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More "Hoax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the course of my life only three intentionally falsified statements, and one of these may have been a hoax (and there have been several scientific hoaxes) which, however, took in an American Agricultural Journal. It related to the formation in Holland of a new breed of oxen by the crossing of distinct species of Bos (some of which I happen to know are sterile ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... immediately on board the Lee with their luggage, as I felt it to be an imperative duty to take them back to the Confederacy for trial by court-martial. The junior demurred, believing it to be a hoax, but the senior peremptorily ordered him to accompany him on board. They were caught in a drenching shower on their way to the Lee; and they made their appearance in the cabin in a sorry plight, reporting themselves ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... being recognized. His motive and his personality still remain matters of conjecture. Whether the whole affair was a figment of Shelley's brain, rendered more than usually susceptible by laudanum taken to assuage intense physical pain; whether it was a perilous hoax played upon him by the Irish servant, Daniel Hill; or whether, as he himself surmised, the crime was instigated by an unfriendly neighbour, it is impossible to say. Strange adventures of this kind, blending fact and fancy in a now inextricable tangle, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... stranger, the cause of it all? He had not heard from him since the day of their visit to Mrs. Bean's, and but for the cheque which he had received he would have been inclined to consider the whole thing as a hoax. ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... another inquired of me, to no purpose, and expressed a wish that Mr. C. had been clearer in his citation, as "no one could understand it." On my naming this to Mr. Coleridge, he laughed heartily, and said, "It was all a hoax." "Not meeting" said he, "with a suitable motto, I invented one, and with references purposely obscure," as will be ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the house until Mose himself was frightened; then Radnor saw that the hoax had reached the point where it was no longer funny, and he determined to get rid of Jeff immediately. While he drove him to the station he left Mose behind to straighten up the loft; and Mose, coming into the house to put some things away, met ghost number two just ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... to further his design Karl and Olga should meet quite alone. He would see to it that even old Heinrich did not interrupt them until Olga had repeated her confession of love, and the hoax of the letter had been revealed. Then he would reappear, with the letter, and ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... no hoax," he agreed; "that quavering tone could never be faked. That message was sent from the same station we heard before. Yes, McGuire is alive—or was up to the end of that sending.... But, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... behind the barn was about a mile from a similar rise on Sam Atkins' place. They communicated across that distance in all the ways, including various kinds of codes, that Fenwick could think of to find some evidence of hoax. Afterwards, they returned to the laboratory and sawed in two the crystals they had just used. Then they showed him the tests they had devised to determine the nature of the radiation between ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... dreamers. They were put in practice on a large scale; they involved the disposal of millions of money; and they were in operation at so late a period, that the present generation paid heavy taxes for the purpose of carrying them out—taxes paid for nothing better than the success of a practical hoax. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... have followed. That this compact would have led to a settlement of the Russian problems is more than any one, however well informed, could vouch for, but I had some grounds for believing the move to be genuine and the promises overdone. No reasonable motive suggested itself for a vulgar hoax. Moreover, the overture disclosed two important facts, one of which was known at the time only to the Bolshevist government—namely, that secret pourparlers were going forward between Berlin and Moscow for the purpose of arriving at a workable understanding between ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the Browning marriage till the proof of the newspaper ('Examiner') notice was sent; when he went into one of his great passions at the supposed hoax, ordered up the compositor to have a swear at him, and demanded to see the MS. from which it was taken: so it was brought, and he instantly recognised the hand of Browning's sister. Next day came a letter from R. B., saying he ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... journalist's voice that Lars Larssen noted with keen satisfaction. "I doubt if the police'll do much unless the relations kick up a shindy. Paris is the finest place in Europe to get murdered in peacefully and without a lot of silly fuss. You see, it might be a hoax. Your Parisian hoaxer likes a dash of Grand Guignol horrors in his jokelet. The police have been had several times, and they're very much hoax-shy. I could tell you some pretty tales about mysterious disappearances that never get ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... profligate conduct as Savage displayed; so that, grant his improbable story, still he was a disorderly reprobate, who in these days would have been consigned to the treadmill. But the whole was a hoax. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... impatience, and bring the time of his interview; and his disappointment and rage may be imagined when he discovered the deception which had been practiced on him. Monsieur d'A—— wished at first to challenge the authors and actors in this hoax, and could with great ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... all appearances it was reassuringly the same as all the others. Gently she pushed it right and left, then up and down, but her pressure was so slight and nervous that it did not stir the heavy wood. She breathed a great sigh of relief, and beginning now to believe herself the victim of some cruel hoax, she dared a firmer pressure. The panel responded—moved—slid slowly behind its fellow—revealing the steel muzzle of a safe let into the solid masonry. It seemed the result of some evil witchcraft; her blood chilled. Yet, with renewed eagerness, she turned the combination. She did not need ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... Pembroke Lodge after the ceremony to luncheon; but just as we were going to church came a letter from Sir George Grey with news of the whole South of Ireland being in rebellion, with horrible additions of bloodshed, defection of the troops, etc. As it has, thank God, turned out to be a hoax, a most wicked hoax, of some stockjobbing or traitorous wretch at Liverpool, I shall not waste your time and sympathies by telling you of the anxious hours we spent till seven in the evening, when ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... young officers looked hard at Desmond, to discover if he was speaking seriously, for his tone was so quiet, and matter of fact, that they could scarce credit that he had passed through such an exciting adventure; and the three were so accustomed to hoax each other, that it struck them both as simply an invention on the part of their comrade, so absolutely improbable ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... could unravel what fantasy had seized him to lead him to hoax me in this manner, since for many years I had never opened my mouth concerning the life he led, whilst he, on his side, had said not a word to me relating to it. Yet it is true that sometimes being alone with confidential valets, some complaints have escaped him (but never before ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... old tale," was the reply, "this story of the Rosario viejo. I have heard it many times and I presume this shaft has been explored by every prospector in this section. In my opinion it is a huge hoax." ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... bared yellow, draws down his left eye with a finger and barks hoarsely) Hoax! Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. (More genially) Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item number ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... not rich enough at that moment to bid higher. Our poor fisherman did not know whether to be angry at a hoax, or to go mad with joy; we drew him from his quandary by giving him the name of our landlady and telling him to take the lobster and ...
— A Drama on the Seashore • Honore de Balzac
... Naomi's account, to clear the matter up; but it is only candid to add that my doubts of John Jago's existence remained unshaken by the letter. I believed it to be nothing more nor less than a heartless and stupid "hoax." ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... Tencin, an unprincipled woman of much ability, who had been the mistress of the still more infamous Cardinal Dubois. Voltaire boasts in his Memoirs, of having killed the Cardinal Tencin from vexation, at a sort of political hoax, which he played off upon him.-D. [The cardinal was afterwards, made Archbishop of Lyons. In 1752, he entirely quitted the court, and retired to his diocese, where he died in 1758, ,greatly esteemed," says the Biog. Univ. for his extensive charities." His sister died in 1749. She was ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... may be interested to know that the number of lives lost, the property damage, the business losses due to the panic, have not yet been fully determined; but it makes the hysteria following the Fantafilm hoax very small ...
— The Fourth Invasion • Henry Josephs
... took out the letter which he had picked up from the floor, and laid it in the physician's hand. As the doctor read, a look of indignant horror swept over his face. Then he said: "Can it be possible! I never suspected such a thing. It must be a cruel, senseless hoax." ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... silly hoax or a performance of the tremendous sleuth system of Germany, Gard was too unsettled to enjoy fully his brief sojourn at Heidelberg. He decided to trip up any pursuers. Instead of resuming by rail his journey to Mannheim, according to that section of his ticket, he took ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... announced on April 1, 1984 in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. The posting was actually forged by Piet Beertema as an April Fool's joke. Other fictitious sites mentioned in the hoax were moskvax and {kgbvax}. This was probably the funniest of the many April Fool's forgeries perpetrated on Usenet (which has negligible security against them), because the notion that Usenet might ever penetrate the Iron Curtain seemed so totally ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... to soothe it, but plough it and harrow it; "and did not that open her eyes?" He then reminded her that all these doctors in consultation would have contrived to agree. "But you," said he, "have baffled the collusive hoax by which Dox arrived at a sham uniformity—honest uniformity can never exist till scientific principles obtain. Listme! To begin, is the pashint ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... word Karl held out papers and envelope to the other man, who took them. Then he turned to Nikky, and now he raised his voice. "Where did you get this—hoax?" he demanded. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a little distance he walked up briskly to the door, and rang the bell. He walked up briskly in order that his advance might not be seen; unless, indeed, as he began to think not impossible, Aby's statement was altogether a hoax. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... said, "but nobody will know of it if we hold our tongues. We'll have to hold them anyhow, for Sylvia's sake, since she's been goose enough to go and fall in love with the Old Fellow. She'd go wild if she ever found out the letter was a hoax. We have made that match, Ruggles. He'd never have got up enough spunk to tell her he wanted her, and she'd probably have married Micky out ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... with her to the house," he says. "This may be a stupid hoax, or a quarrel exaggerated. See to it yourself, and hear what the doctor says. If it is serious, send word back here directly, and let nobody enter the place or leave it till we come. Stop! You know the form if any ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... Rosicrucian pamphlets which appeared in Germany at the beginning of the 17th century, dating from the Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Honourable Order of the Rosy Cross, a pamphlet published in 1610, by a Lutheran clergyman, Valentine Andreae, were part of a hoax designed perhaps originally as means of establishing a sort of charitable masonic society of social reformers. Missing that aim, the Rosicrucian story lived to be adorned by superstitious fancy, with ideas of mystery ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... sure that Uncle Roger meant what he said," remarked the Story Girl. "I couldn't get a look into his eyes. If he was trying to hoax us there would have been a twinkle in them. He can never help that. You know he would think it a great joke to frighten us like this. It's really dreadful to have no ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his hand and bellowed with laughter. Not a melody in it from beginning to end! He could imagine Richard Wagner sitting in his box and laughing till his sides ached at the sight of all the people who were taking it seriously. It was the greatest hoax of the nineteenth century. He lifted his glass of beer to his lips, threw back his head, and drank till the glass was empty. Then wiping his mouth with the back of ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Newman's thoroughly contemporaneous optimism was confronted with this dusky old-world expedient. To see a woman made for him and for motherhood to his children juggled away in this tragic travesty—it was a thing to rub one's eyes over, a nightmare, an illusion, a hoax. But the hours passed away without disproving the thing, and leaving him only the after-sense of the vehemence with which he had embraced Madame de Cintre. He remembered her words and her looks; ...
— The American • Henry James
... the steps. Monck went, half-suspicious of a hoax. But he had barely reached the path below when through the rain there came the sound of ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... prevented at all hazards. A police constable, at this announcement, flung himself into a hackney-coach and set off at full speed to make enquiries. Half an hour later a heyduke was sent back to the porter to tell him that either the whole affair must be a hoax, as nothing was known of a duel, or else that the two combatants must already be dead and buried, as not a word could be heard of either of them. Luckily, towards the afternoon, Mr. John himself arrived in a somewhat dazed condition, like one who has been up drinking all ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... The British Secret Service joined in following up the clues, and two Mohammedan merchants of Canea were arrested and deported to Malta on unimpeachable evidence of complicity. Closer investigation proved the whole affair from beginning to end a web of forgery and fraud. The hoax ended in the British Minister at Athens apologizing to the Greek Deputy, and in the Mohammedan merchants being brought back home as guests aboard ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... "'Some stupid hoax, I suppose!' said the artist, as I put the parcel into his hands. He looked gloomy enough, ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... and the followers of Catholicism absolutely worship this mechanism of man, and it has proven a great drawing card, and you can rest assured that Catholicism is pushing the scheme along good and hard, and "The St. Anthony Bread Box" hoax is another scheme that is not very old, but which the Catholic Church has found to be another great paying investment, and they are working "St. Anthony" for all ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... replied suspiciously. "I should have thought the stone in it was worth more than that, although, of course, it may be nothing but glass. The engraving, too, is first-rate. Adams," he added with severity, "you are trying to hoax us, but let me tell you what I thought you knew by this time—that you can't take in Ptolemy Higgs. This ring is a shameless swindle; but who did the Hebrew on it? ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... that I had not yet decided, whereupon my tormentor, after looking at my feet, which I have never succeeded in growing up to, observed, "Well, if I were you, I think I should emigrate to Colorado and help to crush the beetle." Later on in life I was the victim of a cruel hoax, carried out with triumphant ingenuity by a confirmed practical joker, who with the aid of a thread caused what appeared to be a gigantic blackbeetle to perform strange and unholy evolutions in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... don't tell him," said Birrell. "Let him think with everybody else that the Germans blundered; that an advance party landed too soon and gave the show away. If we talk," he argued, "We'll get credit for a successful hoax. If we keep quiet, everybody will continue to think we saved England. I'm content to ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... the colonel talked big, and explained the whole affair to the ladies, quite unconscious that everyone in the company knew that the hoax had been played upon him. Before noon, everyone had re-embarked on board of their respective ships, and their lofty sails were expanded to a ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... "Sounds like a hoax of some sort," remarked Phil. "But Lizzie has been chafing at the bit all day in the garage and I don't mind a ride. Come on, Dad, let's ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... cottage in time to admit Eric Coverly, whom he showed into the study, having informed him that I should be back in less than ten minutes. He had then proceeded to Denmark Hill railway station only to find, as I had found, that the appointment was a hoax and "the man ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... received message was friendly and appears to represent a sincere attempt by another race of intelligent beings to contact the people of Earth. A reply message is being formulated.' Officials further explained that the possibility of the signal's being a hoax has been thoroughly investigated and that there is no doubt whatsoever that the message is a genuine interspatial communication from intelligent beings on Ganymede. Ganymede is one of twelve moons of the planet Jupiter, and is ...
— Master of None • Lloyd Neil Goble
... quarter of a century. Do you think they're going back to it? Here are three people who, from weakness or a false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they won't cling like grim death to the liberty which I'm giving them? Nonsense! Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole! Look at this: before we left, I heard Madame d'Imbleval and Madame ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... been the victim of an infamous hoax. I have been imposed upon by that ponderous miscreant, Mr. Frank Lawler, of the Lick House. I left my room a moment ago, and the first man I met on the stairs was Gov. Stanford, alive and well, and as free from mutilation as you or I. I was speechless. Before I reached the street, I actually met ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... to discover what lends Such terror to all timid folks— That serpent whose mystery tends To make one believe it a hoax. ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... brother for sending out circulars. I have not heard from him as yet. I want to ask him whether he has ever observed when several male pigeons are courting one female that the latter decides with which male she will pair. The story about the black mark on the lambs must be a hoax. The inaccuracy of many persons is wonderful. I should like to tell you a story, but it is too long, about beans growing on the wrong side of the pod during ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... abode of "Old Fritz," then we entered a to me unknown land. I could easily have fancied myself a tourist, especially so at Matachin when "Mac" solemnly attempted to "spring" on me the old tourist hoax of suicided Chinamen as the derivation of the town's name. Through Gorgona, the Pittsburg of the Zone with its acres of machine-shops, rumbled the train and plunged beyond into a deep, if not exactly rank, endless jungle. ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... all for having their guest remain in the camp; but Preciosa was against it; and her grandmother said, that she could not go to Seville or its neighbourhood, on account of a hoax she had once played off upon a capmaker named Truxillo, well known in Seville. She had persuaded him to put himself up to his neck in a butt of water, stark naked, with a crown of cypress on his head, there to remain till midnight, when he was to step out, and look for a great ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... hoax of some sort," admitted Rob, sorely puzzled; "but I can't for the life of me see the object of it. Come into the house a minute, captain, and we'll try to figure ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... Hoax, Howardly Kion of Boz, and Little Girl Beginning with D," bellowed the Fix, "meet His Royal Highness, King Fix ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... repeatedly to inform me that I have been hoaxed by the Americans, and, most unfortunately for himself, he has brought forward the "Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence" as a proof of it. That he would be very glad to prove it to be a hoax, I believe; as it is a sad discovery, and one which the American democrats should have kept secret. That the Americans did hoax Miss Martineau, and that they would have hoaxed me if they could, I admit, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... suggest that you take my arm, and that you bid farewell to her Grace, pleading fatigue as the reason for your early departure. Then I will see you to your carriage, and when I return I shall endeavour to get that unlucky telegram from the Duke by telling him I should like to find out whether it is a hoax or not. He will have forgotten about it most likely in the morning. Therefore, all you have to do is to keep up your courage for a few moments longer until you ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... concoct this other scheme to obtain their assistance against Simms and Ward; then they could throw the three into irons and all would be lovely; but now that fool Ward had upset the whole thing by hitting upon this asinine fire hoax as an excuse for boarding the Lotus in force, and had further dampened Theriere's pet scheme by suggesting to Skipper Simms the danger of Theriere being recognized as they were boarding the Lotus and bringing suspicion ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... child—and all for love of her brother that his uncle had shipped off to a blind orphanage. But there's a providence, Mr. Benny, that watches over children—and you may lay to that." Mrs. Purchase took breath. "Well, naturally, as you may guess, my first thought was to set it down for a hoax, though not in the best of taste. But with Myra's name staring me in the face in the telegram, and blood being thicker than water, on second thoughts I told 'Siah to put on his best clothes and come to the Monument with me, not saying more for ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sir, slick as a whistle." Ben's look of interest and amazement rewarded the narrator. "One o' the hands from the farm come in last night and told about it, but the editor o' the paper thought't was a hoax and he didn't dare to work on it last night. Lots of us saw the plane, but the feller's story did sound fishy, and if the Sunburst—that's our paper—should print a lot o' stuff about Carder shootin' guns and foamin' at the ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... sword at the bottom, which he was just about to grasp, when his sister called from the shore to tell him that his father, mother, brothers, and sisters were all dead or dying. He hurried home, but it proved to be a hoax, for they were all alive ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... daughter's hand. The daughter had no objections to marry a man possessed of such wealth, and the marriage was duly celebrated. Shortly after this the father died—without discovering, it is to be hoped, the hoax that had been perpetrated—and Alexei Petrovitch became virtual possessor of a very comfortable little estate. With the change in his fortunes he completely changed his principles, or at least his practice. In all his dealings he was strictly ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... negative, and said he had better go and see who it was; for looks of alarm had been exchanged between him, the Squire, and Murphy, lest any stranger should enter without being apprised of the hoax going forward; and Dawson had just reached the dining-room door on his cautionary mission, when it was suddenly thrown wide open, and in walked, with a rapid step and bustling air, an active little gentleman dressed in black, who was at Mrs. Egan's side in a moment, exclaiming ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... man came flying to Colebrook three years ago all in black broadcloth (had lost his wife lately then), getting out of a third-class smoker as if the devil had been at his heels; and the only thing that brought him down was a letter—a hoax probably. Some joker had written to him about a seafaring man with some such name who was supposed to be hanging about some girl or other, either in Colebrook or in the neighbourhood. "Funny, ain't it?" The old ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... he asked seriously. "I think the whole thing's a hoax. I'll betcha there never was any settlement there. I'll betcha the colonists have pulled a whingding ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... which he happened to put together now and then. At one Salon he exhibited a Sower, admirable in every way, while at another he showed an execrable Reaping Woman, so bad that it seemed like a hoax; but he was no less pleased with the later work, feeling sure that he had turned out yet another ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... Chinaman discovered it, is a most characteristic bit of the productions of Elia. We have cut from a recent paper, what seems an authentic story, of one of this race having obtained a kind of mausoleum. We hope it is not a hoax, but that it is as genuine as all that is in one ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... a place. It surely is not a hoax," said Amy, although at first she had thought it was a joke. "And there is another thing ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... and dig quick," pleaded Phil. "I want to see if we've found a fortune, or are only the victims of a practical joke, or gigantic hoax." ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... but though they call King Cheese a hoax, he was hardly that. And the poor he fed, as you see, after all; For who is so ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... bridegroom but very slightly, having met him but once, as we are now reliably informed. In fact, nothing could be farther from her thoughts than marriage with the gentleman in question, he being considerably her junior in years. The cruelty of the hoax thus perpetrated is increased by the fact that for the past several days Miss Stowe has been confined to the bed of illness, suffering from a sudden and violent attack of fever, which illness has naturally been enhanced by the embarrassing position ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... girl at our house we call 'Paddy': She's not 'goody-goody', but 'baddy'; She loves practical jokes, Or to play us a hoax, Though we tell her ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... reasons why speech could not be sent over a wire, because of the intermittent nature of the electric current. Almost all electricians—the men who were supposed to know—pronounced the telephone an impossible thing; and those who did not openly declare it to be a hoax, believed that Bell had stumbled upon some freakish use of electricity, which could never be of ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... already," Desmond resumed, "in the matter of the jewel which our respected leader was about to show us: if you recollect, our friend was only prevented from giving us the explanation which he certainly owed us over his little hoax by the arrival, the most ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Irwin," said McGregor, standing bolt upright, levelling at his insulter a withering look from his great blue eyes, "you should rather think of your poor wife, whom you would have made a pauper if this game had not been all a hoax." ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... things," said the Duke. "Either it's a hoax, and we needn't bother about it; or the threat is genuine, and we have the time to ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... The allusion is to a hoax played on the Premier, by a presentation made to him of a piece of the then novel fabric, velveteen, stamped with a free-trade design. Peel afterwards wrote that he was unaware that the specimen bore "any allusion to any matters which are the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... can; but if you pose as an angel from heaven, it's asking too much." While Ruth considered this, she added, "I don't know if you can put yourself in mamma's place for a moment; but if you can, the hoax ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Anitchkoff replied with dignity. "He was my master and I can admit no imputation on his memory. Besides, your guess is as good as mine. Whether he bought the picture in his precritical days, keeping it as a warning and imposing it upon his followers as a hoax—this I can merely conjecture. As for Brooks, the case is simple; he couldn't resist a Giorgione at a bargain. But since you will, you may as well hear the rest of the story—at least my part ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... BEGGAR. It's no hoax, it's quite serious. The professor came on behalf of the Society, for so they call themselves, and asked you whether you'd accept the fete. You accepted ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... throughout the remainder of the Old Regime, and much of the colony's iron came from them to supply the blacksmiths. From time to time rumors of other mineral discoveries came to the ears of the people. A find of lead was reported from the Gaspe peninsula, but an investigation proved it to be a hoax. Copper was actually found in a dozen places within the settled ranges of the colony, but not in paying quantities. Every one was always on the qui vive for a vein of gold or silver, but no part of New France ever ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... away the note into his wallet, determining to show it to his good friend Mr. Greenfield that evening, and to ask his advice upon it. So he did show it, and that gentleman's opinion was the same as his—that some wag was minded to play off a hoax upon him, and that the matter of the letter ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... seem more surprising, I continued at my own work in the dockyard, besides acting (though really but nominally) as sub-contractor in the excavating work at the cemetery. In about a week, however, Mr Macpherson "smelt a rat," and found out that the job was a hoax so far as I was concerned; nevertheless the work went on all right. The land was very soft and easily worked, being mostly formed of sand and pebbles; and the contract was completed within five weeks. The payment ran to 10s per day per man, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... generally known that, contrary to common report, Francis Bacon was not arrested for debt in 1598; but that, during the time he was supposed to have been in prison, he was actually engaged in building up in his own behalf the greatest hoax ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... sharping, stacked deck, loaded dice, quick shuffle, double dealing, dealing seconds, dealing from the bottom of the deck; artful dodge, swindle; tricks upon travelers; stratagem &c (artifice) 702; confidence trick, fake, hoax; theft &c. 791; ballot-box stuffing barney*[obs3][U.S.], brace* game, bunko game, drop* game, gum* game, panel game[U.S.]; shell game, thimblerig; skin* game [U.S.]. snare, trap, pitfall, decoy, gin; springe[obs3], springle|; noose, hoot; bait, decoy-duck, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... following notice in the theatre: "To-morrow the box-office will be open from three-quarters past two until a quarter before three for the payment of claims." The box-office was besieged at half-past two by a crowd of creditors who had failed to see the hoax. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... or not, it was at least a current story in the neighborhood, and an enterprising individual, about fifty years ago, caused an old cannon to be "discovered" in the river, and perpetrated the first "Cardiff Giant Hoax." A New York Stock Company was organized to prosecute the work. It was said that the ship could be seen in clear days, with her masts still standing, many fathoms below the surface. One thing is certain—the company did not see it or the treasurer ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... was inclined to declaim in that vigorous vocabulary which is taboo. He had been tricked. He was no longer needed at the Red Chateau. Four millions in a gun barrel; hoax was written all over the face of it, and yet he had been as unsuspicious as a Highland gillie. Madame had tricked him; the countess had tricked ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... elsewhere—for, now that they were aware of its existence, it seemed to me that my best chance of success lay in employing them in the search, while taking care that none of them should find it. This would naturally lead them to the conclusion that, if my document were not an ingenious hoax, the treasure had already been discovered and secured ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... was given to the narrative by incidental references to actual persons and occurrences that many believed it true, and some were found who remembered Philip Nolan, but had heard different versions of his career. The author of this clever hoax—if hoax it may be called—was Edward Everett Hale, a Unitarian clergyman of Boston, who published a collection of stories in 1868, under the fantastic title, If, Yes, and Perhaps, indicating thereby that some of the tales were possible, some of them probable, and others might even be ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... Italian origin, took up his residence in Vouvray in 1831, an old man of deranged mind, most eccentric of speech, and who pretended to be a vine-grower. He was induced by Vernier to hoax the famous traveler, Gaudissart, during a business trip of the ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... the only allusion ever made by Miss Preston to the midnight ramble, nor was it ever repeated for Mrs. Stone's benefit, although nothing could ever have persuaded the good lady that she had been the victim of a hoax that night. ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... likely," Pyotr Stepanovitch rapped out dryly. "What does he mean by a telegram from the Secret Police and; a pension? It's obviously a hoax." ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... marking with a sudden stop and a shake of the head the end of an anecdote and the inevitable phrase, 'That's a thing that I have seen.' But he still carried himself upright, and was as fond of a hoax as in the days of the Directory. It was his amusement to impose abstinence from wine, abstinence from meat, and every ridiculous variety of regimen upon cits enamoured of life, crowds of whom wrote to him daily, asking by what diet he had so miraculously extended his. He would prescribe ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... to me, and you shall have, without a hem or haw, sirs, A Canterbury pilgrimage, much better than old Chaucer's. 'Tis of a hoax I once played off upon that city clever, The memory of which, I hope, will stick to it for ever. With my coal-black beard, and purple cloak, jack-boots, and broad-brimmed castor, Hey-ho! for the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... didn't make you jump it!" said Beef McNaughton, when Hicks indignantly denied that he had been scared over the cross-bar, "but indirectly, old man, we helped you to win! If we had not put up a hoax on you—" ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... composed a proposal of all the vile and abusive words in the English language. Jimmy was too big for Andre to chastise, but as the rumor of the incident spread and the comedians began to quote freely some of the indecent phrases of the hoax, Andre fled the scene of torment. He left the company at Buffalo and went to Quebec where English was in limited use, ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... circumstances he might have been more struck with the little embarrassment which she could not perfectly control, but at the moment he was not quite himself either. That impudent Doady Donne had played a shameful hoax on him, had actually had the audacity to declare that she had seen his wife—Nina, Mrs. Dacres—in Teddy Vere's hansom! He hadn't taken what she said very pleasantly, for the bare notion made him furious, and—though telling ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... the Museum of Berlin," were pronounced to be of very fine water. It is possible that the sandstone may afford precious stones like the itacolumite of the Brazil ("Highlands of the Brazil," i. 380), but the whole affair proved a hoax. In mid-stream rose No. 2, "One-Tree Island," Zunga chya Nlemba or Shika chya Nzondo; in Tuckey it is called Boola Beca or Blemba (the husband) Rock; the old ficus dying at the head, was based upon a pedestal ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... This literary hoax made an instant sensation; it was denounced for its scandalous irreverence by the members of the Historical Society, especially by those who had Dutch ancestors, but was received with roars of laughter by the rest of the population. Those who read it now (from curiosity, for ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... to the house," he says. "This may be a stupid hoax, or a quarrel exaggerated. See to it yourself, and hear what the doctor says. If it is serious, send word back here directly, and let nobody enter the place or leave it till we come. Stop! You know the form if any ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... queer thing occurred when every one of the pursuing planes opened up their machine-guns almost simultaneously upon the first. And even this might have been considered a well-designed hoax, were it not for the unmistakable evidence that the first aeroplane, the Taube, had ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... it. I did not mean to send you such trash. The man must be either an escaped lunatic or has tried his hand at a hoax. It ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... Susanna still held the door so nearly closed that he could not force an entrance, even though he kept his foot firmly in the aperture. The woman still regarded him with a pitying amusement; yet gradually curiosity got the better of her common sense, which told her that he was the victim of some hoax, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... almost before they left his lips, suggested to him an idea for a mammoth hoax—the best they had tried yet, he told himself. He hastily, and in whispers, unfolded it to "Gibs," whom he found all sympathy, then returned alone, to his friends in Number 28, reporting that he had seen nothing of their messenger, and expressing ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... must be such a place. It surely is not a hoax," said Amy, although at first she had thought it was a joke. "And there is another thing ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... Mr. Harding that he had been compelled to concoct this other scheme to obtain their assistance against Simms and Ward; then they could throw the three into irons and all would be lovely; but now that fool Ward had upset the whole thing by hitting upon this asinine fire hoax as an excuse for boarding the Lotus in force, and had further dampened Theriere's pet scheme by suggesting to Skipper Simms the danger of Theriere being recognized as they were boarding the Lotus and bringing suspicion upon ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... demanded the lady in almost stentorious accents, "or is this an unmanly hoax?" Suddenly she stopped in undeniable consternation. "Good heavens," she muttered, "if Abner should believe this. He is SUCH a fool! He has lately been queer and jealous. Oh dear!" she said, turning to Polly Jenkinson with the first indication of feminine weakness, "Is he telling the truth? ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... not going to hoax me in that way," said the host. "The soldier has been here, but went out of the door like an honest fellow. I took care of that. You are the thieves, and you shall pay ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... himself there. In Boswell's record we have a character called Mudge, an "out of the way" name; and in Pickwick we find a Mudge. George Steevens, who figures so much in Boswell's work, was the author of an antiquarian hoax played off on a learned brother, of the same class as "Bill Stumps, his mark." He had an old inscription engraved on an unused bit of pewter—it was well begrimed and well battered, then exposed for sale in a broker's shop, where it ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... a house as any in the row, and having inspected it from a little distance he walked up briskly to the door, and rang the bell. He walked up briskly in order that his advance might not be seen; unless, indeed, as he began to think not impossible, Aby's statement was altogether a hoax. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... each year; interrupt a conversation with a pun, turn into ridicule science and the savant; despise all things which they do not know or which they fear; set themselves above all by constituting themselves the supreme judges of all. They would all hoax their fathers, and be ready to shed crocodile tears upon their mothers' breasts; but generally they believe in nothing, blaspheme women, or play at modesty, and in reality are led by some old woman or an ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... valued at $7200. That, at least, is what Madame Loisel thought for ten terrible years, and that is what the reader thinks till he comes to the last words of the story. The plot belongs, therefore, to that large group known as hoax plots. In most of these stories one person plays a joke on another. In this story a grim fate is made to play the joke. In fact, the current phrase, "the irony of fate," finds here perfect illustration. We use the ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... advice before opening his purse. Dr. Clark describes a call Harris made on him early one morning, greatly excited, requesting a private interview. On hearing his story, Dr. Clark advised him that the scheme was a hoax, devised to extort money from him, but Harris showed the slip of paper containing the mysterious characters, and was not ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... recognized. His motive and his personality still remain matters of conjecture. Whether the whole affair was a figment of Shelley's brain, rendered more than usually susceptible by laudanum taken to assuage intense physical pain; whether it was a perilous hoax played upon him by the Irish servant, Daniel Hill; or whether, as he himself surmised, the crime was instigated by an unfriendly neighbour, it is impossible to say. Strange adventures of this kind, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... appear in the chronicles. But who will tell me what 'the Carpet-bag Mystery' was, which my Father and I discussed evening after evening? I have never come across a whisper of it since, and I suspect it of having been a hoax. As I recall the details, people in a boat, passing down the Thames, saw a carpet-bag hung high in air, on one of the projections of a pier of Waterloo Bridge. Being with difficulty dragged down—or perhaps up—this ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... of the Gentlemen composing the Stock Exchange Committee; from the bearer of the letter I am given to understand that Mr. Macrae is willing to disclose the names of the principals concerned in the late hoax, on being paid the sum of L10,000, to be deposited in some banker's hands in the names of two persons to be nominated by himself, and to be paid to him on the conviction of the offenders. I am happy to say that there seems now a reasonable prospect of discovering the ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... arms! to arms!' and we thought the war had commenced, sure enough; but it didn't just then. However, there was about thirty thousand men on the march to Boston, and they wouldn't turn back until they found the report was a hoax. Soon after, the Provincial Congress met, and they ordered that a large body of minute-men should be enrolled, so as to be prepared for any attack. The people of our province took the matter into their own hands, and organized a body of minute-men ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... could not then have been stolen. It may very probably have been so. Nothing more probable. Mr. Camperdown and the managers of the Eustace estate had gradually come to a belief that the Carlisle robbery was a hoax,—and, therefore, another robbery is necessary to account for the diamonds. Another robbery is arranged, and this young and beautiful widow, as bold as brass, again goes before the magistrate and swears. Either the diamonds were not stolen, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Douglas, in the Star, in his half-playful and suggestive way, chose to put it as though he regarded the article in the Pall Mall Magazine as a hoax, perpetrated by some clever, unscrupulous writer, intent on provoking both Mr Henley and his friends, and Stevenson's friends and admirers. This called forth a letter from one signing himself "A Lover of R. L. Stevenson," which is so good that we ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... teeth bared yellow, draws down his left eye with a finger and barks hoarsely) Hoax! Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. (More genially) Well then, permit me to draw your ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of the party to make him drunk proved ineffectual; he was restless and uncomfortable, and he could not help fancying by the visible efforts to do him up, that some mischief was brewing, or some hoax was about to be played off. He had his master-key in his ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... interest as the hoax of Brougham's pretended death,[9] which was generally believed for twenty-four hours, and the report elicited a host of criticisms and panegyrics on his life and character, for the most part flattering, except that in ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Usenet site at the Kremlin, announced on April 1, 1984 in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. The posting was actually forged by Piet Beertema as an April Fool's joke. Other fictitious sites mentioned in the hoax were moskvax and {kgbvax}. This was probably the funniest of the many April Fool's forgeries perpetrated on Usenet (which has negligible security against them), because the notion that Usenet might ever penetrate the Iron ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... didn't find her at all. If this is a hoax," he continued, "all I can say, Macrorie, is this, that it's ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... was the reply, "this story of the Rosario viejo. I have heard it many times and I presume this shaft has been explored by every prospector in this section. In my opinion it is a huge hoax." ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... for conditions at Greenwood's Rancho. The American Valley. Prospective summer resort. Prodigious vegetables. New England scenery compared with that of California. Greenwood's Rancho. Place of origin of quartz hoax. Beautiful stones. Recruiting-place of overland immigrants. Haggard immigrant women. Death and speedy burial on the plains. Handsome young widow immigrant. Aspirants to matrimony candidates for her ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... hundred. So long as you can amuse the company with any thing else, or make them come in successively, all is well, and the whole three hundred fancy themselves sure of a dinner; but if any suspicion of a hoax should arise, and they were all to rush into the room at once, there would be two hundred without a potato for their money; and the table would be occupied by the landholders, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... this message to the convention, it was openly declared to be a hoax, not one member in twenty believing that a message could possibly have been received. The convention adjourned till the next day, first instructing its president to communicate with Senator Wright ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... to the highest pitch. It never occurred to him to doubt whether this letter might not be a hoax. For many years he had known Simon Ford, one of the former foremen of the Aberfoyle mines, of which he, James Starr, had for twenty years, been the manager, or, as he would be termed in English coal-mines, the viewer. ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... to carry it back to La Verendrye they were not so sure that either it or their own scalps would be safe at the Mandan village, with the ferocious Sioux hovering about. They did not know, of course, that the story of the Sioux was nothing but a hoax. ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... in locating the blazed oak which stood close to the camp. Glen had no watch, but he went early enough to be quite sure of being there by ten o'clock. Then he waited and waited. He was about to give it up as a hoax, when a man slipped quietly out of the woods and advanced toward him. Glen fell into a position of defense as he saw that it was his ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... assuming on the instant a confidence-inspiring smile, "that print was a hoax; it wasn't old Tulliwuddle at ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... us were at Executive Palace for hours, bullying him into that. Why, we almost had to twist one of his arms while he was signing the order with the other. And now he has the gall to run for re-election on the strength of his heroic actions at the time of the Travis Hoax!" ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... his eyes for sheer anxiety. The questions whether the bookseller would have any copies left of the wonderful poem; whether it could really be bought for eighteen-pence; and whether the big farmer's boy did not mean the whole story as a hoax, occupied his mind all night long. It seemed so improbable to him, on reflection, that a book containing the most exquisite verses could be bought for little more than the common fairy tales of the hawkers, and it seemed still more improbable that, being sold so cheap, there ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... thirty the very first day, and ever so many afterward. Some of them were sentimental, and some of them were ridiculous, and some were really funny. I think the funny ones came from people who suspected that the advertisement was a hoax; but we got a great deal of amusement out of it, and we never for a moment dreamed that any one would suspect who put it in. Oh, how I wish we never had; for it brought that horrible man down upon us, and since then we have never had any peace ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... cook had eaten the last bit of bread. This could not go on. It did, however, until two, when my sensations were terrible. After all, I began to think the document very absurd. Perhaps it might only be a gigantic hoax. Besides, some means would surely be found to keep my uncle back from attempting any such absurd expedition. On the other hand, if he did attempt anything so quixotic, I should not be compelled to accompany him. Another line of reasoning partially decided ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... wait here, let us get back to the quay. This is some beastly hoax. The place is as silent as the grave—it gives ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... provided by Mr Macpherson. What may seem more surprising, I continued at my own work in the dockyard, besides acting (though really but nominally) as sub-contractor in the excavating work at the cemetery. In about a week, however, Mr Macpherson "smelt a rat," and found out that the job was a hoax so far as I was concerned; nevertheless the work went on all right. The land was very soft and easily worked, being mostly formed of sand and pebbles; and the contract was completed within five weeks. The payment ran to 10s per day per man, all of us having agreed to go ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... alone had the necessary knowledge of antiquities, we are still met by the improbability of old Mrs. Hogg being engaged in the hoax. Moreover, Leyden was probably too keen an antiquary to take part in one of the deceptions which Ritson wished to punish so severely. Mr. Child expresses his strong and natural suspicions of the authenticity of ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... out that the poor man, than whom no more honest creature ever walked the earth, had been made the victim of a truly diabolical hoax. He was sitting reading the newspaper in a public-house, the Three Hens—he had not even been drinking, mind, simply reading the newspaper—when a perfect stranger, whom he had never seen before nor since, but whom he should know anywhere, came in, with ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... practical-joker. But in Brattleboro, Newfane, and throughout Vermont everybody says, "That's jest like his uncle Charles Kellogg. There was never such another for jest foolin'. He'd rather play a hoax on the parson that would embarrass him in the face of his congregation than eat." When they were boys, it was Charles that led Roswell into all kinds of mischief. "Uncle Charles Kellogg"—they always give him the benefit of the second name in Brattleboro—had a reputation for wit ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... I said, "but nobody will know of it if we hold our tongues. We'll have to hold them anyhow, for Sylvia's sake, since she's been goose enough to go and fall in love with the Old Fellow. She'd go wild if she ever found out the letter was a hoax. We have made that match, Ruggles. He'd never have got up enough spunk to tell her he wanted her, and she'd probably have ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... this is not a hoax," said James, severely. "I presume that you know too well what is due to learned counsel to attempt to make one of their body the victim of ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... satisfied, Roddy now regarded his expedition with little favor. He reverted strongly to the theory that some one was making a fool of him. He reminded himself that if in New York he had received such a note, he either would have at once dismissed it as a hoax or turned it over to the precinct station-house. But as the darkness changed to gray, and the black bulk of the Cafe Ducrot came into view, his interest quickened. He encouraged himself with the thought that ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... one. We were driving to an unknown place, on an unknown errand. Yet our invitation was either a complete hoax,—which was an inconceivable hypothesis,—or else we had good reason to think that important issues might hang upon our journey. Miss Morstan's demeanor was as resolute and collected as ever. I endeavored to cheer and amuse her by reminiscences of my adventures ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and requiring them to repair immediately on board the Lee with their luggage, as I felt it to be an imperative duty to take them back to the Confederacy for trial by court-martial. The junior demurred, believing it to be a hoax, but the senior peremptorily ordered him to accompany him on board. They were caught in a drenching shower on their way to the Lee; and they made their appearance in the cabin in a sorry plight, reporting themselves "in ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... my master and I can admit no imputation on his memory. Besides, your guess is as good as mine. Whether he bought the picture in his precritical days, keeping it as a warning and imposing it upon his followers as a hoax—this I can merely conjecture. As for Brooks, the case is simple; he couldn't resist a Giorgione at a bargain. But since you will, you may as well hear the rest of the story—at least my part ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... regarded as one of Brassfield's jokes. His suggestion that he meant to stand on a platform of principles seemed equally humorous. To propose such ridiculous things in a perfectly serious way, and laugh at the victim's credulity in "biting" on the hoax, was quite in harmony with the relations among the members of the set to which they belonged, where practical jokes, merciless chaffing and perpetual efforts to get the best of one another had given the group a more ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... unbridled license, which, but for the absence of intoxicants, might compare with the worst of the ancient bacchanalia. The singers in the cave were the old men and women who had ensconced themselves in it secretly during the day; but the hoax was not suspected by the children and young people, who firmly believed that the spirits of the dead really assembled that night in the cavern and assisted at the sports and ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... very well-behaved, handsome man. He looks like a nobleman in disguise. What an odd thing it would be, aunt, if this should be all a hoax!" ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... thrown into a fever of excitement by the establishment of a boatyard and, the actual construction of a bateau; but a Democratic Congress turned its back on the proposed improvement. No boat bigger than a skiff ever ascended Salt River, though there was a wild report, evidently a hoax, that a party of picnickers had seen one night a ghostly steamer, loaded and manned, puffing up the stream. An old Scotchman, Hugh Robinson, when he heard ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... you brought Timmy into my life. And the curse of Freud be on you for that kindly act of professional assassination. The answer is obvious, of course ... Timmy didn't and couldn't do what we've seen him do with our own wide-open, innocent eyes. We are the victims of a cunning hoax." ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... was written by Richard Adams Locke, who was born in New York in 1800 and died in Staten Island in 1871. He was at one time editor of the Sun, and the Hoax appeared in that journal in 1835. It was reprinted in London (1836) and Germany, and was accepted seriously by most readers. It was published in book form in New York in 1852 under the title The Moon Hoax. Locke also wrote another hoax, the Lost Manuscript of Mungo ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... practice on a large scale; they involved the disposal of millions of money; and they were in operation at so late a period, that the present generation paid heavy taxes for the purpose of carrying them out—taxes paid for nothing better than the success of a practical hoax. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... photographer, art photography; with the art director, some scheme for enlarging the local museum in some way. With his enduring love of the fantastic and ridiculous it was not long before he had successfully planned and executed a hoax of the most ridiculous character, a piece of idle drollery almost too foolish to think of, and yet which eventually succeeded in exciting the natives of at least four States and was telegraphed to and talked about ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... copy of the famous detective story, not because he intended to read it, but in payment for his hour of disillusionment. Then he slung his pack over his shoulders and tramped out into the country. He laughed aloud at the thought of Helen and her idolaters. A poetic hoax. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... only allusion ever made by Miss Preston to the midnight ramble, nor was it ever repeated for Mrs. Stone's benefit, although nothing could ever have persuaded the good lady that she had been the victim of a hoax that night. ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... preface, we have an evidence of her having been the victim of as well concerted and admirably conducted a hoax, as was ever played off upon any one—it surpasses that which was put upon poor Malvolio in "Twelfth Night." After making the remark upon which we have already commented, that a second work on France from her pen could "alone be justified by the novelty of its ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... happen. Melbourne was to have dined there on Friday, but did not arrive. At eleven o'clock everybody went away, without any tidings having come of Melbourne; the next morning Lord Holland read in the 'Times' that the Government was at an end. Allen swore that it must be a hoax, and it was only upon receiving a summons to the Cabinet at twelve instead of two that Holland began to think there was something in it. He told me that the King had two long conversations with Melbourne, in which he explained his opinions, motives, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... they are going to put in an appearance to-night," he said to himself, as the liquor in the glass began to wane. "Can this letter have been a hoax, an attempt to draw me off the scent? If so, by all the gods in Asia, they may rest assured ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... upon his Majesty, King Olomba; but, upon interviewing that potentate, through the medium of Cupid, who acted as interpreter, it at once became evident that our worthy skipper had been made the victim of an elaborate hoax—even more elaborate, indeed, than we at the moment expected; for the king not only vigorously disclaimed any propensity toward slave-hunting or slave-dealing, but went the length of strenuously denying that ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... "Isle of Pines" was aroused by the sale of a copy in London and New York in 1917, and was increased by the discovery of two distinct issues in the Dowse Library, in the Massachusetts Historical Society. As my material grew in bulk and the history of this hoax perpetrated in the seventeenth century developed, I thought it of sufficient interest to communicate an outline of the story to the Club of Odd Volumes, of Boston, October 23, 1918. The results of my investigations are more fully given in the present ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... ago all in black broadcloth (had lost his wife lately then), getting out of a third-class smoker as if the devil had been at his heels; and the only thing that brought him down was a letter—a hoax probably. Some joker had written to him about a seafaring man with some such name who was supposed to be hanging about some girl or other, either in Colebrook or in the neighbourhood. "Funny, ain't it?" The old chap had been advertising in the London papers for Harry ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... Accordingly, our hero put away the note into his wallet, determining to show it to his good friend Mr. Greenfield that evening, and to ask his advice upon it. So he did show it, and that gentleman's opinion was the same as his—that some wag was minded to play off a hoax upon him, and that the matter of the letter was all ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... Roger meant what he said," remarked the Story Girl. "I couldn't get a look into his eyes. If he was trying to hoax us there would have been a twinkle in them. He can never help that. You know he would think it a great joke to frighten us like this. It's really dreadful to have no ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... like to keep it. If I can't get rid of it, I'll bring it back. It's a hoax or an endless chain device or something of the sort. I'd ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... y wave, gentlemen—and it was on the y wave that the messages came. You may be interested to know that the number of lives lost, the property damage, the business losses due to the panic, have not yet been fully determined; but it makes the hysteria following the Fantafilm hoax very small ...
— The Fourth Invasion • Henry Josephs
... the Flat-Hat gentry; instead of which he had a mixed medley sort of a mess, whose humdrum monotony was only relieved by the absurdities and errors with which it was crammed. At first, Mr. Puffington could not make out what it meant, whether it was a hoax for the purpose of turning run-writing into ridicule, or it had suffered mutilation at the hands of the printer. Calling a good scent an exquisite perfume looked suspicious of a hoax, but then seasonal fox for seasoned fox, scorning to ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... supply the blacksmiths. From time to time rumors of other mineral discoveries came to the ears of the people. A find of lead was reported from the Gaspe peninsula, but an investigation proved it to be a hoax. Copper was actually found in a dozen places within the settled ranges of the colony, but not in paying quantities. Every one was always on the qui vive for a vein of gold or silver, but no part of New France ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... of the celebrated Moon hoax, written by Richard A. Locke, and originally published in ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... to Calcutta and asked for a strong body of police to be sent at his expense. They arrived, and his country residence was extra well guarded for some time. But nothing happened! Madhub Babu concluded that the letter had been a hoax. So the police guard ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... circumstance was true or not, it was at least a current story in the neighborhood, and an enterprising individual, about fifty years ago, caused an old cannon to be "discovered" in the river, and perpetrated the first "Cardiff Giant Hoax." A New York Stock Company was organized to prosecute the work. It was said that the ship could be seen in clear days, with her masts still standing, many fathoms below the surface. One thing is certain—the company did not see it or the treasurer either, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... people who, from weakness or a false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they won't cling like grim death to the liberty which I'm giving them? Nonsense! Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole! Look at this: before we ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... to the task of organization. Having heard from Dublin of the hoax that was being played on their enemy, the Ladies Cullen consented to join the party, and they brought with them one of the Honourable Miss Gores. The Duffys and Brennans numbered their full strength, including even the famous Bertha, who was staying with her sisters on a visit. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... understand the technique of rumors. The wise man does not scoff at them, for while they are often absurd, they are rarely baseless. People do not go about inventing rumors, except for purposes of hoax; and even a practical joke is never (to parody the proverb) hoax et praeterea nihil. There is always a reason for wanting to perpetrate the hoax, or a reason for ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... "the Golden Shoemaker" persisted valiantly in his attempt to answer every letter he received. Miss Jemima's scornful disapproval was of no avail. In vain she declared her conviction that every other letter was an imposture or a hoax, and pointed out that, if people wanted their letters answered, they ought to enclose a stamp. Then, for the twentieth time, she repeated her suggestion that a secretary should be engaged. At first ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... likely to die than you are, from all I hear." At this time rumors of Mr. Scarborough's improved health had reached the creditors in London. Mr. Tyrrwhit had begun to believe that Mr. Scarborough's dangerous condition had been part of the hoax; that there had been no surgeon's knives, no terrible operations, no moment of almost certain death. "I don't believe he's been ill ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... which paper he now began to contribute light articles, not to speak of other journals, which were only too glad to receive something from his pen. The extent to which the fair sex read the Physiology and were affected by it is illustrated by a story that Werdet tells of a hoax perpetrated at Balzac's expense by a number of his society friends, who had cause to complain of his uppishness towards them, a treatment based not merely on the belief he entertained in his literary ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... some questions, and was told that the farmer who lived there had discovered the figure when digging a well. Being asked my opinion, my answer was that the whole matter was undoubtedly a hoax; that there was no reason why the farmer should dig a well in the spot where the figure was found; that it was convenient neither to the house nor to the barn; that there was already a good spring and a stream of water running conveniently to both; ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... was he in the way of adaptation. He could write a hoax worthy of Poe, and one of his humors of imagination was sufficiently subtle and successful to excite comment in Europe and America, and to call for an explanation and denial from a distinguished Englishman. He lived in Denver only a few weeks when he was writing verse in miners' dialect ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... flattering proposal; I believed you might, in marrying her, withdraw from the work we are all engaged in; I feared this as a great calamity—an injury done to many to gratify the fancy of one. But Natalie, I will confess, scorned me for that doubt; and, indeed, was so foolish as to propose a little hoax, to prove to me that, even if she promised to marry you as a reward, she could not get you to abandon our cause. 'No, no,' she said; 'that is not to be feared. He is not ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... heavy Mess-Catalog. If it happens therefore upon any account that an author fails to meet these expectations of the Leipsic fair,—obliging persons are often at hand who step forward as his proxy by forging something in his name. This pleasant hoax it was at length judged convenient to practise upon the author of Waverley; the Easter fair offering a favourable opportunity for such an attempt, from the circumstance of there being just then no acknowledged novel in the ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... fellow's version of the affair as utterly unworthy of consideration, but, for the time being, at least, he did not wish to believe it. He was eager for the adventure, which might be spoiled if his father became convinced that "Mr. Crusoe's" SOS was a gambling hoax. ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... resumed, "in the matter of the jewel which our respected leader was about to show us: if you recollect, our friend was only prevented from giving us the explanation which he certainly owed us over his little hoax by the arrival, the most timely arrival, ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... Pyotr Stepanovitch rapped out dryly. "What does he mean by a telegram from the Secret Police and; a pension? It's obviously a hoax." ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Westcote, the stranger, the cause of it all? He had not heard from him since the day of their visit to Mrs. Bean's, and but for the cheque which he had received he would have been inclined to consider the whole thing as a hoax. ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... looked from one to the other around the room, and although he had delivered his ultimatum in a hectoring tone, it was plain that he found himself dissatisfied with the situation. Perhaps he was uncertain whether or not the whole thing was a hoax and himself the butt of a joke, to be laughed at later for treating the affair in a melodramatic way. The faces before him told him nothing. At last he cleared his throat again with finality, and bowing to Lady Clifford with something approaching a flourish, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... even by implication. It was a sufficient apology to their easy consciences that "he gave himself such courtly airs as were quite ridiculous—that his presumption was astonishing. In short, they were all idle, and it was exceedingly amusing to lounge a morning with the rich Dundases and hoax Monsieur." ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... pressed him so eagerly, that at last he went upstairs to see this vaunted beauty; and Sazen, drawing aside a screen, showed him O Koyo, who was sitting there. Genzaburo gave a great start, and, turning to Sazen, said, "Well, you certainly are a first-rate hand at keeping up a hoax. However, I cannot sufficiently praise the way in which you have ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... the building was the scene of the famous hoax known as England's Joy, perpetrated upon the patriotic citizens of London by one Richard Vennar.[269] Vennar scattered hand-bills over the city announcing that at the Swan Playhouse, on Saturday, November 6, ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... shore, or of seal or small whale, or even a much rarer sea-animal, would not have been at all likely to deceive him. It would certainly have been very easy for any person in mischief or malice to have played the hoax, but no locality in the wide world would have seemed more unlikely to be the scene of such a game; for who performs theatricals to amuse the lonely shore, or the ebbing tide, or the sea-birds that poise in the air ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... the dowager. "It is an infamous hoax you have played off upon me. You couldn't find any excuse for your husband's staying in London, and so invented this. What with you, and what with Kirton's ingratitude, I shall be driven out of ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... intelligence arrived that a Souf caravan of eight camels and five persons were seen about a day and a half from this city, proceeding in the route of Ghat. This gave rise to suspicions that the news about the Shânbah and Touaricks was a hoax of the Souafah, in order to frighten the people of Ghadames, and allow them (the Souafah) to get first to the market of Ghat, and buy slaves cheaper. So reason the merchants with the usual jealousy of such people. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... a joke which is very generally enjoyed in these good days of spick-and-span philosophy. Whether Liberty ever existed or not, is to us a matter of little import, since it is certain that she belongs to the grand hoax which is the whole scheme of life. The extension of liberty into concerns of every-day life is therefore reasonable enough, and to prove that we are happy in possessing this ideal blessing, seems to have been the aim of all who have written on the subject. One, however, if we remember right, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... no more, but his heart sank like a lump of lead in his breast. The talk of a ship being in sight must be a hoax, unless Crabtree referred ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... has to climb a ladder to shave himself." Not only is the feat impossible, but no conception can be formed of its manner of execution, yet the turn of the expression for an instant disguises, before it reveals, its most flagrant nonsense. There is also a certain grave hoax, where some fabulous matter is most veraciously reported, in which the Americans have shown great success and something of a national predilection. Some time ago we were all mystified by what seemed a most authentic ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Irishwoman on the forward deck had a ticket which she offered to sell for two shillings; but when, on being asked what the number was, he answered 99, they laughed at him, supposing that somebody had been putting a hoax upon the poor Irishwoman, as there was no such number as ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... appeared in Germany at the beginning of the 17th century, dating from the Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Honourable Order of the Rosy Cross, a pamphlet published in 1610, by a Lutheran clergyman, Valentine Andreae, were part of a hoax designed perhaps originally as means of establishing a sort of charitable masonic society of social reformers. Missing that aim, the Rosicrucian story lived to be adorned by superstitious fancy, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... send it? I'm so sorry you did that without telling me first. I'm afraid it's a hoax, dear! It sounds too good to ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... preparing to throw their spears, when they were seen by Charley, who immediately gave the alarm. We got up instantly, but they had disappeared, and no one but Charley saw anything of them. I should have been inclined to consider it a hoax, had I not heard their distant cooees as late as 9 o'clock, when I silenced them by the discharge ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... the paternal roof in requital of just such profligate conduct as Savage displayed; so that, grant his improbable story, still he was a disorderly reprobate, who in these days would have been consigned to the treadmill. But the whole was a hoax. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... say; but though they call King Cheese a hoax, he was hardly that. And the poor he fed, as you see, after all; For who is so poor as a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... worlds of distracted facts that one ought to remember. Would to heaven that I remembered nothing at all, and had nothing to remember! This thing, however, I certainly do remember, that Milton was not of Trinity, nor Jeremy Taylor; so don't think to hoax me there, my parent! Dr. Wordsworth was, or had been, an examining chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. If Lambeth could be at fault on such a question, then it's of no use going to Newcastle for coals. Delphi, we all know, and Jupiter Ammon had vanished. What other ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... ——'s there are in the world, with minds ductile as wax, ready to receive any impression one wishes to give them! Yet I reproached myself for assisting to hoax her, when I saw the smiles ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... of punch. Whereupon Dan, thinking that the joke had gone far enough, suddenly dived his head into the porcelain vase, and threw his heels into the air. The surprise and indignation of the solemn Spaniards was such, that they made a most intemperate report of the hoax that had been played on them to Lord Wellington; Dan, however, was ultimately forgiven, ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... which was to put an end to his impatience, and bring the time of his interview; and his disappointment and rage may be imagined when he discovered the deception which had been practiced on him. Monsieur d'A—— wished at first to challenge the authors and actors in this hoax, and could with ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... year all his life, and perhaps, in his heart, regarded no honour as more to be prized than that of Dux and Randall scholar. Harry was in his room the next morning as soon as ever he was stirring, a welcome guest—teased a little at first, by his pretending to take it all as a sailor's prank to hoax him and Richard, and then free to pour out to delighted ears the whole history of the examination, and ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... L. MS. which we kept under our pillow for thirteen days and nights, was beginning to worry us. After all, might it not be a literary hoax, we thought, and might not this Khalid be a myth. And yet, he does not seem to have sought any material or worldly good from the writing of his Book. Why, then, should he resort to deception? Still, we doubted. And one evening we were detained by the sandomancer, or sand-diviner, who was ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Miss Newson, ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and take no heed of it. And if the person should say anything to you, be civil to him or her, as if you did not mind it—so you'll take the clever person's laugh away." In speaking his eyes became fixed upon her dress, still sown with wheat husks. "There's husks and dust on you. Perhaps you don't ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... of the Society of Antiquaries at the time the paper was read. The essay contains, in reality, very little information relating to the stone, and that little is of no very satisfactory kind; and I have never been able to divest myself of the idea that it bears somewhat the semblance of a hoax. Were I inclined to discuss the points which have suggested this notion, the necessity there is for brevity in corresponding with the Editor of "NOTES AND QUERIES" would preclude my doing it; but I must quote the following passage, which comes immediately after ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... fact was, Elizabeth, that I did not altogether believe Vasari's story. I did not in the least believe that Brian Luttrell was living. I thought it was a hoax. Upon my word, I am half-inclined to believe so still. I thought it was not worth while to ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... fry it! I want to—Oh, hello, Baythim, sir. Dodeth. Have you had any reports on a new species—a bipedal one? What? No, sir; I'm not kidding. One of my men has brought in 'graphs of the thing. Frankly, I'm inclined to think it's a hoax of some kind, but I'd like to ask you to check to see if it's been reported in any of the other areas. We're located a little out of the way here, and I thought perhaps some of the stations farther north or south had seen it. Yes. That's right: two locomotive limbs, ...
— The Asses of Balaam • Gordon Randall Garrett
... often been supposed that the elaborate paraphernalia of mystification which Butler used in The Fair Haven was deliberately designed in order to hoax the public. I do not believe that this was the case. Butler, I feel convinced, provided an ironical framework for his arguments merely that he might render them more effective than they had been when plainly ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... theatre: "To-morrow the box-office will be open from three-quarters past two until a quarter before three for the payment of claims." The box-office was besieged at half-past two by a crowd of creditors who had failed to see the hoax. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... snatched the stale and feebly nourishing bread from his mouth, and gave nothing in return. They emptied his heart, and left it starving. What did it boot to tell a man that the orthodox dream of eternal bliss beyond the gates of death was but a hoax, if no substitute be offered? Why point out the fallacies, the puerile conceptions, the worse than childish thought expressed in the religious creeds of men, if they were not to be replaced by life-sustaining truth? If the demolition of cherished beliefs ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... lore," it may not be incurious to add, that Woodstock is distinguished in Dr. Plot's History of Oxfordshire (the title of which is well known to all readers of the marvellous) as the scene of a series of hoax and disturbance played off upon the commissioners of the Long Parliament, who were sent down to dispark and destroy Woodstock, after the death of Charles I.; and Sir Walter Scott thinks it "highly probable" that this "piece of phantasmagoria was conducted by means of the secret passages ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... cards, and custard, which rack the wit of all human society. What joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the world then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a little ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... evidence is good enough for me to work on," retorted Ferguson. "On discovering that the telegram from Cleveland was a hoax, I concluded Ferguson might be lurking around Washington and so sent a description of him to the different precincts and secured a ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... A foolish hoax is said to have been perpetrated on the authorities at Dublin Castle. An anonymous communication informed them that a Dreadnought had been purchased by the Ulster loyalists, and would shortly make her appearance off the coast ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various
... in 1818, if his story were not true. It thus follows that his mother knew the sixty-five stanzas of the ballad by heart. Does any one believe that, as a woman of seventy-two, she learned the poem to back Hogg's hoax? That he wrote the poem, and caused her to learn it by rote, so as to ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... fatigue as the reason for your early departure. Then I will see you to your carriage, and when I return I shall endeavour to get that unlucky telegram from the Duke by telling him I should like to find out whether it is a hoax or not. He will have forgotten about it most likely in the morning. Therefore, all you have to do is to keep up your courage for a few moments longer until you are safe in ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... Charles Lamb on Roast Pig, and his history of how the Chinaman discovered it, is a most characteristic bit of the productions of Elia. We have cut from a recent paper, what seems an authentic story, of one of this race having obtained a kind of mausoleum. We hope it is not a hoax, but that it is as genuine as all that is in one ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... after much thinking. I had determined, on Naomi's account, to clear the matter up; but it is only candid to add that my doubts of John Jago's existence remained unshaken by the letter. I believed it to be nothing more nor less than a heartless and stupid "hoax." ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... names of the occupants were painted up at the bottom on the wall, but there was no such name as the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited. I stood for a few minutes with my heart in my boots, wondering whether the whole thing was an elaborate hoax or not, when up came a man and addressed me. He was very like the chap that I had seen the night before, the same figure and voice, but he was clean shaven and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... muttered Gryce to himself, as the perfect calm reigning over the whole establishment struck him anew. But before he had decided that he had been made the victim of a hoax, a movement took place in the area under the stoop, and an officer stepped out, with a countenance expressive of sufficient perplexity for Mr. Gryce to motion him back with the hurried inquiry: "Anything wrong? Any blood shed? ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... welcome. The people seemed unconscious of the part his father played at Washington. Stoneman's Confiscation Bill had not yet been discussed in Congress, and the promise of land to the negroes was universally regarded as a hoax of the League to win their followers. The old Commoner was not an orator. Hence his name was scarcely known in the South. The Southern people could not conceive of a great leader except one who expressed his power through the megaphone of oratory. They held Charles ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... Katherine Harding, a damsel whose demure looks belied her character. Katherine's innocent grey eyes and doll-like complexion were the vineyards that hide the volcano. She could always be relied upon to support any enterprising project or interesting hoax that was presented for her approval. These seven comrades, close chums in the past, banded themselves together anew to enjoy life to the best of their ability, and to obtain the maximum of fun and diversion out of the forthcoming term. It is with their immediate adventures ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Parliamentary minority. His triumph was the triumph of audacity. In 1834 he had said to Lord Melbourne, who enquired his object in life, "I want to be Prime Minister"—and now that object was attained. At Brooks's they said, "The last Government was the Derby; this is the Hoax." Gladstone's discomfiture was thus ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... a thousand miles in investigating that fact, and found it a fallacy. Some of the biggest pecan trees I have ever seen were growing at 900 feet elevation down in Georgia. This was on clay hills. I have seen the same thing in Raleigh. That alluvial soil business is a hoax. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... carpet sack and clothes here with me, except a shirt or two he took with him. What shall I do with them? For if we do not hear from him soon, we must conclude that he is lost, and the report of his escape all a hoax. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... word about his illness; and on turning to the newspaper, and seeing a paragraph headed, "Sudden and alarming illness of Mr. Trevanion," the marquis had suspected some party manoeuvre or unfeeling hoax, since the mail that had brought the letter must have travelled as quickly as any messenger who had given the information to the newspaper. He had, however, immediately sent down to the office of the journal to inquire on ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gigantic reflector of Lord Rosse, and the exquisite fifteen- inch refractors of the modern observatories, eliminate from the chaotic rubbish-heap of the surface of old Thornbush much smaller objects than such a circle as I have named. If you have read Mr. Locke's amusing Moon Hoax as often as I have, you have those details fresh in your memory. As John Farrar taught us when all this began,—and as I have said already,—if there were a State House in Thornbush two hundred feet long, the first Herschel would have seen it. His magnifying ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... Victor," inquired I, "if he came here and found me out? Nothing would convince him that it wasn't a hoax, shamelessly played off upon his old age, and he would never ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... certain whether these men were actually relentless, or whether, having already wreaked an ample vengeance upon him, they would be content to ignore the remainder of his sentence; which, after all, he was more than half-inclined to believe was nothing but a cruel hoax, arranged beforehand for the purpose of giving him a ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... beautiful compend of them in Pope's "Messiah" he will I believe allow, that if it were possible for such things as the above mentioned, to be really intended by those prophecies, they would be the greatest hoax, and the most flagrant and enormous verification of the old proverb "parturiunt montes ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... had not surrendered peacefully to this incarceration. Dignity, that phase of philosophy which accepts quietly the inevitable, she had thrown to the winds. She had fought desperately, primordially, when she had learned that her errand of mercy was nothing more than a cruel hoax. ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... the great and glorious plans for the complete annihilation of the Scarlet Pimpernel and his League had come to naught, that Collot was taking a mighty hoax to Paris, and that the man who had thought out and nearly carried through the most fiendishly cruel plan ever conceived for the destruction of an enemy, lay helpless, bound and gagged, within his ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... down his knife and fork for a moment, then took them up again. Something in the old man's tone made him a bit wary. "Maybe it's just a hoax," he thought to himself. Aloud he said, "it was ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... explanation; it was only a question of finding it. Among other things it occurred to me that someone, for reason unknown, might be playing a series of practical jokes upon me, but it was hard to believe a hoax of such malignant and serious intent. Besides, it did not explain the death of Price which, I felt more and more convinced, was in some way connected with the bronze statue. I felt it would be my own fault ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... he amplified, "as if I had been all day digging ditches or shovelling coal. I could scarcely realize that my mission had succeeded; I feared the entire proceeding was only a stupendous, ghastly hoax, which my uncle had in mind, but to what end, or who the intended victim, I could not in the ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... sack and clothes here with me, except a shirt or two he took with him. What shall I do with them? For if we do not hear from him soon, we must conclude that he is lost, and the report of his escape all a hoax. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... window, found powder, nails, etc., so arranged that, if opened in the ordinary way, the whole would have been fired, and two barrels discharged different ways. No doubt a box so packed was received, but whether anything serious was intended, or whether it was a hoax, cannot be said with any certainty. The Earl of Oxford is said to have met allusions to the subject with a smile, and Swift seems to have been annoyed at the reports ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... needs Scanderbeg's arm. Mahomet II. "the Great" requested to see the scimitar which George Castriota used so successfully against the Ottomans in 1461. Being shown it, and wholly unable to draw it, he pronounced the weapon to be a hoax, but received for answer, "Scanderbeg's sword needs Scanderbeg's ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... other; but on his mind the effect was different. The miserable voice, the spirit in pain, he could think of as the result of ventriloquism, or reverberation, or—anything you please: an elaborate prolonged hoax, executed somehow by the tramp that had found a lodging in the old tower; but the juniper-bush staggered him. Things have effects so different on the minds ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... a Rosicrucian sect. The Rosicrucian pamphlets which appeared in Germany at the beginning of the 17th century, dating from the Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Honourable Order of the Rosy Cross, a pamphlet published in 1610, by a Lutheran clergyman, Valentine Andreae, were part of a hoax designed perhaps originally as means of establishing a sort of charitable masonic society of social reformers. Missing that aim, the Rosicrucian story lived to be adorned by superstitious fancy, with ideas of mystery and magic, which in the Comte ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... will avenge our wrongs! That Christ the white men murdered, and thought dead— Who, if He died for mankind, died for us— He is alive, and looks from heaven on this! Oh, we have seen your baseness and your guile; Our eyes are opened and we know your ways! No longer shall you hoax us with your pleas, Or with the serpent's cunning wake distrust, Range tribe 'gainst tribe—then shoot the remnant down, And in the red man's empty cabin grin, And shake with laughter o'er his desolate hearth. No, we are one! the red men all are one In colour as ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... the spectre, described in horrible detail, proves to be a harmless idiot, with a red handkerchief round her neck. Apart from these gibes, there is not a hint of the supernatural in the whole book. It is a picaresque novel, written by a sportsman. The title is merely a hoax. ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... A hoax, or as our merry ancestors would have called it, a flam, is usually the most ephemeral and evanescent of human devices. Like a boy's soap bubble, it glitters for a brief moment in iridescent rotundity, then ceases to be even a film of air. It ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... custard, which rack the wit of all human society. What joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the world then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a little praise, that the great ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... poems, puzzled everybody to know from what author it was derived. One and another inquired of me, to no purpose, and expressed a wish that Mr. C. had been clearer in his citation, as 'no one could understand it.' On my naming this to Mr. Coleridge, he laughed heartily, and said, "It was all a hoax. Not meeting," said he, "with a suitable motto, I invented one, and with references purposely obscure, as will be ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... up since serves to bear me out. Let's take a look at these three men of ours. We knew almost nothing of them at the time, but we know them now. I've traced out their lives from the time that they were born until they disappeared—and I might add that, on the chance it might be all a hoax, we've searched for them for years and we've found no ...
— Project Mastodon • Clifford Donald Simak
... water. He waded into the water to look for him, and saw a naked sword at the bottom, which he was just about to grasp, when his sister called from the shore to tell him that his father, mother, brothers, and sisters were all dead or dying. He hurried home, but it proved to be a hoax, for they were ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... supported by so much history should at least be genuine—the history may be all right, but the tooth is a shambling hoax, at best a crude proxy for the molar of Gautama. Intelligent priests of Buddhism must know this, but the millions of common people finding solace in the faith have never heard the truth—and wouldn't believe it if they did. No more amazing ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... touched the very bone) who had with more caution than propriety withheld their names. The article was headed, "The Crayfish-eaters' Ticket." It continued further to say that, had not the publication of this ticket been regarded as a dull hoax, it would not have been suffered to pass for two weeks unchallenged, and that it was now high time the universal wish should ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... himself qualified to speak. I admired the very presumption of the theory, and finally told him to call the next day on my agent, Mr. Schenck, at such a number (Martin Baum's) in Maine Street, to whom, in the mean time, I transferred the hoax, and duly informing Schenck of the affair; and I do not recollect, at this time, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... there is no doubt of it—in the most naughty way, had brought Leucha round to her side. But if Leucha were told the truth that a hoax had been played upon her, that there was no real ghost, then indeed her wrath would burn fiercely; and, in fact, to put it briefly, there would start in the school a profound feud. Several of the girls, more especially the English girls, ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... his heart sank like a lump of lead in his breast. The talk of a ship being in sight must be a hoax, unless ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... bottom on the wall, but there was no such name as the Franco-Midland Hardware Company, Limited. I stood for a few minutes with my heart in my boots, wondering whether the whole thing was an elaborate hoax or not, when up came a man and addressed me. He was very like the chap I had seen the night before, the same figure and voice, but he was clean shaven ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... manifestations were continued for more than three years. Numberless visitors, drawn by curiosity from all parts of the country, came to investigate the matter, but no explanation could be found, and though there were suspicions that the whole affair was a very elaborate hoax, and a reward of L250 was offered for information that might throw light upon it, no single attempt was made ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... I saw the grim humor of the method they had adopted to do me this great honor, but that there was any hoax in the reality of the title they had conferred upon me was readily disproved by the sincerity of the congratulations that were heaped upon me by the judges first and then ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... coincidence of circumstances. They will find this easier. Uncompromising deniers of facts, rebels against evidence, may be all the more positive, and may declare that the writers of these extraordinary narratives are persons fond of a joke, who have written them to hoax me, and that there have been persons in all ages who have done the same thing to mystify thinkers who have taken up ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... stuck out in the most awkward fashion ever assumed by drapery. I suppose that sometimes these rises in life come very unexpectedly. I have heard of a man who, when he received a letter from the Prime Minister of the day offering him a place of great dignity, thought the letter was a hoax, and did not notice it for several days. You could not certainly infer from his modesty what has proved to be the fact, that he has filled his place admirably well. The possibility of such material changes must no doubt tend to prolong the interest in life, which is ready ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... the letter which he had picked up from the floor, and laid it in the physician's hand. As the doctor read, a look of indignant horror swept over his face. Then he said: "Can it be possible! I never suspected such a thing. It must be a cruel, senseless hoax." ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... critics toward this splendid Viking piece, the King, Carl XV, after seeing the play, commanded Strindberg to appear before him. Strindberg regarded the summons as the perpetration of a practical joke, and only obeyed it after making sure by telegraph that it was not a hoax. ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... haste to add, "having perpetrated such a hoax, I shall charge myself with all the expense of ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... not boast or brag, but it is common knowledge that my father was the richest man in the city, in this entire part of the country, in fact. The thought of such a thing is absurd. Who could have attempted to perpetrate such a senseless hoax, a ridiculous insult to ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... alchemy on modern lines. I have already quoted his sane remark that its chief service is in seeking remedies. But there is another side to this question. If, as seems fairly certain, the Basil Valentine whose writings were supposed to have inspired Paracelsus was a hoax and his works were made up in great part from the writings of Paracelsus, then to our medical Luther, and not to the mythical Benedictine monk, must be attributed a great revival in the search for the Philosopher's Stone, for the Elixir of Life, for a ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... years on the straight course. Let me at any rate have some sort of sketch of you as a kind of feather from the angel's wing or a photograph of the ghost—to prove to me in the future that you were once a solid sociable fact, that I didn't invent you, didn't launch you as a deadly hoax. Of course I shall be able to say to myself that you can't have been a fable—otherwise you'd have a moral; but that won't be enough, because I'm not sure you won't have had one. Some day you'll peep in here languidly and find me in such an attitude of piety—presenting ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... frightened inhabitants; the latter manufactured theirs with the aid of vivid imaginations. I half suspect the fellows were like the showman in the story, and, at length, religiously believed what they first designed as a hoax. Between the two classes of scouts a large army of ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... assembled. He saw in the count a manufacturer of the second-class, whom he took, for some unknown reason, to be a chandler; in the shabby young man accompanied by Mistigris, a fellow of no account; in Oscar a ninny, and in Pere Leger, the fat farmer, an excellent subject to hoax. Having thus looked over the ground, he resolved to amuse himself at the ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... anger that soothing him down was not so difficult as might be imagined. He was made to see, gently and by degrees, that it was obviously impossible to court-martial the whole Regiment, and equally impossible to proceed against any subaltern who, in his belief, had any concern in the hoax. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... information to Calcutta and asked for a strong body of police to be sent at his expense. They arrived, and his country residence was extra well guarded for some time. But nothing happened! Madhub Babu concluded that the letter had been a hoax. So the police ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... us wait here, let us get back to the quay. This is some beastly hoax. The place is as silent as the grave—it ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... etc.; and our friend Mr. Pickwick, we need not say, also enjoyed himself there. In Boswell's record we have a character called Mudge, an "out of the way" name; and in Pickwick we find a Mudge. George Steevens, who figures so much in Boswell's work, was the author of an antiquarian hoax played off on a learned brother, of the same class as "Bill Stumps, his mark." He had an old inscription engraved on an unused bit of pewter—it was well begrimed and well battered, then exposed for sale in a broker's ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... excitement tingling in his veins, as if he were feeling the glow of forbidden wine. Turning beside the fountain, he glanced back as the Governor was closing the door, and in his vision of the lighted interior he saw Patty Vetch darting airily across the hall. So it was nothing more than a hoax! She hadn't hurt herself in the least. She had merely made a laughing-stock of him for the amusement doubtless of her obscure acquaintances! For an instant anger held him motionless; then turning quickly he walked rapidly past the fountain to the ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... for a quarter of a century. Do you think they're going back to it? Here are three people who, from weakness or a false sense of duty, had not the courage to escape. Do you think that they won't cling like grim death to the liberty which I'm giving them? Nonsense! Why, they would have swallowed a hoax twice as difficult to digest as that which Mlle. Boussignol dished up for them! After all, my version was no more absurd than the truth. On the contrary. And they swallowed it whole! Look at this: before we left, I heard Madame d'Imbleval and Madame Vaurois speak ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... Elizabeth, that I did not altogether believe Vasari's story. I did not in the least believe that Brian Luttrell was living. I thought it was a hoax. Upon my word, I am half-inclined to believe so still. I thought it was not worth while to take ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Chinese botanist came here, and bethought him of trying his skill as a doctor. Everybody became mad to consult him; no street was ever so crowded as the one he lived in, since Berners-street on the day of the hoax. He got a barrel of flour, or some other innocuous powder, packed up in little paper parcels, and thus armed he received his patients. On entering, he felt the pulse with becoming silence and gravity; at last he said, "Great fire." He then ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... address was presented to the Diet from the bishop and clergy of Liege, inveighing against the lying, thieving, avaricious conduct of the Romish minions, in such sharp and violent tones that Luther, on reading it afterwards when printed, thought it only a hoax, and not really ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... Originally, a fictitious Usenet site at the Kremlin, announced on April 1, 1984 in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. The posting was actually forged by Piet Beertema as an April Fool's joke. Other fictitious sites mentioned in the hoax were moskvax and {kgbvax}. This was probably the funniest of the many April Fool's forgeries perpetrated on Usenet (which has negligible security against them), because the notion that Usenet might ever penetrate the Iron Curtain seemed ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... seen that this paper was a practical joke." Then it burst all of a sudden on Stephen. And all this about "Mr Finis", "Oh, ah," and the rest of it had been a cruel hoax, and no more! ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... by a cow-boy [!] in Sussex on a wall, with a piece of red chalk, [mark the precision.] They have only been inserted in a Sussex paper, and may be quite unknown to many London readers," &c. &c. &c. This is a regular hoax. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... Alfred sternly, "if any explanation is possible, of the extraordinary hoax which you've seen fit ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... by Mr Macpherson. What may seem more surprising, I continued at my own work in the dockyard, besides acting (though really but nominally) as sub-contractor in the excavating work at the cemetery. In about a week, however, Mr Macpherson "smelt a rat," and found out that the job was a hoax so far as I was concerned; nevertheless the work went on all right. The land was very soft and easily worked, being mostly formed of sand and pebbles; and the contract was completed within five weeks. The payment ran to 10s per day per man, all of ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... rejoined Feng Tzu-ying smiling. "You're all far too credulous! It's a mere hoax that I made use of the other day. For so much did I fear that you would be sure to refuse if I openly asked you to a drinking bout, that I thought it fit to say what I did. But your attendance to-day, so soon after my invitation, makes it clear, little ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Literati of New York. Conchologist's First Book (condensed from Wyatt). Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Raven and other Poems. Eureka, a Prose Poem. Gold Bug, Balloon Hoax, &c. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... so much interest as the hoax of Brougham's pretended death,[9] which was generally believed for twenty-four hours, and the report elicited a host of criticisms and panegyrics on his life and character, for the most part flattering, except that in the 'Times,' which was very able but very severe, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... cease, when he would know for certain whether these men were actually relentless, or whether, having already wreaked an ample vengeance upon him, they would be content to ignore the remainder of his sentence; which, after all, he was more than half-inclined to believe was nothing but a cruel hoax, arranged beforehand for the purpose of giving ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... grins I saw they agreed with me that somebody, signing himself James Skaw, was still trying to hoax the Great Zooelogical Society ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... much stock in it," said John. "I'm inclined to think it's a hoax. Some one trying to fool the old fellow. If there'd been any treasure, I guess one could have trusted old 'Wrecker' Wicks to get after it.... But, boys, it's bed-time, anyhow. Come down to the office in the morning ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... will doubtless at first sight cause a smile of incredulity, and will be regarded by many as one of the devices which are sometimes put forward to entrap an unsuspecting public into the perusal of a sensational hoax. ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... last without comment, for the whole thing is a hoax. The Illinois Experiment Station has never owned a chicken. These "Illinois" experiments were planned and executed in a few minutes of the writer's spare time. The basis of the experiments was a pack of cards containing the individual records of the Maine Experiment ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... awful morning arrived, and by this time I really had imbibed a great deal of my father's notion of the thing, and began to think that it would, after all, turn out very little better than a hoax, or something for the public to laugh at. I own I did not like the object of the expedition much; neither did I relish the idea of going to draw my sword upon a defenceless, unarmed multitude; but my father turned ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... appearance of a huge bowl of punch. Whereupon Dan, thinking that the joke had gone far enough, suddenly dived his head into the porcelain vase, and threw his heels into the air. The surprise and indignation of the solemn Spaniards was such, that they made a most intemperate report of the hoax that had been played on them to Lord Wellington; Dan, however, was ultimately forgiven, after ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... knows the gentleman whose name was given as bridegroom but very slightly, having met him but once, as we are now reliably informed. In fact, nothing could be farther from her thoughts than marriage with the gentleman in question, he being considerably her junior in years. The cruelty of the hoax thus perpetrated is increased by the fact that for the past several days Miss Stowe has been confined to the bed of illness, suffering from a sudden and violent attack of fever, which illness has naturally been enhanced by the embarrassing position in which she ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... tests again. A rise behind the barn was about a mile from a similar rise on Sam Atkins' place. They communicated across that distance in all the ways, including various kinds of codes, that Fenwick could think of to find some evidence of hoax. Afterwards, they returned to the laboratory and sawed in two the crystals they had just used. Then they showed him the tests they had devised to determine the nature of the radiation between ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... sense, as to money,) the balance could not be in his favour; since I, on receiving a sum of money, (considerable in the eyes of us both,) had transferred pretty nearly the whole of it to him, for the purpose ostensibly held out to me (but of course a hoax) of purchasing certain law "stamps;" for he was then pursuing a diplomatic correspondence with various Jews who lent money to young heirs, in some trifling proportion on my own insignificant account, but much more truly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... chicane, juggle, reach, hocus, bite; card sharping, stacked deck, loaded dice, quick shuffle, double dealing, dealing seconds, dealing from the bottom of the deck; artful dodge, swindle; tricks upon travelers; stratagem &c (artifice) 702; confidence trick, fake, hoax; theft &c 791; ballot-box stuffing [U.S.], barney [Slang]; brace game [Slang], bunko game, drop game [Slang], gum game [U.S.], panel game [U.S.], shell game, thimblerig, skin game [U.S.]. snare, trap, pitfall, decoy, gin; springe^, springle^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... having their guest remain in the camp; but Preciosa was against it; and her grandmother said, that she could not go to Seville or its neighbourhood, on account of a hoax she had once played off upon a capmaker named Truxillo, well known in Seville. She had persuaded him to put himself up to his neck in a butt of water, stark naked, with a crown of cypress on his head, there to remain till midnight, when he was to step out, and look for a great ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... think," he said. He edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor. "But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!" protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself. "Hoax," said a Voice. "It's a hoax," said ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... London and New York in 1917, and was increased by the discovery of two distinct issues in the Dowse Library, in the Massachusetts Historical Society. As my material grew in bulk and the history of this hoax perpetrated in the seventeenth century developed, I thought it of sufficient interest to communicate an outline of the story to the Club of Odd Volumes, of Boston, October 23, 1918. The results of my investigations are more fully given in the present volume. I acknowledge ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... somewhat the experience of a Captain Jarves, as related by him to Captain Marvell Hull. Attracted by a strange rattling noise in his bedroom, he endeavoured to open the door of it, but found it seemingly locked. Suspecting a hoax, he called out, whereupon a gust of wind passed him, and some unseen power flung him down the stairs, and laid him senseless at ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... when every one of the pursuing planes opened up their machine-guns almost simultaneously upon the first. And even this might have been considered a well-designed hoax, were it not for the unmistakable evidence that the first aeroplane, ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... two years older than herself, but feeling ever so much bigger and wiser; for he was an only son, a clever and rather conceited young gentleman. He was good-natured, and loved his cousin; but he loved better to tease and hoax her. Having lived all her little life in India, Meggie was exceedingly ignorant of customs and things in her new home, and was continually making laughable mistakes, and asking the most absurd questions. This "greenness," as he called it, gave Archie immense delight, and he was never tired ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... Achimaaz, that Jews visited Jerusalem in the tenth century. Aronius records a curious incident. Charles the Great, between the years 787 and 813, ordered a Jewish merchant, who often used to visit Palestine and bring precious and unknown commodities thence to the West, to hoax the Archbishop of Mainz, so as to lower the self-conceit of this vain dilettante. The Jew thereupon sold him a mouse at a high price, persuading him that it was a rare animal, which he had brought with him from Judea. Early in the eleventh century there was a ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... a minute, chewing his lip. Then: "I'm being vilified in the press as the creator of a hoax that even those who stood to benefit by it couldn't take," he said. "The few who have decided that a real miracle occurred have also decided that I'm in league with the devil, and that witches are for burning. Mostly Witch is the butt of every joke that can be dreamed up by every cub ...
— Prologue to an Analogue • Leigh Richmond
... a very well-behaved, handsome man. He looks like a nobleman in disguise. What an odd thing it would be, aunt, if this should be all a hoax!" ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... speaking of the "moon hoax" which "gummed" so many learned philosophers.—Yale Lit. Mag., Vol. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... Why, no buildings here look so ancient as the old gable-pointed mansion of my maternal grandfather at home, whose bricks were brought from Holland long before the revolutionary war! Tis a deceit—a gull—a sham—a hoax! This boasted England is no older than the State of New York: if it is, show me the proofs—point out the vouchers. Where's the tower of Julius Caesar? Where's the Roman wall? ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... By no means; but heavenly Clouds, great divinities to idle men; who supply us with thought and argument, and intelligence and humbug, and circumlocution, and ability to hoax, and comprehension. ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... vaunted beauty; and Sazen, drawing aside a screen, showed him O Koyo, who was sitting there. Genzaburo gave a great start, and, turning to Sazen, said, "Well, you certainly are a first-rate hand at keeping up a hoax. However, I cannot sufficiently praise the way in which you have carried ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... be regretted that he did not state "the points which have suggested this notion of its being a hoax." For my own part, I cannot see the motive for such a falsification; and if it is one, it is the contrivance of some one who had more epigraphic skill than is usually found ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... "but nobody will know of it if we hold our tongues. We'll have to hold them anyhow, for Sylvia's sake, since she's been goose enough to go and fall in love with the Old Fellow. She'd go wild if she ever found out the letter was a hoax. We have made that match, Ruggles. He'd never have got up enough spunk to tell her he wanted her, and she'd probably have married Micky out ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to unbelievable height, he could not be drowned in the makeshift oubliette, unless he voluntarily lay down in the shallow water and inhaled it. He worked on the panel slowly, but with the earnestness of a very angry victim of a hoax. The panel fell outward with a splash, and floated away. Philo Gubb bent sideways and squeezed out of the small opening into ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... Bee-hive hoax. Three Mexican variants on this idea may be noted. In one (JAFL 25 : 237), rabbit pretends that the bee-hive is a school, which he permits coyote to keep. In another (ibid., 206) rabbit pretends that a wasp-nest is a cradle, and gets coyote to rock it. The third is a Cora story ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... lead us over the borders of the supernatural; but the secret of the mystification, well kept till the last, is itself so pleasing and original that the reader has no disappointing sense as of having had a hoax played upon his imagination. ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... spoken of in his presence. Such an air of reality was given to the narrative by incidental references to actual persons and occurrences that many believed it true, and some were found who remembered Philip Nolan, but had heard different versions of his career. The author of this clever hoax—if hoax it may be called—was Edward Everett Hale, a Unitarian clergyman of Boston, who published a collection of stories in 1868, under the fantastic title, If, Yes, and Perhaps, indicating thereby that some of the tales were possible, some of them probable, and others might even be regarded ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... evening papers, which rushed out edition after edition on the strength of it, until the St. James's Gazette put an end to the excitement by publishing a telegram from the Mayor of Liverpool denouncing the report as an insane and criminal hoax. ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... Maurice was inclined to declaim in that vigorous vocabulary which is taboo. He had been tricked. He was no longer needed at the Red Chateau. Four millions in a gun barrel; hoax was written all over the face of it, and yet he had been as unsuspicious as a Highland gillie. Madame had tricked him; the countess had tricked him, the Colonel ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... "I'm not at all convinced that this is not some sort of lunatic hoax. But as long as there is nothing I nor you can do for the time being, I'm going to hold any further action in abeyance. Let's see what happens. Even if by some miraculous coincidence the rock and the ship should meet, that's not proof that your yarn ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... Oliphant, laughing. "I got an extraordinary type-written production. I regarded it as a hoax and consigned ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... of Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Other conscience stories are "The Man of the Crowd"; "The Tell-Tale Heart," also depicting insanity; and "The Black Cat," of which the atmosphere is horror. "The Adventures of One Hans Pfaal" and "The Balloon Hoax" are examples of the pseudo-scientific tales, which attain their verisimilitude by diverting attention from the improbability or impossibility of the general incidents to the accuracy and naturalness of ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... the information of the Gentlemen composing the Stock Exchange Committee; from the bearer of the letter I am given to understand that Mr. Macrae is willing to disclose the names of the principals concerned in the late hoax, on being paid the sum of L10,000, to be deposited in some banker's hands in the names of two persons to be nominated by himself, and to be paid to him on the conviction of the offenders. I am happy to say that there seems now a ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... Jenny sore afraid, Or Jenny's lover, Doctor Slade, Equally awestruck and dismayed, Or Deborah, the chambermaid, Whose terrors not to be gainsaid In laughs hysteric were displayed, Was always there before them; This had its due effect with some Who straight departed, muttering, Hum! 642 Transparent hoax! and Gammon! But these were few: believing souls, Came, day by day, in larger shoals, As the ancients to the windy holes 'Neath Delphi's tripod brought their doles, Or to the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... paper was read. The essay contains, in reality, very little information relating to the stone, and that little is of no very satisfactory kind; and I have never been able to divest myself of the idea that it bears somewhat the semblance of a hoax. Were I inclined to discuss the points which have suggested this notion, the necessity there is for brevity in corresponding with the Editor of "NOTES AND QUERIES" would preclude my doing it; but I must quote the following passage, which comes immediately ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... punt with which to float on these new waters. But there was a sudden fall to their hopes when a letter was received from him stating that the cliffs, the bay, and the head-lands were all built up on the airy foundation of a mirage. The elves and sprites of this desolate region had been playing a hoax upon Goyder's party. But it is no wonder that Goyder had been so open to deception after unexpectedly finding fresh water in the lake that had been so long known ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... certain individuals have found them very different from what they are represented in these volumes, he would frankly say that he yields no credit to the presumed fact, and at the same time he would refer to the vocabulary contained in the second volume, whence it will appear that the words HOAX and HOCUS have been immediately derived from the language of the Gypsies, who, there is good reason to believe, first introduced the system into Europe, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... list to me, and you shall have, without a hem or haw, sirs, A Canterbury pilgrimage, much better than old Chaucer's. 'Tis of a hoax I once played off upon that city clever, The memory of which, I hope, will stick to it for ever. With my coal-black beard, and purple cloak, jack-boots, and broad-brimmed castor, Hey-ho! for the knight ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... husband, is a variant. From au(l)ne, alder, we have aunai, whence our Dawnay. So also frenai has given Freeney, chenai, Chaney, and the Norm. quenai is one origin of Kenney, while the older chesnai appears in Chesney. Houssaie, from hoax, holly, gives Hussey; chastenai, chestnut grove, exists in Nottingham as Chastener; coudrai, hazel copse, gives Cowdrey and Cowdery; Verney and Varney are from vernai, grove of alders, of Celtic origin, and Viney corresponds to the French name ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... as cordial as could be expected, as soon as he fully understood that no hoax was intended. "Well, old man," he said, "I am glad. I really am, you know. To think of a prize like that coming to you the very first time! And you don't even know how this Mr. Wackerbath came to hear of you—just happened ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... surrounds it. But while they had sent home many highly interesting reports, there had been nothing to suggest the possibility of such an amazing discovery as that which was now announced. Accordingly, most sensible people looked upon the New Zealand despatch as a hoax. ...
— The Moon Metal • Garrett P. Serviss
... inquired of me, to no purpose, and expressed a wish that Mr. C. had been clearer in his citation, as "no one could understand it." On my naming this to Mr. Coleridge, he laughed heartily, and said, "It was all a hoax." "Not meeting" said he, "with a suitable motto, I invented one, and with references purposely obscure," as will be explained in ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... in the Star, in his half-playful and suggestive way, chose to put it as though he regarded the article in the Pall Mall Magazine as a hoax, perpetrated by some clever, unscrupulous writer, intent on provoking both Mr Henley and his friends, and Stevenson's friends and admirers. This called forth a letter from one signing himself "A Lover of R. L. Stevenson," which is so good that we ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... his daughter's hand. The daughter had no objections to marry a man possessed of such wealth, and the marriage was duly celebrated. Shortly after this the father died—without discovering, it is to be hoped, the hoax that had been perpetrated—and Alexei Petrovitch became virtual possessor of a very comfortable little estate. With the change in his fortunes he completely changed his principles, or at least his practice. In all his dealings he ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... from the work we are all engaged in; I feared this as a great calamity—an injury done to many to gratify the fancy of one. But Natalie, I will confess, scorned me for that doubt; and, indeed, was so foolish as to propose a little hoax, to prove to me that, even if she promised to marry you as a reward, she could not get you to abandon our cause. 'No, no,' she said; 'that is not to be feared. He is ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... Baron," said he, assuming on the instant a confidence-inspiring smile, "that print was a hoax; it wasn't old Tulliwuddle at all. I faked ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... Professor Erlin leaned his head on his hand and bellowed with laughter. Not a melody in it from beginning to end! He could imagine Richard Wagner sitting in his box and laughing till his sides ached at the sight of all the people who were taking it seriously. It was the greatest hoax of the nineteenth century. He lifted his glass of beer to his lips, threw back his head, and drank till the glass was empty. Then wiping his mouth with the back of ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Golden Shoemaker" persisted valiantly in his attempt to answer every letter he received. Miss Jemima's scornful disapproval was of no avail. In vain she declared her conviction that every other letter was an imposture or a hoax, and pointed out that, if people wanted their letters answered, they ought to enclose a stamp. Then, for the twentieth time, she repeated her suggestion that a secretary should be engaged. At first her brother waived ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... the colonel, and his ruddy face grew almost purple with the shock: his very moustache seemed to bristle. "Dressmakers! my dear Miss Drummond, I don't believe a word of it! Those girls! It is a hoax!—a bit of nonsense from beginning ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... he packed up the photos, distributed his largesse, and retired. Mary, the housemaid, promised to stand by him in the coming ordeal. Both the servants felt secretly flattered that they should be included in the hoax. The kitchen classes in England have great reverence ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... a curious one. We were driving to an unknown place, on an unknown errand. Yet our invitation was either a complete hoax,—which was an inconceivable hypothesis,—or else we had good reason to think that important issues might hang upon our journey. Miss Morstan's demeanor was as resolute and collected as ever. I endeavored to cheer and amuse ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... foremost of his transactions, and a bad omen—next, the fire, and all its wonderfuls, the saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of the poor cat—syne the robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish ne'er-do- weels, who paid so sweetly for their pranks—and lastly, the hoax, the thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and the banishment ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... one imagine, because M. Reybaud has happened to say heedlessly yes and no to a question of which he does not seem to have yet formed a clear idea, that I class him among those speculators of socialism, who, after having launched a hoax into the world, begin immediately to make their retreat, under the pretext that, the idea now belonging to the public domain, there is nothing more for them to do but to leave it to make its way. M. Reybaud, in my opinion, belongs rather to the category ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... hundred and thirty the very first day, and ever so many afterward. Some of them were sentimental, and some of them were ridiculous, and some were really funny. I think the funny ones came from people who suspected that the advertisement was a hoax; but we got a great deal of amusement out of it, and we never for a moment dreamed that any one would suspect who put it in. Oh, how I wish we never had; for it brought that horrible man down upon us, and since then we have never had any peace of ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... as if I were the victim of some hoax, some miserable delusion," he said to himself. "Not till I see her, not till I clasp her by the hand, shall I believe that she is ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... determined, on Naomi's account, to clear the matter up; but it is only candid to add that my doubts of John Jago's existence remained unshaken by the letter. I believed it to be nothing more nor less than a heartless and stupid "hoax." ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... not a hoax!" cry I, scornfully, standing scarlet and deeply ashamed, facing them all; "it is real, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Board may stop High School football," commented Mr. Prescott, laying aside the paper. "They may, but it would take a good deal of courage, for that article will start Gridley on a furor of enthusiasm for the game. I wonder who got up that hoax." ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... have all the men in Montana out to find that girl, if this isn't a hoax," cried Mrs. Haines in a voice that choked. "Go tell the other boys to get ready. The Sheriff will ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... joined in following up the clues, and two Mohammedan merchants of Canea were arrested and deported to Malta on unimpeachable evidence of complicity. Closer investigation proved the whole affair from beginning to end a web of forgery and fraud. The hoax ended in the British Minister at Athens apologizing to the Greek Deputy, and in the Mohammedan merchants being brought back home as guests ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... best to think of some hoax or trick that would be harmless, and yet would startle all the Flemings out of their usual ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... which appear in the chronicles. But who will tell me what 'the Carpet-bag Mystery' was, which my Father and I discussed evening after evening? I have never come across a whisper of it since, and I suspect it of having been a hoax. As I recall the details, people in a boat, passing down the Thames, saw a carpet-bag hung high in air, on one of the projections of a pier of Waterloo Bridge. Being with difficulty dragged down—or perhaps up—this bag was found to be full of human remains, dreadful butcher's business ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... knife and fork for a moment, then took them up again. Something in the old man's tone made him a bit wary. "Maybe it's just a hoax," he thought to himself. Aloud he said, "it was outlawed, ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... matter all day, and by evening I was in low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole affair might be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object might be I could not imagine. It seemed altogether past belief that any one could make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the 'Encyclopaedia ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... Colebrook three years ago all in black broadcloth (had lost his wife lately then), getting out of a third-class smoker as if the devil had been at his heels; and the only thing that brought him down was a letter—a hoax probably. Some joker had written to him about a seafaring man with some such name who was supposed to be hanging about some girl or other, either in Colebrook or in the neighbourhood. "Funny, ain't it?" The old chap had been advertising ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... time of his interview; and his disappointment and rage may be imagined when he discovered the deception which had been practiced on him. Monsieur d'A—— wished at first to challenge the authors and actors in this hoax, and could with ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... he, when Jonathan had concluded, "I hope that you may not have been made the victim of some foolish hoax. Let me see what it is she has confided ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... Blanley College finally consented to hold a press conference in his office, from which telecast cameras were barred. He denied the whole story categorically and stated that the boys in Professor Chalmers' class had concocted the whole thing as a hoax...." ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... confronted with this dusky old-world expedient. To see a woman made for him and for motherhood to his children juggled away in this tragic travesty—it was a thing to rub one's eyes over, a nightmare, an illusion, a hoax. But the hours passed away without disproving the thing, and leaving him only the after-sense of the vehemence with which he had embraced Madame de Cintre. He remembered her words and her looks; he turned them over and tried to shake the mystery out of them and to infuse them with an endurable ...
— The American • Henry James
... the doctor—"I didn't find her at all. If this is a hoax," he continued, "all I can say, Macrorie, is this, that it's a devilish ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... mad?" demanded the lady in almost stentorious accents, "or is this an unmanly hoax?" Suddenly she stopped in undeniable consternation. "Good heavens," she muttered, "if Abner should believe this. He is SUCH a fool! He has lately been queer and jealous. Oh dear!" she said, turning ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... knowledge, dismissed the thing as some harmless meteorological manifestation that, while interesting, was not necessarily dangerous. And there were many, inclined to incredulity and skepticism, who believed that they were witnessing a hoax or an advertising scheme of some ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... Star, in his half-playful and suggestive way, chose to put it as though he regarded the article in the Pall Mall Magazine as a hoax, perpetrated by some clever, unscrupulous writer, intent on provoking both Mr Henley and his friends, and Stevenson's friends and admirers. This called forth a letter from one signing himself "A Lover of R. L. Stevenson," which is so good that we ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... his Phi Beta Kappa Poem delivered at Harvard in 1911; in 1917 by "The Little King", a poetic drama; in 1917 also by "Grenstone Poems", a collection of his lyric work to date. In 1916, in connection with his friend, Arthur Davison Ficke, Mr. Bynner perpetrated the clever literary hoax of "Spectra", a volume of verse in the ultra-modern manner, designed to establish a new "school" of poetry that should outdo "Imagism" and other cults then in the public eye. These poems, published under the joint authorship of Emanuel Morgan ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... wounded and reclining in the bottom of a boat, and pretended it was one of the duelists, badly stricken, whom they were escorting to town for surgical assistance. The explosion of laughter receiving the two principals when the hoax was revealed caused the incident to be a sore point to both ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... as we were going to church came a letter from Sir George Grey with news of the whole South of Ireland being in rebellion, with horrible additions of bloodshed, defection of the troops, etc. As it has, thank God, turned out to be a hoax, a most wicked hoax, of some stockjobbing or traitorous wretch at Liverpool, I shall not waste your time and sympathies by telling you of the anxious hours we spent till seven in the evening, when the truth was ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... to float on these new waters. But there was a sudden fall to their hopes when a letter was received from him stating that the cliffs, the bay, and the head-lands were all built up on the airy foundation of a mirage. The elves and sprites of this desolate region had been playing a hoax upon Goyder's party. But it is no wonder that Goyder had been so open to deception after unexpectedly finding fresh water in the lake that had been so long known as salter than ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... say," raved Miss Carlyle. "What are you standing there for, like a gander on one leg?" she reiterated, venting her anger upon the unoffending man. "Is it a hoax ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... known in the course of my life only three intentionally falsified statements, and one of these may have been a hoax (and there have been several scientific hoaxes) which, however, took in an American Agricultural Journal. It related to the formation in Holland of a new breed of oxen by the crossing of distinct species of Bos (some of which I happen to know are sterile together), ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... ambitious woman, borrows and loses a diamond necklace valued at $7200. That, at least, is what Madame Loisel thought for ten terrible years, and that is what the reader thinks till he comes to the last words of the story. The plot belongs, therefore, to that large group known as hoax plots. In most of these stories one person plays a joke on another. In this story a grim fate is made to play the joke. In fact, the current phrase, "the irony of fate," finds here perfect illustration. ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... that this paper was a practical joke." Then it burst all of a sudden on Stephen. And all this about "Mr Finis", "Oh, ah," and the rest of it had been a cruel hoax, ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... by so much history should at least be genuine—the history may be all right, but the tooth is a shambling hoax, at best a crude proxy for the molar of Gautama. Intelligent priests of Buddhism must know this, but the millions of common people finding solace in the faith have never heard the truth—and wouldn't believe it if they did. No more amazing display of ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... bad omen—next, the fire, and all its wonderfuls, the saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of the poor cat—syne the robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish ne'er-do- weels, who paid so sweetly for their pranks—and lastly, the hoax, the thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and the banishment of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... exhausted," he amplified, "as if I had been all day digging ditches or shovelling coal. I could scarcely realize that my mission had succeeded; I feared the entire proceeding was only a stupendous, ghastly hoax, which my uncle had in mind, but to what end, or who the intended victim, I could ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... compelled to concoct this other scheme to obtain their assistance against Simms and Ward; then they could throw the three into irons and all would be lovely; but now that fool Ward had upset the whole thing by hitting upon this asinine fire hoax as an excuse for boarding the Lotus in force, and had further dampened Theriere's pet scheme by suggesting to Skipper Simms the danger of Theriere being recognized as they were boarding the Lotus and bringing suspicion upon ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... which we kept under our pillow for thirteen days and nights, was beginning to worry us. After all, might it not be a literary hoax, we thought, and might not this Khalid be a myth. And yet, he does not seem to have sought any material or worldly good from the writing of his Book. Why, then, should he resort to deception? Still, we doubted. And one evening ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... the house without being recognized. His motive and his personality still remain matters of conjecture. Whether the whole affair was a figment of Shelley's brain, rendered more than usually susceptible by laudanum taken to assuage intense physical pain; whether it was a perilous hoax played upon him by the Irish servant, Daniel Hill; or whether, as he himself surmised, the crime was instigated by an unfriendly neighbour, it is impossible to say. Strange adventures of this kind, blending fact and fancy in a now inextricable tangle, are of no unfrequent occurrence in Shelley's ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... this discovery Maurice was inclined to declaim in that vigorous vocabulary which is taboo. He had been tricked. He was no longer needed at the Red Chateau. Four millions in a gun barrel; hoax was written all over the face of it, and yet he had been as unsuspicious as a Highland gillie. Madame had tricked him; the countess had tricked him, the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... great Authority, not Reason, guides. "'Tis not for him, degenerate wight, to say Faults can be mended at this time of day, For Coke himself declared—no matter what— Can Justice suffer what Lord Coke would not? And if 1 Siderfin, p. 10, you scan, Lord Hoax has fixed the rule, that learned man: I cannot, dare not, if I would, be just, My hands are tied, and follow Hoax I must; That very learned Lord could not be wrong. Besides, in fact, it has been settled long, For the great case of Hitchcock versus Bundy Decided—(Cro. Eliz. per Justice Grundy), ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... reached its crisis, and that no possible conclusion to it could be more congenial to me than this. Indeed, if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite convinced that the letter from Meiringen was a hoax, and I allowed you to depart on that errand under the persuasion that some development of this sort would follow. Tell Inspector Patterson that the papers which he needs to convict the gang are in pigeonhole M., done up in a blue envelope and inscribed "Moriarty." ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... loaded dice, quick shuffle, double dealing, dealing seconds, dealing from the bottom of the deck; artful dodge, swindle; tricks upon travelers; stratagem &c (artifice) 702; confidence trick, fake, hoax; theft &c. 791; ballot-box stuffing barney*[obs3][U.S.], brace* game, bunko game, drop* game, gum* game, panel game[U.S.]; shell game, thimblerig; skin* game [U.S.]. snare, trap, pitfall, decoy, gin; springe[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... incidental references to actual persons and occurrences that many believed it true, and some were found who remembered Philip Nolan, but had heard different versions of his career. The author of this clever hoax—if hoax it may be called—was Edward Everett Hale, a Unitarian clergyman of Boston, who published a collection of stories in 1868, under the fantastic title, If, Yes, and Perhaps, indicating thereby that some ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... been the victim of a hoax, and were the verses not original? No; they were distinctly original, local in color, and even local in the use of certain old English words that were common in the Southwest. He had before noticed the apparent incongruity ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... card sharping, stacked deck, loaded dice, quick shuffle, double dealing, dealing seconds, dealing from the bottom of the deck; artful dodge, swindle; tricks upon travelers; stratagem &c (artifice) 702; confidence trick, fake, hoax; theft &c 791; ballot-box stuffing [U.S.], barney [Slang]; brace game [Slang], bunko game, drop game [Slang], gum game [U.S.], panel game [U.S.], shell game, thimblerig, skin game [U.S.]. snare, trap, pitfall, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... looking at my feet, which I have never succeeded in growing up to, observed, "Well, if I were you, I think I should emigrate to Colorado and help to crush the beetle." Later on in life I was the victim of a cruel hoax, carried out with triumphant ingenuity by a confirmed practical joker, who with the aid of a thread caused what appeared to be a gigantic blackbeetle to perform strange and unholy evolutions in my sitting-room. Worst of all, I was victimised by the presence ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... powder, nails, etc., so arranged that, if opened in the ordinary way, the whole would have been fired, and two barrels discharged different ways. No doubt a box so packed was received, but whether anything serious was intended, or whether it was a hoax, cannot be said with any certainty. The Earl of Oxford is said to have met allusions to the subject with a smile, and Swift seems to have been annoyed at the reports which were put ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... volunteered the information that the Boches had thrown a grenade at him as he turned the corner "down there"—"It didn't go off." So calm an atmosphere pervaded the cold, sunny, autumnal afternoon that the idea "the trenches" took on the proportions of a gigantic hoax; we might have been masqueraders in the trenches after the war was over. And the Germans were only seventy-five feet away, across those bare poles, stumps, and ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... money; and they were in operation at so late a period, that the present generation paid heavy taxes for the purpose of carrying them out—taxes paid for nothing better than the success of a practical hoax. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... pull into the creek and call upon his Majesty, King Olomba; but, upon interviewing that potentate, through the medium of Cupid, who acted as interpreter, it at once became evident that our worthy skipper had been made the victim of an elaborate hoax—even more elaborate, indeed, than we at the moment expected; for the king not only vigorously disclaimed any propensity toward slave-hunting or slave-dealing, but went the length of strenuously denying that the river was ever used at all by slavers; also he several ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... presents itself for consideration under other colors.... What defence can be made against this new crime of giving color to ideas?" As for trifling with the House by presenting a petition which in the course of debate had become pretty well known and acknowledged to be a hoax designed to lead Mr. Adams into a position of embarrassment and danger, he disclaimed any such motive, reminding members that he had given warning, when beginning to present his petitions, that he was suspicious that some among ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... them to repair immediately on board the Lee with their luggage, as I felt it to be an imperative duty to take them back to the Confederacy for trial by court-martial. The junior demurred, believing it to be a hoax, but the senior peremptorily ordered him to accompany him on board. They were caught in a drenching shower on their way to the Lee; and they made their appearance in the cabin in a sorry plight, reporting themselves "in obedience to orders," handing me the written document. As I pronounced ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... was my master and I can admit no imputation on his memory. Besides, your guess is as good as mine. Whether he bought the picture in his precritical days, keeping it as a warning and imposing it upon his followers as a hoax—this I can merely conjecture. As for Brooks, the case is simple; he couldn't resist a Giorgione at a bargain. But since you will, you may as well hear the rest of the story—at least ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... a book published in Germany in 1614, inviting all scholars to join the ranks of a secret society said to have been founded two centuries before by a certain Christian Rosenkreuz who had mastered the hidden wisdom of the East. It seems probable that this book was an elaborate hoax, but it was taken seriously at the time, and the seventeenth century saw the formation of numerous groups of "Brothers of the Rosy Cross." They dabbled in alchemy, spiritualism, and magic, and mingled modern science with superstitions handed ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... disturbed, save by some curious finger, now and then, inquisitive to explore the mode of book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign; or, with less hallowed curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the mysteries of that tremendous HOAX, whose extent the petty peculators of our day look back upon with the same expression of incredulous admiration, and hopeless ambition of rivalry, as would become the puny face of modern conspiracy contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... his companion; "it can't be her name. The idea's too preposterous to be true. That insolent clown has dared to try to hoax us; for which I promise him, if I were his master, I'd break every bone in his good-for-nothing body. Molly Potts! It never can be so. The thing's quite out ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... exquisite fifteen- inch refractors of the modern observatories, eliminate from the chaotic rubbish-heap of the surface of old Thornbush much smaller objects than such a circle as I have named. If you have read Mr. Locke's amusing Moon Hoax as often as I have, you have those details fresh in your memory. As John Farrar taught us when all this began,—and as I have said already,—if there were a State House in Thornbush two hundred feet long, the first Herschel would have seen it. His magnifying power was 6450; ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... message to the convention, it was openly declared to be a hoax, not one member in twenty believing that a message could possibly have been received. The convention adjourned till the next day, first instructing its president to communicate with Senator Wright by letter. A special messenger, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... enemy on the Peninsula; and the militia and the Department Battalions were kept yesterday and to-day under arms standing in the cold, the officers blowing their nails, and "waiting orders," which came not. Perhaps they were looking for the "conspirators;" a new hoax to get "martial law." ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... said the Duke. "Either it's a hoax, and we needn't bother about it; or the threat is genuine, and we have the time to stop ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... could shortly render himself qualified to speak. I admired the very presumption of the theory, and finally told him to call the next day on my agent, Mr. Schenck, at such a number (Martin Baum's) in Maine Street, to whom, in the mean time, I transferred the hoax, and duly informing Schenck of the affair; and I do not recollect, at this time, how he shuffled ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... a hoax," said Johnston, "and a cursed uncomfortable one for us. But here comes these fellows, just as they went, it seems. Well, boys, no trail of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... (Dr. Bastian before mentioned), Director of the Museum of Berlin," were pronounced to be of very fine water. It is possible that the sandstone may afford precious stones like the itacolumite of the Brazil ("Highlands of the Brazil," i. 380), but the whole affair proved a hoax. In mid-stream rose No. 2, "One-Tree Island," Zunga chya Nlemba or Shika chya Nzondo; in Tuckey it is called Boola Beca or Blemba (the husband) Rock; the old ficus dying at the head, was based upon a ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... you please, but your gallant conduct of to-night won't count. You'll not be permitted to enter this place again. I want no adorers; I have come here looking for rest, friendship, peace ... Love! A beautiful, cruel hoax!..." ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... field tests again. A rise behind the barn was about a mile from a similar rise on Sam Atkins' place. They communicated across that distance in all the ways, including various kinds of codes, that Fenwick could think of to find some evidence of hoax. Afterwards, they returned to the laboratory and sawed in two the crystals they had just used. Then they showed him the tests they had devised to determine the nature of the radiation ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... Uncompromising deniers of facts, rebels against evidence, may be all the more positive, and may declare that the writers of these extraordinary narratives are persons fond of a joke, who have written them to hoax me, and that there have been persons in all ages who have done the same thing to mystify thinkers who have taken ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... Laing's champagne and was pouring it out. He stopped now, and looked at Dora. A sudden gleam of intelligence glanced from her eyes. Rushing up to him, she whispered, "You did it all? It was all a hoax?" ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... presented to the Diet from the bishop and clergy of Liege, inveighing against the lying, thieving, avaricious conduct of the Romish minions, in such sharp and violent tones that Luther, on reading it afterwards when printed, thought it only a hoax, and ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... "A hoax," thought the man who had worked so hard all his life without the least expectation of ever seeing a penny that he did not earn himself. "Can it be that any of those heedless relatives of my wife's in Memphis have attempted a practical joke ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... colonel talked big, and explained the whole affair to the ladies, quite unconscious that everyone in the company knew that the hoax had been played upon him. Before noon, everyone had re-embarked on board of their respective ships, and their lofty sails were expanded to a ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... indeed. Lights were carried round into all the dark corners of the boat, but neither dead nor wounded, nor trace of blood, could be discovered; and at length men broke out in laughter, and stated their belief that the "hul thing was a hoax." So declared the dealer in hog-meat, who seemed rather gratified that he no longer stood alone as ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... 'the King'?" asked Flavia, leaning over my shoulder, so that the ripple of her hair played on my cheek. "Is it a hoax?" ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... understand that it was one of Uncle Steve's elaborate jokes, and she didn't know whether further search would reveal a valuable, though tiny gift, or some absurd hoax. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... observed, in a loud, confidential aside to Stephanie; "this studio ought to be full of young men in velvet coats and bunchy ties, singing, 'Oh la—la!' and dextrously balancing on their baggy knees a series of assorted soubrettes. It's a bluff, a hoax, a con game! Are you going to stand for it? I don't see any absinthe either—or even any Vin ordinaire! Only a tea-pot—a tea-pot!" he repeated in unutterable scorn. "Why, there's more of Bohemia in a Broad Street Trust Company than there is ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... small tin box, containing a letter addressed to him, in which a commercial house was mentioned at Nancy, where he might receive the sum buried, with interest, since the year 1812. The soldier supposed this was all a hoax; he went, however, to the house pointed out, where he received his capital, with twelve years' interest. With this sum he established a small business at Nancy, which enables him to live comfortably; but he has never been able, though he has taken some pains, to ascertain how ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... the sale of a copy in London and New York in 1917, and was increased by the discovery of two distinct issues in the Dowse Library, in the Massachusetts Historical Society. As my material grew in bulk and the history of this hoax perpetrated in the seventeenth century developed, I thought it of sufficient interest to communicate an outline of the story to the Club of Odd Volumes, of Boston, October 23, 1918. The results of my investigations are more fully given in the present volume. ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... from trees and running away from wild beasts. Your body was merely a convenient case for a machine that kept your life ticking along. How does one get the idea that all this is good-looking? Ages ago men decided to think so for reasons that have nothing to do with esthetics; they passed the hoax on, and in time these physical features got themselves surrounded with a perfect fog of sentimental and romantic balderdash. Take your face. Your nose is bridged in that so-called ravishing way in order to let a stream of air into your lungs. Your eyebrows—how many sonnets ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... conditions at Greenwood's Rancho. The American Valley. Prospective summer resort. Prodigious vegetables. New England scenery compared with that of California. Greenwood's Rancho. Place of origin of quartz hoax. Beautiful stones. Recruiting-place of overland immigrants. Haggard immigrant women. Death and speedy burial on the plains. Handsome young widow immigrant. Aspirants to matrimony candidates for ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... confessions to listen, And bells to christen, And altars and dolls to dress; And fools to coax, And sinners to hoax, And beads and bones to bless; And great pardons to sell For those who pay well, And small ones ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... all young people. It may be said that all five were concerned in a complicated hoax on Mr. Gurney. Nor would such a hoax argue any unusual moral obliquity. Surtees of Mainsforth, in other respects an honourable man, took in Sir Walter Scott with forged ballads, and never undeceived his friend. Southey played ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... a letter to a Scotch newspaper, stating that the story of his walking 16,000 miles in fifteen months, is a hoax—the whole journey being performed in land conveyances and steam-vessels! Not a line is written of the "Book" of these exploits, said to be "in the press;" the latter is by no means so great a blunder as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... minutes later, to Commander Jephson, commandant of midshipmen. "I had a fight party right under my hands when that call of fire sounded. It was so natural that I bolted away and lost my party before I discovered that it was a hoax." ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... does strict state-honour ask of me?— No less than that I bare this poppling plot To the French ruler and our fiercest foe!— Maybe 'twas but a hoax to pocket pay; And yet it can mean more... The man's indifference to his own vague doom Beamed out as one exalted trait in him, And showed the altitude of his rash dream!— Well, now I'll get me on to Downing Street, There to draw up a note to Talleyrand Retailing him the facts.—What signature Subscribed ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... knew Clovis slightly, and was rather afraid of him. It was not difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax. In a chastened mood she rapped ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... Feng Tzu-ying smiling. "You're all far too credulous! It's a mere hoax that I made use of the other day. For so much did I fear that you would be sure to refuse if I openly asked you to a drinking bout, that I thought it fit to say what I did. But your attendance to-day, so soon after my invitation, makes it clear, little though one would have thought it, that ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... A cowardly hoax was recently perpetrated in Paris, where a number of politicians consented to assist in raising a statue to Hegesippe Simon, the educator of the Democracy and author of the famous epigram, "The darkness vanishes when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... his ear. He caught hold of his books. "I must be getting on, I think," he said. He edged in a curious way along the seat away from his interlocutor. "But you was just a-going to tell me about this here Invisible Man!" protested the mariner. Mr. Marvel seemed to consult with himself. "Hoax," said a Voice. "It's a ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... heard, had raided round the army, and captured the fowls! Butler's colored troops had got all the turkeys, and had been feeding on fowl for two days! The officers had "gobbled" the whole consignment for their own use! The whole story of the Thanksgiving dinner was a newspaper hoax! Nothing was too incredible ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... a poor hoax, dear President, which proves a miserable failure! I intended to let them loose on the Lunar Continent at the first favorable opportunity. I often had a good laugh to myself, thinking of your astonishment and the Captain's at seeing a lot of American poultry scratching ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... unauthorized harum-scarums (that touched the very bone) who had with more caution than propriety withheld their names. The article was headed, "The Crayfish-eaters' Ticket." It continued further to say that, had not the publication of this ticket been regarded as a dull hoax, it would not have been suffered to pass for two weeks unchallenged, and that it was now high time the universal wish should be realized ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... name of Fanny Burney's husband, is a variant. From au(l)ne, alder, we have aunai, whence our Dawnay. So also frenai has given Freeney, chenai, Chaney, and the Norm. quenai is one origin of Kenney, while the older chesnai appears in Chesney. Houssaie, from hoax, holly, gives Hussey; chastenai, chestnut grove, exists in Nottingham as Chastener; coudrai, hazel copse, gives Cowdrey and Cowdery; Verney and Varney are from vernai, grove of alders, of Celtic origin, and Viney corresponds to the ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... as we saw the way to Solomon's treasure chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and shake. Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da Silvestra right? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark place, hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world? We should know ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... never have nightmares. And yet, but for her letters and the fact that Giovanni heard her sing under my window, I might almost believe I've been dreaming. It is no dream; but it begins to look as if I were the victim of some fine hoax." ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... The cook had eaten the last bit of bread. This could not go on. It did, however, until two, when my sensations were terrible. After all, I began to think the document very absurd. Perhaps it might only be a gigantic hoax. Besides, some means would surely be found to keep my uncle back from attempting any such absurd expedition. On the other hand, if he did attempt anything so quixotic, I should not be compelled to accompany him. Another line of reasoning partially decided me. Very ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... still held the door so nearly closed that he could not force an entrance, even though he kept his foot firmly in the aperture. The woman still regarded him with a pitying amusement; yet gradually curiosity got the better of her common sense, which told her that he was the victim of some hoax, and she inquired: ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... Gryce to himself, as the perfect calm reigning over the whole establishment struck him anew. But before he had decided that he had been made the victim of a hoax, a movement took place in the area under the stoop, and an officer stepped out, with a countenance expressive of sufficient perplexity for Mr. Gryce to motion him back with the hurried inquiry: "Anything wrong? Any blood ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... stock in it," said John. "I'm inclined to think it's a hoax. Some one trying to fool the old fellow. If there'd been any treasure, I guess one could have trusted old 'Wrecker' Wicks to get after it.... But, boys, it's bed-time, anyhow. Come down to the office in the morning ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... last he was making progress when evil fortune knocked at his door and, conspiring with circumstances and a friend or two, induced the young poet to devise what afterward seemed to him the gravest of mistakes,—the Poe-poem hoax. He was then writing for an audience of county papers and never dreamed that this whimsical bit of fooling would be carried beyond such boundaries. It ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... to civilization. The former obtained their information from the frightened inhabitants; the latter manufactured theirs with the aid of vivid imaginations. I half suspect the fellows were like the showman in the story, and, at length, religiously believed what they first designed as a hoax. Between the two classes of scouts a large ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... church is a monument that pretends to be the tomb of Alphonso II., Count of Provence, in 1209, and to be adorned not only with his statue, but also with those of his son Raymond Berengarius IV., and of Beatrix, Queen of Naples, the wife of the latter. The monument is, however, a hoax. The statues are there, but are modern, of the namby-pamby school, and of the original tomb possibly a crocket and a ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... you are a little severe towards Brittany, not towards the Bretons who seem to me repulsive animals. A propos of Celtic archaeology, I published in L'Artiste in 1858, a rather good hoax on the shaking stones, but I have not the number here and I don't remember ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... Jolly Robin who had started the story. And since he was not in the habit of playing jokes on people, everybody believed what he said—at least, everybody except Jasper Jay. He declared from the first that Jolly Robin's tale was a hoax. ...
— The Tale of Jolly Robin • Arthur Scott Bailey
... followers of Catholicism absolutely worship this mechanism of man, and it has proven a great drawing card, and you can rest assured that Catholicism is pushing the scheme along good and hard, and "The St. Anthony Bread Box" hoax is another scheme that is not very old, but which the Catholic Church has found to be another great paying investment, and they are working "St. Anthony" for ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... fact, and found it a fallacy. Some of the biggest pecan trees I have ever seen were growing at 900 feet elevation down in Georgia. This was on clay hills. I have seen the same thing in Raleigh. That alluvial soil business is a hoax. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the plaza after their day's perambulations, and dance, sing, or bewitch each other with their disguises. There is a party of masqued and dominoed ladies: genuine whites all—you can tell it by the shape of their gloveless hands and the transparent pink of their finger-nails—endeavouring to hoax a couple of swains in false noses and green spectacles, both of whom have been already recognised. The perplexed youths try their hardest to discover their fair interlocutors by peeping at their profiles through their wire masks, but in vain. At the next quiet tertulia these same ladies ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... rack the wit of all society? What joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a little ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... house as any in the row, and having inspected it from a little distance he walked up briskly to the door, and rang the bell. He walked up briskly in order that his advance might not be seen; unless, indeed, as he began to think not impossible, Aby's statement was altogether a hoax. ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... words. What did he mean? But when the witty dog reached the declaration that he could only thrive in a high spiritual altitude, then the guests broke into peals of merriment and understood that it was a capital hoax. The merry blade—hadn't he almost fooled them all! "Poor remnants of the intellectual life of the seventies!" Didn't we have Paulsberg and Irgens, and Ojen and Milde, and the two close-cropped poets, and an entire army of ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... imagine, because M. Reybaud has happened to say heedlessly yes and no to a question of which he does not seem to have yet formed a clear idea, that I class him among those speculators of socialism, who, after having launched a hoax into the world, begin immediately to make their retreat, under the pretext that, the idea now belonging to the public domain, there is nothing more for them to do but to leave it to make its way. M. Reybaud, in my opinion, belongs rather to the category ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... somewhat hurriedly put together these observations. You may rely upon the truth of the facts stated, and they are at your service if coming within the scope and meaning of your intended history. At the same time, if the thing be a newspaper hoax, I must beg you to excuse the liberty I have taken in addressing you, and please burn this and the copy of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... in the time of Yakub Al-mansor, the actual date of whose reign was from A.D. 1184 to 1199; insomuch that Senor de Gayangos suggests, as a possible explanation of its glaring inaccuracies, that it was the writer's intention to hoax his employers. Casiri had, however, opened the door for further researches; and he was followed in the same path by Don Faustino de Borbon, whose works, valuable rather from the erudition which they display than from their judgment or critical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... heard about it? My letter says Rhoda's invited both of you girls, too, and that Walter is going. Is—it a hoax?" ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... whether, having already wreaked an ample vengeance upon him, they would be content to ignore the remainder of his sentence; which, after all, he was more than half-inclined to believe was nothing but a cruel hoax, arranged beforehand for the purpose of giving him ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... Karl held out papers and envelope to the other man, who took them. Then he turned to Nikky, and now he raised his voice. "Where did you get this—hoax?" he demanded. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... chapter. One day he stuck up the following notice in the theatre: "To-morrow the box-office will be open from three-quarters past two until a quarter before three for the payment of claims." The box-office was besieged at half-past two by a crowd of creditors who had failed to see the hoax. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... continually banished, nay, ejected forcibly by policemen, from the paternal roof in requital of just such profligate conduct as Savage displayed; so that, grant his improbable story, still he was a disorderly reprobate, who in these days would have been consigned to the treadmill. But the whole was a hoax. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... mistaken. I did not care about it one way or other; but on his mind the effect was different. The miserable voice, the spirit in pain, he could think of as the result of ventriloquism, or reverberation, or—anything you please: an elaborate prolonged hoax, executed somehow by the tramp that had found a lodging in the old tower; but the juniper-bush staggered him. Things have effects so different on the minds of ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... no means; but heavenly Clouds, great divinities to idle men; who supply us with thought and argument, and intelligence and humbug, and circumlocution, and ability to hoax, ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... right down to Boston. Everywhere the people were crying 'to arms! to arms!' and we thought the war had commenced, sure enough; but it didn't just then. However, there was about thirty thousand men on the march to Boston, and they wouldn't turn back until they found the report was a hoax. Soon after, the Provincial Congress met, and they ordered that a large body of minute-men should be enrolled, so as to be prepared for any attack. The people of our province took the matter into their own hands, and organized ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... remembered, further, that contemporary conditions were exceptionally favorable to the success of the Tedworth hoax. In all likelihood the children had nothing to do with the first alarm, the alarm that occurred during Mompesson's absence in London; and possibly the second was only a rude practical joke by some village lads who had heard of the first ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... out edition after edition on the strength of it, until the St. James's Gazette put an end to the excitement by publishing a telegram from the Mayor of Liverpool denouncing the report as an insane and criminal hoax. ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... that certain individuals have found them very different from what they are represented in these volumes, he would frankly say that he yields no credit to the presumed fact, and at the same time he would refer to the vocabulary contained in the second volume, whence it will appear that the words HOAX and HOCUS have been immediately derived from the language of the Gypsies, who, there is good reason to believe, first introduced the system into Europe, to ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... prudential views rendered this unnecessary. The songs which I so much admired, and which so confirmed my impression of the youth of my mistress, were executed by Madame Stephanie Lalande. The eyeglass was presented by way of adding a reproof to the hoax—a sting to the epigram of the deception. Its presentation afforded an opportunity for the lecture upon affectation with which I was so especially edified. It is almost superfluous to add that the glasses of the instrument, as worn by the old lady, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and anger. A hoax on the part of some of the Corn Cob Club, he thought to himself. He flushed painfully to recall the ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... humour of the throng was changing, and some began to reflect. In a few minutes doubt swept over them like a shower of rain, and the expression of their faces altered. Almost immediately it was announced that the news of the victory had been a hoax. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
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