"Knickerbockers" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... serious trouble with the law, and it was equally impossible to obtain the same degree of comfort for his young by packing them into a four room flat. And then the church-mouse doesn't have to think about shoes and stockings and mittens and ear-muffs, to say nothing of frocks and knickerbockers. So he who speaks of another as being "as poor as a church-mouse" does a grave injustice to a really prosperous creature, despite the fact that it lives in a church and is employed in the rather dubious occupation of supporting a figure of speech. Look carefully into the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... quite sure what his retort is, but you take my point. It is manifestly absurd to drag the psychological element into this cold-blooded mathematical pursuit. After all that England has done and come through in the last few years, is a man in baggy knickerbockers, with tufts on the ends of his garters, going to be daunted and foiled just because a man in slightly baggier knickerbockers and with slightly larger tufts on his garters has hit a small white pellet a little further than he has? Hardly, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... has done something in the world; I was sure that he had. He has a little income of his own, but he is too proud and ambitious to be an idler. He looked so manly when he talked about it, standing up straight and strong in his knickerbockers. I like men in knickerbockers. Aunt Celia doesn't. She says she doesn't see how a well-brought-up Copley can go about with his legs in that condition. I would give worlds to know how aunt Celia ever unbent ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... me! Everybody calls me rash and impetuous, and Mort is always lecturing me for it, and it's always my way to rush head-first into anything that comes along, and here I've been making love, in the regular, orthodox fashion, to a girl I've known ever since I wore knickerbockers, and playing propriety and all that to my prospective father-in-law; and now see Mort! the most precise, deliberate fellow you ever saw, never says or does anything that isn't exactly suited to the occasion, you know; and ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... the sky-line. I could see Greg at last, with the jersey under his head, and the white brocade waistcoat all dark and stained at the shoulder, and his poor dear face ghastly white. And Jerry asleep, with the ruffle still pinned to his wet shirt and a big hole torn in the knee of his knickerbockers. And I saw the slimy pools that the tide had left beside us—it was on the ebb again—and the pieces of the root-beer bottle that Jerry had broken off, and the horrible, high, black head of the Sea Monster ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... true!" An emphatic masculine voice intervened, and round the corner of the clump of trees beneath which the two girls had taken refuge, swung a man's tall, well-setup figure clad in knickerbockers and a Norfolk coat. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... followed the dogs, galloping so wildly that when his rider halted him his hoofs tore up the turf as he slid. A girl rode him. She was mounted astride, and Presson had to look twice at her to make sure she was a girl, for she wore knickerbockers and gaiters, and her copper-red hair curled so crisply that it seemed as short ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... water myself, as thoroughly as a Brighton bathing woman could have done the trick for me. To this day I remember the breathless, straining agony of the ascent, when my clothes and myself seemed heavier than lead, and the ship's deck miles above me. My clothes—a jersey and flannel knickerbockers—dried quickly in the scorching sun, and no grown-up ever knew of the escapade, I think. But, the peril of it, in ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... farm, put up a windmill, get plumbers out from town, put in a bathtub with hot and cold water, and buy some carriages with high backs, and go in for enjoyment, regardless of the price of country produce. They put in hammocks and lawn tennis, and the young people wear knickerbockers and white canvas dresses, and roll their pants up, and all that. There is no money in farming that way. Now, you have got your city habits formed; you don't get up in the morning till after 7, and you have to ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... idiot," he rushed on, "and I suppose I hadn't the proper start-off. At least I like to think there's some excuse for me. My father and mother died when I was in knickerbockers, and I grew up doing very much as I pleased. I—made a bad job of it. Before I was twenty-one I was expelled from college and I had worked up a pretty black reputation. Then I gambled and lost a lot of money I didn't have, and it ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... painful incident of about the time I put on knickerbockers," he mused. "Father told me to keep away from a rat-trap that he had bought. Of course I caught my hand in it three minutes afterward. It hurt and I howled, but he only looked at me coldly until at last I asked him to help. He let the thing squeeze while he asked if a rat-trap hurt. I admitted ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... girl was wearing a yellow silk frock embroidered with pink posies and covered with gold spangles. On her head was a lovely orange velvet cap; and a starched muslin tucker covered her little arms. Tyltyl was dressed in a red jacket and blue knickerbockers, both of velvet; and of course he wore the wonderful little hat on ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... Christmas week was a genuine Mystery play, the Virgin Mary being represented by a girl in soiled white stockings and a confirmation dress. The Christ Child was a Spanish doll in a glass case. There were the three wise men—one in a long beard and a pink mask, and the others in gold braid and knickerbockers—more like dandies than philosophers. "Joseph" was splendid, with a shepherd's crook and a sombrero. Adoration before the manger was the theme that was developed in a series of ballets danced by the children to a tambourine and castanet accompaniment. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... at last suddenly when the rice pudding had been finished. George rose, clean and red-cheeked, looking more than ever like a large edition of Baby, in spite of his jacket and knickerbockers, as he stepped over to his father with a new dignity and handed him a folded ...
— The Blossoming Rod • Mary Stewart Cutting
... after a whole week had passed I was still rather like myself. He had such a cheery way of whistling, she had told me, it had always brightened her at her work to hear him whistling, and when he whistled he stood with his legs apart, and his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers. I decided to trust to this, so one day after I had learned his whistle (every boy of enterprise invents a whistle of his own) from boys who had been his comrades, I secretly put on a suit of his clothes, dark grey they were, with little spots, and they fitted me many years afterwards, ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... the universe—in danger because women wear knickerbockers instead of petticoats, or military men take ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... have a very good impression of him," laughed her husband. "We're on our wedding trip, you know,"—he blushed slightly— "and mother made us promise we'd stop in to see the old man. He hasn't seen me since I wore knickerbockers, and we had a great time making him understand who we were. Then he said that he hoped we liked Washington, and ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... leaning out of the window of his coupe with a curious feeling of interest. He really never remembered having seen anything quite like the way in which his lordship's lordly little red legs flew up behind his knickerbockers and tore over the ground as he shot out in the race at the signal word. He shut his small hands and set his face against the wind; his bright hair ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Hof at Pontresina looked decidedly sleepy and misty at five o'clock on an August morning, when two sturdy British holiday-seekers, in knickerbockers and regular Alpine climbing rig, sat drinking their parting cup of coffee in the salle-a-manger, before starting to make the ascent of the Piz Margatsch, one of the tallest and by far the most difficult among the peaks of the Bernina ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... "I was in knickerbockers at the time," he said, "and introduced to the schoolboy public—The Schoolboy's Punch. It sounds strangely prophetic as I think of it now. The entire make-up of it was a la Punch, and it had its cartoon every week. At that ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... has too often been brushed from our girls' delicacy of thought. They can strut through the street in the daytime wearing a shirt-front, a cravat, a choker, a vest, and a man's hat, and carrying a cane. A few can flaunt themselves in bloomers and knickerbockers, and ride astride a bicycle. They ape men in everything except courtesy to women. But the result is not what was expected. These customs have introduced the chaperone, and have put an end to simple freedom between boys and girls. The Puritan maiden in her modesty could let John Alden speak ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... every one. But no one meant the little French boy, with the velvety short knickerbockers and ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... master, and good weather, and likely to keep so," he answered, glancing around at sea and sky. Then he looked significantly at my knickerbockers and at a small satchel which I carried over my shoulders. "The right sort o' weather," he added, "for gentlemen walking ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... his hand to his head in miserable embarrassment. He had known handsome Jack O'Shaughnessy since he was a boy in knickerbockers. It was more than he could stand to look him in the face ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... once by the appearance of the Celebrity. He was attired—for the details of his dress forced themselves upon me vividly —in a rough-spun suit of knickerbockers, a colored-shirt having a large and prominent gold stud, red and brown stockings of a diamond pattern, and heavy walking-boots. And he entered with an air of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... knickerbockers," said the other, doubtfully. "What does that mean? Ah, I see! They've got the broad arrow on them, and he is pointing to a jail. It's all gone—I ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... next to him, wore brown knickerbockers and long stockings, a red and blue plaid, and a red ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... with his back toward Patty, in setting out baby onions. She studied him dubiously, divided between a prompting to run, and a social instinct of friendliness. He was an extremely picturesque gardener, dressed in knickerbockers and leather gaiters, with a touch of red in his waistcoat, and a cardigan jacket and a cap on the side of his head. He did not look very affable; but he did look rheumatic—even if he chased her, she was sure that she could run faster than he. So she settled herself ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... Biddy questioned, without answering. "Were they wearing light tweed knickerbockers ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... emptied the battered kitbag, and began to dress. He put on heavy tan walking shoes, gray woollen stockings, gray knickerbockers, gray flannel shirt, and a Norfolk ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... that we will walk to church together to-morrow, but come down to breakfast in knickerbockers or something to put them off, and I'll do the same—I mean I'll dress as if I were going to golf. We can turn into Christians later. If we don't—dress like that, I mean—they'll guess and all want to come to church, except the Jews, which would bring the judgment ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... in circulation! It was cold in Greenland, and it is not milder here; the general day temperature just now is about 40 deg. Fahr. and 43 deg. Fahr. below zero. I was clothed yesterday as usual as regards the legs—drawers, knickerbockers, stockings, frieze leggings, snow-socks, and moccasins; my body covering consisted of an ordinary shirt, a wolf-skin cape, and a sealskin jacket, and I sweated like a horse. To-day I sat still, driving with only thin ducks above my ordinary leg wear, and on ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... rotund, florid old gentleman, with the briefest, most wiry of sandy whiskers upon his chops, a jolly double chin, a sunburned nose, kindly blue eyes forever opened in mild wonder (and a bit bleared by the wind), the fat figure clad in broadly checked tweed knickerbockers and a rakish cap to match, like the mad tourists who sometimes strayed our way. 'Twas this complacent, benevolent Deity that she made haste to interrogate in my behalf, unabashed by the spats and binocular, the corpulent plaid stockings and cigar, which completed his attire. She spread her feet, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... a girl on the sofa facing the fireplace. Before her was a tea wagon and she was at present pouring a cup for a slightly stiff person in knickerbockers. ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... Archbishop that his usual costume would make him undesirably conspicuous in America, for during his tour of this country the Primate of all England abandoned the picturesque every-day dress of an English bishop, with its knickerbockers and gaiters, in favor of the international hideousness of pantaloons. At the time of the photograph Bishop Potter was wearing leggings, having just returned from riding, so that the two bishops appeared ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... When I came down again after the nurse had taken possession I found a strange gentleman hanging about the hall and pacing to and fro by the closed door of the drawing-room. This personage was florid and bald; he had a big red moustache and wore showy knickerbockers—characteristics all that fitted to my conception of the identity of Dora Forbes. In a moment I saw what had happened: the author of "The Other Way Round" had just alighted at the portals of Prestidge, but had suffered a scruple to restrain him from penetrating further. ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... by this pantomime that he reciprocally found the sight of her insufferable. In truth, he did; for he was not only her neighbour but her first-cousin as well, and a short month older, though taller than she—tall beyond his years, taller than need be, in fact, and still in knickerbockers. However, his parents may not have been mistaken in the matter, for it was plain that he looked as well in knickerbockers as he could have looked in anything. He had no visible beauty, though it was possible to hope for him that by the time he reached manhood he would be more ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... was broken by the apparition of a dusty wayfarer in knickerbockers and soft felt hat, coming towards them up the road. He was a man of middle height and rather slim. He appeared about five-and-thirty years of age. He had fair hair, and a strange, whimsical face, irregular of feature, with a small moustache covering ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... social tyrant wherever she was, and I knew one word from her would insure the popularity of our friends—not that they needed the intervention of any one. Leroy had been a sort of drawing-room pet since before he stopped wearing knickerbockers. ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... wild blackberries. She had been thinking of a certain blackberry pie, which thought naturally induced reflection on Bryce Cardigan and reminded Shirley of her first visit to the Giants under the escort of a boy in knickerbockers. She had a very vivid remembrance of that little amphitheatre with the sunbeams falling like a halo on the plain tombstone; she wondered if the years had changed it all and decided that there could not possibly be any harm in indulging a very natural ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... none of that overweening ambition about me. I could bear up if I never saw an improving book again. What I would like would be for some benevolent old millionaire to take a fancy to me, and adopt me as his heir. I feel cut out to be a country gentleman, and march about in gaiters and knickerbockers, looking after the property, don't you know, and interviewing my tenants. I'd be strict with them, but kind at the same time; look into all their grievances, and put them right whenever I could. I'd make it a ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... elderly man in knickerbockers and evening coat, a sort of English Court costume. The handkerchief, which was tied around his eyes in the game, has slipped, and lies about his neck.] Well, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The Moth and the Flame • Clyde Fitch
... delicious to see every compartment door fly open and everybody's friend appear with tea-kettles for hot water in one hand and tea-caddies in the other, and to see people who hated boiled eggs buying them, because they were about all that looked clean; and to see staid Englishmen in knickerbockers and monocles with loops of Italian bread over each tweed arm, and in both hands flasks of cheap red Italian wine—oh, so good! and only costing fifty centimes, but put up in those lovely straw-woven decanters which cost us a real pang to fling out of the window after they were ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... Split, holding up a full-kneed pair of knickerbockers and a belted jacket. "Well!" With a philosophical grin, she began to put ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... time. This very point was brought up recently in conversation with an artist, who in referring to one of the most successful costume balls ever given in New York—the crinoline ball at the old Astor House—spoke of how our unromantic Wall Street men fell to the spell of stocks, ruffled shirts and knickerbockers, and as the evening advanced, were quite themselves in the minuette and polka, bowing low in solemn rigidity, leading their lady with high arched arm, grasping her pinched-in waist, and swinging her beruffled, crinolined form ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... kept coming in worse and worse. Our nightshirts were wet through, so we got into our other shirts and knickerbockers, but preserved bareness in our feet. And the floor kept on being half an inch deep in water, however much ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... smart and attractive costume of khaki drill, consisting of a well-cut long frock coat and breeches, with the neatest of cloth gaiters and dainty but serviceable boots. To their surprise her husband was with her and evidently prepared to accompany them. For he wore an old coat, knickerbockers and putties, from a strap over his shoulder hung a specimen box, and he was armed with all the requisite appliances for the capture and slaughter of ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... of today. Fenimore Cooper filled his romances, not with the people about him, but with the Indians beyond the sky-line, and made them half-fabulous to boot. Irving told fairy tales about the forgotten Knickerbockers; Hawthorne turned backward to the Puritans of Plymouth Rock; Longfellow to the Acadians and the prehistoric Indians; Emerson took flight from earth altogether; even Poe sought refuge in a land of fantasy. It was only the frank second-raters—e.g., Whittier and Lowell—who ventured to ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... men in corduroys, with straps below their knees, and a boy in flannel shorts, all working seven hours and a half per day for a week, can plant five thousand potatoes on an acre of land, how many girls in knickerbockers will ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... all here, look, in the back of my knickerbockers," said Geoff, putting his hand to the place; "but I'd rather have that than a knock on my head. Theo, does it hurt? Theo, what a lot you have bled! Were you obliged to tear my knickerbockers? I say, Theo, the lady was pretty, but I didn't much ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... that he would come over that evening and hear all about it. Then Frank took his way to Jermyn Street, and went with Mr. Goodenough to Silver's, where an outfit suited for the climate of Central Africa was ordered. The clothes were simple. Shirts made of thin soft flannel, knickerbockers and Norfolk jackets of tough New Zealand flax, with gaiters ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... animal the most of that legion of despair and desperation looked, and sallow and sickly of complexion. They were a blot on the fresh sunshine. How hideous their coarse garb of pied jackets branded with the broad arrow, their knickerbockers and clumsy shoes! Wistfully they moved along, hardly daring to glance at me, through fear of the turnkeys with loaded rifles marching at their sides. I almost felt that, if I had the power, I would demand their release, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... steam-launch from Monrepos had come to the landing-stage opposite the gate, its hoarse whistle and the churning noise alongside all unnoticed, had landed a small bunch of local passengers who were dispersing their several ways. Only a specimen of early tourist in knickerbockers, conspicuous by a brand-new yellow leather glass-case, hung about for a moment, scenting something unusual about these four people within the rusty iron gates of what looked the grounds run wild of an unoccupied private house. Ah! If he had only known what the chance ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... eventful night. I went out on the good horse which had carried me, on the night of the coronation, back from the hunting-lodge to Strelsau. I carried a revolver in the saddle and my sword. I was covered with a large cloak, and under this I wore a warm, tight-fitting woollen jersey, a pair of knickerbockers, thick stockings, and light canvas shoes. I had rubbed myself thoroughly with oil, and I carried a large flask of whisky. The night was warm, but I might probably be immersed a long while, and it was necessary to take every precaution ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... decades gone forever. We never intend to become a man. We keep our boy's heart ever fresh and ever warm. We don't care if the whole human race, from the Ascidians to Darwin himself, assail us and fiercely thrust us once more into short jackets and knickerbockers, provided they allow an indefinite vacation in a daisy field. The joy of childhood is said to be vague. It was all satisfying to us once, and we do not intend to allow it to waste in unconscious ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... recumbent in a chair with rockers, Oft will he indulge in forty winks, Or, attired in well-cut knickerbockers, Decorate the landscape on the links; Or, with arms upon his bosom folded, He will stand as motionless as bronze, While his features, classically moulded, Hourly grow ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... own hat, I must buy 113 hats for my children, to say nothing of shoes and knickerbockers and shirts and hair-ribbons and stockings and garters. It's quite a task to keep a little family ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... the Lyric Dance Arcade and Indian Palace of Asiatic Mystery. And I found myself close to the platform, listening to the cry of a man in gilt knickerbockers. ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... sister were by turn infantry, cavalry, engineers, and artillery, according to his whim, and when his affections finally settled upon the Highlanders of "The Black Watch," no female power could compel him to keep his stockings above his knees, or his knickerbockers ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the departure of P.K. Purvis, had fallen into a sort of daydream and was standing with his mouth open and his hands in his pockets. Becoming abruptly aware that a fat kid in knickerbockers was at his ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... to the breakfast table attired in tweeds of a rather violent pattern, knickerbockers and spats. He wore a plaid shirt with turnover cuffs, a gay scarf and a handkerchief just showing a neat triangle of the same color at his upper coat pocket. This handkerchief, he informed me airily, was his "show-er." He kept the "blow-er" in his trousers. At all events, he was much ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... set it down to his threadbare coat and rustic boots. It was in no sweet mood that he strode up Hoe Terrace, eyeing the numbers above the doors, and halted at length to knock out his pipe before a house with an unpainted area-railing, to which a small boy in ragged knickerbockers was engaged in attaching with a string the tail ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... than any of us—the other boys were at Oxford when he was in his first knickerbockers—he was a lonely little soul and lived in a world of his own, peopled by the creatures of his own imaginings. His great friend was Mr. Bathboth of Bathboth—don't you like the name?—and he would come in from a walk with ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... evening ablutions removing a Joseph's coat of dust and paint; and came forth from my pavilion, hoping that Professor Keredec and his friend would not mind eating in the same garden with a man in a corduroy jacket and knickerbockers; but the gentlemen continued invisible to the public eye, and mine was the only table set for dinner in the garden. Up-stairs the curtains were carefully drawn across all the windows of the east wing; little leaks of orange, here and ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... in the packages, pertinent and impertinent, but all demanding answers. They were stuffed into old shoes and the linings of hats, cracked tea-pots and boxes of soap, combs and matches. Every small boys' knickerbockers contained a note—generally of original spelling and laboriously written in large capitals, from 'Tommy' or 'Johnnie' or 'Charley,' asking a reply, telling all about the storm, from the boy who ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... in the parlor, a hearty-looking man, manifestly of the metropolis, patently of the "good sport" type. He was walking up and down. With his tweed knickerbockers, his belted jacket, his diamonds in his scarf and on his fingers, he was such an odd figure in the homely surroundings that he produced on Vaniman a surprise effect. The young man surveyed the stranger with ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... man's writing about the careless happiness of childhood, when he either forgets, or refuses to advert to, the toothache, the measles, learning his letters, the heat of the night-nursery, not being allowed to sit down in the yard whilst his knickerbockers were new, going to bed at eight o'clock, and having a lie on his conscience. I have striven for more accurate habits of thought, and I remember distinctly that you cried over more than one ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... lay open and inviting children to healthful play; but instead of marbles or leap-frog or ball, he found little boys in ragged knickerbockers huddled together on the ground, "shooting craps" with precocious avidity and quarreling over the pennies that made the pitiful wagers. He heard glib profanity rolling from the lips of children who should have been stumbling through baby catechisms; and his ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... the Marshalls of Pogatuck, in Maine. The way that he said it made me understand that there was no bluer blood in the land than that running in the veins of the Pogatuck Marshalls, and it explained why the Knickerbockers were so willing to meet him as an equal. He had come from Pogatuck by way of Harvard, and one advantage which his education had given him was an acquaintance that he could turn to use, inasmuch as his great ambition ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... century, and Pennini may have been nicknamed after him. His mother, who was an extravagant woman on the emotional and spiritual plane, made the poor little boy wear his hair curled in long ringlets down his back, and clad him in a fancy costume of black velvet, with knickerbockers and black silk stockings; he was homely of face, and looked "soft," as normal boys would say. But his parents were determined to make an ideal dream-child of him, and, of course, he had to submit. I had the ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... curiosity, especially among the women, and as she wore knickerbockers and a flannel shirt there were times when the determination of her sex seemed to call forth the liveliest discussion. Her long hair, however, usually settled the matter, and when the women had decided the question of gender satisfactorily they often made timid, and ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... was a blue cotton shirt and a pair of scanty corduroy knickerbockers, but he wore it with such an unconscious air of purple and fine linen that Miss Trevor was tricked into believing him much better dressed than ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fair-haired boy in knickerbockers, who chewed gum with reckless insouciance and indulged in cool satirical comment on his companion's amateur efforts, yesterday directed a daring holdup of the Chicago Art and Silver Shop at 438 Lincoln Parkway, from which silverware ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... boy about ten years old, clad in steel-gray Palm Beach knickerbockers and golf cap, but not at all happy in appearance. He was a good looking youth, but there was no sprightly cheerfulness in his countenance. He seemed nervous and on ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... the city youth, "you did bore it into him fine! And he didn't dare put a hand on you, either. That was queer, for, my word! he's strong as Sandow. He handled me as easy as if I wasn't out of knickerbockers." ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... knickerbockers," murmured the Virginian. "She'd look a heap better 'n some o' them college students. And she'll ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... his daughters." It would have been commendable if the members of the late Constitutional Convention in New York had, like Moses, asked the guidance of the Lord in deciding the rights of the daughters of the Van Rensselaers, the Stuyvesants, the Livingstons, and the Knickerbockers. Their final action revealed the painful fact that they never thought to take the case to the highest court in the moral universe. The daughters of Zelophehad were fortunate in being all of one mind; none there to plead the fatigue, the publicity, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... wonderful how that boy saw everything that went on. He took an interest, that was it. You ought to see, he watched everything, and sometimes he'd plump out with things that were astonishing for a boy of his years. Only four and a half, too, and they reminded each other of the first day he put on knickerbockers; stood in front of the house on the sidewalk all day long with his hands in his pockets. The interest was directed from Vandover, they turned their backs, grouping themselves about the little boy. The burnisher's sister-in-law felt called upon to tell about her ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... waved his arm. Then they settled down to the business of walking. They dropped into their place as a familiar part of the open road of only a very few years ago, for they were dressed in the orthodox style: knickerbockers; woolen stockings; heavy footwear; short jackets; packs, such as once the schoolboy used for books; ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... underclothing," said Clarges, not in the least perturbed. "Knickerbockers," continued Simpson, "that are certainly one size too small; a cap that looks like a hangman's, and a coat that must ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... by a flat-footed old Russian female, who ran down passages and round corners like a wet hen, trying to find a man-servant. The place seemed deserted, but presently she came on her quarry in the back yard, and a very small boy in a tarboosh and knickerbockers carried the card on a tray into a room on the left. Through the open door I could hear one quiet question and a high-pitched disclaimer of all knowledge; then an order, sounding like a grumble, and the small boy returned to the ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... the string, the Sharp-eyed Sister looked over the top of her book, the Father put on his glasses, and the lid was lifted. Yes, it was a suit. A blue cloth suit, quite bright in color but of very fine material and good make. It consisted of a pair of knickerbockers and a tight jacket, and it was most extraordinary how the tailor had ever been able to put on so many buttons. The jacket was double-breasted and there were three rows down the front, a dozen in each, the size of a copper penny. There were some fancy slits in the ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... however. A big, broad man approached him, clad in a Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers and a red waistcoat with gaudy brass buttons. He had entered at the lower mouth of the quarries and was proceeding to the northern exit, whence the little streamlet that fed the pools came ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... you can't tell it just at first. All those people that are crowding into it with golf clubs, and wearing knickerbockers and flat caps, would deceive anybody. That crowd of suburban people going home on commutation tickets and sometimes standing thick in the aisles, those are, of course, not Mariposa people. But look round a little bit and you'll find them easily enough. Here and there in ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... a namesake of mine was the contractor for the Thames Embankment, which was built when I was in knickerbockers. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... vertebral columns were the parts most easily seen, and they were filled with an inextinguishable anguish and sorrow that from its very intensity made itself seen as a blue flame. The ruffles and knickerbockers in which some of these were attired, evidently by the effects of the thoughts in their minds, doubtless from force of habit from what they had worn on earth while alive, showed that they had been dead at least two ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... her lord; and it seems, indeed, that in days gone by Mr. Jerrold's father had spent many years in France and Spain, once as his country's representative near the throne. Though the father died long before the boy was out of his knickerbockers, he had left the impress of his grand manner, and Jerrold, to women of any age, was at once a courtier and a knight. But the colonel never saw how her eyes followed the tall young officer time and again. There were women who soon noted ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... insult to the moorhen. Nevertheless some ambitious young gentleman of aesthetic tastes might do worse than get himself up in this bird's livery. An open coat of olive-brown silk, with an oblique white band at the side; waistcoat or cummerbund, and knickerbockers, slaty grey; stockings and shoes of olive green; and, for a touch of bright colour, an orange and scarlet tie. It would be pleasant to meet him in Piccadilly. But he would never, never be able to get that quaint pretty carriage. The "Buzzard lope" and the crane's stately stride are imitable ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... used to sit on the stairs and on the floor during the evening entertainments. Dishes were washed and wiped to the tune of "Oh, Canaan, Bright Canaan," or some other song of the time. When about their work the women wore short skirts with knickerbockers; the water-cure and the starving-cure both received due attention at the hands of some of the members of the household; at table the customary formula was, "Is the butter within the sphere of your influence?" And very often the day's work ended in a dance, a walk ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... her narrow velveteen skirt, was really a beguiling figure in blue pongee knickerbockers. The straight velveteen jacket reached just below her waist, and with her rumpled curls and weary expression she might easily have been taken for Rosalind, just arrived at the Forest of Arden with ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... lonely, for one or two other huts stood in clearings adjoining, and furnished us with three bushmen as guides and assistants. I must say, they were the most picturesque of the party, being all handsome men, dressed in red flannel shirts and leathern knickerbockers and gaiters; they had fine beards, and wore "diggers' hats," a head-dress of American origin—a sort of wide-awake made of plush, capable of being crushed into any shape, and very becoming. All were armed with either rifle or gun, and one carried an axe and a coil of rope; ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... of red copper shot with gold. They were now both in a state of unprecedented physical fitness. And such skirts as Ann Veronica had had when she entered the valley of Saas were safely packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather belt and loose knickerbockers and puttees—a costume that suited the fine, long lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress could do. Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare wonderfully; her skin had only deepened its natural ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... long talk one day with his father, as they sauntered hand in hand down a shady country road, with Gyp sporting and playing alongside, he decided to face the trouble bravely, and wear knickerbockers like other boys of his age. And, instead of sulking or fretting about what he could not help, he set himself to making allowances for ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser
... two boys happened to be alone in the nursery, the nurse being temporarily absent from it. Edward was now a tall, slender, handsome boy in knickerbockers; Reginald a timid little fellow, several years younger—rendered timid by Edward's perpetual tyranny, which he might not resent. Edward was quiet enough this evening; he felt ill and shivery, and sat ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the wall. We do not like him very much, but we let him play with us sometimes, because his father is dead, and you must not be unkind to orphans, even if their mothers are alive. Albert is always very tidy. He wears frilly collars and velvet knickerbockers. I can't think ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... Miss Sheila Muldooney, of Skibbereen, a copy of The Skibbereen Eagle containing the historic announcement that it had its eye on the Tsar of RUSSIA. Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER sends a daguerreotype of himself in knickerbockers with side whiskers and moustache, and Mr. BERNARD SHAW the first interview with himself that he ever wrote. It appeared in The Freeman's Journal in the "seventies" and is illustrated with six portraits, in one of which Mr. SHAW appears in an Eton suit and a tall hat, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... to Munich to have some singing lessons. After the war came on we had to get from Munich to Naples in order to sail at all. We were told that we could take only hand luggage on the railways, but I took nine trunks and Peppo. I dressed Peppo in knickerbockers, made him brush his curls down over his ears like doughnuts, and carry a little violin-case. It took us eleven days to reach Naples. I got my trunks through purely by personal persuasion. Once at Naples, I had a frightful time getting Peppo on the boat. I declared him as hand-luggage; he was ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Brooklyn. The picture postcards from him of the Statue of Liberty! Of the three of them, Aaron, Gussie, his wife, and little Leo, with donkey bodies sporting down a beach labeled "Coney." A horrific tintype of little Leo in tiny velveteen knickerbockers that fastened with large, ruble-sized, mother-of-pearl buttons up to an ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... children. Leaving him with grapes and oranges, I stepped back to Pompey, and taught him how to untie parcels so as to save the string. Leaving him winding the string neatly, I went back to Julius, and gave him ginger-cakes. The dear boys grew from year to year. They outgrew their knickerbockers, and had trousers. They outgrew their jackets, and became men; and I felt that I had not lived in vain. I had conquered nature. Pompey, the little spendthrift, was the honored cashier of a savings-bank, till he ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... wide straw hats, with a white scarf wound round the top to keep off the heat. Their dresses were very short, and made of brown holland, with a garibaldi of blue-coloured flannel. They wore red flannel knickerbockers, and gaiters coming up above the knee, of a very soft, flexible leather, made of deers' skin. These gaiters were an absolute necessity, for the place literally swarmed with snakes, and they constantly found them in the garden when going out to gather vegetables. ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... writing, stiff with boyish effort, decorated in ambitious and faltering flourishes and still betraying the pencil rulings his rubber should have erased. Already your writing is better than that. And I found a daguerreotype portrait of him in knickerbockers against a photographer's stile. His face then was not unlike yours. I stood with that in my hand at the little bureau in his bedroom, and looked at his ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... to equip the members of the troop with a standard uniform the following equipment is suggested: Hat, Shirt, Coat, Breeches or Knickerbockers, Belt, ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... it's a custom that's unjust and based on prejudice, why keep on observing it? It used to be the custom for men to wear satin knickerbockers and lace ruffles over their wrists, but some one was sensible enough—or irreverent enough—" she tucked in good-naturedly, "to object—and you're the gainer. There! How's that for ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... lounged across to the store, and Martin went to speak to the High Priest at the door of the Sanctum Sanctorum. Then Martin mounted his horse, and rode away; and presently the tribesman, Jerry, brought a buggy and pair to the front door. Montgomery and Folkestone—the latter in knickerbockers—took their seats in the buggy, and whirled away down the horse-paddock fence. Then all was still, save for the faint pling-plong of a piano in the Holy ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... bloomers; chaqueta^, songtag [G.], tablier^. pants, trousers, trowsers^; breeches, pantaloons, inexpressibles^, overalls, smalls, small clothes; shintiyan^; shorts, jockey shorts, boxer shorts; tights, drawers, panties, unmentionables; knickers, knickerbockers; philibeg^, fillibeg^; pants suit; culottes; jeans, blue jeans, dungarees, denims. [brand names for jeans] Levis, Calvin Klein, Calvins, Bonjour, Gloria Vanderbilt. headdress, headgear; chapeau [Fr.], crush hat, opera hat; kaffiyeh; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... well clad, well fed, and apparently well-to-do. The "lower orders" were represented by a bright fringe of coolies and Kafirs, sleek, grinning and as fat as ortolans, especially the babies. Most of the Kafirs were dressed in snow-white knickerbockers and shirts bordered by gay bands of color, with fillets of scarlet ribbon tied round their heads, while as for the coolies, they shone out like a shifting bed of tulips, so bright were the women's chuddahs and the men's jackets. All looked smiling, healthy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... you all the way," said Eddy, "but I tumbled down and hurt my knee on an old stone, and then I couldn't catch up." Indeed, the left knee of Eddy's little knickerbockers showed a rub and a red ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Princess," said Jimmy, with his hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers; "she's only ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit |
