"Badinage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in Heaven's name is the good of all this ceaseless talk? To what purpose are you wearied, exhausted, dragged out and out to the very extreme of tenuity? A sprightly badinage,—a running fire of nonsense for half an hour,—a tramp over unfamiliar ground with a familiar guide,—a discussion of something with somebody who knows all about it, or who, not knowing, wants to learn from you,—a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... find Brevoort's flute, which the latter requested should be sent to him: "I do not think it would be an innocent amusement for you, as no one has a right to entertain himself at the expense of others." In such dallying and badinage the months went on, affairs every day becoming more serious. Appended to a letter of September 9, 1814, is a list of twenty well-known mercantile houses that had failed within the preceding three weeks. Irving himself, shortly after this, enlisted in the war, and his letters ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... liked nothing better than such mystifications, introducing me by my proper name, we diverted ourselves for some minutes with her alarm and excuses. After that it was time to take leave, if we would sup at home and the King would not be missed; and accordingly, but not without some further badinage, in which Mademoiselle de Brut displayed wit equal to her beauty, and an agreeable refinement not always found with ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... back-slappings and "Bravos." As soon as he was able to sit down in peace, he drew Mr. Curtis a little aside to talk in private. The two boys were content to watch the changing scene and listen to the hearty badinage of the fashionable young blades about the tables. It was, you must remember, Jeremy's first experience of luxury, unless the good, clean quarters and wholesome meals aboard the Queen could be so called. He had never read any ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... this to Miss March, especially noticing the peculiar character of the two species of trees—the masculine and feminine—fir and beech. She smiled at the fancy; and much graceful badinage went on between them. I had never before seen John in the company of women, and I marvelled to perceive the refinement of his language, and the poetic ideas it clothed. I forgot the truth—of whose saying was it?—"that once in his life every ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the badinage was silenced in the York-boat behind us. On board the Primrose the mate sleeps, and Captain Prothero has the wheel. I creep along the wobbly gunwale to sit out a four hours' watch with him. "I never saw any one navigate as you do, captain, you seem to have neither ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... tip of Sydney's tongue to use some badinage such as he would have done, in his light and easy fashion, to a servant-maid or shop-girl. But something in her look caused him, luckily, to refrain. He went as near as he dared ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... dangerous to leave her to her own devices. She may have offended half the company by this time." Elfreda strolled off in search of her troublesome charge. Grace crossed the gymnasium, her keen eyes darting from the floor, where groups of daintily gowned girls stood exchanging gay badinage, and resting after the last waltz, to the chairs and divans placed at intervals against the walls that were for the most ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... This may sound like badinage, but it is uttered in sad earnest. The wife's irrational longing to extract absolute sympathy of taste, opinion and feeling, from her wedded lord, is a baneful growth which is as sure to spring up about the domestic hearth as pursley—named by the Indian, "the white man's ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... What gay and gallant badinage, exquisite irony, and interesting narrative, in the story of "The Cock and Fox!" And what knowledge of human nature and skilful construction in "The Wife of Bath's Tale!" We are half inclined, with George Ellis, to call these fables the "noblest specimen of versification to be found in any ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... stern laughed. Their gayety stirred no response from the midship passenger. If anything, he frowned. He was a serious-minded young man, and he did not understand French. He had a faint suspicion that his convoy did not take him as seriously as he wished. Whether their talk was badinage or profanity or purely casual, he could not say. In the first stages of their journey together, on the upper reaches of the river, Mike Breyette and Donald MacDonald had, after the normal habit of their kind, greeted ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... His tone of badinage (as the French call it) would have been palpable enough to any one accustomed to the world; but Phillis was not, and it distressed or rather bewildered her. 'Unchristian' had to her a very serious meaning; it was not a word to be ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... denunciations will probably produce an exactly opposite effect to the one they intend, their own conduct proving the pernicious influence of their theory. Their abuse will be, not the expression, half in badinage, of minds protesting by anticipation against the abuse of forms and ceremonies; but the ignorant invective of coarse-minded people against a principle that would tame them, and mould them into a more agreeable presence. They exclaim ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... les temps Eut de tous les honnetes gens L'amour et l'estime en partage: Qui toujours pleine de bon sens Sut de chaque saison de l'age Faire a propos un juste usage: Qui dans son entretien, dont on fut enchante Sut faire un aimable alliage De l'agreable badinage, Avec la politesse et la solidite, Et que le ciel doua d'un esprit droit et sage, Toujours d'intelligence avec la verite, Clusine est, grace ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... conference, confabulation, chat, parley, causerie, parlance, confab; dialogue, interlocution; soliloquy, monologue; palaver, buncombe, blarney, blandishment, flattery, flummery; chaff, banter, raillery, persiflage, badinage, asteistn; chatter, babble, chit chat, gibberish, jargon, twaddle, fustian, moonshine, hanky-panky, jabbering, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... had no mind for badinage, and I turned my face from him sullenly. Silence fell till we jolted into the courtyard of "The Jolly Soldier," where Creagh, Macdonald, and Hamish Gorm, having dismounted from their horses, waited to carry us ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... unexpectedly and contrary to usage, cry "Baa" loudly, causing my mother-in-law to fear that I was a dull—until that night in the Zenana she had the great happiness to overhear me outwitting all the females present by the sprightliness of my badinage. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... fooling, tomfoolery; shenanigan [U.S.], harlequinade &c 599 [Obs.]; broad farce, broad humor; fun, espieglerie [Fr.]; vis comica [Lat.]. jocularity; jocosity, jocoseness^; facetiousness; waggery, waggishness; whimsicality; comicality &c 853. banter, badinage, retort, repartee, smartness, ready wit, quid- pro-quo; ridicule &c 856. jest, joke, jape, jibe; facetiae [Lat.], levity, quips and cranks; capital joke; canorae nugae [Lat.]; standing jest, standing joke, private joke, conceit, quip, quirk, crank, quiddity, concetto^, plaisanterie [Fr.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... promptly, and with a look of such benignity, that the Anglo-Saxon felt constrained to give up his intended badinage. ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... of softness. Her lips were red and well shaped, her teeth white and even. She was on the shady side of forty, but looked ten years younger. Her customers admired her and loved to exchange a little coarse badinage in which the good woman more than held ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... talking, he dealing in light badinage of a flattering kind, which both amused and disturbed her a little, and presently he turned into a somewhat secluded alley, where he found a bench sheltered and shadowed by the overhanging boughs ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... found herself on the very verge of laughter. What was it in the man that disarmed and invited a confidence—scarcely justified it appeared? What was it now that moved her to overlook what few overlook—not the fault, but its publicity? Was it his agreeable bearing, his pleasant badinage, his amiably listless moments of preoccupation, his youth that appealed to her—aroused her ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... was open, for until compline ingress and egress was free; nevertheless, there was a sentry on duty, an arquebusier, who paced slowly up and down whistling the "Rappel d'Aunis," stopping only to exchange some barrack-room badinage with every serving-wench who, as she went out or came in, found a moment or so to spare for him. It was a lax enough watch, and it was clear that guard duty at the wicket was not so dull a matter as one ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... sporting contemporary, is bright breezy batting. The game should no longer depend for its sparkle on impromptu badinage between the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... you, O, you men of the time, who are bent upon pleasure, who attend the balls and the opera and who upon retiring this night will seek slumber with the aid of some threadbare blasphemy of old Voltaire, some sensible badinage of Paul Louis Courier, some essay on economics, you who dally with the cold substance of that monstrous water-lily that Reason has planted in the hearts of our cities; I beg of you, if by some chance this obscure book falls into your hands, do not smile with noble disdain, do ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... made the disconcerting discovery that he was a marked man, an object of public contumely. He had heard calls of derision at various points along the road, and was convinced now that for some reason or another he was exciting the laughter and badinage of the men. This was a painful shock to Done's happiness. The situation recalled Chisley, and something of the old Ishmael stirred within him. He set his teeth and hurried on. 'Pea-souper!' was the epithet ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... a serious responsibility. These things he pondered as they walked together. He felt the pathos of her black gown; but she had rallied from the first shock of her sorrow, and met him in his key of badinage. She was tall—almost as tall as he; and in the combined moon- and star-light of the open spaces ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... upon his furtive movements and fickle demeanor, but drew only badinage in kind, and no explanations; and Townes, laughing, turned ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... week after we had taken up our abode in Paris there arrived thither the General. He came straight to see us, and thenceforward lived with us practically as our guest, though he had a flat of his own as well. Blanche met him with merry badinage and laughter, and even threw her arms around him. In fact, she managed it so that he had to follow everywhere in her train—whether when promenading on the Boulevards, or when driving, or when going to the theatre, or when ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and carelessness of composition. 1. Pointless badinage and padded scenes. 2. Inconsistencies of character and situation. 3. Looseness of dramatic construction. 4. Roman admixture and topical allusions. 5. Jokes on the dramatic machinery. 6. Use of ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... no opportunity of pressing his suit on Lady Clarinda, but could never draw from her any reply but the same doctrines of worldly wisdom, delivered in a tone of badinage, mixed with a certain kindness of manner that induced him to hope she ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... see him," answered the young man grimly, and after a few moments more badinage with Kate ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... court-house windows were pretty, and some of them were not pretty; but nearly all of them were rosy-cheeked, and all were pleasant to see because of the good cheer they showed. Some of the gallants affected the airy and easy, entertaining the company with badinage and repartee; some were openly bashful. Now and then one of the latter, after long deliberation, constructed a laborious compliment for his inamorata, and, after advancing and propounding half of it, again retired into himself, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... writing. It was handed to him while he was in full tide of gay and successful conversation, in a whole room-full of company. He turned deadly pale when he saw the writing, but still preserved his composure, and finished the playful warfare of badinage which he was at the moment carrying on with a lady opposite; and, a short time after, was missed from the circle. In his room, alone, he opened and read the letter, now worse than idle and useless to be read. It ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Brudenell was always sad; Ishmael was no conventional talker, and therefore could not seem other than he was—very serious. It was quite in vain that Mr. Middleton and Walter tried to get up a little jesting and badinage. And when the constraint of the breakfast table was ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... were, moreover, some marital passages which were not pleasant to a third person. They did not scold each other; but Lady Glencora would make little speeches of which her husband disapproved. She would purposely irritate him by continuing her tone of badinage, and then Mr Palliser would become fretful, and would look as though the cares of the world were too many for him. I cannot, therefore, say that Alice had much to make the first period of her sojourn at Lucerne a period ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... had heard that morning from young Stanton of Greenfield's interest in the young sculptor; adding a hint or two of the use to be made of this information. Rangely, just behind her, was chatting with Miss Frances in that half amorous badinage which some girls always provoke, perhaps because they expect and ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... Blythe discerned a touch of badinage in his tone, and construed it as a mockery. She drew up her small figure in exaggerated dignity, and made much such a motion with her head and neck as a hen ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... and endless badinage and merriment, the guests take their places. The young men, who for the most part have been huddled near the door, summon their resolution and advance; and the shrinking Jurgis is poked and scolded by the old folks until he ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... secretary, and presently the party went into the dining-room and sat around a table, at either end of which Pauline and Wilbur presided over a blazer. Interest centred on the preparation of a rabbit and creamed oysters, and pleasant badinage flew from tongue to tongue. Selma found herself between the magazine editor and a large, powerfully built man with a broad, rotund, strong face, who was introduced to her as Dr. Page, and who was called George by every one else. He had arrived late, just ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... saving sense of humor tempered Miss Carrington's seriousness, and Geoffrey Ormond joined in her merry laugh. In spite of his love of ease and frivolous badinage, he was, as I was to learn some day, considerably less of a good-natured fool than it occasionally pleased him to appear ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... arrogance about Dampierre—he is unaffected and simple in his tastes, except in the matter of his lodgings. I question if there is one of us who spends less than he does, but he no more understands you than you understand him; he takes your badinage seriously, and cannot understand that it is harmless fun. However, he is better in that respect than when he first came over, and in time, no doubt, his touchiness will die out. God forbid that he should ever ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... about it," Edgar answered, though smiling again—Leam wished he would not smile so often—a little aghast at her literalness, and saying to himself in warning that he must be careful of what he said to Leam Dundas. It was evident that she did not understand either badinage or a joke. But her very earnestness pleased him for all its oddity. It was so unlike the superficiality and levity of the modern girl—that hateful Girl of the Period, in whose existence he believed, and of whose influence he stood in almost superstitious ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... Fitzpatrick is meant, who later on joined in writing The Rolliad, and who was the cousin and 'sworn brother' of Charles Fox. Walpole describes him as 'an agreeable young man of parts,' and mentions his 'genteel irony and badinage.' Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 167 and ii. 560. He was Lord Shelburne's brother-in-law, at whose house Johnson might have met him, as well as in Fox's company. There are one or two lines in The Rolliad which border on profanity. Rogers (Table-Talk, p. 104) said that 'Fitzpatrick ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... students and girls in cabs and on top of them, many of the girls riding the horses. Down they come from the "Moulin Rouge," shouting, singing, and yelling. Heads are thrust out of windows, and a volley of badinage passes between the fantastic procession and those ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... wrapped to the eyes, Neale already had several huge snowballs rolled. They got right to work with him, and soon their shrill laughter and jolly badinage assured all the neighborhood that the Corner House girls were out for a ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... too young to know what hearts and doves were, when she saw them for the first time, said they were pretty little birds picking at apples. The fan was packed up in a nice case, and then on scented note paper did the dear dandy indite a bit of namby-pamby badinage to his fair one, which ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... one and one, or two and two, flung badinage to all corners of the room. Afterward, as they wheeled from time to time in their chairs, they bitterly insulted each other with the utmost good-nature, taking unerring aim at faults and riddling personalities with ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... "you're open wide, And, searching for a reason, September's here, and so it's clear That oysters are in season." She smiled a smile that showed this style Of badinage rejoiced her, Advanced a pace with easy grace, And sniffed the ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... errand—to get rich by gambling. The gold gleaming over the table is reflected in their faces. Not in smiles, or cheerfully; but by an expression of hungry cupidity—fixed, as if stamped into their features. No sign of hilarity, or joyfulness; not a word of badinage passing about, or between; scarce a syllable spoken, save the call-words of the dealer, or an occasional remark by the croupier, explanatory of some disputed point about the placing, or payment, ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... had chatted gaily over neighborhood gossip in the dining-room, intermingled with nonsense of the sort that passes between people who have been a great deal in the same set. And now that they were seated on the front porch, two in a hammock and the others in comfortable rockers, the badinage continued as Dr. Harford passed cigars to the men and pretended to give ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... parted high on the forehead, to impart to the countenance an appearance of deep thought and poetic melancholy. His soft and pleasing voice, too, is in perfect unison with his noble bearing, as he humours the clown by indulging in a little badinage; and the striking recollection of his own dignity, with which he exclaims, 'Now, sir, if you please, inquire for Miss Woolford, sir,' can never be forgotten. The graceful air, too, with which he introduces Miss Woolford into the arena, and, after ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... and much more of similar familiar badinage among the men and girls, she instinctively withdrew into herself. She was not used to this type, and felt that there was something hard and low about it all. She feared that the young boys about would address such remarks to her—boys who, beside Drouet, seemed uncouth ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... an extraordinary man," exclaimed Jack, ignoring Peter's compliment and badinage. "Is there anything ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... A truce to badinage—I hope far distant is the day When from these scenes terrestrial our friend shall pass away! We like to hear his cheery voice uplifted in the land, To see his calm, benignant face, to grasp his honest hand; ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... indifference, and who looked away from Gabriel the moment she had spoken to him, now turned toward him again suddenly with an expression like that of an animal which pricks up his ears. The keen fire of the old days shot for a moment into her eyes, for it was the first word of badinage or humor that Fanny Newt had heard for a ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... they must have!" replied Frank, answering his friend's badinage with a smile. "If the little fellows begin thus, what will not the ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... it a mere badinage. I went to them, but when I saw real tears, I was shocked, and saying "No, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... impatiently, poked with his riding crop at the fire, and plainly indicated that he was not in the mood for badinage. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... feet; head, shoulders, and bosom, shrouded in the blue-grey reboso; arms and ankles bare. Several of these may be seen passing to and fro. They appear less uneasy than the men; they even smile at intervals, and reply to the rude badinage uttered in an unknown tongue by the odd-looking strangers around the well. The Mexican women are courageous as they are amiable. As a ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... task; in the one case we associate factitious pleasure, in the other factitious pain, with the object: both produce pernicious effects upon the temper, and retard the natural progress of the understanding. The advocates in favour of "scholastic badinage" have urged, that it excites an interest in the minds of children similar to that which makes them endure a considerable degree of labour in the pursuit of their amusements. Children, it is said, work hard at play, therefore we should let them play at work. Would not this produce effects ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... June, the river warm and still, and the soft, fitful western breeze occasionally rich with the perfume of the gardens of Putney and Chiswick. Waldershare talked the whole way. It was a rhapsody of fancy, fun, knowledge, anecdote, brilliant badinage—even passionate seriousness. Sometimes he recited poetry, and his voice was musical; and, then, when he had attuned his companions to a sentimental pitch, he would break into mockery, and touch with delicate satire every mood of human feeling. Endymion listened to ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... this badinage, Sir William," complained the commissary, angrily. "The fellow is a spy ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... girl, he loved it. Brainy badinage of that sort is exchanged every day in the best society. You should hear dukes and earls! The wit! the esprit! The flow of soul! Mine is nothing to it. What's this in the iron pot? Is this what you feed them? Queer birds, hens—I wouldn't touch the stuff for a fortune. It looks perfectly ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... growing slender and gaunt, how the chest flattens, and how tenderly we ought to cherish every octogenarian among us, for that we are seeing the last of them! If this is intended to be a piece of pleasant badinage, far be it from us to arrest a single smile it may awaken. But if it is given as a serious description, from which serious deductions can be drawn, then we say, that, as a delineation, it is, to a considerable extent, purely fanciful,—as an argument, utterly so. The facts, so far ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... rose up, straightened herself, with a bearing half proud half defiant, and looked away. Then in another minute, seeing her chance, she darted or glided from her covert, and before Hazel's indignant and pitying gaze, plunged into a gay bit of badinage with her lover who was passing near. No trace of regret or of unwillingness apparent; Josephine was playing off her usual airs with her usual reckless freedom; she and Charteris were presently ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... "free" talk and unseemly gesture, these ghastly creatures, hideous caricatures of youth and beauty, flaunt about the play-rooms and gardens, levying black-mail upon those who are imprudent enough to engage them in "chaff" or badinage, and desperately endeavouring to hook themselves on to the wealthier and younger members of the male community. They poison the air round them with sickly perfumes; they assume titles, and speak of ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... badinage there was not much to make a rival angry; but Miss Mildmay, who heard a word or two now and then, was angry. He was talking to a pretty woman about marriage and money, and of course that amounted to flirtation. Lord George, on her other hand, now and then said a word to her; but he was ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... in the city, the surprising word began to go about the district that next year there would be a railroad across Poquette carry. When the rumor was traced to Rowe, he found himself in for a good deal of rough badinage for allowing two city sportsmen ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... have been married long since." This was written in answer to some thoughtless rattle that the captain had volunteered to put in his last letter, as coming from Maud, who had sensitively shrunk from sending a message when asked; and it was read by father, mother, and Beulah, as the badinage of a brother to a sister, without awaking a second thought in either. Not so with Maud, herself, however. When her seniors had done with this letter, she carried it to her own room, reading and re-reading it a dozen times; ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... he is thrown as Panurge had of eating the corn in ear. For the simple and credulous—crosses and beads; for the hard-hearted and venal—material considerations; for the cultured and educated—a fine tissue of epigrams and anthropology; for the ladies—flattery and badinage. A spiritual ancestor of Anatole France's marvellous full-length figure of Jerome Coignard, Borrow's conception takes us back first to Rabelais and secondly to the seventeenth-century conviction of the ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... in the happy days when only they three had been together. As her formerly lovable self, Marjorie would have felt no reserve in Mary's presence, but this strange, new Mary with her white, immobile face and indifferent eyes, chilled her and killed her desire to exchange the usual gay badinage with her General, which had always made meal-time ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... Grogoff cared for her. Outwardly he did nothing but chaff and tease her, and she responded in that quick rather sharp and very often crudely personal way at which foreigners for the first time in Russian company so often wonder. Badinage with Russians so quickly passes to lively and noisy quarrelling, which in its turn so suddenly fades into quiet contented amiability that it is little wonder that the observer feels rather breathless at it all. Grogoff was a striking figure, with his fine height and handsome head and bold eyes, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... his fellow-townsmen was to hire a large and ferocious looking "cow-puncher" to recognise in Mr. D—— an ancient enemy, and make a vicious attack upon him with blank cartridges and much pomp and circumstance. Still it had no permanent effect on Mr. D——. Badinage could not wither him nor cussing stale his infinite variety. With all his exasperating traits, he had an impassable child-like faith in his doings and a soothing influence that made one smile when one ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... over her, despite his reassuring smile and light badinage, realized with alarm that his patient was in great danger, that there was but a fighting chance ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... "But, badinage aside, I know very little of the Bar-O entanglements and complications. It's an old story. Grandaddy knows all about it but he doesn't talk. There are few facts and many rumors. For three generations ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... as I see this julep before me. I had just left the Ramierez rancho. The senora,—a devilish pretty woman, sir,—after a little playful badinage, had offered to lend me her daughter's mustang if I could ride it home. You know what it is, Mr. Grey," he said gallantly. "I'm an older man than you, sir, but a challenge from a d——d fascinating creature, I trust, sir, ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... to make Bee waver in her thorough approval of her own acts, this cheerful exchange of badinage, where the exchange was all on my part, undeceived me, for Bee simply looked at me without replying, so Jimmie uncoiled himself and handed ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... with feet on curb or other coign of vantage, tilt their chairs at most alarming angles. A sort of animated lovers' lane is thus formed, through which the promenaders have to run the gauntlet, and are subjected to a certain amount of criticism. Everyone knows everyone. Good natured badinage plays like wild-fire, up and down and across the street. Later on, the tinkle of mandolin and guitar is heard far into ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... said she with a gallant attempt at badinage; "you're as little for that, I'm afraid, as you're for the plough or the army." She led him into her room and set a chair for him as if he had been a prince, only to have an excuse for putting an arm for a moment almost round his waist. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... tender and strong. His abundant and rich brown hair he wears in long curls falling over his shoulders, as did the cavaliers, and he is dressed with great care in the height of military fashion, evidently a gallant and debonair gentleman. He has just ceased from badinage with Rooke, in which that honest soldier's somewhat homely army jokes have been worsted by the graceful play of Graham's wit, who was ever gay, but never coarse, who was no ascetic, and was ever willing to drink the king's health, but, as his worst enemies used grudgingly to admit, cared ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... half amused and half disturbed. He did not resent Edgar's freedom of speech, but the latter had a way of mixing hints that were not altogether foolish with his badinage, and his comrade was inclined to wonder what he had meant by one suggestive remark. It troubled him as he strolled along the edge of the tall green wheat, but he comforted himself with the thought that, after all, Edgar's conversation was often ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... many years of loving care in polishing his manuscript, often carrying it to court with him, where it was one day mislaid, but—luckily for future generations of epicures—was afterward recovered. The book is a charming badinage, a bizarre ragout of gastronomic precepts and spicy anecdote, doubly piquant for its prevailing tone of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... juicy little lamb's tails while you were at college, but I suppose, now, I'll have to surrender that prerogative along with the others." In an effort to be cheerful and distract his son's thoughts, he attempted this homely badinage. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... glance upon the heavier figure at his side, with a half smile of badinage on his own face. Lewis bowed again, formally, and Anthony Merry answered with equal ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... my young life one long problem as it is? Ah! Speaking of problems, that reminds me. I have a communication to make to you young lady." Vic's manner suggested a profound and deadly mystery. He led Patricia away from the others. "I have something to tell you, Patricia," he said, abandoning all badinage. "I hate to do it but it is right for you, for myself, for Adrien, and by Jove for poor old Jack, too. Though, perhaps—well, let ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... too far, and tried by badinage to divert her resentment. "If," said he, "praise is only timeable to your ear when uttered by one voice, I must not tell you, even if I heard our young Prince, who is an acknowledged worshipper of beauty, speak in raptures of the unparalleled ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... the Courts in perfect amity with the sucking barrister on the other side of the case, for they had neither, as yet, reached that maturity which enables an advocate to call his enemy his "friend," and treat him with considerable asperity. Though among his acquaintances Summerhay always provoked badinage, in which he was scarcely ever defeated, yet in chambers and court, on circuit, at his club, in society or the hunting-field, he had an unfavourable effect on the grosser sort of stories. There are men—by no means strikingly moral—who exercise this blighting influence. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... cup, or the maiden who discovers a pair of heart-shaped groups of leaves in conjunction with a ring, will be suffering no harm in thus deriving encouragement for the future, even should they attach no importance to their occurrence, but merely treat them as an occasion for harmless mirth and badinage. ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... he replied: "crackers and cheese, beer and badinage: our humble pleasures. You'll be bored to extinction—but you'll ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... had your hands full, for I reckon she's pooty heavily mortgaged in that fashion, already," returned Miss Reed with mere badinage than spitefulness in the suggestion. "And Mr. Champney was run pooty close by a French cousin of hers when he was here. Yo' haven't got any French books to lend me, co'nnle—have yo'? Paw says you read a heap of French, and I find it mighty hard ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Husband," the more one reads from it the more cause is there to regret the utter hopelessness of reviving a play so honeycombed by inuendo. How delightfully, for instance, would some of the badinage between Morelove and the spirited Lady Betty have been treated in the earlier days of the Daly Company, with John Drew and Miss Rehan as the lovers. We can picture the two, as they would have given the following lines, the one gentlemanly and effective, the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... rising and watching Darrell as he removed her wrap and prepared to escort her to the ball-room. His playful badinage had not deceived her. As she took his arm she said, in ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... took her fancy and the young men, one and all, remembered they were sadly in need of shaving cream and tooth brushes, or if they were not in immediate need it was just as well to lay in a supply. There was much laughing and talking and badinage, but through it all Judith held herself with a certain poise that gave all of the buyers to understand that she was merely the store-keeper and did not wish to be regarded in ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... feet were martyrized to this scheme of camouflage by being pressed into a pair of tight brown and white shoes. Having been deprived of his swim for fear that his youthfulness might come off in the water and with the rather cruel badinage of his old friend Hosack still rankling in his soul, the poor little old gentleman was not in the best of tempers. Also he had spent most of the morning exercising Pinkie-Winkie while his wife had been writing letters, and his nerves ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... all his faculties in repose. Presently he would be in the presence of Iras; she was waiting for him; waiting with song and story and badinage, sparkling, fanciful, capricious—with smiles which glorified her glance, and glances which lent voluptuous suggestion to her whisper. She had sent for him the evening of the boat-ride on the lake in the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... sooner told of this than he shut the gate of his house, after sending his secretary to the commissary of police of the section. In the meantime, both the police agents and the girl entreated him to let them out, as the whole was merely a badinage; but he remained inflexible, and they were all three carried by the real ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... that day, and a good deal depended on the fact that he was weary and his boots galled him, because it had been his intention to push on to a ranch beyond the settlement before he slept, and hire a horse there. Damer was not especially sensitive, but he felt no great desire to encounter the badinage of the men generally to be found about the store, who, he surmised, would have heard by this time what had happened at the Somasco mill. Still, he was hungry and weary, and stopped a moment when he caught a blink of light between the trees. The bush behind him was very black and still, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... more resolute. There was no spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the passion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the surface. There was ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... permit mention of the cause of the quarrel rendered efforts at a reconciliation difficult; 'Poleon's and Rouletta's attempts at badinage, therefore, were weak failures, and their conversation met with only the barest politeness. Now that the truth had escaped, neither partner could bring himself to a serious consideration of anything except his own injuries. They exchanged evil glances, ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... confession, though she knew it not. And she had ignored it, taking it as badinage, and he had been too weak to brand it truth. Strangely enough, she did not judge him for posing as Major Calvert's nephew. Strangely enough, that seemed trivial in comparison with the other. It was so natural for him to be the ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... listener to Fanny's gay badinage, laughing merrily at the idea of Lucy's taking old women out to air and clothing her children in party dresses. His opinion of Lucy, as she had said, was that she was a pretty, but frivolous, plaything, and it showed ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... o'clock he breezed into his firm's offices with all habitual cheeriness, exchanged a swift run of badinage with those he met, and was ushered into the manager's office. Falkner did not meet him with the customary smile ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... maybe," Holton answered, with a crude attempt at badinage. He glanced archly from the young man to ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... sees the loaded farm carts labouring over the grass or rolling down the leafy lanes, again the smell of the hay is in his nostrils, and the soft English gloaming is stealing over the land. The more or less intoxicated reapers astride upon the load exchange their barbarous badinage with those who follow on foot; the pleasant glow of health, that follows upon a long day of hard work in the open air, warms the blood; and in the eyes of all is the light of expectation, born of a memory of the good red meat, and the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... proves 'im not only a master of English, but a consummate orator, able to wield the harmoury" (why he put the "h" there I don't know) "of wit and sarcasm like a master. I'm not given to boasting," he continued. "I never indulge in badinage" (query, braggadocio?); "but, with such a Candidate, we must win." JERRAM seconded the resolution, which was carried nem. con. Must get local newspapers, to show to mother. She'll like that. Shall go back to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... saying that if that were the case I should esteem it a privilege to be made permanent custodian of the balance in hand, but it was quite evident from Henriette's manner that she was in no mood for badinage, ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... spirit and humour as I entered, but, on seeing me, immediately came forward, and shook hands with me like an old acquaintance. By Lord Callonby and the ladies I was welcomed also with much courtesy and kindness, ad some slight badinage passed upon my sleeping, in what Lord Kilkee called the "Picture Gallery," which, for all I knew to the contrary, contained but one fair portrait. I am not a believer in Mesmer; but certainly there must ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever |
