"Tease" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Holmes. Whether he has found out about some schoolgirl peccadillo of Miss Lethbridge's, and is dangling it over her head, Damocles sword fashion, I can't tell, because he won't tell; though he looks offensively wise when I tease him, and I have tried in vain, on my own account, to discover. But certain it is that he is either blackmailing her in a milk-and-water way, or hypnotizing her to obey ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... tease," said Mrs. Taylor of her childhood friend, and Mr. Taylor observed that there was always safety in numbers. "She'll get used to the ways of this country quicker than our ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... stop at a house where they keep a baby. If a child pulls your tail or ties a paper bag round your head, you can give it one for itself and nobody blames you. "Well, serve you right," they say to the yelling brat, "you shouldn't tease the poor thing." But if you resent a baby's holding you by the throat and trying to gouge out your eye with a wooden ladle, you are called a spiteful beast, and "shoo'd" all round the garden. If people keep babies, they don't keep me; that's ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... getting to be a regular tease, Mr. Witherspoon. After awhile I shall be afraid to talk ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... roughly. "Don't talk nonsense, baby! You know your papa has gone away—you were too naughty for him, and he will never come back again. He has gone to a place where there are no tiresome little girls to tease him." ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... it," he declared. "The monkeys would be very lonesome and unhappy in the Emerald City and your people would tease them and throw stones at them, which would cause them to fight ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... to you. I don't want a thing. We had tea after the matinee. That's what made me so late. I'm always nagging the girls to go home. It's getting so they tease ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... her, Larry. Joyce can take the ceremony for granted," put in the affectionate aunt, who could not bear that any should tease baby ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... fussy creature—this cat!" Frisky said to himself. "I promised Mr. Crow I wouldn't hurt her; but I didn't promise him that I wouldn't tease her." So he bobbed up and ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... rested his rifle on his knee, and was taking careful aim at the advancing beast. There was a look of stubborn determination on his little ebony face while his heart was beating with pride and exultation. Here was his great chance to turn the tables on his white companions. No longer would they dare tease him about running from the eel or about his adventure after the crane. He would be able now to twit them all, even the captain, with running away while ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... philosopher. When he was sufficiently recovered from his operation to get about on crutches he was the wag of the ward. He took a special delight in those practical jokes which are invented by patients to tease the nurses, and devoted the most painstaking ingenuity to their preparation. It was he who found a small hole in the lath-and-plaster wall which separates the ward from the ward's kitchen. Through this hole a length of cotton was passed and tied to the handle of a mug on ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... called upon to preserve a great degree of dignity and decorum in our society. As he jogged along a little distance ahead of us, the young dogs would gambol about him, leap on his neck, worry at his ears, and endeavor to tease him into a frolic. The old dog would keep on for a long time with imperturbable solemnity, now and then seeming to rebuke the wantonness of his young companions. At length he would make a sudden turn, seize one of them, and tumble him in the ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... right just now: M. Louis is only trying to tease me by saying that the magistrate cross-examined me severely. As a matter of fact I was simply asked what I have just told you, and when I gave all this explanation, no fault at all was found with me." As she spoke, Mlle. Jeanne folded her napkin carefully, pushed ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... upon my lips!—O yea, a dream, A dream of impious obscene Satan, this Monstrous frenzy of life, the Indian being! And there are men in the dream! What men are they? I've heard, naught relishes their brains so much As to tie down a man and tease his flesh Infamously, until a hundred pains Hound the desiring life out of his body, Filling his nerves with such a fearful zest That the soul overstrained shatters beneath it. Must I preach God to these murderous hearts? I would my lot had fallen to ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... by lamplight, and when Sam went back to his work around the barnyard it was scarcely dawn. The children, left alone with their mother, began to tease her to let ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... girl, it is a shame to tease you," said grandmother, drawing her towards her. "To speak plainly, my dear, what I want you to remember is this: Faults are not cured, any more than big towns are ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... has been in this state since he was eighteen, when he had a bad fever. He is perfectly tractable, quite inoffensive, and thoroughly good-tempered. The only reason for moving him from his present home is that it is in a village, and the children tease and annoy him. I fancy the Lamonts ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... Jay is a very mischievous little bird. Yes, sir, he certainly loves to tease. Grandmother Magpie is mischievous, too, but she's no worse than little Jimmy Jay. She does harm by meddling and Jimmy ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... quick glance at her face Mary Rose did not tease but went off with the others. They found Mr. Jerry in the back yard. He looked beyond them as if he found the party too small but as no one followed to complete it he gave his attention to Solomon and pronounced him something of a dog. When Jimmie had put him through his tricks again Mr. Jerry gravely ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... miserable wretches who were under the same condemnation, as a greater grievance to them than all their other misfortunes put together. He would sometimes threaten women who came into the hold to visit modestly, tease them with obscene discourse, and after his being prisoner there committed acts of lewdness to the amazement and horror of the most wicked and abandoned wretches in that dreadful place. Being however severely reprimanded for continuing so beastly a course of life, when ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... that my mother is poor and we work for all we have! It isn't fair, because we can't help it, and we do the best we can. I never would say it to them in the world—never! In the first school I went to they used to tease the children who were timid, and bother them so much that they would forget their lessons and get punished when it was not their fault. But I looked after them," declared Anna, proudly. "I fought their battles for them, until the others left them alone, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... should not the high-priest of this sacrament be first to hear it?" the proud maid whispered, as she knelt and kissed her Lady's hand with a sudden grace: but the Queen knew that she might neither tease nor trifle more. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,' expecting only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began reading it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it down on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' Journal of the Reign of George ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... their fans to send messages to the lovers they preferred and to tease them with arch glances at other suitors," explained Bet. "It was a gay ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... again, picked up her violin, and played a tinkling, roguish little melody as if she were trying to tease him, looking at Eric over her violin with luminous eyes that ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... folks' minds, which didn't seem exactly right. He'd tell Marthy what I was thinkin' and things like that. He was just at the pesky age. Liza Grace and Minnie were both a-courtin' then, and he'd drive their boy friends crazy telling them what Liza Grace and Minnie were a-thinking and tease the gals by telling them what the ...
— Year of the Big Thaw • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... the side of the vessel, but now the fascination of the scene had all faded out. The restless billows were dreary, savage, hungry and dizzying; they seemed to claw at, and tear, and wrench the struggling ship as a group of huge lions would tease and worry a captive dog. They distressed her and all on board by dealing a blow which would send her reeling in one direction, but before she had swung the full length that impulse would have sent her, catching her on the opposite ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... know. She says you had best forget her, and then she cries. This morning when we were wondering where you were I said to tease her: 'Perhaps he has gone a-courting.' But she was quite grave, and ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Digger the Badger because, you see, he wasn't afraid to go beg for them. He knew that Digger couldn't catch him if he wanted to, and so when Grandfather Frog hadn't a story for him, Peter would go tease Digger for one. It was thus that he heard about Thunderfoot the Bison and where he got that great ...
— Mother West Wind "Where" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... as he watched the fat boy heave, and finally plant one foot on the ground preparatory to getting up. He was never tired studying Nick, for he had an idea the other was not altogether so stupid as he seemed; but that he carried on at times just to tease George. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... the parlour in deepest gloom, hardly relieved at all by the efforts of Robert, who, to make the time pass, was pulling Jane's hair—not hard, but just enough to tease. ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... come with her friend, ran into the room to warm himself while they were talking; he saw the gold, and, to tease his sister, put one of the eagles into his pocket meaning to ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... seen equally in the love-poems and in the poems of satire, in the ballads and in the narrative pieces, and notably in the story of The Pope and the Net, an anecdote in verse, told with the frank relish of the thing, and without the least attempt to tease a ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... seventh day they said to Samson's wife, "Tease your husband until he tells us the riddle, or else we will burn up you and your father's house. Did you invite us here to make us poor?" So Samson's wife wept before him and said, "You only hate me and do not love me at all! You ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... He was a minute philosopher, his philosophy was kindly, and he taught the delicate art of making much out of little. Less coarse than Fielding, he is far more corrupt. Fielding goes bluntly to the point; Sterne lingers among the temptations and suspends the expectation to tease and excite it. Forbidden fruit had a relish for him, and his pages {211} seduce. He is full of good sayings, both tender and witty. It was Sterne, for example, who wrote, "God tempers the wind ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... was not as high as that cage. What do you think of that?' continued her ladyship, with a triumphant smile. 'What do you laugh at, sir? Did you ever see a woman ninety years old before? That I would wager you have not. What do I want? I want something. Why do you tease me by not remembering what I want? Now, I knew a gentleman who made his fortune by once remembering what a very great man wanted. But then the great man was a minister of state. I dare say if I were a minister of state, instead of an old woman ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... a little guardian angel to three lively brothers who tease and play with her.... Her unconscious goodness brings right thoughts and resolves to several persons who come into contact with her. There is no goodiness in this tale, but its influence is of ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... house should be at your and your son's service; but as for my Rose, I should say to you, 'If it had only pleased Providence to make your gallant son a brave cooper, there would be no more welcome son-in-law on earth than he; but now'—— But, my dear good sir, why do you tease and worry me with such curious questions? See you, our merry talk has come abruptly to an end, and look! our glasses are all standing full. Let's put all sons-in-law and Rose's marriage aside; here, I pledge you ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... round your face must be very trying. Now if you were not so vain—what does a rash matter when only women are present? Well, well, I will not tease you. Do you know many of the Kunitzers? Do you know the ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... camp on the prairie, waiting for something, anything, to move them on. General Phillips is mightily pleased that the Indians did not succeed in getting the animals from his command, and I am pleased that they cannot tease me any more. ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... and fer all, will yer marry me? I 'll not waste the night argyin' with yer. I 'm not goin' ter tease yer. I 've only one knee and it ain 't no bench fer gigglin' girls as pokes fun at their betters. I 'll jolt yer till yer teeth rattles. Is it someone else? Has yer a priory 'tachment? Red Joe? Is it Red Joe, ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... the better," replied Hardy. "It is better he should get his clothes in England. He will then appear like lads of the same age do in England in dress. It is very galling to a lad not to be dressed as other boys. English boys are apt to tease on the subject of anything foreign in dress and manner. I know it is not good conduct to do so, but it is done. If, therefore, you will let me order his things in England, it will be best, and save you much ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... show you the nice box of puzzles papa has brought home for me,' replied Freddy. 'I want you, Mabel dear, to help me to put it together. I won't tease you.' ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... Jasper Rutledge, the sheriff, and he says, "Hey, what you boys doin'?" "We want to talk to Doc Lyon," says I. "What about?" says he. "About my dog," says Mitch. The sheriff looked at us curious for a minute and says, "If I let you talk to him, will you promise not to tease him or get him mad?" "Yes, Mr. Rutledge," both of us said. "Well then," said the sheriff, "don't fool around with that barl; I'll let you inside the jail and you can stand comfortable and talk to him." Mitch didn't know what ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... possess her, mingled with a great sadness and even hatred, when he saw that Justa was making sport of him. Many a time when he saw her come Manuel vowed to himself not to speak a word to her, not to look at her or say anything; then she would hunt him out and tease him by beckoning to him and ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... strange man burst out in such outrageous tones at what he chose to suppose an insult, that Leyden threatened to "thraw his neck" if he were not silent, a threat which frightened Ritson out of the cottage. On another occasion, simply in order to tease Ritson, Leyden complained that the meat was overdone, and sent to the kitchen for a plate of literally raw beef, and ate it up solely for the purpose of shocking his crazy rival in antiquarian research. Poor Leyden did not long survive his experience of the Indian climate. And ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... them that Benjy had made him tease and worry the cats and dogs so often that he had quite learned to like it. All the beasts were very angry at this, and said that ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Molly, with charming though premeditated unconcern, a little wicked desire to tease getting ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... you got it done the more I should be willing to pay for it." He paused a moment. "And, Miss Fitch," he went on, "I don't care if you make it a little,—well,—a little soft. She deserves it, she's such a tease! Her name's Beatrice," he added. "We call her Trix, if that'll ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... soon forgot my childish fears, in a sound sleep which remained unbroken till the morning sun was shining brightly above the trees. But it was long before I heard the last of the night I spent in the bush; and as often as my brothers wished to tease me, they would enquire if I had lately heard the cries of a catamount? Time passed on till I grew up, and leaving the paternal home went forth to make my own way in the world. Old Rufus still resided in ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... father stepped to the middle of the room and urged even the bride to join in. In the meantime the young folks had taken the opportunity to tease the bride, while the young men went further by bussing her cheek. A kiss of the modest, proper sort was not out of order; every groom knew and expected that. Even a most jealous fellow knew to conceal his displeasure, for it would ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... the most senseless thing in the world, is sometimes revealed to fools. I don't think that adjutant of ours believed in his own words. He just wanted to tease Tomassov from habit. Purely from habit. We of course said nothing, and so he took his head in his hands and fell into a doze as he sat on a log in front of ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... finger. "When you wrote me that note about the Vere, I confess I had my suspicions. Since then they've been confirmed. I know for a fact that Errington has had several private interviews with Vi, and has also written her a good many letters. Some of the fellows in the green-room tease her about her new conquest, and she grins and admits it. Oh, the whole thing's plain enough! Only last week, when he went up to town to see his man Neville on business he called on Vi at her own apartments in Arundel Street, Strand. She told me so herself—we're rather intimate, you know,—though ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... chum, sauntered into the candy store for caramels, joined the appreciative group that watched a drunken man forcibly ejected from Casserley's saloon, visited the pool room and witnessed a game or two, gone back into the street to tease two hurrying and giggling girls with his young wit, and drifted into a passing juggler's wretched and vulgar show. This, or something like this, was what Len craved when he begged to "go out for a while" after dinner. It ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... must have recourse to an explanation with her husband to save him. Think on this. The husband, for instance, has great friends in Court at Leghorn. The son is condemned to death. She cannot teaze him for a stranger. She must tell the whole truth. Or she may tease him, as for a stranger, till (like Othello in Cassio's case) he begins to suspect her for her importunity. Or, being pardoned, can she not teaze her husband to get him banished? Something of this I suggested before. Both is best. The murder and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... over her miseries and disappointments, and she declined. Lord Kilcullen was behind her chair, and when they pressed her, he whispered to her, "Don't sing for them, Fanny; it's a shame that they should tease you at such a time; I wonder how my mother ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... scolded a little about it one day," said Ellen. "He came in at noon and said to grandma, 'Ruth Ann, I should think that the Millerites had been creeping through my east field.' He said that to tease her, because Gram doesn't approve of ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... what offer do you make for the letter? Well, we won't tease you," Annie went on as Vincent gave an impatient exclamation. "Another time we might do so, but as you have just come safely back to us I don't think it would be fair, especially as this is the very first letter. Here it is!" and she took out of the workbox before her the missive ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... tease me," said Fleda, trying hard to put an end to the tears which caused all this questioning, and to speak as if they were about a trifle. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... should not imagine that she would make a very pleasant travelling companion," returned Isabel, laughing. "Don't mention it pray," exclaimed Emily, "you have no idea what I endured coming down. Poor Charles, he must have been almost worried to death, she is such a horrid tease, and the old gentleman too, is an awful fidget. I think Arthur Barrington knew what he was about, when he refused to be of our party, and went on by express. Talking of Lady Ashton, how abominably she behaves to you. I was saying so to Harry the other ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... not to make a person whose good will, good word, interest, esteem, or friendship, you would gain, feel that superiority in you, in case you have it. If disagreeable insinuations, sly sneers, or repeated contradictions, tease and irritate you, would you use them where you wish to engage and please? Surely not, and I hope you wish to engage and please, almost universally. The temptation of saying a smart and witty thing, or 'bon mot'; and the malicious applause with which it is commonly received, has made ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... "Don't tease me, Jim!" she begged. "I don't mind if you bought them at a pawn-shop—if that's why you won't tell me. That is the reason, ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... an instant; then sank dully back, saying, without a whit of expression in his voice: "Don't tease me any further about old visions, Nikolai.—Even from you ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... laughed, and, under pretence of assistance, called attention," and here the girl looked ruefully down at her rent habit, "to all the weak joints in my armour; and, lastly, they would have done what you won't,—tease me to death about it for ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... went off by degrees; for three years I have never seen the smallest sign of temper, and if she is well treated there is not a better, more willing animal than she is. But she is naturally a more irritable constitution than the black horse; flies tease her more; anything wrong in the harness frets her more; and if she were ill-used or unfairly treated she would not be unlikely to give tit for tat. You know that many high-mettled horses ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... tease Mat through me, but he never got far, for I relied on her to curb him; and she was not one to be ruffled by trifles. Mat was an orphan and, like ourselves, a ward of Esmond Clarenden, but there were no ties of kinship ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... time that Georgina had ever been called Miss Huntingdon, and knowing he said it to tease her, it embarrassed her to the point of making her stammer, when he asked her most unexpectedly while picking out twenty shining new nickels to stuff into the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... laughter at the smallest joke. I pass as a wit with G., and have a great success. She is going to stay with a married sister for the cold weather. Quite like me, only I'm going to an unmarried brother. I think we are both getting slightly impertinent to our elders. They tease us so at meals in the saloon we have to answer back in self-defence, and it is very difficult to help trying to be smart; sometimes, at least with me, it degenerates into rudeness. I told you about all the people ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... "You are a little idolater and a little impudent sinner," he said wrathfully, and shook the boy by the shoulder and went away; and the throng that had gathered round had only poor Findelkind left to tease. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... what he held in his hand. She had seen him writing it. She had even seen some of the lines scrawled and re-scrawled on bits of paper, showing careful if not swift and skillful manufacture. One of these crumpled-up bits of paper she had in her pocket now, having recovered it that she might tease him by quoting the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Very well, Miss Tease. Only it must be softly, so as not to disturb other people who may not have as great fancy for ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... charged the children to be kind and gentle to the Nomen; never in any way to tease, annoy, or insult them, for if they did, the fairy said, and she looked very grave as she said it, "some punishment would immediately follow." This Master Edmund found to be quite true, when one day he attempted to kick the Noman who ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... adored friend. He cherished in his heart, both separately and combined, all the beautiful emotions of love—that of a father and an uncle, a teacher and an admirer. Effi was affected by all these attentions and wrote to Hohen-Cremmen about them so often that her mother began to tease her about her "love for the alchymist." But this well-meant teasing failed of its purpose; it was almost painful to her, in fact, because it made her conscious, even though but dimly, of what was really lacking in her married life, viz., ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... said Stuart, "you know yourself, that it wasn't very nice of Dago to go walking around the table through the butter and applesauce, and all the things to eat. I don't wonder that Aunt Patricia was provoked, 'specially when he has done so many other things to tease her. She didn't hurt him much for all her whacking around. I saw nearly as much of the fight as you did. She didn't hit him more than one lime out of ten. I was perfectly willing that my half of Dago ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... "You just say that because you want to comfort us for having broken down, instead of trying to tease us ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... exclaimed Ted, running his hands through his tightly curling hair, but not taking any of the kinks out that way. "We'll be good. I won't tease ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis
... Collection of Microbes at the Lister Institute now contains eight hundred different specimens. Visitors are requested not to tease the germs or go too ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... I hope it will," said Jenny, half vexed at Tom's pertinacity, and half amusing herself, for she thought it good fun to tease him. ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... sight rather be at home," drawled Dot, "even with my cousin Jack to tease me. When he goes a little too far I can hit back by teasing him 'bout the Langham twins. That always stops him. But Phoebe," she continued, "I shouldn't think you would like to go away to school. They'd all be strangers and seems to me you'd be ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... to come; it has not come, and I bet that it won't come all day. This is the inexactness of an ill-paid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits anything else, this old world is all warped, I take my stand on the opposition, everything goes awry; the universe is a tease. It's like children, those who want them have none, and those who don't want them have them. Total: I'm vexed. Besides, Laigle de Meaux, that bald-head, offends my sight. It humiliates me to think that I am of the same age as that baldy. However, I criticise, but I do not insult. The universe ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... skipper. Truly the subconscious had usurped him. Here he was almost happy, for he was almost unaware of life. It was all blue vacancy and suspension. The sea is the great answer and consoler, for it means either nothing or everything, and so need not tease the brain. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... the fishes, one, two, three, Are come back again, you see; Up they came the moment after, To enjoy the fun and laughter. Each popp'd out his little head. And, to tease poor Johnny, said "Silly little Johnny, look, You ...
— CAW! CAW! - The Chronicle of Crows, A Tale of the Spring-time • RM
... treated him bad at Grinder Brothers: they didn't give him a show to learn nothing; kept him at the same work all the time, and he didn't have cheek enough to arsk the boss for a rise, lest he'd be sacked. He couldn't fight, an' the boys used to tease him; they'd wait outside the shop to have a lark with Arvie. I'd like to see 'em do it to me. He couldn't fight; but then, of course, he wasn't strong. They don't bother me while I'm strong enough to heave a rock; but then, of course, it wasn't Arvie's fault. I s'pose he had pluck enough, if he hadn't ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... to coax Aunt Fountain to tell me about Trunion, for I knew it would be difficult to bribe her not to talk about him. She waited a while, evidently to tease my curiosity; but as I betrayed none, and even made an effort to talk ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... whether it would be possible for a man and wife to live luxuriously on sixpence a week. Would it?" pursued her tease. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... an impossibility; but there is a quiet parlor where stands a much-worn old sofa, and it is his delight to enter without knocking, and be found lying with half-shut eyes on this friendly couch, while the family life goes on around him without a question. Nobody is to mind him, to tease him with inquiries or salutations. If he will, he breaks into the stream of conversation, and sometimes, rousing up from one of these dreamy trances, finds himself, ere he or they know how, in the mood for free ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to tease his sister-in-law, but the young girl was quite his equal when it came to a battle of wits and it was not often that she gave ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... say Tom was not always a good boy. Sometimes he was cross and unpleasant. He would pull the hair of little girls, though I hardly believe he meant to hurt them. He only did it to tease them. ...
— The Story of a Candy Rabbit • Laura Lee Hope
... saw that his presence tired the patient. When he was gone Regina sat down beside the bed and stroked Marcello's hand, and talked soothingly to him, promising that no one should tease him to remember things. By and by, as she sat, she laid her head on the pillow beside him, and her sweet breath fanned his face, while a strange light played in her ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... manly boys generally do like children, and I haven't much respect for those who will tease or tyrannize over them. ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... not tease and fret me to and fro, Sweet spirit of this summer-circled field, With that quiet voice of thine that would not yield Its meaning, though I mused and sought it so? But now I am content to let it go, To lie at length and watch the swallows pass, As blithe and ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... said she. "You may have it all if you like. You are a darling little girl not to tease for things you ought not ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... are mistaken there, I can assure you. Time and again have I known him tell falsehoods when he got into a scrape; many is the time he has coaxed and teased, till he got us children into mischief—he was a great tease, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... easily. "She knows as much about you as I do, and I am content. But mamma will be pleased, because she likes you. And Dick"—she laughed, and her eyes glowed with her love for the boy—"Dick will yell, and will tease me out of my life. But he will be glad, because he is so very fond of you. What do you do to make everybody like you so much, ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... you acting that will make your hair stand on end, and you shall act too. Bab will be capital for the naughty girls," began Thorny, excited by the prospect of producing a sensation on the boards, and always ready to tease the girls. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... tease," Bertram had interposed once, with an airy wave of his hands. "This lion always did refuse to roar to order. If you really must hear him, you'll have to slip up-stairs and camp outside his door, waiting patiently for such crumbs as may fall ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... in protest, hastily denying any probable charge that the tease might make. "Why, I haven't been saying ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... courted Kathleen bawn, He was bold as a hawk,—she as soft as the dawn; He wished in his heart pretty Kathleen to please, And he thought the best way to do that was to tease. "Now, Rory, be aisy," sweet Kathleen would cry (Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye), "With your tricks I don't know, in troth, what I'm about, Faith, you've teased till I've put on my cloak inside out." "Och! jewel," says Rory, "that same ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... were talking at a little distance it pleased her to lean close to Davidge and tease him excruciatingly ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... freaks continue. In her "Histoire de Ma Vie," it is plain that George Sand inherited at this age an unusual dower of gifts. She composed many and interminable stories, carried on day after day, so that her confidants tried to tease her by asking if the prince had got out of the forest yet, etc. She personated an echo and conversed with it. Her day-dreams and plays were so intense that she often came back from the world of imagination to reality with a shock. ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... witch!" he cried gaily, as gaily as Wanda had spoken at first and more genuinely so. "You've just set out to plague me. And I'll show you how I treat little girls who tease!" ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... continued he, very good qualities. She was a dutiful daughter, is a good wife; she is bountiful to her servants, firm in her friendships, charitable to the poor, and, I believe, never any sister better loved a brother, than she me: and yet she always loved to vex and tease me; and as I would bear a resentment longer than she, she'd be one moment the most provoking creature in the world, and the next would do any thing to be forgiven; and I have made her, when she was the aggressor, follow me all over the house and ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... is in the same regiment, the 3d Life Guards. Perhaps when—— But there is no use my thinking about it, only somehow I am feeling so much better to-night—gay, and as if I did not mind being very poor—that I was obliged to tease Malcolm a little after dinner. I would play Patience, and never lifted my eyes from ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... hasty in assuming that he was trying to tease you?" asked the rector. "When he persisted in wanting to show you how the forward pass is made? I think it's quite likely he was sincere; he's so enthusiastic over football that it doesn't occur to him that others may not share his interest. I don't think Collingwood was trying to ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... do something for you," they said; "but, whatever you do, you must not cry in Wympland. It is only the fairies who do that, and they don't know any better. As long as the sun has had a country at the back of it, no wymp has ever been known to cry. Now, let us go and find somebody to tease!" ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... snout was as friendly and playful as most of its fellow dolphins. Too playful, Tom concluded, after vainly trying to tease it into chasing them. Instead of following, it would "tag" Tom or Mel quickly, then swim away, evidently expecting to be ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... to tease her, I said she was mistaken, for here in Jerusalem did the great Rabbi Akiba fall in love with his wife before marriage. 'Oh, that was quite different!' she replied. 'Not at all,' said I, for ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... cannot say at what age I made my first kites, but I remember how my comrades used to tease me at our game of "pigeon flies." All the children gather round a table and the leader calls out "Pigeon Flies! Hen flies! Crow flies! Bee flies!" and so on; and at each call we were supposed to raise our fingers. Sometimes, however, he would call out "Dog flies! Fox flies!" or some other ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... Sunbeams are made to talk and laugh and play, just like children. They are delightful. Sometimes when they are naughty, Father Sun shuts them up in a cloud all day, where it is wet and rainy, and then they get good and promise not to tease and be bad any more. And then he lets them out, and they come down among the flowers and children and make everything bright and happy. The fancy is pretty, and we are sure the little children will thoroughly enjoy the little Sunbeams. Pretty pictures and fine press-work and ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... your fritter. Be sure that it is a young fritter. The way to tell the age of a fritter is to count its teeth. Remove the shell and add a pitcher of apple sauce. Place this in a saucepan and tease it with a pinch of baking soda. Let it simper two hours. Serve hot and smile rapidly while eating. ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... Ninny Moulin, "since we are now, perhaps, at the eve of the end of the world, as yonder celebrated painter has expressed it, I propose to play the world topsy-turvy: I beg these ladies to make advances to us, to tease us, to excite us, to steal kisses from us, to take all sorts of liberties with us, and (we shall not die of it) even to insult us. Yes, I declare that I will allow myself to be insulted. So, LOVE, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... it, do you hear! Ray, go right this minute and call Miriam and bring me my glasses. Izzy, do you think it's so nice that a grown man should tease his little sister?" ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... there were even a ghost of a doubt as to the final acceptance! As if I dared play this heavy fish an instant, with such a frail line? Ah, mamma! don't tease me by such tactics! I am but an insignificant mouse, and you and Mr. Congreve are such a grim pair of cats, that I should never venture the faintest squeak. Don't roll me under your velvet paws, and pat me playfully, trying to arouse false hopes of escape, when all the while you are resolved to devour ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and learn you a lesson. What, Georgy! you expected a wild, shy young girl to show you her heart without asking? you expected a spoiled, flattered child, whom you have done the most to spoil and flatter, not to tease and torment you when she had it in her power, and could you not bear it better from your little wayward favorite, who, you know, was always true-hearted after all? Pshaw, my dear boy, I needn't plead for our dear baby. Poor Dora has a sore heart, for she thinks you have gone away in anger forever, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fine and high-minded citizen though he was, was not above enjoying the mild diversion of these social gatherings, and on one occasion at least he furnished the best part of the entertainment. The departing minister was, it seemed, the topic of the day's discussion, and, to tease Captain Doane one young man who knew the strength of his friendship for me suddenly began to speak, then pursed up his lips and looked eloquently mysterious. As he had expected, Captain Doane immediately pounced ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... CARL,—You are just silly to tease me about any bank clerk. I don't like him any more at all and he can go with Linda all ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends to death. The chance of a gentleman or lady with a given mortal ailment to live a certain time is as good again as that of the common sort of coarse people. As you go down the social scale, you reach a point at length where the common talk in sick ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... Latin and Father laughed heartily and said something I could not understand. I don't think it was Latin, but it may have been Magyar or English. Father knows nearly all languages, even Czech, but thank goodness he doesn't talk them unless he wants to tease us. Like that time at the station when Dora and I were so ashamed. Czech is horrid, Mother says so too. When Robert pretends to speak Czech it's ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... 'We had better not tease her at present with questions,' said I, in as unconcerned a tone as I could assume, although I felt every moment as if ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... replied Antonius, "don't be vexed! I see it is a case of your wanting little said on a sore point. Well, keep silent, I won't tease you. Doesn't ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... came home and the adventure was told to him he laughed and said that he meant to sell Rough some day. He used to say this occasionally to tease his wife because of the dog's intense devotion to her; and she, being without a sense of humour and half thinking that he meant it, would get up out of her seat and solemnly declare that if he ever sold Rough she would never again go out to the down ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... surrounded by other gardens. On one side was the garden of a jovial master-joiner who loved to tease me. Even now I cannot understand how he could take his own life, as he did, later on. Once when I was a very little boy I had said to him over the hedge, with a precociously knowing look: "Neighbor, it is very cold!" and he never grew weary of repeating this remark ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... small somehow," said Ralph, the largest boy of all. "I suppose I could have stopped the row if I'd thought, but I was afraid the fellows would be angry at me for spoiling their sport. I'll not let them tease him any more, though;" and at a sharp word from him the boys ceased their ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser
... was shoved forward, to lead the race. He was the smallest, and would hold the other boys back—and he had been the spunkiest, all the way up, because he had a quick temper and was prompt to fight. The Indians had liked to tease him. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... my pillow, I am weary and ill at ease, And the Gargles fail to soothe me, And the Inhalations tease. I know not what is the matter; To swallow is perfect pain, And my Vocal Chords seem palsied!— Shall ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Sniatynski (I recognized his handwriting on the envelope), and one for me from Clara. The latter does not say much about herself, but inquires most minutely what I am doing. I told Aniela who it was that had written, and she, to show me that all ill-feeling and constraint had gone, began to tease me. I paid her back in the same coin, and pointing to Sniatynski's letter said there was another poor man who had succumbed to little Aniela's wiles. We laughed and bandied jests for ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... too good-natured to permit mere pique to cause unhappiness to others. "Let Gertrude win him if she cares for him," was her thought, "and if she can't hold him his case is hopeless." She could not resist the temptation, however, to tease Burt a little. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... hidden away in a great heavy box, or a little gold heart is put in a Christmas cake. Occasionally a man contrives to hide in the Julklapp and thus offer himself as a Christmas present to the lady whom he loves. The gift is often accompanied by some satirical rhyme, or takes a form intended to tease the recipient.{71} ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... cannot do enough for me. He tries to laugh, scold, tease, and coax me into health. Mammy is steeping up gin and mustard, which, they say, is a sure cure for the chills. Dearly beloved friends! They little know how soothingly their kindness falls upon the heart of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... 'You might easily hold them one in each arm now! But you must have eaten up the whole barn up there; I didn't remember that you were so big, Barbara. I should think he's had to give up house and lands, that farmer?' he said, to tease me. ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... monosyllable and moved the strawberries to a position where they intruded into the conversation like a punctuation mark in the middle of a sentence. Her glance dropped to the pail, and she looked at it saying nothing, amused to thus tease him and covertly note his ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... all eager that the People should have this toy; something to play with and to tease, round which to dance the mad Carmagnole and ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... fields with his magnificent Newfoundland dog at his side, he looked very like what a frank, wealthy, Conservative gentleman ought to be. He spoke freely and unaffectedly to the people he met, and though he indulged his children and allowed them to tease himself far too much, he would not suffer them grossly ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... banished the realm," decided the King, jestingly; for he was now convinced that her Adair was but a jest to tease him—a ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... coquetry was gone; she did not tease or play with him; animated as she was in company, when they were alone together ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... passes, and she feels better acquainted and at ease with us, Madame M.'s younger daughter amuses us by showing some mischievous tendency; and we conclude she is something of "a tease". In the most artless manner, and without intentional familiarity, she slides her arm through Octavia's in a confidential manner and imparts some important information "dans l'oreille". What is it? Well, remember it is whispered; and now don't go and tell! ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... for he could not understand why they would not lift up. He chattered scoldingly at everybody; then tried again. Failing, he sprang down and went to a far corner, in a fine sulk. Evidently he thought Tom was playing a trick on him, and had glued the freckles down someway just to tease him; for Tom, it must be admitted, was greatly given to bothering Grandpa in some ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... are so aggravating, I wish Winny was my sister, that I do, for she is so kind, and it's hard the only sister I have should tease ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... times have been hard for the pigs lately." Yaverland gave to their bickering amenities an attention that dwelt not so much on the words as the twanging, gibing intonations. But after they got into the streets again a question and answer began to tease his mind: "Would you be wanting your ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... tell, but I think we must call her Dora or Dolly, as I fancy your Aunt Jane told me she was called at home. I hope Wilfred will not get hold of it and tease her about it. You ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... between Nalini and myself had not been of the happiest nature. I was very thin; she was thinner still. Through an unconscious motive or "complex" which psychiatrists will have no difficulty in identifying, I often used to tease my sister about her cadaverous appearance. Her retorts were equally permeated with the callous frankness of extreme youth. Sometimes Mother intervened, ending the childish quarrels, temporarily, by a gentle box on my ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... telling him that things could not go on like this, and that he must be more sensible in future. At first she spoke warily, but when she saw that he paid scarcely any attention to her remarks, she grew angry, and obstinately insisted, as stupid old women do, thinking her son was trying to tease her. Sanine was neither surprised nor annoyed: he hardly seemed to understand what she said, but looked amiably ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... he came back—and he found Clarry O'Grady at the Cummins' cabin. He had been there for a month with a broken leg. Perhaps it was the dangerous knowledge of the power of her beauty—the woman's instinct in her to tease with her prettiness, that led to Marie's flirtation with O'Grady. But Jan could not understand, and she played with fire—the fire of two hearts instead of one. The world went to pieces under Jan after that. There came the day when, in fair fight, he choked ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... were ways in which he could tease Miss Kitty Cat that annoyed her greatly, while keeping his nose out of harm's way. Growling always made her tail grow big. Barking made her spit at him. But there was something else that angered her still ...
— The Tale of Old Dog Spot • Arthur Scott Bailey
... wish to share her work, to touch her things, and they try furtively to knead and cook and wash clothes, and sweep the floor. The mother feels wearied by them; she keeps on repeating, "Be quiet; leave it alone. Don't tease me. Go away." Then the child makes a great noise, throws himself on the ground, and kicks; but then he begins again to do as much as he can without being seen, as quickly as possible; and by trying to wash things in a hurry, gives himself a bath; trying to conceal some contraband ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... struck him that the suspicions at headquarters might be well-founded; in that case he had been rash to put his head in the lion's mouth. For it had been wholly his own notion. Partly to tease Asgill, whom he did not love the more because he owed him money, and partly to see the rustic beauty whom, rumour had it, Asgill was courting in the wilds—a little, too, because life at Tralee was dull, he had ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... rather crest-fallen, as she presented herself before her Scotch husband, who laughed heartily over her misadventure, and did not cease to tease her about her expedition to the mountain, as long as ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... each Sunday night found Mike and Sally snugly ensconced in the "great room," while under the windows occasionally might have been seen, three or four curly heads, eager to hear something about which to tease Sally ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... she cried, "if I thought you meant that, I—I—ah, why do you tease me?" she added, as Graham could not help laughing, "you know you promised me I should go with you everywhere. I am very strong, I love travelling, I want to see the world. Where will you go? To America ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... steadied thought see their own lives in perspective. It is a criminal waste of time to get hundreds of people to come into church on a Sunday morning and seat them all together in a great room where they cannot get out, and then tease them and tell them they ought to be good. They knew it before they came. They are already agreed, all of them, that they want to be good. They even want to be good in business—as good as they can afford to. The question is how to manage to do it. The thing that ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... it to tease you a little—not to hurt your feelings, believe me," replied Emma. "You shall not be a miller if you don't like it. Henry will do better, perhaps, than you; but as for our quitting this place, I have no idea of it's being ever possible. I have made up my ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... occasion, my talk scarcely innocent, simply because I was so innocent. I played endless child's tricks with my bridal veil, my wreath, my gown. Left alone that night in the room whither I had been conducted in state, I planned a piece of mischief to tease Victor. While I awaited his coming, my heart beat wildly, as it used to do when I was a child stealing into the drawing-room on the last day of the old year to catch a glimpse of the New Year's gifts piled up there in heaps. When my husband came in and looked for me, ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... Angelina-Elfrida, which her mother had given her for Christmas, she placed the two beauties on the hearth-rug, one on each side of the corn-cob, just to see the difference. This seemed to make Peter very cross. He tried his best to snatch away the old doll, but Rudolf, to tease him, held him off with one hand while with the other he seized the poor creature by her long braids and swung ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... and don't tease the boy. Wesley knows what's expected of him; he has an opportunity to show what is in his stock. Thank God, men in the North can now come to their own without going down on their knees to ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan |
