"Wriggle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 how ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... 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
... in crossing a river, was carried away by the current, but managed to wriggle on to a bundle of thorns which was floating by, and was thus carried at a great rate down-stream. A Fox caught sight of it from the bank as it went whirling along, and called out, "Gad! ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... more secure than the first? Hall did not hesitate, 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, looking down ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... with an effort half wriggle, half spring, he raised himself perpendicular, and turned towards the room rather ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... 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, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... voice rose to a wail. "My God! I'm blind! I'm blind, and the darkness will never go away." He made as if to leap from the bed, but Torpenhow's arms were round him, and Torpenhow's chin was on his shoulder, and his breath was squeezed out of him. He could only gasp, "Blind!" and wriggle feebly. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... for that gun!" he warned Trevison. "I'll blow a hole through you if you wriggle a finger!" Watching Trevison, he spoke to Braman: "You got a back ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... loved them. At bottom it was not Beethoven, nor Thome, nor Bach, nor Grieg that she loved, but the notes, the sounds, the fingers running over the keys, the thrills she got from the chords which tickled her nerves and made her wriggle ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... 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 return of ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... and I observed every change in his fleeting moods. Generally his condition was that of miserable despair, which he attempted bravely to conceal. Even the boon of suicide had been denied him, for when he would wriggle into an erect position the rail of his pen was a foot above his head, so that he could not clamber over and break his skull on the stone floor beneath; and when he had tried to starve himself the attendants forced food down his throat; so that he abandoned such attempts. At times his eyes ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... life. 'The Jesuits have so many loopholes for escape, pretexts, colors of insinuation, that they are more changeful than the Sophist of Plato; and when one thinks to have caught them between thumb and finger, they wriggle out and vanish' (ib. vol. i. p. 230). 'The Jesuit fathers have methods of acquiring in this world, and making their neophytes acquire, heaven without diminution, or rather with augmentation, of this life's indulgences' (ib. vol. i. p. 313). 'The Jesuit fathers used to confer Paradise; ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... in my net! See how they shine who presently must wriggle on the shore. Vanity of vanities! All is vanity, and doubtless Solomon knew such ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... simply dubious throughout a long pause, she in the end went into a great rage. She glared furiously at Marjory, dropped her arm as if it had burned her and moved down upon Coleman. She must have reflected that at any rate she could make him wriggle. When she was come near to him, she called out: "Rufus!" In her tone was all the old insolent statement of ownership. Coleman might have been a poodle. She knew how to call his same in a way that was anything less than a public scandal. On this occasion everybody looked at him ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... is made to Ben Jonson:—'Horace did not screw and wriggle himselfe into great Mens famyliarity, ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... 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 ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... tree-roots while we prospected. We should have known enough by that time to leave four or five men on guard close by; as it was, when the men still on board the dhow began kicking up a babel, Fred and I came running and jumping back through the marsh just in time to see a crocodile wriggle off into the water, with the corpse in his jaws feet first. Fred fired a shotted salute, but missed, and ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the seated audience, or nodded to acquaintances. Others gathered round the 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 ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... 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 ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ruler gave a tremendous wriggle with the whole body, which proved as ineffectual as ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... a wriggle of delight, and much sentiment beamed in her rugged, small face, as she answered him with enthusiasm, though not stopping to couch her ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... 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
... 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
... excavation, taking care to 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 Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... 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 ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... sexual problems come, it will give us anything at all in the way of "Liberty," as most people understand that word. In the place of the rusty old manacles, the chain and shot, the iron yoke, cruel, ill-fitting, violent implements from which it was yet possible to wriggle and escape to outlawry, it may be the world will discover only a completer restriction, will develop a scheme of neat gyves, light but efficient, beautifully adaptable to the wrists and ankles, never chafing, never oppressing, slipped on and worn until at last, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... talking Dick was acting. No sooner did he see the watchman called off guard than he began to wriggle like an eel across the turf towards the beech, keeping the trunk of the tree between himself and the poachers. His keen knife made short work of Chippy's bonds, gag included, and the Raven was free. The latter slipped round the trunk, and the two ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... also be remarked that the possession of certain physical gifts—such as the ability to wriggle one's ears or do the "splits"—is in itself no "open sesame" to lasting social success. "Slow and sure" is a good rule for the young man to follow, and although he may somewhat enviously watch his more brilliant colleagues as they gain momentary applause by their ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... If only 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 ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... another instance 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 with only ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... 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 ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... 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
... to wait, for presently Woofer crawled out of his blankets on the far side, and began to wriggle away on his belly, ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... and gesticulating so vehemently, with the Hebrew stamp on every line of their dark, keen faces, are blockade-runners: they bewail their captivity more loudly than their fellows; but, be sure, they will wriggle out, soonest of all, if freedom can be purchased by hard swearing or gold. The profits of a single successful venture are simply fabulous; the smugglers are frequently captured with dollars on their persons by tens of thousands: they will part readily with a share of the plunder to any accommodating ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... you are. Just lift him on your toe, like you did me. (Here Zack pulled Mat unceremoniously out of his chair.) Come along, Blyth! Get opposite to him—give him hold of your hand—stand on the toe part of his right foot—don't wriggle about—stiffen your hand and aim, and—there!—what do you say to his muscular development now?" concluded Zack, with an air of supreme triumph, as Mat slowly lifted from the ground the foot on which Mr. Blyth was standing, and, steadying ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... they developed those acquired characteristics whereby the birds of the air and the beasts of the field maintain themselves in a world of carnage. They learnt to walk delicately on the balls of their feet as silently as hares, to see in the dark like foxes, to wriggle like the creeping things of the field, to lower their voices with the direction of the wind, to select a background with the moonlight, and to stand motionless on patrol with muscles rigid like a pointer when the star-shells ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... at him blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... "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
... teach him patience and neatness, and above all keep him quiet in the evenings. Since your father has been so worried over his business, he needs all the relaxation possible at home, he enjoys reading aloud in the evenings, and Johnny's fidgeting annoys him. A ten-year-old boy is all wriggle and racket without something ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... 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 then a ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... 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
... said, his intimate eyes watching her wriggle, with a sense of being ridiculous, on ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... import had occurred he never doubted, for although he had often seen Ujarak, with unbounded admiration, wriggle out of unfulfilled prophecy like an eel, he had never seen him give way to demonstrations such as we have described without something real and surprising turning up ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... began to blaze away. Half the German attack never came out of their trench. If they really intended business against us, which I doubt, they were half-hearted in carrying it out. They didn't show for five minutes, and they left two or three score men on the ground. Whenever we saw a man wriggle we were told to fire at him; it might be an unwounded man trying to crawl back. For a time our guns gave them beans. Then it was practically over, but about sunset their guns got back at us again, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... should be as perfect as possible). EAR ... EEL makes a weak In. by S. to some persons, but it would make a much more vivid first impression to most persons to deal with them in this way: EAR ... (w)ring ... twist ... wriggle ... EEL. But "Bivouac ... aqueduct" is a perfect In. by S. as to the last syllable of the former and the first syllable of the latter, since those syllables are pronounced exactly alike. We may connect Bivouac to Rain ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... eyes but the History papers. I am a fish out of water.... It makes me feel growly all the time.... I can not get away from my ball and chain.... I think we'll make things snap and crackle a little.... This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... I am too tired to write—I mean too lazy.... No warhorse ever panted for the rush of battle ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... 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
... 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 to be everything that's proper. ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... pyramid of bodies rose 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 savages and the limbs ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... 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
... 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
... your 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 ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... 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 ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... illogical Christians, no doubt; Till the rescuing earthquake cracked. Thus are we man made firm; Made warm by the numbers compact. We follow no longer a trumpet-snout, At a trot where the hog is tracked, Nor wriggle the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... written in the usual style, suggesting a conscientious rehash of the encyclopedia. But suppose it were done differently, and with a caption like this, 'Why Does an Angle-Worm Wriggle?' Set that in irregular type that weaved and squirmed across the column, and Jones-in-the-street-car would ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... with the long-handled shovel, swung it about the room, and smashed pieces off the cradle, and tore the bed-curtains down, and made a great noise altogether. Finally, he killed the snake and put it on the fire; and Joe and the cat watched it wriggle ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... a loud whisper, "why do they crowd these lifts in this disgusting way? And WHY," with another wriggle, "do they permit PERSONS ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a lump of ice!" Irene Paul often said, putting her own plump arms about Adelle's thin little body; and while Adelle tried to wriggle out of the embrace she teased her by ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... tidy white gate, And a 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 dog and ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... 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 compresses into a single word the popular expression: ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... say," 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 ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... close the gate behind her, the cow's calf had entered and was rushing to its mother. With an ejaculation of impatience Dixie threw her arms about the calf's neck and tried to pull it from the cow's bag, but it was of no avail. The strong young beast would wriggle from her clutch and dart ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... 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 away in ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... 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 bulk of ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... 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 trickled ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 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 really ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... final wriggle and Twaddles deftly backed out of the oven, turning to show a flushed face and a pair of ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... 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 mind, serves ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... 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 was simply ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... 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 smoke whin I found ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... to struggle, but he soon saw that he could do nothing with one arm out of commission. The man was not only powerful, but heavy, and it was all Ted could do to more than wriggle ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... when Steve woke to the swaying of the train and a drowsy sense of confusion and smoke, he could not for an instant think where he was; but it did not take long for him to open his eyes, recollect the happenings of the previous day, smile with satisfaction, and hurriedly wriggle into his clothes. ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... 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 ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... fact that I did bring up by Doc's camp-fire shows that I am able to take care of myself. If I get into scrapes, I can wriggle out of them again," maintained the kid of the camp, with a brazen look, while his eyes showed flinty sparks, caused by the inspiring purpose hidden behind them, which had ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... prove 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 from ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... very curious snake-skin to show you when I return. Edward, Richard's big brother, found it in the woods, and made it a present to me. A snake! What a present! and to think of a snake wanting to wriggle out of his skin! You wouldn't do such a thing, ...
— The Little Nightcap Letters. • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Mrs. Ess—I mean, Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox happen to ask for a visit from me?" I ventured to wriggle out, like a worm who isn't sure whether it had better turn or not. I was certain that for some reason of her own, Mother had suggested the idea, if only hypnotically; but she seemed almost too frank as she answered, and it was frightening not ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... careful," she advised slowly. "The man Dunster has been drugged, he has lost some of his will; he may have lost some of his mental balance. Mr. Fentolin is clever. He will find a dozen ways to wriggle out of any charge that can be brought against him. You know what he has ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... string to one end of this unpleasant-looking thing, led it around the stable, and, by vigorous manipulations, succeeded in making it wriggle realistically; but he was not satisfied, and, dropping the string listlessly, sat down in the wheelbarrow to ponder. Penrod sometimes proved that there were within him the makings of an artist; he had become fascinated by an idea, and could not be content until ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... dears; the ceaseless dread? If you knew what I have to endure! I sometimes envy you. 'Pon my honour, I sometimes wish I had married a fishmonger! Silva, indeed, is a most excellent husband. Polished! such polish as you know not of in England. He has a way—a wriggle with his shoulders in company—I cannot describe it to you; so slight! so elegant! and he is all that a woman could desire. But who could be safe in any part of the earth, my dears, while papa will go about so, and behave so extraordinarily? I was at dinner ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the 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 my trick ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... endeavouring to hook themselves on to the wealthier and younger members of the male community. They poison the air round them with sickly perfumes; they assume titles, and speak of one another as "cette chere comtesse;" their walk is something between a prance and a wriggle; they prowl about the terrace whilst the music is playing, seeking whom they may devour, or rather whom they may inveigle into paying for their devouring: and, bon Dieu! how they do gorge themselves with food and drink when some silly lad or aged roue allows himself to be bullied ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... 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
... 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 ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... at length. "Kum, Billee, boy! Lay holt hyur, an gi' me a help, or I must wriggle out o' meself. The durned hole ain't es big es twur when I krep in. Durn it, man, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... 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
... 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 all his ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... I'll wriggle my way to that tree," pointing, "and you creep behind that one," pointing again, this time to a tree perhaps a hundred yards distant ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... be better farther back," Tignonville retorted. "Here, we are within an ace of being seen from the lane." And he began to wriggle ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... smooth white plain and endeavor to peer into the mysteries seated below. In another moment his hand would invade your delicious little con—just as mine does now—his finger separates the lips and he gently rubs your clitoris—you are mad with delight, you open your thighs and wriggle your bottom under his touches. He pushes one of his fingers into your con and moves it in and out as I ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... concerned; and that is all I care for." Burnamy started, as if with the sense of having heard something like this before, and with surprise at hearing it now; and she flushed a little as she added tremulously, "And I should never, never blame you for it, after that; it's only trying to wriggle out of things which I despise, and you've never done that. And he simply had to come back," she turned to her father, "and tell me himself just how it was. And you said yourself, papa—or the same as said—that he had no right to suppose I was interested in his affairs ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... With a last swift wriggle the creeping figure was at the foot of the net which shrouded Jack. The latter looked down and saw that the man was literally covered from head to foot with masses of the swarming insects. Then, with wonderful dexterity, the newcomer jerked aside the insects which ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... does 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 Myelkins adopt him, he may turn out ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... 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 ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... he bases an advice, dead in the teeth of all the maxims recognised by worldly prudence. He says, in effect, 'Mind very little about getting on and getting up. Do God's will wherever you are, and let the rest take care of itself.' Now, the world says, 'Struggle, wriggle, fight, do anything to better yourself.' Paul says, 'You will better yourself by getting nearer God, and if you secure that—art thou a slave? care not for it; if thou mayest be free, use it rather; art thou bound to a wife? seek not to be loosed; art thou loosed? ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 it. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... gaze on me — Scientific men in thousands, men of mark and men of note, Rushing down the Mooki River, after Johnson's antidote. It will cure Delirium Tremens, when the patient's eyeballs stare At imaginary spiders, snakes which really are not there. When he thinks he sees them wriggle, when he thinks he sees them bloat, It will cure him just to think of ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... 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 how you ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... seven-pounder," pronounces the captain, safely landing him on deck, where he was unhooked, and left to wriggle and jump ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... from your face, and mount it, in bows, braids, &c., three yards at least from the crown of your head; drawl, or lisp in your speech; bring out words and phrases from every living tongue with which you may happen to be slightly acquainted; boast of "the continent;" mince your gait; wriggle forward upon your toes when you walk; and swim and dip, whenever led into the atrocity of committing a quad-rille. In brief, give yourself unimaginable airs; then protest that your manners, as well as your costume, are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... She stood it wonderfully until he came to the muscles of her back. You know how we all like to have our backs scratched, just like dogs and cats? Well, I don't suppose Cellette had ever happened on just that feeling before. It touched the cat chord. She began to gurgle and—and wriggle. 'Keep still, please,' says the boy, very grave and earnest. And a minute later, 'Keep still, will you?' Then ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... gang had bored and pounded and wrenched, piercing his body with nervous, nagging drills; propping up his backbone, cutting out tender bits of flesh, carving—bracing—only to carve again. He had tried to wriggle and twist, but the mountain had held him fast. Once he had straightened out, smashing the tiny cars and the tugging locomotive; breaking a leg and an arm, and once a head, but the devils had begun again, boring and digging and the cruel wound was opened afresh. ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... tried to laugh and wriggle away, but the cashier's gimlet eyes kept boring him, and eventually he fished out a five-dollar bill and handed it in. Mr. Hooker placed the two bills in the envelop, sealed it, and ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... as necessary in walking as the legs. The first time you are walking with your arms at liberty, stop moving them and hold them by your sides. You will be surprised to find how soon your companion will leave you behind, although you may hurry, twist, wriggle, and try very hard to keep up. One reason for the slow walk among girls is to be found in this practice of carrying the arms motionless. Three miles an hour with the arms still, is as hard work as four ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... can wriggle through if they can. One thing is certain, it won't be for lack of trying. So, whatever you may have to send to the major, get ready; the lightning express leaves at 4.30. I must go and report my movements to ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... 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
... pisoned, alligator of a ring-tailed, roaring, pestiferous, rattlesnake, that critter 'the Old Country,' would jist about give up one half its skin, and wriggle itself slick out of the other, rayther than go for to put our dander up at this present identical out-and-out important critical crisis! I conceit their min'stry have got jist about into as considerable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... in the twilight time Of every people, in every clime, Dragons and griffins and monsters dire, Born of water, and air, and fire, Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud And ooze of the old Deucalion flood, Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage, Through dusk tradition and ballad age. So from the childhood of Newbury town And its time of fable the tale comes down Of a terror which haunted bush and brake, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... And watcheth like a serpent on a wall, Or flyeth like an eagle in the air, Or runs as desperate ships, void of all care, Or, (as great Solomon hath wisely said) Is as the way of wantons with a maid, Who tick, and toy, and with a tempting giggle Provoke to lust, and by degrees, so wriggle Them into their affections, that they go The way to death, so do themselves undo: As it is said, this mischief to prevent, Let all men watch, yea, and be diligent Observers of its motions, and then fly, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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; ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... possibility, at least, of a true advance. For the contortions of the 'Precious' writers were less the result of their inability to write well than of their desperate efforts to do so. They were trying, as hard as they could, to wriggle themselves into a beautiful pose; and, naturally enough, they were unsuccessful. They were, in short, too self-conscious; but it was in this very self-consciousness that the real hope for the future lay. The teaching of Malherbe, if it did not influence the actual form of their work, ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... 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, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... contemptible people only, when I say so. I am not thinking of the fellow who is pulled up in court in an action for breach of promise of marriage, and who in one letter makes vows of unalterable affection, and in another letter, written a few weeks or months later, tries to wriggle out of his engagement. Nor am I thinking of the weak, though well-meaning lady, who devotes herself in succession to a great variety of uneducated and unqualified religious instructors; who tells you one week how she has joined the flock of Mr. A., the converted prize-fighter, ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... 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
... 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
... seemed to be 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 lever yourself ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... saying, that it would have served for sidearm to old Suwarrow, who told his men to work their bayonets back and forward when they pinned a Turk, but to wriggle them about in the wound when they ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the otter began to laugh at the strange movements of the Manitou, who, hearing a noise, turned quickly and threw himself on the otter. He was going to smother him, as this was his way of killing animals. But the otter managed to wriggle from under him, and escaped out of ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... has one of her flat-pattern live timekeepers to slide into it;) black, 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 have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... against my cheek, and I smelt the earth; but I couldn't move, no way; I couldn't turn over, nor raise my head more'n two inches, nor draw myself up one. I was comfortable so long as I laid still; but if I went to move, I couldn't. It wasn't no use to wriggle; and when I'd settled that, I jest went to work to figger out where I was and how I got there, and the best I could make out was that the barn-roof had blowed off and lighted right over me, jest so as not to hurt me, but so't I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... 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 perpetual upheaval as hers, there were no roots which struck ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... without delay. As before, Pippity showed considerable 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 and the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... we ever get out of this? You've shown yourself, from start to finish, a miserable cheat; there's no trust to be put in either your judgment or your intentions. Be still," he commanded, as she sought to wriggle out of his grasp, to avoid the direct blaze of his eyes. "I am going to do what I can for you; to see you safe through this, if I can. Not because you are anything to me, but just because you are Ben Gaynor's, and he is my ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... oh, an my house were the Brazen head now, faith it would e'en cry moe fools yet: you should have some now, would take him to be a gentleman at least; alas, God help the simple, his father's an honest man, a good fishmonger, and so forth: and now doth he creep and wriggle into acquaintance with all the brave gallants about the town, such as my guest is, (oh, my guest is a fine man!) and they flout him invincibly. He useth every day to a merchant's house, (where I serve water) one M. Thorello's; ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... replied the captain. "And take notice that if you wriggle again I will make short work of ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... anomalies are plentiful. They are everywhere,—in houses, in churches, in stores, in town, in country, on land, at sea, in public, in private,—extensive sub-orders of mammalian Invertebrata. They crouch and crawl through the world with pliant length. They wriggle through the knot-holes of fear and policy, when their stouter-boned brethren oppose them. They creep into corners and cracks when the giant, Progress, strides before them, and quake at the thunder of his tread. They ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... is without a wig, for we saw him, on the occasion to which we are so guardedly referring, both in a wig and out of it; he passed behind a screen without it, and immediately (as quickly as we write) popped out in it, giving it a finishing touch rather like the butler's wriggle to his coat as he goes to the door. There are the two kinds of learned brothers, those who use the screen, and those who (so far as the jury knows) sleep in their wigs. The latter are the swells, and include the judges; whom, however, we have seen in the public thoroughfares ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... the ground which will soon lie on them, if enough strong men are left by that time to cover them mercifully over with the loathsome, reeking vegetable detritus which passes here for soil, and which is so fairly animate that you can see every spadeful of it writhe and wriggle as you throw it over the rotting hour-dead shell of what was a free American ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... 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 ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... old eel!" Bob glanced admiringly at his friend. "I believe you just wriggle by on ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... as it sounds. But in about 'alf an hour the fish was seemin'ly done for and the New Yorker pulled 'im in, 'and over 'and, as easy as you please. Just as 'e got 'im to the gunwale, though, the moray gave an extra wriggle, and bein' afraid that 'e might get away agen, the fisherman gave a sudden pull and brought 'im on board without ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Indian succeeded 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 ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... 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 |
