square-toes

• “He learned that a hundred and odd workmen were engaged, and he pictured them as a set of square-toes whose talk would be guarded and pious and narrow, for in his innocence he imagined the men who translated good books into type were necessarily good, and the men who translated into type the goody-goody were of that spiritual complexion.”

  Despair's Last Journey

• “But I should think Nan knows better than to marry a square-toes.”

  Dangerous Ages

• “From the merriest of mischief-loving youngsters, he has hardened into the solemnest of square-toes, with _such_ a long upper-lip, and manners as stiff as the stuff of his awful best cassock, which he always buckles on prior to paying me a visit.”

  Grey Roses

• “The Doctor made a low bow to her ladyship (of which salaams he was profuse), and walked off on his creaking square-toes after his patron.”

  The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. A Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne

• “I never shall forget the solemn remonstrances of our old square-toes of a rector at Hackton, who made one or two vain attempts to teach little Bryan Latin, and with whose innumerable children I sometimes allowed the boy to associate.”

  Barry Lyndon

• “ÒHe is doubtless, Ó thought I, Òsome rich old square-toes of regular habits, and is now taking exercise after breakfast.”

  Drawing-Room Tales. The Stout Gentleman; The Deserter; and The Broken Heart

• “He is doubtless," thought I, "some rich old square-toes, of regular habits, and is now taking exercise after breakfast.”

  Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists

• “And what must have been the sadness, the sadness and terror, of the housekeeper’s little daughter with the curling black ringlets and the sweet smiling face, when the secretary who teaches her to read and write, and whom she loves and reverences above all things—above mother, above mild Dorothea, above that tremendous Sir William in his square-toes and periwig, —when Mr. Swift comes down from his master with rage in his heart, and has not a kind word even for little Hester Johnson?”

  Jonathan Swift

• “(of which salaams he was profuse), and walked off on his creaking square-toes after his patron.”

  The History of Henry Esmond

• “They've come to grab you for killing that striker," he began, breathlessly; "there's a couple of 'square-toes' on the dock now.”

  The Silver Horde

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