"Wag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that a certain Conde de ——, who had lately been decorated, was a most notorious rogue; in consequence of which, some wag chalked up on his door in large letters, during the night, the following lines, which, of course, were in everybody's mouth soon ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... 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 ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... home to her the fact that these bitter-tongued women whom she despised had dared to assail her—her, the Burra Mem, the Great Lady of their little world. Had dared to? She could not silence them. And what would they say of her, how their tongues would wag, if she ran away from her husband! And they would have a right to talk scandal of her then. ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... like Soames, had been to public schools, and were accustomed to niceness in such matters. Could he really be considered a butler? Playful spirits alluded to him as: 'Uncle Jolyon's Nonconformist'; George, the acknowledged wag, had named him: 'Sankey.' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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 the collections ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... told us what was to be done! ... If Armstrong, the carpenter, had not taken up a firm stand when it came to putting in the deck, there would have been hints that we had a former under-manager among us! It was the time of Joe's life, and the bo'sun could only chuckle and grin and wag his head in anticipation of 'proper sailor-work' ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... Though envy wag her scorpion tongue, The march of Time shall find his fame; Where Bravery's loved and Glory's sung, There children's ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... two let the world wag. Then the whole booth fell heavily over, mouth uppermost, and we within it. It was the final of the animal race that was responsible for our overthrow. The black pig, blind with jealous rage and mortification ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... the Guards," said the sergeant. "They'll hold that farm while one of them can wag a finger. But look over yonder and you'll see the camp fires ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the little town of Ardagh, and, accosting the first person he met, inquired, with somewhat of a consequential air, for the best house in the place. Unluckily, the person he had accosted was one Kelly, a notorious wag, who was quartered in the family of one Mr. Featherstone, a gentleman of fortune. Amused with the self-consequence of the stripling, and willing to play off a practical joke at his expense, he directed him to what was literally "the best house in the place," namely, the family mansion of Mr. Featherstone. ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither—and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont—and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.—I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.—I had as fair ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... choice, upon a virgin's lap; And slyly crept from thence unto her breast, Where still he meant to sport him in his hap; The virgin frowned like Phoebus in a cloud; "Go pack, sir boy, here is no room for such, My breast no wanton foolish boy must shroud." This said, my love did give the wag a touch; Then as the foot that treads the stinging snake Hastes to be gone, for fear what may ensue, So love my love was forced for to forsake, And for more speed, without his arrows flew. "Pardon," he said, "For why? You seemed to me My mother Venus ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... mysterious Providence, indeed," he continued, "that our state, in the infancy of its independence, is left to undergo so fearful a trial. Already there are many of the Tories who wag the head and say 'Aha, so would we have it,' averring that this insurrection is but the first fruits of our liberty, and that the rest will ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... on my part Sala waxed very wroth, for besides having to pay L80 costs of his own, he brought upon himself columns of chaff, of which the following is a fair specimen. "The Prince of Journalists," wrote a wag of journalists, "is lamenting that he has jumped out of the Furniss into the fire, for of a surety five pounds will hardly repay Mr. Sala for the roasting he will receive from his good-natured friends." Skits showing six toes were plentiful, jokes in burlesque and on the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... miller, was a public-spirited and many-sided man. Something of a wag and given to writing letters in verse, his life also had its more serious side. Besides being one of the founders and a trustee of the Union Schoolhouse of Germantown, now Germantown Academy, he was a justice of the peace and a provincial commissioner ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... on deck, and found that our suspicious friend had shortened sail, as if he had made us out, and wag afraid to approach, or was ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... friend fell, as if he had been a starving wolf, but he did not forget to glance up at me before he began with such a grateful look, and to give his tail one quick wag of thanks. ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... skirting of the end gained fifteen yards. The ball was getting pretty well down into Blue territory when a magnificent drop kick by Bert sent it sailing to the middle of the field. In the momentary silence that succeeded the cheering, some wag from ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... Ranville walked, and was dusting his boots as the Templars drove up. Lord Castlemouldy came out of a twopenny omnibus. Funnyman, the wag, came last, whirling up rapidly in a hansom, just as Mrs. Gashleigh, with rage in her heart, was counting that two people had failed, and that there were only seventeen ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ask "why a cat has whiskers," or why and how they make a purring noise when they are pleased and wag their tails when they are angry, while a dog wags his to show pleasure, the wisest man cannot answer your question. A teacher once asked a boy about a cat's whiskers and he said they were to keep her from trying to get her body through a hole that would not ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... excellent and hoary-bearded deacon, it was only by the most careful self-control that the former could refrain from uttering certain blasphemous suggestions that rose into his mind, respecting the communion supper. He absolutely trembled and turned pale as ashes, lest his tongue should wag itself, in utterance of these horrible matters, and plead his own consent for so doing, without his having fairly given it. And, even with this terror in his heart, he could hardly avoid laughing, to imagine how the sanctified ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... whistle came from the street; There's a wag of the tail and a twinkle of feet, And the little white dog did not even say, "Excuse me, ma'am," as he scampered away; But I'm sure as can be his greatest joy Is just to trot ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... was used to hittin' it none, an' it'll have a powerful effect on him." Bill opened the pup's mouth an' poured in a tol'able stiff swig, an' by cracky, the pup opened his eyes, an' when he saw Bill bendin' down over him, he tried to wag his ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... step up the aisle, take my place in front of the Chief Pharisee, wag my finger under his nose, and tell him a thing or two about the condition of ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... right, young 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 thousand men ready ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... holding a rolled napkin at one side of the table, and below the level of the table top, waved it slowly back and forth. Dan was the only one of the party at the table who could see the moving napkin. By this simple wig-wag signal device Dave Darrin sent to his ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... the people that was there, That they would still stand: For he that shooteth for such a wag-er Hath need of a steady hand. Much people prayed for Cloudeslie, That his life saved might be; And when he made him ready to shoot, There was ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... him in the 'seventies. I was a small boy then, and I did him the honour of playing truant—"playing wag" we called it. I felt that the occasion demanded it. To have the god of my idolatry in my own little town and not to pay him my devotions—why, the idea was almost like blasphemy. A half-dozen, or ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... who formerly owned Mr. Newell's present farm. Mr. Wright says that within a short distance of the present discovery, there is a spring of water which will within a few months turn into solid stone any small deposits of sand and gravel. Neighbors corroborate the statement. A wag has suggested that a factory be at once established there and petrified dogs, cats and small fry ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... I wag many feet below the reach of any arm. In a twinkling, my friend had stripped the kimono off the baggage coolie's back, and made a lasso with which he pulled me up. Then shocked to a standstill by ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... Ain't no use o' flying against such veterans as us," supplemented Chuck Crossman, with a wag of ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... brain of Dr. Jones, was an actuality. Language is inadequate to describe the sensations of the little company of promoters. They said but little, but would often stand in a group, gaze upon it, then into each other's eyes, and smile and wag their ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... the most patient. Handel, being peculiarly sensitive to this unfortunate necessity, always arranged that it should take place before the audience assembled, so as to prevent any sound of scraping or blowing. Unfortunately, on one occasion, some wag got access to the orchestra where the ready-tuned instruments were lying, and with diabolical dexterity put every string and crook out of tune. Handel enters. All the bows are raised together, and at the given beat all start off con spirito. The effect was startling in the extreme. ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... all agleam with its cold blue lights and she had chattered gaily of anything that came into her head, twice she had caught in her sister's eyes that glimmer of expectancy. "Amy feels sure I will be a success!" Ethel thrilled at the recollection, and thought, "Oh, yes, you're quite a wag, my love; and as soon as you get over being so young you'll probably make a name for yourself. No dinner or suffrage party will ever again be quite complete without your droll dry humour. . . . I suppose I ought to ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... INCOMPRIS, only more or less concerned for the mischance; all trying wrongly to do right; all fawning at each other's feet like dumb, neglected lap- dogs. Sometimes we catch an eye - this is our opportunity in the ages - and we wag our tail with a poor smile. "IS THAT ALL?" All? If you only knew! But how can they know? They do not love us; the more fools we to squander ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. His father's father, Ephraim Barnum, was a captain in the War of the Revolution, and was distinguished for his valor and for his fervent patriotism. His mother's father, Phineas Taylor, was locally noted as a wag and practical joker. His father, Philo Barnum, was in turn a tailor, a farmer, a storekeeper, and a country tavernkeeper, and was not particularly prosperous in any of ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... dark head at a certain window bent over a microscope while they amused themselves outside. The constant silhouette framed in the outlines of the window tickled the fancy of the young fellows, and a wag amongst them dubbed it with a name that stuck, "The Sign of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Louis remained unconscious or careless of the new bondage into which he had thus fallen, the courtiers and the people were alike less blind and less forbearing. With that light-heartedness which has enabled the French in all ages to find cause for mirth even in their misfortunes, some wag, less scrupulous than inventive, on one occasion, under cover of the darkness, affixed above the door leading to the rooms occupied by the brothers a painting which represented the adoration of the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... 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
... that a herd of at least one million buffaloes was crossing the railroad at Goose Creek. As the grave despatcher seemed not greatly excited by this intelligence, Bucks followed up the story at intervals with vivid details. A wag on the wire in Medicine Bend played upon his enthusiasm by demanding frequent bulletins, even going so far as to ask the names of the leading buffaloes in the herd. When he had got all the laughs possible ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... Sailor Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to anchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand by all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine! Pip ( Sulky and sleepy.) Don't know where it is. French Sailor Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say; merry's the word; hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now, Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves! Legs! Legs! Iceland Sailor I don't like your floor, maty; it's too springy to my taste. I'm used to ice-floors. I'm sorry ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... this grisly reminder of our mortality some wag—or so I suppose, but perhaps he was a cynic—had stuck a great pair of glassless barnacles or goggles. It was a loathly conceit, and yet it added vastly to the favour of the inn in the minds of those wildings that haunted it. Must I add that it did so in mine too, who should ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Pelham was yielding, but peevish: his habits were regular, and his deportment strictly decorous. Walpole was constitutionally fearless, Pelharn constitutionally timid. Walpole had to face a strong opposition; but no man in the Government durst wag a finger against him. Almost all the opposition which Pelham had to encounter was from members of the Government of which he was the head. His own pay-master spoke against his estimates. His own secretary-at-war spoke against his Regency ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... wiggled again as it had on the steps of the machine. A tail to wag wasn't really necessary, Stern decided, when there was so much ...
— Martians Never Die • Lucius Daniel
... place, son Hal," he said, "and you, gentlemen all, resume your seats, I pray. I too did but jest as did Baby Charles here—a sad young wag, I fear me, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry, to find more than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum. On this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library wag opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... approaching the bell a second time, the door fell back and I beheld in the black gap before me the oldest man I had ever come upon in my whole life. He was so old I was astonished when his drawn lips opened and he asked if I was the lawyer from New York. I would as soon have expected a mummy to wag its tongue and utter English, he looked so thin and dried and removed from this life and all ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... the devil and crocodiles black; black men call them white," replied Hassib, who was a wag. "You now see which ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... proceedings, and others running about and amusing themselves. Close to these stand a group of young girls, convulsed with half-suppressed laughter. The cause of their merriment is a youth of some seventeen summers, evidently the wag of the village, who stands beside them with an accordion in his hand, and relates to them in a half-whisper how he is about to be elected Elder, and what mad pranks he will play in that capacity. When one of the girls happens to laugh outright, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... with such animation that their boots waved in the air. A tall youth was practising on the flute in one corner, quite undisturbed by the racket all about him. Two or three others were jumping over the desks, pausing, now and then, to get their breath and laugh at the droll sketches of a little wag who was caricaturing the whole ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... 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 us ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... watery 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
... I know. When leetil bird sit on a stone an shake hims tail, I've heerd you an Orley say it wag—but misser Gubbins he got no tail to wag—so ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... clear and deep-toned, and he had been well trained as to the use to make of it, but his personal actions were too vehement, and one wag remarked, 'Mr. Fox, in speaking, saws the air with his hands, but Mr. Pitt ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the same manner—a wag of the head towards the right shoulder—but Lilac felt so proud and pleased to be going to Lenham with her own butter that she sat up very straight, and smiled and nodded heartily to those she knew. It seemed a wonderfully short journey, and ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... in the grand ballet, where all the dancers performed intricate manoeuvers under changing lights. Every time the wheeling figures brought her round to the footlights, there was a greeting from the front, and, despite warnings, she could not suppress a responsive wag of the head or a friendly ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... that—I myself—at Eylau. I see him now, as he rode up a height, took his field-glass, looked at the battle, and said, 'All goes well.' One of those plumed busybodies, who plagued him considerably and followed him everywhere, even to his meals, so they said, thought to play the wag, and took the Emperor's place as he rode away. Ho! in a twinkling, head and plume were off! You must understand that Napoleon had promised to keep the secret of his compact all to himself. That's why ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... the big mastiff began to wag his tail, and though he still barked, it was by way of a welcome now. Frank fearlessly opened the gate and walked in. The guardian of the farm came up to him, sniffing, and Frank, without hesitation, rubbed his hand over the shaggy head ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... Bond she went down to the pond in a rage, With plenty of onions, and plenty of sage; She cried, "Come, little wag-tails, come, and be killed. For you shall be stuffed, ...
— The Baby's Opera • Walter Crane
... niece's question with enthusiastic delight, and at every table discussion some wag would be sure to ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... wards, 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 sounds—machine guns popping, ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... unalterable truth prevails. Namely:—You can't do this"—here Dr. Veiga held up a pared and finished finger and wagged it to and fro with solemnity—"you can't do this without moving your finger ... You were aware of this great truth? Then why are you upset because you can't wag your finger without moving it?... Perhaps I'm being too subtle for you. Let me put the affair in another way. You've lost sight of the supreme earthly fact that everything has not merely a consequence, but innumerable ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... with clay and sent it over to me. I thought it would look well beside my brown bread taken from the strange oven in the terrible Redan, and that the two would typify war and peace. There was a great traffic going on in such things, and a wag of an officer, who could talk Russian imperfectly, set himself to work to persuade an innocent Russian that I was his wife, and having succeeded in doing so promptly offered to dispose of me for the ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say; merry's the word; hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now, Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... you go out on the terrace for your coffee. The fakirs are passing up and down in front, selling their wares—little rabbits, wonderfully lifelike, that can jump along your table and sit on their hind legs, and wag their ears; toy snakes; small leaden pigs for good luck; and novelties of every description. Here one sees women with baskets of ecrivisse boiled scarlet; an acrobat tumbles on the pavement, and two men and a girl, as a marine, a soldier, and a vivandiere, ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... certainly lucky for the good people of Essex County that no wicked wag of a Tory undertook to immortalize in rhyme their ridiculous hegira, as Judge Hopkinson did the famous Battle of the Kegs in Philadelphia. Like the more recent Madawaska war in Maine, the great Chepatchet demonstration in Rhode Island, and the "Sauk fuss" of Wisconsin, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... sure, for being animals of fine feeling and intelligence, than in justice they are entitled to; because they have so many ways of showing forth what they feel. A dog can growl or bark in several ways, and show his teeth in at least two, to tell how he feels. He can wag his tail, or let it droop, or curl it over his back, or stick it straight out like a flag, or hold it in a bowed shape with the curve upward, and frisk about, and run in circles, or sit up silently or with howls; or stand ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... C—, 'Ha, C—! (said he) what news, C—? How does the world wag? ha!' 'The world wags much after the old fashion, my lord (answered the captain): the politicians of London and Westminster have begun again to wag their tongues against your grace; and your short-lived popularity wags ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... whilst his crew was made up of two Samoans and four Fijians. The captain seemed to enjoy yelling at his men in the Fijian language, with a strong flavouring of English "swear words," and spoke about the Fijians in terms of utter contempt, calling them "d——d cannibals." The cabin wag a small one with only two bunks, and swarmed with green beetles and cockroaches. Our meals were all taken together on deck, and consisted of yams, ship's biscuit ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... him again, beside herself with grief. Cinders, in the midst of his pain, tried gently to wag his tail. His brown eyes, faithful, appealing, full of love, gazed up at her. He had never seen his mistress in such trouble before, and the instinct to comfort her urged him even then, in the midst of his own. Again ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... you and the rest of the household, in concocting some plausible story. To every friend who calls, to anyone of our world whom you may meet, you must tell the same tale, and if you note an air of incredulity in anyone, if you hear whispers of there being some mystery, well! let the world wag its busy tongue—I care less than naught: it will soon tire of me and my doings, and having torn my reputation to shreds will quickly leave me in peace. But to Sir Andrew Ffoulkes," she added earnestly, "tell the whole truth from me. He will understand ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and his daughters 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 ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... angry.' He had a rooted dislike to hearing his orchestra tune up in his presence, and he gave strict orders that the performers were to get this business over before he arrived. One night, however, when the Prince of Wales was to be present, a wag gained access to the orchestra and secretly untuned every instrument. When the Prince arrived and the audience were all seated, Handel 'gave the signal to begin con spirito, when such a discord arose that the enraged musician started from his seat, overturned the double-bass, ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... whence Valerius had hurriedly 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 ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... may as well forbid the mountain Pines To wag their high tops and to make no noise, When they are fretten with ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... the Trump shall sound, William Lynne, Esq., who had the honor and felicity to be the first husband of Elizabeth, Mother through the Grace of God to Oliver Cromwell." At the bottom of the inscription a would-be wag wrote, "Had he lived long enough he would have been the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... to say as ye'll marry Davi', an' ye ain't had the savvee to wag yer tongue right, I'm goin' to quit. The snow's goin' fast. They dogs o' mine is gettin saft fer want o' work. I'm goin' to light right out o' here, Victor, an' the boodle's goin' ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... keep back some piece of news during dinner to be fired off with the entrance of the supper tray, and form as it were the LEVER DE RIDEAU of the evening's entertainment. Once he had heard her tongue wag, she made sure of the result. From one subject to another she moved by insidious transitions, fearing the least silence, fearing almost to give him time for an answer lest it should slip into a hint of separation. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Colonel's dry comment, "but it's much more important at times to be loyal to the last wag of your tongue." ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... compound of acids and sweets, hot water and fire-water, to steal away the brains,—but a finer mixture of subtler elements, conducive to mental and moral health; not, in a word, punch, the drink, but "Punch," the wise wag, the genial philosopher, with his brevity of stature, goodly-conditioned paunch, next-to-nothing legs, protuberant back, bill-hook nose, and twinkling eyes,—to speak respectfully, Mr. Punch, attended by the solemnly-sagacious, ubiquitously-versatile ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... I'm heartily tired 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 the eye, Boldness you'll ...
— Faust • Goethe
... 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 old-fashioned tastes in her eating and would have ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... girl. He often spoke admiringly of her and never met her at church, or among her friends that he did not gladly avail himself of the opportunity of accompanying her home. Madame rumor soon got tidings of Mr. Luzerne's attentions to Annette and in a shout the tongues of the gossips of A.P. began to wag. Mrs. Larkins who had fallen heir to some money, moved out of Tennis court, and often gave pleasant little teas to her young friends, and as a well spread table was quite a social attraction in A.P., her gatherings were always well attended. After rumor ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... and wise. He had no love for running round nights: so it surprised his master, when, just as the sun went down that day, Rory started down the road, and up the lane to farmer John's. On he went, with a grave look, without stopping to greet any old friend, even by a wag of his tail. Bravo met him, and whisked around him; and, after a short consultation, the two dogs crawled into the kennel, Rory staying nearest to ...
— The Nursery, April 1878, Vol. XXIII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... quick four-in-a-bar time. There are several well-known tunes to it. [See Note on Arbeau's 'Orchesographie.' 1588.] The derivation of the name is from the French, bransle, a totter, swing, shake, etc., or perhaps from Old French Brandeler, to wag, shake, swing. Skeat thinks the original dance may have been a sword dance, and with this he connects the word Brandish.[20] It was danced, sometimes in a ring, holding hands, ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... the sake of the orphan child I am able to hold up at all," she would tell us. "I would not have blamed him so much for leaving us poor, but it was hard and cruel to leave us disgraced into the bargain"; and then Miss Blake would weep, and the wag of the office would take out his handkerchief and ostentatiously ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... duchess, and to accompany her party to the play. He used to travel with a night-cap in his pocket, and having occasion for a handkerchief at the theatre, made use of his cap for that purpose. In one of his reveries, however, it fell from the side-box, where he was sitting, into the pit, where a wag, who picked it up, hoisted it upon the end of a stick, that it might be claimed by its rightful proprietor. Judge of the consternation of a large party of ladies of rank and fashion, when George Harvest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... party friends in Vermont that make their hopeless march over the hills a high and inspiring pilgrimage—he shrewdly measures the occasional agitator, balances his little account with politics, touches up his mule, and jogs down the furrow letting the mad world wag as it will! ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... we was worth while, won't we, Baldy?" he would whisper confidently; and Baldy's reply was sure to be a satisfactory wag of his bobbed tail, signifying that he certainly intended to ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... 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 his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... with my terms "mere verbiage" and "extravagant rant." I recommend a careful consideration of the scene over the grave of Ophelia; and then let any one say whether or not the "wag" of tongue between Laertes and Hamlet be not fairly described by the expressions I have used,—a paraphrase indeed, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... and laid it snugly on a leaf. "That's for Paddy"—an Irish terrier, always of the party. It was an affecting act of renunciation. Presently "Paddy" came along; but "Paddy," who, too, had lunched, bestowed merely a sniff and a "No, thank you" wag of the tail. "What, you no want 'em? All right." No second offer was risked, and in a moment, in one mouthful, the chick was being crunched by Mickie, feathers and all. The menu of the Chinese—with its ducks' eggs salted, sharks' fins and tails, stewed ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... windpipe than the oesophagus; the pleura than the diaphragm? Why is the collar-bone the undisputed king of the osseous frame? One can understand the supremacy of the heart: it plainly bosses the whole vascular system. But why do the bronchial tubes wag the lungs? Why is the chin superior to the nose? The ankles to the shins? The solar ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... months' absence from Paris had caused profane tongues to wag considerably. Notwithstanding his reticence concerning Countess Hanska, a legend had gathered round about their relations to each other. More than one paper reported that he had been off on an expedition, wife, and fortune-hunting—which was true; and one daily, at least, spoke of his having ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... Newport talk that the Sixt' avenue sales ladies use. Sis Van Urban caught the same cue, and to hear 'em you'd thought the Boss had done something real cute. They gave the Lady Brigandess the High Bridge wig-wag and shooed her into a stage ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... this interference. "I'm not sayin'," she added, "that the doctor couldn't cure me, an he had a mind to; for, Davy, dear," with an earnest wag of her little head, "'twould not be the truth. I'm only sayin' that I'll not ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... personification of an innocent, well-behaved dog! But Lieutenant Baldwin knows his tricks now, and sometimes, going to the bed, he can feel the warmth from his body that is still there, and if he says, "Magic, you old villain," Magic will wag his tail a little, which in dog language means, "You are pretty smart, but ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... rent-days to help a tenant to buy stock, or an outlay on repairs to keep the weather out at a tenant's barn-door or make his house look a little less like an Irish cottier's. But we all know the wag's definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance. And so on. All the rest is to show what sort of legislator a philanthropist is likely to make," ended the Rector, ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... death, double death! These afflicted ones die daily and the graves to them seem pleasant and delightful. The sufferings of the deaf and dumb are myths—but a drop in the ocean compared to what I endured! And who cared for me? Who? I wag the laughing stock, a subject of scoffing and ridicule, often. I could fill an octavo with the miseries I endured from early childhood till the elapsement ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... over his left, then his right, shoulder, pulled at his jacket first one way then the other—thereby making his improvised tail to wag, which sent The Enormous Room into spasms of merriment—finally caught sight of the incriminating appendage, pulled his coat to the left, seized the paper, tore it off, threw it fiercely down, and stamped madly on the crumpled 606; spluttering ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... His faith was ever strong; The people's war he wagd For victory erelong. Beneath the banner dying, He would not yet give o'er, And him Valkyries flying Home to ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... expanded into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed a boy, and were waiting to convict him from his own lips. Insomuch, that when the Doctor put his right hand into the breast of his coat, and with his other hand behind him, and a scarcely perceptible wag of his head, made the commonest observation to a nervous stranger, it was like a sentiment from the sphynx, and settled ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... at institutes; Don't like to make a public talk, And demonstrate with board and chalk. No, he ain't much on sich disputes; But Wes at school gits down and roots: Up here Wes Banks is jist a wag, With striped candy in ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... mine! O Tree of mine! Have you seen my naughty little maid With a willy willy wag and a great big bag, She's ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... the transmission of messages was most remarkable. Masking their operations in the language of secret signs and ciphers, they made use of the telephone, telegraph, radio, wig-wag, panel, carrier pigeon, blinker, and last, and perhaps most dependable of all, the living runner. The duty of the latter consisted in carrying messages to or from exposed positions when no other means would do. Usually a volunteer from any branch, he was selected because of courage, ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... at the same time much annoyed, to find himself forsaken on account of such a trifle. He feared, too, that Chupin might let his tongue wag if he left his employment. So, since he had confided this project to Chupin, he was determined that Chupin alone should carry it into execution. Assuming his most severe and injured manner, he sternly exclaimed: "I think you have ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... gentleman feels bound to execute twice, though he would much rather have been excused either performance; and upon Mrs. Brown's presenting a substitute he became so beside himself as to forget the figure—a mishap rendered none the clearer by a wag's performing la pastorale, when he ought to have done trenise, and moreover, not have done it in such a facetious manner, as to render it a matter of doubt if he himself could have recognized ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... those amongst his friends who offered him a wager he would not persist in wearing it long. At this the king stated his resolution afresh of never changing; but before the month was out he had made an alteration, for inasmuch as the vest being slashed with white, was said by a wag to make the wearers look like magpies, his majesty changed the colour of the silk to black. This "manly and comely habit" might have become permanently the fashion, if the King of France, by way of ridiculing the merry monarch, had not caused ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... accompanied with Kettledrums and Trumpets." And when the Fair is over, and we are no longer invited to "walk up," let us march in the train of the great Mime, until he takes his ease in his inn,—the Black Jack aforesaid,—and laugh at his jibes and flashes of merriment, before the Mad Wag shall be silenced by the great killjoy, Death, and the jester's boon companions shall lay him in the graveyard in Portugal Fields, placing over him a friendly record of his ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... behalf, to the ground gois boyth the croces. And then begane no litill fray, but yitt a meary game; for rockettis war rent, typpetis war torne, crounis war knapped,[387] and syd gounis mycht have bene sein wantonly wag from the one wall to the other: Many of thame lacked beardis, and that was the more pitie; and tharefore could not bukkill other by the byrse, as[388] bold men wold haif doune. Butt fy on the jackmen that did ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... nor offended him. He was a philosopher—and, like so many of his kind, a laughing philosopher. When he was sufficiently recovered from his operation to get about on crutches he was the wag of the ward. He took a special delight in those practical jokes which are invented by patients to tease the nurses, and devoted the most painstaking ingenuity to their preparation. It was he who found a small hole in the lath-and-plaster wall which separates the ward from ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... got a single drop of a certain famous vintage which has perished from the face of the earth. Sometimes he has purchased, with a friend, a few last left dozens from the cellar of a deceased potentate, at a price so exorbitant that he can only wag his head and decline mentioning it; and, if you ask his friend, that friend will wag his head, and decline mentioning it also. Sometimes he has been at an out-of-the-way country inn; has found the sherry not drinkable; has asked if there is no other wine ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Doctor was at the height of his popularity, some wag perpetrated the following joke in a newspaper paragraph: "During some experiments he was making in chemistry last week, an explosion took place which entirely bewildered his faculties and left him in a condition ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... cut up by tin-works, but still known as Dragon's Moor. Here they would choose one of their number to be Mayor, and submit to him all questions of conscience, and such cases of notorious evil living as the law failed to provide for. Summary justice waited on all his decisions; and as the village wag was usually chosen for the post, you may guess that the horse-play was rough at times. When this was over, and the public conscience purified, the company fell on the pasteboard dragon with sticks and ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... dignity of 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
... one, as I take it, no worse than three or four you might have found by stepping across the road to Roisin's coffee-house in the Rue Vaugirard. The commoners in the late troubles have been leal enough, I'll give them that credit, but some of the gentry wag their tongues for Prince Tearlach and ply their pens for ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... holiday-makers there were frolicsome apprentices, rather envious of his good fortune; bold-eyed women with the badge of the yellow veil; beggars who thrust forward their caps for alms, in derision at Tito's evident haste; dicers, sharpers, and loungers of the worst sort; boys whose tongues were used to wag in concert at the most brutal street games: for the streets of Florence were not always a moral spectacle in those times, and Tessa's terror at being lost in the crowd was not ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... 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, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... with a stoop, and yet somehow flung his forked and narrow beard forward. That carefully cut and pointed yellow beard was, indeed, the most emphatic thing about him. When he clasped his hands behind him, under the tails of his coat, he would wag his beard at a man like a big forefinger. It performed almost all his gestures; it was more important than the glittering eye-glasses through which he looked or the beautiful bleating voice in which he spoke. His face and neck were of a lusty red, but lean and stringy; he always wore ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... Favorite, which sailed in company with us and had followed us blindly, ran aground at the same instant. Luckily it was almost calm, and the great Hercule lay quietly on the sand like a stranded whale. Whenever the least suspicion of a swell came, she gave a shudder, a sort of wag of her tail, which was very alarming. If the swell increased she would soon go to pieces, and every boat we had to launch would never be enough to save the crew. It was one of those anxious moments in a sailor's life when each man makes it his business ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... at the rope, went by, without so much as a wag of tail to Steward or a glance of eye. The officers stopped before Daughtry and drew Michael ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... we would not see it done. But there was no moving Prendergast and those who were with him. Our only chance of safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he, and he would not leave a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. It nearly came to our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he said that if we wished we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the offer, for we were already sick of these ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... 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 ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... roubles in addition. What a dog is that Kuvshinnikov! He and I attended nearly every ball in the place. In particular, there was a woman—decolletee, and such a swell! I merely thought to myself, 'The devil take her!' but Kuvshinnikov is such a wag that he sat down beside her, and began paying her strings of compliments in French. However, I did not neglect the damsels altogether—although HE calls that sort of thing 'going in for strawberries.' By the way, I have a splendid piece of ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... take care of her! But he saw that to leave the enemy in possession would be to yield him an advantage. Awkward things might result from it! the tongues of inventive ignorance and stupidity would wag wildly! He would take her to her room, and there watch her as he ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... that put Jim Leonard in mind of Pony's running off again. All the way home he kept talking to Pony about it, and Pony said he was going to do it yet, some time, but when Jim Leonard wanted him to tell the time, he would only say, "You'll see," and wag his head. ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... stood the Cohue Royale and house of legislature. In the belfry of this court- house, the bell was ringing to call the Jurats together for a meeting of the States. A monstrous tin pan would have yielded as much assonance. Walking down towards the Vier Marchi the lad gleefully recalled the humour of a wag who, some days before, had imitated the sound of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... rational and collected. But nothing is so deceitful as mad people, to those who are not used to them. Try him with hot water; if he won't lick it up, it's a sign he does not like it. Does his tail wag horizontally or perpendicularly? That has decided the fate of many dogs in Enfield. Is his general deportment cheerful? I mean when he is pleased, for otherwise there is no judging. You can't be too careful. Has he bit any of ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... strifes and battles. He had no need, as we have, to explain how that soul may grow wicked step by step. At all such niceties and groping efforts, how, if even he could understand them, would he laugh and wag his head! And, oh! how gracefully then would quiver those splendid ears ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... 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 behaves like a wise king! How Gargantua ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... wag; no more of that. Thou shall want neither man's meat, nor woman's meat, as far as his ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... Charley-Wag With wipes and tickers and what not! Until the squeezer nips your scrag, Booze and the blowens ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... the English detenus at Valenciennes was left for signature at the house of the colonel of gendarmerie, addressed in a fulsome manner to Bonaparte, under his title of Emperor of the French, and beginning with "Sire." Some unlucky wag took an opportunity of altering this word into "Dear Sir," and nearly caused the whole ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... glorious morning; one of those mild, mellow days of the late autumn, when unscientific people wag their heads and proclaim that the climate is changing. There was scarcely a breath of wind, and the landscape toward which our steady nag trotted sturdily wore a faint atmosphere of saffron haze, as though the sunlight had been steeped in the lees ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... can bet on Jessup," said the client, with a confident wag of his head. "Jessup's all right. He'll do the square thing. Why, he left Susanville just to keep people from talking about Mrs. Billings. But she followed him up, and now, of course, he'll stick to her. When she gets a divorce, all legal and proper, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... daily flight, hath hovered o'er Our foes politic, and hath often shunned To make her nest in Democratic boughs. 'Twere well to seek from out the tricky foe One who shall balance, like the flying wheel, The various acts of Francos and his crew And so most shrewdly curb the critic tongues That wag within the jaws of foes most keen, Thus hiding well, from all the thoughtless world. The deep intent which labors in our breast. And which in time shall like the bird encased By brittle shell, break forth and fly aloft, Singing to startled worlds sweet freedom's song. ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... 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 struggle between family and family or between chief and vassal." Takauji's record ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... Johnsonian stories, continues:—'Mr. Langton told some stories in imitation of Dr. Johnson; but they became him less than Mr. Boswell, and only reminded me of what Dr. Johnson himself once said to me—"Every man has some time in his life an ambition to be a wag."' Mme. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... filled by strongly-visaged spinsters and mutinous wives, who twice a week were worked up by Dr. Fleabody to a full belief that a glorious era was at hand in which woman would be chosen by constituencies, would wag their heads in courts of law, would buy and sell in Capel Court, and have balances at their banker's. It was certainly the case that Dr. Fleabody had made proselytes by the hundred, and disturbed the happiness ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... "You are a wag, Sergeant; but hang me if I am sure you are not right. There may be sweeter things in this world, after all, than oatmeal. You have a sweet daughter, ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... mystery ship was back over the San Francisco area and those people who had maintained that people were being fooled by a wag in a balloon became believers when the object was seen ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... for fair and beauteous Millescent, With my vain breath I will not seek to slubber Her angel like perfections; but thou know'st That Essex hath the Saint that I adore. Where ere did we meet thee and wanton springs, That like a wag thou hast not laught at me, And with regardless jesting mockt my love? How many a sad and weary summer night My sighs have drunk the dew from off the earth, And I have taught the Niting-gale to wake, And from the meadows spring the early Lark An hour before she should have ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... may be," put in Messer Doria, who was reputed a wag. "His lady, the Moon, whom he kisses tenderly all night, hath hied her behind the hills to sleep with some shepherd swain. He is eat up with jealousy; look you, ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... awkward horseman, so much so, as generally to attract notice. Some years after this, he was riding along the turnpike road, in the county of Durham, when a wag, approaching him, noticed his peculiarity, and (quite mistaking his man) thought the rider a fine subject for a little sport; when, as he drew near, he thus accosted Mr. C. "I say, young man, did you meet a tailor on the road?" "Yes," replied Mr. C. (who was never ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle |
