He went home dead-beat, is very irritable, off his food, can't sleep, and swears cantankerously that there's nothing the matter with him,-the usual symptoms.
"The Red Planet"
William J. Locke
She was pulled two ways: on the one side was the remembrance of Mr. Shepherd hacking cantankerously at the bare mutton-bone; on the other, the cherry-blossom and the mousmes of Japan.
"The Getting of Wisdom"
Henry Handel Richardson