"Tip-top" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... here, I have accomplished the laborious perusal of your transcendent and tip-top periodical, and, hoity toity! I am like a duck in thunder with admiring wonderment at the drollishness and jocosity with which your paper is ready to burst in its pictorial department. But, alack! when I turn my critical attention ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... takes the rifle, lookin' as knowin' all the time as if he had ever seed one afore. Well, there was a great red squirrel, on the tip-top of a limb, chatterin' away like any thing, chee, chee, chee, proper frightened; he know'd it warn't me, that was a parsecutin' of him, and he expected he'd be hurt. They know'd me, did the little critters, when they seed me, and ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... his lip to keep from laughing as he soberly answered, "Tip-top, Puss. I'll call you that sometimes—that is, as much of it as I can remember, if you want me to; just in play, you know. Won't ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... invited the whole set, and we shall have a tip-top time. We always do at the Minots'," ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... a tip-top meal, and then thought I'd lay down and take a little nap. I slept for an hour or two, and then saddled up, and rode along. Putty soon I happened ter look round, and, blast my picter, ef there warn't eight Comanches a-comin' after me like ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... anything he wants in the meantime! And then to hear him making reform speeches! That's what makes me mad about them fellows up on the hill. They get a thousand dollars for every one we get; but they are tip-top swells, and they wouldn't speak to one of us low grafters on the street. And they're eminent citizens and pillars of the church—wouldn't it ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... is about 1,100 feet above the sea. The highest point being Tip-Top, 1,310 feet, and the lowest point 620 feet. The Hill is characterized by its immediate and abrupt rise above surrounding localities, being from 500 to 830 feet above the village of Pawling, in which the waters divide for the Hudson and Housatonic Rivers. On its highest hill rises ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... scurvy matters either of poverty or parentage, that formerly belonged to him, but which being long gone by are almost forgotten, we only think of what we see before our eyes. And if, as the preacher said, the person so raised by good luck, from nothing, as it were, to the tip-top of prosperity, be well behaved, generous, and civil, and gives himself no ridiculous airs, pretending to vie with the old nobility, take my word for it, Teresa, nobody will twit him with what he was, but will respect him for what he is; except, indeed ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Esther," he said heartily. "By Jove, you have got among tip-top people. I had no idea. Fancy you ordering Jeames de la Pluche about. And how happy you must be among all these books! I've brought you a bouquet. There! Isn't it a beauty? I got it ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the doctor, while I am at school; and if he does get well, won't I make a tip-top ...
— Baby Pitcher's Trials - Little Pitcher Stories • Mrs. May
... down 'ere on a bit of a 'oliday, sir," explained the inspector to the doctor, entirely ignoring me, "and being one of the tip-top detectives up in London, I thought we'd take ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... be a dandy," said Mr. Bingle warmly. "The plot is tip-top. Even a manager ought to be able to ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... because he knew they did not want (with a nod at the girl) to have more of her than could be helped. He came the first possible moment because he had his business to attend to. He wasn't drawing a tip-top salary (this staring at Fyne) in a luxuriously furnished office. Not he. He had risen to be an employer of labour and was bound to ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... our plan will soon be afloat. I shouldn't wonder, now, if one might not, in order to start the town, get up some kind of a little summer-pavilion there, on the top of the mountain,—something on the plan of the Tip-Top House at Mount Washington, you know,—hang the stars and stripes off the roof, if you're not particular, and call it The Teuton-American. That would give you your rightful priority, you see. By the beard of the Prophet, as they say in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... alarming grin, and indicate, by a nod of his yard-long visage, and a twinkle of his little grey eye, that there might be more faces in Fleet Street worth looking at than those of Frank and Jenkin. His old neighbour, Widow Simmons, the sempstress, who had served, in her day, the very tip-top revellers of the Temple, with ruffs, cuffs, and bands, distinguished more deeply the sort of attention paid by the females of quality, who so regularly visited David Ramsay's shop, to its inmates. "The boy Frank," she admitted, "used to attract the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... "Tip-top!" said the boy, flushing with pride. "I'll lie down with my clothes on; it's only nine o'clock and I'll get four hours' sleep; that's a lot more ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... poet o' the year, Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, Runs down, a brook o' laughter, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... in tip-top speeches. All the drapers and dairies shall be there in crowds. Three sirs ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... of that mound is tip-top for skiing," remarked Nap, "better than you would expect in this country. But no one here seems particularly keen on it. I was out early this morning and tried several places that were quite passable, but that mound was ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... I said. "You waste no time. I like that. What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have that as your own ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... alone in his College-rooms at Cambridge. His friends had just left him. They were quite the tip-top set in Christ's College, and the ashes of the cigarettes they had been smoking lay about the rich Axminster carpet. They had been talking about many things, as is the wont of young men, and one of them had particularly bothered GEORGE by asking him why he had refused a seat in the University ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... an undertone, meant only for the maiden's ear. "Tip-top airs don't pass for much in these 'ere parts. Do you know that, Miss Lizzy Glenn, or whatever your name may be? We're all on the same level here. Girls that make slop shirts and trowsers haven't much cause to stand on ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... me funny stories. He had many an anecdote of the gilded youth of his time. There were some exquisites for whose delicate skins the embroidered borders of even Dacca muslins were too coarse, so that to wear muslins with the border torn off became, for a time, the tip-top thing to do. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... outlaw. "You're a handy fellar, Case, an' after I break you into border ways you will fit in here tip-top. Now you'd better stick by me. When Eb Zane, his brother Jack, an' Wetzel find out this here day's work, hell will be a cool place compared with their whereabouts. You'll be safe with me, an' this is the only place on the ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... been splendid this year. Tip-top. C. B. & Q. brought us in ten thousand at one clip the other day. Fact;" and Mr. Margent paused for ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the right track. He's remembering. Think again. You are a tip-top man at finding ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... the Anzacs and the Anzac Generals about 4.30 p.m. The whole crowd were in tip-top spirits and immensely pleased with the freedom and largeness of their newly conquered kingdom. We of the G.H.Q. were bitten by this same spirit; Suvla took second place in our minds and when we got on board the Arno ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... Eben Loring had concluded on the whole that I should buy her a hat, in Maiden Lane, at the very tip-top milliner's. The thought of my return was somewhat embittered by the prospective necessity of carrying two very large bandboxes in my lap, in case of rain. Rain might not unreasonably be expected in the course of a three days' journey. Think of all the bandboxes that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in such perfect condition. Tip-top. Cool as a cucumber after the longest pipe-opener; licks his oats up to the last grain; leads the whole string such a rattling spin as never was spun but by a Derby cracker before him. It's almost a pity," said Willon meditatively, eyeing ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... but I just did. I thought once that the sultan might be going to poison us all; and, as they say there's safety in a big dose, and death in a small, I went in for a regular big go. But I say, the fruits! they were tip-top: mangosteens and guavas, and mangoes, and cocoa-nuts, and durians, and some of the best bananas I ever ate ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... peculiarly elegant and fashionable. The man's education was very limited, indeed he had scarcely received any, but he was gifted at the same time with a low vulgar fluency of language which he looked upon as a great intellectual gift, and which, in his opinion, wanted nothing but "tip-top prononsensation," as he termed it, to make ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... you can do, Gilbert," continued Mr. Popham. "I've mixed a pail o' that green paint same as your mother wanted, an' I've brought you a tip-top brush. The settin' room has a good nice floor; matched boards, no hummocks nor hollers,—all as flat's one of my wife's pancakes,—an' not a knot hole in it anywheres. You jest put your first coat on, brushin' lengthways o' the boards, and let it ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... I'll call the men-folks ef you don't clear;" and at once she shouted, in a tip-top voice, "Ike, you Ike, where ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... It's myself was watchin' for ye, Master Will, and when ye came round the corner I had this bit sup arl ready for ye. 'The crame—quick—Bridget!' says I, and then I ran away up the two flights with it; and barrin' the joggle you give it, it's in foine, tip-top orther an' priservation arl tegither, bless ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... be found; and look at the manner in which they educate their children, I mean those that are wealthy. They do not even wish them to be Dissenters, 'the sweet dears shall enjoy the advantages of good society, of which their parents were debarred.' So the girls are sent to tip-top boarding schools, where amongst other trash they read 'Rokeby,' and are taught to sing snatches from that high-flying ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... glam to hym glod, God's message came to him. 66 wythouten oer speche, without contradiction, without more words. 67 my sa[gh]es soghe, etc., my saws (words) sow, etc. 77 typped schrewes, great sinners; literally, extreme, tip-top, schrews. 78 ta me, take me, seize me. 82 mansed, cursed. 94 glwande, ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... Whitey's life, the pinnacle of his ambition, the idea of the tip-top of ecstatic happiness that lived in his brain was—Boots. And now he had them. And they were beauties; with tops of soft leather with fancy stitching, inlaid with white enameled leather, and high heels, that a fellow could dig into the ground when he was roping a horse. ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... those tip-top; but I don't know—it's a good deal of money for gewgaws; my wife would take me to do for it; I guess I must keep to the two-dollar ones. I come pretty hard by my dollars, and a dollar means a good deal to me ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... are in a rotten state," he said. "The doctor—specialist, you know, tip-top man—said the only thing for me was life in the country, fresh air, birds, flowers, new milk, ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... "He is a tip-top non-com., and has the D.C.M. and the French Cross; he worked miracles when his officers were killed at Ypres. They offered him a commission, but he wouldn't take it. The men love him; though he has some funny fads, never touches meat, and sings queer outlandish chants; but he's the ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... that the electors of Dartford might return his man, Mr. Rigby, once more for parliament—our hero halted for the night at Manchester. In the coffee-room at the hotel a stranger, loud in praise of the commercial enterprise of the neighbourhood, advised Coningsby, if he wanted to see something tip-top in the way of cotton works, to visit Millbank of Millbank's; and thus it came about that Coningsby first met Edith Millbank. Oswald was abroad; and Mr. Millbank, when he heard the name of his visitor, was only distressed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... one of them small loopholes—whin little Danny Carroll gave Tom Sheeney a leg up and a back, and Tom Sheeney hauled little Danny up after him by the scruff o' the neck; and so they wint squeedging and scrummaging on till, by dad, they was up at the tip-top in something less than no time; and the trouble was all they had a chance o' gettin for their pains; for, by the hokey, the daws' nest they had been bruising their shins, breaking their necks, and tearing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... thing, they'd be some skurcer here. Pickenses, Boggses, Pettuses, Magoffins, Letchers, Polks,— Where can you scare up names like them among your mudsill folks? Ther' 's nothin' to compare with 'em, you'd fin', ef you should glance, Among the tip-top femerlies in Englan', nor in France: I've hearn from 'sponsible men whose word wuz full ez good's their note, Men thet can run their face for drinks, an' keep a Sunday coat, Thet they wuz all on 'em come down, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... slang, mother, I only meant,—well, you know how dreadfully black he is, but then he can steer a boat tip-top, and he's splendid for crabs and blue-fish, and Dab says he's ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... horse flesh. The cattle were just allowed to wet their lips, water was dashed on their legs and feet, and then, after the parcels and papers had been tossed off, away we went again. Five miles farther on, we pulled up to change. The fresh team was led out, bright, shining, and glittering, in tip-top condition. The driver descended to stretch his legs and personally superintend the putting to of the fresh horses. When he mounted the box again, his experienced eye glanced rapidly at the team, and then, with an ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... 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, and ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fine, pleasant, gentlemanly dog it is,' replied Mantalini. 'Demnition pleasant, and a tip-top sawyer.' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... genteel young woman at a table in a ward. One of the finest nurses I met was a red-faced illiterate old Irish woman; I have seen her take the poor wasted naked boys so tenderly up in her arms. There are plenty of excellent clean old black women that would make tip-top nurses. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... clock I ever saw was in China. I went up the West River to the city of Canton. I was carried through the narrow, smelly, crowded streets to the top of a little hill at the city's edge. There, on the very tip-top I saw the "Water Clock." I read, "This water clock is a most ancient, authentic, celebrated and sacred relic of Kwong Tung Province, over 1,300 years old. It was erected on the top story of the north Worshiping Tower which was built by Chin To, King ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... "We have tried them out several times, dad, and in connection with the propeller, too. They work tip-top, either connected or disconnected. I tell you, when they're in connection they certainly do ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... will! What shall we do to make our party tip-top?" asked Thorny, falling into the trap at once, for he dearly loved to get up theatricals, and had not had any ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... clothing. We used to call this the devil's paradise. As to Krone, we used to call him the devil's bar-tender. These ragged revellers, you see, beg and steal during the day, and get gin with it at night. Krone thinks nothing of it! Lord bless your soul, sir! why, this man is reckoned a tip-top politician; on an emergency he can turn up such a lot of votes!" Mr. Fitzgerald, approaching Mr. Krone, says "you're a pretty fellow. Keeping such a place as this!" The detective playfully strikes the hat of the other, crowding it over his eyes, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... twelve years old that don't know a thousand times more than her mother, and wouldn't attempt to teach law to her father if he was a judge in the Supreme Court. Yet, it's a shocking truth, the little upstarts don't know how to read like Christians, or spell half their words. The tip-top fashionable school-marms here are quite above teaching such common things as reading and spelling, and turn up their noses at any study that hasn't some "ology" or "phy" at the ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... same place where you passed the night. I got there about an hour after you left, as well as I can make out. The gal was very kind, and gave me a tip-top breakfast. I ate till I was ashamed, and then left off hungry. That's why I've got such an appetite now. Yesterday I didn't have but one meal, and I've had to ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... and Samuel stood before Me My heart could not be towards this people."[33] When James wants an illustration of a man of prayer for the scattered Jews, he speaks of Elijah, and of one particular crisis in his life, the praying on Carmel's tip-top. These three men are Israel's great men in the great crises of its history. Moses was the maker and moulder of the nation. Samuel was the patient teacher who introduced a new order of things in the national life. Elijah was the rugged leader when the national worship ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... see away off where the sky and the mountains come together beyond the hill," said Buddy. "You can see beautiful scenery from the tip-top, you know." ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... large and heavy, and had a back that rose high above Grandfather's white head. This back was curiously carved in open work, so as to represent flowers, and foliage, and other devices, which the children had often gazed at, but could never understand what they meant. On the very tip-top of the chair, over the head of Grandfather himself, was a likeness of a lion's head, which had such a savage grin that you would almost expect to ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Like the frozen Androscoggin, Slippery, and smooth, and nice, Is the track of the toboggan; And there's nothing cheap about it, Everything is steep about it, The insolvent weep about it, For the biggest thing on ice Is its tip-top price; But were this three times the money, Then the ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... especially nice cream biscuits for supper, and he said, "I'd rather see a woman make such biscuits as these than solve the knottiest problem in algebra." "There is no reason why she should not be able to do both," was the reply. There are many references in the old letters to "Susan's tip-top dinners." ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... my pin, and I tore my dress, and knocked my head till I saw stars, on that grape vine, but I had a grand tip-top time, and I'd like to go again, yes, I would, if only to see Sadie Brooks wiggle her eye-glass and say, 'How shocking!' when I walked the log across the creek," was Kat's final remark as she dropped ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... over that," said McLane. "I knew the boy's folks years ago-tip-top folks, too. He ain't well, and that makes him ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... a girl," muttered Renouard. The other agreed. Very likely not. Had been playing the London hostess to tip-top people ever since she put her ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... The tip-top point of the slide couldn't have been much more than fourteen or fifteen feet above the prairie-floor, but it seemed perilous enough when I tried it out—much to the perturbation of Whinstane Sandy—by lying stomach-down on Dinkie's coaster and letting myself ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... you'd take it. But if anythin', that makes it harder to tell. You see, a feller wants to do so much fer you, an' I'd got fond of my job. We led the herd a ways off to the north of the break in the valley. There was a big level an' pools of water an' tip-top browse. But the cattle was in a high nervous condition. Wild—as wild as antelope! You see, they'd been so scared they never slept. I ain't a-goin' to tell you of the many tricks that were pulled off out there in the sage. But there wasn't a day for weeks thet the ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... kept to his resolution. But for all that time he never saw "the tip-top lass o' the wide world." A time came, however, when McGilveray's last state was worse than his first, and that was the evening before the day Quebec was taken. A dozen prisoners had been captured in a sortie from the Isle of Orleans to the mouth ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to her in an undertone, "never come here. Well! we don't expect ladies, you know. Different spheres in this world. They mean to be tip-top in society; and quite right too. My dear, I think we'll ride. Do you mind being ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is very kind and motherly according to her lights. She has given me the best room in the house, and she talks a blue streak. She has thin, brown hair turning gray, and she wears it in a funny little knob on the tip-top of her round head to correspond with the funny little tuft of hair on her husband's protruding chin. Her head is set on her neck like a clothes-pin, only she is squattier than a clothes-pin. She always wears her sleeves rolled up (at least so far she has) and she always bustles around noisily ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... have all there is. And there ain't nothin' in the house but what's no 'count. If I'd ha' knowed—honeymoon folks wants sun'thin' tip-top, been livin' on the fat o' the land, I expect; and now ye're come home to pork; and that's the ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... snow comes down! I thought it would never snow at all this winter. Just look at it! Now that's what I call tip-top," said Tom Chandler, gazing at the fast-whitening landscape, and drumming a cheerful tattoo on ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... They looked each other in the eyes, and Noel spoke impulsively as his habit was, but with genuine feeling. "Good-bye, old chap! I hope you'll get to the tip-top of the tree and stay there." He added, seeing Max's mouth go down, "But I know very well there's a bigger thing than success in the world, and if I can ever help you to it—by God, old ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Vermont," commenced the first speaker again. "I've 'eard tell 'e does all the work and pays out all the other one's money; but he ain't no class himself—he's not a real tip-top swell like them others." He pointed to a little group of white-waistcoated, immaculately-dressed men, now standing on the steps of the vestibule. "Lord! this 'ere Casket'll be crammed with all the swells ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... remember our disappointment as we stood before that wonder of the world—St. Peter's. We mounted the pyramid of steps and looked up, but were not overcome by the magnificence. We read in our guide-book that the edifice covers eight acres, and to the tip-top of the cross is almost five hundred feet; that it took three hundred and fifty years and twelve successive artists to finish it, and an expenditure of $50,000,000, and now costs $30,000 per annum to keep it in repair; ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... to which, the herb- woman, or chandler-woman, or some other old intelligencer, provides her a place of four or five pounds a year; this sets madam cock-a-hoop, and she thinks of nothing now but vails and high wages, and so gives warning from place to place, till she has got her wages up to the tip-top. ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... until nine o'clock, making the old woods echo with song and story and laughter, for F. was unusually gay, and I was in tip-top spirits. It seemed to me so funny that we two people should be riding on mules, all by ourselves, in these glorious latitudes, night smiling down so kindly upon us, and, funniest of all, that we were going ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... so,' responded Cincinnati, 'and it was a tip-top business for a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France and Italy, with the United States custom-house mark on it to indorse it for genuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy broke up the game—of course they naturally ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... eddication.'—'Eddication,' says he; 'that's all stuff. What eddication the gal gets at a school like that isn't worth a row of pins, and when they go away they don't know nothin' useful, nor even anything tip-top ornamental. All they've learned is the pianer and higher mathematics. As for anythin' useful, they're nowhere. There isn't one of them could bound New Jersey or tell you when Washington crossed the Delaware.'—'That may be, sir,' ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... then robbers will not fall upon us."—"But what will this silly donkey do with his millstone?" asked one of them.—"You look to yourselves," said Ivan, "for I mean to pass the night in this tree also." Then the wise brothers climbed to the very tip-top of the tree and there sat down, and then Ivan dragged himself up too, and the millstone after him. He tried to get up as high as his brothers, but the thin boughs broke beneath him, so he had to be content with staying in the lower part of the tree on the thicker ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... steps of a temple, or the art of wrestling. He renders "horridus," "in a rude pickle;" "virgo" is generally translated "the young lady;" "vir" is "a gentleman;" "senex" and "senior" are indifferently "the old blade," "the old fellow," or "the old gentleman;" while "summa arx" is "the very tip-top." "Misera" is "poor soul;" "exsilio" means "to bounce forth;" "pellex" is "a miss;" "lumina" are "the peepers;" "turbatum fugere" is "to scower off in a mighty bustle;" "confundor" is "to be jumbled;" and "squalidus" ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... aweer as a fighter you're truly tip-top, Our party's pecooliar pride, and our cause's particular prop! You can "pop in a slommacking wunner," if ever a lad could, dear boy: But—well, there, you ain't scored this round; and yer foes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893 • Various
... was left of the dreeners and walked over to the fence. That field was just sowed, as you might say, with clams. If they ever sprouted 'twould make a tip-top ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... new carts are going to be put on instead of some of the old ones, and there are ten first-rate horses coming in place of some of those that are getting past work. The stables are all being done up, and the thing is going to be done tip-top. Curiously enough his name is the ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... indeed you were always a tip-top scholar. I didn't ever know how good you were till I had my ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... went. No, be hanged to it, it was swep off in another way. One night, at the countess's, there was several of us at supper—Mr. Bloundell-Bloundell, the Honorable Deuceace, the Marky de la Tour de Force—all tip-top nobs, sir, and the height of fashion, when we had supper, and champagne, you may be sure, in plenty, and then some of that confounded brandy. I would have it—I would go on at it—the countess mixed the tumblers of punch for me, and we ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the tip-top of expectation. The concert opened with the inevitable piano solo which seems indispensable for the starting of any entertainment, and during the performance of which latecomers hurry to their seats, programs are sold, and the ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... sight, the odd little glass observatory, perched upon the very tip-top of all the wilderness around, fascinated Jack. He had never credited himself with a streak of idealism, nor even with an imagination, yet his pulse quickened when they topped the last steep slope and stood upon the peak of ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered, that he could hardly tell me. However, he said that he had found enough to employ two teams the next winter in a place where there was thought to be none left. What was considered a "tip-top" tree now was not looked at twenty years ago, when he first went into the business; but they succeeded very well now with what was considered quite inferior timber then. The explorer used to cut ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... saying of old, that King Pluto gave suppers; some say he is giving them still. If so, he is keeping tip-top company, old Pluto:—Emperors and Czars; Great Moguls and Great Khans; Grand Lamas and Grand Dukes; Prince Regents and Queen Dowagers:—Tamerlane hob-a- nobbing with Bonaparte; Antiochus with Solyman the Magnificent; Pisistratus pledging ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... down with a mocking laugh at the prostrate Pauline—"far too grand, girls—fact, I assure you—was kept without her food until I gave her a bit of bread and a sup of water at supper. All these things are owing to an aunt—one of the tip-top of the nobility. This aunt, though grand externally, has a mighty poor internal arrangement, to my way of thinking. She put the poor child into a place she calls Punishment Land, ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... and title of his master, and is addressed as "Your grace," or "My lord duke." He was first a country cowboy, then a wig-maker's apprentice, and then a duke's servant. He could neither write nor read, but was a great coxcomb, and set up for a tip-top fine gentleman.—Rev. J. Townley, High Life ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... class-hate, and similar crimes, But it shows it's got fair sperret and a buzzum as can feel When it backs us with a "Leader" arter printing our "Appeal." You are better off, my TOMMY, than the Navy Rank and File, You may chance to get promotion,—arter waiting a good while— But the tip-top of Tar luck's to be a Warrant Officer; We ain't like to get no further, if we even get as fur. 'Tain't encouraging, my hearty. As for me, I'm old and grey, 'Tis too late now for promotion if it chanced to come my ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... hop-room, for he dances well; perennial attraction, his detractors say, he finds at the card-table, but Ray is never quite himself until he throws his leg over the horse he loves. He is facile princeps the light rider of the regiment, and to this claim there are none to say him nay. A tip-top soldier too is Ray. Keen on the scout, tireless on the trail, daring to a fault in action, and either preternaturally cool or enthusiastically excited when under fire. He is a man the rank and file swear by ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... the question troubled Wade no more. He shot out of bed in tip-top spirits; shouted "Merry Christmas!" at the rising disk of the sun; looked over the black ice; thrilled with the thought of a long holiday for skating; and proceeded to dress in a knowing suit of rough clothes, singing, "Ah, non giunge!" as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... fellows entered the 'Franklin;' they alighted from a cab, and were dressed in the tip-top of fashion. As they were new customers, the landlord was all smiles and courtesy, conducted them into saloon Number 1, and making it up in his mind that his guests could be nothing less than Wall-street superfines, he resolved that they should not ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... was decorated with such a number of cards of invitation, as made his ex-fellow-student of Gandish's, young Moss, when admitted into that sanctum, stare with respectful astonishment. "Lady Bary Rowe at obe," the young Hebrew read out; "Lady Baughton at obe, dadsig! By eyes! what a tip-top swell you're a gettid to be, Newcome! I guess this is a different sort of business to the hops at old Levison's, where you first learned the polka; and where we had to pay a shilling a ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there'll be easy terms! Don't let's talk business now! Aren't these strawberries delicious? What? A glass of sherry with them would be tip-top. Don't you think so? Lina, run round to the stores and fetch a bottle of sherry, ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... of the "Russian Bath" found in some of our own cities. After scrubbing thoroughly, and steaming almost to the point of dissolution on one of the higher platforms, a Russian will dash on cold water from the barrel and dry himself and put on his clothes and feel tip-top. An American would make his will and call the undertaker before following suit. In the summer there is considerable open-air river bathing, and the absence of bathing-suits other than nature's own is ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... to happen now?" And the lights burned down to the very branches, and as they burned down they were put out one after the other, and then the children had leave to plunder the Tree. Oh, they rushed upon it so that it cracked in all its limbs; if its tip-top with the gold star on it had not been fastened to the ceiling, it would have ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... which, like the new rig I had donned little more than an hour earlier, I found fitted me excellently. I was promised that the entire suit should be ready for me in time for mess that night (it appeared that everything was done in tip-top style aboard ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... gloriously ancient. I wish, Cap, I could only open your ideas to the way our folks manage their own affairs. I'm opposed to this law that imprisons stewards, because it affects commerce, but then our other laws are tip-top. It was the law that our legislature made to stop free niggers from coming from the abolition States to destroy the affections of our slaves. Some say, the construction given to it and applied to stewards of foreign vessels a'n't legal, ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... a certainty she goes on stilts. Now, I must say that is the very tip-top of gentility and politeness. One may forgive a lady giving coffee-parties, and decorating and dressing herself up, but to go on stilts, only on purpose to be higher than other folks, and to be able to look over their heads, that ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... Rosebery's herd at Mentmore, Mr. Ross got a show cow of the Lady Dorothy family, giving every appearance of being a great milker and a tip-top bull calf."—Aberdeen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... one as that outside the door—brought into the house and covered with lights and presents. Picture to yourself our fir-tree lighted up with tapers on all the branches, with dolls, and trumpets, and bon-bons, and drums, and toys of all kinds hanging from it like fir-cones, and on the tip-top shoot a figure of a Christmas Angel in white, with ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... midday when they climbed the steep path to the manor. All things shone softly in the sun, which was wonderfully warm and enlivening. Celandines and violets were out. Everybody was tip-top full with happiness. The glitter of the ivy, the soft, atmospheric grey of the castle walls, the gentleness of everything near the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... season," observed McRae. "If we start next year with the same team we ought to go through the league like a prairie fire. I have every reason to think that Hughson will be in tip-top shape when the season opens, and if he is, there won't be any pitching staff that can hold a ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... important When they decked the Christmas tree, Yes, they hung me on the tip-top For all the world ...
— Songs for Parents • John Farrar
... here, Mac," Cream firmly proceeded, "you be guided by me. You're a youngster at the game, and I'm an old hand. I never met a young author yet that didn't imagine his play had come straight from the mind of God and mustn't have a word altered. The tip-top chaps don't think like that. They're always altering and changing their plays during rehearsal ... and sometimes after they've been produced, too. Look at Pinero! He's altered the whole end of a play ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... marries a girl under twenty, he's over sixty before she's forty; he's decaying when she's only mellow. I ought never to have struck you, I know. And you're such an infernal bad temper at times, and age does n't improve that, they say; and she's been educated tip-top. She's sharp on grammar, and a man may n't like that much when he's a husband. See her, if you must. But she does n't take to the idea; there's the truth. Disparity of ages and unsuitableness of dispositions—what was it Fellingham said?—like ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fact it is that occasionally a man slips through the surgeon's examinations with such a malady as this. Now, here is one of the finest athletes and shots in the whole army, a man who has been through some hard service and stirring fights, has won a tip-top name for himself and was on the highroad to a commission, and yet this will ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... a few words, to say that our first day has been most favourable to the Government, and that we are all in tip-top spirits. No one can yet believe that France will be mad enough to march troops into the Peninsula. Brougham's certainly one of the most, if not the most eloquent speech he ever made, but most bitter and vindictive towards the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... though a Frenchman, he was a deuced fine fellow in his day—quite a tip-top macaroni—he could skip and twirl like a figurant, warble like an opera-singer, and play the flageolet better than any man of his day—he always carried a lute in his pocket, along with his snappers. And then his dress—it was quite beautiful to see how smartly he was rigg'd ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth |
