Do we say riff or rift
After drafting a number of well-to-do farmers, whom he knows will pay him snug sums of money rather than to serve under him, he pockets their money and proceeds to fill his company from the riff-raff of the country through which he passes.
Here I found assembled a motley assemblage of citizens, negroes, steamboat-hands, and the general riff-raff of the place.
I am a bit of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of rag, tag, and bobtail," said Mr. Bounderby.
Shy of meeting those who had once treated him as an equal, imagining when he did meet them that now they only admitted him to their company on sufferance and held him in their thoughts of no account, he had become avid for recognition among the riff-raff of the town.
A popular audience, however, does not necessarily mean the mere riff-raff of the theatrical public.
Princes and Government officials also travel with an enormous following, mainly composed of hangers-on and riff-raff, who plunder and devastate as ruthlessly as a band of Kurd or Turkoman robbers.
She could not imagine his "putting on airs," as he would call it, though she thought it might be better if he were less of the "hail-fellow-well-met," and more of the master in manner among his own cattlemen, and particularly with the wild riff-raff that had rushed to his land with the oil boom.
Something has thus been gained; but the greatest gain ever yet won for the cause of peace was the refusal of the Catalonian reservists to serve in the war against the Riff mountaineers of Morocco in July 1909.
"I am sorry for that," he rejoined, with evident disapproval; "she oughtn't to have come among these riff-raff.
I tried to find a railway official; but I might almost as well have looked for a flea in a flower-gardenno badges, no distinctive marks, the station full of all the riff-raff of the town;it was hopeless.
"The article then goes on to explain the methods employed at electionsviz., a lazy fellow who wont work, brawls, and drinks, and spouts, and defames every honest man in the ward, till he becomes a semi-deity among the riff-raff, then "his position is found out by those who want to use him.
First, that honest people should not leave politics to the riff-raff.
That night I walked through the waist of the ship and on to the promenade-deck of the third-class passengers, where a huddle of stores, coiled ropes, and riff-raff prevented these poor from taking any pleasurable exercise.
A couple o' policemen was standing by the gate and arf the riff-raff of Wapping behind 'em.
When one speaks of Congressmen or Members of Parliament one thinks, to be plain about it, of intellectual riff-raff.
In the most obscure alley in Marseilles there is a caf frequented by sailors, riff-raff from the waterfront and thieves.
"The hoi polloi and the riff-raff always get in at home.
They were the riff-raff of the battle, the skulkers, the cowards, the slightly wounded, making pin pricks an excuse for escape.
Bell, from a side window joined in, and a single glance told the reason: up from the south rode cavalry, sweeping the pike clean of its riff-raff, and behind, barely visible through the dust, tramped a compact mass of infantry, breaking into double time.
But they are the people of quality and tone, about whom one wants to know much more than about sun-burnt and positive Generalsthe strong silent sortor overworked politicians bent on conciliating the riff-raff.
Thus it would finally result that the ordinary unspecialized flowers, which depended upon small insect riff-raff, would be mostly left yellow or white; those which appealed to rather higher insects would become pink or red; and those which laid themselves out for bees or butterflies, the aristocrats of the arthropodous world, would grow for the most part to be purple or blue.
were bees, while the remainder consisted mainly of miscellaneous small flies and other arthropodous riff-raff, whereas, in the brilliant class of composites, including the asters, sunflowers, daisies, dandelions, and thistles, nearly seventy-five per cent.
Back of all are Dhobee, the washerman, and Dirzce, the tailor, and Mehter, the sweeper, and Mussalehee, the torch-boy, and Metranee, the scullion,and all the rest of the household riff-raffry.
Swam out of sight of the sands to rid myself of a view of the excursion riff-raff thereon congregated.
Some of the plingers amongst this riff-raff must have recognized their mate, and thinking that the trouble was merely a case of a street beggar insulting a citizen, and noting that this one wore the hated uniform of a railroad manevery tough's sworn enemythey made common cause and the next moment Joe saw a heavy beer bottle descending upon his head, then all was darkness.
delightupon May- day, in shortwas disclosed a terrible rift within poor Jasperson's lute.
Perfection can be overdone; a rift in a lute relieves melodious monotony, and when discords cease to amuse, one can always have the instrument mended or buy a banjo.
A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS XIX POLITIC REPENTANCE XX A TELEPHONE CALL XXI THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS XXII GONE XXIII
There was one rift in the lute of lumber trust solidarity in Centralia.
A pall of gloom encompassed hima pall without one rift of light.
CHAPTER XII A Rift in the Lute.
He was delighted to think that the rift in the Basu lute was widening, and promised her a handsome reward when the estrangement should take place.
At a certain time one of these, a woman, by name Ataensic, threw herself through a rift in the sky and fell toward the earth.
I still hear the drops falling from the waterspouts; but there is a rift in the clouds, and a few stars are visible.
The thought seemed to me like a rift in the dark clouds that weighed upon me.
There seemed no rift in the clouds that overshadowed them.
At the rift in the wood she had leaned on a huge oak and as body and mind again failed had sunk to its base in leafy hiding.
Once the rain lightened, and half a mile away the sunshine gleamed through a rift in the leaden cloud-mass.
Suddenly in this rift of shimmering brightness there appeared a flock of beautiful white egrets.
They then crossed the rift and were swallowed in the gray gloom of the day.
Now these heroes saw a rift on the surface of the earth.
This address is the one rift in the blank wall of anonymity which hides the individuality of the millions under Joffre.
"'And a stately house one instant showed, Through a rift, on the vessel's lea; What manner of creatures may be those That build upon the sea?'" After the lighthouse was built, Winstanley went out again to see his precious tower.
The last fear that occurred to him was that within ten years a hopeless rift, not of affection but of conviction, would have run through that company of friends, and parted irrevocably their course and work in life.
In the course of 1839, the little cloud showed itself in the outlook of the future; the little rift opened, small and hardly perceptible, which was to widen into an impassable gulf.
With the first rift of light in the east I rose from my sleepless bed under the wagonI would not profane her couch inside by occupying itand yoked up my cattle.
Then a rift had begun to grow between the Regent and his Ministers.
The little birds carolled loud Her beauty shone as a star might shine In the rift of a morning cloud.
"Oh yes," answered MIGNON, "there will come a rift in the hitherto perfect lute of our friendship (the rift's name will be DARKEY), but we shall manage to bridge it overat least TOM RUM SUMMER says so.
"Oh yes," answered MIGNON, "there will come a rift in the hitherto perfect lute of our friendship (the rift's name will be DARKEY), but we shall manage to bridge it overat least TOM RUM SUMMER says so.
