Poor Jones was in a digmix—he
Had blown his right front tire;
He worked from half past one till three;
Oh, how he did perspire!
But that was not what crazed his mind;
A digmix worse than that
Confronted him—he had to find
That day a good, cheap flat!
Dril´lig, n. A tiresome lingerer; a button-holer.
Dril´li-ga-tor, n. Same as drillig.
Dril´li-gate, v. 1. To detain a person when he wants to go to work or get away. 2. To talk unceasingly at an inconvenient time.
He rings you up on the telephone, or she rings you up, and drilligates you by the hour, if you are too kind-hearted to hang up the receiver. Of course she has nothing important to say; you know she is leaning back in her chair, smiling, and eating chocolates. (See Lallify.)
The drillig calls in the rush hours of business, sits down, crosses his legs, and nothing moves except his mouth. He is never busy and never hurried. He catches you on the street corner, holds you by the button or lapel, in the middle of a cursing stream of pedestrians, and tells you a long, dull story. “Just a minute, now, I just want to tell you about—” The Ancient Mariner was a drillig. (See Xenogore.)
The public speaker at the banquet rises with a bland smile and looks at his watch. “The hour is so late,” he says, “and there are so many more interesting speakers to be heard from, that I shall detain you with only a few words—” and he drilligs on for an hour and six minutes by the clock.
The drillig catches you in a corner at the club and tells you the story of his play; the young mother nails you to the sofa with her smile, and drilligs you about Baby.
The book agent, anchored in the front door at meal times, is the master drilligator of them all. (See Persotude.)