"Tip-top" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mound is tip-top for skiing," remarked Nap, "better than you would expect in this country. But no one here seems particularly keen on it. I was out early this morning and tried several places that were quite passable, but ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... miting in tip-top speeches. All the drapers and dairies shall be there in crowds. Three ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... found it a scarce tree; and I asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered, that he could hardly tell me. However, he said that he had found enough to employ two teams the next winter in a place where there was thought to be none left. What was considered a "tip-top" tree now was not looked at twenty years ago, when he first went into the business; but they succeeded very well now with what was considered quite inferior timber then. The explorer used to cut into a tree higher and higher up, to see if it was false-hearted, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... worry if she were told, I kept from her the fact that our little income was but half of what it had been. Our wants were few, and if my clothes were no longer made by the best tailors, if they were ready-made and out-of-date and lacked pressing, they were whole, at all events, because Dorinda was a tip-top mender. In fact, I had forgotten they were out-of-date until the sight of the immaculately garbed young chap in the automobile brought the comparison between us to ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... her, both your mother and I are filled with anxiety as to the result. To you we look to be her shield in every possible way. We have never ceased to thank God for the pride and joy He has given us in our children. (You yourself would delight in seeing what a tip-top little soldier Will is making.) You have ever been manful, truthful, and, I say it with pride and thankfulness unutterable, square as boy could be. You have our whole faith and trust and love unspeakable. You have the best and fondest mother ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... out of place in the company of these two boys; and they—why, they looked upon her as one of themselves: Dick describing her to his numerous companions as being a "tip-top" girl, and Archie singing her praises loudly to his own sisters who never knew what it was to join in a madcap frolic, and whose voices were strictly modulated ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... starting that steamboat I spoke of, and our plan will soon be afloat. I shouldn't wonder, now, if one might not, in order to start the town, get up some kind of a little summer-pavilion there, on the top of the mountain,—something on the plan of the Tip-Top House at Mount Washington, you know,—hang the stars and stripes off the roof, if you're not particular, and call it The Teuton-American. That would give you your rightful priority, you see. By the beard of the Prophet, as they say in Cairo, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... now staying at Mr. Darrell's house. His wife, who was a tip-top lady, insisted that she should come there. When we went around to talk to Corny about making a search, she said that that was exactly what she wanted to do. If we would take her out to look for her father and mother, and we couldn't find them after we had looked all we could, she would come back, ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... 'Upon my word, Sir, I'm not aware,' said Pen. 'I'm a stranger; this is my first term; on which Lowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall. 'Do you see those four fellows seated opposite to us? They are regular swells—tip-top fellows, I can tell you—Mr. Trail, the Bishop of Ealing's son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, you know; and Bob Suckling, who's always with him. I say, I'd like to mess with those chaps.' 'And why?' asked ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... split bamboo rods," he explained as the car slid down the terrific grade of the Washington-Street hill. "I haven't used 'em in years—not since we lived East; but they're hand-made, and are tip-top. I haven't any other kind of tackle; but it's just as well, because the tackle will all depend upon where we are ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... myself was watchin' for ye, Master Will, and when ye came round the corner I had this bit sup arl ready for ye. 'The crame—quick—Bridget!' says I, and then I ran away up the two flights with it; and barrin' the joggle you give it, it's in foine, tip-top orther an' priservation arl ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... wish you had! She thinks it tip-top impertinence in any woman to presume to have an opinion about a sermon. My word! wouldn't ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... South. Doubtless there are individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves under any circumstances, and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North and become tip-top abolitionists, while some Northern ones go South and become most cruel ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... man of business," I said. "You waste no time. I like that. What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have that as your own ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... tip-top non-com., and has the D.C.M. and the French Cross; he worked miracles when his officers were killed at Ypres. They offered him a commission, but he wouldn't take it. The men love him; though he has some funny fads, never touches meat, and sings queer outlandish chants; but he's the splendid ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... I just did. I thought once that the sultan might be going to poison us all; and, as they say there's safety in a big dose, and death in a small, I went in for a regular big go. But I say, the fruits! they were tip-top: mangosteens and guavas, and mangoes, and cocoa-nuts, and durians, and some of the best bananas I ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... are in a rotten state," he said. "The doctor—specialist, you know, tip-top man—said the only thing for me was life in the country, fresh air, birds, flowers, new milk, ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... Dardanelles a bluejacket ran along her upper side as she rolled over, then along her keel as she turned bottom upwards. Finally, seeing that she was sinking by the stern, and knowing both her own length and the depth of the water, he climbed right up on the tip-top end of her stem, from which he was taken off as dry as a bone. Meanwhile a very different kind of rescue was being made by Captain Talbot, who, having gone down with the ship, rose to the surface and was ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... these turned the tide of honest incipient enjoyment; and transformed us, from enjoyers of some really enjoyable quality (even of such old-as-the-hills elements as clearness, symmetry, euphony or pleasant colour!) into shrivelled cavillers at everything save brand-new formulae and tip-top genius! Indeed, while teaching a few privileged persons to taste the special "quality" which Botticelli has and Botticelli's pupils have not, and thus occasionally intensifying aesthetic enjoyment by distinguishing whatever differentiates the finer artistic products from the commoner, ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... it is done—with the largest and best tea-tray and the surface of the stair carpet. It is best to do it on the days when the stair rods are being cleaned, and the carpet is only held by the nails at the top. Of course, it is one of the five or six thoroughly tip-top games that grown-up people are so unjust to—and old Nurse, though a brick in many respects, was quite enough of a standard grown-up to put her foot down on the tobogganing long before any of the performers had had half enough of it. The tea-tray was taken away, and ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... JAMES, - With what a torrent it has come at last! Up to now, what I like best is the first number of a LONDON LIFE. You have never done anything better, and I don't know if perhaps you have ever done anything so good as the girl's outburst: tip-top. I have been preaching your later works in your native land. I had to present the Beltraffio volume to Low, and it has brought him to his knees; he was AMAZED at the first part of Georgina's Reasons, although (like me) not so well ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eggs may be? Do you know the time when the squirrel brings Its young from their nest in the tree? Can you tell when the chestnuts are ready to drop Or where the best hazel-nuts grow? Can you climb a high tree to the very tip-top, Then gaze without trembling below? Can you swim and dive, can you jump and run, Or do anything else ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... Androscoggin, Slippery, and smooth, and nice, Is the track of the toboggan; And there's nothing cheap about it, Everything is steep about it, The insolvent weep about it, For the biggest thing on ice Is its tip-top price; But were this three times the money, Then the ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... poet o' the year, Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; Half hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... away, doctor; don't, please. I'm a warm man, and I'm getting warmer. My house is tip-top. I gave two-fifty for the piano, I did, 'pon my soul, and fifty apiece for the cut-glass chandies in the drawing-room. There ain't a better garden in ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... onward until nine o'clock, making the old woods echo with song and story and laughter, for F. was unusually gay, and I was in tip-top spirits. It seemed to me so funny that we two people should be riding on mules, all by ourselves, in these glorious latitudes, night smiling down so kindly upon us, and, funniest of all, that we were going to live in the Mines! In spite of my gayety, however, I now ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... I can get ready. I'll tell you what I am goin' to do, Joe. I'm goin' to buy a tip-top suit when I get to Boston, and a gold watch and chain, and a breast-pin about as big as a saucer. When I sail into Pumpkin Holler in that rig folks'll look at me, you bet. There's old Squire Pennyroyal, ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... to insart themselves in through one of them small loopholes—whin little Danny Carroll gave Tom Sheeney a leg up and a back, and Tom Sheeney hauled little Danny up after him by the scruff o' the neck; and so they wint squeedging and scrummaging on till, by dad, they was up at the tip-top in something less than no time; and the trouble was all they had a chance o' gettin for their pains; for, by the hokey, the daws' nest they had been bruising their shins, breaking their necks, and tearing their frieze breeches to tatters to reach, was on the outside o' the building, and about ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... and the Anzac Generals about 4.30 p.m. The whole crowd were in tip-top spirits and immensely pleased with the freedom and largeness of their newly conquered kingdom. We of the G.H.Q. were bitten by this same spirit; Suvla took second place in our minds and when we got on board the Arno the ugly events of the early morning had been shaken, for the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... Cream firmly proceeded, "you be guided by me. You're a youngster at the game, and I'm an old hand. I never met a young author yet that didn't imagine his play had come straight from the mind of God and mustn't have a word altered. The tip-top chaps don't think like that. They're always altering and changing their plays during rehearsal ... and sometimes after they've been produced, too. Look at Pinero! He's altered the whole end of a ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... to be more than likely, sir," said Britton, with a perfectly straight face. He must have been sorely tried in the face of my inane maunderings. "Pardon me, sir, but wouldn't it be a tip-top idea to have it out with the Schmicks to-night? Being, sir, as you anticipate a rather wakeful night, I only make so bold as to suggest it in the hopes you may 'ave some light on the subject before you close your eyes. In other words, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... for an answer, and Lydia and her aunt got into their gondola. "Oh! How glad I am!" cried Mrs. Erwin, in a joyful flutter. "She's the very tip-top of the English here; she has a whole palace, and you meet the very best people at her house. I was afraid when you were singing, Lydia, that they would think your voice was too good to be good form,—that's an expression you must get; it means everything,—it sounded almost professional. I ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... anecdote of the gilded youth of his time. There were some exquisites for whose delicate skins the embroidered borders of even Dacca muslins were too coarse, so that to wear muslins with the border torn off became, for a time, the tip-top thing to do. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... Christmas is over old Santa Claus goes To his home in the North, and his well-earned repose, And when he is rested and feeling tip-top, The good-natured workman goes ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... bustle; everybody was on the tip-top of expectation, and awaiting the result in a quiet hurry, and hoped to have the first glimpse of the coffin, though why they should do so it was difficult to define. But in this fit of mysterious hope and expectation ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... near Relation, than to that of a favourite Lap-Dog? And how often have we seen Families in deep Mourning on these sad Occasions? From Air to Air, and from Mineral to Mineral, have they been shifted upon the slightest Disorder. I have known a tip-top Physician sent for by an Express, and several Sets of Horses laid on the Road for him, to go with the utmost Expedition to visit a Lap-Dog that has been only ill of a sullen Fit, or so, in Yorkshire. A Woman of the first Quality, ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... some of our own cities. After scrubbing thoroughly, and steaming almost to the point of dissolution on one of the higher platforms, a Russian will dash on cold water from the barrel and dry himself and put on his clothes and feel tip-top. An American would make his will and call the undertaker before following suit. In the summer there is considerable open-air river bathing, and the absence of bathing-suits other than nature's own is ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... temperament is creative, sympathetic, responsive; it sees everything, feels everything, realises everything, on a scale of exaggeration. It is in quest of ideals, and all ideals are more or less in the clouds, and not seldom at the tip-top of the rainbow. Those who undertake such long journeys are subject to disappointment and fatigue by the way; if ever they do come to the end of their journey it is probably in a temper of fretfulness and exasperation. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... first-rate fit-out for hunters; and with the jolly basket of lunch Mrs. Mullin gave us, we can get on tip-top for two or three days," said Tommy, eager ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... aimlessly, as though waiting for an inspiration, rising, falling, rising with slow strong flap of wing—then suddenly he is off, like a streak, in a whirring diagonal for the high crests. He dwindles, higher and higher, farther and farther, smaller and smaller, till finally he is among the tip-top pinnacles, a mere white palpitation, a snow-flake in the whirl of a capricious wind, a little glistening moth flitting from glacier to glacier as from ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... assumes the airs and title of his master, and is addressed as "Your grace," or "My lord duke." He was first a country cowboy, then a wig-maker's apprentice, and then a duke's servant. He could neither write nor read, but was a great coxcomb, and set up for a tip-top fine gentleman.—Rev. J. Townley, High Life Below ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... a bit of a 'oliday, sir," explained the inspector to the doctor, entirely ignoring me, "and being one of the tip-top detectives up in London, I thought we'd take the ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... it won't, miss. Don't be frightened about him. We shall have a padded box, and everything tip-top. He'll be as snug and as tight as a sardine in its case. We'll get him to ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... this is my reward for having made you the tip-top cracksman you are," muttered Blueskin;—"to be turned off at a moment's notice, because I silenced a noisy woman. It's too hard. Think ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the number of quick runners is large. There is an establishment in Holywell Street which is quite one of the Oxford sights. There, early in winter mornings, more than a hundred stalls are to be found, full of blood cattle, in tip-top condition, and on summer afternoons no barracks of a cavalry regiment changing ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... I ever saw was in China. I went up the West River to the city of Canton. I was carried through the narrow, smelly, crowded streets to the top of a little hill at the city's edge. There, on the very tip-top I saw the "Water Clock." I read, "This water clock is a most ancient, authentic, celebrated and sacred relic of Kwong Tung Province, over 1,300 years old. It was erected on the top story of the north Worshiping Tower which was built by Chin To, King ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... or not, the question troubled Wade no more. He shot out of bed in tip-top spirits; shouted "Merry Christmas!" at the rising disk of the sun; looked over the black ice; thrilled with the thought of a long holiday for skating; and proceeded to dress in a knowing suit of rough clothes, singing, "Ah, non giunge!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... of this oak and pass the night there, and then robbers will not fall upon us."—"But what will this silly donkey do with his millstone?" asked one of them.—"You look to yourselves," said Ivan, "for I mean to pass the night in this tree also." Then the wise brothers climbed to the very tip-top of the tree and there sat down, and then Ivan dragged himself up too, and the millstone after him. He tried to get up as high as his brothers, but the thin boughs broke beneath him, so he had to be content with staying in the lower part of the ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... blood-red fact; it is warm-hearted invitation; it is leaping, bounding, flying good news; it is efflorescent with all light; it is rubescent with all glow; it is arborescent with all sweet shade. I have seen the sun rise on Mount Washington, and from the Tip-top House; but there was no beauty in that compared with the day-spring from on high when Christ gives light to a soul. I have heard Parepa sing; but there was no music in that compared with the voice ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... trust, and power, and employments which they possess under the lenity of the present Government; so, I do not find how his Excellency can be justly censured for favouring none but High-Church, high-fliers, termagants, Laudists, Sacheverellians, tip-top-gallant-men, Jacobites, tantivies, anti-Hanoverians, friends to Popery and the Pretender, and to arbitrary power, disobligers of England, breakers of DEPENDENCY, inflamers of quarrels between the two nations, public incendiaries, enemies ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... be done well. Three or four new carts are going to be put on instead of some of the old ones, and there are ten first-rate horses coming in place of some of those that are getting past work. The stables are all being done up, and the thing is going to be done tip-top. Curiously enough his name is the same ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... to Krone, we used to call him the devil's bar-tender. These ragged revellers, you see, beg and steal during the day, and get gin with it at night. Krone thinks nothing of it! Lord bless your soul, sir! why, this man is reckoned a tip-top politician; on an emergency he can turn up such a lot of votes!" Mr. Fitzgerald, approaching Mr. Krone, says "you're a pretty fellow. Keeping such a place as this!" The detective playfully strikes the hat of the other, crowding it ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... "O, tip-top. It was a good thing. I'd like to see it every day if I could, I laughed and drank lemonade till I've got my cloze all pinned up with pins, and I'd as soon tell you, if you wont give it away, that my pants is tied on me with barbed ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... law; our laws are gloriously ancient. I wish, Cap, I could only open your ideas to the way our folks manage their own affairs. I'm opposed to this law that imprisons stewards, because it affects commerce, but then our other laws are tip-top. It was the law that our legislature made to stop free niggers from coming from the abolition States to destroy the affections of our slaves. Some say, the construction given to it and applied to ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... his "good lady" at breakfast, because he knew they did not want (with a nod at the girl) to have more of her than could be helped. He came the first possible moment because he had his business to attend to. He wasn't drawing a tip-top salary (this staring at Fyne) in a luxuriously furnished office. Not he. He had risen to be an employer of labour and was bound ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... go out of your way to furnish me with amusement. And now, how about your party to-day? Is everything in tip-top order?" ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... door-knob and rattled it a little before she went in, but when she saw at the end of the room a bright and dazzling Christmas tree, she forgot all else. It was such a glittering, shining affair, all wonderful ornaments and gleaming tinsel, and was a joy to look upon, from the flying angel at the tip-top to the group of sheep on a mossy pasture at the foot. The impossible had happened. Faith and works had triumphed. The might of the mustard seed's strength had been proved, and Marian dropped on her knees before the ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... could have written such a tip-top boy's book. Dan Beard is a boy, and has been a boy for thirty or more years, and always will be a boy even if he lives twice thirty years more. In this book of his he has put a host of good things that we boys need ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 1, 1897 Vol. 1. No. 21 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... this, you may be sure, my dear reader, when you consider that it was projected and arranged by Mrs. Lillie, in strict counsel with her friend Mrs. Follingsbee, who had lived in Paris, and been to balls at the Tuileries. Of course, it was a tip-top New-York-Paris party, with all the new, fashionable, unspeakable crinkles and wrinkles, all the high, divine, spick and span new ways of doing things; which, however, like the Eleusinian mysteries, being in their very nature incommunicable ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... slep' on't, and then didn't do it: he only come out next Sunday with a tip-top sermon on the 'Riginal Cuss' that was pronounced on things in gineral, when Adam fell, and showed how every thing was allowed to go contrary ever since. There was pig-weed, and pusley, and Canady thistles, cut-worms, and bag-worms, ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... they climbed the steep path to the manor. All things shone softly in the sun, which was wonderfully warm and enlivening. Celandines and violets were out. Everybody was tip-top full with happiness. The glitter of the ivy, the soft, atmospheric grey of the castle walls, the gentleness of everything near the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... which, by propping up each other, are fenc'd against a Storm. Why are you thus cast down, said Zadig to the Fisherman? Never sink Man, under the Weight of your Burden. I can't help it, said the poor Fisherman; I have not the least Prospect of Redress. I was once, Sir, the tip-top Man of the whole Village of Derlbach, near Babylon, where I liv'd, and with the Help of my Wife, made the best Cream-Cheeses that were ever eaten in the Persian Empire. Her Majesty, the Queen Astarte, and the famous Prime-Minister Zadig were very fond of them. I serv'd the Court with ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... tip-top antler of the old stag sumac, he perched and strained until his jetty whiskers appeared stubby. He poured out a tumultuous cry vibrant with every passion raging in him. He caught up his own rolling echoes and changed and varied them. He improvised, ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... plan," Rosemary assured him, taking his knowledge of a plan for granted. "It's only about eight or nine miles from here and twelve from Bennington. Hugh can easily come out in the car. You must have seen the house, Jack—it is right on the tip-top of that hill to the right, the little white clapboarded house you see as soon as you pass ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... the whole set, and we shall have a tip-top time. We always do at the Minots'," cried Sue, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... cannot but remember certain scurvy matters either of poverty or parentage, that formerly belonged to him, but which being long gone by are almost forgotten, we only think of what we see before our eyes. And if, as the preacher said, the person so raised by good luck, from nothing, as it were, to the tip-top of prosperity, be well behaved, generous, and civil, and gives himself no ridiculous airs, pretending to vie with the old nobility, take my word for it, Teresa, nobody will twit him with what he was, but will respect him for what he is; except, indeed the envious, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the odd little glass observatory, perched upon the very tip-top of all the wilderness around, fascinated Jack. He had never credited himself with a streak of idealism, nor even with an imagination, yet his pulse quickened when they topped the last steep slope and stood upon the peak of the world—this immediate, ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... in witnessing Shakespeare's plays, but also admired the poet as a player. The histrionic ability of Shakespeare was by no means contemptible, though probably not such as to have transmitted his name to posterity had he confined himself exclusively to acting. Rowe informs us that "the tip-top of his performances was the ghost in his own Hamlet;" but Aubrey states that he "did act exceedingly well"; and Cheetle, a contemporary of the poet, who had seen him perform, assures us that he was "excellent in the quality he professed." An anecdote is preserved in connection with Shakespeare's ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the tables, and it was not in the dinners and opera-boxes that poor Clavering's money went. No, be hanged to it, it was swep off in another way. One night, at the countess's, there was several of us at supper—Mr. Bloundell-Bloundell, the Honorable Deuceace, the Marky de la Tour de Force—all tip-top nobs, sir, and the height of fashion, when we had supper, and champagne, you may be sure, in plenty, and then some of that confounded brandy. I would have it—I would go on at it—the countess mixed the tumblers of punch for me, and we had cards as well as grog after supper, and ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mother, and more 'an that, to take it from a school where it's gettin' all the benefits of eddication.'—'Eddication,' says he; 'that's all stuff. What eddication the gal gets at a school like that isn't worth a row of pins, and when they go away they don't know nothin' useful, nor even anything tip-top ornamental. All they've learned is the pianer and higher mathematics. As for anythin' useful, they're nowhere. There isn't one of them could bound New Jersey or tell you when Washington crossed the Delaware.'—'That may be, sir,' says I, 'but them higher branches comes useful. If Washington really ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... of our men was detailed to do some work for a chap who came to the Agency from this little town. It was a case of record hunting. Well, the man went out last night all O. K.; he was a little on the sport when off duty, but a tip-top chap when at work. Well, he got into a gambling brawl, and this morning they ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... terms! Don't let's talk business now! Aren't these strawberries delicious? What? A glass of sherry with them would be tip-top. Don't you think so? Lina, run round to the stores and fetch a bottle of sherry, the best ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Judgment with that candid friend's physiognomy on the left. But all this is away from Sir Hugo, whose manner of implying that one's gifts are not of the highest order is so exceedingly good-natured and comfortable that I begin to feel it an advantage not to be among those poor fellows at the tip-top. And his kindness to me tastes all the better because it comes out of his love for you, old boy. His chat is uncommonly amusing. By the way, he told me that your Vandyke duchess is gone with her husband yachting to the Mediterranean. I bethink me that it is possible ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... me," he admitted. "It's my cousin, Margaret Halley. You'll like her. She's a tip-top girl, but ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... Elsewhere you may have—for money—dishonesty, drunkenness, dirt, laziness, and profound incapacity. But the veritable shining-red-faced shameless laundress; the true Mrs. Sweeney—in figure, colour, texture, and smell, like the old damp family umbrella; the tip-top complicated abomination of stockings, spirits, bonnet, limpness, looseness, and larceny; is only to be drawn at the fountain-head. Mrs. Sweeney is beyond the reach of individual art. It requires the united efforts of ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... last by the Honorable Capting Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons, whose Mar took him out, after a fortnight, jest to punish him, she said. But, Law bless you, I promise you, he punished my champagne, and had a party ere every night—reglar tip-top swells, down from the clubs and the West End—Capting Ragg, the Honorable Deuceace, who lives in the Temple, and some fellers as knows a good glass of wine, I warrant you. I've got a Doctor of Diwinity upstairs, five gents in the coffee-room, and Mrs. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had gone. I looked for his name in the book. It was written in a fair, clerkly hand. He lived at Streatham. Suddenly I hated him. The dogged fool, to keep his nose on the grindstone like that. What was all his courage but the very tip-top of cowardice? What a vile nature—almost Sadish, proud, like the infamous Red Indians, of being able to ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... our disappointment as we stood before that wonder of the world—St. Peter's. We mounted the pyramid of steps and looked up, but were not overcome by the magnificence. We read in our guide-book that the edifice covers eight acres, and to the tip-top of the cross is almost five hundred feet; that it took three hundred and fifty years and twelve successive artists to finish it, and an expenditure of $50,000,000, and now costs $30,000 per annum to keep it in repair; still we did not appreciate ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... policeman, and he turned to where Stane and Helen stood together, with laughter in their eyes. "I could shake you—shake you both," he said. "It is a pretty game to cheat me out of the job of best man. But, Great Christopher! it's the tip-top thing to do, to marry before you go out of ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... fruit, that growing at the top of the tree being generally the best, as partaking most of the sun. A tip-top workman; the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... distance. The dust rose in thick clouds, the stones rattled from the whirling wheels, the chirr! chirr! of a myriad cicadas filled the air, and the white road glistened in the dazzling sunlight. I was enjoying myself tip-top, and chuckled to think of the way I had euchred Frank Hawden. It was such a good joke that I considered it worth two of the blowings-up I was sure of getting from grannie ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... is so likely to be permanently prejudicial to the interest of hunting in the British Isles as a certain flavour of tip-top fashion which has gradually enveloped it. There is a pretence of grandeur about that and, alas, about other sports also, which is, to my thinking, destructive of all sport itself. Men will not shoot unless ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... passing the winter on the top of Mount Washington, might certainly find some other manner of spending the cold months in the interests of science which would be much more difficult and disagreeable. They expect to be snowed up at the Tip-top House, from December until March, and will spend their time in a room lined with felt, where they will burn twenty tons of coal during ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... the kind that rises to the top of the mountains and sinks again to the lowest vales. She had been on the tip-top of the hills of her own fantasy all that evening. When she ran quickly home under the stars she began to realize what she had done She had done something of which her mother would have been ashamed. Not for a moment had Kathleen thought of this way of looking at her escapade ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... so bold as to say it's in Scriptur', but it's in the Psalm-book I dare swear. Mother, she were a tip-top tearin' religious woman, and she used to say it to me when I was younger than ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... woman at a table in a ward. One of the finest nurses I met was a red-faced illiterate old Irish woman; I have seen her take the poor wasted naked boys so tenderly up in her arms. There are plenty of excellent clean old black women that would make tip-top nurses. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... were eating luncheon, a ground-hog that I had fed on other visits came out to see if there was anything for him. Some sparrows also lighted near; they looked hungry, so we left some bread for them and then climbed upon the "tip-top," where our picture ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... door, there was Lord Claud mounted upon the black horse Lucifer, who looked in tip-top condition. Mrs. Tufton and Rachel had come out to welcome Tom's friend, and the rider was sitting bare headed in the afternoon sunlight, looking ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... it was done I broke out like a madman, and if you could have seen me at a children's party at Macready's the other night going down a country dance with Mrs. M. you would have thought I was a country gentleman of independent property residing on a tip-top farm, with the wind blowing straight in my ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... we followed Dol's example and your advice, Uncle Eb," said Cyrus, as they seated themselves by the camp-fire. "And I tell you these make tip-top dressing-gowns when you're feeling a little bit chilly after a drenching. We didn't bring along a second suit of tweeds for the simple reason that we mean to do some pretty rough tramping with our packs on our backs, and then a fellow is likely to ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... time. I wonder how I shall like it. Perhaps, in my next, I may tell you how a bullet sounds when it comes at you. If there is any fighting, I expect our regiment will make their mark. We are in tip-top order; the colonel is a grand fellow, and the regiment feels his hand down to the youngest drummer boy. What a deal of good I will ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... find, is of a different opinion. He believes that they have already cleared themselves—have escaped to a Free State, and we think it extremely probable that he is in the right. They were both of them uncommonly intelligent negroes. One of them, the one hired to Mr. White, was a tip-top baker. He had been all about the country, and had been in the habit of supplying the U.S. Pennsylvania with bread; Mr. W. having the contract. In his visits for this purpose, of course, he formed acquaintances with all sorts of sea-faring characters; and there ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... had concluded on the whole that I should buy her a hat, in Maiden Lane, at the very tip-top milliner's. The thought of my return was somewhat embittered by the prospective necessity of carrying two very large bandboxes in my lap, in case of rain. Rain might not unreasonably be expected in the course of a three days' journey. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... certainly; established in the land, and among its tip-top people. The Colonel finds his health benefited by the climate, and he has managed to get some appointment which keeps him among us. He has Boston relatives, moreover, and I believe is fishing up some claims to property in that quarter. The ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... workshop as early as possible to try on my mess jacket and waistcoat; which, like the new rig I had donned little more than an hour earlier, I found fitted me excellently. I was promised that the entire suit should be ready for me in time for mess that night (it appeared that everything was done in tip-top ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... left of the dreeners and walked over to the fence. That field was just sowed, as you might say, with clams. If they ever sprouted 'twould make a tip-top codfish pasture. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... skurcer here. Pickenses, Boggses, Pettuses, Magoffins, Letchers, Polks,— Where can you scare up names like them among your mudsill folks? Ther's nothin' to compare with 'em, you'd fin', ef you should glance, Among the tip-top femerlies in Englan', nor in France: I've hearn frum 'sponsible men whose word wuz full ez good's their note, Men thet can run their face for drinks, an' keep a Sunday coat, 120 That they wuz all on 'em come down, an' come ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... you'd take it. But if anythin', that makes it harder to tell. You see, a feller wants to do so much fer you, an' I'd got fond of my job. We led the herd a ways off to the north of the break in the valley. There was a big level an' pools of water an' tip-top browse. But the cattle was in a high nervous condition. Wild—as wild as antelope! You see, they'd been so scared they never slept. I ain't a-goin' to tell you of the many tricks that were pulled off out there in the sage. But there wasn't a day for weeks thet the herd didn't get started ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... though it was longer," he drawled. "Wal, I'm pretty tip-top now, but I was laid up with heart trouble for ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... the snow comes down! I thought it would never snow at all this winter. Just look at it! Now that's what I call tip-top," said Tom Chandler, gazing at the fast-whitening landscape, and drumming a cheerful tattoo on the window-panes with ...
— Harper's Young People, February 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... see, High on the tip-top twig of a tree, Something blue by the breezes stirred, But so far up that the blue is blurred, So far up no green leaf flies. 5 Twixt its blue and the blue of the skies, Then I know, ere a note be heard, That is naught ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... it's got fair sperret and a buzzum as can feel When it backs us with a "Leader" arter printing our "Appeal." You are better off, my TOMMY, than the Navy Rank and File, You may chance to get promotion,—arter waiting a good while— But the tip-top of Tar luck's to be a Warrant Officer; We ain't like to get no further, if we even get as fur. 'Tain't encouraging, my hearty. As for me, I'm old and grey, 'Tis too late now for promotion if it chanced to come my way; And my knowledge, and my patter, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... pickle;" "virgo" is generally translated "the young lady;" "vir" is "a gentleman;" "senex" and "senior" are indifferently "the old blade," "the old fellow," or "the old gentleman;" while "summa arx" is "the very tip-top." "Misera" is "poor soul;" "exsilio" means "to bounce forth;" "pellex" is "a miss;" "lumina" are "the peepers;" "turbatum fugere" is "to scower off in a mighty bustle;" "confundor" is "to be jumbled;" and "squalidus" is "in a sorry pickle." ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... and Count Quinnox might have been seen seated side by side on the edge of a skylight at the tip-top of the ship's structure, engaged in the closest conversation. There was a troubled look in the old man's eyes and the light of adventure in those of his junior. The sum and substance of their discussion may be given in a ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... heartily. "By Jove, you have got among tip-top people. I had no idea. Fancy you ordering Jeames de la Pluche about. And how happy you must be among all these books! I've brought you a bouquet. There! Isn't it a beauty? I got it at ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... entrancingly nice. Her straw hat was full of artificial roses that any one might have sworn were real; her unbuttoned jacket disclosed the delicate finery of a muslin blouse; her long skirt, held up so gracefully by the unoccupied hand, was made of veritable silk. She just looked tip-top—a picture—to the full as much a lady as the young dames he had been lately observing; and yet, wonder of wonders, she was ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... thinking about it. Why should I? What does it really matter to the Mater? She didn't care enough not to have me spewed out of home. She's at home now; they'll be sitting round the dinner-table after a tip-top meal. Presently they'll be playing whist and congratulating themselves that I'm safely out of England. They'll ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... away off where the sky and the mountains come together beyond the hill," said Buddy. "You can see beautiful scenery from the tip-top, you know." ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... feet, and then, after the parcels and papers had been tossed off, away we went again. Five miles farther on, we pulled up to change. The fresh team was led out, bright, shining, and glittering, in tip-top condition. The driver descended to stretch his legs and personally superintend the putting to of the fresh horses. When he mounted the box again, his experienced eye glanced rapidly at the team, and then, with an 'all right—let 'em go!' we were ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... more letters, and once Jack White had a letter from his sister saying that Clint Bowers had come home, and it was said that the old man was tickled to death with his manners, and meant to leave him all he had. This clinched it sure enough, and Clint became tip-top among the boys, and his credit was good for all the drinks he chose to order, and I must say he was liberal enough, and nobody contradicted him. He wrote to Kirby,—he was all the time writing to him,—but this time he told ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... I called at his hotel; but once, I had the good fortune to see him, with his hat curiously on one side, looking as pleased as Punch, and being driven, in an open cab, in the Champs Elysees. "That's ANOTHER tip-top chap," said he, when we met, at length. "What do you think of an Earl's son, my boy? Honorable Tom Ringwood, son of the Earl of Cinqbars: what do you ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ribbons. That's how young girls used to dress when I was a lad, and I've never seen anything to touch it. There will be no trouble about the dresses, madam. I've decided all that. You just tell me the name of a dressmaker—a tip-top dressmaker, mind you—and we'll send ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... girl of twelve years old that don't know a thousand times more than her mother, and wouldn't attempt to teach law to her father if he was a judge in the Supreme Court. Yet, it's a shocking truth, the little upstarts don't know how to read like Christians, or spell half their words. The tip-top fashionable school-marms here are quite above teaching such common things as reading and spelling, and turn up their noses at any study that hasn't some "ology" or "phy" at the end ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens |
