"Diddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from his brief slumber, Lamb sat for some time in profound silence, and then, with the most startling rapidity, sang out—"Diddle, diddle, dumpkins;" not looking at me, but as if soliloquizing. For five minutes he relapsed into the same deep silence; from which again he started up into the same abrupt utterance of—"Diddle, diddle, dumpkins." I could not help laughing ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... officer may have learnt wisdom before then. You must know we've been considering of this step for some while, but hearing that old Jacobs was going to retire soon, I says to Maria, 'We'll bide till the new officer comes, and if he's a green hand, we'll diddle 'en.' Day before yesterday,' as you, was his first round at the work; so I goes up an' draws out my ha'af-crown same as usual, an' walks straight off for the Four Lords for a ha'af-crown's worth o' gin. Then back I goes, an' demands an admission order for me an' the missus. 'Why, where's your ha'af-crown?' ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... And sang little songs to the engine drivers. 'Twas told to me with great compunction, By one who had discharged with unction A chairman of directors function On the North South East West Diddlesex Junction. Fol diddle, ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... ha! this world doth pass Most merrily, I'll be sworn; For many an honest Indian ass Goes for an Unicorn. Farra, diddle dino; ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... flat on its back. I'll go, however; lest thou shouldst say, thy interests were neglected. Thy Master Tiller is an indiscreet agent; he gave me a fright to-day that exceeds any alarm I have felt since the failure of Van Halt, Balance, and Diddle." ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,' said he to me, one day after dinner—but I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is not conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so the man-animals were called; I presume because their language formed the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the great companies that are supposed to occupy the area. The lines made (economically often) by the great companies themselves are not primarily designed for the accommodation of the public, but for the private purposes of the great company; sometimes they are made merely to diddle another great company. ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke
... in state by my Lady Binkie, the Haggistoun's kinswoman. She's related to every one, that Haggistoun. Her diamonds blazed out like Vauxhall on the night we were there. (Do you remember Vauxhall, Emmy, and Jos singing to his dearest diddle diddle darling?) Diamonds and mahogany, my dear! think what an advantageous contrast—and the white feathers in her hair—I mean in her wool. She had earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted 'em up, by Jove—and a yellow satin ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Greek and Latin too, Loud Sanscrit he could utter, But one small thing he couldn't do That comes as pat to me and you As eating bread and butter: He couldn't say "No!" He couldn't say "No!" I'm sorry to say it was really so! He'd diddle, and dawdle, and stutter, but oh! When it came to the point he could ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon; The little dog laughed to see such sport, And the dish ran ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... sky where the moonbeams all danced While a comet was telling a riddle, Where the stars and the planets and sun-dogs all pranced While the moon played his fiddle de diddle. ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... spoke the crumpled-horn lady cow. "In the Mother Goose book it says: 'Hi-diddle-diddle, the cat's in the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon.' Well, if one cow did that, I don't see why another one can't. I got up on the stump, to try and jump over the moon, but my foot slipped ...
— Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard - Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters • Howard R. Garis
... the nice lady frog who kept the store. "I have all kinds of bonnets," and then she sang a little song that went something like this, to the tune "High diddle-diddle:" ...
— Curly and Floppy Twistytail - The Funny Piggie Boys • Howard R. Garis
... in general, and, therefore, thought here was a chance not to be thrown away. So, after some little show of resistance on her part, for decency's sake, it was agreed between them that he should have a good look at hers, if he would afterwards show her his. Miss Ellen had never seen a male "diddle," as she and her young playfellows called it, not even that of a boy, and she was all excitement and expectation to feel with her own hand the "funny thing," for so a communicative servant-maid had described it, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... The wild waves whist,[388-99] Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. Hark, hark! { Burden dispersedly. The watch-dogs bark: { Bow-wow. Hark, hark! I hear; { Bow-wow. The strain of strutting { chanticleer. { Cock-a-diddle-dow. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... "Bum, bum, bum, diddle dum," and pranced around on a pair of short, fat legs in red stockings. Two fat little arms beat the drumsticks on the top of his head, or what appeared to be the top of his head, which was in reality a ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... with or modify in a not particularly serious manner. "I diddled a copy of {ADVENT} so it didn't double-space all the time." "Let's diddle this piece of code and see if the problem goes away." See {tweak} and {twiddle}. 2. /n./ The action or result of diddling. See also ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... bowt him a pair o' new shooin, Ooin, ooin, ry diddle dooin! Young Jockey he bowt him a pair o' new shooin, For he'd made up his mind he'd be wed varry sooin; An he went to ax Jenny his wife for to be, But shoo sed, "Nay, aw'll ne'er wed a hawbuck like thee, Thi legs luk ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... "When you are king, diddle-diddle, I shall be queen," Brilliana laughed at him, making a reverence. He joined Halfman at the door and Master Peter ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... The friends of John Meavy were reluctant to have him leave St. Louis. They did not know what enterprise he was about to join in; but they heard that I had some share in it, and they did not scruple to hint that I might be an adventurer, who would 'diddle' him out of his money. However, John only smiled, and told me all they said, in his frank way, as if it were some good joke. So, finally, we took leave of St. Louis, and came to New York, to organize the great house of Meavy ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... was a jolly old soul, And a jolly old soul was he; He called for his ale, and he called for his beer, And he called for his fiddle-diddle-dee. ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... Oh, did ye ne'er hear of His Worship the Mayor Chorus. Of Bootle-cum-Linacre diddle-cum-dee; Solo. Who went for the Justices of Lankyshare, Chorus. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... a ballad—oh! my dear lad, there is no use fiddling while Rome is burning. I have nothing to sing about those glorious fellows, except 'God save the Queen and them.' I tell you the whole thing stuns me, so I cannot sit down to make fiddle rhyme with diddle about it—or blundered with hundred like Alfred Tennyson. He is no Tyrtaeus, though he has a glimpse of what Tyrtaeus ought to be. But I have not even that; and am going rabbit shooting to-morrow instead. But every man has his calling, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... stick, leading the way. This office fell to Godefroy, the trader, a fellow with the figure of a slat and a scalp tonsured bare as a billiard-ball by Indian hunting-knife. Spite of many a thwack from the flat of M. de Radisson's sword, Godefroy would carry the silver mace to the chant of a "diddle-dee-dee," which he was always humming in a sand-papered voice wherever he went. At beat of drum for conference we all came scrambling down the ratlines like tumbling acrobats of a country fair, ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut |
