"Wriggle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before, Pippity showed considerable anxiety, calmly remarking, however, as I translated his jargon, that he would, as on the previous day, hold fast to my shoulder with his bill. He made Grilly get down below at the same time and hold on to my feet; and when I began to crawl and wriggle along the best way I could, I was assisted very materially by the parrot above and ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... some way twisted. It ached with an insistence and annoyance only second to the wound. All his most determined efforts to wriggle it straight failed lamentably. Indeed, he almost fancied that they made ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... are married," said he, "I'll keep a hand on you, my lady, that you won't be able to wriggle away from. If you are slippery, and faith you are, why I'm tough, and so you'll find it." "Get rid of your kinks before you marry," said he. "I've no use for a wife with one eye on me, and it a dubious one, and the other one squinting into a parlour two streets ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... all up with thee and us!" And, in truth, the horse's tail was already singed to a coal, for the serpent was hard behind them, blazing like fire. The horse perceived that he could do no more, so he gave one last wriggle and died; but they, poor things, were left alive. "Whom have you been listening to?" said the serpent as he flew up to them. "Don't you know that I only am your father and tsar, and have the right ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... great rock rose straight up in the middle of the road. Instantly the Serpent uncoiled itself from his neck, and, as it touched the damp earth, it resumed the shape of the lovely damsel. Pointing to the rock, she showed him an opening just big enough for a man to wriggle through. Passing into it, they entered a long underground passage, which led out on to a wide field, above which spread a blue sky. In the middle of the field stood a magnificent castle, built out of porphyry, with a roof of gold and with glittering ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... who plainly saw that Ola was trying to wriggle out of his difficulty, but were anxious not to lose an exciting scene, screamed with laughter again; but this time at the bully's expense. The blood mounted to his head, and his anger got the better of his natural ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... small tradesmen's houses, such as the crockery-shop and the harness-maker, had a Cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some forlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and scant the village, that one might have thought the village had sown and planted everything it once possessed, ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... suggestion, but offered to take my own tiller and lend him Grue. He couldn't wriggle out of it, seeing that his alleged motive had been the overcrowding of my boat, but he looked rather sick when Grue went aboard ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... creek from the ocean and the finest ones found their way into the pool, and on Friday the cook and his men supplied the tables with fresh fish. How many times have I seen those fine fish, caught on the prongs of a spear, writhe and wriggle to get off. At first I could not taste them, I felt so sorry to see them killed in that way. I would not go out on Friday until after the fishing was done. The lamper eels crawled up the stream and the men gathered them by the barrels full and made ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... I never have!" said Aunt Agatha with considerable decision. "And it's not at all likely I ever shall. There are bugs and things," she added vaguely, "and snakes that wriggle about." ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... for though they were strong enough to have pulled away the rocks that blocked the entrance, they could not stand fire. As I had any amount of rope, I used to soak it in rock-oil, set it on fire, and shove it out of the entrance. Twice small bears managed to wriggle up the passage, but I had sharpened the boat-hook and managed to kill them both. One skin made me a whole suit, and the other a first-rate blanket. Not that it was ever unpleasantly cold, for a couple of my big candles, and the ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... sit right straight down in that chair and read your poem over slowly, while I whip into my own clothes, and then we'll go along together. Fred can't come until a little later anyway. Sit still now, and don't wriggle around and ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... your neck! Have you ever felt a mustache on your neck? It intoxicates you, makes you feel creepy, goes to the tips of your fingers. You wriggle, shake your shoulders, toss back your head. You wish to get away and at the same time to remain there; it is delightful, but irritating. But how good ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to grace Its brow, and no ear for my song; Hush'd the caves of its breath, and the finger of death The raised features hath flatten'd along. The eyes' wonted beam, and the eyelids' quick gleam— The intelligent sight, are no more; But the worms of the soil, as they wriggle and coil, Come hither their dwellings to bore. No lineament here is left to declare If monarch or chief art thou; Alexander the Brave, as the portionless slave That on dunghill expires, is as low. Thou delver ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... come to fill their jars in the pond, and your huge black shadow would wriggle on the water like sleep struggling to ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... the very help of Prussia unacceptable to Austria was the circumstance of Prussia's using that opportunity of Austria's need to wriggle herself to the military headship of the Confederation. Austria would rather have lost Lombardy (and more) than have accepted such a disadvantage. Hence the coldness, the cause of which is scarcely avowable. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... break it. Take salt only with a clean knife. Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at the right hand of plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not.... Smell not of thy Meat; make not a noise with thy Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking.... When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavour to help him out if he tell it ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... tactics of the snake were wearing it down. Though the lizard seemed to have lost none of its spirit, the flesh was becoming weak. While it panted, its eyes twinkled with inane ferocity, and the snake, with that peculiar fearsome, gliding movement—neither wriggle nor squirm—typical of the species, slowly edged its victim under the shadow of a tussock. There both reposed, the snake calm in craft and design, the lizard waiting for the one chance of its life. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... wasn't looking, and before I knew where I was half of her would be gleaming in the sun like satin. Directly I noticed it I used to frown, and then she would pretend to be ashamed of herself, hang her head, and wriggle her frock up to its place again. However, I never could teach her to keep her skirts about her knees. She was as innocent as a baby about that sort ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... Florence felt very uneasy. She tried to wriggle away from her companion, who held her arm firmly. "To ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... you wouldn't talk so about—Father. You're for ever talking about him," said Will uneasily, trying to wriggle himself out of his ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... swayed under the weight of spread wet raincoats. Two opened umbrellas wheeled in the current of air that came around the house; the porch ran water. While Margaret was adding her own rainy-day equipment to the others, a golden brown setter, one ecstatic wriggle from nose to tail, flashed into view, and came fawning ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... girl was uncomplaining. She clung doggedly to the Earth man's hand when they were able to walk erect: followed swiftly and unquestioningly when they were compelled to crawl or wriggle through an ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... details limned from life. 'The Jesuits have so many loopholes for escape, pretexts, colors of insinuation, that they are more changeful than the Sophist of Plato; and when one thinks to have caught them between thumb and finger, they wriggle out and vanish' (ib. vol. i. p. 230). 'The Jesuit fathers have methods of acquiring in this world, and making their neophytes acquire, heaven without diminution, or rather with augmentation, of this ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... making a tremendous commotion. I was much struck also by the singular appearance presented by certain diving birds having very long and snaky necks (the Plotus Anhinga). Occasionally a long serpentine form would suddenly wriggle itself to a height of a foot and a half above the glassy surface of the water, producing such a deceptive imitation of a snake that at first I had some difficulty in believing it to be the neck of a bird; it did not remain long ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... complete almost to the royal-mast, though the yards were gone; and to his left, just above the battered fore-top, five men were lashed, dead and drowned. Most of them had their eyes wide open, and seemed to stare at Zeb and wriggle about in the stir of the sea as if they lived. Spent and wretched as he was, it lifted his hair. He almost called out to them at first, and then he dragged his gaze off them, and turned it to the right. The survivor still clung here, and Zeb—who had ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sullen silence. The man was a study for me, and I observed every change in his fleeting moods. Generally his condition was that of miserable despair, which he attempted bravely to conceal. Even the boon of suicide had been denied him, for when he would wriggle into an erect position the rail of his pen was a foot above his head, so that he could not clamber over and break his skull on the stone floor beneath; and when he had tried to starve himself the attendants forced food down his throat; so that he abandoned ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... you had that kid around all the time," grunted Short and Long, as Jess finally allowed him to wriggle loose. "I think he's more of a terror than he is ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... atrocities is like turning over a huge stone in the meadow in springtime, that has been a hiding-place for bugs and worms that nest away in the dark. As soon as the hot, searching sunlight finds them, they will wriggle and squirm in agony until they can crawl under cover again. So I do not wonder that, when the hideous cruelty of the tenement-house sweat-shop is brought to light, the sweater and all his friends wriggle and squirm in an agony of fright and shame. Neither am I alarmed that ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... A young Armenian named Hackatur related the story of his escape from a well in which the bodies of the dead had been crammed. He had fallen with the others and was flung into the well, but he managed to wriggle through the bodies lying on top of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... worked. He was used not only to wriggle around the line inside of ends and to squirm through difficult outlets, but to charge the line as well, a feat of which his height and strong legs rendered him well capable. He proved a consistant ground-gainer, and with Blair, who worked like a hero, and Kingdon, who won laurels for himself ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... like to show it) were to say to you: 'He's the one, in this country, whom they consider the most perfect, isn't he?' Is it success to be the occasion of a young Englishman's having to stammer as you would have to stammer at such a moment for old England? No, no; success is to have made people wriggle to another tune. ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... with me now, Molly," he suggested at last. Then he turned to Chris, who was watching him with almost no expression. "You can wriggle your chair to the phone in half an hour, I guess. Knock the phone off and yell for help. It's better than you deserve, unless you really did ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... generous Hogboom was he blundered into the story of the time Hoggy bet all of his money on a baseball game at Muggledorfer, and of how he walked home with his chum and carried the latter's coat and grip all the way. That made the Faculty wriggle, I can tell you. He illustrated the pluck of the deceased by telling how Hogboom, as a Freshman, dug all night alone to rescue a man imprisoned in a sewer, spurred on by his cries—though Rogers ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, young larvae, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity! But no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day let upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of legs—and some of them have a good many—rush round wildly, butting each other and everything in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... beggars one at a time—go for them, throttle them, wring their necks, jump on them; and if they wriggle, stamp!" ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... the 2nd December the hole in the engine room bulkhead was cut completely. I climbed through it, followed by Bowers, the carpenter, and Teddy Nelson, and when we got into the hold there was just enough room to wriggle along to the pump-well over the coal. We tore down a couple of planks to get access to the shaft and then I went down to the bottom to find out how matters stood. Bowers came next with an electric torch, which he shone downwards whilst I got into the water, hanging on to the bottom rungs of the ladder ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... said, though in tones little like any he was used to hearing from his own lips. But he would not dare look himself in the face again if he did not make at least a wriggle before surrendering. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... rushing into a clinch, and Tad found himself gripped in those arms of steel. Wriggle and twist as be would he could not free himself from their embrace. His adversary, on the other hand, found himself fully occupied in holding on to his slippery young antagonist, giving him neither time nor opportunity effectually to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... your foot on him in some sort of agreement, and kept it there. Why, of course! Any man can be held. But don't let Pinney have room to wriggle." ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Hayley, Doctor Paley, Arthur Murphy, Tommy Durfey, Mrs. Trimmer's little Primer, Buckram binding, touch and try— Nothing bid—who'll buy, who'll buy? Here's Colley Cibber, Bruce the fibber, Plays of Cherry, ditto Merry, Tickle, Mickle, When I bow and when I wriggle, With a simper and a giggle, Ears regaling, bidders nailing, Ladies utter in a flutter— "Mister Smatter, how you chatter, Dear, how clever! well, I never Heard so ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... profession by supposing such a thing. There is not, in or out of an attorney's office in the county of Erie, or elsewhere, one who could raise a doubt, or a particle of a doubt, about the meaning of this provision of the Constitution. He may act as witnesses do, sometimes, on the stand. He may wriggle, and twist, and say he cannot tell, or cannot remember. I have seen many such efforts in my time, on the part of witnesses, to falsify and deny the truth. But there is no man who can read these words of the Constitution of the United States, and ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the sun should set,' he answered, and began to wriggle along so fast that the girl could ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... she had found her breath, and taken one quick look round as if to satisfy herself she was unobserved, suddenly cast herself down, in her turn, upon the damp earth, and inserting her head beneath the prickly barricade of the holly leaves, begin to crawl and wriggle forward until she had completely disappeared under it. What in the world could she ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... gone back to the Giant Suttung with the tale of how he had seen the mysterious serving-man change into a snake and wriggle through a hole in the mountain; and Suttung at once guessed that they had to deal with Odin himself. So he hurried to the hole and sat there to watch for the return ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... we'll do it," said Thorny, breaking a long silence as Betty composed herself with an irrepressible wriggle of delight after one of these refreshing peeps. "We'll keep Sanch hidden, and smuggle him into Ben's old room at your house. Then I'll drive on to the barn, and not say a word, but send Ben to get something ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... You can hold a stick up to your mouth, and wriggle your fingers, and whistle. No one will know that you are not playing a fife. It will sound just the same. And the music will be just as sweet." Mr. Fox smiled at Billy. And Billy ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey
... tickles me immensely to behold a plethoric commonplace Briton roar himself purple with impassioned platitude at a political meeting; but I perceive that all my neighbours take him with the utmost seriousness. Again, your literary journalist professes to wriggle in his chair over the humour of Jane Austen; to me she is the dullest lady that ever faithfully photographed the trivial. Years ago I happened to be crossing Putney Bridge, in a frock-coat and silk hat, when a ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... hussy actually beginning to gain her point, and steal from her the heart of her son? Was it in the girl's blood to wrong her? The father of her had wronged her: she would take care his daughter should not! She had taken a viper to her bosom! Who was she, to wriggle herself into an old family and property? Had she been born to such things? She would teach her who she was! When dependents began to presume, it was time ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... so loose in their partially emptied box that they could wriggle and even change positions if they liked. The big young man wheeled, passed his arm round Winifred's waist as if for a waltz, half lifted her off her feet, and set her down ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... But without paying the least homage to the image of the 'Lo' spirit, he simply kept his eyes fixed intently on it; for albeit made of clay, it actually seemed, nevertheless, to flutter as does a terror-stricken swan, and to wriggle as a dragon in motion. It looked like a lotus, peeping its head out of the green stream, or like the sun, pouring its rays upon the russet clouds in the early morn. Pao-yue's tears unwittingly ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... of confusion and smoke, he could not for an instant think where he was; but it did not take long for him to open his eyes, recollect the happenings of the previous day, smile with satisfaction, and hurriedly wriggle into ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... "American society and the United States Government are demoralized and overthrown, it will come from the voracious desire of office—this wriggle to live without toil, from which I am not free myself." These words ought to be written up in the largest characters in every schoolroom in the United States. The confession with which they conclude is as true as the rest. Mr. Lincoln, we are told, took no part in the promotion of local ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... read the dressmaking periodicals. She never heard of the Wednesday matinee. When she takes the air she rides in a carriage that has a sheltering hood, and she is veiled up to the eyes, and she must never lean out to wriggle her little finger-tips at men lolling in front of the cafes. She must not see the men. She may look at them, but she must not see them. No wonder the sisters in Michigan are organizing to batter down the walls of tradition, and bring to her ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... vessel was tied up at the end of a stone wharf, obviously awaiting them, and the captives were tied hand and foot and tossed into the hold. Jason managed to wriggle around until he could get his eye to a crack between two badly fitting planks and recited a running travelogue of the cruise, apparently for the edification of his companions, but really for his own benefit since the sound of his own voice ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... he gave a wriggle, and it flashed through her: 'He must think me an awful enfant terrible!' His face peered round at her, queer and pale and puffy, with nice, straight eyes; and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Lord don't deliver nobody, without they wriggle for themselves pretty consider'ble well fust. This a'n't the newest news to me; I've been expectin' on't a long spell, an' I've talked consider'ble with Westbury folks about it; and there a'n't nobody much, round about here, but what'll stand out agin the Britishers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... his instructions, in anticipation of the contest on which he was embarking against you and against Daubrecq, at whose house he did the same thing. He had under his orders a sort of acrobat, an extraordinarily thin dwarf, who was able to wriggle through those apertures and who thus detected all your correspondence and all your secrets. That is what his two friends revealed to me. I at once conceived the idea of saving my elder son by making use of his brother, ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... in its young state, and having just entered upon its terrestrial life, is a small creature, which could, with the utmost ease, wriggle into crevices and crannies of a size which would almost preclude such apertures being noticed at all. Gaining access to a roomier crevice or nook within, and finding there a due supply of air, along with a dietary consisting chiefly of insects, the animal ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... around the place, and no suspected person can get away?" muttered the submarine boy. "Well, that's it should be. I wonder if there are any more of this strange crew—men or women spies that don't happen to have suspected so far? If there are, I don't believe they'll wriggle through the meshes of old Uncle Sam's Secret ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... should not be tempted to borrow two or three days more, having never seen her; yet my lilacs pull hard, and I have not a farthing left in the world. Be sure you do not leave a cranny open for George Grenville to wriggle it), till I have got all my things out of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... came; then he dropped her like a hot brick. By the Eternal, Rollins, he hasn't gotten off with that old love yet, you mark my words. There's Indian blood in her veins, and a look in her eye that makes me wriggle, sometimes. I watched her last night at parade when she drove out here with that copper-faced old squaw, her mother. For all her French and Italian education and her years in New York and Paris, that girl's got a wild streak in her somewhere. She sat there watching him as the officers marched ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... few of the men and many of the women shrank back while those that had babies, or little folks, snatched up their children, fearing lest the poisonous snakes might wriggle towards them. ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... "Selina Brown and Laura Nelson ought to have more principle than engage in anything so dishonorable. They've managed to wriggle out of it at Marian's expense, but they have both lost caste by it. Depend upon it, a great many girls here will have their own opinion of the whole affair and it won't be complimentary to ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... mean his securing, but another of us must put a lance in the contorting curves and with quick and dexterous motion lift him to the bank where his struggles might be ended with knife or rock. The release of him for a second might permit him to wriggle ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... at him blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a flush on his ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... into the pot, took hold of the ferret, and was about to place it in the box; but it gave a wriggle and writhe, glided out of Mercer's hand, crept under the corn-bin, and, as he tried to reach it, I saw it run out at the back, and creep down a hole in the floor boards, one ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... comfort in it. I would mutely complain of the world to her. It would give me satisfaction to denounce the whole town to her. "Ah, I have got you!" I seemed to say to the people of Antomir. "The ghost of my mother and the whole Other World see you in all your heartlessness. You can't wriggle out of it." This was my revenge. ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... kolerega. Wreath garlando. Wreathe plekti, girlandi. Wreck (ship) sxippereo. Wreckage derompajxo. Wren regolo. Wrench ektiregi. Wrest tiregi. Wrestle barakti. Wrestler baraktisto. Wretch malbonulo, krimulo. Wretched mizera. Wriggle tordi, tordeti. Wring (twist) tordi, premegi. Wring (the hand) premi. Wrinkle sulkigi. Wrinkle (facial) sulko. Wrist manradiko. Write skribi. Writer (author) verkisto. Writer skribisto. Writing skribajxo. Writing-table skribotablo. Wrong malpraveco. Wrong malprava. Wrongfully ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... are able to command the attention and the confidence of your buyers, you've got to be up and dressed all day to hold what trade is yours, and twisting and turning all night to wriggle into some of the other fellow's. When business is good, that is the time to force it, because it will come easy; and when it is bad, that is the time to force it, too, because we ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... to give me much as a pound a day. Some days he used to give me much as five pounds." Then Eddy Carroll, after delivering himself of this statement, could not get his young, black eyes away from the fixed regard of the man's keen, blue ones, and he began to wriggle as to his body, with his eyes held firm by that unswerving gaze. "What you looking at me that way for?" he stammered. "I don't think you're ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Tom, as the other boys tried to wriggle out from under the tent. "We've got to get wet now, anyway; but perhaps, if we stay as we are, we can manage to keep ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... angle, and presently I came in sight of the village church, sitting solitary within its circle of elms. From forth the vestry window projected two small legs, gyrating, hungry for foothold, with larceny—not to say sacrilege—in their every wriggle: a godless sight for a supporter of the Establishment. Though the rest was hidden, I knew the legs well enough; they were usually attached to the body of Bill Saunders, the peerless bad boy of the village. Bill's ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... Although your painter may drop hints for the soul, let him not strain above his pitch lest he crack his larynx. To his colour he may add form in the flat; but he cannot escape the flat, however he may wriggle, any more than the sculptor can escape the round, scrape he never so wisely. Buonarroti will scrape and shift; the Fleming has scraped and shifted all his days to as little purpose. His seed-pearls invite your touch. ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... looked and saw Lovelace Peyton, I began to shudder too. He was hanging half in and half out of a little window high up in the shed like a skylight, and the big bottle was slowly slipping as he tried to wriggle either in or out. There was no ladder in sight, and neither of us was near tall enough to reach him. He was beginning to whimper and be scared himself, and I could see the heavy bottle start to slip faster from his arm. We had less ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... fur somethin' good fur beatin' out brains, an' dar lays my ax. I grabs it up, now ready fur a cleaver, an' no mistake. Big Injun ain't, though; he ain't ready fur any sich a thing. Up he comes wid a whirl, an' down I goes wid a fling, my ax a-flyin' way out yander. But in de wriggle uf a buck's tail comes up nigger ag'in; goes down Injun ag'in. Yes, an' a leetle mo' dan dat: nigger an' Injun clean ober de turn uf de hill, an' now a-slidin', slidin' down whar it ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... Academy is a kind of hospital and infirmary for the obliquities of taste and ingenuity—a receptacle where enthusiasm and originality stop and stagnate, and spread their influence no farther, instead of being a school founded for genius, or a temple built to fame. The generality of those who wriggle, or fawn, or beg their way to a seat there, live on their certificate of merit to a good old age, and are seldom heard of afterwards. If a man of sterling capacity gets among them, and minds his own business he is nobody; he makes no figure in council, in voting, in resolutions or speeches. ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... search of his hat, which is being very unceremoniously transformed into a muff beneath their entangled extremes, he turns over quietly, saying, "There's something very strange about the floor of this establishment,—it don't seem solid; 'pears how there's ups and downs in it." They wriggle and twist in a curious pile; endeavour to bring their knees out of "a fix"—to free themselves from the angles which they are most unmathematically working on the floor. Working and twisting,—now staggering, and again giving utterance to the coarsest language,—one of the gentry—they belong ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... hundred eggs on the surface of wounds. The larvae which in a few hours hatch from these make their way directly into the wound where they feed on the surrounding tissue until full grown when they wriggle out and drop to the ground where they transform to the pupa and later to the adult fly. Of course their presence in the wounds is very distressing to the infected animal, and great suffering results. Slight scratches that might otherwise quickly heal often become serious ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... all right!" laughed the old man, trying to wriggle out of his son's grasp; "only not just yet a whiles. I'm agoin' in here to drink your good health, Adam lad, and all here's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... the cat that saved the situation and its life at the same time. Mary-'Gusta was near the edge of the pine grove and Con was close at her heels. David gave one more convulsive, desperate wriggle, slid from the girl's arms and disappeared through the pines like a ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... abused. Miss Overmore had up to now rarely deviated from a decent reserve, but the day came when she expressed herself with a vividness not inferior to Beale's own on the subject of the lady who had fled to the Continent to wriggle out of her job. It would serve this lady right, Maisie gathered, if that contract, in the shape of an overgrown and underdressed daughter, should be shipped straight out to her and landed at her feet in the ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... closer to the question of which of the alien objects presented to his choice it would cost him least to profess to handle. What he had already paid, a spectator would easily have gathered from the long, the suppressed wriggle that had ended in his falling back, was some sacrifice of his habit of not privately depreciating those to whom he was publicly civil. It was plain, however, that when he presently spoke his thought had taken a stretch. "I'm sure I've fully ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... which can only be set right by the truth of love. So long as the powers build a league on the foundation of their desire for safety, secure enjoyment of gains, consolidation of past injustice, and putting off the reparation of wrongs, while their fingers still wriggle for greed and reek of blood, rifts will appear in their union; and in future their conflicts will take greater force and magnitude. It is political and commercial egoism which is the evil harbinger of war. By different combinations ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... not always an illusion; was it because she rendered the spirit of M. Offenbach's operas so perfectly, that we liked her so much? "Ah, that movement!" cried an enthusiast, "that swing, that—that—wriggle!" She was undoubtedly a great actress, full of subtle surprises, and with an audacious appearance of unconsciousness in those exigencies where consciousness would summon the police—or should; she was so near, yet so far from, the worst that could be intended; in tones, in gestures, in attitudes, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... wriggle past that contraction in the middle, I should be safe. And if I stuck fast midway! But the more I measured the width with my eye, the less the narrowing seemed to be. To be so slightly perceptible, it could hardly be enough to make much difference. Caution whispered ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... excitement was a playful habit the Chink had contracted of picking up a rusty rifle and a salvaged clip of cartridges, pointing the gun anywhere and pulling the trigger to make it say Bang! I often found myself doin' the old B.E.F. tummy-wriggle when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... the warriors was returning. First come the Judge, tougher than rawhide, half walking and half flying, his wings spread out, 'cree-ing' to himself about bulldogs and their ways; next come Bobby, still sputtering and swearing, and behind ambled Thomas at a lively wriggle, a coy, large ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... again, as my second gun native (we had never expected the tiger to be where we found him, and were on our way home) had seated himself on another tree. In a low tone he said to me "Load, load!" but the moment I took my eye off the tiger to do so he began to wriggle into the jungle, and I only got a snap shot at his hind leg. Now when the tiger roared, which he did as he approached me, and he lay watching me, I felt no sensation of the heart, though I felt a distinct flutter when loading and when the tiger was wriggling away. On the following ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... up the river and had caught a tremendous eel. An eel can hold out to wriggle a very long time. He has no vitals. Even with talon-tipped claws he is slippery and more than a clawful; so the old hawk took a short cut home across the railroad-track and the corner of the woods where ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... bit of a chit, sir, to show it's all right," said the policeman, when they had lifted her into the front seat, pale and rigid now. "And if you take my advice," he whispered, "you'll keep an eye on her; she can wriggle like an eel, and if she grabs the steering-wheel when you're moving, she'll break all your bloomin' ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... her desperate wriggle out of his hand revealed that the fright of the night had left more impression upon her ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... dead mixed with the living, the wounded untended, without dressings, food, or water, and harassed by the fire from both sides and from our artillery. It was a very painful thing to watch these poor fellows moving about feebly and trying to wriggle themselves into some position of safety, and it reminded me of the wounded Dervishes after Omdurman—only these were ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... wealth. Excited women-bareheaded likely-gaze again upon the strong, controlled face of Columbus, and thank God for this missionary to the Grand Khan-only the dark sea will surely be his destruction before he gets there! Children wriggle through the throng and stare at the men who are soon to find out what becomes of the sun when it sets, and to know for themselves whether or no it hisses and makes the water boil. The sailors make their way toward the ships through a running fire of conversation and hand-clasps, ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... I mean, so don't wriggle. You met Simmonds when he was in trouble, and just offered to take his place for a day or so, thereby doing him a good ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... he warned Trevison. "I'll blow a hole through you if you wriggle a finger!" Watching Trevison, he spoke to Braman: "You got a back ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the witchcraft of rebellion Transform'd t' a feeble state-camelion, 370 By giving aim from side to side, He never fail'd to save his tide, But got the start of ev'ry state, And at a change ne'er came too late; Cou'd turn his word, and oath, and faith, 375 As many ways as in a lath; By turning, wriggle, like a screw, Int' highest trust, and out, for new. For when h' had happily incurr'd, Instead of hemp, to be preferr'd, 380 And pass'd upon a government, He pay'd his trick, and out he went But, being out, and out of hopes To mount his ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... an honest forester," said Gefroi, and groaned again. "The favour of a lord is a slippery thing—much like an eel—quick to wriggle away. An hour agone my lord Duke held me in much esteem, while now? And he struck me! On the face, here!" Slowly Gefroi got him upon his feet, and having donned cap and pourpoint, shook his head and sighed; ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... My papa often says so and he knows all about it," replied Alfred with an involuntary wriggle suggestive of painful memories. Then, as if anxious to change the conversation from its somewhat personal channel, he asked, pointing to a row of grinning heads above the wall, "Do you ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... want to," said Polly. "But why don't you be the kangaroo, then, Joe, and let Davie be something else? Give him the snake, then he won't have to jump, and it's easier to wriggle." ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... master, astounded. He represses a wriggle of healthful satisfaction on the part of his pupils by a significant lift of his ferule, then moves ponderously up the stairs for a personal visit to the chamber of the culprit. The maid had given true report; there was no one there. Never had he been met with such barefaced ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... say," put in Jake Brewer, grasping a large pickerel and thrusting his blade into its quivering body after removing the scales, "that it hurts her insides to see the critters wriggle under the knife. She ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... was acting. No sooner did he see the watchman called off guard than he began to wriggle like an eel across the turf towards the beech, keeping the trunk of the tree between himself and the poachers. His keen knife made short work of Chippy's bonds, gag included, and the Raven was free. The latter slipped ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... didn't know about snakes would have filled a book, but when I saw this one I knew it was a bargain. It was the blamedest biggest snake that ever gave a wriggle, and the only reason its owners had not made a fortune was because it was never properly advertised. I used to know just how much he weighed and how long he was, but my brain got so tired figuring up the money we made out of him that I've had ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... blackness of night comes, then will come, also, those who make war from behind the trees of the forest. In the darkness, how is the young white and his friends to tell enemies from friends? The jackals will wriggle through and over the wall of trees like snakes through tall grass. After what they have seen, can my white friends expect mercy at hands already ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... let it mar the mutual love, That now unites us eye to eye, If, superficially, we seem to shove Our fingers in your Irish pie— An action which, if you should so behave, Would make old MONROE wriggle in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... accruing to some parts of his being and strange deprivations in others, and upon whom the unhappy realization begins to be borne in, that his is no particular case, and that he of all the world is not to be spared, but, like his forbears, must inevitably wriggle in the disguising crucible of time. And, though men accept it with apparently patient humor, the first realization that people do grow old, and that they do it before they have had time to be young, is apt to ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... wriggle. "Cuckoo, you're laughing at me," she said. "I mean, have you come back to stay and cuckoo as usual and make my aunts ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... is made to Ben Jonson:—'Horace did not screw and wriggle himselfe into great Mens famyliarity, impudentlie as ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... a sea of fancy, Genius rises, And like the rare Leviathan surprises; But the small fry of scribblers!—tiny souls! They wriggle thro' ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... standing under a gas-light and looking over the elevated road at the moon, was a man. A long man he was, dressed decent, with a segar between his teeth, and I saw that his nose made two twists from bridge to end, like the wriggle of a snake. Tobin saw it at the same time, and I heard him breathe hard like a horse when you take the saddle off. He went straight up to the man, and I ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... to effect any change in the position of the tugboat, while it stuck to the submerged bank, like a bull ramming its head against a stone wall. Instead of staying motionless the stern swung slowly to the right and then to the left, as if trying to wriggle its nose out of the mud. This caused the muzzle of the cannon to wabble, sometimes being directed straight at the sailboat, and sometimes to one side of it. But the gun was so easily shifted that the American could readily perfect the aim whenever he chose, and that would be done the instant the ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... Samuel's Sentimental Side; and I think you will agree that it was a lot of title for twopence. Day after day, as I fumbled among the old books in the Twopenny Bin of the little secondhand bookseller's shop, that volume would wriggle itself forward and worm its way into my hands; and I would clench my teeth and thrust it to the remotest depths ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... "Please," and added to the force of the word with another little wriggle against Forrester. It solved his problems. There was now only one thing to do, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... was by means of an aperture so low that we had to lie flat on the ground, and so narrow that even I found it hard work to wriggle through. ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... wriggle and twist to try to avoid admitting that the calling of the martyred Zacharias, 'the son of Barachias,' is an error of some one who confused the author of the prophetic book with the person whose murder is narrated in 2 Chronicles xxiv. We do not know who made the mistake, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... get ourselves free?" Tom demanded: "I've been trying to wriggle my hands out, but I'll admit that ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... fuming; it only makes things worse. When we are restless under little troubles, God sends us greater ones; and if our impatience continues, he sends us greater still. And there is no remedy. An eel may wriggle itself "out of the frying-pan, into the fire;" but it cannot wriggle itself back again out of the fire, even into the frying-pan. And so it is with us. We may wriggle ourselves out of one little trouble, into two greater ones; but we cannot wriggle ourselves ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... the wayside cobra, hears the careless foot of man, He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can; But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail, For the female of the species is more deadly ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... climb over the first stile, and, cutting off the corner, had been coolly awaiting my arrival. On the whole, I think that being in his grasp was almost preferable to the feeling that he was dogging my steps. His left hand gripped the collar of my jacket and flannel shirt, and instantly I began to wriggle, twisting my leg about his own in an attempt to bring him to the ground; but the man was of enormous strength, and, freeing himself, he shook me as a terrier shakes a rat, until I felt there was little breath ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... reached the limits of his shelter he dropped upon his stomach and began to wriggle through the grass. It pleased him to do this. It gave him a sense of delight at the thought of the horrible awakening the cowardly ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... to make a doll house for little Patience, for Christmas." Lydia gave an uncomfortable wriggle. "Don't talk ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... had a wide net spread around him — wide of mesh too, perhaps; and it was through a mesh he meant to wriggle, but the net was intact ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... to woman. On this he rose up in his place and cried: "Wata[n] Thanks! I'm glad some of them will die, for they are getting so thick that they tread on me." He fairly shook with joy at the thought, so that he fell over backward and could not get on his feet again, but had to wriggle off on his back, as the Grubworm ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... say you wanted to do? Congratulate me? What on? My splendid defence of the Hindenburg line? Now, look here. As one German General to another do you mean to tell me you believe in the Hindenburg line? No, of course you don't. You thought I believed in it? Was that what you said? Come, don't wriggle, though you are a dead man. Yes, that was what you said. Well, then understand henceforth that there is no Hindenburg line and there never was anything of the sort. Why am I retreating then? Because I must. That's the whole secret. Why did you retreat after your famous ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... choke him to assure silence?" Phil hurriedly asked himself, and instinctively made to put his hands to the man's neck. But the body under him began to wriggle, to kick out with its legs, and to ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... afford to stay here until daylight," he whispered. "We must wriggle out of here until we come to the edge of the road. Then we must make a ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... rulers of rural England throughout recent centuries. Our esquires did not win their estates till they had given up any particular fancy for winning their spurs. Esquire does not mean squire, and esq. does not mean anything. But it remains on our letters a little wriggle in pen and ink and an indecipherable hieroglyph twisted by the strange turns of our history, which have turned a military discipline into a pacific oligarchy, and that into a mere plutocracy at last. And there are similar historic riddles to be unpicked ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... mist fell upon the waters or blew away over the meadows, and it was cold. Mr. Gabriel wrapped the cloak about Faith and fastened it, and tied her bonnet. Just now Dan was so busy handling the boat—and it's rather risky, you have to wriggle up the creek so—that he took little notice of us. Then Mr. Gabriel stood up, as if to change his position; and taking off his hat, he held it aloft, while he passed the other hand across his forehead. And leaning against the mast, he stood so, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... Cornelius. How the latter had managed to exist through the troubled times I can't say. As Stein's agent, after all, he must have had Doramin's protection in a measure; and in one way or another he had managed to wriggle through all the deadly complications, while I have no doubt that his conduct, whatever line he was forced to take, was marked by that abjectness which was like the stamp of the man. That was his characteristic; he was fundamentally and outwardly abject, as other men are markedly of ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... she said gayly. "I pity you, Mr. Bower. You cannot wriggle out of your difficulty. The snow will soon be a foot deep in the valley. Goodness only knows what would have become of us up there ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... Children are wilted into silence and slumberous nonentity; boys do not bathe to-day—they welter, hour after hour, in the dark water near the shaded rock. Even they and the tadpoles can hardly be seen to wriggle. The cow has found a shade, and, preferring repose to munching, lies contented under the one great elm mercifully left in the middle of ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... thud as they let down a burden, which I knew must be a sack of gold. I lay quiet for a minute, and then began to wriggle through the brush to get a glimpse of them, and, in case it proved to be the camp, learn what might be the most advantageous ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... to bed alone, with no one to talk to about the events of the day! What does the horrid old money matter? We always have been poor, and we always shall be. As long as I can remember mother has been in despair about the bills; but we wriggle through somehow, and we shall go on wriggling. It's horrid of you to talk of going ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... comfortable little wriggle under her coat. "Isn't it nice Mamsie makes me get my lessons the first thing, before I play!" she said to herself ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... not be snapped up. We would wriggle away. We were very sorry, but we must start at once to pursue ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... you will never be able to cane if you hold it like that. You should hold it like this, Miss Phoebe, and give it a wriggle like that. ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... must pick them out right. But all I mean is—for I express myself with violence—that she's in a position to watch me. There's an element of suspense for me, and she can see me wriggle. But my wriggling doesn't matter," he pursued. "I can bear it. Besides, I shall ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... made of it, he and his two brown, ragged boys. Large fish and small, pink fish, blue, yellow, orange, striped fish and mottled, wriggled together, and flapped their tails in the well of the little boat. There were even too many to lie there and wriggle. The bottom of the boat was well covered with them, and, if she had not shipped waves enough to keep them cool, the boy Battista had bailed a plenty on them. Father and son hurried on shore, and Battista on board began to fling the scaly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... to watch them wriggle! I wanted to take them, one by one, and strip off their shams! Take that fellow Rutherford, the steel man! Or Plimpton, the coal baron, casting his eyes up to heaven, and singing psalms through his nose! The instant I laid eyes on ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... of ice!" Irene Paul often said, putting her own plump arms about Adelle's thin little body; and while Adelle tried to wriggle out of the embrace she teased her by assuming the ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... firmly together. "Now then, Ralph, do the same with her wrists. That's right now. Wrap that shawl of hers three or four times tightly round her mouth. That's it; let her breathe through her nose. Now you keep a sharp watch over her, and see she doesn't wriggle out of these things. If you see any one coming clap your hand over her mouth, and see she doesn't make a sound. When he comes up you can let go and help me if necessary; it won't matter her giving a bit of a ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty |
