He looks young in spite of his thick, black beard; his eyes are weak, his expression is sly and disagreeable, and looks as if he might sometimes have his hours of coarse joviality.

The "mountain-looking fellow," as Dickens called him, the patron of "cock-fighting, wrestling, pugilistic contests, boat-racing, and horse-racing" left his mark on his generation for a unique combination of boisterous joviality and hardhitting.

But had it been otherwise, had he not been bound prisoner to John Saltram's sick-room, he would scarcely have cared to take his part in the conventional feastings and commonplace jovialities of Lidford House.

As I took my solitary evening meal in a low building cut off from the inn, composed of a large salle-à-mangerthe same in which the feast was heldand a bedroom, where I was to pass the rest of the night, I could not help contrasting the exuberant joviality of the morning with the absolute want of it now.

The Judge, however, was in gout; he was feverish too; and the attack, though very short, was sharp; and when, in about a fortnight, it subsided, his ferocious joviality did not return.

At that period the festivals of the Church were frequent and rigidly kept, and as each of them was the pretext for a forced holiday from manual labour, the peasants thought of nothing, after church, but of amusing themselves; they drank, talked, sang, danced, and, above all, laughed, for the laugh of our forefathers quite rivalled the Homeric laugh, and burst forth with a noisy joviality (Fig. 69).

All this and a great deal more was told on that celebrated nightsometimes by one, sometimes by another, and sometimes, to the confusion of the audience, by two or three at once, and, not unfrequently, to the still greater confusion of story-tellers and audience alike, the whole proceedings were interrupted by the outrageous yells and turmoil of the two indomitable young Buzzbys, as they romped in reckless joviality with Dumps and Poker.

Without exception they were young men, husky and hearty and inspired with a beefish joviality at having found a place where they could ease their feet, and rest their legs, and slake their week-old thirst upon their own soothing brews.

He stopped quickly when Pym looked up, but during the remainder of the interview he emitted this whistle at intervals, always with that anxious glance at his friend the door; and its strained joviality was in odd contrast with his solemn face, like a cheery tune played on the church organ.