"Chaffing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be a true prophet. I would honor you, even here in your own garden. For the sake of Captain Frazer's regard, I would give up most things," he replied, too low to be overheard by the couple who were now chaffing each other ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... immortal Duke of Wellington occurs to me in connection with this first administration of Lord Derby, well known as the 'Derby D'Israeli Ministry,' which may find a place here. A great many new men necessarily composed it, and when they were all mustered before being 'sworn in' the Duke began chaffing them 'as somewhat raw recruits,' and then taking his stick he put them into line and said, 'You will require a little drilling' and he flourished his stick about, imitating a sergeant, and amused them all very much. Such was the ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... game began there was a good deal of cheerful chaffing on the respective merits of the "J" and "K" Company teams. And when the play was in progress and savage yells rent the air, the French villagers looked on in wonder and pity. They had always believed the English to be mad. Now they were convinced ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... sat down to a very good dinner in his last days, if his adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis be correct, for on being assured of a plentiful supply of canvasback ducks about which he had just made inquiry, he gave the following order: "Very good, sir, give us some of them with a chaffing-dish, some hommony, and a bottle of good Madeira, ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... a jolly crowd of commercial men, some salesmen and some heads of houses, at the Tremont, and I have rarely enjoyed an evening more. Of course there were any number of stories told, many jokes cracked, and a deal of chaffing of each other. But if I could have written down all the points made about business they would have been eagerly read by my present audience. One man was cursing the book-keeper, as is usual, when ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... Prazhnik, or feast day, and the great square was crowded with peasantry in their beautiful hand-woven clothes. There were soldiers straight back from the lines chaffing and flirting with the pretty girls, and presently a group began to dance the "Kola" about a man who played a pipe. It is not difficult to dance the Kola. You join hands till a ring is formed, and then shuffle round and round. If you have aspirations to style you fling your legs about ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... "Quit chaffing, Harry! I came up because I had to see you. You pay no attention to my letters. I never dreamed that you would stay a month in this backwater. What is wrong? What is the ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... "Chaffing? No, man. There, I'll speak out frankly to show you how sincere I am. It does look absurd to see you puffing and panting along at the double with ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... lads immensely, and nothing but the appearance of a slight refection would have induced them to stop chaffing the poor Worm, who could not see anything funny in the beautiful resignation he had shown on ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... death to the invisible insects even after they are drawn in with the breath and fastened upon the lungs. This may account for tobacco being burned (as I have heard it), in many old countries, on a chaffing dish in a room, that the people of the house may take in the smoke plentifully with their breath, to preserve their health ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... behind keeping ourselves divided in the hopes of inducing all hands to see the advisability of exerting themselves for the general good—as my men, whilst we were all together, showed they did not care how long they were kept doing no more fatiguing work than chaffing each other, and feeding ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... spot was not so very far away, but it called for a picnic lunch, and Tubby was quite two hours in getting them there. It was a wild hollow, with great beech trees, and a noisy stream chaffing in a rocky bed down the middle of the glen. There were some farms thereabout; but many of the farmers were no more than squatters, for a vast tract of field and forest, including the glen, belonged to an estate which had long been in the ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... did not fall upon deaf ears. Instead of smiling, or of chaffing Christophe about his childish enthusiasm—he would have been the first to laugh at it and beg pardon if he had been made to feel the absurdity of it—Ochs went into ironic ecstasies: he drew Christophe on to further enormities: and when he left him made haste to repeat them all, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... named Bertha, occupied two tiny rooms in which she lived with her ten-year-old daughter. One of the two rooms was often full of men, some of them with heavy beards, who would sit there, each awaiting his turn, as patients do in the reception-room of a physician, and whiling their time away by chaffing the little girl upon her mother's occupation and her own future. Some of the questions and jokes they would address to her were of the most revolting nature, whereupon she would reply, "Oh, go to hell!" or stick out ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... and some had a certain swing in them such as Mysie, with an unformed taste, a love for Miss Hacket, and amazement that the words of a familiar acquaintance of her own should appear in print, genuinely admired. But the eyes of a youth exercised in 'chaffing' the productions of one of his fellow 'men' were infinitely more critical. Besides, what could be more shocking to the General's son than the confusion between the evening gun and the sham fight? And Mysie had ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... joy and congratulation, and Hubert rubbed his hands, and said triumphantly, 'There, Charley, you were always chaffing me, and wanting to know what was the good of my collection, and now you see what was the good. It has put us on the right trail for Ethel, and you will never be able to laugh at ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... his passengers comprised the Hudson's Bay Company officials, going to their posts or on tours of inspection. They were a jolly crowd, like a lot of rollicking schoolboys, full of fun and good-humour, chaffing and joking all day; but when a question of business came up, the serious businessman appeared in each, and the Company's interest was cared for with their best powers. The bottle was not entirely absent in these scow fraternities, ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Joe Dumsby, a short, thickset, little Englishman, who, having been born and partly bred in London, was rather addicted to what is styled chaffing. "Was ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... of this, we get on famously for twenty whole restful minutes, which lulls us all into a false sense of security, and my crew sing M'pongwe songs, descriptive of how they go to their homes to see their wives, and families, and friends, giving chaffing descriptions of their friends' characteristics and of their failings, which cause bursts of laughter from those among us who recognise the allusions, and how they go to their boxes, and take out their clothes, and put them on- -a long bragging inventory of ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... that the vessel was unlucky and under a curse, saying that they heard strange noises at night in the hold, though I did not think much of this, Tom and Hiram between them having nearly succeeded in chaffing me out of my belief in having seen Sam ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... with my company at times, I dare say," said Kate, with an indifference quite inconsistent with her rising color. "I shouldn't wonder if he was a little vexed with Mr. Lee's chaffing him about his sport yesterday, and probably intends to go further to-day, and bring home larger game. I think Mr. Lee very amusing always, but I sometimes fancy he ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... submit to a vast amount of good-natured chaffing, for they had invited it, but it was the sort of chaffing with which this amiable company would have victimized any pair that had recently met, and found each other's society suddenly preferable ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the night in the Roman streets during that vocal week while the piazza spoke, were openly sympathetic with the mobs they were holding down. I knew some of the gray-clad boys. I strolled along the lines and saw the smiles, heard the chaffing give-and-take of citizen and soldier as the mob tried to rush through the double ranks that cordoned the streets. There was no hatred there, no violent conflict with authority. Each understood the other. The young officers seemed to say to the crowd,—"You may howl all you like, you fellows, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... only be larky Peter Pegg doing it twice as often; and she will be independent-like, for she always washes his shirt for him every week—a cheeky beggar! But somehow I always liked Peter, in spite of his larks as Mr Maine put him up to—chaffing and teasing a fellow. But he never meant no harm. You see, it seemed to make us good mates running in company like, for when the Sergeant wasn't dropping on to him he was letting me have it, to keep his tongue sharp. Yes, Peter Pegg will miss me, for they won't find Joe Smithers when they come; ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... y'r old peaks have a nip in the air at three in the mornin'!" Matthews came down to the raft chaffing his hands. "That's a job worthy a woodsman," he observed, holding the halter reins while the Ranger got ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... a keen and real sense of humour. He could, and often did, laugh with all his heart. He chaffed continuously his large circle of undergraduate friends. When he was questioning a man in the lecture-room, you felt that all the time he was half chaffing him. He addressed us all in lectures as "Mr.," in a half serious, half amused style. "It is the only chance for some men to retain any self-respect—to address them as 'Mr.'"—he would say, after the discovery of some more than usual piece of {48} ignorance in his class of "special" ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... originated in the market-place, where professed wags of a low class were wont to congregate, and amuse themselves by chaffing and insulting passers-by. Such men are mentioned centuries afterwards by St. Paul as "lewd fellows of the baser sort,"—an expression which would be more properly rendered "men of the market-place." Such centres ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the assured drawl of the stranger as he spoke of Leslie and called her a "speedy kid" had made him boil with rage. He carried the mood back to college with him, and sat gloomily at the table thinking the whole incident over, while the banter and chaffing went on about him unnoticed. Underneath it all there was a deep uneasiness that would not be set aside. The young man had said that the Clouds were very wealthy. That Leslie was especially so. That when she was of age she would have a vast inheritance. There had been no ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... know exactly how to take this, and was rather absent-minded during the rest of the interview. She had been chaffing Mr. Jespersen, of course, but she did not wish to be absolutely rude to him, because he was her father's employee, and, as she often heard her father say, a very valuable and trustworthy ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... about him, except your way of chaffing him. But I don't want to talk about him just now. I want to speak to you ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... Sweet, of Chicago, and others made up the party. We went down the Illinois Central. It was a hot, dusty ride. Reached Springfield early in the evening. Had supper at the hotel and then called on Lincoln. His two youngest boys were on the fence in front of the house, chaffing some Democratic urchins in the street. A Douglas meeting was going on in the State House, addressed, as I learned, by A. McClernand,—afterwards major-general. Lincoln stood in the parlor, dressed in black frock coat. Ashman made the formal announcement. Lincoln's reply was brief. ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... July 1, 1863, by a Federal division. I think that the credit of that act cannot be denied to Howard. In a later time he passed under the control of Sherman in the West, a shrewd and relentless judge of men, and Sherman trusted him to the utmost. To a group of officers in their cups who were chaffing Howard for being Puritanical, Sherman curtly said: "Let Howard alone; I want one ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... the covering insufficient, and the vermin ineffaceable pests. We had almost no books, nothing to help pass the time. We took daily walks by reliefs, up and down one side of our scanty quarters. There was a daily roll call, when chaffing the Officer of the Day gave slight amusement. At one time three or four of our companions escaped from prison, passing the guard by a show of authority. The wearing of Federal uniforms secured on the field of battle was so common in the streets, that the ...
— Ball's Bluff - An Episode and its Consequences to some of us • Charles Lawrence Peirson
... through the warehouse without replying to the chaffing inquiries of his mates, and ran upstairs to his uncle's office. He was not afraid of his uncle; on the other hand, he had never received or expected special favour on ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... about that, when I'd hoped he'd be a credit to me. But it appears he is being a credit to me—he's making his fortune, getting famous, setting the upper circles talking of him. I thought Sir Andrew, up at the Manor House, was a-chaffing me the other day when he began complimenting me on my nephew, and I answered him precious short; but I begin to think now as he meant it, and I went and made a fool of myself! All I ever asked of Mark was to be a credit to me, and so long ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... wasn't a bit. He wrote to her every week, but her letters kept coming all the time—regular continued stories; but he wouldn't stand chaffing about them and didn't fancy remarks, so ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... That night scene of so many hundred tramping steadily by, through the mud (some big flaring torches of pine knots,) I shall never forget. I like to go to the paymaster's tent, and watch the men getting paid off. Some have furloughs, and start at once for home, sometimes amid great chaffing and blarneying. There is every day the sound of the wood-chopping axe, and the plentiful sight of negroes, crows, and mud. I note large droves and pens of cattle. The teamsters have camps of their own, and I go often among them. The officers occasionally invite me to dinner or supper ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... least mind your chaffing. I know what you think of me just as well as though you ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... From what else, in God's name, hussy, should we eat? From a trough? And mind you, if there is a spot on it as large as my smallest finger nail, I'll tear it to shreds!" She winked to Frances, perhaps to show Betty that she was only chaffing, for in all the world there was no ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... word "home" the boy flushed and something went soft in his eyes for a moment. In spite of his steel helmet and mud-stained uniform, he was a girlish-looking fellow—perhaps that was why his comrades were chaffing him—and I fancy the thought of Christmas made him yearn back ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... Mr. Clarence Bulbul's boy, the wickedest little varlet that ever hung on to a cab, was "chaffing" Mr. Jeames, holding up to his face a pot of porter almost as big as the ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'chaffing' Sinfi then rose and walked towards his Quaker-like companion, and I had an opportunity of observing him fully. I saw that he was a spare man, wearing a brown velvet coat and a dark felt hat. The collar of the coat seemed to have been made carefully larger than usual, in order to increase the ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... always a SERIOUS state of mind. If any one phrase could gather its universal message, that phrase would be, "All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever the appearances may suggest." If it can stop anything, religion as commonly apprehended can stop just such chaffing talk as Renan's. It favors gravity, not pertness; it says "hush" to all vain chatter and ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... came. It was a gradual change; so gradual that its beginnings were hardly noticed; maybe were not noticed at all, except by Jack Halliday, who always noticed everything; and always made fun of it, too, no matter what it was. He began to throw out chaffing remarks about people not looking quite so happy as they did a day or two ago; and next he claimed that the new aspect was deepening to positive sadness; next, that it was taking on a sick look; and finally he said that everybody was become so moody, thoughtful, and ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... Lethbridge—had not wholly escaped the feeling of professional jealousy that even to this day lingers in a more or less modified form between the navy and the army; and if the occasion happened to be peculiarly favourable, they sometimes exchanged a chaffing remark or two at each other's expense. But the sparring was always perfectly good-natured, and absolutely devoid of all trace of ill-feeling, for, first of all, both were gentlemen in the highest sense of the term; and, in the next place, the friendship that subsisted between ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... so as to gain time, the first shots were fired. The marines armed with binoculars were not unduly elated by any one shot, but merely reported progress in a characteristic American fashion—that is, by a system of chaffing. This provided tonic, and presently the bullets crept in so close to the marks that all chaff was forgotten. Sometimes it took an hour, or even two, to bring down a single man; but no matter how long the time necessary might be, the Americans stayed patiently ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... on the wash bench,' she said, 'or, will be when I have emptied the tub;' and she was about to take up the latter, when Billy sprang to her assistance and emptied it himself, while Tom sat looking on, chaffing ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... the flamboyant cities And the lights guttering out like candles in a wind... And the armies halted... And the train mid-way on the mountain And idle men chaffing across the trenches... And the cursing and lamentation And the clamor for grain shut in the mills of the world? What if they stayed apart, Inscrutably smiling, Leaving the ground encumbered with dead wire And the sea to row-boats And the lands marooned— ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... To atone for the "chaffing" which he had been the means of inflicting on his friend, the little gentleman, a few days afterwards, proposed to take our hero to the Chipping Norton Steeple-chase, - Mr. Smalls and Mr. Fosbrooke making up the quartet for a tandem. It was on their return from the races, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... he had seriously answered, "Next month, I think," to the chaffing attempt to secure his custom made by that distinguished local wit, the Colebrook barber, who happened to be sitting insolently in the tap-room of the New Inn near the harbour, where the captain had entered to buy an ounce of tobacco. After paying for his purchase ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... after midnight when the party at Roselawn retired to their rooms. There had been an impromptu dance, following some spirited bridge, and there was more than the usual chaffing and laughter as the guests dispersed to the various ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... great fun to enlarge upon the fact that this charming thing had been accomplished by a body of men not one of whom received a particle of benefit from it. Some of the jokers used to call at the association rooms and have a good time chaffing the members and offering them the charity of taking them as steersmen for a trip, so that they could see what the forgotten river looked like. However, the association was content; or at least it gave no sign to the contrary. Now and then it captured a pilot who was 'out of luck,' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... four pares of the best flaxon and other 2 payre of the best hempen the greate brasse potte that hir mother brought, the best bord-clothe (table cloth?) a lynnen whelle (i.e., spinning-wheel) that was hir mothers, the chaffing dish that hangeth in ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... encourage them, they raise a roar loud enough to wake the dead. The dust rises in denser clouds, the noise is deafening, a regular mad hurry-scurry, a wild boisterous scramble ensues, and amid much chaffing, noise, and laughter, they scramble off again to begin another length of land; and so ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... they were unanimous—it, whatever 'it' was, had come through the blow-hole deep under the water, and had a long, thin tail—a tail so long that they could not see the end of it. There was much unmerciful chaffing of the children by the men on this point, but as it was evident that they had seen something, quite a number of persons, young and old, male and female, went along the high paths on either side of the harbour mouth to catch a glimpse of this new addition to the fauna of the ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... you in the morning," Pessoa had spouted, and he had said the appropriate courteous things, and gone up to Leonore, and kissed her hand and said something chaffing in her ear, at which she smiled sleepily, and said in English, "Go on, you bad man!" She spoke so slowly and so meaninglessly, as stupid people do when they speak a foreign tongue, that the words seemed to be uttered by some lonely ghost that had found a lodging ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... as if he found the explanation somewhat difficult. 'Oh,' he answered carelessly, 'the wife and I were chaffing, and she said she'd often seen you jump it, and'—he laughed a rather forced laugh—'she promised me a—a kiss if I cleared it. It was ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... but until this day none of the party had seen even the footprint of the king of beasts. Of course the interest and excitement was proportional. Of course, also, when the subject was discussed round the camp-fires that night, there was a good deal of "chaffing" among the younger men about the probability of a mistake as to the nature of the footprints by such unaccustomed sportsmen; but Rivers was so confident in his statements, and Jerry was so contemptuous in his manner ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... and the vintage that grow, and the oaks that stand in chains. I love the music sung with the wings of the dust through the fields of chaffing grains, shadowed beneath the azure ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen
... foolishly, as she hadn't since Jeffrey came. It had always been understood that Lydia had times of foolishness; but it had seemed, after Jeffrey appeared among them clothed in tragedy, that everything would be henceforth on a dignified, even an austere basis. But here she was, chaffing the colonel and chattering childish jargon to Anne. Jeffrey looked at her, first with a tolerant surprise. Then he smiled. Seeing her so light-hearted he was pleased. This was a Lydia he approved of. He need neither run clear ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... "The chaffing is all to be on one side, is it, George? Well; I will say nothing to add to your discomforts. What is it ails you? You will drink liqueurs after dinner. That is what makes you so wretched. And I believe you drink them ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... and this, again, he suffused with an energetic spirit of State Socialism on which Mr. Gladstone would have poured his sternest wrath. A friend writes: "I don't remember that H. S. H., when he was an undergraduate, took much interest in politics more than chaffing others for being so Tory." (He never spoke at the Union, and had probably not realized his powers as a speaker.) "But when, in 1872, I went to be curate to Oakley (afterwards Dean of Manchester) at St. Saviour's, Hoxton, Holland used to come and see me there, and I found him greatly attracted ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... trooped past him and into the store, talking and chaffing, their clothes toil-stained and ragged, their faces tanned nearly black by ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... impulse is to write 'i,' and that it is only after admonition that the aggressive and egotistical 'I' supplants the humbler form of the letter. This did not surprise M. Zola, since vanity, like most other vices, is acquired, not inherent in our natures. But in a chaffing way he suggested that one might write a very humorous essay on the English character by taking as one's text that tall, stiff, and ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... nature displayed by the man who books the order surpasses anything in the works of the analytical philosophers. Every artifice of attack is his, and he knows how to play on all the emotions so ably and exhaustively catalogued in the manuals of Professor Bain. I believe a gay and chaffing rejoinder is what he can least overcome. Suggest to him that you are far gone in poverty and offer to sell him a few of your own books. Frequent exercise will confirm your principles, until finally, when you see one of the book-canvassing ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... teacher is placed economically lower than the peasant. He gave Newton's chatter no consideration. But when, in the afternoon, he hitched his team with others to the big road grader, and the gang became concentrated within talking distance, he found that the project of heckling and chaffing him about his eminent fitness for a scholastic position was to be the ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... me, lithe and active as a cat, climbed on, chaffing me for my tardy progress, and now and then halting and mischievously shaking the ladder to increase my fear. The higher I ascended the more strongly blew the wind, until it whistled in the thin ropes and blew through my scanty clothing, chilling my ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... which he had inflicted upon Jim Edwards, the disgust of his wife were all things to chasten a man's spirit; but on the other hand, Jim was now out of jail, Lamoury had not been hurt in the least, and he himself had not been complained of or arrested. If he should have to endure some chaffing from Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner, his cronies at the bank, he "guessed he could stand it." On the whole, ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... broke a little at that. In spite of his light-hearted manner and his rather chaffing tone, he couldn't help remembering that good-bye. He was going to face whatever fate might come, but thoughts of those he might not see again could not be ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... and savage to seek unnecessary intercourse with any one, I found occasional amusement in chaffing the sentinels. The orders against conversation with these were not rigidly enforced. Finding that they rose very freely to the bait of a strained ironical politeness, I used to beg them to tell ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... moment he almost envied their lightheartedness, and he thought within himself, where all men are born blind, no man misses the light. These men are contented with privileges, and I who have fitted myself for a different sphere in life, am chaffing because I am denied rights. The right to sell my labor in any workshop in this city same as the men of other nationalities, and to receive with them a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. But he was strong and healthy and he was too high ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... a manner entirely foreign to him, "No, but I don't feel much like chaffing this day. I feel as if something was going to happen, and ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... heretofore with Mark Gilbart's history. He did his duty as a trapper, never falling asleep, and always opening and shutting the trap at the proper moment. The rolley boys never complained of him, and as he was invariably in good humour, and stood their chaffing, ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... grave voice went on, pronouncing the grave sentences of the service. The ceremonial words sounded all the more fateful said over this poor body. The little of life that he had had,—the eating and drinking in restaurants and hotels, the chaffing and trading with his own kind, the crude appeasements of crude desires,—all these were taken away, and thus stripped it was easy to see how small was his responsibility in the matter of life. He had crushed and injured this other human being, his wife, to whom he ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... that, though he said nothing. He only went on blinking at me with a solemn and comical slowness. "Unless it be to carry there the family's blessing," I went on, indulging my chaffing humour steadily, in a rather sneaking fashion, for I dared not look at Mrs Fyne, to my right. No sound or movement came from, that direction. "You think very naturally that to match mere good, sound reasons, against the passionate conclusions ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... well as you can. There, don't lie shamming being sick any more, because you are quite well thankye, or you wouldn't begin chaffing." ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... well, we can't do business, I suspect: A woman has no head for useful tricks. My profitable offers you reject And will not promise anything to fix The opposition. That's not politics. Good morning. Stay—I'm chaffing you, conceitedly. Madam, I mean to ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... reminds me, she must be an oddish sort of woman, this Mrs. Beaumont. Argentine asked her how old the wine was, and what do you think she said? "About a thousand years, I believe." Lord Argentine thought she was chaffing him, you know, but when he laughed she said she was speaking quite seriously, and offered to show him the jar. Of course, he couldn't say anything more after that; but it seems rather antiquated for a beverage, doesn't it? Why, here we are at ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... anguish and travail of the old, must be "run" by young men who unite in themselves the qualities of judgment and the love of adventure. The hut used as a mess-room was most artistically decorated, and made a fine setting for the noble young fellows, who sat round the table chaffing one another and laughing as if they never had to face death in the blinding mists of morning or the blazing sun of noon, with the rain of shells and machine gun fire falling round them, as they (p. 183) climbed higher and higher like skylarks into ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... speak a word of English. Again and again he tried, the harsh gutturals choking in his throat, until at last, flushed and angry, he was forced to transact his business in Spanish, all of which amused the Britishers to the chaffing point. Leaving the office, the American flung himself into the street, muttering savagely under his breath, a torrent of old memories surging through his brain, those harsh English words in his throat clamouring ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... however, she had begun in her quiet way to make a place for herself. She was already quite a favourite among her house-mates. They teased her a little, but in quite a good-tempered fashion, and Dona, accustomed to the continual banter of a large family, took all chaffing with the utmost calm. She was happier at school than she had expected to be. Miss Jones, the hostel mistress, was genial and warm-hearted, and kept well in touch with her girls. She talked to them about their various hobbies, and was ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... with a resounding thwack against the head of a colored man in the second row, who stood watching the grand stand with an eager and curious gaze. He rubbed his head ruefully, and made a good-natured response to the chaffing of his neighbors, who, seeing no great harm done, made witty and original remarks about the advantage of being black upon occasions where one's skull was exposed to danger. Finding that the blow had drawn blood, ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Morty,"—the swain rejoiced in the name of Mortimer Kelley. "It'll be some quiet, dacent fellow, that an't given to chaffing nor too fond ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... among the strawberries, raised themselves to look at the party, flashing their white teeth at Aristodemo, who was evidently a wit among them. They flung him gibes as he passed, to which he replied disdainfully. A group of girls who had been singing together, turned round upon him, 'chaffing' him with shrill voices and outstretched necks, like a flock of young cackling geese, while he, holding himself erect, threw them back flinty words and glances, hitting at every stroke, striding past them with the port of a young king. Then they ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... there sat on a low stool a man of gigantic proportions, who had scarcely reached middle age, and who was still overflowing with the fun and fire of youth. He employed himself in alternately fondling and "chaffing" the two old women, and he was such an exact counterpart of what Erling the Bold was at the age of thirty, that his own mother was constantly getting confused, and had to be reminded that he ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... unlike the stern, fierce, sententious Helena, is Datchery's habit of "chaffing." He fools the ass of a Mayor, Sapsea, by most exaggerated diference: his tone is always that of indolent mockery, which one doubts whether the "intense" and concentrated Helena could assume. He takes rooms in the same house as Jasper, to whom, as to Durdles ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... day two men were chaffing each other in one of the hotel lobbies, and the conversation turning upon what this house held, one of them wagered that he knew of something I could not fish out of my attic, and when the other asked what, he said an aeroplane—Why he didn't say a locomotive, I don't know; ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... too chagrined to answer. First it was Capps; now it was my own friend Kennedy chaffing me for my ignorance. I was glad to see Paddy's huge form looming in the semi-darkness. He had seen that we were gone and ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... upon cutting a great swell among the brigs, barques, and small ships usually engaged in the sugar-freighting business. The brass of the capstan, wheel and ladder stanchions, were brightly polished by the steward and boys; fair leaders, Scotchmen and chaffing-gear taken off; ensign, signal and burgee-halyards rove; the accommodationladder got over the side; the anchor got ready, and the chain roused up from the locker. At ten o'clock we took the sea breeze and a pilot, passed Point Yerikos, and cracked gallantly up the bay with ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... from William W. Kolderup could not but be a serious one. And when the crowd in the auction room had recognized who it was that by $100,000 had capped the reserve price of Spencer Island, there was an irresistible sensation, the chaffing ceased instantly, jokes gave place to interjections of admiration, and cheers resounded through the saloon. Then a deep silence succeeded to the hubbub, eyes grew bigger, and ears opened wider. For our part had we been there we would have had to hold our breath that we ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... Gaddesden had very little mind to give to her Sunday party. Elizabeth felt a thrill of something like comfort as she noticed how in the course of the day Anderson unconsciously slipped back into the old Canadian position; sitting with Philip, amusing him and "chaffing" him; inducing him to obey his doctor; cheering his mother, and in general producing in Martindale itself the same impression of masculine help and support which he had produced on Elizabeth, five months before, in ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... completed, in marched my cousin Milly. We were to breakfast alone that morning, 'and so much the better,' she told me. Sometimes the Governor ordered her to breakfast with him, and 'never left off chaffing her' till his newspaper came, and 'sometimes he said such things he made her cry,' and then he only 'boshed her more,' and packed her away to her room; but she was by chalks nicer than him, talk as he might. 'Was not she nicer? was not she? was not she?' Upon this ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... incurably tragic; he could not force himself to play the prosperous and frivolous part demanded of him by President Sunday. And, indeed, when Syme came in the President, with that daring disregard of public suspicion which was his policy, was actually chaffing Gogol upon his inability ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... curious, incidentally (but not really more curious than most human affairs), that Pete (or Mr. Corcoran) whether he was merely chaffing us, or whether he was really curious about a scarf of such wanton colour scheme, should have mentioned it just when he did, for as a matter of fact that tie had been on our mind all morning. You see to-day being warm (and please ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... and bred in this sunny land. She could remember a day when she had been walking with her mother in the Pimlico Road—a dark, foggy, raw day in late autumn. They had come upon a group of Australian soldiers standing round the door of a little green-grocer's shop, and chaffing the good-natured shop-woman about the quality of her fruit. Mother had stopped to speak to them. Mollie could not remember exactly what had passed, but the men had been friendly and communicative, and if they had groused about the English climate ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... hurried into the house. The march had formed with Louise radiantly leading on the arm of papa. Claralie tripped by with Leon. Of course, nothing remained for Theophile and Manuela to do but to bring up the rear, for which they received much good-natured chaffing. ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... "I'm not chaffing. She did say that—honest Injun. At least, I've Henri de la Mole's word for it. His sister was at school at the convent of the Virgin of Tears with Lady Monica Vale. Lady Monica supposed the other ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... had me puzzled for a minute with his silly chaffing. Stupid of me, too, because we'd just been talking ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... the distance once more came the merry clamour of the farther drawing-room. A din of young folk, chaffing and teasing each other—a girl's defiant voice above it—outbursts of laughter. Norham, who had in him a touch of dramatic imagination, enjoyed the contrast between the gay crowd in the distance and this quiet room where he sat face to face with a visionary—surely altogether remote from the ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to take you into my confidence," he says, "and tell you a story—about myself. In Paris, before I started on this tour, a friend of mine gave a man's dinner for me. He and the other chaps were chaffing because—oh, because of a silly argument we got into about—life in general, and mine in particular. On the strength of it my chum bet me a thing he knew I wanted, that I couldn't go through my ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... very much interested in Giovanelli. She looked at him whenever he spoke; she was perpetually telling him to do this and to do that; she was constantly "chaffing" and abusing him. She appeared completely to have forgotten that Winterbourne had said anything to displease her at Mrs. Walker's little party. One Sunday afternoon, having gone to St. Peter's with his aunt, Winterbourne ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... the Rockquay people would do well to have them photographed "Then" and "Now," as an advertisement of the place! But he was not without dread of the effect of the disclosure that had yet to be made, though Gerald had apparently forgotten all about it as he sat chaffing Emilia Vanderkist about the hospital, whither she was really going for a year; Sophy about the engineer who had surveyed the Penbeacon intended works, and Francie about her Miranda-Mona in ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... constantly kidding one another, as an American would say, I think. If a correction came for one gun that showed there had been a mistake in sighting after the last orders—if, that is, the gunners, and not the distant observers, were plainly at fault—there would be a good-natured outburst of chaffing ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... preparation for this start. Our spirits were high, and we laughed and joked and sang extravagantly. Even Yank woke up and acted like a frisky colt. Such early wayfarers as we met, we hailed with shouts and chaffing; nor were we in the least abashed by an occasional surly response, or the not infrequent attempts to discourage our hopes. For when one man said there was no gold; another was as confident that the diggings were ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... This sort of chaffing gave Rattleton "that tired feeling," as he expressed it, and by the time they reached their room he was in a ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... us, presenting him at the same time to Florac as the ornament of the City, the greatest banker of his age, the beloved kinsman of their friend Clive, who was always writing about him; Barnes said, with one of his accustomed curses, he did not know whether Mr. Warrington was "chaffing" him or not, and indeed could never make him out. Warrington replied that he never could make himself out: and if ever Mr. Barnes could, George would thank him for information ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of talking, that, when, for instance, a number of visitors came over from Sir John Lubbock's for a Sunday afternoon call he never seemed to be preaching or lecturing, although he had so much of the talk to himself. He was particularly charming when "chaffing" any one, and in high spirits over it. His manner at such times was light-hearted and boyish, and his refinement of nature came out most strongly. So, when he was talking to a lady who pleased and amused him, the combination of raillery and deference ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... made for an enemy, but none was found. A gun had accidentally gone off in the squad, and the rest of the men, surprised and bewildered, had fired, they neither knew why nor at what. Two men were killed, and several others were hurt. This and the chaffing the men got from their comrades was a lesson to the whole command. The soldiers were brave enough, and were thoroughly ashamed of themselves, but they were raw; that was all that could be said of it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... party of three has been a very agreeable one up to the present. John Claxton is a splendid fellow—a good talker when in the humour, and an excellent listener when either myself or M'Allister are in the vein for airing our own particular views. He is rather fond of chaffing M'Allister, who has a quiet humour of his own, and takes it all in good part. John has only one weakness—he has become a most inveterate smoker, and we have learned by experience that in this matter his wishes must never be opposed. Both M'Allister and myself are also ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... at their savings. Some repented, and wanted their money, but the rule was rigid. At the end of the period, the Bank was opened in the presence of all the lodgers, with much ceremony, and the separate deposits were made known, amid an immense deal of 'chaffing' from one another. The depositors were amazed at the amount of their savings; the increase seemed to awaken in them the instinct of property, and they at once determined to deposit the amounts in the city savings ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... it, as in this war one meets it at every turn, one never gets used to the Holy Spirit of Man at his job. The "common sweeper," growling over his mug of tea that there was "nothing in sweepin'," and these idly chaffing men, new shaved and attired, from the gates of Death which had let them through for the fiftieth time, were all of the same fabric—incomprehensible, I should imagine, to the enemy. And the stuff held good throughout all the world—from the Dardanelles to the Baltic, ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... for two reasons: there's danger that the poor little fellow there is going to croak before long, and you'd be sorry to think you'd given trouble to a dead man; and what's more, if the boys get hold of this, there'll be no end of their chaffing. There's not a few of them would like to cook your goose for you,—I needn't tell you why; so, if you don't want them to get the flashest kind of a pull over you, why, you'll take ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... make a sixtification of it with them timbers, and so quickly that to-morrow when the enemy come they should find all our Spaniels sitting behind the little loop-holes like a row of monkeys cracking nuts, a-laughing and chaffing the enemy, and telling of them to ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... point to be considered," continued Christie, who, tall, handsome, and easy-going, delighted in chaffing his pompous and peppery companion, whose abbreviated stature had only gained admittance to the service through high heels and a powerful influence. "Did you notice that Sir William addressed your 'young ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... in the room all laughed, and a miner in a blue flannel shirt patted Tom on the back, and said, "That's right, my boy. You remind me of a kid of my own up at Fairplay. The fellow's only chaffing you. When any one's been just a little while in the country, they always call him a 'tender-foot.' ...
— Harper's Young People, August 3, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... awfully thick, you know; and she chaffed me all the evening about my engagement with Miss Phillips. She had heard all about it, and is crazy to find out whether it's going on yet or not. We had great fun—she chaffing and questioning, and I trying to fight her off. Well; the dancing was going on, and I'd been separated from her for some time, and was trying to find her again, and I saw some one standing in a recess of one of the windows, with a dress ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... much laughter during the rest of the meal, and Barnes had to stand for much chaffing, which he bore with a somewhat sullen look. As the officers rose none offered to leave the ward-room. All stood by waiting to see Barnes hand thirty-three ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... watch and then, turning in the saddle, addressed another officer of the regiment who was chaffing Raymond ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... Lieutenant with a sigh. "Buck up and get well again, Mouldy, and come back to us. We're all going North to-morrow night, Gerrard and Tweedledum, and Pills here ... and all the rest of 'em. You'd better join up with the party!" He spoke in gently chaffing, affectionate tones. "I don't think we can spare you, ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... very well 'chaffing,' but I am a miserable woman. Frank says I have ruined his life; that it's all my ambition; that he might have made a decent country gentleman if I hadn't sown the seed of every vice in him by driving him into politics. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
