"Droll" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Grierson I have heard him relate many droll stories, much to his advantage as a wit, together with some facts more difficult to be accounted for; as avarice never was reckoned among the vices of the laughing world. But Johnson's various life, and spirit of vigilance to learn and treasure up every peculiarity of manner, ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
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... some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle; but they were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat, feeling keenly for him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I laughed in spite of myself all the time, the whole thing was so droll; and yet I had a latent impression that there was something decidedly fine in Mr. Wopsle's elocution,—not for old associations' sake, I am afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very up-hill ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
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... Justice Blackstone when he scowls at the unhappy culprit who is arraigned before him." We learn from Miss Agnes Strickland that "Marie Antoinette was the first person who broke the absurd fashion of dressing infant boys as droll miniatures of their fathers. She attired the unfortunate Dauphin in a simple blue jacket and trousers, for which she was reviled, as if little bag-wigs and tiny cocked-hats, and all the paraphernalia of full dress, had been points of moral obligation. ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
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... rightly with two such different sets of people; but though Charles II. was a very clever man, he was neither wise nor good. He could not bear to vex himself, nor anybody else; and, rather than be teased, would grant almost anything that was asked of him. He was so bright and lively, and made such droll, good-natured answers, that everyone liked him who came near him; but he had no steady principle, only to stand easy with everybody, and keep as much power for himself as he could without giving offence. He loved pleasure much better than duty, and kept about ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... told me about this second wooing of his wife—and it was droll. There seemed nothing funny about it to him. He said that after being introduced to Mrs. Blood, and recognizing her in an instant after all those years, as she did him, they sat down on a sofa together, being left to entertain each other, as the two oldest people in the room; ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
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... represented Maine in the House of Representatives. He was a man of huge bulk, bland in appearance, imperturbable in his serenity, caustic, concise and witty of tongue, rough, sharp, strong, droll. In the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary debate and manoeuvre, as well as in his knowledge of the intricacies of procedure, Reed was a past master. He worsted his adversaries by turning the laugh on them, and his stinging retorts, which swept the House "like grapeshot," ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
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... a doubt of it,' said his uncle, upon a series of nods diminishing in their depth until his head assumed a droll interrogative fixity, with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
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... pies, for Mrs. Smith had not much to give, and her spirit was generous, though her pastry was not of the best. It looked very droll to see pies sitting about on the thresholds of closed doors, but the cakes were quite elegant, and filled up the corners of the towel handsomely, for the apron lay in the middle, with the oranges right and left, like two ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
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... duties devolving on members of Parliament was very embarrassing even to themselves, and the vivacity with which they delivered orations to each other on the merits or demerits of members was exquisitely droll. The rivalry between Fox and Pitt was a subject that involved them in vehement chaos, just as the rivalry between Disraeli and Gladstone did in later years. They had some mystified idea that those political gentlemen were ever thirsting for ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
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... should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind. But the professional humourist cannot afford to be unexpected. The exigencies of his vocation compel him to be relentlessly droll from his first page to his last, and this accumulated drollery weighs like lead. Compared to it, sermons are as thistle-down, and political ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
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... good for this world, seeing that his whole time was spent in making people laugh uproariously, and that he was so wonderfully unselfish in the way he allowed himself to be kicked and knocked about—always landing in positions so excruciatingly droll that you quite forgot to ask if he were hurt. All the ladies who galloped round the ring, and did such marvellous things, treating a mettled steed as though he were as motionless as a kitchen table, seemed to Norah models of beauty and grace. There was one who set her heart ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
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... adjutant—held in his hand a wax candle (three to the pound). Whether he had himself seized it in the enthusiasm of my narrative of flood and field, or it had been put there by another, I know not, but he certainly cut a droll figure. The room we were in was a small one off the great saloon, and through the half open folding-door I could clearly perceive that the festivities were still continued. The crash of fiddles and French horns, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
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... droll enough!" cried the blacksmith, breaking out into such an uproar of laughter that Owen himself and the bell glasses on his work-board quivered in unison. "No, no, Owen! No child of yours will have iron joints and sinews. Well, I won't hinder you any more. Good night, Owen, and success, ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
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... Letters from a Citizen of the World to his Friend in the East, in which, under the character of a Chinese philosopher, he describes the customs and manners of Europeans. But this assumed personage is an awkward concealment for the good-humoured Irishman, with his never-failing succession of droll stories. Of these there are too many; and the want of any thing like a continued interest is sensibly felt. I do not know of any book, on the same plan, that is to be compared with the Persian ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
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... about—regular hearse's plumes. It was dancing a devil of a dance, this hat—bouncing and whirling round, diving down and then springing up again. Coupeau and Gervaise lost sight of it as the people round about moved their heads, but then suddenly they saw it again, swaying farther off with such droll effrontery that folks laughed merely at the sight of this dancing hat, without ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
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... appreciation of his curious skill in the art of writing. Watts-Dunton told me he had heard of this from Swinburne. 'I myself,' he said, 'very seldom read the magazines. But Algernon always has a look at them.' There was something to me very droll, and cheery too, in this picture of the illustrious recluse snatching at the current issues of our twaddle. And I was immensely pleased at hearing that my article had 'interested him very much.' I inwardly promised myself that as soon as I reached home I would read ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
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... softened.—Memorable!—Alas! I profit little by all I hear; surely it is because my faith is small. Ah. me! how long? how long?—A precious discourse to me. He preached my experience.—The solution of the text was a gratification, while I heard profitably. He made a very droll remark when describing those 'who make their belly their God;' he said 'they make their kitchen their temple, their cook and butcher their priests, and their belly their God.'—I felt my soul blessed and encouraged while hearing of sin being ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
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... tickled the cow, and made her do it," exclaimed Polly. Whereupon, Isaac had a spanking, and was sent to bed without his supper. But so great was his love of fun, that as he lay there, wakeful and hungry, he shouted with laughter all alone by himself, to think how droll Polly looked when she rolled over with the pail of ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
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... position he held, whereas, as it afterwards transpired, he had laboured ungrudgingly at his task. It is pleasant to know that his students were among the first to uphold his character. His patience, his droll criticisms, and the illuminating quality of his teaching endeared him to all who studied ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
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... him with amusement and something else. "Do you know that you are almost droll? You rise unblushing from the dregs of life in which I find you, and shake off the arm of that theatre girl, to come and preach ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
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... a pie tin, with the moth-eaten earlaps turned up at the sides and looking exactly like small furry ears. These, with the round steel spectacles which he wore—the only distinctive feature of his countenance—gave him an indescribably droll appearance. ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
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... A droll little comedy of misunderstandings, told with a light touch, a venturesome spirit and an eye for ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
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... a queer place," said my little companion, looking up in my face with a droll expression—"a sort o' place that, when once you had gone into it, you was sure to wish you hadn't. Talk o' the blues, sir; I do assure you that w'en I used to go into that yard of a night it gave me the black-an'-blues, it did. There was a mouldiness an' a soppiness about it that beat the ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
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... power over my pride; and, by saving me daily trouble, secured considerable influence over my indolence. More than any one whom I had ever seen, he had the knack of seeming half-witted—too simple to overreach, and yet sufficiently acute and droll to divert his master. I liked to have him about me, as uncultivated kings like to have their fools. One of our ancient monarchs is said to have given three parishes to his joculator; I gave only three farms to mine. I had a sort of mean ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
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... eastern gap, or thought of the stream sweeping to the dam. The spot where he sank, the broken floor, the inclosing walls, were their absorbing boundaries as to his fate. As the slaves saw him, a droll and sheepish look came on their faces at having wailed his death in his living ears. They shot through the door vigorously, and brought the boat with care alongside the ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
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... certainly the earliest series I have seen among the thousands I have examined. The York Cries, Tom Hickethrift, Jack the Giant Killer, and many kindred cuts, are evidently from the collection of John White, the early printer, and are as quaint, as funny and droll in crudity of execution, as any of Thomas Gent's, the unique York ...
— Banbury Chap Books - And Nursery Toy Book Literature • Edwin Pearson
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... of himself, and also a deep veneration for his superiors. And thus it happened that, when in the presence of his betters, he maintained a certain sort of droll dignity in himself while treating them with the utmost deference. He was faithful in his dealings with his numerous employers, all of whom he looked upon as so many helpless dependents under his protection, for whose well-being in certain respects he was strictly ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
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... being made a laughing-stock. Felix was still child enough to mix at once among them, and came tolerably well out of the trial. Thereupon the first style of greeting was conceded to him; he forthwith folded his arms on his breast, looked upward, and with such a droll expression withal, that it was quite plain that no hidden meaning in it had ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
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... found admirable in him, "it is not all the world who is invited to the home of our—our haut-monde, you understand?... And then it will interest you to see how our ladies live in that seclusion which is so droll to you. Confess you have heard strange stories," and he smiled in ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
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... shape? For it really is, my dear Martin, it really is in the finishing touches alone, that great experience and long study in these matters tell. Ha, ha, ha! Now it really will be,' continued Mr Pecksniff, clapping his young friend on the back in his droll humour, 'an amusement to me, to see what you ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
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... Many of the droll sayings of the American Bench of past years are attributable to the fact that the judges were appointed by popular vote, and the successful candidate was not always a man of high attainments in the practice of his profession at the Bar, or of profound learning in ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
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... years, its repeal was a foregone conclusion. When it was revoked in 1871 the temper of the nation had changed, and no one was inclined to make even a passing protest. John Leech, in a cartoon in Punch, caught the droll aspect of the situation with even more than his customary skill. Lord John relished the joke, even though he recognised that it was not likely to prove of service to him at the next General Election. In conversation with a ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
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... to be the case. The laird was what his country neighbours called "a droll, careless chap", with a very limited proportion of the fear of God in his heart, and very nearly as little of the fear of man. The laird had not intentionally wronged or offended either of the parties, and perceived not the necessity of deprecating ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
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... you do me infinite honour, cried Louisa, making him a droll curtesy; what think you, ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
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... smiled over the belated theory of the joint responsibility of our British Cabinet. When one recalls the many conflicting opinions expressed by every minister without rebuke, culminating in the Admiralty note upon the Geddes Report, the Prime Minister's indignation is more than droll. I presume the Conservative wing of the Coalition wanted to get rid of Indian Reform as interpreted by the Viceroy and Mr. Montague, and I shall watch with interest the action that Lord Reading will take upon ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
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... sufficiently shy of truth without providing it beforehand with an objection to the form. Can it be that this humor proceeds from a despair of finding a contemporary audience, and so the Prophet feels at liberty to utter his message in droll sounds. Did you not tell me, Mr. Thomas Carlyle, sitting upon one of your broad hills, that it was Jesus Christ built Dunscore Kirk yonder? If you love such sequences, then admit, as you will, that no poet is sent into the world before his time; that all the departed thinkers and actors have ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
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... Ann. Generally Lynda went with him to kiss Ann good-night before they bent over Billy's crib beside their own bed. But now, Lynda did not join them and Ann, starry-eyed, prattled on about the play and her joy in her father's achievement. She was very quaint and droll. She ran behind a screen and dropped her pretty dress, and issued forth, like a white-robed angel, in her long gown, her short brown curls falling like a beautiful frame around her gravely ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
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... made a kind of dirt-pie under the direction of the mason, they brought a little vase containing coins, the which the member for the Gentlemanly Interest jingled, as if he were going to conjure. Whereat they said how droll, how cheerful, what a flow of spirits! This put into its place, an ancient scholar read the inscription, which was in Latin; not in English; that would never do. It gave great satisfaction; especially every time there was a good long substantive in the third declension, ablative case, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
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... thank you enough—at least if he is always as clever and witty as he has been since I have had him," was the reply. "I was vexed at first to have a servant with such dreadful scars all over him; but he is more presentable now. And he has a very droll way of saying bright things. What fun he has made of Livia's dear mother, his former mistress! I shall have to give up reading any wise authors, if it will make me grow like Valeria. Then, too, Agias has won my favour, if in ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
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... ceiling, and through an open semicircular window a bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes. It was a strange intrusion of the vast eternities beckoning from the infinite spaces. I called the attention of one of my neighbors to it, but "Bones" was irresistibly droll, and Areturus, or Aldebaran, or whatever the blazing luminary may have been, with all his revolving worlds, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
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... disguises, and gave me so many good hints for ferreting out the tories, won't object much to that, seeing we have had considerably the start of the captain and his lady here, in the way of finished bargains," replied Bart, turning, with an expression of droll gravity, to the blooming girl at his side, who, thereupon, with an arch and blushful smile, placed her hand in his, which had ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
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... the fancy goods and notions, beckoned me with her finger. I had been standing at Kate O'Malley's counter, pretending to admire her new basket-weave suitings; but in reality reveling in her droll account of how, in the train coming up from Chicago, Mrs. Judge Porterfield had worn the negro porter's coat over her chilly shoulders in mistake for her husband's. Kate O'Malley can tell a funny story in a way to make the after-dinner ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
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... and promenaded the central aisle watching for pretty girls. In front of a candy-counter, where there was a soda fountain, they saw the red hat again. Vandover looked her squarely in the face and laughed a little. When he had passed he looked back; the girl caught his eye and turned away with a droll smile. Vandover paused, grinning, and raising his hat; "I guess that's ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
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... bribery is one of the causes seriously retarding progress in Hungary. There is as yet no wholesome feeling against this corruption, even amongst those who ought to show an example to the community. They have also a droll way of cooking accounts down in these parts, but there is a vast deal of human nature everywhere, so ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
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... unaffected manly sympathy with the weak and lowly. He read the paper most pathetically, and with a simplicity of tenderness that certainly moved one of his audience to tears. This was presently after his standing for Oxford, from which place he had dispatched his agent to me, with a droll note (to which he afterwards added a verbal postscript), urging me to "come down and make a speech, and tell them who he was, for he doubted whether more than two of the electors had ever heard of him, and he thought there might be as many as six or eight who ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
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... after our arrival at the hotel of the equestrians, I found that our Vermont acquaintance was one of the quaintest specimens of the Yankee race I had ever seen, and not a few examples had I met previous to my encounter with him. He had a droll impediment in his speech which gave to his actions and gestures a turn irresistibly comic, and then he told an excellent story, played the trombone, triangle, and bass viol, spoke Spanish well, drove one of the circus wagons, translated the bills, turned an occasional ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
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... ought to have been girls—and who would have made very droll girls. I know an old gentleman who used to bewail the degeneracy of the age and exclaim in despair, 'Boys will be girls!'" laughed ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
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... much indeed I confess, as if I had really had the pleasure of actually correcting you, but however I am pretty well satisfied. You was quite mistaken as to the manner I bore your silence; I only thought it was a little droll. ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
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... And droll it was to Colombo to think what might possibly happen were King Ferdinand to take his dream seriously or were the King perhaps to be informed as to the true ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
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... burlesques, who resembled each other, the precieux seeking wit and believing that all literary art consisted in saying it did not matter what in a dainty and unexpected fashion; the burlesques also sought wit but on a lower plane, desiring to be "droll," buffoons, prone to cock-and-bull stories or crude pranks in thought, style, and parody. Voiture is the most brilliant representative of the preieux and Scarron the most ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
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... know!" he replied, looking at Jacquet. "Wasn't it a funeral with thirteen mourning coaches, and only one mourner in the twelve first? It was so droll we all ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
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... is a poorly clad, strangely agile, droll pedlar, with a sparse beard, about thirty-six ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
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... children fairly danced in their delight at the comical strains, abrupt pauses, droll sentiment, and interlarded words of explanation. The more elderly guests were attracted, and the audience grew apace. Having finished her little musical comedy, Madge arose, and Mr. Arnault, aware of Stella Wildmere's ability to sing selections from opera, said, ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
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... said I. "I hope this Mr. —-, with the unpronounceable name, will disgust them with his eloquence; for B—- writes me word, in his droll way, that he is a coarse, vulgar fellow, and lacks the dignity of a bear. Oh! I am certain they will return quite sickened with the Canadian project." Thus I laid the flattering unction to my soul, little dreaming that I and mine should share in the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
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... feather bed on which Wilford Cameron once slept, a part of Katy's "setting out," which never found its way to Madison Square. Morris himself did not think much of feathers, but he made no objection when Aunt Betsy insisted on sending over the bed kept for so many years, and only smiled a droll kind of smile when he one morning met it coming up the walk in the wheelbarrow which ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
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... Over them all Mackintosh blankets with the buffalo-robes are drawn, by what power this deponent sayeth not, not knowing. No watch is kept, for there is little danger of intrusion. Once a whole party was startled by a white bear smelling at them, who waked one of their dogs, and a droll time they had of it, springing to their arms while enveloped in their sacks. But we remember no other instance where a sentinel was needed. And occasionally in the journals the officer notes that he overslept ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
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... went to him he tossed his head coquettishly, and trotting away a few steps, turned and looked at her with a droll air. Colina called him in dulcet tones, and ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
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... "You are certainly droll, Messalina! And I pardon you. Go, my children, and amuse yourselves. Narcissus will ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
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... If, in turn, he eats another, That's a sign that he's a brother— Each may fully trust the other. It is quaint and it is droll, But it's bilious ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
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... took their seats to-night and looked around the room they saw a droll sight. The old lady, who had been knitting on the veranda, was seated at a small table in one corner; and on each side of her in a chair sat a cat! One cat was a gray "coon," the other an Angora; and both of them sat ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
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... an exceedingly droll chap. He spent a couple of weeks with a French cousin who was also an aviator, and in time came to know the jolly members of the Lafayette Escadrille. He grew to be exceedingly fond of them all, and was in ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
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... understand laughter at such a communication as he must be hearing from the man? Signs of a sharp laugh indicated either his cruel levity or that his presumptuous favourite trifled—and the man's talk could be droll, Lady Arpington knew: it had, she recollected angrily, diverted her, and softened her to tolerate the intruder into regions from which her class and her periods excluded the lowly born, except at the dinner-tables of stale politics ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
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... the inn, finding he could not get rid of his troublesome guests, and having a chimney-sweeper in his house sweeping other chimneys, he gave the boy directions to descend into the room as above related, whilst he stood at a distance, and enjoyed the droll scene of ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
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... on the door-knob. Heaven knows how many times that comedy-proverb of Musset called 'A door must either be open or shut,' has been gravely played by the Sardinian Parliament and the prime minister!" It is with a very droll effect that a French paper has revived this curious description, a propos of the perpetual repetition of the drama played by the French Assembly and the French president, in which the constant threats of resignation on the one hand are invariably followed by passionate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
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... dramatist, who wrote most of the "Mathews at Home," attributes this epitaph to John Hardwicke. Lockhart gives it to Hook. Hook pictures Beazley in "Gilbert Gurney":—"His conversation was full of droll conceits, mixed with a considerable degree of superior talent, and the strongest evidence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
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... to others. He called him oftener to the workshop, tossed him a light hammer to play with, or told him to notice how he himself shaped a horseshoe, how he bent a glowing bar, or other such matters. When the two were alone, there was a droll sort of companionship between them, and they would talk together while the smith was working. The two voices resounded between the cling-clang of the hammers, Fausch's dull or loud, then the child's voice clear and high, like the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
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... asked us why we were so late in getting in. Jonnie replied that Jim kept us hunting for Cub bears all the spring, and as we couldn't find any, it took all our time. Of course they all wanted to know the joke, and when Jonnie told it in his droll way, it made a laugh on Jim. "If you will only quit talking about the cubs," Jim said, "I'll treat all around," which ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
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... we had at that time was a Dutchman who had joined the Belgian Army in 1914. He was a very droll fellow, and told me he was the clown at one of the Antwerp Theatres and kept the people amused while the scenes were being changed. I can quite believe this, for shouts of laughter could always be heard in his vicinity. He was very ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
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... these cloisters, one shouldn't complain," said she, glancing indicatively round. "One can still be out of doors, and yet not get the wetting one deserves. And the view is so fine, and these faded old frescoes are so droll." ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
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... they were perched on the top of the punkah, or on the iron crossbars supporting the roof, watching their opportunity to pounce down and carry off the bits left on our plates. They did not seem to mind the waiters a bit, and, with their heads cocked on one side, looked as droll and saucy as possible. People tell you all sorts of funny stories about them; but though they are very entertaining to watch, and apparently perfectly tame, it appears to be ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
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... not there, or would not speak. Amidst deafening noise again, the president rose, and said it had been moved and seconded that John Brough, Esq., be requested to address the meeting. "Ay"—"No;" but the "Ayes" had it. "Now, John Brough," said a droll-looking Irishman, apparently a hod-carrier, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
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... was quite impossible to know Barty at all intimately and not do whatever he wanted you to do. Whatever he wanted, he wanted so intensely, and at once; and he had such a droll and engaging way of expressing that hurry and intensity, and especially of expressing his gratitude and delight when what he wanted was what he got—that you could not for the life of you hold your own! Tout vient a qui ne ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
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... not at all in despair at the prospect of keeping L200 a year in my pocket, since the ministers can fadge without it. But their throwing the helve after the hatchet, and giving up the malt-duty because they had lost the other, was droll enough. After all, our fat friend[35] must learn to live within compass, and fire off no more crackers in the Park, for John Bull is getting dreadfully sore on all sides when ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
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... gather wild roses and mock-orange blossoms, which, in spite of her alarm, engaged Miss Lane's attention to such an extent that Charlie had gotten fairly out of sight before we missed him. But as we turned to follow, he confronted us with a face expressive of a droll ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
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... a T. Cassy could jump and run to her heart's content. Jump and run she did, for at recess Bessie drew her into the midst of the other girls, and such a game of "I spy" Cassy had never imagined. Nobody said a word about her droll gown. "She is my friend," Bessie had announced, ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
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... British army. General Sir Charles Napier, in his own eccentric way, said of him that he was "as brave as ten lions, each with two tails and two sets of teeth." Sir Charles rivalled Mr. Roebuck, the radical English commoner, in the scantiness of his commendations; his droll eulogy of Sir Hugh Gough will therefore be appreciated. On the 8th of February, Sir Harry Smith made his junction with the army of his chief, and was received in terms not more flattering than just from a general who never refused to merit ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
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... name, different place. But there, that's all over now, and jamais will I go and put myself within the clutches of the Russian Bear again. The midnight sun must do without me in future. I send you a sketch I made of a gargle—I think that's the name—on a church-door in Lapland. Isn't it really droll? You're always bothering me for something droll, and now you've got it. Then, Mr. Punch, riding a reindeer at half-a-crown an hour. Then here are the little Lapps offering our sailors a lap of liquor; and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
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... him, I think, because of his sense of humor. He used to stop talking now and then and with a quizzical hopeless smile he would look about the hall. And we would all smile broadly back, enjoying to the full with him the droll farce of our presence there. "Go to it, Madge," someone would murmur. And the work of revealing the wonders of this material universe would limp quietly along. In examinations Madge gave no marks, at least not to the mass ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
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... possible that you will consider this information a lie. That will be quite droll. However, I am, most respected ...
— The Leader • William Fitzgerald Jenkins (AKA Murray Leinster)
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... with laughter like a small boy. "He is droll, is that brother of yours. And has Sam been ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
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... very droll," said Suzanne to the conscript in the moonlight by the studio wall. "She walked always with those big eyes that saw nothing, and yet she kisses me on both cheeks as though she were my sister, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
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... a language! Ah, no! She had des yeux de pervenche.... She was diaphane, diaphanous ... impalpable as cigarette-smoke ... a little nose like nothing at all, with nostrils like infinitesimal sea-shells. Anyone could have made a mouthful of her.... Ah! Cre nom d'un chien! Life is droll. It has no common sense. It is the game of a mountebank.... I've never told you about Fleurette. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
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... right! You are becoming reasonable, I see. It is really droll that we should meet again after all these ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
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... speak much, and his mental attainments were not highly regarded; but, for some reason, whenever he did speak every playmate in hearing stopped whatever he was doing and listened. Perhaps it would be a plan for a new game or lark; perhaps it was something droll; perhaps it was just a commonplace remark that his peculiar drawl made amusing. Whatever it was, they considered it worth while. His mother always referred to his slow fashion of speaking as "Sammy's long talk." Her own speech ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
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... instantly says I cry halves, and if the first refuse he is instantly threatened with an information. The manner in which they cheat each other has, with all its infamy, occasionally something extremely droll and ludicrous. I was one day in the shop of a Swiri, or Jew of Mogadore, when a Jew from Gibraltar entered, with a Portuguese female, who held in her hand a mantle, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
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... their appearance, having been roused in the cottage and brought back by Mr. Egremont, and at last one door was forced open by main force, and the ladies emerged, Annaple, helping her sister, beginning some droll thanks, but pausing as she perceived that Lady Delmar's ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... you give of such a thing I will strangle you and become Frondist. I should be carried home in triumph like Monsieur Broussel and Athos would proclaim me the French Brutus. It would be exceedingly droll." ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
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... proud of Harry by and by," said Holt as I paused. "I hope he won't stay too long abroad. I have missed you so, Floyd!" And we fell to telling stories of our boyhood, and again and again Jack's laugh broke the silence of the night, for there were droll tales to tell. We heard the chimes of midnight before we stirred from our seat, and then we moved with some reluctance, for the moonlight was rare, and the light upon the water where the sea-line showed through the interstices ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
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... he was a sad deceiver, that Editor. He was a very clever fellow. What droll songs he used to sing! What a heap of play-tickets, diorama-tickets, concert-tickets, he used to give you! Did ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
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... of its feathers. The tutor was filled with pity and indignation, and gave each of them a look, that was more dreadful than any words he could have spoken. After some silence, Billy attempted to justify himself by saying, that it was a droll sight to see sparrows hopping about without feathers, and he could see no harm ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
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... family assembled at prayer; and. Blaize, whose shoulders still ached with the chastisement he had received, eyed the apprentice with sullen and revengeful looks. Patience, too, was equally angry, and her indignation was evinced in a manner so droll, that at another season it would have ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
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... It appears to you droll, perhaps? Monsieur, to her lover, the humblest divette is more than Patti. In all the world there can be no joy so thrilling as to hear the music of one's brain sung by the woman one adores—unless it be to hear the woman one adores give forth one's ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
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... see immediately that Tolly Tip was about as queer as his name would indicate. At the same time they believed they would like him. His blue eyes twinkled with good humor, and he had a droll Irish brogue that was bound to add to the flavor of the stories they felt sure he had on ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
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... How droll and dry he was! His lean, olive-brown face, with its guileless clear eyes and his lanky figure in blue jeans vividly ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
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... at her with such a droll expression that she gave up all idea of defending herself from ridicule, and laughed as heartily as ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
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... and a dry crust of bread, and while he drank two or three horns of Canary, would smile and chat in his own dry manner with his friends and domestics, asking minute questions about their neighbours and acquaintance; or when scholars or clergymen shared his simple repast, affecting a droll anxiety—rich and pleasant in the conqueror of Tromp—to prove, by the aptness and abundance of his quotations, that, in becoming an admiral, he had not forfeited his claim to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
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... the burlesque, cynic, or vulgar phases of life to secure amusement. He is grotesque and droll in his manner, and above all always restrained. His literary life is full of sprites and gnomes that frolic before young children and once before mature people. The Griffin and the Minor Canon is a beautiful fairy story lifted ...
— Short-Stories • Various
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... grotesque wording and droll errors of these old psalm-books can, after the lapse of centuries, be pointed out and must be smiled at, there is after all something so pathetic in the thought of those good, scholarly old New England saints, hampered ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
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... grew by swift stages to comprehend, then frankly to share, her amusement. From this it seemed only a step to the development of a humor of his own, doubling, as it were, their sportive resources. He found himself discovering a new droll aspect in men and things; his phraseology took on a dryly playful form, fittingly to present conceits which danced up, unabashed, quite into the presence of lofty and majestic truths. He got from this nothing ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
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... portraits are perhaps farther removed from faithful representations of the originals than the personal sketches of any other writer, even among the most deliberate misrepresenters. There is, indeed, a droll topsy-turvy resemblance to Shelley throughout the Scythrop of Nightmare Abbey, but there Peacock was hardly using the knife at all. When he satirises persons, he goes so far away from their real personalities that the libel ceases to be libellous. It is difficult to say whether ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
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... as Isabella, because that was her real name, but the children and everybody always called her Eyebright. "I. Bright" it had been written in the report of her first week at Miss Fitch's school, when she was a little thing not more than six years old. The droll name struck some one's fancy and from that day she was always called Eyebright because of that, and because her eyes were bright. They were gray eyes, large and clear, set in a wide, low forehead, from which ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
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... "desirous of getting hold of that damned queer old woman's fortune-telling book, by Bob Antrobus." In the Diary of the sprightly Louisa Josepha Adelaide, Countess of Bute (afterward so unfortunate a wife and an even more unfortunate mother), she describes a droll scene at a Scotch castle one evening, in which the unexpected statements of "The Square of Sevens" as to the lives and characters of the company "put to the blush several persons of distinction" who rashly tempted ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
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... in the company of practical men, of an atmosphere of condescension to men of my calling, if nothing worse. I fancy they commonly regard artists of all kinds as a sort of harmless eccentrics, and that literary people they look upon as something droll, as weak and soft, as not quite right. I believed that this particular group, indeed, was rather abler to conceive of me as a rational person than most others, but I knew that if even they had expected ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
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... sometimes used by the poets, are always inelegant, and may justly be considered grammatically improper. They occur most frequently in doggerel verse, like that of Hudibras; the author of which work, wrote, in his droll fashion, not only the foregoing monosyllables, but learned'st for most learned, activ'st for most active, desperat'st for most desperate, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
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... Ippolito's snuff or his blue handkerchief; but then the contessina had never rebuked his finger-nails by the tints of rose and ivory with which Miss Vervain's hands bewildered him. It was a little droll how anxiously he studied the ways of these Americans, and conformed to them as far as he knew. His English grew rapidly in their society, and it happened sometimes that the only Italian in the day's lesson was what he read with Florida, for she always yielded ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
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... droll imitation, the way she sing-songed the verse in the exact manner prevalent in many ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
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... the chamber where the golden bird hung in a wooden cage, and below stood the golden cage, and the three golden apples that had been lost were lying close by it. Then thought he to himself, 'It will be a very droll thing to bring away such a fine bird in this shabby cage'; so he opened the door and took hold of it and put it into the golden cage. But the bird set up such a loud scream that all the soldiers ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
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... he dying—or does the life of a nation wake again, as after sleep? Is he this droll, harmless thing he here depicts himself? And if not? Suppose fresh sap be stirring through his three hundred millions? We thought he was so very dead; we thought the time had come to cut him up and divide him, the only danger being lest ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
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... Rarest Newspapers, with a Facsimile of a very Curious, Droll, and Interesting Newspaper ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
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... shepherd's dog do anything without believing that I perceived his reasons for it. I have often amused myself in calculating what his motives were for such and such things, and I generally found them very cogent ones. But Hector had a droll stupidity about him, and took up forms and rules of his own, for which I could never perceive any motive that was not even farther out of the way than the action itself. He had one uniform practice, and a very bad one it was; during the time of family worship, and just ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
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... to me, because its mother could not nurse it; and I kept it in some nice hay in a large basket, and fed it with warm milk from the spout of a teapot. As it gained strength, I let it run about the house, and it was a droll sight to see the big lamb come bouncing and scampering into a room full of company, hunting the cat about, leaping over chairs, and playing just like a frolicsome kitten. If I walked out, it would, like the eastern sheep, follow me. I have taken it ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
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... lodged in the throats of certain individuals. Our aerial Charivari at length provoked a corresponding one on earth, and we could hear dogs barking, ducks quacking, men swearing, and women screaming. All this had a droll effect; but time went on, the wind blew hard, it was dark night, and our balloon drove on with prodigious rapidity, and we were not able to tell exactly where we were. I could not see my compass, and we were not allowed to light a lucifer match under ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
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... best, and felt as secure as an immortal goddess, having, if she had thought of risk, a core of confidence that no ill luck would happen to her. But she thought of no such thing, and certainly not of any risk there might be for her cousin. If she had thought of him, it would have struck her as a droll picture that he should be gradually falling behind, and looking round in search of gates: a fine lithe youth, whose heart must be panting with all the spirit of a beagle, stuck as if under a wizard's spell on a stiff clerical hackney, would have made her laugh with a sense of fun much too ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
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... and distinctly—ushering in Titmouse; on whom the door was the next instant closed. He felt amazingly flustered—and he would have been still more so, if he could have been made aware of the titter which pervaded the fourteen or twenty people assembled in the room, occasioned by the droll misnomer of the servant, and the exquisitely ridiculous appearance of poor Titmouse. Mr. Quirk, dressed in black, with knee breeches and silk stockings, immediately bustled up to him, shook him cordially by the hand, and led him up to the assembled ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
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... pouring a goblet of wine down his throat it somewhat revived him. He was now suffered to breathe a little, and something given him to eat, which, with a second cup of liquor, recovered his strength. The husband now demanded his story; and the cauzee, assuming the gesture of a coffee-house droll, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
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... gain; Cafes, salons, mansards alike their windows open throw, And pretty girls wear radiant smiles to greet the passing show. Ah, here they are! Yes, here they come! preceded by the boys, Who imitate in fashion droll, yet with no actual noise, But merely by the gesturing of finger or of hand, The cymbals, flute, and (best of all) the trombones of the band. The babies even laugh and crow, upheld in nurses' arms, And have no fear of trumpets loud, or the bass-drum's alarms. The ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
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... his arms stuck out from his body, his head was set like a ball on a bull neck, his chest was broad enough to hold two pairs of lungs (and he seemed to want a double supply, for he was always puffing, blowing, and talking), he had droll roguish eyes, with a network of wrinkles under them. A noteworthy detail was an ear-ring, one only, which hung from the lobe of his left ear. What a contrast to the captain of the schooner, and how did two such dissimilar beings contrive to get on together? They had contrived it, somehow, for ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
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... second son) is really an exquisite droll, and I don't remember to have seen him in better form. He has some of the authentic ingredients of the old ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
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... tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack; His eyes, how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry; His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face, and a little ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
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... many of the captains were more accomplished than the stolid persons concerning whom so many droll legends still linger; but the fact remains, that valuable property and valuable lives were entrusted to men who wrought solely by rule of thumb, and that the trust was, on the whole, very wisely bestowed. With clumsy old ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
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... so new and strange that Annie's big brown eyes could hardly spare time to sleep, so busy were they looking about. The donkeys amused her very much, so did the queer language and ways of the Portuguese people round her, especially the very droll names given to the hens of a young friend. The biddies seemed to speak the same dialect as at home, but evidently they understood Spanish also, and knew their own names, so it was fun to go and call Rio, Pico, Cappy, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
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... have often heard her describe the scene with a droll smile. She gave me a few more tingles across the neck, to satisfy my ideas of justice; but that was the last time she used the switch for many a long day. Not that I stopped telling marvellous stories; but she thought she would wait till she saw some faint sign in me that I ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
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... teems with words that caricature and satirize personal defects, of which many are brutally coarse and not quotable. A comical expression for a sumptuous meal is a "Balthazar" (Belshazzar); and an unpleasant one for a coffin is a "boite a dominos" (a box of dominoes); a droll phrase for a plagiarist is "demarqueur de linge" (some one who alters the marking of another's linen). An interesting fact for the notice of physiologists is that when the officers of the engineer corps lose a comrade from insanity, they say, "Il s'est passe au ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
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... apparently did remember, and shook with laughter at the recollection of that or of something equally droll. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
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... and Maizie Gilbert have returned," Adrienne informed Dorothy, with a droll air of resignation. "But a few moments past and we saw them arrive. We made no effort ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
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... with such a droll ring in them. But there, we ought not to be talking now, but getting ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
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... see you are a droll. Very good indeed. Well, for my part, I like a watering-place existence. Cnidos, Paphos, Cythera; you will usually find me at one of these places. I like the easy distraction of a career without any visible result. At these fascinating spots your ...
— Ixion In Heaven • Benjamin Disraeli
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... a most accomplished classical scholar, and had a marvellous readiness and aptitude for classical allusion. He was a wit and a humorist; he could brighten the dullest topics and make them sparkle by odd and droll illustrations, as well as by picturesque allusions and eloquent phrases. He {254} could, when the subject called for it, break suddenly into thrilling invective. [Sidenote: 1725—Pulteney] But he had some of the defects of the extemporaneous ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
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... Isn't that droll? However, I know that there was a Sire de Quincy centuries ago, so I will look him up and let ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
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... are uttered unintentionally than by premeditation. There is no such thing as being "droll to order." One evening a lady said to a small wit, "Come, Mr. ——, tell us a lively anecdote;" and the poor fellow was mute the rest ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
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... famous English clown, son of an Italian dancing-master, born in London; was bred to the stage from his infancy, appearing on the boards when not yet two years old; his Memoirs were edited by Dickens, who describes him as "the genuine droll, the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
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