"Wriggle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... able to escape again. He had lost all sense of direction. Even his touch on the furniture didn't help him, since everything was now displaced. Nevertheless, he continued to duck and dodge, to wriggle and creep and elude. Once Thor's clutch was actually upon him, but he managed to tear himself free with nothing worse than a long rent in his shirt-sleeve. Again Thor seized him, but only to tear his collar from the stud. A third time Thor's strong ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... to wriggle back from the brushwood screen. He was filled with the sort of sick rage that comes when you can't actively resent insolence and arrogance. He hated the people who wanted the world to collapse, and this was part of their effort to bring ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... If they cannot wriggle out of expressing an opinion of some sort, they will commonly retail those of some one who has already written upon the subject, and conclude by saying that though they quite admit that there is an ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... away over the meadows, and it was cold. Mr. Gabriel wrapped the cloak about Faith and fastened it, and tied her bonnet. Just now Dan was so busy handling the boat—and it's rather risky, you have to wriggle up the creek so—that he took little notice of us. Then Mr. Gabriel stood up, as if to change his position; and taking off his hat, he held it aloft, while he passed the other hand across his forehead. And leaning against the mast, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... abilities as a three-quarter rested chiefly on the fact that he could dodge well. This eel-like attribute compensated for a certain lack of pace. He was past the Donaldson's three-quarters in an instant, and running for the line, with only the back to pass, and with Clowes in hot pursuit. Another wriggle took him past the back, but it also gave Clowes time to catch him up. Clowes was a far faster runner, and he got to him just as he reached the twenty-five line. They came down together with a crash, Clowes on top, and as they ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... awaiting my arrival. On the whole, I think that being in his grasp was almost preferable to the feeling that he was dogging my steps. His left hand gripped the collar of my jacket and flannel shirt, and instantly I began to wriggle, twisting my leg about his own in an attempt to bring him to the ground; but the man was of enormous strength, and, freeing himself, he shook me as a terrier shakes a rat, until I felt there was little ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... master, astounded. He represses a wriggle of healthful satisfaction on the part of his pupils by a significant lift of his ferule, then moves ponderously up the stairs for a personal visit to the chamber of the culprit. The maid had given true report; there was no one there. Never had he been met with such ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... had honestly and honorably intended to follow the same path; to keep smiles for those above him and harsh judgments for those below him; in short, like Alfred, to wriggle his way upward. But in the depths of his being his energies were working in another direction, and they continually thrust him back where he belonged. His conflict with the street-urchins stopped of itself, it was so aimless; Pelle went in and out of their houses, and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... look of fear disfigure his face," he continued, "and following the direction of his eyes I saw a lean brown arm with a thin hand as delicate as a woman's wriggle forward from beneath the wall of the tent towards ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... curses and groans of men who were hit as they lay or stumbled about trying to get out, made a hellish din. There was some wild shooting in return from my men, but it was all over in a moment, and as I managed to wriggle out of my tent the whole place was swarming with bearded men, shooting into the heaving canvas. At that moment I must have been clubbed on the head, for I knew no more until I found myself seated on an empty case having my head, which was dripping ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... staring down at a red smashed thing on the ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle unavailing legs. Then, when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was like a fog bank torn to rags. He tried to ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... she felt a trifle remorseful about her behavior. Some day she would marry him—she had got far enough to admit that—and perhaps it was unkind of her not to let the matter be settled. And at that she gave a petulant wriggle of her shoulders under her cotton blouse. Wasn't that his business? Wasn't he the one to end it, not wait on her pleasure? Were all men ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... only looking about, To see you wriggle in and out, And drawing together your slimy rings, Instead of feet, like other things: So, little worm, don't slide and slip Into your ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... our riflemen marching as escort, smart and gay in their brown forest-dress, the green thrums rippling and flying from sleeve and leggin' and open double-cape, and the raccoon-tails all a-bobbing behind their caps like the tails that April lambkins wriggle. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... answered. "Were I a younger man you might, perhaps, accuse me of scheming to wriggle myself into your good graces, Miss Enid. But I am getting old, and, moreover, I'm a confirmed bachelor, therefore you cannot, I think, accuse me of such ulterior motives. No, I only point out this peril for your family's ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... leg, for the other was broken, seemed to be boxing Scroope, whilst Scroope was driving his big hunting knife into the brute's carcase. They went down, Scroope undermost, the leopard tearing at him. I gave a wriggle and came out of that mossy bed—I recall the sucking sound my body made as ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... our way downstairs with demure "Good morning"; they would go to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord Charles—who possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin of the scalp—would wriggle his hair up and down till we were choking with laughter, to our own imminent risk. After a month of this, Auntie was literally driven out of the pretty Chateau, and took refuge in a girls' school, much to our disgust, but still she was not allowed to be at rest. Mischievous ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... beche-de-mer boats become almost amphibious. Some, as they swim and dive, collect the fish into a heap on the bottom of the sea until they have a parcel worthy of being taken to the attendant dinghy, alongside which they will come with arms so full as to restrict movement to a singular wriggle of the shoulders. What would be an extremely awkward burden for a white man on shore, the expert black boy carries as he swims with case, in the course of his daily round and ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... on that suggestion, but offered to take my own tiller and lend him Grue. He couldn't wriggle out of it, seeing that his alleged motive had been the overcrowding of my boat, but he looked rather sick when Grue went aboard ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... shuddering—"just," Mr. Porson used to say when describing the thing to a friend, "like the skin of a horse determined to get rid of a gad-fly." The same moment the tiles on the roof began to clatter like so many castanets in the hands of giants, and the ground to wriggle and heave. But they were too much absorbed in what was before their eyes to heed much what went on under their feet. The oscillatory displacement of the front of the church did not at most seem to cover more than ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... his pocket for a dime, and heard himself say, "That's all right, I don't want the stuff. Take it in to that little chap in a striped suit, in the next car,—dirty little beggar, wriggled like an eel all day. This will probably make him wriggle all night. ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... Frank, tranquilly, and glancing furtively toward Burrill, who was beginning to wriggle uneasily in his chair. "Do you want to go ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... saw he kept to himself; but presently he began to wriggle backward, keeping the greasewood clump, and afterwards certain rocks and little ridges, between himself and a view of the point he had fixed upon as the spot where the shooter ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... down, Benson!" Galloway was quick to follow up his stroke, shaking his head fiercely, like a dog worrying a rat. "You were seen carrying the body downstairs, the night of the murder. You might as well own up to it, first as last. Lies will not help you. We know too much for you to wriggle out of it. And never mind smoothing your hair down like that. We know all about that scar on your forehead, and how ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... it down. Though the lizard seemed to have lost none of its spirit, the flesh was becoming weak. While it panted, its eyes twinkled with inane ferocity, and the snake, with that peculiar fearsome, gliding movement—neither wriggle nor squirm—typical of the species, slowly edged its victim under the shadow of a tussock. There both reposed, the snake calm in craft and design, the lizard waiting for the one chance of its life. Swallowing the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... action against you when she knows the truth, is hers. But she has the right to know. To see that she knows comes within the bounds of any decent man's justifiable interference. One of us must tell her; the news would come with less grace from myself. But for you to wriggle out of your dilemma with silence, while she goes on breaking her heart, is cowardly—just as cowardly as if you'd deserted in the face of the enemy. I've no doubt you've sentenced more than one poor wretch to be shot at ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... club-house was empty, and he had just resigned himself to a solitary game, when, with a whirr and a rattle, a grey racing-car drove up, and from it emerged the same long young man whom, a couple of days earlier, he had seen wriggle out from underneath the same machine. It was Reggie Byng's habit also not to allow anything, even love, to interfere with golf; and not even the prospect of hanging about the castle grounds in the hope ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... you do—you old eel!" Bob glanced admiringly at his friend. "I believe you just wriggle by on the strength of ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... gave a convulsive wriggle of his back and shoulders, and uttered an inarticulate "Let me ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... afternoon. A road between dusty hedges, choked, literally strangled, by a torrent of westward-streaming troops of all arms. Every few minutes there would come a break in the flow, and our motor would wriggle through, advance a few yards, and be stopped again by a widening of the torrent that jammed us into the ditch and splashed a dazzle of dust into our eyes. The dust was stifling—but ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... the game!"—there was bitter anger in his voice now. "You see the game! He wanted to get me in deep enough so that I couldn't wriggle out, deeper than ten thousand that I could get at any time on my insurance, he wanted me where I couldn't get away—and he got me. The first ten thousand wasn't enough. I went to him for a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth—hoping always that each would be the last. Each time a new note, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... jingle set the immediate crowd in a roar. I became an object for ribald laughter and cheers; I was pushed and hustled, albeit good-naturedly enough, but none the less to my great annoyance, so that I made all haste to wriggle away and, espying a narrow lane between these canvas booths and tents, I slipped into it, took to my heels and turning a sharp corner in full career, came thus upon an ancient man who sat upon a box, puffing serenely at a long pipe and who, despite my so sudden ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... loaded "with brains," and his pack was as troublesome as the straw shoes of the Japanese horses. It was always slipping forward or backward, and as I was heavier than the Malay lad, I was always slipping down and trying to wriggle myself up on the great ridge which was the creature's backbone, and always failing, and the mahout was always stopping and pulling the rattan ropes which bound the whole arrangement together, but never succeeding in improving ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... to the Giant Suttung with the tale of how he had seen the mysterious serving-man change into a snake and wriggle through a hole in the mountain; and Suttung at once guessed that they had to deal with Odin himself. So he hurried to the hole and sat there to watch for the return ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... an awestricken voice; "there is a split, and you'll make it worse if you wriggle about so. Be a good boy, Dickie, and try to ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... very unceremoniously transformed into a muff beneath their entangled extremes, he turns over quietly, saying, "There's something very strange about the floor of this establishment,—it don't seem solid; 'pears how there's ups and downs in it." They wriggle and twist in a curious pile; endeavour to bring their knees out of "a fix"—to free themselves from the angles which they are most unmathematically working on the floor. Working and twisting,—now staggering, and again giving utterance to the coarsest language,—one of the gentry—they belong to ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn't pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant—a new Elephant—an Elephant's Child—who was full of 'satiable curtiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions. ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... evenings. Since your father has been so worried over his business, he needs all the relaxation possible at home, he enjoys reading aloud in the evenings, and Johnny's fidgeting annoys him. A ten-year-old boy is all wriggle and racket without ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the other day with reading in Tertullian, that spirits or demons dilate and contract themselves, and wriggle about like worms— ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... and wriggle!" called a man above. "Jam the steel into the hard cake beneath!" and with the cold sweat oozing from my hair I proceeded to obey him. How long I took to cover the distance we could not afterward agree, but once ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... is made to Ben Jonson:—'Horace did not screw and wriggle himselfe into great Mens famyliarity, impudentlie as ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... at home, is a light broad-cloth, with calamanco or red waistcoat and breeches; and it is remarkable that their wigs seldom hide the collar of their coats. They have always a peculiar spring in their arms, a wriggle in their bodies, and a trip in their gait. All which motions they express at once in their drinking, bowing or saluting ladies; for a distant imitation of a forward fop, and a resolution to overtop him in his way, are the distinguishing marks of ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... the wounded untended, without dressings, food, or water, and harassed by the fire from both sides and from our artillery. It was a very painful thing to watch these poor fellows moving about feebly and trying to wriggle themselves into some position of safety, and it reminded me of the wounded Dervishes after Omdurman—only these were our ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... glossy crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, larvae, perhaps, more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity! But no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day let upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all of them that enjoy the luxury of legs—and some of them have a good many—rush round wildly, butting each other and everything ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... things do happen, you know! Now then—why didn't you come to us? We have a wing quite empty. But just as you like, of course. Do you lease it from HIM?—this fellow, I mean," she added, nodding towards Lebedeff. "And why does he always wriggle so?" ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... barrens. There for hours at a time they hunted elusive grasshoppers, rushing helter-skelter over the dry moss, leaping up to strike at the flying game with their paws like a kitten, or snapping wildly to catch it in their mouths and coming down with a back-breaking wriggle to keep themselves from tumbling over on their heads. Then on again, with a droll expression and noses sharpened like exclamation ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... more than a pity," jerked out Porson, with a sudden wriggle which caused him to rock up and down upon the stiff springs of the ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... wire that it was evidently not considered necessary to place sentinels there. By throwing over their parcels first and working away the ground for more than an hour under the barbed wire, the men were able to crawl and wriggle their ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... Luck is lean, now Luck Is fat, And wise men take her as she comes: The Bowler may be sure the Bat Will share the sugarplums. So never wriggle, nor protest, Nor eye the zenith in disgust, But, Johnson, bowl your level best, And ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... would have a try, so he went to the edge of the water and spreading out his cloth on the weeds lay down on it so that his weight was distributed; in this position the weeds supported him and he managed to wriggle himself across on his face ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... going to lose forever. It must be said, in justice to her prospective son-in-law, that he was capable either of resigning himself or of frankly (with however many blushes) telling Joscelind he could n't keep his agreement, but was not capable of trying to wriggle out of his difficulty. The plan of simply telling Joscelind he couldn't,—this was the one he had fixed upon as the best, and this was the one of which I remarked to him that it had a defect which should be counted against its ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... his children: "Plague tak' thee! can thee not let the poor things be quiet? But I'll be up with thee, my gentleman: so tak' th' chamber an' be hang'd to thee, if thou wilt. Jack and little Robert shall sleep o'er the cart-house, and Boggart may rest or wriggle as he likes ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... to get at. If there is not, and especially if anything is there which he wishes to shun, a four hundred and fifty pounder cannot crash a hole large enough for you to push him through. By such a pitiful chink as that did his Infallible Highness wriggle himself out of the range of my guns, and pursue ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... days last fall when he had been so closely cornered by his creditors that it took many a writhe and a wriggle to get through. Nobody but himself, unless it was the dour Tom Barton, knew how ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... was not the liberal one she had in mind when making the preliminary arrangements. For it appeared that the young man had an appetite of which Mrs. Cafferty spoke with the respect proper to something colossal and awesome. A half-loaf did not more than break the back of a hunger which could wriggle disastrously over another half-loaf: so that, instead of being relieved by his advent, she was confronted by a more immediate and desolating bankruptcy than that from which she had attempted to escape. Exactly how to deal with this situation she did not know, and it was really ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... full of the biggest eels you ever saw. I've caught them here, often—perfectly prodigious! I tell you they're sometimes a match for a fellow; they'd almost wriggle your arm from the socket if you were not on your guard. But you're not interested in eels, I perceive. The castle's ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Her father and mother, who are no more than her chief ministers, walk before her out of the saloon, and then she—swims after them. But swimming is not the proper word. Fishes, in making their way through the water, assist, or rather impede, their motion with no dorsal wriggle. No animal taught to move directly by its Creator adopts a gait so useless, and at the same time so graceless. Many women, having received their lessons in walking from a less eligible instructor, do move in this way, and such women this unfortunate ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... status of the owners and rulers of rural England throughout recent centuries. Our esquires did not win their estates till they had given up any particular fancy for winning their spurs. Esquire does not mean squire, and esq. does not mean anything. But it remains on our letters a little wriggle in pen and ink and an indecipherable hieroglyph twisted by the strange turns of our history, which have turned a military discipline into a pacific oligarchy, and that into a mere plutocracy at last. And there are similar historic riddles to be unpicked in the similar forms of social address. ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... not think how to fight it. After being simply dubious throughout a long pause, she in the end went into a great rage. She glared furiously at Marjory, dropped her arm as if it had burned her and moved down upon Coleman. She must have reflected that at any rate she could make him wriggle. When she was come near to him, she called out: "Rufus!" In her tone was all the old insolent statement of ownership. Coleman might have been a poodle. She knew how to call his same in a way that was anything less than a public scandal. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... thought Lupin, "I must not wriggle about too much, or I shall risk being buried alive! ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... the cut of those solemn Presbyterian whiskers. It makes me faint to remember how many times I've tried and failed to get my hooks into him. I know you could land the deacon. I'd joyfully give you a million just to see him wriggle in ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... let it mar the mutual love, That now unites us eye to eye, If, superficially, we seem to shove Our fingers in your Irish pie— An action which, if you should so behave, Would make old MONROE wriggle in his grave. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... at him blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a flush ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... sich as they dealt in could not be getten o' trust, although they had to be takken that way." Then he knock'd th' table three times wi' his knuckles, an' two o'th' fiddle-faced chaps 'at wor set one o' each side on him, began to wriggle abaat as if they'd getten th' murly grubs. "Stop! stop!" he sed, "one at once, if yo pleease! Brother Sawny had better give his sperit backward for a few minutes, wol we've done wi' Brother Titus's." Soa Sawny gave ovver shakkin hissen, exceptin ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... cheek from my wilful companion sent me off at a fresh angle, and presently I came in sight of the village church, sitting solitary within its circle of elms. From forth the vestry window projected two small legs, gyrating, hungry for foothold, with larceny—not to say sacrilege—in their every wriggle: a godless sight for a supporter of the Establishment. Though the rest was hidden, I knew the legs well enough; they were usually attached to the body of Bill Saunders, the peerless bad boy of the village. Bill's coveted ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... Sometimes it makes it worse,' he says. 'Th' throuble about divoorce is it always lets out iv th' bad bargain th' wan that made it bad. If I owned a half in a payin' business with ye, I'd niver let th' sun go down on a quarrel,' he says. 'But if ye had a bad mouth I'd go into coort an' wriggle out iv th' partnership because ye'ar a cantankerous old villain that no wan cud get on with,' he says. 'If people knew they cudden't get away fr'm each other they'd settle down to life, just as I detarmined to like coal smoke whin I found th' collection wasn't big enough ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... of the Temple, whose fame so bragged, Is burning alive in Paris square! How can he curse, if his mouth is gagged? Or wriggle his neck, with a collar there? 40 Or heave his chest, which a band goes round? Or threat with his fist, since his arms are spliced? Or kick with his feet, now his legs are bound? —Thinks John, I will call upon Jesus Christ. ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... train and a drowsy sense of confusion and smoke, he could not for an instant think where he was; but it did not take long for him to open his eyes, recollect the happenings of the previous day, smile with satisfaction, and hurriedly wriggle ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... see it's going to be nip and tuck if we ever get out of this? You've shown yourself, from start to finish, a miserable cheat; there's no trust to be put in either your judgment or your intentions. Be still," he commanded, as she sought to wriggle out of his grasp, to avoid the direct blaze of his eyes. "I am going to do what I can for you; to see you safe through this, if I can. Not because you are anything to me, but just because you are Ben Gaynor's, and he ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... was equal to any emergency, but this time she was too frightened to object, to wriggle in the firm grasp, or indeed, to do anything other than allow him to take her wherever he chose, and he ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. As it approached, Medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide-open throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle—flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again—the dragon fell at full length upon the ground ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... as she was under the glaring light, the letter still clutched stiffly in her hand, her eyes still staring widely at the irregular, un-English writing. The letters seemed to writhe and squirm into life before her distorted vision, to wriggle like a procession of monstrous insects across the page. Were they insects or were they reptiles? She ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... state, that in consequence of a late discovery by one BECHAMP, of living things in chalk (he has actually seen 'em wriggle!) we are no longer at liberty to say, "As different as Chalk and Cheese." The difference is gone! If it is not, we would ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... by his sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him, by general consent of the several ministers, on account of his inability to walk as other men do. In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait—something between a leap and a wriggle—a movement that afforded illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to the king, for (notwithstanding the protuberance of his stomach and a constitutional swelling of the head) the king, by his whole court, was accounted ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... don't he give you some?" exclaimed aunt Corinne with a wriggle. "I had a gold dollar, but I b'lieve that little old man with a bag ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... applause for her performance, as much applause as the other, which shows that an operatic audience will not only tolerate, but even applaud a singer who substitutes physical attractions, temperament and a peculiar wriggle of the spinal column for beautiful voice and ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... those whose society was most attractive to her. Connie tried all she could to conquer her dislike, and entice the wayward thing to her heart; but nothing would do. Sometimes she would seem to soften for a moment; but all at once, with a wriggle and a backward spasm in the arms of the person who carried her, she would manifest such a fresh access of repulsion, that, for fear of an outburst of fierce and objurgatory wailing which might upset poor Connie altogether, she would be borne off hurriedly,—sometimes, I confess, rather ungently ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... productions the signs of a progressive movement—the possibility, at least, of a true advance. For the contortions of the 'Precious' writers were less the result of their inability to write well than of their desperate efforts to do so. They were trying, as hard as they could, to wriggle themselves into a beautiful pose; and, naturally enough, they were unsuccessful. They were, in short, too self-conscious; but it was in this very self-consciousness that the real hope for the future lay. The teaching of Malherbe, if it ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... anger, although tempestuous, were never very prolonged. The curious convulsive wriggle of one of his arms, which always showed when he was excited, gradually died away, and after looking for some time at the papers of de Meneval—who had written away like an automaton during all this uproar—he came across to ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wild to avenge to inflict an insult to wriggle he has failed in his duty he has been kept to his bed for the last two days I was careful not ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... a loud whisper, "why do they crowd these lifts in this disgusting way? And WHY," with another wriggle, "do they permit PERSONS with packages to ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... so if you knew as much about it as I do," answered Ben, with a sudden frown and wriggle, as if he still felt the smart of the blows he had received. "We don't call it splendid; do we, Sancho?" he added, making a queer noise, which caused the poodle to growl and bang the floor irefully with his tail, as he lay close to his master's ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... I had was Dick's broad back, for the sapling to which he was tied was small. I drew my hunting-knife. One more wriggle brought me close to Dick, with my face near his hands, which were bound behind him. I slipped the blade under the lasso, ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... so unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she knew her. She ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Tom, as the other boys tried to wriggle out from under the tent. "We've got to get wet now, anyway; but perhaps, if we stay as we are, we can manage to ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... steering do you call that? Look at your damned wake. Like an eel's wriggle. Keep her full, and less ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... was leaning over the gunwale to rearrange the gear. From him I looked up the beach, to the ridge behind which the others had disappeared, and to the creepers overhanging the cliff. Suddenly it came into my head that by gaining the upper end of the ridge, where it met the cliff, I could wriggle under these creepers, and observe from behind them all that went on, as well on the next beach as on this. And with another glance at Plinny's ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... they consider the most perfect, isn't he?' Is it success to be the occasion of a young Englishman's having to stammer as you would have to stammer at such a moment for old England? No, no; success is to have made people wriggle to another ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... cried Polly, getting back into her own corner with a happy little wriggle, all unconscious of Grandpapa's conspiracy with Mother Fisher in ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... of silk. But still he followed the dreadful roar of the Minotaur, which now grew louder and louder, and finally so very loud that Theseus fully expected to come close upon him, at every new zizgag and wriggle of the path. And at last, in an open space, at the very center of the labyrinth, he did discern ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "Selina Brown and Laura Nelson ought to have more principle than engage in anything so dishonorable. They've managed to wriggle out of it at Marian's expense, but they have both lost caste by it. Depend upon it, a great many girls here will have their own opinion of the whole affair and it won't be complimentary to ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... little beggars one at a time—go for them, throttle them, wring their necks, jump on them; and if they wriggle, stamp!" ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... worst, Bertrand. What is man? a beast of prey. An hour ago, and I'd have taken a crust, and gone in peace. But no: they would trick and juggle, curse them; they would wriggle and cheat! Well, I accept the ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... o' sin, Make all this row 'bout lettin' of 'em in? In law, p'r'aps nut; but there's a diffurence, ruther, Betwixt your mother-'n-law an' real mother, [Derisive cheers.] An' I, for one, shall wish they'd all ben som'eres, Long 'z U.S. Texes are sech reg'lar comers. But, O my patience! must we wriggle back Into th' ole crooked, pettyfoggin' track, When our artil'ry-wheels a road hev cut Stret to our purpose ef we keep the rut? 280 War's jes' dead waste excep' to wipe the slate Clean for the cyph'rin' of some nobler fate. [Applause.] Ez for dependin' on their oaths an' thet, 'twun't bind ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to explore some caves—dry at low water—on the opposite side. Some of these are wide, lofty, and well-lighted from without. We walk in and out and around them, as if in great, irregular, Gothic halls. Some are narrow and dark. Now, we crawl into them on hands and knees; now, we wriggle onward a few feet, serpent-like, flat on our bellies; now, we are suddenly able to stand upright in pitch darkness, hearing faint moaning sounds of pent-up winds, when we are silent, and long reverberations of our own voices, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... contemptible to let someone else be blamed for what you have done," he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah—you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. You'll find ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... a thing. There is not, in or out of an attorney's office in the county of Erie, or elsewhere, one who could raise a doubt, or a particle of a doubt, about the meaning of this provision of the Constitution. He may act as witnesses do, sometimes, on the stand. He may wriggle, and twist, and say he cannot tell, or cannot remember. I have seen many such efforts in my time, on the part of witnesses, to falsify and deny the truth. But there is no man who can read these words of the Constitution of the United States, and say they are ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... usual, and he was out in the room. The window was open a little at the top, same as I've had it before once or twice these spring days, and Sol never took notice. The worst of it is, my husband told me I hadn't orter keep it open, even a speck, while the bird was out of his cage. 'Sol can wriggle through the smallest kind of a crack,' says he; and it appears he was right. My, but he'll be angry! 'Marthy, it'll ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... then he dropped her like a hot brick. By the Eternal, Rollins, he hasn't gotten off with that old love yet, you mark my words. There's Indian blood in her veins, and a look in her eye that makes me wriggle, sometimes. I watched her last night at parade when she drove out here with that copper-faced old squaw, her mother. For all her French and Italian education and her years in New York and Paris, that girl's ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... wriggle and a twist Dudley turned his back upon her; but not before she had seen the blue eyes swimming with tears, and heard a choking sob being hastily swallowed. Roy stood erect, his little face quivering with ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... in the midst of a beautiful plain mostly on the left bank of the river Vistula. All the main part of the city lies close to the river, and the streets are so twisted and crooked that it is almost impossible to picture them. They wriggle here and there like snakes of streets. The houses, of course, are very old, and with their heavy barred doors and solid shutters, look very strange ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... moon also, the earth is motionless: these are natural physical prejudices. But that lobsters are good for the blood, because when cooked they are red; that eels cure paralysis because they wriggle; that the moon affects our maladies because one day someone observed that a sick man had an increase of fever during the waning of the moon; these ideas and a thousand others are the errors of ancient charlatans who judged without reasoning, and ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... mean, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox happen to ask for a visit from me?" I ventured to wriggle out, like a worm who isn't sure whether it had better turn or not. I was certain that for some reason of her own, Mother had suggested the idea, if only hypnotically; but she seemed almost too frank as she answered, and it was frightening ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson |
