"Twiddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mode of those days, at the very time when no war was going on anywhere. The finishing touch to this get-up was supplied by a thin tortoiseshell cane with a bird's head carved in ivory, which a beau with any pretensions to bon ton used regularly to twiddle in ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... some place for a man to go; and there were three of them, and they could talk to one another. But here, unless La Signorina was about—and she had an odd way of disappearing—she, Kitty, had to twiddle her thumbs or talk to herself, for she could understand nothing these people, kindly enough in their ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... McDowell. "After he is gone, I always feel as if a snake had been in the room. He still hates you, Conniston. Three years have made no difference. He hates you like poison. I believe he would kill you, if he had a chance to do it and get away with the Business. And you—you blooming idiot—simply twiddle your mustache and laugh at him! I'd feel differently if I were in ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... he or she stops before one of the party, who then answers—Nay, friend, nay. The leader then says, "Do as I do, Twiddle thy thumbs and follow me." The selected one follows the leader singing the same words and both twiddling their thumbs. Then they are all got in line facing one way and kneel together as close as possible. When all are kneeling the leader gives a sly push to the one next to her ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack
... every kind have its place, and welcome. In the cosmical diapason and august orchestra of poetry, Tom Moore's little Pan's-pipe can at odd moments be heard, and interjects an appreciable and rightly-combined twiddle or two. To be gratified with these at the instant is no more than the instrument justifies, and the executant claims: to think much about them when the organ is pealing or the violin plaining (with a Shelley ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Kubla Khan, formerly of The Big Bonanza Mining Company) the strains of the Blue Danube float out upon the night. Avaunt, miscreants! lest we chase ye with flying feet and do our little dance upon your unwholesome carcasses. Already the toes of our partners begin to twiddle beneath their petticoats. Come, then, Stoopid—can't you move? No!—they change it to a galop—and eke the good old Sturm. Firm and steady, now, fair partner mine, whiles we run that gobemouche down and ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... nation that conquered Paraguay, he enjoys his privileges, one of which, apparently, is to keep the ceremony waiting for half an hour, while the president of the republic, his cabinet ministers, the foreign representatives and the officers of the army of occupation who are present twiddle their thumbs, the Paraguayan officials showing in their faces their sense of the Brazilian's want of respect. Finally the minister arrives in a coach-and-four. The vehicle is of the hackney-coach variety. The horses stop in the thick sand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... me, I can take care of myself, thank you. My trouble is, I want somebody else to take care of. I had a daughter once, for a few weeks, long enough to make me strangely fond of the responsibilities of a father; and then Karslake took her away, leaving me nothing to do with my life but twiddle futile thumbs and contemplate the approach of middle age." "Middle age? Why flatter yourself? With a daughter ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance |
