"Wriggle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 palatable ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... 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
... 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 ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... into tears, and began to wriggle herself free from his arms. "Let me go," she demanded; "let ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... have once fairly got my legs in St. Stephen's, I shall soon have my hands in office: 'power,' says some one, 'is a snake that when it once finds a hole into which it can introduce its head, soon manages to wriggle in the rest of its body.'" With such meditations I endeavoured to beguile the time and cheat myself into forgetfulness of the lameness of my horse, and the dripping wetness of his rider. At last the storm began sullenly to subside: ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... themselves, seeing that they were utterly worn out. This unforeseen catastrophe evidently astonished their driver. Slipping from the box, he stood resting his hands against the side of the britchka, while Chichikov tumbled and floundered about in the mud, in a vain endeavour to wriggle ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... 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 ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... laugh! These things do 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
... 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 use of his brother, my little Jacques, who is himself so slight and so intelligent, so plucky, ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... 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, This is the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 on account of the things that were forever ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... wriggle, Mistah Catfish, case I got you jes' de same, You been eatin', I 'll be eatin', an' we needah ain't to blame. But you need n't feel so lonesome fu' I 's th'owin' out to see Ef dey ain't some of yo' comrades fu' ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... 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 ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... 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 ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... grace Its brow, 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 Who tenants my hand, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the hall, a little 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
... blankly. Wally gave an expressive wriggle in his chair, and Jim sat up suddenly, with a flush on ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... 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 that ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... it," 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
... Babette ran off together. Breathlessly they ran and ran. Babette was afraid Old Squint-eyes might wriggle out after all; he was so thin and wiry, and she had no fancy for serving him any more. Not until they came to a main road through the woods leading to Eppenhain Castle, did they pause ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... 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 ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... 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
... order to give preference to the Colonies, we must tax raw materials. But this move 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 ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... from the time its first meshes dropped upon him, the net had Solomon so wound and bound that his legs were immovable, and he could barely wriggle his neck. ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... relief, but as his hand closed round it a tiny flutter passed 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 ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... 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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... but it was of no use. I recollect 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 ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... eyelashes—"tried to break me. I won't tell you what he got. That's where I quit the ways of women—yes, ma'am, and the ways of men." She stood up and walked over to the window and looked out. The dogs were sleeping in their kennels, but a chain rattled. "I've broke the wolf-pack. You've seen them wriggle on their bellies for me, haven't you? Well, my girl, do you think I can't break you?" She wheeled back and stood with her hands on her hips. It was at that moment that she seemed to fill the world. Her ruddy eyes glowed like blood. They were not quite sane. That was it. Sheila went suddenly ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... 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, ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... the nation good to find out that there was something a little bit bigger than he—something that neither money, nor politics, nor obscurity, nor the Labor Union, nor any one else could help him to wriggle out of. It would go far towards disillusioning those many who seem to feel that they do not have to take too seriously a government because they have helped ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... eaten by the fish, which appear to thrive on them better than on dead meat. Having great tenacity of life, if not snapped up immediately by the fish they remain alive for a day or two, and, as they wriggle about on the bottom, are almost certain to be finally eaten; whereas the particles of dead flesh that fall to the bottom are largely neglected by the fish and begin to putrefy in a few hours. In the fish ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various
... by he gets tired of lying on his back. DISCONTENT with his condition makes him wriggle and wriggle. At last he succeeds in ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... 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 streak ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... as come smellin' round my place with a sayrch warnt two weeks ago Friday." Satisfied that his identity in Ben's eye was safe, the detective led him away on to the bridge, and engaged in earnest conversation with him, which made Mr. Toner start, and wriggle, and back down, and impart information confirmatory of that extorted the night before, and give large promises for the future. The two returned to the verandah, and, before the lawyer went in to breakfast, his patient bade him an affectionate farewell, adding, "s'haylp me, Mr. Corstine, ef ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... 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 in the back seats but you can't sit there till your legs grow long enough to touch ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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
... 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, ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... 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, ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... 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
... into the serpent's mouth. The creature snapped its jaws together so suddenly that its teeth stuck fast in the putty, and this made it so furious that it wriggled around until it had tied itself into a hard knot, and could wriggle no longer. ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... 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 of ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... 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 ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... benches. It is not because he 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 ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... 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 ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... wriggle as Andy involuntarily let go his hold of the young rascal. His ferret-like eyes twinkled and followed the ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... 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
... little body gave 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 reply ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... mistress, how frightened I felt. Here was a sudden end to my freedom! Imprisoned in a strange man's pocket, from which escape was impossible, nearly stifled with the smell of tobacco, and filled with dread as to what would happen next. I managed to wriggle my head out of the corner, but saw at once that it would be useless to think of jumping out, the distance from the ground being far too great. I remained still therefore, and as the man walked out of the yard had a faint hope that he knew where I lived and ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton
... glance fell on his desk he seemed to see his pen wriggle as though intending to say to ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... 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
... into 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 ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... At a table she sat, and 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 • O. Henry
... Tall, painted carts were being harnessed to mules. 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
... 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 an experience of the inability of the human goose to do other than cackle ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... that brief moment the black powder it burned drew upon it the fire of every rifle in the Spanish line. To load his piece, each of our men was forced to crawl to it on his stomach, rise on one elbow in order to shove in the shell and lock the breech, and then, still flat on the ground, wriggle below the crest. In the three minutes three men were wounded and two killed; and the guns were withdrawn. I also withdrew. I withdrew first. Indeed, all that happened after the first three seconds of those three minutes is hearsay, for I was in the Santiago road at the ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... 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 so ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... out one shoulder when she thought I wasn't looking, and before I knew where I was half of her would be gleaming in the sun like satin. Directly I noticed it I used to frown, and then she would pretend to be ashamed of herself, hang her head, and wriggle her frock up to its place again. However, I never could teach her to keep her skirts about her knees. She was as innocent as a baby about ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... long to wait, for presently Woofer crawled out of his blankets on the far side, and began to wriggle away on his belly, like ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... her desperate wriggle out of his hand revealed that the fright of the night had left more impression upon her delicate soul than ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... place and cried: "Wata[n] Thanks! I'm glad some of them will die, for they are getting so thick that they tread on me." He fairly shook with joy at the thought, so that he fell over backward and could not get on his feet again, but had to wriggle off on his back, as the Grubworm has ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... the 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
... Mason, with his hand on his collar, and his whip lifted. The whip did not look formidable. Mason received the threat as a joke, and laughed in Turkey's face. Perceiving, however, that Turkey looked dangerous, with a sudden wriggle, at which he was an adept, he broke free, and, trusting to his tried speed of foot, turned his head and made a grimace as he took to his heels. Before, however, he could widen the space between them sufficiently, Turkey's whip came down upon him. With a howl of pain ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... come to fill their jars in the pond, and your huge black shadow would wriggle on the water like ...
— The Crescent Moon • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... 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 ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... us write out a tense of a French verb if she sees us sitting with our legs crossed," said Lucy, laughing with much amusement at Amina's attempts to wriggle herself up on the ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wriggle and Twaddles deftly backed out of the oven, turning to show a flushed face and a pair of dark, ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... when she asked me (in that musical voice of hers, with more volume in it, as it seemed to me, than all other voices), 'What are you doing little one? Why do you look at me?'—I used to come nearer and wriggle and bite my finger-nails, and redden and say, 'I do not know.' And if she chanced to stroke my hair with her white hand, and ask me how old I was, I would run away and call ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... tarnal, 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 a tarnation nasty fix, as a naked nigger in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... return to her former position without being in any way jerked during the movement. The stirrup should always be kept in one fixed position at the ball of the foot, and both foot and stirrup should act with automatic precision, without the slightest jerk or wriggle, exactly as though the lady were making an upward step from the ground. The pressure of the foot should be directed on the inner side of the stirrup-iron, in order that the leg may lie close to the flap of the saddle. ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... 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 ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... it from slipping about, then warming them with a little hot water, then putting in the beautiful yellow cream, the sugar, and the nice rich brown tea, all in the particular way grandmother liked it done. And during the process, Molly did not once wriggle or twist with impatience, so that when she carried grandmother's tea to her, very carefully and steadily, without a drop spilling over into the saucer in the way grandmother disliked to see, she got a kiss ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... 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, eyes fixed on ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... 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
... further on, upon the same side, the stone becomes soft. Here on the right, in a little coppice beside the road, is found a place of refuge of which I give the plan as accurately as it was possible for me to take it where one had to crawl on hands and knees, and sometimes wriggle forward lying on one's stomach, over earth that was damp and rubble fallen from above, and in corridors completely filled by ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... it's fast to your tail, and you wriggle and wail, And romp all around, the best master, And kindest of heart, Dog and Lobster can't part. Don't think I deride your disaster! The pinch of it might make an elephant prance; No, all that I ask is—just give me ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various
... chorus of voices. 'Yes, it is Gauger Westhouse,' said the man calmly, giving his neck a wriggle as though he were in pain. 'I represent the King's law, and in its name I arrest ye all, and declare all the contraband goods which I see around me to be confiscate and forfeited, according to the second section ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pretty, the dance step he executed—a sort of stiff-legged skip accompanied by a vulgar hip wriggle and concluding with a straight-out ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... 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 ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... supply of common sense in them!" cried the hostess, so delighted to have made a joke that she broke into cackling laughter, and laughed until failure of breath made her gasp and wriggle in her chair, an alarming spectacle. To divert attention, Constance began talking about the mill, describing the good effect it had wrought in certain families. Dyce listened with an air almost as engrossed as that of Mr. Gallantry, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... 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, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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 sent myself ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... on Wriggle Crick—, Seein' they's no Squire residin' In our bailywick; No grand juries, no suppeenies, Ner no vested rights to pick Out yer man, jerk up and jail ef ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... making the damned roar by means of the torments which they inflicted upon them. I paid 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, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... 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 ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... 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 she ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... 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
... 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
... You'll be glad o' my advice in the end. Experience 'elps a lot. Some men wot's goin' to be married gets a sort o' funk at the last minnit and, bless you, they'd wriggle out o' it, yes, even if they was goin' to marry an angel out o' 'eaven. My friend's 'usband was one o' them sort—wanted to stop the 'ole thing with the weddin' cake ordered, an' lodgings taken at Margate for the 'oneymoon. But she ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... Tooter still refused 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 ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... clearing 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 ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... it 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 like coal smoke whin I found ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... 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 appendages on the head and neck, which, waving ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... and the next steps, well, the nerve of a real American plunger clings to life until the sunset of all hopes, even as the snake's tail, though the serpent's head be bruised beyond repair, is supposed to wriggle until sunset. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... 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
... enlarged that 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 loins. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... 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 to their own enclosure. That they would be as quiet ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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
... yelled a muffled voice. Two hands shot out and plastered themselves over the stimulated part. There was a wriggle. Then Blob stood before them, touzled, pink, his ears wide, an apple tight between ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... 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
... 26th.—After 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... 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 pines like ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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
... grumble and wriggle; and finally uncover, too. They acted as if their mouths might taste ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... 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 right hand of the President while ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... 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 of white men writhed under the fangs of lions and hyenas, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... "Please," 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 ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... 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 ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... 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 Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... lest the sun should set,' he answered, and began to wriggle along so fast that the girl ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... 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
... he 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
... 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
... time they 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
... 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. She ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... objects that lay about had been removed. There was a goodly array of fashionable Christians, 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 months flaunted a crimson cap in the eye of Christendom, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Protestantism in Germany (though both half-hearted and pusillanimous shufflers) were Gustavus's brother-in-law, the Elector of Brandenburg, and the Elector of Saxony. They were now doing their best to wriggle out of their obligations, and by a shameful neutrality avert the emperor's displeasure. But they had reckoned without their host if they supposed that Gustavus would lend himself to such a scheme. The reply which he gave to Herr von Wilmerstorff, who had been sent to him by the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... Johnson. She's Bill Johnson's 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 ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... If they cannot wriggle out of expressing an opinion of some sort, they will commonly retail those of some one who has already written upon the subject, and conclude by saying that though they quite admit that there is an element of truth in what the writer has said, there are many points ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... here. 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
... value on the stupidity of his remarks. I do not think I ever appreciated the meaning of two words until I knew Irvine—the verb, loaf, and the noun, oaf; between them, they complete his portrait. He could lounge, and wriggle, and rub himself against the wall, and grin, and be more in everybody's way than any other two people that I ever set my eyes on. Nothing that he did became him; and yet you were conscious that he was one of your own ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a distance—some from Boston they 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 bewitched her? She gave me corn-cakes, the last time I was at Pastor Tappau's, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... smoothness. So She hurried to the river. At the edge She stood a moment charmed by the swift blue Beyond the river sedge. She watched it curdling, crinkling, and the snow Purfled upon its wave-tops. Then, "Hullo, My Beauty, gently, or you'll wriggle through." ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... wayside cobra, hears the careless foot of man, He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can; But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail, For the female of the species is more deadly ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... 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 ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... 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
... 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
... knowing how to find the eagle in a bracken stem. And somehow—I don't remember what led to it at all—I and Beatrice, two hot and ruffled creatures, crept in among the tall bracken and hid from him. The great fronds rose above us, five feet or more, and as I had learnt how to wriggle through that undergrowth with the minimum of betrayal by tossing greenery above, I led the way. The ground under bracken is beautifully clear and faintly scented in warm weather; the stems come up black and then green; if you crawl flat, it is a tropical forest in miniature. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... 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 tried ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... he kept 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 ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... 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 ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... to wriggle himself out of his narrow prison, slowly and painfully. He reached the floor, ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... 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 little ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... 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 ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... 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 ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... she always 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 a good many—rush round wildly, butting each other and everything in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... with a skilful wriggle on the top of Miss D'Armande's wardrobe trunk, and leaned her head against the papered wall. From long habit, thus can peripatetic leading ladies and their sisters make themselves as comfortable as though the deepest armchairs ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry |
