An old name for the devil's-bit (Scabiosa succisa), in the northern counties, and in Scotland, is "curl-doddy," from the resemblance of the head of flowers to the curly pate of a boy, this nickname being often used by children who thus address the plant: "Curly-doddy, do my biddin', Soop my house, and shoal my widden'.

Now, I have a right round piece of a mind to crack thy knave's pate for thee!"

Neither seems the stratagem of Money to be so prevailing and catching, as a right down offer of such books which are ingenious and convenient: there being but very few so intolerably careful of their bellies, as to look upon the hopes of a cake or a few apples, to be a sufficient recompense, for cracking their pates with a heap of independent words.

It would likewise be proper for him to wear a wig in order to guard his shining pate against flies while at church in July, or against danger from pneumonia in January, even though wide-awake children in the neighboring pews deceived themselves into thinking that he had a fine head of natural hair.

That's the way to give it to him," his comrades encouraged, nodding their sleek bald-pates in indignation against anybody who tried to live apart from reality.

He eats gingerbread at a playhouse, and is so saucy that he ventures fairly for a broken pate at the banqueting-house, and hath it.

I insisted on driving and nursed the team as best I could, giving them plenty of time on the uphill grade, but sending them along at a furious pate on level ground and down hill.

" "Now yield thee," quoth the Tinker, "for thou art my captive; and if thou do not, I will beat thy pate to a pudding.

"But, Muddy dear, you weren't in earnest?" coaxed Nancy, bending her bright head over her mother's shoulder and cuddling up to her side; whereupon Gilbert gave his imitation of a jealous puppy; barking, snarling, and pushing his frowzly pate under his mother's arm to crowd Nancy from her point of vantage, to which she clung valiantly.