag, the old man appreciated the joke, and, with a smile, put it into the pocket out of which had to come forty thousand dollars for annual taxes. These stories may or may not be true; but in some sense such stories have a certain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... very primitive character, and where most of the people speak Irish as their vernacular. One old chap declined to give evidence in English, and asked for an interpreter. The magistrate, who knew the old wag, said, 'Michael Cahill, you speak English very well,' to which the old man replied, ''Tis not for the likes o' me to conthradict yer honner, but divil resave the word iv it I ondhersthand at all, at all.' There was a great roar from the Court, and the interpreter was trotted ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... perhaps not any one can be trusted always to preserve his temper. Every one tells everything he knows; that is our country sickness. Nearly every one has been betrayed at times, and told a trifle more; the way our sickness takes the predisposed. And the news flies, and the tongues wag, and fists are shaken. Pot boil and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... blood and tears. One thing alone could cheer her. I could do it, and I did. I applied for Letters of Naturalisation. Some weeks later I became a French citizen, and received a letter from M. ADOLPH CREMIEUX, then Minister of Justice, and never suspected of being a wag. He wrote: "Your application for Naturalisation in the midst of our great disasters, is for me the signal of a new life for us. A country which in the midst of such catastrophes recruits citizens like you, is not to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... Palavar, who claims relationship with the Marquis of Santa Cruz. The wedding-guests were numerous; they sang and danced, and rejoiced beyond measure. Senor Alvaro, said I, are you not ashamed to be so joyous at such a time? 'Friend,' was his answer, 'let the times wag—they are certainly bad enough, but must soon change. All things have an end. We rejoice in hopes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... he took me through a variety of the narrow courts and lanes about Covent Garden, until we stopped before a tavern from which we heard the bursts of merriment of a jovial party. There would be a loud peal of laughter, then an interval, then another peal; as if a prime wag were telling a story. After a little while there was a song, and at the close of each stanza a hearty roar and a vehement thumping on ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... blue eyes met her own. Then the eyeglass dropped from its place, the jaw fell, with a wag of the fair beard, and a look of stony astonishment and blank disappointment came into all the great features, while Madame Bonanni broke into a peal ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... plain enough to be well made out fifty yards away. There they came to a halt again. Then I called out to Andrew to light the fire in the skull, and set the jaw wagging, having so balanced it, that having been once set going it would wag for two or three minutes before it stopped. Then he ran one way with a brand from the fire, and I the other, and twelve green fires burst out. There was a yell of horror when the skull was made out The alarm was doubtless heightened by the green fire, ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... spirit bauld they work, I trow, And mony a strange tale they tell now, Of ilka thing that's braw or new, They never fag; Auld proverb says, 'When wames are fu' The tongues maun wag.'"—The Har'st Rig. ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... Parisian, Caterna must have been the wag of the forecastle when he was at sea. As clever with his instrument of brass or wood, he possessed a most varied and complete assortment of jokes, songs, monologues, and dialogues. This he told me with an immense amount of attitude and gesture, now here, now ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... called Saint Dunstan's in the West. External elegance has little to do with this celebrity, which has been acquired by the two wooden figures placed on a pediment in front, representing savages, who indicate the hours and quarters by striking a bell with their clubs: this has caused a wag to describe them as the most striking wonders of the metropolis. Another, who is equally disposed to sport with their notoriety, says, "as they are visible in the street, they are more admired by many of the populace on Sundays, than the most elegant preacher from the pulpit ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... first thing to do with an adopted cat is to give it a name, and Jack Harmon, who was a bit of a wag in his way, and a great admirer of the monster elephant which was just then making such a stir in New York, called his ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... or eight shillings a week. I have often sat with him in the darkness that his "cruizey" lamp could not pierce, while his mutterings to himself of "ay, ay, yes, umpha, oh ay, ay man," came as regularly and monotonously as the tick of his "wag-at-the-wa'" clock. Hendry and he were paid no fixed sum for their services in the Auld Licht kirk, but once a year there was a collection for each of them, and so they jogged along. Though not the only kirk-officer of my time Hendry made the most lasting impression. He was, I think, the only man ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... Cambridge, England. Of any abuses of the practice, Dr. Myers gave his readers no reason for believing that he had ever heard; and as an indication, perhaps, of an animal's eagerness to be vivisected, he tells us that "again and again dogs have been observed to wag the tail and lick the hands of the operator even immediately before the beginning of the operation." Commenting upon the singular conclusion which this fact seemed to suggest to Dr. Myers, the present writer ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... fig-leaves. "It's a kind o' damp and unwholesome in these ere waters," he says, evidently regarding the Midland Sea as a vile standing pool, in comparison with the bluff ocean. At meals he is superb, not only for his strengths, but his weaknesses. He has somehow or other come to think me a wag, and if I ask him to pass the butter, detects an occult joke, and laughs as much as is proper for a mate. For you must know that our social hierarchy on shipboard is precise, and the second mate, were he present, would only laugh half ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... each trench, and from behind each trench, and over and through our parapet. It was sufficient to put a hand or head up to have a dozen bullets through and all round it, and the strange part was, we saw no one. As the detachment wag plaintively remarked, we could have seen lots of Boers, "if wasn't ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... Pen's opinion, that his adored Emily is not a clever woman. The truth is, she had not only never heard of Kotzebue, but she had never heard of Farquhar, or Congreve, or any dramatist in whose plays she had not a part: and of these dramas she only knew the part which concerned herself. A wag once told her that Dante was born at Algiers: and asked her,—which Dr. Johnson wrote first, 'Irene,' or 'Every Man in his Humour.' But she had the best of the joke, for she had never heard of Irene or Every Man in his ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a man of action and that my place was amid the thunder of the captains and the shouting. So I am starting life at fifty as Captain Anthony Anderson of the Springtown militia; and the Devil's Disciple here will start presently as the Reverend Richard Dudgeon, and wag his pow in my old pulpit, and give good advice to this silly sentimental little wife of mine (putting his other hand on her shoulder. She steals a glance at Richard to see how the prospect pleases him). Your mother told me, Richard, that I should never ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... "good-morning, damn you," and other remarks of an equally mixed order. A second irrepressible being held that all the emotions of the soul should be freely expressed, and illustrated his theory by antics that would have sent him to a lunatic asylum, if, as an unregenerate wag said, he had not already been in one. When his spirit soared, he climbed trees and shouted; when doubt assailed him, he lay upon the floor and groaned lamentably. At joyful periods, he raced, leaped, and sang; when sad, he wept aloud; ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... of pharisaical moralities—platitudes! Run now, good people, for you may see clearly how evil is dealt with in high places! It made him smile. Such hypocrisy! Such cant! Still, so the world was organized, and it was not for him to set it right. Let it wag as it would. The thing for him to do was to get rich and hold his own—to build up a seeming of virtue and dignity which would pass muster for the genuine thing. Force would do that. Quickness of wit. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... society, however, and the tongue of gossip continued to wag. Her immediate marriage with a former lover, Mr. Hill, was announced: 'il est bien bon,' said Lady Bessborough. Then it was whispered that Canning was 'le regnant'—that he was with her 'not only all day, but almost all night.' She ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... side of Uberto in order to prevent separation, since the path was no longer discernible without constant examination, the darkness having so far increased as to reduce the sight to very narrow limits. Each time the name of the latter was pronounced, the animal would stop, wag his tail, or give some other sign of recognition, as if to reassure his followers of his intelligence and fidelity. After one of these short halts, old Uberto and his companion unexpectedly refused to proceed. The guide, the two old nobles, and at ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... news," and he sank lower in his chair, dropped his head deeper on his shoulders, and seemed to assume the most secretive and confidential air. "Listen," he commanded. "The Boy Scouts are to have a wig wag trial. They may have been a little mite jealous of your reputation, or something like that, anyhow, they've fixed it up to do a grand stand stunt, and they've enlisted the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... did tell me something about ATTORNEY-GENERAL going on the Spree. But that was in Germany, and he had his skates with him. Don't know how it'll be here. You mustn't forget that WILFRID's something of a wag. Wouldn't advise you to wait much after ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... characteristic of the rhyming paraphrases of certain dialogues of Lucian which Charles Cotton wrote and published late in the seventeenth century under the title of 'Burlesque upon Burlesque, or the Scoffer Scoft.' 'We bring you here,' said Cotton, 'a fustian-piece, Writ by a merry Wag of Greece'—'a piece of raillery writ,' as he went on to say, 'when Paganism was ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... had had no time for study; all his strength had gone in keeping his income up to a certain figure; lest the wife should be less well dressed and equipped than her neighbours; or patients fight shy of him; or his confreres wag their tongues.—Oh! he had adapted himself supremely well to the standards of this Australia, so-called Felix. And he must not complain if, in so doing, he had been stripped, not only of his rosy dreams, but also of that ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... about a mile distant), and bring a skull from thence with him, and place it on the table before the guests. This wager was soon accepted by one of the party, who immediately set off on his expedition to the church-yard. The wag who had proposed the bet, and who knew a nearer by-way to the bone-house than his opponent had taken, requested of the landlady to lend him a white sheet, and that he would soon cool this heroic man's courage. The landlady, who enjoyed the joke, complied with his request, lent him the ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... Mary knew nothing about? A large order. Rachel's tongue began to wag in her mind. Stand up and make a speech. Fling her arms about. High-sailing words. Absurd! A laugh would answer. Laughs always answered. Rachel laughed. She would suffocate among such people, exasperating strangers with inquisitive ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... young man with a delicate appetite, you do very well," laughed the Professor. "It wag less than two months ago, if I remember correctly, that the doctors thought you were not going to live, you ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... things of legend and history in the vulgar, topical frippery that passes for a certain kind of wit. Michob Ader as an impostor, claiming nineteen hundred years, and playing his part with the decency of respectable lunacy, I could endure; but as a tedious wag, cheapening his egregious story with song-book levity, his importance as an entertainer ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... she looks after him properly," said Rumple, with a wag of his head, at which the doctor laughed; for when sleep seized upon Rumple he was of little use in looking ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... earth and the heavens, where he hanged for the space of six hours—to wit, from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon. No God yet appears for his help; while he hangs there some rail at him, others wag their heads, others tauntingly say, 'He saved others, himself he cannot save'; some divide his raiment, casting lots for his garments before his face; others mockingly bid him come down from the cross, and when he desireth succour, they give him vinegar ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... all "blue," were among the first to drive off, each girl clutching the handbag which contained the immediate necessities of her toilet, and chattering away at the pitch of her voice. "Square Face" was evidently the wag of the party, and was treated with an admiring deference which seemed to bespeak a position of importance. She was professionally addressed as "Tom," and Rhoda from her seat opposite, read the words, "Thomasina Bolderston," upon the label of the bag, and reflected ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... they wag their sharp black beards at each other defiantly, and poise and edge around. Then the poet, more daring, rushes in, and instantly the two have grappled—each clutching the other's left wrist in his right hand. The struggle that follows is hot and ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... that her motley brood would afford us some fun. Here we expected to see a young hawk, and there a goslin, and next a strutting turkey, and then a dodo, a loon, an ostrich, a wren, a magpie, a cuckoo, and a wag-tail. But the old continental hen has now set so long, that we conclude that her eggs are addled, and incubation frustrated. During all this time, the Gallick cock is on his roost at Elba, with ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... them. Many of them, conscious of their misconduct, doubtless felt secret misgivings whenever any specially significant outburst of popular dissatisfaction occurred. But for many years they were able to present a united and brazen front, and to crush anyone who dared to so much as wag a finger against them. It was intimated on a former page that Robert Gourlay was not the first victim of Executive tyranny. The first conspicuous victim of whom any record has been preserved was Mr. Robert Thorpe, an English barrister of much learning and acumen, who in ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... sir," she answered; "I have thought over the matter. To-morrow our great Duke is to unveil before the eyes of his admiring worshippers the mighty statue he has erected to his own honour. Men's thoughts and tongues will wag different ways, I suspect, at the spectacle; but all will be eager to show themselves present—magistrates and people, soldiers and civilians. The streets will be empty, and many a strong post left unguarded. It is a pity the Prince of Orange has not a few ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... and if some wag were to spoil your beauty on a sudden by some chemical process, and you, who are but eighteen for us, were to ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... for the 'conscientious men.' Now, in said county, there dwelt one Barney Mullen, who, not being exempted at the first appeal, on 'non-citizenship' grounds, was in 'great tribulation' in regard to the approaching draft. Some wag persuaded him to attend the second 'hearing,' telling him to swear that he was conscientious, and he would get his exemption papers. So Barney was at hand at the 'appointed time and place,' At last, 'it came to pass' that he got a hearing, and the Commissioner asked ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... were lined up on the warm side of the lean-to, shading their faces from the sun. When the comer was so near that they could see he was strange to them, Lancaster gave a peremptory wag of the head, and the two girls disappeared around a corner. Their father stayed on watch, his jaws working nervously with the ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... etymology of Parliament (Vol. ii., p. 85.) is, I think, fit companion for MR. HICKSON's derivations of news and noise. I take FRANCISCUS for a wag: but lest others of your readers may think him serious, and be seduced into a foolish explanation of the word Parliament by his joke, I hope you will allow me to mention that palam mente, literally translated, means before the mind, and that, if ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 39. Saturday, July 27, 1850 • Various
... long the dwarfs began to mock at the hero with their harsh voices, and to wag their horrid little heads at him, while they screamed in a fury that he was not dividing the treasure as ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... conscious he ought to confess, but destitute of resolution to do so, and, in a perfect agony as the master went to his desk, took up the book, and carried it away, so unconscious, that Larkins, a great wag, only waited till his back was turned, to exclaim, "Ha! old fellow, you don't know what you've ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... very different, perhaps. Now, Sue, I've asked you before, don't let your mind grope, and your little tongue wag, every instant; it is n't good for you, and it certainly is ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... rough paw caught in her lace frill, and it was torn to pieces before "down! down!" and the united efforts of Lady Cecilia and Helen could extricate it.—"Don't distress yourselves about it, pray; it does not signify in the least. Poor Neptune, how really sorry he looks—there, there, wag your tail again—no one shall come between ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... his old parish of Thorpington Parva gave him a Ford car, and with this he scoured back areas for provisions and threaded his tin buggy in and out of columns of dusty infantry and clattering ammunition limbers, spectacles gleaming, cap slightly awry, while his batman (a wag) perched precariously a-top of a rocking pile of biscuit tins, cigarette cases and boxes of tinned fruit, and shouted after the fashion of railway porters, "By your leave! Fags for the firin' line. ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... me—it is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness! You, who have had nothing to do all your life but to stare people in 25 the face and to amuse yourself with watching all that goes on in the kitchen! Think how you would like to be shut up for life in this dark closet and wag backward and forward, year ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... floor beside the dog. In the body of this black terrier centred everything in life that a man holds most dear. If he could speak—if the dumb tongue could wag an answer ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... 186,000 miles a second—the same speed as light comes to us from the sun. As you move the wire away from the magnet, a second wave starts through the wire, flowing in the opposite direction. You can prove this by holding a compass needle under the wire and see it wag first in one direction, then ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... was serving on an inquest, hired a house near by. He kept several hounds; what torture, when a petty official and a kennel live close by! Whenever I went out into the garden with a book to enjoy the light of the moon and the coolness of the evening, immediately a dog would rush up and wag its tail and prick up its ears as if it were mad. I was often terrified. My heart foreboded some misfortune from those dogs, and so it came to pass: for when I went into the garden on a certain morning, a hound throttled ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... surprised at the result of his experiment, hurried to relieve the poor animal, which was rolling on the ground; at last he succeeded in getting hold of him, but he had much difficulty in freeing him from his vindictive assailants. One beetle, indeed, seized hold of the hand of the mischievous wag, whose grimaces much amused us; as fast as he disengaged one of the insect's claws, the creature—which possessed six—soon found a chance to cling on with others. Annoyed at having to strive with such a paltry enemy, l'Encuerado at last tore the ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... fatigued to renew the intellectual contest, and he retires; but one Caesar comes in with Quintus Lutatius Catulus, and the conversation is renewed. Crassus and Antony carry it on in chief, but Crassus has the leading voice. Caesar, who must have been the wag among barristers of his day, undertakes to give examples of that Attic salt by which the profundity of the law courts is supposed to have been relieved. The third conversation takes place on the afternoon of the second day, when they had refreshed themselves with sleep; though Crassus, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... at the close of a wearisome day Homeward disheartened, you moodily stray, What would you take for your little dog Tray? Take for the wag of ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... to call upon the Canadian missionaries stationed at the place, I held a long conversation with a hump-backed old man, an unsightly mass of disease, who seemed to be a traditional link of Luchow. I might say that this scholastic old wag spoke nothing but Chinese, and I, as the reader knows, spoke no Chinese, so that the amount of general knowledge derived one from the other was therefore limited. But he would not go, despite the frequent deprecations of T'ong and my coolies, and my vehement rhetoric in explanation ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... I had but a tail I would wag it this morning with joy, At your having provided My car that's one-sided With a good ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... wag of his tail, Splash gave a big jump, nearly throwing Bunny and Sue out of the wagon. Then the big dog began to run after the ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... his feet very wet and muddy from running through the street-gutters. Then we would say, "O Carlo! what dirty boots!" He would hang down his head, and go off to the back-yard, and lick his feet until they were clean, when, with a bound, and a wag of the tail, he would rush back to the parlor, quite sure that ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... home, which was gay with flowers, everything else was exactly as she had left it, except that above her bed was a crown of golden stars set there by "citizen Le Brun." The long-suffering Vigee Le Brun was deeply touched; but could not forget that the unconscious wag had made her pay dearly for the ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... the authority that he did not invent his stories. He picked them up wherever he found them, and clothed them with the peculiar drollery of his telling. He was a wag rather than a wit. All that lives in the second-hand repetitions of his stories is the mere core, the original appropriated thing from which the inimitable decoration has fallen off. That is why ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... Seneca, and they chant long poems instead of psalms; so that in their zeal they endured a little tediousness. The next objectionable circumstance in this wild ebullition of philosophical wantonness is the apparent burlesque of some liturgies; and a wag having inserted in some copies an impious prayer to Bacchus, Toland suffered for the folly of others as well as his own.[114] With the South Sea bubble vanished Toland's desire of printing books at his own risk; and thus relieved the world from the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... to do that here" answered Edith, emphatically. "If you cut any such capers in this school, it won't be the teachers who will go for you, but the girls," with a significant wag of ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... being exceedingly proud, and will only obey his own master, whom he calls his great inkosi or chief. He is always lamenting the advent of the inkosi-casa, or chieftainess, and the piccaninnies and their following, especially the "vaiter," whom he detests. In his way, Charlie is a wag, and it is as good as a play to see his pretence of stupidity when the "vaiter" or French butler desires him to go and eat "sa paniche." Charlie understands perfectly that he is told to go and get his breakfast of mealy porridge, but he won't admit that it is to be called "paniche," preferring ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... know that you are at this present time giving occasion for the tongues of my parishioners to wag more than is at all reasonable? Oh!" continued he, replying to a remonstrating gesture of his companion, "it is unpremeditated on your part, I am sure, but, all the same, they talk about you—and ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... himself to powder in a fit of repentance. His influence over the stars and heavenly bodies is tremendous, and it is a well-known fact throughout the universe that he has them in such a complete state of terror and subjection, that a single comet dare not wag his tail unless by his permission. He travels up and down the milky way one night in every month, to see that the dairies of the sky are all right, and that that celebrated path be properly lighted; brings down a pail of the milk with him, which he churns into ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... in sight the half-way house, where the horses were to have a rest and a sponge down. They had been talking of it for the last quarter of a mile, and when at length it was observed on the top of a hill a cheer broke out, and some thirsty wag began to sing 'Rule Britannia', whilst others burst forth with a different national ditty, 'Beer, Glorious Beer!' They drew up before the pub entrance, and all climbed down as quickly as they could. The bar was besieged, and ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... removed himself and his wine, and were served obsequiously by Nicodemus and his wife with the best the house afforded. For a while they ate and drank in silence. Then the tongue of the small old man, loosened by the wine, began to wag. He spoke abruptly, in a voice husky and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... the engine ran merrily. Above its barking I sang the praises of the Englishman, with a comfortable feeling that, at least in this, the tail would wag the dog. ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... Pennsylvania delegation there were two members named Charles O'Neill and Leonard Myers, who were very short in stature. For some reason or other, some wag dubbed them "Kelley's ponies." They heard of it and became very angry, and on every occasion, when there was half a chance, they watched to see how Judge Kelley voted and would ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... accuse other people of laziness! you who have had nothing to do all your life but to stare people in the face, and to amuse yourself with watching all that goes on in the kitchen. Think, I beseech you, how you would like to be shut up for life in this dark closet, and to wag backward and forward year after year, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... shoulders the slightest bit, but it was eloquent, and she noted it. "Oh, I don't mean that he did it intentionally— he's too decent a chap for that—but anybody's tongue will wag to a beautiful girl! My lady Malotte ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... they are told to save the self-respect of people who want an idol, and who are distorting him into a figure of pure convention for their domestic altars. He is now expected to discriminate between relations and mere friends of the house; to wag his tail at God Save the Queen; to count up to five in chips of fire-wood, and to seven in mutton bones; to howl for all deaths in the family above the degree of second cousin; to post letters, and refuse them when they have been insufficiently stamped; and last, and most intolerable, to show ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... previously been married three times, took as her fourth husband an Irishman, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, who was shortly afterwards made Chief Secretary. The first night that Lady Waldegrave and Mr. Fortescue appeared at the theatre in Dublin, a wag in the gallery called out, "Which of the four do you like best, my lady?" Instantaneously from the Chief Secretary's box came the adroit reply: "Why, the ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... of Deerbrook was, that I was engaged to a woman who could not read or write. So you see we of Deerbrook follow our old pastime of first inventing marvels, and then being scarcely able to believe them. I rather suspect that we have some wag among us who fabricates news, to see how much will be received and retailed: but perhaps these rumours, even the wildest of them, rise 'by natural exhalation' from the nooks and crevices of village life. My five ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... be always a wag or clown among each group of animals,—some one species in which the amusing or the grotesque is prominent. Among these clownish fellows I should class the black vulture, or john-crow. He is not a crow at all, but gets that name probably because so historic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... Spain was strangled at the birth. Alberoni, in his fury, had the persons and goods seized of English residents settled in Spain, drove out the consuls, and orders were given at Madrid that no tongue should wag about the affairs of Sicily. The hope of a sudden surprise in England, on behalf of the Jacobites, had been destroyed by the death of the King of Sweden, Charles XII., killed on the 12th of December, 1718, at Freiderishalt, in Norway; the flotilla ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath raise its ears as if about to bark, and then smoothing them back, announce, by a wag of the tail, that some one approached whom it did not consider a stranger. Mrs. Linton bent forward, and listened breathlessly. The minute after a step traversed the hall; the open house was too tempting for Heathcliff to resist walking in: most likely he supposed that I was inclined ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... of golfers wag, Talking their dreadful shop Of rotten luck and stymies laid And chip-approaches, TAYLOR-made— Oh, then I want a standard gag To make the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... wait to be adopted. He adopted us, but not ostentatiously at first—just a friendly wag here and there to show that he had at last found what he was looking for. By degrees he became more friendly and genial, so that at the end of an hour he ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... that mark the deid, Wi' lengthened lip, the sarious read; Syne wag a moraleesin' heid, An' then an' there Their hirplin' practice an' their ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is yet in use for reaping in Somerset; the reapers sharpen it by drawing the edge through an apple, when the acid bites and cleans the steel. While we were sauntering through a village one morning, out rushed the boys from school, and instantly their tongues began to wag of those things on which their hearts were set. 'I know a jay's nest, said one; 'I know an owl's nest,' cried a second; a third hastened to claim knowledge of a pigeon's nest. It will be long before education drives the ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... doll; not one of those splendid specimens of wax, modelled from the Princess Royal, with distinct fingers and toes, eyes that shut, and tongues that wag. No; such I have only contemplated from a respectful distance as I lay on my stall in the bazaar, while they towered sublime in the midst of the toys, the wonder and admiration of every passing child. I am not ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... people impersonate these artists. This will afford me a good review of my studies in art. It may diminish the gate receipts of the picture-show for a few evenings, but I suspect the world will be able to wag along. ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... the dog replied: "I know no ill so great beside; But if you do not like to be So poorly fed, come live with me." "Agreed," rejoined the wolf, "I'll go: But pray, what work am I to do?" "Oh, guard the house, and do not fail To bark at thieves, and wag your tail." ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... the people of Chicago go home from work. Clatter, clatter, clatter, go the heels on the hard pavements, jaws wag, the wind blows and dirt drifts and sifts through the masses of the people. Every one has dirty ears. The stench in the street cars is horrible. The antiquated bridges over the rivers are packed with people. The suburban trains going away south and west are cheaply constructed ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... by Lucian, that while a troop of monkeys, well drilled by an intelligent manager, were performing a tragedy with great applause, the decorum of the whole scene was at once destroyed, and the natural passions of the actors called forth into very indecent and active emulation, by a wag who threw a handful of nuts upon the stage. In like manner, the approaching crisis stirred up among the expectants feelings of a nature very different from those, of which, under the superintendence of Mr. Mortcloke, they ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... Sun and the Moon The First Monkey The Virtue of the Cocoanut Mansumandig Why Dogs Wag Their Tails The Hawk and the Hen The Spider and the Fly ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... the red man, remained silent, waiting for more. Not so Little Tim. That worthy, although gifted with all the powers of courage and endurance which mark the best of the American savages, was also endowed with the white man's tendency to assert his right to wag ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... Kamakura chiefs brought two sets of rulers upon the same stage, and naturally intrigue and distrust were born, so that, in the end, Muromachi was shaken by Hosokawa, and Kamakura was overthrown by Uesugi. An animal with too ponderous a tail cannot wag it, and a stick too heavy at one end is apt to break. The Ashikaga angled with such valuable bait that they ultimately lost both fish and bait. During the thirteen generations of their sway there was no respite from ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... bout y'r auntie none. She's all hunky-dory. It's those booze birds we're goin' after, you'n'me, see. Chief's orders, kid. An' oh boy! it's goin' to be some party, believe me! Let's sit down here an' I'll wag m' jaw." ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... repeated the niece's question with enthusiastic delight, and at every table discussion some wag would be sure ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... self-respect. Even had I been as fickle as you thought, that would not have been sufficient reason for you to make up your mind to desert me; and in deserting me, place me in a position for the world to suspect, wag its head at, and gossip over. You knew it would do this, and yet it did not alter your decision to throw me over. And now, after having renounced me, you ask me to forget and fly back to your arms." She laughed bitterly, her manner growing cynical once more. "No, no, Harold," she ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... Torfason. And he took off his pack and sat down in the snow with his legs stretched out in front of him. In the mouth of the pack there was something that little Tota had scraped together for her papa on the trip. And then the bitch began to wag her tail back and forth in the snow and gaze with lustful eyes at the ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... of beef was substituted for the grass, and the fluid of a dog for that of the sheep. The result was a cheerful bark, accompanied by an agitation of the bottom of the bladder, as if it were attempting to wag an ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... neglected wife—all faithless husbands are the same. He paid spies to report to him the daily occupations of the Duchess, with the names of her visitors and friends. Thus evil eyes and ears were opened, and evil tongues began to wag, until they caused the utter undoing ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... in the meantime relating their adventures as rapidly as their tongues could wag; as soon as they had given a brief outline of them, they inquired what had occurred during their absence. The corvette had been repaired. Commander Babbicome, though still as much afraid of the West India climate as at first, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... their cups, and relish their dry jests with plenty of Botargos and dried neats' tongues. It is like Camacho's wedding in Don Quixote, where Sancho ladled out whole pullets and fat geese from the soup-kettles at a pull. The flagons are setting a running, their tongues wag at the same time, and their mirth flows as a river. How Friar John roars and lays about him in the vineyard! How Panurge whines in the storm, and how dexterously he contrives to throw the sheep overboard! How much Pantagruel ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... cavalier, one of the most valiant captains in the army, was so diminutive in size, that, when mounted, he seemed almost lost in the high demipeak war-saddle then in vogue; which led a wag, according to Brantome, when asked if he had seen Don Pedro de Paz pass that way, to answer, that "he had seen his horse and saddle, but no rider." Oeuvres, tom. i. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... jest loses its point when he who makes it is the first to laugh. But you! You looked like a mute at a funeral. Who could have thought that the austere Verrina should in his old age become such a wag! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... from the frost-lined roof, and for a long time we had no floor. We slept on ticks filled with straw, and these were soaked every day—we were almost drowned out. There was an old piano in the building, and every morning we were awakened by a wag in the crowd playing "Pull for the shore, sailor." The boys would all take it up, and in a few minutes every one would be singing at the top of their voices. This put us in ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... peace after that. The jokes were frightful, and merciless against him. "Hullo, Dobbin," one wag would say, "here's good news in the paper. Sugars is ris', my boy." Another would set a sum—"If a pound of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how much must Dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow from all the circle of young knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... any 'bow-wows' with Rachel," broke in Peachy, "though you just jolly well have to wag your tail the way she wants. She's not bad on the whole, but rather a tyrant, and it would do her all the good in the world if some day somebody had the courage to knock sparks out of her. We do what we can in a mild way," (here the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... know," replied he, "that I am Ralph Jobson? Why it knew me, and seemed to wag its tail; nay, made as though ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... had quarreled over the exact shade of tie that properly belonged to a certain shade of shirt; whose personal taste in sport clothes had been aped and imitated by half the fellows he knew. What would they think if they could look upon him now? He wondered if Stit Duffy would wag his head and say "So-me cave, bo, ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... condition of muscle and a low condition of mind, very unlike our present idea of the noblest type of womanhood; but very possibly our ideals of womanhood are conventional, or traditional. She has hands, and has a right to use them; a tongue, and the right to wag it in her own way; powers corresponding to those of man in all important respects, and the right to develop and employ them according to her taste and choice. I deny, to man, the privilege of defining the rights and duties of woman. ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... Boy Climbs the green hillock to survey his flock; Then sweetly sleeps upon his favourite hill, Not conscious that his bed's a Warrior's Tomb. The ancient Mansions, deeply moated round, Where, in the iron Age of Chivalry, Redoubted Barons wag'd their little Wars; The strong Entrenchments and enormous Mounds, Rais'd to oppose the fierce, perfidious Danes; And still more ancient traces that remain Of Dykes and Camps, from the far distant date When minstrel Druids wak'd the soul of War, ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... he, 'some day when I am asked out to dinner, some wag or another of a lord will call me parson, and ask me to crave a blessin', jist to raise the larf agin me for ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... fill the vat of the Danaides! Their house is mortgaged for three hundred thousand francs for an incorrigible father! Why, they have nothing left, poor wretches! And they have no fun for their money. All they have to live upon is what Victorin may make in Court. He must wag his tongue more, must monsieur your son! And he was to have been a Minister, that learned youth! Our hope and pride. A pretty pilot, who runs aground like a land-lubber; for if he had borrowed to enable him to get on, if he had run into debt for feasting Deputies, winning votes, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... it might be awkward. No, I don't think there are any crocodiles, only a few sacred tortoises perhaps. Look! there is a tiny one—that small yellow thing that is walking away with the melancholy dignity of a retired general. Pick it up if you like certainly, see it wag its head and legs helplessly. I wish we could take it home. As you replace it, it continues its grave walk in the same direction as if it had never been rudely interrupted. At that instant a hare darts across an open glade and disappears in the thick ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... Wag, an arch Wag; he'll learn to make Lampoons presently. I'll not give Sixpence from him, though to the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... pointer, Carlo. Carlo, observing by the general movement that there was something on foot, had the curiosity to come out to the end of his chain, and as he stood there, giving every now and then a little uncertain wag of his tail, George took notice of him and came to him and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... tribes who think that an eclipse consists in an attempt on the part of a monstrous jaguar to swallow the sun—have as much right to their opinion as he has, he would consider the person who advanced such an argument either a wag or a fool. Only a wag or a fool, again, would argue that a Fijian has just as much right as we have to his opinions on medical matters, or on the morality of polygamy, infanticide, and cannibalism. Yet when we come across a dirty, malodorous savage, so stupid that he cannot ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... did not last long. I wonder if that grand-faced godfather of mine suffered as I suffered when he went to school and said his name was Bayard? I owe a day in harvest to the young wag who turned it into Backyard. I gave in my name as Backyard to every subsequent inquirer, and ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... see from what corner of the house or from what bush this Almira would appear who was to show him the way. But the great black Newfoundland rose and began to wag her tail, whose strokes made a noise on the door-post as if an old drum ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... rooms made untenable by shell fire. Fragments of rare stained glass littered the vacant private chapel. The most valuable paintings, the best of the Louis XV. furniture, and the choicest tapestry had been removed to safety. In one room I entered some bucolic wag had clothed a bust of Venus in a lance-corporal's cap and field-service jacket, and affixed a box-respirator in the alert position. We made the mess in what had been the nursery, and the adjutant and myself slept in bunks off an ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... sore, and torn, and chewed most awful, but what the pal said sounded so fine that I wanted to wag my tail, only couldn't, owing ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... crook around our necks, John, an' lead us home with our tails behind us, so as our Bo Peeps'll know us when we come an' gladden us with their soft black eyes! Ain't that the way the poetry runs?" snickered a drunken wag, dropping on the post-office steps and gazing up with a befuddled air at Fairfield, who had removed his hat and ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... now, how now, mad wag, what in thy quips and thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... does anything slightly unconventional or leaves undone what custom and gossip make almost obligatory, a relation or a mere interfering neighbour is always at hand to wag her head and say there must be some reason for it. Which means, of course, one specific reason. And the worst of it is that she is ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... the men recovering from all manner of wounds would try to speed the lagging hours by telling stories, singing songs, and inventing the wildest of rumors. Occasionally, when the lights were out, some wag would begin an imitation of a machine gun, with its rat-tat-tat-tat, and another, catching the spirit of the mimic warfare, would make the whistling sound of a high angle shell. In a few moments the ward would be a clamorous inferno of mimic battle ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... and, taking pity on the animal, placed some bread in his hat and carried it to him. It happened that when he turned out the bread the root which the little devil had given him fell out also. The old dog swallowed it with the bread and was almost instantly cured, when he jumped up and began to wag his tail as an expression of joy. Ivan's father and mother, seeing the dog cured so quickly, asked by what means he ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... Muroc was a wag, a grim sort of fellow, black from his trade, with big rollicking eyes. At times he was not easy to please, but if he took a liking, he was for joking at once. He approved of Parpon, and never lost a chance of sharpening ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... They wag as though they were Panting for joy Where they shine, above all care, And annoy, And demons of despair ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy |
