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More "Wriggle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time! Ye Quartos published upon every clime! 0 say, shall dull Romaika's heavy round, Fandango's wriggle, or Bolero's bound; Can Egypt's Almas [13]—tantalising group— Columbia's caperers to the warlike Whoop— Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn With Waltz compare, or after Waltz be born? 130 ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... away and would recommend Rushton & Co. to the bereaved and distracted relatives. By these means often—after first carefully inquiring into the financial position of the stricken family—Misery would contrive to wriggle his unsavoury carcass into the house of sorrow, seeking, even in the chamber of death, to further the interests of Rushton & Co. and to earn his miserable two and a ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Even if I can wriggle my nose like a rabbit. Besides, it sounds like a muskmelon. But, anyway, the head buyer said ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... into, flow in, creep into, creep in, slip into, slip in, pop into, pop in, break into, break in, burst into, burst in; set foot on; ingress; burst in upon, break in upon; invade, intrude; insinuate itself; interpenetrate, penetrate; infiltrate; find one's way into, wriggle into, worm oneself into. give entrance to &c. (receive) 296; insert ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the boudoir, the singer found that Madame Hulot had fainted; but in spite of having lost consciousness, her nervous trembling kept her still perpetually shaking, as the pieces of a snake that has been cut up still wriggle and move. Strong salts, cold water, and all the ordinary remedies were applied to recall the Baroness to her senses, or rather, to the apprehension ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... Hippolyte Charles had been the friend of Leclerc, and Paulette resolutely set her mind on inflicting salutary punishment on her sister-in-law for the wrong she was doing her brother. She quickly managed to wriggle confidences out of Leclerc concerning the Josephine-Charles connection, then peached. Charles was banished from the army, and, on the authority of Madame Leclerc, we learn that Josephine "nearly died of grief." The avenging little vixen had put a big spoke in ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... him sound good. Of course, I might leave out his doubtful qualities, and describe him merely as beautiful and affectionate; I might ... but I couldn't. I think Chum's habitual smile would get larger, he would wriggle the end of himself more ecstatically than ever if he heard himself summed up as beautiful and affectionate. Anyway, I couldn't do it, for I get carried away when I speak of him and I reveal ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... gentleman, as the Phoenix, with one last wriggle that melted into a flutter, got out of its nest in the breast of Robert and stood up on the ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... will give it a tremendous set-back; where there is a demand, there will always be a supply, but for a considerable time—at least a year or two—cocaine will be scarce. They caught a good many of the small fry, but as usual the big fish escaped—all but one wealthy Mahommedan, but he is bound to wriggle out somehow. Another point in favour of the short supply of cocaine ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... our riflemen marching as escort, smart and gay in their brown forest-dress, the green thrums rippling and flying from sleeve and leggin' and open double-cape, and the raccoon-tails all a-bobbing behind their caps like the tails that April lambkins wriggle. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... crossed the river and took up his quarters with Cornelius. How the latter had managed to exist through the troubled times I can't say. As Stein's agent, after all, he must have had Doramin's protection in a measure; and in one way or another he had managed to wriggle through all the deadly complications, while I have no doubt that his conduct, whatever line he was forced to take, was marked by that abjectness which was like the stamp of the man. That was his characteristic; he was fundamentally and ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... in his hand, was on the look-out with the ardent gaze of a beast of prey watching for its spoil, and, suddenly, with a swift movement, he darted his forked weapon into the sea so vigorously that it secured a large fish swimming near the bottom. It was a conger eel, which managed to wriggle, half dead as it was, into a puddle of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... away; And not a second in one place A polliwog will stay. They still keep darting all about The floating duck-weed, in and out. Well, if they will so restless be, I will not let it trouble me, But leave these little polliwogs To wriggle till ...
— The Nursery, May 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Brown and Laura Nelson ought to have more principle than engage in anything so dishonorable. They've managed to wriggle out of it at Marian's expense, but they have both lost caste by it. Depend upon it, a great many girls here will have their own opinion of the whole affair and it won't be complimentary ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... effect upon the reptiles, for they began to wriggle and twist as they uncoiled themselves. They hissed and outspread their hoods, and instead of being charmed by the music, it seemed as though their wrath had been excited. They made an occasional dart at the human performers, who ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... triumphantly, "you can issue complaint against both Baker and Mr. Welton on a charge of bribery, and Baker can't possibly wriggle out by turning state's evidence, because your evidence ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... on the other hand, will show clearly by the violence of the response provoked that their nervous system is easily stimulated and exhausted. They will wriggle and squirm for hours together, emitting the same constant reflex cry. The whole body will start convulsively at a sudden touch or a loud sound which would evoke no response from a more stolid infant. The sleeplessness and crying exhaust ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... dead silence, save for the hard breathing as Blanche Haight tried to wriggle out of the iron grasp that held her—in ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... ached cruelly. Would they fail him? When he jerked them free, would he be able to use them? Or would they drop numb and useless by his sides? No, he decided after cautious experiment, they were not numbed. He could wriggle his fingers easily. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... not begin screaming or wriggle out of the bundle," thought the collegiate assessor. "This is indeed a pleasant surprise! Here I am carrying a human being under my arm as though it were a portfolio. A human being, alive, with soul, with feelings like anyone else.... If by good luck the ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... done now? If the robber had had a knife in his pocket, Gum would have been a dead monkey in two seconds. But while he was unsuccessfully feeling for his knife, Gum suddenly came to, and with one violent wriggle shook itself free, and sprang on the highest shelf. The robber gave chase; then followed the most comical hunt you ever saw. The robber's face being now exposed (he had no idea that Donald had already recognised him), he was afraid to turn round, and he ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... of us: up went the helm, round came the schooner into the trough of the sea,—high over her quarter toppled an enormous sea, built up of I know not how many tons of water, and hung over the deck,—by some unaccountable wriggle, an instant ere it thundered down she had twisted her stern on one side, and the waves passed underneath. In another minute her head was to the sea, the mainsail was eased over, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... concealing all is that it is rich in figures. Metaphor is an enigma, wherein the thief who is plotting a stroke, the prisoner who is arranging an escape, take refuge. No idiom is more metaphorical than slang: devisser le coco (to unscrew the nut), to twist the neck; tortiller (to wriggle), to eat; etre gerbe, to be tried; a rat, a bread thief; il lansquine, it rains, a striking, ancient figure which partly bears its date about it, which assimilates long oblique lines of rain, with the dense and slanting pikes of the lancers, and which ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... somethin' good fur beatin' out brains, an' dar lays my ax. I grabs it up, now ready fur a cleaver, an' no mistake. Big Injun ain't, though; he ain't ready fur any sich a thing. Up he comes wid a whirl, an' down I goes wid a fling, my ax a-flyin' way out yander. But in de wriggle uf a buck's tail comes up nigger ag'in; goes down Injun ag'in. Yes, an' a leetle mo' dan dat: nigger an' Injun clean ober de turn uf de hill, an' now a-slidin', slidin' down whar it wus ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... man has departed even by a trifle from his own natural stance. A change of the position of the feet by even a couple of inches one way or the other may alter the stance altogether, and knock the player clean off his putting. In this new position he will wriggle about and feel uncomfortable. Everything is wrong. His coat is in the way, his pockets seem too full of old balls, the feel of his stockings on his legs irritates him, and he is conscious that there is a nail coming up on the inside of the sole of ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... flies," as they are sometimes called, lay a mass of three or four hundred eggs on the surface of wounds. The larvae which in a few hours hatch from these make their way directly into the wound where they feed on the surrounding tissue until full grown when they wriggle out and drop to the ground where they transform to the pupa and later to the adult fly. Of course their presence in the wounds is very distressing to the infected animal, and great suffering results. Slight scratches that might otherwise quickly heal often become serious sores ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... are slighter in figure than I, although you are changed indeed since first the colonel, your father, presented you to me at Oxford. However, I will try." The king tried, but in vain. He was stouter than Harry, although less broadly built, and had none of the lissomness which enabled the latter to wriggle through the bars. "It is useless," he said at last. "Providence is against me. It is the will of God that I should remain here. It may be the decree of Heaven that even yet I may sit again on the throne of my ancestors. Now go, Master Furness. It is too late to renew the attempt to-night. Should ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... boy!" said Mrs. Tree, severely. "Sit there—don't wriggle in your cheer; you are not an eel, though I admit you are the next thing to it—and tell me every word about it, do ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... were now so loose in their partially emptied box that they could wriggle and even change positions if they liked. The big young man wheeled, passed his arm round Winifred's waist as if for a waltz, half lifted her off her feet, and set her down where ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... he said, though in tones little like any he was used to hearing from his own lips. But he would not dare look himself in the face again if he did not make at least a wriggle before surrendering. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... very unceremoniously transformed into a muff beneath their entangled extremes, he turns over quietly, saying, "There's something very strange about the floor of this establishment,—it don't seem solid; 'pears how there's ups and downs in it." They wriggle and twist in a curious pile; endeavour to bring their knees out of "a fix"—to free themselves from the angles which they are most unmathematically working on the floor. Working and twisting,—now staggering, and again giving utterance to the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... mounted the stairs. At the top he paused to deliberate. Would it not be better to keep her in ignorance? What was to be gained by revealing to her the—But Miss Thackeray was luring him on to destruction. She stood outside the door and beckoned. That in itself was ominous. Why should she wriggle a forefinger at him instead of calling out in her usual free-and-easy manner? ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... some folks false as it makes lizards wriggle," said he. "Lippo is a lizard. No dog ever caught him napping, though he looks so lazy in ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... billows, he makes shift at last frantically to clamber back into it; he snatches the small, damp towels, and attempts to dry his shivering limbs; his clothes have fallen on the wet floor; he cannot force his blue toes into his oozy socks. At the moment he is attempting to wriggle himself into his trousers the horse is hitched-to again, and the jerky and jolty journey back up the beach begins. If the hair of a boy of ten could turn white in a single morning, there would be many a hoary-headed youngster in British watering-places. John Leech, in Punch, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... not long to wait, for presently Woofer crawled out of his blankets on the far side, and began to wriggle away on his ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... wordy warfare," she said gayly. "I pity you, Mr. Bower. You cannot wriggle out of your difficulty. The snow will soon be a foot deep in the valley. Goodness only knows what would have become of us ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... so if you had that kid around all the time," grunted Short and Long, as Jess finally allowed him to wriggle loose. "I think he's more of a terror than he is ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... of the face, was covered by a tangled mass of jet-black hair some eight or ten inches in length. Each hair was about the bigness of a large angleworm, and as the thing moved the muscles of its scalp this awful head-covering seemed to writhe and wriggle and crawl about the fearsome face as though indeed each separate hair was ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... it's going to be nip and tuck if we ever get out of this? You've shown yourself, from start to finish, a miserable cheat; there's no trust to be put in either your judgment or your intentions. Be still," he commanded, as she sought to wriggle out of his grasp, to avoid the direct blaze of his eyes. "I am going to do what I can for you; to see you safe through this, if I can. Not because you are anything to me, but just because you are Ben Gaynor's, and ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... never took a compliment at the expense of her "children." "They do not all get the opportunity, look you. Opportunity is a little angel; some catch him as he goes, some let him pass by forever. You must be quick with him, for he is like an eel to wriggle away. If you want a good soldier, take that aristocrat of the Chasse-Marais—that beau Victor. Pouf! All his officers were down; and how splendidly he led the troop! He was going to die with them rather than surrender. ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... you do—you old eel!" Bob glanced admiringly at his friend. "I believe you just wriggle by on the ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... that herein lies one of the pitfalls of crime; for the simple-minded burglar or embezzler may blithely make way with a silver service or bundle of bank notes only to find himself floundering, horse, foot and dragoons, in a quagmire of phraseology from which he cannot escape, wriggle as he will. Many such a one has thrown up his hands—and with them silver service, bank notes and all—in horror at what the grand jury has alleged ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... have taken that; but such a choice at that time would have been considered sheer folly. He did not consider that he had any "call" to be a minister, still less a doctor. As there was nothing else left, he began the study of law. It is truly amusing to see how he manages to "wriggle along" until he takes his degree of LL.B. and is admitted ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... trial found the cake standing erect and solid. Gripping her harpoon, she threw herself flat on her stomach and pushing the cake before her, began to wriggle her way ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... here, young man, hard and fast," Mr. Bartholomew said. "If I was inclined to want to wriggle out, I see no chance of it. But I don't. You have set forth here exactly my meaning and intent. I want your best efforts in this matter, Mr. Swift, and if you give them to me I'll foot the bill ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... is a wonderful sight," Verisschenzko said, as he stood by her side. "Paris has lost all good taste and sense of the fitness of things. Look! the women who are the most expert in the wriggle of the tango are mostly over forty years old! Do you see that one in the skin-tight pink robe? She is a grandmother! All are painted—all are feverish—all would be young! It is ever thus when a country is on the eve of a cataclysm—it is ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... glad light, and she took Patricia in her arms. "It's perfectly glorious, Miss Pat, darling," she said with a rapturous squeeze. "I'm so delighted I can't help kissing you on the spot," and she did it with a heartiness that made Patricia wriggle. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... to wriggle the child through, but he found that he must have some one to help him. Urging Robin not to move he knocked at Miss Monogue's door. She opened it, and he stepped back with an apology when he saw that some one else ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... said my father. "Your chain is locked, I see:—but no matter,—I can loosen it so that you can wriggle through." By having cut the cords, around which the chain had been passed, he had relieved the tautness, and was now able to do what he promised. He then took off my boots, and, grasping me under the arms, ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... at him blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a flush on his ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... dress a wriggle, add a pint of nearly milk, Smother with a pillow any sneeze; Baste with talcum powder and mark upon its back— "Don't forget that you were ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... from the ocean and the finest ones found their way into the pool, and on Friday the cook and his men supplied the tables with fresh fish. How many times have I seen those fine fish, caught on the prongs of a spear, writhe and wriggle to get off. At first I could not taste them, I felt so sorry to see them killed in that way. I would not go out on Friday until after the fishing was done. The lamper eels crawled up the stream and the men gathered them ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... should call this walk of "Arab ladies" a waddle: I have never seen it in Europe except amongst the trading classes of Trieste, who have a "wriggle" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... to be president, Shorty?" Lorry felt the warmth of a new life, felt the little body wriggle in snug contentment. "I wouldn't advise it. Tough job." Baby Newcomb twisted in ...
— I'll Kill You Tomorrow • Helen Huber
... added to the force of the word with another little wriggle against Forrester. It solved his problems. There was now only one thing to do, and ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... she was certain that if that little monkey had managed to wriggle through some hole into the sea, on her voyage home, she would have swum after the ship and climbed up the rudder chains. Possibly, but she was only twelve months old! If, however, she had met with an early death, her mother's lot would have lacked its redemption. The ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... to be let alone. To uncover its atrocities is like turning over a huge stone in the meadow in springtime, that has been a hiding-place for bugs and worms that nest away in the dark. As soon as the hot, searching sunlight finds them, they will wriggle and squirm in agony until they can crawl under cover again. So I do not wonder that, when the hideous cruelty of the tenement-house sweat-shop is brought to light, the sweater and all his friends wriggle and squirm in an agony ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... litigant, passing all his days in the courts, either as plaintiff or defendant, but is actually led by his bad taste to pride himself on his litigiousness; he imagines that he is a master in dishonesty; able to take every crooked turn, and wriggle into and out of every hole, bending like a withy and getting out of the way of justice: and all for what?—in order to gain small points not worth mentioning, he not knowing that so to order his life as to be able to do without a napping judge is a far ...
— The Republic • Plato
... devil another penny of mine will go for masses, for if my Pat has his head and shoulders out, I can safely reckon he'll soon wriggle himself away entirely, God bless ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... her feel quite in keeping with her surroundings, and she had kid gloves too—dyed ones—which looked every bit as good as new, and left no mark at all except round the fastenings, and the lobes of the fingers. She gave a wriggle of contentment, and at that moment the cab turned in at the gate of ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... in trouble is a very easy thing. I notice that to others it will always worries bring. But getting out of trouble's always quite the other way— The more you try to wriggle out, the longer ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... great fun," Davy told Marilla when he got home that night. "You said I'd find it hard to sit still and I did . . . you mostly do tell the truth, I notice . . . but you can wriggle your legs about under the desk and that helps a lot. It's splendid to have so many boys to play with. I sit with Milty Boulter and he's fine. He's longer than me but I'm wider. It's nicer to sit ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a soft mound formed of the powdery dust thrown off by the avalanche in its rush. Leo slipped over safely, but I, following a yard or two to his right, of a sudden felt the hard crust yield beneath me. An ill-judged but quite natural flounder and wriggle, such as a newly-landed flat-fish gives upon the sand, completed the mischief, and with one piercing but swiftly ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... an honest forester," said Gefroi, and groaned again. "The favour of a lord is a slippery thing—much like an eel—quick to wriggle away. An hour agone my lord Duke held me in much esteem, while now? And he struck me! On the face, here!" Slowly Gefroi got him upon his feet, and having donned cap and pourpoint, shook his head ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... was the same feeling which so often prompted her to tell him, in her flighty way, of how profoundly she adored me. I would wriggle and blush; and Jasper Hardress would laugh and protest that he adored me too. Or she would expatiate upon this or that personal feature of mine, or the becomingness of a new cravat, say; and would demand of her husband if Jack—for so she always called me,—wasn't the most beautiful boy ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... his stroke, shaking his head fiercely, like a dog worrying a rat. "You were seen carrying the body downstairs, the night of the murder. You might as well own up to it, first as last. Lies will not help you. We know too much for you to wriggle out of it. And never mind smoothing your hair down like that. We know all about that scar on your forehead, and how you ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... disappointment to me," he said, trying to look disappointed, but his back would wriggle. "This chain business—silly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... that he could meet it by refusing her request. He had not always been sure that she would leave him this alternative. She had a way of involving people in her complications without their being aware of it, and Garnett had pictured himself in holes so tight that there might not be room for a wriggle. Happily in this case he could still move freely. Nothing compelled him to act as an intermediary between Mrs. Newell and her husband, and it was preposterous to suppose that, even in a life of such ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... Tape, She's the butt for each Jeremy Diddler's coarse jape, Every filthy Paul Pry's ghoulish giggle. JOHN BULL, my fine fellow, wake up, and determine To stamp out the lives of the venomous vermin Who round your home-hearth writhe and wriggle. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, young larvae, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity! But no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day let upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of legs—and some of them have a good many—rush round wildly, butting each other ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... well, lads," I exclaimed. "But suppose you were all to get drunk, what would the Frenchmen do with us, I should like to know? Shall I tell you? They would manage to wriggle themselves free, and heave us all overboard. If we don't want to disgrace ourselves, let us keep what we've got. Not another drop of liquor does anyone have aboard here till we ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... little wriggle. "Cuckoo, you're laughing at me," she said. "I mean, have you come back to stay and cuckoo as usual and make my ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... Transform'd t' a feeble state-camelion, 370 By giving aim from side to side, He never fail'd to save his tide, But got the start of ev'ry state, And at a change ne'er came too late; Cou'd turn his word, and oath, and faith, 375 As many ways as in a lath; By turning, wriggle, like a screw, Int' highest trust, and out, for new. For when h' had happily incurr'd, Instead of hemp, to be preferr'd, 380 And pass'd upon a government, He pay'd his trick, and out he went But, being out, and out of hopes To mount his ladder (more) of ropes, Wou'd strive ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the face above her with such a winning smile that Mrs. Sherman drew her toward her with a quick hug and kiss. Lloyd gave a little wriggle of satisfaction. "I'm so glad you've come!" she cried, so completely won by Betty's artlessness that she ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... keep an eye on outgoing trains and the docks, and the entrances to the tubes and underground railways were watched. After enclosing London, Merrington made a wider cast, and long before nightfall he had flung around England a net of fine meshes through which no man could wriggle. ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... and with infinite care unbuckled his pack-straps. With a wriggle of the shoulders he dislodged the pack, and Carson saw it slide over the bulge and out ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... vivacious attack upon the Cippenham Motor Depot, it is doubtful whether anyone could have enabled the Government to wriggle out of the demand for an independent inquiry. At any rate Lord INVERFORTH was insufficiently agile. The innumerable type-written sheets which he read out laboriously may have contained a complete reply to Lord DESBOROUGH'S main allegations, even if they included no refutation of the stones of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... row of eighteen barrels, with the ends knocked out, came next; then a climb up slack ropes, and over a transverse bar; and finally another balk of timber—if anything less than a foot off the ground—under which they had to squeeze and wriggle in ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... expected of him—and nothing that a man should not be willing to do for his wife. A smile, an attentive manner, the general effect of having combed his hair and washed behind his ears, a word now and then to show that he is awake (I am assuming that he controls the tendency to wriggle)—and no more is needed. He is a lay figure, but not necessarily a lay figure ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... I had was Dick's broad back, for the sapling to which he was tied was small. I drew my hunting-knife. One more wriggle brought me close to Dick, with my face near his hands, which were bound behind him. I slipped the blade under the lasso, and cut ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... it's useless to attempt description. Mortal man cannot conceive of the delicate shades of sentiment expressible by a dog's tail, unless he has studied the subject—the wag, the waggle, the cock, the droop, the slope, the wriggle! Away with description—it ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... was bitter anger in his voice now. "You see the game! He wanted to get me in deep enough so that I couldn't wriggle out, deeper than ten thousand that I could get at any time on my insurance, he wanted me where I couldn't get away—and he got me. The first ten thousand wasn't enough. I went to him for a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth—hoping always that each would be the last. Each time ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... narrow brown pathway that will not run straight; For it turns and it twists and it wanders about To the left and the right, as in humorous doubt. 'Tis a humorous path, and a joke from its birth Till it ends at the door with a wriggle of mirth. And here in the mount lives the queer tinker man With his little red ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... with a clean knife. Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at the right hand of plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not.... Smell not of thy Meat; make not a noise with thy Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking.... When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavour to help him out if he tell it not right. ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... silk bow in one of his claws. That knife would never have cut Harry's jacket-tail off, though, and when Effie had tried for some time she saw that this was so and gave it up. But with her help Harry managed to wriggle quietly out of his sleeves, so that the dragon had only an Eton jacket in his other claw. Then the children crept on tiptoe to a crack in the rocks and got in. It was much too narrow for the dragon to get in also, so they stayed ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... one case, a little later in the other, the two families, each presented with a bamboo climbing-pole, leave their respective wallets. There is nothing remarkable about the mode of egress. The precincts to be crossed consist of a very slack net-work, through which the outcomers wriggle: weak little orange-yellow beasties, with a triangular black patch upon their sterns. One morning is long enough for the whole family ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... know! Now then—why didn't you come to us? We have a wing quite empty. But just as you like, of course. Do you lease it from HIM?—this fellow, I mean," she added, nodding towards Lebedeff. "And why does he always wriggle so?" ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... heels into the soft ground with a little wriggle of content; here she would be free from anything that could mar her perfect enjoyment of life as it appeared to her. Here there was nothing to spoil her pleasure. Her head had drooped during her thoughts, and for the last few minutes her eyes had been fixed on the dusty tips of her riding-boots. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... this. Although your painter may drop hints for the soul, let him not strain above his pitch lest he crack his larynx. To his colour he may add form in the flat; but he cannot escape the flat, however he may wriggle, any more than the sculptor can escape the round, scrape he never so wisely. Buonarroti will scrape and shift; the Fleming has scraped and shifted all his days to as little purpose. His seed-pearls invite your touch. Touch them, my friend, you will smear ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... as pets, and allow them a wriggle on the grass every day. Early last week I missed one, a little black chap about 10 to 11 in. long, and have not seen him since. Perhaps the one Mr. Harry Furniss found on Saturday is my lost pet, carried away, not by one of the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Pup," cried Bremner with a sudden burst of animation that induced the creature to wriggle and dance on its hind legs for at least a minute, "you and I shall have a jolly night together on the beacon; ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... fading into dusk. Of course we had taken our bearings from the other hill; so now, after reassuring ourselves of them, we began to wriggle our way at a great pace through the high grass. Our calculations were quite accurate. We stalked successfully, and at last, drenched in sweat, found ourselves lying flat within ten yards of a small bush behind which we could make out dimly ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... name of it. Only the eyes. Creeping, creeping, creeping. No noise. One raised. Waggons drawn up in laager. Oxen out-spanned in the middle. Trekking all day. Tired out; dog tired. Crawl, crawl, crawl! Hands and knees. Might be snakes. A wriggle. Men sitting about the camp fire. Smoking. Gleam of their eyes! Under the waggons. Nearer, nearer, nearer! Then, the throwing ones in your midst. Shower of 'em. Right and left. 'Halloa! stand by, boys!' Look up; see 'em swarming, black like ants, over the waggons. Inside the laager. Snatch ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... profession by supposing such a thing. There is not, in or out of an attorney's office in the county of Erie, or elsewhere, one who could raise a doubt, or a particle of a doubt, about the meaning of this provision of the Constitution. He may act as witnesses do, sometimes, on the stand. He may wriggle, and twist, and say he cannot tell, or cannot remember. I have seen many such efforts in my time, on the part of witnesses, to falsify and deny the truth. But there is no man who can read these ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... and no ear for my song; Hush'd the caves of its breath, and the finger of death The raised features hath flatten'd along. The eyes' wonted beam, and the eyelids' quick gleam— The intelligent sight, are no more; But the worms of the soil, as they wriggle and coil, Come hither their dwellings to bore. No lineament here is left to declare If monarch or chief art thou; Alexander the Brave, as the portionless slave That on dunghill expires, is as low. Thou delver of death, in my ear let thy breath ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... well treated by his captors, except that they kept him under fire from his own men so long as a forward position could be maintained, and when that became too hot they forced him to creep back with them to the cover of other rocks. He did not want much forcing, being glad enough to wriggle across the intervening space, where bullets fell unpleasantly thick, as fast as possible. There he lay close, but kept his eyes open, and saw something that may furnish a key to the success of Transvaal Boers in scaling a difficult height ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... an awestricken voice; "there is a split, and you'll make it worse if you wriggle about so. Be a good boy, Dickie, and try to ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... laughed the old man, trying to wriggle out of his son's grasp; "only not just yet a whiles. I'm agoin' in here to drink your good health, Adam lad, and all here's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... and his pack was as troublesome as the straw shoes of the Japanese horses. It was always slipping forward or backward, and as I was heavier than the Malay lad, I was always slipping down and trying to wriggle myself up on the great ridge which was the creature's backbone, and always failing, and the mahout was always stopping and pulling the rattan ropes which bound the whole arrangement together, but never succeeding in improving ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... had gone back to the Giant Suttung with the tale of how he had seen the mysterious serving-man change into a snake and wriggle through a hole in the mountain; and Suttung at once guessed that they had to deal with Odin himself. So he hurried to the hole and sat there to watch for the ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... and shake. Her comrades, also, thought themselves undone: Oh! Mahomet! that his Majesty should take Such notice of a giaour, while scarce to one Of them his lips imperial ever spake! There was a general whisper, toss, and wriggle, But etiquette forbade them ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... resplendent in gold-fringed mantles and silk-ribboned hats; for he was rumored eloquent, and Annibale de' Franchi was there in pompous presidency. One Jew came—Shloumi the Droll, relying on his ability to wriggle out of the infraction of the ban, and earn a meal or two by reporting the proceedings to the fattori and the other dignitaries of the Ghetto, whose human curiosity might be safely counted upon. Shloumi was rich in devices. Had he not even for ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the Judge, tougher than rawhide, half walking and half flying, his wings spread out, 'cree-ing' to himself about bulldogs and their ways; next come Bobby, still sputtering and swearing, and behind ambled Thomas at a lively wriggle, a coy, large smile ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... with me now, Molly," he suggested at last. Then he turned to Chris, who was watching him with almost no expression. "You can wriggle your chair to the phone in half an hour, I guess. Knock the phone off and yell for help. It's better than you deserve, unless you really did leave me ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... he gave a wriggle, and it flashed through her: 'He must think me an awful enfant terrible!' His face peered round at her, queer and pale and puffy, with nice, straight ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... snapped up. We would wriggle away. We were very sorry, but we must start at once ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... either; for Rollo who was usually pretty alert and ready in emergencies of difficulty or danger, when he found himself rolling down the slope, though he could not stop, still contrived to wriggle and twist himself off to one side, so as to get clear of the horse and roll off himself in a different direction. They both, however, the animal and the boy, soon came to a stop. Rollo was up in an instant. The horse, too, contrived, ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... little space was clear for us at the stern. The cabin was about 2 metres long, 1 1/2 metre wide, and 1 1/2 metre high, and was crammed with stuff—tinned meats, cloths, guns, trading goods, etc. One person could wriggle in it, crawling on hands and knees, but two had to wind round each other in impossible positions, and it was quite unthinkable that both should spend the night below. But with the happy carelessness and impatience of a long-delayed start, we did not think of the hardships of the future, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... was uncomplaining. She clung doggedly to the Earth man's hand when they were able to walk erect: followed swiftly and unquestioningly when they were compelled to crawl or wriggle ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... men sailed right into the heart of the pack, which all previous polar explorers had regarded as certain death. It is not merely difficult to grasp this; it is simply impossible — to us, who with a motion of the hand can set the screw going, and wriggle out of the first difficulty we encounter. These men were heroes — heroes in the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... and hidden, then I thought it to be; soon at its look and feel, impatience got the better of me; hurredly I covered it with my body and shed my sperm in it. Then with what curiosity I paddled my fingers in it afterwards, again to stiffen, thrust, wriggle, and spend. All this I recollect as if it occurred but yesterday, I shall recollect it to the last day of my life, for it was a honey-moon of novelty, years afterwards I often thought of ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... Side; and I think you will agree that it was a lot of title for twopence. Day after day, as I fumbled among the old books in the Twopenny Bin of the little secondhand bookseller's shop, that volume would wriggle itself forward and worm its way into my hands; and I would clench my teeth and thrust it to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... figure being too wretched to hear this tirade, could only mumble and wail and wriggle closer and closer into the folds ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... it sounds. But in about 'alf an hour the fish was seemin'ly done for and the New Yorker pulled 'im in, 'and over 'and, as easy as you please. Just as 'e got 'im to the gunwale, though, the moray gave an extra wriggle, and bein' afraid that 'e might get away agen, the fisherman gave a sudden pull and brought 'im on board without waitin' ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... first vain attempt, she slipped her feet clear of the snowshoes and went closer to the tree, so that she might try to lift him out of the fork by sheer strength of arm. But the snow was so soft that she sank in over her ankles, going deeper and deeper with every attempt which she made to wriggle ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... plaster in front of me in such a way that their fall made no noise. When the moment came, at the very second when my swooning features vanished before your eyes, I simply jumped into my retreat, thanks to a rather plucky little wriggle of the loins. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... of the men and many of the women shrank back while those that had babies, or little folks, snatched up their children, fearing lest the poisonous snakes might wriggle towards them. ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... her sleeve about her wrist, looked up roguishly. "I couldn't possibly wriggle out of my gown, could I, Dr. Weissmann? And if I did, how could I get the tacks back without ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... and I will go!" said Christian, with a wriggle so fierce and sudden that it loosed the grip of her guards. It is even possible that the ensuing lightning dart for freedom might have succeeded, but for the unfortunate fidelity of her allies, Rinka and Tashpy. The one sprang ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Durfey, Mrs. Trimmer's little Primer, Buckram binding, touch and try— Nothing bid—who'll buy, who'll buy? Here's Colley Cibber, Bruce the fibber, Plays of Cherry, ditto Merry, Tickle, Mickle, When I bow and when I wriggle, With a simper and a giggle, Ears regaling, bidders nailing, Ladies utter in a flutter— "Mister Smatter, how you chatter, Dear, how clever! well, I never Heard ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... about 4 feet before it meets the overhanging cliff, and consequently there is a long narrow passageway, about 3 feet high and 3 feet wide on the bottom, between it and the cliff. A small man might wriggle through, ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... had no money. He hinted to Archie that a reward should be offered, but that young man, backed by Lucy, declined to throw away good money after bad. Braddock took this refusal so ill, that Hope felt perfectly convinced he would try and wriggle out of his promise to permit the marriage and persuade Lucy to engage herself to Sir Frank Random, should the baronet be willing to offer a reward. And Hope was also certain that Braddock, a singularly obstinate man, would never rest until he once more had the mummy in his possession. ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... knock-knee'd, rheumatic, crazy. Some of the small tradesmen's houses, such as the crockery-shop and the harness-maker, had a Cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some forlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and scant the village, that one might have thought ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... complete almost to the royal-mast, though the yards were gone; and to his left, just above the battered fore-top, five men were lashed, dead and drowned. Most of them had their eyes wide open, and seemed to stare at Zeb and wriggle about in the stir of the sea as if they lived. Spent and wretched as he was, it lifted his hair. He almost called out to them at first, and then he dragged his gaze off them, and turned it to the right. The survivor still clung here, and Zeb—who had been vaguely ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... binding, upon the completion of which they found themselves absolutely helpless; for now both their hands and their feet were lashed together so tightly and securely that it was quite impossible for them to move otherwise than to give an occasional feeble, impotent wriggle. ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... sacrifice?" Florence felt very uneasy. She tried to wriggle away from her companion, who held her arm firmly. "To sacrifice?" ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... one side, with his short legs wide spread; he passed down a perch, alternately crouching and rising, either sideways or straight; he jerked his whole body one side and then the other, in a manner ludicrously suggestive of a wriggle; he sidled along his perch, holding his wings slightly out and quivering, then slowly raised them both straight up, and instantly dropped them, or held them half open, fluttering and rustling ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... Lord DESBOROUGH'S vivacious attack upon the Cippenham Motor Depot, it is doubtful whether anyone could have enabled the Government to wriggle out of the demand for an independent inquiry. At any rate Lord INVERFORTH was insufficiently agile. The innumerable type-written sheets which he read out laboriously may have contained a complete reply to Lord DESBOROUGH'S main allegations, even if they included no refutation of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... in that direction. This is nothing, though, to the white awe in the air when visitors call and I am questioned how I earn my living in London. I hardly know whether to laugh or cry at the long-drawn breath of relief when I wriggle out of a tight place without telling a lie. But you can't hide an eel in a sack, and I know the truth will pop out one of these days. Only yesterday I went district-visiting with Aunt Rachel, and one of ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... after my last entry I started on a trip to Antwerp, got through the lines and managed to wriggle back into Brussels last night after reestablishing telegraph communication with the Department and having a number of other things happen ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... provided there is anything on the other side he wishes to get at. If there is not, and especially if anything is there which he wishes to shun, a four hundred and fifty pounder cannot crash a hole large enough for you to push him through. By such a pitiful chink as that did his Infallible Highness wriggle himself out of the range of my guns, and pursue ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... distance of a hundred yards or more. Other seeds are provided with floating apparatus, which enables them to travel many miles by stream or river, or rain washes. Some of these not only float, but actually swim, having spider-like filaments, which wriggle like legs, and actually propel the tiny seed along to its new home. A recent writer says of these seeds that "so curiously lifelike are their movements that it is almost impossible to believe that these tiny objects, making good progress through the water, are ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... up his stroke, shaking his head fiercely, like a dog worrying a rat. "You were seen carrying the body downstairs, the night of the murder. You might as well own up to it, first as last. Lies will not help you. We know too much for you to wriggle out of it. And never mind smoothing your hair down like that. We know all about that scar on your forehead, and ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... I could wriggle past that contraction in the middle, I should be safe. And if I stuck fast midway! But the more I measured the width with my eye, the less the narrowing seemed to be. To be so slightly perceptible, it could hardly be enough ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... much more than a fat baby, Kintar[o] wielded a big axe, and could chop a snake to pieces before he had time to wriggle. ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... the Superintendent with satisfaction. "He has no doubt, very powerful friends, and if the evidence were not so damning and direct as that collected after so much patience and perseverance by Mr. Garfield, he might perhaps wriggle out of it. But once we have him he can hope for no escape," he added. "And we shall arrest him before an hour is out. Fortunately he is still quite unsuspicious, though his chief fear is of Mr. Garfield, and of the ugly ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... through the dormitories before the prefects came by, "now what have you got to say for yourselves? Foster, Carton, Finch, Longbridge, Marlin, Brett! I heard you chaps catchin' it from King—he made hay of you—an' all you could do was to wriggle an' grin an' say, 'Yes, sir,' an' 'No, sir,'' an' 'O, sir,' an' 'Please, sir'! You an' your ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Much better than the usual staged bilge. Say, that reminds me, a couple hours ago Mars projector had a scanner on one of the exploration parties caught out in a psychosonic storm. Jove, did they wriggle! Even in atomsuits they were better than Messalina Magdalen working on her last G-string. Here, I'll switch it ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... a policeman," said Bob, chuckling. "He walked me about two blocks, hunting for a cop. Then a crowd collected and I decided it was better to wriggle out, and I did, leaving the only coat I owned in his hands. But I never go out without looking up and down the street first. I don't want to be arrested, even if I didn't steal anything. Besides, with Peabody, ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... like Indians in their blankets and tumbled down upon the heap of boughs; the air trembled with a chorus of strange sounds as one by one they dropped off into a drowsy sleep, with an occasional wriggle as a knot, or the end of a limb, made itself felt through the many-folded blanket, and engraved a distinct dent upon the sleeper's back; while overhead, the giant cloud crept upward slowly, slowly toward the zenith, spreading east and west without a break. One half of the valley ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... north, the mist fell upon the waters or blew away over the meadows, and it was cold. Mr. Gabriel wrapped the cloak about Faith and fastened it, and tied her bonnet. Just now Dan was so busy handling the boat—and it's rather risky, you have to wriggle up the creek so—that he took little notice of us. Then Mr. Gabriel stood up, as if to change his position; and taking off his hat, he held it aloft, while he passed the other hand across his forehead. And leaning against the mast, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... with gold lace, after which she took off her trousers and seized my hand and led me up to the couch, saying, "There is no sin in a lawful put in." She lay down on the couch outspread upon her back; and, drawing me on to her breast, heaved a sigh and followed it up with a wriggle by way of being coy. Then she pulled up the shift above her breasts, and when I saw her in this pose, I could not withhold myself from thrusting it into her, after I had sucked her lips, whilst she whimpered and shammed shame and wept when no tears came, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... full of the biggest eels you ever saw. I've caught them here, often—perfectly prodigious! I tell you they're sometimes a match for a fellow; they'd almost wriggle your arm from the socket if you were not on your guard. But you're not interested in eels, I perceive. The castle's a big affair, ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... find certain English cousins of yours, as far away from London as Hong-Kong, who are still wrapt up snugly in it. Happy he afflicted with strabismus, for only he can see his nose before his face. In the daytime you become a fish, to wriggle over the ocean's floor amid strange flora and fauna, such as ash-cans and lamp-posts and venders' carts and cab-horses and sandwich-men. But at night you are ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... think so if you knew as much about it as I do," answered Ben, with a sudden frown and wriggle, as if he still felt the smart of the blows he had received. "We don't call it splendid; do we, Sancho?" he added, making a queer noise, which caused the poodle to growl and bang the floor irefully with his tail, as he lay close ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... shadow, where he would not be noticed, knee-deep in water, his head drawn down into his shoulders, and a friendly leafy branch bending over him to screen him from prying eyes. As a fish swam up to his chum he would spear it like lightning; throw his head back and wriggle it head-first down his long neck; then settle down to watch for the next one. And there he stayed, alternately watching and feasting, till he had enough; when he drew his head farther down into his shoulders, shut his eyes, and went fast asleep in the cool shadows,—a perfect picture ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... this is the end of me," he thought in his little round head as he tried to wriggle across the road and couldn't because his back was so stiff. "Now I am an old man and I shall never see another summer. Good-bye." And Fuzzy Caterpillar rolled himself up in a gray blanket and hung himself on the end of a dried twig. "This is the last ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... want to," said Polly. "But why don't you be the kangaroo, then, Joe, and let Davie be something else? Give him the snake, then he won't have to jump, and it's easier to wriggle." ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... voices, for swift as lightning his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. As it approached, Medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide-open throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle—flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again—the dragon fell at full length upon the ground and lay ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... opened umbrellas wheeled in the current of air that came around the house; the porch ran water. While Margaret was adding her own rainy-day equipment to the others, a golden brown setter, one ecstatic wriggle from nose to tail, flashed into view, and came fawning ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... truth, is hers. But she has the right to know. To see that she knows comes within the bounds of any decent man's justifiable interference. One of us must tell her; the news would come with less grace from myself. But for you to wriggle out of your dilemma with silence, while she goes on breaking her heart, is cowardly—just as cowardly as if you'd deserted in the face of the enemy. I've no doubt you've sentenced more than one poor wretch to be shot at ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... are others I could mention who took part in this contention, And at first 'twas my intention, but at present I forbear; There's young Look-sharp, and Wriggle, who would make an angel giggle, And a young conceited Zeigel, who was seated near the door; If you could only see them, you'd laugh till you were sore, And then ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... the temple. But without paying the least homage to the image of the 'Lo' spirit, he simply kept his eyes fixed intently on it; for albeit made of clay, it actually seemed, nevertheless, to flutter as does a terror-stricken swan, and to wriggle as a dragon in motion. It looked like a lotus, peeping its head out of the green stream, or like the sun, pouring its rays upon the russet clouds in the early morn. Pao-y's tears unwittingly trickled ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... toward an apex surrounded by flashes of pink lightning—the seething bodies of all humanity, and of all the animals and reptiles of the earth. Each struggled to extricate itself from the rest, to surmount its neighbors, to wriggle toward the apex. The bare breasts of women, whose handsome ball gowns were torn and covered with mud, strained to be free from the enwrapping trunks of elephants, and the coils of pythons. The torsoes of dusky ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... open a little at the top, same as I've had it before once or twice these spring days, and Sol never took notice. The worst of it is, my husband told me I hadn't orter keep it open, even a speck, while the bird was out of his cage. 'Sol can wriggle through the smallest kind of a crack,' says he; and it appears he was right. My, but he'll be angry! 'Marthy, it'll serve you ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... great deal about their childhood and youth, or, to speak more eelishly, their grigginess and elverhood. The young grigs, when they do make their appearance, leave us in no doubt at all about their presence or their reality. They wriggle up weirs, walls, and floodgates; they force there way bodily through chinks and apertures; they find out every drain, pipe, or conduit in a given plane rectilinear figure; and when all other spots have been fully occupied, they take to dry land, like veritable ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... may have lurked in it when first removed. Lay the turves out in a frame, grass side downwards, and give them a soaking with water in which a very small quantity of salt has been dissolved. This will cause the remaining bots and slugs to wriggle out, and by means of a little patient labour they can be gathered and destroyed. In January or February sow the seed rather thickly in lines along the centre of each strip of turf, and cover with fine earth. By keeping the frame closed a ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... and added to the force of the word with another little wriggle against Forrester. It solved his problems. There was now only one thing to do, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the old man, trying to wriggle out of his son's grasp; "only not just yet a whiles. I'm agoin' in here to drink your good health, Adam lad, and all here's a-comin' ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... natural stance. A change of the position of the feet by even a couple of inches one way or the other may alter the stance altogether, and knock the player clean off his putting. In this new position he will wriggle about and feel uncomfortable. Everything is wrong. His coat is in the way, his pockets seem too full of old balls, the feel of his stockings on his legs irritates him, and he is conscious that there is a nail coming up on the inside of the sole of his boot. It is all ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... said, though in tones little like any he was used to hearing from his own lips. But he would not dare look himself in the face again if he did not make at least a wriggle before surrendering. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... attitude which his father wanted, started up at the first whoop, so alert and interested that his nostrils quivered. He scented excitement of some kind and was so eager to be in the midst of it that the noise of the tom-tom made him wriggle in his chair. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a flush ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... cake standing erect and solid. Gripping her harpoon, she threw herself flat on her stomach and pushing the cake before her, began to wriggle her ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... bar, and a few looked at the drop-curtain as if they thought their ascetic glances would cause it to roll up and disappear. The overture at length ended. The stage was disclosed, and a man came forward with a smirk, and a wriggle of gigantic feet, to sing ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... lifted his foot and scraped some snow off a nearby log, and set the baby down there while he took off his coat and wrapped it around him, buttoning it like a bag over arms and all. The baby watched him knowingly, its eyes round and dark blue and shining, and gave a contented little wriggle when Bud picked it up again ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... said Tom, as the other boys tried to wriggle out from under the tent. "We've got to get wet now, anyway; but perhaps, if we stay as we are, we can manage to keep ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... ... then a bang Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans ... Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, Bleeding to death. ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... earlier in one case, a little later in the other, the two families, each presented with a bamboo climbing-pole, leave their respective wallets. There is nothing remarkable about the mode of egress. The precincts to be crossed consist of a very slack net-work, through which the outcomers wriggle: weak little orange-yellow beasties, with a triangular black patch upon their sterns. One morning is long enough for the whole family to ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... Though the lizard seemed to have lost none of its spirit, the flesh was becoming weak. While it panted, its eyes twinkled with inane ferocity, and the snake, with that peculiar fearsome, gliding movement—neither wriggle nor squirm—typical of the species, slowly edged its victim under the shadow of a tussock. There both reposed, the snake calm in craft and design, the lizard waiting for the one chance of its life. Swallowing the lizard under any circumstances seemed an impossible feat. To begin the act ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... a man should not be willing to do for his wife. A smile, an attentive manner, the general effect of having combed his hair and washed behind his ears, a word now and then to show that he is awake (I am assuming that he controls the tendency to wriggle)—and no more is needed. He is a lay figure, but not necessarily a lay ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... beggars one at a time—go for them, throttle them, wring their necks, jump on them; and if they wriggle, stamp!" ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... bound hand and foot. Indeed, hands and feet were fastened together with a stout cord, which had been passed around the man's neck subsequently, so that he was in some danger of suffocation if he endeavored to wriggle loose, or even straighten his back, which was bent ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... man caught a glimpse of uncouth shapes wriggling along a fence ridge several rods away. No more than the barest glimpse, it served: with a mighty heave and wriggle he breasted the lower platform, shifted a hand to the top of its railing, heaved himself up to a foothold, and swarmed up the iron ladder with an agility an ape might ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... for her sake, as it were. Why, didst thou see, it was godly Mr. Henwick that held her head when he wriggled so, and old Madam Holbrook had herself helped upon a chair to see the better. I wonder how long I might wriggle, before great and godly folk would take so much notice of me? But, I suppose, that comes of being a pastor's daughter. She'll be so set up there'll be no speaking to her now. Faith! thinkest thou that Hota really had bewitched her? She gave me corn-cakes, the last time ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of me in such a way that their fall made no noise. When the moment came, at the very second when my swooning features vanished before your eyes, I simply jumped into my retreat, thanks to a rather plucky little wriggle of the loins. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... tugboat, while it stuck to the submerged bank, like a bull ramming its head against a stone wall. Instead of staying motionless the stern swung slowly to the right and then to the left, as if trying to wriggle its nose out of the mud. This caused the muzzle of the cannon to wabble, sometimes being directed straight at the sailboat, and sometimes to one side of it. But the gun was so easily shifted that the American could readily perfect the aim ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... was by means of an aperture so low that we had to lie flat on the ground, and so narrow that even I found it hard work to wriggle through. ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... as noiselessly as possible he began to wriggle away, inch by inch, from Bill, and toward the fire. Several times he fancied the men moved restlessly in their sleep, but when he looked toward them they appeared to be still sleeping heavily. On each occasion, however, he lay still until he ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... anxiety, calmly remarking, however, as I translated his jargon, that he would, as on the previous day, hold fast to my shoulder with his bill. He made Grilly get down below at the same time and hold on to my feet; and when I began to crawl and wriggle along the best way I could, I was assisted very materially by the parrot above ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... a sea of fancy, Genius rises, And like the rare Leviathan surprises; But the small fry of scribblers!—tiny souls! They wriggle ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... You don't permeate my orbit. You don't get on to me. It was this way. I got up and looked out on the world. I says: 'J. R., it's clear you haven't enough cash for your ambitions. But you've got a opportunity. Throw it in. Be bold. If your conscience squirms, let it squirm. If it wriggles, let it wriggle. Take the risk. Expand to large ideas.' I took it. Say, I made parties unwilling investors in me. Now, then, there they are, as delegated in you. Here's me, Julius R., monarch by purchase and election of the sovereign state of Lua. You ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... pitch torches too came curling across the roof and down upon me, making me sick and giddy with its evil smell and taste; and though all was very dim, I could see my hands were black with oily smuts. At last I was able to wriggle myself over without making too much noise, and felt a great relief in changing sides, but gave such a start as made the coffin creak again at hearing ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... you will never be able to cane if you hold it like that. You should hold it like this, Miss Phoebe, and give it a wriggle like that. ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... 'twixt the bars of the fire, He leaves them to wriggle and writhe on the coals,[1] In a manner that Horner himself would admire, And wish, 'stead of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... without end. It was all so realistic and endowed with such benignity and such gentleness of motion that I gazed at it with the gladness of a discoverer. In response to a slight motion of the hand, the sea-serpent wriggled as though in haste; but wriggle as it might the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... unchafferable things he had denied himself that he might pursue success, and they were going to take their fill of success too! It was not fair. He thought of their good fortune in being born strong and triumphant as if it were a piece of rapacity, and tried to wriggle out of this moment which compelled him to regard them with respect by reversing the intentional, enjoyed purity of relationship with her and finding a lewd amusement in the fierceness which was so plainly an aspect of desire. But that meant moving outside the orbit ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... lean, now Luck Is fat, And wise men take her as she comes: The Bowler may be sure the Bat Will share the sugarplums. So never wriggle, nor protest, Nor eye the zenith in disgust, But, Johnson, bowl your level best, And recollect, what ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... goods on the donkeys' backs and keeping them there. They experimented with balancing a roll on the back of one, but it promptly fell off again. They tied two rolls together and slung them across the back of another, pannier fashion; but the little beast gave a kick and a wriggle and deposited the load on the ground. Various dodges were tried, perspiration poured off the faces of the officers, they were covered with dust, their language grew stronger and stronger, and at last, feeling themselves ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... status of the owners and rulers of rural England throughout recent centuries. Our esquires did not win their estates till they had given up any particular fancy for winning their spurs. Esquire does not mean squire, and esq. does not mean anything. But it remains on our letters a little wriggle in pen and ink and an indecipherable hieroglyph twisted by the strange turns of our history, which have turned a military discipline into a pacific oligarchy, and that into a mere plutocracy at last. And there are similar historic riddles to be unpicked ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... creek from the ocean and the finest ones found their way into the pool, and on Friday the cook and his men supplied the tables with fresh fish. How many times have I seen those fine fish, caught on the prongs of a spear, writhe and wriggle to get off. At first I could not taste them, I felt so sorry to see them killed in that way. I would not go out on Friday until after the fishing was done. The lamper eels crawled up the stream and the men gathered them by the barrels full and made ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... began to gnaw at the lining of the muff, and pretty soon got his whole body under it, and then he began to kick and wriggle to get out. He felt he was being smothered alive, and he squealed aloud. The lady finally rescued him, but not until she had torn away half the lining ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... bottom of a pond or lake, looking like an old water-soaked log with a branch—its head and neck—at one end. From the tip of the tongue the creature extrudes two small filaments of a pinkish colour which wriggle about, bearing a perfect resemblance to the small round worms of which fishes are so fond. Attracted by these, fishes swim up to grasp the squirming objects and are engulfed by the cruel mouth of the angler. Certain marine turtles have long-fringed ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she knew ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in rushing into a clinch, and Tad found himself gripped in those arms of steel. Wriggle and twist as be would he could not free himself from their embrace. His adversary, on the other hand, found himself fully occupied in holding on to his slippery young antagonist, giving him neither time nor opportunity effectually to dispose of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... sharp lights burst up momentarily through it like meteors. Weirder than this strange wake are the long slow fires that keep burning at a distance, out in the dark. Nebulous incandescences mount up from the depths, change form, and pass;—serpentine flames wriggle by;—there are long billowing crests of fire. These seem to be formed of millions of tiny sparks, that light up all at the same time, glow for a while, disappear, reappear, and swirl ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... faithful to the traditions of his house and the memory of his father,—and so on, until the patience of Wellington and Peel was exhausted, and they told him he must sign the bill at once, or they would immediately resign. "The king could no longer wriggle off the hook," and surrendered. O'Connell was instantly re-elected, and took his seat in Parliament,—a position which he occupied for the rest of his life. George IV. was the last of the monarchs of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... a very nice circus, and all the boys from the camp went to it—also Edward, who managed to scramble over and wriggle under benches till he was sitting ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... wriggle back from the brushwood screen. He was filled with the sort of sick rage that comes when you can't actively resent insolence and arrogance. He hated the people who wanted the world to collapse, and this was part of their effort ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... speaking to each other. In his mental confusion Old Man Anderson kept revolving in his mind, with satisfaction, a new plan he had evolved. The next time Jim should fall asleep he would crawl back through the aperture in the conduit wall, pry up the boards over the opening into the prison yard, wriggle out, and take his chances in getting over the wall somehow! Better even be shot by a guard than die like a rat in this unspeakable place, as he was doing, where he couldn't stand up and dared not lie down ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... "If you wriggle for a year you won't get free," he said in a harsh whisper. "But I tell you what you will get; that's a crack on the head to keep you quiet. Do you hear? You lay still, or there'll be an ugly ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... neck! Have you ever felt a mustache on your neck? It intoxicates you, makes you feel creepy, goes to the tips of your fingers. You wriggle, shake your shoulders, toss back your head. You wish to get away and at the same time to remain there; it is delightful, but irritating. But ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... It is more than a pity," jerked out Porson, with a sudden wriggle which caused him to rock up and down upon the stiff springs of ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... weapon, made sure of Popinot's on his hip, approached one of the deadlights, placed a chair, climbed upon it, and with infinite pains managed to wriggle and squirm head and shoulders through the opening. It was very fortunate for him indeed that the Sybarite happened to have been built for pleasure yachting, with deadlights uncommonly large for the sake of air and light, else he would have been obliged to run the risk of opening the door ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... suppose, The world consists of puppet-shows; Where petulant conceited fellows Perform the part of Punchinelloes: So at this booth which we call Dublin, Tim, thou'rt the Punch to stir up trouble in: You wriggle, fidge, and make a rout, Put all your brother puppets out, Run on in a perpetual round, To tease, perplex, disturb, confound: Intrude with monkey grin and clatter To interrupt all serious matter; Are grown the nuisance of your clan, Who hate and scorn you to a ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... guardedly referring, both in a wig and out of it; he passed behind a screen without it, and immediately (as quickly as we write) popped out in it, giving it a finishing touch rather like the butler's wriggle to his coat as he goes to the door. There are the two kinds of learned brothers, those who use the screen, and those who (so far as the jury knows) sleep in their wigs. The latter are the swells, and include the judges; whom, however, we have ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... me infinite honour then," said Paliser, who spoke better than he knew. But her visible discomfort delighted him. He saw that she wanted to wriggle out of it and, like a true sportsman, he gave her an opening in ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... suspect he is a renegade, immensely rich, very odd; by the by, a great mesmeriser. I have seen him with my own eyes produce an effect on inanimate things. If you take a letter from your pocket and throw it to the other end of the room, he will order it to come to his feet, and you will see the letter wriggle itself along the floor till it has obeyed his command. 'Pon my honour, 'tis true: I have seen him affect even the weather, disperse or collect clouds, by means of a glass tube or wand. But he does not like talking of these matters to strangers. He has only ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... flatten'd along the beam, scarce daring to breathe. But at length, when the man had pass'd below for the sixth time, I found heart to wriggle myself toward the doorway over which the gallows protruded. By slow degrees, and pausing whenever the fellow drew near, I crept close up to the wall: then, waiting the proper moment, cast my legs over, dangled for a second or two swinging myself toward ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... repeatedly and somewhat distressfully passed over them closer to the question of which of the alien objects presented to his choice it would cost him least to profess to handle. What he had already paid, a spectator would easily have gathered from the long, the suppressed wriggle that had ended in his falling back, was some sacrifice of his habit of not privately depreciating those to whom he was publicly civil. It was plain, however, that when he presently spoke his thought had taken a stretch. "I'm sure I've ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... biting, as they 'most always do, by spells, and the Deep Woods people leaned back and looked out over the Wide Blue Water, and away out there saw Mr. Eagle swoop down and pick up something which looked at first like a shoe-string; then they saw it wriggle, and knew it was a small water-snake, which was going to be Mr. Eagle's dinner; and they talked about it and wondered how he could enjoy ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the game!"—there was bitter anger in his voice now. "You see the game! He wanted to get me in deep enough so that I couldn't wriggle out, deeper than ten thousand that I could get at any time on my insurance, he wanted me where I couldn't get away—and he got me. The first ten thousand wasn't enough. I went to him for a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth—hoping always that each would be the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... cried Esau; "and there I hung for ever so long, giving myself a bit of a wriggle now and then, but afraid to do much, it hurt so, dragging at my arms, while they were twisted up. I s'pose I must have been 'bout an hour like that, but it seemed a week, and I was beginning to get sick again, when ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... having their kings rule in a truly grand and kingly manner; and they insisted that he have built for himself the most magnificent palace ever seen. In all else they let him have his own way absolutely; but they wouldn't allow him to wriggle out of any of the ceremony or show that goes with being a king. A thousand servants he had to keep in his palace, night and day, to wait on him. The Royal Canoe had to be kept up—a gorgeous, polished mahogany boat, seventy ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... said Budge, "when the leaves all go up and down and wriggle around so, are they talking ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... looked and saw Lovelace Peyton, I began to shudder too. He was hanging half in and half out of a little window high up in the shed like a skylight, and the big bottle was slowly slipping as he tried to wriggle either in or out. There was no ladder in sight, and neither of us was near tall enough to reach him. He was beginning to whimper and be scared himself, and I could see the heavy bottle start to slip faster from his arm. We had less than a second to lose. I thought and prayed both at the ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... his satisfaction in being out in the open again, grew somewhat tired of its monotonously even wagon-rutted width, and longed for a trail—a faint, meandering trail that would swing from the road, dip into a sand arroyo, edge slanting up the farther bank, wriggle round a cluster of small hills, shoot out across a mesa, and climb slowly toward those hills to the west, finally to contort itself into serpentine switchbacks as it sought the crest—and once on the crest (which was in reality but the visible edge of ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... the dressmaking periodicals. She never heard of the Wednesday matinee. When she takes the air she rides in a carriage that has a sheltering hood, and she is veiled up to the eyes, and she must never lean out to wriggle her little finger-tips at men lolling in front of the cafes. She must not see the men. She may look at them, but she must not see them. No wonder the sisters in Michigan are organizing to batter down the walls of tradition, and bring to her the more ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... too. The staff seemed to get up from the ground of its own accord, and, spreading its little pair of wings, it half hopped, half flew, and leaned itself against the wall of the cottage. There it stood quite still, except that the snakes continued to wriggle. But, in my private opinion, old Philemon's eyesight had been playing him ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... got you into this trouble, that deplorable habit of swearing aloud in German. But I will say, for a tinker, you put a very neat West Country whipping on that bit of broken harness. I've been admiring it. Didn't know they taught you that in the German navy—don't wriggle." ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... happen, you know! Now then—why didn't you come to us? We have a wing quite empty. But just as you like, of course. Do you lease it from HIM?—this fellow, I mean," she added, nodding towards Lebedeff. "And why does he always wriggle so?" ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... her desperate wriggle out of his hand revealed that the fright of the night had left more impression upon her delicate soul ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... providential thing that this young man should press his right thumb against the wall in taking his hat from the peg! Such a very natural action, too, if you come to think of it." Holmes was outwardly calm, but his whole body gave a wriggle of suppressed excitement as he spoke. "By the way, Lestrade, who made ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... swinging rope to another, and springing up the bars of the cage. The little monkey jumps, catches a rope, drops to the ground, and springs at another rope. Now he is in a corner, the others have him; but no, with a dive and a wriggle he has slipped through them, and is chattering and grimacing on the ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... advent of the sweeps, I used, if possible, to hide until they had left the house. I cannot understand how public opinion tolerated for so long the abominable cruelty of forcing little boys to clamber up flues. These unhappy brats were made to creep into the chimneys from the grates, and then to wriggle their way up by digging their toes into the interstices of the bricks, and by working their elbows and knees alternately; stifled in the pitch-darkness of the narrow flue by foul air, suffocated by the showers of soot that fell on them, perhaps losing their way ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... a throne for the fairy queen, or some foolish trick like that. Now you sit right straight down in that chair and read your poem over slowly, while I whip into my own clothes, and then we'll go along together. Fred can't come until a little later anyway. Sit still now, and don't wriggle around and spoil ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... the pot, took hold of the ferret, and was about to place it in the box; but it gave a wriggle and writhe, glided out of Mercer's hand, crept under the corn-bin, and, as he tried to reach it, I saw it run out at the back, and creep down a hole in the floor boards, one evidently made ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... hand, it tickles me immensely to behold a plethoric commonplace Briton roar himself purple with impassioned platitude at a political meeting; but I perceive that all my neighbours take him with the utmost seriousness. Again, your literary journalist professes to wriggle in his chair over the humour of Jane Austen; to me she is the dullest lady that ever faithfully photographed the trivial. Years ago I happened to be crossing Putney Bridge, in a frock-coat and silk hat, when a ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... That Serpent hath no power to soar in air, Save clinging to winged creatures that can climb The empyrean; yet from its foul lair It sprang to the broad wings it would ensnare, Encoil, enshackle, hamper, break, drag down. How swept the Bird so low that it should dare, That Worm, to wriggle midst its plumes full grown, And with the Air's sole monarch ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... might shout and wriggle about, Over the misty sea, oh, The snake had often to go without His ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... a thing. There is not, in or out of an attorney's office in the county of Erie, or elsewhere, one who could raise a doubt, or a particle of a doubt, about the meaning of this provision of the Constitution. He may act as witnesses do, sometimes, on the stand. He may wriggle, and twist, and say he cannot tell, or cannot remember. I have seen many such efforts in my time, on the part of witnesses, to falsify and deny the truth. But there is no man who can read these words of the Constitution of the United States, and say they are not clear and imperative. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the American, with a twist and a wriggle, drew his two hands apart, and held them in ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... avail to kick and scream and wriggle in the arms of a strong, decided young aunt. For the second time that day, a vociferously struggling baby was ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... useless to attempt description. Mortal man cannot conceive of the delicate shades of sentiment expressible by a dog's tail, unless he has studied the subject—the wag, the waggle, the cock, the droop, the slope, the wriggle! Away with description—it ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Satiromastix this reproach is made to Ben Jonson:—'Horace did not screw and wriggle himselfe into great Mens famyliarity, impudentlie ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... time," began Dan, with a twinkle in his eye, "the pigs were swine." Roseen gave an impatient wriggle. "Well, well, it's too bad to be tormentin' ye that way. I'll begin right now.—Well, very well then. There was wan time the Spider an' the Gout was thravellin' together, goin' to seek their fortun's. Well, they ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... anxious to get in—eager for home and dinner; five hundred stiffened and cramped folk equally eager to get out—mix on a narrow platform, with a train running off one side, and a detached engine gliding gently after it. Push, wriggle, wind in and out, bumps from portmanteaus, and so at last ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... suspected person can get away?" muttered the submarine boy. "Well, that's it should be. I wonder if there are any more of this strange crew—men or women spies that don't happen to have suspected so far? If there are, I don't believe they'll wriggle through the meshes of old Uncle Sam's Secret ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... the air is thick with danger. When the blackness of night comes, then will come, also, those who make war from behind the trees of the forest. In the darkness, how is the young white and his friends to tell enemies from friends? The jackals will wriggle through and over the wall of trees like snakes through tall grass. After what they have seen, can my white friends expect mercy at ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... builds in its feathers. It may look desolate and uncomfortable enough to others, because the central detail is neither bed nor wardrobe, sofa nor armchair, but a good solid writing-table that does not wriggle, and that ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... not quite satisfied with his pupil until one bright morning last week when Alfred displayed the first signs of having acquired the Directional Wriggle. Strange as it may sound, this very human trout actually wriggled after John for a distance of five yards. Three days later he pursued his master to the village post-office and beat him by a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... sailing vessel was tied up at the end of a stone wharf, obviously awaiting them, and the captives were tied hand and foot and tossed into the hold. Jason managed to wriggle around until he could get his eye to a crack between two badly fitting planks and recited a running travelogue of the cruise, apparently for the edification of his companions, but really for his own benefit since the sound of his own voice always ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... be done now? If the robber had had a knife in his pocket, Gum would have been a dead monkey in two seconds. But while he was unsuccessfully feeling for his knife, Gum suddenly came to, and with one violent wriggle shook itself free, and sprang on the highest shelf. The robber gave chase; then followed the most comical hunt you ever saw. The robber's face being now exposed (he had no idea that Donald had already recognised him), he was afraid to turn ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... trouble is a very easy thing. I notice that to others it will always worries bring. But getting out of trouble's always quite the other way— The more you try to wriggle out, the longer you ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... so if you knew as much about it as I do," answered Ben, with a sudden frown and wriggle, as if he still felt the smart of the blows he had received. "We don't call it splendid; do we, Sancho?" he added, making a queer noise, which caused the poodle to growl and bang the floor irefully with his tail, as he lay close to his ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... no better success; and then again, with a similar result. It was to no purpose. Stretch my arms as I would, and wriggle my limbs as I might, I could not get my body higher than the point where the staff was set, and could only extend my hand half-way up the rounded swell of the cask. Of course I could not keep there, as there was nothing to rest my weight upon, and I was forced ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... Chinese fluttered here and there like blue and red marsh fires a mile or so back from the main road. Once as she flew along she shied like a horse and twisted the wheel as a wild screaming and twittering rose at the side of the car, and glancing back she saw three figures wriggle and laugh in mockery and astonishment. They had risen round the embers of a dead fire, and stood swaying on their feet and showing white teeth in orange faces. One had the long hair of a ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... himself staring down at a red smashed thing on the ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle unavailing legs. Then, when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was like a fog bank torn to rags. He ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... little beggars one at a time—go for them, throttle them, wring their necks, jump on them; and if they wriggle, stamp!" ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... cat that saved the situation and its life at the same time. Mary-'Gusta was near the edge of the pine grove and Con was close at her heels. David gave one more convulsive, desperate wriggle, slid from the girl's arms and disappeared through the ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... within a dozen feet of the entrance, and, like the rest, it presently narrowed down through a slope in the roof; but just at its narrowest, when he feared he had come to the end, there came a dip in the flooring corresponding to the slope up above, and he found he could wriggle through. Once through, the passage widened and continued to widen, and the going became very rough and broken, with piles of ragged rock and deep black pitfalls ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... the Secret Service net is around the place, and no suspected person can get away?" muttered the submarine boy. "Well, that's it should be. I wonder if there are any more of this strange crew—men or women spies that don't happen to have suspected so far? If there are, I don't believe they'll wriggle through the meshes of old Uncle ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... not afterward agree, but once I lay prone for minutes together, with both arms buried in the treacherous snow, which was slipping under me, and the end of the lariat a foot or two away. Then with a snake-like wriggle I grasped it, and there was a cry of relief from the watchers. I got a bight around Ormond's shoulders, and after some difficulty fastened it. One cannot use ordinary knots on hide. Ready hands gathered in the slack, and my rival was drawn up swiftly, while ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... now Luck Is fat, And wise men take her as she comes: The Bowler may be sure the Bat Will share the sugarplums. So never wriggle, nor protest, Nor eye the zenith in disgust, But, Johnson, bowl your level best, And recollect, what must ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... "descent with modification," under such circumstances that no one who had not been brought up in the school of Mr. Gladstone could doubt that the two expressions referred to the same thing. He seems to have felt that he must be a poor wriggler if he could not wriggle out of this; give him any loophole, however small, and Mr. Darwin could trust himself to get out through it; but he did not like saying what left no loophole at all, and "my theory of descent with modification" closed ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... him by Joseph Hynes, journalist) My dear fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to a beggar) Please accept. (He takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples) Come on, boys! Wriggle ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... allude to that little innocent playfulness on your part, my dear sir," said Rodin, in his softest tone, approaching the two sisters with a wriggle which was peculiar to him; "if I allude to it, you see, it was suggested by the involuntary recollection of the little services I was happy enough to render you." Dagobert looked fixedly at Rodin, who instantly veiled his glance ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... same. Hold not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at the right hand of plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not.... Smell not of thy Meat; make not a noise with thy Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking.... When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavour to ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... good, I believe," said Nancy, "but I don't expect ever to be, myself I don't think I could be. You might as well teach a snake not to wriggle." ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... 25). These "gray flies," as they are sometimes called, lay a mass of three or four hundred eggs on the surface of wounds. The larvae which in a few hours hatch from these make their way directly into the wound where they feed on the surrounding tissue until full grown when they wriggle out and drop to the ground where they transform to the pupa and later to the adult fly. Of course their presence in the wounds is very distressing to the infected animal, and great suffering results. Slight scratches that might otherwise quickly heal often become ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... Galloway was quick to follow up his stroke, shaking his head fiercely, like a dog worrying a rat. "You were seen carrying the body downstairs, the night of the murder. You might as well own up to it, first as last. Lies will not help you. We know too much for you to wriggle out of it. And never mind smoothing your hair down like that. We know all about that scar on your forehead, and ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... "What is there to go wrong? I've got a big day in court to-morrow and I've struck a snag, and I've got to wriggle out of it somehow, before I quit. It's nothing for you to worry about. Go to your dinner and have a good ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... inheritance, on the other hand, will show clearly by the violence of the response provoked that their nervous system is easily stimulated and exhausted. They will wriggle and squirm for hours together, emitting the same constant reflex cry. The whole body will start convulsively at a sudden touch or a loud sound which would evoke no response from a more stolid infant. ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... into the temple. But without paying the least homage to the image of the 'Lo' spirit, he simply kept his eyes fixed intently on it; for albeit made of clay, it actually seemed, nevertheless, to flutter as does a terror-stricken swan, and to wriggle as a dragon in motion. It looked like a lotus, peeping its head out of the green stream, or like the sun, pouring its rays upon the russet clouds in the early morn. Pao-yue's tears unwittingly ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... balance," said Jim; "these fish are fierce." They were, in the wilder parts. They would bite like mad, and then wriggle and wrench themselves off the hook before you could get them up the bank. I never saw or heard of such ferocity, except in the celebrated scaly warrior which chased an equally famous fisherman all over ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... with that gang in town. He was simply devoted to Miss Beaubien until Alice Renwick came; then he dropped her like a hot brick. By the Eternal, Rollins, he hasn't gotten off with that old love yet, you mark my words. There's Indian blood in her veins, and a look in her eye that makes me wriggle, sometimes. I watched her last night at parade when she drove out here with that copper-faced old squaw, her mother. For all her French and Italian education and her years in New York and Paris, that girl's got a wild ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... see you, my pretty one,' said Winifred, fondly. 'Are you well, are you strong? No, don't wriggle your head away, I shall believe nothing but ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah—you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. You'll find that ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... in, slip into, slip in, pop into, pop in, break into, break in, burst into, burst in; set foot on; ingress; burst in upon, break in upon; invade, intrude; insinuate itself; interpenetrate, penetrate; infiltrate; find one's way into, wriggle into, worm oneself into. give entrance to &c (receive) 296; insert &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dead hush in the house as often as the wind of conversation veers in that direction. This is nothing, though, to the white awe in the air when visitors call and I am questioned how I earn my living in London. I hardly know whether to laugh or cry at the long-drawn breath of relief when I wriggle out of a tight place without telling a lie. But you can't hide an eel in a sack, and I know the truth will pop out one of these days. Only yesterday I went district-visiting with Aunt Rachel, and one of the Balaams of life, who keeps a tavern for fishermen, lured ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... air, an' 'e ought to 'ave a permanent chimney-sweep detailed to clear the soot out of 'is lungs an' breathin' toobs. But if Pint-o'-Bass does smoke more'n is good for 'im or any other respectable factory chimney, I'll admit the smoke 'asn't sooted up 'is intelleck none, an' 'e can wriggle 'is way out of a hole where a double-jointed snake 'ud stick. An' durin' the Retreat, when, as you knows, cigarettes in the Expeditionary Force was scarcer'n snowballs in 'ell, ole Pint-o'-Bass managed to carry on, an' wasn't never seen without 'is fag, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... Marquis, taking a great bite out of a slice of bread and jam, "whether it wouldn't be better for me to do it with a knife. Most of the best things have been brought off with a knife. And it would be a new emotion to get a knife into a French President and wriggle it round." ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... of the Anthrax, whose pupa, armed with trepans, bores through rock on the feeble Fly's behalf. Urged by a presentiment that to us remains an unfathomable mystery, the Cerambyx-grub leaves the inside of the oak, its peaceful retreat, its unassailable stronghold, to wriggle towards the outside, where lives the foe, the Woodpecker, who may gobble up the succulent little sausage. At the risk of its life, it stubbornly digs and gnaws to the very bark, of which it leaves no more intact than the thinnest film, a slender screen. Sometimes, even, the rash one opens ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... glance around; she was looking for something. Spying a stout stake that had been broken off and was lying on the ground, she caught it up, and the next moment had thrown herself flat on her face. Lying flat, she began slowly and cautiously to wriggle out across the surface of the quaking bog. The black water seethed and bubbled under her; but her weight, evenly distributed, did not bear on any one spot heavily enough to press her down. Slowly, carefully, she worked her way out, while the other girls ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... thread of silk. But still he followed the dreadful roar of the Minotaur, which now grew louder and louder, and finally so very loud that Theseus fully expected to come close upon him, at every new zizgag and wriggle of the path. And at last, in an open space, at the very center of the labyrinth, he did discern ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Tennison, that you need have nothing further to fear from him," said the Superintendent with satisfaction. "He has no doubt, very powerful friends, and if the evidence were not so damning and direct as that collected after so much patience and perseverance by Mr. Garfield, he might perhaps wriggle out of it. But once we have him he can hope for no escape," he added. "And we shall arrest him before an hour is out. Fortunately he is still quite unsuspicious, though his chief fear is of Mr. Garfield, and of the ugly revelations which either Moroni ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... Children are wilted into silence and slumberous nonentity; boys do not bathe to-day—they welter, hour after hour, in the dark water near the shaded rock. Even they and the tadpoles can hardly be seen to wriggle. The cow has found a shade, and, preferring repose to munching, lies contented under the one great elm mercifully left in the middle ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... rushing into a clinch, and Tad found himself gripped in those arms of steel. Wriggle and twist as be would he could not free himself from their embrace. His adversary, on the other hand, found himself fully occupied in holding on to his slippery young antagonist, giving him neither time nor opportunity effectually to dispose of the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... of anger, although tempestuous, were never very prolonged. The curious convulsive wriggle of one of his arms, which always showed when he was excited, gradually died away, and after looking for some time at the papers of de Meneval—who had written away like an automaton during all this uproar—he came across to the fire with ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Griselda gave a little wriggle. "Cuckoo, you're laughing at me," she said. "I mean, have you come back to stay and cuckoo as usual and make my ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... have one if only they can disentangle it from the unrealities which have somehow got coiled up with it. All the odd little eccentricities in the form of service and the recent fashion of spicing sermons with unexpected swear-words are just pathetic efforts to wriggle out of ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... throw the chunks of plaster in front of me in such a way that their fall made no noise. When the moment came, at the very second when my swooning features vanished before your eyes, I simply jumped into my retreat, thanks to a rather plucky little wriggle of the loins. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... eyes but the History papers. I am a fish out of water.... It makes me feel growly all the time.... I can not get away from my ball and chain.... I think we'll make things snap and crackle a little.... This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... four or five men on guard close by; as it was, when the men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and I came running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see a crocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feet first. Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, and that ended ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... gasping snuffle, a small, sharp bark. Then he was on the bed before I saw his good brindled head, almost, and in my arms. I pressed my face against his dear, quivering coat, I surrendered my cheek to his warm, rough tongue, I translated each happy convulsive wriggle. ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... you going to say to me? For the last hour I have been asking you to marry me, and you have said nothing; only just 'wriggle, wriggle,' talking off on ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... together exactly, either; for Rollo who was usually pretty alert and ready in emergencies of difficulty or danger, when he found himself rolling down the slope, though he could not stop, still contrived to wriggle and twist himself off to one side, so as to get clear of the horse and roll off himself in a different direction. They both, however, the animal and the boy, soon came to a stop. Rollo was up in an instant. The horse, too, contrived, after some scrambling, to gain his feet. ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... residence for this species. The habit of a Dapper, when he is at home, is a light broad-cloth, with calamanco or red waistcoat and breeches; and it is remarkable that their wigs seldom hide the collar of their coats. They have always a peculiar spring in their arms, a wriggle in their bodies, and a trip in their gait. All which motions they express at once in their drinking, bowing or saluting ladies; for a distant imitation of a forward fop, and a resolution to overtop him in his way, are the ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... consciousness of his protege's danger, "but we must think of you all the same first." And kneeling down by the injured man's side, he proceeded, with Ernest Wilton's assistance, to cut away Seth's shirt, and then the end of the arrow, holding it firmly the while so that it should not wriggle about, and hurt him more than they could help, after which the barbed head was drawn out of the wound—which was just between the third and fourth ribs, and not very serious, as the ex-mate had thought— ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... and still for several moments, then managed to wriggle away. I can give you no account of my feelings now, so many years have passed; besides, I don't think I felt at all. Every day I became more and more thoughtful, and Leontine and the manager rallied me ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... enchantment, of a beauty which not alone beguiles the senses—I speak from the standpoint of the ten-year-old—but throws wide to fancy the gate of dreams. Directly I was seated—in the body—and had had my hat taken off and been told not to wriggle, I vaulted airily over the unconscious audience, over an orchestra engaged in tuning up, and was lost in the marvelous landscape of the drop-curtain. The adventures which I had there put to shame any which the raising ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... He began to wriggle back from the brushwood screen. He was filled with the sort of sick rage that comes when you can't actively resent insolence and arrogance. He hated the people who wanted the world to collapse, and this was part of their effort ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... of the world gathered together and danced and capered before the frog in order to make him laugh, but all to no purpose. Then they called up the fishes to see if they could accomplish anything, but the frog preserved a solemn face until the eel began to wriggle. ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... of it. Only the eyes. Creeping, creeping, creeping. No noise. One raised. Waggons drawn up in laager. Oxen out-spanned in the middle. Trekking all day. Tired out; dog tired. Crawl, crawl, crawl! Hands and knees. Might be snakes. A wriggle. Men sitting about the camp fire. Smoking. Gleam of their eyes! Under the waggons. Nearer, nearer, nearer! Then, the throwing ones in your midst. Shower of 'em. Right and left. 'Halloa! stand by, boys!' ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... brought by the hand he repeatedly and somewhat distressfully passed over them closer to the question of which of the alien objects presented to his choice it would cost him least to profess to handle. What he had already paid, a spectator would easily have gathered from the long, the suppressed wriggle that had ended in his falling back, was some sacrifice of his habit of not privately depreciating those to whom he was publicly civil. It was plain, however, that when he presently spoke his thought had taken a stretch. "I'm sure I've fully ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... not wriggle and twist to try to avoid admitting that the calling of the martyred Zacharias, 'the son of Barachias,' is an error of some one who confused the author of the prophetic book with the person whose murder is narrated in 2 Chronicles xxiv. We do not know who made the mistake, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... and modern ideas, and I am fond of listening to clever conversation; masculine conversation, though, I warn you. But to listen to these women, these nightly windmills—no, that makes me ache all over! Don't wriggle about!" he shouted to the girl, who was leaping up from her chair. "No, it's my turn ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... view was a set of speculators. It was natural enough, however, in a man whose kink for repudiation in general led him to promulgate the theory that one generation cannot bind another for the payment of a debt. Hamilton, having disposed of Jefferson's attempts, under the signature of Aristides, to wriggle out of both these accusations, discoursed upon the disloyal fact that the Secretary of State was the declared opponent of every important measure which had been devised by the Government, and proceeded to lash him for his hypocrisy in sitting daily at the ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... Some of the small tradesmen's houses, such as the crockery-shop and the harness-maker, had a Cyclops window in the middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some forlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and scant the village, that one might have thought the village had sown and planted everything it once possessed, to convert the ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... sit still, but wriggle restlessly about on their seats, pick their nostrils, and bite their nails. They are always wanting to be doing something, but soon tire of it, and start something else, which is as quickly cast aside; their energy is feverish but ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... diverting beyond all comparison, or example, I ever saw. They would cut so many negroish capers in tragedy, grin and distort their countenances in such a variety of inhuman expressions, while they kept their bodies either stiff as so many stakes, or in a monkeyish wriggle, and ever and anon such a baboon stare at Desdemona, whose face, neck and hands, were covered with chalk and red paint, to make him look like a beautiful white lady—was altogether, considering that they themselves were very serious, the most ludicrous exhibition ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... to himself; but presently he began to wriggle backward, keeping the greasewood clump, and afterwards certain rocks and little ridges, between himself and a view of the point he had fixed upon as the spot where the ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... been dark days last fall when he had been so closely cornered by his creditors that it took many a writhe and a wriggle to get through. Nobody but himself, unless it was the dour Tom Barton, knew how overwhelmingly ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... first place," began Drina, "you are to lie down flat on the floor and creep about and show us how the Moros wriggle through the grass to bolo ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... for swift as lightning his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. As it approached, Medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide-open throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle—flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again—the dragon fell at full length upon the ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... commonplace Briton roar himself purple with impassioned platitude at a political meeting; but I perceive that all my neighbours take him with the utmost seriousness. Again, your literary journalist professes to wriggle in his chair over the humour of Jane Austen; to me she is the dullest lady that ever faithfully photographed the trivial. Years ago I happened to be crossing Putney Bridge, in a frock-coat and silk hat, when a passing member of ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the chin and rocked the four hundred pounds of bone and muscle that made up the Viceroy. For a moment Glavour staggered and then his hand fell on Damis' shoulder. Exerting all of his huge strength, he pulled his opponent toward him and threw his massive arms about him. Damis made no attempt to wriggle out of the bone-crushing grip, but, instead, threw his arms about the Jovian and matched muscle against muscle. The Jovian guards, who had witnessed the feats of strength which were the Viceroy's boast, expected only one outcome, ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... so tragical. A Hottentot was carried off by a lion during the night, wrapped up in his sheep-skin kaross, sleeping, as they usually do, with his face to the ground. As the lion trotted away with him, the fellow contrived to wriggle out of his kaross, and the lion went off with only ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sound lovable, but I cannot make him sound good. Of course I might leave out his doubtful qualities, and describe him merely as beautiful and affectionate; I might ... but I couldn't. I think Chum's habitual smile would get larger, he would wriggle the end of himself more ecstatically than ever if he heard himself summed up as beautiful and affectionate. Anyway, I couldn't do it, for I get carried away when I speak of him and I reveal ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... your brother and all heirs to estates joy, for old Shutz is dead, and cannot wriggle himself into any more wills. The ministry is not yet hatched; the King of Prussia is conquering the world; Mr. Chute has some murmurs of the gout; and I am ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... see, it's this way," began the mate, with a preliminary wriggle: "there's a certain ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... or toad in its young state, and having just entered upon its terrestrial life, is a small creature, which could, with the utmost ease, wriggle into crevices and crannies of a size which would almost preclude such apertures being noticed at all. Gaining access to a roomier crevice or nook within, and finding there a due supply of air, along with a dietary consisting chiefly of insects, the animal would grow ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... would not violate his conscience; he would be faithful to the traditions of his house and the memory of his father,—and so on, until the patience of Wellington and Peel was exhausted, and they told him he must sign the bill at once, or they would immediately resign. "The king could no longer wriggle off the hook," and surrendered. O'Connell was instantly re-elected, and took his seat in Parliament,—a position which he occupied for the rest of his life. George IV. was the last of the monarchs of England who attempted to rule by personal government. Henceforward the monarch's duty ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... to shoot out a thousand serpentine heads or knots of water, which wriggle down deliberately through the air and expend themselves in mist before half the descent is over. Then a new set burst from the body and sides of the fall, with the same fortune on the remaining distance; and thus the most charming fretwork of watery ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... of Paris, was, and is, and probably will long be, the Rue St Denis. Beginning at the bank of the Seine, and running due north, it spins out its length like a tape-worm, with every now and then a gentle wriggle, right across the capital, till it reaches the furthest barrier, and thence has a kind of suburban tail prolonged into the wide, straight road, a league in length, that stretches to the town of Sainct-Denys-en-France. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... made such a delight with her childish clinging, her soft nestling against him, that he would hold his breath to listen to her quiet breathing and move a little away as though in sleep, so as to feel her kitten-like, half-unconscious wriggle into the curve of his arm again. It was sweet at such times to feel such utter dependence upon him as the protective male, and the best in him was stirred to response. The next morning she might jar again from the hour of getting up in their ugly hotel room, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... as she was under the glaring light, the letter still clutched stiffly in her hand, her eyes still staring widely at the irregular, un-English writing. The letters seemed to writhe and squirm into life before her distorted vision, to wriggle like a procession of monstrous insects across the page. Were they insects or were they reptiles? She asked ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... never expected the tiger to be where we found him, and were on our way home) had seated himself on another tree. In a low tone he said to me "Load, load!" but the moment I took my eye off the tiger to do so he began to wriggle into the jungle, and I only got a snap shot at his hind leg. Now when the tiger roared, which he did as he approached me, and he lay watching me, I felt no sensation of the heart, though I felt a distinct ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... man a whole day. Haven't you sense enough to see it's going to be nip and tuck if we ever get out of this? You've shown yourself, from start to finish, a miserable cheat; there's no trust to be put in either your judgment or your intentions. Be still," he commanded, as she sought to wriggle out of his grasp, to avoid the direct blaze of his eyes. "I am going to do what I can for you; to see you safe through this, if I can. Not because you are anything to me, but just because you are Ben Gaynor's, and he is ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Dan, with a twinkle in his eye, "the pigs were swine." Roseen gave an impatient wriggle. "Well, well, it's too bad to be tormentin' ye that way. I'll begin right now.—Well, very well then. There was wan time the Spider an' the Gout was thravellin' together, goin' to seek their fortun's. Well, they come to the crass roads. 'Lookit ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... very incessantly and very objectionably," Molly says, thoughtfully. "I hate a man who sneezes publicly; and his sneeze is so unpleasant,—so exactly like that of a cat. A little wriggle of the entire body, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... man made an effort to wriggle himself into a sitting position, but a light tap with the conger bat sent ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... it served him as a signal. In a harsh, untuneful voice he began to chant an old coon-ditty. The effect of his music was instantaneous as regards the more sensitive ears of the pup. Its eyes opened, and it lifted its head alertly. Then, with a quick wriggle, he sat up on his hind quarters, and, throwing his lean, half-grown muzzle in the air, set up such a howl of dismay that Sunny's melody became entirely lost in a jangle of discords. He caught up his empty sack and flung ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... leopard and Scroope were fighting each other. The leopard, standing on one hind leg, for the other was broken, seemed to be boxing Scroope, whilst Scroope was driving his big hunting knife into the brute's carcase. They went down, Scroope undermost, the leopard tearing at him. I gave a wriggle and came out of that mossy bed—I recall the sucking sound my body made as it left ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... that Ben could barely get his head and shoulders through it. There was no possibility of his getting on his feet or his knees to make a leap. The only course that remained for him, therefore, was to expand the umbrella, hold on tight, and then wriggle out until he should lose his balance and fall head foremost! It was an awful position. Bold though the seaman was, and desperate the circumstances, his strong frame quivered when he gazed down and felt himself gradually toppling. The ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... Large fish and small, pink fish, blue, yellow, orange, striped fish and mottled, wriggled together, and flapped their tails in the well of the little boat. There were even too many to lie there and wriggle. The bottom of the boat was well covered with them, and, if she had not shipped waves enough to keep them cool, the boy Battista had bailed a plenty on them. Father and son hurried on shore, and Battista on board began to fling the scaly fellows ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... again was promptly checkmated by the clear and repeated declaration of the Colonial representatives that they did not expect us to tax raw materials. And so nothing was left to Ministers, determined as they were to wriggle out of any agreement with the Colonies at all costs, except to fall back on the old, weary parrot-cry—"Will you tax corn?" "Will you tax butter?" and so on through the whole list of articles of common consumption, the taxation of any one ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... telescope. The foremast across which he lay was complete almost to the royal-mast, though the yards were gone; and to his left, just above the battered fore-top, five men were lashed, dead and drowned. Most of them had their eyes wide open, and seemed to stare at Zeb and wriggle about in the stir of the sea as if they lived. Spent and wretched as he was, it lifted his hair. He almost called out to them at first, and then he dragged his gaze off them, and turned it to the right. The survivor still clung here, and Zeb—who had been vaguely ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... doffed hat and low bow; they would waylay us on our way downstairs with demure "Good morning"; they would go to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord Charles—who possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin of the scalp—would wriggle his hair up and down till we were choking with laughter, to our own imminent risk. After a month of this Auntie was literally driven out of the pretty chateau, and took refuge in a girls' school, much to our disgust; but still ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... savages, wet, cross, weary, all anxious to get in—eager for home and dinner; five hundred stiffened and cramped folk equally eager to get out—mix on a narrow platform, with a train running off one side, and a detached engine gliding gently after it. Push, wriggle, wind in and out, bumps from portmanteaus, and so at last out ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... when they saw the launch wriggle off the bank where she was stuck, and steam away down stream, were filled with exasperation, because they had confidently anticipated making a barbecue out of Commandant Balliot in return for many cruelties received, and doing the same by any other Europeans whom ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... off her trousers and seized my hand and led me up to the couch, saying, "There is no sin in a lawful put in." She lay down on the couch outspread upon her back; and, drawing me on to her breast, heaved a sigh and followed it up with a wriggle by way of being coy. Then she pulled up the shift above her breasts, and when I saw her in this pose, I could not withhold myself from thrusting it into her, after I had sucked her lips, whilst she whimpered and shammed shame and wept when no tears came, and then said she, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... wealthier and younger members of the male community. They poison the air round them with sickly perfumes; they assume titles, and speak of one another as "cette chere comtesse;" their walk is something between a prance and a wriggle; they prowl about the terrace whilst the music is playing, seeking whom they may devour, or rather whom they may inveigle into paying for their devouring: and, bon Dieu! how they do gorge themselves with food and drink when some silly lad or aged roue allows ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... alert eye and without end. It was all so realistic and endowed with such benignity and such gentleness of motion that I gazed at it with the gladness of a discoverer. In response to a slight motion of the hand, the sea-serpent wriggled as though in haste; but wriggle as it might ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Israel-England. From Dr. Storrs we have not heard what he now thinks of his child of promise, Russia. From the Herald we did hear, for, by the way, the Herald is one of our morning papers. By an editorial of a column and a half the Herald struggled nobly to wriggle out of the tight corner in which its sympathies for Russia had crowded it. We like and admire the Herald, because of its tact and ingenuity in getting news first from any part of the world. Still this time she was behind time. Two years ago, ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... sufferer was passing away and would recommend Rushton & Co. to the bereaved and distracted relatives. By these means often—after first carefully inquiring into the financial position of the stricken family—Misery would contrive to wriggle his unsavoury carcass into the house of sorrow, seeking, even in the chamber of death, to further the interests of Rushton & Co. and to earn his miserable two ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... discontent, a feeling that they had been lured to the house under false pretences, grew among Lady Dauntrey's visitors and was expressed stealthily, a word here, a word there, and sullen looks behind the backs of host and hostess. Even on the first day disappointment began to wriggle from guest to guest, like a little cold, sharp-nosed snake, leaving its clammy trail ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... on my feet in such a way that I was very uncomfortable and tried to readjust matters, but the slightest wriggle of my toe was enough to make him snap at it so fiercely that nothing but thick woollen bedclothes saved me ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... wet raincoats. Two opened umbrellas wheeled in the current of air that came around the house; the porch ran water. While Margaret was adding her own rainy-day equipment to the others, a golden brown setter, one ecstatic wriggle from nose to tail, flashed into view, and came fawning ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... a reward should be offered, but that young man, backed by Lucy, declined to throw away good money after bad. Braddock took this refusal so ill, that Hope felt perfectly convinced he would try and wriggle out of his promise to permit the marriage and persuade Lucy to engage herself to Sir Frank Random, should the baronet be willing to offer a reward. And Hope was also certain that Braddock, a singularly obstinate man, would never rest until he once more had the mummy in ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... give the other boys. He used to give me much as a pound a day. Some days he used to give me much as five pounds." Then Eddy Carroll, after delivering himself of this statement, could not get his young, black eyes away from the fixed regard of the man's keen, blue ones, and he began to wriggle as to his body, with his eyes held firm by that unswerving gaze. "What you looking at me that way for?" he stammered. "I ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... cried Bremner with a sudden burst of animation that induced the creature to wriggle and dance on its hind legs for at least a minute, "you and I shall have a jolly night together on the ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... sit right straight down in that chair and read your poem over slowly, while I whip into my own clothes, and then we'll go along together. Fred can't come until a little later anyway. Sit still now, and don't wriggle around and ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... burst into tears, and began to wriggle herself free from his arms. "Let me go," she demanded; "let me ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Peter with some nonsensical appeal when her heart was full and her voice a trifle unsteady. You could bury your head in Peter's little white sailor jacket just under his chin, at which he would dimple and gurgle and chuckle and wriggle, and when you withdrew your flushed face and presented it to the public gaze all the tears would have been wiped off ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... it were, head and tail, a contest for upper place now began. One-Eye writhed like a hairy animal (this the swish-swishing). Being both slender and agile, he managed to wriggle out from beneath Big Tom, who instantly turned about and caught him, and once more laid upon him the whole of his ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... eat his cake sometimes without bread, would bite in laughing, and laugh in biting. Oftentimes did he spit in the basin, and fart for fatness, piss against the sun, and hide himself in the water for fear of rain. He would strike out of the cold iron, be often in the dumps, and frig and wriggle it. He would flay the fox, say the ape's paternoster, return to his sheep, and turn the hogs to the hay. He would beat the dogs before the lion, put the plough before the oxen, and claw where it did not itch. He would pump one to draw somewhat out of him, by griping all would hold fast ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... someone else be blamed for what you have done," he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah—you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. You'll find that ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... sorts o' things as soon as they was paid off, with a view to saving. I knew one man as used to keep all but a shilling or two in a belt next to 'is skin so that he couldn't get at it easy, but it was all no good. He was always running short in the most inconvenient places. I've seen 'im wriggle for five minutes right off, with a tramcar conductor standing over 'im and the other people in the tram reading their papers with one eye and watching him ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... tube. But he either heard or guessed, he never could be sure which. Anyhow, he felt that we must get forward or perish. In desperation he sunk his teeth into the soft part of the inner side of the sole of my left foot. The pain made me give a convulsive wriggle and I scraped past the obstacle, tearing my hip ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... the audience looked, they saw the panel slide back, and first of all Hamar's head, and then his body, wriggle ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... and dress a wriggle, add a pint of nearly milk, Smother with a pillow any sneeze; Baste with talcum powder and mark upon its back— "Don't forget that ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... put in Jake Brewer, grasping a large pickerel and thrusting his blade into its quivering body after removing the scales, "that it hurts her insides to see the critters wriggle under the knife. She air ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... getting back into her own corner with a happy little wriggle, all unconscious of Grandpapa's conspiracy with Mother Fisher in regard ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... I could mention who took part in this contention, And at first 'twas my intention, but at present I forbear; There's young Look-sharp, and Wriggle, who would make an angel giggle, And a young conceited Zeigel, who was seated near the door; If you could only see them, you'd laugh till you were sore, And ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... ma'am, you will never be able to cane if you hold it like that. You should hold it like this, Miss Phoebe, and give it a wriggle like that. ...
— Quality Street - A Comedy • J. M. Barrie
... by his instructions, in anticipation of the contest on which he was embarking against you and against Daubrecq, at whose house he did the same thing. He had under his orders a sort of acrobat, an extraordinarily thin dwarf, who was able to wriggle through those apertures and who thus detected all your correspondence and all your secrets. That is what his two friends revealed to me. I at once conceived the idea of saving my elder son by making ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... dry my things," and he began to wriggle out of his knitted blue guernsey. "Also," he said, following up a previous train of thought, "let me tell you there are devil-fish about here. One came up with one of our ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... the solar plexus is a great nerve center which lies behind your stomach. I can't be accused of impropriety or untruth, because any book of science or medicine which deals with the nerve-system of the human body will show it to you quite plainly. So don't wriggle or try to look spiritual. Because, willy-nilly, you've got a solar plexus, dear reader, among other things. I'm writing a good sound science ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... between here and the fort, even though it be in the night, needs to wriggle along like a snake, else will one of Thayendanega's painted beauties lift ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... approvingly. "He speaks truly when he says that the air is thick with danger. When the blackness of night comes, then will come, also, those who make war from behind the trees of the forest. In the darkness, how is the young white and his friends to tell enemies from friends? The jackals will wriggle through and over the wall of trees like snakes through tall grass. After what they have seen, can my white friends expect mercy at ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... is an enigma, wherein the thief who is plotting a stroke, the prisoner who is arranging an escape, take refuge. No idiom is more metaphorical than slang: devisser le coco (to unscrew the nut), to twist the neck; tortiller (to wriggle), to eat; etre gerbe, to be tried; a rat, a bread thief; il lansquine, it rains, a striking, ancient figure which partly bears its date about it, which assimilates long oblique lines of rain, with the dense and slanting pikes of the lancers, and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... money-bag, down on your stomach," said the other, "and wriggle like a snake through a hedge, or we shall leave our carcasses behind us sooner than ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... tactics of the snake were wearing it down. Though the lizard seemed to have lost none of its spirit, the flesh was becoming weak. While it panted, its eyes twinkled with inane ferocity, and the snake, with that peculiar fearsome, gliding movement—neither wriggle nor squirm—typical of the species, slowly edged its victim under the shadow of a tussock. There both reposed, the snake calm in craft and design, the lizard waiting for the one chance of its life. Swallowing the lizard ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... he contrived to wriggle along until at the beginning of his junior year he was whisked away to the hospital with scarlet fever, after which, amid sage waggings of their heads, a group of doctors congregated about his bed. He was not to be alarmed, they said. His eyes were not permanently injured. Yet there ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... to the question of which of the alien objects presented to his choice it would cost him least to profess to handle. What he had already paid, a spectator would easily have gathered from the long, the suppressed wriggle that had ended in his falling back, was some sacrifice of his habit of not privately depreciating those to whom he was publicly civil. It was plain, however, that when he presently spoke his thought had taken a stretch. "I'm sure I've fully intended to be everything that's ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... the buffalo wild to avenge to inflict an insult to wriggle he has failed in his duty he has been kept to his bed for the last two days I was careful ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... temple. But without paying the least homage to the image of the 'Lo' spirit, he simply kept his eyes fixed intently on it; for albeit made of clay, it actually seemed, nevertheless, to flutter as does a terror-stricken swan, and to wriggle as a dragon in motion. It looked like a lotus, peeping its head out of the green stream, or like the sun, pouring its rays upon the russet clouds in the early morn. Pao-yue's tears unwittingly trickled down ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... arms while Mrs. Spaniel was busy trying to keep their socks on. When the curate exhorted him "to follow the innocency" of these little ones, it was disconcerting to have one of them burst into a piercing yammer, and wriggle so forcibly that it slipped quite out of its little embroidered shift and flannel band. But the actual access to the holy basin was more seemly, perhaps due to the children imagining they were going to find tadpoles ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... his acquaintance he said: "She is a woman who has never had the first tadpole wriggle of an idea," adding, "She has a mind as clean and white and flat as a plate: there are no eminences in it." Lady Butcher tells of a picnic-party on Box Hill at which Meredith was one of the company. "After our picnic ... it came on to rain, and as we drearily trudged down the hill with ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... with demure "Good morning"; they would go to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord Charles—who possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin of the scalp—would wriggle his hair up and down till we were choking with laughter, to our own imminent risk. After a month of this Auntie was literally driven out of the pretty chateau, and took refuge in a girls' school, much to our disgust; but still she was not allowed to be ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... which can only be set right by the truth of love. So long as the powers build a league on the foundation of their desire for safety, secure enjoyment of gains, consolidation of past injustice, and putting off the reparation of wrongs, while their fingers still wriggle for greed and reek of blood, rifts will appear in their union; and in future their conflicts will take greater force and magnitude. It is political and commercial egoism which is the evil harbinger of war. By different combinations it changes its shape and ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... great wriggle as Andy involuntarily let go his hold of the young rascal. His ferret-like eyes twinkled and followed the glance of ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... best explanation I could think of. But it was not good enough for Diana. She attempted to push me farther back, and I resisted, trying to wriggle myself free and elude her; but she was on the alert, and too quick as well as too strong for ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... honestly and honorably intended to follow the same path; to keep smiles for those above him and harsh judgments for those below him; in short, like Alfred, to wriggle his way upward. But in the depths of his being his energies were working in another direction, and they continually thrust him back where he belonged. His conflict with the street-urchins stopped of itself, it was so aimless; ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... to sacrifice?" Florence felt very uneasy. She tried to wriggle away from her companion, who held her arm ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... "French infantrymen's trousers. One cannot make out their coats, but their red trousers show as they wriggle forward on ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... tougher than rawhide, half walking and half flying, his wings spread out, 'cree-ing' to himself about bulldogs and their ways; next come Bobby, still sputtering and swearing, and behind ambled Thomas at a lively wriggle, a coy, large smile ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... Bumper began to gnaw at the lining of the muff, and pretty soon got his whole body under it, and then he began to kick and wriggle to get out. He felt he was being smothered alive, and he squealed aloud. The lady finally rescued him, but not until she had torn away half the lining ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... This is only to be learned in courts, where clashing views, jarring opinions, and cordial hatreds, are softened and kept within decent bounds by politeness and manners. Frequent, observe, and learn courts. Are you free of that of St. Cloud? Are you often at Versailles? Insinuate and wriggle yourself into favor at those places. L'Abbe de la Ville, my old friend, will help you at the latter; your three ladies may establish you in the former. The good-breeding 'de la ville et de la cour' [of ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... great disappointment to me," he said, trying to look disappointed, but his back would wriggle. "This chain ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... however, for one instant. Up he went again. But, in fact, his best chance was in going up, for he was within four yards of the top when the mishap occurred. With a sigh of relief I saw him at last throw his arm over the verge and then wriggle his body upon the ledge. A few seconds later he was lying on his stomach, with his face over the edge, ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... p.m. on the 2nd December the hole in the engine room bulkhead was cut completely. I climbed through it, followed by Bowers, the carpenter, and Teddy Nelson, and when we got into the hold there was just enough room to wriggle along to the pump-well over the coal. We tore down a couple of planks to get access to the shaft and then I went down to the bottom to find out how matters stood. Bowers came next with an electric torch, which ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... Julia, when she had found her breath, and taken one quick look round as if to satisfy herself she was unobserved, suddenly cast herself down, in her turn, upon the damp earth, and inserting her head beneath the prickly barricade of the holly leaves, begin to crawl and wriggle forward until she had completely disappeared under it. What in the world could ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... deplorable habit of swearing aloud in German. But I will say, for a tinker, you put a very neat West Country whipping on that bit of broken harness. I've been admiring it. Didn't know they taught you that in the German navy—don't wriggle." ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... last swift wriggle the creeping figure was at the foot of the net which shrouded Jack. The latter looked down and saw that the man was literally covered from head to foot with masses of the swarming insects. Then, with wonderful dexterity, the newcomer jerked aside ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... up at the face above her with such a winning smile that Mrs. Sherman drew her toward her with a quick hug and kiss. Lloyd gave a little wriggle of satisfaction. "I'm so glad you've come!" she cried, so completely won by Betty's artlessness that she forgot ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... would have a try, so he went to the edge of the water and spreading out his cloth on the weeds lay down on it so that his weight was distributed; in this position the weeds supported him and he managed to wriggle himself across on his ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... willin' to do that all right! If you're goin' to turn up your nose an' wriggle around that way, you won't have to take much trouble to get rid o' him. He don't need ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... stopped, when Bill found a black hole, something like a fox's earth, disappearing into the bowels of the ice. We looked at it: "Well, here goes!" he said, and put his head in, and disappeared. Bowers likewise. It was a longish way, but quite possible to wriggle along, and presently I found myself looking out of the other side with a deep gully below me, the rock face on one hand and the ice on the other. "Put your back against the ice and your feet against the rock and ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Katharine drew her white skirts around his shoulders, and cossetted him as if he had been a baby. He tried to wriggle away from her on to the ground beyond, but this she sturdily prevented, and the late-rising moon cast its light just then upon a face, oddly set and determined for that ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... Pierrot had not come, and she darted swiftly into the balsams back of the cabin, with Baree hung in the crook of her arm, like a sack filled at both ends and tied in the middle. He felt like that, too. But he still had no inclination to wriggle himself free. Nepeese ran with him until her arm ached. Then she stopped and put him down on his feet, holding to the end of the caribou-skin thong that was tied about his neck. She was prepared for any lunge he might make to escape. She expected that he would make an attempt, and ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... the highest, the darkest, and the dirtiest streets of Paris, was, and is, and probably will long be, the Rue St Denis. Beginning at the bank of the Seine, and running due north, it spins out its length like a tape-worm, with every now and then a gentle wriggle, right across the capital, till it reaches the furthest barrier, and thence has a kind of suburban tail prolonged into the wide, straight road, a league in length, that stretches to the town of Sainct-Denys-en-France. This was, from time immemorial, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Secret Service net is around the place, and no suspected person can get away?" muttered the submarine boy. "Well, that's it should be. I wonder if there are any more of this strange crew—men or women spies that don't happen to have suspected so far? If there are, I don't believe they'll wriggle through the meshes of old Uncle ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... Alister out of his difficulties at once, by showing him how to put his two hands in the middle of his hammock and wriggle himself into it and roll his blankets round him in seaman-like fashion. But my neighbours only watched with delight when I first sent my hammock flying by trying to get in at the side as if it were a bed, and then ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... effort, for the wriggle he had given to his spine brought on a kind of vertigo, and he relapsed ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the law now? Blenham would wriggle out, I suppose; or he would get a light sentence and trim that down to nothing with good behavior. No, Blenham, if you ever go to jail it will be somebody's else doing; not mine. Is it just jail for the man who shot down my old pardner in cold blood, just ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... suddenly let go, and the boat shot away, while Anders, throwing a handful of water after it, said, "Go off, bad boy, and don't come back; we can do without you." A roar of laughter burst forth. Some of the small boys and girls leaped into the air with delight, causing the tails of the latter to wriggle behind them. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... came from, or whether she had any brothers and sisters. They lived in Red Kill mostly, in the eastern part of the town of Roxbury, and also over on the edge of Greene County. I remember, when Grandfather used to tell stories of cruelty in the army, and of the hardships of the soldiers, she would wriggle and get very angry. All her children were large. They were as follows: Sukie, Ezekiel, Charles, Martin, Edmund, William, Thomas, Hannah, Abby, and Amy (my mother). Aunt Sukie was a short, chubby woman, always ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... Clinton, with a short laugh. "Women, you'll find when you've been here long enough, have less to do with it than rain-water full of wriggle-tails, as they call those young animals that fill our cisterns in summer time, and the no less disagreeable—to one not a native here—muddy water from the river as a beverage. One is absolutely forced to 'tip the goblet red,' in order to have something ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... deliberate. Would it not be better to keep her in ignorance? What was to be gained by revealing to her the—But Miss Thackeray was luring him on to destruction. She stood outside the door and beckoned. That in itself was ominous. Why should she wriggle a forefinger at him instead of calling out in her usual ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... punched the button with the air of milady ringing for her carriage. The waiter came with his large-chinned, low-voiced manner of respectful familiarity. Liz smoothed her silken skirt with a satisfied wriggle. She made the most of it. Here she could order and be waited upon. It was all that her world offered her of ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... I'm only looking about, To see you wriggle in and out, And drawing together your slimy rings, Instead of feet, like other things: So, little worm, don't slide and slip Into your hole, with such ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... explore some caves—dry at low water—on the opposite side. Some of these are wide, lofty, and well-lighted from without. We walk in and out and around them, as if in great, irregular, Gothic halls. Some are narrow and dark. Now, we crawl into them on hands and knees; now, we wriggle onward a few feet, serpent-like, flat on our bellies; now, we are suddenly able to stand upright in pitch darkness, hearing faint moaning sounds of pent-up winds, when we are silent, and long reverberations of our own voices, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... However we may wriggle in our skins and juggle with the chances of the future, I suspect that we shall have to pay the piper. We have without doubt, during the war, been living to a great extent on our capital. Our national income has gone up, out of capital, from twenty-two hundred to ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... simple-minded burglar or embezzler may blithely make way with a silver service or bundle of bank notes only to find himself floundering, horse, foot and dragoons, in a quagmire of phraseology from which he cannot escape, wriggle as he will. Many such a one has thrown up his hands—and with them silver service, bank notes and all—in horror at what the grand jury ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Visions of men being lathered and shaved, of women having their hair dressed or their hair searched, Sicilian fashion, of youths trying to curl upward scarcely born mustaches, of children being hastily attired in clothes which made them wriggle and squint, came to the eyes from houses in which privacy was not so much scorned as unthought of, utterly unknown. Turkeys strolled in and out among the toilet-makers. Pigs accompanied their mistresses from doorway ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Peter tried to wriggle the child through, but he found that he must have some one to help him. Urging Robin not to move he knocked at Miss Monogue's door. She opened it, and he stepped back with an apology when he saw that some ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... loss of the egg, burst into tears, when suddenly the pike came swimming ashore, holding the egg between its teeth. He took the egg, broke it, drew out the needle and broke off its little point. Then he attacked Koshchei, who struggled hard, but wriggle about as he might he had to die ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... sound that was like a great, gasping intake of breath, as men and women watched. Out toward the Patriarch, alone now, the Flopper began to wriggle and writhe his way along. God in Heaven have pity! What was this sight they looked upon—this poor, distorted, mangled thing that grovelled in the earth—that figure towering there in the sunlight with venerable white beard and hair, erect, symbolic of some strange, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... coals were spread over it. I kissed the dear red buttocks that were all covered with weals and looked like raw beef, but no blood had been drawn. We fanned her with our handkerchiefs, which she said was a delightful relief. In a very few minutes she began to wriggle her bottom in a state ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... gave a little wriggle of joy. "Like it? I just love it—it's like butterflies keeping house. Don't you wish everything was like that—pretty and gay, with all the lovers ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... smallest girl. She has to sit front 'cause she giggles so much. She has yellow curls and she ducks her head down and snickers right out this way when anything funny happens in school." And Bud proceeded to duck and wriggle in perfect imitation of the ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... thought, he put on a burst of speed, ran straight up to the leafy barrier, and dove right at it, head first as he used to "hit the center" for dear old Brighton. His maneuver did not carry him quite through, but he managed to wriggle on just in time to clear the way for Bob, ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... absolutely helpless; for now both their hands and their feet were lashed together so tightly and securely that it was quite impossible for them to move otherwise than to give an occasional feeble, impotent wriggle. ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... worse,' he says. 'Th' throuble about divoorce is it always lets out iv th' bad bargain th' wan that made it bad. If I owned a half in a payin' business with ye, I'd niver let th' sun go down on a quarrel,' he says. 'But if ye had a bad mouth I'd go into coort an' wriggle out iv th' partnership because ye'ar a cantankerous old villain that no wan cud get on with,' he says. 'If people knew they cudden't get away fr'm each other they'd settle down to life, just as I detarmined to ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... If there is not, and especially if anything is there which he wishes to shun, a four hundred and fifty pounder cannot crash a hole large enough for you to push him through. By such a pitiful chink as that did his Infallible Highness wriggle himself out of the range of my guns, and pursue his line ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... in sudden wrath. "Does he wriggle? Yes. Why? Because he suffers out of water. I've caught him to eat, and I owe it to him not to make him suffer any more than is necessary. What did that boy say ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... and making a tremendous commotion. I was much struck also by the singular appearance presented by certain diving birds having very long and snaky necks (the Plotus Anhinga). Occasionally a long serpentine form would suddenly wriggle itself to a height of a foot and a half above the glassy surface of the water, producing such a deceptive imitation of a snake that at first I had some difficulty in believing it to be the neck of ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... refuge. Buffeted by the billows, he makes shift at last frantically to clamber back into it; he snatches the small, damp towels, and attempts to dry his shivering limbs; his clothes have fallen on the wet floor; he cannot force his blue toes into his oozy socks. At the moment he is attempting to wriggle himself into his trousers the horse is hitched-to again, and the jerky and jolty journey back up the beach begins. If the hair of a boy of ten could turn white in a single morning, there would be many a hoary-headed youngster in British watering-places. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... moment," said my father. "Your chain is locked, I see:—but no matter,—I can loosen it so that you can wriggle through." By having cut the cords, around which the chain had been passed, he had relieved the tautness, and was now able to do what he promised. He then took off my boots, and, grasping me under the arms, drew me backward out of the loosened coils as I moved them downward with ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... then—why didn't you come to us? We have a wing quite empty. But just as you like, of course. Do you lease it from HIM?—this fellow, I mean," she added, nodding towards Lebedeff. "And why does he always wriggle so?" ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... about the preparation of their evening meal with a plaintive quietness. Juno, too, seemed oppressed, for after a tentative wriggle of her stump of a tail she settled back on her haunches, ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... was so small that Ben could barely get his head and shoulders through it. There was no possibility of his getting on his feet or his knees to make a leap. The only course that remained for him, therefore, was to expand the umbrella, hold on tight, and then wriggle out until he should lose his balance and fall head foremost! It was an awful position. Bold though the seaman was, and desperate the circumstances, his strong frame quivered when he gazed down and felt himself gradually toppling. The height he knew to be little short of sixty feet, but in ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... his short legs wide spread; he passed down a perch, alternately crouching and rising, either sideways or straight; he jerked his whole body one side and then the other, in a manner ludicrously suggestive of a wriggle; he sidled along his perch, holding his wings slightly out and quivering, then slowly raised them both straight up, and instantly dropped them, or held them half open, fluttering ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... sight. The leopard and Scroope were fighting each other. The leopard, standing on one hind leg, for the other was broken, seemed to be boxing Scroope, whilst Scroope was driving his big hunting knife into the brute's carcase. They went down, Scroope undermost, the leopard tearing at him. I gave a wriggle and came out of that mossy bed—I recall the sucking sound my body made as it ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... intolerable. Then the elephant had not been loaded "with brains," and his pack was as troublesome as the straw shoes of the Japanese horses. It was always slipping forward or backward, and as I was heavier than the Malay lad, I was always slipping down and trying to wriggle myself up on the great ridge which was the creature's backbone, and always failing, and the mahout was always stopping and pulling the rattan ropes which bound the whole arrangement together, but never succeeding ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... up the lower sash a little way; and through the opening thus made Reggie contrived to wriggle his slight, thin body. ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... which was not so tragical. A Hottentot was carried off by a lion during the night, wrapped up in his sheep-skin kaross, sleeping, as they usually do, with his face to the ground. As the lion trotted away with him, the fellow contrived to wriggle out of his kaross, and the lion went off ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... mark on them, and at last, despairing of being able to wriggle away in good order, they rose to their feet and made a dash into ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... you know that? Well, then I HAVE got some news!" Miss Flora gave the satisfied little wriggle with which a born news-lover always prefaces her choicest bit of information. "Frank has sold his grocery stores—both ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... legs." Friend Elephant did as he was ordered. Friend Mouse-deer then instructed the Elephant as follows: "As soon as I begin to lick up the molasses on your back, bellow as loud as you can and make believe to be hurt, and writhe and wriggle this way and that." ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... conceited wriggle, what could be the merits of a country, where gentlemanly, gliding, thin-skinned creatures like himself were unable to move about without personal annoyance? Whereupon the amiable 'SOMETHING' made no scruple ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... stones. A good voyage had they made of it, he and his two brown, ragged boys. Large fish and small, pink fish, blue, yellow, orange, striped fish and mottled, wriggled together, and flapped their tails in the well of the little boat. There were even too many to lie there and wriggle. The bottom of the boat was well covered with them, and, if she had not shipped waves enough to keep them cool, the boy Battista had bailed a plenty on them. Father and son hurried on shore, and Battista on board began to fling the scaly fellows out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... Here's Mr. Hayley, Doctor Paley, Arthur Murphy, Tommy Durfey, Mrs. Trimmer's little Primer, Buckram binding, touch and try— Nothing bid—who'll buy, who'll buy? Here's Colley Cibber, Bruce the fibber, Plays of Cherry, ditto Merry, Tickle, Mickle, When I bow and when I wriggle, With a simper and a giggle, Ears regaling, bidders nailing, Ladies utter in a flutter— "Mister Smatter, how you chatter, Dear, how clever! well, I never Heard so ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... bauble, fuel would be dear. A plague rot it, we must know how many farts go to an ounce. Would Priapus were here, as he used to be at the nocturnal festivals in Crete, that I might see him play backwards, and wriggle and shake to the purpose. Ay, ay, this is the world, and t'other is the country; may I never piss if this be not an antichthonian land, and our very antipodes. In Germany they pull down monasteries and unfrockify the monks; here they go quite kam, and act clean contrary ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... finest ones found their way into the pool, and on Friday the cook and his men supplied the tables with fresh fish. How many times have I seen those fine fish, caught on the prongs of a spear, writhe and wriggle to get off. At first I could not taste them, I felt so sorry to see them killed in that way. I would not go out on Friday until after the fishing was done. The lamper eels crawled up the stream and the men gathered them by the barrels full and ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... Burns gave a heave and a wriggle, and came up for air and a look around. He had been composing a monologue upon the subject of sand, and he had not noticed that strange voices were speaking on the other side of ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... revelled in darkness. And the myth has a great truth in it. The light of God's face slays evil, of whatsoever kind it is; and just as the unlovely, loathsome creatures that live in the dark and find themselves at ease there writhe and wriggle in torment, and die when their shelter is taken away and they are exposed to the light beating on their soft bodies, so the light of God's face turned upon evil things smites them into nothingness. Thus 'the secret of His countenance' is the shelter ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 'Dearest, you can wriggle on your tummy, if you like, so long as you get the fluid. We must have water. I can't fetch it. I'm ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... through the fingerling; it gave a final gasp and was still. Knitting his brows in almost comical vexation, he hastened to restore it to the stream, holding it by the tail and striving to impart a life-like wriggle to its limpness. ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... the first stile, and, cutting off the corner, had been coolly awaiting my arrival. On the whole, I think that being in his grasp was almost preferable to the feeling that he was dogging my steps. His left hand gripped the collar of my jacket and flannel shirt, and instantly I began to wriggle, twisting my leg about his own in an attempt to bring him to the ground; but the man was of enormous strength, and, freeing himself, he shook me as a terrier shakes a rat, until I felt there was little breath left in ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... that suggestion, but offered to take my own tiller and lend him Grue. He couldn't wriggle out of it, seeing that his alleged motive had been the overcrowding of my boat, but he looked rather sick when Grue went ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... cliff! Creep, crawl, wriggle, slide, clamber, scramble, clutch, climb, here jumping—actually jumping, I!—over a crevice, then drawing myself round an insuperable jut by two honest sturdy weeds—many thanks to them!—which had the consideration to be there and to plant themselves ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... who plainly saw that Ola was trying to wriggle out of his difficulty, but were anxious not to lose an exciting scene, screamed with laughter again; but this time at the bully's expense. The blood mounted to his head, and his anger got the better of his natural cowardice. Instead of sneaking off, as he had intended, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... do with it. Roger was right. The Slop is there and you've got to make allowances for it, and after all, why shouldn't Rachel show her baby to the girls? Damn it all, a baby is a remarkable thing, when you come to think of it. All that wriggle and bubble and squeak and kick ... and Lord only knows what'll come out of it! We ought to get married, Quinny, and father a few brats. My own notion is to get hold of a nice, large, healthy female of the working-class and set her ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... little about the paternity and maternity of eels, we know a great deal about their childhood and youth, or, to speak more eelishly, their grigginess and elverhood. The young grigs, when they do make their appearance, leave us in no doubt at all about their presence or their reality. They wriggle up weirs, walls, and floodgates; they force there way bodily through chinks and apertures; they find out every drain, pipe, or conduit in a given plane rectilinear figure; and when all other spots have been fully occupied, they take to dry land, like veritable snakes, and cut straight ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... particular observation to the corner which was nearest me. There I beheld the devils with pitchforks, tossing the damned up into the air that they might fall headlong on poisoned hatchets or barbed pikes, there to wriggle their bowels out. After a time the wretches would crawl in multitudes, one upon another, to the top of one of the burning crags, there to be broiled like mutton; from there they would be snatched afar, to the top of one of the mountains of eternal frost and snow, where they would be ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... was his horror when he perceived that here also the windows were covered with a fence of dry reeds and faggots, through which the hissing flames were already beginning to wriggle like fiery serpents—clouds of smoke were already coming through ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... work them down deep in the sand when the tide has just gone. With quick but steady movements, you make a series of deep "criss-crosses;" and when the fish is disturbed by the hooks you whip him smartly out, and put him in the basket before his magical wriggle has taken him deep into the sand again. The women stooping over the shining floor look like ghostly harvesters reaping invisible crops. They are very silent, and their steps are feline. Peggy worked out her day, and then she would go home and cut up the eels for the next day's ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... his conscience; he would be faithful to the traditions of his house and the memory of his father,—and so on, until the patience of Wellington and Peel was exhausted, and they told him he must sign the bill at once, or they would immediately resign. "The king could no longer wriggle off the hook," and surrendered. O'Connell was instantly re-elected, and took his seat in Parliament,—a position which he occupied for the rest of his life. George IV. was the last of the monarchs of England who attempted to rule by personal government. Henceforward the monarch's ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... Moreover, he frankly did not care for the story, and bluffly says, in the preface, that he respited Colonel Altamont almost at the foot of the gallows. Dickens took himself more in earnest, and, having so many pages to fill, conscientiously made Uriah Heap wind and wriggle through ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... do, by spells, and the Deep Woods people leaned back and looked out over the Wide Blue Water, and away out there saw Mr. Eagle swoop down and pick up something which looked at first like a shoe-string; then they saw it wriggle, and knew it was a small water-snake, which was going to be Mr. Eagle's dinner; and they talked about it and wondered how he ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... she cried. 'I won't let you speak. You've said it, a satellite, you're not going to wriggle out ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... that I ever got my clutches on that has got away after it, and the first one that I ever felt like lettin' go. Somehow or other my old gun didn't burn and wriggle when I sot my eyes on him, as it is used to doin' in such cases; and if it wasn't fur that red hide of hisn' I wouldn't believe he was one ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... your neck! Have you ever felt a mustache on your neck? It intoxicates you, makes you feel creepy, goes to the tips of your fingers. You wriggle, shake your shoulders, toss back your head. You wish to get away and at the same time to remain there; it is delightful, but irritating. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... its beak through three inches of stout planking could withdraw without the loss of its sword. Mr. Buckland said that fish have no power of "backing," and expressed his belief that he could hold a swordfish by the beak; but then he admitted that the fish had considerable lateral power, and might so "wriggle its sword out of the hold." And so the insurance company will have to pay nearly L600 because an ill-tempered fish objected to be hooked and took its revenge by running full tilt against copper ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... Thus, Tim, philosophers suppose, The world consists of puppet-shows; Where petulant conceited fellows Perform the part of Punchinelloes: So at this booth which we call Dublin, Tim, thou'rt the Punch to stir up trouble in: You wriggle, fidge, and make a rout, Put all your brother puppets out, Run on in a perpetual round, To tease, perplex, disturb, confound: Intrude with monkey grin and clatter To interrupt all serious matter; Are grown the nuisance of your clan, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... begin screaming or wriggle out of the bundle," thought the collegiate assessor. "This is indeed a pleasant surprise! Here I am carrying a human being under my arm as though it were a portfolio. A human being, alive, with soul, with feelings ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... caught a glimpse of it. No wonder Elias's eyes snapped as he was hurried across the yard, and led back of the barn, where there was a space between the underpinning and the ground. By lying flat one could wriggle his way under the barn, and when once beneath, there was room ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... doll house for little Patience, for Christmas." Lydia gave an uncomfortable wriggle. "Don't talk ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... to give up the little package, and Holmes, losing his patience, walked over to him and grabbed his left arm, while Tooter doggedly tried to wriggle out of his grasp. In a moment, Holmes, by a quick turn of his wrist, had forced the little package out of Tooter's hand, and it fell on the floor. Holmes immediately pounced on it, picked it up, and started to open it, but suddenly his ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... violently against me and, strangely enough, at the same moment passed his foot in front of mine. Of course I went sprawling into the road right in front of the lorry. The horses came stamping and sliding straight on to me, and, before I could wriggle out of the way, the hoof of one of them smashed in my hat—that was a new one that I came home in—and half-stunned me. Then the near wheel struck my head, making a dirty little scalp wound, and pinned down my sleeve so that I couldn't pull away my arm, which ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... snakes would have filled a book, but when I saw this one I knew it was a bargain. It was the blamedest biggest snake that ever gave a wriggle, and the only reason its owners had not made a fortune was because it was never properly advertised. I used to know just how much he weighed and how long he was, but my brain got so tired figuring up the money we made out of him that I've had ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... sun should set,' he answered, and began to wriggle along so fast that the girl could ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... though trifling enough, too. The staff seemed to get up from the ground of its own accord, and, spreading its little pair of wings, it half hopped, half flew, and leaned itself against the wall of the cottage. There it stood quite still, except that the snakes continued to wriggle. But, in my private opinion, old Philemon's eyesight had been playing him ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... fine silk edged with gold lace, after which she took off her trousers and seized my hand and led me up to the couch, saying, "There is no sin in a lawful put in." She lay down on the couch outspread upon her back; and, drawing me on to her breast, heaved a sigh and followed it up with a wriggle by way of being coy. Then she pulled up the shift above her breasts, and when I saw her in this pose, I could not withhold myself from thrusting it into her, after I had sucked her lips, whilst she whimpered and shammed shame and wept when no tears came, and then said she, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... away with caressing fingers. "I know. That's why I'd like to shoot him. But he's sure to be caught now, isn't he? They've got him in a trap. He'll never wriggle through with Fletcher Hill to outwit him. You said yourself that with him on the job the odds were ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... entered, and the door was then closed and locked. Sister Sarah must have been in a hurry that morning. Just as well as not I might have made my remark directly to my nun, but I did not. She walked quickly to the table, arranged her paper, opened her inkstand, and sat down. I fancied that I saw a wavy wriggle of impatience in her shawl. Perhaps she wanted to know the rest of that odd incident near Eza. It may have been that it was impatient interest which had impaired her rigidity the ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... gave a tremendous wriggle with the whole body, which proved as ineffectual as it ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... fathoms of the line round his body. From the line having been kept tight, it was not so cleverly twisted as is often the case, and a blow on the tail quieted him before he had managed further to wriggle it round himself after he was out of the water. When the line was unwound, and the shark stretched out, he was a handsome-looking fish of a blue lead colour, about four feet long. Harry and David did not ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... together. Imagine Attica without you! Imagine going to bed alone, with no one to talk to about the events of the day! What does the horrid old money matter? We always have been poor, and we always shall be. As long as I can remember mother has been in despair about the bills; but we wriggle through somehow, and we shall go on wriggling. It's horrid of you to talk of going ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... felt himself fingering in his pocket for a dime, and heard himself say, "That's all right, I don't want the stuff. Take it in to that little chap in a striped suit, in the next car,—dirty little beggar, wriggled like an eel all day. This will probably make him wriggle all night. Never ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... incessantly and very objectionably," Molly says, thoughtfully. "I hate a man who sneezes publicly; and his sneeze is so unpleasant,—so exactly like that of a cat. A little wriggle of the entire body, and ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... as a team-mate, I can't really turn the serious-minded bird down. Besides, I have to admit to myself that it's darn interesting watching the vim that "Rus" puts into this secret practice. Some nights it's mighty chilly and with the grass wet down it's enough to make your spinal column wriggle, but "Rus" never seems ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... perfectly cold and still for several moments, then managed to wriggle away. I can give you no account of my feelings now, so many years have passed; besides, I don't think I felt at all. Every day I became more and more thoughtful, and Leontine and the manager rallied ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... sharp-pointed trident in his hand, was on the look-out with the ardent gaze of a beast of prey watching for its spoil, and, suddenly, with a swift movement, he darted his forked weapon into the sea so vigorously that it secured a large fish swimming near the bottom. It was a conger eel, which managed to wriggle, half dead as it was, into a puddle of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... him blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... warfare," she said gayly. "I pity you, Mr. Bower. You cannot wriggle out of your difficulty. The snow will soon be a foot deep in the valley. Goodness only knows what would have become of us up there ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... agents—a Yankee and an Englishman—were bragging about their rival methods. The Britisher was holding forth on the system of prompt payment carried out by his people—no trouble, no fuss, no attempt to wriggle out ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... was quietly enjoying herself. In early life she had been accustomed to impale fools on epigrams, like flies on pins, to see them wriggle. But with advancing years she had lost in some measure the faculty of nice discrimination,—it was pleasant to see her victims squirm, whether they were fools or friends. Even one's friends, she argued, ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... to fill their jars in the pond, and your huge black shadow would wriggle on the water like sleep ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... as escort, smart and gay in their brown forest-dress, the green thrums rippling and flying from sleeve and leggin' and open double-cape, and the raccoon-tails all a-bobbing behind their caps like the tails that April lambkins wriggle. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... (bitterly). So out of life I must inglorious wriggle, Pursued by TOMMY'S grin, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, May 3, 1890. • Various
... anger, although tempestuous, were never very prolonged. The curious convulsive wriggle of one of his arms, which always showed when he was excited, gradually died away, and after looking for some time at the papers of de Meneval—who had written away like an automaton during all this uproar—he came across to the fire with a smile upon his lips, and a ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nobody, without they wriggle for themselves pretty consider'ble well fust. This a'n't the newest news to me; I've been expectin' on't a long spell, an' I've talked consider'ble with Westbury folks about it; and there a'n't nobody much, round about here, but what'll stand out agin the Britishers, exceptin' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... case of the tail wagging the dog. But it is too late now to go back to the order of nature or the truth of history. The Puritan, like another Old Man of the Sea, is astride our shoulders and won't come down, protest, pray, roll, wriggle as Sindbad may. Why, the Puritan has imposed his Thanksgiving Day and pumpkin-pie upon South Carolina, even. [Applause.] He got mad at the old Whig party, on account of his higher law and abolitionism, and ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... whispered, glancing towards the Doctor, who was just passing out. "When they ain't lookin' I wriggle round!" ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... not, and especially if anything is there which he wishes to shun, a four hundred and fifty pounder cannot crash a hole large enough for you to push him through. By such a pitiful chink as that did his Infallible Highness wriggle himself out of the range of my guns, and pursue his ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... is an advantage that also has a disadvantage, for our serpents are so lovely that even they are not easily seen by the parrots when they wriggle up among ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... no avail to kick and scream and wriggle in the arms of a strong, decided young aunt. For the second time that day, a vociferously struggling baby was borne back ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... enough, however, in a man whose kink for repudiation in general led him to promulgate the theory that one generation cannot bind another for the payment of a debt. Hamilton, having disposed of Jefferson's attempts, under the signature of Aristides, to wriggle out of both these accusations, discoursed upon the disloyal fact that the Secretary of State was the declared opponent of every important measure which had been devised by the Government, and proceeded to lash him for his hypocrisy in sitting daily at the right hand of the President ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... it, Bumper began to gnaw at the lining of the muff, and pretty soon got his whole body under it, and then he began to kick and wriggle to get out. He felt he was being smothered alive, and he squealed aloud. The lady finally rescued him, but not until she had torn away half the lining ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... squeezed the wind-pipe; he attempted to bite, but the same hand easily kept the refractory head in order; he endeavoured to kick and hit, but Gascoyne's left hand encircled him in such a comprehensive embrace and pressed him so powerfully to his piratical bosom that he could only wriggle. This he did without ceasing, until Gascoyne suddenly planted him on his feet, panting and dishevelled, before the astonished faces of Frederick Mason ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... no suspected person can get away?" muttered the submarine boy. "Well, that's it should be. I wonder if there are any more of this strange crew—men or women spies that don't happen to have suspected so far? If there are, I don't believe they'll wriggle through the meshes of old Uncle Sam's ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... species. The habit of a Dapper, when he is at home, is a light broad-cloth, with calamanco or red waistcoat and breeches; and it is remarkable that their wigs seldom hide the collar of their coats. They have always a peculiar spring in their arms, a wriggle in their bodies, and a trip in their gait. All which motions they express at once in their drinking, bowing or saluting ladies; for a distant imitation of a forward fop, and a resolution to overtop him in his way, are the distinguishing marks of a Dapper. These under-characters of men are parts ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... backs and keeping them there. They experimented with balancing a roll on the back of one, but it promptly fell off again. They tied two rolls together and slung them across the back of another, pannier fashion; but the little beast gave a kick and a wriggle and deposited the load on the ground. Various dodges were tried, perspiration poured off the faces of the officers, they were covered with dust, their language grew stronger and stronger, and at last, feeling themselves entirely ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... he'll camp an' build a fire an' eat a corral full of ponies if you'll furnish 'em, an' lick his lips in thankfulness tharfore. But bein' afoot won't hinder 'em from keepin' up with my caravan, for in the mountains the snow is to the waggon beds an' the best we can do, is wriggle along the trail like a hurt snake at a gait ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... that in consequence of a late discovery by one BECHAMP, of living things in chalk (he has actually seen 'em wriggle!) we are no longer at liberty to say, "As different as Chalk and Cheese." The difference is gone! If it is not, we ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... 2nd December the hole in the engine room bulkhead was cut completely. I climbed through it, followed by Bowers, the carpenter, and Teddy Nelson, and when we got into the hold there was just enough room to wriggle along to the pump-well over the coal. We tore down a couple of planks to get access to the shaft and then I went down to the bottom to find out how matters stood. Bowers came next with an electric torch, which he shone downwards whilst I got into the water, hanging on to the bottom ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... bow; they would waylay us on our way downstairs with demure "Good morning"; they would go to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord Charles—who possessed the power of moving at will the whole skin of the scalp—would wriggle his hair up and down till we were choking with laughter, to our own imminent risk. After a month of this, Auntie was literally driven out of the pretty Chateau, and took refuge in a girls' school, much to our disgust, but still she was not ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... burst of speed, ran straight up to the leafy barrier, and dove right at it, head first as he used to "hit the center" for dear old Brighton. His maneuver did not carry him quite through, but he managed to wriggle on just in time to clear the way for Bob, who ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... concluded, the few jurymen who had managed to wriggle through the judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw, the balance of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who were standing up were ordered to sit down and those already sitting down were ordered to ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... look round. My "cover" got lower and lower, and to the north I heard the mate. He would presently succeed in setting off my game. It was imperative to get on quickly, but there was no longer cover enough for me to advance on hands and knees. My only chance was to wriggle forward like a snake on my stomach. But in this soft clay—in the bed of the stream? Yes—meat is too precious on board, and the beast of prey is too strong in a man. My clothes must be sacrificed; on I crept on my stomach through the mud. But soon there was hardly cover enough even for this. ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... others I could mention who took part in this contention, And at first 'twas my intention, but at present I forbear; There's young Look-sharp, and Wriggle, who would make an angel giggle, And a young conceited Zeigel, who was seated near the door; If you could only see them, you'd laugh till you were sore, And then you'd laugh ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... divoorce is it always lets out iv th' bad bargain th' wan that made it bad. If I owned a half in a payin' business with ye, I'd niver let th' sun go down on a quarrel,' he says. 'But if ye had a bad mouth I'd go into coort an' wriggle out iv th' partnership because ye'ar a cantankerous old villain that no wan cud get on with,' he says. 'If people knew they cudden't get away fr'm each other they'd settle down to life, just as I detarmined to like coal ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... tired of lying on his back. DISCONTENT with his condition makes him wriggle and wriggle. At last he succeeds ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... have done," he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah—you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... or likewise the Preacher, wriggle not thyself, as seeming unable to contain thyself within thy skin.—Youth's ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... Arthur Murphy, Tommy Durfey, Mrs. Trimmer's little Primer, Buckram binding, touch and try— Nothing bid—who'll buy, who'll buy? Here's Colley Cibber, Bruce the fibber, Plays of Cherry, ditto Merry, Tickle, Mickle, When I bow and when I wriggle, With a simper and a giggle, Ears regaling, bidders nailing, Ladies utter in a flutter— "Mister Smatter, how you chatter, Dear, how clever! well, I never Heard ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... well used at that school or not, don't draw Dicky into a corner of the playground, and with tender kisses and promises of inviolable secrecy coax him to open his little heart to you, and tell you whether he is really happy; leave such folly to women—it is a weakness to wriggle into the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... hard worked. He was used not only to wriggle around the line inside of ends and to squirm through difficult outlets, but to charge the line as well, a feat of which his height and strong legs rendered him well capable. He proved a consistant ground-gainer, ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the sea as he did; he was sure that they could not find it too warm at the bottom of the sea and yet they perspired; and whenever they perspired chalk, it immediately became a new house. They wriggled like worms, some to the right and some to the left; it was clear that they had to wriggle in some direction and, of course, they could not all turn to ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... had a wide net spread around him — wide of mesh too, perhaps; and it was through a mesh he meant to wriggle, but the net was intact from Canada to ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... at the tenacity of life of fallacies, permit me to say, is shockingly unphysiological. They, like other low organisms, are independent of brains, and only wriggle the more, the more they are smitten on the place where the brains ought to be—I don't know B., but I am convinced that A. has nothing but a spinal cord, devoid of any cerebral development. Would Mr. Cross give him up for purposes of experiment? Lingen and you might perhaps be got ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... villains stood together a plaguey time perfecting their plans, and Robin dared scarcely breathe. Once, when he attempted to wriggle his way through the bracken, at the first sound of movement both men had become utterly silent, showing that they had heard and waited ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... elephants stepped backward, so that Mukna also was forced to step backward. Step by step the three police elephants went backward till Mukna's hind legs came against the trunk of a tree. There Mukna was held for a moment, so that he could not wriggle away. For the elephant in front prevented him from moving forward, and the tree prevented him from moving backward; and the two elephants on the sides prevented him from ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... Landell," said Tom. "He'll wriggle them loose in no time. Look here, I'll show you. ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... birds and pretty well cleansed of the insect larvas that may have lurked in it when first removed. Lay the turves out in a frame, grass side downwards, and give them a soaking with water in which a very small quantity of salt has been dissolved. This will cause the remaining bots and slugs to wriggle out, and by means of a little patient labour they can be gathered and destroyed. In January or February sow the seed rather thickly in lines along the centre of each strip of turf, and cover with fine ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... will fight openly and fairly, I will not hate him. If I wanted to touch an adder with my hand I would not catch him by the tail so that it could curl around and sting my hand; I would catch it just behind the head. It might writhe and wriggle, but I should know that it could not bite me. That is how I want to treat the Tresidders. You despise me," I went on; "you see me now a thing that has to hide like a rabbit in burrow. Well, perhaps it is ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... snakes as pets, and allow them a wriggle on the grass every day. Early last week I missed one, a little black chap about 10 to 11 in. long, and have not seen him since. Perhaps the one Mr. Harry Furniss found on Saturday is my lost pet, carried away, not by ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... aeesthetic clique came a small voice belittling the great man as "quite too 'loud,' painfully excessive." Browning was manly enough to laugh at all ghoulish cries of any kind whatsoever. Once in a way the lion would look round and by a raised breath make the jackals wriggle; as when the poet wrote to a correspondent, who had drawn his attention to certain abusive personalities in some review or newspaper: "Dear Sir—I am sure you mean very kindly, but I have had too long ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... man," cried Honora, fiercely, "I should never rest until I had made enough money to make Mr. Meeker wriggle." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Spaniel was busy trying to keep their socks on. When the curate exhorted him "to follow the innocency" of these little ones, it was disconcerting to have one of them burst into a piercing yammer, and wriggle so forcibly that it slipped quite out of its little embroidered shift and flannel band. But the actual access to the holy basin was more seemly, perhaps due to the children imagining they were going to find tadpoles there. When Mr. Poodle held them up they smiled with a vague almost bashful simplicity; ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... once considered pledging his soul to Satan. Oh, not for keeps! No enmity was worth that dread sacrifice. But as a trick, sort of—with a flaw in the indenture that proud Lucifer would miss until it was too late to wriggle ...
— G-r-r-r...! • Roger Arcot
... account. They had been used to having their kings rule in a truly grand and kingly manner; and they insisted that he have built for himself the most magnificent palace ever seen. In all else they let him have his own way absolutely; but they wouldn't allow him to wriggle out of any of the ceremony or show that goes with being a king. A thousand servants he had to keep in his palace, night and day, to wait on him. The Royal Canoe had to be kept up—a gorgeous, polished mahogany ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... excepting the wooden Indian girl in front of the cigar-store, and not one of 'em but our Abby ever got a chance to name the day. Abby was as set as the everlastin' hills, and if she'd made up her mind to have a man he could n't wriggle away from her nohow in the world. It beats all how girls do run after these slick-haired, sweet-tongued, Miss Nancy kind o' fellers, that ain't but little good as beaux an' worth less ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "you can issue complaint against both Baker and Mr. Welton on a charge of bribery, and Baker can't possibly wriggle out by turning state's evidence, because your evidence ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... the first rift in his courtesy. Holliwell looked up in sharp surprise. He saw a flash of the truth, a little wriggle of the green serpent in Pierre's eyes before they fell. He flushed and glanced at Joan. She stood by the table in the circle of lamplight, looking over the new books, but in her eagerness there was less simplicity. She wore an almost timorous air, accepted his remarks in ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... and all heirs to estates joy, for old Shutz is dead, and cannot wriggle himself into any more wills. The ministry is not yet hatched; the King of Prussia is conquering the world; Mr. Chute has some murmurs of the gout; and I am ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... scattered, the dead mixed with the living, the wounded untended, without dressings, food, or water, and harassed by the fire from both sides and from our artillery. It was a very painful thing to watch these poor fellows moving about feebly and trying to wriggle themselves into some position of safety, and it reminded me of the wounded Dervishes after Omdurman—only these were our ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... great bite out of a slice of bread and jam, "whether it wouldn't be better for me to do it with a knife. Most of the best things have been brought off with a knife. And it would be a new emotion to get a knife into a French President and wriggle it round." ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... Obviously the tactics of the snake were wearing it down. Though the lizard seemed to have lost none of its spirit, the flesh was becoming weak. While it panted, its eyes twinkled with inane ferocity, and the snake, with that peculiar fearsome, gliding movement—neither wriggle nor squirm—typical of the species, slowly edged its victim under the shadow of a tussock. There both reposed, the snake calm in craft and design, the lizard waiting for the one chance of its life. Swallowing the lizard under any circumstances seemed an impossible feat. To begin the act in ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... is one-tenth technique, and nine-tenths natural talent. However, it is possible to acquire a certain virtuosity, which, after all is said, is but pure mechanical skill as opposed to sheer genius. One might, perhaps, get a hint by watching the living chrysalid of a potential moon-moth wriggle back into its cocoon—but little is to be learned from human teaching. However, if, night after night, one observes his Indians, a certain instinctive knowledge will arise to aid and abet him in his task. Then, after his patient apprenticeship, he may reap ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... be the good of the whole of them being killed together, he said—better that the risk should fall on one, and that the rest should have a chance of escape. Besides, he was the best runner of the party, and, if he should manage to wriggle out of the clutches of the savages, would be quite able to outrun them and regain the cave. At length the youth's arguments and determination prevailed, and in the afternoon he set off accompanied by his ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... a final wriggle and Twaddles deftly backed out of the oven, turning to show a flushed face and a pair ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... just gone. With quick but steady movements, you make a series of deep "criss-crosses;" and when the fish is disturbed by the hooks you whip him smartly out, and put him in the basket before his magical wriggle has taken him deep into the sand again. The women stooping over the shining floor look like ghostly harvesters reaping invisible crops. They are very silent, and their steps are feline. Peggy worked out her day, and then ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... they want to," said Polly. "But why don't you be the kangaroo, then, Joe, and let Davie be something else? Give him the snake, then he won't have to jump, and it's easier to wriggle." ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... First come the Judge, tougher than rawhide, half walking and half flying, his wings spread out, 'cree-ing' to himself about bulldogs and their ways; next come Bobby, still sputtering and swearing, and behind ambled Thomas at a lively wriggle, a coy, large smile ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... justice to her prospective son-in-law, that he was capable either of resigning himself or of frankly (with however many blushes) telling Joscelind he could n't keep his agreement, but was not capable of trying to wriggle out of his difficulty. The plan of simply telling Joscelind he couldn't,—this was the one he had fixed upon as the best, and this was the one of which I remarked to him that it had a defect which should be counted against ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... exactly, either; for Rollo who was usually pretty alert and ready in emergencies of difficulty or danger, when he found himself rolling down the slope, though he could not stop, still contrived to wriggle and twist himself off to one side, so as to get clear of the horse and roll off himself in a different direction. They both, however, the animal and the boy, soon came to a stop. Rollo was up in an instant. The horse, too, contrived, after some scrambling, to gain his feet. All this ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... commission would let him know when some poor sufferer was passing away and would recommend Rushton & Co. to the bereaved and distracted relatives. By these means often—after first carefully inquiring into the financial position of the stricken family—Misery would contrive to wriggle his unsavoury carcass into the house of sorrow, seeking, even in the chamber of death, to further the interests of Rushton & Co. and to earn his miserable two ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the house as often as the wind of conversation veers in that direction. This is nothing, though, to the white awe in the air when visitors call and I am questioned how I earn my living in London. I hardly know whether to laugh or cry at the long-drawn breath of relief when I wriggle out of a tight place without telling a lie. But you can't hide an eel in a sack, and I know the truth will pop out one of these days. Only yesterday I went district-visiting with Aunt Rachel, and one of the Balaams of life, who keeps a tavern for fishermen, lured us into his bar parlour to ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the Sahib are great as his fame," said the two Darwanis together, as they raced off to their followers. Charteris made his dispositions hurriedly. Twenty men, his best shots, were sent out under Warner to wriggle through the long grass to within range of the guns, and pick off the gunners when they attempted to fire. The rest of the Darwanis—such as possessed fire-arms, at least—were ordered to load, but remain where they were, and the Granthis to fall back a hundred ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... all, should never explain. Suddenly called upon for decision on knotty point, must needs make mistake sometimes. If he does, unless it be very serious, he should stick to it. For Chairman of Committees, better to be in the wrong and uphold authority of Chair, than to wriggle into the right at its expense. MELLOR should be more monosyllabic in his style, more ruthless in his dealing with disorderly interruption, more wary about putting his foot down, but, being planted, it should be immovable. It would make his fortune if he could only name CHAMBERLAIN. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... wandering they reached a spot where a great rock rose straight up in the middle of the road. Instantly the Serpent uncoiled itself from his neck, and, as it touched the damp earth, it resumed the shape of the lovely damsel. Pointing to the rock, she showed him an opening just big enough for a man to wriggle through. Passing into it, they entered a long underground passage, which led out on to a wide field, above which spread a blue sky. In the middle of the field stood a magnificent castle, built out of porphyry, with a roof ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... surrounding hills. As many living serpents as could be collected are now thrown into the column, which is set on fire at the base by means of torches, armed with which about fifty boys and men dance around with frantic gestures. The serpents, to avoid the flames, wriggle their way to the top, whence they are seen lashing out laterally until finally obliged to drop, their struggles for life giving rise to enthusiastic delight among the surrounding spectators. This is a favourite annual ceremony for the inhabitants ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... saw stars fer a few minutes, but as soon as my head cleared off a mite I tried to wriggle myself loose. But the tree couldn't seem to see it that way. It had me good an' tight, and appar'ntly meant to enjoy my company fer a spell. At first, though, I couldn't seem to understand that I was really caught hard an' fast, an' it took a little time fer the idea t' sink in. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... right would that eel squirm and wriggle. I chased him round grindstones, in and out of water-troughs, from behind posts and planks, from under benches, but I could not get him to the door; and I firmly believe that night would have fallen with me still hunting the slimy wriggling creature if Uncle Bob had not seized it with ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... becomes intolerable. Then the elephant had not been loaded "with brains," and his pack was as troublesome as the straw shoes of the Japanese horses. It was always slipping forward or backward, and as I was heavier than the Malay lad, I was always slipping down and trying to wriggle myself up on the great ridge which was the creature's backbone, and always failing, and the mahout was always stopping and pulling the rattan ropes which bound the whole arrangement together, but never succeeding in improving ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... was said to be Napoleon's double. Hippolyte Charles had been the friend of Leclerc, and Paulette resolutely set her mind on inflicting salutary punishment on her sister-in-law for the wrong she was doing her brother. She quickly managed to wriggle confidences out of Leclerc concerning the Josephine-Charles connection, then peached. Charles was banished from the army, and, on the authority of Madame Leclerc, we learn that Josephine "nearly died of grief." The avenging little vixen had put a big spoke ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... a pair of which the Frenchman hairdresser is lacing for one of his customers. Another of the party, who has completed the upper part of his toilet, is so hampered with the voluminous folds and stiffening of his cravat that he cannot wriggle into his unmentionables. The caricaturists take us into the garrets of these fellows, abodes of squalor and wretchedness, and show us that beneath their exterior magnificence there is nothing, or next to nothing. In a pair of rough ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... is required to stand on his hands with legs stretched at full length in the air, and then wriggle ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... small that Ben could barely get his head and shoulders through it. There was no possibility of his getting on his feet or his knees to make a leap. The only course that remained for him, therefore, was to expand the umbrella, hold on tight, and then wriggle out until he should lose his balance and fall head foremost! It was an awful position. Bold though the seaman was, and desperate the circumstances, his strong frame quivered when he gazed down and felt himself gradually toppling. ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... and die; the heavens go round With the song of wheeling planetary rings: You wriggle in the sun; each moment brings Its freight for you; in all things ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... wild to avenge to inflict an insult to wriggle he has failed in his duty he has been kept to his bed for the last two days I ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... glossy crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like the whips of four-horse stage-coaches; motionless, slug-like creatures, larvae, perhaps, more horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity! But no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day let upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all of them that enjoy the luxury of legs—and some of them ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... nor'-east, he always beats for open sea. It isn't the sea he fears. It is these rock ramparts and saw-tooth reefs sticking up through the lace fret. Suddenly you twist round a sharp angle of rock like the half closed leaf of a book. You slip in behind the leaf of rock, and wriggle behind another angle—"follow the tickles o' water" is, I believe, the term—and there opens before you a harbor cove, land-locked, rock-walled from sea to sky, with the fishermen's dories awash on a silver ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... his wife. A smile, an attentive manner, the general effect of having combed his hair and washed behind his ears, a word now and then to show that he is awake (I am assuming that he controls the tendency to wriggle)—and no more is needed. He is a lay figure, but not necessarily a lay ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... to be too sanguine. You know my philosophy. I've seen a scratched finger kill a man; I've known puny babes wriggle out of Death's hand when I could have sworn it had closed upon them for good and all. Where there 's life ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... "that Mrs. Geraghty will be up at the house again. Aunt Juliet wouldn't trust anybody else to hook up Lady Torrington's back. I can do my own, of course; but nobody can who is either fat or dignified. I'm pretty lean, but even I have to wriggle a lot." ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... the order of Hosea Hessel, of the blue nose. And several boys took hold of me, all together, turned me over on the bench, face upwards. Two sat on my legs, two on my arms, and one held my head, so that I should not be able to wriggle. And another placed his left forefinger and thumb at my nose. (It seemed he was left-handed.) He curled up his finger and thumb, closed his eye, and began to fillip me on the nose. And how, do you think? Each time I saw my father in the other world. Murderers, slaughterers! ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... sneezes very incessantly and very objectionably," Molly says, thoughtfully. "I hate a man who sneezes publicly; and his sneeze is so unpleasant,—so exactly like that of a cat. A little wriggle of the entire body, and ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... should have known enough by that time to leave four or five men on guard close by; as it was, when the men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and I came running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see a crocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feet first. Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, and ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... fluttered here and there like blue and red marsh fires a mile or so back from the main road. Once as she flew along she shied like a horse and twisted the wheel as a wild screaming and twittering rose at the side of the car, and glancing back she saw three figures wriggle and laugh in mockery and astonishment. They had risen round the embers of a dead fire, and stood swaying on their feet and showing white teeth in orange faces. One had the long hair of a woman ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... move, to wriggle, to scratch with its legs or snap with its mandibles, the Cetonia-larva, a new Prometheus bound, offers its defenceless flanks to the little Vulture destined to devour its entrails. Without too much hesitation, the young Scolia settles down to the wound made by my scalpel, which to the ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... every room, hall and door in that house, for every spring and fall he had helped the maids "clean house," taking up and laying carpets. The knowledge stood him in good stead now. What window upstairs would be open, he wondered. The bath-room, of course; it was small, but he could wriggle through it, he told himself, or he would break every bone in his body, at least, trying. All this time he was running and crouching along the shadow of the high stone wall, that, bordered with shrubs, made splendid "cover." He reached the kitchen, and, without waiting to think whether it would ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... its own gravity, as after wading about two, or perhaps five minutes, where it could just get its head out, it would suddenly rise to the surface and begin to swim, which it does quite as well as the Water-hen. The awkward, tumbling, shuffling wriggle which it appears to have, is occasioned by the incessant motion of its head as it turns over the gravel in search of creepers, which appear to me to form the ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... Dunstan's church. Depend upon it he will cross over to the Model Dockyard there, and after buttoning his jacket over his watch-chain, and a good shove down to his pocket-handkerchief, if he has one, let him wriggle in by elbow and knees till he gets a good place among the ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... pictures she was looking at swam before her eyes. Mrs. Churchley, in the natural course, would have begun immediately to climb staircases. Adela could see the high bony shoulders and the long crimson tail and the universal coruscating nod wriggle their horribly practical way through the rest of the night. Therefore she MUST have had her reasons for detaining them. There were mothers who thought every one wanted to marry their eldest son, and the girl ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... to get ourselves free?" Tom demanded: "I've been trying to wriggle my hands out, but I'll admit ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... the fish stopped biting, as they 'most always do, by spells, and the Deep Woods people leaned back and looked out over the Wide Blue Water, and away out there saw Mr. Eagle swoop down and pick up something which looked at first like a shoe-string; then they saw it wriggle, and knew it was a small water-snake, which was going to be Mr. Eagle's dinner; and they talked about it and wondered how he could enjoy ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... I came in sight of the village church, sitting solitary within its circle of elms. From forth the vestry window projected two small legs, gyrating, hungry for foothold, with larceny—not to say sacrilege—in their every wriggle: a godless sight for a supporter of the Establishment. Though the rest was hidden, I knew the legs well enough; they were usually attached to the body of Bill Saunders, the peerless bad boy of the village. Bill's coveted booty, too, I could easily guess at that; it came from the Vicar's store of ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... know a great deal about their childhood and youth, or, to speak more eelishly, their grigginess and elverhood. The young grigs, when they do make their appearance, leave us in no doubt at all about their presence or their reality. They wriggle up weirs, walls, and floodgates; they force there way bodily through chinks and apertures; they find out every drain, pipe, or conduit in a given plane rectilinear figure; and when all other spots have been fully occupied, they take to dry land, like veritable ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... hunted elusive grasshoppers, rushing helter-skelter over the dry moss, leaping up to strike at the flying game with their paws like a kitten, or snapping wildly to catch it in their mouths and coming down with a back-breaking wriggle to keep themselves from tumbling over on their heads. Then on again, with a droll expression and noses sharpened like exclamation points, to find ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... excitement, an element of wild disgust and terror. She had never experienced anything so disagreeable in her life as the sense of being held helplessly off her feet. She screamed involuntarily—she had never in her life screamed before—and then she began to wriggle and fight like a frightened animal against the men who ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... this young man should press his right thumb against the wall in taking his hat from the peg! Such a very natural action, too, if you come to think of it." Holmes was outwardly calm, but his whole body gave a wriggle of suppressed excitement as he spoke. "By the way, Lestrade, who ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... there was no passion between them, she made such a delight with her childish clinging, her soft nestling against him, that he would hold his breath to listen to her quiet breathing and move a little away as though in sleep, so as to feel her kitten-like, half-unconscious wriggle into the curve of his arm again. It was sweet at such times to feel such utter dependence upon him as the protective male, and the best in him was stirred to response. The next morning she might jar again from the hour of getting up in their ugly hotel room, through the expedition ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... figures looming out in front. "O Christ, they're coming at us!" Bullets spat, And he remembered his rifle ... rapid fire ... And started blazing wildly ... then a bang Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom, Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans.... Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned, Bleeding to death. ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... and call Edward White Benson a fool. But is any one in danger of doing so? Would not every one admit some ability in the unhereditary recipient of fifteen thousand a year? Parsons are not a brilliant body, but to wriggle, or climb, or rise to the top of the Black Army involves the possession ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... member—oh! it's useless to attempt description. Mortal man cannot conceive of the delicate shades of sentiment expressible by a dog's tail, unless he has studied the subject—the wag, the waggle, the cock, the droop, the slope, the wriggle! Away with description—it is impotent and ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... lads," I exclaimed. "But suppose you were all to get drunk, what would the Frenchmen do with us, I should like to know? Shall I tell you? They would manage to wriggle themselves free, and heave us all overboard. If we don't want to disgrace ourselves, let us keep what we've got. Not another drop of liquor does anyone have aboard here till we ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the back of Zo's neck; and his patient acknowledged the process with a wriggle and a scream. The performance being so far at an end, Zo called to the dog, and issued ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... asked that, he gave a wriggle, and it flashed through her: 'He must think me an awful enfant terrible!' His face peered round at her, queer and pale and puffy, with nice, straight eyes; and she ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... soft and colourful, painted to a perfect peachiness, young—twenty-four and looking less; old as the world and wise. She was gay. She did not much care if it snowed; she knew enough to wriggle in somewhere, somehow, out of it. The years had not yet scared her. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... gracious!' said the gentleman, as the Phoenix, with one last wriggle that melted into a flutter, got out of its nest in the breast of Robert and stood up on ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... and tail, a contest for upper place now began. One-Eye writhed like a hairy animal (this the swish-swishing). Being both slender and agile, he managed to wriggle out from beneath Big Tom, who instantly turned about and caught him, and once more laid upon him the whole ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... marvellous, though trifling enough, too. The staff seemed to get up from the ground of its own accord, and, spreading its little pair of wings, it half hopped, half flew, and leaned itself against the wall of the cottage. There it stood quite still, except that the snakes continued to wriggle. But, in my private opinion, old Philemon's eyesight had been playing ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... strain, moving upward and inward upon its hinges, disclosing an oblong gap above the jamb. With a splendid wriggle the fugitive vaulted up, thrusting his person into the clear space thus provided. Balanced across the opening upon his stomach, half in and half out, for one moment he remained there, his legs kicking wildly as though for a purchase ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... plainly saw that Ola was trying to wriggle out of his difficulty, but were anxious not to lose an exciting scene, screamed with laughter again; but this time at the bully's expense. The blood mounted to his head, and his anger got the better of his natural cowardice. Instead of sneaking off, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... said—all for her sake, as it were. Why, didst thou see, it was godly Mr. Henwick that held her head when he wriggled so, and old Madam Holbrook had herself helped upon a chair to see the better. I wonder how long I might wriggle, before great and godly folk would take so much notice of me? But, I suppose, that comes of being a pastor's daughter. She'll be so set up there'll be no speaking to her now. Faith! thinkest thou that Hota really had ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... as we have seen, was not asleep. With a convulsive wriggle of its tail it darted away in a panic. It was itself no mean swimmer, but it could not escape the darting terror that pursued. When the masked form was almost within reach of its victim, the mask dropped ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... cross-wires behind my seat. To my surprise, head and shoulders and one arm got to the other side—a curious circumstance, as afterwards I tried repeatedly to repeat this contortionist trick on the ground, but failed every time. There I stuck, for it was impossible to wriggle farther. However, I could now reach part of the fire, and at it I beat with gloved hands. Within half a minute most of the fire was crushed to death. But a thin streak of flame, outside the radius of my arm, still ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... fellows," said Tom, as the other boys tried to wriggle out from under the tent. "We've got to get wet now, anyway; but perhaps, if we stay as we are, we can manage to keep the ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the story of the time Hoggy bet all of his money on a baseball game at Muggledorfer, and of how he walked home with his chum and carried the latter's coat and grip all the way. That made the Faculty wriggle, I can tell you. He illustrated the pluck of the deceased by telling how Hogboom, as a Freshman, dug all night alone to rescue a man imprisoned in a sewer, spurred on by his cries—though Rogers explained in his ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... boudoir, the singer found that Madame Hulot had fainted; but in spite of having lost consciousness, her nervous trembling kept her still perpetually shaking, as the pieces of a snake that has been cut up still wriggle and move. Strong salts, cold water, and all the ordinary remedies were applied to recall the Baroness to her senses, or rather, to the apprehension of ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... an end to the gaudy crimes that the suffragist alarmists talk about is to shave the heads of all the pretty girls in the world, and pluck out their eyebrows, and pull their teeth, and put them in khaki, and forbid them to wriggle on dance-floors, or to wear scents, or to use lip-sticks, or to roll their eyes. Reform, as usual, mistakes the fish for ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... he gets tired of lying on his back. DISCONTENT with his condition makes him wriggle and wriggle. At last he ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... Flora to the Southern hemisphere.") and the report on the sexuality of cryptogams. I suppose the former was by Oliver; how extremely curious is the fact of similarity of Orders in the Tropics! I feel a conviction that it is somehow connected with Glacial destruction, but I cannot "wriggle" comfortably at all on the subject. I am nearly sure that Dana makes out that the greatest number of crustacean forms ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... say, 2 feet or more above the level of the front outside platform, and 1 foot or more above that of the inside floor, and are usually very small; so that, in entering or leaving the building, you have to step up to, or even climb, and wriggle yourself through the opening, and then step down on the other side. Inside the building you find the centre of the floor space occupied by a longitudinal fireplace, about 2 feet broad, extending from front to back of the building; and the floors ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... Luck is lean, now Luck Is fat, And wise men take her as she comes: The Bowler may be sure the Bat Will share the sugarplums. So never wriggle, nor protest, Nor eye the zenith in disgust, But, Johnson, bowl your level best, And recollect, ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... to the camp she felt a trifle remorseful about her behavior. Some day she would marry him—she had got far enough to admit that—and perhaps it was unkind of her not to let the matter be settled. And at that she gave a petulant wriggle of her shoulders under her cotton blouse. Wasn't that his business? Wasn't he the one to end it, not wait on her pleasure? Were all men ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... a dozen of the rascals, whom we had a rare hunt after through the hold and fo'c's'le before we could collar them. They are fast bound now, though, lashed head and feet to the mainmast bitts; and it will puzzle them to wriggle themselves loose from old Masters' double hitches, I know. Besides which, two of our men are guarding there, with boarding-pikes in their hands and orders to run 'em through the gizzard ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... so about—Father. You're for ever talking about him," said Will uneasily, trying to wriggle himself out ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... frantically to clamber back into it; he snatches the small, damp towels, and attempts to dry his shivering limbs; his clothes have fallen on the wet floor; he cannot force his blue toes into his oozy socks. At the moment he is attempting to wriggle himself into his trousers the horse is hitched-to again, and the jerky and jolty journey back up the beach begins. If the hair of a boy of ten could turn white in a single morning, there would be many ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... down at a red smashed thing on the ground that, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle unavailing legs. Then, when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that bore down upon them, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was like a fog bank torn to rags. He ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the tiger to be where we found him, and were on our way home) had seated himself on another tree. In a low tone he said to me "Load, load!" but the moment I took my eye off the tiger to do so he began to wriggle into the jungle, and I only got a snap shot at his hind leg. Now when the tiger roared, which he did as he approached me, and he lay watching me, I felt no sensation of the heart, though I felt a distinct ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... and shoulders through it. There was no possibility of his getting on his feet or his knees to make a leap. The only course that remained for him, therefore, was to expand the umbrella, hold on tight, and then wriggle out until he should lose his balance and fall head foremost! It was an awful position. Bold though the seaman was, and desperate the circumstances, his strong frame quivered when he gazed down and felt himself gradually toppling. The height he knew to be little short of sixty feet, ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... been concluded, the few jurymen who had managed to wriggle through the judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw, the balance of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who were standing up were ordered to sit down and those already sitting down were ordered to sit somewhere else, ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... darkness. And the myth has a great truth in it. The light of God's face slays evil, of whatsoever kind it is; and just as the unlovely, loathsome creatures that live in the dark and find themselves at ease there writhe and wriggle in torment, and die when their shelter is taken away and they are exposed to the light beating on their soft bodies, so the light of God's face turned upon evil things smites them into nothingness. Thus 'the secret of His countenance' is the shelter of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... hand. I shouted. I must have yelled jolly loud, I think. I couldn't help it. That horrible thing seemed to wriggle in my fingers. ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... sins of the night before; instead, she showed her displeasure by a kind of cold rudeness that gave a subtle insult to her smallest remark. The children were manifestly delighted. Cecilia was more or less in the position of a beetle on a pin, and theirs was the precious opportunity of seeing her wriggle. Wherefore they adopted their mother's tone, openly defied her, and turned school-hours ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... began to shudder, and went on shuddering—"just," Mr. Porson used to say when describing the thing to a friend, "like the skin of a horse determined to get rid of a gad-fly." The same moment the tiles on the roof began to clatter like so many castanets in the hands of giants, and the ground to wriggle and heave. But they were too much absorbed in what was before their eyes to heed much what went on under their feet. The oscillatory displacement of the front of the church did not at most seem to cover more than a hand-breadth, but it was enough. Down came the plaster surface, with ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... instantly arose within him. Seizing the handle of the heavy hunting-whip, which still hung from his right wrist by a leather thong, he flourished it in the air, and brought it down on his charger's flank with a crack like a pistol-shot, causing the animal to wriggle its tail, toss its ponderous head, and kick up its heels, in a way ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... that she would leave him this alternative. She had a way of involving people in her complications without their being aware of it, and Garnett had pictured himself in holes so tight that there might not be room for a wriggle. Happily in this case he could still move freely. Nothing compelled him to act as an intermediary between Mrs. Newell and her husband, and it was preposterous to suppose that, even in a life of such perpetual upheaval as hers, there were no roots which struck deeper ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... to think that if he looked at no one and addressed nobody, when he spoke, he might the more easily wriggle out of his obligations ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... assure silence?" Phil hurriedly asked himself, and instinctively made to put his hands to the man's neck. But the body under him began to wriggle, to kick out with its legs, and to lay about with ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... stood as she was under the glaring light, the letter still clutched stiffly in her hand, her eyes still staring widely at the irregular, un-English writing. The letters seemed to writhe and squirm into life before her distorted vision, to wriggle like a procession of monstrous insects across the page. Were they insects or were they reptiles? She asked herself ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... her performance, as much applause as the other, which shows that an operatic audience will not only tolerate, but even applaud a singer who substitutes physical attractions, temperament and a peculiar wriggle of the spinal column for beautiful voice ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... Montreuil-sur-Mer, on a shining summer afternoon. A road between dusty hedges, choked, literally strangled, by a torrent of westward-streaming troops of all arms. Every few minutes there would come a break in the flow, and our motor would wriggle through, advance a few yards, and be stopped again by a widening of the torrent that jammed us into the ditch and splashed a dazzle of dust into our eyes. The dust was stifling—but ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... translated his jargon, that he would, as on the previous day, hold fast to my shoulder with his bill. He made Grilly get down below at the same time and hold on to my feet; and when I began to crawl and wriggle along the best way I could, I was assisted very materially by the parrot above ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... England as administered by his Majesty's Judges; study them, and you will be astonished at their straight common-sense and justice. I'm not holding any brief for lawyers—I'm frank, you see—the business of lawyers is to wriggle round and circumvent the truth, to muddy evidence, confuse witnesses and undo justice. I'm just talking of ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... warriors was returning. First come the Judge, tougher than rawhide, half walking and half flying, his wings spread out, 'cree-ing' to himself about bulldogs and their ways; next come Bobby, still sputtering and swearing, and behind ambled Thomas at a lively wriggle, a coy, ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... old money-bag, down on your stomach," said the other, "and wriggle like a snake through a hedge, or we shall leave our carcasses behind us sooner ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... fragrance. That done and arranged to their experienced leader's satisfaction, they wrapped themselves like Indians in their blankets and tumbled down upon the heap of boughs; the air trembled with a chorus of strange sounds as one by one they dropped off into a drowsy sleep, with an occasional wriggle as a knot, or the end of a limb, made itself felt through the many-folded blanket, and engraved a distinct dent upon the sleeper's back; while overhead, the giant cloud crept upward slowly, slowly toward ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... a man," cried Honora, fiercely, "I should never rest until I had made enough money to make Mr. Meeker wriggle." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... repeated several times over, it usually happened that one of the songsters who claimed to be gifted with more perspicuity than his comrades would remind them that he had seen the old squirrel wriggle under the lash of the song. And so their wretched days of starvation were often made shorter by a more or less harmless attack on the poor skipper, who might only be the instrument of a parsimonious managing owner. ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... in, flow into, flow in, creep into, creep in, slip into, slip in, pop into, pop in, break into, break in, burst into, burst in; set foot on; ingress; burst in upon, break in upon; invade, intrude; insinuate itself; interpenetrate, penetrate; infiltrate; find one's way into, wriggle into, worm oneself into. give entrance to &c (receive) 296; insert &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... put on a burst of speed, ran straight up to the leafy barrier, and dove right at it, head first as he used to "hit the center" for dear old Brighton. His maneuver did not carry him quite through, but he managed to wriggle on just in time to clear the way for Bob, ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... Wrath kolerego. Wrathful kolerega. Wreath garlando. Wreathe plekti, girlandi. Wreck (ship) sxippereo. Wreckage derompajxo. Wren regolo. Wrench ektiregi. Wrest tiregi. Wrestle barakti. Wrestler baraktisto. Wretch malbonulo, krimulo. Wretched mizera. Wriggle tordi, tordeti. Wring (twist) tordi, premegi. Wring (the hand) premi. Wrinkle sulkigi. Wrinkle (facial) sulko. Wrist manradiko. Write skribi. Writer (author) verkisto. Writer skribisto. Writing skribajxo. Writing-table skribotablo. Wrong malpraveco. Wrong ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... demand, there will always be a supply, but for a considerable time—at least a year or two—cocaine will be scarce. They caught a good many of the small fry, but as usual the big fish escaped—all but one wealthy Mahommedan, but he is bound to wriggle out somehow. Another point in favour of the short supply of cocaine is the ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... obesity of the chest. The organs of locomotion are something altogether different. The Cetonia-grub[4] has shown us how, with the aid of the hairs and the pad-like excrescences upon its spine, it manages to reverse the universally-accepted usage and to wriggle along on its back. The grub of the Capricorn is even more ingenious: it moves at the same time on its back and belly; instead of the useless legs of the thorax, it has a walking-apparatus almost resembling feet, which appear, contrary to every rule, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... I a younger man you might, perhaps, accuse me of scheming to wriggle myself into your good graces, Miss Enid. But I am getting old, and, moreover, I'm a confirmed bachelor, therefore you cannot, I think, accuse me of such ulterior motives. No, I only point out this peril for ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... Hindenburg line? Now, look here. As one German General to another do you mean to tell me you believe in the Hindenburg line? No, of course you don't. You thought I believed in it? Was that what you said? Come, don't wriggle, though you are a dead man. Yes, that was what you said. Well, then understand henceforth that there is no Hindenburg line and there never was anything of the sort. Why am I retreating then? Because I must. That's the whole secret. Why did you retreat after your ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... I groped my way blindly through the dark chambers, calling the great thoats after me. They had difficulty in negotiating some of the doorways, but as the buildings fronting the city's principal exposures were all designed upon a magnificent scale, they were able to wriggle through without sticking fast; and thus we finally made the inner court where I found, as I had expected, the usual carpet of moss-like vegetation which would prove their food and drink until I could return them ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... show nervous timidity at feeding with the other horses, and so Miguel cheerfully went to the urging with fork and tongue. But only the one time. Soon the colt took to burying his nose in the box along with the others, and would wriggle his tail with a vigor that seemed to tell of his gratitude at being accepted as part of the great establishment and its devices. And then another thing. With this change in his method of feeding, he soon came to reveal steadily increasing courage and independence. ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... back from the main road. Once as she flew along she shied like a horse and twisted the wheel as a wild screaming and twittering rose at the side of the car, and glancing back she saw three figures wriggle and laugh in mockery and astonishment. They had risen round the embers of a dead fire, and stood swaying on their feet and showing white teeth in orange faces. One had the long hair of a woman flapping about ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... you some?" exclaimed aunt Corinne with a wriggle. "I had a gold dollar, but I b'lieve that little old man with a bag on his ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Esau; "and there I hung for ever so long, giving myself a bit of a wriggle now and then, but afraid to do much, it hurt so, dragging at my arms, while they were twisted up. I s'pose I must have been 'bout an hour like that, but it seemed a week, and I was beginning to get sick again, when all at once, after a good struggle, I fell forward on to my face ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... contemptible to let someone else be blamed for what you have done," he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah—you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. You'll find ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... mental confusion Old Man Anderson kept revolving in his mind, with satisfaction, a new plan he had evolved. The next time Jim should fall asleep he would crawl back through the aperture in the conduit wall, pry up the boards over the opening into the prison yard, wriggle out, and take his chances in getting over the wall somehow! Better even be shot by a guard than die like a rat in this unspeakable place, as he was doing, where he couldn't stand up and dared not lie down on account ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... rest here and there; if you are after her boldly, you can dash to the Cuttle Well, which was the trysting-place, in the time a stout man takes to lace his boots; if you are of those self-conscious ones who look behind to see whether jeering blades are following, you may crouch and wriggle your way onward and not be with her in half ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... now? If the robber had had a knife in his pocket, Gum would have been a dead monkey in two seconds. But while he was unsuccessfully feeling for his knife, Gum suddenly came to, and with one violent wriggle shook itself free, and sprang on the highest shelf. The robber gave chase; then followed the most comical hunt you ever saw. The robber's face being now exposed (he had no idea that Donald had already ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... hands in my pockets after that last remark, and walked to the window glumly; but as I stood with my back to him, I could not help wondering if he was making faces at me, or up to any other undignified antics by way of relaxation. Did he ever wriggle with merriment when he was alone? I turned suddenly at the thought. He was calmly perusing a paper through his pince-nez, with an expression of countenance at once so benign, silly, and self-satisfied, that I felt I should like to have ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... did—in herding someone into a corner, the prospective victim, a man, managed to slip past her out of danger, being favoured by the fact that to grasp him with one of her fettered hands she must turn entirely about. So he was able to wriggle out of peril and her clutching fingers closed ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... often proved himself to be one of those who refuse to call themselves beaten until the very last effort has been made. He had been in tight places before, and had always managed to wriggle out by some ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... dead and wounded lay thickly scattered, the dead mixed with the living, the wounded untended, without dressings, food, or water, and harassed by the fire from both sides and from our artillery. It was a very painful thing to watch these poor fellows moving about feebly and trying to wriggle themselves into some position of safety, and it reminded me of the wounded Dervishes after Omdurman—only these were ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... nervously at a neatly trimmed brown beard, trying to wriggle out of the dilemma into which Hal put him. Yes, it might possibly be that a young miner was being followed on the streets of the town; but whether or not this was against the law depended on the circumstances. If he had made a disturbance in North Valley, and there was reason to believe that ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... accepting his offer at once, compelling him to name a definite sum, just for the fun of seeing how he would wriggle out of ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... a heave, and wriggle, "that circus boy," as Trix had nicknamed him, performed the feat of getting her out of the falling castle, and the Corner House girls ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... thing that this young man should press his right thumb against the wall in taking his hat from the peg! Such a very natural action, too, if you come to think of it." Holmes was outwardly calm, but his whole body gave a wriggle of suppressed excitement as he spoke. "By the way, Lestrade, who ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... quietly enjoying herself. In early life she had been accustomed to impale fools on epigrams, like flies on pins, to see them wriggle. But with advancing years she had lost in some measure the faculty of nice discrimination,—it was pleasant to see her victims squirm, whether they were fools or friends. Even one's friends, she argued, were not always wise, and were sometimes the better ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... somewhat distressfully passed over them closer to the question of which of the alien objects presented to his choice it would cost him least to profess to handle. What he had already paid, a spectator would easily have gathered from the long, the suppressed wriggle that had ended in his falling back, was some sacrifice of his habit of not privately depreciating those to whom he was publicly civil. It was plain, however, that when he presently spoke his thought had taken a stretch. "I'm sure I've fully intended ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... held under the sliding door of the trap, telling Harry to pull it open. He did so, and into it glided the pailful of different kinds of fish, while one monster of an eel got half his body over the side and slipped out on to the damp floor, where he began to wriggle and twist, evidently meaning to get down one of the wheel channels. But Bob had seen one fine fellow slip away that morning, and did not mean to lose this one; for he knew it would be worth shillings to him, either to sell, or to send by his young visitors ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... a wriggle, add a pint of nearly milk, Smother with a pillow any sneeze; Baste with talcum powder and mark upon its back— "Don't forget that you were one ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... we must think of you all the same first." And kneeling down by the injured man's side, he proceeded, with Ernest Wilton's assistance, to cut away Seth's shirt, and then the end of the arrow, holding it firmly the while so that it should not wriggle about, and hurt him more than they could help, after which the barbed head was drawn out of the wound—which was just between the third and fourth ribs, and not very serious, as the ex-mate had thought— stanching the blood, and binding ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... hoult of him," said Pat, solemnly. "The sort of her Ladyship houlds on the tighter the more you wriggle. He's preparing a quare bed of repentance for himself, so he is, the langwidge he's usin' about her all over the house. By-and-by he'll be rememberin' she's Sir Gerald's widdy, and'll be askin' me ashamed-like, 'I hope I didn't say too much about ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... class—when, on the contrary, I found that all observed a marked silence on the point—I determined, COUTE QUI COUTE, to break the ice of this silly reserve. I selected Sylvie as my informant, because from her I knew that I should at least get a sensible answer, unaccompanied by wriggle, titter, or other ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... asks, is to be let alone. To uncover its atrocities is like turning over a huge stone in the meadow in springtime, that has been a hiding-place for bugs and worms that nest away in the dark. As soon as the hot, searching sunlight finds them, they will wriggle and squirm in agony until they can crawl under cover again. So I do not wonder that, when the hideous cruelty of the tenement-house sweat-shop is brought to light, the sweater and all his friends wriggle and squirm in an agony of fright and shame. Neither am I alarmed that this critic, ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... quick for him. Springing upon his back, he caught his arms, thus preventing him from using his pistol. He was a powerful man, and Desmond alone would have been no match for him; but before he could wriggle himself entirely free, three half-clad men servants came up with a rush, and in a ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... had was Dick's broad back, for the sapling to which he was tied was small. I drew my hunting-knife. One more wriggle brought me close to Dick, with my face near his hands, which were bound behind him. I slipped the blade under the lasso, and ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... bread but break it. Take salt only with a clean knife. Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at the right hand of plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not.... Smell not of thy Meat; make not a noise with thy Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking.... When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavour to help him out if he tell it not right. Snigger not; never question ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... party from the vicarage. The thick and darkened sunshine of Bludston flooded the asphalt of the yard, which sent up a reek of heat, causing curates to fan themselves with their black straw hats, and little boys in clean collars to wriggle in sticky discomfort, while in the still air above the ignoble town hung the heavy pall of smoke. Presently there was the sound of wheels and the sight of the head of the vicar's coachman above the coping of the schoolyard wall. Then ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... dreamy attitude which his father wanted, started up at the first whoop, so alert and interested that his nostrils quivered. He scented excitement of some kind and was so eager to be in the midst of it that the noise of the tom-tom made him wriggle in ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... darkness below the hatch, then the fellow's head and shoulders appeared; but, as we reached to seize him, he evaded our outstretched fingers by a quick wriggle, flung himself safely to the deck on the far side of the hatch, and leaping to the bulwark, dove into the river with ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... intensity, unforgettable for us, we felt that night, in Planche's extravaganza of The Discreet Princess, a Christmas production preluding to the immemorial harlequinade. I still see Robson slide across the stage, in one sidelong wriggle, as the small black sinister Prince Richcraft of the fairy-tale, everything he did at once very dreadful and very droll, thoroughly true and yet none the less macabre, the great point of it all its parody of Charles ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... like a banjo and guitar," said Katy. "Oh, I do love a guitar. It always makes me think of 'Gaily the troubadour.'" Katy gave a wriggle of delight at this romantic ending to the night's festivities. She was already planning to tell the girls at home ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... tongue, a noiseless graceful bound, and Punch was at his side. A wild scrambling rush, a wriggle on the sill, a patter over the window-seat, and Scamp was twisting himself into white figure-eights all over the room, with tremendous energy but not a sound save the soft pad ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... always turned to Peter with some nonsensical appeal when her heart was full and her voice a trifle unsteady. You could bury your head in Peter's little white sailor jacket just under his chin, at which he would dimple and gurgle and chuckle and wriggle, and when you withdrew your flushed face and presented it to the public gaze all the tears would have been wiped ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... sash in front, and crept out of it, leaving the dragon with only a green silk bow in one of his claws. That knife would never have cut Harry's jacket-tail off, though, and when Effie had tried for some time she saw that this was so and gave it up. But with her help Harry managed to wriggle quietly out of his sleeves, so that the dragon had only an Eton jacket in his other claw. Then the children crept on tiptoe to a crack in the rocks and got in. It was much too narrow for the dragon to get in also, so they stayed in there and waited to make faces at the ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... have liked to take the little boy up to his breast and hold him there, he knew not how; and he would even be careful not to restrain the little hand in his own—to hold it, yet to leave it free to withdraw at its first uneasy wriggle. ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... in consequence of a late discovery by one BECHAMP, of living things in chalk (he has actually seen 'em wriggle!) we are no longer at liberty to say, "As different as Chalk and Cheese." The difference is gone! If it is not, we would ask, where ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... to make a doll house for little Patience, for Christmas." Lydia gave an uncomfortable wriggle. "Don't talk about me ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... compulsory walking. A noticeable feature through the desert is the almost unquenchable thirst that the dry saline air inflicts upon one. Reaching a railway section-house, I find no one at home; but there is a small underground cistern of imported water, in which "wrigglers " innumerable wriggle, but which is otherwise good and cool. There is nothing to drink out of, and the water is three feet from the surface; while leaning down to try and drink, the wooden framework at the top gives way ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... walls on either hand, And shutting out the strip of burning blue: And I'd to face that vicious bobbing head With evil eyes, slack lips, and nightmare teeth, And duck beneath the snaky, squirming neck, Pranked with its silly string of bright blue beads, That seemed to wriggle every way at once, As though it were a hydra. Allah's beard! But I was scared, and nearly turned and ran: I felt that muzzle take me by the scruff, And heard those murderous teeth crunching my spine, Before I ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... me now, Molly," he suggested at last. Then he turned to Chris, who was watching him with almost no expression. "You can wriggle your chair to the phone in half an hour, I guess. Knock the phone off and yell for help. It's better than you deserve, unless you really did ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... Claire tried to wriggle out from under the thought of Milt while, with the Gilsons as the perfect audience, she improvised on the theme of wandering. With certain unintended exaggerations, and certain not quite accurate groupings of events, she described the farmers ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... agreeable discourse. He consoled him for the misfortunes of his family, by assuring him, that in England nothing could be more honourable, or indeed profitable, than the character of a physician, provided he could once wriggle himself into practice; and insinuated, that, although he was restricted by certain engagements with other persons of the faculty, he should be glad of an opportunity to show his regard for Doctor Fathom. This was a very effectual method which ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... together apart, and gesticulating so vehemently, with the Hebrew stamp on every line of their dark, keen faces, are blockade-runners: they bewail their captivity more loudly than their fellows; but, be sure, they will wriggle out, soonest of all, if freedom can be purchased by hard swearing or gold. The profits of a single successful venture are simply fabulous; the smugglers are frequently captured with dollars on their persons by tens ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... yer blastit humbug!' she exclaimed, as, with a vigorous throw and a wriggle, she freed herself from his ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... Flint felt himself fingering in his pocket for a dime, and heard himself say, "That's all right, I don't want the stuff. Take it in to that little chap in a striped suit, in the next car,—dirty little beggar, wriggled like an eel all day. This will probably make him wriggle all night. Never ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... inexperience of the rescuers came into play, for, being ignorant of the cranky nature of a birch-bark canoe, they acted without the necessary caution, the canoe overturned and they all found themselves in the water. This time Adolay managed to wriggle out of her position, but being unable to swim she could only cling helplessly to the kayak. Nootka, equally helpless, clung to the canoe. Fortunately Anteek could swim like a fish, and bravely set to work to push both crafts towards the shore. But they were a long way out; the weight ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... says that the air is thick with danger. When the blackness of night comes, then will come, also, those who make war from behind the trees of the forest. In the darkness, how is the young white and his friends to tell enemies from friends? The jackals will wriggle through and over the wall of trees like snakes through tall grass. After what they have seen, can my white friends expect mercy at ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... thought I loved you in their way, and it is the only way that counts in this world of theirs. It does not seem to be my world. I was given wings, I think, but I am never to know that I have left the earth until I come flop upon it with an arrow through them. I crawl and wriggle here, and yet"—he laughed harshly—"I believe I am rather a fine fellow when ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... smoke than 'e does air, an' 'e ought to 'ave a permanent chimney-sweep detailed to clear the soot out of 'is lungs an' breathin' toobs. But if Pint-o'-Bass does smoke more'n is good for 'im or any other respectable factory chimney, I'll admit the smoke 'asn't sooted up 'is intelleck none, an' 'e can wriggle 'is way out of a hole where a double-jointed snake 'ud stick. An' durin' the Retreat, when, as you knows, cigarettes in the Expeditionary Force was scarcer'n snowballs in 'ell, ole Pint-o'-Bass managed to carry on, an' wasn't never seen without 'is fag, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
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