"Tip-top" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indeed you were always a tip-top scholar. I didn't ever know how good you were till ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... the night afore last by the Honorable Capting Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons, whose Mar took him out, after a fortnight, jest to punish him, she said. But, Law bless you, I promise you, he punished my champagne, and had a party ere every night—reglar tip-top swells, down from the clubs and the West End—Capting Ragg, the Honorable Deuceace, who lives in the Temple, and some fellers as knows a good glass of wine, I warrant you. I've got a Doctor of Diwinity ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and if you could have seen me at a children's party at Macready's the other night going down a country dance with Mrs. M. you would have thought I was a country gentleman of independent property residing on a tip-top farm, with the wind blowing straight in ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... great on books, perhaps, but knew what was what and who was who as well as another,—knew how to make the little cottage look pretty, how to set out a tea-table, and, what a good many women never can find out, knew her own style and "got herself up tip-top," as our young friend Master Geordie, Colonel Sprowle's heir-apparent, remarked to his friend from one of the fresh-water colleges. Flowers were abundant now, and she had dressed her rooms tastefully with them. The centre-table had two or three gilt-edged books lying carelessly about ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... nothing more than an abstracted frown over the tip-top edge of his paper, I defiantly swung into The Humming Coon, which apparently had no more effect than Herman Lohr. So with malice aforethought I slowly and deliberately pounded out the Beethoven Funeral March. I lost myself, in fact, in ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... heartily. "You've got a right to be tired. But when you've had some hot lunch and a cup of hot coffee you'll be tip-top again. You'll see." ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... horse is in the corral, and I couldn't pick him out now. My lance and things are in the wagon. I'll go and have a look at the barrier. I'm feeling tip-top." ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... Elsewhere you may have—for money—dishonesty, drunkenness, dirt, laziness, and profound incapacity. But the veritable shining-red-faced shameless laundress; the true Mrs. Sweeney—in figure, colour, texture, and smell, like the old damp family umbrella; the tip-top complicated abomination of stockings, spirits, bonnet, limpness, looseness, and larceny; is only to be drawn at the fountain-head. Mrs. Sweeney is beyond the reach of individual art. It requires the united efforts of several men to ensure that great result, and it is only developed ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... weak Shrubs, which, by propping up each other, are fenc'd against a Storm. Why are you thus cast down, said Zadig to the Fisherman? Never sink Man, under the Weight of your Burden. I can't help it, said the poor Fisherman; I have not the least Prospect of Redress. I was once, Sir, the tip-top Man of the whole Village of Derlbach, near Babylon, where I liv'd, and with the Help of my Wife, made the best Cream-Cheeses that were ever eaten in the Persian Empire. Her Majesty, the Queen Astarte, and the famous Prime-Minister Zadig were very fond of them. I serv'd ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... there last winter some way up. I'd take you, but I'm bound the other way." "You've never climbed it?" "I've been on the sides Deer-hunting and trout-fishing. There's a brook That starts up on it somewhere—I've heard say Right on the top, tip-top—a curious thing. But what would interest you about the brook, It's always cold in summer, warm in winter. One of the great sights going is to see It steam in winter like an ox's breath, Until the ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... papers, is apt to be startling. The other day I had a terrific pow-wow with one of the most accomplished writers now living; it occurred in the middle of a wood. We presently arrived at this point: He asked impatiently: "Well, who is there who can write tip-top poetry to-day?" I tried to dig out my genuine opinions. Really, it is not so easy to put one's finger on a high-class poet. I gave the names of Robert Bridges and W.B. Yeats. He wouldn't admit Mr. Yeats's tip-topness. "What about ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... cheerfully, his spirits at the tip-top of excitement at the idea of an almost immediate start for the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... certainly; established in the land, and among its tip-top people. The Colonel finds his health benefited by the climate, and he has managed to get some appointment which keeps him among us. He has Boston relatives, moreover, and I believe is fishing up some claims to property in that ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... mean to talk slang, mother, I only meant,—well, you know how dreadfully black he is, but then he can steer a boat tip-top, and he's splendid for crabs and blue-fish, and Dab says he's a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... her in an undertone, "never come here. Well! we don't expect ladies, you know. Different spheres in this world. They mean to be tip-top in society; and quite right too. My dear, I think we'll ride. Do you mind being seen in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. As it approached, Medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide-open throat. Immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle—flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again—the dragon fell at full length upon the ground and lay ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... responded Cincinnati, 'and it was a tip-top business for a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France and Italy, with the United States custom-house mark on it to indorse it for genuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy broke up the game—of course they naturally would. Cracked on such ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Tom Davis," said Kentuck. "Hulloa, Bob! take my hand, won't ye? I'll introduce ye to my friends. My pardner is Huxly—a tip-top feller, as you'll diskiver fur yerself. Davis' pardner is Randolph—Gentleman Bill, we call him fur short, he's so nice and perlite. He's from yer ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... gone to meet the early stage at Tip-Top, to take him to Washington. He would have taken leave of you last night, but when he came to your parlor you ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... in temporary difficulties; lending small sums to distressed clergymen, to governesses and the mistresses of boarding-houses. By charging a moderate interest he acquired a character for fairness and straight-forwardness. Now and then he did what he called a really tip-top generous thing. "Character," said Dicky Pilkington, "is capital"; and at thirty he had managed to save enough of it to live on without bothering about earning ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... another speaker; "she believes she's at the tip-top of creation; but she never had such a pretty dress on as that in her days; and she knows it and she don't like it. It's real fun to see St. Clair beat; she thinks she is so much better than other girls, and she has such a way of twisting that ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... my boy? but I just did. I thought once that the sultan might be going to poison us all; and, as they say there's safety in a big dose, and death in a small, I went in for a regular big go. But I say, the fruits! they were tip-top: mangosteens and guavas, and mangoes, and cocoa-nuts, and durians, and some of the best bananas I ever ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... merrily onward until nine o'clock, making the old woods echo with song and story and laughter, for F. was unusually gay, and I was in tip-top spirits. It seemed to me so funny that we two people should be riding on mules, all by ourselves, in these glorious latitudes, night smiling down so kindly upon us, and, funniest of all, that we were ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... I ever saw was in China. I went up the West River to the city of Canton. I was carried through the narrow, smelly, crowded streets to the top of a little hill at the city's edge. There, on the very tip-top I saw the "Water Clock." I read, "This water clock is a most ancient, authentic, celebrated and sacred relic of Kwong Tung Province, over 1,300 years old. It was erected on the top story of the north Worshiping Tower which was built ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... morning, from his absence in strange countries and up rose Walter with it to receive the Captain, who was already at the door: having turned out earlier than was necessary, in order to get under weigh while Mrs MacStinger was still slumbering. The Captain pretended to be in tip-top spirits, and brought a very smoky tongue in one of the pockets of the of the broad blue coat ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... conclave replies, and you behold them rising above the trees, flapping darkly, and winging their way to deeper solitudes. Sometimes, however, they remain till you come near enough to discern their sable gravity of aspect, each occupying a separate bough, or perhaps the blasted tip-top of a pine. As you approach, one after another, with loud cawing, flaps his wings and throws himself upon ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... man of business," I said. "You waste no time. I like that. What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have that as your ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... can do, Gilbert," continued Mr. Popham. "I've mixed a pail o' that green paint same as your mother wanted, an' I've brought you a tip-top brush. The settin' room has a good nice floor; matched boards, no hummocks nor hollers,—all as flat's one of my wife's pancakes,—an' not a knot hole in it anywheres. You jest put your first coat on, brushin' lengthways o' the boards, and let it dry good. Don't let your folks go stepping on it, ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he turned to where Stane and Helen stood together, with laughter in their eyes. "I could shake you—shake you both," he said. "It is a pretty game to cheat me out of the job of best man. But, Great Christopher! it's the tip-top thing to do, to marry before you go out of ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... man, but felt that he was not yet quite so happy as he might be. The very tip-top of enjoyment would never be reached unless the whole world were to become his treasure-room and be filled with yellow metal which should be all ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... found it a scarce tree; and I asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered, that he could hardly tell me. However, he said that he had found enough to employ two teams the next winter in a place where there was thought to be none left. What was considered a "tip-top" tree now was not looked at twenty years ago, when he first went into the business; but they succeeded very well now with what was considered quite inferior timber then. The explorer used to cut into a tree higher and higher ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... with which Mr. Gladstone's are mere suggestions. Huge white neckerchief. Black cloth from top to toe. I was sent to visit an invalid lady somewhere in City Road. A total stranger. Place: A shop. Room: At the tip-top of the house. The last part of the staircase was exceedingly narrow and steep, the stairs themselves little broader than a ladder. Tableau: A lady in bed, the only occupant of the room; a young minister, nearly all head and shirt ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... fellows entered the 'Franklin;' they alighted from a cab, and were dressed in the tip-top of fashion. As they were new customers, the landlord was all smiles and courtesy, conducted them into saloon Number 1, and making it up in his mind that his guests could be nothing less than Wall-street superfines, he resolved that they should ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... past, Europe, and Asia, and Africa, and Australia brilliant in grease-paint and gorgeous cheesecloth robes. And can you guess who the fat lady is up on the very tip-top of all, on the tip-top where the wobble is the worst? Our own Columbia! It must be fine to ride around that way all dressed up in a flag. But a sourer lot of faces you never saw in your life. No. I am wrong. For downright melancholy and despondency you must wait till the funny old clown comes along ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... to 'ave a good breakfast, and after that they came out smiling all over and began to spend a 'appy day. Ginger was in tip-top spirits and so was Peter, and the idea that old Isaac was in bed while they was drinking 'is clothes pleased them more than anything. Twice that evening policemen spoke to Ginger for dancing on the pavement, and by the time the money was ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... fellow's foot and run away, because I loves fun, you know: So it has lamed him, and that makes me laugh so—Ha! ha! ha!—it was what I call better than your rappartees and your bobinates. I'll tell you more too: you must know I was in high tip-top spirits, faith, so I stole a dog from a blind man—for I do loves fun: so then the blind man cried for his dog, and that made me laugh heartily: So says I to the blind man—Hallo, Master, what a you a'ter, what is you up to? does you want your dog?—Yes, Sir, says ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... on't, and then didn't do it: he only come out next Sunday with a tip-top sermon on the 'Riginal Cuss' that was pronounced on things in gineral, when Adam fell, and showed how every thing was allowed to go contrary ever since. There was pig-weed, and pusley, and Canady thistles, cut-worms, and bag-worms, and canker-worms, to say nothin' of rattlesnakes. The ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... all there is. And there ain't nothin' in the house but what's no 'count. If I'd ha' knowed—honeymoon folks wants sun'thin' tip-top, been livin' on the fat o' the land, I expect; and now ye're come home to pork; and ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... of that mound is tip-top for skiing," remarked Nap, "better than you would expect in this country. But no one here seems particularly keen on it. I was out early this morning and tried several places that were quite passable, but that mound ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... the mast of a ship; that the tossing forest behind him was the heaving waves of the sea; and that the wind which moaned over the woods and murmured in the leaves, and now and then sent him a wide circuit in the air, as if he had been a blackbird on the tip-top of a spruce, was an ocean gale. What life, and action, and heroism there was to him in the multitudinous roar of the forest, and what an eternity of existence in the monologue of the river, which brawled ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... get over that," said McLane. "I knew the boy's folks years ago-tip-top folks, too. He ain't well, and that ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... in Michael, in an undertone, meant only for the maiden's ear. "Tip-top airs don't pass for much in these 'ere parts. Do you know that, Miss Lizzy Glenn, or whatever your name may be? We're all on the same level here. Girls that make slop shirts and trowsers haven't much cause to stand ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... ball may begin any day; so we are making forced marches to be up in time. I wonder how I shall like it. Perhaps, in my next, I may tell you how a bullet sounds when it comes at you. If there is any fighting, I expect our regiment will make their mark. We are in tip-top order; the colonel is a grand fellow, and the regiment feels his hand down to the youngest drummer boy. What a deal of good I will ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... had read the story of the conquest of Mexico, like a great many other American boys. That is, he had read it as if it had been a tip-top novel rather than a reality. He had admired Hernando Cortes, as a hero of fiction, but here he was, now, actually talking with one of the hero's great-great-grandchildren, who was also, after a fashion, one of the Montezumas. It ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... remember our disappointment as we stood before that wonder of the world—St. Peter's. We mounted the pyramid of steps and looked up, but were not overcome by the magnificence. We read in our guide-book that the edifice covers eight acres, and to the tip-top of the cross is almost five hundred feet; that it took three hundred and fifty years and twelve successive artists to finish it, and an expenditure of $50,000,000, and now costs $30,000 per annum to keep it in repair; still we did not appreciate ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... the big outlaw. "You're a handy fellar, Case, an' after I break you into border ways you will fit in here tip-top. Now you'd better stick by me. When Eb Zane, his brother Jack, an' Wetzel find out this here day's work, hell will be a cool place compared with their whereabouts. You'll be safe with me, an' this is the ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... Dank and Count Quinnox might have been seen seated side by side on the edge of a skylight at the tip-top of the ship's structure, engaged in the closest conversation. There was a troubled look in the old man's eyes and the light of adventure in those of his junior. The sum and substance of their discussion may be given ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... will be an excuse to give them their kit—white muslin and blue ribbons. That's how young girls used to dress when I was a lad, and I've never seen anything to touch it. There will be no trouble about the dresses, madam. I've decided all that. You just tell me the name of a dressmaker—a tip-top dressmaker, mind you—and we'll send in ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... "It's a tip-top wind. Won't it make my boat scud," he said to himself exultantly, as he took his place, and pushed ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... is so likely to be permanently prejudicial to the interest of hunting in the British Isles as a certain flavour of tip-top fashion which has gradually enveloped it. There is a pretence of grandeur about that and, alas, about other sports also, which is, to my thinking, destructive of all sport itself. Men will not shoot unless game is made to appear before them in clouds. They will not fish unless the rivers be exquisite. ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... mother, and wouldn't attempt to teach law to her father if he was a judge in the Supreme Court. Yet, it's a shocking truth, the little upstarts don't know how to read like Christians, or spell half their words. The tip-top fashionable school-marms here are quite above teaching such common things as reading and spelling, and turn up their noses at any study that hasn't some "ology" or "phy" ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... find my pin, and I tore my dress, and knocked my head till I saw stars, on that grape vine, but I had a grand tip-top time, and I'd like to go again, yes, I would, if only to see Sadie Brooks wiggle her eye-glass and say, 'How shocking!' when I walked the log across the creek," was Kat's final remark as ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... great frost, the last purple bloom in the very tip-top seemed to look up yearningly and plead with the sun for one more day of life; that it, too, might add in time its snowy tribute to the bank of white which rolled entirely across the field, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... we do to make our party tip-top?" asked Thorny, falling into the trap at once, for he dearly loved to get up theatricals, and had not had any for a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... meant, as soon as he was grown up, to be a general and a poet and a Prime Minister and an admiral and a civil engineer. Meanwhile, he was top of all his classes at school, and tip-top of the geography class. ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... lights burned down to the very branches, and as they burned down they were put out one after the other, and then the children had leave to plunder the Tree. Oh, they rushed upon it so that it cracked in all its limbs; if its tip-top with the gold star on it had not been fastened to the ceiling, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... to the death of a Child, or a near Relation, than to that of a favourite Lap-Dog? And how often have we seen Families in deep Mourning on these sad Occasions? From Air to Air, and from Mineral to Mineral, have they been shifted upon the slightest Disorder. I have known a tip-top Physician sent for by an Express, and several Sets of Horses laid on the Road for him, to go with the utmost Expedition to visit a Lap-Dog that has been only ill of a sullen Fit, or so, in Yorkshire. ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... him as far as Tip-Top, the little hamlet on the mountain at which he was to meet the eastern stage; but there having seen his master comfortably deposited in the inside of the coach, and the luggage safely stowed in the boot, Wool was ordered to return with ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... tip-top fellow. It's good of him to drive Mary over to Crofield and back every Saturday. And they have had such good sleighing all winter. I wish I could try some ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... miss. Don't be frightened about him. We shall have a padded box, and everything tip-top. He'll be as snug and as tight as a sardine in its case. We'll get him to Leicestershire as fresh ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... consider it to be more than likely, sir," said Britton, with a perfectly straight face. He must have been sorely tried in the face of my inane maunderings. "Pardon me, sir, but wouldn't it be a tip-top idea to have it out with the Schmicks to-night? Being, sir, as you anticipate a rather wakeful night, I only make so bold as to suggest it in the hopes you may 'ave some light on the subject before you close your eyes. In other words, sir, so as you won't be altogether in the dark when morning ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... Andrew is the man to act for, and in the name of the most intelligent community on the globe, which the State of Massachusetts undoubtedly is. As I have observed several times, Andrew is among the leading (Americanize, tip-top,) men of the younger generation, is no politician, and never was one. If a civilian is to be elected to the Presidency, Andrew ought to be the choice of the people, if the people will be emancipated from ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... a rotten state," he said. "The doctor—specialist, you know, tip-top man—said the only thing for me was life in the country, fresh air, birds, flowers, new milk, all that ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... first went on the road I used to stop at the tip-top houses, such as the Palmer at Chicago, the Russell House in Detroit, etc., but it's useless extravagance. Claflin allows me a generous sum for hotels, and if I go to a cheap one, I put the ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... he say as how the jiner-work done by Jesus Christ would be better done than e'er another man's,—tip-top fashion,—and there would lie the differ. Now, it do seem to me as I've got no call to come to that 'ere conclusion. You been tellin' on us, grannie, I donno how long now, as how Jesus Christ was the ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... of split bamboo rods," he explained as the car slid down the terrific grade of the Washington-Street hill. "I haven't used 'em in years—not since we lived East; but they're hand-made, and are tip-top. I haven't any other kind of tackle; but it's just as well, because the tackle will all depend upon where we ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... see away off where the sky and the mountains come together beyond the hill," said Buddy. "You can see beautiful scenery from the tip-top, you know." ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... "I made a tip-top meal, and then thought I'd lay down and take a little nap. I slept for an hour or two, and then saddled up, and rode along. Putty soon I happened ter look round, and, blast my picter, ef there warn't eight Comanches a-comin' after me ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... lady to do. I fancied you were so well up in the whole affair, too: most absurd, really; I certainly am not fit for female society. I think, when the hunting season's over, I shall put myself to one of those tip-top boarding-schools to learn manners for a quarter; the sort of shop, you know, where they teach woman her mission—(how to get a rich husband, eh, Frank?)—for three hundred pounds a year, washing and church principles extra, and keep a 'Professor' to instruct ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... "Looky here! THIS corn was raised in the old-fashioned way, And I rather imagine that THIS corn'll pay Expenses fer RAISIN' it!—What do you say?" Brown got him then to look over his crop.— HIS luck that season had been tip-top! And you may surmise Smith opened his eyes And let out a look o' the wildest surprise When Brown showed him punkins as big as the lies He was stuffin' him with—about offers he's had Fer his farm: "I don't want to sell very bad," He says, but says he, "Mr. Smith, you kin ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... a great season," observed McRae. "If we start next year with the same team we ought to go through the league like a prairie fire. I have every reason to think that Hughson will be in tip-top shape when the season opens, and if he is, there won't be any pitching staff that can hold ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... genteel young woman at a table in a ward. One of the finest nurses I met was a red-faced illiterate old Irish woman; I have seen her take the poor wasted naked boys so tenderly up in her arms. There are plenty of excellent clean old black women that would make tip-top nurses. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... great adaptive power and can be molded into a thousand ways of thinking. The intelligent man, the man who has taken stock of himself, is able to smile and extend a hearty handclasp whether he feels tip-top or not. He doesn't have to look glum simply because the world hasn't thrown itself at his feet. He has only to persevere and success will ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... paradise. As to Krone, we used to call him the devil's bar-tender. These ragged revellers, you see, beg and steal during the day, and get gin with it at night. Krone thinks nothing of it! Lord bless your soul, sir! why, this man is reckoned a tip-top politician; on an emergency he can turn up such a lot of votes!" Mr. Fitzgerald, approaching Mr. Krone, says "you're a pretty fellow. Keeping such a place as this!" The detective playfully strikes the hat of the other, crowding it over his eyes, and inquiring if he has seen ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Jean, followed by Cob, the wiry little mustang that Mr. Shepard had sent East for his daughters' use, drawing Katharine, Florence, Polly, and Alan. Their destination was the nearer of the two mountains, a drive to the foot and then a scramble to the tip-top house, for the sake of one last look down upon the beautiful valley, before winter should shut it in. Unfortunately, Job was in one of his languid moods that day, and in spite of warning checks and flapping of lines, and even a mild application of the whip, he refused ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... by which they learned, for the first time, how far the General had carried his wrath against Major Pendennis. Foker spoke strongly in favour of the Major's character for veracity and honour, and described him as a tip-top swell, moving in the upper-circle of society, who would never submit to any deceit—much more to deceive such a charming ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the steel rod, placed it on a piece of charred wood, pulled the gas-jet towards him, and with the blow-pipe impinged little jets of flame upon the yellow ring. "An' the galloot that come in this afternoon said, 'I always find the work turned out of this shop ah—excellent, ah—tip-top, as good as anything I ever bought in the Old Country, don'tcherknow.' Yah! Gimme silver, that's all. Gimme a butterfly buckle to make, or a monogram to saw out, an' I wouldn't call the Pope my uncle." His eye ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... you have no call to be ashamed of your step-mother—she's a stunning creature; all the points of a tip-top Russian aristocrat, or Quincy Davenport's no judge of breed! Doesn't speak English like your father—but then the Baron is ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... battleship Majestic was sunk in the Dardanelles a bluejacket ran along her upper side as she rolled over, then along her keel as she turned bottom upwards. Finally, seeing that she was sinking by the stern, and knowing both her own length and the depth of the water, he climbed right up on the tip-top end of her stem, from which he was taken off as dry as a bone. Meanwhile a very different kind of rescue was being made by Captain Talbot, who, having gone down with the ship, rose to the surface and was rescued by a launch. He had barely recovered his breath when he saw two of his ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... here, I have accomplished the laborious perusal of your transcendent and tip-top periodical, and, hoity toity! I am like a duck in thunder with admiring wonderment at the drollishness and jocosity with which your paper is ready to burst in its pictorial department. But, alack! when I turn my critical attention to the literary ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... a first-rate fit-out for hunters; and with the jolly basket of lunch Mrs. Mullin gave us, we can get on tip-top for two or three days," said Tommy, eager ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... the odd little glass observatory, perched upon the very tip-top of all the wilderness around, fascinated Jack. He had never credited himself with a streak of idealism, nor even with an imagination, yet his pulse quickened when they topped the last steep slope and stood upon the peak of the ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... away, doctor; don't, please. I'm a warm man, and I'm getting warmer. My house is tip-top. I gave two-fifty for the piano, I did, 'pon my soul, and fifty apiece for the cut-glass chandies in the drawing-room. There ain't a better garden in ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... out, too, when I called at his hotel; but once, I had the good fortune to see him, with his hat curiously on one side, looking as pleased as Punch, and being driven, in an open cab, in the Champs Elysees. "That's ANOTHER tip-top chap," said he, when we met, at length. "What do you think of an Earl's son, my boy? Honorable Tom Ringwood, son of the Earl of Cinqbars: what do ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and if you'd just let him put brown tops to my old boots and stick a cockade in his hat when he sits up behind the phaeton, he'd be a happy fellow!" laughed Thorny, who had discovered that one of Ben's ambitions was to be a "tip-top groom." ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... made his ex-fellow-student of Gandish's, young Moss, when admitted into that sanctum, stare with respectful astonishment. "Lady Bary Rowe at obe," the young Hebrew read out; "Lady Baughton at obe, dadsig! By eyes! what a tip-top swell you're a gettid to be, Newcome! I guess this is a different sort of business to the hops at old Levison's, where you first learned the polka; and where we had to pay a shilling ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... aweer as a fighter you're truly tip-top, Our party's pecooliar pride, and our cause's particular prop! You can "pop in a slommacking wunner," if ever a lad could, dear boy: But—well, there, you ain't scored this round; and yer foes is a-chortling with joy! 'Ow is it, my ARTHUR, 'ow ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893 • Various
... all that, Hugh," chuckled Thad. "Once I get to playing ball, and there's going to be nothing interfere with my work as a backstop. I'm feeling in tip-top condition right now, and everything working right expect to be a factor in bringing Belleville down into the dust day ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... mother, and more 'an that, to take it from a school where it's gettin' all the benefits of eddication.'—'Eddication,' says he; 'that's all stuff. What eddication the gal gets at a school like that isn't worth a row of pins, and when they go away they don't know nothin' useful, nor even anything tip-top ornamental. All they've learned is the pianer and higher mathematics. As for anythin' useful, they're nowhere. There isn't one of them could bound New Jersey or tell you when Washington crossed the Delaware.'—'That may be, sir,' says I, 'but them higher branches comes useful. ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... old man died. The land was divided up among the four older sons, and Tip-Top was left with the saddle. He slung it on his back and set out to make his fortune. It was not long before he came to a large town. He rested for a while and then he went into the town. He remembered that his father ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... had gone. I looked for his name in the book. It was written in a fair, clerkly hand. He lived at Streatham. Suddenly I hated him. The dogged fool, to keep his nose on the grindstone like that. What was all his courage but the very tip-top of cowardice? What a vile nature—almost Sadish, proud, like the infamous Red Indians, of being ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... some real vice, or some growing vulgarity, which is made sharper by the absurdity of the language. In The Diary of George IV. there are the following reflections on a certain correspondence; "Wooden you phansy, now, that the author of such a letter, instead of writun about pipple of tip-top quality, was describin' Vinegar Yard? Would you beleave that the lady he was a-ritin' to was a chased modist lady of honour and mother of a family? O trumpery! o morris! as Homer says. This is a higeous pictur of manners, such as I weap ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... don't hear you,' says he. 'I know you don't, my buck, and I don't mean you to,' says I, smiling away like a haberdasher. 'I'm hard of hearing,' he roars. 'I'd be in a pretty hot corner if you weren't,' says I, making signs as if I was explaining everything. It was tip-top as long as it lasted. 'Well,' he said, 'I'm deaf, worse luck, but I bet the constable can hear you.' And off he started one way, and I the other. They got a spirit-lamp and the Pink Un, and that old religious ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... peculiarly elegant and fashionable. The man's education was very limited, indeed he had scarcely received any, but he was gifted at the same time with a low vulgar fluency of language which he looked upon as a great intellectual gift, and which, in his opinion, wanted nothing but "tip-top prononsensation," as he termed it, to make it high-flown ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Parmalee, with emphasis. "Laugh, if you like. It's kind of sudden, I suppose, but I've had a hankering after you this some time. You're a right smart kind of girl, and jest my style, and I like you tip-top. The way you can roll up them black eyes of yours at a fellow is a caution to rattlesnakes. Say, ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... continued, 'is it? You see I told old Foster he must give a tip-top price, and of course he knows me. At first, I thought he was not going to buy the thing at all; he said he didn't know whether my uncle would ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... may say that, sir. It's coining, so it is, with them tip-top men, and ruins one a'most to have a daughter; every shake I get out of her is to the tune of a ten-poun' note, at least. You shall hear her by-and-by; the minit the dancin' is over, she shall sing you the 'Bewildhered Maid.' Do you know the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... at Mentmore, Mr. Ross got a show cow of the Lady Dorothy family, giving every appearance of being a great milker and a tip-top bull ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... one. Happy we! in a nicely-cushioned car, berthed, curtained, and, better than all, furnished with the "best society," sans starch, sans crinoline; the gentlemen sitting on their hats as much as they pleased, and the ladies giving curls and collars the go-by, all in tip-top humor to be pleased. I could imagine but one improvement to our equipage,—that a steam-organ attached to it should have played, very softly, Felicien David's lovely level music of "The Desert," as we bowled along. There were long glittering side-streams between us and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... not aware,' said Pen. 'I'm a stranger; this is my first term; on which Lowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall. 'Do you see those four fellows seated opposite to us? They are regular swells—tip-top fellows, I can tell you—Mr. Trail, the Bishop of Ealing's son, Honourable Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, you know; and Bob Suckling, who's always with him. I say, I'd like to mess with those chaps.' 'And why?' asked Pen. ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... warm-hearted invitation; it is leaping, bounding, flying good news; it is efflorescent with all light; it is rubescent with all glow; it is arborescent with all sweet shade. I have seen the sun rise on Mount Washington, and from the Tip-top House; but there was no beauty in that compared with the day-spring from on high when Christ gives light to a soul. I have heard Parepa sing; but there was no music in that compared with the voice of Christ when He said: "Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace." Good news! Let every one cut ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... I see, High on the tip-top twig of a tree, Something blue by the breezes stirred, But so far up that the blue is blurred, So far up no green leaf flies. 5 Twixt its blue and the blue of the skies, Then I know, ere a note be heard, That is naught but ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... them on cleats worn by Russian boots for a look at the Vistula and the string of Red Cross barges, filled with wounded, going up the river. The children hereabout, at any rate, will revere the Russians, for their pioneers had carried that winding stairway up to the very tip-top of the tree in a manner only seen in ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... wearing things in the small auto trunks, but pretty girls can so safely depend upon youth and good manners that simple frocks were pressed literally and physically for the occasion, whereas many of the all-season guests at the Tip-Top were not so self-reliant. Motor-made complexions, and the eyes that go with that peculiar form of beauty, formed ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... not fall upon us."—"But what will this silly donkey do with his millstone?" asked one of them.—"You look to yourselves," said Ivan, "for I mean to pass the night in this tree also." Then the wise brothers climbed to the very tip-top of the tree and there sat down, and then Ivan dragged himself up too, and the millstone after him. He tried to get up as high as his brothers, but the thin boughs broke beneath him, so he had to be content with staying ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... so bold as to say it's in Scriptur', but it's in the Psalm-book I dare swear. Mother, she were a tip-top tearin' religious woman, and she used to say it to me when I was ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... into the draw. It was shallow and bushy, with sarvice-berries and squaw-berries and gooseberries; but we didn't stop to eat. We let Apache do the eating. Our thought was to reach the very tip-top ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... formerly belonged to him, but which being long gone by are almost forgotten, we only think of what we see before our eyes. And if, as the preacher said, the person so raised by good luck, from nothing, as it were, to the tip-top of prosperity, be well behaved, generous, and civil, and gives himself no ridiculous airs, pretending to vie with the old nobility, take my word for it, Teresa, nobody will twit him with what he was, but will respect him for what ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... other date. They signed the desired quittance, cabled Schmidt again to ask if Senhor Pondillo was in need of other ships of the Unser Fritz class, and the members of the firm indulged that evening in the best dinner that the tip-top restaurant ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... above Grandfather's white head. This back was curiously carved in open work, so as to represent flowers, and foliage, and other devices, which the children had often gazed at, but could never understand what they meant. On the very tip-top of the chair, over the head of Grandfather himself, was a likeness of a lion's head, which had such a savage grin that you would almost expect to ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a revue performer down on his luck: I like to tell dirty jokes... a great guy, philosophically tip-top, but is too ideal-They were in a melancholy mood. Kunstmayer sang quietly: "The girls like ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... tables, and it was not in the dinners and opera-boxes that poor Clavering's money went. No, be hanged to it, it was swep off in another way. One night, at the countess's, there was several of us at supper—Mr. Bloundell-Bloundell, the Honorable Deuceace, the Marky de la Tour de Force—all tip-top nobs, sir, and the height of fashion, when we had supper, and champagne, you may be sure, in plenty, and then some of that confounded brandy. I would have it—I would go on at it—the countess mixed the tumblers of punch for me, and we had cards as well as grog after supper, and I played ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... here, Mac," Cream firmly proceeded, "you be guided by me. You're a youngster at the game, and I'm an old hand. I never met a young author yet that didn't imagine his play had come straight from the mind of God and mustn't have a word altered. The tip-top chaps don't think like that. They're always altering and changing their plays during rehearsal ... and sometimes after they've been produced, too. Look at Pinero! He's altered the whole end of a play before now. He had a most unhappy ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... his detractors say, he finds at the card-table, but Ray is never quite himself until he throws his leg over the horse he loves. He is facile princeps the light rider of the regiment, and to this claim there are none to say him nay. A tip-top soldier too is Ray. Keen on the scout, tireless on the trail, daring to a fault in action, and either preternaturally cool or enthusiastically excited when under fire. He is a man the rank and file swear by and love. "You never hear Loot'nant Ray saying 'Go in there, fellers.' 'Tis always, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... and anything he wants in the meantime! And then to hear him making reform speeches! That's what makes me mad about them fellows up on the hill. They get a thousand dollars for every one we get; but they are tip-top swells, and they wouldn't speak to one of us low grafters on the street. And they're eminent citizens and pillars of the church—wouldn't it ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... standing there with their burdens on their backs. Mr. Malcolm was already there; he had with him about an equal quantity of the precious black sand; it remained, however, to be seen what proportion of gold our heaps contained. In a short time Bradley and Don Luis joined us, both of them in tip-top spirits. "I guess this is the way we do the trick down in these clearings," said the former, shaking a bag of golden sand. As for Jose, Don Luis's Indian servant, he was devout in his expressions of thanksgiving to the Virgin Mary and the Great Spirit, whom he would insist upon classifying ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... there was a great squirrel-hunt, on Duck River, which was among my people. They were to hunt two days; then to meet and count the scalps, and have a big barbecue, and what might be called a tip-top country frolic. The dinners and a general treat was all to be paid for by the party having taken the fewest scalps. I joined one side, and got a gun ready for the hunt. I killed a great many squirrels, and when we counted scalps my party ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... Gilbert retorted. "Well, now," he went on, "what's to become of little Quinny: a tip-top novelist with a limited circulation or ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine |
