"Toss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... aside, use your intelligence, old man. I've laid my cards on the table—enough of them, at least. We've trumped every trick, and we've all the trumps outstanding. You have a few high cards up your sleeve. Why not toss them on the table and throw yourselves on the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... regulations too; but most of the guards are thin-blooded Southerners, and diseased into the bargain, and do not like cold air. The consequence is that the four hundred pairs of lungs in each range soon vitiate the atmosphere; the prisoners turn and toss in their cots, have bad dreams, and rise in ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... CERDON'S head had cleft, Or at the least cropt off a limb, But ORSIN came, and rescu'd him. He, with his lance, attack'd the Knight 675 Upon his quarters opposite. But as a barque, that in foul weather, Toss'd by two adverse winds together, Is bruis'd, and beaten to and fro, And knows not which to turn him to; 680 So far'd the Knight between two foes, And knew not which of them t'oppose; Till ORSIN, charging with his lance At HUDIBRAS, by spightful ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... say is, that my grandfather made 20,000 ducats as a manufacturer; that my father doubled his capital in trade; and that I bought an estate which, in my tenants' hands, pays me six per cent. for the investment. I eat four meals a day, I'm in vigorous health, and I weigh fourteen stone. So when I toss off my third glass of old Capri wine at supper, I can't for the life of me help crying, 'Long live ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... "I give you my word I'm frightened—I who've never been frightened at any man yet. In my own little way I've played pitch and toss with their hearts and made footballs of them—except that poor young fellow—I told you about him the first time we met— who gave me the scarf, and whose people wouldn't let him marry me. But this affair ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... with a toss of her head and an ironical smile, "that the General behaved like a real—who was it, Horace, who loved women so much? Ah oui—like a real Don Juan." She wagged her plump forefinger. "Oh no, I ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... the sprightly airs of a girl of sixteen. One while she ogled me with her dim eyes, quenched in rheum; then, as if she was ashamed of that freedom, she affected to look down, blush, and play with her fan; then toss her head that I might not perceive a palsy that shook it, ask some childish questions with a lisping accent, giggle and grin with her mouth shut to conceal the ravage of time upon her teeth, leer upon me again, sigh piteously, fling herself about in her chair to show her agility, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... the Red Island, With the white cross on its crown! Hurra! for Meccatina, And its mountains bare and brown! Where the caribou's tall antlers O'er the dwarf-wood freely toss, And the footsteps of the Mickmack Have no ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... artificer, the diligent mechanic, spring from their hard mattress; and now the bonny housemaid begins to repair the disordered drum-room, while the riotous authors of that disorder, in broken interrupted slumbers, tumble and toss, as if the hardness of ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... especially among sporting men, to dine with Mr. Guy Flouncey, and there they met Mrs. Guy Flouncey. Not an opening ever escaped her. If a man had a wife, and that wife was a personage, sooner or later, much as she might toss her head at first, she was sure to visit Mrs. Guy Flouncey, and, when she knew her, she was sure to like her. The Guy Flounceys never lost a moment; the instant the season was over, they were at Cowes, then at a German bath, then at Paris, then at an English country-house, ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... Earth found a difference. They made very, very, very careful computations. And the electronic brains did the calculations which battalions of mathematicians would have needed years to work out. The electronic calculations which could not make a mistake said—that it was a toss-up. ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... possibly interfere with their little calculations of selfish comfort. Madame had received Buckingham's smiles and attentions and sighs while he was present; but what was the good of sighing, smiling and kneeling at a distance? Can one tell in what direction the winds in the Channel, which toss mighty vessels to and fro, carry such sighs as these. The duke could not fail to mark this change, and his heart was cruelly hurt. Of a sensitive character, proud and susceptible of deep attachment, he cursed the day on which such a passion had entered his heart. The looks he cast, from time to ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... country-folk. Not one of us had been to Pau, much less to Paris. The Vicomte held stricter views than were common then, upon young people's education; and though we had learned to ride and shoot, to use our swords and toss a hawk, and to read and write, we knew little more than Catherine herself of the world; little more of the pleasures and sins of court life, and not one-tenth as much as she did of its graces. Still she had taught ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... point it was a one-sided thing. Now, I was not only taking but giving; and not only giving, but giving with laughter and ejaculations. Our Bible study for that month was the memorizing of the names of the minor prophets; and once when I managed to toss my opponent's head to one side with a blow on the point of the chin, I shouted full of glee, "Take that, you cross-eyed son of a seacook—take it in the name of Hosea!" The crowd laughed, but above the roar of laughter rang out the voice of a Scotchman who was one of our best Bible students: ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... gained the summit of the hill when he felt the saddle slipping; the girth had unbuckled or broken. As he dismounted, the saddle came off with him, his foot still in the stirrup. The mare shied, and the rein slipped from his fingers; he clutched at it, but Mary gave a vicious toss of the head, wheeled about, and began trotting down the declivity. Her trot at once broke into a gallop, and the gallop into a full run—a full run for Mary. At the foot of the hill she stumbled, fell, rolled over, gathered herself up, and started off again at increased speed. The road was perfectly ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... her hero forms, Not soothed with soft delights, but toss'd in storms; Nor stretch'd on roses in the myrtle grove, Nor crowns his days with mirth, his nights with love, But far removed in thundering camps is found, His slumbers short, his bed the herbless ground. In tasks of danger always ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... "No, I say, don't toss him in a blanket," pleaded Biddlecomb, and Paul felt gratefully towards him at the words; "anyone coming up would see what was going on. I vote we flick ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... she answered gaily with a toss of her bonny head, "I'm making a wedding present for this new nephew of mine when he marries ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... come! he is come! do ye not behold His ample robes on the wind unrolled? Giant of air! we bid thee hail!— How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale; How his huge and writhing arms are bent, To clasp the zone of the firmament, And fold at length, in their dark embrace, From mountain to ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... sniff suspiciously at this phenomenon, a man on foot, and to follow cautiously on his track. Joe kept his head and walked slowly out, till all at once a young cow began to bawl and to paw the ground. In another minute one, and then another of the cattle began to toss their heads and bunch and bellow till the whole herd of two hundred were after Joe. Then Joe lost his head and ran. Immediately the whole herd broke into a thundering gallop with heads and tails aloft and horns rattling like the loading of a ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... words and the decided toss Mom Beck gave her head settled the matter for the Little Colonel. She wiped her eyes and stood ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... had turned with her and accompanied her, which was half a pain to' Leam and half a pleasure. The pain was connected with her reins and her stirrups, her saddle and the girths, the restless way in which the chestnut moved his ears, the discomposing toss of his small impatient head, the snorts which frightened her as the heralds of an outbreak, and his inclination to dance sideways into the hedge rather than walk discreetly in the middle of the road, whereby ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... Kit Carson and I started after the burro. He had run off, up the mountain again, and we couldn't catch him. He was too nervous. We'd get close to him, and with a snort and a toss of his ears he would jump away and fool ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... then driving right through the fire, and scattering the smoldering embers broadcast over the ground, and everywhere plowing up great furrows with their heels in the mellow soil. To the negro, with his prodigious strength of arm, it was an easy matter to toss up the Indian from the ground; but when he would essay to fetch the final fling, the nimble savage, let his legs be ever so high in the air and wide apart, was always sure to bring the very foot down to the very place to stay his fall, though as quickly to jerk it up again, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... head a noble toss, and spoke impressively—"I am prepared to go without myself to make it possible for you to meet her bills. You know I spoke the other day of a new lace dress. Well, that would cost at least a hundred; I will go without that. And I wanted some new portieres for ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... which could not help betraying the modestly emphasized crescendos and gently graded diminuendos of her figure. She was as round as if she had been turned in a lathe, and as delicately finished as if she had been modelled for a Flora. She had naturally an airy toss of the head and a springy movement of the joints, such as some girls study in the glass (and make dreadful work of it), so that she danced all over without knowing it, like a little lively bobolink on a bulrush. In short, she looked ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... girlie, I'm interrupted." She turned to look at Bob again, and with a haughty toss of her rather startling yellow curls raised her eyebrows in a supercilious ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... as well take a sleep," Sam Hicks said. "You lie down for one, anyhow, Harry, for you watched last evening. We will toss up which ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... now, with sails declined, The wandering vessel drove before the wind; Toss'd and retoss'd aloft, and then alow; Nor port they seek, nor certain course they know, But every moment wait the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... time the Coxes too had completed their spat and their reconciliation, and were turning in—to think, to think, and toss, and fret, and worry over what the remark could possibly have been which Goodson made to the stranded derelict; that golden remark; that remark worth ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... and nearly naked man making the most extraordinary signs and gestures, staggering and lurching in imminent danger of falling overboard. When the ship had approached quite near the captain saw the man toss a card into the water, and then stand with an ominous rigidity, the meaning of which was unmistakable. He sounded a blast from the whistle, and the drifting man started violently and turned to see the steamer approaching, and observed hasty preparations for the lowering of a boat. ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... feet, that had trod down the centuries to meet his, left the earth as though they had wings and Chad saw them, in swift flight, pass silently over the hill. The next moment, Jack came too near the old brindle and, with a sweep of her horns at him and a toss of tail and heels in the air, she, too, swept over the slope and on, until the sound of her bell passed out of hearing. Even to-day, in lonely parts of the Cumberland, the sudden coming of a stranger may put women and children to flight—something like this had happened ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... head and grit out something through his teeth that stimulated my circulation. I skipped over the wheels and put my left onto his neck, fingering the keys on his blow-pipe like a flute. Then I give him a toss and gathered up the lines. Say! it was like the smell of grease-paint to an actor man for me to feel the ribbons again, and them mules knew they had a chairman who savvied 'em too, and had mule talk pat, from soda ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... its fountain and tasselled planes, and flowery chestnut-trees, a mass of greenery. Under these trees the idlers lounge, boys play at leap-frog, men at bowls. Women in San Remo work all day, but men and boys play for the most part at bowls or toss-penny or leap-frog or morra. San Siro, the cathedral, stands at one end of the square. Do not go inside; it has a sickly smell of immemorial incense and garlic, undefinable and horrible. Far better looks San Siro from the parapet above the torrent. There you see its irregular ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... you want to be a scout, You must watch what you're about, And never let a chance for mischief pass. You may win the golden cross If your ball you gayly toss Through the middle of ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... yellow mandarin, who had been a great enemy of the criminal who preceded him. He was seated upon a throne of jet, and his arms supported in derision by two prize-fighters. His crime was playing at pitch and toss with the lower classes. His ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... to obey the orders of Papias and to pack his own tools together. Without paying any heed to Hadrian's presence he began to toss some of the hammers, chisels, and wooden modelling tools into one box, and others into another, doing it as recklessly as though he were minded to punish the unconscious tools as adverse creatures who ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... trying to find some excuse for turning shy so suddenly. 'It'll never do to go down among them without a good long branch to brush them away—and what fun it'll be when they ask me how I like my walk. I shall say—"Oh, I like it well enough—"' (here came the favourite little toss of the head), '"only it was so dusty and hot, and the elephants did ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... out that we Gentiles had brought all this trouble upon Mur, since before we came the Abati, although threatened, had lived in peace and glory—he actually used the word glory!—for generations. But now we had stung the Fung, as a hornet stings a bull, and made them mad, so that they wished to toss the Abati. He proposed, therefore, that we should at ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... before the fire," Oscar said. "We didn't have a couple of million sols' worth of wax burned. And Tom Kivelson wasn't in the hospital with half the skin burned off his back, and a coin toss ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... which have the marks of the fingers and thumbs with which they grasped them. Their strength may be estimated by the fact that one of these quoits is no less than forty feet long and twenty wide, and weighs some hundreds of tons. It would puzzle even your strong arm to toss such a quoit! One of these giants was a very notable fellow. He was named 'Wrath,' and is said to have been in the habit of quenching his thirst at the Holy Well under St. Agnes's Beacon, where the marks of his hands, made in ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... gown and the jewelry," Marian admitted with a toss of her head. She was addressing no one in particular. "I have nothing more ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... to pieces and cried all over his necktie. And then Marks trots up the child, and that young one hollers: "Papa! papa!" and tackles Hank around the legs. And I'm blessed if Montague don't slap his hand to his forehead, and toss back his curls, and look up at the sky, and sing out: "My wife and babe! Restored to me after all these years! The heavens ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... great Fear and dreadful Fright in the main Ocean ...... but to his great Amazement he espy'd a beautiful young Lady combing her Head and toss'd on the Billows, cloathed all in green (but by chance he got the first Word from her). Then She with a Smile came on Board and asked how he did. The young Man, being Something Smart and a Scholar reply'd—Madam, I am the better to see you in good Health, in great hopes trusting ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... different night it was from that! The sea lay as quiet as if it could not move for the moonlight that lay upon it. The glory over it was so mighty in its peacefulness, that the wild element beneath was afraid to toss itself even with the motions of its natural unrest. The moon was like the face of a saint before which the stormy people has grown dumb. The rocks stood up solid and dark in the universal aether, and the pulse of the ocean throbbed against them with a lapping gush, soft as the voice ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... toss it as other girls toss up a cap, And her eyes have a glow that can dry the green sap; She's as good as the sun's most beneficent ray, Is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... of being the best shot in the army; and it was soon said that, in his quickness at loading and firing, he excelled the most expert American frontiersman. Eyewitnesses have left their testimony that, seeing a bird alight on a bough or rail, he would drop his bridle rein, draw his pistol, toss it in the air, catch and aim it as it fell, and shoot the bird's head off. He was given command of a corps of picked riflemen; and in the Battle of the Brandywine in 1777 he rendered services which won acclaim from the whole army. ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... can he say who declares that the Gods are always lenient to the doers of unjust acts, if they divide the spoil with them? As if wolves were to toss a portion of their prey to the dogs, and they, mollified by the gift, suffered them to tear the flocks. Must not he who maintains that the Gods can be ...
— Laws • Plato
... Ripon said, with a little toss of her head, "and I shall go up to the nursery, to ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... we toss and dream; We dream we are clouds and stars, blown in a stream: Windows rattle above our beds; We reach vague-gesturing hands, we lift our heads, Hear sounds far off,—and dream, with quivering breath, Our curious separate ways through life ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... I?" growled Lemaitre, by this time well advanced toward intoxication. "Take care what you are saying, my friend, or I shall be apt to sicken you so thoroughly that you will be fit for nothing but a toss over the lee bulwarks. No doubt it is I who am the fool, and you who are the clever one; but I should like to hear by what means you would propose to get a thousand dollars for the fellow. True, he is young and stalwart, and will be in prime condition by the time ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... of course!" she said with a little toss of her head. "There is no danger in saying ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... George Washington, and he was at Bunker Hill (where he certainly had no business to be), and the British were intrenched behind the cabbages. "They've just got down into the ground, they are so frightened!" he said to himself, pausing to straighten his aching back, and toss the red curls out of his eyes. "See 'em, all scrooched down, with their feet in the earth, trying to make believe they grow there! But I'll have 'em out! Whack! there goes the general. Come out, I say!" He wrestled fiercely with an enormous Britisher, disguised as a stalk of pig-weed, and, after ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... lie still," she proceeded, "because if you lie still you will be less hot, and if you toss about you will make yourself more hot, and we don't want you to be any hotter than you are." She stood looking down upon Rachel for ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... suicidal zeal. They joined her in restraining him; they reduced him to a beggarly account of half a dozen stones, flung into the Rapids at not less than ten paces from the brink; and they would not let him toss the smallest pebble over the parapet, though he laughed to scorn the notion that anybody should be hurt by ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... mid-day sun; But while unconsciously he slept, The sand within his moccasins crept; At every step some pain he'd feel, 'Twas now the toe, now near the heel; At length his Sachemship grew cross, The pebbles to the sea he'd toss, And with a moccasin in each hand, He threw on either side the sand; Then in an instant there appear Two little isles, the Sachem near! One as the Vineyard now is known, The other we may call our own. At ease, he freely breathed awhile, Which sent the fogs to bless our isle; And ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... well-built walls of Troy. But now, like helpless widows, or like babes, They mourn their cruel fate, and pine for home. 'Tis hard indeed defeated to return; The seaman murmurs, if from wife and home, Ev'n for one month, his well-found bark be stay'd, Toss'd by the wint'ry blasts and stormy sea; But us the ninth revolving year beholds Still ling'ring here: I cannot therefore blame Our valiant Greeks, if by the ships I hear Their murmurs; yet 'twere surely worst ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... telegram was handed to Redpath. There was nothing unusual in this. On the contrary, it seemed peculiarly natural that telegrams should be frequent visitors at the house of a telegraphist, but it was not so natural that Redpath should first look at the missive with surprise, and then toss it across ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... questions which it raised in the soul, its unworthy dealing with Scripture—"naked examples, conceited inferences, and forced allusions, which mine into all certainty of religion"—"the word, the bread of life, they toss up and down, they break it not;" on their undervaluing of moral worth, if it did not speak in their phraseology—"as they censure virtuous men by the names of civil and moral, so do they censure men truly and godly wise, who see into the vanity of their assertions, by the ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... not go on the 24th," cried Mrs Fred, with a hysterical toss of her head. "I will not be treated like a child, and told to get ready whenever Nettie pleases. She pretends it is all for our sake, but it is for the sake of having her own will, and because she has taken a sudden disgust at something. I asked you in, Mr Edward, because you are ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... rushes greedily in; But their signal unheeded is waving, For the shouts by their billow-toss'd consort unheard Are lost in the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... and carried to a country house for the night," returned Castlemain, with a vindictive gleam in her eyes and an angry toss of her head. ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... page and saw that the Germans had taken three towns and the Allies one trench. She could not pronounce the towns, and trenches meant nothing in her life. She was about to toss the paper aside when a head-line caught her eye. She ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... put in Sir Frederick, gaping—"suppose we toss up or throw the dice to see which shall have all, on supposition we get her within the next twenty-four hours, timing the affair by this ship's chronometers. You've dice on board, I dare say, Cuffe, and we ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... like to offer you a bed," said the woodman; "at least, if you don't mind sleeping in this clean kitchen, I think that we could toss you up something of that sort that you need ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... general—oh, they hide their contempt for us, if not their own ignorance, under that mask of chivalrous deference!' and then in the nasal fine ladies' key, which was her shell, as bitter brusquerie was his, she added, with an Amazon queen's toss of the head,—'You must come and see us often. We shall suit each other, I see, better than ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... recognising the hereditary principle in government, if there is to be 'any fixity in things.' In the same way we find him almost lamenting the fact that Oxford, once apparently so fast-anchored as to be immovable, has begun to twist and toss on the ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... replied in a slightly impatient voice. Moods changed with our Kate as unexpectedly as April showers. "What difference should it make to you or anybody else whether Langdon Willits's grandmother was a countess or a country girl, so she was honest and a lady?" Her head went up with a toss as she spoke, for this was one of Kate's ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... wretch, must I toss hither and thither in woe? On every side my heart is in despair; nor is there any help for my pain; but it burneth ever thus. Would that I had been slain by the swift shafts of Artemis before I had set eyes on him, before ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... must clamor. I want them to. Herald, tell them that to every man I shall toss a flower, to every woman a shining gold piece, but to the babies I shall throw only kisses, thousands of them, like little winged birds. Kisses and gold and roses! They will ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... Kitty, who overheard these words and who could not help giving her little head a toss; "I doubt it. Oh, if it were not for father I don't think I could ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... was so well received that, contrary to the expectations of his most ardent well wishers, it was almost instantly conferred upon him by the king. In this manner fate, which has constantly raised me to too great an elevation, or plunged me into an abyss of adversity, continued to toss me from one extreme to another, and whilst the populace covered me with mud I was able to make ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... match was to be here, and it will be here! You can tell Harry Haydock that he's beastly rude!" She rallied the five who had been left out, who would always be left out. "Come on! We'll toss to see which four of us play the Only and Original First Annual Tennis Tournament of Forest Hills, Del Monte, and ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... because of the lightning, the dun-colored cayuse would not let Matthews secure her. Each time waiting until the coaxing voice was close and the outstretched hand almost touched, "Buckskin" whirled with a flirt of her heels and a toss of her head and capered off. Matthews, swearing in English and Uncapapa, tried every device he knew, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... achieved their greatest success in ruining a peaceable old gentleman in America who relies on his ships to bring him a livelihood. To oppress neutral shipping leads in the end to war, although I vow that often Congress must have felt that it should toss up a penny to determine whether the declaration should be against France or England. Some stubborn British minister, however, decided to countenance the stealing of sailors from our ships to fill up the ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... office had told her that we would have to get up early to get ahead of him, and she had construed this statement literally.) So we toiled far into the night and then crept wearily to bed in our dismantled nest, to toss wakefully through the few remaining hours of darkness, fearful that the summons of the forehanded and expeditious moving man would find us in slumber ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... them, I shall do it.—Save you, Monsieur Florimel! Faith, me thinks you are a very janty fellow, poudre et ajuste, as well as the best of 'em. I can manage the little comb; set my hat, shake my garniture, toss about my empty noddle, walk with a courant slur, and at every step peck down my head: If I should be mistaken for some courtier now, pray ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... sole to me is left "Of my Iuelus. Why must I alone "Be harrass'd still with never-ceasing cares? "Whom now Tydides' Calydonian spear "Wounds; now the walls of ill-protected Troy "Lie prostrate. Who my darling son behold "Driv'n to long wanderings; on the ocean toss'd; "Entering the silent mansions of the dead; "Waging fierce war with Turnus; or, if truth "I speak, with Juno rather. Yet why now "Record I former sufferings in my sons? "Terror prevents all memory of the past; "See, where at me their impious swords they point! "O, I conjure you! stay them; ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... the toss, so to speak, and was deputed to perform; and Reginald Simpkins was not in D Company. Being a sniper, he was attached to that mystic band of specialists who adorn battalion headquarters. And so, one morning, the snipers were assembled and the Adjutant gazed at them ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... stable, feeling that, poor as the choice was, I should rather have him for my robber and murderer than those villains down at the quarters. I detained him in conversation while I drew off my boots and threw my jacket upon the back of a chair in such a way as to let my despatch be seen. The toss was a lucky one; the document, sealed with red wax, stuck out arrogantly from an inside pocket. Then, asking lively questions the while as if to conceal a blunder and its correction, I moved quickly between ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... indeed! But I shall stay here for a while, and watch you. And mayn't I toss the hay too ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... taking form in his brain. He himself could not have told what he wanted, what he planned; he simply felt a distaste for the things of Now; an unrest that prevented his sitting quiet; that took him up very early at morning; that made him husk more bushels of corn, and toss more bundles of grain into the self-feed of a threshing machine than any other man he knew; that kept him awake thinking at night until the discordant snores of the family sent him to bed, with the covers over his ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... brown crust from slices of stale bread until you have as much as the inside of a pound loaf. Put into a suitable dish and pour tepid water over it; take up a handful at the time and squeeze it hard and dry with both hands, placing it as you go along in another dish; now when all is pressed dry, toss it all up lightly through your fingers; now add pepper and salt—about a tablespoonful—also powdered summer savory and sage, and one pint of oysters drained and slightly chopped. For geese and ducks the dressing may be made ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... Let's make a dash for Cragan's dock, and borrow his skiff!" suggested Larry, ready to toss fishing poles, and even the fine catch in the dusty weeds bordering the road, so that they might be unimpeded in ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... its own time, and Lars Peter Hansen had no objection. He sat the whole time lightly touching it with his whip, a habit of his, and one without which the horse could not proceed. Should he stop for one moment, while pointing with his whip at the landscape, it would toss its head with impatience and ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a painter, or I mean to leave home," answered Zack, resolutely. "If you don't help me, I'll be off as sure as fate! I have half a mind to cut the office from this moment. Lend me a shilling, Blyth; and I'll toss up for it. Heads—liberty and the ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... policeman to do that, Trix, or a little man in a tall hat," said Fanny, slyly, which caused a general laugh, and made Beatrice toss her head coquettishly. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... back with the painters from the two canvas canoes knotted together. His first toss confirmed the captain's fears, the rope foil ten ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... illustrating for the "Artemesai," the University publication. Mining, too, seemed to have a certain fascination for him, and in addition to his course in building, he gained considerable experience in mining operations. Then came the toss-up. Mining won, but wasn't strong enough to hold out, and thereupon, behold him ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... once a boy who used always to cheat when playing Kati (pitch and toss) and for this the village boys with whom he played used to quarrel with him, saying "Fatherless orphan, why do you cheat?" So one day he asked his mother why they called him that name and whether his father was really ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... And when I toss mine arms to clasp thee tight, Mine own though but in visions of a dream— They who behold the oft-repeated sight, The kind divinities of wood and stream, Let fall great pearly tears that on the ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... yet without recklessness and without indifference to the feelings of others. And when, through thoughtlessness or forgetfulness, as was not unfrequently the case, he happened to find himself in some awkward scrape or perplexity, he would toss back his waving hair with a half-vexed half-comical expression, which would disarm at once his mother's anger, spite of herself, and turn her severe rebuke into a mild remonstrance. Alas, that sin should ever mar such a lovely ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... These forts now stretch all over the island, some in straight lines, some in circles, and some zig-zagging from hill-top to hill-top, some within a quarter of a mile of the next, and others so near that the sentries can toss a cartridge from one to ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... all the air, to toss and quaff, made life a jubilee And changed the children's song and laugh to ...
— An Old Sweetheart of Mine • James Whitcomb Riley
... madam, were not such fools as we often take them to be. They consulted the sortes or lots, and at the last election—we have a potwalloping constituency here—three parts of the voters would have done better if they had trusted to the toss-up of a penny ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... be improper In a relation like this; I wouldn't toss up a copper— (Kitty, come, give me ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... pounds of No. 4 shot. None of the fine mustard-seed or robin, but the heavy duck-shot, that will enter at twenty rods. That is the kind for pigeons, their feathers are so compact; for if you fire at them flying, you might as well toss turnip-seed at them as to shoot fine shot that will glance from their sleek ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes, But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; And He that toss'd you down into the Field, He knows about it ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... spur. It lifts the head of a man as the spur makes the horse toss his; and it quickens the pace with a subtle addition of strength. Such a thought came to Buck Daniels as he stepped again on the veranda of the hotel. It could not have been an altogether pleasant inspiration, for it drained the colour from his face and made ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... are the alternatives before the Roman soldier. On the one hand are his ancestral beliefs, long established and deeply cherished by the nation. Nor does any man quickly toss aside the faith of his fathers. If belief is waning in the primitive mythologies, and if the social life of the Empire is moved by unrest and despair, the problem is to find a greater satisfaction. There have been spoken many beautiful words by the Roman scholars which are sweet ...
— An Easter Disciple • Arthur Benton Sanford
... the hot, midmorning sun. "Guess we could swill the hogs with that milk, rather'n throw it out, Barney. I never seen anything them Durocs wouldn't eat. When you get ready to put the other swill in the cooker, toss that milk in with it and cook ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... now within several steps of Jane, who, with an odd mixture of wistfulness and scare, had been studying Eleanor's attire. When she saw both women looking at her, she began to take a defiant attitude, but the toss of her head was met by one of Mrs. Prency's heartiest smiles, accompanied by a similar recognition from Eleanor. Short as was the time that could elapse before the couple had passed her, it ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... with it!" said the youth at length, tired of her long silence. "Isn't it clear yet? Here's another bit of silver; toss that in, and stir up again;" and he threw a shining half-eagle down on the table. The woman's face brightened as she ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... of usual slumber to plunder you: First your counterpane goes and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you; Then the blanketing tickles - you feel like mixed pickles, so terribly sharp is the pricking, And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking. Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle; Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle! Well, you get some repose ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... you should see a rhinoceros And a tree be in sight, Climb quick, for his might Is a match for the gods,—he can toss Eros.'" ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... children, let us away; Down and away below. Now my brothers call from the bay; Now the great winds shorewards blow; Now the salt tides seawards flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. Children dear, let us ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... stony shallow at night, a companion bearing a torch; then stripping to the thighs and shoulders, wade in; grope with your hands under the stones, sods, and other harbourage, till you find your game, then grip him in your "knieve," and toss ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... which glorify us? Or did Daphne herself take this way on the day of her flight, so that when they came to draught the town, they recognized that it was Daphne Street, and so were spared the trouble of naming it? Or did the Future anonymously toss us back the suggestion, thrifty of some day of her own when she might remember us and say, "Daphne Street!" Already some of us smile with a secret nod at something when we direct a stranger, "You will find the Telegraph ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... turnip-hoeing, demands chiefly strength, quickness, and endurance, and especially endurance. To stand all day in the hay field under the burning sun with its rays leaping back from the super-heated ground, and roll up the windrows into huge bundles and toss them on to the wagon, or to run up a long line of cocks and heave them fork-handle high to the top of a load, calls for something of skill, but mainly for strength of arm and back. But skill had its ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... of their names), to which we are apparently to pay week-end visits of exploration. I have calculated that long before we come to the end of these expeditions the summer—if any—will be over. Whether we shall ever find the land of our hearts' desire is, as the bull himself said, a toss-up. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... is going to Florence bearing with her the answer on which my life depends. They are leaving by the early express. Shall I take it, too? Florence, Rome, Naples—why not? Italy is free to all, and particularly to lovers. I will toss my cap over the mill for the second time. I will get money from somewhere. If I am not allowed to show myself, I will look on from a distance, hidden in the crowd. At a pinch I will disguise myself—as a guide at Pompeii, a lazzarone at Naples. She shall ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sexton dressed in long blue coat, and holding in his hand a wand. This functionary motioned towards the lower end of the church, where were certain benches, partly occupied by poor people and boys. Mrs. Petulengro, however, with a toss of her head, directed her course to a magnificent pew, which was unoccupied, which she opened and entered, followed closely by Tawno Chikno, Mr. Petulengro, and myself. The sexton did not appear by any means to approve of the arrangement, and as I stood next the door, laid his finger ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... "It's a toss-up," replied the other; "hunting always is, because you never know whether the game is there or not. And even if you are lucky enough to start something, perhaps you'll fail to bring ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... but little study of the lower orders of mind and conduct in Christendom to see how fetich-worship still lingers among people called Christians, whether the fetich be the image of a saint or the Virgin, or a verse of the Bible found at random and used much as is a penny-toss to decide minor actions. Or, to look farther south, what means the rabbit's foot carried in the pocket or the various articles of faith now hanging in the limbo between religion and folk-lore in various ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... creatures with faculties expressly made for enjoyment of those sights, sounds, and scents—to say nothing of Love, Dinner, and Sleep, all thrown into the bargain. And these same creatures hate, starve, toss sleepless on their pillows, see nothing pleasant, hear nothing pleasant, smell nothing pleasant—cry bitter tears, say hard words, contract painful illnesses; wither, sink, age, die! What does it mean, Arnold? And how much longer is it ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... this dimmer afternoon! They are ponderous air-ships, black as death, and freighted with the tempest; and at intervals their thunder, the signal-guns of that unearthly squadron, rolls distant along the deep of heaven. These nearer heaps of fleecy vapor—methinks I could roll and toss upon them the whole day long!— seem scattered here and there, for the repose of tired pilgrims through the sky. Perhaps—for who can tell?—beautiful spirits are disporting themselves there, and will bless my mortal eye with the brief ...
— Sights From A Steeple (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... craft from sunny Smyrna Glazed with ice in Boston Bay; Out they toss the fig-drums cheerly, Livelier ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his hearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a breastband to lean ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... pistols. I'll give my word that you've never fired them. His second will give his word about his. There'll be two pairs of pistols, and we'll toss up, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... mere fragments of a minute and Perk had already drawn back his hand to make ready for his first toss. It was his intention to follow this up with a second bomb, hurled in double-quick order, for a dual fire would ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... can't find them," suggested Bert. "You know what you and Flossie do with your books and straps, when you come home from school Friday afternoons—you toss them any old place ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... a little, several times, to toss in once some old bags that I made into a bed, and next they gave me a little water and some sandwiches—German bologna sausage sandwiches, Ned! What do you think ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... way." Mr. Rowlandson nodded. "It is strange what fortuitous circumstances seem to direct the current of our lives. I say they seem to, Mrs. Landless, for it may be only seeming. Perhaps all is planned for us, even when our decisions rest on the toss of a penny." ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... "lady moshuns," he would take little mincing steps, and toss his head from side to side, and pretend to ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... said, laying a slightly hesitating hand upon her shoulder, "what the devil does it matter what he thinks? Surely you don't—you can't care—care the toss of ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... With a toss of her head, Mrs. Bean stalked into the next room. The moments passed. Still she did not return. When she did ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd |
