"Waggish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... White had been dead for several years; and the hall in which she had taught her school, having passed through many successive stages of degradation in its uses, had come at last to be a lumber-room, from which had arisen many a waggish saying as to the similarity between its first estate and ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... send the ax relating to a justus pease' is a phrase which will be remembered by readers of 'Guy Mannering.' Only recently a post-card reached Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. requesting the immediate despatch of a copy of 'Hard on Horace,' which was the inaccurate, or perhaps waggish, sender's rendering of the 'Hawarden Horace.' This will be remembered with the request for 'The Crockit Minister,' by Stickett, and 'Sheep that Pass in the Night.' Some of the foregoing budget can scarcely be placed to the discredit of the cataloguer, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... exclamations of "how low! well, I think I could preach better than that," and the like. At length a man of about fifty, pock-broken and somewhat bald, began to speak: unlike the others who screamed, shouted, and seemed in earnest, he spoke in a dry, waggish style, which had all the coarseness and nothing of the cleverness of that of old Rowland Hill, whom I once heard. After a great many jokes, some of them very poor, and others exceedingly thread-bare, on the folly of those who sell themselves to the Devil for ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... how wittily they would depict the manners of the steerage. We were in truth very innocently, cheerfully, and sensibly engaged, and there was no shadow of excuse for the swaying elegant superiority with which these damsels passed among us, or for the stiff and waggish glances of their squire. Not a word was said; only when they were gone Mackay sullenly damned their impudence under his breath; but we were all conscious of an icy influence and a dead break in the course ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... waggish critics has evolved the following: "First psychology lost its soul, then it lost its mind, then it lost consciousness; it still ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... lashed no sort of vice; Horace would say, Sir Billy served the crown, Blunt could do business, H-ggins knew the town; In Sappho touch the failings of the sex, In reverend bishops note some small neglects, And own, the Spaniard did a waggish thing, Who cropped our ears, and sent them to the king. His sly, polite, insinuating style Could please at Court, and make Augustus smile: An artful manager, that crept between His friend and shame, and was a kind of screen. But 'faith, your friends will soon be sore; Patriots there are, who ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... trick was worn out, other waggish gentlemen had introduced the practice of dropping wax matches on the floor and treading on them, and of hunting an imaginary moth—an irresistibly humorous proceeding, in which the participators rushed about brandishing ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... that water-fowl that cries, Quack! Quack!? Full often have I seen a waggish crew 30 Fasten the Bird of Wisdom on its back, The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a three years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... with strap-oil for your pains? Were your domestic and alimentive affections ever sported with by the false intelligence that a letter from home and a large cake were waiting for you below! Or worse, did some waggish, but inconsiderate friend ever send you a fool's-cap ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... the same day I received from him the following additional scraps ['To Lord Thurlow']. The lines in Italics are from the eulogy that provoked his waggish comments."—Life, p. 181. The last stanza of Thurlow's poem ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... subject brings to my mind a good old parson in Springfield who used to complain that the Weekly Republican was as bad as himself. He was preaching his old sermons over and over again with new texts. Come to find out, he had a waggish grandson who for three previous weeks had neatly gummed the fresh date over the old one, and the dear divine had been perusing the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... strength of such an inducement to the one who should put the finishing stroke to the building, Plante, Pillon, and Manaigre, whom the waggish Plante persisted in calling "mon negre," whenever he felt himself out of the reach of the other's arm, all went vigorously ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... Mr. Fabian, with a forced laugh, with which he attempted to conceal his uneasiness, "you are a waggish rogue! Your last words have afforded me so much amusement that I have not the heart to injure you for such a trifle. But listen, you little simpleton; you must not suppose that the justice would allow you to say all that. ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish appearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner, holding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... and niceness, The handmaids of all women, or more truly, Woman its pretty self, into a waggish courage, Ready in gibes, quick answer'd, saucy, and ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... there is a singular variety of curious stones. I picked up one very like a small cucumber. By the by, Dr Johnson told me, that Gay's line in the Beggar's Opera, 'As men should serve a cucumber,' &c. has no waggish meaning, with reference to men flinging away cucumbers as too COOLING, which some have thought; for it has been a common saying of physicians in England, that a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... sold for no fault, except that his owner had hired him at 25 dollars a month, and Tom would not work. An excellent painter and glazier, and a good cook besides. His only fault is that he has a great idea of his own reserved rights, to the neglect of those of his master." This was said with a waggish kind of a leer, as if he thought he had said a very smart thing in a very smart way. 300 dollars were first offered for him; but poor Tom went for 350. "Now, sir," said the man-seller to Tom, with a ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... waggish propensity moved one of the officers of the "Trump" to say that there was an equerry of His Royal Highness the Prince on board, and to point me out as the dignified personage in question. So the Syrian Prince was introduced to the Royal equerry, and a great many compliments ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... celebrated men, including at least half a dozen candidates for the presidency, yet, after all, the congressmen in feathers interested me most. I thought, indeed, that the chat might well enough have been elected to the lower house. His volubility and waggish manners would have made him quite at home in that assembly, while his orange-colored waistcoat would have given him an agreeable conspicuity. But, to be sure, he would have needed to learn ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... turned up his eyes. The band was playing 'Pop goes the weasel,' and old Jackson, very well dressed and buckled up, with a splendid smile upon his waggish, military countenance, cried, as he passed, with a wave of his hand, 'How do, Lake—how do, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... did more to raise the condition of the book clubs than Sir Walter Scott. In 1823 the Roxburghe made proffers of membership to him, partly, it would seem, under the influence of a waggish desire to disturb his great secret, which had not yet been revealed. Dibdin, weighting himself with more than his usual burden of ponderous jocularity, set himself in motion to intimate to Scott the desire of the club that the Author of Waverley, with whom it was supposed that he had the means ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... Jack Jargon, the gigantic guardsman;[691] And General Fireface,[692] famous in the field, A great tactician, and no less a swordsman, Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he killed. There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman, In his grave office so completely skilled, That when a culprit came for condemnation, He had his Judge's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... interest which this poor creature excited, both here and at Niagara, was astonishing. His very exit (than which nothing could be more natural) was considered somewhat mysterious, as his body was not found; and some time subsequent to the event, a fellow of a waggish disposition happening to be accidentally in that part of the country, and bearing, it is said, a singular resemblance to Patch, was stopped by a Rochester-man on the road, and questioned on the subject. The stranger immediately saw a fair opening for fun, and, after some hesitation, reluctantly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... and fro in his room, sometimes stopping in front of the canon, whom he terrified by his flashing glances and by the extreme animation of his language, sometimes according to him one of those familiar and waggish gestures which were the signs of his favor. The unfortunate Escoiquiz sought in vain to defend the cause of his prince, making the most of his merits and his personal attachment to the emperor, and pledging his submission ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... as far as I am concerned," responded the trapper, seriously; but adding, with his old waggish gleam of the eye: "that is, if you will take what I give, and swallow it as easily as you did Phillips' fish story. But let Carvil, who must be the youngest, go on with his story first; I will follow; and Phillips ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... I find it easy to believe that the loftier notions are the earlier. If man began with the conception of a powerful and beneficent Maker or Father, then I can see how the humorous savage fancy ran away with the idea of Power, and attributed to a potent being just such tricks as a waggish and libidinous savage would like to play if he could. Moreover, I have actually traced (in 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion') some plausible processes of mythical accretion. The early mind was not only religious, in its way, but scientific, in its way. It embraced the idea of Evolution as well ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... leaning as before on the counter, shook his head from side to side, with a waggish air, which confused Ephie still more. She made her escape, and left him there, still ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... they were not a little startled by the unexpected obtrusion into that sanctuary of genius, of a human head which, although a shaggy and somewhat alarming head in appearance, smiled affably upon them from the doorway, in a manner that was at once waggish, conciliatory, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... parts, a woman so superior that she might give George Sand a qualm, but as a woman who would produce a great sensation in Paris. Hence the extreme though suppressed astonishment of Doctor Bianchon and the waggish journalist when they beheld, on the garden steps of Anzy, a lady dressed in thin black cashmere with a deep tucker, in effect like a riding-habit cut short, for they quite understood the pretentiousness of such ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Andres raised his head from his book to listen. He sat there staring into the far distance, as though the shadowy pictures evoked by his reading were hovering before his eyes. Then, with a start, he was present and among them all, his eyes running over them with a waggish expression; and then he stood up, placing his stick so that it supported his diseased hip. The master's hands danced loosely in the air, his head and his whole figure jerking crazily under the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... present, however, he is the owner of an important stud and stable which are constantly increasing, and which bid fair before long to take rank amongst the principal establishments in the country. Waggish tongues have whispered that when he had to make choice of colors he naturally inclined to "rouge et noir," but finding these already appropriated by M. Lupin, the representative of "trente et quarante" was forced to content himself ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... 'whereof, allowing (say) three hundred and fifty to a piece, we have a surprising total of'—here he figured on the table, and King Sancho pursued his drift until Richard brought his hand slamming down—'of one-and-twenty million ridges of gold upon the treasure!' he concluded with a waggish look. Agreement was as hard as to prolong parallels to a point. Yet this went on for some two hours, until, worn frail by such futilities, the Navarrese chancellor plumply asked his brother of England if King ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... minutes elapsed, our stretching gallop, for such had our pace sobered into, brought us up with it, and as we flew by, at top speed, Baby jumped to her feet, and turning a waggish look at our beaten rivals, burst out into ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... as the house had been facetiously named by some waggish officer, stood in the open lake, at a distance of fully a quarter of a mile from the nearest shore. On every other side the water extended much farther, the precise position being distant about two miles from the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... face. Her hat which was simply "dripping" with feathers suggested a fanciful letter "T" and exaggerated the thinness of her face in a remarkably funny way. The feathers overhanging the brim increased the broadness of the hat, and looked singularly waggish fluttering against the spriggy-looking projections of gray hair. The rules for the wedge-shaped face, as may readily be ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley
... quite see that, if he really was a man of talent and only wrote about women's feet. But wasn't Rakitin stuck up about his doggerel! The vanity of these fellows! 'On the convalescence of the swollen foot of the object of my affections'—he thought of that for a title. He's a waggish fellow. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... instead of two moons, which were clearly absurd. The court poet improved on this explanation, and composed the neat little poem which is partially preserved by the Jewish chronicler, who asks "Is not this written in the book of Jasher?" The waggish laureate Jasher is supposed by some profane speculators to have got up the ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... dining-room were more roses,— ropes and garlands of them, hanging in festoons along the dark, shining panels, drooping from the Venetian lustres of the quaint chandelier. Even the moose's head on the wall behind the Colonel's chair had a wreath, cocked slightly on one side, which gave a waggish look to the stately creature. The huge antlers spread abroad, three feet on either side; the boys eyed the ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... fall upon one, and the first is quite as much a Mountebank's Trick as t'other. Blow your brains out! A mighty fine climax truly, to make a Horrible Mess all over the floor, and frighten the neighbours out of their wits, besides, as a waggish friend of mine has it, rendering yourself stone-deaf for life. If it comes to powder and ball, why, a Man of courage would much sooner blow out somebody else's Brains ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... waggish good-humor, and in a most laudable fit of industry, reminded the other servants, who had been assisting to secure the bees, that as they (the bees) were now safe, no further necessity existed for ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Located a short distance from Abner's Court, midway between it and the barracks, was a lane of ill repute, usually full of soldiers. If it had an official name I never heard it. It was generally referred to as "that street," in a subdued voice that was suggestive either of shame and disgust or of waggish mirth. For a long time I was under the impression that "That" was simply ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... Honest waggish Vigee, painting industriously at his pleasing portraits, would recall it well; since, early in the following year, there was that to happen under his own modest roof which was to bring fame to his name, though he should not live to bask in ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... one rummages through the corridors of time. It would be treason to tell the name of that antique university-chapel where a certain wooden-headed verger was betrayed into the absurdest error; it would be personal to give the name of the waggish friend who made him his innocent butt; but the facts and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... Barnaby was one of extreme and profound amazement. Then the thought came into his mind that some witty fellow, of whom he knew a good many in that town—and wild, waggish pranks they were—was attempting to play off some smart jest upon him. But all that Miss Eliza could tell him when he questioned her concerning the messenger was that the bearer of the note was a tall, stout man, with a red neckerchief around his neck ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... lady was dearly and daintily demure, whilst from this youth impudence and mischief shone forth as light radiates from a lantern. He, pausing before the sleeping Barndale, blushed not, but poked him in the ribs with the end of his walking-stick, and regarded him with an eye of waggish joy, as who should say that to poke a sleeping man in the ribs was a stroke of comic genius whereof the world had never beheld the like. He sat on his stick, cocked Mr. Barndale's hat on one side, and awaited that gentleman's waking. Mr. Barndale, languidly stretching himself, arose, adjusted ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... jargon, the gigantic guardsman; And General Fireface, famous in the field, A great tactician, and no less a swordsman, Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he kill'd. There was the waggish Welsh Judge, Jefferies Hardsman, In his grave office so completely skill'd, That when a culprit came far condemnation, He had his ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... draw up an agreement as to who's to have all this gold," said Locke, with a waggish smile. "Suppose we fill this schooner up with ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... us not into temptation,' used with waggish and gallant humour to whisper Mrs. Davies, 'You, my dear, are the cause ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... men weep. You shall hear her. I pray you have your handkerchers ready. His Flutiness the Duke—the title was granted last Candlemas—has a voice of a rare richness. He is cursed with a melancholy disposition most pleasing. He suffers from a surfeit of rejected love. A most waggish companion withal. ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... told you about,—in Chicago," said Vinnie, astonished to find her waggish acquaintance, the elegant Radcliff Betterson, and this ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... that carries them back towards Peele's Arraignment and the days previous to Marlowe. The slight comic business is in prose, and the characters of the three young rogues are directly traceable to the waggish pages ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... It was life's waggish way that the project conceived in the obscure dreams of an out-at-elbows young man, and born a foundling upon his money, should have been adopted at sight as the spoiled darling of fashion's ultra-fashionable. Undoubtedly, astute Mr. Dayne had had somewhat to do with this, he who so well understood ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... need of wiping one's tail, said Gargantua, but when it is foul; foul it cannot be, unless one have been a-skiting; skite then we must before we wipe our tails. O my pretty little waggish boy, said Grangousier, what an excellent wit thou hast? I will make thee very shortly proceed doctor in the jovial quirks of gay learning, and that, by G—, for thou hast more wit than age. Now, I prithee, go on in this ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... watchful eyes become more bright, And take another glow'r aye Thro' yon blue dome of sparkling stars Where Venus bright and ruddy Mars Shine down upon Blairgowrie. He kens each jinkin' comet's track, And when it's likely to come back, When they have tails, and when they lack— In heaven the waggish power aye; When Jupiter's belt buckle hings, And the Pyx mark on Saturn's rings, He ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... A waggish young person in white beaded slippers and a green sport skirt broke free from the cavorting ring, and behind Mr. Leary's back the nimble fingers of the madcap tapped his spinal ornamentations as an instrumentalist taps the stops of an organ; and she ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... can get over, "and no harm done, neither, to nobody." As the wine circulates, it is noticeable that good-fellowship grows almost boisterous, and facetiousness mellows into chuckling cynicism of the winking, waggish, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... to IMOGEN: You must forget to be a woman; change Command into obedience: fear and niceness— The handmaids of all women, or, more truly, Woman its pretty self, into a waggish courage: Ready in gibes, quick answered, saucy, and As quarrelsome as the weasel; nay, you must Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek Exposing it—but, Oh! the harder heart! Alack! no remedy! to the greedy touch Of common-kissing ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... ghost doesn't catch hold of you," cried her waggish brother Jack, as she crossed the ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... appearance on one of those joyous occasions, when the sons of old Etona return from Oxford and Cambridge, filled with filial regard for early scenes and school-boy friendships, to commemorate a college election. It was, at the time, purposely attributed to some of these waggish visitors, a sort of privileged race, who never fail of indulging in numerous good-humoured freaks with the inhabitants of Eton, to show off to the rising generation the pleasantries, whims, and improvements of a college life. The subject is one of great delicacy, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... trout. I believe he knew Sunday just as well as Deacon Marble did. At any rate, the deacon thought the trout meant to aggravate him. The deacon, you know, is a little waggish. He often tells about that trout. Sez he, "One Sunday morning, just as I got along by the willows, I heard an awful splash, and not ten feet from shore I saw the trout, as long as my arm, just curving over like a bow, and going down with something for breakfast. Gracious! says ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... to the gate for a better view, and discovered a strange object lying on the path. It was a false nose, a large, red, boosy nose, with, a length of elastic to hold it in its place. One of the guests had dropped it. Nickie put it on in a waggish humour, and stood moralising as three pretty Spanish dancers, in charge of a ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Richard, with something of a waggish leer, thou owest the lad for the venison, I suppose that thou killed, Cousin Duke! Marmaduke! Marmaduke! That was a marvellous tale of thine about the buck! Here, young man, are two dollars for the deer, and Judge Temple can do no less than pay the doctor. I shall charge you nothing for ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... receive an order we release them the very same day. We do not keep them; we do not particularly value their presence," said the general, again with a waggish smile, which had the effect only of making ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... society. But when Pompilia touches characters who have any good, however hidden, in them, she draws forth that good. Her so-called parents pass before they die out of meanness into nobility of temper. Conti, her husband's cousin, a fat, waggish man of the world, changes into seriousness, pity and affection under her silent influence. The careless folk she meets on her flight to Rome recognise, even in most suspicious circumstances, her innocence and nobleness; and change at a touch their ordinary nature for a higher. And when she meets ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... "—th Division Rest House," on a tumble-down dwelling ringed round with shell-holes, seemed over-optimistic, but the intention was good. At the little railway station a couple of straw-stuffed dummies, side by side on a platform seat as if waiting for a train, showed that a waggish spirit was abroad. One figure was made up with a black swallow-tailed coat, blue trousers, and a bowler hat set at a jaunty angle; the other with a woman's summer skirt and blouse and an open parasol. B Battery, who had discovered ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... seemingly an obdurate man, was in the main disposed to grant as much indulgence, at suitable moments, as any officer I ever sailed with. There was an ironical severity, at times, about the man, which misled superficial observers. I have heard of a waggish boatswain in the navy, who, when disposed to menace the crew with some of his official visitations, used to cry out, "Fellow-citizens, I'm coming among you;" and the anecdote never recurs to my mind, without bringing Marble ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... These people resolved themselves into a great and powerful army, with Peter Beauregard, the French gentleman of whom I have before spoken, for its commander. This gentleman was somewhat eccentric, and much given to saying things, the true meaning of which he did not understand. A waggish friend of mine once told me that this Mr. Beauregard was educated for an apothecary at West Point, a place where young gentlemen are instructed in the various ways of getting a living honestly. Being very ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... supplications that he would stand still, and exclamations of "Pray, Sir!"—"Lord, how troublesome!" and "Sir, I do assure you here's no room!" he fairly and adroitly elbowed them from him till he reached her seat: and then, with a waggish grin, he looked round, to show he had got the better, and to see whom he ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... 1: Till Eulenspiegel, the hero of the tales, is a waggish vagabond who goes about the country,—originally Brunswick, it would seem,—working at this and that and playing pranks on people. The earliest extant edition of the Eulenspiegel stories—that here followed—was ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... eyes, it was particularly remarkable. Indeed, Mr Dennis appeared to think it an uncommon circumstance, and to banter himself upon it; for he thrust his hat on one side as some men do when they are in a waggish humour, sucked the head of his stick with a higher relish, and smiled as though he would say, 'Dennis, you're a rum dog; you're a queer fellow; you're capital company, Dennis, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... coupled with mine in the presence of the minions of the law. What, after that, could her father do but give his consent to a union which alone would save his only child's reputation from the cruelty of waggish tongues? ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... you did it, no doubt. Did you marry any one lately?" said Dick, with a waggish grin ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Historiographer of deathless Crusoe! That paint'st the strife And all the naked ills of savage life, Far above Rousseau? Rather myself had stood In that ignoble wood, Bare to the mob, on holyday or high day. If nought else could atone For waggish libel, I swear on bible, I would have spared him for thy sake alone, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... those who live in it. To the Florida tourist it is important as lying at the head of steamboat navigation on the St. John's River, which here expands into a lake—Lake Monroe—some five miles in width, with Sanford on one side, and Enterprise on the other; or, as a waggish traveler once expressed it, with Enterprise on the north, and Sanford and enterprise on ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... to circumstances. We had not walked a quarter of an hour when every trace of gloom had left her face, which had assumed its customary brightness, and she began to sing with a spiteful hilarity as we walked forward, and indeed seemed to be approaching one of her waggish, frolicsome moods. But her fun in these moods was solitary. The joke, whatever it was, remained in her own keeping. When we approached the ruined brick tower—in old times a pigeon-house—she grew quite frisky, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... except abbes and men of the long robe, not one of whom I ever met in the house, and it was agreed not to introduce men of either of these professions. This table, sufficiently resorted to, was very cheerful without being noisy, and many of the guests were waggish, without descending to vulgarity. The old commander with all his smutty stories, with respect to the substance, never lost sight of the politeness of the old court; nor did any indecent expression, which even women would not have pardoned him, escape his lips. His manner served as a rule ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Doubleday, whose propensities were waggish, suggested 'shaving,' but half ashamed of it, since the joke missed, fell to as if he were soaping his face, and had some trouble to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... informed was the best inn, he went by accident to the convent of the same name, and entering, called loudly to be shewn to a private room. 'Instead of telling me I was wrong,' he says, 'the young brethren looked waggish, and began to laugh: when a man is cold and hungry, he can ill brook being the sport of others;' so accordingly—peppery again—he shook his stick angrily at the young monks. And at last one of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... painted Petit Patou face. For all assistance, Elodie held up a cheap bedroom wall-mirror. He played his one-stringed fiddle. I admired the technical perfection of the famous cigar-act. I noted the stupid bewilderment with which he received a typhoon of hoops thrown by Elodie, and his waggish leer when, clown-wise, he had caught them all. If the audience packed within the canvas amphitheatre had gone mad in applause over this exhibition of exquisite skill interlarded with witty patter, I might have been carried away into enthusiastic appreciation of a great art. But the audience, ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... in a waggish tone, "that would be quite new. He might then make the same use of them as he would of a ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... specimen of ready wit: During a season of great drought in Persia, a schoolmaster at the head of his pupils marched out of Shiraz to pray (at the tomb of some saint in the suburbs) for rain, when they were met by a waggish fellow, who inquired where they were going. The preceptor informed him, and added that, no doubt, Allah would listen to the prayers of innocent children. "Friend," quoth the wit, "if that were the case, I fear there would not be a schoolmaster ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... hands with Philip, and chucked Patty under the chin with a waggish aspect, which called an appealing blush into the girl's face. Perhaps the blush stayed the intended quip, but any way the old gentleman contented himself with a beaming laugh, and led the way to the supper table, rubbing his hands ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... astonishingly long drink seemed to emphasize. The Count then handed the bottle back to his nephew, who, shaking it, ejaculated, "Why, we can't pledge you in return—there is nothing left!" to which came the waggish response, "I beg pardon; it was so dark I couldn't see"; nevertheless there was a little remaining, as I myself ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... added, were of very similar materials and structure. Of the jealousy of these Indians, Byron relates some striking evidences, from what he himself had the unhappiness to experience. Who knows what some waggish spectator of the young lady might surmise about her English features, if he had ever heard of the gallant commodore's adventure in the wigwam, &c., so feelingly introduced and dilated ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... them were undersized, some tough, some rather sickly. A dull-eyed, wretched, sodden lot. I got the liquor on their breaths. A fat old Irish stoker came drifting half-drunk up the pier with a serene and waggish smile. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... cents. I believe it must have been the manner of bestowal which impressed him rather than the size of the pourboire itself, for he examined it with lively marks of interest and appreciation and then told me, with rather a waggish air, I thought, that he did not intend to fritter it away upon riotous living but would take it home and show it to his little ones. To which I responded in all seriousness that I was glad he did not contemplate expending it upon strong drink, such as grog or rum. As though ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... to be a very waggish air, Harry put out his tongue, and held it with his finger and thumb. It was unfortunate that he had not time to draw it in again before the hot-tempered gentleman gave him a stinging box on the ear, which brought his teeth rather sharply together on ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... unusual emotion did not interfere one jot with the good humour of the waggish company, who laughed and joked all the way from the church to the castle, some repairing thither on horseback, and some on foot. Ordinarily, Master Jock would have been much diverted by their practical jokes, ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... of waggish editorial O. Henry was writing in 1894 for the readers of The Rolling Stone. The reader will do well to remember that the paper was for local consumption and that the allusions are to a very ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... says to me, "Roundabout my boy, have you seen your picture? Here it is!" And he pulls out a portrait, executed in photography, of your humble servant, as an immense and most unpleasant-featured baboon, with long hairy hands, and called by the waggish artist "A Literary Gorilla." O horror! And now you see why I can't play off this joke myself, and moralize on the fable, as it has ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... blundered over the ordinary English, and had next to no sense of the meaning of punctuation. I admit that probably they were not trying to do their best; that they might have put on a little intentional clumsiness, in the instinctive hope of escaping derision by being thought waggish. But the pity of it was that they should need to protect themselves so. They had not the rudimentary accomplishment: that was the plain truth. They could not understand ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... our side!" exclaimed the tanner; for if he had a weakness it was for Madeira, which he always declared to have a musky smack of tan; and a waggish customer had told him once that the grapes it was made of were always tanned first. The others ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... jolly as a sandboy^; blithesome; gleeful, gleesome^; hilarious, rattling. winsome, bonny, hearty, buxom. playful, playsome^; folatre [Fr.], playful as a kitten, tricksy^, frisky, frolicsome; gamesome; jocose, jocular, waggish; mirth loving, laughter-loving; mirthful, rollicking. elate, elated; exulting, jubilant, flushed; rejoicing &c 838; cock-a-hoop. cheering, inspiriting, exhilarating; cardiac, cardiacal^; pleasing &c 829; palmy. Adv. cheerfully &c adj.. Int. never say ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... refused the king's request courteously enough, saying that man must obey when the gods decree; but Halfdan, being rude and waggish of tongue, said: "King Greybeard himself should have ridden hither for his bride if he is not too old to ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... up, and there came over her faded face a waggish expression. She held up her finger and shook it playfully. The bald head appeared again, followed immediately by a very round body. The playful finger continued ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... After this, it was astonishing to see with what eagerness every one caught at every thing he saw. It even went so far as to become the ridicule of the natives, who offered pieces of sticks and stones to exchange. One waggish boy took a piece of human excrement on the end of a stick, and held it out to every ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... year's trial, he abandoned the field and took up medicine. His mind could not have been much impressed with statutes, for all the time that he was supposed to be conning over abstruse points in jurisprudence, he was sending to the printers some of the cleverest and most waggish contributions which have fallen from his pen. The Collegian,—the university journal of those days,—published most of these, and though no name was attached to the screeds, it was fairly well known ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... sybaritical tastes now swell the columns of the budget. Not a sound disturbed the peace of this solemn house, where the hinges were always oiled, and where the meanest article of furniture showed the respectable cleanliness which reveals strict order and economy. The most waggish of the three youths often amused himself by writing the date of its first appearance on the Gruyere cheese which was left to their tender mercies at breakfast, and which it was their pleasure to leave untouched. This bit of mischief, and a few others of the same stamp, would sometimes ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... notwithstanding, and an excellent musician: as the subtle [lawyer] Alfenus, after every instrument of his calling was thrown aside, and his shop shut up, was [still] a barber; thus is the wise man of all trades, thus is he a king. O greatest of great kings, the waggish boys pluck you by the beard; whom unless you restrain with your staff, you will be jostled by a mob all about you, and you may wretchedly bark and burst your lungs in vain. Not to be tedious: while you, my king, shall ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... is particularly fond of the ludicrous, is ever ready to appreciate a good joke, and well known for his happy mode of disposing of dead dogs and cats, which, with anonymous letters, are in great numbers entrusted to his care by certain waggish gentlemen, who desire he will "hold an inquest over the deceased, and not forget the fees." It is said-the aristocracy, however, look upon the charge with contempt-that Brien Moon, Esq. makes a small ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Captain was ready with another verse of the Chaldee MS., and groaned out, by way of echo, "Verily my fine gold hath perished!" Whereupon the "Great Magician" elevated his huge oaken staff as if to {p.276} lay it on the waggish soldier's back—but flourished it gayly over his own head, and laughed louder than the youngest of the company. As we walked and talked, the Pepper and Mustard terriers kept snuffing about among the bushes and heather near us, and started every five minutes a hare, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... and dignity, Loue lookes not with the eyes, but with the minde, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blinde. Nor hath loues minde of any iudgement taste: Wings and no eyes, figure, vnheedy haste. And therefore is Loue said to be a childe, Because in choise he is often beguil'd, As waggish boyes in game themselues forsweare; So the boy Loue is periur'd euery where. For ere Demetrius lookt on Hermias eyne, He hail'd downe oathes that he was onely mine. And when this Haile some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolu'd, and showres of ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... A fantastic, waggish crew—yet Francis minded them not, so long as they observed sufficient etiquette to keep their distance from his royal person and immediate following. This nice decorum, however, be it said, was an unwritten law with ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... portrayed in a simple narrative like the present. This casual private intercourse with Israel, but served to manifest him in his far lesser lights; thrifty, domestic, dietarian, and, it may be, didactically waggish. There was much benevolent irony, innocent mischievousness, in the wise man. Seeking here to depict him in his less exalted habitudes, the narrator feels more as if he were playing with one of the sage's worsted hose, than reverentially ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... pleasant piece of information," cried an elderly gentleman, with a knowing look and a flexible nose, to which he could give a whimsical twist when he wished to be waggish. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... a policeman stationed outside turned and stood passively regarding him; his muffled appearance seemed sufficiently in keeping with the uses to which this particular exit was put by others to awaken neither suspicion nor surprise. With a half-waggish air of respect the man touched his helmet. "Good-evening, sir," said he, as though there subsisted between the habitues of that door and ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... for waggish laborers to deposit old horse shoes and other iron articles where they are at work, for the special pleasure of digging them up for credulous antiquarians, than to find proofs of the existence of the horses ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... Greatest injustice I ever heard of, but I hit running, like a turkey. That wasn't the reason they let me go, though. Not on your life!" He winked portentously, and strangely enough his eyelid failed to resume its normal position. It continued to droop, giving the appearance of a waggish leer. "I knew too mush! Isn't healthy to know too ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... pocket-knife. His gilt glasses were tilted forward so as to make an inflamed knob at the top of his long nose, and he regarded Mr. and Mrs. Lewisham over them with—Lewisham doubted his eyes for a moment—but it was positively a smile, an essentially waggish smile. ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... was being relieved, two persons led their bicycles through the archway and down across the bridge. It was dark, and nobody recognized them. Fritzing was got up sportingly, almost waggishly—heaven knows his soul was not feeling waggish—as differently as possible from his usual sober clothes. Somehow he reminded Priscilla of a circus, and she found it extremely hard not to laugh. On his head he had a cap with ear-pieces that hid his grey hair; round his neck a gaudy handkerchief muffled well ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... complicated mass of rigging above him. This spectacle soon attracted to his side some half-dozen youths, with Mr. Merry at their head, who endeavored to entertain their guest in a manner that should most conduce to the indulgence of their own waggish propensities. ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... said my waggish comrade, throwing his head back and performing an imaginary air by briskly drawing one arm across the other, "who knows that I may not fiddle myself into her majesty's good graces so as to became a sort of Rizzio to the ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... about the earth spread abroad and caused a great deal of amusement. Certain waggish persons began to "josh" him and others tried to argue with him, but all such attempts merely roused his native obstinacy. One Sunday evening he gave a somewhat wrong direction to the weekly prayer meeting by ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... unfrequently interrupted by roughs, and the sect acquired the name of "The Ranters." {72} An amusing anecdote is related of Mr. Butcher; he was a somewhat eccentric character, and in the discharge of his intinerant ministrations he usually rode on a donkey, sometimes accompanied by her foal; and a waggish passer-by on the road is said, on one occasion, to have saluted them with the greeting "Good morning, ye three," adding sotto ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... captain was an old friend at home. He had dined with him at chambers here, before the colonel came to live with him. What sort of man was the colonel? Wasn't he a stout man, with a large quantity of jewelry, and a wig, and large black whiskers, very black (here Pen was immensely waggish, and caused hysteric giggles of delight from the ladies), very black, indeed; in fact, blue-black; that is to say, a rich greenish purple? That was the man; he had met him, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Heywood, with a waggish smile. "I do not know, queen; but at any rate it is a begging letter; and without doubt you would do well not to read it at all; for I bet you, the shameless writer of this letter demands of you some impossibility—it may be a smile, or a pressure of the hand, a lock of your hair, or perchance even ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... of age, realizing himself to be a "landed proprietor" through the christening gift of his waggish grandsire, young Barnum set out to survey his estate, which he had not yet seen. He had heard much of "Ivy Island." His grandfather had often, in the presence of the neighbors, spoken of him as the richest child in the town, since he owned the whole of Ivy Island, the richest farm in ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... "What shall I do with thee?" Then—"The other butterfly flew away over the flowers of my garden some days ago; this is dry and pierced, as if it had been dead for many years. What connection can it have with my bright and waggish playmate, who is only fit to be a ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... it was so funny when gospadarz—big, fat gospodarz—compared himself to a tiny little flea. I couldn't help it, I had to laugh." And she gave a waggish laugh, in which Mrs. Tiralla this time joined. There was something merciless in the laughter ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... observe the effect of this statement. Willie having never heard of such things before, and having a thoughtful and speculative as well as waggish turn of mind, listened with open eyes and mouth and earnest attention, so Mr Tippet ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... that dissimilarity to his former self I had observed in him. He was still, however, eminently handsome: and, in exchange for whatever his features might have lost of their high, romantic character, they had become more fitted for the expression of that arch, waggish wisdom, that Epicurean play of humour, which he had shown to be equally inherent in his various and prodigally gifted nature; while, by the somewhat increased roundness of the contours, the resemblance of his finely formed mouth and chin to those of the Belvedere Apollo ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore |
