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More "Twirl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in Gyp. This fluffy, flabby talk of love set her instincts in revolt. She did not want to love; she had failed to fall in love. But, whatever love was like, it did not bear talking about. How was it that this little suburban girl, when she once got on her toes, could twirl one's emotions ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "thou'rt a lusty fellow, Sir Gentleness, by the teeth of St. Giles, which is my patron saint, ne'er saw I a goodlier spread of shoulder nor such a proper length of arm to twirl an axe withal, and thy legs like me well—hast the makings of a right lusty man-at-arms in thee, despite ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... all?" she said, and Sypher did not catch the significance of the words. "You seem to forget that the role of Mascotte is not a particularly active one. It's all very well for you, but I have to sit at home and twirl my thumbs. Have you ever tried that by way of soul-satisfying occupation? Don't you think you're ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... country, and not much prepossessed in favour of any other; but I "drag on my chain" without "lengthening it at each remove." [5] I am like the Jolly Miller, caring for nobody, and not cared for. [6] All countries are much the same in my eyes. I smoke, and stare at mountains, and twirl my mustachios very independently. I miss no comforts, and the musquitoes that rack the morbid frame of H. have, luckily for me, little effect on mine, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... combination-knob a smart preliminary twirl, then rested a shoulder against the sheet of painted iron, his cheek to its smooth, cold cheek, his ear close beside the dial; and with the practised fingers of a master locksmith began to ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... public ball, the midnight wanton dance? There many a blooming nymph, by fashion led, Has felt her health, her peace, her honour fled; Truss'd her fine form to strange fantastic shapes, To be admir'd, and twirl'd about by apes; Or, mingling in the motley masquerade, Found ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... moustachios' conquering curl Subdued my maiden heart. For me those tendril-tips he'd twist and twirl, Looking so gay, so smart; And now he does it for another girl, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... the "ugly thing" as she spoke and began to twirl it round his hand. "Disguise? Oh, no; I have no creditors in the ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... The banker sits before the wheel,—a croupier, or payer-out of winnings to and raker in of losses from the players, on either side. Crying in a voice calmly sonorous, "Faites le Jeu, Messieurs,"—"Make your game, gentlemen!" the banker gives the wheel a dexterous twirl, and ere it has made one revolution, casts into its Maelstrom of black and red an ivory ball. The interval between this and the ball finding a home is one of breathless anxiety. Stakes are eagerly laid; but at a certain period ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... once of having recounted to Agassiz the facts of a very remarkable seance, where the souls of the departed outdid themselves in the athletics and acrobatics they seem so fond of over there, throwing large stones across the room, moving pianos, and lifting dinner-tables and setting them a-twirl under the chandelier. "And now," he demanded, "what do you say to that?" "Well, Mr. Appleton," Agassiz answered, to Appleton's infinite delight, "I say that it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... set it down to put it on the other shoulder. She says too, as she can't well see how a ox can be roasted whole anyway; she says it'll be a awful job gettin' his hair singed off in the first place, an' she just knows they'll expect Hiram to hold him an' twirl him while he's singein'. Then, too, she says as the whole of a ox don't want to be roasted anyhow. The tongue has to be boiled an' the liver has to be sliced an' the calves' brains has to be breaded an' dipped ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... these words had recalled a circumstance he had otherwise completely forgotten, anxiously remarked: "That must have happened shortly after it left my hand. I recall now that the lady sitting between me and Clifford gave it a twirl which sent it spinning over the bare table-top. I don't think she realised the action. She was listening—we all were—to a flow of bright repartee going on below us, and failed to follow the movements of ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... couple it with your name. I propose that we drink, with three cheers: 'All honor to him who has worthily served his country, in whose history his name will be enshrined for the benefit of unborn generations.'" Having concluded, Flora gave her glass a twirl over her head, and three cheers were given so heartily that they went directly to the major's heart, and made him declare within himself that there could now be no doubt ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... this if they had watched his face as carefully as Caryl Carne was watching it. Mr. Cheeseman could look a hundred people in the face, and with great vigour too, when a small account was running. But the sad, contemptuous, and piercing gaze—as if he were hardly worth penetrating—and the twirl of the black tuft above the lip, and the firm conviction on the broad white forehead that it was confronting a rogue too common and shallow to be worth frowning at—all these, and the facts that were under them, came amiss to the true ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... again. I hear, too, that he insists it could have been no less a personage than his Satanic Majesty himself who with a touch of the hand sent his gun flying when he was in the very act of firing, and then gave him a twirl that sent him spinning down the ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... slack, And though he twist, and twirl, and tack, Alas! still faithful to his back The pigtail hangs behind ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... the wall for the third time, so I must stop. I really feel like a dissipated London fine lady, writing here so late, with my room full of pretty things, and my head a jumble of parks, theaters, new gowns, and gallant creatures who say "Ah!" and twirl their blond mustaches with the true English lordliness. I long to see you all, and in spite of my nonsense ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... soldiers twirl around and chatter merrily in pantomime. Their actions from now on are ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... of all his love-making. She drew him on to passionate utterance, and then, with a twist of her wit and a twirl of her skirts, she eluded him. When she had thus put herself out of his reach, he felt ashamed. What right had he, dull, useless, lumbering, squiredomless squire, to ask a woman like Viviette to marry him? How could he support a wife? As it was, he lived a pensioner on ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... flour over her molding board preparatory to transferring the sticky mass of newly made dough from the big yellow mixing bowl to the board. More flour and a skillful twirl or two of the lump and the process of kneading was begun. It continued monotonously for the space of two minutes; then the motions became gradually slower, finally coming to a ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... Syme sardonically. "I have no clothes except these," and he lifted two long strips of his frock-coat in fascinating festoons, and made a movement as if to twirl like a ballet girl. ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... passing, and the bells For ever with their silver lay Murmur a melody that tells Of April and of Easter day. High in sweet air the light vane sets, The weathercocks all southward twirl; A sou will buy her violets And make Nini ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... obviously pleased. "But the question we have had to settle is this. If we let your daughter go now, how is Bastien here to account for his prisoner in the morning? He knows that one day he will have to stand on the little trap-door in the scaffold floor at Regina, and that he will twirl round and round so—like to that so"—picking up a hobble chain and spinning it round with his hand—"while his eyes will stick out of his head like the eyes of a flat-fish; but at the same time he does not want to be shot ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... of mine in the Press Gallery used to represent "I have yet to learn that the Government" by a little twirl, and "What did the right honourable gentleman do, Mr. Speaker? He had the audacity" by ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... Schmuck ceased to twirl his thumbs and turning to me with a tender face he addressed ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... he proceeded to haul the bucket up again, full of sea-water, wherewith he sluiced the decks fore and aft thoroughly; while Dick, on his part, scrubbed the planks with a piece of "holystone," then adroitly drying them with a mop, which he could twirl now, after a little experience, with all the dexterity of an ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... four were seated in a fly, rattling through the street, but on the repetition of "Are we going to the docks?" his Lordship, with a resolute twirl of his long, light moustache, replied, "No, Sydney. If you think I am going to have you making a scene on deck, falling on your husband's breast, and all that sort of thing, you are much mistaken! I shall lodge you all quietly in the hotel, and you may ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... like fire, and is answered by a faint uproar. The beat has begun. We dismount from our elephants for a steady shot, leaving them behind us in a huge semicircle. Some of them scent danger, and twirl delicate trunks high in the air. They have "been there" before! The mahouts sit motionless as bronze figures—superb fellows, deeply learned in jungle-lore. The triangle's apex and flanks are in absolute silence, but the base is fiendish with uproar. Two hundred men are yelling and cursing, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... matches for the balance of the day, and feeling a gnawing desire to see a fire sparkling, the scout had started in to try and make a blaze after the old-fashioned method used by some South Sea islanders. But evidently the boy did not twirl the stick fast enough to produce sufficient heat to make the fine tinder smoke, and then take fire. Giraffe's ambition was commendable, however, and so Thad said nothing; only crept away again, after touching Allan on ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... that must be fashionable. It would be unpardonable to love a plain man whom Fashion could not seduce, whose sense of right dictated his life, a man who does not walk perpendicular in a standing collar, and sport a watch-fob, and twirl a cane. And then to marry him would be death. He would be just as likely to sit down in the kitchen as in the parlor; and might get hold of the wood-saw as often as the guitar; and very likely he would have the baby right up in his arms and feed it and rock it to sleep. A man who will make himself ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... by insultin' my mate?—take that!" said Peter Grim, giving the Irishman a twirl that ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... say that there's another way of entering that bank vault?" Starr demanded when Britt began to twirl the knob of a steel door that guarded his private vault. "I'm beginning to think that the fellow who wrote on that placard had this joint sized ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... coming quite into fashion here, and is very much admired. The hair-dresser who dresses us on court days inquired ... whether ... we knew the lady so much talked of here from America—Mrs. Bingham. He had heard of her ... and at last speaking of Miss Hamilton he said with a twirl of his comb, 'Well, it does not signify, but the American ladies do beat the English all ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... by his elbow, takes a partnership in his game, furnishes the stakes when out of luck, and in truth does not care how fast the gull loses; for a twirl of his mustachio, a tip of his nose, or a wink of his eye, drives all the losses of the gull into the profits of the grand confederacy at the Ordinarie. And when the impostor has fought the gull's quarrels many a time, at last he kicks up the table; and the gull sinks himself into the class of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... and Vedic gods, Mr. Macdonell writes: 'Dyaus[Greek] is the only one which can be said to be beyond the range of doubt.' As to the connection of Prometheus with Sanskrit Pramantha, he says: '[Greek] has every appearance of being a purely Greek formation, while the Indian verb math, to twirl, is found compounded only with nis, never with pra, to express the art of producing fire by friction.' (See above, p. 194.) If Mr. Macdonell is right here, the Greek myth of the fire-stealer cannot have arisen from 'a disease of language.' But scholars must be left to reconcile ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... and orange trees everywhere interspersed with tall cocoanut palms, the large and small alligators basking in the sun on the sand were pictures never to be forgotten. The natives in their peculiar dress, the fandango at night, the graceful twirl of the Spanish waltz put the life touch to the picture that comes to me today at the age of seventy-five as it was in those days when I experienced, a girl of fifteen, all the discomforts of travel ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... my Lord, though my name is not familiar, I think you will remember his; the name of my friend is "—here Mr. Smivvle, having at length discovered his whisker, gave it a fierce twirl,— "Ronald Barrymaine." ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... was called upon to pay? Unjust; and need not be! She perfectly well had carried on her work with Huggo. Sleeping was the adored creature's chief lot in life. If she had ever thought (which she never had) of giving up her work and staying at home on his account, what could she have done but twirl her thumbs and watch him sleep and in his lovely lively hours superintend the nurse who required no superintendence? As it was she was about him in the delicious exercises of transporting him from cot through toilet and refreshment to readiness to take ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... after this. A padlock knocked against it when the wind blew, as if spuriously announcing a visitor. The deceit failed of effect, for there was no inmate left, and the freakish gust could only twirl the lock anew, and go swirling down the road with a rout of dust in a witches' dance behind it. The passers-by took note of the deserted aspect of things, and knew that the brothers were absent electioneering, and wondered vaguely what the chances might be. This passing was somewhat ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... a little tune in his amazement, and the instant the dog heard the music he began to dance. What a sight was there! Gabriel's eyes grew round as he saw Topaz advance and retreat and twirl, occasionally nodding and tossing his head until his curls bobbed. He seemed to long, in his warm little dog's heart, to show Gabriel that ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... a wood thrush in the dusk Twirl three notes and make a star— My heart that walked with bitterness Came ...
— Love Songs • Sara Teasdale
... rubbed his fat little hands, and leaning over to me said, 'at home a lion, but abroad a lamb,' for, surrounded by his women at home, the man would twirl his moustaches, look fierce, and fancy himself a very tiger; but, no sooner did he go abroad, and mix with men as good, if not better than himself, than he was ready to eat ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... she could not answer. 'And now, Madam,' I said firmly, 'I refuse once and for all to permit you to break your contract. Pooh! The tide will change. Men and women are sometimes fools; but they are not fools all the time. The dancer will have had her day. She will twirl her toes to the empty seats and throw her kisses into unresponsive space. Our patrons will gradually return; they will grow tired of wriggling and twisting, and look again ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... been your chorus, sir, Or, an' you pleased, your trumpeter, And lioned you about; Have shown you every pretty girl, And every nouvelle quadrille twirl, And every ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air 45 To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, 50 Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was expiring to speak, Twirl'd his ebony tongue, and then op'ning his beak, In a tone of importance, without hesitation, Directly began a high-sounding oration. "SIR ARGUS, no mortal could e'er have desir'd, More exquisite verses than those you've inspir'd. The Muse has for you, indeed, tried all her art, [p 10] And with ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... dancing. She was altogether at variance with Mrs. Proudie on this matter, and gave Miss Dunstable great credit for her innovation. In society Griselda's toes were more serviceable to her than her tongue, and she was to be won by a rapid twirl much more probably than by a soft word. The offer of which she would approve would be conveyed by two all but breathless words during a spasmodic pause in a waltz; and then as she lifted up her arm to receive the accustomed support at her ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... practical Jean; "let's all bring our stockings to darn. There can't but one of us read at a time, and I just hate to do nothing but sit and twirl my thumbs." ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... is allow'd To pass unquestion'd in the crowd, But ere it can obtain the grace Of holding in the brain a place, Before the chief in congregation Must stand a strict examination. Not such as those, who physic twirl, Full fraught with death, from every curl; 50 Who prove, with all becoming state, Their voice to be the voice of Fate; Prepared with essence, drop, and pill, To be another Ward or Hill,[245] Before they can obtain their ends, To sign death-warrants ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... tiers so that each person could have a view of the players. They were in more senses than one deeply interested in the game. When the cast was to be made the player would strike the bowl upon the ground so as to make the dice jump into the air [Footnote: Sigud Theodat Vol. 1, p. 213.] and would then twirl the bowl rapidly around. During this process and until it stopped its revolutions and the dice finally settled, the players addressed the dice and beat themselves on their breasts. [Footnote: Shea's Hennepin, p. 300.] The spectators ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... pour out is good for sick folks, and the music you pound out isn't. Not that exactly, but something like it. I have been to hear some music-pounding. It was a young woman, with as many white muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has rings, that did it. She—gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of delight we shall experience from the united action of these twenty supernatural pettitoes." You needn't express yourself after this fashion, else you will shock miss, who lounges near you in an agony of affected rapture: you must sigh, shrug your shoulders, twirl your cane, and say "divine—yes—hope it may be so—exquisite—exquisite." This naturally leads you to the last new songs, condescendingly exhibited to you by miss, if you are somebody, (if nobody, miss does not appear;) ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... vouchsafed to thrid? How many stages through old monks she rid? And all who since, in mild benighted days, Mix'd the owl's ivy with the poet's bays. As man's meanders to the vital spring Roll all their tides, then back their circles bring; Or whirligigs, twirl'd round by skilful swain, Suck the thread in, then yield it out again: All nonsense thus, of old or modern date, Shall in thee centre, from thee circulate. 60 For this our queen unfolds to vision true Thy mental eye, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... these will best adorn my lowly brow; but Annie, bright Annie Evalyn, shall wear naught but the proud laurel and queenly jessamine;" and, giving a twirl to her pretty wreath, she tossed it over her friend's high, marble-like brow, bestowing a playful kiss on either cheek as ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the branch, the dog in his kennel, the sheep in the field, the boats moored in the Loire, even, became alive and vocal. The latter, leaving the shore, abandoned themselves gaily to the current. The Gascon gave a last twirl to his mustache, a last turn to his hair, brushed, from habit, the brim of his hat with the sleeve of his doublet, and went downstairs. Scarcely had he descended the last step of the threshold when he saw Athos bent ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... goes into the kitchen to cook, She never looks at a cookery-book, Nor a sign of a recipe; It's a dot of this and a dab of that, And a twirl of the wrist and a pinch and a pat— "I cook by ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... stay with me," said she. "I want you to gather little tendrils of dry moss and watch beside me while I twirl the stick. The moment I tell you to, you must drop little pieces of dry moss into the hollow place in the wood. Firetop, you gather a great heap of sticks here on top of the rock." Limberleg knelt on the edge of the rock and ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... balcony of the hotel the crowd of riotors come rolling up the street. In front of them went two fantastic figures turning like teetotums in an endless dance and twirling two crooked and naked scimitars, as the Irish were supposed to twirl shillelaghs. I thought it a delightful way of opening a political meeting; and I wished we could do it at home at the General Election. I wish that instead of the wearisome business of Mr. Bonar Law taking the chair, and Mr. Lloyd George addressing ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... "videre licet" meaning "it is permissible to see," The -z- is not a letter, but originally a twirl, representing the symbol for the ending -et. Usually read ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... bought a toy, That round and round would twirl, But when he found The littered ground, He said, I don't tee-totums buy For ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... He took his cue and said with a smile, "Well, perhaps it is a little rompy; a donkey's gallop and then twirl her like a mop." ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of lectures .... In his earlier lectures his ways were awkward, his speech was too rapid, and he did not know what in world to do with his hands. It was quite to see him run them under his coat tails, spread them across his shirt front, stick them in his breeches pockets, twirl them in the arm-holes his vest, or hold them behind his back. He has now found out how to dispose of them in a more or less natural way. His delivery is less rapid, his voice better modulated, and his enunciation more distinct .... One of his most effective peculiarities, in inviting the attention ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... it. But th' owd lad wur i' sich a fluster, that istid o' stoppin' it, he swapped th' barrel to another tune. That made him warse nor ever. Owd Thwittler whisper'd to him, 'Thire, Dick; thae's shapt that nicely! Give it another twirl, owd bird!' Well, Dick sweat, an' futter't about till he swapped th' barrel again. An' then he looked round th' singin'-pew, as helpless as a kittlin'; an' he said to th' singers, 'Whatever mun aw do, folk?' an' tears ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... kills me quite; A noisy man is always in the right— I twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair, Fix on the wainscot a distressful stare; And when I hope his blunders all are out, Reply discreetly, "To be ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... marvels, has entirely destroyed, within the sphere of its influence, this happy and necessary exemption of infancy from labour. Steam is the moving power; it exerts the strength; the human machine is required only to lift a web periodically, or damp a roller, or twirl a film round the finger, to which the hands of infancy are as adequate as those of mature age. Hence the general employment of children, and especially girls, in such employments. They are equally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... talk about "my girl," A little soft mustache to twirl, A little time of jealous fear, A little hope the way ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... grains into the shell, three drams and a half. On this she drove in two wads. Now the shell was ready for an ounce and an eighth of number nine shot, and she measured it and poured it in with practised hand. Then came the last wad, a quick twirl of the crimper, and the first shell lay loaded ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... done. He rushed down the mountain-side like a madman. The eagle sprang up in alarm just as he reached the side of a rounded rock. Halting suddenly, he took aim, and fired both barrels. The eagle gave a toss of its head and a twirl of its tail, and, sailing slowly away round a neighbouring cliff, ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... always some veterans or officers who knew the general, and the men quickly gathered in groups and cheered him. He had a taking way of returning such salutations. He went beyond the formal military salute, and gave his cap a little twirl, which with his bow and smile seemed to carry a little of personal good fellowship even to the humblest private soldier. If the cheer was repeated, he would turn in his saddle and repeat the salute. It ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... it perfectly displays, and its closeness to the limbs naturally impedes rapid movement. When wearing the Saya ajustada, the ladies find it no very easy task to kneel down at church, and at the termination of every genuflexion, they are obliged to twist and twirl about for a considerable time before they can ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... Gladishev walked into the front hall, the first to recognize him was the round-eyed Verka, dressed in her usual jockey costume. She began to twirl round and round, to clap ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Wilson, who always drove, according to Aunt Abby Cole, "as if he was goin' for a doctor." He caught up with Patty almost in the twinkling of an eye, but she was ready for him. She had taken off her sunbonnet just to twirl it by the string, she was so warm with walking, and in a jiffy she had lifted the clustering curls from her ears, tucked them back with a single expert movement, and disclosed two coral pendants just the color of her ear-tips and her ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... so, or bloodshed must have ensued, as at that moment a tall and powerful man, brother-in-law to the bride, lifted his stick, and after giving it the customary twirl aimed a point-blank blow at the head of the ill-omened parson. The bound of an antelope brought the girl to the spot; her small hand averted the direction of the deadly weapon, and before the action had been perceived ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... limit. He just saw his way to square his accounts satisfactorily if he were driven to pay that as the penalty of one of his rare mistakes. He glanced at Sloyd; radiant joy and relief illumined that young man's face, as he gave his mustache an upward twirl. Duplay was smiling—yes, smiling. At last Iver smiled too. Harry was grave—not solemn—but merely not smiling because he did not perceive anything to smile at. No doubt he was gratified by the success of his tactics, and pleased that his formidable opponent had been deceived by them. But he ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... Thebes The god's approach in mildness; and perform His sacred rites as bidden. Sole remain At home secluded, Minyaes' daughters,—they With ill-tim'd industry the feast prophane. Busy, they form the wool, and twirl the thread; Or to the loom stick close, and all their maids Urge to strict labor. One with dexterous thumb The slender thread extending, cries;—"while all, "Idly, those rites imaginary tend, "Let us, whom Pallas, deity ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... other for the peoples.' Well, now, don't you remember Seth Pennell, o' Buttertown, how queer he was when he was a boy? We thought he'd never be wuth his salt. He used to stan' in the front winder 'n' twirl the curtin tossel for hours to a time. And don't you know it come out last year that he'd wrote a reg'lar book, with covers on it 'n' all, 'n' that he got five dollars a colume for writin' ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... surely REIGNS over the world, And of late he his water-pot strangely has twirl'd; Or he's taken a cullender up by mistake, And unceasingly dips it in some mighty lake; Though it is not in Lethe—for who can forget The annoyance of getting most thoroughly wet? It must be in the river called Styx, I declare, For the moment it drizzles ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... wasted and paled by years of ministration at this fiery shrine, now seized a long, hollow iron rod, called a blow-stick, and, thrusting the smaller end into the pot, withdrew a small portion of the glass, and, while retaining it by a swift twirl, presented the mouth-piece of the tube to Miselle with a gesture so expressive that she immediately applied her lips to those of the blow-stick, and rounded her cheeks to the similitude of those corpulent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... out of the boat just as she struck. The snag must have torn a big hole in the bottom of the Bright Eyes. Lightened by his going overboard, she shot away—somewhere—toward the middle of the lake, perhaps. He knows that he gave the wheel a twirl just as he went overboard and that must have driven the nose of the ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... that fixes that!" she said. Then she took off the bit of soiled ribbon confining her braids, and taking down a comb from the comb-case near, dipped it into water and drew it carefully through her hair, after which she divided it into six strands and, giving each a little twirl, stood for a moment by the radiating stove. Presto! Six ropy curls danced up and down as their owner moved to and fro across the room, and as the sunshine fell over them their beauty lifted the little girl from out ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... fame, they tug and haul for blood, One nam'd Jack Luby, t' other Robin Clod, Panting they strain, and labouring hard they sweat, Mix legs, kick shins, tear cloaths, and ply their feet. Now nimbly trip, now stiffly stand their ground, And now they twirl, around, around, around; Till overcome by greater art or strength, Jack Luby lays along his lubber length. A fall! a fall! the loud spectators cry, A fall! a fall! ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... seen that the young man was Mr. Crump. General Poineau removed his glasses and gave an impatient twirl to his mustache. Mr. Scobell, who for possibly the first time in his career was not smoking (though, as was afterward made manifest, he had the materials on his person), ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... king's treasurer, beginning to twirl his moustache also: "the doctors have always told me that I am of too full a complexion and that it would do me all the good in the world to be bled now and then. But what would be an advantage to me would be dangerous to you. It's easy ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... plateless pies, just as the newsboy on the train secures a pile of magazines. The caterer marches down the length of the table with the half-inquiring, half-defiant announcement, "Pies, gentlemen! pies, gentlemen!" At every step he reaches for a pie, gives it a dexterous twirl between his thumb and finger, and sends it spinning to the recipient with a skill and accuracy of aim which would have done credit to the disk-thrower ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... Father of Heaven. Spin, daughter Mary, spin, Twirl your wheel with silver din; Spin, daughter Mary, spin, ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... Men, gods, and all, his mighty influence know, And full obedience to the urchin show. In future when I celebrate his flame, Expressions not so warm will be my aim; I would not willingly abuses plant, But rather let my writings spirit want. If in these verses I around should twirl, Some wily knave and easy simple girl, 'Tis with intention in the breast to place; On such occasions, dread of dire disgrace; The mind to open, and the sex to set Upon their guard 'gainst snares so often met. Gross ignorance a thousand has misled, For one ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... must think of some other way of getting fire. He remembered that once, when a boy at home, he had in playing with a stick made it hot by twirling it on end on a piece of wood. "I will try this," he thought. He searched for a good hard stick and a piece of wood upon which to turn or twirl it with his hands. Having found the best materials at hand, he began to twirl the stick. He made a little hollow in the block of wood in which to turn his upright stick. There was heat but no fire. He twirled ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... punctuated by hot water bags. They dotted her waking hours. She filled hot water bags automatically, like a machine—water half-way to the top, then one hand clutching the bag's slippery middle while the other, with a deft twist, ejected the air within; a quick twirl of the metal stopper, the bag released, squirming, and, finally, its plump and rufous cheeks ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... if Osiris should ask me why, I could not tell. But he hath a too-ready smile, and by that I know he will twirl Meneptah like a string about ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... true to appearance, that a horse-hair, 'laid,' as Hollinshed says, 'in a pail of water' will become the supporter of seemingly one worm, though probably of an immense number of small slimy water-lice. The hair will twirl round a finger, and sensibly compress it. It is a common experiment with school boys in ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... his cheeks, blew so much and so well into the tube-taking care to twirl it round at the same time—that his breath dilated the glassy mass. Other quantities of the substance in a state of fusion were added to the first, and in a short time the result was a bubble which measured a foot in diameter. Harding then took the tube ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... could twirl the lariat and he didn't do it slow, He could catch them fore feet nine out of ten for any kind of dough. And when the herd stampeded he was always on the spot And set them to nothing, like ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... looked up the route to Milan. She had chosen Rome, Naples and Capri for the honeymoon, and of course she should have her own way! Unable to control his impatience after half-past ten, Colonel Faversham went to his dressing-room, limping up-stairs as no one was looking, and imparted a more militant twirl to his moustache. When he reached the hall again Knight held his thin overcoat and handed his top-hat, gloves ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... begins to tell a thrilling story. "The stage coach left the old Stag Inn, amidst the thundering of the horses' hoofs and the cracking of the driver's whip." Some member will probably have chosen to be the horses, another the whip, and as their names are mentioned they must rise, twirl round and sit down again. Then the narrator continues: "For some miles all went well, then a bridle gave way (the bridle must rise and twirl round) and the driver put down the reins, jumped from his seat and ran to the horses' ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... fortune to those who follow the business," he says, giving his glass a twirl as he sets it upon the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... and when dry are so sharp that it cannot be handled without scratching- the fingers, therefore the kite is flown entirely from the reel. To wind the string upon the reel, all that is necessary is to lay one end of the reel stick in the bend of the left arm and twirl the other end between the fingers of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... the point, but there was a resting place there, and if one wanted to tarry and felt like dancing, a very accommodating young man sat near the piano ready to play at the shortest notice. Belle and Lottie usually took a twirl while Bess and Cora did the shopping, but to-day having walked instead of coming by motor boat they sank into a seat at the water's edge and watched others try ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... only played by two persons. Each has six or eight little bones, which at first sight may be taken for apricot stones; they are of that shape and bigness. They make them jump up by striking the ground or the table with a round and hollow dish, which contains them, and which they twirl round first. When they have no dish, they throw the bones up in the air with their hands. If in falling they come all of one colour, he who plays wins five. The game is forty up, and they subtract the numbers gained by the adverse party. Five bones of the same ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... flash with an inborn fire, His brow with scorn be rung; He never should bow down to a domineering frown, Or the tang of a tyrant tongue. His foot should stamp and his throat should growl, His hair should twirl and his face should scowl: His eyes should flash and his breast protrude, And this should be ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... been quite vain. Her engines had been shut down; there was no steerage-way for the Nagasaki Maru, and, from all they could see, there were no human hands to drag at the levers of her waiting engines nor to twirl with sure touch the deserted helm. The ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... With the pride of distant Sahri." This the answer of the mother: "Be thou praised, O gracious Ukko, Loudly praised, O thou Creator, Since thou givest me a daughter, Ahti's bride, my second daughter, Who can stir the fire at evening, Who can weave me finest fabrics, Who can twirl the useful spindle, Who can rinse my silken ribbons, Who can full the richest garments. "Son beloved, praise thy Maker, For the winning of this virgin, Pride and joy of distant Sahri Kind indeed is thy Creator, Wise the ever-knowing Ukko! Pure the snow ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... piece of dodder or "lovevine," twirl it round the head three times and drop it on a bush behind you. If it grows, the lover is true; if not, he ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... him! blind and dumb Deaf and dumb, Twirl the cane so troublesome! Sprigs of fashion by the dozen Thou dost bring to book, good cousin. Cousin, thou art not in clover; Many a head that's filled with smoke Thou hast twirled and well-nigh broke, Many a clever one perplexed, Many a stomach ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... took good care that his manners were as nice as his clothes. He held out his hand to Charley, and, making a queer little bow, said, "How do you do, sir? I hope you are very well." Then he twisted one leg tighter than ever round the other, and gave a vigorous twirl ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Antony to set Mrs. Howe against her, did I not dread the consequences of the correspondence between the two young ladies. So lively the one, so vigilant, so prudent both, who would not wish to outwit such girls, and to be able to twirl ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... small wave over my white buckskins, and he held out a dipper full to me with a little twirling motion that sent another wave on my skirt and which had an unmistakably professional knack to it. I have seen old Wilks set down beer steins and cocktail glasses with exactly that twirl ever since he has officiated at the lockers and sideboard at the Club, and I now know that his motions had the latest Last Chance style to them. Thus, by gossamer links and steel cable, the Town and the Settlement seemed to ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... "Twirl them round my little finger, stuck-up lot; I should like to know what they have to be proud of, half of them are broken—their land is worthless. Give me good sound investments, five or six per cent. For some money I am getting seven; ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... cleaning flues, That is the work I love; Brushing away the blacks and the blues, And letting in light from above! I twirl my broom in your tired brain When you're tight in sleep up-curled, Then scatter the stuff in a soot-like rain Over the edge ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... With flame and rapture; drinking to the odd Number of nine which makes us full with God, And in that mystic frenzy we have hurled, As with a tempest, nature through the world, And in a whirlwind twirl'd her home, aghast At that which in her ecstasy had past; Thus crowned with rosebuds, sack, thou mad'st me fly Like fire-drakes, yet didst me no harm thereby. O thou almighty nature, who didst give True heat wherewith humanity doth live Beyond ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... to the river side, giving a majestic twirl to his wooden leg with every step he took through the long grass. How he would have loved a bathe! The pool where he had so enjoyed himself with Lubin was not far off—the pool of Daphnis, as he had christened it; but he hesitated ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... of grave aspect. I contrived to give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones you particularly ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... order for a moment as though he could not believe it was real. Then exclaiming, "Oh goody, Derrick! I'm so glad to get out of that hateful, back-aching breaker," he gave a funny little twirl of his body around his crutch, which was his ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... blood, meal, wax, old rags, gods, Numidian as well as Punic; such names; one must be barbarian to boot, as well as witch, to pronounce them: a score of things there were besides. And then to see the old woman, with her streaming grey hair, twinkling eyes, and grim look, twirl about as some flute girl at a banquet; it was enough to dance down, not only the moon, but the whole milky way. But it did not dance down Callista; at which mother got savage, and protested that Callista ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... red-cheek'd mountaineer[A], a wit, Full of rough shafts, that sometimes hit, [Footnote A: The driver, Powell, I believe, occupied a cottage, or small farm, which we past during the ascent, and where goats milk was offered for refreshment.] Trudg'd by their side, and twirl'd his thong, And cheer'd ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... and are a very learned man," pursued Ivy, hurriedly, never lifting her eyes from the floor, and never ceasing to twirl her hat-strings. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... handful of pebbles down her neck. The merest trifle would give rise to these noisy outbursts of gaiety in the very midst of his wonted surliness. Some little incident, at which nobody else laughed, often sufficed to throw him into a state of wild hilarity, make him stamp his feet, twirl himself round like a top, and hold in ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... on my way to join it now," the young man answered, looking up at the bishop from the chair near Edith on which he was again sitting, and giving the corners of his little light moustache a twirl on either side when he had spoken. All his features, except his eyes, preserved an imperturbable gravity; his lips moved, but without altering the expression of his face. His eyes, however, inspected the bishop intelligently; and always, when he spoke to him, they rested on some one point, his vest, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... back and forth, over the net, spun the little white ball, driven by the quick, sure strokes of the players. There was no sound save the bounding of the ball against the racquets, and the thud of rubber soles on the hard ground. Then—a sudden twirl ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... in the street, I saw a child in a leading-string, whose nurse gave it a farthing for a beggar; the babe delivered its mite with a grace, and a twirl of the hand. I don't think your cousin's first grandson will be so ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... arrow to pierce and possibly wound her heart without showing any outward sign of discomposure. "A plucky woman!" he considered, and wondered how he should make his next move. She, meanwhile, smiled at him frankly, and gave a light twirl ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... has become one of the household. It is no wonder, perhaps, that the latter finds the bit of embroidery she is upon somewhat perplexing, so that she has to consult Rose pretty often in regard to the different shades, and twirl the worsteds over and over, until confusion about the colors shall restore her own equanimity. Phil, meantime, dashes on, in his own open, frank way, about his drive, and the state of the ice in the river, and some shipments he had made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... right now, bursting with dulce et decorum. I don't believe it would bother the Old Man any if I sat out the duration in a C O camp, but it'd hurt his job like hell and the poor old boy is straining his guts to get into the trenches and twirl a theoretical saber. So I guess I'm slated to be your humble ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... you have to twirl a stick to feel your strength: you cannot taste life without making it bitter and boiling hot: you cannot love Lua until her face is painted, nor feel the natural warmth of her flesh until you have stuck a squirrel's fur on it. You can feel nothing but a torment, and believe nothing but a lie. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... all three. "Ha, witch!" they cried, as thus she helpless lay, "Shalt know the fire and roasted be one day!" Now as the aged creature wailed and wept, Forth to her side Duke Joc'lyn lightly stepped, With quarter-staff a-twirl he blithely came. Quoth he: "Messires, harm not this ancient dame, Bethink ye how e'en old and weak as she, Your wives and mothers all must one day be. So here then lies your mother, and 't were meeter As ye are sons that as sons ye entreat her. ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... world was round because of its rotation. One may put a lump of heated sealing wax upon a bodkin and twirl it; and the wax will cool into roundness, bulging at the equator from centrifugal force, and flattening at ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... won by the swagger twirl Of an Austrian moustache! It is monstrous, nothing less. What would GARIBALDI say? Well, he doesn't live to-day, Or he'd tear her from the arm of her ancient foe, I guess. And that stalwart Teuton too! Do you really think, my girl, he ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... and taking the pole in both hands I gave it a wild twirl over my head, and then it flew out as if I was trying to whip one of the leaders in a four-horse team. As I did this Jone gave a jump that took him pretty near out of the boat, for two flies swished just over the bridge of his nose, and so close to his eyes as he was reading ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... sleeves to prove he was concealing nothing, he would take a large sheet of white paper, and with a swift movement twirl it round into a cornucopia. This was, of course, empty, and shaking it about to prove its emptiness, he then held it upright, and invited Dolly to look into it. But he held it so high, that she had to stand on tiptoe to peep in. However, she caught a glimpse, ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... than any of the others, whirled and whirled, and turned madly, so close together that they seemed but one, and with the form erect, the legs almost motionless, as if some invisible mechanism, concealed beneath their feet, caused them to twirl. They appeared tireless. The other dancers stopped from time to time. They still danced on, alone. They seemed not to know where they were nor what they were doing, as if, they had gone far away from the ball, in an ecstasy. The musicians continued to play, with their looks fixed ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... be where I kin draw her wages myself—where's my right as her parent. What does a body have childern fur? To get no use out of 'em? It ain't no good you're plaguin' me. I ain't leavin' her go. Tillie!" he commanded the child with a twirl of his thumb and a motion of his head; ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... starvation and decline of our philosophy and science, the decadence of British invention and enterprise, troubles them not at all, because they fail to connect these things with the tangible facts of empire. "The world cannot wait for the English." ... And the sands of our Imperial opportunity twirl through the neck ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... and as soon as this handless man of mine has the collops ready, we'll dine and take a hand at the cartes as gentlemen should. My life is a bit driegh," says he, pouring out the brandy; "I see little company, and sit and twirl my thumbs, and mind upon a great day that is gone by, and weary for another great day that we all hope will be upon the road. And so here's a ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Charley! In the eagerness of his delight, while showing the beautiful bow to his brother, he had brought the end of it within the handle of a large water-pitcher, which stood on the side table near him, and alas, the twirl was too sudden—the poor pitcher came to the floor with a mighty emphasis. "Boy! what are you about? What have you done? What do you mean by such carelessness? Will you break everything in the house, you heedless fellow? I'd rather you had broken all on the table than that pitcher, you young scapegrace. ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... condition of every Benedict of my acquaintance, when the thought came like a surprise that I was alone with Alice. The fair and pleasant damsel made a clever descent into the boat, and having seated herself, she began to twirl the scull in the rowlock, and said: 'Do you feel disposed to join me in looking after the other scull and papa's hat, Mr. Pollingray?' I suggested 'Will you not get your feet wet? I couldn't manage to empty all the water in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I was born to make thee, my good weasel, Set thee on a bench, and have thee twirl a chain With the best lord's vermin of ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... twist and twirl! "Why dost not keep the track? "I'll carry thee home safe, my girl,"— Then swung her on ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... he said, briefly. "And, I say, Father William, don't you want to take my biky down and give him a feed of oats? he is hungry. See him paw the ground!" and he gave the bicycle a twirl. ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... threads twirl, twirl, twirl, Before each boy and girl; And the wheels, big and little, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the nicest little woman in England," George replied, showing his white teeth, and giving his ambrosial whiskers a twirl. "You ain't a man of the world, Dobbin. Dammy, look at her now, she's talked over Tufto in no time. Look how he's laughing! Gad, what a shoulder she has! Emmy, why didn't you have a bouquet? ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stars were still shining in the sky; fun to find that rules were relaxed, and for once they might chatter and talk as they pleased; fun to run unreproved along the passages, sing on the stairs, and twirl one another round in an ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... serpent train, Springing and clinging from tree to tree, Now darting upward, now down again, With a twist and a twirl that are strange to see; Never took serpent a deadlier hold, Never the cougar a wilder spring, Strangling the oak with the boa's fold, Spanning the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... quite reckless, almost prancing, with feet stepping at least half an inch from the floor, there suddenly yawned directly in front of the astounded kitten the six-inch chasm of the drinking dish! She toppled; her tail gave a single wild twirl; and she splashed heels over head into ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall
... answered without hesitation. "Have you never watched those little whirlwinds in the street that twist and twirl everything into a circle? This sand's loose enough to ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... the justice of your remark, father, and rest assured that I will do my duty," he answered, with a twirl of his moustache and a stiff bow of the head. "The child is heir, you tell me, to a good property in this far-off island of Shetland, of which till now I never heard; he may well be content with that; indeed it is clear that he would be out of his element as the possessor of ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... deliberation; first pulling a handful of sugar-plums out of her pocket, and arranging them in a little heap at her side on the table, and then proceeding with much gravity to stake them on the numbers. She would put down a bonbon and give the board a twirl; "ving-cinq," she would say; the ball flew round and fell into a number; it might be ten, or twenty, or twenty- five, it did not much matter; she looked to see what it was, but right or wrong, never failed to eat the bonbon—an ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... reappeared with three bright drinking-glasses. Placing these on the table and bending over the fire, meritoriously sensible of the trying nature of his duty, he watched the wreaths of steam, until at the special instant of projection he caught up the iron vessel and gave it one delicate twirl, causing it to send forth one gentle hiss. Then he restored the contents to the jug; held over the steam of the jug, each of the three bright glasses in succession; finally filled them all, and with a clear conscience awaited the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... these there seemed to be always some veterans or officers who knew the general, and the men quickly gathered in groups and cheered him. He had a taking way of returning such salutations. He went beyond the formal military salute, and gave his cap a little twirl, which with his bow and smile seemed to carry a little of personal good fellowship even to the humblest private soldier. If the cheer was repeated, he would turn in his saddle and repeat the salute. It was very plain that these little attentions to the troops took well, and had no doubt ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... earth small tubers about an inch in diameter found on the roots of a kind of grass and called "deer-food." Through them they had thrust sharp sticks of the thickness of a match and twice as long, making what we would call "teetotums." These, by a quick twirl between the palms of the hands, were set to spinning on the deer skin. The four children were keeping a dozen or more of these things going. The sport they called ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... second note written upon the same faintly tinted paper. Immediately as if by magic his face was transfigured by the animated satisfaction of the conqueror, and instinctively his hand wandered to the ends of his fair moustache, to which he added an eloquent upward twirl. From the condition of a mere sullen and dejected animal—he sprang instantly into the victorious swagger of the ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... was certainly red, or rather yellow, his thick eyebrows were turned up in two points on his temples, and he used to twirl them mechanically as if they had been a pair of moustaches. And certainly, with his hair like that, and with his long beard and shaggy eyebrows, with his sallow face, blinking eyes, and dull looks, with his dogged mouth, thin lips, and his ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... quite cheerfully, the thing probably not being worth eight annas. I bought a prayer-wheel. It is a round silver thing with a handle rather like a child's rattle, and inside are slips of paper covered with writing. These are the prayers, and at intervals you twirl the wheel round, and the oftener you turn it the more ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... invited to the court of the prince. But the fame of Sylvina's beauty and charms spread far and near, and hundreds visited the prince who had never before been seen at his castle. Especially did there come gay young sparks, with downy moustachelets to twirl, and swords that tinkled at their heels; and so attentive were these crowds of gallants that Sylvina never had time even to think, else her thoughts might have gone back to her true lover, whom she had forsaken in his poverty and sorrow, ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... have been your chorus, sir, Or, an' you pleased, your trumpeter, And lioned you about; Have shown you every pretty girl, And every nouvelle quadrille twirl, And ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Wilkie in the vestibule to settle his collar and twirl his puny mustaches, with affected indifference; but in reality he was far from comfortable. For the servants did not hesitate to stare at him, and it was quite impossible not to read their contempt in their ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... ken the personage I have in my eye. We'll take a dram for luck, and as soon as this handless man of mine has the collops ready, we'll dine and take a hand at the cartes as gentlemen should. My life is a bit driegh," says he, pouring out the brandy; "I see little company, and sit and twirl my thumbs, and mind upon a great day that is gone by, and weary for another great day that we all hope will be upon the road. And so here's a toast ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they're pretty! I think all American girls are pretty. It seems their birthright. When I say American, I mean the whole continent, of course. I'm from the States myself—from New York." He gave an extra twirl to his cane as he said this, and bore himself with that air of conscious superiority which naturally pertains to a citizen of the metropolis. "But over in the States we think the men should do all the work, and that the women ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... our philosophy and science, the decadence of British invention and enterprise, troubles them not at all, because they fail to connect these things with the tangible facts of empire. "The world cannot wait for the English." ... And the sands of our Imperial opportunity twirl through the neck ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... common gossip be not an arrant jade. Her portrait had been taken by that same limner who, they say, has been taught in the devil's school, and can despatch a likeness with the twirl of his brush." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last [)o]f [)i]ts clan, That danc[)e]s [)a]s oft[)e]n [)a]s dance it can, Hang[)i]ng s[)o] light and hang[)i]ng s[)o] high, On th[)e] topmost twig th[)a]t ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the mountains; grey mist rests on the hills. The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. The leaves twirl round with the wind, and strew the ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... between Clare and Mrs. Fairford, and thus gave Moffatt a chance to be alone with her husband. Now that their guests had gone she was throbbing with anxiety to know what had passed between the two; but when Ralph rejoined her in the drawing-room she continued to keep her eyes on the fire and twirl her fan listlessly. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... logic kills me quite; A noisy man is always in the right— I twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair, Fix on the wainscot a distressful stare; And when I hope his blunders all are out, Reply discreetly, ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones you particularly wish ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... given to the spindle on the thigh or any convenient part of the body; the spindle is then dropped, twisting the yarn, which is wound on the upper part of the spindle. Another bunch of fibers is drawn out, the spindle is given another twirl, the yarn is wound on the ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... to the limbs naturally impedes rapid movement. When wearing the Saya ajustada, the ladies find it no very easy task to kneel down at church, and at the termination of every genuflexion, they are obliged to twist and twirl about for a considerable time before they can again ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... and gold headed cane and march out, while de baliffs holler: 'Make way! Make way for de honorable judge!' Everybody took up dat cry and keep it up long as de judge was on de streets. Oh, how dat judge twirl his ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... put a foot behind his leg, gave him a sort of twirl, and laid him flat on his back. The fall caused the knife to spin into the air, and the poor Eskimo found himself at ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... Fougas gave her a twirl on her feet and found himself face to face with the engineer. Leon had heard the sound of a quarrel, and on seeing the Colonel excited, with flashing eyes, he expected some brutal aggression and did not wait for the first blow. A struggle took place in the passage ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... bad"; and then turning to Nestie, "Ye keepit close, my mannie." Speug's officers, such mighties as Bauldie and Johnston, MacFarlane and Mackenzie, all bearing scars, clustered round their commander with expressions of admiration. "Yon was a bonny twirl, and you coupit him weel." "Sall, they've gotten their licks," while Speug modestly disclaimed all credit, and spoke generously of the Pennies, declaring that they had fought well, and that Redhead nearly ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... all four were seated in a fly, rattling through the street, but on the repetition of "Are we going to the docks?" his Lordship, with a resolute twirl of his long, light moustache, replied, "No, Sydney. If you think I am going to have you making a scene on deck, falling on your husband's breast, and all that sort of thing, you are much mistaken! I shall lodge you all quietly in the hotel, and you may wait there, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but there was still reason to suppose that there might be a salmon left for me. I began by hooking and playing in the first pool a small red fish of, I should say, 7 lb., which did me the honour of making a graceful twirl when I had, as I supposed, tired him out; with a flutter of his tail, he sheered off with contemptuous slowness under my very nose into the deeps again. An hour later I got a similar fish, small and red (just under 7 lb.), which did not escape. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... did so, or bloodshed must have ensued, as at that moment a tall and powerful man, brother-in-law to the bride, lifted his stick, and after giving it the customary twirl aimed a point-blank blow at the head of the ill-omened parson. The bound of an antelope brought the girl to the spot; her small hand averted the direction of the deadly weapon, and before the action had been perceived by any present, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... an opening through which to pass, or thrust at us in their turn with their spears. Suddenly, in the dim starlight, as I was busily reloading my revolver, I saw the cook emerge from the galley with what looked like a bucket in his hand. With a quick twirl he seemed to throw the contents of this bucket through the net just where the savages were crowding thickest on the other side of it, and the next instant there arose a more than usually piercing chorus of shrieks, while the great bulk of the savages at that ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... sir; let the patient up, Michael," says the Doctor, with a confident twirl of his perfumed handkerchief. "There, sir—there was science, art, elegance, and dispatch! Now, sir, your tooth is safe—your life is safe—you're ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... explain the homing of my Mason-bees carried to a distance of two or three miles amid strange surroundings. But, when the insects have been sufficiently impressed by their conveyance to the east, there comes the rapid twirl, first this way round, then that. Bewildered by all these revolutions first in one direction and then in another, the insect does not know that I have turned round and remains under its original impression. I am now taking it to the west, when it believes ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... went something! Poor Charley! In the eagerness of his delight, while showing the beautiful bow to his brother, he had brought the end of it within the handle of a large water-pitcher, which stood on the side table near him, and alas, the twirl was too sudden—the poor pitcher came to the floor with a mighty emphasis. "Boy! what are you about? What have you done? What do you mean by such carelessness? Will you break everything in the house, you heedless fellow? ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... Cheeseman could look a hundred people in the face, and with great vigour too, when a small account was running. But the sad, contemptuous, and piercing gaze—as if he were hardly worth penetrating—and the twirl of the black tuft above the lip, and the firm conviction on the broad white forehead that it was confronting a rogue too common and shallow to be worth frowning at—all these, and the facts that were under them, came amiss to the true ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... rational proportions, and yet out of the way of mankind, even as our fathers turned human sacrifices into the eating of little images and symbolic mouthfuls. For my own part, I am prepared. I have nearly five hundred men, more than a score of guns, and I twirl my moustache and hurl defiance eastward from my home in Essex across the narrow seas. Not only eastward. I would conclude this little discourse with one other disconcerting and exasperating sentence for the admirers and practitioners of Big War. I have never yet met in little battle any military ...
— Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... or violets; these will best adorn my lowly brow; but Annie, bright Annie Evalyn, shall wear naught but the proud laurel and queenly jessamine;" and, giving a twirl to her pretty wreath, she tossed it over her friend's high, marble-like brow, bestowing a playful kiss on either ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... amidst the thundering of the horses' hoofs and the cracking of the driver's whip." Some member will probably have chosen to be the horses, another the whip, and as their names are mentioned they must rise, twirl round and sit down again. Then the narrator continues: "For some miles all went well, then a bridle gave way (the bridle must rise and twirl round) and the driver put down the reins, jumped from his seat and ran to the horses' heads. It was found ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... on one foot," Hugh explained, "and twirl round with your other big toe in the sand—like this. That makes a circle to fit your own shadow. Then you stand in the middle and see where the shadow hits the circle. And then you guess the time near enough for all practical purposes. ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... fence with his little stick, and then gave it a graceful twirl which was an improvement ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... 'twixt branches, 'twixt blossoms, come shoot, come twist and twirl we! Sisterkin, sisterkin! up to the shine; up, down, through and through, quick! Sun-rays yellow; evening-wind whispering; dew-drops pattering; blossoms all singing: sing we with branches and blossoms! Stars soon glitter; must down: 'twixt this way, 'twixt that, come shoot, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... lesson they repeat, You'd swear with staves their bodies were replete! Heard you the men from merry England sing? Saw you their jolly dance, their lusty spring? How like a top they spin, and twirl, and turn? And from the heart they speak—ours from a roll ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... But it must be acknowledged that her dancing was at least peculiar. With a sanitary view of the matter, she meant to make it exercise, and fearful was the skipping that ensued. She chassed on tiptoe, and balanced with an indescribable hopping twirl, that made one think of a chickadee pursuing its quest of food on new-ploughed ground; and some late-awakened feminine instinct of dress, restrained, too, by due economy, indued her with the oddest decorations that woman ever devised. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... never slack, And though he twist, and twirl, and tack, Alas! still faithful to his back The pigtail hangs ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... decent sobrieties of the character began to give way, and the poison of self-love, in his conceit of the Countess's affection, gradually to work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha in person stood before you. How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable carelessness would he twirl his gold chain! what a dream it was! you were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... with a grin. "They are not very civil, the people of those parts." Gigi made a gesture, or a series of gestures. He put up his hands as though firing a gun. Then he opened his right hand and closed it, with a kind of insinuating twirl of the fingers, which means "to steal." Lastly he put his hand over his eyes, and looked through his fingers as though they were bars, which means "prison." From this I inferred that the inhabitants of Fillettino were addicted to ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... his toes, and teased out a few pieces of very dry bark till they were like tinder, and put it near the hollow. Then he took the long piece of mulga and twirled it with his two hands in the hollow. He did this faster than any white man could possibly twirl it, and in a couple of minutes a coil of smoke came up from the pile of bark. Yarloo blew this into a flame and made a little fire. When it was burning well, he threw the blazing sticks into the needle-bush. There was a ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. The night is chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. Hush, beating heart of Christabel! Jesu, Maria, shield her well! ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... a practiced hand he threw the lever operating the friction-clutch on the propeller-shaft. And now the great blades began to twirl, faster, faster, till they twinkled and buzzed in the sunlight with a hum like that of a gigantic ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... a heavenly thing Given from heaven to Spring By the sun her king, Half a tender toy, Seems a child of curl Yet too soft to twirl; Seems the flower-sweet girl By ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... scratching- the fingers, therefore the kite is flown entirely from the reel. To wind the string upon the reel, all that is necessary is to lay one end of the reel stick in the bend of the left arm and twirl the other end between the fingers ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... song from Arthur Wemyss, the young Englishman. He played his own accompaniment, his fingers, stiffened though they were with hard work, ran lightly over the keys. Every person sat still to listen. Even Martha Perkins forgot to twirl her fingers and leaned forward. It was a simple little English ballad ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... — N. winding &c v.; convolution, involution, circumvolution; wave, undulation, tortuosity, anfractuosity^; sinuosity, sinuation^; meandering, circuit, circumbendibus^, twist, twirl, windings and turnings, ambages^; torsion; inosculation^; reticulation &c (crossing) 219; rivulation^; roughness &c 256. coil, roll, curl; buckle, spiral, helix, corkscrew, worm, volute, rundle; tendril; scollop^, scallop, escalop^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... railway porter who can deftly twirl a can In each hand along the platform is no ordinary man; But what kills me is the banging And the clashing and the clanging As he hurls them in or hauls them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... land of thirst, Call it the land accurst, Or what you will; There where the heat-lines twirl And the dust-devils ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... Close your ears to the music and look around you when a ball is at its height. What motive, you foolishly wonder, could induce all these people—who are supposed to possess an average amount of brains—to assemble together to clasp each other round the waist, twirl round and round up and down the room, suddenly stop, and hurry one after another outside the dancing hall, seeking dark corners, secret retreats, anywhere away from the eyes of other men? "Ah, what a mad world it is, ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... their voices, and the dancers scatter to their various resting-places along the willow ring. The victor gives a reluctant last twirl of his tomahawk, then, like the others, he leaves the center ground. With head and shoulders swaying from side to side, he carries a high-pointing chin toward the willow railing. Sitting down upon the ground with crossed legs, he fans himself ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... see this square old yellow book I toss I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about By the crumpled vellum covers—pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard And brains, high blooded, ticked two centuries hence? Give it me back. The thing's restorative I' the ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... store at the point, but there was a resting place there, and if one wanted to tarry and felt like dancing, a very accommodating young man sat near the piano ready to play at the shortest notice. Belle and Lottie usually took a twirl while Bess and Cora did the shopping, but to-day having walked instead of coming by motor boat they sank into a seat at the water's edge and watched ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... and went up to the Little Panjandrum's Umbrella and gave it a twirl. When it stopped, a little finger at the top pointed to the word "Guilty," which was painted in large letters in one section ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... She began to twirl the prepared opium above the flame of the lamp. From it a slight, sickly smelling vapor arose. No one spoke, but all watched her closely; and Rita was conscious of a growing, pleasurable excitement. When by evaporation the chandu ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... girl won by the swagger twirl Of an Austrian moustache! It is monstrous, nothing less. What would GARIBALDI say? Well, he doesn't live to-day, Or he'd tear her from the arm of her ancient foe, I guess. And that stalwart Teuton too! Do you really think, ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... all! I must do something or other, or I'll explode, I can't sit by and twirl my thumbs while two such women as you and Miss Burton are in trouble. When a man breaks a girl's heart I feel like ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... briefly. "And, I say, Father William, don't you want to take my biky down and give him a feed of oats? he is hungry. See him paw the ground!" and he gave the bicycle a twirl. ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... fan such a twirl that its slender sticks snapped, and it dropped like the broken wing of ...
— Lemorne Versus Huell • Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
... I am an artist, an actor." He got to his feet and tried to twirl his ragged moustaches back into shape. Then he stuck out his chest, straightened his waistcoat so that the large watchchain clinked, and invited Telemachus to have a cup ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... very remarkable seance, where the souls of the departed outdid themselves in the athletics and acrobatics they seem so fond of over there, throwing large stones across the room, moving pianos, and lifting dinner-tables and setting them a-twirl under the chandelier. "And now," he demanded, "what do you say to that?" "Well, Mr. Appleton," Agassiz answered, to Appleton's infinite delight, "I say that it did ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... my way to join it now," the young man answered, looking up at the bishop from the chair near Edith on which he was again sitting, and giving the corners of his little light moustache a twirl on either side when he had spoken. All his features, except his eyes, preserved an imperturbable gravity; his lips moved, but without altering the expression of his face. His eyes, however, inspected the bishop intelligently; and always, when ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... a little twirling motion that sent another wave on my skirt and which had an unmistakably professional knack to it. I have seen old Wilks set down beer steins and cocktail glasses with exactly that twirl ever since he has officiated at the lockers and sideboard at the Club, and I now know that his motions had the latest Last Chance style to them. Thus, by gossamer links and steel cable, the Town and the Settlement ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... breakfast when his wife told him of Margery's engagement, and the announcement caused him to twirl around so suddenly that he came very near breaking a looking-glass with his hair-brush. He made a dash for his coat. "I will see him," he said, and his eyes sparkled in a way which indicated that they could discover a malefactor without ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... setting out in the world. They are ashamed in company, and so disconcerted that they do not know what they do, and try a thousand tricks to keep themselves in countenance; which tricks afterwards grow habitual to them. Some put their fingers in their nose, others scratch their heads, others twirl their hats; in short, every awkward, ill-bred body has its tricks. But the frequency does not justify the thing, and all these vulgar habits and awkwardness are most carefully to be guarded against, as they are great bars in the way ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... how easily, if I were unchained and had on my wooden leg, I could twirl you round your own neck, and cram your heels into your own mouth, and ram you down your own throat, until there was nothing of you left but the extreme ends of your shirt-collar sticking out ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... man. To the pretty girls, with their Parisian frocks and their relatively idle lives, Rosie, with her power of tackling actualities, was as a human being to a race of marionettes. It would be necessary for him, in deference to his hosts, to step down among them in a minute or two and twirl in their company; but he would do it with a certain pity for those to whom this sort of thing was really a pastime; he would do it as one for whom pastimes had lost their meaning and who would be in some sense ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... than of an obliging charmer: for, when Miss Partington was withdrawn, 'What was Miss Partington to her? In her situation she wanted no new acquaintances. And what were my four friends to her in her present circumstances? She would assure me, if ever again' —And there she stopped, with a twirl of her hand. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... peb'ble in ter cede' screen vom'it reb'el su per sede' sheave plum'met sib'yl col'o nize sheet sum'mit spin'et ad ver tise' shield ver'y lin'net par'a lyze twirl mer'ry cam'el se'cre cy churl bod'y tram'mel ec'sta sy clerk shod'dy mam'mal vac'il late quirk mud'dy sev'en fas'ci nate fraud stud'y heav'en co er'cion broad guin'ea par'rot de ter'sion ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... off a piece of dodder or "lovevine," twirl it round the head three times and drop it on a bush behind you. If it grows, the lover is true; if ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... Guestrow in Mecklemburg. And here on a December morning of the year 1705 Wilhelmine sat disconsolately on the edge of the narrow bed. A feeble ray of winter sunshine crept through the small lattice window and made the dust twirl in a straight shaft of haze. The sunbeam kissed a cheerfulness into the dreary chamber, but the girl evidently felt no answering thrill of gladness, for she remained in her dejected attitude gloomily contemplating ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... instincts in revolt. She did not want to love; she had failed to fall in love. But, whatever love was like, it did not bear talking about. How was it that this little suburban girl, when she once got on her toes, could twirl one's emotions as ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and Sypher did not catch the significance of the words. "You seem to forget that the role of Mascotte is not a particularly active one. It's all very well for you, but I have to sit at home and twirl my thumbs. Have you ever tried that by way of soul-satisfying occupation? Don't you think ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... She filled hot water bags automatically, like a machine—water half-way to the top, then one hand clutching the bag's slippery middle while the other, with a deft twist, ejected the air within; a quick twirl of the metal stopper, the bag released, squirming, and, finally, its plump and rufous cheeks ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... With grateful twirl our smoke-wreaths curl, As mist from the waterfall given, Or the locks that float round beauty's throat In ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... that sometimes hit, [Footnote A: The driver, Powell, I believe, occupied a cottage, or small farm, which we past during the ascent, and where goats milk was offered for refreshment.] Trudg'd by their side, and twirl'd his thong, And cheer'd his scrambling ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... a strong, lively rat, put the parts of the cocoa-nut together, and bind the whole with saffron-cords, to prevent the crack being seen, and then place it on a declivity previously prepared, it is clear, that if you place yourself at the foot of this declivity the rat will twirl the cocoa-nut, and cause it to descend until it ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... come and mock me with his booty, And twirl my visions round his bony finger? And will he tell my heart no other beauty Upon the earth is mine—no other duty, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... organ; an' he rooted about wi' th' keys, tryin' to stop it. But th' owd lad wur i' sich a fluster, that istid o' stoppin' it, he swapped th' barrel to another tune. That made him warse nor ever. Owd Thwittler whisper'd to him, 'Thire, Dick; thae's shapt that nicely! Give it another twirl, owd bird!' Well, Dick sweat, an' futter't about till he swapped th' barrel again. An' then he looked round th' singin'-pew, as helpless as a kittlin'; an' he said to th' singers, 'Whatever mun aw do, folk?' an' tears coom into his e'en. 'Roll it o'er,' said ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... liquid is one third reduced. Supply that third with cream or rich milk; stir it again, and take it off the fire. Serve it up as hot as possible, with dry toast, or dry rusk. It chills immediately. If you wish it frothed, pour it into the cup, and twirl round in it the little wooden instrument called a chocolate mill, till you nave ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... He threw himself back in his chair and, sternly checking its inclination to twirl again, sought for a flaw in the armour of this paragon. "And what else do you do in the way ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... have a view of the players. They were in more senses than one deeply interested in the game. When the cast was to be made the player would strike the bowl upon the ground so as to make the dice jump into the air [Footnote: Sigud Theodat Vol. 1, p. 213.] and would then twirl the bowl rapidly around. During this process and until it stopped its revolutions and the dice finally settled, the players addressed the dice and beat themselves on their breasts. [Footnote: Shea's Hennepin, p. 300.] The spectators during the same period filled the air with shouts and ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... variation of long and short phrases, and it ends with a contrast marked to the eye by the italic words "them" and "you." The next two sentences are quite short, and variety is given by the simple transposition in "and very good farmers they were." This is no more than a graceful little twirl to relieve any possible monotony. The fourth sentence in the paragraph is also very short, purposely made so for emphasis. It gives in a word what the following long sentence presents in detail. And observe the constant variation in the form of this long sentence: in the ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... be spinning in a sea of blood . . . Men and women, all had risen from their knees now, and stood blinking each in the other's faces half-stupidly. The Minister's powerful voice had ceased, but he had set them going as a man might twirl a teetotum; and in five or six seconds one of the men—it was Roger, the young giant—burst forth with a cry, and began to ejaculate what he called his "experience." He had been tempted to commit the Sin without Pardon; had been pursued by it for weeks, months, when ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was closed after this. A padlock knocked against it when the wind blew, as if spuriously announcing a visitor. The deceit failed of effect, for there was no inmate left, and the freakish gust could only twirl the lock anew, and go swirling down the road with a rout of dust in a witches' dance behind it. The passers-by took note of the deserted aspect of things, and knew that the brothers were absent electioneering, and wondered vaguely what the chances might be. This passing was somewhat more ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... large round furnace containing a number of small doors not quite four feet from the ground, and a glass-blower was stationed before each of these. With long iron blowpipes these men, by giving the blowpipe a little twirl as they thrust it into the semi-molten metal, drew out on the end of it a small mass of glass, of about the consistency of nearly melted sealing wax, and holding this mass on the end of the blowpipe by keeping it in motion, they blew it into balls and rolled the ball of soft, red-hot ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... said Katy, as with the last rapid twirl, Rose's many-sheeted epistle and the "Advice to Brides" flew to right and left. "There go two of your hair-pins, Clover. Oh, do stop; we shall ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... should flash with an inborn fire, His brow with scorn be rung; He never should bow down to a domineering frown, Or the tang of a tyrant tongue. His foot should stamp and his throat should growl, His hair should twirl and his face should scowl; His eyes should flash and his breast protrude, And this should be his ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Numidian as well as Punic; such names; one must be barbarian to boot, as well as witch, to pronounce them: a score of things there were besides. And then to see the old woman, with her streaming grey hair, twinkling eyes, and grim look, twirl about as some flute girl at a banquet; it was enough to dance down, not only the moon, but the whole milky way. But it did not dance down Callista; at which mother got savage, and protested that Callista was ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... be a fight that your stomachs are yearning for—why, I am the man for you all," Little John said at once, "and I will beat the four of you heartily, whether you be friends or enemies." Then he began to twirl his staff right merrily, and gave the dumb fellow such a crack upon his crown that he began to ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... war, Where Knavery takes in vice her sly degrees, As slip, away, not guilty, from the bar, Counsel, or client, as their Honors please. To breathe, in crowded courts, a pois'nous breath— To plead for life—to justify a death— To wrangle, jar, to twist, to twirl, to toil,— This is ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... balance wheel separate from all connections, and trying its freedom in all positions, and if you will try this method, you will be surprised how many you will find that bind or are not perfectly free in all positions, when you give them the very slightest impulse by a twirl of the hand, holding the plate. Then, too, a careful examination of each jewel; you will be surprised how many are either loose in the setting or plate. In regard to cleaning, I use the old method (after trying all ways suggested)—that of chalk (but I use the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... she blush'd, and she smiled, And she lookit sae bashfully down; The pride o' her heart was beguiled, And she play'd wi' the sleeve o' her gown; She twirl'd the tag o' her lace, And she nippit her boddice sae blue; Syne blinkit sae sweet in his face, And aff like a maukin she flew. Woo'd, and married, and a', Married and carried awa'; She thinks hersel' very weel aff, To be woo'd, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... Pascualo. "Stick to cover, eh! Well, you fellows can stay ashore if you want to, and twirl your fingers. I'm going out, and right now. I never saw a blow yet that would keep me home, when I'd made up my mind to go. The woman folks ought to stay at home. But I like to see men and not cowards in the fish business." He spoke in a tone of voice that did not seem to invite argument, ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... but I'm not ungrateful. Whatever other things we learn out West, we learn to pay back favor for favor. I'd be a dirty coyote if I refused to accept that invitation after what Merriwell did for me. That's the way I look at it. I know that I can pitch ball. You know it, too. I can twirl a ball just as good as Frank Merriwell, or any other fellow in Yale, and you know that, too. I reckon I'm able to ride my bronco alone, without Merriwell's help. I am not asking favors—none whatever! I'm simply returning a favor already given! You ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... his coarse blouse, his leggings, and muddy boots. His usual dainty ways made the details of this costume yet more shocking to him, and he exaggerated this little disaster. He felt degraded and almost ridiculous. The thought took away for a moment his presence of mind; he began mechanically to twirl his hat in his hands, exactly as if he had been Pere Rousselet himself. But instead of being hurtful to him, this awkwardness served him better than the eloquence of Rousseau or the coolness of Richelieu. Was it not a genuine triumph for ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... flues, That is the work I love; Brushing away the blacks and the blues, And letting in light from above! I twirl my broom in your tired brain When you're tight in sleep up-curled, Then scatter the stuff in a soot-like rain Over the edge ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... because he could not read her fine Italian hand. She was only getting some things ready to send to Captain Truscott by the stage to Fetterman. All the same he slipped into his room, got his revolver, gave a quiet twirl to the cylinder to see that all was working smoothly, and the next minute, without knocking, banged into the front room of Gleason's quarters, finding that worthy sluicing his head and face with cold ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... whole flock is gathered in the goose pastur, the drawin'-room, other little flocks come troopin' in, and stand, or walk, or down on chairs; and them that know each other talk, and them that don't twirl their thumbs over their fingers; and when they are tired of that, twirl their fingers over their thumbs. I'm nobody, and so I goes and sets side-ways on an ottarman, like a gall on a side-saddle, and look at what's afore me. And fust I ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... answered, "no! Gad, Perry," he burst out with a vicious twirl of his cane, "there are times when killing is a laudable act!" After this we walked in silence ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... street, I saw a child in a leading-string, whose nurse gave it a farthing for a beggar; the babe delivered its mite with a grace, and a twirl of the hand. I don't think your cousin's first grandson will be so well ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... rustic throng, see ruddy maids, Some taught with dextrous hand to twirl the wheel, Some expert To raise from leavened ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... of the will. Compared with real and natural motives, these are but as paper money to coin; for their value is only arbitrary—card games and the like, which have been invented for this very purpose. And if there is nothing else to be done, a man will twirl his thumbs or beat the devil's tattoo; or a cigar may be a welcome substitute for exercising his brains. Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is card-playing,[1] and it is the gauge ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... something like it. I have been to hear some music-pounding. It was a young woman, with as many white muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has rings, that did it. She—gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... big drummer the other half," added Ethel. "Look at his sticks. He's got a classy twirl, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... gardener entertained us with a Danish waltz with his fair-haired, plump, round-shouldered daughter. Now they cling together, then swing apart, holding each other by the fingers' ends; now they whirl and twirl in and out, and then come together and waltz around the hall, as all gaze and wonder at the old man's suppleness. Now the spirit of fun takes possession of all as we see Irish John sitting quietly conversing with ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... the dog in his kennel, the sheep in the field, the boats moored in the Loire, even, became alive and vocal. The latter, leaving the shore, abandoned themselves gaily to the current. The Gascon gave a last twirl to his mustache, a last turn to his hair, brushed, from habit, the brim of his hat with the sleeve of his doublet, and went downstairs. Scarcely had he descended the last step of the threshold when he saw Athos bent down toward the ground, as if ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... exceedingly careful to keep their fires alive, as the Mincopies are to-day, and this heedful attention left its traces until very recent times. So important was the apparatus for kindling a flame deemed that in India the fire-twirl was made a god and became one of the chief deities of that polytheistic land. In many other places, especially in Persia, the element of flame was raised to the dignity of a deity and worshipped among the higher ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... Latin "videre licet" meaning "it is permissible to see," The -z- is not a letter, but originally a twirl, representing the symbol for the ending -et. Usually read ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... spent his entire income entertaining her, and when the income had vanished he pawned his jewelry, including his watch. But then, boys will be boys, and after all, what could the poor youth do? All alone in a strange place! It is so uninteresting to sit and twirl one's thumbs: ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... hear, too, that he insists it could have been no less a personage than his Satanic Majesty himself who with a touch of the hand sent his gun flying when he was in the very act of firing, and then gave him a twirl that sent him spinning down the ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... along to the river side, giving a majestic twirl to his wooden leg with every step he took through the long grass. How he would have loved a bathe! The pool where he had so enjoyed himself with Lubin was not far off—the pool of Daphnis, as he had christened it; but he hesitated to venture ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... "and flour them, and twirl them around, and there they go!" sending them spinning at a great rate. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... half full of water, and fasten securely round the bulb of it, a piece of cloth. Saturate the cloth with cold water, and then twirl the tube rapidly between the hands; presently the water in the tube will become sensibly colder, and the degree of cold may be accurately determined by the thermometer. Moisten the cloth with ether, a very volatile liquid, and twirl it again in the same manner as before; by which means, ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... curl next day. Elsie's waved naturally, so Aunt Izzie didn't think it necessary to pin her papers very tight; but Clover's thick, straight locks required to be pinched hard before they would give even the least twirl, and to her, Saturday night was one of misery. She would lie tossing, and turning, and trying first one side of her head and then the other; but whichever way she placed herself, the hard knobs and the pins stuck out and hurt ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... and twirl his pointed mustache in the faint illumination. "Zay are very numerous," he laughed. But the Gaul had no sooner swung his weight against the ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... said the king's treasurer, beginning to twirl his moustache also: "the doctors have always told me that I am of too full a complexion and that it would do me all the good in the world to be bled now and then. But what would be an advantage to me would be dangerous to you. It's easy ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... his eyes could not be seen; tilted the desk over on its front legs, so that you expected every moment to see it pitching forward into the lecture-room, with the lecturer after it; and, seizing a quill, always provided for the purpose, began at once to speak, and to twist and twirl and tear in pieces the quill. Sometimes, in the heat of his discourse, he would suddenly jerk up his head, whirl entirely round with his face to the wall and his back to the audience, and then as suddenly whirl back again, ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... my dear, but it's that, As the Public insists upon knowin', Missis MATHEW 'as told me so, pat, Wich likeways 'as good Missis BOWEN. You can't floor their argyments, quite, 'Owsomever you twirl 'em or 'twist 'em; They say, and I fear they are right, There is somethink ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... ray now flooded the front of the safe, and outlined the forms of the two men. One of them, holding the flashlight, dropped on his knees, and began to twirl the dial tentatively; the other leaned negligently against the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... put out a puffy hand admonishingly. "Let's keep cool—that's half the battle won. Keep cool." He reached for his pipe, got out his twisted leather tobacco pouch, and opened it with a twirl of his ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... 'most all the churches, don't they, S'manthy? I s'pose that's one stick for God, and the other for the peoples.' Well, now, don't you remember Seth Pennell, o' Buttertown, how queer he was when he was a boy? We thought he'd never be wuth his salt. He used to stan' in the front winder 'n' twirl the curtin tossel for hours to a time. And don't you know it come out last year that he'd wrote a reg'lar book, with covers on it 'n' all, 'n' that he got five dollars a colume for writin' ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... room which received us I was soon left alone, for, with another question as briefly asked and answered, the click of swords crossed and uncrossed before and behind him, and the screechy grind of bolts, Michael passed out of sight within. While as for me, I was left to twirl my thumbs, and wish that I had stayed at home to watch the nimble fingers of the Playmate busy at her sewing, and the rounded slenderness of her sweet body set against the light of evening, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... partners remark encouragingly: "Sure, and what matter? I'll see you through." Soon all are dancing, and the state of the road is being discussed with as much interest as the floor of a ballroom. Eager directions are given to the more ignorant newcomers, such as, "Twirl your girl, captain!" or "Turn your back to your face!"—rather a difficult direction to carry out, but one which conveys its meaning. Salemina confided to her partner that she feared she was getting a bit old to dance. He looked at ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with his, gave it a twirl as a drum-major does his cane. Lapoulle, observing what all his comrades were doing, must have supposed the performance to be some recent innovation in the manual, and followed suit, while Pache, in the confused idea of duty that he owed to his religious education, refused to ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... that he was still alive, after all. It is a bad business when the world goes against you, even though you may have some one to turn to for advice and sympathy. But when all the people round you are utter strangers, there is nothing to be done but sit down and twirl a straw, and think things out a bit for yourself. Peer's thoughts were of a thing in a long dressing-gown that had taken his bank book and locked it up and rattled the keys at him and said "Yah!" and deposed ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... out to the field with the "drinkin's," and her face looked so bewitching under the sun-bonnet, and her waist so tempting and trim beneath the crisp folds of her clean bed-gown, that John had made bold in cousinly fashion to encircle it with his arm, whereupon she had freed herself with an impatient twirl, remarking that she didn't want no counter-jumpers to be measurin' of her—a sally which had been regarded as exquisitely humorous by the bystanders. John's cheeks burned as ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... steadfast soul the page he scanned. The Devil was in his best humour that day, That ever his Highness was known to be in,— That's why he sent out his imps to play With sulphur, and tar, and pitch, and resin: They came to the saint in a motley crew, Twisted and twirl'd themselves about,— Imps of every shape and hue, A devilish, strange, and rum-looking rout. Yet the good St. Anthony kept his eyes So firmly fixed upon his book, Shouts nor laughter, sighs nor cries, Never could win away ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... others crept carefully across their companions' bodies, until the foremost ant, who had been holding on all this time by his hind legs, being relieved from the weight of his comrades, was able to twirl round and obtain ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... grin and twirl his pointed mustache in the faint illumination. "Zay are very numerous," he laughed. But the Gaul had no sooner swung his weight against the wheel than his ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... stumped along to the river side, giving a majestic twirl to his wooden leg with every step he took through the long grass. How he would have loved a bathe! The pool where he had so enjoyed himself with Lubin was not far off—the pool of Daphnis, as he had christened it; but he hesitated to venture in alone. So he lay down on the bank ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... till all four were seated in a fly, rattling through the street, but on the repetition of "Are we going to the docks?" his Lordship, with a resolute twirl of his long, light moustache, replied, "No, Sydney. If you think I am going to have you making a scene on deck, falling on your husband's breast, and all that sort of thing, you are much mistaken! I shall lodge you all quietly in the hotel, and you may wait there, while I go down ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the street, I saw a child in a leading-string, whose nurse gave it a farthing for a beggar; the babe delivered its mite with a grace, and a twirl of the hand. I don't think your cousin's first grandson will be so well bred. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... straight into the sky. He was a horrid-looking object, with his streaming hair, pasty features, and red beard, his naked shanks and feet protruding through his soaking, clinging trousers, which figured his shin-bones as though they clothed a skeleton. Now and again he would give himself a wild twirl and yelp out fiercely; but he was well-nigh spent with his swim, and on the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... churches, don't they, S'manthy? I s'pose that's one stick for God, and the other for the peoples.' Well, now, don't you remember Seth Pennell, o' Buttertown, how queer he was when he was a boy? We thought he'd never be wuth his salt. He used to stan' in the front winder 'n' twirl the curtin tossel for hours to a time. And don't you know it come out last year that he'd wrote a reg'lar book, with covers on it 'n' all, 'n' that he got five dollars a colume for writin' poetry ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... good old turnip-shaped tops, solid and weighty, that you could wind up with a stout cotton cord, and launch with perfect aim from the flat button held between your forefinger and middle finger. Some of the boys had a very pretty art in the twirl they gave the top, and could control its course, somewhat as a skilful pitcher can govern ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... frontlines right now, bursting with dulce et decorum. I don't believe it would bother the Old Man any if I sat out the duration in a C O camp, but it'd hurt his job like hell and the poor old boy is straining his guts to get into the trenches and twirl a theoretical saber. So I guess I'm slated to be your humble and obedient, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... twirl of a now reckless knife, Jane finished the last apple, set the pan on the before the maid, and hurried her visitor into the living-room. "Now, tell me quick—what did she say? Is he nice? Did she like him? Did he ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... a twirl Thinking I slept, And a joyous whirl, Into a dance leapt The careless spirit too long restrained; The purest dancing, Feet sometimes chancing To touch the ground; Then starting up with a fresh high bound, To hang for a moment poised in the air, And a glimpse of white teeth glancing And a laughing ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... have gone to law—and he knew it when he done you. You've taken back what's your own, in your own way, without havin' to give law-shysters the biggest part for gettin' it. Shake!" And chief plotter and the benefited clasped fists with radiant good-nature. The Cap'n broke his grip in order to twirl the wheel, it being necessary to take a ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... to settle is this. If we let your daughter go now, how is Bastien here to account for his prisoner in the morning? He knows that one day he will have to stand on the little trap-door in the scaffold floor at Regina, and that he will twirl round and round so—like to that so"—picking up a hobble chain and spinning it round with his hand—"while his eyes will stick out of his head like the eyes of a flat-fish; but at the same time he does not want to be shot by order of Riel ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... parting with his, gave it a twirl as a drum-major does his cane. Lapoulle, observing what all his comrades were doing, must have supposed the performance to be some recent innovation in the manual, and followed suit, while Pache, in the confused idea of duty that ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... that multitude of critical eyes on them. All that the competitor knows of fine airs and graces he throws into his carriage, all that he knows of seductive expression he throws into his countenance. He may use all the helps he can devise: watch- chain to twirl with his fingers, cane to do graceful things with, snowy handkerchief to flourish and get artful effects out of, shiny new stovepipe hat to assist in his courtly bows; and the colored lady may have a fan to work up her effects with, and smile over and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the steeple! There the foul blast roars and whistles! High up in the steeple, where it is free to come and go through many an airy arch and loophole, and to twist and twine itself about the giddy stair, and twirl the groaning weathercock, and make the very tower ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... am an artist, an actor." He got to his feet and tried to twirl his ragged moustaches back into shape. Then he stuck out his chest, straightened his waistcoat so that the large watchchain clinked, and invited Telemachus to have a ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... woodpecker, the flicker, or high-hole. Two or three male birds scrape and bow and pose and chatter about the demure female, outrageously undignified as compared with their usual behaviour. They do everything save twirl their ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... course she should have her own way! Unable to control his impatience after half-past ten, Colonel Faversham went to his dressing-room, limping up-stairs as no one was looking, and imparted a more militant twirl to his moustache. When he reached the hall again Knight held his thin overcoat and handed his top-hat, gloves and ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... blush'd, and she smiled, And she lookit sae bashfully down; The pride o' her heart was beguiled, And she play'd wi' the sleeve o' her gown; She twirl'd the tag o' her lace, And she nippit her boddice sae blue; Syne blinkit sae sweet in his face, And aff like a maukin she flew. Woo'd, and married, and a', Married and carried awa'; She thinks hersel' very weel aff, To be woo'd, and married, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... mean by insultin' my mate?—take that!" said Peter Grim, giving the Irishman a twirl that tumbled him on ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... a very learned man," pursued Ivy, hurriedly, never lifting her eyes from the floor, and never ceasing to twirl her hat-strings. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... dancing was at least peculiar. With a sanitary view of the matter, she meant to make it exercise, and fearful was the skipping that ensued. She chassed on tiptoe, and balanced with an indescribable hopping twirl, that made one think of a chickadee pursuing its quest of food on new-ploughed ground; and some late-awakened feminine instinct of dress, restrained, too, by due economy, indued her with the oddest decorations ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... Mr. Potter's hat began to twirl uneasily again. "And the wife—she ain't strong, just ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... like the instinct of dogs, very true and delicate as a rule. But dogs, from Cerberus downwards, are liable to be biassed by sops. And four paper-covered sails, that twirl upon the end of a stick as the wind blows, would warp the better judgment of most little boys, especially (for a bargain is more precious than a gift) when the thing is to be bought for a few ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to twirl the ends of his moustache. He made light of his accident. It was nothing, he said: only a little accident. He ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... filled and she could not answer. 'And now, Madam,' I said firmly, 'I refuse once and for all to permit you to break your contract. Pooh! The tide will change. Men and women are sometimes fools; but they are not fools all the time. The dancer will have had her day. She will twirl her toes to the empty seats and throw her kisses into unresponsive space. Our patrons will gradually return; they will grow tired of wriggling and twisting, and look again ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Macdonell writes: 'Dyaus[Greek] is the only one which can be said to be beyond the range of doubt.' As to the connection of Prometheus with Sanskrit Pramantha, he says: '[Greek] has every appearance of being a purely Greek formation, while the Indian verb math, to twirl, is found compounded only with nis, never with pra, to express the art of producing fire by friction.' (See above, p. 194.) If Mr. Macdonell is right here, the Greek myth of the fire-stealer cannot have arisen from 'a disease of language.' ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... "a useless, daidling body! What was he ever good for in this world but to tie his neckcloth and twirl his cane? Oh aye, he can maybe button his 'spats'! That is, if he doesna get the servant lass to do it for him. And Josiah Kettle! William, I wonder you are not shamed, goodman—to sit there in your own hearth-corner and name ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... clocks, coaches, and dials, {358} it is not to be imagined how the polite rabble of this town, who are acquainted with these objects, ridicule his rusticity. I have known a fellow with a burden on his head steal a hand down from his load, and slily twirl the cock of a squire's hat behind him; and while the offended person is swearing or out of countenance, all the wag-wits in the highway are grinning in applause of the ingenious rogue that gave him the tip, and the folly of him who had ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... a large round furnace containing a number of small doors not quite four feet from the ground, and a glass-blower was stationed before each of these. With long iron blowpipes these men, by giving the blowpipe a little twirl as they thrust it into the semi-molten metal, drew out on the end of it a small mass of glass, of about the consistency of nearly melted sealing wax, and holding this mass on the end of the blowpipe by keeping it in motion, they blew it into balls and rolled the ball of soft, ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a piece of dodder or "lovevine," twirl it round the head three times and drop it on a bush behind you. If it grows, the lover is true; if not, ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... house at Guestrow in Mecklemburg. And here on a December morning of the year 1705 Wilhelmine sat disconsolately on the edge of the narrow bed. A feeble ray of winter sunshine crept through the small lattice window and made the dust twirl in a straight shaft of haze. The sunbeam kissed a cheerfulness into the dreary chamber, but the girl evidently felt no answering thrill of gladness, for she remained in her dejected attitude gloomily contemplating the dust dancing in the sunray. It was bitterly cold, and the feeble sun seemed ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... hastily attending to some of his wounds, "that wesna' bad"; and then turning to Nestie, "Ye keepit close, my mannie." Speug's officers, such mighties as Bauldie and Johnston, MacFarlane and Mackenzie, all bearing scars, clustered round their commander with expressions of admiration. "Yon was a bonny twirl, and you coupit him weel." "Sall, they've gotten their licks," while Speug modestly disclaimed all credit, and spoke generously of the Pennies, declaring that they had fought well, and that Redhead ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... might curl next day. Elsie's waved naturally, so Aunt Izzie didn't think it necessary to pin her papers very tight; but Clover's thick, straight locks required to be pinched hard before they would give even the least twirl, and to her, Saturday night was one of misery. She would lie tossing, and turning, and trying first one side of her head and then the other; but whichever way she placed herself, the hard knobs and the pins stuck out and hurt her; so when at last she fell ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... efforts never slack, And though he twist, and twirl, and tack, Alas! still faithful to his back The pigtail hangs behind ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... he seized the rope drawn through the dried-up skin of the drum and began to twirl it around with all his strength. The same sounds which had previously so startled the negroes resounded now, and even more shrilly, as they were not muffled by the ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of displacement, the panes and corners of the octagonal broach which its top formed overshot their proper positions fully seven inches. The corners were carried into nearly the middle of the panes, as if some gigantic hand, in attempting to twirl round the building by the spire, as one twirls round a spinning top by the stalk or bole, had, from some failure in the coherency of the masonry, succeeded in turning round only the part of which it had laid hold. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... and laced, Like an hour-glass, exceedingly small in the waist; Quite a new sort of creatures, unknown yet to scholars, With beads so immovably stuck in shirt-collars, That seats, like our music-stools, soon must be found them, To twirl, when the creatures may wish, to look round them, In short, dear, "a Dandy" describes what I mean, And BOB's far the best of the genus I've seen: An improving young man, fond of learning, ambitious, And goes now to Paris to study French dishes. Whose names—think, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... settlement and another, and find them filled with little essays on the people and their ways and manners, as if the settlement were same kind of a laboratory where they prepare human specimens for inspection and classification,—stick them on pins like bugs and hold them up and twirl them so as to let us have a good look,—then I know that somebody has wandered away off, and that he knows he has, for all he is making a brave show trying to persuade himself and us that it was worth the money. No use going into that farther. The fact ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... he did so, or bloodshed must have ensued, as at that moment a tall and powerful man, brother-in-law to the bride, lifted his stick, and after giving it the customary twirl aimed a point-blank blow at the head of the ill-omened parson. The bound of an antelope brought the girl to the spot; her small hand averted the direction of the deadly weapon, and before the action had been perceived by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... back, leaped to the safe door, and slammed it shut. But before he had time to give the knob a twirl, the Secret Service men were upon him. In rushed the clerk, and for a few minutes the four men wrestled and struggled madly all around the little room. But the Americans were powerful, and they had help at hand. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... Among them were six or eight young people—Colonel Thompson with his son and daughter, whom he was taking home from their school in Helena, Arkansas, and a young Dr. Jackson, who was very talkative and filled to over-flowing with affectation. With a twirl of his little cane, and half-bent bow, in a simpering manner he addressed the four young ladies sitting ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... not, though if Osiris should ask me why, I could not tell. But he hath a too-ready smile, and by that I know he will twirl Meneptah like a string about ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... she said, and Sypher did not catch the significance of the words. "You seem to forget that the role of Mascotte is not a particularly active one. It's all very well for you, but I have to sit at home and twirl my thumbs. Have you ever tried that by way of soul-satisfying occupation? Don't you think you're ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... the italic words "them" and "you." The next two sentences are quite short, and variety is given by the simple transposition in "and very good farmers they were." This is no more than a graceful little twirl to relieve any possible monotony. The fourth sentence in the paragraph is also very short, purposely made so for emphasis. It gives in a word what the following long sentence presents in detail. And observe the constant variation in the form of this long sentence: in the first ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... some hours before he got them back again. I hear, too, that he insists it could have been no less a personage than his Satanic Majesty himself who with a touch of the hand sent his gun flying when he was in the very act of firing, and then gave him a twirl that sent him spinning down ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... must not blame him for being indignant, when he sees me treated so unworthily,—or for calling Lewis a Pacha, as he always does. You must think, my dear, that it isn't pleasant to be treated only like a Circassian slave, and that one may have something better to do in life than to twirl jewelled armlets, or to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... coins, remarkably like the real thing. He was not a clever forger; he had learned to write somewhat late in life, and the large, bold round hand, with the capital letters that invariably began with the wrong quirk or twirl, was too characteristic, though he wrote anonymous letters sometimes, risking detection in the enjoyment of what was to him a dear delight, only smaller than that other pleasure of moulding bodies to his own purposes, of malice, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... sipped with an affectionate twirl of thumb at the glass's stem. He said "One scents ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... piteously, Whereat the brawny fellows laughed all three. "Ha, witch!" they cried, as thus she helpless lay, "Shalt know the fire and roasted be one day!" Now as the aged creature wailed and wept, Forth to her side Duke Joc'lyn lightly stepped, With quarter-staff a-twirl he blithely came. Quoth he: "Messires, harm not this ancient dame, Bethink ye how e'en old and weak as she, Your wives and mothers all must one day be. So here then lies your mother, and 't were meeter ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... just on my way to join it now," the young man answered, looking up at the bishop from the chair near Edith on which he was again sitting, and giving the corners of his little light moustache a twirl on either side when he had spoken. All his features, except his eyes, preserved an imperturbable gravity; his lips moved, but without altering the expression of his face. His eyes, however, inspected the bishop intelligently; ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... thought than done. He rushed down the mountain-side like a madman. The eagle sprang up in alarm just as he reached the side of a rounded rock. Halting suddenly, he took aim, and fired both barrels. The eagle gave a toss of its head and a twirl of its tail, and, sailing slowly away round a neighbouring cliff, disappeared ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... heat of argument and the indiscretion of youth, I used expressions which the Papist considered insulting to his religion. He was not one to put up patiently with this, so he would fire up, twirl his blackthorn round his head, and say, "By St. Patrick, you had better not say that again!" In everything else we agreed well enough; but I found, on parting, that all my eloquence had been entirely thrown ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... of the wing and was about to tie his first rope, when a fierce gust of wind threatened to tear him from the rigging and crash him to the ice, a dangerous distance below. With a quick clutch, he saved himself but lost the rope. It was with a grunt of disgust that he saw it wind and twirl toward the white surface below. Then it was, for the first time, that he saw the yellowish-white object huddled there on the ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... company for me, that ring is," said the doctor, ignoring the pertinent or impertinent interruption. "Often as I sit in the twilight, I twirl it around and around, a-thinking of the wagon-loads of food it has masticated, the blood that has flowed over it, the groans that it has cost! Now, old lady, if you will ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... three performing mice are we, And when you wind us up you see, We twirl and twiddle round the cage, And play at leap-frog on the stage. And when the master of the ring, Commands us, we can also sing That story sad—though true to life, Of Blind ...
— Humpty Dumpty's Little Son • Helen Reid Cross
... he was always at liberty to twiddle his thumbs, twirl his pencil, yawn, blink, and look out of the window at the City Park across the way, where excited citizens maintained a steady yelling monotone before the neighbouring newspaper ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... with those silly twirling things Tom made," said Della. "He's right about the charm of those little flat objects. They'll twirl them by ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... whirl and flutter! They whisper, babble, twirl, and splutter! They glimmer, sparkle, stink and flare— A true witch-element! Beware! Stick close! else we shall ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... The graces he put on! The arts he practised! The condescension of his smile! The upward tilt of his nose! The twirl of his moustachios! The defiant angle of ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... that my pitching arm was likely to bring me in more money this year, Momsey, and I was giving it a twirl, when you happened to get in my way. Now I'll tell you all about it. It's this letter," and Joe held out the one he had ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... as the serpent train, Springing and clinging from tree to tree, Now darting upward, now down again, With a twist and a twirl that are strange to see; Never took serpent a deadlier hold, Never the cougar a wilder spring, Strangling the oak with the boa's fold, Spanning the beach with the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... glad sparkle in his eye, as Rose whispers him that Adele has become one of the household. It is no wonder, perhaps, that the latter finds the bit of embroidery she is upon somewhat perplexing, so that she has to consult Rose pretty often in regard to the different shades, and twirl the worsteds over and over, until confusion about the colors shall restore her own equanimity. Phil, meantime, dashes on, in his own open, frank way, about his drive, and the state of the ice in the river, and some shipments ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... cried Mr. Vincent, with a contemptuous twirl of his lip. "What, a poor Frenchman! Good Lord! how this town ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Overhead was suspended a human skeleton, by means of a rope tied round one of the legs and fastened to a ring in the ceiling. The other limb, confined by no such fetter, stuck off from the body at right angles, causing the whole loose and rattling frame to dangle and twirl about at the caprice of every occasional puff of wind which found its way into the apartment. In the cranium of this hideous thing lay quantity of ignited charcoal, which threw a fitful but vivid light over the entire scene; while coffins, and other wares appertaining to the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... spire, Whose point we harden'd with the force of fire, And hid it in the dust that strew'd the cave, Then to my few companions, bold and brave, Proposed, who first the venturous deed should try, In the broad orbit of his monstrous eye To plunge the brand and twirl the pointed wood, When slumber next should tame the man of blood. Just as I wished, the lots were cast on four: Myself the fifth. We stand and wait the hour. He comes with evening: all his fleecy flock Before him march, and pour into the rock: Not one, or male or female, stayed behind ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... answered, with a grin. "They are not very civil, the people of those parts." Gigi made a gesture, or a series of gestures. He put up his hands as though firing a gun. Then he opened his right hand and closed it, with a kind of insinuating twirl of the fingers, which means "to steal." Lastly he put his hand over his eyes, and looked through his fingers as though they were bars, which means "prison." From this I inferred that the inhabitants of Fillettino ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... me play with Hilliard, I'm sure she won't, 'that's so unladylike!'"—mimicking Mrs. Erveng's slow, gentle voice,—"and I never know what to talk to her about. I suppose I'll have to sit up and twirl my thumbs, like a regular Miss Prim, from morning to night. Why didn't they ask you?" wheeling round on Nora. "You and Mrs. Erveng seem to be such fine friends, and you suit her better than I do. I always feel ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... about "my girl," A little soft mustache to twirl, A little time of jealous fear, A little ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... darkened streets I'd walk: long lanterns writ With ghostly characters should dance Beside each door, or flit, Thin paper spirits, to and fro And mow the wind, when it Demanded of them reverence And passed with twirl or twit. ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... few minutes' bargaining, they took it quite cheerfully, the thing probably not being worth eight annas. I bought a prayer-wheel. It is a round silver thing with a handle rather like a child's rattle, and inside are slips of paper covered with writing. These are the prayers, and at intervals you twirl the wheel round, and the oftener you turn it ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... leaves and makes a rustling sound. The tree shakes, the branches and leaves all rustle. The wind knocks the leaves off the trees and tosses them up in the air. Then it blows them straight in to the window and drags them around on the floor. It makes the leaves whirl and twirl. ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... Spin, daughter Mary, spin, Twirl your wheel with silver din; Spin, daughter Mary, spin, Spin ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... instant. Here was such an utterly improbable method of escape, such a strange new twirl in his whirlpool of adventure, that he had to find ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... of sea-water, wherewith he sluiced the decks fore and aft thoroughly; while Dick, on his part, scrubbed the planks with a piece of "holystone," then adroitly drying them with a mop, which he could twirl now, after a little experience, with all the dexterity of an ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... at the last stretch, asked Mahmoud savagely what he was about. To this Mahmoud gave no reply, save to twirl round rapidly upon one foot and to fall down foaming at the mouth. Smith, therefore, losing ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... hearth on the flat side of a sledge runner and kneeling on it to hold it firmly in position, Yim set the rounded end of his spindle in one of its depressions, and holding the upper end between the palms of his hands, began to twirl it rapidly, at the same time exerting all possible downward pressure. As his hands moved towards the lower end of the spindle he dexterously shifted them back to the top, without lifting it or allowing air to get under ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... throng, see ruddy maids, Some taught with dextrous hand to twirl the wheel, Some expert To raise from leavened wheat the ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... by the swagger twirl Of an Austrian moustache! It is monstrous, nothing less. What would GARIBALDI say? Well, he doesn't live to-day, Or he'd tear her from the arm of her ancient foe, I guess. And that stalwart Teuton too! Do you really think, my girl, he ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Volume 101, October 31, 1891 • Various
... in the Press Gallery used to represent "I have yet to learn that the Government" by a little twirl, and "What did the right honourable gentleman do, Mr. Speaker? He had the ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... girls, with their Parisian frocks and their relatively idle lives, Rosie, with her power of tackling actualities, was as a human being to a race of marionettes. It would be necessary for him, in deference to his hosts, to step down among them in a minute or two and twirl in their company; but he would do it with a certain pity for those to whom this sort of thing was really a pastime; he would do it as one for whom pastimes had lost their meaning and who would be in some ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... completely coated over with a thick layer of red dust. But the hot wind was going down now, as it always does towards sunset. Indeed, all that remained of it were a few strictly local and miniature whirlwinds, which would suddenly spring up on the road itself, and twist and twirl fiercely round, raising a mighty column of dust fifty feet or more into the air, where it hung long after the wind had passed, and then slowly dissolved as its particles floated ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... fires consume! Eat we and drink we, be our ditty, "Joy to the managing committee!" Eat we and drink we, join to rum Roast beef and pudding of the plum! Forth from thy nook, John Horner, come, With bread of ginger brown thy thumb, For this is Drury's gay day: Roll, roll thy hoop, and twirl thy tops, And buy, to glad thy smiling chops, Crisp parliament with lollypops, And fingers ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... Dalai-Lama; he to whom you have given the title of 'Father of the Church.' That is a great sin. May he be brought back, with the flock, who are now in a bad road," piously added the lama, giving another twirl to his prayer-machine. ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... the souls of the departed outdid themselves in the athletics and acrobatics they seem so fond of over there, throwing large stones across the room, moving pianos, and lifting dinner-tables and setting them a-twirl under the chandelier. "And now," he demanded, "what do you say to that?" "Well, Mr. Appleton," Agassiz answered, to Appleton's infinite delight, "I say ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... large pumpkin, on whose rind all the letters of the alphabet have been burned or painted. Twirl this quickly and each guest in turn tries to stab some letter with a hatpin. The letter which is pierced is the initial ...
— Games for Everybody • May C. Hofmann
... she laughed, releasing herself with a gentle twirl; "and now I'll go and get dinner ready. After all, it doesn't matter what world one's in, one ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... handsome, and handsomely dressed in a puce-coloured cloak, or rather petticoat, with a purple hat on his head, in shape like an inverted flower-pot, slipped forth from near the tribune into the middle of the circle, and began to twirl. After about five or six minutes, two other younger boys, somewhat similarly dressed, did the same, and twirled also; so that ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... and flapping their wings, and pursuing one another from bush to bush. They show now neither fear nor circumspection, and crazy, blind, and deaf, scarcely seem to notice the noise, the flashes, or the cries of the sportsmen. At length all is in complete confusion. They toss and twirl about like great leaves in a hurricane, and finally fly, with their ranks somewhat diminished, to their several homes. This sport lasts but a short half-hour; after which, the woodcocks having said all they had to say, made and ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... Pozdnisheff by name Played the matrimonial game; Pleased by a little curl, Which round his heart did twirl, And taken by a jersey (Exported from the Mersey); He felt, poor man, half-witted When he saw how ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... from Sir Ralf Sadler for Master Richard, he had brought it down, accompanied by his friend, who was anxious to pay his devoirs to the ladies, and though Will spoke to the mother, he smiled and nodded comprehension at the daughter, who blushed furiously, and set her spindle to twirl and leap so violently, as to make the kitten believe the creature had taken fright, and was going to escape. On she dashed with a sudden spring, involving herself and it in the flax. The old watch-dog ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to stop it. But th' owd lad wur i' sich a fluster, that istid o' stoppin' it, he swapped th' barrel to another tune. That made him warse nor ever. Owd Thwittler whisper'd to him, 'Thire, Dick; thae's shapt that nicely! Give it another twirl, owd bird!' Well, Dick sweat, an' futter't about till he swapped th' barrel again. An' then he looked round th' singin'-pew, as helpless as a kittlin'; an' he said to th' singers, 'Whatever mun aw do, folk?' an' tears coom into his e'en. 'Roll it ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... wit, Full of rough shafts, that sometimes hit, [Footnote A: The driver, Powell, I believe, occupied a cottage, or small farm, which we past during the ascent, and where goats milk was offered for refreshment.] Trudg'd by their side, and twirl'd his thong, And ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... It hadn't; it was in perfect shape, except for the knot. Or so it seemed, at least, for even as Ray started forward with outstretched hand, obviously hoping to examine the thing, Garf gave it a final twirl and scaled it ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw
... inquired the older man, as he put on his large-brimmed hat and took up the sword-cane that he was wont to twirl like a man who will face three or four ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... She set to work with great deliberation; first pulling a handful of sugar-plums out of her pocket, and arranging them in a little heap at her side on the table, and then proceeding with much gravity to stake them on the numbers. She would put down a bonbon and give the board a twirl; "ving-cinq," she would say; the ball flew round and fell into a number; it might be ten, or twenty, or twenty- five, it did not much matter; she looked to see what it was, but right or wrong, never failed to eat the bonbon—an illogical result, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... throne, when the successive species of living beings were called into being in brief exertions of supernatural energy. But this mechanical view of God who, as Goethe said, "only from without should drive and twirl the universe about," what a poor conception of God, after all, was that; not undeserving the ridicule of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... stopped off to see some friends, and I did not try to sell them anything. I don't do business with my friends—I don't think it dignified, don't you know," and Mortimer De Royster swung his cane with a jaunty air, and tried to twirl the ends of a very ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... be best unravell'd, When I premise that Tim has travell'd. In Lucas's by chance there lay The Fables writ by Mr. Gay. Tim set the volume on a table, Read over here and there a fable: And found, as he the pages twirl'd, The monkey who had seen the world; (For Tonson had, to help the sale, Prefix'd a cut to every tale.) The monkey was completely drest, The beau in all his airs exprest. Tim, with surprise and pleasure staring, Ran to the glass, and then ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... archer. "You seven-foot barrel of lies!" he cried. "All-hallows be my aid, and I will teach you to open your slabbing mouth against me! Pluck forth your sword and stand out on yonder deck, that we may see who is the man of us twain. May I never twirl a shaft over my thumb nail if I do not put Bartholomew's mark upon your ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wall for the third time, so I must stop. I really feel like a dissipated London fine lady, writing here so late, with my room full of pretty things, and my head a jumble of parks, theaters, new gowns, and gallant creatures who say "Ah!" and twirl their blond mustaches with the true English lordliness. I long to see you all, and in spite of my nonsense am, as ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... of our resources do we not all feel the presence within us of certain renegades? Does there not exist inside every man a certain big, ferocious-looking faculty who is his drum major—loving to strut at the head of a peaceful parade and twirl his bawble and roll his eyes at the children and scowl back at the quiet intrepid fellows behind as though they were his personal prisoners? Let but a skirmish threaten, and our dear, ferocious, fat major—! not even in the rear—not even ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... the world, And of late he his water-pot strangely has twirl'd; Or he's taken a cullender up by mistake, And unceasingly dips it in some mighty lake; Though it is not in Lethe—for who can forget The annoyance of getting most thoroughly wet? It must be in the river ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... taken from the earth small tubers about an inch in diameter found on the roots of a kind of grass and called "deer-food." Through them they had thrust sharp sticks of the thickness of a match and twice as long, making what we would call "teetotums." These, by a quick twirl between the palms of the hands, were set to spinning on the deer skin. The four children were keeping a dozen or more of these things going. The sport ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... strong: but if he asks for water do not give it him, for if you do, he will assuredly kill you: but when he throws away his sword, do you make haste and take it and slay him with it." So saying she went on her way and when Birluri came within a kos of the fighting place he began to twirl his staff and he made such a cloud of dust that it became dark as night and in the darkness the ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... if common gossip be not an arrant jade. Her portrait had been taken by that same limner who, they say, has been taught in the devil's school, and can despatch a likeness with the twirl of his brush." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... will best adorn my lowly brow; but Annie, bright Annie Evalyn, shall wear naught but the proud laurel and queenly jessamine;" and, giving a twirl to her pretty wreath, she tossed it over her friend's high, marble-like brow, bestowing a playful kiss on either cheek as she ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... a pauper baby under her arm instead of her cherished Toto," said Steve with an ecstatic twirl ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... mother: "Be thou praised, O gracious Ukko, Loudly praised, O thou Creator, Since thou givest me a daughter, Ahti's bride, my second daughter, Who can stir the fire at evening, Who can weave me finest fabrics, Who can twirl the useful spindle, Who can rinse my silken ribbons, Who can full the richest garments. "Son beloved, praise thy Maker, For the winning of this virgin, Pride and joy of distant Sahri Kind indeed is thy Creator, Wise the ever-knowing Ukko! Pure the ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... his, gave it a twirl as a drum-major does his cane. Lapoulle, observing what all his comrades were doing, must have supposed the performance to be some recent innovation in the manual, and followed suit, while Pache, in the confused idea of duty that he owed to his ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... your chorus, sir, Or, an' you pleased, your trumpeter, And lioned you about; Have shown you every pretty girl, And every nouvelle quadrille twirl, And every crowded rout. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... The merest trifle would give rise to these noisy outbursts of gaiety in the very midst of his wonted surliness. Some little incident, at which nobody else laughed, often sufficed to throw him into a state of wild hilarity, make him stamp his feet, twirl himself round like a top, and hold in his ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the wide smooth floor, with a stamp, a slide, and a twirl which was certainly odd, but might have been lively and graceful if she had not unfortunately been a very plump, awkward girl, with no more elasticity than a feather-bed. Jessie found it impossible not to laugh when Fanny ended her display ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... fights between cocks and other creatures. At "Hyderabad," says Mrs. Burton, "they fight every kind of animal." "A nautch," which Sir Salah gave in their honour, Mrs. Burton found tame, for the girls did nothing but eat sweetmeats and occasionally run forward and twirl round for a moment with a half-bold, semi-conscious ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... looked so bewitching under the sun-bonnet, and her waist so tempting and trim beneath the crisp folds of her clean bed-gown, that John had made bold in cousinly fashion to encircle it with his arm, whereupon she had freed herself with an impatient twirl, remarking that she didn't want no counter-jumpers to be measurin' of her—a sally which had been regarded as exquisitely humorous by the bystanders. John's cheeks burned as ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... Caryl Carne was watching it. Mr. Cheeseman could look a hundred people in the face, and with great vigour too, when a small account was running. But the sad, contemptuous, and piercing gaze—as if he were hardly worth penetrating—and the twirl of the black tuft above the lip, and the firm conviction on the broad white forehead that it was confronting a rogue too common and shallow to be worth frowning at—all these, and the facts that were under them, came amiss to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... multitude of critical eyes on them. All that the competitor knows of fine airs and graces he throws into his carriage, all that he knows of seductive expression he throws into his countenance. He may use all the helps he can devise: watch- chain to twirl with his fingers, cane to do graceful things with, snowy handkerchief to flourish and get artful effects out of, shiny new stovepipe hat to assist in his courtly bows; and the colored lady may have ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the eye by the italic words "them" and "you." The next two sentences are quite short, and variety is given by the simple transposition in "and very good farmers they were." This is no more than a graceful little twirl to relieve any possible monotony. The fourth sentence in the paragraph is also very short, purposely made so for emphasis. It gives in a word what the following long sentence presents in detail. ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... other. He threw himself back in his chair and, sternly checking its inclination to twirl again, sought for a flaw in the armour of this paragon. "And what else do you do ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... began whistling a little tune in his amazement, and the instant the dog heard the music he began to dance. What a sight was there! Gabriel's eyes grew round as he saw Topaz advance and retreat and twirl, occasionally nodding and tossing his head until his curls bobbed. He seemed to long, in his warm little dog's heart, to show Gabriel that ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... sail along!' said the Darning-needle. 'They don't know what is underneath them! Here I am sticking fast! There goes a shaving thinking of nothing in the world but of itself, a mere chip! There goes a straw—well, how it does twist and twirl, to be sure! Don't think so much about yourself, or you will be knocked against a stone. There floats a bit of newspaper. What is written on it is long ago forgotten, and yet how proud it is! I am sitting patient and quiet. I know who I am, and that ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... eye looked so very big and yellow that Teddy was frightened. Then he remembered that he was a gamblesome elf, so he made a face at her, and began to hop up and down and twirl about ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... seeing him stand on his front feet, or on his head with his hind feet kicking the air, but they enjoyed still more seeing him put on the wooden collar of a convict and twirl it around his neck. The manager gave him some bread and then tried to induce him to take it off, but he whined for more bread and refused to do so. Finally he took off the collar, and when they tried to take it from him he put ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... caught a firm hold, and the brave Shiny-pate then swung off his bough, and followed by all the others crept carefully across their companions' bodies, until the foremost ant, who had been holding on all this time by his hind legs, being relieved from the weight of his comrades, was able to twirl round ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... my name is not familiar, I think you will remember his; the name of my friend is "—here Mr. Smivvle, having at length discovered his whisker, gave it a fierce twirl,— ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... cried, "a useless, daidling body! What was he ever good for in this world but to tie his neckcloth and twirl his cane? Oh aye, he can maybe button his 'spats'! That is, if he doesna get the servant lass to do it for him. And Josiah Kettle! William, I wonder you are not shamed, goodman—to sit there in your own hearth-corner and name ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... give effect to these motives of the will. Compared with real and natural motives, these are but as paper money to coin; for their value is only arbitrary—card games and the like, which have been invented for this very purpose. And if there is nothing else to be done, a man will twirl his thumbs or beat the devil's tattoo; or a cigar may be a welcome substitute for exercising his brains. Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is card-playing,[1] and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign that it is bankrupt in thought. Because people have ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... turned to the student lamp and with a quick twirl and upward jerk of the chimney-catch extinguished the flame. A reek of smoke immediately began to foul the close, hot air: and she knew that it would betray her, but was helpless to stop it. Besides, she was caught, trapped, damned beyond redemption unless ... unless it were ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... for a moment or two in silence. Bertha Martin was swinging her left foot out across the curb with each step, giving her right heel a little twirl ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... {358} it is not to be imagined how the polite rabble of this town, who are acquainted with these objects, ridicule his rusticity. I have known a fellow with a burden on his head steal a hand down from his load, and slily twirl the cock of a squire's hat behind him; and while the offended person is swearing or out of countenance, all the wag-wits in the highway are grinning in applause of the ingenious rogue that gave him the tip, and the folly of him ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... common woodpecker, the flicker, or high-hole. Two or three male birds scrape and bow and pose and chatter about the demure female, outrageously undignified as compared with their usual behaviour. They do everything save twirl their black moustaches! ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... it the land of thirst, Call it the land accurst, Or what you will; There where the heat-lines twirl And the dust-devils whirl His ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... wounds, "that wesna' bad"; and then turning to Nestie, "Ye keepit close, my mannie." Speug's officers, such mighties as Bauldie and Johnston, MacFarlane and Mackenzie, all bearing scars, clustered round their commander with expressions of admiration. "Yon was a bonny twirl, and you coupit him weel." "Sall, they've gotten their licks," while Speug modestly disclaimed all credit, and spoke generously of the Pennies, declaring that they had fought well, and that Redhead nearly ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... in his usual place (that is to say, between the door and the barometer) and rapidly closing and unclosing the fingers of the hand which he held behind his back, The more angry Papa grew, the more rapidly did those fingers twirl, and when Papa ceased speaking they came to rest also. Yet, as soon as ever Jakoff himself began to talk, they flew here, there, and everywhere with lightning rapidity. These movements always appeared to me an index of Jakoff's secret thoughts, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... other side it seems to be, Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. The night is chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. Hush, beating heart of Christabel! Jesu, Maria, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... aloud, looking up from my letter. Ah! There was the difference between Schuyler, who picked his man, told him what he desired, and left him to fulfil it, and Gates, who chose a man, flung his inexperience into his face, and bade him twirl his thumbs and sit idle until headquarters could teach him how to do what he had been chosen to do, presumably upon his ability to ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... be fashionable. It would be unpardonable to love a plain man whom Fashion could not seduce, whose sense of right dictated his life, a man who does not walk perpendicular in a standing collar, and sport a watch-fob, and twirl a cane. And then to marry him would be death. He would be just as likely to sit down in the kitchen as in the parlor; and might get hold of the wood-saw as often as the guitar; and very likely he would have the baby ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... pretty girls, with their Parisian frocks and their relatively idle lives, Rosie, with her power of tackling actualities, was as a human being to a race of marionettes. It would be necessary for him, in deference to his hosts, to step down among them in a minute or two and twirl in their company; but he would do it with a certain pity for those to whom this sort of thing was really a pastime; he would do it as one for whom pastimes had lost their meaning and who would be in some ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... with great skill into marvelous thinness. In the middle of the room was a large round furnace containing a number of small doors not quite four feet from the ground, and a glass-blower was stationed before each of these. With long iron blowpipes these men, by giving the blowpipe a little twirl as they thrust it into the semi-molten metal, drew out on the end of it a small mass of glass, of about the consistency of nearly melted sealing wax, and holding this mass on the end of the blowpipe by keeping it in motion, ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... noises that had ceased the night before reawakened, one after the other. The bird on the branch, the dog in his kennel, the sheep in the field, the boats moored in the Loire, even, became alive and vocal. The latter, leaving the shore, abandoned themselves gaily to the current. The Gascon gave a last twirl to his mustache, a last turn to his hair, brushed, from habit, the brim of his hat with the sleeve of his doublet, and went downstairs. Scarcely had he descended the last step of the threshold when he saw Athos bent down toward the ground, as if he were looking ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and haul for blood, One nam'd Jack Luby, t' other Robin Clod, Panting they strain, and labouring hard they sweat, Mix legs, kick shins, tear cloaths, and ply their feet. Now nimbly trip, now stiffly stand their ground, And now they twirl, around, around, around; Till overcome by greater art or strength, Jack Luby lays along his lubber length. A fall! a fall! the loud spectators cry, A fall! a fall! the echoing ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... been; the other, the full and perfect image of that which is. The old squires are like the last fading and shriveled leaves of autumn that yet hang on the tree. A few more days will pass; age will send one of his nipping nights, and down they will twirl, and be swept away into the oblivious hiding-places of death, to be seen no more. But the young squire is one of the full-blown blossoms of another summer. He is flaunting in the sunshine of a state of wealth and luxury, which ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... to permit the placing of a dish under it to catch the gravy. Now and then George gave it a twirl so that none of its sides might have reason to complain at not receiving its share of the heat. The lower end roasted first, seeing which, George took the goose off, reversed it and set it twirling again. After a time he sharpened a sliver of wood, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... time, so I must stop. I really feel like a dissipated London fine lady, writing here so late, with my room full of pretty things, and my head a jumble of parks, theaters, new gowns, and gallant creatures who say "Ah!" and twirl their blond mustaches with the true English lordliness. I long to see you all, and in spite of my nonsense am, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... enclose a strong, lively rat, put the parts of the cocoa-nut together, and bind the whole with saffron-cords, to prevent the crack being seen, and then place it on a declivity previously prepared, it is clear, that if you place yourself at the foot of this declivity the rat will twirl the cocoa-nut, and cause it to descend until ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... of the body swings up and down, the fore-legs execute magnetic passes on either side of the tight-clasped female, moving with a sort of twirl, so rapidly that the eye can hardly follow them. The female appears insensible to this flagellatory twirl. She innocently curls her antennae. The rejected suitor leaves her and moves on to another. His dizzy, twirling passes, his protestations are everywhere refused. The moment has not yet arrived, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... hit, [Footnote A: The driver, Powell, I believe, occupied a cottage, or small farm, which we past during the ascent, and where goats milk was offered for refreshment.] Trudg'd by their side, and twirl'd his thong, And cheer'd his scrambling ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... Prometheus Unbound. It is unquestionably the greatest and most prodigal exhibition of Shelley's powers, this amazing lyric world, where immortal clarities sigh past in the perfumes of the blossoms, populate the breathings of the breeze, throng and twinkle in the leaves that twirl upon the bough; where the very grass is all a-rustle with lovely spirit-things, and a weeping mist of music fills the air. The final scenes especially are such a Bacchic reel and rout and revelry of beauty as leaves one staggered and giddy; ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... of magazines. The caterer marches down the length of the table with the half-inquiring, half-defiant announcement, "Pies, gentlemen! pies, gentlemen!" At every step he reaches for a pie, gives it a dexterous twirl between his thumb and finger, and sends it spinning to the recipient with a skill and accuracy of aim which would have done credit to the disk-thrower ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... like the ape, exhibit what's behind. With gests so stiff their lesson they repeat, You'd swear with staves their bodies were replete! Heard you the men from merry England sing? Saw you their jolly dance, their lusty spring? How like a top they spin, and twirl, and turn? And from the heart they speak—ours from a roll must learn.... —From ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... eyes should flash with an inborn fire, His brow with scorn be rung; He never should bow down to a domineering frown, Or the tang of a tyrant tongue. His foot should stamp and his throat should growl, His hair should twirl and his face should scowl: His eyes should flash and his breast protrude, And this should be his ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... cried Pussy Grey, "I fear you're a wicked one! But wait, I'll light my lantern quick And put my ulster on!" The twirl of a furry paw Was all the firelight saw, And ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... a little round stick, about as thick as a match, but twice as long; the upper piece is flat, and streaked with paint. Unless you are accustomed to look for secrets, you would scarcely be able to notice that the flat piece is trimmed along two edges at a particular angle. Twirl the lower piece rapidly between the palms of both hands, and suddenly let it go. At once the strange toy rises revolving in the air, and then sails away slowly to quite a distance, performing extraordinary gyrations, and imitating exactly—to ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... eastern North America that makes a habit of scaling the tree trunks and descending them head downward. How does he do this? The muscles of his legs and pelvis are as elastic as India rubber, so that he can twist and twirl about in a marvelous way, pointing his head one moment to the east and the next, without losing his hold, in the opposite direction. He is able to swing himself around almost as if he ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... blind and dumb Deaf and dumb, Twirl the cane so troublesome! Sprigs of fashion by the dozen Thou dost bring to book, good cousin. Cousin, thou art not in clover; Many a head that's filled with smoke Thou hast twirled and well-nigh broke, Many a clever one ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... mad race had not been quite vain. Her engines had been shut down; there was no steerage-way for the Nagasaki Maru, and, from all they could see, there were no human hands to drag at the levers of her waiting engines nor to twirl with sure touch the deserted helm. The ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... nut, and would take some getting through. He sat back on his haunches, grasped it in his eight little fingers, gave it a twirl or two, and commenced gnawing three strokes a second. He gnawed for two minutes without ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... of her own Name, but she declares he is not of their Family, yet a very extraordinary Man in his way; for besides a very soft Air he has in Dancing, he gives them a particular Behaviour at a Tea-Table, and in presenting their Snuff-Box, to twirl, flip, or flirt a Fan, and how to place Patches to the best advantage, either for Fat or Lean, Long or Oval Faces: for my Lady says there is more in these Things than the World Imagines. But I must confess ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... an' he rooted about wi' th' keys, tryin' to stop it. But th' owd lad wur i' sich a fluster, that istid o' stoppin' it, he swapped th' barrel to another tune. That made him warse nor ever. Owd Thwittler whisper'd to him, 'Thire, Dick; thae's shapt that nicely! Give it another twirl, owd bird!' Well, Dick sweat, an' futter't about till he swapped th' barrel again. An' then he looked round th' singin'-pew, as helpless as a kittlin'; an' he said to th' singers, 'Whatever mun aw do, folk?' an' tears coom into his e'en. 'Roll it o'er,' ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... so nimble and supple, They twist, an' they twine, an' they twirl, Such walking, an' running, an' kneeling, Does the wee little ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... into the room of the senior partner, who was looking at his visitor's card, and now glanced up with a humorous twirl of ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... Hugh explained, "and twirl round with your other big toe in the sand—like this. That makes a circle to fit your own shadow. Then you stand in the middle and see where the shadow hits the circle. And then you guess the time near enough for all practical ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... mock me with his booty, And twirl my visions round his bony finger? And will he tell my heart no other beauty Upon the earth is mine—no other duty, Than for ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... lady's arm, was completely coated over with a thick layer of red dust. But the hot wind was going down now, as it always does towards sunset. Indeed, all that remained of it were a few strictly local and miniature whirlwinds, which would suddenly spring up on the road itself, and twist and twirl fiercely round, raising a mighty column of dust fifty feet or more into the air, where it hung long after the wind had passed, and then slowly dissolved as its particles floated ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... of its influence, this happy and necessary exemption of infancy from labour. Steam is the moving power; it exerts the strength; the human machine is required only to lift a web periodically, or damp a roller, or twirl a film round the finger, to which the hands of infancy are as adequate as those of mature age. Hence the general employment of children, and especially girls, in such employments. They are equally serviceable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... Then with a twirl Thinking I slept, And a joyous whirl, Into a dance leapt The careless spirit too long restrained; The purest dancing, Feet sometimes chancing To touch the ground; Then starting up with a fresh high bound, To hang for a moment poised in the air, ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... chuckled, and rubbed his fat little hands, and leaning over to me said, 'at home a lion, but abroad a lamb,' for, surrounded by his women at home, the man would twirl his moustaches, look fierce, and fancy himself a very tiger; but, no sooner did he go abroad, and mix with men as good, if not better than himself, than he was ready to eat any amount ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... over the world, And of late he his water-pot strangely has twirl'd; Or he's taken a cullender up by mistake, And unceasingly dips it in some mighty lake; Though it is not in Lethe—for who can forget The annoyance of getting most thoroughly wet? It must be in the river called Styx, I declare, For the moment it drizzles it makes the men swear. "It did rain ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... Livingstone disliked Selkirk heartily, and did not take the trouble to conceal it. He used to look at him sometimes with a curious expression in his eyes, which made the tutor twirl and writhe uncomfortably in his chair. The latter annoyed him as much as he possibly could, but Guy held on the even tenor of his way, seldom contravening the statutes except in hunting three days a week, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... the shell, three drams and a half. On this she drove in two wads. Now the shell was ready for an ounce and an eighth of number nine shot, and she measured it and poured it in with practised hand. Then came the last wad, a quick twirl of the crimper, and the first shell ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... to the court of the prince. But the fame of Sylvina's beauty and charms spread far and near, and hundreds visited the prince who had never before been seen at his castle. Especially did there come gay young sparks, with downy moustachelets to twirl, and swords that tinkled at their heels; and so attentive were these crowds of gallants that Sylvina never had time even to think, else her thoughts might have gone back to her true lover, whom she had forsaken in his poverty and sorrow, and whose white, distracted face often even yet haunted ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... be that you would make a prisoner of me, Who hate yourself to be cooped up, who love so to be free; An extra hour indoors, I know, is punishment to you; You make me twirl a tiny cage? It ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... porter who can deftly twirl a can In each hand along the platform is no ordinary man; But what kills me is the banging And the clashing and the clanging As he hurls them in or hauls ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... fistula, which filled the whole ward with its odour. In one sleeping hand lay his little round mirror, in the other, he clutched his comb. With daylight, he would trim and comb his moustache, his poor, little drooping moustache, and twirl the ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... close by his elbow, takes a partnership in his game, furnishes the stakes when out of luck, and in truth does not care how fast the gull loses; for a twirl of his mustachio, a tip of his nose, or a wink of his eye, drives all the losses of the gull into the profits of the grand confederacy at the Ordinarie. And when the impostor has fought the gull's quarrels many a time, at last he kicks up the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... may be so. However, I much fear his instructions have edified out of their place, and taught men to grow wiser in certain points where he never intended they should; for it is lamentable to behold with what a lazy scorn many of the yawning readers in our age do now-a-days twirl over forty or fifty pages of preface and dedication (which is the usual modern stint), as if it were so much Latin. Though it must be also allowed, on the other hand, that a very considerable number is known to proceed critics and wits by reading nothing else. Into which two factions I think ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... I must do something or other, or I'll explode, I can't sit by and twirl my thumbs while two such women as you and Miss Burton are in trouble. When a man breaks a girl's heart I feel like ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... thrilling story. "The stage coach left the old Stag Inn, amidst the thundering of the horses' hoofs and the cracking of the driver's whip." Some member will probably have chosen to be the horses, another the whip, and as their names are mentioned they must rise, twirl round and sit down again. Then the narrator continues: "For some miles all went well, then a bridle gave way (the bridle must rise and twirl round) and the driver put down the reins, jumped from his seat and ran to the horses' heads. It was found necessary ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... gives the bottle to one who sits guarding a tiny furnace in which oil sprayed under pressure roars and flares. The rough neck of the bottle goes into the flame; the raw edges left when the bubble was chipped off are smoothed away by the heat; the neck undergoes a final polishing and shaping twirl in the jaws of a steel instrument, and the bottle is laid on a little shelf to be carried away. It ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... saw it, sent a maid out to draw it, But scarce had she given the windlass a twirl, Ere Gengulphus's head, from the well's bottom, said In mild accents, "Do help us out, that's a ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... said Mr Meagles softly, as he gave a turn to the dumb-waiter on his right hand to twirl the sugar towards himself. 'There's a girl who might be lost and ruined, if she wasn't among practical people. Mother and I know, solely from being practical, that there are times when that girl's whole nature seems to roughen itself against seeing us so bound up in Pet. No father and mother ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... rebuilds what fires consume! Eat we and drink we, be our ditty, "Joy to the managing committee!" Eat we and drink we, join to rum Roast beef and pudding of the plum! Forth from thy nook, John Horner, come, With bread of ginger brown thy thumb, For this is Drury's gay day: Roll, roll thy hoop, and twirl thy tops, And buy, to glad thy smiling chops, Crisp parliament with lollypops, And ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... Richard, he had brought it down, accompanied by his friend, who was anxious to pay his devoirs to the ladies, and though Will spoke to the mother, he smiled and nodded comprehension at the daughter, who blushed furiously, and set her spindle to twirl and leap so violently, as to make the kitten believe the creature had taken fright, and was going to escape. On she dashed with a sudden spring, involving herself and it in the flax. The old watch-dog roused himself with a growl to keep order. Cicely flung herself on the cat, Antony ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sardonically. "I have no clothes except these," and he lifted two long strips of his frock-coat in fascinating festoons, and made a movement as if to twirl like ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... coming, Rad?" asked Tom, as he looked to see if the oil and gasoline tanks were filled, and gave a preliminary twirl ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... the rope drawn through the dried-up skin of the drum and began to twirl it around with all his strength. The same sounds which had previously so startled the negroes resounded now, and even more shrilly, as they were not muffled by the walls ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... answered with unaccustomed brilliancy and mendacity that he had a scare for nothing because he could not read her fine Italian hand. She was only getting some things ready to send to Captain Truscott by the stage to Fetterman. All the same he slipped into his room, got his revolver, gave a quiet twirl to the cylinder to see that all was working smoothly, and the next minute, without knocking, banged into the front room of Gleason's quarters, finding that worthy sluicing his head and face with ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... their wings, and pursuing one another from bush to bush. They show now neither fear nor circumspection, and crazy, blind, and deaf, scarcely seem to notice the noise, the flashes, or the cries of the sportsmen. At length all is in complete confusion. They toss and twirl about like great leaves in a hurricane, and finally fly, with their ranks somewhat diminished, to their several homes. This sport lasts but a short half-hour; after which, the woodcocks having said all they had to say, made and accepted their ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... the tail, like bracelet twirl'd, In moments of disgrace uncurl'd, Then at a pardoning word re-furl'd, A conquering sign; Crying, "Come on, and range the world, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... my father lived on terms of intimacy, since he trimmed his wig and beard. When my father died, I undertook this business; and Capuzzi was in the highest degree satisfied with me, because, as he once affirmed, I knew better than anybody else how to give his moustaches a bold upward twirl; but the real reason was because I was satisfied with the few pence with which he rewarded me for my pains. But he firmly believed that he more than richly indemnified me, since, whilst I was trimming his beard, he always closed his eyes and croaked through ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... v. 2. 1. Sometimes Agni is "born with the fingers," which twirl the sticks (iii. ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... letters and post them. We may—if we be great men—indite despatches and give them into the hands of trusty messengers, and a little twirl of Fortune's wheel will send all our ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... inform Tommy without letting Grizel know? She had tried twice long ago to teach him to write, but he found it harder on the wrists than the heaviest luggage. It was not safe for him even to think of the extra twirl that turned an n into an m, without first removing any knick-knacks that might be about. Nevertheless, he now proposed a third set-to, and Grizel acquiesced, though she thought it but another of his inventions to keep her ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... to me with a little twirling motion that sent another wave on my skirt and which had an unmistakably professional knack to it. I have seen old Wilks set down beer steins and cocktail glasses with exactly that twirl ever since he has officiated at the lockers and sideboard at the Club, and I now know that his motions had the latest Last Chance style to them. Thus, by gossamer links and steel cable, the Town and the Settlement ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... as Punic; such names; one must be barbarian to boot, as well as witch, to pronounce them: a score of things there were besides. And then to see the old woman, with her streaming grey hair, twinkling eyes, and grim look, twirl about as some flute girl at a banquet; it was enough to dance down, not only the moon, but the whole milky way. But it did not dance down Callista; at which mother got savage, and protested that ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... two or three hours earlier, but there was still reason to suppose that there might be a salmon left for me. I began by hooking and playing in the first pool a small red fish of, I should say, 7 lb., which did me the honour of making a graceful twirl when I had, as I supposed, tired him out; with a flutter of his tail, he sheered off with contemptuous slowness under my very nose into the deeps again. An hour later I got a similar fish, small and red (just under 7 lb.), which did not escape. By and by, with a full-sized Durham Ranger, I had ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... the history of all his love-making. She drew him on to passionate utterance, and then, with a twist of her wit and a twirl of her skirts, she eluded him. When she had thus put herself out of his reach, he felt ashamed. What right had he, dull, useless, lumbering, squiredomless squire, to ask a woman like Viviette to marry him? How could he support a wife? As it was, he lived a pensioner on Austin's bounty. Could he ask ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... didn't you go?" asked Grandpapa, just as carelessly, and giving the paper knife an extra twirl ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... England, and the countryside in general is more compact and regular. The roads are straight and tree-bordered, so that they form almost as good a guide to an airman as the railways. In England the roads twist and twirl through each other like the threads of a spider's web, and failing rail or river or prominent landmarks, one usually steers by compass rather ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... this square old yellow book I toss I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about By the crumpled vellum covers—pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard And brains, high blooded, ticked two centuries hence? Give it me back. The thing's restorative I' ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... a folly still to twirl, And smirk and promenade and querl About the town? I'll put this down: A man becomes downright blast Before he knows that he is either That, or what I am—call ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... enthusiasm, "reg'lar bangin' crashin' sort o' work—as good as fightin' any day! An' my brother Frank's a fireman. Such a one, too, you've no notion; six fut four he is, an' as strong as—oh, why, ma'am, he could take you up in one hand, ma'am, an' twirl you round his head like an old hat! He was at the fire in Beverly Square ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... Tom Dowdle, the ragman, and I'm for any man that insults me! log-leg or leather-breeches, green-shirt or blanket-coat, land-trotter or river-roller,—I'm the man for a massacree!" Then giving himself a twirl upon his foot that would have done credit to a dancing-master, he proceeded to other antic demonstrations of hostility, which when performed in after years on the banks of the Lower Mississippi, by himself and his worthy imitators, were, we suspect, the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... in the frontlines right now, bursting with dulce et decorum. I don't believe it would bother the Old Man any if I sat out the duration in a C O camp, but it'd hurt his job like hell and the poor old boy is straining his guts to get into the trenches and twirl a theoretical saber. So I guess I'm slated to be your humble ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... hues that net the sun, Making coy circles ere he alight Entangled in the toil of death! Forward I spring, without my breath, To see the fiend, high-elbowed, whirl Around those limbs and wings, and twirl His thread to thwart the chance of flight. Fate on a single instant hangs, And ready the demon's eager fangs To penetrate that sylphic breast! Nipping the wing-tips gently I Flirt him from danger suddenly; Strike with my cap a rapid blow, Dashing the enemy down ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... the world. Him whom I meant was your terrestrial Dalai-Lama; he to whom you have given the title of 'Father of the Church.' That is a great sin. May he be brought back, with the flock, who are now in a bad road," piously added the lama, giving another twirl to ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... pretty! I think all American girls are pretty. It seems their birthright. When I say American, I mean the whole continent, of course. I'm from the States myself—from New York." He gave an extra twirl to his cane as he said this, and bore himself with that air of conscious superiority which naturally pertains to a citizen of the metropolis. "But over in the States we think the men should do all the work, and that the women should—well, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... breast Of purpling airs they twirl and twist, Then float away to some far rest, Leaving the skies all colour-kiss't— A glorious and a golden West That greets the Lifting of ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... without matches, is to string a bow and twirl a stick in a hole punched into another stick. Next easiest way is to find a piece of flint, strike two pieces together to make sparks and hope one will set a wad of punk on fire. If no other way, rubbing ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... would not preserve them in statu quo; moreover, he knew, or thought he knew, all that they could convey. He swung the door shut; then swung it open, and looked again at the picture—and for sometime—before he put it up and gave the knob a twirl. ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... decorum. I don't believe it would bother the Old Man any if I sat out the duration in a C O camp, but it'd hurt his job like hell and the poor old boy is straining his guts to get into the trenches and twirl a theoretical saber. So I guess I'm slated to be your humble and ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... to-day, it would comfort me to know about it. I am acting like an idiot, Betsy. I know that, but I wish you could understand how I feel. Power! I am the head-waters of Niagara! I could pluck down the stars and set them in different places! I could twist the tail from the comet! I could twirl the globe on my palm and topple mountains and wipe lakes from the surface! I am a live man, Betsy. Existence is over. So don't you go at any tricks or I might pull off your head. Betsy, if you see the tallest girl you ever saw, and she wears a dark diadem, and ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... three. "Ha, witch!" they cried, as thus she helpless lay, "Shalt know the fire and roasted be one day!" Now as the aged creature wailed and wept, Forth to her side Duke Joc'lyn lightly stepped, With quarter-staff a-twirl he blithely came. Quoth he: "Messires, harm not this ancient dame, Bethink ye how e'en old and weak as she, Your wives and mothers all must one day be. So here then lies your mother, and 't were meeter As ye are sons that as sons ye entreat her. Come, let her ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... gave it a twirl as a drum-major does his cane. Lapoulle, observing what all his comrades were doing, must have supposed the performance to be some recent innovation in the manual, and followed suit, while Pache, in the confused idea of duty that he owed to his religious education, refused to do ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... her, and when the income had vanished he pawned his jewelry, including his watch. But then, boys will be boys, and after all, what could the poor youth do? All alone in a strange place! It is so uninteresting to sit and twirl one's thumbs: ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... stout strands apart and make an opening through which to pass, or thrust at us in their turn with their spears. Suddenly, in the dim starlight, as I was busily reloading my revolver, I saw the cook emerge from the galley with what looked like a bucket in his hand. With a quick twirl he seemed to throw the contents of this bucket through the net just where the savages were crowding thickest on the other side of it, and the next instant there arose a more than usually piercing chorus of ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... well he did so, or bloodshed must have ensued, as at that moment a tall and powerful man, brother-in-law to the bride, lifted his stick, and after giving it the customary twirl aimed a point-blank blow at the head of the ill-omened parson. The bound of an antelope brought the girl to the spot; her small hand averted the direction of the deadly weapon, and before the action had been perceived ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... broad-breasted, old oak tree. The night is chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek— There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. Hush, beating heart of Christabel! Jesu, Maria, shield her well! She folded her arms beneath her cloak, ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... way of freezing graniti by which they can be put on the table in the vessel in which they were frozen. Place the mixture in wide-mouthed water-bottles, twirl them round in ice and salt, and, as the contents become frozen on the inside of the bottle, scrape down with a narrow wooden stick or spatula. When frozen in perfection the bottle should seem ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... magazines. The caterer marches down the length of the table with the half-inquiring, half-defiant announcement, "Pies, gentlemen! pies, gentlemen!" At every step he reaches for a pie, gives it a dexterous twirl between his thumb and finger, and sends it spinning to the recipient with a skill and accuracy of aim which would have done credit to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... with your name. I propose that we drink, with three cheers: 'All honor to him who has worthily served his country, in whose history his name will be enshrined for the benefit of unborn generations.'" Having concluded, Flora gave her glass a twirl over her head, and three cheers were given so heartily that they went directly to the major's heart, and made him declare within himself that there could now be no doubt ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... closed after this. A padlock knocked against it when the wind blew, as if spuriously announcing a visitor. The deceit failed of effect, for there was no inmate left, and the freakish gust could only twirl the lock anew, and go swirling down the road with a rout of dust in a witches' dance behind it. The passers-by took note of the deserted aspect of things, and knew that the brothers were absent electioneering, and wondered vaguely what the chances might be. This passing was somewhat ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... sits close by his elbow, takes a partnership in his game, furnishes the stakes when out of luck, and in truth does not care how fast the gull loses; for a twirl of his mustachio, a tip of his nose, or a wink of his eye, drives all the losses of the gull into the profits of the grand confederacy at the Ordinarie. And when the impostor has fought the gull's quarrels many a time, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... desire is to do a little good in the world whilst yet he lingers on this level. Nothing new in crusade against drink. No kudos to be gained; no acclaim of the multitude to ring in the pleased ear; no cheering clash of party conflict. GRANDOLPH gives a deprecating twirl to his modest moustache, and takes up his homely parable. Possibly he does this with the larger content, since he had his go at the Land Purchase Bill before Debate on Second Reading opened. His letters, published on eve of Easter recess, hurtled pleasantly around the heads of his esteemed friends ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 1890.05.10 • Various
... dainty ways made the details of this costume yet more shocking to him, and he exaggerated this little disaster. He felt degraded and almost ridiculous. The thought took away for a moment his presence of mind; he began mechanically to twirl his hat in his hands, exactly as if he had been Pere Rousselet himself. But instead of being hurtful to him, this awkwardness served him better than the eloquence of Rousseau or the coolness of Richelieu. Was it not a genuine triumph ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the river side, giving a majestic twirl to his wooden leg with every step he took through the long grass. How he would have loved a bathe! The pool where he had so enjoyed himself with Lubin was not far off—the pool of Daphnis, as he had christened it; ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... into the front hall, the first to recognize him was the round-eyed Verka, dressed in her usual jockey costume. She began to twirl round and round, to clap her palms, and ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... me," said she. "I want you to gather little tendrils of dry moss and watch beside me while I twirl the stick. The moment I tell you to, you must drop little pieces of dry moss into the hollow place in the wood. Firetop, you gather a great heap of sticks here on top of the rock." Limberleg knelt on the edge of the rock and began to twirl the stick ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... your remark, father, and rest assured that I will do my duty," he answered, with a twirl of his moustache and a stiff bow of the head. "The child is heir, you tell me, to a good property in this far-off island of Shetland, of which till now I never heard; he may well be content with that; indeed it is clear that he ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... and bending over the fire, meritoriously sensible of the trying nature of his duty, he watched the wreaths of steam, until at the special instant of projection he caught up the iron vessel and gave it one delicate twirl, causing it to send forth one gentle hiss. Then he restored the contents to the jug; held over the steam of the jug, each of the three bright glasses in succession; finally filled them all, and with a clear conscience awaited the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... you, Mademoiselle," he declared, with a vigorous twirl of his moustache, "that I ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... first pulling a handful of sugar-plums out of her pocket, and arranging them in a little heap at her side on the table, and then proceeding with much gravity to stake them on the numbers. She would put down a bonbon and give the board a twirl; "ving-cinq," she would say; the ball flew round and fell into a number; it might be ten, or twenty, or twenty- five, it did not much matter; she looked to see what it was, but right or wrong, never failed to eat the bonbon—an ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... the force of fire, And hid it in the dust that strew'd the cave, Then to my few companions, bold and brave, Proposed, who first the venturous deed should try, In the broad orbit of his monstrous eye To plunge the brand and twirl the pointed wood, When slumber next should tame the man of blood. Just as I wished, the lots were cast on four: Myself the fifth. We stand and wait the hour. He comes with evening: all his fleecy flock Before him march, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... how they sail along!' said the Darning-needle. 'They don't know what is underneath them! Here I am sticking fast! There goes a shaving thinking of nothing in the world but of itself, a mere chip! There goes a straw—well, how it does twist and twirl, to be sure! Don't think so much about yourself, or you will be knocked against a stone. There floats a bit of newspaper. What is written on it is long ago forgotten, and yet how proud it is! I am sitting patient and quiet. I know who I am, and that is ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... bucket up again, full of sea-water, wherewith he sluiced the decks fore and aft thoroughly; while Dick, on his part, scrubbed the planks with a piece of "holystone," then adroitly drying them with a mop, which he could twirl now, after a little experience, with all the dexterity ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Potter's hat began to twirl uneasily again. "And the wife—she ain't strong, just ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... that was presently to purple, at this stage his chin was undoubted and as square as a spade, and, as so often happens to chins of this potentiality, punctuated absurdly with a dimple, and he wore a little clipped edge of black mustache which he tried to twirl. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... have no clothes except these," and he lifted two long strips of his frock-coat in fascinating festoons, and made a movement as if to twirl like ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... best humour that day, That ever his Highness was known to be in,— That's why he sent out his imps to play With sulphur, and tar, and pitch, and resin: They came to the saint in a motley crew, Twisted and twirl'd themselves about,— Imps of every shape and hue, A devilish, strange, and rum-looking rout. Yet the good St. Anthony kept his eyes So firmly fixed upon his book, Shouts nor laughter, sighs nor cries, Never could win ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... Lord," she laughed, releasing herself with a gentle twirl; "and now I'll go and get dinner ready. After all, it doesn't matter what world one's in, one ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... her gloves a disdainful, careless twirl, and went on her way to her room. To her astonishment, a few moments later, she heard the front door slam. Willoughby had ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... give half clad charms to view. What calls them forth to brave the daring glance, The public ball, the midnight wanton dance? There many a blooming nymph, by fashion led, Has felt her health, her peace, her honour fled; Truss'd her fine form to strange fantastic shapes, To be admir'd, and twirl'd about by apes; Or, mingling in the motley masquerade, Found ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... I gave my "broiler" a spin which wound up the line. When it was twisted tight, it reversed itself, unwinding, and so revolving my cookery, exposing all sides to the fire. Of course it gradually lost its spin, then I gave it another twirl. Given plenty of time, over a slow fire of glowing coals, my bird would be done to a queen's taste—a much too delicious dish ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... way to join it now," the young man answered, looking up at the bishop from the chair near Edith on which he was again sitting, and giving the corners of his little light moustache a twirl on either side when he had spoken. All his features, except his eyes, preserved an imperturbable gravity; his lips moved, but without altering the expression of his face. His eyes, however, inspected the bishop intelligently; and always, when he spoke to him, they rested on some ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... wrestling-pit, with its thick layer of soft earth, it often contains Indian clubs, large stones with which the young men exercise their muscles after the manner of dumb-bells, the post round which they twist and twirl to develop their arms and legs, and the drums which they beat in the ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... telling Clara that my pitching arm was likely to bring me in more money this year, Momsey, and I was giving it a twirl, when you happened to get in my way. Now I'll tell you all about it. It's this letter," and Joe held out the one he had ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... older man, as he put on his large-brimmed hat and took up the sword-cane that he was wont to twirl like a man who will face three or four ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... us stand out of the way a little, so that they may twirl at their ease. Come, illustrious children of this inhabitant of the briny, brothers of the shrimps, skip on the sand and the shore of the barren sea; show us the lightning whirls and twirls of your nimble limbs. Glorious offspring of Phrynichus,[172] ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... be impassive. The model of a sentry is a wooden soldier. A really good sentry does not sneeze or cough on duty. Did any one ever see a sentry, for instance, wipe his nose? Or twirl his thumbs? Or ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... form; and they express unbounded astonishment, on being told that Taglioni was paid a hundred and fifty guineas a-night, "that such a sum should be paid to a woman to stand a long time like a goose on one leg, then to throw one leg straight out, twirl round three or four times with the leg thus extended, curtsy so low as nearly to seat herself on the stage, and spring from one side of the stage to another, all which jumping about did ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... remarkable seance, where the souls of the departed outdid themselves in the athletics and acrobatics they seem so fond of over there, throwing large stones across the room, moving pianos, and lifting dinner-tables and setting them a-twirl under the chandelier. "And now," he demanded, "what do you say to that?" "Well, Mr. Appleton," Agassiz answered, to Appleton's infinite delight, "I say that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the Countess's affection, gradually to work, you would have thought that the hero of La Mancha in person stood before you. How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable carelessness would he twirl his gold chain! what a dream it was! you were infected with the illusion, and did not wish that it should be removed! you had no room for laughter! if an unseasonable reflection of morality obtruded itself, it was a deep sense ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... but she declares he is not of their Family, yet a very extraordinary Man in his way; for besides a very soft Air he has in Dancing, he gives them a particular Behaviour at a Tea-Table, and in presenting their Snuff-Box, to twirl, flip, or flirt a Fan, and how to place Patches to the best advantage, either for Fat or Lean, Long or Oval Faces: for my Lady says there is more in these Things than the World Imagines. But I must confess the major Part of those I am concern'd with ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... as well as Punic; such names; one must be barbarian to boot, as well as witch, to pronounce them: a score of things there were besides. And then to see the old woman, with her streaming grey hair, twinkling eyes, and grim look, twirl about as some flute girl at a banquet; it was enough to dance down, not only the moon, but the whole milky way. But it did not dance down Callista; at which mother got savage, and protested that ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... even a grisly. Such dogs are the big half-breed hounds sometimes used in the Alleghanies of West Virginia, which are trained not merely to nip a bear, but to grip him by the hock as he runs and either throw him or twirl him round. A grisly could not disregard a wary and powerful hound capable of performing this trick, even though he paid small heed to mere barking and occasional nipping. Nor do I doubt that it would be possible to get together ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... strong enough to bend it at all. It hadn't; it was in perfect shape, except for the knot. Or so it seemed, at least, for even as Ray started forward with outstretched hand, obviously hoping to examine the thing, Garf gave it a final twirl and scaled it ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw
... conversing and finishing their dinner, when crash! and smash! went something! Poor Charley! In the eagerness of his delight, while showing the beautiful bow to his brother, he had brought the end of it within the handle of a large water-pitcher, which stood on the side table near him, and alas, the twirl was too sudden—the poor pitcher came to the floor with a mighty emphasis. "Boy! what are you about? What have you done? What do you mean by such carelessness? Will you break everything in the house, you heedless fellow? ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... seemed to be spinning in a sea of blood . . . Men and women, all had risen from their knees now, and stood blinking each in the other's faces half-stupidly. The Minister's powerful voice had ceased, but he had set them going as a man might twirl a teetotum; and in five or six seconds one of the men—it was Roger, the young giant—burst forth with a cry, and began to ejaculate what he called his "experience." He had been tempted to commit ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... villages seem to sprawl less than those of England, and the countryside in general is more compact and regular. The roads are straight and tree-bordered, so that they form almost as good a guide to an airman as the railways. In England the roads twist and twirl through each other like the threads of a spider's web, and failing rail or river or prominent landmarks, one usually steers by compass rather than ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... bush. They show now neither fear nor circumspection, and crazy, blind, and deaf, scarcely seem to notice the noise, the flashes, or the cries of the sportsmen. At length all is in complete confusion. They toss and twirl about like great leaves in a hurricane, and finally fly, with their ranks somewhat diminished, to their several homes. This sport lasts but a short half-hour; after which, the woodcocks having said ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... the other. He threw himself back in his chair and, sternly checking its inclination to twirl again, sought for a flaw in the armour of this paragon. "And what else do you do in the ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... becoming quite reckless, almost prancing, with feet stepping at least half an inch from the floor, there suddenly yawned directly in front of the astounded kitten the six-inch chasm of the drinking dish! She toppled; her tail gave a single wild twirl; and she splashed heels over head ...
— The Book of the Cat • Mabel Humphrey and Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall
... people making merry, That you may see how lightly life can run. Each day to this small folk's a feast of fun; Not over-witty, self-contented, Still round and round in circle-dance they whirl, As with their tails young kittens twirl. If with no headache they're tormented, Nor dunned by landlord for his pay, They're ...
— Faust • Goethe
... belle of Holywell, And pride of Norton Falgate, In waltzing may the world excel, Except Miss Hicks of Aldgate. Well, let them—'tis their nature—twirl, And Smiths adore their twirlings, Which kill with envy every girl That ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... said the practical Jean; "let's all bring our stockings to darn. There can't but one of us read at a time, and I just hate to do nothing but sit and twirl my thumbs." ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... his seat, he planted his big gold-headed ebony cane between his knees, put his hat on the head of his cane, gave it a twirl, and looking over sidewise at her, smiled with an equal mixture of real liking and ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... darted at th' organ; an' he rooted about wi' th' keys, tryin' to stop it. But th' owd lad wur i' sich a fluster, that istid o' stoppin' it, he swapped th' barrel to another tune. That made him warse nor ever. Owd Thwittler whisper'd to him, 'Thire, Dick; thae's shapt that nicely! Give it another twirl, owd bird!' Well, Dick sweat, an' futter't about till he swapped th' barrel again. An' then he looked round th' singin'-pew, as helpless as a kittlin'; an' he said to th' singers, 'Whatever mun aw do, folk?' an' tears coom into his ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... graces he put on! The arts he practised! The condescension of his smile! The upward tilt of his nose! The twirl of his moustachios! The defiant angle of ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... banker sits before the wheel,—a croupier, or payer-out of winnings to and raker in of losses from the players, on either side. Crying in a voice calmly sonorous, "Faites le Jeu, Messieurs,"—"Make your game, gentlemen!" the banker gives the wheel a dexterous twirl, and ere it has made one revolution, casts into its Maelstrom of black and red an ivory ball. The interval between this and the ball finding a home is one of breathless anxiety. Stakes are eagerly laid; but at a certain ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... student should be unbent by some relaxation, however trifling. When Petavius was employed in his Dogmata Theologica, a work of the most profound and extensive erudition, the great recreation of the learned father was, at the end of every second hour, to twirl his chair for five minutes. After protracted studies Spinosa would mix with the family-party where he lodged, and join in the most trivial conversations, or unbend his mind by setting spiders to fight each other; he observed their ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... majority, but she looked older. Her face had that look of wisdom that comes to the young who have suffered physical pain. "We've got to do something. We're all too full of energy and spirits, at least the rest of you are, and I'm getting huskier every minute, to twirl our hands and do nothing. None of us ever wants to be married,—that's settled; but we do want to be useful. We're a united group of the closest kind of friends, bound by the ties of—of—natural selection, and we need a purpose in life. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... been his limit—his extreme limit. He just saw his way to square his accounts satisfactorily if he were driven to pay that as the penalty of one of his rare mistakes. He glanced at Sloyd; radiant joy and relief illumined that young man's face, as he gave his mustache an upward twirl. Duplay was smiling—yes, smiling. At last Iver smiled too. Harry was grave—not solemn—but merely not smiling because he did not perceive anything to smile at. No doubt he was gratified by the success of his tactics, and pleased that his formidable opponent had been deceived by them. But he thought ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... of wind threatened to tear him from the rigging and crash him to the ice, a dangerous distance below. With a quick clutch, he saved himself but lost the rope. It was with a grunt of disgust that he saw it wind and twirl toward the white surface below. Then it was, for the first time, that he saw the yellowish-white object huddled ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... is good for sick folks, and the music you pound out isn't. Not that exactly, but something like it. I have been to hear some music-pounding. It was a young woman, with as many white muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has rings, that did it. She—gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her fingers till they ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... fear his instructions have edified out of their place, and taught men to grow wiser in certain points where he never intended they should; for it is lamentable to behold with what a lazy scorn many of the yawning readers in our age do now-a-days twirl over forty or fifty pages of preface and dedication (which is the usual modern stint), as if it were so much Latin. Though it must be also allowed, on the other hand, that a very considerable number is known to proceed critics and wits by reading nothing else. Into which two factions I think all ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... human skeleton, by means of a rope tied round one of the legs and fastened to a ring in the ceiling. The other limb, confined by no such fetter, stuck off from the body at right angles, causing the whole loose and rattling frame to dangle and twirl about at the caprice of every occasional puff of wind which found its way into the apartment. In the cranium of this hideous thing lay quantity of ignited charcoal, which threw a fitful but vivid light over the entire scene; while coffins, and other ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a half. On this she drove in two wads. Now the shell was ready for an ounce and an eighth of number nine shot, and she measured it and poured it in with practised hand. Then came the last wad, a quick twirl of the crimper, and the first shell lay loaded ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... headquarters?" I said, aloud, looking up from my letter. Ah! There was the difference between Schuyler, who picked his man, told him what he desired, and left him to fulfil it, and Gates, who chose a man, flung his inexperience into his face, and bade him twirl his thumbs and sit idle until headquarters could teach him how to do what he had been chosen to do, presumably upon his ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... dull, I thought: no beautiful new Waltzes and Polkas which I love. It is a strange thing to go to the Casinos and see the coarse whores and apprentices in bespattered morning dresses, pea-jackets, and bonnets, twirl round clumsily and indecently to the divine airs played in the Gallery; 'the music yearning like a God in pain' indeed. I should like to hear some of your Florentine Concerts; and I do wish you to believe that I do constantly wish myself with you: that, if I ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... let the patient up, Michael," says the Doctor, with a confident twirl of his perfumed handkerchief. "There, sir—there was science, art, elegance, and dispatch! Now, sir, your tooth is safe—your life is ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... this as with other matters. You have been trained from childhood to sit your horse. You can stoop over while you are galloping at full speed and pick up a stone from the sand. You can twirl your lance round your head and throw it into the air, and catch it as it descends while going at full speed. You can do things that no untrained Englishman could do. So is it with me. I have learned boxing from the best masters in England, I have practised daily for two ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... no ground is intelligible—these are but the wicked invention of a race of time-servers and money-lovers—children of Baal and worshippers of Mammon—Benthams, who, to spare thought and economize fancy, first cruelly invented the Kaleidoscope, and then established joint-stock companies to twirl it by steam. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... off, leaving M. Wilkie in the vestibule to settle his collar and twirl his puny mustaches, with affected indifference; but in reality he was far from comfortable. For the servants did not hesitate to stare at him, and it was quite impossible not to read their contempt in their glances. They even sneered audibly and pointed at him; and he heard five or six epithets ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... bottle to one who sits guarding a tiny furnace in which oil sprayed under pressure roars and flares. The rough neck of the bottle goes into the flame; the raw edges left when the bubble was chipped off are smoothed away by the heat; the neck undergoes a final polishing and shaping twirl in the jaws of a steel instrument, and the bottle is laid on a little shelf to be carried away. It ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... know her now, this fair and foolish girl; Watch while she treads one measure, then see her dip and twirl! Young Etienne holds her hand by chance, 'Tis the first rigadoon they dance; With parted lips, right thirstily Each rustic tracks them as they fly, And the damsel sly Feels every eye, And lighter moves for each adoring glance. Holy cross! ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... Lord, though my name is not familiar, I think you will remember his; the name of my friend is "—here Mr. Smivvle, having at length discovered his whisker, gave it a fierce twirl,— "Ronald Barrymaine." ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... her father, too, was invited to the court of the prince. But the fame of Sylvina's beauty and charms spread far and near, and hundreds visited the prince who had never before been seen at his castle. Especially did there come gay young sparks, with downy moustachelets to twirl, and swords that tinkled at their heels; and so attentive were these crowds of gallants that Sylvina never had time even to think, else her thoughts might have gone back to her true lover, whom she had ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... it is not to be imagined how the polite rabble of this town, who are acquainted with these objects, ridicule his rusticity. I have known a fellow with a burden on his head steal a hand down from his load, and slily twirl the cock of a squire's hat behind him; and while the offended person is swearing or out of countenance, all the wag-wits in the highway are grinning in applause of the ingenious rogue that gave him the tip, and the folly ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... It travels like fire, and is answered by a faint uproar. The beat has begun. We dismount from our elephants for a steady shot, leaving them behind us in a huge semicircle. Some of them scent danger, and twirl delicate trunks high in the air. They have "been there" before! The mahouts sit motionless as bronze figures—superb fellows, deeply learned in jungle-lore. The triangle's apex and flanks are in absolute ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... your ears to the music and look around you when a ball is at its height. What motive, you foolishly wonder, could induce all these people—who are supposed to possess an average amount of brains—to assemble together to clasp each other round the waist, twirl round and round up and down the room, suddenly stop, and hurry one after another outside the dancing hall, seeking dark corners, secret retreats, anywhere away from the eyes of other men? "Ah, what a mad world it is, ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... ter cede' screen vom'it reb'el su per sede' sheave plum'met sib'yl col'o nize sheet sum'mit spin'et ad ver tise' shield ver'y lin'net par'a lyze twirl mer'ry cam'el se'cre cy churl bod'y tram'mel ec'sta sy clerk shod'dy mam'mal vac'il late quirk mud'dy sev'en fas'ci nate fraud stud'y heav'en co er'cion broad guin'ea par'rot de ter'sion awe'd ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Grey, "I fear you're a wicked one! But wait, I'll light my lantern quick And put my ulster on!" The twirl of a furry paw Was all the firelight saw, And ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... said, briefly. "And, I say, Father William, don't you want to take my biky down and give him a feed of oats? he is hungry. See him paw the ground!" and he gave the bicycle a twirl. ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... efforts were the merest triviality. Still, we hung on, struggling desperately to keep what we had earned, until so close to the roaring, foaming line of broken water, that one wave breaking farther out than the rest very nearly swamped us all. One blow of an axe, one twirl of the steer-oars, and with all the force we could muster we were pulling away from the very jaws of death, leaving our whale to the hungry crowds, who would make short work of him. Downcast indeed, at our bad luck, we returned on board, disappointing the skipper very much with our report. ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... outbursts of gaiety in the very midst of his wonted surliness. Some little incident, at which nobody else laughed, often sufficed to throw him into a state of wild hilarity, make him stamp his feet, twirl himself round like a top, and ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... whistling a little tune in his amazement, and the instant the dog heard the music he began to dance. What a sight was there! Gabriel's eyes grew round as he saw Topaz advance and retreat and twirl, occasionally nodding and tossing his head until his curls bobbed. He seemed to long, in his warm little dog's heart, to show Gabriel that he had been ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... what Mr Parmenter does for his living. He is not a man of property, for the Vicar told Father that his nephew, Mr Parmenter's father, left nothing at all for his children. Yet Mr Anthony never seems to do anything but look through his eyeglass, and twirl his mustachios, and talk. I asked Amelia if she knew, for one of the Miss Parmenters, who is married now, lives not far from Bracewell Hall. Amelia, however, applied to Cecilia, saying she would ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... for God, and the other for the peoples.' Well, now, don't you remember Seth Pennell, o' Buttertown, how queer he was when he was a boy? We thought he'd never be wuth his salt. He used to stan' in the front winder 'n' twirl the curtin tossel for hours to a time. And don't you know it come out last year that he'd wrote a reg'lar book, with covers on it 'n' all, 'n' that he got five dollars a colume for writin' poetry ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to speak, or be spoken to. In these two cases, certain attitudes and actions would be extremely absurd, because too easy, and consequently disrespectful. As, for instance, if you were to put your arms across in your bosom, twirl your snuff-box, trample with your feet, scratch your head, etc., it would be shockingly ill-bred in that company; and, indeed, not extremely well-bred in any other. The great difficulty in those cases, though a very surmountable one by attention and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... see the tail, like bracelet twirl'd, In moments of disgrace uncurl'd, Then at a pardoning word re-furl'd, A conquering sign; Crying, "Come on, and range the world, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... marriage-bells when a deep and solemn peal from the church close by breaks in over the music, the laughter and the dancing. It is midnight! It is the Noche Buena, and the bell summons the faithful to the midnight mass. The effect is electric. The last twirl of the waltz is suspended, half executed. The dancers stop as suddenly as if they were puppets moved and stilled by the cunning of some wire-pulling hand. A general rush is made for the church: in a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... door of the safe open once more. As he surmised, the combination could be set to a new series of numbers with ease. He fixed it to correspond with the numbers of his own office safe, then closed the door, gave the knob a twirl, and hurried from the room by the same opening ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... Whatever other things we learn out West, we learn to pay back favor for favor. I'd be a dirty coyote if I refused to accept that invitation after what Merriwell did for me. That's the way I look at it. I know that I can pitch ball. You know it, too. I can twirl a ball just as good as Frank Merriwell, or any other fellow in Yale, and you know that, too. I reckon I'm able to ride my bronco alone, without Merriwell's help. I am not asking favors—none whatever! I'm simply returning a favor already given! You can see ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... to the general store at the point, but there was a resting place there, and if one wanted to tarry and felt like dancing, a very accommodating young man sat near the piano ready to play at the shortest notice. Belle and Lottie usually took a twirl while Bess and Cora did the shopping, but to-day having walked instead of coming by motor boat they sank into a seat at the water's edge and watched others try ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... his new acquirement, interested and ungraceful; and the old gardener entertained us with a Danish waltz with his fair-haired, plump, round-shouldered daughter. Now they cling together, then swing apart, holding each other by the fingers' ends; now they whirl and twirl in and out, and then come together and waltz around the hall, as all gaze and wonder at the old man's suppleness. Now the spirit of fun takes possession of all as we see Irish John sitting quietly conversing with "Dora," and he must dance a jig! By some chance there ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... born to make thee, my good weasel, Set thee on a bench, and have thee twirl a chain With the best lord's vermin ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... little to say as the wagon jolted over the rough road, past the cypress fences, then down between the beautiful tinted hills of Los Quervos. Dona Pomposa sat forward on the high seat, her feet dangling just above the floor, her hands crossed as usual over her stomach, a sudden twirl of thumbs punctuating her remarks. She wore a loose black gown trimmed with ruffles, and a black reboso about her head. Aunt Anastacia was attired in a like manner, but clutched the side of the wagon with one hand and an American ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... of manhood is, perhaps, rather a fashion than a personal quality: a way of carrying the stick, of wearing, or not wearing, the hair; it resides in the twirl of the moustache, or the cut of the trouser; you must seek it in the quality of the boot and the shape of the hat rather than in the ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... firmly, 'I refuse once and for all to permit you to break your contract. Pooh! The tide will change. Men and women are sometimes fools; but they are not fools all the time. The dancer will have had her day. She will twirl her toes to the empty seats and throw her kisses into unresponsive space. Our patrons will gradually return; they will grow tired of wriggling and twisting, and look again for ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... chirps its chimney song, Within some crumbling chink, with moss embrown'd, The lighted stick diverts the infant throng, And fans are waved, and ribbands twirl'd around. ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... and grace. He is the only warbler we have in eastern North America that makes a habit of scaling the tree trunks and descending them head downward. How does he do this? The muscles of his legs and pelvis are as elastic as India rubber, so that he can twist and twirl about in a marvelous way, pointing his head one moment to the east and the next, without losing his hold, in the opposite direction. He is able to swing himself around almost as if he ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... them in statu quo; moreover, he knew, or thought he knew, all that they could convey. He swung the door shut; then swung it open, and looked again at the picture—and for sometime—before he put it up and gave the knob a twirl. ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... moast ready, I drows down a suverin', an' hed the change, an' as I wur a-gwain out I hollurs out as how I shood remember Swindleum stashun. I heer'd the lot a-larfin, an' hed moast a mind to go in an' twirl me ground ash among um ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... mountaineer[A], a wit, Full of rough shafts, that sometimes hit, [Footnote A: The driver, Powell, I believe, occupied a cottage, or small farm, which we past during the ascent, and where goats milk was offered for refreshment.] Trudg'd by their side, and twirl'd his thong, And cheer'd his ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... the while, Perhaps half consciously, to win the favor of a smile. In vain; the glance he hopes to gain, as hero of her heart, Comes not; but rank forbids delay, he must at once depart. The Colonel even has remarked this charming thoughtful girl, And gives to his fine gray moustache the customary twirl; A handsome man, with uniform whose gilded lustre shines From clanking spur to epaulette with stars and golden lines; He knows how potent is the spell such ornaments impart To make of soldiers demi-gods in woman's gentle heart. "The ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... from the branches. Bananas and orange trees everywhere interspersed with tall cocoanut palms, the large and small alligators basking in the sun on the sand were pictures never to be forgotten. The natives in their peculiar dress, the fandango at night, the graceful twirl of the Spanish waltz put the life touch to the picture that comes to me today at the age of seventy-five as it was in those days when I experienced, a girl of fifteen, all the discomforts of ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... for I d' know en by his carrying a black case like a travelling man." Still, a road is common to all the world, and there be more travelling men than one. But I kept my eye cocked, and I said to Martin, "'Tis the boy, now, for I d' know en by the wold twirl o' the stick and the family step." Then 'a come closer, and a' said, "All right." I could swear to ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... ribbon confining her braids, and taking down a comb from the comb-case near, dipped it into water and drew it carefully through her hair, after which she divided it into six strands and, giving each a little twirl, stood for a moment by the radiating stove. Presto! Six ropy curls danced up and down as their owner moved to and fro across the room, and as the sunshine fell over them their beauty lifted the little girl from out ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and other classical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... solid and weighty, that you could wind up with a stout cotton cord, and launch with perfect aim from the flat button held between your forefinger and middle finger. Some of the boys had a very pretty art in the twirl they gave the top, and could control its course, somewhat as a skilful pitcher can govern that of ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... the chopped cocoa-nut and salt-water. The carved koa bowls, which were in constant requisition as finger-glasses, were specially elegant and useful-looking articles. Poi is generally eaten from a bowl placed between two people, by dipping three fingers into it, giving them a twirl round, and then sucking them. It sounds rather nasty; but, as a matter of fact, it is so glutinous a mixture that you really only touch the particles that stick to your fingers. The latter you wash after ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... one deeply interested in the game. When the cast was to be made the player would strike the bowl upon the ground so as to make the dice jump into the air [Footnote: Sigud Theodat Vol. 1, p. 213.] and would then twirl the bowl rapidly around. During this process and until it stopped its revolutions and the dice finally settled, the players addressed the dice and beat themselves on their breasts. [Footnote: Shea's Hennepin, p. 300.] The spectators during the same period filled the air with shouts and invoked ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... With a twirl of her sunburnt finger, she holds in her right hand a bowl of cold milk, with the cream on it, fresh from the cellar; the sides of the bowl are covered with drops, like strings of pearls. In the palm of her left hand the old woman brings me a huge hunch of warm bread, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... the exultation of the scene which has just passed. The movement shifts his field of vision, into the corner of which there now comes the tail of Louka's double apron. His eye gleams at once. He takes a stealthy look at her, and begins to twirl his moustache nervously, with his left hand akimbo on his hip. Finally, striking the ground with his heels in something of a cavalry swagger, he strolls over to the left of the table, opposite her, and says) Louka: do you know what the ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... own country, and not much prepossessed in favour of any other; but I "drag on my chain" without "lengthening it at each remove." [5] I am like the Jolly Miller, caring for nobody, and not cared for. [6] All countries are much the same in my eyes. I smoke, and stare at mountains, and twirl my mustachios very independently. I miss no comforts, and the musquitoes that rack the morbid frame of H. have, luckily for me, little effect on mine, because ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... front half of the body swings up and down, the fore-legs execute magnetic passes on either side of the tight-clasped female, moving with a sort of twirl, so rapidly that the eye can hardly follow them. The female appears insensible to this flagellatory twirl. She innocently curls her antennae. The rejected suitor leaves her and moves on to another. His dizzy, twirling passes, his protestations ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... Katy, as with the last rapid twirl, Rose's many-sheeted epistle and the "Advice to Brides" flew to right and left. "There go two of your hair-pins, Clover. Oh, do stop; we shall ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... literature. They ignored, and therefore did not, properly speaking, despise it. Simple ignorance and indifference does not inflate the character with pride. A man does not walk down the street giving a haughty twirl to his moustaches at the thought of his superiority to some variety of deep-sea fishes. The old scholars left the whole under-world of popular compositions ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... write letters and post them. We may—if we be great men—indite despatches and give them into the hands of trusty messengers, and a little twirl of Fortune's wheel will send all ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... destroyed, within the sphere of its influence, this happy and necessary exemption of infancy from labour. Steam is the moving power; it exerts the strength; the human machine is required only to lift a web periodically, or damp a roller, or twirl a film round the finger, to which the hands of infancy are as adequate as those of mature age. Hence the general employment of children, and especially girls, in such employments. They are equally serviceable as men or women, and they are more docile, cheaper, and less given ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
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