It's 1919. They've caught, the rising generation, the flag of liberty that the war flamed across the world; license, the curmudgeons call it; liberty, the young set free.
"This Freedom"
A. S. M. Hutchinson
Man up, man down, he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset, wooden-gated curmudgeons: and let it be pugilism if their white livers shivered at the notion of powder and ball.
"The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith"
George Meredith
Rich old bachelors might with propriety be called curmudgeons.
"Ayala's Angel"
Anthony Trollope