sprigling

Updated: May 2, 2025

The Captain glared round about him over a tossing sea of bales and asses' ears; getting small joy of that, he scowled portentously at the little minstrel and took a stride forward. "Look you, sprigling," said he, "you have to do with a man of deeds; a man, by Saint Hercules, of steel." Angioletto was fired, cheek and eye. He never faltered. "I wish I had to do with a man of sense," he said.

Maurice Henry Hewlett - Little Novels of Italy