"Wriggle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... warn't doin' nothin' but peekin'," said the girl, trying to wriggle away from Polly's grasp. But Polly ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... it will give us anything at all in the way of "Liberty," as most people understand that word. In the place of the rusty old manacles, the chain and shot, the iron yoke, cruel, ill-fitting, violent implements from which it was yet possible to wriggle and escape to outlawry, it may be the world will discover only a completer restriction, will develop a scheme of neat gyves, light but efficient, beautifully adaptable to the wrists and ankles, never chafing, never oppressing, slipped on and worn until at last, like the mask of the ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... just a lump of ice!" Irene Paul often said, putting her own plump arms about Adelle's thin little body; and while Adelle tried to wriggle out of the embrace she teased her by assuming the man's ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... mad people is a wonderful sight," Verisschenzko said, as he stood by her side. "Paris has lost all good taste and sense of the fitness of things. Look! the women who are the most expert in the wriggle of the tango are mostly over forty years old! Do you see that one in the skin-tight pink robe? She is a grandmother! All are painted—all are feverish—all would be young! It is ever thus when a country is on the eve of a ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... rich in figures. Metaphor is an enigma, wherein the thief who is plotting a stroke, the prisoner who is arranging an escape, take refuge. No idiom is more metaphorical than slang: devisser le coco (to unscrew the nut), to twist the neck; tortiller (to wriggle), to eat; etre gerbe, to be tried; a rat, a bread thief; il lansquine, it rains, a striking, ancient figure which partly bears its date about it, which assimilates long oblique lines of rain, with the dense and slanting pikes ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... themselves, seeing that they were utterly worn out. This unforeseen catastrophe evidently astonished their driver. Slipping from the box, he stood resting his hands against the side of the britchka, while Chichikov tumbled and floundered about in the mud, in a vain endeavour to wriggle clear of the stuff. ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... wriggle down under the blanket, and Lee leaned forward; "Are those your feet?" he demanded; "do you go that far down, are ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... we going to get ourselves free?" Tom demanded: "I've been trying to wriggle my hands out, but I'll admit that ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... Westhouse!' cried a chorus of voices. 'Yes, it is Gauger Westhouse,' said the man calmly, giving his neck a wriggle as though he were in pain. 'I represent the King's law, and in its name I arrest ye all, and declare all the contraband goods which I see around me to be confiscate and forfeited, according to the second section of the first clause of the statute upon ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Peter tried to wriggle the child through, but he found that he must have some one to help him. Urging Robin not to move he knocked at Miss Monogue's door. She opened it, and he stepped back with an apology when he saw that some one else ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... had selected the 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 of catching a glimpse of Alice Faraday and ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... mouth could open in a bleat of protest, the Master's hand had returned him to the warm dugs. Again came the harsh, suspicious nose of the foster about Finn's tail, and this time a low growl followed the resentful sniff, and blind, helpless, unformed little jelly that Finn was, instinct made him wriggle fearfully from under that cold nose. The language in which bitches speak to the very young among puppies is simplicity itself. The Master, human though he was, had not failed to catch the sense of this observation of the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... kink for repudiation in general led him to promulgate the theory that one generation cannot bind another for the payment of a debt. Hamilton, having disposed of Jefferson's attempts, under the signature of Aristides, to wriggle out of both these accusations, discoursed upon the disloyal fact that the Secretary of State was the declared opponent of every important measure which had been devised by the Government, and proceeded to lash him for his hypocrisy in sitting daily at the right hand of the President ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... persistence which took no thought of the pain she was inflicting upon herself, she began working her hands to and fro behind her until she fancied that the pressure on her wrists was not so great as before. With an effort she managed to wriggle over against the wall and so to straighten ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... break it. Take salt only with a clean knife. Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at the right hand of plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not.... Smell not of thy Meat; make not a noise with thy Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking.... When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavour to help him out if he tell it not right. ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... him. I have the priestling in a sack. I have him trussed and bound and gagged, so that he can neither speak nor wriggle!" ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... bottom, where we must cross a soft mound formed of the powdery dust thrown off by the avalanche in its rush. Leo slipped over safely, but I, following a yard or two to his right, of a sudden felt the hard crust yield beneath me. An ill-judged but quite natural flounder and wriggle, such as a newly-landed flat-fish gives upon the sand, completed the mischief, and with one piercing but swiftly ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... scratching every hour, not each other's eyes but the History papers. I am a fish out of water.... It makes me feel growly all the time.... I can not get away from my ball and chain.... I think we'll make things snap and crackle a little.... This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... I am too tired to write—I mean too lazy.... No warhorse ever panted for the rush of battle ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... that the girl took less notice of him than she did of his companion. At first he tried to think that he was dreaming, and for a long while he kept his eyes shut very tight to what he did not want to see, but in spite of his efforts, the truth managed to wriggle through, and then the young man gave up trying to deceive himself, and set about finding some way to get the better of ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... looked and saw Lovelace Peyton, I began to shudder too. He was hanging half in and half out of a little window high up in the shed like a skylight, and the big bottle was slowly slipping as he tried to wriggle either in or out. There was no ladder in sight, and neither of us was near tall enough to reach him. He was beginning to whimper and be scared himself, and I could see the heavy bottle start to slip faster from his arm. We had less than a second to lose. ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Florence felt very uneasy. She tried to wriggle away from her companion, who held her arm firmly. ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... On this he rose up in his place and cried: "Wata[n] Thanks! I'm glad some of them will die, for they are getting so thick that they tread on me." He fairly shook with joy at the thought, so that he fell over backward and could not get on his feet again, but had to wriggle off on his back, as the ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... the Secret Service net is around the place, and no suspected person can get away?" muttered the submarine boy. "Well, that's it should be. I wonder if there are any more of this strange crew—men or women spies that don't happen to have suspected so far? If there are, I don't believe they'll wriggle through the meshes of old Uncle Sam's ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... one moment, where the bushes grew sparse; crawling in among some sheltering rocks at another, and even getting down to wriggle along like so many snakes, when not even so much as a bush offered a means of hiding from observation, in case hostile eyes happened to be turned upwards toward the hilltop at the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... others I could mention who took part in this contention, And at first 'twas my intention, but at present I forbear; There's young Look-sharp, and Wriggle, who would make an angel giggle, And a young conceited Zeigel, who was seated near the door; If you could only see them, you'd laugh till you were sore, And ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... the captain. "And take notice that if you wriggle again I will make short work of ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... a time," began Dan, with a twinkle in his eye, "the pigs were swine." Roseen gave an impatient wriggle. "Well, well, it's too bad to be tormentin' ye that way. I'll begin right now.—Well, very well then. There was wan time the Spider an' the Gout was thravellin' together, goin' to seek their fortun's. Well, they come to ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... thought Lupin, "I must not wriggle about too much, or I shall risk being buried alive! A ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... the fact that the hands holding it tightened their grip Psmith deduced that Mr Bickersdyke's attention was not wholly concentrated on the City news. Moreover, his toes wriggled. And when a man's toes wriggle, he is interested in ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... vicarage. The thick and darkened sunshine of Bludston flooded the asphalt of the yard, which sent up a reek of heat, causing curates to fan themselves with their black straw hats, and little boys in clean collars to wriggle in sticky discomfort, while in the still air above the ignoble town hung the heavy pall of smoke. Presently there was the sound of wheels and the sight of the head of the vicar's coachman above the coping of the ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... back, back, back into a thousand years ago," began Akela, and the Cubs gave a wriggle of satisfaction, and prepared to take that mighty ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... asked with the expression of pained surprise that never failed to make his ward wriggle with delight. There were links in the educational scheme that Jimmie forged better than any of the cooperative guardians. Not even Jimmie realized the value of the giggle as a developing factor in Eleanor's existence. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... causes us to wriggle, and strain, and stammer, and we do not recognize the root of the trouble and shun it, and learn to yield and quietly relax our nerves and muscles, of course the strain becomes worse. Then, rather than suffer from it any longer, we keep away from people, just as the blushing man is tempted to do. ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... on my feet in such a way that I was very uncomfortable and tried to readjust matters, but the slightest wriggle of my toe was enough to make him snap at it so fiercely that nothing but thick woollen bedclothes saved me from being ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... steering do you call that? Look at your damned wake. Like an eel's wriggle. Keep her full, and less of your ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... girl was uncomplaining. She clung doggedly to the Earth man's hand when they were able to walk erect: followed swiftly and unquestioningly when they were compelled to crawl or wriggle through ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... truly when he says that the air is thick with danger. When the blackness of night comes, then will come, also, those who make war from behind the trees of the forest. In the darkness, how is the young white and his friends to tell enemies from friends? The jackals will wriggle through and over the wall of trees like snakes through tall grass. After what they have seen, can my white friends expect mercy at hands already ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... harder than you think. I can make him sound lovable, but I cannot make him sound good. Of course I might leave out his doubtful qualities, and describe him merely as beautiful and affectionate; I might ... but I couldn't. I think Chum's habitual smile would get larger, he would wriggle the end of himself more ecstatically than ever if he heard himself summed up as beautiful and affectionate. Anyway, I couldn't do it, for I get carried away when I speak of him and I ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... have once fairly got my legs in St. Stephen's, I shall soon have my hands in office: 'power,' says some one, 'is a snake that when it once finds a hole into which it can introduce its head, soon manages to wriggle in the rest of its body.'" With such meditations I endeavoured to beguile the time and cheat myself into forgetfulness of the lameness of my horse, and the dripping wetness of his rider. At last ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 did ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... 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
... would come to fill their jars in the pond, and your huge black shadow would wriggle on the water like ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... draw Dicky into a corner of the playground, and with tender kisses and promises of inviolable secrecy coax him to open his little heart to you, and tell you whether he is really happy; leave such folly to women—it is a weakness to wriggle into the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... narrow swath with one of the portable disintegrator rays; long enough to take him far away from the Kabit, and just wide enough to pass a man. I'll run along this deep groove, just below the reach of the monster. I can make good time; the serpent'll have to slash and wriggle his way over or through this slimy growth. ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... Yet he managed to wriggle his body from under this rush of feet, and, by-and-bye, to raise himself, still grasping the sidearm. Men of the 4th were pouring thick and fast through the embrasure, and turning to the right in pursuit of the enemy now running along ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... he learnt by grim experience. When first he moved it, it drove him headlong into inky darkness. His gills crumpled in the rough embrace of the mud, and his eyes and sucker were choked with slime. It was only a desperate, convulsive, aimless wriggle that freed him. The next time he cleared his immediate surroundings, and shot a full six inches upwards, only to sink slowly to the ooze again, motionless, and exhausted. He ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... a glad light, and she took Patricia in her arms. "It's perfectly glorious, Miss Pat, darling," she said with a rapturous squeeze. "I'm so delighted I can't help kissing you on the spot," and she did it with a heartiness that made Patricia wriggle. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... 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 points, ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... fact that I did bring up by Doc's camp-fire shows that I am able to take care of myself. If I get into scrapes, I can wriggle out of them again," maintained the kid of the camp, with a brazen look, while his eyes showed flinty sparks, caused by the inspiring purpose hidden behind them, which had ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... everywhere,—in houses, in churches, in stores, in town, in country, on land, at sea, in public, in private,—extensive sub-orders of mammalian Invertebrata. They crouch and crawl through the world with pliant length. They wriggle through the knot-holes of fear and policy, when their stouter-boned brethren oppose them. They creep into corners and cracks when the giant, Progress, strides before them, and quake at the thunder of his tread. They cling, trembling, to the old mouldering scaffolding of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... 'He's the one, in this country, whom 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
... over Mason, with his hand on his collar, and his whip lifted. The whip did not look formidable. Mason received the threat as a joke, and laughed in Turkey's face. Perceiving, however, that Turkey looked dangerous, with a sudden wriggle, at which he was an adept, he broke free, and, trusting to his tried speed of foot, turned his head and made a grimace as he took to his heels. Before, however, he could widen the space between them sufficiently, ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... you some?" exclaimed aunt Corinne with a wriggle. "I had a gold dollar, but I b'lieve that little old man with a bag on ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... 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 element of truth in what the writer has said, there ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Tall, painted carts were being harnessed to mules. Visions of men being lathered and shaved, of women having their hair dressed or their hair searched, Sicilian fashion, of youths trying to curl upward scarcely born mustaches, of children being hastily attired in clothes which made them wriggle and squint, came to the eyes from houses in which privacy was not so much scorned as unthought of, utterly unknown. Turkeys strolled in and out among the toilet-makers. Pigs accompanied their mistresses from doorway to doorway as dogs ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... can't really turn the serious-minded bird down. Besides, I have to admit to myself that it's darn interesting watching the vim that "Rus" puts into this secret practice. Some nights it's mighty chilly and with the grass wet down it's enough to make your spinal column wriggle, but "Rus" ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... that he was in danger, threw herself on the ground and tried to wriggle forward to him, but the low growth made the passage of her larger body impossible. She drew herself back and called frantically to the boy. She could hear the commotion and see the parrots one by one flying clumsily out as they escaped ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... The leopard, standing on one hind 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 ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... in my pockets after that last remark, and walked to the window glumly; but as I stood with my back to him, I could not help wondering if he was making faces at me, or up to any other undignified antics by way of relaxation. Did he ever wriggle with merriment when he was alone? I turned suddenly at the thought. He was calmly perusing a paper through his pince-nez, with an expression of countenance at once so benign, silly, and self-satisfied, that I felt I should like to ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... balance," said Jim; "these fish are fierce." They were, in the wilder parts. They would bite like mad, and then wriggle and wrench themselves off the hook before you could get them up the bank. I never saw or heard of such ferocity, except in the celebrated scaly warrior which chased an equally famous fisherman all over an Adirondack lake, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... crossing a river, was carried away by the current, but managed to wriggle on to a bundle of thorns which was floating by, and was thus carried at a great rate down-stream. A Fox caught sight of it from the bank as it went whirling along, and called out, "Gad! the passenger fits ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... the air from one swinging rope to another, and springing up the bars of the cage. The little monkey jumps, catches a rope, drops to the ground, and springs at another rope. Now he is in a corner, the others have him; but no, with a dive and a wriggle he has slipped through them, and is chattering and grimacing on the other ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... north, the mist fell upon the waters or blew 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
... 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 is my ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... told off to keep an eye on outgoing trains and the docks, and the entrances to the tubes and underground railways were watched. After enclosing London, Merrington made a wider cast, and long before nightfall he had flung around England a net of fine meshes through which no man could wriggle. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... bank and rest till dawn. In the course of time they reach the quiet upper reaches of the river or go up rivulets and drainpipes to the isolated ponds. Their impulse to go on must be very imperious, for they may wriggle up the wet moss by the side of a waterfall or even make a short excursion ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... At a table she sat, and punched the button with the air of milady ringing for her carriage. The waiter came with his large-chinned, low-voiced manner of respectful familiarity. Liz smoothed her silken skirt with a satisfied wriggle. She made the most of it. Here she could order and be waited upon. It was all that her world offered her of the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... for her sake, as it were. Why, didst thou see, it was godly Mr. Henwick that held her head when he wriggled so, and old Madam Holbrook had herself helped upon a chair to see the better. I wonder how long I might wriggle, before great and godly folk would take so much notice of me? But, I suppose, that comes of being a pastor's daughter. She'll be so set up there'll be no speaking to her now. Faith! thinkest thou that Hota really had bewitched her? She gave me corn-cakes, the last time I was at Pastor Tappau's, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... so, after the smallest second's hesitation,—the woman in one stifling both the child's and the substitute's hesitation,—to allow the gaudy stranger to walk beside one the length of C Street. And though the sidewalk was crowded, for stocks were up, and one had to wriggle one's way through the people packed tight in front of the brokers' offices, yet, in the very teeth of the townsfolk, to joy shamelessly in flirtation with this gorgeous, shining, flattering stranger—a social outlaw, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... is all up with thee and us!" And, in truth, the horse's tail was already singed to a coal, for the serpent was hard behind them, blazing like fire. The horse perceived that he could do no more, so he gave one last wriggle and died; but they, poor things, were left alive. "Whom have you been listening to?" said the serpent as he flew up to them. "Don't you know that I only am your father and tsar, and have the right to carry ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... men sailed right into the heart of the pack, which all previous polar explorers had regarded as certain death. It is not merely difficult to grasp this; it is simply impossible — to us, who with a motion of the hand can set the screw going, and wriggle out of the first difficulty we encounter. These men were heroes — heroes in the highest ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... With a last swift wriggle the creeping figure was at the foot of the net which shrouded Jack. The latter looked down and saw that the man was literally covered from head to foot with masses of the swarming insects. Then, ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... nice circus, and all the boys from the camp went to it—also Edward, who managed to scramble over and wriggle under benches till he was ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... eels, we know a great deal about their childhood and youth, or, to speak more eelishly, their grigginess and elverhood. The young grigs, when they do make their appearance, leave us in no doubt at all about their presence or their reality. They wriggle up weirs, walls, and floodgates; they force there way bodily through chinks and apertures; they find out every drain, pipe, or conduit in a given plane rectilinear figure; and when all other spots have been fully occupied, they take to dry land, like veritable snakes, and cut straight ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... refuge. Buffeted by the billows, he makes shift at last frantically to clamber back into it; he snatches the small, damp towels, and attempts to dry his shivering limbs; his clothes have fallen on the wet floor; he cannot force his blue toes into his oozy socks. At the moment he is attempting to wriggle himself into his trousers the horse is hitched-to again, and the jerky and jolty journey back up the beach begins. If the hair of a boy of ten could turn white in a single morning, there would be many a hoary-headed youngster ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... hunter said contemptuously; "why, a redskin would make no more noise in cutting them holes and gashes, than you would in cutting a hunk of deer's flesh for your dinner. He would lie on the ground, and wriggle from one to another like an eel; but I reckon he didn't begin till the camp was still. The canoes wasn't hauled up till we had sarched the woods, as we thought, and then we was moving about close by them till ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... then I thought it to be; soon at its look and feel, impatience got the better of me; hurredly I covered it with my body and shed my sperm in it. Then with what curiosity I paddled my fingers in it afterwards, again to stiffen, thrust, wriggle, and spend. All this I recollect as if it occurred but yesterday, I shall recollect it to the last day of my life, for it was a honey-moon of novelty, years afterwards I often thought of it when ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... put in Jake Brewer, grasping a large pickerel and thrusting his blade into its quivering body after removing the scales, "that it hurts her insides to see the critters wriggle under the knife. ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... side to side, He never fail'd to save his tide, But got the start of ev'ry state, And at a change ne'er came too late; Cou'd turn his word, and oath, and faith, 375 As many ways as in a lath; By turning, wriggle, like a screw, Int' highest trust, and out, for new. For when h' had happily incurr'd, Instead of hemp, to be preferr'd, 380 And pass'd upon a government, He pay'd his trick, and out he went But, being out, and out of hopes To mount his ladder (more) of ropes, Wou'd ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... 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 that ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... she said gayly. "I pity you, Mr. Bower. You cannot wriggle out of your difficulty. The snow will soon be a foot deep in the valley. Goodness only knows what would have become of us up ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... quietly enjoying herself. In early life she had been accustomed to impale fools on epigrams, like flies on pins, to see them wriggle. But with advancing years she had lost in some measure the faculty of nice discrimination,—it was pleasant to see her victims squirm, whether they were fools or friends. Even one's friends, she argued, were not ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... swayed in the darkness below the hatch, then the fellow's head and shoulders appeared; but, as we reached to seize him, he evaded our outstretched fingers by a quick wriggle, flung himself safely to the deck on the far side of the hatch, and leaping to the bulwark, dove into the river with ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... Vigilance," I said familiarly, endeavoring to wriggle in a way that WOULD have shaken a tail, had it been my good fortune to be the owner of one—"Good-morrow, good Mrs. Vigilance—I'm glad to meet ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... modestly said that he was not likely to succeed where his elders had failed but he 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 to the ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... notice, when she asked me (in that musical voice of hers, with more volume in it, as it seemed to me, than all other voices), 'What are you doing little one? Why do you look at me?'—I used to come nearer and wriggle and bite my finger-nails, and redden and say, 'I do not know.' And if she chanced to stroke my hair with her white hand, and ask me how old I was, I would run away and ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... can wriggle on your tummy, if you like, so long as you get the fluid. We must have water. I can't fetch it. I'm ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... seemed in some way twisted. It ached with an insistence and annoyance only second to the wound. All his most determined efforts to wriggle it straight failed lamentably. Indeed, he almost fancied that ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... painted to a perfect peachiness, young—twenty-four and looking less; old as the world and wise. She was gay. She did not much care if it snowed; she knew enough to wriggle in somewhere, somehow, out of it. The years had not yet scared ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... stretched on some tree-roots while we prospected. We should have known enough by that time to leave four or five men on guard close by; as it was, when the men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and I came running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see a crocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feet first. Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... 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. Never ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... apart, and gesticulating so vehemently, with the Hebrew stamp on every line of their dark, keen faces, are blockade-runners: they bewail their captivity more loudly than their fellows; but, be sure, they will wriggle out, soonest of all, if freedom can be purchased by hard swearing or gold. The profits of a single successful venture are simply fabulous; the smugglers are frequently captured with dollars on their persons by tens of thousands: they will part readily with a share of the plunder to any accommodating ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... observation to the corner which was nearest me. There I beheld the devils with pitchforks, tossing the damned up into the air that they might fall headlong on poisoned hatchets or barbed pikes, there to wriggle their bowels out. After a time the wretches would crawl in multitudes, one upon another, to the top of one of the burning crags, there to be broiled like mutton; from there they would be snatched afar, to the top of one of the mountains of eternal ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... cat that saved the situation and its life at the same time. Mary-'Gusta was near the edge of the pine grove and Con was close at her heels. David gave one more convulsive, desperate wriggle, slid from the girl's arms and disappeared through the pines like a ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of mine will go for masses, for if my Pat has his head and shoulders out, I can safely reckon he'll soon wriggle himself away entirely, God ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... him, on the occasion to which we are so guardedly referring, both in a wig and out of it; he passed behind a screen without it, and immediately (as quickly as we write) popped out in it, giving it a finishing touch rather like the butler's wriggle to his coat as he goes to the door. There are the two kinds of learned brothers, those who use the screen, and those who (so far as the jury knows) sleep in their wigs. The latter are the swells, and include the judges; whom, however, we have seen in the public ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... possible he began to wriggle away, inch by inch, from Bill, and toward the fire. Several times he fancied the men moved restlessly in their sleep, but when he looked toward them they appeared to be still sleeping heavily. On each occasion, however, ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... flatten'd along the beam, scarce daring to breathe. But at length, when the man had pass'd below for the sixth time, I found heart to wriggle myself toward the doorway over which the gallows protruded. By slow degrees, and pausing whenever the fellow drew near, I crept close up to the wall: then, waiting the proper moment, cast my legs over, ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... 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 ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... behind the plantation. There was no sheltering cove to lie in on the river front; and besides, to make the visit at the regular pier was so hopelessly commonplace. Any of the ordinary palace yachts could do the thing that way. But it took a gypsy craft like Gadabout to wriggle up the little back-country creek and to land among the chickens and the geese and—bulls perhaps; but then all explorers ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... eel!" Bob glanced admiringly at his friend. "I believe you just wriggle by on the strength of ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... although you are changed indeed since first the colonel, your father, presented you to me at Oxford. However, I will try." The king tried, but in vain. He was stouter than Harry, although less broadly built, and had none of the lissomness which enabled the latter to wriggle through the bars. "It is useless," he said at last. "Providence is against me. It is the will of God that I should remain here. It may be the decree of Heaven that even yet I may sit again on the throne ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... scraped some snow off a nearby log, and set the baby down there while he took off his coat and wrapped it around him, buttoning it like a bag over arms and all. The baby watched him knowingly, its eyes round and dark blue and shining, and gave a contented little wriggle when Bud picked it up ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... had been ordered. He went forward, at first, with a slow waddle, and as the venomous sheep came to meet him in bounces, he then went to meet them in wriggles; so that in a while he went so fast that you could see nothing of him but a head and a wriggle. He dealt with the sheep in this way, a jump and a chop for each, and he never missed his jump and he never missed his chop. When he got his grip he swung round on it as if it was a hinge. The swing began with the chop, and it ended with the bit loose and the sheep giving its ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... preliminary having been concluded, the few jurymen who had managed to wriggle through the judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw, the balance of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who were standing up were ordered to sit down and those already sitting down were ordered to sit somewhere else, the prisoners ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... No glow on its face, no ringlets to grace Its brow, and no ear for my song; Hush'd the caves of its breath, and the finger of death The raised features hath flatten'd along. The eyes' wonted beam, and the eyelids' quick gleam— The intelligent sight, are no more; But the worms of the soil, as they wriggle and coil, Come hither their dwellings to bore. No lineament here is left to declare If monarch or chief art thou; Alexander the Brave, as the portionless slave That on dunghill expires, is as low. Thou delver ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... mean, so don't wriggle. You met Simmonds when he was in trouble, and just offered to take his place for a day or so, thereby doing him a good turn—isn't ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... P.M. in the last week of June—the fire is carefully made and chinked. An hour later it is throwing its grateful warmth and light directly into camp, and nowhere else. The camp turns in. Not to wriggle and quarrel with obdurate stubs, but to sleep. And sleep they do. The sound, deep, restful sleep of healthy young manhood, inhaling pure mountain air on the healthiest bed yet known ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... eagerly eaten by the fish, which appear to thrive on them better than on dead meat. Having great tenacity of life, if not snapped up immediately by the fish they remain alive for a day or two, and, as they wriggle about on the bottom, are almost certain to be finally eaten; whereas the particles of dead flesh that fall to the bottom are largely neglected by the fish and begin to putrefy in a few hours. In the fish troughs there are, therefore, certain gains in both ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various
... uniform ranks, like an army. Then came the Boneetas, with their flashing blue flanks. Then, like a third distinct regiment, wormed and twisted through the water like Archimedean screws, the quivering Wriggle-tails; followed in turn by the rank and file of the Trigger-fish—so called from their quaint dorsal fins being set in their backs with a comical curve, as if at half-cock. Far astern the rear was brought ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... one of his claws. That knife would never have cut Harry's jacket-tail off, though, and when Effie had tried for some time she saw that this was so and gave it up. But with her help Harry managed to wriggle quietly out of his sleeves, so that the dragon had only an Eton jacket in his other claw. Then the children crept on tiptoe to a crack in the rocks and got in. It was much too narrow for the dragon to get in also, so they stayed in there and waited to make faces at the dragon when he felt ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... exactly, either; for Rollo who was usually pretty alert and ready in emergencies of difficulty or danger, when he found himself rolling down the slope, though he could not stop, still contrived to wriggle and twist himself off to one side, so as to get clear of the horse and roll off himself in a different direction. They both, however, the animal and the boy, soon came to a stop. Rollo was up in an instant. The horse, too, contrived, after some scrambling, to gain his feet. All this time the ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... progress. Without noise, the six half-nude figures were describing circles upon the smooth floor. The silence and the serpentlike motions had a peculiar hypnotic effect upon us, and in a sort of dreamlike trance we watched them wriggle by the narrow aperture to which we pressed our faces. With each circle more of the brown, sweat-polished bodies showed beneath the twisted mats. The pace was beginning to tell upon them now. Slower and slower they moved past the crevice, till at last all movement ceased, and, apparently ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... 'e 'ung on and that's not as easy as it sounds. But in about 'alf an hour the fish was seemin'ly done for and the New Yorker pulled 'im in, 'and over 'and, as easy as you please. Just as 'e got 'im to the gunwale, though, the moray gave an extra wriggle, and bein' afraid that 'e might get away agen, the fisherman gave a sudden pull and brought 'im on board ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... about the preparation of their evening meal with a plaintive quietness. Juno, too, seemed oppressed, for after a tentative wriggle of her stump of a tail she settled back on her haunches, eyes fixed on ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... a speech and one could fairly see the lies wriggle out of his mouth full of defective teeth: exemplary family life; traditional friendship of all members for each other; perfect unity; the King and all the princes brave as lions; the Queen and all the princesses paragons of virtue. And the fatherly love with which the King embraces us all; ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... 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 ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... Landell," said Tom. "He'll wriggle them loose in no time. Look here, I'll show you. Turn ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... think of you all the same first." And kneeling down by the injured man's side, he proceeded, with Ernest Wilton's assistance, to cut away Seth's shirt, and then the end of the arrow, holding it firmly the while so that it should not wriggle about, and hurt him more than they could help, after which the barbed head was drawn out of the wound—which was just between the third and fourth ribs, and not very serious, as the ex-mate had thought— stanching the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... you going to say to me? For the last hour I have been asking you to marry me, and you have said nothing; only just 'wriggle, wriggle,' talking ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... these (Fig. 25). These "gray flies," as they are sometimes called, lay a mass of three or four hundred eggs on the surface of wounds. The larvae which in a few hours hatch from these make their way directly into the wound where they feed on the surrounding tissue until full grown when they wriggle out and drop to the ground where they transform to the pupa and later to the adult fly. Of course their presence in the wounds is very distressing to the infected animal, and great suffering results. Slight scratches that might otherwise quickly heal often become serious ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... found its mark on them, and at last, despairing of being able to wriggle away in good order, they rose to their feet and made ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... to Peter with some nonsensical appeal when her heart was full and her voice a trifle unsteady. You could bury your head in Peter's little white sailor jacket just under his chin, at which he would dimple and gurgle and chuckle and wriggle, and when you withdrew your flushed face and presented it to the public gaze all the tears would have been wiped ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... good, I believe," said Nancy, "but I don't expect ever to be myself—I don't think I could be. You might as well teach a snake not to wriggle." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... "Well, finding this out, you can wager I don't stay heels over head no more!" cried the Policeman. And with a wriggle and a twist and a bound, he gave a half somersault and ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... required to stand on his hands with legs stretched at full length in the air, and then wriggle ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... the wealthier and younger members of the male community. They poison the air round them with sickly perfumes; they assume titles, and speak of one another as "cette chere comtesse;" their walk is something between a prance and a wriggle; they prowl about the terrace whilst the music is playing, seeking whom they may devour, or rather whom they may inveigle into paying for their devouring: and, bon Dieu! how they do gorge themselves with food and drink when some silly ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... narrowest, the highest, the darkest, and the dirtiest streets of Paris, was, and is, and probably will long be, the Rue St Denis. Beginning at the bank of the Seine, and running due north, it spins out its length like a tape-worm, with every now and then a gentle wriggle, right across the capital, till it reaches the furthest barrier, and thence has a kind of suburban tail prolonged into the wide, straight road, a league in length, that stretches to the town of Sainct-Denys-en-France. This was, from time immemorial, the state-road ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... it all in two minutes by the help of the lantern. The light'll dazzle him so as he'll not be able to make any on us out; and then we must slip out of the window and be off afore he's had time to wriggle himself out of the ropes. Eh, won't he be a lovely pictur next day!—his best friends, as they say, won't know him. Won't he just look purty at the meeting! There's a model teetottaller for you! Do you think he'll have the face to say then, 'You've heard, ladies and gentlemen, what I once ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... help for it. Bobby found it impossible to move hand or foot. He could wriggle a little,—but that ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... living, 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 ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... cunt, neither very long nor thick. As I looked at it, I saw the inner lips hanging out a full inch, I put my finger, two, then three fingers up her cunt easily. It was enormous. It shocked me, having never seen such a cunt before I am quite sure. She meanwhile did nothing but jerk, and wriggle her arse about, shouting out, "Fuck me,—put your prick in,—fuck ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... dress a wriggle, add a pint of nearly milk, Smother with a pillow any sneeze; Baste with talcum powder and mark upon its back— "Don't forget that you ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers |
