"Testy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opposite side, the detective took me around and they were introduced as Mr. Field and Mr. Radcliff, prospective beef buyers. The boys had stretched a tarpaulin, affording ample shade, and Parent invited every one to dinner. The two strangers were rather testy, but Siringo ate ravenously, repeatedly asking for things which were usually kept in a well-stocked chuck-wagon, meanwhile talking with great familiarity ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... the testy reply. "For thousands of years the world has been gazing upon dead stones and canvases, reading dead words. Dead—all, I tell you, all of these arts. And painting is only in two dimensions—a poor copy of nature. The theatre has its possibilities, but is too restricted in space. Music is alive. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... there's no standing against this frankness; and, to be as frank with you, my lord, I was wrong myself to be so testy—I ask pardon, too. A M'Leod never thought it a disgrace to crave a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... Testy and impatient, the commissioner decided that she should be taken back to her parents, but only on one condition: she must promise never to try ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... grave or mellow, Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow; Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain; Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;— As testy sick men, when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know;— For, if I should despair, I should grow mad, And in my madness might speak ill of thee; Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad, Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be. That I may not be so, nor thou belied, ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... occurred to her that her father, the darling of her thought, had seemed slow to appreciate her marriage sacrifice, and was testy at her willingness to loosen her heart with her vestal ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... be not so testy, and for your satisfaction I can solemnly promise, that if the oysters are stewed, you shall have good and sufficient notice of the moment they are to be on table—But, bless my heart, how the fire rages!—I can neither spare time nor wind to parley a moment longer—Tom and Bob have already ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... from her afternoon slumber, was inclined to be testy. As far as she was concerned, she was very much against the idea of Constance marrying any one, for the girl's presence saved her a great deal of trouble in many ways; the consultations with the housekeeper, the choosing of books, the ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... advantages of a glorious Birth, has a double right and power to defend all that approach you for sanctuary; your very Beauty is a Guard to all you daigne to make safe: for You were born for Conquest every way; even what Phanatick, what peevish Politician, testy with Age, Diseases, miscarried Plots, disappointed Revolutions, envious of Power, of Princes, and of Monarchy, and mad with Zeal for Change and Reformation, could yet be so far lost to sense of Pleasure, as not to turn a Rebel to Revenge the Good old Cause, and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... than he ought to have been at all that Mr. Bell was saying. He was not in a mood for joking. At another time, he could have enjoyed Mr. Bell's half testy condemnation of a town where the life was so at variance with every habit he had formed; but now, he was galled enough to attempt to defend what was never meant to be ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... only feckless—only feckless, as the Scotch say," she rejoined with testy sadness. "Well, since everybody is going, I am going too. I ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... half-a-dozen like him in the village school-house when the inquest was opened at ten-o'clock that morning. It seemed to Copplestone that it would have been a physical impossibility to crowd more people within the walls than had assembled when the coroner, a local solicitor, who was obviously testy, irritable, self-important and afflicted with deafness, took his seat and looked sourly on the crowd of faces. Copplestone had already seen him in conversation with the village doctor, the village police, Chatfield, and Marston Greyle's solicitor, and he began ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... distressed if you had thought such alteration necessary," returned her son, very much surprised at this reference to his father. For Mrs. Drummond rarely consulted her husband on such matters. In this case, however, she had done so, and Mr. Drummond had been unusually testy—indeed, affronted—at such a ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... persisted in the practice of enclosing bank-notes in letters. Persons cognizant of this habit had remonstrated with him; not his clerks—of course they had not presumed to do so. Mr. Galloway, who liked his own way, had become somewhat testy upon the point, and, not a week before the present time, had answered in a sort of contradictory spirit that his money-letters had always gone safely hitherto, and he made no doubt they always ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of this traveling at last began to tell on their morale. Not that they grew testy or irritable, but the silences were longer, the repartee less gay, and even buoyant Peter's ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... frighted when a madman stares? Cas. O ye gods! ye gods! must I endure all this? Bru. All this! Ay, more: fret till your proud heart break; Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch Under your testy humor? By the gods, You shall digest the venom of your spleen, Though it do split you; for, from this day forth, I'll use you for my mirth, yea for my laughter, When you are waspish. Cas. Is it come to this? Bru. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... to your face and your manner my son, from the first minute my eyes fell on you; and it would have been a slight thing for ye to have come up and cheered the old woman's well-nigh withered heart," she observed, in a more testy tone than ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... sort." Simpson's answer was very testy. "What call have you to interfere with the Magdalens?" His anger rose from a cause perhaps more explicable to ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... in a testy old huntsman, as hot as a pepper-corn; a meagre, wiry old fellow, in a threadbare velvet jockey-cap, and a pair of leather breeches, that, from much wear, shone as though they had been japanned. He was very contradictory ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... would acknowledge to have heard, no rumours of the hostile intentions of his father's cousin; only, he observed, "He is an old man," with a gesture that implied wilfulness. He would have us believe that this terrible enemy who has been pursuing us—at least in our imagination—is nothing but a testy old gentleman, who says these sort of things in a fanciful way ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... a doleful pass had these gentlemen come, who lately had so lorded it among us—these proud and testy autocrats of County Tryon, with their vast estates, their baronial halls, their servants, henchmen, tenantry, armed ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Giglio,' says Rosalba. 'You know Blackstick has been very kind to us, and we must not offend her.' But the Fairy was not listening to Giglio's testy observations, she had fallen back, and was trotting on her pony now, by Master Bulbo's side, who rode a donkey, and made himself generally beloved in the army by his cheerfulness, kindness, and good-humour to everybody. ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... themselves have wrought so much good by contemning. But if neither the check that Moses gave to young Joshua, nor the countermand which our Saviour gave to young John, who was so ready to prohibit those whom he thought unlicensed, be not enough to admonish our elders how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is; if neither their own remembrance what evil hath abounded in the Church by this set of licensing, and what good they themselves have begun by transgressing it, be not enough, but that they will persuade and execute the most Dominican part of the Inquisition ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... this! ay, more: fret till your proud heart break; Go show your slaves how choleric you are, And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? Must I observe you? must I stand and crouch Under your testy humour? By the gods, You shall digest the venom of your spleen, Though it do split you; for, from this day forth, I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter, When ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... iron-gray hair, his positive and as it were categorical stride, his slow, precise way of putting a statement, the strange union of trampling radicalism in some directions and high-stepping conservatism in others, which made it impossible to calculate on his unexpressed opinions, his testy ways and his generous impulses, his hard judgments and kindly actions, were characteristics that gave him a very ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... remember the day when no man quit me. Wal, wal!—times change. I'm an old man now. Mebbe, mebbe I'm testy. An' then thar's ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... man's shoulder with a testy, balked gesture. "Yes! enjoyin' th' racket an' dhrunk like th' rist, I guess! . . . 'Tis a foine sort av town-constable ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... and drunk their fill, they put the beast on a waggon, and themselves mounted their steeds. All were gay and talkative, except the Assessor and the Notary, who were more testy than the day before, quarrelling over the merits of that Sanguszko gun and that Sagalas musket from Balabanowka. The Count and Thaddeus also rode on in no merry mood, being ashamed that they had missed ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... I reckon. It won't hurt him to tell the truth. He was as testy as a snapping turtle—you know that. Plenty of folks disliked him. Most likely the person who attacked him was a tramp who hoped to find money. By the way, did anybody look to see if there had been robbery as well ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... threat was no despicable one, and the members of the Council were brought by it to a milder disposition than that disclosed by the testy reply of their President to Fray Miguel's opening discourse. Garcia Padilla undertook the apology of the Council, protesting that many excellent Provisions in favour of the Indians had emanated from that body, whose intentions were good; he offered to submit these proofs of an equitable ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... occasional group of two or three and around the general store stood a few other natives, listlessly awaiting the call to the evening meal. These cast curious glances at the well-known forms of the old man and the young girl, for his two years' residence had not made the testy old Colonel any less strange to them. They knew all about him there was to know—which was nothing at all—and understood they must not venture to address him as they would have done any ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... said. "I didna mean to say anything unkind. Christie mustna be so testy. Don't tell me that you like milk better than tea. Christie will enjoy hers all the better if you take one too." And ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... began to turn a little testy as the constable finished. He seemed a magistrate who liked to be paternal, and he appeared to grow impatient under the extraordinarily correct language ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... dictated by the Squire, and illustrated often by a number of references to classical writers, given both in Greek and English. The labour of looking out and verifying the references was considerable, and the Squire's testy temper was never more testy than when it was quarrelling with the difficulties ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... often follow the testy humor. The plunge of a three-pound fish, the slap-dash of a dozen smaller ones would startle you into nervous casting. But again you might as well spare your efforts, which only served to acquaint the trout with the best ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... used as a plaster, and was valued as a charm. Francisco Fernandez took it to Europe; Drake and Raleigh introduced it in England, and though its use was regarded as a sin, to be checked not merely by royal "counterblasts" and by edicts like that of William the Testy, but by laws prescribing torture, exile, whipping, and even death, it was not long in reaching the uttermost ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... of a son, but this lump of grief in the form of a daughter. And as if her sex were not enough[13], her almost inconceivable beauty and accomplishments have only added to my calamity: nay, they are the very root of it, and the essence of its sting. For all has come to pass, exactly as that testy old rishi said. For though she is, as thou seest, beautiful as the moon, and like it, full of arts[14], and above all, a dancer that would turn even Tumburu green with envy, all this nectar has become poison by the curse of that old ascetic, and ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... to his inexpressible astonishment saw the keeper of the king's conscience in the flowing raiment of a chorister, and heard him give "Glory to God in the highest!" as though he were a hired singer. "God's body! God's body! My Lord Chancellor a parish clerk?—a parish clerk?" was the duke's testy expostulation with the Chancellor. Whereupon More, with gentle gravity, answered, "Nay; your grace may not think that the king—your master and mine—will with me, for serving his Master, be offended, and thereby account his office dishonored." Not only ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... fruit and vegetables for Copenhagen, and settled on the fertile island of Amager which abuts on the city. Every morning these Amager peasants may be seen driving their laden carts across the bridge which joins their island to the mainland. These genial, stout, but sometimes testy Amager wives have it all their own way in the market-place, and are clever in attracting and befooling a customer. So it has become a saying, if you look sceptical about what you are told, the "story-teller" ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... tyrant. I tried to escape her this morning; had got as far as one foot out of bed when she bore down upon me, calmly, devilishly calmly, pointed to my offending foot, and said: "Back, sir!" Then we argued a bit—I'm afraid I was a trifle testy—and finally she laid hands upon my ankle in the most scientific manner and had me on my back before I could think of the proper adjectives to apply ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... keeper, who was my informant, assured me that several times they were fearful, or, more correctly speaking, expected that he would break a blood vessel, by giving himself up to such unbounded fury. It seems the family at Tottenham did not know of the precaution that is used upon such occasions, by a testy old baronet of this county, who does not live a hundred miles from Stoneaston, which I am credibly informed is as follows—whenever the baronet has one of these sudden and violent paroxysms of passion, which is not very unfrequently, her ladyship prevails upon him to sit ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... used to say in the spring, "The Lord is calling me to Italy," and a testy parson once remarked, "The Lord always calls you at very convenient times, Radstock." I don't feel as if the Lord had called me here at a very ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... was engaged in this occupation there was a testy rap at the door, and Mrs. Driver appeared. She eyed my manoeuvres with the rejection form with a severe frown. After a preliminary sniff she embarked upon a rapid lecture on what she called my irregular and untidy ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... was foretold by an old Lourpidon hag that his kingdom should be restored to him at the coming of the Cocklicranes, which she called Coquecigrues. What is become of him since we cannot certainly tell, yet was I told that he is now a porter at Lyons, as testy and pettish in humour as ever he was before, and would be always with great lamentation inquiring at all strangers of the coming of the Cocklicranes, expecting assuredly, according to the old woman's prophecy, that at their coming he shall be re-established in ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... sick of all this insincerity, and feeling bitter against the person who had provoked it, when an unseen hand opened the door of a room on the Pincio side of the drawing-room, and the testy voice of her aunt ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... enough to make any one testy, and Aspinall, had he known it, would have been less surprised than he was to have his head almost snapped off as the two fellow-fags sat at work in their ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... is to be seen, two or three times in the week, jogging along before the square-topped chaise, upon some highway that leads into the town, with the parson seated within, with slackened rein, and in thoughtful mood, from which he rouses himself from time to time with a testy twitch and noisy chirrup that urge the poor beast into a faster gait. All the while the little wife sits beside him, as if a twittering sparrow had nestled itself upon the same perch with some grave owl, and sat with him side by side, watching for the big eyes to turn upon her, and chirping ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... products is an element in the culture of the community. But it is more than that; it is both a pledge and a stimulus to excellence in future production. Artists in all fields are popularly stigmatized as a testy lot—irritabile genus—but their techiness does not necessarily mean opposition to criticism, but only to uninformed and unappreciative criticism, especially if it be cocksure and blatant. There is nothing that the true artist ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... was sensitive. The life of a lawyer in great practice is very trying to the spirit, but no one ever saw Mr. Choate discomposed or ruffled, and the sharp contentions of the most protracted and hotly contested trial never extorted from him a testy remark, a peevish exclamation, a wounding reflection. He never wasted any of his nervous energy in scolding, fretting, or worrying. Such invincible and inevitable sweetness of temper would have made the most commonplace man attractive: we need not say what a charm it gave to such ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... after the manner of trusted subordinates, considered him as a person fitted by education perhaps to sign papers in an office and to give orders, but otherwise of no use whatever, and something of a fool. The necessity of winding round his little finger, almost daily, the pompous and testy self-importance of the old seaman had grown irksome with use to Nostromo. At first it had given him an inward satisfaction. But the necessity of overcoming small obstacles becomes wearisome to a self-confident personality as much by the certitude of success ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... kind, grumbled; but to themselves; and in a way their fare should hear. "Naruhodo! What a beast of a night is this! Mate, it is to Nakanocho[u]; but Nakanocho[u] whither? The Danna Sama is testy. He is not to be questioned. He might give a cut. Jubei is lucky. He has changed head for rear. A care there! A care there! What? Again around? What a night, and what a Danna to deal with!" The unconscious Chu[u]dayu was borne ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... that Egbert was the odd one in the Saxon family. He had inherited a testy strain of temper, and was frequently most obstinate and perverse. It was unfortunate that he was an articled pupil in his father's office, for he fretted and tried Mr. Saxon far more than Athelstane would have done in the ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... rigid, severe, teasing, unsuitable, angry, boisterous, choleric, disgusting, gruff, hectoring, incorrigible, mischievous, negligent, offensive, pettish, roaring, sharp, sluggish, snapping, snarling, sneaking, sour, testy, tiresome, tormenting, touchy, arrogant, austere, awkward, boorish, brawling, brutal, bullying, churlish, clamorous, crabbed, cross, currish, dismal, dull, dry, drowsy, grumbling, horrid, huffish, insolent, intractable, irascible, ireful, morose, murmuring, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... but jealous of his own good name and fame, and fighting valiantly, when needs must be, to maintain his rights; guilty sometimes of mistakes and errors of judgment; occasionally quick-tempered and testy under the stress of discouragement and the pressure of poverty, but frank to acknowledge his error and to make amends when convinced of his fault; and the calm verdict of posterity has awarded him ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... would not have his last hours soothed by the finest orchestra. After a week, during which we sent every day to inquire after Mr Whortleback's health, we ventured to resume the piano and harp; upon which the old gentleman became testy, and sent for a man with a trumpet, placing him in the balcony, and desiring him to play as much out of tune as possible whenever the harp and piano sounded a note. Thus were we at open hostility with our only neighbour; and, as we were certain if my daughters touched ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... even to herself, that such a thought affected her in any way—she felt very unhappy in the midst of her rejoicing, and knew not what to make of it. This condition of mind, as the reader knows, is apt to make any one lower than an angel somewhat testy! ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... observed by several, that the Lion has changed his manner of Acting twice or thrice since his first Appearance; which will not seem strange, when I acquaint my Reader that the Lion has been changed upon the Audience three several times. The first Lion was a Candle-snuffer, who being a Fellow of a testy, cholerick Temper over-did his Part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so easily as he ought to have done; besides, it was observ'd of him, that he grew more surly every time he came out of the Lion; and having ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... tho' they abused me very Generally and very Grosly, my chief Delight was, that they never reviled me so much as when I was in my greatest Glory, as Dogs never are so apt to Bark at the Moon, as when she is at the Full. Besides, let me tell you, testy Sir, with the old Poet Nomina mille, mille nocendi Artes. 'Tis so easy to be malicious, and at the same time so mean, that true Worth never Triumphs so eminently over its Enemies, as when they expose their Weakness and Envy by reviling it. It is true, many Scriblers busied themselves ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... Testy ruled New Amsterdam,— A tall man he,— Whose rule was meant by him to be no sham, But rather like the stern paternal style That sways the city now. He made the ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... 'wikked wayes' (by which he means not bad habits but bad roads) as one of those works of charity which rich merchants must do for the salvation of their souls. Thomas Paycocke's choice of roads no doubt reflects many a wearisome journey, from which he returned home splashed and testy, to the ministrations of 'John Reyner my man' or 'Henry Briggs my servant', and of Margaret, looking anxiously from her oriel window for his return. In his own town he leaves no less than forty pounds, of which twenty pounds was to go to amend a section ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... impression that she was ordering veal cutlets, maidenhair ferns, wax floor-polish, chiffon ruching, and closed carriages, from one and the same invisible interlocutor, who seemed impartially unable to supply any of these needs without rather testy exhortation. Mrs. Emery was one of the women who are always well served by "tradespeople," as she now called them, "and a good reason why," she was wont to ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... Terrify timegigi. Territory teritorio. Terror teruro. Terrorise terurigi. Test provi. Testament testamento. Testator testamentanto. Testify atesti. Testimonial atesto, rekomendo. Testy kolerema. Tetanus tetano. Tether ligilo. Text teksto. Textile teksa. Textual lauxteksta. Texture teksajxo. Thaler talero. Than ol. Thank danki. Thankfully danke. Thankfulness dankeco. Thankless ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... gone away out of humour in this way, and he said to Paumgartner, who had just emptied his last glass and rose to go too, "For the life of me, I can't understand what the old gentleman meant by his talk, and why he should have got testy about it at last." "My good friend Master Martin," began Paumgartner, "you are a good and honest man; and a man has verily a right to set store by the handiwork he loves and which brings him wealth ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... you oblige me to ask for them? Can't you bring them as I have told you? It makes me so late with my work." And, having delivered himself of these testy remarks, he threw himself into an arm-chair and proceeded to ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... streets of By-and-by, one arrives at the house of Never.—Spanish Proverb [Footnote: By-and-by has no real streets, the London journals do not actually thunder, nor were the cheeks of William the Testy literally scorched by his fiery gray eyes. Streets, house, colored, thunder, and scorched are not, then, used here in their first and ordinary meaning, but in a secondary and figurative sense. These words we call Metaphors. By what they denote and by what they only suggest they lend clearness, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... He was rather testy with Mr. Eastman. "For the life of me, I can't see how things have come to this pass," he said sharply. "Hope Mills has been considered as sound as a nut,—one of the surest places in the country. Mr. Lawrence ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... his superior strength might beat down and supplant. Of his own prowess, his power to supplant all rivals, he had no doubt. But hitherto he had found none to answer his challenge, and his humour was testy. He had no idea what sort of an animal it was that was making such objectionable noises on the other side of the hill; but whatever it might be, he did not like it. He knew it was not a bear. He ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... enough delay had there been already and he begged the newcomer to stand aside and allow them to terminate the business on which they were met. But Monsieur Francois—as Sanguinetti had called him—would not hear of it. He proved, indeed, a very testy fellow, and he had, moreover, the support of the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... outer door opens and Dad comes in stamping and blowing. Dad is late, but men are always late. It is expected that they should come in late and laugh at the women who chide and remind them that candles cost and that it makes the maid testy to be ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... palm from beneath the cocoanut trees; Aunt Varina was ordering new supplies, and entering into conspiracies with the cook. The nurses asked me timidly, what was He like, and even Dr. Gibson, a testy old gentleman who had clashed violently with me on the subject of woman's suffrage, and had avoided me ever since as a suspicious character, now came and confided his troubles. He had sent home for a trunk, and the graceless express companies had ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... Zenas to these meetings. At times the young man seemed strangely subdued and docile, and Neville rejoiced over what he considered the yielding of his will to the hallowed influences of the good Spirit of God. At other times he seemed wilful and wayward, or even petulant and testy, giving evidence of the resistance of his human will to the Divine drawings of which he was the subject. At such times the faith of Neville was sorely tried; but his patience and forbearance were never exhausted, and the sisterly affection and tenderness ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow; Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... the schools of the city were assembled for the yearly prize distribution—a ceremony followed by an oration from one of the professors. I think I was glad when M. Paul appeared behind the crimson desk, fierce and frank, dark and candid, testy and fearless, for then I knew that neither formalism nor flattery would be ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and uncle of the two brothers, Charles (the scholar) and Eustace (the courtier). Miramont is an ignorant, testy old man, but a great admirer of learning and scholars.—Beaumont and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... slowly sending up wreaths of dirty, green, yellow smoke, but as the fire waxed warmer these disappeared, and vivid hissing jets of ignited gas shot forth in abundance. The hissing annoyed me; why, I could not divine; but as the heat increased I cooled from the state of excitement produced by the testy destruction of my papers, model, and specimen. I sat down at the fire; had I not better, said I, have made my wants known to the servant, than have acted as I have done? No, I hate asking for what, as a duty should have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... run! The nearest doctor! Run!" So Mr. Krook addresses a crazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appears and vanishes in a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testy medical man brought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lip ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... cavaliers who abet the sausage-seller, Agoracritus, egged on by the discontented family servants (the generals), Nicias and Demosthenes, to outbid with shameless flattery the rascally Paphlagonian steward, Cleon, and supplant him in the favor of their testy bean-fed old master, Demos (or People). At the close, Demos recovers his wits and his youth, and is revealed sitting enthroned in his glory in the good old Marathonian Athens of the Violet Crown. The prolongation ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... was not invariably placid. The geologist had an irritable temper, and in certain states of the atmosphere his rheumatic twinges made it advisable to shun argument with him. Godwin, moreover, was distinguished by an instability of mood peculiarly trying to an old man's testy humour. Of a sudden, to Mr Gunnery's surprise and annoyance, he would lose all interest in this or that science. Thus, one day the lad declared himself unable to name two stones set before him, felspar and ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... so loud, you'll waken little Gottfried," said Philippina in a testy, morose tone. "And get out of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... received its name from Sir John Craig, a gouty, testy, but trusty old soldier, who administered the Government in 1807-9-10; it was enlarged and widened ten feet, after the great fire of 1845. The site of St. Paul's Market was acquired from the Royal ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... could not yet exceed threescore, or thereabouts. There was an air of gravity and importance about the garb of the person, and something indescribably odd, I might say awful, in the perfect, stone-like stillness of the figure, that effectually checked the testy comment which had at once risen to the lips of the irritated artist. He, therefore, as soon as he had sufficiently recovered his surprise, asked the stranger, civilly, to be seated, and desired to know if he had any message to leave ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... to get angry. He found a stone and he banged the door. He threatened Aunt Judy with the law. He told her she had no right to go to bed and keep the company out of their station, when the creek was up; but, from her testy answers, his threats seemed to have made but little impression upon her. She didn't care if they stopped her pay, or fined her, or sent her to prison. She never heard of "sich bisness, a-wakin' people out of their beds in the middle o' the night fur ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... in the matter but nothing more. The Judge was a little bit gloomy for a day or two after, and more testy with ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... more opposed to the idea of a gentleman than the saeva animi tempestas [Fierce tempest of the soul] of anger. A testy, quarrelsome, mucky humor is antisocial, and an outburst of rage is repulsive. Even non-resistance, turning the other cheek, has its victories and may be a method of moral combat. A strong temper well controlled and kept in leash makes a kinetic character; but in view of bullying, unfair ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... who will seek for no comfort, nor yet receive none, but in their tribulation (be it loss or sickness) are so testy, so fuming, and so far out of all patience that it profiteth no man to speak to them. And these are as furious with impatience as though they were in half a frenzy. And, from a custom of such behaviour, they may fall into one full and ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... gait then," said the testy aggressor, angry at the interruption, being fearful of losing ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... discuss that," he said, deserting for the moment his air of good-fellowship and returning to the quick, testy manner of speaking which was so characteristic of him in matters of decision. "I take it you have said nothing to Larkin, or anyone else, concerning your—ah, ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... and testy as a child, Who wayward once, his mood with naught agrees. Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild, Continuance tames the one, the other wild. Like an unpractis'd swimmer, plunging still With too much labour drowns for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... ein Amerikaner—ein correspondent," I explained to the row of angry faces; and while my German friend soothed and reassured his testy compatriots, I moved away, glad enough to escape another visit to jail. Those personally conducted jail tours were not so bad, I had found, with a handsome gendarme at your side; but a howling crowd was altogether ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... drawing-room. Pictures hang on the walls, and the atmosphere of the whole place is one of courtesy and culture rather than of mere modern commerce. One of the portraits here is that of Mr. Brooke's granduncle—a handsome, full-blooded, rather testy-looking old warrior, in the close-fitting scarlet uniform of the Prince ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... closed by a double set of ancient iron-clamped doors. As the few exterior windows of the farm-house are grated heavily, and as from each of the rear corners of the square there projects a crusty tourelle from which a raking fire could be kept up along the walls, the place has quite the air of a testy little fortress—and a fortress it was meant to be when it was built three hundred years and more ago (the date, 1561, is carved on the keystone of the arched entrance) in the ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... There was a testy spirit manifested that I did not care to provoke. I could have met his assertion with facts and inferences of a character to startle any one occupying his position, who was in a calm, reflective state; but to argue with him then would have been worse than ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... grave or mellow, Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee. 700 ADDISON: Spectator. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... their reeking bosoms along the coast, at the bottom of Kip's Bay, counseled by all means to return thither, and found the intended city. This was strenuously opposed by the unbending Ten Broeck, and many testy arguments passed between them. The particulars of this controversy have not reached us, which is ever to be lamented; this much is certain, that the sage Oloffe put an end to the dispute, by determining to explore still farther in ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... as yet to be tame, And therefore I am loth to be under a dame. Now you are a bachelor, a man may soon win you, Methinks there is some good fellowship in you; We may laugh and be merry at board and at bed, You are not so testy as those that be wed. Mild in behaviour and loth to fall out, You may run, you may ride and rove round about, With wealth at your will and all thing at ease, Free, frank and lusty, easy to please. But when you be clogged and tied by the ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... well, that repentant and unwilling robber was obliged to make up for lost time. His first most important enterprise was to obtain entrance into the house of a large cattle dealer in York, the testy old person by the way, whose negro servant he had endeavoured in vain to rob upon the highway. It became known to the Rev. Mr. Jonas that there was a strong box in the old gentleman's house, and the same was full of 'yellow shiners.' It was secured, the clergyman ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... then there were several disjointed members of a sentence thrown out, ending in a cough; at length his voice forced its way into a slow, but absolute tone of a man who feels the weight of his purse, if not of his ideas, every portion of his speech being marked by a testy puff ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... curiosity, for its merriment has long since departed, leaving it dull as any thrice-repeated joke) are advised to skip the first two books, which are very tedious fooling, and to be content with an abridged version of the stories of Wouter van Twiller, William the Testy and Peter the Headstrong. These are the names of real Dutch governors of New Amsterdam, and the dates given are exact dates; but there history ends and burlesque begins. The combination of fact and nonsense and ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... and brimstones than any ten families in the place; and so truly did he inherit this family peculiarity, that he had not been a year in the government of the province before he was universally denominated William the Testy. His appearance answered to his name. He was a brisk, wiry, waspish little old gentleman, such a one as may now and then be seen stumping about our city in a broad-skirted coat with huge buttons, a cocked hat stuck on the back of his ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... to amuse the reader if not to illustrate the dangers of ignorance. We were engaged in a litigation in the United States District Court, where the subpoenas for the witnesses are issued by the clerk to the deputy marshals for service. Our opponent in the case was a testy old member of the bar over sixty years of age and of the very highest respectability and standing, who had several times refused elevation to the bench and was regarded as the personification of dignity and learning. Unfortunately his appearance belied ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... Crawford was seated on the porch of his house in Gentryville, Indiana, one spring afternoon when a small boy called to see him. The Squire was a testy old man, not very fond of boys, and he glanced up over his book, impatient and annoyed ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... freedom did bestow, 235 Our princes worship, with a blow. King PYRRHUS cur'd his splenetic And testy courtiers with a kick. The NEGUS, when some mighty lord Or potentate's to be restor'd 240 And pardon'd for some great offence, With which be's willing to dispense, First has him laid upon his belly, Then beaten back and side to a jelly; That done, he rises, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... and the storm subsided, rumbling off in half a dozen testy assertions on the general's part that he, Puddock, had distinctly used the word 'wounded,' and now and then renewing faintly, in a muttered explosion, on the troubles and worries of his command, and a great many 'pshaws!' and several fits of coughing, for the general continued ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... They lived together happily, though no children were born to them, and it has been proved that the reputation which has been given her, of being little better than a common scold, who imbittered his life by her termagancy, is the creation of the ill temper of one of the testy friends of Duerer, Willibald Pirkheimer, who, in the spirit of spitefulness, besmirched her character in a letter which unfortunately survives to this day, and in which he accuses her of having led her husband a mad and weary dance by her temper. The reason ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... no time to ask questions; his pen was across his mouth, and his brown wig pushed oblique upon his contracted forehead. The wig was always pushed crooked whenever he was in a brown or rather, a black study. Barbara, who did not, like Susan, bear with her father's testy humour from affection and gentleness of disposition, but who always humoured him from artifice, tried all her skill to fathom his thoughts, and when she found that it would not do, she went to tell her maid so, and to complain that her ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... General Edward Braddock came over with two regiments of British soldiers, and after augmenting his force with Colonial troops and a few Indians, began his fatal march upon Fort Duquesne. Braddock's testy disposition, his consuming egotism, his contempt for the Colonial soldiers, and his stubborn adherence to military maxims that were inapplicable to the warfare of the wilderness, alienated the respect ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... could not detest and abhor a pun, or the insinuation of a pun, more cordially than my father;—he would grow testy upon it at any time;—but to be broke in upon by one, in a serious discourse, was as bad, he would say, as a fillip upon ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... amplifications, which are characteristic of the contemporary rhetoric. A single illustration of a fault sufficiently notorious will be sufficient. When Nestor, in the eleventh book, rouses Diomed at night, Pope naturally smoothes down the testy remark of the sleepy warrior; but he tries to improve Nestor's directions. Nestor tells Diomed, in most direct terms, that the need is great, and that he must go at once and rouse Ajax. In Pope's ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... One testy old gentleman who was troubled with gout, spoke rather plainly. "Madam," he said, "I've heard that story every day of this week, and all I can say is, I wish you had gout in your feet as I have, and you'd have no time to waste ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... use the word "Mexico" what picture does it evoke in a resident of New York? Likely as not, it is some composite of sand, cactus, oil wells, greasers, rum-drinking Indians, testy old cavaliers flourishing whiskers and sovereignty, or perhaps an idyllic peasantry la Jean Jacques, assailed by the prospect of smoky industrialism, and fighting for the Rights of Man. What does the word "Japan" ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... Dr. Methuen could be quite testy on occasion. "I have other duties than to you, you know, and I only answer for my actions during the actual period of our interview. There are many things I should like to say to you, my brother," a gentler voice went ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... were the direct progeny of the snorting war-horse. The phrase "mad as a hornet" has become a proverb. Think, then, of a brush loaded and tipped with this martial spirit of Vespa, this cavorting afflatus, this testy animus! There is more than one pessimistic "goose-quill," of course, "mightier than the sword," which, it occurs to me in my now charitable mood, might have been thus surreptitiously voudooed by the war-like hornet, and the ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... with the other hounds: He'll venture on a lion in his ire; Curst Choler was his dam, and Wrong his sire. This Choler is a brach that's very old, And spends her mouth too much to have it hold: She's very testy, an unpleasing cur, That bites the very stones, if they but stur: Or when that ought but her displeasure moves, She'll bite and snap at any one she loves: But my quick-scented'st dog is Jealousy, The truest of this breed's in Italy: The dam of mine ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan |
