"After-dinner" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I want you to go to Oakley to-morrow, at the hour when Mr. John Arthur is always supposed to be taking his after-dinner nap. Just after dinner, I want you to see Madame Cora; manage it in your own way, but see ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... countrymen, I can show by statistics—and statistics never lie—that Ohio never had her fair share of the public offices. I have not brought any of the statistics with me, for fear some know-nothing might cry at our after-dinner speech 'Figures.' Still we never had our share of the public offices, or if we had we always filled them well, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Americans. Meares was short of provisions to go to China, and Gray supplied them. In return Meares set his workmen to help clean the keel of the Lady Washington from barnacles; but the Englishman was a true fur trader to the core. In after-dinner talks, on the day of the launch, he tried to frighten the Americans away from the coast. Not fifty skins in a year were to be had, he said. Only the palisades and cannon protected him from the Indians, of whom there were more than two thousand hostiles ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... she turned and ripped and altered her dresses; and there lay crochet and knitting and embroidery side by side with a weekly basket of family mending, and in neighborly contiguity with the last book of the season, which my wife turned over as she took her after-dinner lounge on the sofa. And in the bow-window were canaries always singing, and a great stand of plants always fresh and blooming, and ivy which grew and clambered and twined about the pictures. Best of all, there was in our parlor that household altar, the blazing wood ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Catherine would be able to tell him how to reach a secret cavern bower above the Bay of Moons; still, he had to enter an opening wedge somewhere. The one man on duty was for the moment occupied with another guest, and Blair, lighting his after-dinner cigar, prepared with leisurely patience to ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... and on the first return trip he brought three passengers,—according to the History of New Ipswich (page 129). Emerson was a noted driver in his day; and he is mentioned, with pleasant recollections, by the Honorable Abbott Lawrence, in an after-dinner speech at the jubilee of Lawrence Academy, on July 12, 1854. Subsequently he was the landlord of one ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... a reassuring and conciliatory espression of our ignorance. Today, thanks to the labours of the Society for Psychical Research and a host of other seekers, we are able to approach these phenomena as a whole with a certain confidence. Leaving the realm of legend, of after-dinner stories, old wives' tales, illusions and exaggerations, we find ourselves at last on circumscribed but fairly safe ground. This does not mean that there are no other supernatural phenomena besides those collected ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... diptychs were often used as after-dinner gifts to distinguished guests. They were presented on various occasions. In the Epistles of Symmachus, the writer says: "To my Lord and Prince I sent a diptych edged with gold. I presented other friends also with ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... to reply with so calm a voice and so composed a manner, that, in all my experience of dinner-speaking, I never witnessed such a case of apparent ease. (Easy-Chair C —— himself, one of the best makers of after-dinner or any other speeches of our day, according to Charles Dickens,—no inadequate judge, all will allow,—never surpassed in eloquent effect this speech by Hawthorne.) There was no hesitation, no sign of lack of preparation, but he ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... of the meal they made the acquaintance of a Mr Gerald Muspratt, a coffee planter, whose estate was situate some twelve miles distant, in the adjoining county of Victoria; and, the acquaintance ripening over the after-dinner coffee, with that breathless celerity which is one of the most charming characteristics of the Colonies, before retiring for the night the two friends had accepted Muspratt's very pressing invitation to ride out with him to his place next morning, ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... and each one of the six school-children contributed, the teacher explained to me that she was recently from the East, and that I so well fitted her ideas of a Western desperado that she was frightened at first. When I finished eating, I made my first after-dinner speech; it was also my first attempt to make a forestry address. One point I tried to bring out was concerning the destruction wrought by forest fires. Among other things I said: "During the past few years in Colorado, forest fires, which ought never ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... looked forward to an autumn at Fairoaks; and perhaps the idea of passing two or three months there did not amuse the young man. "There is not a soul to speak to in the place," he said to Warrington. "I can't stand old Portman's sermons, and pompous after-dinner conversation. I know all old Glanders's stories about the Peninsular war. The Claverings are the only Christian people in the neighborhood, and they are not to be at home before Christmas, my uncle says: besides, Warrington, I want to get out of ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... coincide. To him the history of the Marshmoreton family was the occupation of the idle hour: she seemed to think that he ought to regard it as a life-work. She was always coming and digging him out of the garden and dragging him back to what should have been a purely after-dinner task. It was Lord Marshmoreton's habit, when he awoke after one of his naps too late to resume work, to throw out some vague promise of "attending to it tomorrow"; but, he reflected bitterly, the girl ought to have tact and sense to understand that this was only polite persiflage, ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... dimple teased at the corner of her red lips, but she busied herself with removing the plate from under Martin Luther's yellow mop and making a pillow of her own bare arm, against which he nestled his chubby little cheek with a sigh of content, as he drifted off into his usual after-dinner nap. ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... During his after-dinner pipe he studied it out and deciding that he could not go it alone, he took Horseshoe Billy into his council and the result was a partnership in a new venture to capture the Pacer; that is, the $5,000 that was now said to be the offer for him ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and at some large public dinners where I saw him I found him patient of the greater attention that more public men paid themselves and one another. He was not a speaker, and I never saw him on his feet at dinner, except once, when he read a poem for Whittier, who was absent. He disliked after-dinner speaking, and made conditions for his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... efforts of the Shalems to play a leading role in the world that they had climbed into. The Baron began to observe to his acquaintances that "gadding about" and entertaining on a big scale was not much in his line; a quiet after-dinner pipe and talk with some brother legislator was his ideal ...
— When William Came • Saki
... every-day use there was a Wohnzimmer soberly furnished with solid well made chairs and cupboards. Here the mistress of the house kept her palms, her work-table, and her pet birds. Here her husband smoked his after-dinner cigar and drank his coffee before going to his work again. Here the elder children did their lessons for next day's school, and here at night the family sat round one lamp,—the father smoking, the mother probably mending, the children playing ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... and yet leave his hearers the sense of having been richly amused. If he does more, if he really says something droll, no matter how much below the average of the give and take of common talk, the listener's gratitude is frantic. It is so eager, it so outruns utterance, that it is not strange the after-dinner speech should be the favorite field of the fake-humorist, who reaps a full and ever-ripened harvest in it, and prospers on to a celebrity for brilliancy which there is little danger of his ever forfeiting so long ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... But let me tell you, sir, that I always went in the company of gentlemen—that is, when I did go, which was very seldom." The baronet in some after-dinner half-hour had allowed this secret of his youth to ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... inappropriate in one who was thirty minutes late to mess and must therefore make out with what was left. The other members of the squadron had finished their meal and were now engaged in the usual after-dinner practice ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... the eternal against the temporal and grew younger with years. He might be known as the man of the second childhood par excellence. To the eye of history the effort of his soul was an effort backwards, because the vision of history is focused only for a perspective of progress. On his after-dinner journey to Diderot at Vincennes, Jean-Jacques saw, with the suddenness of intuition, that that progress, amongst whose convinced and cogent prophets he had lived so long was for him an unsubstantial word. He beheld the soul of ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... among the negligences and evasions of the sainted but indolent Hood that he had invariably refused overnight hospitality whenever it was possible for him to get back to his home. The morning was his working time. His books and hymns had profited at the cost of missing many a generous after-dinner subscription, and at the expense of social unity. From the outset Scrope had set himself to alter this. A certain lack of enthusiasm on Lady Ella's part had merely provoked him to greater effort on his own. His ideal of what ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... old habits. The newspaper is as imperious as a Russian Ukase; it will be had, and it will be read. To this all else must give place. If we must go out at unusual hours to get it, we shall go, in spite of after-dinner nap or evening somnolence. If it finds us in company, it will not stand on ceremony, but cuts short the compliment and the story by the divine right of ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Leslie has gone around to Broome Street on his undeclared errand, and while the ladies are making an excuse to while away the time until his return, in the discussion of the after-dinner provocatives to indigestion recommended, let us enter a little more closely upon a subject merely indicated in the foregoing chapter, and then sneered at by at least one of the conversationists—that of the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... give constant and ample expression to these motives, will be neither a reformer without grace nor a scholar without manliness. Give to such a man a flow of animal spirits and a dash of wit, and he should be not unapt to entertain even when poised on the dangerous wing of an after-dinner speech. ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... characteristics, which would have disabled me in the presence of a much less formidable force. I think the only person really able to interpret me was the amiable mistress of the Croix Blanche, to whose hostelry I went every day for my after-dinner coffee. She knew what I wanted whenever I asked for it, and I simplified my wants so as to meet her in the same spirit. The inn stood midway of the village street that for hundreds of yards followed the curve of the lake shore with its two lines of high stone houses. At one end of ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... a scene in the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, less than a century ago, though it seems to belong to the days of barbarism? Two groups of men, made up of the most respectable citizens of the place, stood furiously shooting at each other with pistols and guns, as if this was their idea of after-dinner recreation. Their leaders were Colonel Thomas H. Benton, afterward famous in the United States Senate, and General Andrew Jackson, famous in a dozen ways. The men of the frontier in those days were hot in temper and quick in action, and family feuds ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... nations is a favourite after-dinner occupation of English people, and need not be taken too seriously. As a matter of actual behaviour, none in practice are kinder to the Russians than these same who speak against them. Kindness goes a long ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... seventy-five miles distant; this is our first sleeping-place, the captain making his guest until our separation and departure in different directions next morning. During the fierce heat of mid-day we halt for about three hours at Adony, and spend a pleasant after-dinner Lour examining the trappings and trophies of a noted sporting gentleman, and witnessing a lively and interesting set-to with fencing foils. There is everything in fire-arms in his cabinet, from an English double-barrelled shot-gun to a tiny air-pistol for ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... his harangue might have lasted, no one could have told, but the captain was warned that the hour for the ball was drawing near, and he gently insinuated that the speech be deferred for an after-dinner talk. Just as the captain's guests were on the point of retiring, Lord Kildee, by a gentle hint, suggested that if he had an invitation he would be glad to meet them at the ball. Of course so noted a person as Lord Kildee could not be neglected, and, ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... the son's pretensions, and sneer at the young man for his disproportioned ambition; and last of all, how he would mystify poor Kate, till she never knew whether he cared to fatten calves and turkeys, or was simply drawing her on to little details, which he was to dramatise one day in an after-dinner story. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Secretary for Foreign Affairs, while eating a charlotte russe, felt his teeth strike against a hard object, which turned out to be a cardboard cylinder inscribed 'Votes for Women.' The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was about to light his after-dinner cigar the other day when the cigar suddenly expanded into a paper fan bearing the legend, 'Tyrants, beware!' The newest Dreadnought with the First Lord of the Admiralty on board was preparing to set out on her ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... took, and takes, an animated part in its proceedings, suggesting positions for the guns, the disposition of armour, the dimensions of submarines, and a hundred other details. In 1908 he delivered an after-dinner lecture at the "Villa Achilleion" in Corfu on Nelson and the battle of Trafalgar, based on the writings of Captain Mark Kerr of the Implacable, at which the situations of the French, English, and Spanish fleets were sketched by the imperial hand. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... John Taylor with something like real feeling. He was spending Sunday with his father-in-law, and both, over their after-dinner cigars, were ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... The fancy seized me that it had been left there on purpose—my last chance! Eastford House was barely a mile and a half away—a very reasonable after-dinner stroll. I smiled to myself as I summoned Wallace ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of going on to Verrieres, they turned about with their empty baskets and went back home, a sorry party, scolding and crying all the way. But long before they reached their homes and their angry husbands Madame Fox was comfortably snoozing her after-dinner nap under the hedge; while the happy Blackbird picked up juicy bugs in the neighboring meadow, with one eye cocked to guard against being surprised a second time by ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... there are many players who could hold an audience by their mimicry or improvisations; not a few of the greatest actors and actresses might starve if they had to rely upon their own ideas. It is even notorious that some of our most illustrious actors have had their brilliant after-dinner ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... world, a world of prose, Full-crammed with facts, in science swathed and sheeted, Nods in a stertorous after-dinner doze! Plangent and sad, in every wind that blows Who will may hear the sorry words repeated:- ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... first saw the light, pandemonium broke out in the land of thinkers and poets. "What," cried the moralists, "workingmen, dirty, filthy slaves, to be put on the stage! Poverty in all its horrors and ugliness to be dished out as an after-dinner amusement? That ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... Dodgson almost gave up the habit of dining out, at this time of his life he used to do it pretty frequently, and several of the notes in his Diary refer to after-dinner and Common Room stories. The two following extracts will show the sort of ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... these after-dinner causeries I ventured humbly to remark that Patriotism was a vulgar vice of which I had never been guilty. That innocent indiscretion of mine aroused at the moment some unfavourable comment. I confess I was sorry for it. But I passed it by at the time, lest I should speak too hastily ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... calling itself dyspepsia, had tried to tyrannize over our forefathers, it would have 175:18 been routed by their independence and in- dustry. Then people had less time for self- ishness, coddling, and sickly after-dinner talk. The ex- 175:21 act amount of food the stomach could digest was not discussed according to Cutter nor referred to sanitary laws. A man's belief in those days was not so severe 175:24 upon the gastric juices. Beaumont's "Medical ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... stretching out his slippered feet, "why can't it all be after-dinner, instead of that weary room ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... remarkable regard and contempt for this woman, during and after which repast, the party devised upon the best means of bringing this love-matter to a close. As for Costigan, his idea of tweaking the Major's nose vanished with his supply of after-dinner whisky-and-water; and he was submissive to his daughter, and ready for any plan on which she might decide, in order to meet the crisis which she ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the atmosphere that the two friends declared the interior of the tent to be insupportable, they therefore walked down to near the inner margin of the beach and flung themselves down upon the curious moss-like turf, to indulge in their usual after-dinner chat and watch the gathering of the storm that now seemed inevitable, while Earle smoked. For a wonder, there were neither flies, mosquitoes, nor midges on this little peninsula; there was therefore nothing ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... day was intensely hot (March 24), and my oarsman was more than half sick with a sudden cold. I begged him to take things easily, but he soon experienced an almost miraculous renewal of his forces. In one of the first of our after-dinner bonnet patches, he seized his gun, fired, and began to shout, "A purple! a purple!" He drew the bird in, as proud as a prince. "There, sir!" he said; "didn't I tell you it was handsome? It has every color there is." And indeed it was handsome, worthy to be called the "Sultana;" with the ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... speak at all, I think, to your neighbor on the right: that was wise of you. He is a most insufferable person, but mamma bears with him for the sake of his daughter, who sang just now. He is too rich. And he smiles blandly, and takes a sort of after-dinner view of things, as if he coincided with the arrangements of Providence. Don't you take coffee? Tea, then. I have met your aunt—I mean, Mr. Lavender's aunt: such a dear ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... that so polished a writer, such a master of language, as Goldschmidt, would be able, with the greatest ease, to make an after-dinner speech, especially when he had had plenty of time to prepare himself; but the gift of speaking is, as everyone knows, a gift in itself. And a more unfortunate speaker than Goldschmidt could not be. He had not even the art of compelling silence while ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... locomotive, it needed only imagination and a map to see all British North America clamped by an iron band. Engineers like Bonnycastle and Synge and Carmichael-Smyth wrote of the possibility in the forties. Politicians found in the theme matter for admirable after-dinner perorations—colonial governors like Harvey in 1847, colonial secretaries like Lytton and Carnarvon in the fifties, and colonial premiers like Joseph Howe, who declared in Halifax in 1851: 'I believe that many in this room will live to hear the whistle of the steam-engine in the passes of ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... flinging into the yard at one o'clock—no later. That's certain, because Frodsham was at his after-dinner pipe—or should have been: instead of which he came running in after him. Just about that time, or maybe a little before, Mr. Menzies had been asking for Struan? Where was he? Did anyone ever see such a ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... been served, the toastmaster, Mr. Solomon Sadler, rapped for order. He made a brief introductory speech, complimenting host and guests, and then presented in their order the toasts of the evening. They were responded to with a very fair display of after-dinner wit. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Peter Laurie, as Lord Mayor of London, entertained the judges and leaders of the bar, he exclaimed to his guests, in an after-dinner oration:— ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... girl simply. "Well, I waited until they all lay down for their after-dinner naps, and climbed out of my window so as not to disturb them. They do enjoy their naps so much, you know. I didn't find you at the pool but I just hunted until I did find you. I've been sitting here a long time watching you. You look so ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... Lord Byron's answer to Mr. Bowles, I had the mortification of finding that, with a far less pardonable want of reserve, he had all but named me as his authority for an anecdote of his reverend opponent's early days, which I had, in the course of an after-dinner conversation, told him at Venice, and which,—pleasant in itself, and, whether true or false, harmless,—derived its sole sting from the manner in which the noble disputant triumphantly applied it. Such are the consequences of one's near and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... candy, and bite it, the egg having previously been fried on both sides until it is as stiff and as hard as a piece of bristol board, who would not recognize a salad if they saw one, and who have never heard of after-dinner coffee. ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... Congress he was merely a big boy, of very strong mind, but totally uninformed, and uncultivated. He very rapidly improved under the tuition of Congress; and in some degree awoke to the consciousness of his great intellectual imperfections. Still he was never diffident. He closed one of his off-hand after-dinner speeches in Boston, ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... daughter, little Grace, about two years old, pursued him down from her nursery every morning, and insisted upon seeing innumerable pictures, lurking (as she had discovered) in many different recesses of the library? More and more from this quarter it was that we drew the materials of our daily after-dinner conversation. One great discouragement arises commonly to the student, where the particular library in which he reads has been so disordinately collected that he cannot pursue a subject once started. Now, at Laxton, the books had been so judiciously brought together, so many hooks ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... coffee-room conversation in which two cases were instanced of supreme heroism under agonising conditions—one being when a butler (an old and honoured butler too, who had never misconducted himself before) fainted while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most of it over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the butler to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... 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 pleasantries of a Washington diplomat sound like the clumsy jests told ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... follow that interminable dinner, and for a time Priscilla was occupied in helping Lady Raffold to receive the after-dinner guests. She longed to escape before the contingent from the dining-room arrived upstairs, but she soon realised the impossibility of this. Her stepmother seemed to want her at every turn, and when at length she found herself free, young Lord ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.' 'The basis of political economy is non-interference.' The merchant looks narrowly at his theory of compensation, and finds it tallies well with the result of his own after-dinner meditations, expressed of mornings to doubting confreres. The philanthropist rejoices at the crushing of the shell of foppish indolence, the heralded downfall of the petty vanities, sprung, Heaven knows with what reason, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... unconventional after-dinner speech. Especially it will be thought strange that in returning thanks I should deliver something very much like a homily. But I have thought I could not better convey my thanks than by the expression of a sympathy which issues in a fear. If, as I gather, this ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... who are fond of canned milk; but, for my part, I loathe it. The effect of the sweetish glue upon my inner man is singularly nauseating. I have even been driven to drink my matutinal coffee in all its after-dinner strength rather than adulterate it with the mixture. You have, it is true, the choice of using the stuff as a dubious paste, or of mixing it with water into a non-committal wash; and, whichever plan you adopt, you wish you had adopted the other. Why it need be so ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... again. He had deplored the war until he found his attitude unfashionable, and then he began, with great enthusiasm, to arrange pageants for Red Cross funds, and even to make little speeches, graceful and artificial, patterned on his best after-dinner manner. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... than one member of the United States Senate staggering through the streets, from what cause the reader will have no difficulty in judging. I have seen a great statesman, since deceased, carried from an after-dinner table to his chamber. I have seen the honorable Secretary of one of the National departments engaged in a brawl in a brothel. I have seen Representatives fighting in a bar-room like so many rowdies, ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... to dinner after a morning's frighting. His object is to get an hour or so for sleep before the visitors come out from their later lunch. Mam 'Idger says we are lazy; that she 'don't gie way to it, she don't!' (She did a couple of days ago.) When the after-dinner tea is finished, Tony makes a start for 'up over!' Mrs Widger enquires if I have some writing to do—and asks also if I would like to ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... longevity. And Jenkins Hollis's feat of riding stolidly—one could hardly say bravely—up an almost sheer precipice to a flame-belching battery came suddenly into the landed magnate's recollection with the gentle vapors and soothing aroma of a meditative after-dinner pipe. Quivering with party spirit, Squire Goodlet sent for Hollis and offered to lend him the best horse on the place, and a saddle and bridle, if he would go down to Colbury and beat those town fellows out ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... heavy atmosphere there is now a smell of coffee and tobacco smoke. The old hands have boiled a noon beverage on the gas; the tailors smoke an after-dinner pipe. Put up in newspaper by Mrs. Wood, at my matinal departure, my lunches, after a journey across the city, held tightly under my arm, become, before eating, a block of food, a composite meal in which I can distinguish original bits of ham sandwich ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... meant whisky. I knew only poor men's drinks, the drinks of the frontier and of sailor-town—cheap beer and cheaper whisky that was just called whisky and nothing else. I was embarrassed to make a choice, and the steward nearly collapsed when I ordered claret as an after-dinner drink. ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... no particular scandal, no damning charges on either side; and a club wit had remarked at the time that the only possible ground for a separation was the fact that Mrs. Kemper had grown jealous of her husband's after-dinner cigar. Since then other and varied rumours had reached Gerty's ears, until finally there had blown a veritable gale concerning a certain Madame Alta, who sang melting soprano parts in Italian opera. Then this, too, had passed, and, with the ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... old boar was killed here during one of our meets, which was long celebrated in our after-dinner talks on boars and hunting. It was called 'THE LUNGRA,' which means the cripple, because it had been wounded in the leg in some previous encounter, perhaps in its hot youth, before age had stiffened its joints and ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... ups and downs of life, damn it! Your turn to-day, mine to-morrow; jolly lucky not to break a leg, after all! And their gaiety returned, amid the smoke and the glasses, through a need of reaction; and, after the first drink or two, came jokes, after-dinner stories, impromptus which had traveled ten times round the world and brought tears of laughter to the eyes of the audiences in thousands of music-halls, not to speak of the second-class cabins of every ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... return of Admiral Sampson's squadron to New York, the writer chanced to see, quoted as an after-dinner speech by the chief engineer of the Oregon, the statement that Captain Clark had communicated to his officers the tactics he meant to pursue, if he fell in with the Spanish division. His purpose, as so ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... snapped to the servant, "Annie, bring me my cigarettes." But Mrs. Arty always was penitent when she had been nasty, and—though Istra did not at once seem to know that the landlady had been nasty—Mrs. Arty invited her up to the parlor for after-dinner so cordially that Istra could but grant "Perhaps I will," and she even went so far as to say, "I think you're all to be envied, ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... French Batteries on our left. The Italian Major commanding this Group was a Mantuan and he and I became firm friends. It was in his Mess one night, in reply to the toast of the Allies, that I made my first after-dinner speech in Italian. I do not claim that it was grammatically perfect, but all that I said was, I think, well understood, and I was in ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... had led the conversation. Displeased that the lead should be withdrawn from him, he turned to Clara and related one of the after-dinner anecdotes of Dr. Corney; and another, with a vast deal of human nature in it, concerning a valetudinarian gentleman, whose wife chanced to be desperately ill, and he went to the physicians assembled in consultation outside the sick-room, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of water, given in recipe for Boiled Coffee (see Page 30). This coffee may be prepared in the Percolator, following the directions given in the foregoing. Milk or cream is not served with black coffee. Serve in hot after-dinner coffee cups, with or without ...
— Fifty-Two Sunday Dinners - A Book of Recipes • Elizabeth O. Hiller
... the old-fashioned type were Doctor Dixi Crosby of Hanover, and his son "Ben," who made a great name for himself in New York City as a surgeon, and also as a brilliant after-dinner speaker. Doctor Crosby's preference was for the long-drawn-out style, as this example, which I heard ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... enhanced to me, I am afraid, by the contrasted thought of the close, hot, dusty schoolroom, where my class-fellows were talking, laughing, and wrangling, or perhaps trying to work in spite of the difficulties of after-dinner disinclination. A fitful little breeze, as if itself subject to the influence of the heat, would wake up for a few moments, wave a few heads of horse-daisies, waft a few strains of odour from the blossoms of the white ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... siege and capture of the capital, which has been so often and eloquently described by grave and wise historians, but rather to follow the fortunes of an humble private in the ranks, and relate the events of a certain court-martial, as I learned them from the after-dinner talk of a gallant officer who had officiated ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... custom is in direct contrast. We tend on great religious festivals rather to close than to open our theatres. Another point of contrast is in the time allotted to the performance. We give to the theatre our after-dinner hours, when work is done, or at best a couple of hours in the afternoon. The theatre is for us a recreation. The Greek theatre opened at sunrise, and the whole day was consecrated to high and strenuous religious attention. During the five or six days of the great Dionysia, the ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... went up to the drawing-room, and grandmother, saying she was a good deal tired by her exertions of the morning, sat down in her own particular easy chair by the fire, and, spreading over her face a very fine cambric handkerchief which she kept, I strongly suspect, for the purpose, prepared for her after-dinner nap. It was really a regular institution with her—but I noticed she always made some little special excuse for it, as if it was something quite out of the common. She told me to amuse myself during ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... square shoulders and easy stride gave one the idea that he was a good deal more accustomed to the free and easy costume of the Bush or the Veld or the Mining Camp than to the swallow-tails and starched linen of after-dinner Civilisation. ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... struck another root; and was up at four the next morning (he never worked at night; for, he said, he never could trust after-dinner brains), drawing out a detailed report of the Pentremochyn cottages, which he sent ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... recognize the diligence of Prof. W. W. Turner. Those who have never tried this kind of work have but an inadequate idea of its demands on the brain, and on the conscience too. Reading through a dictionary is an after-dinner pastime in comparison. The vocabulary is more extended than in other lexicons. But the peculiar and highest merit of this work appears in definitions, remarkable for clearness, fulness, and distinction of the subtle shades of meaning. Colloquial, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... with a banquet held in the private dining room of the Swan Hotel. On request of the President Mr. John W. Hershey introduced the speakers of the evening. Rev. G. Paul Musselman spoke briefly and was followed by the after-dinner speaker, Mr. Al Bergstrom, Superintendent of Police of Coatesville, Pa. His subject was "Nuts—I Crack Them as You Like Them," and with many interesting jokes and humorous stories he portrayed an interesting picture of the many problems that have ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... first morning of the trout season; the type of man whose machine noses in the closest to the judge's stand when a big race is on; the type of man who dances most, collects the most picture postals of pretty girls, laughs most at after-dinner speeches; the type of man who either does not marry at all, or attains much notoriety when the question of alimony is being fought out to the last cipher; the last man you would point out as a possible conspirator against anything save the peace and dignity of some other ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner: thou hast nor youth, nor age; But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou art old, and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this, That bears the name of life? ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... were seated round the parlor fire, discussing the usual after-dinner topics, when Mrs. William Bennett dropped in to have a friendly chat. She disclosed the fact that her husband was going to visit a superannuated employee in the nunnery, which he usually did on the first of each month, and that she did not see what reason ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... gruff as was his voice, as gentle as a lamb, as he used to say of himself, if people would but stroke him the right way; and I can assert a kinder hearted monster never lived. Grey and I, one afternoon when it was our watch below, found him in his cabin. He was taking his after-dinner potation of rum and water, y-clept "grog," and reading by the light ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... season of the year when the asparagus and the plover's egg are abroad in the land, and the oyster has not yet withdrawn into it's summer entrenchments, and Sir Lulworth and his nephew were in that enlightened after-dinner mood when politics are seen in their right perspective, even the ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... impatiently, pettishly. The intense and terrible longing for her arrival persisted. It was now twenty-five to three. His father would be down soon from his after-dinner nap. Suddenly the door opened, and he saw the Orgreaves' servant, with a cloak over her white apron, and hands red with cold. And also he saw disaster like a ghostly figure following her. His heart sickeningly sank. Martha smiled and gave him a note, which he smilingly accepted. "Miss ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... superior to us in respect of three things—their facility in travelling, their fire system, and their after-dinner speaking. One of these I will not question, and that is the Fire Brigade. It is necessary for America to excel in this respect, for with their huge warehouses and stores overstocked with inflammable goods fire would destroy their cities as Chicago was destroyed, were they not so wonderfully ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... discovered that when he was making believe paint pictures, in the first freshness of early morning, or when he was smoking his after-dinner cigar, in the lingering June twilight, the face that interfered with the one occupation and lent charm to the other, was not framed in golden hair, nor animated with the lively and bird-like intelligence which he found so amusing. And not only was it Pauline ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... Chicago, though not unknown in other large cities. On the evening of a hot summer day cushions and rugs are spread on the front steps of the houses, and the occupants take possession of these, the men to enjoy their after-dinner cigars, the women to talk and scan the passers-by. The general effect is very genial and picturesque, and decidedly suggestive of democratic sociability. The same American indifference to the exaggerated British love of privacy which leads John Bull ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... Paul's comment on the conversation, as we were taking our after-dinner stroll in the garden—"as you see, that sort of person is the bad element in our country—the dangerous element—unreasoning, revengeful, and ignorant. It is such men as he who still uphold hatreds and keep the flame alive. It is better to have no talent at all for ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... trolleys, and kindling now and again a soft planet, as the trolleys struck the batlike plates that connected the crossing lines. The painter was getting almost as much pleasure out of the planets as pain out of the screams, and he was in an after-dinner languor in which he was very reluctant to recognize a step, which he thought he knew, on his stairs and his stairs-landing. A knock at his door followed the sound of the approaching steps. He lifted himself, and called out, inhospitably, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... say. Daniel Webster once declared that there was no such thing as ex tempore speaking,—a saying not altogether correct, but in the main confirmed by many great orators who confess to laborious preparation for their speech-making, and by the fact that many of our famous after-dinner speakers have been known to send their speeches to the Press before they were delivered. The case of Demosthenes would seem to indicate the necessity of the most careful study and preparation in order to make a truly great speech, however gifted an orator may be; and those ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... Green and Miss Patty Honeywood have been taking a farewell after-dinner stroll in the garden, and have now wandered into the deserted breakfast-room, under the pretence of finding a water-colour drawing of Honeywood Hall, that the young lady had ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... under the boiling blood of youth, any sufficient justification of that withering malignity towards the name of Pitt, which runs through Coleridge's famous Fire, Famine, and Slaughter. As this little viperous jeu-d'esprit (published anonymously) subsequently became the subject of a celebrated after-dinner discussion in London, at which Coleridge (comme de raison) was the chief speaker, the reader of this generation may wish to know the question at issue; and in order to judge of that, he must know the outline of this devil's squib. The writer ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... he was simply unapproachable. He passed, in fact, beyond the range of mere amateurs, and was brought into contrast by right, with the most gifted professionals among his contemporaries. Hence, again, as an after-dinner speaker, he was nothing less than incomparable. "He spoke so well," Anthony Trollope has remarked, "that a public dinner became a blessing instead of a curse if he were in the chair—had its compensating ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... Egyptians proof against mere novelty, preferring harmony and beauty. So he withdrew and ceased to prize them; the camel died forgotten, and the parti-coloured man became the reward of Thespis the fluteplayer for a successful after-dinner performance. ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... task. In my ignorance of the laws of life, I charged myself with idleness, and tried to spur myself on to renewed activity. The attempt was vain. One afternoon I ventured to lie down and treat myself to an after-dinner nap. I slept three hours. I had no engagement that night, and feeling still unaccountably sleepy, I slipped off to bed about eight o'clock. I slept till nearly nine next morning. I slept an hour or two more after dinner. At night I slept about ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... natural harmonious close to the day, as much a part of the day's music as the setting sun. It should be the gratefully sought shelter from the homeless night, the sympathetic friend of hungry stomachs and dusty feet, the cozy jingle of social pipes and dreamy after-dinner talk, the abode of snowy beds for luxuriously aching limbs, lavendered sheets and ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... close to the Front, as was shown by the number of shells which fell in it while we ate. The dirt from one, in fact, quite spoiled the floating island, and we were compelled to open a can of peaches to replace it. It was while we were drinking our after-dinner coffee that Tish voiced the philosophy ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fur overcoat at the open window, looking at the landscape in watercolours. He smoked an after-dinner cigarette, and spoke of the Beautiful. Crowl was with him. They were in the first floor front, Crowl's bedroom, which, from its view of the Mile End Road, was livelier than the parlour with its ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Green, but what, after all, did that amount to? Even the exterior life was second-hand enough there; the interior life, as he judged, practically non-existent. And so his staying must be ennobled by some purpose beyond that of stepping across to smoke an after-dinner pipe with the good, affectionate Lovegrove man, or attending his estimable wife's "at homes." During the last ten days Mr. Iglesias had striven, with rare, pathetic diligence, to cultivate amusement. True, the oak palings had shut him out from Ranelagh; but, with that and a few other exceptions, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... a profession, a return of Commencement Day recalls many memories. It is likely also, after nearly a quarter of a century, to cause some reflections. It is, I suppose, to give tongue to such memories and reflections that after-dinner speaking is provided. After all due allowance for change of perspective, going to college was a greater event twenty-five years ago than it is to-day. My own memories are not yet ancient enough to warrant their recalling. ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... was the sherry, because I am sure I have read somewhere about 'wine that maketh glad the heart of man'. He had only a very little, which shows that it was a good after-dinner wine, stimulating, and yet ...I forget ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... on borrowing the spirit-lamp which the seniors used for brewing their after-dinner coffee, but at the last moment they found the bottle of ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Our after-dinner sitting was soon ended for an evening stroll. It had been a sultry day towards the end of August; the lazy zephyrs had been all asleep since noontide; so, with a view to meet the first of them which should ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... me in the after-dinner trials was the extreme rapidity with which the proceedings were conducted. As judges and counsel were exhilarated, the business was proportionately accelerated. But of all the men I had the pleasure of meeting on these occasions, the one who gave me the best ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... he said; "Mr. Owlett was taking his after-dinner snooze, but he's jumped up at once, and he's washed his hands and face, so he's quite ready for business. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... rested against a log, having their regular after-dinner, heart-to heart talk, "we had better hiepus (light out), if we mean to get to the coast and bring up at Myers on time, besides taking in all we want to on the way. We know the Harney's River route like a book and we've been over the Indian trail to Lawson's River, so we've ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... black thought of Polly, then and subsequently, was told at her own fireside, where she sat, some six weeks later, chatting over an after-dinner cup of ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... considered to be one inevitable consequence of the Arctic darkness. As far as I am personally concerned, I can say that I have felt nothing of it; I sleep soundly at night. I have no great belief in this sleeplessness; but then I do not take an after-dinner nap, which most of the others are addicted to; and if they sleep for several hours during the day they can hardly expect to sleep all night as well. 'One must be awake part of one's time,' ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... the first place, it was not five feet from deck to deck and even this space was encroached upon by two outlandish cross-timbers bracing the vessel, and by the sailors' chests, over which you must needs crawl in getting about. At meal-times, and especially when we indulged in after-dinner chat, we sat about the chests ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... spirits, and Frank was so kind and attentive and agreeable I couldn't find it in my heart to be cross to him. So it ended in our making up any little imaginary differences we may have had and becoming better friends than ever. As we sat in the balcony over the river—the two gentlemen smoking their after-dinner cigars, and we ladies sipping our coffee—I thought I had never enjoyed an evening so much; and even John, who was generally dreadfully afraid of Lady Scapegrace, became quite lively and gallant (for ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... statues. Still less can the Assyrians have had any genius for the comic: the round eyes and simpering satisfaction of their ideal faces belong to a type which is not witty, but the cause of wit in others. The fun of these early races was, we fancy, of the after-dinner kind—loud-throated laughter over the wine-cup, taken too little account of in sober moments to enter as an element into their Art, and differing as much from the laughter of a Chamfort or a Sheridan as the gastronomic enjoyment of an ancient Briton, whose dinner had no other ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... The after-dinner half-hour of rest had been a time when the crew of the "Jolly Susan" had shut their door on the outside world and had taken their ease. Visiting without permission at this hour was not usually allowed, but Catherine was often quite willing that Judith and Nancy should be in each other's ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... after-dinner cigarette, he strolled casually through Granville Avenue, the short street indicated by the address. It was a loosely-built neighborhood of frame dwellings, with yards and a moderate provision of trees and shrubs—a ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... meditating upon a speech—a speech beyond the scope of the regulation after-dinner orations. This was something very remarkable; for the merchant was no speaker, and—what was still ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... of the 6th, just at dusk, I had started up the road for a lazy after-dinner saunter, when I was brought to a sudden halt by what on the instant I took for the cry of a night-hawk. But no night-hawk could be here thus early in the season, and listening further, I perceived that ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... less. Let us be a Gideon's band. 'Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return, and depart early from Mount Gilead.' And among that band let there be no delusions; let the last encouraging lie have been told, the last after-dinner humbug spoken, for surely, though the days seem dark, we may remember that men longed for freedom while yet they were slaves; that it was in times when swords were reddened every day that men began to think of peace and order, and to strive to ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... short moment it threatened to be spoiled. A passenger came along, demanding in an important voice, "Where are these frogs?" He was a prominent New York after-dinner speaker, they whispered me, and out for a holiday in his private car. Reaching us and walking to the Virginian, he said cheerily, "How much do you want for your ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... than the "poor little girl" indicated, it would be difficult to find, I thought: but the kindly Becketts were the last creatures to be critical. They sympathized, and changed their invitation from after-dinner coffee to breakfast at nine. This was accepted by O'Farrell for himself and his sister, and taking the girl's arm, the ex-singer swept her ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... on the part of one learned judge to his colleagues in one of the most famous state trials of history, propounded as a bit of after-dinner casuistry, when the victim had been more than a year in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... he had finished, 'I have read with pain. This claim upon Obermunsterol is palpably unjust; it has not a tincture, not a show, of justice. There is not in all this ground enough for after-dinner talk, and you propose to force ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at each other, when, after the after-dinner housework was all done, she took her shawl and hood from the peg, and drew some old wool socks of Caleb's over her shoes. She went out without saying a word. Ephraim waited a few minutes after the door shut behind her; then he ran ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... agent of a Boston firm," and gave us the gentleman's address. I had confounded Mr. Watt's name with Mr. Watts's name. "W'at's in a name?" A great deal sometimes. I wonder if I shall be pardoned for quoting six lines from one of my after-dinner poems of long ago:— ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... still March evening, as Kresney strolled back and forth on his narrow verandah, enjoying an after-dinner cigar, every detail of that detested interview darted across his memory for the hundredth time, like a lightning-streak across a cloud. Wounded, in the most susceptible part of his nature, Kresney saw no reason to deny himself the satisfaction of hitting back. Whatever may have ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... the absurd lampoon as a child, and one evening late in August, smoking his after-dinner cigar beside his father in the empty conservatory, he recalled the story, which had been ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Chapel of England (Vol. iii., p. 60.).—This jeu-d'esprit was an after-dinner joke of a learned civilian, not less celebrated for his wit than his book-lore. Some stupid blockhead inserted it in the newspapers, and it is now unfortunately chronicled in your valuable work. It is not at all to be wondered at that "the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... probability was that our earliest association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous. All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism, strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner stories. Our first personal acquaintance often confirmed this prejudice; for the chance was that the one specimen of the Grand Nation familiar to our childhood proved a poor migr who gained a precarious livelihood as a dancing-master, cook, teacher, or barber, who was profuse of smiles, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Bowen's witticisms from the Bench in circulation, but his after-dinner stories are worth recording, and perhaps one of the best is that given in Anecdotes of the Bench and Bar, as told by himself in the following words: "One of the ancient rabbinical writers was engaged in compiling a history of the minor prophets, ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... lazy sense of well-being. In the mental lull of the after-dinner hour, with harmonious memories murmuring through his mind, and the soft tints and shadowy spaces of the fine old room charming his eyes to indolence, Madame de Chantelle's discourse seemed not out of place. He could understand that, in the ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... this evening," went on Reggie, in the approved manner of after-dinner introductions, "one whom you all well know, and whom it is ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... First after-dinner speech; delivered at a printers' banquet in Keokuk, Iowa. Letters from Cincinnati, November 16, 1856, signed "Snodgrass"— Saturday ...
— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger
... Bo and Cat's-skin obsequiously behind him, each holding a piece of food, and they laughed aloud and shouted to see the old woman so angry. And with a shriek the child was caught and the old woman set to work slapping and the child screaming, and it was very good after-dinner fun for them. Little Si ran on a little way and stopped at last between ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... insufficient sleep is taken at night, sleep a few minutes just before dinner. Half an hour's rest at this time is remarkably refreshing; and even fifteen minutes spent in sleep will be found very reviving. Do not sleep after dinner, as a pollution will be very likely to occur, and, as a rule, after-dinner naps are unrefreshing and ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... pretty Amelia was his darling; and the little maiden, prattling and smiling in the fond arms of that old father, is a sweet image to look on. There is a family picture in Burney, which a man must be very hard-hearted not to like. She describes an after-dinner walk of the royal family at Windsor:—"It was really a mighty pretty procession," she says. "The little princess, just turned of three years old, in a robe-coat covered with fine muslin, a dressed close cap, white gloves, and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know, spite of sermons and 'sound sensible view of things,' that to enjoy the high 'privilege of reading books,—of cultivating their minds; and, when they are married, minding their babies, and ministering to the drowsy, after-dinner ease of their husbands, is not the fulfilment of their powers and hopes. But, my amiable Miss Larmes, this is a class of girls and women who are not solicitous about wearing black when their great-aunt ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... fine old hall where James II. had feasted; and on some of these occasions the Warden's table had been honored with illustrious guests; especially when any of them happened to be wanting an opportunity to come before the public in an after-dinner speech. Just at present there was no occasion of that sort; and the good Warden fancied that he might give considerable eclat to his hereditary feast by bringing forward the young American envoy, a distinguished ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... villainous highness headed," said Miranda, "were an almost immense number then, being divided in three bodies—London cut-purses, Hounslow Heath highwaymen, and assistant-coiners, but all owning him for their lord and master. He told me all this himself, one day when, in an after-dinner and most gracious mood, he made a boasting display of his wealth and greatness; told me I was growing up very pretty indeed, and that I was shortly to be raised to the honor and dignity, and bliss of being ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... football prowess had passed, swinging through the University, been elected to the Wolves, but he had only attended one dinner and had then remained severely and unpleasantly sober. There was no other possible rival to Cardillac, to his distinction, his power of witty and malicious after-dinner speaking, his wonderful clothes, his admirable football, his haughty indifference. He would ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... of the country and the game, and we were enjoying the change in our usual after-dinner camp conversation, when suddenly up he jumped, and turning around looked straight at Faye, and then like a bomb came the request to be allowed to go with him to Fort Maginnis! He raised the brim of his hat, and there ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... and sweeter and the little after-dinner group in the garden grew bigger—think of the excitement of the day when the lawyer brought home the architect and his timid wife! They came to live in Maman's room, the room that Felice had intended to keep for herself. But ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... clover blossoms. Later she observed her standing—ruminative and ruminating, so to speak—at the fence. There was always a potent suggestion in Mrs. Lathrop's pose, as she leaned and waited, which vastly accelerated Miss Clegg's after-dinner movements. In this case less than two minutes intervened between the waiting of Mrs. Lathrop and the answering of ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... go over exactly the same course, he must of necessity have his boats dragged over the ground, for almost the entire course over which he traveled is now dry land. Since that time the river has deserted almost all of its former channel, as if to repudiate its connection with the after-dinner treaties of two hundred years lang syne; in places its channel lies to the west, but for the greater extent it is to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... Now, after-dinner visiting, for business or pleasure, is the custom of the smaller American town, and not that of England, where the end of the day is sacred to the owner, not the public. Verily, Wilton Sargent had hoisted the striped flag ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... the usual after-dinner loafers of the tavern's purlieus. Mr. Britt did not seem to mind them. He even looked about, as if to make sure ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day |
