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More "Waistcoat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was made known to our friends Julia and Maria,—the darling child, lovely little dears! how like their papa and mamma!—when Sir Brian Newcome gave her his arm downstairs to the dining-room when anybody spoke to her: when John offered her meat, or the gentleman in the white waistcoat, wine; when she accepted or when she refused these refreshments; when Mr. Newcome told her a dreadfully stupid story; when the Colonel called cheerily from his end of the table, "My dear Mrs. Mackenzie, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... courtesy, waves her hand to a chair in the centre, with a table before it. Mr Seedy sits down, pulls the will out of his pocket, lays it on the table, takes out his snuff-box, takes a pinch, then his handkerchief, blows his nose, snuffs the candles, takes his spectacles from his waistcoat pocket, puts them on, breaks the seals, and bows to the company; Mrs Jellybags has taken her seat on the left next to him, and Doctor Gumarabic by her side. Mrs Jellybags sobs very loud, with ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... and folded and refolded their linen dusters. Then a railroad employee entered and began to go to bed at this hour, before dusk had wholly darkened into night. For him, going to bed meant removing his boots and placing his overalls and waistcoat beneath his pillow. He had no coat. His work began at three in the morning; and even as we still ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... autumn was already in the air that Saturday when Miss Lucy and the Major and Chad, in the old carriage, with old Tom as driver and the pickaninny behind, started for General Dean's. The Major was beautiful to behold, in his flowered waistcoat, his ruffled shirt, white trousers strapped beneath his highly polished, high-heeled boots, high hat and frock coat, with only the lowest button fastened, in order to give a glimpse of that wonderful waistcoat, just as ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... a city man, for in the hottest June he never wore a white waistcoat, nor had he the swelling gait of one who made an occasional coup in mines, and it went without saying that he did not write—a man who went to bed at eleven, and whose hair made no claim to distinction. One's mind fell back on the idea of law—conveyancing seemed probable—but ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... a scare pure and simple, wasn't to be tolerated! And he got up, standing astraddle to brace himself against the swinging of the train, while he stretched, settling himself in his clothes—pulled down the fronts of his waistcoat, buttoned the jacket of his light check suit; and, taking off his wide-awake, smoothed his soft, slightly curly russet-coloured hair with his hand. These adjustments, and the assurance they induced that his personal appearance was all which it should be, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... came, there was a wringing of hands, and, 'Thank you, thank you,' in a low, broken, heartfelt voice, and to Emily, 'You have made life a new thing to me. I shall never forget,' and the showing of a tiny book in his waistcoat pocket. ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... child were exactly alike—as though they had been twins, boots of black velvet or satin, blue silk trousers, a long blue silk garment, a waistcoat of blue brocade, and a black satin skullcap—the child was in every respect, even to the dignity of his bearing, a vest-pocket edition ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... was brought down without further accident occurring; and by the time it was over, as the bottle had to be passed round, and everybody was obliged to drink off immediately, and put his wine-glass inside his waistcoat to save it from perdition, they all were very merry and happy before the repast had been concluded. "There," said Jerry, stroking himself down when he had finished his cheese, as if he were a Falstaff; "a kitten might play with ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... industrious little insects made the headquarters of their honey campaign, sallying out from thence to taste a sweet-pea or scarlet-runner and giving a passing kiss to a gaudy fuchsia, who wore a red coat and blue corporation sort of waistcoat, as they ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... to show for it? Nothing?'—and the gentleman looked at the boy more narrowly. 'Nothing,' said he again, 'except a few crumbs of pie-crust on your waistcoat? Oh, Geoffrey!' ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... waistcoat, collar, shoes, rolled his shirt-sleeves as high as they would go, and turned a series of handsprings across the wide room. Then he stood on his head; he balanced chairs on his chin; he seized his father's hickory stick and went through a set of military evolutions. ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... attired in his brown corduroys and his tan waistcoat, certainly suggested the partridge as he hopped nimbly about in the distant foreground, cocking his ears from time to time with all the aloofness of that wily bird. He was, strange to relate, some little distance from Bazelhurst territory, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... and protested that the clothes he was wearing were the oldest he had; but I finally persuaded him to take off his waistcoat and collar, tie a handkerchief around his neck, and put on a pair of my leggings; and in this slightly modified costume he went ashore with us for a march to the camp ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... a little looking-glass slipped from his waistcoat pocket and, striking a pebble, broke. This sign of ill luck made a great impression on him, He cast a suspicious look around him and, shivering with nervousness, as though he felt threatened by the invisible powers, ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... table with the Statutes of the United States. Secretary and Treasurer Hewley's lay on his strong-box immediately behind him. The Governor's was a light one, and always hung in the arm hole of his waistcoat. The graveyard of Boise City this year had twenty-seven tenants, two brought there by meningitis, and twenty-five by difference of opinion. Many denizens of the Territory were miners, and the unsettling ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... articles of a man's dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred years ago by a gentleman of some rank—costly steel buttons and buckles, like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court sword—in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold lace, but which was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of entertainment long since passed away. But our main discovery was in a kind of iron safe ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... use the common abbreviation of the country, wore a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green linen with great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat's skin, in the pocket of which might be discerned the round outline of a monstrous snuff-box. A snuff-box to a pug nose is ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... pages of the Sentimental Journey are full of genuine feeling as I am that if Jonathan Swift had entered the room while the Lecture upon him was going forward, he would have eaten William Makepeace Goliath, white waistcoat ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "is a button. More particularly a red waistcoat button. More particularly still, my top red ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... chattering. Sidorov has already heard the news, and can see from his face too that he has been taken. He wants to ask him questions, but they hurry him and tell him to make haste and undress. He throws off his pelisse, slips his boots off his feet, takes off his waistcoat and draws his shirt over his head, and naked, trembling all over, and exhaling an odor of tobacco, spirits, and sweat, goes into the revision office, not knowing what to do with ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... he was up and washed and dressed, all but his jacket and waistcoat, just as the ten minutes' bell began to ring, and then in the face of the whole room he knelt down to pray. Not five words could he say,—the bell mocked him; he was listening for every whisper in the room,—what were ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... retire to their silver paper, make way for the new comers, and, years after, like the Sleeping Beauty, rush to life in all their pristine splendour, and find (save in the treble-gilt aodication and their own accession) the coat, the immortal coat, unchanged! The waistcoat is of a material known only to themselves—a sort of nightmare illusion of velvet, covered with a slight tracery of refined mortar, curiously picked out and guarded with a nondescript collection of the very greenest green pellets of hyson-bloom gunpowder tea. The buttons ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... my coat and waistcoat, then bethought me of the mysterious document I had received from Dicky. Once more I looked at ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... night, however, I went down to Grudge's cottage, and peeping through the window on my way to the door, I saw a strange man in the room. His face was clean-shaven, his hair tied back and powdered; he was in his shirt-sleeves, with a satin waistcoat, a sword at his side, and shining buckles to his shoes. Then I saw that the big chest stood open. I ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... chapeau bras between his hands as if he wished to compress it, or under his arm; knees bent, and feet on tiptoe, as if afraid of a wet floor. His dress in visiting was most usually, in summer, when I most saw him, a lavender suit, the waistcoat embroidered with a little silver, or of white silk worked in the tambour, partridge silk stockings, and gold buckles, ruffles and frill generally lace. I remember, when a child, thinking him very much under-dressed, if at any time, except in mourning, he wore hemmed cambric. ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... been no human being an instant before Olga saw a tall, strange-looking man. He was in conventional afternoon attire, save that his waistcoat was red, in sharp contrast to the somber black of his frock coat. His hair was black. His upward pointing eyebrows were black, and his eyes shone like dull-burning lumps of coal. His face was like a mask, matching his immaculate linen in ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... time I saw the Chief Justice he had on a black kalimanco or camlet jacket, which I have seen him wear even on the bench. I have met the Lieutenant-Governor frequently walking through the streets with an olive-coloured square-cut velveteen jacket and waistcoat; and a few days before I left York I beheld Mr. Justice Sherwood in a grass-green cloth jacket with white metal buttons. I merely mention these 'extravagancies' to show that my dress was neither improper nor ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... he was a sport, and let them do as they liked; so they drank his health and sang: He's a Jolly Good Fellow! Several old boys came down, FitzMorris with an eyeglass and a wonderful tie; Sandham, as usual, quite insignificant; Armour wearing the blue waistcoat of a Wadham drinking club. Meredith had been expected, but at the last moment he had found his debts so much in excess of a very generous allowance that he would have to retrench a little. It was a pity; but in the Bullingdon living is not cheap and ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... Touching coat, waistcoat, and trousers, there can be but one choice. Coarse tweed does the best business on a small capital. Cheap and strong, we have always found it the most "paying" article in our travelling-wardrobe. Avoid that tailor-hem so common at the bottom of your pantaloons ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... carriage and deportment, not always obtained by other means. Dumb-bell practice should precede the use of the Indian clubs. In beginning with the latter, take off your coat and cravat, loosen your braces and waistcoat, and put ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of the man's palpitating body..... He was aglow with warmth from the exertion of rowing and climbing up the mountainside. He would bring back life and pulsation to this woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul, by the warmth of his own glowing body. As he drew off his waistcoat and threw it aside, something fell to the ground. He felt about in the dark until he found the object; it was a tiny silver match case, some silly Christmas present which he never used and had forgotten all about, ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... and constantly bullied Madame de Maintenon because she did not make him a duke and a peer. He spent his time running after girls in the Tuileries, always had several on his hands, and lived and spent his money with their families and friends of the same kidney. He was just fit for a strait-waistcoat, but comical, full of wit and unexpected repartees. A good, humorous fellow, and honest-polite, and not too impertinent on account of his sister's fortune. Yet it was a pleasure to hear him talk of the time of Scarron and the Hotel d'Albret, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... black trowsers and white waistcoat and neckcloth this morning. Sir Edmund Lyons called. Baron Wrede called on me: he had observed the Eclipse at Calmar and brought his drawing, much like mine. He conducted me to the Palace. The Minister for Foreign Affairs came to me. In the waiting-room I was introduced to the Lieutenant-Governor ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... moments as subjects for a like impersonal treatment and sharers in a like usual mercy. At opposite ends of the social course, they displayed, in respect to the "figure" that each, in his way, made, one the expansive, the other the contractile effect of the perfect white waistcoat. A scratch company of two innocuous youths and a pacified veteran was therefore what now offered itself to Mrs. Stringham, who rustled in a little breathless and full of the compunction of having had ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... his waistcoat. Not a sound was audible. The children were very close against him. In his big hands he took each face in turn and put his lips inside the rim of three ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... was perhaps well that he thus thought better of it, for Maskew stuck his hand into his bosom as the other rose; and though he withdrew it again when Elzevir got back to his chair, yet the front of his waistcoat was a little bulged, and, looking sideways, I saw the silver-shod butt of a pistol nestling far down against his white shirt. The bailiff was vexed, I think, that he had been betrayed into such strong words; for he tried at once to put on ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... merest boy of a captain I ever beheld; and his dress was worthy of attention. He had on a full-laced uniform; his lank unpowdered hair was tied in a stiff Hessian tail, of an extraordinary length; the old-fashioned flaps of his waistcoat added to the general quaintness of his figure, and produced an appearance which particularly attracted my notice; for I had never seen anything like it before, nor could I imagine who he was, nor what ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... then she laughs at herself, and gets right again that way. Poor Mrs. St. Leonard! I cannot help feeling sorry for her. She would have been so happy as the wife of a really respectable City man, who would have gone off every morning with a flower in his buttonhole and have worn a white waistcoat on Sundays. I don't believe what they say: that husbands and wives should be the opposite of one another. Mr. St. Leonard ought to have married a brainy woman, who would have discussed philosophy with him, and have been just as happy drinking beer out of ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... which is not as cheap as it looks, owing to the bones and the gravy. Then he returned to sausages and mashed potatoes. Then he confined himself entirely to mashed potatoes for a day, and was unhappy because of pain in his inside. Then he pawned his waistcoat and his tie, and thought regretfully of money thrown away in times past. There are few things more edifying unto Art than the actual belly-pinch of hunger, and Dick in his few walks abroad,—he did not care for exercise; it raised desires that could not be satisfied—found himself dividing ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... the notice that he craved. N. P. Willis, who saw the much-talked-about young Israelitish novelist at Lady Blessington's, wrote of the strange vision: "He was sitting in a window looking on Hyde Park, the last rays of sunlight reflected from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered waistcoat. Patent leather pumps, a white stick with a black cord and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck and pockets served to make him a conspicuous object. He has one of the most remarkable faces I ever saw. He is lividly pale, and but for the energy of his actions and the strength ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... eye a single eyeglass was adjusted, and as he walked he swung his hat delicately in his tightly gloved fingers. He wore the plainest of collars and the simplest of gold studs; no chain dangled showily from his waistcoat-pocket, and his small feet were encased in little patent-leather shoes. But for his painted face, he might have passed for the very incarnation of fashionable simplicity. But ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... of getting free from too much fat without any injury to the constitution, consists, first, in putting on a proper bandage on the belly, so that it can be tightened or relaxed with ease, as a tightish under waistcoat, with a double row of buttons. This is to compress the bowels and increase their absorption, and it thus removes one principal cause of corpulency, which is the looseness of the skin. Secondly, he should omit one entire meal, as supper; ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... see the castle as well. And by this time Jack has a beautiful horse and a scarlet dress to go with them. On that morning his valet, when putting Jack's clothes by, after changing them to go a hunting, put his hand in one of Jack's waistcoat-pockets, and pulled out the little golden snuffbox, as poor Jack left behind in a mistake. And that man opened the little box, and there hopped the three little red men out, and asked him what he wanted with them. "Well," said ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... I. "Pray, Miss Lucy, may I ask where the horse came from I have been riding? I have had a worse cruise than a dismantled Dutch dogger on the Goodwin Sands. I have, into the bargain, lost out of my waistcoat-pocket two two-pound notes and five new gloves out of six which I very stupidly stuffed into my coat-pocket." "I am very sorry, sir, indeed, for your misfortune," answered she. "The horse came from the 'Royal Oak.' We desired ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... Combative as we may be, both of us, we are now grave seniors, we have serious business: a party looks to him, my party looks to me. Never need you fear that I shall be at sword or pistol with any one. I will challenge my man, whoever he as that needs a lesson, to touch buttons on a waistcoat with the button on the foil, or drill fiver and eights in cards at twenty paces: but I will not fight him though he offend me, for I am stronger than my temper, and as I do not want to take his nip of life, and judge it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... steps towards the last studio, the only one that deserved the name, for it was there he worked, and he saw Cotoner sitting in a huge armchair, the seat of which sagged under his corpulent frame, with his elbows resting on the oaken arms, his waistcoat unbuttoned to relieve his well-filled paunch, his head sunk between his shoulders, his face red and sweating, his eyes half closed with the sweet joy of digestion in that comfortable atmosphere heated ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of a sudden (they were at the paygate), as she looked, astonishment, grief, and anxiety appeared on Winny's face. Something had dismayed her tenderness, dashed her joy. She had seen Ranny take out of his waistcoat pocket gold—not ten shillings, but a whole sovereign. And a ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... the sensation was rather like that, I imagine, of a swarm of rats climbing up one's trousers. However, it was over in a few seconds, and all of them—over a dozen—were with Wag and Slim on the table, except one, who, whether by mistake or on purpose, went on climbing me by way of my waistcoat buttons, rather deliberately, until he reached my shoulder. I didn't object, of course, but I turned round (which made him catch at my ear) and went back to my chair, seated in which I felt rather as if I was presiding at a meeting. The one on my shoulder sat ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... in light gray trousers.' The junior Bar is growing somewhat lax in these matters. Dark gray coats are not unknown, and it was only the other day I observed a barrister duly robed sitting in court in a white waistcoat, apparently oblivious of the fact that whilst thus attired no judge could possibly have heard a word he said. However, as he had nothing to say, the question did not arise. It is doubtless the increasing Chamber practice of the judges which has occasioned ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... later years; it was fully, but finely, developed, imposing and stately, yet not wanting in alertness and grace. No costume could have been better suited to it than his blue coat and glittering gilt buttons, his ample yellow waistcoat, his black trousers, and snowy cravat. It was in some degree, perhaps, owing to the elegance and daintiness of his dress that, while the New England men among his hearers were moved to tears, many Southern members, like Colonel Benton, regarded the speech merely as a Fourth-of-July ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... tight and tubby, with his chest out and his head back, went the prim figure of Mr. May, reminding one of a consequential bird of the smaller species. His plumbago-grey suit fitted exactly—save that it was perhaps a little tight. The jacket and waistcoat were bound with silk braid of exactly the same shade as the cloth. His soft collar, immaculately fresh, had a dark stripe like his shirt. His boots were black, with grey suede uppers: but a little down at heel. His dark-grey hat was jaunty. Altogether he looked ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... drinking, recounting the feats of his youth, and his drinking-bouts with my father, adding, with a smile, "But you'll never be a par with, your Uncle, Ned, till you can carry the six bottles under your waistcoat." ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... little man would nohow cease his growling and querulous complaining, Pasquale even laid himself under the obligation to get a natty abbot's coat made for the little torment out of an old black plush waistcoat which he (the dwarf) had often set covetous eyes upon. He demanded a wig and a sword as well. Parleying upon these points they arrived at the Via Bergognona, for that was where Pitichinaccio dwelt, only four doors ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... turned Euphrasia's head, at which price her waiting woman had promised that Euphrasia should be his. The infatuated youth walked to and fro under Madame Euphrasia's windows, like the polar bears in their cage at the Jardin des Plantes, with his right hand thrust beneath his waistcoat in the region of the heart, which he was fit to tear from his bosom, but as yet he had only wrenched at the elastic of ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... time he had untied his parcel, and flattening the paper on his knees began to put the contents on the table. There were some field-glasses, a breast pin, and a few other such things; when he had put them all out he felt in his waistcoat-pocket for his watch. ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... came, it was the more startling as unexpected from such a figure. Lady Dufferin told Mr. Motley that when she met Disraeli at dinner, he wore a black-velvet coat lined with satin, purple trousers with a gold band running down the outside seam, a scarlet waistcoat, long lace ruffles falling down to the tips of his fingers, white gloves with several rings outside, and long black ringlets rippling down his shoulders. She told him he had made a fool of himself by appearing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... entered the cabin, was a short, punchy little fellow, with a red waistcoat, knee-breeches, and a round jacket of green cloth. His face was covered with carbuncles, some of them so large that his small pug-nose was nothing more in appearance than a larger blotch than the others. His eyes were small and keen, and his whiskers ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... him in bed. He had only to lock his door, and he was safe. Here are his easy leathern chair and desk, at which he used to work, and, in a little closet, is the last suit that he ever wore—a bottle-green coat, plaid waistcoat, of small pattern, gray plaid trousers, and white hat. Near these hang his walking-stick, and his boots and walking-shoes. Here are, also, his tools, with which he used to prune his trees in the plantations, and his yeoman-cavalry accouterments. On the chimney-piece stands a German light-machine, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... lodgings very near the Cafe Musain. He went out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on a Robespierre waistcoat. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... throbbing thirst. Dazed as yet, he did not even look around; he did not try to think; but that weight on his chest grew to a burning agony, and he tore at his coat and threw it open. The flat steel box, pierced by a bullet, fell on the ground before his knees. Then he remembered. He ripped open waistcoat and shirt and stared at his bare breast. It was discoloured—a mass of bruises, but there was no blood there. He looked listlessly at the box on the leaves under him, and touched his bruised body. Suddenly his mind grew clearer; he stumbled up, steadying himself against a tree. His lips ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... had gone out, but it was a comfort that the presence of a comparative stranger deprived us of the dreary duty of suggesting to each other, in respect of his errand, edifying possibilities in which we didn't ourselves believe. At ten o'clock he came into the drawing-room with his waistcoat much awry but his eyes sending out great signals. It was precisely with his entrance that I ceased to be vividly conscious of him. I saw that the crystal, as I had called it, had begun to swing, and I had need of my immediate attention ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... He took from his waistcoat pocket a newspaper cutting and compared the two then stepped briskly, almost jauntily, into the hall, as though all his doubts and uncertainties had vanished, and waited for the elevator. His coat was buttoned ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... every distasteful obligation, the ground on which all chosen pleasures were refused. It was ever "Kings can not do this," or "Kings must do that," and the "this" was always sweet, the "that" repellent; in Krak's hands monarchy became a cross between a treadmill and a strait-waistcoat. "What's the use of being a king?" I dared once ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... passageways. Talbot Potter, himself, was nowhere to be seen, and, what was even more important to one tumultuously beating heart "in front," neither was Wanda Malone. Mr. Stewart Canby in a silvery new suit, wearing a white border to his waistcoat collar and other decorations proper to a new playwright, sat in the centre of the front row of the orchestra. Yesterday he had taken a ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... cheeks, over a great part of which his rough beard extended. His eye was quick and lively, yet his look was not fierce, but he appeared at once firm and good-humoured. He wore a pair of brogues, tartan hose which came up only near to his knees, and left them bare, a purple camblet kilt, a black waistcoat, a short green cloth coat bound with gold cord, a yellowish bushy wig, a large blue bonnet with a gold thread button. I never saw a figure that gave a more perfect representation of a Highland Gentleman. I wished much to have a picture ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... buoyancy with which he stepped. This had communicated itself to the gayety of his attire, for he was dressed in a light-gray check suit, and wore a straw hat (the first to see the light of summer) with a green ribbon about the crown,—together with a white waistcoat and white spats, the whole enriched by a red rose bud which Corinne had with her own hands pinned ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... The question always brought a pain under his plump chest and neat waistcoat which he could not explain; he thrust it hastily away. But he loitered about the room, thinking how sweet it would be if this childish creature would praise or find fault with buttons or whiskers in her childish way. Kitty, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... travellers neglect. Pogson had a little portable toilet, of which he had not failed to take advantage, and with his long, curling, flaxen hair, flowing under a seal-skin cap, with a gold tassel, with a blue and gold satin handkerchief, a crimson velvet waistcoat, a light green cut-away coat, a pair of barred brickdust-colored pantaloons, and a neat mackintosh, presented, altogether, as elegant and distingue an appearance as any one could desire. He had put on a clean collar at breakfast, and a pair of white kids ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... characters and passions of the actors;—those passions common to men in all stages of society, and which have alike agitated the human heart, whether it throbbed under the steel corslet of the fifteenth century, the brocaded coat of the eighteenth, or the blue frock and white dimity waistcoat of the present day. [Footnote: Alas' that attire, respectable and gentlemanlike in 1805, or thereabouts, is now as antiquated as the Author of Waverley has himself become since that period! The reader of fashion will please to fill up the costume with an embroidered waistcoat ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... trooping along the fields and over the hills, holding up the train of summer as she walks so sedately, think him adorable. If summer stops but for a moment I see them slipping slyly into his arms, laying golden heads on his drab waistcoat and gazing with wonder-blue eyes at his coruscating gems. I think well of old man Barberry, too; better I fancy than he does of me. I admire his stocky growth which has a sturdy grace of its own, and I love him for the birds that he shelters, ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... magnetic, the brilliant, Cards with his World and his Society and now slim and dark and romantic as ever, making every one else in the room shabby beside him, so that Bobby's white waistcoat was instantly seen to be hanging loosely above his shirt and Peter's trousers were short, and even the elegant Percival had scarcely covered with perfect equality the ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... Lake home in a quarter of an hour; so he glided by old Lady Chelford, who was dozing stiffly through her spectacles on a French novel, and through a second drawing-room, and into the hall, where he saw Larcom's expansive white waistcoat, and disregarded his advance and respectful inclination, and strode into the outer hall or vestibule, where were hat-stands, walking-sticks, great coats, umbrellas, and the exuviae ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... to no living soul but myself, and is so simple that it requires no written record to preserve it, and would die with me. It is the result, it is true, of many years of hard work, but the finished product I can and often do carry in my waistcoat pocket. ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... them in reading and spelling;" a school-assistant "to fill the second desk," &c. Next come a few characteristics of a scientific age—as patent trouser-straps, to "prevent the dirt getting between the strap and the boot, &c.;" and patent springs for waistcoat backs—to cause the clothes to fit well to the shape, &c.—and, above all, a legitimate, scientific ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... eyes glared at him, and as the dignified upright figure stood opposite him, threw the contents of the glass he held in his hand into the fellow's face, so that the red wine splashed all over his laced white waistcoat. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... in vain. The train, it seemed, was crowded. He returned to his compartment to find already installed there one of the most complete and absolute types of Germanism he had ever seen. A man in a light grey suit, the waistcoat of which had apparently abandoned its efforts to compass his girth, with a broad, pink, good-humoured face, beardless and bland, flaxen hair streaked here and there with grey, was seated in the vacant place. He had with him a portmanteau covered with a linen case, his ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... heard, this morning, one or two unconnected words—something about a woman, and then more that appeared to allude to some person's death. Last night I was with him when he went to bed, and I found that he had something to conceal from me. He let me fold all his clothes, as usual, except his waistcoat—and that he snatched away from me, and put it under his pillow. We have no hope of being able to examine the waistcoat without his knowledge. His sleep is like the sleep of a dog; if you only approach him, he wakes instantly. Forgive me for troubling you with these trifling details, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... north, in what is called Lower Telemarken, a similar kind of dress still exists, though the man's waistcoat-jacket is of a somewhat different pattern and colour, and the women wear their skirts a trifle longer. On Sundays and great occasions the latter also put on cloth stockings and gloves, embroidered tastefully with ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... Johnny Bower a decent-looking little old man, in blue coat and red waistcoat. He received us with much greeting, and seemed delighted to see my young companion, who was full of merriment and waggery, drawing out his peculiarities for my amusement. The old man was one of the most authentic and particular of cicerones; he pointed out everything in ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... chair and stared at it. The plaster cast stretched out in front of him, and was covered by a grey blanket. With the exception of the trifling formality of trousers, he was well dressed in a sack coat, a shirt, waistcoat, and a sort of college-boy collar and tie, which one of the orderlies had purchased for him. His other things were in that extremely expensive English car ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... from his long letters to his tailor we know that he was fussy about their quality and their fit. Even while away from home fighting Indians and making surveys, he did not neglect to write to London for "Silver Lace for a Hatt," "Ruffled Shirts;" "Waistcoat of superfine scarlet Cloth and gold {67} Lace," "Marble colored Silk Hose," "a fashionable gold lace Hat," "a superfine blue Broadcloth Coat with silver Trimmings," and many other costly and highly colored articles of apparel worn by ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... countenance is the very picture of horror, and he looks like one rather dead than alive. Oh heavens! what a scene did I behold at my first coming into the room! The good creature was lying behind the bolster, supporting at once both his child and his wife. He had nothing on but a thin waistcoat; for his coat was spread over the bed, to supply the want of blankets.—When he rose up at my entrance, I scarce knew him. As comely a man, Mr Jones, within this fortnight, as you ever beheld; Mr Nightingale hath seen ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... a group of five children, the original of which is at Windsor, and a replica at Berlin. The painting is dated 1637, fixing the age of Prince Charles as seven. Having now outgrown the frocks of the earlier pictures, he stands in a graceful boyish attitude, wearing satin knickerbockers and waistcoat, and still retaining the beautiful lace collar on his aristocratic shoulders. His eyes have the same dreamy look as in other portraits. On his right are his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, the former demurely complacent as before, the latter timid and dainty. On the left the little Princess Anne frolics ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... and drank three Dishes of Tea, with a good deal of Sugar, and we both look'd very silly. After Breakfast we drest our selves, he in a blue Camblet Coat, very richly lac'd, and Breeches of the same; with a Paduafoy Waistcoat, laced with Silver; and I, in one of my Mistress's Gowns. I will have finer when I come to Town. We then took a Walk in the Garden, and he kissed me several times, and made me a Present of 100 Guineas, which I gave away before Night to ...
— An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews • Conny Keyber
... From his huge, ornate, gold watch-chain hung three or four bejewelled insignia of secret societies that he was a member of. He wore a flowered waistcoat ... an enormous seal-ring, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... minutes I was up and dressed, and so perfectly transformed by the addition of a brown scratch-wig and large green spectacles, and a deep-flapped waistcoat, that my servant, on re-entering my room, could not recognise me. I followed him now across the barrack-yard, as, with my pistol-case under one arm and a lantern in his hand, he proceeded to ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... get, and that it takes a stout fellow to front a conspiracy of scorn. But I had got new courage from my travels, so I put on my best suit of murrey-coloured cloth, my stockings of cherry silk, the gold buckles which had been my father's, my silk-embroidered waistcoat, freshly-ironed ruffles, and a new hat which had cost forty shillings in London town. I wore my own hair, for I never saw the sense of a wig save for a bald man, but I had it deftly tied. I would have cut a great figure had there ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... railway-making period the navvy wandered about from one public work to another—apparently belonging to no country and having no home. He usually wore a white felt hat with the brim turned up, a velveteen or jean square-tailed coat, a scarlet plush waistcoat with little black spots, and a bright-coloured kerchief round his herculean neck, when, as often happened, it was not left entirely bare. His corduroy breeches were retained in position by a leathern strap round ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... strangely corpulent as to body, considering his face was cast in lean and narrow mould, the nose large, prominent and hooked, the lips full, fleshy, and of cherry—like redness, the eyes small, mean, close together and deep set. The over—corpulent body was attired lavishly. It was dressed in a fancy waistcoat, a morning coat, elegantly striped trousers of lavender hue and small pointed—toed, patent—leather boots, with bright tan uppers. The rich aroma of an expensive cigar hung about the atmosphere of Mr. Slotman's office. This and his clothes, and the ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... shot out, Fenn felt a sharp wrench in the region of his waistcoat, and a moment later the stranger had vanished into the fog with the prefect's ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... Unable to breathe any longer as I walked, I flung myself down under one of the trees in the avenue, and there spent half an hour in such agitation that, on rising up, I found all the front of my waistcoat wet with tears without my having had an idea that I had shed any." Whether it were by natural intuition or the advice of Diderot, Jean Jacques had found his weapons; poor and obscure as he was, he attacked openly the brilliant and corrupt society which had welcomed him for its amusement. Spiritualistic ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to Sir Orlando Bridgman, Lord Keeper) a learned and sober person, was son of a shoe-maker in Hereford: one night as he lay in bed, the moon shining very bright, he saw the phantom of one of the apprentices, sitting in a chair in his red waistcoat, and head-band about his head, and strap upon his knee; which apprentice was really in bed and asleep with another fellow- apprentice, in the same chamber, and saw him. The fellow was living, 1671. Another ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... occasion, precisely at eight o'clock, in a majestic university hall, Kirtley saw this particular grand and popular orator ascend the pulpit. He was in full dress—white waistcoat, white tie, white kids. He was large, shapely, commanding. The women were "at his feet." He stood there solemnly as the clock was striking, and slowly removed his gloves and inserted them under his ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... Berkshire, and invited me down from a Saturday to Monday. Their place was near the river, so I slipped a suit of flannels in my bag, and on the Sunday morning I came down in them. He met me in the garden. He was dressed in a frock coat and a white waistcoat; and I noticed that he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and that he seemed to have a trouble on his mind. The first breakfast bell rang, and then he said, "You haven't got any proper clothes with ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... be flirting? To be unfaithful to me? I assure you, I should like you better without your make-up. Oblige me by giving up all your artificial charms. Do you suppose that it is for two sous' worth of polish on your boots that I love you? For your india-rubber belt, your strait-waistcoat, and your false hair? And then, the older you look, the less need I fear seeing my Hulot ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... wide sombrero was battered, his stock around his neck was dirty, the brass buttons on his robin-redbreast waistcoat were dull and tarnished, his riding breeches and leggings seemed sworn enemies of brush and polish. But despite all this, one could not get away from the fact that everything the man wore was of the very best and most ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... the least extraordinary feature of his appearance. He constantly wore a full-trimmed scarlet waistcoat of most uncommon dimensions, a light grey coat, which altogether gave him an air of singularity and whim as remarkable ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... it would not; and when the paper came which was to decide the question, the anxiety was almost dreadful with which we listened to the whole affair; the opening of the doors, the hush; the royal dukes in their robes, and the great duke in green sash and waistcoat; the rising of all the peeresses when he rose; the reading of his speech—papa saying that his words were like precious gold; and lastly, the majority of one to four (sic) in favour of the Bill. But this ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... which he drew but two inspirations before he threw it away, the young man proceeded quickly up the walk. As he ascended the short flight of steps which led to the main doors, he panted a little, in a way which suggested that (although his white waistcoat outlined an ellipse still respectable) a crescendo of portliness was playing diminuendo with his youth. And, though his walk was brisk, it was not lively. The expression of his very red face indicated that his briskness was spurred by anxiety, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... protectors of the feet, but of the honour of the wearer. Quarrel with a man if you like, let your passion get its steam up even to blood-heat, be magnificent while glancing at your adversary's Brutus, grand as you survey his chin, heroic at the last button of his waistcoat, unappeased at the very knees of his superior kersey continuations, inexorable at the commencement of his straps, and about to become abusive at his shoe-ties, the first cooler of your wrath will be the Hoby-like arched instep of his genuine Wellingtons, which, even as a drop ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... stranger who was occupied in botanizing and in sorting the plants he had just gathered. He was an elderly man with an honest face; but his eyes, which were rather deep-set under his eyebrows, had a somewhat uneasy and timid expression. He was dressed in a brown cloth coat, a gray waistcoat, black breeches, and worsted stockings, and held an ivory-headed cane under his arm. His appearance was that of a small retired tradesman who was living on his means, and rather below ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... throughout the kingdom of Ireland. For what greater proof could this author give of his Christianity, than, for bringing about this Swearing-act, charitably to part with his coat, and sit starving in a very thin waistcoat in his garret, to do the corporal virtues of feeding and clothing the poor, and raising them from the cottage to the palace, by punishing the vices of the rich. What more could have been done ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... December, 1783) as Copley painted him,—he hangs there on my wall, over the revolving bookcase. His ample coat, too, I see, with its broad flaps and many buttons and generous cuffs, and beneath it the long, still more copiously buttoned waistcoat, arching in front of the fine crescentic, almost semi-lunar Falstaffian prominence, involving no less than a dozen of the above-mentioned buttons, and the strong legs with their sturdy calves, fitting columns of support to the massive body and solid, capacious brain enthroned ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... been used in the previous evening's play were still lying on the tables; and the fresh breeze that streamed in through the open doorway freshened the close, warm vinous air. The landlord, Monsieur Lebigre, was serving his customers. He wore a sleeved waistcoat, and his fat regular features, fringed by an untidy beard, were still pale with sleep. Standing in front of the counter, groups of men, with heavy, tired eyes, were drinking, coughing, and spitting, whilst trying to rouse themselves ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... his cotton shirt-sleeves, upon the bosom of it showing between the fronts of his unbuttoned waistcoat. There were stains upon his white ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... assured, that in 1780, foreign gold-gatherers had been engaged in picking up grains of that metal, and had established a place for washing the sand in the Quebrada del Oro. An overseer of a neighbouring plantation had followed these indications; and after his death, a waistcoat with gold buttons being found among his clothes, this gold, according to the logic of the people here, could only have proceeded from a vein, which the falling in of the earth had rendered invisible. In vain I objected, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... elected a member of the lower house of the legislature, and many are the amusing stories told of the canvass. It was in this year that he made sudden onslaught on the demagogue Dick Taylor, and opening with a sudden jerk the artful colonel's waistcoat, displayed a glittering wealth of jewelry hidden temporarily beneath it. There is also the tale of his friend Baker haranguing a crowd in the store beneath Lincoln's office. The audience differed with Baker, and was about to punish him severely for the difference, when Lincoln dangled ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... Afghanistan (and some day we may see him), I would fill thy mouth with gold.' He laid the garments formally at Kim's feet. There was a gold-embroidered Peshawur turban-cap, rising to a cone, and a big turban-cloth ending in a broad fringe of gold. There was a Delhi embroidered waistcoat to slip over a milky white shirt, fastening to the right, ample and flowing; green pyjamas with twisted silk waist-string; and that nothing might be lacking, russia-leather slippers, smelling ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... The Indians are not fools. If the white men want them to profess Christianity, why they will profess Christianity—or Hinduism or Mohammedanism. They will worship any god the white man suggests—for a fancy waistcoat or a piece of salt pork. The white man gives many gifts of clothing, and sometimes of food—to his converts. Therefore, he shall not want for converts—while the clothing ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... was seated on the edge of his bed, writing at a broken table. He received us, however, with a free, open, poor devil air, that was irresistible. It is true he did at first appear slightly confused; buttoned up his waistcoat a little higher and tucked in a stray frill of linen. But he recollected himself in an instant; gave a half swagger, half leer, as he stepped forth to receive us; drew a three-legged stool for Mr. Buckthorne; pointed me to a lumbering old damask chair that looked like a dethroned monarch ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... hymeneal chute, the bridegroom and his best man have emerged from the vestryroom and begun the short march to the prie-dieu. They walk haltingly, clumsily, uncertainly, stealing occasional glances at the advancing bridal party. The bridegroom feels of his lower right-hand waistcoat pocket; the ring is still there. The best man wriggles his cuffs. No one, however, pays any heed to them. They are not even seen, indeed, until the bride and her father reach the open space in front of the altar. There the bride and the bridegroom find themselves standing side by side, but ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... home, and in due course Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good arrived for dinner, the latter arrayed in the tightest and most ornamental dress-suit I ever saw. I remember that the waistcoat was adorned with five ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... moment's reflection] Yes, I agree with you. Funny—are you losing your sense of the romantic? [He looks at PASQUINOT and says, aside] His waistcoat often lacks a button! It's disgusting! [He rises and walks ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand
... impulse. I thought the pen had been a good pen and that it had done enough for me, and so, with the idea of keeping it for a sort of memento on which I could look later with tender eyes, I put it into my waistcoat pocket. Afterwards it used to turn up in all sorts of places—at the bottom of small drawers, among my studs in cardboard boxes—till at last it found permanent rest in a large wooden bowl containing some ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... moderate dimensions, and the quantity of garments which he wore added no little to his apparent bulk. The outer garments exposed to view were, a rough fox-skin cap upon his head, from under which appeared the edge of a red worsted nightcap; a red plush waistcoat, with large metal buttons; a jacket of green cloth, over which he wore another of larger dimensions of coarse blue cloth, which came down as low as what would be called a spencer. Below he had black plush breeches, light-blue worsted stockings, shoes, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... because of his natural imperiousness and fierce and uncontroulable temper: these say, that the young gentleman's passion was abated on seeing his blood gush plentifully down his arm; and that he received the generous offices of his adversary (who helped him off with his coat and waistcoat, and bound up his arm, till the surgeon could come,) with such patience, as was far from making a visit afterwards from that adversary, to inquire after his health, appear ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... the pink shirt, in the appearance of the young man there was nothing unusual. He was of a familiar type. He looked like a young business man from our Middle West, matter-of-fact and unimaginative, but capable and self-reliant. If he had had a fountain pen in his upper waistcoat pocket, I would have guessed he was an insurance agent, or the publicity man for a new automobile. John picked up his hat, and said, "That's good advice. Give me your steamer ticket, Fred, and I'll ...
— The Deserter • Richard Harding Davis
... not, indeed, until three o'clock that he saw Nicholson coming along. He was more gaily dressed than he had been on the previous day. He had on a green cloth coat with gold braid round the cuffs, an embroidered waistcoat, yellow breeches, top boots, and three-cornered hat. He ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... has also described one of these Pennsylvania schools with its prim teachers and commendable mingling of the practical and the artistic. "The first was merely a sewing school, little children and a pretty single spinster about 30, her white skirt, white short tight waistcoat, nice handkerchief pinned outside, a muslin apron and a close cap, of the most singular form you can imagine. I can't describe it. The hair is all put out of sight, turned back, and no border to the cap, very unbecoming and very singular, tied under the chin ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... that Judy Hatch visited the sick more zealously than she—and yet he was very far, indeed, from falling in love with Judy Hatch! The contradiction between man and his ideal of himself was embodied before her under a clerical waistcoat. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... hear about the St. Leger? I need only say that my own Surefoot has brought me Alloway Heaume. Whilst in Russia I heard about plenty of Serfs, but they were not saints. Anybody who proposes to wear a Blue-green waistcoat on the Queen's Birthday ought to eat Sainfoin for the rest of his life, and be taken Right Away. Finally, if The Field is to Memoir as a window-sash is to a Duchess's flounces, what chance has a crack-brained Bedlamite of munching potatoes in St. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 6, 1890 • Various
... Ladies, a second piece of advice: do not marry; marriage is a graft; it takes well or ill; avoid that risk. But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words. Girls are incurable on the subject of marriage, and all that we wise men can say will not prevent the waistcoat-makers and the shoe-stitchers from dreaming of husbands studded with diamonds. Well, so be it; but, my beauties, remember this, you eat too much sugar. You have but one fault, O woman, and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling sex, your pretty little ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... throw the scarf in," the genial salesman would concede cheerily. "And the waistcoat? One-and-three—a good waistcoat, as clean as new, and dirt cheap, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... fumbling in his waistcoat pocket; "you can get me some pens and blotting paper at the stationer's. I will write down the kind I want, and here is the money. Keep the change, and buy anything you like ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... dandified little man, drew forth from the pocket of his waistcoat a small gold snuff box and delicately took a pinch of snuff, a habit to which the ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... costume, but travelled in their everyday dress. The field-cornet himself was habited after the manner of most boers, in wide leathern trousers, termed in that country "crackers;" a large roomy jacket of green cloth, with ample outside pockets; a fawn-skin waistcoat; a huge white felt hat, with the broadest of brims; and upon his feet a pair of brogans of African unstained leather, known among the boers as "feldt-schoenen" (country shoes). Over his saddle lay a "kaross," or robe of leopard-skins, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... were the objects, even before the action began, of universal approbation. Whatever may have been the real or supposed reluctance of the former to engage in the cause, it vanished as he came into action. There he stood, having stripped off his clothes to his waistcoat, encouraging the men, giving them money to induce them to cast up the trenches, and animating them to a vigorous defence. His brother addressed the soldiers also, and displayed all the ardour of his fearless ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... second story for his mother and for Rebecca. He was in distress for something that he had left there, and did not find again. A key was mislaid, Betsey accused of having got at his new hat, and some slight, but essential alteration of his uniform waistcoat, which he had been promised to have ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... a wallet containing L20 in Treasury notes and a number of cards and personal papers had fallen out of the crate together with the cat statuette. The face of his watch was broken. It had been in his waistcoat pocket but it still ticked steadily on where it lay there beside its dead owner. A gold-mounted malacca cane also figured amongst the relics of the gruesome crime; so that whatever had been the object of the murderer, that of robbery was ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... not come—his only pair of shoes was at the cobbler's. And down to the last he was always perfectly careless as to dress. I can see him now, walking down into Woodbridge, with an old Inverness cape, double-breasted, flowered satin waistcoat, slippers on feet, and a handkerchief, very likely, tied over his hat. Yet one always recognised in him the Hidalgo. Never was there a more perfect gentleman. His courtesy came out even in his rebukes. A lady one day was sitting in a Woodbridge shop, gossiping to a friend ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... The green velvet trousers and rings worn outside white kid gloves, which had helped to make his fame in "the days of the dandies," had long since been discarded. He dressed, like other men of his age and class, in a black frock-coat worn open, a waistcoat cut rather deep, light-coloured trousers, and a black cravat tied in a loose bow—and those spring-sided boots of soft material which used to be called "Jemimas." I may remark, in passing, that these details ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... then save its size and the wealth of its appointments. The young ladies set me down, bidding one to take off my boots, and sending another for hot water. They asked me where I was hurt. Then they took off my blouse and waistcoat. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... Peter took it kindly, but it's proper to explain He was sent to catch a pirate out upon the Spanish Main; And he played, with variations, an imaginary tune On the buttons of his waistcoat, like a ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... his pretended partiality for coffee. It is true that at an early period of his life he began to take snuff, but it was very sparingly, and always out of a box; and if he bore any resemblance to Frederick the Great, it was not by filling his waistcoat-pockets with snuff, for I must again observe he carried his notions of personal neatness to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of his ribs and waistcoat-buttons? If so, he may venture to look upon an Esquimaux woman walking,—which I take to be the most ludicrous spectacle in the world. Conceive of this short, squat, chunky, lumpish figure in the costume described,—grease ad libitum being added. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... of the sacks in the pocket of which are papers. Let it be put in with its contents just as it is. I wish to have the long white chest and the two deal boxes also brought down. Buy me a thick under-waistcoat like that I am now wearing, and a lighter one for the summer. Worsted socks are of no use—they scarcely last a day. Cotton ones are poor things, but they are better than worsted. Kind regards to ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... battle. Two sandbags were tucked in front of the belt; one Mills bomb was in each of the bottom pockets of the tunic; 50 extra rounds of ammunition were slung in a bandolier over the right shoulder. In his haversack each man carried one iron ration, cardigan waistcoat, soft cap, and pair of socks; the waterproof sheet was folded and strapped on outside, and the mess-tin fastened to the lowest buckle of the haversack. Every other man carried a pick or shovel slung; and the Brigade, with a more intimate solicitude, ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... by way of denouncing himself, Mr. Amidon clapped his waistcoat shut and buttoned it, snapped the catches of the bags, and pretended to busy himself with the letters in his pockets; and in doing so, he found in an inside vest-pocket a long thin pocket-book filled ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... him queerly in the face, "you let me off easily, and I dare say I owe my life to you, or at any rate a whole waistcoat, and I admire your forbearance and spirit. What a pity that a courage like yours should be wasted as a mere court usher! You are a loss to his Majesty's army. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a bullfighter's suit from Don Enrique; and very gay and wonderful he looked in it, though Bumpo and I had hard work getting the waistcoat to close in front and even then the buttons kept bursting off ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... continue to please in the closet. During the representation of this piece, Johnson attended every night behind the scenes. Conceiving that his character, as an author, required some ornament for his person, he chose, upon that occasion, to decorate himself with a handsome waistcoat, and a gold-laced hat. The late Mr. Topham Beauclerc, who had a great deal of that humour, which pleases the more for seeming undesigned, used to give a pleasant description of this green-room finery, as related by the author himself; "But," said Johnson, with great gravity, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... unpowdered in a bag: supported by Forster, the great Presbyterian, and by Mr. Home a young clergyman, his friend. Lord Balmerino followed], alone, in a blue coat turned up with red, his rebellious regimentals, a flannel waistcoat, and his shroud beneath; their hearses following They were conducted to a house near the scaffold; the room forwards had benches for spectators; in the second Lord Kilmarnock was put, and in the third ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... pretty Palais Royal gold-rimmed sweetmeat box, and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. It was only a child's gift, a tiny Paris toy; but it had been brought to him in a tender compassion, and he did keep it; kept it through dark days and wild nights, through the scorch of the desert and ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... testimony as to the appearance of Disraeli in his manhood may not here be amiss. Says N.P. Willis: "He was sitting in a window looking on Hyde Park, the last rays of sunlight reflected from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered waistcoat. Patent-leather pumps, a white stick with a black cord and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck and pockets, served to make him a conspicuous object. He has one of the most remarkable faces I ever saw. He is lividly pale, and but for the energy of his action and strength of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... arms sculptured on the slab, or an inlaid circle of slate. On one slate gravestone, of the Rev. Nathl. Rogers, there was a portrait of that worthy, about a third of the size of life, carved in relief, with his cloak, band, and wig, in excellent preservation, all the buttons of his waistcoat being cut with great minuteness,—the minister's nose being on a level with his cheeks. It was an upright gravestone. Returning home, I held a colloquy with a young girl about the right road. She had ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Fate," he decided. "Here are two beans." Burton folded them up in a piece of paper and placed them carefully in his waistcoat pocket. ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in his waistcoat pockets, the critic hunted into one corner a solitary half-crown, and having caught it between his finger and thumb, he gave it to Mrs. Lobkins and ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... do without one, and so he took his; but in spite of this, he determined that, sooner than submit to such an indignity, he would sit up all night. Accordingly, when all the rest were fast asleep, Melchior, with his boots off and his waistcoat easily unbuttoned, sat over the fire in the long lumber-room, which served that night as 'barracks'. He had refused to eat any supper down-stairs to mark his displeasure, and now repaid himself by a stolen meal ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... felt to his feet as though they were made of wood or iron—oily and heavy. He then drew on the shapeless, baggy trousers with their telltale stripes, and over his arms and chest the loose-cut shapeless coat and waistcoat. He felt and knew of course that he looked very strange, wretched. And as he stepped out into the overseer's room again he experienced a peculiar sense of depression, a gone feeling which before this had not assailed ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... may wear a complete suit of gray with a white duck waistcoat and light linen to the afternoon dance, completing his costume with black patent leather shoes or oxford ties, light gray gloves, and straw hat with black and white band. But whether it be for summer or winter, the dark ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... patrons were now unloosed, and they all acceded unhesitatingly to the terms which I had proposed. An elderly Englishman, with a very white waistcoat, and a very large watch-chain, came up to me, and, patting my shoulder, said, "Why, my son, you have done better than you promised; you have given us the newspapers in much less than thirty-six hours after ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... seen the name of the wonderful English actress on the bill-boards in front of Abbey's Theatre, and he had been told that Miss Terrell was English, and confused the two names. As he passed Van Bibber he drew his waistcoat into shape with a proud shrug of his shoulders, and said, anxiously, "I gave your friend a good introduction, ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... weight of the grip it wasn't mine," said Dexter, "and I was the most surprised guy in Great Britain and Ireland when I found whose it was! I opened it, of course! And right on top was a waistcoat and right in the first pocket was a ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... short, fat man wearing a huge diamond ring and an excessively dirty white waistcoat. This was the Minister for Dredges and Artesian Bores, a gentleman who hoped to receive a C.M.G. ship for his clamorous persistency in advocating the claim of the colony to "'ave a Royel dook ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... got the effect. He wore a yellow shirt, collar, tie, and waistcoat in order that the photographic result should be the purest white. The yellow linen was the completing horror under the spoiled mustard color of his face with its mouth the color of ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... blow hard?" inquired the traveller, planting himself firmly on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, and his thumbs hooked into the armholes of his waistcoat. ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the fifteenth century men's dress was still very short. It consisted of a kind of tight waistcoat, fastened by tags, and of very close-fitting breeches, which displayed the outlines of the figure. In order to appear wide at the shoulders artificial pads were worn, called mahoitres. The hair was allowed to fall on the forehead in locks, which covered the eyebrows and eyes. The sleeves were ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... could trust Their own protectors; nor was their surprise Less than their grief (and truly not less just) To see an old man, rather wild than wise In aspect, plainly clad, besmeared with dust, Stripped to his waistcoat, and that not too clean, More feared than all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... and a whip in her hand. After her came, limping, an old man, with a worsted nightcap buttoned under his chin, and a broad-brimmed hat slouched over it, an old rusty blue cloak tied about his neck, under which appeared a brown surtout, that covered a threadbare coat and waistcoat, and, as he afterwards discerned, a dirty flannel jacket. His eyes were hollow, bleared, and gummy; his face was shrivelled into a thousand wrinkles, his gums were destitute of teeth, his nose sharp and drooping, his chin peaked and prominent, so that, when he mumped or spoke, they approached ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... it was a comfort that the presence of a comparative stranger deprived us of the dreary duty of suggesting to each other, in respect of his errand, edifying possibilities in which we didn't ourselves believe. At ten o'clock he came into the drawing-room with his waistcoat much awry but his eyes sending out great signals. It was precisely with his entrance that I ceased to be vividly conscious of him. I saw that the crystal, as I had called it, had begun to swing, and I had need of my ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... feet tall, or thereabouts, and more than half as wide. His hair and beard were grayish red and his face reddish brown. He was dressed in the regulation "shore togs" of a deep sea sailor, blue double-breasted jacket, blue trousers and waistcoat, white "biled" shirt, low collar—celluloid, by the look—and a "made" bow tie which hung from the button by a worn loop of elastic. His hands were as red as his face and of a size proportionate to the rest of him. He seized the captain's ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... or stray, belonging to a gipsy deported that morning by the police, and on whom its master's sins had been visited. So without scruple he carried the basket home to his lodgings, and on the way, had the misfortune to encounter his uncle, while shirtfront, coat, and waistcoat were fresh from the muddy and bloody fray, and his visage in the height ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the ideal servant in his dark-blue suit, high collar, and stiff white waistcoat. A wave of revulsion passed over Mostyn. He was thinking of the crude dining-room in the mountains; Drake, without his coat, his hair unkempt; Mrs. Drake in her soiled print dress and fire-flushed face, nervously waving the peacock ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... spinning up along the shining Mohawk, and still his eyelids would not close. In his waistcoat-pocket lay a bulky letter, the last of many in the same superscription—a prim, unformed, school-girlish hand—that had come to him during the last two years of his cadet life. Its predecessors, carefully wrapped and tied, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... of the story, Mr. Bingle," said Sigsbee, settling back in his chair and linking his plump hands benevolently across his expansive and somewhat overhanging waistcoat. "That is the best part ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... he meets her eye. He may permit himself the indulgence of submission. He may even, without disgrace, suffer his hand to tremble when it touches hers; but if one of her farmers were to show himself susceptible and sentimental, he would merely prove his need of a strait waistcoat. So far I have always done very well. She has sat near me, and I have not shaken—more than my desk. I have encountered her looks and smiles like—why, like a tutor, as I am. Her hand I never yet touched—never underwent that test. Her farmer or her footman ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... another dissentient southerner. He was an enormously fat man, the new disputant, and wore a mass of very greasy hair, hanging down over his shoulders. His flannel shirt, an exceedingly dingy specimen of British manufacture, did duty for a waistcoat also; but he was decore, though it was very doubtful to what order the medal on his breast ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... Rudolf drew his shirt over his head and tucked it into his trousers. "Give me the jacket and waistcoat," he said. "I feel ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... below his master's window, with his coat off, and his hands in his waistcoat-pockets, meant this as a happy and delicate allusion to things and times ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... the locomotive faculty in a man in a strait waistcoat. Neither St. Augustine nor Calvin denied the remanence of the will in the fallen spirit; but they, and Luther as well as they, objected to the flattering epithet 'free' will. In the only Scriptural sense, as concerning ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... have thoughts about my yesterday's antagonist. Would I encounter him? Not likely. The butt of my whip had no doubt given him a headache that would confine him for some days to his quarters. But I was prepared for any event. Under my waistcoat were his own double-barrelled pistols, which I intended to use, if attacked. It was my first essay at carrying "concealed weapons," but it was the fashion of the country at the time—a fashion followed by nineteen out of every twenty persons ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... bodies and patting some special favourite, to keep it quiet while the curraghs were being launched. Then the screaming began again while the pigs were carried out and laid in their places, with a waistcoat tied round their feet to keep them from damaging the canvas. They seemed to know where they were going, and looked up at me over the gunnel with an ignoble desperation that made me shudder to think that ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... man's prospects in life in the Montana affair—just as he had closed avenues of credit. Mayo bumped against him and crowded him back across the sidewalk to the hotel's granite wall. He put his two raw, swollen hands on Fogg's immaculate waistcoat and shoved salt-stained, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... several moments to be unaware of it. Felicia was paler than ever. She seemed to be struggling, as she sat there, to conceal her fear and aversion for the man who leaned toward her, talking in rapid French, with many gesticulations. He was badly dressed in a travelling suit of French cut, with a waistcoat buttoned almost to the chin. A floppy black tie hung down over the lapels of his coat. His black moustache, which seemed to have suffered from the crossing, was drooping, and gave to his mouth a particularly sinister ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... first Sunday in the chapel, there came an exhorter or revivalist, accustomed to dealing with prisoners from the platform, and dubbed "The Old War-horse of Salvation," or some such title. He had his white waistcoat, his raucous, shouting voice, his phrases, his anecdotes, his "my men," "my friends," "fellows"; his "I'm saved, I hope, and you can be!" Oh, the phariseeism of that "I hope!" At the end of his uproar, he called upon those of his hearers (we had all sat quite silent ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... the above, there was an Italian patriot, whose devotion to the 'Kingmaker' displayed itself in a somewhat eccentric fashion. With much mystery, he showed me a portrait of Garibaldi, secreted in a watchkey seal, while his waistcoat buttons and shirt studs contained heads of those generals who served in the campaign of the Two Sicilies. It was rather a novel kind of hero-worship, though, I fear, likely to be little appreciated by him who inspired ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... glowing particle in the genial and brilliant mass, and tends to keep alive the general fire, from which he derives and to which returns at once light and geniality. It is admitted that he who has discovered the grand arcanum, and has the philosopher's stone in his waistcoat-pocket, is, so to speak, ex officio, a magician. But M. Le Prun had no need of any such discoveries. He had the gold itself, and was, therefore, a ready-made magician, and as such was worshipped accordingly with ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... ready-made clothing which, shrinking sensitively on each successive application of the tailor's sizzling goose, had come to disclose his person with disconcerting candour—sleeves too short, trousers at once too short and too narrow, waistcoat buttons straining over his chest, coat buttons refusing to recognise a buttonhole save that at the waist. Circumstances these that added measurably to his apparent age, lending him the semblance of maturity attained while still ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... Embassy. My coat's limp sleeves are signalling me To dress anon. My waistcoat yawns. My shirt obtuse Seems raising high its wristbands ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... Simon's appearance was little in his favour: not that his small dimensions signified—Caesar, and Buonaparte, and Wellington, and Nelson, all were little men—not that his dress was other than respectable—black coat and waistcoat, white stiff cravat, gray trowsers somewhat shrunk in longitude, good serviceable shoe-leather (of the shape, if not also of the size, of river barges), and plenty of unbleached cotton stocking about the gnarled region of his ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... and the Bow-Street officer benignly patted a pair of curly heads as he passed them, drew a chair to the table, and wiping his forehead, sat down, quite at home. Bill then deliberately seated himself, and unbuttoning his waistcoat, permitted the butt-ends of a brace of pistols to be seen by his guests. Mr. R——'s companion seemed very unmoved by this significant action. He bent one inquiring, steady look on the cracksman, which, as Bill afterwards said, went through him "like a gimlet through a penny," and taking out ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to this gaudy fly like a huge, two-hundred-pound salmon; his white waistcoat gave out a mild silver reflection as he slowly came to the surface and gorged the hook. He made not even a plunge, not one perceptible effort to tear out the barbed weapon, but, floating gently to her feet, allowed himself to be landed as though it were a pleasure. Only miserable ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... out, Fenn felt a sharp wrench in the region of his waistcoat, and a moment later the stranger had vanished into the fog with the ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... young man," said Captain Bluenose, nodding his head approvingly, and filling his pipe from a supply of tobacco he always carried in the right pocket of his capacious blue waistcoat. The Captain gazed with a look of grave solemnity in the manly countenance of the young sailor, for whom he entertained feelings of unbounded admiration. He had dandled Bax on his knee when he was a baby, had taught him to make boats and to swim and row when he became ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... wedding day, we may suppose that honest John Hull dressed himself in a plum-colored coat, all the buttons of which were made of pine-tree shillings. The buttons of his waistcoat were sixpences; and the knees of his small-clothes were buttoned with silver threepences. Thus attired, he sat with great dignity in Grandfather's chair; and, being a portly old gentleman, he completely filled it from elbow to elbow. On the opposite ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... say something, to speak a few words of thanks for their help; but she stopped at the sight of the two people standing on opposite sides of the little bed. The man with his coat off, his white waistcoat and shirt gleaming in the light, the woman opposite him clothed in her decolette' gown, with jewels glistening in her hair and on her neck. But she did not notice the dress, when she saw the light in the woman's eyes as they rested on the man. ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... directly to their aid, in an infinitesimal proportion it is true, but Cyrus Harding, with all his intelligence, all his ingenuity, would never have been able to produce that which, by the greatest chance, Herbert one day found in the lining of his waistcoat, which he was ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... aspect. He had an immense head set on a neck so short and thick that it seemed as if he must infallibly choke at every morsel he swallowed, and a belly capacious enough to have held a firkin of liquor. He had made himself easy by unbuttoning his waistcoat and the upper part of his breeches, and lolled back in his seat as if he had no mind to stir for the rest of the morning. One of his eyes was closed up, and had a French plaister across it, but the other stared ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... blissful day when he was called back to join the engineering staff in work covering design. Laying aside his overalls, he emerged as a crisp young engineer in a linen collar and nifty cravat—although not till later did he don a cream-colored waistcoat—and thereafter his hours were seven instead of nine. With a desk and a stenographer he entered upon work of a somewhat statistical character. He followed the designs of rival companies as best he could through their advertising and articles covering their respective ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... fifta dolla—no!" answered her betrothed. "I keep in de pock'!" He showed her where the bills were pinned into his corduroy waistcoat pocket. "See! Eesa yau! Onna my heart, ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... inside the theater, in the office, is a man in a circus waistcoat adding up dollars with a blue pencil, and he knows that the play ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... which he ate hastily and without much appetite. After finishing the meal, he hunted up Welton. He found the lumberman tilted back in a wooden armchair, his feet comfortably elevated to the low rail about the stove, his pipe in mouth, his coat off, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. At the sight of his homely, jolly countenance, Bob experienced a pleasant sensation of slipping back from an environment slightly off-focus to the normal, accustomed and real. Nevertheless, ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... Then I walked off to a seat at the end of the platform to do a little thinking, but before I had really got settled I saw Fred walking towards me with his head somewhere near the second button of his waistcoat. I shouted to him, and after we had sat on the bench for quite a minute without speaking we both began to laugh at the same time, until a porter and a ticket-collector came to see what was happening. The porter was a burly man with a cheerful countenance, and he seemed so pleased ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... once—it was at least two sizes too large for him, such being the accepted fashion at Brimfield just then; had the pockets set at rakish angles, exhibited a two-and-a-half-inch cuff at the bottom of the trousers and contained a cunning receptacle for a fountain pen and pencil in the waistcoat, (Clint called it a vest, but the tailor set him right.) Amy viewed that suit with frank envy, for the coat was fully two inches wider across the shoulders than his and the trouser cuffs were deeper. He tried it ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the green and fretted gravestone, dimly aware that his heart was beating with an unusual effort. He felt ill and weak. He leant his hand on the stone and lifted himself on to the low wooden seat nearby. He drew off his glove and thrust his bare hand under his waistcoat, with his mouth a little ajar, and his eyes fixed on the dark square turret, its bell sharply defined ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... He began to undress at once. He had taken off his coat and waistcoat, and was turning towards a looking-glass to undo his tie, when his father came up to him; with an abrupt movement M. Etienne Rambert put both his hands on his son's shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. Then in a stifled but ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... keeps his word by coming down dressed like the proverbial methodist Mawworm. An enormous white tie, doubled. His hair combed sadly straight. A high black waistcoat, his trousers shortened, white ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... to him, the slower he walked, and the more chop-fallen did he appear. Indeed, Sir James looked such a grand old gentleman, as he stood there like a statue, in his laced waistcoat and silk stockings, with his powdered hair falling over his fine velvet coat, and his hand resting upon his silver-hilted sword, that poor Chips felt as bashful as if he were going before the ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and George's waistcoat was red, and he had made himself smart enough, but he did not linger amongst his fellow- servants at the Cross. He hurried through the crowd, nodding sheepishly in answer to a shower of chaff and greetings, and made his way to the by-street where the Cheap Jack ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of Ponsard, applauded Deburau and Rouviere, and seen the rise and fall of Courbet and Dupont. If he was not of the giants he was of their immediate successors, and he had seen them actually at work. He had hacked for Balzac, and read romantic prose at Victor Hugo's; he had lived so near the red waistcoat of Theophile Gautier as to dare to go up and down in Paris (under the inspiration of the artist of la Femme qui taille la Soupe) in 'un habit en bouracan vert avec col a la Marat, un gilet de couleur bachique, et une culotte en drap d'un jaune assez malseant,' together with ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... hurrah! sounded, and then Faiz Talab found himself alone on his side of the wall. That was all very well, but it was not of much avail to have escaped so far, to end his days with eighteen inches of a British bayonet through his best embroidered waistcoat. If it had been any Indian regiment, or, better still, his own regiment, the Guides, he could at once have secured safety by declaring who he was. But with British soldiers, none of whom would probably understand a word he said, and all heated ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... transformed, and, with their gay handkerchiefs hanging from the button-holes of their coats, capered about with the lasses so that it was a pleasure to look at them. One of them, who evidently thought a deal of himself, fumbled in his waistcoat-pocket for a long while, that the others might see him, and finally brought out a little silver coin, which he tried to put into my hand. It irritated me, although I had not a stiver in my pocket. I told him to keep his pennies, I was playing only for joy, because I was ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... the bargain concluded, when two or three of the company began to envy me the possession of the horse, and forcing their way into the bar, with much noise and clamour, said that the horse had been sold too cheap. One fellow in particular, with a red waistcoat, the son of a wealthy farmer, said that if he had but known that the horse had been so good a one, he would have bought it at the first price asked for it, which he was now willing to pay, that is, to-morrow, supposing—'Supposing your ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... fashion"—they sparkle for a week, retire to their silver paper, make way for the new comers, and, years after, like the Sleeping Beauty, rush to life in all their pristine splendour, and find (save in the treble-gilt aodication and their own accession) the coat, the immortal coat, unchanged! The waistcoat is of a material known only to themselves—a sort of nightmare illusion of velvet, covered with a slight tracery of refined mortar, curiously picked out and guarded with a nondescript collection of the very greenest green pellets of hyson-bloom gunpowder tea. The buttons (things of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... Fritz. A little of the Bedlam cold kept me nice and quiet. The bed that night if you like—but Heaven defend me from the blankets and the sheets and the pillows till I'm able to bear them! And as to putting on coat, waistcoat, and breeches, all together, the next morning—it was as much as I could do, when I saw myself in my breeches, to give the word of command in the voice of a gentleman—'Away with the rest of them! The shirt for to-morrow, ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... what the few rags on her back will be worth when she is "shoved into Potters' Field." At the sign of the "Three Martyrs" Mr. Levy is seen, in his fashionable coat, and a massive chain falling over his tight waistcoat, registering the names of his grotesque customers, ticketing their little packages, and advancing each a shilling or two, which they will soon spend at the opposite druggery. Thus bravely wages the war. London has nothing so besotted, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... a silver whistle from his waistcoat pocket, put it to his lips and sounded a call. In a moment Smain same running lightly over the sand. Count Anteoni said something to him in Arabic. He disappeared, and speedily returned with a pair of field-glasses. While he was ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... examples, see pieces 1 and 2 in the specimens of Esperanto, pp. 167-8 [Part IV, Chapter II], and read the Note at the beginning of Part IV. As the Esperanto dictionary only consists of a few pages, it can be easily carried in the pocket-book or waistcoat pocket. ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... in one of them, there're as gaudy as a salmon-fly," said Drysdale, feeling the stuff which the obsequious Schloss held out. "But it seems nice stuff, too," he went on; "I shouldn't mind having a couple of waistcoats of it of this pattern;" and he chucked across to Schloss a dark tartan waistcoat which was lying near him. "Have you got the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... he cried. 'I understand that a stable-boy sleeps there alone every night. Perhaps that is his supper which you are carrying to him. Now I am sure that you would not be too proud to earn the price of a new dress, would you?' He took a piece of white paper folded up out of his waistcoat pocket. 'See that the boy has this to-night, and you shall have the prettiest frock that money ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... strolled on, and when he returned he seated himself in the shade near the house. The letter of Captain Vince was taken from his coat-lining and secured in one of his breeches pockets; his heavy coat and waistcoat lay upon the ground beside him, with the cocked hat placed upon them. As he leaned back against the tree and inhaled the fragrant breeze which came to him from the forest, Dickory was a more cheerful young man ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... was Philip Meryon. His dark tweed suit and fur waistcoat disclosed a figure once singularly agile and slender, on which self-indulgence was now beginning to tell. Nevertheless, as the bonne passed him she duly noted and admired his pictorial good looks, opining at the same time that he was not French. Why was he ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... least extraordinary feature of his appearance. He constantly wore a full-trimmed scarlet waistcoat of most uncommon dimensions, a light grey coat, which altogether gave him an air of singularity and whim as remarkable ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... initiate us in the art of drinking, recounting the feats of his youth, and his drinking-bouts with my father, adding, with a smile, "But you'll never be a par with, your Uncle, Ned, till you can carry the six bottles under your waistcoat." ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... falling on the stone, like drops of water, had spread into fair, round rosettes, the tutor had starved into a slight cough. Then he began to draw the buckle of his black pantaloons a little tighter, and took in another reef in his never-ample waistcoat. His temples got a little hollow, and the contrasts of color in his cheeks more vivid than of old. After a while his walks fatigued him, and he was tired and breathed hard after going up a flight or two of stairs. Then came ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... a sudden shivering of the floor and a creaking of woodwork proclaimed the fact that the vessel was under way again, and his cousin, turning pea-green, rolled over on his side with a hollow moan. Sam finished buttoning his waistcoat ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... adjust themselves to their enforced companionship, and it wasn't such a very hard matter, though it cost him some painful wrenches and much twisting of the fingers, for Mr. Trimm to get his coat unbuttoned and his eyeglasses in their small leather case out of his upper waistcoat pocket. With the glasses on his nose he subjected his bonds to a critical examination. Each rounded steel band ran unbroken except for the smooth, almost jointless hinge and the small lock which sat perched on the back of the wrist in a little rounded excrescence like a steel wart. In the flat ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... the kind rode out on horseback he often took Tom along with him, and if a shower came on he used to creep into his majesty's waistcoat pocket, where he slept till the ...
— The History of Tom Thumb, and Others • Anonymous
... arrival, was of a severe satirist, who concealed scalpels in his sleeves and carried probes in his waistcoat pockets; a wearer of masks; a scoffer and sneerer, and general infidel of all high aims and noble character. Certainly we are justified in saying that his presence among us quite corrected this idea. We welcomed a friendly, genial man; not at all convinced that speech is ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... old doctor left me the buttons for his full dress waistcoat and his favorite copy of Gray's Anatomy. I couldn't exactly set up housekeeping with my share of the estate, but when the lawyer read that part of the will aloud and a grin went around the room I flounced out ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... quantity of garments which he wore added no little to his apparent bulk. The outer garments exposed to view were, a rough fox-skin cap upon his head, from under which appeared the edge of a red worsted nightcap; a red plush waistcoat, with large metal buttons; a jacket of green cloth, over which he wore another of larger dimensions of coarse blue cloth, which came down as low as what would be called a spencer. Below he had black plush breeches, light-blue worsted stockings, shoes, and ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... they here ranged themselves in a line along the ribbon, and criticised the several dancers. Some of these spectators seemed most egregious fops. One of them, with the exception of his linen, was dressed completely in purple silk or satin, and another in a rose-coloured silk coat, with white satin waistcoat and small clothes, and white silk stockings. The greater part of the ladies were dressed in fancy habits from the antique. Some were sphinxes, some vestals, some Dians, half a dozen Minervas, and a score of Junos and Cleopatras. ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... way of performing most of his toilet outside his tent, and while Joseph made his discouraging report he was engaged in buttoning his waistcoat. He nodded gravely, but his manner was not that of a man who fully realised his position of imminent danger. Some men are like this—they die ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... very odd: and exhibits the patient in by no means an elegant or dignified attitude. For this bath it is not necessary to undress, the coat only being taken off, and the shirt gathered under the waistcoat, which is buttoned upon it; and when seated in the water, which rises to the waist, a blanket is drawn round and over the shoulders. Having remained ten minutes in this condition, we dried and rubbed ourselves with coarse towels, and after tea minutes' walk, proceeded to supper ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... him a clean-shaven, white-haired man, meticulously dressed in black—black swallowtail coat, open waistcoat, and frilled shirt-front, on which his laundress must have spent hours of labour; closely fitting black knee-breeches, black silk stockings, black polished shoes. They silhouetted, too, in the moment before ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... engaged in conversation with Zabulon, a man of about forty, of short stature, somewhat round shouldered with spectacles. He wore a high silk hat, a loose coat and a large golden chain across his waistcoat. In a somewhat sing-song voice he was speaking of the greatness of Buenos Aires, of the future that awaited those of his race in that city, of the good business he had done. The affectionate attention with which the old man and his son listened ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... it straight out that the monarch knew he had only contributed the coat and waistcoat, and did not know exactly how he was to lay his hands on the 250 pounds. What with piracy—for we have been told of at least one case in which Alcinous had looted a town and stolen his housemaid Eurymedusa—what with insufficient changes of linen, toping like an ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... Kangaroo Bank, a florid man, wearing a white waistcoat, came out through the glass doors with a digger who ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... pantaloon, to the knee, which leaves the lower leg bare, is confined at the waist by a girdle or sash of colored cotton or silk. Then there is worn a cotton shirt, with a short, loose vest, or waistcoat, as they were formerly known, covering the same; the latter often ornamented with rows of silver ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... with dangerous coldness, and gave a smile as thin as the edge of a knife. Then he removed a spark of cigar-ash from the sleeve of his coat; he fixed his eyes for a while on the cornice of the room, and at last he inserted one of his white hands into the breast of his waistcoat. "I must apologize to you for the deplorable levity of my brother," he said, "and I must notify you that this is probably not the last time that his want of tact will cause ...
— The American • Henry James
... the wilds, now that you have won Cinderella and Eldorado, as I predicted, I wish you a divine unrest. It is the best I Can hope for you. Eldorado and domesticity mean the fishy eye, the heavy jowl, and the expanded waistcoat; and remember that although the red gods may be silent so long that you will forget them, yet there will come a day when they will call and you will hear nothing else. Then, as you would keep your happiness, get up and follow—follow 'to the camp of ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... place I have desired long to see: have you not good tippling houses there? May not a man have a lusty fire there, a good pot of ale, a pair of cards, a swinging piece of chalk, and a brown toast that will clap a white waistcoat on a cup of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... lolling in it like a little king, and he not only ordered roast-beef for the awe-struck Shovel, but sent the lady back for salt. Then he whispered, exultantly: "Quick, Shovel, feel my pocket" (it bulged with two oranges), "now the inside pocket" (plum-duff), "now my waistcoat pocket" (threepence); "look in ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... true, for Mr Webster had "got himself up" that morning with elaborate care. His morning coat still smelt of the brown paper in which it had come home. His waistcoat was immaculately white. His pearl-grey trousers were palpably new. His lavender kid-gloves were painfully clean. His patent-leather boots were glitteringly black, and his tout ensemble such as to suggest the ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... to another attempt to kiss her. She evaded it by diving her head into his waistcoat, and saying, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... hair fell upon the collar of a round jacket with square pockets, which reached to the hips only, a garment peculiar to the peasantry of western France. Beneath this jacket, which was worn open, a waistcoat of the same linen with large buttons was visible. Some of the company marched in wooden shoes; others, by way of economy, carried them in their hand. This costume, soiled by long usage, blackened with sweat and dust, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... broad-brimmed hat, usually of a black or dark brown color, with a gilt or figured band round the crown, and lined under the rim with silk; a short jacket of silk, or figured calico (the European skirted body-coat is never worn); the shirt open in the neck; rich waistcoat, if any; pantaloons open at the sides below the knee, laced with gilt, usually of velveteen or broadcloth; or else short breeches and white stockings. They wear the deer-skin shoe, which is of a dark brown color, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... have done it at Windsor, or at the ball,' said Melmotte, pulling down his waistcoat. 'By George, Alfred! I'm in earnest, and somebody had better look to it. If I'm not presented to his Imperial Majesty to-night, by G——, there shall be no dinner in Grosvenor Square on Monday. I'm master enough of my own house, I suppose, to be able ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... to speak, as their jargon was unintelligible to all but themselves. Not the least insult was offer'd to any person, save one Captain Conner, a letter of horses in this place, not many years since remov'd from dear Ireland, who had ript up the lining of his coat and waistcoat under the arms, and watching his opportunity had nearly fill'd 'em with tea, but being detected, was handled pretty roughly. They not only stripp'd him of his cloaths, but gave him a coat of mud, with a severe bruising into the bargain; and nothing but their ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... example was followed by the whole company." Thomson, the author of the "Castle of Indolence," was once seen lounging round Lord Burlington's garden, with his hands in his waistcoat pockets, biting off the ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... enchanting and scholarly volume is this, just small enough to be carried in the waistcoat pocket, and exquisite in paper, print, and binding."—Notes ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... eyelids. But he had scuffled and edged his way in the thin air of Connecticut as errand-boy, daguerreotypist, teacher, doctor;—so he came into the Gurney garden that night, shrewd, defiant, priding himself on detecting shams. His waistcoat and trousers were of coarser stuff than suited his temperament; a taint of vulgarity in his talk, his whiskers untrimmed, the meaning of his face compacted, sharpened. It was many a year since a tear had come into his black eyes; yet tears belonged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... leading to it, on which, to get the best possible view of the spectacle, I stood for three mortal hours. The attendant gentlemen were well dressed, but wore "shocking bad hats;" and the king wore a sort of shooting suit, a short brown cut-away coat, an ash-coloured waistcoat and ash- coloured trousers with a blue stripe. He stood bareheaded. He dressed in this style in order that the natives might attend the reception in every-day dress, and not run the risk of spoiling their ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... neck-cloths first. A languid violet; A serious brown. Bandannas are much worn. I note with pleasure that your Highness knows The delicate art of building up a stock. Here's a check pattern makes an elegant knot. How does this waistcoat strike your Lordship's fancy, Down ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... Nota proprietatem verbi. 'Vest,' enim apud politos id. q. vulgo 'waistcoat' appellatur. Quod et feminae usurpahant, ut ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... He wore a white waistcoat embroidered with gold, in the old style, and his linen was of dazzling whiteness. A shirt-frill of English lace, yellow with age, the magnificence of which a queen might have envied, formed a series of yellow ruffles on his breast; but upon ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... field till he was close to the figure on the ground. Then he quietly removed his jacket and waistcoat and laid them down. Then ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... miserably cheap creatures. Mr. Craik V. Purdy, simply gorgeous about waistcoat and watchchain, presented us to his wife, a short, red-haired woman (I do dislike red hair, don't you, Mamma?). She was very stout, but I don't understand why she was such a "drawback." She had the jolliest face and ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Clay got the telegram all right." Miss Ronder's thin bosom was a little agitated beneath its white waistcoat. "You'll never forgive me if things aren't looking as though we'd lived ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... which hung over the bureau. Every thing was ready for his toilet, the footman having carefully arranged the whole. He put the cravat with lace trimmings around his neck and arranged the tie before the looking- glass in the most artistic manner; then he slipped into the long waistcoat of silver-lined velvet, and finally put on the long-tailed brown coat with bright metal buttons. He was just going to put the heavy silver watch, which his wife had given him on their wedding- day, into his vest-pocket, when his eye fell upon the blue ribbon embroidered with ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... said that when the King rode out on horseback he often took Tom along with him, and if a shower came on he used to creep into his Majesty's waistcoat pocket, where he slept till ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... dare say, the most infernal costume ever devised by man—a tightish snuff-coloured jacket with diminutive tails, an orange waistcoat, snuff-coloured breeches, grey-blue worsted stockings, and square-toed shoes with iron toe-plates. Add a flat-topped cap with an immense leathern brim; add Genevan neck-bands; add, last of all, a leathern badge with "G.F.H." ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I left this case in my room, locked, and the key in my waistcoat pocket; in the right-hand side-pocket of my overcoat I carried my Deane and Adams, loaded in every chamber; also my right hand, as innocently as you could wish. And just that night I was not followed! I walked across Regent's Park, and I dawdled on Primrose Hill, without the ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... still wear a bodice, and begging her not to make hot weather an excuse for going about with naked arms 'and legs and feet thrust into slippers,' but to adopt fine thin stockings; 'and,' says our author, 'although the tenue du lever for a gentleman is a cotton or silk night-cap, a waistcoat with sleeves, or a dressing-gown, he is recommended to abandon cette mise matinale as early as may be, that so attired he may receive none but intimate friends.' Unmarried women, until they pass thirty, are debarred from wearing diamonds or expensive ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... button-holes in the billiard-room and the 'bus was announced. A greasy oil-lamp hung from the roof. Sometimes Sally rubbed the windows and said she could tell by the bushes where they were, and the embroidered waistcoat continued to drone out the measure of his amusements. He would have to run up to London, then he must have a shy at trente et quarante at Monte Carlo, then he must get back for the spring meeting at Newmarket. Frank asked him if he didn't think he could manage to amuse ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... the dacoit walked back. Nayland Smith's next move filled me with surprise. For just as, silently, I was thanking God for my escape, my friend began shedding his coat, collar, and waistcoat. ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... already done throughout the kingdom of Ireland. For what greater proof could this author give of his Christianity, than, for bringing about this Swearing-act, charitably to part with his coat, and sit starving in a very thin waistcoat in his garret, to do the corporal virtues of feeding and clothing the poor, and raising them from the cottage to the palace, by punishing the vices of the rich. What more could have been done even in the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... neatest boy you might ever have hoped to see. Aye—but he did not inherit that from me! Indeed, he used to reproach me, oftentimes, for being careless about my clothes. My collar would be loose, perhaps, or my waistcoat would not fit just so. He'd not like that, and he would tell ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... both tea and ablutions were forgotten, so long as the owner of Ferth Place and the new Lady Tressady were in sight. The village eyes took note of everything; of the young man's immaculate serge suit and tan waistcoat, his thin, bronzed face and fair moustache; of the bride's grey gown, the knot of airy pink at her throat, the coils of bright brown hair on which her hat was set, and the buckles on her pretty shoes. Then the village retreated ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... another room, but he frequently came down some steps into the main room, his jaunty, tarred boots with red turn-over tops coming into view each time before the rest of his person. He wore a full coat and a horribly greasy black satin waistcoat, with no cravat, and his whole face seemed smeared with oil like an iron lock. At the counter stood a boy of about fourteen, and there was another boy somewhat younger who handed whatever was wanted. On the counter lay some sliced cucumber, some ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... behind him. Murtagh Cosgar is about sixty. He is a hard, strong man, seldom-spoken, but with a flow of words and some satirical power. He is still powerful, mentally and physically. He is clean shaven, and wears a sleeved waistcoat, heavy boots, fell hat. ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... armies, that men could fight without spatterdashes, that hair-powder was not heroism, and that long tails were only an imitation of the monkey; that muskets did not fire the worse for having brown barrels, and that the cuirass was a better defence for the body of the dragoon than a cloth waistcoat, however covered with embroidery. But why shall not improvement go a little farther? Why shall not the arm of the dragoon be a little protected as well as his body? A slight and simple covering of steel rings would effect the purpose, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... easily dominated by a stronger nature, the giant was struggling in vain to resume his pose of not understanding Brice's allusions. Presently, with a sigh, that was more like a grunt of hopelessness, he thrust his fingers into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and drew forth a somewhat tarnished silver dollar. This he held toward ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which made him tremble: and the beadle gave him another tap behind, which made him cry. These two causes made him answer in a very low and hesitating voice; whereupon a gentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a fool. Which was a capital way of raising his spirits, and putting him ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the magazine down, settled his white waistcoat with both hands, and lounged towards his friend with audacious but slightly veiled and shining eyes. "They sort of sing themselves to you," he said, quietly, leaning beside the editor's desk, and looking down upon ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... was quite happy, and with my first six months' money I got father a new pipe and a comforter agin the winter, and as pretty a shepherd's plaid shawl as ever you see for mother, and a knitted waistcoat for my brother Jim, as had wanted one this two year, and had enough left to buy myself a bonnet and gown that I didn't feel ashamed to sit in church in under Master Harry's own blue eye. Mrs. Blake looked very sour when she saw ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... our inn, and had with us a Mr. Jackson, one of Johnson's schoolfellows, whom he treated with much kindness, though he seemed to be a low man, dull and untaught. He had a coarse grey coat, black waistcoat, greasy leather breeches, and a yellow uncurled wig; and his countenance had the ruddiness which betokens one who is in no haste to 'leave his can.' He drank only ale. He had tried to be a cutler at Birmingham, but had not succeeded; and now he lived poorly at home, and had some scheme of dressing ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... before, in the newspapers of the Canton. The slope of the hill was such that the hats of the lower ranks concealed the faces of those immediately behind, and the assembly was the darkest and densest I ever beheld. Here and there the top of a scarlet waistcoat flashed out of the cloud ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... man," commented Mr. Wade, shutting up his gold pencil case and putting it in the pocket of his comfortable waistcoat. "But clever men are ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... emerging with a grave expression on his puckered face. He seemed uncertain about it. He was solemn as a judge. 'You could alter the buttons here and there, you know,' and he looked anxiously at his wife. The coat ran up behind, the waistcoat creased badly owing to the strain, and the trousers were as tight as those of a cavalry officer. Anywhere, and any moment, he might burst out into unexpected revelation. 'A little alteration,' he suggested hopefully, 'and it would be all right—don't you ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... singing, for her permanent attitude of visitation to Stephen's eyes during his sleeping and waking hours in after days. The profile is seen of a young woman in a pale gray silk dress with trimmings of swan's-down, and opening up from a point in front, like a waistcoat without a shirt; the cool colour contrasting admirably with the warm bloom of her neck and face. The furthermost candle on the piano comes immediately in a line with her head, and half invisible itself, forms the accidentally frizzled hair into ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... to him. When I returned from Flint House that night I let myself in with my latchkey and went straight to my bedroom. My clothes were wet through, and I lit a fire in my room to dry them. As I was spreading them out in front of the blaze the key of the study dropped out of the waistcoat pocket on to the floor. I had forgotten all about it till then. I picked it up and placed it ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... see or hear of you again,"—he put his finger in his waistcoat pocket, significantly. "And there are other ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... peculiarly characteristic and expressive of modern picture-making and novel-writing,—called "Hauling" or more definitely "Paysan rentrant du Fumier," which represents a man's back, or at least the back of his waistcoat and trousers, and hat, in full light, and a small blot where his face should be, with a small scratch where its nose should be, elongated into one representing a chink of ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... are to me, my summer-child!" said the mother, smiling affectionately as she saw Henrik had placed her shoes under his waistcoat, to warm ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... inheritance to the eldest. There are traces of agreement, though chiefly lost, in their pontifical dress. Before the Indian Archimagus officiates in making the supposed holy fire for the yearly atonement of sin, the Sagan clothes him with a white ephod, which is a waistcoat without sleeves. In resemblance of the Urim and Thummim the American Archimagus wears a breastplate made of a white conch-shell, with two holes bored in the middle of it, through which he puts the ends of an otter-skin strap; and fastens a buck-horn white button to the outside of each; as if ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... man, who could paint pictures, write books, organize colonies oversea, and with a sword pick the buttons from a waistcoat, forgot the twenty good years still before him; forgot that men loved him for the mistakes he had made; that in parts of the great city of Paris his name was still spoken fondly, ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... in all England was presently riding to Penny Green on Sabre's bicycle. On his arm blazed the khaki brassard, in the breast pocket of his waistcoat, specially cleared to give private accommodation to so glorious a prize, were a half-crown and two pennies, the most thrillingly magnificent sum he had ever earned,—his army pay. His singing thought was, "I'm in the Army! I'm in the Army! I don't care for anything ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Reverend Dr. Samuel Cooper (who died in December, 1783) as Copley painted him,—he hangs there on my wall, over the revolving bookcase. His ample coat, too, I see, with its broad flaps and many buttons and generous cuffs, and beneath it the long, still more copiously buttoned waistcoat, arching in front of the fine crescentic, almost semi-lunar Falstaffian prominence, involving no less than a dozen of the above-mentioned buttons, and the strong legs with their sturdy calves, fitting columns of support to ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... everybody knows, while wearing plaid trousers and side-whiskers, on the right hand of a peer, in full view of thousands, at a political meeting, untroubled, bland, conscious of his worth, and will rise at the word, thumbs carelessly thrust into his waistcoat pockets, begin with a jest (the same one), and for an hour make aspirates as uncommon as are bathrooms ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... very nice," said Mr. Bickford, daintily flecking cigar ash from his glorious white waistcoat. "Er—by the way—I see that you customarily wear a silk hat, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... it is the indispensable condition of certain positive operations. Liberty as a force may be as impotent as its opponents allege. This does not affect its value as a preliminary or accompanying condition. The absence of a strait-waistcoat is a negation; but it is a useful condition for the activity of sane men. No doubt there must be a definite limit to this absence of external interference with conduct, and that limit will be fixed at various points by different thinkers. We are now only urging that it cannot be wisely fixed for ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
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