"Tease" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... contrary, had led out one of his maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played a thousand little knaveries with impunity: he was full of practical jokes, and his delight was to tease his aunts and cousins, yet, like all madcap youngsters, he was a universal favorite among the women. The most interesting couple in the dance was the young officer and a ward of the squire's, a beautiful blushing girl of seventeen. From several shy glances which I had noticed in the course of ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... was what schoolboys call a tease; but his teasings were never spiteful, and seldom unkind. His ill-humor, easily aroused, disappeared like a cloud driven by the wind; it evaporated in words, and disappeared of its own will. Sometimes, however, when matters of public import were concerned, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... they didn't give him a show to learn nothing; kept him at the same work all the time, and he didn't have cheek enough to arsk the boss for a rise, lest he'd be sacked. He couldn't fight, an' the boys used to tease him; they'd wait outside the shop to have a lark with Arvie. I'd like to see 'em do it to me. He couldn't fight; but then, of course, he wasn't strong. They don't bother me while I'm strong enough to heave a rock; but then, of course, ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... the dainty Ariel in so smoothly with our best sympathies. Though Goodfellow by name, his powers and aptitudes for mischief are quite unchecked by any gentle relentings of fellow-feeling: in whatever distresses he finds or occasions he sees much to laugh at, nothing to pity: to tease and vex poor human sufferers, and then to think "what fools these mortals be," is pure fun to him. Yet, notwithstanding his mad pranks, we cannot choose but love the little sinner, and let our fancy frolic with ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Allie!" his hearers would cry. Then they would ask him about the fox-hunting in Bucks, and tease him for further particulars about his sister Edith, ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... always do; everybody tries to tease and plague me now. You and Jean, and father, and that old fool, Rouel, are all alike," and Annot gave symptoms ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... me a little light-headed. I think to-day I am foolisher than usual. Thoughts that would not tease other people, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... he remarked, "that you cannot learn not to ask to do what I have forbidden. I shall have to punish you every time you do it; for you must learn that no means no, and that you are never to coax or tease after papa has once said it. I love my little girl very dearly, and want to do all I can to make her happy, but I must have her entirely submissive and obedient to me. But stop crying now," he added, wiping her eyes with his handkerchief. "Kiss me, and tell me you are going to be a good girl, ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... rather liked to tease her, I said she was mistaken, for here in Jerusalem did the great Rabbi Akiba fall in love with his wife before marriage. 'Oh, that was quite different!' she replied. 'Not at all,' said I, for were not feasts and rejoicing held so that youths and maidens could meet one another ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... Hamlyn de Valence alone of the other pages had been selected to attend upon the Prince in this expedition; and he, though scornful and peremptory, did not think the boy worthy of his attention, and did not actively tease him. ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fellows and had fallen ignominiously back to the earth. He expected to be greeted with jeering words and with cutting remarks, not so much in the way of malice as of fun. He resolved to take it calmly, however, and to give way to no show of feeling, hoping that thus the boys would soon forget to tease him. ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... the baby with pleasure, while his good lady does these things; and in bush villages, he always escorts her so as to be on hand in case of leopards, or other local unpleasantnesses. When inside the village he will lay down his gun, within handy reach, and build the house, tease out fibre to make game nets with, and plait baskets, or make pottery with the ladies, cheerily chatting ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... over heels, throwing somersaults, like clowns in the circus, with a "Here we are!" I can think of nothing like it but Rabelais, who had the same extraordinary gift of getting all the go out of words. They do not merely play with words; they romp with them, tickle them, tease them, and somehow the words seem ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... found my threepenny-bit that I lost ages ago, which shows what Eliza is. H. O. had got tired of being the wounded hero, and Dicky was so tired of doing nothing that Dora said she knew he'd begin to tease Noel in a minute; then of course Dicky said he wasn't going to tease anybody—he was going out to the Heath. He said he'd heard that nagging women drove a man from his home, and now he found it was quite true. Oswald always tries to be a peacemaker, so he told Dicky to ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... journeys through all lands, but in his romantic tales he never said anything about himself. He escaped inquisitive pressure by working hard all day; and when he lay down at night, it was not the time to tease him with questions, though many wives ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... twelve years old; he has learnt to read, to write, to speak the truth, to try to be calm when rude boys tease him, and to feel grief when he has done wrong. To love his kind friends he has not to learn—his heart ...
— The Book of One Syllable • Esther Bakewell
... "don't tease her; and when you've been in the green fields of England you'll say insects, not—er—what you did say, if you don't want ladies to faint all around you on the floor." Then she turned to me. ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to you. I don't want a thing. We had tea after the matinee. That's what made me so late. I'm always nagging the girls to go home. It's getting so they tease me about it." ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... with decision. "No fudge, no hot chocolate, no cakes, nothing except work until this bazaar is over, then we'll have a spread that will give you indigestion for a week. Do you solemnly promise to be good and not tease for things to eat, but be a ready and willing ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... worse than he feared, and he was in no mood to be either very imaginative or very indulgent to a girl's whims when Lydia said, suddenly and stiffly, "I wish you wouldn't speak so about Paul. I don't know what makes everybody tease me so about him!" ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... study door opened, and Phil and Felix came out; Phil had his arm over Fee's shoulder, and he began helping him up the steps. I felt they'd want Nannie to themselves,—and, besides, Phil might just have said something to tease me again; so I ran up stairs alone, and ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... innocent, simply because I was so innocent. I played endless child's tricks with my bridal veil, my wreath, my gown. Left alone that night in the room whither I had been conducted in state, I planned a piece of mischief to tease Victor. While I awaited his coming, my heart beat wildly, as it used to do when I was a child stealing into the drawing-room on the last day of the old year to catch a glimpse of the New Year's gifts piled up there in heaps. When my husband ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... "Don't tease mamma with questions," said the Captain; "she is not very well, and rather sad. We must all be very kind and good to poor, dear mamma;" and the Captain raised his wife's hand to his lips as he spoke. Robin seized the other ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... Mollie declared. "I hate the noise of a gun. Oh, I am not afraid, Grace Carter, so you needn't tease; but I prefer more ladylike amusements. I ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... he said; "but that old cock does make me so wild. I know he understands, and he does it on purpose to tease me. I wish ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... contravention of all known principles of the art of war. They harassed their men by long and objectless marches. They ordered towns to be put in a state of defence at first, and then withdrew the garrisons. They engaged whole columns in defiles, where a company of invisible guerrilleros could tease them. They acted, in most instances, as if they had no information or wrong information. The latter, I believe, was nearer the truth. Their system of espionage was inefficient, as the information they got was untrustworthy, and always would be, in the northern provinces, for the feeling ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... pardon; I wanted to catch Lucy and bring her back to prayers. She's quite wild this morning; I expect it's because of the birthday being so near, but it does tease Miss Nelson so when the children don't come in quietly ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... before. It must have been that winter she spent in Boston, just after she came out. That's over five years ago; he's probably dead or married before this. Well, get on with your pretty little tale: not that I see much prettiness about it.—"And when I would tease him to tell me some secret, he would answer, in his own well-chosen language. Some day you will know: you wait and see. By-by, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... so well. O'er all his veins the wandering passion burns, He calls her nymph, and every nymph by turns. 160 Her form to lovely Venus he prefers, Or swears that Venus must be such as hers. She, proud to rule, yet strangely framed to tease, Neglects his offers while her airs she plays, Shoots scornful glances from the bended frown, In brisk disorder trips it up and down, Then hums a careless tune to lay the storm, And sits and blushes, smiles, and yields ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... you acting that will make your hair stand on end, and you shall act too. Bab will be capital for the naughty girls," began Thorny, excited by the prospect of producing a sensation on the boards, and always ready to tease the girls. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... finger. "When you wrote me that note about the Vere, I confess I had my suspicions. Since then they've been confirmed. I know for a fact that Errington has had several private interviews with Vi, and has also written her a good many letters. Some of the fellows in the green-room tease her about her new conquest, and she grins and admits it. Oh, the whole thing's plain enough! Only last week, when he went up to town to see his man Neville on business he called on Vi at her own apartments in Arundel Street, Strand. She told me so ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... thee t' know if thee dostna coom? Th' lads on'y know what I tell 'em. As long as ye can stir hand and foot the men think ye're hearty. But I'm none so bad, on'y a bit of a cold sets me achin'. An' th' lads tease me so t' ha' somebody wi' me t' do the work—they make me ache worse wi' talkin'. If thee'dst come and stay wi' me, they'd let me alone. The Poysers canna want thee so bad as I do. But take thy bonnet off, an' let me look ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... had gone away to his business, and her mother had begun to make preserves in the kitchen, she went down cellar, into the wash-room, and began to tease Norah. Norah, who was fond of the child, and in general very good-natured, was not in a mood this morning to ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... he was making it into a very small place in order to tease her; so she pouted a little, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... thought that Johnny would run, and then Reddy meant to run after him and pull his tail and tease him all the way home. Now, Reddy Fox got as big a surprise as Johnny had had when Reddy pulled his tail. Johnny didn't stop to think that Reddy Fox was twice as big as he, but with his eyes snapping, and chattering as only a little ...
— Old Mother West Wind • Thornton W. Burgess
... seemed nothing but shadows, and curtained with green of finest sea-silk. Siegmund loved to poke the white pebbles, and startle the little ghosts of crabs in a shadowy scuttle through the weed. He would tease the expectant anemones, causing them to close suddenly over his finger. But Helena liked to watch without touching things. Meanwhile the sun was slanting behind the cross far away to the west, and the light was swimming in silver and ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... going to take part in the fight, all these preparations would be thrown away. It was really very difficult to know what he would or would not do, for he was so altered by his one term at school that he hardly seemed like the same boy. He did not tease or bully them, but he simply took as little notice as possible, and spoke to them in a lofty, superior sort of way, as though he were a very grown-up person and they very little children. Sometimes, however, he quite forgot to be dignified and condescending, and then Drusie hoped he meant ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... 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 tease so!"' ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... away for the winter; slide-valves, pistons, shafts, were examined and thoroughly cleaned. All this was done with the very greatest care. Amundsen looked after that engine as if it had been his own child; late and early he was down tending it lovingly; and we used to tease him about it, to see the defiant look come into his eyes and hear him say: "It's all very well for you to talk, but there's not such another engine in the world, and it would be a sin and a shame not to take good care ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... senses, gratification of the palate, in short, all the grosser tastes. All that is not only like savages, but like animals. They are merry and contented at the prospect of a savory meal, and they are fond of playing tricks on each other—both sexes chaff and tease constantly. I believe that the development of our larger brain is the intellectual work of man during hundreds and thousands of years, and it would gratify me to see it raised to a still ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... only knew how much I liked you last night, you would never be cruel to me again. Why, I thought you the greatest girl in the world! Please let's part friends to-night again!" I would not promise, for I knew I would tease him yet; and at supper, when I insisted on his taking a glass of milk, his face turned so red that Mrs. Carter pinched my arm blue, and refused to help me to preserves because I was making Will mad! But Waller helped me, and I drank my own milk to Mr. Carter's health with my sweetest smile. ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... skill in deserting her at the right moments, was now again her desire. Cessation in his love-making had revivified her love. Such feeling as Eustacia had idly given to Wildeve was dammed into a flood by Thomasin. She had used to tease Wildeve, but that was before another had favoured him. Often a drop of irony into an indifferent ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... "Don't tease, Delphine," said the Countess fretfully. "I am very miserable, I am lost. Oh! my poor father, it is hopeless ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp In playing tricks with nature, giving laws To distant worlds, and trifling in their own. Is't not a pity now, that tickling rheums Should ever tease the lungs and blear the sight Of oracles like these? Great pity, too, That having wielded the elements, and built A thousand systems, each in his own way, They should go out in fume and be forgot? Ah, what is life thus spent? and what are they But frantic ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... it is his delight to enter without knocking, and be found lying with half-shut eyes on this friendly couch, while the family life goes on around him without a question. Nobody is to mind him, to tease him with inquiries or salutations. If he will, he breaks into the stream of conversation, and sometimes, rousing up from one of these dreamy trances, finds himself, ere he or they know how, in the mood for free and friendly talk. People often wonder, 'How do you catch So-and-so? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... was exactly what delighted him. And he continued to tease her in the same style till Laura and Amabel came running in with ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... away his hours of enforced idleness, he is collecting facts for a book to be entitled "Customs of the Arabs," as exemplified by the life of Gafsa. The idea came to him quite suddenly, after reading some descriptions which he considered sadly misleading. Customs of the Arabs! To tease him, I quote the authority of Bordereau, who says that there are practically no Arabs in Gafsa; that the customs of this town are one thing and those of the Arabs another, unless he applies the word Arab to all the ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... had again become silent, dull, and unhappy, was brooding over her miseries and disappointments, and she declined. Lord Kilcullen was behind her chair, and when they pressed her, he whispered to her, "Don't sing for them, Fanny; it's a shame that they should tease you at such a time; I wonder how my mother can have ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... Love will never tease Poor little Di, or prove that he's A graceless rover. She's happy now as Mrs. Smith— But less polite when ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... "Don't let Pierre tease you, persuade you, frighten you, or bulldoze you into marrying that Morrison. Do you ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... way again. "Grif," she said, "I don't think I am very wise, and I know I am not very thoughtful. I do things often that it would be better to leave undone,—I am fond of making the Philistines admire me, and I sometimes tease you; but, dear old fellow, right deep down at the bottom of my heart," faltering slightly, "I do—do want to be a good woman; and there is never a night passes—though I never told you so before—that I do not pray to God to let me help you and let you ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... were children. At present I am a poor seaman, but I hope in a few years to rise in my profession, till I am able to support a wife in the style to which you have been accustomed, if then you will give me your hand I shall be more happy than I can express. Now, don't tease me any longer, but tell me if ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... on her tiptoes to look on a shelf, turned her head to her father, laughed merrily, and showing her white teeth, sang again as if to tease him: ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... pal, have you ever wondered why I loved you so much—why you stood so close to my heart? I used to tease you and say it was because we were no relation to each other, didn't I? If you had been really my niece, proper respect (on your part, of course, for your aged uncle!) and the barrier of a generation ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... to us that he understood children as well as sheep; at all events he would allow them to tease and pull him about most unmercifully, and actually appeared to enjoy it. Our first riding-lessons were taken on his back; but old Pechicho eventually made one mistake, after which he was relieved from the labour of carrying us. When I was about four years ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... bond. I had claims on Witbeck which justified me in exposing him to some hazard. Prevost had a family, a clear, independent estate, and did not owe a cent in the world; but he had better nerves than Witbeck, and would not tease me. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... said to Samson's wife, "Tease your husband until he tells us the riddle, or else we will burn up you and your father's house. Did you invite us here to make us poor?" So Samson's wife wept before him and said, "You only hate me and do not love me at all! You have told a riddle to ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... on talking with Lulu, and now again he was the tease, the braggart, the unbridled, ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... stories, the Sunbeams are made to talk and laugh and play, just like children. They are delightful. Sometimes when they are naughty, Father Sun shuts them up in a cloud all day, where it is wet and rainy, and then they get good and promise not to tease and be bad any more. And then he lets them out, and they come down among the flowers and children and make everything bright and happy. The fancy is pretty, and we are sure the little children will thoroughly enjoy the little Sunbeams. ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... he did not say so, in so many words, but from the whole tone of his letter he evidently meant so. Father thought he did, and even tried to tease me about the New Year's wedding—asking me how many hundreds I should need to buy my ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Friar of Copmanhurst he was so courteous and respectful that Robin began to wonder whether he himself had ever properly regarded the clerk in the past. If so great a man should bow to him, what ought Robin to do? Robin remembered that he had often ventured to rally and tease this good-natured master who had taught ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... sadden; make unhappy &c 828; plunge into sorrow, grieve, fash^, afflict, distress; cut up, cut to the heart. displease, annoy, incommode, discompose, trouble, disquiet; faze, feaze^, feeze [U.S.]; disturb, cross, perplex, molest, tease, tire, irk, vex, mortify, wherret^, worry, plague, bother, pester, bore, pother, harass, harry, badger, heckle, bait, beset, infest, persecute, importune. wring, harrow, torment, torture; bullyrag; put to the rack, put to the question; break on the wheel, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... watch hanging on that nail by the table? Seems to me I saw it there this morning. I remember thinking I would tease him for ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... distributed here and there, were some half a dozen professional fighters on foot, called banderilleros and chulos, besides which there were two on horseback, known as picadors. The former held scarlet flags in their hands, with which to confuse and tease the bull; the latter were armed with a long pole each, at the end of which was a sharp piece of steel capable of wounding the bull, but not deeply or dangerously. These fighters were a hardened set of villains, if ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... laugh and dropping into his gracious but still peremptory ardent tones. She remained alone upon the level square of smooth sand. Not a soul was in sight, for when the King came to seek distraction with his horses he brought no one that could tease him. She ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... Betty, please, and let us be friends," said Frances, coaxingly. "I am not a duchess. I am only a girl like yourself. My name is Mistress Jennings—Frances. Nelly Gwynn was jesting when she spoke of me as a duchess, and only wanted to tease you when she objected to the table linen. She is good and kind—no one can ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... magistrates would not take any notice of their complaints, besides, it made the masters treat them still worse. Said one, "We go to de magistrate to complain, and den when we come back de busha do all him can to vex us. He wingle (tease) us, and wingle us; de book-keeper curse us and treaten us; de constable he scold us, and call hard names, and dey all strive to make we mad, so we say someting wrong, and den dey take we to de magistrate for insolence." Such was the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... use' to kyar Miss Anne's books fur her ev'y day, an' ef de road wuz muddy or she wuz tired, he use' to tote her; an' 'twarn' hardly a day passed dat he didn' kyar her some'n' to school— apples or hick'y nuts, or some'n. He wouldn't let none o' de chil'en tease her, nurr. Heh! One day, one o' de boys poked he finger at Miss Anne, and arfter school Marse Chan he axed 'im 'roun' 'hine de schoolhouse out o' sight, an' ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... some mope and weep, And wish THEIR frugal sires would keep Their only sons at home;— Some tease the future tense, and plan The full-grown doings of the man, And pant ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... joy you long for; 'Twill be all steeped in sweetness and delight. You'll live together, in your faithful loves, Like two sweet children, like two turtle-doves; You'll never fail to quarrel, scold, or tease, And you may do with him ...
— Tartuffe • Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere
... brother, if a prime amuser, was also a prime tease, and being nearer Donald in age ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... calculated to restore the good humor she had lost in not finding him at the dock. "Cannot come. Awfully sorry. Can't leave Brussels. Hurry on. Will explain here. Richard Savage." Her sister-in-law and fellow-traveler from London was mean enough to tease her with sly references to the beauty of Brussels women and the fickleness of all mankind. And so there was stored away for Mr. Savage's benefit a very ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... it to tease old Madam Buzwig," says her ladyship. She wants to treat me as a child, and do the grandmother over me. I don't want no grandmothers, I don't. I'm the head of this house, and I intend to let her know it. And I've brought her all the way from London in order to tell it her, too! La! how she did look ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tell you, it was so very odd! I didn't mean to do so, because you children would tease me; but now I will to make you laugh, for it's a bad omen to cry over a bride, they say. My dear, that gouty Mr. MacGregor, when I went in with some of my nice broth last week (Hugh slops so, and he's such a fidget, I took it myself), after he had eaten every drop ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... whatever it is, And when people are busy take care not to tease, But endeavor, as much as I'm able, ...
— Aunt Kitty's Stories • Various
... the wings—that is from the side, you know—and chase me, for I'll be dressed in a ragged suit and on my coat-tails will be fastened the piece of cloth your dog likes so to tease. He'll grab hold of that, hang on, and I'll drag him across the stage. That ought to ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... the evening at Mr. (now Sir Robert) Chambers's in the Temple, where he accordingly came, though he continued to be very ill. Chambers, as is common on such occasions, prescribed various remedies to him. JOHNSON. (fretted by pain,) 'Pr'ythee don't tease me. Stay till I am well, and then you shall tell me how to cure myself.' He grew better, and talked with a noble enthusiasm of keeping up the representation of respectable families. His zeal on this subject was a circumstance ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... would, ladI don't think you would," said his softening relative. "I love to tease you a little sometimes; it keeps up the spirit of discipline and habit of subordinationYou will pass your time happily here having me to command you, instead of Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in Arms,' as Milton ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... am going to tell you? No, indeed; they can do it fast enough for themselves. Persons who take too much wine are their most constant companions; they pounce upon them and twitch and tease and torment them until the poor wine-bibber trembles from head to foot. They won't let him sleep or eat or think, and fairly drive him crazy. Oh, imps are really to be dreaded! But I must now begin my ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... coming is in the same regiment, the 3d Life Guards. Perhaps when—— But there is no use my thinking about it, only somehow I am feeling so much better to-night—gay, and as if I did not mind being very poor—that I was obliged to tease Malcolm a little after dinner. I would play Patience, and never lifted my eyes ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... love-poems and in the poems of satire, in the ballads and in the narrative pieces, and notably in the story of The Pope and the Net, an anecdote in verse, told with the frank relish of the thing, and without the least attempt to tease ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... him. Here he was almost happy, for he was almost unaware of life. It was all blue vacancy and suspension. The sea is the great answer and consoler, for it means either nothing or everything, and so need not tease the brain. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... promptly. He appeared to be rich, and was bidding more to tease the old countryman than because he ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... the birdies, when they come back in spring,— Tease and tell them we have fathomed all their secrets small, Every secret hiding-place and dear and precious, thing, Which they left behind the leaves, the ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... displeasure, which, upon my honour, I cannot for my soul explain."—"Lord! Mr. Pickle," said Emilia, who had by this time recollected herself, "I never questioned your gallantry and taste; but I am resolved that you shall never have cause to exercise your talents at my expense; so that you tease yourself and me to no purpose. Come, Sophy, let us walk home again."—"Good God! madam," cried the lover, with great emotion, "why will you distract me with such barbarous indifference? Stay, dear Emilia!—I conjure you on my knees to stay and hear ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... he was an amiable fellow, and he had this peculiarity, that if you looked at him you always began to laugh, and then his broad face broke up into a smile, as if he was pleased because you laughed at him, and tease, worry, or do what you liked, he ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... and fractious, peevish, and pettish. He is morbidly anxious about trifles: slight ruffles on the surface, and trivial annoyances in the family circle or during the course of business, worry, flurry, tease and fret him, nothing satisfying or soothing his mind, and everything, to his distempered fancy, going wrong within the sacred precincts of domestic life. He is quick at fancying affronts, and greatly exaggerates the slightest and most trifling acts of supposed inattention. The ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... happens To get a slight fall, She'll cry if the naughty boys tease her; She'll cry for a spoon, And she'll cry for the moon; So there's no use in trying ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... minutes before he could reply. He then said—"I see it is useless, and I will not tease you any more; but, Jacob, do not let the fire of injustice which you have received from your fellow-creatures prey so much upon your mind, or induce you to form the mistaken idea that the world is bad. As you live on, you will ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... child, who was perfectly delighted to be left by himself at Stoneleigh, where he could do as he pleased with Anthony and Dorothy, and his teacher, too, for that matter, and where he was free to talk with and tease and at last make love to Daisy Allen, for his Uncle John paid but little attention to him beyond paying the sum he had pledged, and having him in his family at London and in Derbyshire, for a few weeks each year when ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... upon the forlorn group, as they went to the twin's and Olive's rooms, without finding any trace, and then returned to the sitting-room. Bea half hoped and expected that they would find Ernestine sitting by the fire, full of laugh, and ready to tease them on their fright and search; but she was disappointed, for the room was dreary and lonely, the light wood fire having died of neglect; and everything looked unutterably forlorn to their anxious eyes. In an ominous silence all four sat down on ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... I only did it to tease you a little—not to hurt your feelings, believe me," replied Emma. "You shall not be a miller if you don't like it. Henry will do better, perhaps, than you; but as for our quitting this place, I have no idea of it's being ever possible. I have made up my mind to live ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... for you!" Then she turned to Mary Hope, who was listening with titillating horror to the painted Jezebel's unorthodox method of reproving her offspring. "Get right down, honey, and come in and rest. And don't mind Lance; he's an awful tease, especially when he likes a person. Tie your horse to the fence—or turn him in the corral, if he'll let ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... we would not tease her about it any more, though we could not help talking about it a ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... of which, in such a contest of Titans, had an inappreciable value of position: partly for its absolute interference with the plans of our enemy, but still more from its keeping alive through central Europe the sense of a deep-seated vulnerability in France. Even to tease the coasts of our enemy, to mortify them by continual blockades, to insult them by capturing if it were but a baubling schooner under the eyes of their arrogant armies, repeated from time to time a sullen proclamation of power lodged ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... touched by age Of Adieu think. But I'm like that "Awful Dad," Though this makes my rivals mad, Don't true Gladdyites feel glad? What do you think? I'm a genuine Evergreen; It is that excites their spleen Who my lingering on the scene A great "do" think. I regret, so much, to tease them! My last exit would much ease them. But Retire!—and just to please them! What do ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... at work to tease and torment the good man with every petty and malicious trick his malevolence could invent. He would shout opprobrious words after the other in the streets, to the entertainment of all who heard him; he would parade up and down before Colonel ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... with his long legs dangling over the derrick pit, watched his father and 'Masso tease the derrick into swinging the great blocks to the flat car for the ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the fresh cold water, Julien tried to draw Jeanne away to tease her. She resisted and their lips met and parted, and the stream of cold water splashed their faces, their necks, their clothes and their hands, and their kisses mingled ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the frog gently, to obtain ciliated epithelium; and mount in very weak salt solution— the cilia will still be active. Squamous epithelium may be seen by the student similarly scraping the interior of his own cheek. Take a piece of muscle from one of the frog's limbs, tease out with needles upon a glass slip, and examine. To see the striations clearly, the high power will be needed. Compare a piece of muscle from the wall of the alimentary canal. Similarly ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... Ross showed no resentment. "What I'm worried about is my mother," he confessed. "She's so sharp about finding out things. She wouldn't tease me—she'd just be sorry for me. But she'll think ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... had never worn a ribbon, and that you'd gone bareheaded all the days of your life. But you needn't talk: it's not so long ago but I can remember when you were as fond of dress as any girl in the city. I remember how you used to tease mamma ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... if you weren't such an awful tease," admitted A.O. "But I know how you'll criticize him afterward. You'll make a byword of everything he said and quote it to me till kingdom come. You know how it would be, don't you, Mary?" turning to her. ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. God knows you have more spirit ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and lively young chicks. Early in the spring Jonathan had loved to caress and cuddle up the little rolls of yellow and black down; but now that they were great stalking, ragged fowls, putting on all sorts of airs, they excited his ridicule, and he longed to tease them, and the last year's brood of clucking hens and crowing roosters, that didn't quite know what ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... hear! Ray, go right this minute and call Miriam and bring me my glasses. Izzy, do you think it's so nice that a grown man should tease his ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... then, or tease me to do any of these things? I would rather stay at home to-day, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... struck him that the suspicions at headquarters might be well-founded; in that case he had been rash to put his head in the lion's mouth. For it had been wholly his own notion. Partly to tease Asgill, whom he did not love the more because he owed him money, and partly to see the rustic beauty whom, rumour had it, Asgill was courting in the wilds—a little, too, because life at Tralee ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... the side of the vessel, but now the fascination of the scene had all faded out. The restless billows were dreary, savage, hungry and dizzying; they seemed to claw at, and tear, and wrench the struggling ship as a group of huge lions would tease and worry a captive dog. They distressed her and all on board by dealing a blow which would send her reeling in one direction, but before she had swung the full length that impulse would have sent her, catching her on the opposite side with a stunning shock that sent her another ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... is not to tease you, and hurt you, my sweet, But only for kindness and care, That I wash you and dress you, and make you look neat, And comb out your ...
— Phebe, the Blackberry Girl - Uncle Thomas's Stories for Good Children • Anonymous
... a ghost of a doubt as to the final acceptance! As if I dared play this heavy fish an instant, with such a frail line? Ah, mamma! don't tease me by such tactics! I am but an insignificant mouse, and you and Mr. Congreve are such a grim pair of cats, that I should never venture the faintest squeak. Don't roll me under your velvet paws, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... more than childish joy showing in her face, an older person would have seen that, but it was largely lost on Rolf. There was a tendency to blush when she laughed, a disposition to tease her "big brother," to tyrannize over ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... out, "Oh, don't tease. We're not going near the Matterhorn. We're going to read beautiful books, and see beautiful things and think beautiful thoughts." She dragged Barbara a step or two aside. "Don't you think this is the best thing that could have happened?" ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... told them that Benjy had made him tease and worry the cats and dogs so often that he had quite learned to like it. All the beasts were very angry at this, and said ...
— The Story Hour • Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin
... necessary to little Silvio. If she only went out-of-doors for a few moments, he considered it a misfortune. He was obedient and quiet enough, however, when she stayed with him; and did every thing she bade him do, and did not tease his mother as before. ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... water he swims in is warmed by the sun. In the gardens in which you strive to rear these beasts, they are kept in dark miserable places, where the water is cold, and which the sun rarely penetrates. You are not kind to them yourselves, and, besides, you allow visitors to tease them. ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... tossed about by a stormy and temperamental wife—and his eyes used to rest yearningly upon little Enid Royce, seeing in her the promise of "virtuous and comely Christian womanhood," to use one of his own phrases. Claude, in the boys' class across the aisle, used to tease her and try to distract her, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... not notice that her aunt's face was growing paler and paler. She observed that Marthe was going out less and less, but she attributed it to her stay-at-home disposition, about which she used often to tease her. Once or twice, when she called, she had met the doctor coming out. She had asked ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... offered Ritson a slice of beef, when that strange man burst out in such outrageous tones at what he chose to suppose an insult, that Leyden threatened to "thraw his neck" if he were not silent, a threat which frightened Ritson out of the cottage. On another occasion, simply in order to tease Ritson, Leyden complained that the meat was overdone, and sent to the kitchen for a plate of literally raw beef, and ate it up solely for the purpose of shocking his crazy rival in antiquarian research. Poor Leyden did not long survive his experience of the Indian climate. ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends to death. The chance of a gentleman or lady with a given mortal ailment to live a certain time is as good again as that of the common sort of coarse people. As you go down the social ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... tease," said Mrs. Taylor of her childhood friend, and Mr. Taylor observed that there was always safety in numbers. "She'll get used to the ways of this country quicker than our little ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... got Pedro and the bear all the soda water and small drinks that they cared for at the country stores and hotels. Occasionally Pedro would push the cork in very tight to tease the performer, who would sometimes growl and box the bottle with his paw, to the ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... see you without anyone knowing it. I shall be at Les Fresnes on the 2d of September, the day before the hunting season opens, as I do not want to miss it, so that I may tease these gentlemen. You are too good, aunt, and you will allow them, as you usually do when there are no strange guests, to come to table, under pretext of fatigue, without dressing ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... make your letters right, the girls would not tease you," said the principal, kindly. "Why do you persist in turning ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... position was thus to the Boer rifleman an ideal one for the most exceptional of his fighting practices, the close offensive. In the subsequent attack, every detail was typical of his methods on such occasions. At 6.30 a.m. a long-range sniping fire began to tease the occupants of the hill. They vainly searched amongst the broken kopjes for sight of an enemy. Growing, certainly, but almost imperceptibly, in volume and accuracy, this fire was directed chiefly at the New Zealanders on the east, and by 10 a.m. had become so intense that an attack in that ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... exceptions, he remains throughout them tightly buttoned up in his long and legendary frock-coat. There is no laughter and no tears in his letters; he is occasionally extremely angry, and exudes drops of poison, like the captive scorpion which he caught when he was in Italy, and loved to watch and tease. But there is no self-abandonment, and very little emotion; the letters are principally historical and critical, "finger-posts for commentators." They give valuable information about the genius of his ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... secretiveness, their inveterate distrust of every one who did not speak their dialect and look exactly like themselves. They sat there inwardly uneasy in spite of their wooden exterior, stealing glances at him when he was not looking, and wishing him at Jericho. He felt tempted to tease them a little. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Thistle (Dipsacus fullonum) is so termed from its use in combing and dressing cloth,—teasan, to tease,— three Teaselheads being the arms of the Cloth Weavers' Company. This is found in the neighbourhood of the cloth districts, but is not considered to be a British plant. It is probably a cultivated variety of the wild Teasel, but differs by having the bristles ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... animal, leaving the companies without even one mule! The poor things are still in camp on the prairie, waiting for something, anything, to move them on. General Phillips is mightily pleased that the Indians did not succeed in getting the animals from his command, and I am pleased that they cannot tease me any more. ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... am not tired. He can't tease me, thank you, Valeria. I think, Madam, I will have Paris muslin. Silk ...
— The Sweet Girl Graduates • Rea Woodman
... might ha' told you, 't other day, If you'd been here. Now,—he's gone away. Come to think on, 't wouldn't ha' been no use If you'd called here earlier. His excuse Always was, whenever folks would ask him Where he hailed from, an' would tease an' task him;— What d' you s'pose? He just ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... perfectly well it is not any such thing. As a pledge of our good faith—does that sound nice and lawyer-like?" Will was studying law, and Helen, too, liked to tease occasionally—"I do affirm that if you will do that for us, I will do something nice for him, on ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... liked him best of all. That may perhaps have been because he was the best-looking of us. She said once that he reminded her of some one she used to know a long time before, when she was young. That must have been a long time before, indeed. He used to tease the ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... his fields with his magnificent Newfoundland dog at his side, he looked very like what a frank, wealthy, Conservative gentleman ought to be. He spoke freely and unaffectedly to the people he met, and though he indulged his children and allowed them to tease himself far too much, he would not suffer them ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... custom to tease his aunt, and while she snorted and sniffed, she enjoyed it, for whatever she thought of a Babylonian life, she secretly worshiped this brilliant young nephew who so well ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... little if the doctor would have let her. She was gathering herself together for the effort, when, within arm's reach now, she saw the tempting paper, and seized it with glee, for in spite of her predicament she did want to tease Frank. A glance showed that it was not the composition nor a note, but the beginning of a letter from Mrs. Minot to her sister, and Jill was about to lay it down when her own name caught her eye, and she could not resist reading it. Hard words to write of one so young, doubly ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... she fanned and rocked her great, big, darling, fat self in the strong rocker I always kept in the breezy angle of the porch for her. "Al is not old enough to have proved himself entirely, and from what I hear—" she paused with the big hearty smile that she always wears when she begins to tease or match-make, and she does them both ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... roasted potatoes to Madame's tapioca pudding, whereby he gets very shamefaced, as Schillie, with blunt sincerity, points out his mistake. Then behind us he shakes his fist at the boys, while they invent fresh nonsense to tease him. In the meantime the dispute runs hot and high between the little girls as to who is to sit next to their beloved captain, Gatty and Serena making believe that they will assert their rights as Signori Priori, and take ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... would kiss and make up, and the wedding bells would ring just as soon as Oscar's salary grew large enough to tease a pocketbook. ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... Ferrari took it upon himself to reply roughly. "Don't talk nonsense, baby! You know your papa has gone away—you were too naughty for him, and he will never come back again. He has gone to a place where there are no tiresome little girls to tease him." ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... teasing her, and chuckled with delight when his indulgent mother would tell her visiting friends that he was a great tease. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... begged. "I dare anything in these circumstances, the greater outrage includes the less. If I abdicate you I feel myself entitled to tease you. No, I think you had better not place too much faith in Mr. Beale, who doesn't seem to be a member of the regular police force, and is, I presume, one of those amateur gentlemen who ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... cause a foolish number. A blanket stretch a cloud, a shame, all that bakery can tease, all that is beginning and yesterday yesterday we had it met. It means some ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... be a good wife, and manage all the common things, and not tease you to be like other men, if you will sometimes read your books to me and explain to me what life means, and why it is so beautiful, and why ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... I loved you, John: Why will you tease me day by day, And wax a weariness to think upon With always ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... in assuming that he was trying to tease you?" asked the rector. "When he persisted in wanting to show you how the forward pass is made? I think it's quite likely he was sincere; he's so enthusiastic over football that it doesn't occur to him ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... even speaking to any one about it; and, on the other hand, I would set to work tomorrow, were the Lord to bid me do so. This calmness of mind, this having no will of my own in the matter, this only wishing to tease my Heavenly Father in it, this only seeking His and not my honour in it; this state of heart, I say, is the fullest assurance to me that my heart is not under a fleshly excitement, and that, if I am helped ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... not," she continued. "I can see it. Do you know? I am very glad. It was foolish of me to tease you. You will forgive me? ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... as a red fox or a gray woodchuck. She had nothing in the world to do but to watch Elsie; she had nothing to care for but this girl and her father. She had never liked Dick too well; for he used to make faces at her and tease her when he was a boy, and now he was a man there was something about him—she could not tell what—that made her suspicious of him. It was no small matter to get her ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... could not pretend any longer not to hear, she answered Prudy, half vexed, half laughing, "O, dear, I s'pose you'll tease and tease till you find out. Won't you never say a word to ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... for a time that father absolutely ventured to tease him a little, whereupon he turned stoutly about and declared: "I have never denied the inspiration and value of congenial female society, and the mere fact that circumstances have shut me from it so much of late years makes me all the more appreciative of present privileges. Oh, Dick, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... will," said Jenny, half vexed at Tom's pertinacity, and half amusing herself, for she thought it good fun to tease him. ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... dinner, and when we went down to the drawing-room there was great exhilaration, Swinburne leading the fun. Morris was, as usual, very serious, and, in discussing some subject of conversation, Swinburne began to chaff and tease him, and finally gave him a vigorous thrust in the stomach, which sent him backwards into a high wardrobe, on the outer corners of which stood Rossetti's two favorite blue and white hawthorn jars, a pair unrivaled in London, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... out loud from Sylvia's Lovers; Sylvia Robson once lived in a little farm-house near Upgang, which we know well, and at Whitby every one reads about Sylvia Robson; or else we tell stories, or inform each other what a jolly time we're having, and tease old Chucker-out, who gets quite excited, and we admire the discretion with which he disposes of his huge body as ballast to trim the boat, and remains perfectly still in spite of his excitement ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the governess as well as Nan did she would have known that it was worse than useless to "tease." As it was, she was aware of some force here that did not appear in her own easy-going mother, and unconsciously she bowed to it—but even as she did so she gave a last wail of entreaty from pure ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... collar yesterday for my little white keepsake from Constantinople. Fie! Mary, you should not tease the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... are sitting on the golden floor of Jove's palace and drinking one another's health in the nectar with which Hebe from time to time supplies them. Jove begins to tease Juno, and to provoke her with some sarcastic remarks that are pointed at her though not addressed ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... most senseless thing in the world, is sometimes revealed to fools. I don't think that adjutant of ours believed in his own words. He just wanted to tease Tomassov from habit. Purely from habit. We of course said nothing, and so he took his head in his hands and fell into a doze as he sat on a log ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... I be with either, Were t' other dear charmer away! But while ye thus tease me together, To neither a word will I say. Beggar's Opera, Act ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various |
