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More "Joke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... such a lot of sugar over them. I do think one should be real, and not try to cover up things. And Mr. Dare so pleasant. Quite sorry to go he seemed. I often wonder whether it will be you or Mabel in the end. He ought to be making up his mind. I expect I shall have a little joke with him about it before long. And such an interest he took in the scrap-book. I asked him to come ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the reply, as all the East Anglians present knew that 'hull' meant 'throw,' and 'dickey' is Suffolk for 'donkey,' but some of the Cockney visitors present were for a while quite unable to enjoy the joke. ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... it is to other qualities that one must look for final victory in a war of exhaustion. The Englishman does not look into himself; he does not brood; he sees no further forward than is necessary, and he must have his joke. These are fearful and wonderful advantages. Examine the letters and diaries of the various combatants and you will see how far less imaginative and reflecting, (though shrewd, practical, and humorous,) the English are than any others; you will gain, too, a profound, a deadly conviction ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... filled with the smoke of shell-bursts that it was sometimes difficult to discern the balloon itself. It was late in the evening and the last we saw of the "sausage" it was still traveling eastward, apparently unhit. The joke of the whole thing is that the balloon was never hit and, the wind veering during the night, it returned and came down inside our lines within a few miles ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... her house. After all she was right when she said he had never loved her. He was disappointed, irritated even, but his vanity was more affected than his heart. He knew that himself. And presently he grew conscious that the gods had played a very good practical joke on him, and he laughed at himself mirthlessly. It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one's ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... be expected, was the soul of the enterprise. By his mechanical genius, he contrived methods to lighten the labor of transporting the stones, so that one boy, under his directions, would perform as much as half a dozen if left to themselves. Whenever their spirits flagged he had some joke ready, which seemed to renew their strength, by setting them all into a roar of laughter. And when, after an hour or two of hard work, the stones were transported to the water- side, Bell Franklin was the engineer to superintend ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... you in carrying your luggage! A good joke! But I see you are not quite what I took you for; and if you'll stand a nobbler or two, I don't mind calling a porter for you, and showing you to a slap-up inn to suit you," said the man, his manner ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... and lest he be lonely, took his mother along." There is laughter here, indeed, but the soul here laughs with a bleeding, torn, agonized heart. It is the same laughter which was roused among the disciples of Christ when they heard their Master utter the grim joke, "Verily, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Such laughter is Gogol's in "Dead Souls." Gogol had now learned to comprehend the words of his friend ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... ran down the open way, the remark seemed less and less of a joke. The gale poured over the hills, and struck the boat like the buffet of a great hand. She heeled over alarmingly, bumped upon a submerged stump, righted, heeled again, this time shipping a little sea, and then the ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... victor at Hastings, snatching the crown of England and setting it on his own brow, destroying homesteads that he might have a larger game forest, making a Doomsday Book by which he could keep the whole land under despotic espionage, proclaiming war in revenge for a joke uttered in regard to his obesity. Harvest fields and vineyards going down under the cavalry hoof. Nations horror-struck. But one day while at the apex of all observation he is riding out and the horse put his hoof on a hot cinder, throwing the king so violently against ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... gentlemen gave M. Soyer a dinner and a snuff box before he left, and so his Irish mission was brought to a close; but his name was not forgotten, for Sawyer's soup was long a standing joke with a certain class of the Dublin people. Had the word come into popular use at the time, there is little doubt that M. Soyer's undertaking to feed the starving Irish would have ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... go on, dear Clifford; because when Eustace is here we shall have to play games—'Happy Families' or something—and I sha'n't have another chance. I believe he's got some joke on. I hear you've ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... going with her usual circle to a party, either at the Duc de Duras's or the Princesse de Glumenee's. The hand of the clock was slily put forward to hasten the King's departure by a few minutes; he thought bed-time was come, retired, and found none of his attendants ready to wait on him. This joke became known in all the drawing-rooms of Versailles, and was disapproved of there. Kings have no privacy. Queens have no boudoirs. If those who are in immediate attendance upon sovereigns be not themselves disposed to transmit their private habits to posterity, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... mean?" cried Captain Weston indignantly. "If this is a joke, you're carrying it too far. If you're in earnest, let me warn you against interfering ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... showing her dislike by all sorts of petty annoyances. He bore them all with wonderful equanimity, perhaps for Kitty's sake, perhaps because he despised their author. Sometimes, when he came on deck after dining in the cabin, he would burst into a fit of laughter, as if enjoying a good joke, and would continue to smile when Kitty appeared with a look of vexation and pain on her countenance, supposing he must ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... two lying on the lower shelf," announced Harry, "he got only one automatic! That's a joke on him." ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... All these, and a thousand other pranks, the fast fellows play upon their slow brethren, not in the hackneyed fashion which low people call "gagging," and genteel people "quizzing," but with a seriousness and gravity that heightens all the joke, and makes the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... perceived," said Mr. Turnbull, who was better at a speech than a joke. "A very respectable young ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... moment the women had a decisive word in public affairs, they instituted communism as the only rational political and social condition from the standpoint of their own sex. Aristophanes little dreamed how he hit the truth while meaning to joke. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... John, but they call him Demi-John, because his father is John too. That's a joke, don't you see?" said Tommy, kindly explaining. Nat did not see, but politely smiled, and asked, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... tocsin, and each house would become a fortress, the streets would be barricaded with iron chains, every quarter would pour forth men by hundreds well versed in the arts of civic warfare. Charles gave way, covering with a bad joke the discomfiture he felt: Ah, Ciappon, Ciappon, voi siete un mal Ciappon! The secretaries beat down his terms. All he cared for was to get money.[1] He agreed to content himself with 120,000 florins. A treaty was signed, and in two ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... shouted our guide, rolling over on the grass and splitting himself with laughter; for Makarooroo, like the most of his race, was excessively fond of a joke, no matter how bad, and was always ready on the shortest notice to go off into fits of laughter, if he had only the remotest idea of what the jest meant. He had become so accustomed at last to expect something jocular from Peterkin, that he ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... purer or sweeter than you are. No doubt—because he did not understand you—he thought you had run away with someone. The trader you spoke about: he disliked your father, didn't he? Well, he probably played your father a horrible practical joke." ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... when she wins. It brings out the natural wolf in her like nothing else does. It was being proved this night all you'd want to see anything proved. If the men got near enough and won a bet they'd think it was a good joke and stick round till they lost it. Not so my own sex. Every last one of 'em saw herself growing rich on Cousin Egbert's money—and let the Belgians look ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... about to venture upon some misplaced joke on the subject, when a small scrap of parchment fell out of the leaves. Like a hungry man snatching at a morsel of bread the Professor seized it. It was about five inches by three and was scrawled over in ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... passed from quiet appreciation of the joke to undisguised mirth and pleasure. His utterance of the name 'Mr Fadge' sufficiently intimated that he had some cause of personal discontent with the ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Sir Tiglath at the Colley Cibber Club, and though Sir Tiglath, who was of a freakish disposition and much addicted to his joke declined to speak to him, on the ground that he (Sir Tiglath) had lost his voice and was unlikely to find it in conversation, the Prophet was greatly impressed by the astronomer's enormous brick-red face, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... thing possible, but it was a cause of great embarrassment to the courtiers, who had got into such a habit of laughing at little noses that they sometimes found themselves laughing at hers before they had time to think; but this did not do at all before the Prince, who quite failed to see the joke, and actually banished two of his courtiers who had dared to mention disrespectfully the Dear Little ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... then Nell boldly followed suit; one by one, ending with Susy, the other five dropped down in the cool rippling water, which seemed to laugh, as if it saw the joke. ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... declaration, and begged me to explain myself; upon which I mentioned what I had overheard him say of me to Wagtail in the coffee-house. He laughed, and made an apology for his freedom, assuring me, that my appearance had very much prepossessed him in my favour; and what he said was only intended as a joke on the doctor's solemnity. I was highly pleased at being undeceived in this particular, and not a little proud of the good opinion of this wit, who shook me by the hand at parting, and promised to meet me the next ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... not reply. His great body circled about her, with shoulder and elbow buffeting off the surging crowd. Thus far the whites had taken the proceedings as a joke. Then a white ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... camel in the eye of a needle is a joke to it. If a fellow is eighteen, and has had a first-rate education and a good private coach, that is, a tutor, he may pass through his examination either for the army, or the civil service, or the Indian ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... never fails to enrich his discourse with allusions to eating and drinking, but we never see him at table. He carries his own larder about with him, and he is himself 'a tun of man'. His pulling out the bottle in the field of battle is a joke to show his contempt for glory accompanied with danger, his systematic adherence to his Epicurean philosophy in the most trying circumstances. Again, such is his deliberate exaggeration of his own ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... correspondence with the people in Washington who were interested in his electrical patent. The circular glass incubator was finally completed, and Bauer had experimented on it to such satisfaction that it was a common joke with the boy that Bauer's electrical chickens were so thick they ate up all the ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... understand; we thought this was some new kind of joke—which it was, but not to us. We asked for explanations; all that we wanted was to know how we were to get these things up to the Kaipara. Our colonial friend sighed deeply, and proceeded mournfully to expound the position. He told us that we could not afford to ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... the cone got so narrow he could go no further, and answered back in the darkness:—"I see nothing at all!" Shortly after he came down, covered with dust and cobwebs, and we all descended the chimney quicker than we went up. The old priest considered it a good joke, and laughed till his fat sides shook. We asked the sacristan why he sent us up, and he answered:—"To see ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... in the Harvard Divinity School once began a lecture on Comedy by saying that the study of the comic had made him realize for the first time that a joke was one of the most solemn things in the world. The analysis of humor is no easy matter. It is hard to say which is the more dreary: an essay on humor illustrated by a series of jokes, or an exposition of humor in the technical terms of ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... welcome, boys," he remarked, grimly. "Feels better already, Thad, and if the stuff will only do the business I don't care what happens. Besides, the fellows must have their fun. But they wouldn't think it a joke if any of them had climbed up, looking for a honey pot, and dropped through the rotten stuff that covered the hole in ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... watch over the letter rack, which was already becoming a standing joke in the hotel, was rewarded. An envelope bearing an English stamp and postmark, and addressed in a handwriting as familiar to me as my own, stared me in the face. To take it out and break the seal was the work of a moment. It was only ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... was a well-known gambler, and the one who looked like a farmer was a ship captain who had become a wealthy merchant. Clarence thought he understood now why the latter had asked him if he came off a voyage, and that the nickname of "Commodore" given to him, Clarence, was some joke intended for the captain's understanding. He missed them, for he wanted to talk to them about his relative at Sacramento, whom he was now so soon to see. At last, between sleeping and waking, the end of his journey was unexpectedly ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... man let go, and stepped back to look up, there he sat, to all appearance as unconcerned as if nothing had happened. Not to be so easily beaten, the man grasped the trunk again, and shook it harder than before; and this time Collurio seemed to think the joke had been carried far enough, for he took wing, and flew to another part of the Garden. The bravado of the butcher-bird is great, but it is not unlimited. I saw him, one day, shuffling along a branch in a very nervous, unshrikely fashion, and ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... one reason I'm pretty well known in the State. And there may be other reasons, too." He lets out a little chuckle at that; not loud, you know, but just as though he was swallowin' some joke or other. It was a specialty of his, this smothered chuckle business. "Of course," he goes on, "you needn't tell ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... men of talent were more prominent, and it was easier to command an audience. It was known to all that Mr. —— was coming, and guests repaired to the feast, not to talk, but to listen, as we should now to a public reading. The greatest joke and treat was to get two of such men, and set them against each other, when they had to bring out their best steel; although it sometimes happened, that both refused to fight. We need scarcely say that the humour which was produced in such quantities to supply immediate demand was not ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hand, is bought and muzzled, wrenches off his muzzle, blazes into a fierce attack on the wrongs which he is weary of witnessing, the hypocrisy which he is tired of sharing, makes his will, sets his house in order, plays one last practical joke by inventing the story of the ghostly warning, surrounds himself with dissolute company, and at midnight on November 27 deliberately fulfils his own prediction, and dies by his own hand. It is a tale creditable to Coulton's fancy. A patrician of genius, a wit, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... all a joke. It's hardly worth while talking to a man like me. Yet for that very reason men have been known to take ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... love of rice-pudding! will you get down to brass tacks and strike a trial balance? What are you talking of, anyhow? Is it a joke?" ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... angry. "I don' listen to no woman be joke 'bout, you hear? Dis boy spik true. He was in Linderman las' night, for I seen him on top of Chilkoot yesterday myse'f, wit' pack on his back so ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... in the English house of commons, in the early part of the year, which damaged the prestige of Smith O'Brien, and although O'Connell exerted himself in parliament on his behalf, the event gave the arch-agitator satisfaction. He had many a private joke at the expense of O'Brien, and few men could wound with a brighter point than O'Connell in his best moods of satire. Mr. O'Brien was nominated on a committee, and refused to serve, alleging that the affairs of his country were so neglected that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... by," uttered Greg fretfully, "You'll tell me the meaning of this joke, and why Mr. Unwine should ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... your part, Captain Frere. A capital joke, I have no doubt; but permit me to say I do not like jesting on such matters. This poor fellow's letter to his aged father to be made the subject of heartless merriment, I confess I do not understand. It was confided to me in my sacred character as ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... moonlit, vapory enchantments touched ground, the contact "precipitated the whole solution." In 1813 Scott had printed "The Bridal of Triermain" anonymously, with a preface designed to mislead the public; having contrived, by way of a joke, to fasten the authorship of the piece upon Erskine. This poem is as pure fantasy as Tennyson's "Day Dream," and tells the story of a knight who, in obedience to a vision and the instructions of an ancient sage "sprung from Druid sires," enters an enchanted castle and frees the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... he is not impudent, but is perfectly obedient. I cannot make him out, however. He performs everything smilingly, as though it were an excellent joke. I ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... say how much I am worth, but I am worth more than any sum you have mentioned." "Then," said the clerk, "you are even a greater fool than I took you for, to work as hard as you do." The old man would tell this story with great glee, for he always liked a joke. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... Such a man might have strange fancies, and a belief in approaching death might bring its own fulfilment. The hypothesis of a premeditated suicide, with the story of the ghost as a last practical joke, has no corroboration. It occurred to Horace Walpole at once, but he laid no ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... bottom up, sir," suggested the fat cook as he passed at the moment with a tray of meat. Mizzle could not resist a joke—no matter how unsuitable the time or dreadful ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Southwark; the alley it had occupied having been purchased and [the tenements] thrown down by Mr. Thrale to make an opening before the windows of our dwelling-house. When it lay desolate in a black heap of rubbish, my mother one day in a joke called it the Ruins of Palmyra; and after that they had laid it down in a grass-plot Palmyra was the name it went by.... But there were really curious remains of the old Globe Playhouse, which though hexagonal in form without, was round within." In ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... made me feel bad t' think o' what she'd been wantin' all them years; an' then I wished I'd been kinder t' Liz.... An', 'Tumm,' thinks I, 'you went an' come ashore t' stop this here thing; but you better let the skipper have his little joke, for t'will on'y s'prise him, an' it won't do nobody else no hurt. Here's this fool,' thinks I, 'wantin' a wife; an' he won't never have another chance. An' here's this maid,' thinks I, 'wantin' a baby; an' she won't never have another ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... the windows of their lodging, but nothing could damp for long her high spirits and girlish gaiety. We are told (not by herself, but by the arch-gossip, old Aubrey) that in the company of Lady Isabella Thynne, brightest star of the Stuart Court, "fine Mistress Anne" played a practical joke on Dr. Kettle, the woman-hating President of Trinity, who resented the intrusion of petticoats into his garden, "dubbed Daphne by the wits." The lady in question aired herself there in a fantastic garment cut after the pattern of the angels, with her page and singing boy wafting ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... declared Archie. "Well, at Bridgeport they take me as a joke, see? That's all right; I'll show them, some day. They voted me a nuisance at the shops and shut me out. Wouldn't let me come near their engines. I had to find out some things necessary to my inventions, so I came on to Stanley Junction. Rode in a coach ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... is enjoying a good nap," he chuckled. "Drummer certainly has turned the joke back on Unc' Billy this time, and I guess it ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... are grown; the peasants of Ireland hardly ever eat anything besides potatoes. When they have enough of them to eat, and a little whiskey to drink, the poor people are exceedingly jovial and merry; they laugh, sing, and joke; and go to weddings, fairs, dances, and what are called in Ireland "wakes," which, among the poor, is a kind of laying in state before funerals;—but sometimes the crops of potatoes fail, and then the unfortunate peasants die by hundreds from hunger. ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... shouted. "Out with your blankets, men," to our gunners and the infantry behind, and in an instant the chosen sons of Cork were bounding out of their lines and down the hill, and belabouring the fire with blankets and ground-sheets and sacks. They seemed to think it a fine joke, and raised a paean of triumph when it was got under. "Wan more victory," I heard ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... King was angry before, he was furious now. His horses had cost a great deal of money; and to be tricked by a Blackbird is a poor joke. ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... out.' We were confronted with dearth, danger, and death. . . . They, who had formerly been our despair, were now our glory. Their spirits effervesced. Their wit sparkled. Hunger and thirst could not depress them. Rain could not damp them. Cold could not chill them. Every hardship became a joke. . . . Never was such a triumph of spirit over matter. . . . If it was another fellow that was hit, it was an occasion for tenderness and grief. But if one of them was hit, O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... half in joke and half in all seriousness, wound up in debates and disputes, and as a result two groups were formed in the house; that of the Sensible folk, comprised by the three criminals and the landlady, and that of the Foolish, in which were ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... said, half in joke, half in earnest, 'O William Dewsbury! O William Dewsbury! thou hast much to answer for! If I had never met thee I should never have undertaken this voyage in my little boat!' If he said this, I think a very tender, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... is completed. Any unusual design runs through two years, after which it can be obtained only from the factory. A dozen of each is a good number to aim at, for there will be many occasions which will call out one's whole dish brigade and keep it actively engaged. The old joke about having to wash dishes between courses, and sending the ice cream afloat on a warm plate, really loses its amusing aspect when it becomes an actual experience. Unless the mistress prefers to serve her ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... my little joke on Ito; illustrated to him, I fondly thought, the absurdity of indiscriminately dragging in the word "honourable" in and out of season. How would ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... and because of it thousands of slaves met a cruel death as the direct result of the effort to save them from slavery. Many stories are told of these wholesale drownings. The captain of the British cruiser "Black Joke" reports of a case in which he was pursuing ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... Laura Clay of Kentucky and Miss Kate Gordon of Louisiana. The advisability of attempting to have a woman suffrage measure introduced in the next session of the Legislature was considered. Two men besides the host appeared at this conference, a reporter, who regarded the meeting as something of a joke, and the Hon. R. H. Thompson of Jackson, an eminent lawyer, who came to offer sympathetic advice. Visits were made to the Governor, James K. Vardaman, and other State officials; to the Hinds county legislators who had recently ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... could laugh and joke about it like you do, squire," said Shaddy sadly, as he peered about. "It's serious, my lad. Something very ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... years I've lived on the bank. You sure have struck it this time. Right this way," he is staggering under the load of our paraphernalia; "rig's all ready and Molly's got the kettle on at home, waiting breakfast for you.... Just as fat as you were last year, ain't ye?" a time-proven joke, for I weigh one hundred and eight pounds. "Try to pull you out, though; try to." And his great laugh drowns the roar ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... A joke was a rare thing in those dull, waiting days, and George Washington McKinley Jones was delicious. The Colonel smoothed the smiles from his mouth as best he could. But not a quiver of mirth ruffled the dirt-stained countenance of the child. His severe stare ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... Bernard was borne upstairs again by Felix, who found Clement in the nursery comforting the little girls, and preventing them from following the example of their valiant pioneer. Felix, now thoroughly entering into the spirit of the joke, entertained for a moment the hope of entrapping Clement; but of course Bernard could not be silenced from his bold and rather doubtful proclamation, that 'The funny boy made Felix black his own face, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your sides I guess, to see the stupid stare of the devils, as startin' out of their sleep, they saw a pistol within three inches of each of'em. 'Ugh,' says they, as if they did'nt know well whether to take it as a joke or not. 'Yes, 'ugh' and be damn'd to you,' say's I: you may go and 'ugh' in hell next—and with that snap went the triggers, and into their curst carcasses went the balls. The one I killed outright but t'other the Delaweer chief, was by a sudden ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... experienced all the sensations of the criminal on his trial, sitting on a narrow bench confronted by a stern and penetrating judge. 'Why, it's a cross-examination!' he murmured to himself dejectedly. Maria Nikolaevna kept laughing all the while, as though it were a joke; but Sanin felt none the more at ease for that; and when in the course of the 'cross-examination' it turned out that he had not clearly realised the exact meaning of the words 'repartition' and 'tilth,' he was in a ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... I might go on and tell How all the joke at last leaked out, And how the youngsters raised the yell And rode the happy groom about Upon their shoulders; how the bride Was kissed a hunderd times beside The one I give her,—tel she cried And laughed untel she like to died! I might go on and tell you all About ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... my love, very true. Exactly so, indeed—quite unheard of—but some ladies say any thing. Better pass it off as a joke. Every body knows what is ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... it," said Jessie, icily, though there was a twinkle in her eye. "Not having a mirror, I'm afraid I can't join in the joke." ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... brutality of the brokers; should sell the iron at my own price, and have the sweet satisfaction of seeing our great people shamefully mystified. That would teach them to proclaim themselves perpetually the harbingers and promoters of progress in Europe. Oh! it would be a capital joke, ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... good-natured laughter at Reddy's expense. His red hair was as common a subject of joke as ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent, and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me, and laugh at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Mildred, more disappointed at the failure of her joke than at the too substantial fare that awaited her. 'Poor Harold,' she thought, 'is the best of fellows, but, like all of them, he can't see a joke. The cooking I can alter, but he'll always remain boiled ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... of Webb's, with whom we used to joke, and of whom a story (whereof I myself was the author) was got to be believed in the army, that he was eldest son of the hereditary Grand Bootjack of the Empire, and the heir to that honor of which his ancestors had ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... swiftness, he smote me a buffet on the head. I was knocked backward fully a dozen feet before I fetched up against the ground, and I remember, half-stunned, even as the blow was struck, hearing the wild uproar of clucking and shrieking laughter that arose from the caves. It was a great joke—at least in that day; and right heartily the ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... 'It hath been said, O king, that it is not sinful to lie on the occasion of a joke, in respect of women sought to be enjoyed, on occasions of marriage, in peril of immediate death and of the loss of one's whole fortune. Lying is excusable on these five occasions. O king, it is not true that he is fallen ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... is," laughed Mr. Carlyle, willing to joke the subject and his sister into good-humor. "Would you wish to ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a joke, or it's the black rabbit getting in his work," answered Bud. "It's from an ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... is the same as with me," pursued he. "We've both spent our time with the young married set, where marriage is regarded as a rather stupid joke. You ought to have stuck to the market-place until your business ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... 'oh! the apothecary's daughter, Wilhelmina. You must have heard of Mr. Turner. Rupert has made a standing joke of him, ever ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Academy years ago. Yes, there she is. Mrs. Muir, you know." She clapped her hands and her laugh became a delighted giggle. "And my Robin is playing on the grass near her—with a boy! What a joke! It must be THE boy! And I wanted to see the pair together. Coombe said couldn't be done. And more than anything I want to speak to ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... through Logan's coat-sleeve, scratching the skin, and struck Colonel Taylor square in the breast; luckily he had in his pocket a famous memorandum-book, in which he kept a sort of diary, about which we used to joke him a good deal; its thickness and size saved his life, breaking the force of the ball, so that after traversing the book it only penetrated the breast to the ribs, but it knocked him down and disabled ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... 'And it was no joke holding him tight,' said Mr. Romfrey, 'I 'd as lief snap an ash. The fellow (he leaned round to Colonel Halkett) must be a fellow of a fine constitution. And he took his punishment like a man. I've known worse: and far worse: gentlemen by birth. There's the choice of taking it upright ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of sixty years of age, noble-looking, loving a good joke, an antiquarian, and a good astronomer. I picked up many an anecdote from him, and many ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... senseless joke About a soldier, wherever made, Would make us ashamed.... For now we choke Whenever the Colors and you parade! Wherever that O. D. uniform Shall gladden the eyes of we useless men We can't forget who is meeting the storm— That some of you won't come home again! You went.... We talked.... ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... said she, treating it as a joke. "So we shall be starved to death, and covered up by birds, like the ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... depicting the charm and attractiveness of Jane Austen's character must be quite incomplete if it fails to take into account the special manner in which she showed these qualities as an aunt. She herself says in joke to a young niece that she had always maintained the importance of aunts; and she evidently felt, in all seriousness, the responsibility of that relationship, though she would have been one of the last to display her sense ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... solemn mien. When Rose, however began to deliver a pompous little speech, treating her brother's betrothed like some foreign princess, whom she had orders to welcome in the name of the king, her father, the young couple began to laugh, and even prolonged the joke by responding in the same style. The railway men looked on and listened, gaping. It was a fine farce, and the Froments were delighted at showing themselves so playful on that ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... the best joke of our lives, over which we will often laugh at our fireside hereafter. Come now, cousin, make the best of it; it is the best for you as well as for me. You know I always intended to marry you, and I have the hearty sanction of all the ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... I was as innocent as you. I had a good mother then. If she had lived, perhaps I would have turned out different. Why, it seems a great joke, doesn't it? I attended Sunday-school till I ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... joke," Mr. Crow said. And he laughed loudly. "These young fellows here have been trying to tell one another why you're called Sandy. One of 'em says it's because you like to dig in the sandy soil; and another says it's because of your color; and still another ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... florins on detto Herr Cheese. You must know that, though I only saw Herr Herzog once, I could not resist asking him to send me a draft on Herr Schmalz, or to Herrn Butter, Milk, and Cheese, or whom he would—a ca! This joke has succeeded; it is no good making ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... looked frankly into the captain's as he continued. "I have been making a fool of myself, Captain. Got into some mischief with a crowd of fellows at school. Of course, I got caught and had to bear the whole blame for the silly joke we had played. The faculty has suspended me for a term. I would have got off with only a reprimand if I would have told the names of the other fellows, but I ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... pleasant to Nekhludoff to recall all that; it was pleasant to recall how he came near quarreling with the army officer who attempted to make a bad joke of it; how another comrade sided with him, which drew them more closely together; how merry and successful was the hunt, and how happy he felt that night returning to the railroad station. A long file of sleighs moved noiselessly in pairs at a gentle trot along the narrow ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... bell," and sure enough there came a ring. Up I went without shoes, like a shot to my bedroom, began to smell my fingers, found they were sticky, and the smell not the same. I recollect thinking it strange that her cunt should be so sticky, I had heard of dirty cunts,—it was a joke among us boys, and thought hers must have been so, which was the cause, that the smell and ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... country, [Footnote: Spectator 122.] who will not own to a mere citizen among his ancestors, [Footnote: Spectator 109.] and 'very frequently' [Footnote: Spectator 125.] repeats his old stories—Sir Andrew, with his joke about the sea and the British common, [Footnote: Spectator 2.] and his tenderness for his old friend and opponent [Footnote: Spectator 517.]—the volatile Will Honeycomb, whose gallantry and care of his person [Footnote: Spectator 2, 359.] ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... only wanted to know the worst. Silly joke about the fertility of curates—you've met ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... enormous policeman in the quaint attire of the 'forties—top hat, tail coat, tight trousers, just as I had so often seen portrayed in old books. He was riding stiffly, as if unaccustomed to the saddle, and kept looking rigidly in front of him. Thinking it was someone doing it either for a joke or a wager, I was greatly tickled, and kept saying to myself, 'Well, you are a sport, an A1 sport.' I tried to catch him up, to see how he made up his face, but could not, for although the horse never seemed to quicken its pace—a mere crawl—and I ran, it nevertheless ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... seen the proofs of this little volume says it should be entitled "Jokes Old and New''; but I find that he seldom acknowledges that a joke is new, and I hope, therefore, my readers will transpose the adjectives, and accept the old jokes for the sake of the new ones. I may claim, at least, that the series of answers to examination questions, which Prof. Oliver Lodge has so kindly supplied ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... a wilder jest, and I'll not spoil the joke. He has us on his toasting-fork. He shall have the honour ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and with the citoyennes Elodie, Rose, and Julienne crowding round him, Desmahis looked at Philippe Dubois—he did not like the man and suspected him of having played him a practical joke—with a wry smile, and towering above him ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... fond as ever of its little joke, having written my C.O. a solemn letter to say they couldn't entertain the idea of my promotion seeing that under the Double Coy. system the establishment of Captains is reduced to seven and so on, and having thereby induced him to offer ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... when the letter of Guilbert seems a joke or a hoax. One does not like to think that she said, "The true comedian finds his success in himself, and can do without the dramatic author. He easily utilizes his own comic or tragic gifts, as is ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... attention to the impending disaster. I cannot divide things easily; I am an indivisible man. But one night I went for a bicycle ride with my wife. She was a Bantam of delight, I can tell you, but she rode very badly. It was starlight, and I was attempting to explain the joke in the paper called, if I recollect aright, Punch. It was an extraordinarily sultry night, and I told her the names of all the stars she saw as she fell off her machine. She had a good bulk of falls. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the people went to ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... while the lively chit-chat within—the humorous joke—the joy-excited laughter, all of which only aroused his indignation to greater fierceness. But at that moment, when ready to put his threats into execution the right hand of his soul arrested suddenly the uplifted weapon of ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... young folks pull the chair from under some one "for fun," and the result was pain and perhaps permanent injury to the object of the joke. ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... has made in almost every branch of industry is most extraordinary, yet none is so striking as the advance which has been effected in cutlery, as I well remember when I first came to France, it was a common joke amongst the English, when speaking of the rarity of an object, to observe that it was as scarce as a knife in France that would cut, its appearance also was as dull as its edge, soon however their cutlery, with their ideas, began to brighten, and to sharpen; but even as recently as 1830, they ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... home we return, we'll sit down to feast, Our friends shall behold us with pleasure; She'll sip with my lord—I'll drink with the priest, We'll laugh and we'll quaff without measure. The toast and the joke shall go joyfully round, With love and good humour the room shall resound. The slipper be hid—the stocking let fall, And rare blindman's-buff shall keep up the ball; Whilst the merry spinette, and the sweet tambourine, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... exceedingly, as though the most splendid joke had been made, and before we had done we were out of the village and in the open country beyond, and could see my house and garden far away behind, glittering in the sunshine; and in front of us lay the forest, ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... anything about the war, she persuaded him to visit the King of Scyros. There, under pretext of a joke, he was induced to put on girl's clothes, and to pretend ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... to joke about the arts, but Milly didn't expect to see much of the Reddons once they were launched in the fascinating life of Paris. She was becoming a little bored with them already, with their sloppy unconventionality and with ship life in general. Most of the first-cabin passengers, she discovered, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... about his neck, oho—aha! Tom Button—big Tom, fighting Tom so loud o' tongue and ready o' fist—Tom as have cowed so many—there is he fast by the neck and a-groaning, see ye, gossips, loud enough for six, wish I may die else! And the best o' the joke is—the key be gone, as I'm a sinner! So they needs must break the lock to get him out. Big Tom, as have thrashed every man for miles." But here merry voice and laughter ceased and a buxom woman thrust smiling face from the window, and face (like ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... aristocracy of prosperity, and apparently there is also an aristocracy of the ins as opposed to the outs, and I am with the outs. So the ranks grow daily, here. Plainly there are all kinds of castes here and only one that I belong to, the outcasts." But he couldn't even smile at his small joke, although he was obliged to confess that he had a rather good opinion of it. He was feeling so defeated and miserable by this time that he could no longer look with philosophical complacency on the horseplay ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his foot should be taken off, not his head," giggled Betty; but no one but herself laughed at her joke. ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... monotonous scenery and depressing conditions of official life in Bengal (Resort to Simla was the exception, not the rule, in these days!) to the cheerfulness and unconstraint of Burma, with its fine landscapes and merry-hearted population. "It was such a relief to find natives who would laugh at a joke," he once remarked in the writer's presence to the lamented E. C. Baber, who replied that he had experienced exactly the same sense of relief in passing ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... me to tie Pugh I did it," Glass continued. "Then he dropped a loop over me, and that's all there is to tell. The joke's on us just now." ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... wrong to women is, depend upon it, Eusebius, the "brute of a husband," called, by courtesy, in higher life, "Sir John Brute." Horace says wittily, that Venus puts together discordant persons and minds with a bitter joke, "saevo mittere cum joco;" it begins a jest, and ends a crying evil. We name the thing that should be good, with an ambiguous sound that gives disagreement to the sense. It is marry-age, or matter o' money. And let any man who is a euphonist, and takes omens from names, attend the publication ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... of Caracalla. The selection was most appropriate. Only the old, decrepit, and broken-down were taken,—the younger and sturdier were left. Ruined men were in harmony with the ruined temples. Such a set of laborers was never before seen. Falstaff's ragged regiment was a joke to them. Each had a wheelbarrow, a spade, or pick, and a cloak; but the last was the most important part of their equipment. Some of them picked at the earth with a gravity that was equalled only by the feebleness of the effort and the poverty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... blank at this, and, suddenly realising that they were not very familiar with American coins, Patty explained the joke. They saw it, of course, but seemed to think it not very good, and Sinclair whimsically insisted on calling it, "a shilling to Bob," which he said ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... and that the Japanese cannot be acquitted of guilt in this context, grave pundits in Tokyo, London and New York gravely rebuke them for following their own senses in preference to the official returns of the Residency General. It is a poor joke at the best! Nor is it the symptom of a powerful cause that the failure of the Japanese authorities to 'pacify' the interior is ascribed to 'anti-Japanese' writers like Mr. McKenzie."—From "Peace ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... choice; he was obliged to pass thro' the ceremony of dying either in jest or in earnest; and we shall not be surprized at the event, when we remember his propensities to the former.—Life (and especially the life of Falstaff) might be a jest; but he could see no joke whatever in dying: To be chopfallen was, with him, to lose both life and character together: He saw the point of honour, as well as every thing else, in ridiculous lights, and began ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... you are joking. And yet—perhaps the joke is not far off. You are less solvent than your father and he was less solvent than his father. Perhaps your son will no longer be solvent. It becomes too troublesome for the planet to support even the industries that still exist, though they are toothpicks to the oak trees ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... is turning the whole thing into piffle. You fellows seemed to want to chivvy him, so I agreed just for the joke. But it isn't likely that we shall recognise ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... stock wandered at will in the open. But with the gathering and the calf-branding he knew that the number had shrunk woefully. Of the calves he had left with their mothers in the fall, scarce one remained; of the cows themselves he could find not half, and the calf-branding was becoming a grim joke ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... the benefit of the New York Observer I will state that a despatch sent round the world in a spiral direction westward 1,200 times, would not really arrive at its destination four years before it started. It is only a joke ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... choir stalls and miserere seats was a natural ebullition of the humourous instinct, which had so little opportunity for exploiting itself in monastic seclusion. The joke was hidden away, under the seat, out of sight of visitors, or laymen: inconspicuous, but furtively entertaining. There was no self-consciousness in its elaboration, it was often executed for pure love of fun and whittling; and for that ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... dear," replied Lady Ingleby, "is a little joke of the duchess's. This concert is arranged for the amusement of her house party, and for the gratification and glorification of local celebrities. The whole neighbourhood is invited. None of you are asked to perform, but local celebrities are. In ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... been a good joke in France then; it is so now,—wonderfully fresh and new,—defying time and endless repetition. American eyes do not see much fun in it; they rather turn away in disgust. But on the risible organs of the French purgative medicines ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... turn humorous author, and aim at the countenance of the men. Except as a humorist he certainly never will get it, for your American, when he is not making money, or trying to do it, is making a joke, or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... compliments—as, indeed, they probably imagined that they were. All this was magnificent, but it was not business. Dunstable and Linton felt that the whole attitude of the public towards the new enterprise was wrong. Locksley seemed to regard the Trust as a huge joke, and its prospectus as a ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... then an unfortunate incident. Some one had said something about England: there had been a joke then about "sportsmen," some allusion was made to some old story connected with myself, and I had laughingly taken up the challenge. Suddenly Semyonov leaned across the table and spoke to Trenchard. Trenchard, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... out his whole instinct was against it: against war. He had not the faintest desire to overcome any foreigners or to help in their death. He had no conception of Imperial England, and Rule Britannia was just a joke to him. He was a pure-blooded Englishman, perfect in his race, and when he was truly himself he could no more have been aggressive on the score of his Englishness than a rose can be aggressive on the ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... moustaches, the blushing consciousness of his good luck?—They call him THE FOURTH CHAPTER of the Duchess's memoirs. The little Marquise d'Alberas is ready to die out of spite; but the best of the joke is, that she has only taken poor de Vendre for a lover in order to vent her spleen on him. Look at him against the chimney yonder; if the Marchioness do not break at once with him by quitting him for somebody else, the poor fellow will ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lay of the land. But Curly acted indifferent, and never even offered to call on Miss Sallie. Us fellows joked him about his girl going to marry another fellow, and he didn't seem a little bit put out. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the sudden turn as a good joke on himself. But one morning, two days before the wedding was to take place, Miss Sallie was missing from her home, as was likewise Curly Thorn from the neighborhood. Yes, Thorn had eloped with her and they were married the next morning in Nacogdoches. ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... given, as a rule, to smiling at any man who did his best. On any other day he would have very likely exchanged a joke with the bullock-man who labored so unavailingly to get the road cleared in a hurry. But to-day, since his thoughts were of Ranjoor Singh, he paid the man no attention; he had not even formed a mental picture of him by the time ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... and vigorous for the work of the coming winter. She was anxious to know whether the reports of the Senate debate had been franked and sent out as promised and, to her inquiry, Senator Blair answered with his usual little joke: "I have had the speeches, etc., attended to and trust that the mails will do you justice if the males do not. But remember that men naturally fight for their lives, and on the same ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Mrs. Ledward she confided at least once a week, generally when she paid her rent, her settled intention to go and find work of some kind in the course of the next two or three days; till at length this had become a standing joke with the landlady, who laughed merrily as often as the subject was mentioned. Lotty had of late let her thoughts turn to her father, whom she had never seen since their parting. Not with any affection did she think of him, but, in her despairing moments, it seemed to her impossible ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... while being hurried into dry clothes, Minnie more coherently explained her mishap. Wishing to play a joke on Giles, she had slipped away from the fireside company of him and Sarah to put a match to his fagots on the pond, run back with word that they were burning, and laugh with Sarah while Giles should plunge out to find the incendiaries. But she had forgotten how frail good ice may be ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... piled with snowdrifts up to the first-floor windows. The streets through which our friends had to go to their work were all unpaved and full of deep holes and gullies; in summer, when it rained hard, a man might have to wade to his waist to get to his house; and now in winter it was no joke getting through these places, before light in the morning and after dark at night. They would wrap up in all they owned, but they could not wrap up against exhaustion; and many a man gave out in these battles with the snowdrifts, and lay ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... feel that the other world was the good place I think it if I did not believe I could laugh there too." She once said to me, in the midst of a storm of acute suffering, that pain seemed to her a strange sort of a joke. I hardly knew what she meant, but it shows the reigning mood of one who used to better ends a life half pain than most of us use the untroubled health of existence. Very irritable in youth, her clear brain and strong sense of duty overcame it in proportion ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... shouted, in a scornful tone. "The joke is a good one. Let us accept the name; we will contend with the abominable Inquisition till compelled to wear the beggar's ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... closely under the lee of fact that they were not strictly divisible. Moreover, Sarah Winch, whom Chumley Potts drew into conversation, said, he vowed, she came up West from Whitechapel. She said it a little nervously, but without blushing. Always on the side of the joke, he could ask: 'Who can doubt?' Indeed, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that I was studying their personal peculiarities for my own advantage and for the public amusement. Some thought the thing a good joke; some objected to it, and quarreled with me. Liberality in the matter of liquor and small loans, reconciled a large proportion of the objectors to their fate; the sulky minority I treated with contempt, and scourged avengingly with the smart ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... most exclusive nation of the world, watched the assembly before him and there occurred to him the thought of conquering it single-handed. That is what it came to. Of course his reference is in the nature of a joke. It could hardly be otherwise. But it was a joke which has ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... Having had some horses stolen, he sternly called on the city authorities to pay him their full value. They did so without a murmur—in Confederate money. He pocketed it with a grim smile, evidently appreciating the joke. He boasted greatly of his humanity and his respect for private property, but if the local papers are to be believed, it must be chronicled to his everlasting disgrace that he seized a great many negroes, who were tied and sent South as slaves. Black children were ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... says he. "It's a light matter, I suppose, prowling around private grounds and pilfering? I ought to be taking it as a joke, eh? Don't ye know, you two, I could have you ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... fruit had scored a similar success, for once she had said to Georgie Pillson, "Ah, my gardener has sent in some early apples and pears, won't you take one home with you?" It was not till the weight of the pear (he swiftly selected the largest) betrayed the joke that he had any notion that they were not real ones. But then Georgie had had his revenge, for waiting his opportunity he had inserted a real pear among those stony specimens and again passing through with Lucia, he picked it out, and with lips drawn ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... to form any just idea as to how their representatives are conducting the public business. He said: "I may make a most careful speech on any important subject before Congress and it will not be mentioned in the New York papers, but let me make a joke and it will be published all over the United States. Yesterday, on a wager, I tried an experiment: I made two poor little jokes during a short talk in the House, and here they are in the New York papers ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... the boy's parents and they were very grateful. The boy had grown dizzy while standing on the bank and had fallen in. They said they would get the order of the French Legion of Honor for me if they could. That would be a good joke. ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... don't think I can call you so. You are too old. It would not be respectful." She meant it half in joke, and had no idea he would take the allusion to his age so seriously as he did. He rose up, and coldly, as a matter of form, in a changed voice, wished her "Good-bye." Her heart sank; yet the old pride was there. But as he was at the very door, some ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Portulak," said a little common duck, who was witty; and all the other common ducks considered the word Portulak quite a good joke, for it sounded like Portugal; and they nudged each other and said "Rapp!" It was too witty! And all the other ducks now began to notice the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... But I have a horrible feeling that you farmers think you have caught a city ignoramus and that it is your duty to stuff me with the tallest stories you can invent. Please set me right. If you are stuffing me the joke is certainly on me, for these incredible tales seem true: if they are true the joke is doubly on me. As I am the butt, either way, don't be too hard on me: ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... and I thought it not a bad lookout. He was perfectly well-mannered, and at a hotel where we stopped for tea he took his coffee at our table unbidden, like any American fellow-man. He and the landlord had their joke together, the landlord warning me against him in English as "very bad man," and clapping him affectionately on the shoulder to emphasize the irony. We did not demand too much social information of him; all the more we valued the ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... that word "alone" so much, that at last we began to joke about it in the reception-room; outriders and footmen tossed it from one to another when a new guest entered: "Alone!" And we laughed and enjoyed ourselves. But M. Nicklauss, with his extended knowledge of society, considered that the almost universal abstention of ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... last. Now I know why your name seemed so familiar. Last fall a Miss Seaton was staying at the hotel with her mother. She dictated a letter to me, the carbon copy of which I am enclosing. She told me that she was having the letter typed for a joke and asked me to sign it 'Jane Allen.' I knew that wasn't her name, because I had heard a bell-boy page her several times and knew who she was. She said that you were her cousin and that she was only sending the letter for ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... bit his nails. He was a lean creature, unshaven and sidelong, and he had the furtive and self-conscious air of one who perpetrates a practical joke. Miss Gregory watched him with some impatience; she had yet to learn that a Portugee of the Coast will even lose money to inconvenience an ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... men looked sheepish and hurriedly explained the joke, looking over in the direction of the two strangers. As their welcome was considered a huge joke the men laughed loudly. Mr. Brewster (for it was the rancher) frowned when he saw the pale girls almost fainting from fear. Then he turned to ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... compliment to the Canadians, though my appreciation can't be worth very much. But I don't feel in a mood to joke. In fact, there's a feeling of depression abroad to-night; even your father seems affected. I'd expected a pleasant talk with him, but ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... floor, stopping at one door after another, where dirty, frowzy women and children opened at the sound of his cheery whistle. He handed in the loaves, or the measures of hominy with a gay word or a joke that more than once banished a frown from a woman's worn face, or checked the tears of a tired, hungry child. Children were getting to be fond of the boy ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... paralysed with wonder, sank into a chair in a perfect ecstasy of laughter, and offered to lay twenty pounds that it was that droll dog Griggins. He had no sooner said this, than the majority of the company and all the children of the house burst into a roar of laughter too, as if some inimitable joke flashed upon them simultaneously, and gave vent to various exclamations of—To be sure it must be Griggins, and How like him that was, and What spirits he was always in! with many other commendatory ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... He'll joke with you in sun or show'r, And keep you laughing by the hour. Some zanies are a trifle mad: Now we ...
— Little People: An Alphabet • T. W. H. Crosland
... zenith of his fame and influence. When the reserve of the first few days had worn off, he was simply splendid to me. When anything I said struck him as being to the point, he pressed my hands with all the ardour of youth, and he applauded every joke I attempted ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... conjecture why Shakespeare should have introduced this ludicrous scroll, which answers no one purpose, either propulsive, or explicatory, unless as a joke on etymology. ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... talkin' disconnected until about midnight, first tellin' some devilish deed he'd seen or took part in, an' then tellin' o' some joke or some act o' kindness. Just at midnight he took my hand, an' the' came a look into his eyes like as if he was about overcome by some beautiful vision; but in a moment he cohered down an' he gripped my hand till it hurt. "Happy," he gasped, "I allus loved ya, Happy. You won't ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... that is more than I expected. Well, now I'm satisfied that's a joke; and I shall find nothing in ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... parents in infancy; but it would be interesting to learn the origin of this quaint custom from someone who has had a chance to study this tribe. Probably the girl's poverty furnishes the key. The whole thing seems like a practical joke raised to the dignity of an institution. The perversion of all ordinary rules is consistently carried out in this, too, that "if the old people refuse they can be beaten into compliance!" That the loss of female ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... trifling matter as this." And thus they held him by the clothes and in parley, until all that were in the court perceived that he had lost his breeches. However, after a while, Matteuzzo dropped the breeches, and slipped off, and out of the court, without being observed, and Ribi, deeming that the joke had gone far enough, exclaimed:—"By God, I vow, I will appeal to the Syndics;" while Maso, on the other side, let go the robe, saying:—"Nay, but for my part, I will come here again and again and again, until I find ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... well as the value of all his early training in the arts of the politician. Always ready to listen, and to give men free chance to relieve their minds in talk, he never directly antagonized their opinions, but, deftly embodying an argument in an apt joke or story, would manage to switch them off from their track to his own without their exactly perceiving the process. His innate courtesy often made him seem uncertain of his ground, but he probably had his own way quite as frequently as Andrew Jackson, and without that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... 10,000 Kentishmen had enrolled as Volunteers, and 1,040 in the Army of Reserve, exclusive of Sea Fencibles serving on gunboats. For the whole of Great Britain the totals were 379,000 and 31,000 respectively.[659] Pitt's joke at the expense of a battalion which laid more stress on privileges than drills, has become historic. Its organizers sent up a plan containing several stipulations as to their duties, with exceptions "in case of actual invasion." Pitt lost patience at this Falstaff-like ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... always on his return he would be closeted immediately with one or other of the partners, who in turn seemed to consider him important too, and would sometimes treat him almost like one of themselves, actually condescending to laugh with him now and again over some joke, evidently as mysterious as all the rest. This Mr. Perkins seldom noticed the juniors in his department, though occasionally he would select one of them to accompany him on one of his missions to clients of the firm; and they ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... that was only a little joke. A fellow is in such high spirits when he comes ashore again. But out at sea it's—thrash the others, or they'll thrash you! Well, that's all right, but one ought to be good to the women. That's what I've told the old man ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... it; and began anew the task of living down his name. Always, when introduced or introducing himself, he saw in the eyes opposite his own that maddening glimmer of amusement. Then he gritted his teeth and waited for the joke. There were fourteen possible forms that it might take. Tempted often to return to that rocky Connecticut hillside, he nevertheless stuck it out, and, as time passed, found he didn't mind so much. He even reached the ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... burst out laughing, for it was always a great joke between them, his liking for her noodle soup. Old Grandpa laughed loudest of all, circling them, and pounding the floor with his cane. "What say?" he demanded. "What say?" Altogether the restoration ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... {0e} To that "very small circle" we have no reason to suppose that Manningham belonged, despite his remarkable opinion that Twelfth Night resembles the Menaechmi. Consequently, it is NOT "extremely remarkable" that Manningham wrote "Shakespeare's name William," to explain to posterity the joke about "William the Conqueror," instead of saying, "the brilliant author of the Twelfth Night play which so much amused me at our feast a few weeks ago." {0f} "Remarkable" out of all hooping it would have been had Manningham written ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... for a long time, and the girls had almost forgotten their joke in a game of Letters, when "Tingle, tangle!" went the bell, and the basket came in heavily laden. A roll of colored papers was tied outside, and within was a box that rattled, a green and silver horn, a roll of narrow ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the story as she felt she knew it. Union Square, the discharged shopgirl, John's quixotic conduct. And John watched Mary with a lover's eye. He had not intended that she should be involved. A moment of her displeasure, even upon mistaken grounds, was no part of his idea of a joke. ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... seas!" he answered, "I must tell you about that. It's a great joke on me. I left America thinking the freedom of the seas the most important issue of the Peace Conference. When I got here I found there was no such issue. You see the freedom of the seas concerns neutrals in time of war. But when we have the League of Nations there ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... thousand simple mouths to grin! As the jaded Merryman uttered them to the old gentleman with the whip, some of the old folks in the audience, I daresay, indulged in reflections of their own. There was one joke — I utterly forget it — but it began with Merryman saying what he had for dinner. He had mutton for dinner, at one o'clock, after which "he had to come to business." And then came the point. Walter Juvenis, Esq., Rev. Doctor Birch's, Market Rodborough, if you read this, will you ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... them. In the Devil's name! I never in my life was so near choked; swimming in this mother of Dead Dogs, and a long spell of it still ahead! I profoundly pity myself (if no one else does). You shall hear of me again if I survive,—but really that is getting beyond a joke with me, and I ought to hold my peace (even to you), and swim what I can. Your little touch of Human Speech on Burns'* was charming; had got into the papers here (and been clipt out by me) before your copy came, and has gone far and wide since. ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... And to think you went and walked about in the mud and the east wind! Well, if that isn't the best joke I ever heard! I'll have a rare laugh over this story with ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... but he added, "No, my shoes must spend the night among the feathered people, for that is what they are used to. So I would rather hang them on the perch in the hen-house." The farmer laughed at the joke, and ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... said Bob. "I fancied from your letters that life with the she-dragon was one huge joke, and that Papa was nice and companionable, and the kids, sweet little darlings who ate from your hand. And all the time you were just the poor ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Have I raised a hand against you during all these years? No! And now I came here only to have a look at you, and it was enough to burst your bubble. Have I uttered a single reproach? Have I moralised or preached sermons? No! I played a joke or two on your dear consort, and nothing more was needed to finish him.—But there is no reason why I, the complainant, should be defending myself as I am now—Tekla! Have you nothing at all ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... and thank him," said Jo, by way of a joke, for the idea of the child's really going never entered ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... flattered him and praised his strength, and finally persuaded him to let himself be bound with this chain, "just for a joke." You may be sure, however, that they said nothing about its being the strongest chain that could ever ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... affair at L'Abbaye had been managed, finding no just cause to suspect anyone there of criminal complicity in the plans of the Pack: a forged order for a table to the maitre-d'hotel, ten francs to the carriage-porter and twenty more to the dancing woman to play parts in a putative practical joke—and the thing had been arranged without ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... do you? I suspected them at once. Still I pretended to turn Martha's whole story into a joke, and tried to explain to her how the darkness made us liable to have all kinds of optical illusions; so that when I left, and a servant was sent with a candle to light me on my way, the countess was quite sure that I had ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... not a ruffian," he cried. Then, returning to his usual tone: "I didn't even have to conceal a smile. Somehow it didn't look a smiling matter. No, it was not funny; it was rather pathetic; he was so representative of an the past victims of the Great Joke. But it is by folly alone that the world moves, and so it is a respectable thing upon the whole. And besides, he was what one would call a good man. I don't mean especially because he had offered up a ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Commendatore, briefly. "You must have your joke." And his hand instinctively made for his moustaches. "Well, I am sorry. I can never hope to find you a ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... that his behavior, as I could see, had already begun to demoralize the objects of his misplaced politeness. At first the servants stared and resented it, as if it were some tasteless joke; but in an incredibly short time, when they saw that he meant his courtesy in good faith, they took it as their due. I had always had a good understanding with the head-waiter, and I thought I could safely smile with him at the ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... murdered that boy just as surely as if she had cut his throat; and the worst of it is that she can't be held legally guilty—morally, yes, guilty as sin; but legally—" He shook his head. "The laws that man makes for mankind are a joke." ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... you Goths are of a joke," said Erik, with a laugh. "You have a way of saying one thing when you mean another. But I can guess what brings you. Gothland is little and its revenues are small and you have many people to keep and feed. Food is now scarce in Gothland, and you have come ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... and thunder. Up started both in wonder, Looked around and saw that the sky was clear, Then laughed "Confess you believed us, Dear!" "I saw through the joke!" the man ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... standing near turn round and scowl; and one of them, stepping forward, orders the offender, in a tone of authority, to go home at once if she cannot behave herself. Crestfallen, the culprit retires, and the youth who is the cause of the merriment makes the incident the subject of a new joke. Meanwhile the deliberations have begun. The majority of the members are chatting together, or looking at a little group composed of three peasants and a woman, who are standing a little apart from the others. Here alone the matter in hand is being really discussed. The ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... "What a capital joke!" shouted his listeners, and amid roars of laughter, claimed the bet of fish, and wine. It was duly paid; but Tokutaro never allowed his hair to grow again, and renounced the world, and became a priest ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... universally spoken, not having yet degraded into petr'l, a future squire will not be disqualified from airing his wit to his visitors by saying, as he points to his old stables, 'that is where I store my petrel', and when the joke had been illustrated in Punch, its folly would sufficiently distract the patients in a dentist's waiting-room for years to come, in spite of gentlemen and chauffeurs continuing to say petrol, as they do now; nor ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... own head mason. The mason happened to be thinking about nautical affairs when the grey cob swept down upon him, and just as the Squire cleared him he cried "Ship ahoy." This occurrence supplied the Squire with a joke which lasted nearly ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... water, The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher; I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear, Is the tide out? I Join the group of clam-diggers on the flats, I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man; In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on the ice—I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice, Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my brood of tough boys accompanying ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... were to send a letter addressed to Mrs. Lecount at Aldborough, inclosed in another letter addressed to one of your friends abroad? And suppose you were to instruct that friend to help a harmless practical joke by posting Mrs. Lecount's letter at Zurich? Do you know any one who could be trusted ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... would now be singing 'Britannia Rules the Wave!' No, I insist that he is an American traveling Incog. I suspect that I have Caught him with the Goods. While sitting here, I have had my Sherlock Holmes System at work. A few Moments ago he read a Joke in a Comic Paper, and the Light of Appreciation kindled in his Eye before ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... see anything particularly sad in the matter. A man may get through the world very creditably without knowing what's o'clock. Yet, upon the whole, it is no bad thing to know what's o'clock—you, of course, do? It would be too good a joke if two people were to be together, one knowing Armenian and the other Chinese, and neither knowing what's o'clock. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... moment. Then, trying to look as if the finding of the bully drifting in the harbor was rather a joke, ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... provisions enough to load down a mule, would be all the better appreciated if one had just been released from the hands of the Philistines with nothing but his clothes - and buttons - and the bicycle. With these things left to him, one could afford to regard the whole matter as a joke, expensive, perhaps, but nevertheless a joke compared with what might have been. The Constantinople papers have advertised me to start on Monday, August 10th, "direct from Scutari." I have received friendly warnings from several Constantinople gentlemen, that a band of brigands, under ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... and with him obtained some knowledge of "the strange and eccentric places of London." When Arden burst out laughing one day Borrow said he would, perhaps, have joined if it were ever his wont to laugh, and his friends said that, though he enjoyed a joke, he did not seem to have the power of laughing. But in Borrow we expect contrarieties, so we find him saying that when he detected a man poking fun at him in Welsh he flung back his head, closed his eyes, and laughed aloud; and later on, walking in Wales with the rain at his back, he flung ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... to be married," she announced coldly. "It's Payson Osborne this time, and I'm really going to see the thing through. It's rather a joke on me, because it commenced this way. I was sick of lovers, and some of the last had been so unpleasant, not to say rude, when I threw them over, that I thought I would take a vacation. So when I met Payson, I said, 'What do you say to a Platonic friendship?' It sounds harmless, you know, ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... who did not know that the Countess Narona had borrowed money at Homburg of no less a person than Lord Montbarry, and had then deluded him into making her a proposal of marriage, was a man who had probably never heard of Lord Montbarry himself. The younger members of the club, humouring the joke, sent a waiter for the 'Peerage'; and read aloud the memoir of the nobleman in question, for the Doctor's benefit—with illustrative morsels of ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... buried in his knotty hands, his little eyes blinking under stress of the inner fire he had. So it befell that La Testolina saw him, and said something shrill and saucy to her neighbour. The wind tossed him the tone but not the sense. He saw the joke run crackling down the line, all heads look brightly up. The joke caught fire; he saw the sun-gleam on a dozen perfect sets of teeth. Vanna's head was up with the rest, sooner up and the sooner down. Even from that height the little twinkling beacons ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... and with the greatest glee, screamed, "Mr. ——!" utterly forgetting ——'s relationship, which I had elaborately impressed upon him. The effect was perfectly irresistible and uncontrollable; and the little woman's way of humouring the joke was in the best taste and the best sense. While I am upon Genoa I may add, that when we left the Croce the landlord, in hoping that I was satisfied, told me that as I was an old inhabitant, he had charged the prices "as to a Genoese." They certainly ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... gravely; "you shouldn't joke upon such serious subjects. Good by, children. Your house is full of company, and I didn't come to stay. Here's a bag of thoroughwort I've been picking for your grandmother; you may give it to her with my love, and tell her my side is worse. I shall ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... ungracious on your part, Captain Frere. A capital joke, I have no doubt; but permit me to say I do not like jesting on such matters. This poor fellow's letter to his aged father to be made the subject of heartless merriment, I confess I do not understand. It was confided to me in my sacred character ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... moment Mrs. Brown did not know whether to laugh at Bunny for playing a joke or to tell him he must not do such things when there were visitors at the house. But Bunny looked so serious that his mother thought perhaps he did not mean ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... evening there was a supper, and Santeuil was always the life of the company. One evening M. le Duc diverted himself by forcing Santeuil to drink champagne, and passing from pleasantry to pleasantry, thought it would be a good joke to empty his snuff-box, full of Spanish snuff, into a large glass of wine, and to make Santeuil drink it, in order to see what would happen. It was not long before he was enlightened upon this point. Santeuil was seized with ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... and refinement? Oh, let 'em go home and eat coke. These fussy old footlers whose 'air stands on hend at a row-de-dow joke, The song of the skylark sounds pooty, but "skylarking" song's better fun, And you carn't do the rooral to-rights on a tract and ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... about to present the reader with a right merry scene, one, too, if he has any fun in his composition, or loves a good joke, must warm the cockles 320of his heart. Who would ever have thought, in these moralizing times, when the puritans are raising conventicles in every town and village, and the cant of vice societies has spread itself over the land, that in one ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... impartially, with a small pout of haughtiness. "It is true that he used to complain. But I soon put him straight. What an idea! He knows there are things upon which I do not joke. It is not he who will quarrel a second ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... sat lost in an armchair a little way off, her tiny foot beating time. Rose stopped talking, started, tried to listen. But Lady Charlotte had had enough music, and so had Mr. Longstaffe, who was endeavouring to joke himself into the good graces of the Duke of Sedbergh's sister. The din of conversation rose at the challenge of the piano, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... enjoyed it," said Jessie, icily, though there was a twinkle in her eye. "Not having a mirror, I'm afraid I can't join in the joke." ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... breakfast in my bed, I'll rise at half-past ten, When all the world is nicely groomed and full of golden song; I'll smoke a bit and joke a bit, and read the news, and then I'll potter round my peach-trees till I hear the luncheon gong. And after that I think I'll doze an hour, well, maybe two, And then I'll show some kindred soul how well my roses thrive; I'll do the things I never ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... as expressive of the views of Her Majesty's Government at home. 'But what about the missionaries?' enquired the Boers. 'You may do as you please with them,' is said to have been the answer of the Commissioner. This remark, if uttered at all, was probably made in joke: designing men, however, circulated it, and caused the general belief in its accuracy which now prevails all over the country, and doubtless led to the destruction of three mission stations immediately after. The Boers, 400 in number, were sent by the late Mr. Pretorius to ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... for them, all three; and when John Petersham went in, after lunch, to the kitchen, he assured his fellow servants that it was as much as he could do to keep from crying with joy, at the sight of the squire's happy face, and to hear him laugh and joke, as he had not done for eight ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... fell fast asleep, And dreamed she heard them bleating; When she awoke she found it a joke, For they still ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... shooting without him. I was received by an old servant, Narkiz Semyonov, who had had notice of my coming. This old servant was not in the least like 'Savelitch' or 'Caleb'; my friend used to call him in joke 'Marquis.' There was something of conceit, even of affectation, about him; he looked down on us young men with a certain dignity, but cherished no particularly respectful sentiments for other landowners either; of his old master he spoke slightingly, while his own class he simply ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... seem unconscious of it. She was both amused and annoyed at his very evident desire to remind her of certain sentimental passages in the last year of their girl- and boy-hood, and to change what she had considered a childish joke into romantic earnest. Rose had very serious ideas of love and had no intention of being beguiled into even a flirtation with her ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... a level gaze. He had not expected this so soon after what had been told him. He was not one to be very much interested in the practical joke or the surprise, but this pleased him—the sudden realization that he was free. Still, he had anticipated it so long that the charm of it had been discounted to a certain extent. He had been unhappy here, and he had not. The shame ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... eight days to establish a perfect understanding with your mistress; so that, take eight and eleven from thirty-one days, the time between the 28th of one month and the 29th of the next, there remains twelve, more or less!' This joke was followed by ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... will be no need of sleep again," he said. The next day at noon, punctual to the minute, he entered his lecture theatre, put his hat on the end of the table as his habit was, and carefully selected a large piece of chalk. It was a joke among his students that he could not lecture without that piece of chalk to fumble in his fingers, and once he had been stricken to impotence by their hiding his supply. He came and looked under his grey eyebrows at the rising tiers of young fresh faces, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... black, grinning as if it were a fine joke. "Mumkull now?" he continued, with his eyes beginning to look wild, as he turned them questioningly ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... beautiful and artistic scroll pattern, in rich velvet across his haunches. While we stood admiring this work of art, the master within laughingly warned us that the ass kicked if anyone came near him. Perhaps the elaborate decoration was a practical joke! ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... and even earlier. For the most part the erewhile wanderers are now settled in their destined homes, but the Anglo-Saxon race—the People of the Corner-Stone—are still the pioneers among the nations, and there is something esoteric in the old joke that when the North Pole is reached a Scotchman will be found there. And not least in the chain of evidence is the link afforded by a tribe who are wanderers still, the Gipsies with their duplicate of the Pyramid in the pack of cards—a volume which has been called "The Devil's ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... Verkan Vall grinned. "I only heard a little talk about the 'Flying Saucers', and all of that was in joke. In that order of culture, you can always discredit one true story by setting up ten others, palpably false, parallel to it—Wasn't that the time-line the Tharmax Trading Corporation almost lost their ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... only look astonishment. Then I considered it wise to take his remark as a joke; accordingly I laughed, and asked, ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... aroused by a man who stood in the middle of the street, bareheaded, and in evening costume, and who offered him such an enormous sum, thought it was a practical joke attempted by a drunken man, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... deal in history, This Sunday scene was a downright mystery; And God knows where might have ended the joke, But, in trying to stop the fiddles, he woke, And the odd thing is (as the rumor goes) That since that dream—which, one would suppose, Should have made his godly stomach rise. Even more than ever 'gainst Sunday pies— He has viewed things ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... to call on him; and even if they had hoped to be able to laugh at him they could not do so, when each of them had drawn one of the pictures himself. A good many called on me, and some were a little severe in their remarks, saying that although it might be a very pretty joke, I must have used up nearly all the money that they had given for the good of the Association, for, of course, none of them cared for ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... the infantry behind, and in an instant the chosen sons of Cork were bounding out of their lines and down the hill, and belabouring the fire with blankets and ground-sheets and sacks. They seemed to think it a fine joke, and raised a paean of triumph when it was got under. "Wan more victory," ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... racecourse, and was used as a nickname for rascaldom. "Gentlemen," I said, "I have been unexpectedly called upon my legs—" Then I stammered an apology for using the word in that company, and the laughter was unbounded. Next morning all the sporting papers reported it as an excellent joke, although the last person who saw the joke ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Nibelungen in course of performance at the Walhalla-Roszavolgyi has royally amused me. [A joke of Mihalovich, who had nicknamed several mutually known people with the names and characters out of the Nibelungen] I wish that Wagner may find in Messrs. Betz, Scaria, Niemann, etc., interpreters ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... being returned, Susan began to feel alarmed, but the young ladies told her not to be frightened, as they knew it was only one of Eliza's pranks. But, alas! too soon were they convinced it was no joke, but some dreadful misfortune ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... friends, after trying her sewing-machine, then still something of a novelty, ordered duplicates. Guy suggested as a joke that she ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... my caress and exhibited to me this fourth jewel in her crown, noticed that I was agitated, and with the smile and the intention of calming me with a joke, said, "Darling, are not two pair a pretty good hand"? We neither of us play poker, but I could appreciate ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... her uncle because Beth hesitated to. "For my part, I think it was fun, and harmless fun, at that; but Beth was scared out of a year's growth. I admit feeling a little creepy at the time, myself; but it was all a joke and really we ought not to mind ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... Terry all over; he himself was utterly devoid of nerves, and he could not appreciate the part they played in a man of normal make-up. My being threatened with nervous prostration he regarded as a joke. His pleasantries rather damped my interest in deep-sea fishing, however, and I cast about for something else. It was at this juncture that I thought of Four-Pools Plantation. "Four-Pools" was the somewhat ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... prisoners followed the migration, and the officer ascended to the deck, unconscious of the number and variety of the recruits he had obtained without the formality of an enlistment. The captain of the ship, suspecting that some joke had been practised, or some mischief perpetrated, from the noise below, met the officer at the head of the gangway, and seeing the vermin crawling up his shoulders, and aiming at his head, with the instinct peculiar to them, exclaimed, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... pate runs upon this lady as much now she's dead as it did when she was living. For, I suppose, Jack, it is no joke: she is certainly and bona fide dead: I'n't she? If not, thou deservest to be doubly d—d for thy fooling, I tell thee that. So he will have me write for ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... body and spirit, wrathful at the fate that robbed him of a share of the glory he felt sure awaited his comrades at Manila, Stuyvesant was in no humor for a joke and plainly showed it. He gave it distinctly to be understood that he needed no coddling of any kind and preferred not to see the ladies, no matter what they belonged to. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Mr. Stuyvesant said he ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... regent. The king, when he granted him an audience to take leave, did not omit to call him to account for his behavior to Granvella, and alluded particularly to the livery invented in derision of the cardinal. Egmont protested that the whole affair had originated in a convivial joke, and nothing was further from their meaning than to derogate in the least from the respect that was due to royalty. "If he knew," he said, "that any individual among them had entertained such disloyal thoughts ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... teachers, and servants were questioned, but nobody admitted anything. The lamp, indeed, proved to be one which Miss Duckworth had missed from her bicycle several days before. It was known that she had been lamenting its loss. Whether the light had been put as a signal or as a practical joke it was impossible to say, but if it had been noticed by a special constable it would have placed Brackenfield in danger of an ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... yesterday, And scratched the paper on the wall; Ma's rubbers, too, have gone astray— She says she left them in the hall; He tugged the table cloth and broke A fancy saucer and a cup; Though Bud and I think it a joke Ma scolds a lot about ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... in there to-night, old hoy," he said. "I don't like what you've found in the west wind. It may he a—thunder-storm!" He laughed at his joke, and buried himself in a clump of stunted banskians thirty paces from the tent. Here he rolled himself in his blanket, ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... it. The conversation died abruptly; the friendly priest relapsed into silence. He looked hurt and disappointed. This was more than a joke. He had done his best to be civil to a suffering foreigner, and this was his reward—to be fooled with the grossest of fables. Maybe he remembered other occasions when Englishmen had developed a queer sense of humour which he utterly failed to appreciate. A liar. Or possibly a lunatic; one of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... a wire. That isn't the joke, though. You see he got into a hopeless muddle about which side of the veil he had come out on; and he went off with the other ones, and they wouldn't have him, and he got lost in the veil, running up and down it, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... privilege to run himself down; he usually does it with his tongue in his cheek. But for the ten years preceding the outbreak of hostilities, the prophets of Fleet Street certainly carried their privilege beyond a joke. Pessimism was no longer an amusing pose; it was ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... fell fast asleep, And dreamt she heard them bleating; When she awoke, she found it a joke, For ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... he was at his wits' end for what to do; so he said to him in soft, low accents, "Verily, you tribe of foxes are the most pleasant people in point of tongue and the subtlest in jest, and this is but a joke of thine; but all times are not good for funning and jesting." The fox replied, "O ignoramus, in good sooth jesting hath a limit which the jester must not overpass; and deem not that Allah will again give thee possession of me after having once delivered ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... interrupted them. "Did you ever think you might run yourself, Jim?" he asked. On concluding the sentence he laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... French mind lead easily to ignorance and self-satisfaction. To be frank, the complacent aberrations of French taste, with its passion for Poe and its pathetic confidence in Kipling and Chesterton, have become a standing joke abroad. There is no great reason why the French should know anything of foreign thought and literature; but there is every reason why, knowing nothing, they should refrain from comment. And how many Frenchmen do know anything? ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... furs and feathers with which to bedeck herself. Instead of spending the five thousand on herself she would be obliged to put it on the backs and into the stomachs of her three brats! He chuckled vastly over this bit of good fortune! It was really a splendid joke on her, this smash of his. No doubt the children also hated him the more because of his failure to remain on his feet down in Wall Street, but he consoled himself with the thought that they would sometimes long for the old days when father did the providing, and wish that ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... when his lips were silent. He would say queer, droll, unexpected things which passed for humour; but, save for that gleam in the eye, he could not have said them with more seeming innocence of intentional joke if he had been a monk of La Trappe looking up from the grave he was digging in order to ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... only that which they say a Scotchman must have done before a joke can be got into his head. But I don't belave it at all; folks are such ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... look at us agin. I never wisht I had on them Injun duds so hard before in my life. But I couldn't think of nothing bright to say, so I jest reads the name of that book over to myself agin, kind o' grinning like I got a good joke I ain't going to tell ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... me practising at Cairo, which I mention only because it was here that first I met Ptolemy Higgs, who, even then in his youth, was noted for his extraordinary antiquarian and linguistic abilities. I remember that in those days the joke about him was that he could swear in fifteen languages like a native and in thirty-two with common proficiency, and could read hieroglyphics as easily as ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... a grave man, Bladud was by no means destitute of a sense of humour, or disinclined on occasion to perpetrate a practical joke. After contemplating the sleepers for a moment he retired a few paces and concealed himself in the long grass, from which position he pitched one of the huge birds into the air, so that it fell on ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... Harry, greatly amused at carrying on what he considered as a pleasant joke to while away ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the men of this tribe are somewhat reserved, but frank; while the women appeared more cheerful, and more inclined to laugh and joke at our peculiarities. Although the first Europeans they had ever seen, we were by no means annoyed by their curiosity: and their honesty is to be praised; for, though opportunities were not wanting, they never ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... repletion; she has a boulimia, and hardly has bolted down one state than she calls for two or three more. There is a good deal of wit in all this; but it seems to me (with all respect to the author) to be carrying the joke a great deal too far. I cannot yet think that the armies of the Allies were of this way of thinking, and that, when they evacuated all these countries, it was a stratagem of war to decoy France into ruin,—or that, if ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mind that the man was selling me a packet," continued Newson. "And, if you'll believe me, I was that upset, that I went back to the coach that had brought me, and took passage onward without lying in the town half-an-hour. Ha-ha!—'twas a good joke, and well carried out, and I give ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... interest, was busily engaged in braiding a watch-chain from her splendid, Titian-red hair. These chains were the fashion of the hour, and the old family doctor, friend as well as physician, paused after a visit to the boy's mother, to joke her about it: "You're making a keepsake ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... in a dry, laughing, sort of a way, which showed that Mr. Sennit was fully aware he was making a request a little out of rule, to ask a man to aid in carrying his own ship into port, as a prize; but I took it, as it was meant, for a rough joke that had convenience at ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... was taken, with the possible exception of that letter. Mallowe asks me, openly, if I knew of an ulterior motive which any one might have possessed in acquiring it, and even remarks that he is thinking of putting you, Mr. Blaine, on the mysterious attempt at robbery. That would be a joke, wouldn't it, if it wasn't really, in my estimation at least, a covert threat. Why should he, Mallowe, take me into his confidence about an affair which took place in his private office? He did not make the excuse of pretending to retain me as his ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... an average, two dollars twenty-five. The news of the dealing, however, had got about, and although derision was the chief sentiment amongst the brokers, the price steadily mounted. A dozen telegrams were sent out to the mine, and on receipt of the replies, the dealing became the joke of the day. The mine was still deserted, and no fresh inspection had been made. The price dropped a little. Then Wingrave bought a thousand more by telephone, and it rose again to four. A few minutes before closing time, he threw every share of which he was possessed upon the ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... made most deferential bows, and, greatly appreciating the joke, Patty invited them to join their party, and offered them ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... made the fellow. He—why, he is my joke, the biggest scream I ever put over—my joke, understand? And now this adumbrated ass of a Quigley, who's been sent on here from St. Louis to take the city desk, he falls for Virgie as a genuine personage. Not only that, but picks me out to cover ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... old soldier of the regiment, "Atkins, how dare you expose yourself unnecessarily? Your wife used to do my washing in Tidshot. Me? Oh, I'm only an old bachelor. It doesn't matter about me. There's nobody to care what happens to me." And, well pleased with his joke, the Colonel passed down the line, proud of his ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... and lets it go. It finds its way down, without any of the boy's help, you may depend upon it. He has to guide it a little with his feet, though. If he did not, he might come in contact with another boy's sled, or a rock, perhaps; and that would be rather a serious joke, when the sled was going like the ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... The old neighbours have been in, making a deal o' fuss over me, but I tells 'em to keep their pity for them that wants it more, and I've one less leg for the rheumaticks to get hold of,' and the old sailor laughed at his own joke like a storm of ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... occasion for sneering," said the Anglo-Indian judge, with abrupt authority. "It doesn't make it look better for you that you can joke ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... almost hysterical at his apparent failure to make himself understood. "You wouldn't let any harm come to me. Oh, no. You've only made me the greatest joke in Chicago," he shouted. "You've only made me such a laughing stock that I have to leave it. That's ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... which he played may have been comic ones, but he was a serious man. Indeed, his gravity was so well known in his lifetime that it was reckoned the height of wit, when he was dead, to father off upon him a Jest Book! This joke, bad as it was, was better than any joke in the book. It made him famous, so famous that for the next hundred years every little bon mot was laid at his door, metaphorically speaking, the puniest youngest brat of them being ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... AND DECISIONS.—The prattle of children may be grateful music to our ears when we are in one mood, and excruciatingly discordant noise when we are in another. What appeals to us as a good practical joke one day, may seem a piece of unwarranted impertinence on another. A proposition which looks entirely plausible under the sanguine mood induced by a persuasive orator, may appear wholly untenable a few hours later. Decisions ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... before herd of sich a order on sich a ocasion, and he had only one bottel with him, and when I took it to the himpashent Gent, and told him so, he fairly roared with larfter, and told it all round as a capital joke! I wunders where ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... to introduce you to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer.' The Sunderland shipowner was a little taken aback at first, but he soon recovered his self-possession, and enjoyed the joke quite as ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... don' listen to no woman be joke 'bout, you hear? Dis boy spik true. He was in Linderman las' night, for I seen him on top of Chilkoot yesterday myse'f, wit' pack on his back so ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... rollicking fun, and quaintly sudden turn of word and idea were transporting his readers, as he somewhere says, "from Dull-age to Grin-age." His humour was effervescent, continuous, and effortless—not like Jerrold's wit, intermittent flashes called up at need—but overflowing in a rich stream of joke, pun, hit, crank, and quip, covering a field far wider ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... figurin' on any help from me, you got to work for it first. If you'd waited, I'd kind of made things easy for you. Now, I'm goin' to hand you the meanest job I can think of. It won't be an insult and it won't be a joke, but maybe you'll take it ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... more grave could hardly keep the more hilarious in order. The curtain was ready to go up on what they promised themselves would be the most absurd scene. The stranger who fought no duels, yet thought that a lesson or two would make him a match for a dead-hand like Payton—was ever such a promising joke conceived? The good feeling, even the respect which the Colonel had succeeded in awakening for a short time the evening before, were forgotten in the prospect ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... th' doctor lained ovver him as if he wor examinin his heead, an' Bessy stood wi' her apron up to her face as if shoo wor cryin, but shoo wor laughin fit to split, for shoo could enjoy a joke at th' owd man's expense as weel ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... scientist of the company laugh. But Blaine Asher did not laugh. Serious, his rather thin face grave at he leaned his tall, muscular body above a torsion machine he was adjusting, there was nothing to indicate he had the faintest idea of a joke. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... watched the men making their way to the trains. Splendid young fellows most of them were. The cream of England's manhood. They were almost without exception ruddy with health, and as hard as nails: straight, muscular men, who laughed at hardships, and who seemed to look at the whole business as a joke. They might have been going to a picnic, so merry were they. And yet, as Bob looked more closely, it was easy to see by the compressed lips, and the steely looks in their eyes, that they ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... cheap pathos, or laugh at secondhand humour, or shudder at sham cynicism any longer—desperate escapes and rescues moved her not, and she had wearied of beautiful wicked fiends and effeminate golden-haired guardsmen, who hold a Titanic strength in reserve as their one practical joke, but the liberty she had enjoyed had done her no particular harm, even if many mothers might have thought it their duty to restrict it, which Mrs. Langton was too languid or had too much confidence in her ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... The real interstate joke on Puritanism is that the flapper, who flaps because Puritanism has driven her to it, will automatically bring about its cure. The whole vitality of Puritanism rests on the unswerving principle of letting not thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth, if thy left hand is doing something it shouldn't. ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... My horse is a fine fellow, and I'm very particular about him." The Squire spoke soberly, but there was a twinkle in his eye, and Mrs. Moss tried not to smile; for the Squire's horse was a joke all over the town, being about twenty years old, and having a peculiar gait of his own, lifting his fore-feet very high, with a great show of speed, though never going out of a jog-trot. The boys used to say he galloped before and walked behind, and made ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... The brain, desiring children, made demands upon the body and the body responded to its desire by tricking the brain. Lani were fairly subject to its probably because they had better imaginations. He would run a few tests when they went down to the hospital, and once she realized the practical joke her body was playing everything would be all right. No wonder she ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... interested him much more for itself than for what he could make out of it. Make something to be sure he must—so long as he was only a law clerk on a meagre salary—and it was this necessity that had much to do with the production of the manuscripts. It was a joke on Philip in his club—by-the-way, the half-yearly dues were not far off—that he was doing splendidly in the law; he already had an extensive ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the truth, Major John Ross and the military men with whom Ned conferred at Manila treated the employment of the boy by the authorities at Washington as a good deal of a joke, as a whim. They were not discourteous to Ned, but they took no interest in his suggestions. For some hours after his departure, his employment on the case was the subject ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... not retain that profit he made at my expense. 'Twas just a joke with him. He put the money into bonds and sent them to you with instructions to place them in my vault for my account." Mr. Daney nodded and The Laird resumed. "Take those bonds to the Sawdust Pile, together ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... an old joke of the pleasant Du Maurier, a drawing representing two fashionable ladies discussing the afternoon's occupation. One says: "It's quite too dull to see colours at Madame St. Aldegonde's; suppose we go to the Old ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... turned abruptly up the mountain-side, by a zigzag trail so steep that even the interpreter was forced to walk. As I toiled wearily upward, I looked back to find my dog riding comfortably in my chair. Tired and hot, he had barked to be taken up. The coolies thought it a fine joke, and when I whistled him down they at once put him back again, explaining that it was hard work for short legs. At one of the worst bits of the trail we met some finely dressed men on horseback, who stared in a superior way at me on foot. The Chinese sees no reason for walking if he has ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... girl. "Okay, Jan. Now, to carry on where Scotty left off, if we assume the ghost is man-caused, we have to assume it isn't a practical joke, or that ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... accident, Higgins, I was passing in my car with a party of friends. Just for a joke I thought I'd steal up to the house and see how you were behaving yourselves. By chance—again— I happened to see this light through the library windows." And Maitland, putting an incautious hand upon the bull's-eye on the desk, withdrew it instantly, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... his respect for my lord and his dislike of that particular type of joke—only replied with a ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... cannot be expressed in words and taught. This was what I, even as a young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the teachers. I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard as a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought. It says: The opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... relieved, and in his relief began to joke. "I was thinking you must have lost your wits, and thought you'd ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... of us the other night, did they?" grinned Billy. "We're one trick ahead." All the boys except George laughed heartily over some little joke of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... theory; for the same old man said to me, in a low, mysterious voice, "What becomes of them when you go on to the sea?" "Why, they are all packed up in boxes," said I "What did you think became of them?" "They all come to life again, don't they?" said he; and though I tried to joke it off, and said if they did we should have plenty to eat at sea, he stuck to his opinion, and kept repeating, with an air of deep conviction, "Yes, they all come to life again, that's what they do—they all ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... practical joke, I shuppothe," said the dark man. "Our gardening friend wanth a liththon: and I'll thee ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... the bravest girl on earth— For all she never was hale and strong She'd have her fun! With her voice clean lost She'd laugh and joke us that when she crossed To father, we'd ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... deceased; and my guide said that a great many skulls and bones had been dug up here. No doubt a vast population has been deposited in the course of a thousand years. I saw two white skulls, in a niche, grinning as skulls always do, though it is impossible to see the joke. These crypts, or crypts like these, are doubtless what Congreve calls the "aisles and monumental caves of Death," in that passage which Dr. Johnson admired so much. They are very singular,—something like a dark shadow or dismal repetition ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... understood this sort of thing, and wished to take it all as a joke. He made believe that his offense was not serious, since it lay in words alone, and protested that he was perfectly willing to ask her pardon, provided he might kiss the girl afterward. Finally, he proposed that they go and drink a pint ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... critical discrimination, whilst they only uttered vapid and blatant nonsense. What other language can be used when we find that they called the sun l'aimable eclairant le plus beau du monde, l'epoux de la nature, and that when speaking of an old gentleman with grey hair, they said, not as a joke, but seriously, il a des quittances d'amour. A few of their expressions, however, are employed even at the present time, such as, chatier son style; to correct one's style; depenser une heure, to spend an hour; revetir ses pensees d'expressions ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... dark stranger may have taken the child, and where no clew is, one may follow any track that presents itself. So the old man goes, and sits patiently in the hot, noisy place. At first the merry-makers, who are not of a high degree of refinement, make fun of him, and cut many a joke at the expense of his blue coat and brass buttons, his nankeen trousers and old-fashioned stock. But he heeds them not; and once he begins to play, they forget all about his looks, and only want to dance, dance, and say there never was such music for dancing. When a pleasant- looking ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... keys; she explored, studied, inventoried, examined the accounts, worked out careful tables and estimates. "I wish Mother were here!" she said to herself. "She's a regular genius for accounts. I can do it—but it's no joke." ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... though his spirits rose at his answer. "I thought to take my cousin by surprise, scare her with my ghost, maybe. So I came skulking through the park and ran on this good sir, who nabbed me." He indicated Halfman with a wave of the hand. "I explained to him, so that my joke should not spoil, and he smuggled me in here to surprise you. Where ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the sight as inconceivably superb of these large burning ships, crammed with every imaginable explosive and soaked from their mast-heads to their water-line in pitch and tar. It was no new thing, however, to the gallant sailors, who treated the matter as a joke, grappling fearlessly with the hissing, spitting demons, and towing them ashore. "Damme, Jack," they shouted, "didst ever ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... any young man should marry you, Say nothin' about the joke; That iver ye slep' in a sinthry-box, Wrapped up in a ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... air with other boys listening to Teddy's fun or Paddy's latest joke his face lost the pinched and anxious look it ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... like the joke. He said, using the word "funny" solemnly: "It's funny to see light putting out light. The stars will be there all day, but we won't be able to see 'em for ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... principal officers of his army, at the Abbey of Ferrieres, and witnessed a fight between a lion and a bull. The bull was of enormous size and extraordinary strength, but nevertheless the lion overcame him; whereupon Pepin, who was surnamed the Short, turned to his officers, who used to joke him about his short stature, and said to them, "Make the lion loose his hold of the bull, or kill him." No one dared to undertake so perilous a task, and some said aloud that the man who would measure ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... prisoners against our will," said Bill, laughing, as if Pierre could only be in joke. "Come, call your mother and father and Jeannette, and let me wish them good-bye. I haven't many minutes to stop, and I've got something to tell them, which I've ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... effect upon the European fighting man's psychology if he found that an army transport had conveyed him to a land where one man's privilege is every man's right! Learning this, it is not a joke to say, but is a statement of the probable fact, that the invading soldiery would not want to fire its first volleys, but would want to file its first papers. They would not ask for cartridges, but ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... exclaimed genially; "here are pretty goings on. Doctor and patient giggling like a pair of schoolgirls! What's the joke?" ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... Blair,'" she cried, laughing merrily as at a tremendous joke. "It is only one of my aliases. I am better known as Slippery Sue, and the Countess of Plantagenet, and the Sly American, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... something to bestow upon others not so well supplied. It was the practice of some of this class to knock at the doors of those thought to be better off, on the evening before, begging "something for Thanksgiving;" and, by way of a joke, the children of comfortable neighbors and friends would often array themselves in cast-off bizarre habiliments, and come in bands of three or four to the houses of those whom they knew, preferring the same request. Ordinarily, the disguise was readily detected. Sometimes the little ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... Budd is also a very religious man. Indeed, he is warden at the Parish Church. 'He is a small, sleek-headed bachelor of five and forty, whose scandalous life has long furnished his more moral neighbors with an afterdinner joke.' But a very religious man is Mr. Budd! Mrs. Linnett is a very religious woman. She dotes on religious biography. 'On taking up the biography of a celebrated preacher, she immediately turns to the ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... I found that it also alleged the same complaint, I lost all patience, and let the doctor know that was quite enough for one day. When this question of certificates was discussed at the council, I suggested in joke that no certificate should be accepted unless it was signed by three old women, as a guarantee of good faith. The system had indeed been carried to such lengths, and certificates had been issued right and left in such ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... back panting with joyful excitement, and brought with him the citizen, who knew already of the joke. The poor boy looked at his picture and then rubbed his eyes. What had happened? Where were his angels? The picture must be bewitched, for instead of his angels he saw only eight citizens in ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... well established that one evening at the Prefecture, Mr. Tournel, a writer of fables and songs, a biting and fine wit, a local literary glory, having proposed to the ladies' whom he saw rather drowsy, to play a game of "L'oiseau vole," (the bird steals—flies) the joke flew through the salons of the Prefect and from there, reaching those of the town, made all the jaws of the Province laugh for ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... I mean it metaphorically. You see we live a gay life over there, we have a joke about everything, and the wit that runs out of our mouths—why, it's like flashes of lightning. Oh, we have a good time in the old country, and when you come and stay with me at Castle Malone you'll say so for yourself. Now, then, what do you want ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... asked for information, and offered Nevis a tow, but he replied with a joke and declined the proffered assistance. Then it developed that, in going in to anchor, he had observed two other small Spanish boats near the wreck of the Santo Domingo, and had resolved to capture them, too. He knew it was hazardous work, ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... deep debt of gratitude." "Why do you say that?" "Because you have caused me to discover in myself a talent which I did not know that I possessed."—A certain citizen, who wanted a mortar, went to a sculptor and asked him to make one. The fellow, suspecting some practical joke, pointed out Buonarroti's house, and said that if he wanted mortars, a man lived there whose trade it was to make them. The customer accordingly addressed himself to Michelangelo, who, in his turn ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Night Moth's attention. He picked up his new gun and while all were petrified with fear of being the target, he shot the blind man so that his body fell into the oven in which the pig had been baked. The people could only laugh loudly, if not heartily, as if pleased by the joke. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... write a dozen funny rhymes, Need a dozen "Cantabs" write about it to the Times? Need they write, at any rate, a generation after, Stating cause and date of joke and ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... expressed, however, to anyone—was to get into the eleven. Had it been known it would have been thought the very height of absurdity, and have become such a standing joke that its realisation would have been rendered well nigh impossible. It proved that Buller had sound sense that he was able to see this. He did not much expect to succeed, but he meant to try all he knew, ever ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... really quite durable; now and then comes the lucky happenstance when the fearful accident does no more than raise a slight bruise. I've read the story of the man whose parachute did not open and who lived to return it to the factory in person, according to the old joke. But now, Mr. Cornell, have you ever considered the utter impossibility of running any sort of secret organization in this world of today. Even before Rhine it was difficult. You'll be adding to your tale next—some sort of secret sign, ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... like myself, and he was up against it. I know what that is, and I'd wanted to jolly him along a bit. When he said his name was Mount Dunstan, and the place belonged to him, I guessed he thought he was making a joke. So I got on my wheel and started off, and then he got mad for keeps. He said he wasn't such a damned fool as he looked, and what he'd said was true, and I could go ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Ambassador that this meant war. A few days later when the German Ambassador was again at the White House, the President asked if the Kaiser had changed his mind. The Ambassador seemed to think that it was a joke. The Kaiser change his mind at the bidding of a Yankee President! It ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... If you don't mind my saying so, you're making a prodigious ass of yourself and of Jerry. If I were the boy, I'd pack you out bag and baggage. Imagine it! Put yourself in his place. Would you like any meddling in your little affairs of gallantry?" And he laughed aloud at his joke. I scowled at him, but passed the absurd ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... without this husk of a virtue? I wonder the women of the town do not form an association, like the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for the support of what may be called the 'King, Church, and Constitution' of their order. But this subject is almost too horrible for a joke.—[SHELLEY'S NOTE.]) ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... as if half in jest, for liberty to return to Cortes; but De Oli said he was too happy to have the company of so brave a man, and could not part with him. "Then" said Las Casas, "I advise you to take care of me, for I shall kill you one of these days". De Oli considered this as a joke, but measures were actually concerted for the purpose; and one night after supper, when the servants and pages had withdrawn to their own apartment, Las Casas, Avila, Juan de Mercado, and some other ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... do not think I ought to change the title of the story. [Footnote: "A Dreary Story."] The wags who will, as you foretell, make jokes about "A Dreary Story," are so dull that one need not fear them; and if someone makes a good joke I shall be glad to have given him the occasion for it. The professor could not write about Katya's husband because he did not know him, and Katya does not say anything about him; besides, one of my hero's chief characteristics is that he cares far too little about the inner life ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... opened his lips and waited, but Jimmy Preston, thinking the joke had gone far enough, obstinately refused ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... repeated the glowing word ... "his wife!" For a moment he could not go on with their careless talk; then he was practical again. That word "protect" was too robust for sentimentality. "As for being jealous, that, about me, is a joke! And if you were, it would only mean that you loved me—so I would be flattered. I hope you'll be jealous! Eleanor, promise me you'll be jealous?" They both laughed; then he said: "I've made up my mind to one thing. I ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... give me any more!' cried Lord Findon. 'It's no joke, Eugenie, this sipping business—Where were we? Oh, well, of course I knew we should have to take it—and I don't say I'm not pleased with it. But ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... women of the village regarded the Sawyers' large family as a serious problem, but the men treated it as a huge joke. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... they loathed the tedious preparations and costly sacrifices which prudence demanded for self-defence. They now revolted from a strain upon their energies, of the necessity of which they were not convinced! Joyous at the temporary defeat of Tostig, men said, "Marry, a joke indeed, that the Norman will put his shaven head into the hornets' nest! Let him come, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Libanius suggests the form of a persecuting edict, which Theodosius might enact, (pro Templis, p. 32;) a rash joke, and a dangerous experiment. Some princes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... This stupid joke was to be fatally punished in Croustillac, who followed his guide with renewed ardor, for was he not ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... recalled, Junot was ordered to enter Spain and to march on Portugal, while the terms of partition were settled at Fontainebleau with Charles's minister, Izquierdo, in a compact which Napoleon must have looked upon as the great practical joke of his life. For fear he should be too quickly found out, he positively inhibited Charles from communicating it to his ministers. The French ambassador at Madrid was also kept in ignorance of its terms. Under it the King of Spain ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... have a piece of your leg, if I can reach it," retorted Keo; and then he laughed at his own joke: "Guk-uk-uk-uk!" ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... lady began to chat and joke with me, saying, "What think you of my appearance and my beauty, do you judge me worthy of your affection? shall I be your partner and you mine?" When I had heard these words, I replied, "How, dear lady, dare I presume, who am not worthy to be ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... of the west coast. After ballasting his ship with silver from the rich Potosi mines, and rifling even the churches, he hastened onward in pursuit of a richly laden galleon nicknamed Cacafuego—a name discreetly translated Spitfire, but which, to repeat a joke that greatly amused Drake's men at the time, it was proposed to change to Spitsilver, for when overtaken and captured the vessel yielded 26 tons of silver, 13 chests of pieces of eight, and gold and jewels sufficient to swell the booty to half ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... earned it, if there's anything to it. Put it away for your dowry, dear," and he snatched the paper from Reuben's hands and tossed it into Draxy's lap. He did not believe what he said, and the attempt at a joke brought but a faint smile to any face. The paper fell on the floor, and Draxy let it lie there till she thought her father was looking another way, when she picked it up and put it ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... accents mild, And words of sober sense, Declare her woman more than child, Yet mark her innocence. But I've heard her repeating the quip or the joke, While merriment shone in her eyes as she spoke, As, with skill that is seldom excelled on the stage, She worthily mimicked the actor ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... made at different times, and all that was of value in the country pledged as security for the repayment of the loans. Bonds were issued on these securities, but owing to the impoverished condition of the country they were of very little value, and at one time the Turkish bonds were the joke of the stock market. Still, the bonds existed, and their holders hoped at some time to get ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 48, October 7, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Mr. Gusher escorted a woman of such ponderous circumference. Mattie followed, her roguish smiles indicating that she enjoyed what she considered a joke played at Mr. Gusher's expense. The picture presented by the meeting of such extremes was ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... only a complete and well-contested race, but a trial of strength, to determine which should drown the other. The only feeling short of ecstasy that came across us in these enraptured moments were caused by hearing the laugh and joke going on with our friends, as if no such thrilling strains had been flowing. But if Tim's eye chanced to fall on them, it instantly retreated upwards again in mild indignation. To his honour be it mentioned, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... on us, but they only meant it as a joke," persisted Brady. "We must pay them back in joke, and then it'll ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... along, drawing all manner of remarkable figures, which he jumbled up in such a way that he actually forgot the key to the combinations; and had to get Allan's help in solving some of them, which the others considered a rich joke. ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... these the less welcome for the violence of their introduction among a people glad to be set burning rather briskly awhile by the most unexpected of digs in the ribs. Dan Merion, to give an example. That was Dan Merion's joke with the watchman: and he said that other thing to the Marquis of Kingsbury, when the latter asked him if he had ever won a donkey-race. And old Dan is dead, and we are the duller for it! which leads to the question: Is genius hereditary? And the affirmative and negative are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... knew him most intimately, and his chronicles of visits to the little gamboge-colored house in Enfield are charming pencillings of memory. When Lamb and his sister, tired of housekeeping, went into lodging and boarding with T—— W——, their sometime next-door neighbor,—who, Lamb said, had one joke and forty pounds a year, upon which he retired in a green old age,—Procter still kept up his friendly visits to his old associate. And after the brother and sister moved to their last earthly retreat in Edmonton, where Charles died in 1834, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... with his generals and the officers of his household. "I see from this spot," said he, "the fright I shall give the Bourbons, and the embarrassment of all those who have turned their backs upon me." Then, continuing to joke on the same subject, he defined, with his wonted sagacity, the characters of the marshals and great personages, who had formerly served him; and was much amused with the endeavours they would make ""to save appearances, and prudently await the moment for ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... is the GOOD-NATURED MAN, a being generally without benevolence, or any other virtue, than such as indolence and insensibility confer. The characteristick of a good-natured man is to bear a joke; to sit unmoved and unaffected amidst noise and turbulence, profaneness and obscenity; to hear every tale without contradiction; to endure insult without reply; and to follow the stream of folly, whatever course it shall happen to take. The good-natured man is commonly the darling of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... think, sir, that I could munch it up and see you starving," answered Ben. "Come, that would be a good joke. I shan't get hungry, for you must know that I have more than once been three days without putting a morsel of food between my teeth—and wasn't much the worse for it, either. I shouldn't mind a drop of grog, I will allow; ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... should say not; and that's the reason why you want to ring the changes upon Charles Holland's name. Do you see the joke, admiral?" ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... for many years, and because of it thousands of slaves met a cruel death as the direct result of the effort to save them from slavery. Many stories are told of these wholesale drownings. The captain of the British cruiser "Black Joke" reports of a case in which he was pursuing ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... to affright. I have always respected the mystery of those humiliations, but I was fully aware this morning that they were practically the reason why she had come to me. Therefore when she said with the flush of a bold joke in her kind, coarse face "What I feel is, you know, that you could settle me if you only would." I knew quite well what she meant. She meant that of old it had always appeared to be the fine blade, as some one had ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... small person, and pinched pale face looked out perhaps with greater dignity than they could have achieved unadorned. Her chilliness, her small self-indulgences, including an inordinate love of cakes and all sweet things, were the standing joke of the twins when they discussed the family freely behind the closed doors of the 'Den.' But no one disliked Alice Gaddesden, though it was hard to be actively fond of her. She and her husband were quite good friends; but they were no longer of any real importance to each other. He was a good deal ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bureau drawer!'—'I wouldn't wonder,' says Martha, stooping lower and lower over Thomkins's blue cotton shirt that she's trying to cut down into rompers for the baby. 'And, Martha,' I says, 'that letter is just a joke. One of the boys sure put it up on him!'—'Why, of course,' says Martha, with her mouth all puckered up crooked, as though a kid had stitched it on the machine. 'Why, of course! How ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... a lover of childish tricks; and knowing that, your friendship, at least, should have restrained your tongue and pen when, through the former, on Wednesday, you accused me of perpetrating a trifling, and to you excessively embarrassing, practical joke—a charge which, at the moment, I was too overcome to refute; and through the latter, on Thursday, you reiterated the accusation, coupled with a demand for an explanation of my conduct satisfactory to yourself, or my immediate resignation ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... friendship on the altar of their several disillusioned and immolated affections. In the present day we are not overtroubled by any scruples of reverence for either old widowhood or old spinsterhood; and the 'Sisters Gemini' had become a standing joke with the self-styled 'wise and witty' of London restaurants and late suppers. Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby were their actual names, and they were happily unconscious of the unfeeling sobriquet bestowed upon ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... that I am such a different girl when—when I am with you," she said to him one day. "I even make little jokes. I never should think of making even the tiniest joke before grandmamma. Somehow, she never seems quite to understand jokes. She never laughs at them. You always laugh, and I am sure it is very kind of you to encourage me so; but you must not encourage me too much, or I might forget, and make a little joke ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... when he wrote it. In that paper breathes the sentiment of a patriot, and it stands out in bold contrast with the miserable slang by which he was pursued this morning. It may serve the purposes of a man who little regards the Union to perpetrate a joke on the hazard of its dissolution. It may serve the purpose of a man who never looks to his own heart to find there any impulses of honor, to arraign everybody, the President and the Supreme Court, and to have them impeached and vilified ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... always at one's post, and sleeping with one eye open. They had a hard time to contend with, our ten comrades, and the calm way in which they took everything was extraordinary. They were always in a good humour, and always had a joke ready. It was the duty of the sea party to bring up all the provisions and outfit for the wintering party from the hold, and put them on the ice. Then the land party removed them. This work proceeded ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... condition, got him into a charity school, whence he was bound apprentice to a shipmaster engaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea. The ship young Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell into the hands of a fisherman, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him about." ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... come to the Gap—a cleft in the Cumberland Mountains—to prepare two young Blue Grass Kentuckians for Harvard. The railroad was still thirty miles away, and he had travelled mule-back through mudholes, on which, as the joke ran, a traveller was supposed to leave his card before he entered and disappeared—that his successor might not unknowingly press him too hard. I do know that, in those mudholes, mules were sometimes drowned. ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... in joke; but faix they took me up in arnest, an' run up the price to twinty dollars—four pounds, as sure as me name's Larry—before I know'd where I wos. I belave I could ha' got forty for it, but I hadn't the heart to ax more, for it wasn't worth a ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... who was supercilious, self-confident, and without any regard for the world below, that the natural consequence was that she soon completely won the hearts of the lower classes. Even the whole number of waiting-maids would also for the most part, play and joke with Pao-ch'ai. Hence it was that Tai-yue fostered, in her heart, considerable feelings of resentment, but of this however Pao-ch'ai had not ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... that passed through her at the sight of this was only inferior to that which she had felt on the eventful evening itself. Hitherto in all her gloom and grief she had regarded it as a mere mockery—a brutal kind of practical joke, devised out of pure malignity, and perhaps instigated or connived at by Wiggins. She had never cared to think much about it. But now, on being thus confronted with a formal notice in a public newspaper, the whole affair suddenly assumed a new character—a character which was at once terrible ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... is finely shown up for his condemnatory predilections and inability to discern or appreciate beauties. The cream of the joke against him is, that being sent by Apollo to choose a lily in a flower-garden, he brings back a thistle as all he could find. The picture is a humorous one, but we are at a loss to conjecture who can have ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... symphonies of the time—the "Toy" Symphony and the more famous "Farewell." The former is a mere jeu d'esprit, in which, with an orchestral basis of two violins and a bass, the solo instruments are all of a burlesque character. Mozart attempted something of a kindred nature in his "Musical joke," where instruments come in at wrong places, execute inappropriate phrases, and play abominably out of tune. This kind of thing does not require serious notice, especially in the case of Haydn, to whom humour in music was a very different matter from the handling of rattles and ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... clad in lavender, appeared in the doorway. They also bent over the blue and white bundle. They also said something about the darling coming to see his aunties. Then there ensued the softest chorus of lady-laughter, as if at some hidden joke. ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... surprised by its sudden rising from behind the mountain wall, slink in its increasing glow, watch it furtively from the cover of near-by brush, unprepared and half uncertain of its identity until it rode clear of the peaks, and finally make off with all the air of one caught napping by an ancient joke. The moon in its wanderings must be a sort of exasperation to cunning beasts, likely to spoil by untimely risings some fore-planned mischief. But to take the trail again; the coyotes that are astir in the Ceriso of late ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... possibly the insight, piquancy and calm wisdom of Omar Khayyam are two-thirds essence of FitzGerald. If so, the joke is on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... girl who looked almost like her, but was not tall enough and wore a different dress. Then he spotted her. She was dancing with one of the Conforms, a frail-looking man a few inches shorter than she, with regular, handsome features. She laughed at some sly joke, and ...
— The Happy Unfortunate • Robert Silverberg
... mad?' said Nixon, who now saw he had miscalculated in supposing Nanty's wild ideas of honour and fidelity could be shaken even by resentment, or by his Protestant partialities. 'You shall not go back—it is all a joke.' ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... I reach him in respectable time, was the think inside me," Jane fach answered. "What other design have I? Stay here I will. A boy, dear me, for a joke was Shacob with me. Heaps of gifts he made me; enough to ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... terms, as to one whom it is dangerous to trust. For discriminations of character she has no names: all whom she mentions are honest men and agreeable women. She smiles not by sensation, but by practice. Her laughter is never excited but by a joke, and her notion of a joke is not very delicate. The repetition of a good joke does not weaken its effect; if she has laughed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... cessation of business for a few minutes. Some of the old farmers who knew the deceased recount their connection with him, how he worked for them, and how his family has lived in the parish as cottagers from time immemorial. A reminiscence of a grim joke that fell out forty years before, and of which the deceased was the butt, causes a grave smile, and then to business again. The master possibly asks permission to punish a refractory inmate; punishment is now very sparingly given in the house. A good many cases, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... this is our candidate? So!" he exploded. "I am glad, Mr. McGowan, to shake your hand, and perhaps we'd better do it now, for we might not so desire when the grilling is over. So!" He laughed vociferously at his rude joke, and offered ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... journey. Chaucer is himself the great poetical observer of men, who in every age is born to record and eternize its acts. This he does as a master, as a father and superior, who looks down on their little follies from the Emperor to the Miller, sometimes with severity, oftener with joke ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... capital joke; but I doubt if Dotty Dimple appreciated it. She looked at the hollow crust, and then at the purple-crested dove, and thought a hotel dinner was even more peculiar than she had supposed. Did they have "live pies" every day? How did they ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... at all," he said, standing his ground with his back to the fire. "I don't understand it, by heaven I don't. Because I said some stupid thing about Boulogne, all in joke—" ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... wound,' I should have got into a deuce of a scrape over that affair. As it was, it only cost me a hundred rupees to satisfy the man's family and send them back to their native village. That was for years a standing joke against me, Miss Hannay; except your uncle and the Colonel, there is no one left in the regiment who was there, but it was a sore subject for a long time. Still, no doubt, it was a useful lesson, and my rule has been ever since, never amputate except as a forlorn hope, and even then don't amputate, ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... toss; noise, smells, cold. Broken sleep by day, woe in every variety by night; food and drink a delusion and a snare; society an affliction; life a burden; death a far-off blessing not to be had at any price. Slowly, slowly the victims emerge from the lower depths of gloom, feebly smile, faintly joke, pick fearfully but wistfully at once-rejected dishes; talk about getting up, but don't do it; read a little, look at their sallow countenances in hand-glasses, and speculate upon the good effects of travel ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... as though it might be a joke. Asa was so used to others suspecting his honesty of purpose that he never seemed to get offended when they doubted his word. Another boy might have shown temper, but Asa never did this. He might grit his teeth behind a fellow's back, and vow to get even for an insult; ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... been a janitor at Boxwood Hall when Ned, Bob, and Jerry attended there. He had been a good friend to the three chums, and, as mentioned, had assisted them in performing what they were pleased to term a "joke." ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... whole thing was the greatest joke imaginable, Rewa Gunga fell into stride beside King and led him away in the direction ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... to give a man an extra arm when he needs a leg, Mr. Jefferson. Can't you see to it that I am spared being made a monstrosity of?" Mr. Morris had said, whimsically. "I can hear Segur or Beaufort now making some damned joke about the unequal distribution of my members," and Mr. Jefferson had made a formal request to the master of ceremonies to allow Mr. Morris to be presented to His Majesty without a sword. With that exception, however, he was in full court costume and stumped his way about ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... big man of the village who owns the mill, and the gardener from Lord So-and-So's estate, and the lord himself, for that matter, the groom taking his "bitter" from the side window, with one eye on his high stepper polished to a piano finish. All have a word or a good-morning or a joke with the barmaid. She isn't at all the kind of a girl you think she is. Try it some day and you'll discover your mistake. It's Miss Nance, or Miss Ellen, or whatever else her parents fancied; or Miss Figgins, or Connors, or Pugby—but it is ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... feet that I wept in despair, And vow'd that no angel was ever so fair? How could you believe all the nonsense I spoke? What know we of angels? I meant it in joke, I meant it in joke; What know we of angels? I meant it ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... work, and even then he would outwit them by dashing off a witty parody or a bit of impromptu verse. Among his literary jeux d'esprit was an examination paper on 'Pickwick,' prepared as a Christmas joke in exact imitation of a genuine "exam." The prizes, two first editions of Pickwick, were won by W. W. Skeat, now famous as a philologist, and Walter Besant, known to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... were ten or a dozen boarders there; but they were honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the stores, of a very different calibre from the young Irishman. Of an evening when they gathered together his joke was always the readiest, his conversation the brightest, and his song the best. He was a born boon companion, with a magnetism which drew good humour from all ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... reads as if it were wit, but it is not. What poor, poor stuff, about the little blackguard boys! what flimsy ecstasies and silly "smacking of lips" about the plovers. Is this the man who writes for the next age? O fie! Here is another joke:— ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that heathen Siren? Plagues on her! I shall end by falling in love with her.... I don't know that I have not got a barb of the blind boy in me already. I felt absurdly glad the other day when that fool told me he dare not accept her modest offer. Ha! ha! A delicious joke it would have been to have seen Orestes bowing down to stocks and stones, and Hypatia installed in the ruins of the Serapeium, as High Priestess of the Abomination of Desolation!. And now.... Well I call all heaven and earth to witness, that I have fought valiantly. ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... mother, uncertain whether to take it as a joke or to feel hurt. Mrs. Smith smiled and shook her head almost imperceptibly and Dorothy understood that it was ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... I thought the joke had been carried far enough, and that it was time to interfere. I accordingly went next day to Boston, and, calling on the publisher of a then somewhat flourishing weekly newspaper, now extinct, called "The Boston ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... has termed the "maximum and minimum" clause as "the highest practical joke of the whole bill." Little has been said of this clause except in connection with the "minimum." It must be remembered that there is also a "maximum," and it does not augur well for the consumer. Suppose a foreign nation ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... appeared with a plate of toothpicks, and to the question of Marforio, what he was doing with them, he replied, "I am taking them to Alexandrino, Medicis, and Rusticucci," the three cardinals who had been most active in securing the Papacy for the new Pope. The point of the joke was plain to the Romans: it meant that his adherents, instead of gaining anything by their efforts, had been deceived, and would have nothing to do now but to pick ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... queer. As for Alice's incredulous attitude towards the revelation of his identity, he did not mentally accuse her of treating him as either a liar or a madman. On reflection he persuaded himself that she regarded the story as a bad joke, as one of his impulsive, capricious ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... such a malicious grin that Joe, whose face was still smarting, had no hesitation in connecting his sudden awakening with the hot bowl of the man's pipe. It was a joke Joe had often seen played on drunken men in Islington public-houses ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... "Just a joke!" Pike pleaded. "Merriwell, I didn't mean anything, only to have a bit of sport. That is honest. I didn't ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... after the race was over just to limber up his legs—he was so cramped from sitting around waiting for the dogs. So it came about that Johnny, in his poor, foolish little heart, thought dogs were just a joke. ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... confused when my housekeeper's little servant came up and gave me a letter which the wretched widow had sent her by an express. She had opened it, and found an enclosure addressed to me inside. I put it in my pocket, saying I would read it at my leisure. On Madame saying in joke that it was a love-letter, I could not laugh, and made no answer. The servant came to tell us that dinner was served, but I could touch nothing. My abstinence was put ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "That's what he is—good joke, Nell. Where'd it happen?" She seated herself in a chair and slid until her head rested on the back, ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... said the Kangaroo, as she returned to the cave, "the 'possum made that unlucky joke of telling the Nightjar it has a touching voice, and can sing: everyone has to suffer for that joke of the 'possum's. It doesn't matter to him, for he is awake all night, but it is too bad for his neighbours who ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... leisure to be intimate with my passengers. The most of them were then in their berths sea-sick; however, in going among them, telling them what was good for them, persuading them not to be there, but to come up on deck and feel the breeze, and in rousing them with a joke, or a comfortable word, I made acquaintance with them, perhaps, in a more friendly and confidential way from the first, than I might have ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... right just now, when you said that the un-average man would love Mary Ballard. Porter Bigelow loves her, and he tops all the other men I've met. And he'd never love me. He will laugh with me and joke with me, and if he wasn't in love with Mary, he might flirt with me—but I'm not his ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... she thinks you have swallowed it, she will not fail to attempt transforming you into some animal, but she shall not succeed; when she sees that she has failed, she will immediately turn her proceeding into pleasantry, as if what she had done was only out of joke to frighten you; but she will conceal a mortal grief in her heart, and think she has omitted something in the composition of her cake. As for the other cake, you shall make a present of it to her, and press her to eat it; which she will not refuse to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... quarrelsome old fellow that had ever come across my path. Oh, how often I've laughed to see you scolding the children, as they ran after you in the street whenever you appeared behind your master with the medicine-chest. The minute I saw you too I remembered a joke which the king once made in his own way, as you were both passing by. 'The old man,' he said, reminds me of a fierce old owl followed by a flight of small teasing birds, and Nebenchari looks as if he had a scolding wife, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that the miserable policy of these people was to starve the troops into the supposed necessity of evacuating the position, and returning to Khartoum. I represented to Allorron the danger of trifling with a hungry lion, at which he grinned, as a good joke, and immediately replied: "If you want cattle, I will give you some of my people as guides, and you can attack a neighbour of mine, and capture his herds, which will last you for a long time." I replied, that I could not injure any one who had ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... doctor; "I don't want you to be quiet; it isn't natural for young things. Yes, my child; come and stay as long as you like, and make as much noise as you like. I was only teasing you, but you didn't like my little joke," laughing. ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... were taken down. It is no joke to go down a strange church-tower in the dark, but the keeper helped them - only, Cyril had to be independent because of the soda-water syphon. It would keep trying to get away. Half-way down the ladder it all but escaped. Cyril just ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... in bed and stared down at the telegraph form. What on earth did this mean? But for the fact that she knew it to be out of the question, she would have suspected a foolish and vulgar practical joke. ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... twin. "Now for the other!" says merry mother, And quickly dips him in. Jim and Jerry, with lips of cherry, And eyes of the selfsame blue; Twins to a speckle, yes, even a freckle— What can a mother do? They wink and wriggle and laugh and giggle— A joke on mother is nice! "We played a joke,"—'twas Jimmie who spoke,— "And you've washed ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... strong, hearty, clean, and good-natured lot were these Swedes. How helpful, sympathetic, and jolly withal. It was easy for them to see the clear, bright side of everything, and to turn an innocent joke on themselves occasionally; for one told on another is never so effective and enjoyable as a joke on oneself; but there were often those with tears in their eyes, and a homesick feeling at their heart upon bidding farewell ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... I am such a different girl when—when I am with you," she said to him one day. "I even make little jokes. I never should think of making even the tiniest joke before grandmamma. Somehow, she never seems quite to understand jokes. She never laughs at them. You always laugh, and I am sure it is very kind of you to encourage me so; but you must not encourage me too much, or I might ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... here ashore and sober for," he asked finally, "so I won't talk, that's why, and I won't talk, so there's the end of it. It's just that I have to have my little joke, that's all, or I wouldn't have said anything about the ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... to many Browning is only a joke, Whitman an eccentric, Dante insane and Turner a pretender. These have all sought to express things which the many can not feel, and consequently they have been, and are, the butt of jokes and jibes innumerable. "Except ye become as little children," ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Michael? What is the joke? Tell us, that we may laugh too; for you know we must laugh. It is our ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... favourable part of the affair was that Leonora was able, because of her favouritism, to find out much about the prisoners; but on the other hand, she was in danger of discovery. Although the situation was tragic, there was considerable of a joke in Marcelline's devotion to the youth Fidelio, and in ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... Thomas, quite enjoying Frank's joke, "that'll be another of old Stroker's kids when it's born. He did it when she went up to be taught her confirmation lesson. I'm told he confirmed seven girls in fucking, this examination. He's a regular ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... He is even said to have threatened the Duke of Montrose in his own residence at Buchanan. His enterprises were, however, not always contrived for a serious end, but sometimes partook of the love of a practical joke, which is a ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... with equivoques, either in important or in mean matters. If you find good occasion for a joke, be careful not to bite, still less to tear, like a dog. Witticisms and repartee should be to the point, and should have elegance and appropriateness without exciting the indignation of any. Do not let your pleasantries degenerate into ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... latter. Every one in the saloon was supplied with at least one thin slice from the prize pig which, roasted whole and holding an ear of corn in its teeth, was gaily decorated with the flags of England and the United States. It was held high for inspection before the carving began, and many a joke ran around, from table to table, upon the fine appearance of ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... to go and thank him," said Jo, by way of a joke, for the idea of the child's really going never ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... not for worlds have his bride catch him tippling. He put out the lamp and went to the bedroom, chuckling to himself like a man about to play a particularly clever and extremely good-humored practical joke. His preparations for the night were, as always, extremely simple merely a flinging off of his outer clothes and, in summer, his socks. From time to time he cast an admiring amorous glance at the lovely ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... sort of a silly joke," said Steve bewilderedly. "Would you mind telling me why you—why you ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... and how bitterly she had spoken to me about it—I had thought it best to prepare him for the absurd story that I felt sure Aunt Hannah would proceed to pour into his ear directly she met him. To my relief he had laughed, appearing to treat the matter of her annoyance and suspicion as a joke, though the sending of the telegram he looked upon, naturally, as a very grave matter. Consequently, upon our arrival at Holt, instead of inquiring for his sister, and at once consulting her upon the subject of the day's events, as he would, I knew, have done under ordinary circumstances, ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... would make a polite speech, or give a shrug of the shoulders, as the means of getting out of an embarrassing position, Lincoln raised a laugh by some bold west-country anecdote, and moved off in the cloud of merriment produced by the joke. When Attorney-General Bates was remonstrating apparently against the appointment of some indifferent lawyer to a place of judicial importance, the President interposed with: "Come now, Bates, he's not half as bad as you think. Besides ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... a while, till catching sight of their long fleecy necks, bending like the necks of birds, and ending in long flexible lips (it was the lips that gave him the clue he was seeking), he said, "The Nonconformists of the four-footed world," and he told his joke to his dragoman, without, however, being able to make ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... I'll dash down here on my pony with her behind me. Then we'll slip through the fence and get on the hand-car, and be out of sight around the curve before the rest get here. They won't know where on earth we've gone, and it will be the best joke on them. It's down grade all the way to the section-house, so I can push it easily enough by myself, but I'll need your help coming back, maybe. S'pose you cut across lots to the section-house as soon as I start to the barn, and meet me there. ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... (1) Cicero's joke on a senator who was the son of a tailor: "Thou hast touched the thing sharply" (or with ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... need not deny it!" said The Chobb. "I hate roundabout stories. I am a gentleman. Was it a joke or not? Will you pay me a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... exclaimed the Scotsman, "it's the best joke ever I heard or saw. Come and look at your black-fellow ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... under the law an' liable to hangin' an' imprisonment, an' that kind o' guff don't go nohow. We're willin' to admit that mebbe we've been a little mite familiar an' forward, bankin' on the natural leanin' of friend for friend that you take it all for the joke it's intended to be, but when you go to carryin' the joke too far, we got to protect ourselves. Scraggsy, I'm willin' to dig in an' help out in a pinch, but it's gettin' so me an' Mac can't trust you no more. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... three days. Then, as there was no further word from him, she became a little alarmed. But it was not in her to write all she felt, and so she sought to break the tension with something in the way of a joke. ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... dangers. For example, on your first voyage out you hardly believe the stories of fever told by the old Coasters. That is because you do not then understand the type of man who is telling them, a man who goes to his death with a joke in his teeth. But a short experience of your own, particularly if you happen on a place having one of its periodic epidemics, soon demonstrates that the underlying horror of the thing is there, a rotting ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... womankind, he tries to work out the problem of love without regard to the distinctions of nature. And full of the evils which he recognized as flowing from the spurious form of love, he proceeds with a deep meaning, though partly in joke, to show that the 'non-lover's' love is better ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... a funny country; something of a joke of a country when you come to think of it. Instead of setting out trees that will become both useful and beautiful, in accordance with the old Greek ideal of combining beauty and utility we set out Norway ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... his "insulting you with Latin and Greek at your own table." He would have suited Sir Roger capitally for a chaplain, I often tell him; and though he hasn't a notion who Sir Roger may be, he thoroughly enjoys the joke. ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... I know a few guys once, tried playing the legit. Got kicked around, see? Low pay. Staffman hammering on 'em all the time. Big joke when they try to ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole
... worse roarer in my life, and that was a roan: it belonged to Pegwell, the corn-factor; he used to drive him in his gig seven years ago, and he wanted me to take him, but I said, 'Thank you, Peg, I don't deal in wind-instruments.' That was what I said. It went the round of the country, that joke did. But, what the hell! the horse was a penny trumpet to that roarer ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... is John, but they call him Demi-John, because his father is John too. That's a joke, don't you see?" said Tommy, kindly explaining. Nat did not see, but politely smiled, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... said shortly; "but if you can laugh and joke like that there's no need for me to feel anxious about ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... patted her on the shoulder. "Father? father? H'm—that's not a thing any one can be so sure about. Hahaha!" And "hahaha" echoed the old man, still sitting with the awl in his hand. This was the sort of joke he ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... pay a visit to the New Wimbledon—and being nothing if not loyal, I chose the day when the shooting for the "Queen's" commenced. My escort informed me with an inane smile, that the Camp had experienced "Bisley weather;" the feebleness of which joke so annoyed me, that I am half inclined to put his name in the pillory of public print—(what a glorious expression for our own Midlothian Mouther)—but I refrain, for reasons ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... to tell you the truth, we don't quite know, he will joke about it so—at first he said it was "Sleeping Sickness" and then "Creeping quickness" or pneu-somnia or something or other—one comfort, he doesn't seem to mind ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward
... in 1831 a Scottish member declared that Scots could never assemble without drawing blood; and one of their champions, Lord Cockburn, made the quaint admission: "The Scots are bad mobbers. They are too serious at it. They never joke, and they throw stones." It did not occur to that generation that the cure for this bloodthirsty seriousness was frequent public meetings, not no meetings at all. That a high-spirited people should so long have remained in political childhood seems ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... mountains, and he was frightfully overworked; short of company officers. He came to me about an insect he said had got into his ear; buzzed, and bothered him day and night. The story got to the men's quarters. They joked about the colonel's 'bug.' I knew it was no joke. I condemned him for duty, but the Sioux were out. They thought at Washington no one but Addison could handle an Indian campaign. He was on the ground, too. So they sent him up higher where it was dry, with a thousand men in his hands. I knew he'd be a ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... returned he with a smile, 'if you had your joke, I had my answer: I'll leave it to all the company if mine were not as good as yours. To say the truth, I know no body whom I am disposed to be angry with at present but the fellow who so frighted my little girl here. ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... added, looking at La Briere. "It could not be otherwise. Madame de La Bastie is German. She has never adopted our etiquette, and I let my two women lead me their own way. I have always preferred to sit in the carriage rather than on the box. I can make a joke of all this at present, for we have not yet seen the Duc d'Herouville, and I do not believe in marriages arranged by proxy, any more than I believe in choosing my ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... "Why, it's no joke, Jim; this discussion about the country will wind up in some sort of a revolution. I have been talking around lately among the plain people, and a lot of them declare straight up and down that the country is going to peter out like the water in the tap here in ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... into the heart of the world. When you knelt to pray at nights you could only cry and cry. The courage of the men who grappled in the slime with the horrors was the one thing that kept one from despair. And the fact that they could laugh. You know about the dying man who told his nurse some joke and finished, 'This is the ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... his voice, and drew his well-knit, slim figure upright. He called to mind all his friends in England, with their rigid manners, their impassiveness in the face of trying situations. There was Lord Tony, for instance, always ready with some boyish joke, with boyish impertinence always hovering on his tongue. Armand tried to emulate Lord Tony's manner, and to borrow something of ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... no, doctor!" rippled out Miss Langham's voice, in willing accompaniment of the joke; "I'm sure you ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Bailie Nicol Jarvie of one of the Terryfications (though not by Terry) of Scott's Rob Roy having made a formal affidavit that he was a real "Edinburgh Gutter Bluid," we suspect some of our readers themselves suspected a joke. The affidavit itself has, however, been printed in the Athenaeum, accompanied by an amusing commentary, in which the document is justly pronounced "a very curious one." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... "No work is any joke; but I just put it to you: Simply as work, without taking in the question of reward, would you dream for a minute of swapping your work with the work of one of your workmen? No. Well, neither would a Malloring with one of his Gaunts. So that, my boy, for work which is intrinsically ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... gentleman is finely shown up for his condemnatory predilections and inability to discern or appreciate beauties. The cream of the joke against him is, that being sent by Apollo to choose a lily in a flower-garden, he brings back a thistle as all he could find. The picture is a humorous one, but we are at a loss to conjecture who can have sat for it in America, where the tendency is all the other way, reviewers ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... now talking about cutting throats," said the man. "You brought it on yourself," said Belle; "you suspected us, and he wished to pass a joke upon you; he would not hurt a hair of your head, were your coach laden with gold, nor would I." "Well," said the man, "I was wrong—here's my hand to both of you," shaking us by the hands; "I'll go with you where ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... invited in, and were in such numbers that the room would scarcely hold them all. More cigars, more punch, more giving of thanks. About three o'clock the crowd began to disperse, and at length, after those Spanish leave-takings, which are really no joke, had ended, Captain E——, C—-n, and I, all three excessively cold and shivering, having passed the night at the open windows, consoled ourselves with hot chocolate and punch, and went to dream of sweet-sounding harmonies. Altogether, it was ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the Jew, whose name was Fagin, and the boys crowded around him, putting their hands into his pockets, which he thought a queer joke. Fagin grinned horribly as he shook hands with him and told him he was very welcome, which did not tend to reassure him, and then the sausages were passed around. The Jew gave Oliver a glass of something to drink, and as soon as he drank it he became ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... afraid of that," said Macgreggor and George in the same breath. Hare was not likely to relate a joke so much at his own expense as their clever escape had proved. Even if he did, they reasoned, the chances of capture were now rather slim, whatever they might have been when the three fugitives ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... Gibraltar, or from Fort Gibraltar to the Athabasca. Two days after our arrival, Cuthbert Grant, with a band of Bois-Brules, had gone to Fort Douglas to arrest Captain Miles McDonell for plundering Nor'-West posts. The doughty governor took Grant's warrant as a joke and scornfully turned the whole North-West party out of Fort Douglas. On the stockades outside were proclamations commanding settlers to take up arms in defense of the Hudson's Bay traders and forbidding natives to sell furs ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... I raised a hand against you during all these years? No! And now I came here only to have a look at you, and it was enough to burst your bubble. Have I uttered a single reproach? Have I moralised or preached sermons? No! I played a joke or two on your dear consort, and nothing more was needed to finish him.—But there is no reason why I, the complainant, should be defending myself as I am now—Tekla! Have you nothing at all to reproach ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... eccellenza is pleased to joke; we men of Capri think little of the nights at this season of the year—still, as it seems to be your wish, I will honor ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... repulsion? What could it be, this strange power which gave him the preeminence over her—which taught her, without her knowing it, the mystery that causes man to rule and woman to obey; Very thoughtful—even unmoved by Harrie's loud laughter at the "excellent joke"—Mrs. Harper suffered herself to be led on by ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to-day. Probably Noah was the butt of gossip and ridicule, quite possibly of scandal and reproach, year after year, by the whole race; and he would feel it, and feel it for his family's sake. That boat and its dreaming builder were the standing joke of the time. He was regarded as a fool, a fanatic, a poor, unbalanced enthusiast, building his gigantic boat on dry land! Perhaps some regretted that he brought the cause of religion into reproach by being ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... town buying presents for Miss Katie Peck. Tommy Postmaster had paid high for a necklace of elk-tushes the government scout at McKinney sold him. Too bad Miss Peck did not enjoy good health. Shorty had been in only yesterday to get her medicine again. Third bottle. Had I heard the big joke on Lin McLean? He had promised her the skin of a big bear he knew the location of, and Tommy ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... faith or fortune did seem to befriend Mrs. Beauchamp at last. It was just after they had knocked at the second closed door, and had received a very short negative to their inquiry, which the maidservant evidently considered to be an ill-timed joke, that a door on the opposite side of the road opened suddenly, and a great stream of ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... the ear of Ernest. Meantime joke followed jest, among Polydore and the rest of the gay youths, in riotous and ribald succession, which, however characteristic of the rude speakers, may as well be omitted here. Their effect was to shake in some degree the fortitude of the Saxon maiden, who had some difficulty in mustering ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the first day. Somebody mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck, and I asked if she was a Freshman. That joke has gone all over college. But anyway, I'm just as bright in class as any of the others—and brighter than ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... eh? Tell me that! Didn't you just plead with me to make a fool of myself, and to save you pain I consented. I suppose I'll never hear the end of that fool joke," ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... MASSACRE OF CUSTER'S COMMAND. Buffalo Bill's Adventures continued—Hunting at Fort McPherson—Indians steal his Favourite Pony—The Chase—Scouting under General Duncan—Pawnee Sentries—A Deserted Squaw—A Joke on McCarthy—Scouting for Captain Meinhold—Texas Jack—Buckskin Joe—Sitting Bull and the Indian War of 1876—Massacre of Custer and his Command—Buffalo Bill takes the First Scalp for Custer—Yellow Hand, Son of ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... maintain that many animals possess a sense of the humorous, and it looked as though the sluggish Bowser enjoyed the joke as much as did the victims; for, when the latter made their way back to the camp fire, they saw the hound stretched out close to the warm blaze with his head between his paws and apparently asleep; but, watching him closely, he was seen to open one of his eyes, just a ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... was an ex-burglar," he said, plunging into the new subject with alacrity. "First-rate fellow, too. Last I heard of him, he had a position as chauffeur with a rich old lady who lived alone up in Detroit. She had two burglar-alarm systems, but the joke of it was she made him sleep in the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... moved the shadows three inches before Jim had reached the conclusion that this world was all a practical joke, of so low an order that no sensible man would even laugh at it, and he drew a letter from his pocket in proof thereof. It was a thin letter, written on delicate paper in a delicate hand, and it showed much wear. He read ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... impossible to find it; and then, after making her companions hunt for it for an hour, till their patience was quite tired, and they gave out; she would burst out in a loud laugh! and say she only did it for fun. But, for my part, I never could see any joke in such kind of things: the meanness, the baseness, the dish on our (sic), which attendedit always, in my opinion, took off all degree of cleverness, or pleasure ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... sirs, that being a jester by profession, it is my business to make jokes. I am all the readier, therefore, to present myself, feeling convinced it is a better joke to come to dinner thus unbidden than by ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... want me to show you how much of a joke it is by giving you in charge here and now for kidnapping my housekeeper, Mary Bride?" said the Honourable ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... height. Such a banquet as Herod had often witnessed in the shameless court of Tiberius, and in which luxury and appetite reached their climax, was in mid-current. The strong wines of Messina and Cyprus had already done their work. The hall resounded with ribald joke and merriment. Towards the end of such a feast it was the custom for immodest women to be introduced, who, by their gestures, imitated scenes in certain well-known mythologies, and still further inflamed ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... vacation, that the blow fell. We did not know it at the time; we had not yet learned to school our minds to such awful possibilities. Mr. Hale opened the letter, read it, and tossed it upon my desk with a laugh. When I had looked it over, I also laughed, saying, "Some ghastly joke, Mr. Hale, and one in very poor taste." Find here, my dear John, an exact duplicate of ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... said the king, who now thought that Felix was a jester who had put a trick upon him. "But your joke is out of joint; I will teach such fellows to try tricks on us! Beat him out ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... have done, have done! [Offers vdka to the Tramp] Drink. [To his wife] And what are you slobbering for? Mayn't a fellow have his joke? There you are [gives her money], put it away. Here are two three-rouble ...
— The Cause of it All • Leo Tolstoy
... that her hot dinners are neither delicious nor well served. She's an inefficient, lazy old termagant, and I know why she doesn't like me. She imagines that I want to steal away the doctor and oust her from a comfortable position, something of a joke, considering. But I am not undeceiving her; it will do the old thing good to worry a little. She may cook him better dinners, and fatten him up a trifle. I understand that ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... Would a long country walk have been more virtuous? It would at least have been more wholesome; but that was all that could be said. My mind did not dwell on Morphew's communication. It seemed without sense or meaning to me; and after the excellent joke about his superior interest in his master to mine in my father, was dismissed lightly enough from my mind. I tried to invent some way of telling this to my father without letting him perceive that Morphew had been finding faults in him, ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... not meant as a joke, Cecilia. Seeing that we are parting in a spirit of perfect understanding, why shouldn't such an arrangement ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... don't joke, for there is no joy in that mad laughter. It is horrible, maddening, even to the hearer. Let us get to work. The father of the girl I love may even now be sinking to his death. We must determine the nature of this deadly stuff, ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... was bound apprentice to a shipmaster engaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea. The ship young Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell into the hands of a fisherman, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him about." ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... discipline of Mrs. Wix; yet she none the less held it under her father's roof a point of superiority that none of his visitors were ladies. It added to this odd security that she had once heard a gentleman say to him as if it were a great joke and in obvious reference to Miss Overmore: "Hanged if she'll let another woman come near you—hanged if she ever will. She'd let fly a stick at her as they do at a strange cat!" Maisie greatly ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... obituary appeared Cibber crawled out of the house, sick-faced but convalescent, and read the notice with keen interest. Whether he was amused thereat, or dubbed the joke a poor one, is a matter which he does not record, but he tells us that he "saw no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead before his time," and "therefore had a mind to see whether the town cared to have him ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... sufficient," he said. "Immortality by syndicate is too modern, and this is an ancient art." He tapped the case." Turkey and the Mongol lands have kept the old cult going. In England, it's only for the dog!" He laughed freely but noiselessly at his own joke. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that he was throwing into the town a number of curious trophies which collectors were eager to buy on the spot for five pounds each, with the certainty of being able to sell them again if they cared to at an enormous profit some day. After wasting some ammunition for the sake of this practical joke, our enemies began a bombardment in earnest. Most of this was directed at the defenceless town. One shell burst in a private house, wounding slightly the owner, Mrs. Kennedy, whose escape from fatal injuries seemed miraculous, for the room in which ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... know to be true than those disinterested supporters of that noble lord, who had the advantage of hearing him and cheering him night after night, when he first became premier—I mean that he did officially and habitually joke, at a time when this country was plunged in deep disgrace and distress—I say, that noble lord, when he wondered so much that the man of this age, who has, by his earnest and adventurous spirit, done the most to distinguish himself and it, did not blush for the tremendous audacity of having so come ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... annoyed by the mosquitos in any part of America as in Skenesborough, for that they used to bite through the thickest boot." When this anecdote appeared in print, good old Dr. Dwight, shocked at the taradiddle, and fearing its evil influence on Washington's fame, spoiled the joke by explaining in a book that "a gentleman of great respectability, who was present when General Washington made the observation referred to, told me that he said, when describing those mosquitoes to Mr. Weld, that they 'bit through his stockings above the boots.'" Whoever invented ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... to Sara one day: "My father used to say that when he was a boy the phrase, 'American workman' stood for the highest efficiency in the world, but that even in his day the phrase had become a joke. How could you expect this rabble to know that there might be such a thing as an American ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... And he who can suggest any thing laughable is a great benefactor to his comrades; for then the monotony is broken, and we enjoy a little sprinkling of variety, which is truly said to be "the spice of life." A good joke, that runs through the command like a bubbling brook along the flowering meadows, is worth more to us than a corps of nurses with cart-loads ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... intimate record of his soul's doings as an exercise in cosmic irony; but the idea of publishing it could hardly have lived for a moment in the lambent flame of his own sardonic humor. He could be perverse, but perversity could not well go the length of perpetrating so pointless a joke ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... That's it!" he bellowed. "Even my own bull turns on me. Haw! Haw!" His hollow, hoarse, and unmirthful laughter echoed among the pines. "Great joke! Haig will like that. And the ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... a standing joke with Australian rabbits—about the only joke they have out there, except the memory of Pasteur and poison and inoculation. It is amusing to go a little way out of town, about sunset, and watch them crack Noah's Ark rabbit jokes about ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... agreeable to walkin' 'ome all the way on my feet," said our guest. "I wouldn't go to any railway station. It 'ud be just the proper finish to our little joke." He laughed nervously. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... try them games, mate, for you was never cut out for the work. He thinks that's a joke, Mr Lane, sir. But do you want ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... did not know and love as if it had been his child, though there were so many thousands that he alone could keep strict count of them. He insisted gravely upon the superlative value of the least significant in appearance, but he could joke a little about other things than coins. There was an old mosaic which we admired, with a faded God of Love riding ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... it was a nasty practical joke," cried Tom Long, "and—I beg your pardon, Roberts," he said, suddenly changing his tone, and holding out his hand. "I ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... given to James Barrie in London. One of the speakers sprung the usual joke about how when the Scotch leave Scotland they never go back. When Barrie arose to reply he said: "Perhaps it is true that the Scotch, when they leave their native land, seldom return. If so, there is surely precedent. In ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... was engaged to be married to Adolphus Crosbie,—to Apollo Crosbie, as she still called him, confiding her little joke to his own ears. And to her he was an Apollo, as a man who is loved should be to the girl who loves him. He was handsome, graceful, clever, self-confident, and always cheerful when she asked him to be cheerful. But ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... rhetoric, with none of the external signs of energy and intrepidity, making no parade of the immovable purpose, iron nerve, and silent, penetrating intelligence God has put into him, his tranquil greatness is hidden from superficial scrutiny behind a cigar, as President Lincoln's is behind a joke. When anybody tries to coax, cajole, overawe, browbeat, or deceive Lincoln, the President nurses his leg, and is reminded of a story; when anybody tries the same game with Grant, the General listens and—smokes. If you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... a misfortune that few of Gardiner's stood to witness, I believe, sir—ha! ha! ha! I beg your pardon; but a soldier's wife loves a joke.' ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... husband, Monica was in a sportive mood, with occasional fits of exhilaration which seemed rather unnatural. She had declared to Mildred her intention of inviting Miss Nunn to the wedding, and her mind was evidently set on carrying out this joke, as she regarded it. When the desire was intimated by letter, Rhoda replied with a civil refusal: she would be altogether out of place at such a ceremony, but hoped that Monica would accept her heartiest good wishes. Virginia was then dispatched to ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... age in soft wrinkles, ripples that had caught on fire in the sunset. Collins felt the twilight stealing under the arms of his tee-shirt. The overdue hair on the back of his rangy neck stood up in attention. It was a joke, but the first one Collins had ever ...
— The Last Place on Earth • James Judson Harmon
... this was all right for a joke, but it wouldn't bear repeating. From now on, you're the gardener's boy, and you'll not forget ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... that I could munch it up and see you starving," answered Ben. "Come, that would be a good joke. I shan't get hungry, for you must know that I have more than once been three days without putting a morsel of food between my teeth—and wasn't much the worse for it, either. I shouldn't mind a drop of grog, I will allow; but what we can't get we must do without—and, as Mr Boxall says, 'Trust ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Devilish incomprehensible! They must know we're here. Been waiting fifteen minutes now, begad! Getting beyond a joke—deuced exasperating, Perry, y' know. Dammit, man, why can't you say something, do something, instead of sitting there so devilish calm and serene, staring before ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... hurt his hand. He replied that when he dived for the turtle it caught him by the thumb, and if his friends hadn't gone to his aid he might have drowned. He told it as though it would have been a great joke on him. We were all pretty well acquainted by this time, and everybody threw in remarks. Then our boys removed the presents, chose what we would take with us—only a small portion—and the rest was returned to the village for the feast. On state occasions the men ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... said, "Oh, kiss poor Rose"; and when he got to Rose he flung his arms around her neck, too, and kissed her, once only. That was the distinction that he made. And as he ran he laughed, he laughed as if love were the biggest joke in ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... suited to the comprehension of the child, they made little impression upon Helen's mind. When I subsequently talked with her she said: "I have something very funny to tell you. A. says God made me and every one out of sand; but it must be a joke. I am made of flesh and blood and bone, am I not?" Here she examined her arm with evident satisfaction, laughing heartily to herself. After a moment she went on: "A. says God is everywhere, and that He is ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... be quite sure that every fat and comfortable citizen (himself probably an official of some sort) on whom this argument may be pressed will take it as a joke in bad taste: "Horrible! disgusting!" Yet that same citizen, stirring the contents of his morning newspaper into his muddy brain as he stirs his sugar in his coffee, will complacently absorb all the news of the day, so many hundred thousand men killed, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... a matter of fact, I thought of taking Therese out somewhere. She's a bit frayed out, poor girl; she thought it might help her to sleep if she got away for a couple of hours. Rotten shame about your father. Typhoid's no joke at ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... psalms to the ears of the villagers, were more than suspected to be his own composition; often gave a poetic and semi-religious colouring to his conversation, which accorded rather with his dignity in the church, than his post at the Spotted Dog. Yet he disliked not his joke, though it was subtle and delicate of nature; nor did he disdain to bear companionship over his own liquor, with guests less ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him to a seat, and held him there, Despite his anger, while the hideous joke Was tossed from hand to hand. Franz poured with care A brimming glass of whiskey. "Here, we've broke Into a virgin barrel for you, drink! Tut! Tut! Just hear him! Married! Who, and when? Married, and out on business. Clever Spark! Which lie's the likeliest? ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... Mr. Merton tried to look grave; in his capacity of a gentlemanlike, liberal fellow, he gave up the attempt, and laughed pleasantly at the joke ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... fiery shafts upon the side of the cliff. Will had usually found it cold at such a height, but now the beams struck directly upon him and his face was soon covered with perspiration. He was assailed also by a fierce, burning thirst, and a great anger lay hold of him. It was a terrible joke that he should be held there in the hole of the cliff by an invisible warrior who used only arrows against him, perhaps because he feared a shot from a rifle would bring ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... "Will you deny that shells have been found on the mountains? What put them there, if not the Deluge? They are not accustomed, I believe, to grow out of the ground of themselves alone, like carrots!" And this joke having made the assembly laugh, he added, pressing his lips together: "Unless this be ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... waiting could hardly think him serious, and vowed that his Majesty always loved a joke. However, mortal or not, the sight of that sharp spire wounded his Majesty's eyes; and is said, by the legend, to have caused the building of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... shock which had caused his dismay was past, and as he went his way, solemnly escorted by his loving sister and his devoted friend, he was suffering much more from suppressed laughter than from anything else. Everything was a joke, and the narrowness of his escape that morning was a greater joke than all. "By Jove! what a laugh we will have over it one of these days!" thought Lisle as he put ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... aloud at the stupendous joke, as he drew her arm within his, and led her into the thronged rooms, as some favored subject may once in his life lead ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... were people of high birth or not. King Hrorek's mood was very different at different times. Sometimes he would sit silent for days together, so that no man could get a word out of him; and sometimes he was so merry and gay, that people found a joke in every word he said. Sometimes his words were very bitter. He was sometimes in a mood that he would drink them all under the benches, and made all his neighbours drunk; but in general he drank but little. King Olaf gave him plenty of ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... the day. It must not be to me like ordinary days. But do not look unhappy, mamma; I am not going to make a fool of myself. I shan't steal off and appear in the church like a ghost." And then, having uttered her little joke, a sob came, and she hid her face on her mother's bosom. In a moment she raised it again. "Believe me, mamma, that I am not ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... and without any regard for the world below, that the natural consequence was that she soon completely won the hearts of the lower classes. Even the whole number of waiting-maids would also for the most part, play and joke with Pao-ch'ai. Hence it was that Tai-yue fostered, in her heart, considerable feelings of resentment, but of this however Pao-ch'ai had not ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the rat, 'gnaw your own tail;' and off he went laughing at the joke. The miserable weasel cried and sniffed, and sniffed and cried, till by-and-by he heard the rat come back and begin to scratch outside. Presently the rat stopped, and was going away again, when ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... a rough ejaculation, gazing into her demure eyes as if she strongly suspected a joke hid in their depths. "Do—do you mistake me for an ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... least; Not visit or distract his brain, Turning his thoughts to things profane. My master was not tempted so, But once—don't let it out, you know— He squandered all his precious wits Making a titmouse trap for Fritz— Right here, and talked and had a smoke; To me, I'll own, it seemed a joke. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... widely, and showed his whole mouthful of yellow teeth. His baby stare rested appreciatively upon me, as though I had just cracked an excellent joke. "Oh, ja, you pick him yourself," he chortled. "Mineself get you good ship, easy ship. No bucko, no hardtack, good pay, soft ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... description of me. I didn't know before that I was a mulatto. It'll never do for me to go there.' So I went to Vermont to teach. I told 'em I was a runaway slave, and showed 'em the advertisement that described me. Some of 'em believed me, till I told 'em it was a joke. Well, it is just as bad for those poor black fellows as it would have been for me; but that blue-eyed Joe seemed to bring the matter home to me. It set me to thinking about slavery, and I have kept thinking ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... to my mother," a little Indian girl confided to Rose-Ellen, "'You no cover up your grub, we throw him out!'" She laughed into her hands as if it were a great joke. ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... carried out his trial; but that last night, when he brought him newes of his death, he began to be sober and shed some tears, and he hopes will die a penitent; he having already confessed all the thing, but says it was partly done for a joke, and partly to get an occasion of obliging the old man by his care in getting him his things again, he having some hopes of being the better by him in his estate at his death. Home to dinner, and after ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... him right, I'm thinkin'," said the Master. "Like as not he came here wi' the intent to mak' an end to yo.' Well, after Thursday, I pray God we'll ha' peace. It's gettin' above a joke." The two turned back ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... ALEXANDER has to do; but this he does admirably, never under-acting, never over-acting, always as natural as a quiet gentleman, of a peculiarly romantic turn of mind, yet with a keen but chastened appreciation of a practical joke, kept all to himself for five months, should be. Had he been compelled by circumstances to sustain the alias, and to continue playing the part of a Burchell in GOLDSMITH's Vicar of Wakefield for one month longer, could he have done it? However, as the piece has "caught on," it may be that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... Boulogne, the nephew of King Henry I, was no stranger to the country which he aspired to rule. He had lived much in England and was a universal favorite. "From his complacency of manners, and his readiness to joke, and sit and regale even with low people, he had gained so much on their affections as is hardly to be conceived." This popular man was at the death-bed of his uncle; but before the royal body was borne on the shoulders of nobles from the Castle of Lions to Rouen, Stephen ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... noblest minds of the day. Not an avowal, not a confidence, that shed light on his life work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the pleasure of hoaxing ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... you to create a business if for no other reason than to give employment to less fortunate young men; but you have other responsibilities. Your position, your fortune, they make demands. I'm not one to underestimate the leisure class; I know the old joke about tramps being the only leisure class in America; it's a silly joke, but it ought to make us think. After a bit, if we don't look out, the leisure class, here, will be all women. They'll dominate art and poetry and society—and I must say I like a good team. I never cared for ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... Bishop exclaimed. "O dear! O dear! This is not right, you know; this is not at all right. I must make a note of this—I really must. You are in the habit of saying things of this sort, my dear. I remember you said something like it once before; and really it is not a subject to joke about. Such an idea is quite pernicious; it must not be allowed to spread—even as a joke. I wish, my dear, you had not promulgated it, even in that spirit. You have—ah —a knack of making things seem ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... amusement and tried to pass the incident off as a joke. But his dissimulation was more dangerous, she knew, than his brutality, and he left her the prey to more than one alarm and the renewed resolve never to be taken off her guard. That night he came back. He told her uncle, glancing admiringly at Nan as he recounted ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... make his administration milder and cleaner and to broaden its basis—he was even credited with the one joke of his life in this connexion: "I will yet head anti-Venizelism." But the thing was beyond his power: he had not a sufficient following in the country to replace armed force; and he dared not trust the Royalists with a share in the government for fear lest they should use it ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... this light treatment of the matter an unjust attempt at diminishing his glory, answered respectfully, that it was not for the like of him to judge about that; but he rather thought it was no joke to the opposite party. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... big smash of some kind, but as I don't know what the kind would be I'm not going to talk about it. Besides, I can see that you're making game of me, Tayoga. I've lived long enough with Indians to know that they love their joke." ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... other time William would have considered this a good joke. As it was he took her up like a feather in his arms and carried her down to the cabin. There he set her down on the sofa and was about to withdraw, blushing. He was a very shy youth and had never carried a woman before, let alone one who ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... own designing) these two had actually spent yesterday at the king's palace on Mount Khalak. He perceived that he must give them more definite attention than his half-idle device of the wine—intended as that had been as a mere hyperspatial practical joke, not in the least irreconcilable with his office ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... broader and longer than that of other bears; while his tail, on the other hand, is short and inconspicuous—being completely buried under the fur of his buttocks. So characteristic is this appendage for its extreme shortness, that it is a standing joke among the Indians—when they have killed a grizzly bear—to desire any one unacquainted with the animal, to take hold ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... however, of finding her perfectly reconciled to the arrangement; she now felt the comfort of being undisturbed, and she has kept to her bed ever since. Her mental and bodily strength is gradually declining. But a few days ago she was ready for a joke. When Mrs. Clarke told her that General Halkett sent his love, and 'hoped she would soon be so well again that he might come and give her a kiss, as he had done on her birthday,' she looked only archly at her, and said, 'Tell the general that I have not ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... doute, Madame; you have so much esprit, you laugh at me," said the Frenchman, who took Mrs. Hilson's protestation as a joke. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... lose their humor unless presented in the broad spirit that stamps them as belonging to the plane of farce. We now pass on to motives where the dialogue aims at effects manifestly unnatural and where verisimilitude is sacrificed to the joke, as we have seen it is in the employment ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... immoderately at my doleful complaints. The gaunt Norwegian, the owner of this humble dwelling, made such comical grimaces, and winked his little eyes so frequently and eruditely, in endeavouring to fathom their mirth, that I could not restrain myself, and took a conspicuous part in the joke. After arranging, through King, who had come with us, as forming one of the boat's crew, where and how we should sleep, we went into the open air, and R—— and P——, lighting their cigars, again entered into conversation with the Anglo-Norwegian regarding ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... dying to. And I schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Look down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears. Husband learn to his surprise. God's little joke. Then out she comes. Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and Holy Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. Salvation army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will address the meeting. How I found the Lord. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... that I'm a crook and a kidnapper, and then he'll stop nosing round after me. I'll have an hour's start, and that's all I want. Dogging a man—running him down under his own automobile!" Hand permitted himself a dry smile at his own joke, but immediately added, "It goes against ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... this joke of a house. But we had no pump; all the water we used I brought from a spring in the edge of the woods, the one found by the Gregg party on the night of Christmas, 1849. The first time I visited it and dipped my bucket in the sunken barrel that protected it I had a shock. Before leaving San Francisco, ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... uncle (you confounded old rascal!), that you have no design really, seriously, to oppose my union with Kate. This is merely a joke of yours, I know—ha! ha! ha!—how very pleasant ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... cutting party, and thus he was carrying the responsibility of both jobs. He would be around his guns all day and at night he would be scouting all over "No Man's land" and in December, 1915 it was no joke crawling around in the mud. He never got any rest. He would not eat, and the day of the raid Fritz had straffed us quite a lot. I was in trench S.P. 12 along with Toby when a message came to tell us that a shell had knocked in one of the dugouts and had killed one of our N.C.O's, Corporal ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... feeling with which he wrote them; his looks and movements are transfigured, and communicated to me by the poor art of the printer. His voice, so sincere and earnest, rings in my ear again. He was no Feignwell: apart from his joke, never was a man so real, and free from pretence. No one, as I believe, will ever taste the flavor of certain writers as he has done. He was the last true lover of Antiquity. Although he admitted a few of the beauties of modern times, ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... deprehensorum, extincto a nobis uno, alterum per dies plures, nullo alio quam organorum sexus vinculo sibi adstrictum, amicae suae corpus sursum et deorsum trahentem, mirantes vidimus!—Spanish flies, you exclaim!—as if he had not taken a dose of his own powder; but after the joke is over, we think this is another poser for the advocates of insect intelligence. We found that if either of two insects was destroyed in coition, that state was not interrupted for two or three days. The insects on which are observed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... gambler. But sometimes—there are moments when I might be less or more. There's mystery in the air. This Benton is a chaos. Those hairy toilers of the rails! I've watched them hammer and lift and dig and fight. By day they sweat and they bleed, they sing and joke and quarrel—and go on with the work. By night they are seized by the furies. They fight among themselves while being plundered and murdered by Benton's wolves. Heroic by day—hellish by night.... And so, spirit ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... though honesty compels me to say that I laughed quite as much, or even more, at Mallet's jests than he did at mine. Still for the rhyme's sake (I have always sympathised with the rhymer's difficulties), it was necessary to put the joke on ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... how; you will see them leap out ready-made from hearsay and the murmurs of the crowd, without having in themselves more than a shadow of truth, and, nevertheless, they will remain historical forever. As if by way of pleasantry, and to put a joke upon posterity, the public voice invents sublime utterances to mark, during their lives and under their very eyes, men who, confused, avow themselves as best they may, as not deserving of so much glory and as not being able to support ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... Nevertheless, this pet joke of Gabriel's did not dissipate the constraint and disappointment left upon the company by Uncle Sylvester's unsatisfying performance and early withdrawal, and they separated soon after, Kitty and Marie being glad to escape upstairs together. ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to 2,100 per day, whereas the Common Pleas during the entire year acted upon only 3,140. On the other hand, the Supreme and Superior Courts turned out 37,967. "One day last week one of our 'upright judges,'" said the Nation, "invited a friend to sit by him while he played a little joke. Then he left off calling from the list before him and proceeded to call purely imaginary names invented by himself on the spur of the moment: John Smith, James Snooks, Thomas Noakes, and the like. For every name a man instantly answered and took a certificate. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... brings your letter up to my room in his mouth. It is old Nan-nan's joke: she only sends up yours so, and pretends it is Benjy's own clever selection. I pretend that, too, to him; and he thinks he is doing something wonderful. The other morning I was—well, Benjy hears splashing: and tires of waiting—or his mouth waters. ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... you know, sirs, that being a jester by profession, it is my business to make jokes. I am all the readier, therefore, to present myself, feeling convinced it is a better joke to come to dinner thus unbidden ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... Chamillard, "and he believed that he knew everything and of every sort; this was the more pitiable in that it had got into his head with his promotions, and was less presumption than stupidity, and still less vanity, of which he had none. The joke is, that the mainspring of the king's great affection for him was this very incapacity. He confessed it to the king at every step, and the king was delighted to direct and instruct him; in such sort that he grew jealous ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... way, having previously extracted the ball from the pistol which always lay near the head of his friend's bed. Upon first awaking, and seeing the apparition, the youth who was to be frightened, A., very coolly looked his companion the ghost in the face, and said, "I know you. This is a good joke; but you see I am not frightened. Now you may vanish!" The ghost stood still. "Come," said A., "that is enough. I shall get angry. Away!" Still the ghost moved not. "By ——," ejaculated A., "if you do not in three minutes go away, I'll shoot you." He waited the time, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... the sort of adoration she had no hesitation in showing that she felt for him. He used to call her Mademoiselle ma femme, and M. de Nailles would speak of him as "my daughter's future husband." This joke had been kept up till the little lady had reached her ninth year, when it ceased, probably by order of Madame de Nailles, who in matters of propriety was very punctilious. Jacqueline, too, became less familiar than she had been with the man she called "my great painter." ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... his eyes seemed bursting from their spheres, he swelled to twice his natural dimensions, and, raising himself on his tiptoes, pronounced, in a strain that emulated thunder, "Blood! sir, you seem to make very light of the matter, but it is no joke to me, I'll assure you, and Macleaver shall see that I am not to be affronted with impunity. Sir, I shall take it as a singular favour if you will be the bearer of a billet to him, which I shall write in three words; nay, sir, you must give me leave to insist upon it, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... second, at 5200, the Boche in his excitement lost his wings, and descended on his aerodrome in a wingless coach; his ears must be humming (16th). The third was a nose-to-nose combat with a fighting Aviatik. Too much impetus: I failed to hammer him hollow. In the fourth, same joke with an L.V.G. in a group of three: I failed to hammer him, I lurched: pan, a bullet near my head. In the fifth, I cleaned up the passenger (that is the third this week), then knocked up the pilot very badly at 10 meters,—completely ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... manner: he would overturn him on the ground with his trunk, and Saba would pretend that he was biting. At times, however, he would unexpectedly souse the dog with water, which act was regarded by the latter as a joke of the poorest taste. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... JOKE A form of humor enjoyed by some and misunderstood by most; in England, requiring a diagram, raised letters ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz
... your hand at "slabbing," do you? I warn you that the labour is no joke, and the planks never look so neat as those ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... Lynch said. "Listen, buster, this is the funniest gag I've seen since I came on the Force. Who told you to pull it? Jablonski downstairs? Or one of the boys on the beat? I know those beat patrolmen, always on the lookout for a new joke. But this tops 'em all. This ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the grave mathematical look Made believe he had written a wonderful book, And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! So they chose him right in; a good joke ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... and pillaged as a joke. The thieves were heard laughing as they scampered off like ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... the business which had brought them together, the two kings conversed with each other in a gay and merry manner for some time. The King of France invited Edward to come to Paris and make him a visit. This, of course, was a joke, for Edward would as soon think of accepting an invitation from a lion to come and visit him in his den, as of putting himself in Louis's power by going to Paris. Both monarchs and all the attendants laughed ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... reflection upon the laws of speech and the method of Genesis would have restrained Huxley from sneering at the 'marvelous flexibility' of the Hebrew tongue in the word 'day,' and a New York audience from laughing at the joke rather than the joker. Some tinge of ethical knowledge should have withheld Max Muller from finding the grand distinctive mark of humanity in the power of speech. The merest theorist needs some range of reality for the framework of his theories, and the man of broad principles must ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... Excell just as the marshal stepped out of the crowd and accosted him. For the first time in his life Mose was moved to joke his father. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... on the subject, their witticisms fell flat; but even if the shafts did go home, the feudal custom was so universally respected, that none but the privileged few dared to give the three signals pertaining to the highest rank. Paco Gomez once ventured to break the rule for a joke, but he was received so coldly when he entered the drawing-room that he never cared ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... there, and it was his time to laugh, and he did. He was so tickled that he roared, walking up and down the passage; and he was so pleased that he held out his hand to shake upon the merit of his joke. I was not disposed to be surly and I shook hands with him, and he clapped me on the shoulder, still laughing, and declared that it was a piece of wit worthy of the dissecting-room, and that he would jolt ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... was attracted by his looks; and, being a close observer, she soon noted that, though he talked about laboratory matters with Morton, and was ready to joke or sing with Molly and the two older young ladies present, yet every time Sara addressed him, he turned to answer with an eagerly respectful air, different from the rather careless manner usual with ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... wife, I supposed, were gazing at Tommy's riding camel as she carried the two little dogs in bags, one on each side. Tommy was standing near, trying to make her jump up, but she was too quiet, and preferred lying down. Any how, Tommy would have his joke—so, as the man who was gazing most intently at the pups said, "What's them things, young man?" he replied, "Oh, that's hee's pickaninnies"—sex having no more existence in a black boy's vocabulary than in a highlander's. Then the tall man said to the wife, "Oh, lord, look yer, see how they carries ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... for a moment, as though over some private joke of his own, then at last laid down his pipe and crossed his legs. Oliver leaned back against the wall and Polly curled up on ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... that it would not do to keep the public waiting. He was to play the prayer from "Moses" on one string. On arrival at the theatre he asked the driver, "How much?" "For you," replied the Jehu, "ten francs." "What? Ten francs? You joke," replied the virtuoso. "It is only the price of a ticket to your concert," was the excuse. Paganini hesitated a moment, and then handed to the man what he considered to be a fair remuneration, saying, "I will pay you ten francs when you drive me on ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... him an excellent joke a man entered the room and shot the joker through the head. The opposite guest immediately charged his pistol with effect, and revenged the loss. A party of men, well armed, now rushed in, and a brisk conflict immediately ensued. Popanilla, who ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... nothing. For nothing but the most commonplace of commonplaces; a table of gentlewomen and gentlemen—soft-spoken, sweet-tempered, full of human sympathy, who made me, a stranger, one of them. Ours was a fellowship of common books, common knowledge, mighty aims. We could laugh and joke and think as friends—and the Thing—the hateful, murderous, dirty Thing which in American we call "Nigger-hatred" was not only not there—it could not even be understood. It was a curious monstrosity at which civilized folk laughed ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... to Harry's morning adventure, which had formed the standing joke of the day, was not at all relished by him; and the look of mock gravity which he had assumed now became real. His mother— with whom Harry was a favourite—noticed that he was vexed, and that now was the very time to apply the remedy. She soon, therefore, ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... persistence in time of the specific characters of the mammoth. I trace him from before the Glacial period, through it and after it, unchangeable and unchanged as far as the organs of digestion (teeth) and locomotion are concerned. Now, the Glacial period was no joke: it would have made ducks and drakes of your dear pigeons ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the name of Poor Man's Permacetty (or Spermaceti), "the sovereignst remedy for bruises;"—"perhaps," says Dr. Prior, "as a joke on the Latin name Bursa pastoris, or 'Purse,' because to the poor man this is always his best remedy." And in some parts of England the Shepherd's Purse is known as Clapper Pouch, in allusion to the licensed begging of lepers at our crossways in olden times with a bell and ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... don't want her to do that. That wouldn't be no joke. But what's the good if I get stuck with the things here. I've gotta get 'em in to Berlin. It's been hard enough work on the river all day, an' if it goes on freezin' this way, there'll be no gettin' along to-morrow. Then I c'n sit in the ice with my boat, an' then ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... persons of quite different intelligence and discretion from that beast." Thereupon Messer Giovanni told Mattio in jest to take himself out of his sight for ever; but because Mattio went on laughing, the joke turned to earnest, for Messer Giovanni would not look upon him again, but sent for Messer Antonio Allegretti, Messer Ludovico, and Messer Annibal Caro. On the arrival of these worthy men, I was greatly comforted, and talked reasonably with them awhile, not however ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... 'Since thou hast made a powerless mock snake to frighten me, thou shalt be turned even into a venomless serpent thyself by my curse.' O ascetic, I well knew the power of his penances; therefore with an agitated heart, I addressed him thus, bending low with joined hands, 'Friend, I did this by way of a joke, to excite thy laughter. It behoveth thee to forgive me and revoke thy curse.' And seeing me sorely troubled, the ascetic was moved, and he replied, breathing hot and hard. 'What I have said must come to pass. Listen to what I say and lay it to thy heart. O pious one! when Ruru the pure son of Pramati, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... can help it, when you plead so well for her. Come here, Fan, and mind this one thing; drop all this nonsense, and attend to your books, or off you go; and Canada is no joke in winter time, let ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... "Ha-ha, joke. Gussy, it achieves the same effect without using any dope at all. Listen: a tickler reminds you of your duties and opportunities—your chances for happiness and success! What's the ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... Eildon, he had none but bright and happy thoughts connected with his mother. It was true, she was a widow, but she was a kind and stately lady, round whom her family moved as round a sun and centre, giving light and heat and all good cheer; he could afford to joke about "my mother ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... exact time this destruction of "thirsty tobacco" took place we are left in doubt. It is doubtless a "good joke" got up by some "ponderous joker" for ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Bouzole, you are a cynic! I do not understand how you can have the courage to joke ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... distinctly, & knowing that they were hard to get a shot at, they crept on their hands & knees for some distance, both fired at the same time, & shot the poor sheep through & through; but to turn the joke, they brought up a piece, to have the Dr. & me[42] cook some of it, but failed. This made us something to joke & laugh about for some time, for it is seldom that you meet with anything for merriment, on this journey. ...
— Across the Plains to California in 1852 - Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell • Lodisa Frizell
... burst out Casey. "Sure, an' do ye think I'd be afther playin' a joke on a wounded man, Carl? No, it's no joke. We're raised to the dignity av officers be the forchunes av war an' the recommendations av our superior, Actin' Captain Russell, which same will soon be our captain be commission, Providence an' ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... word made me laugh louder. Carlotta, aware that a joke was in the air, joined in my mirth, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... the men and the particular pursuit, it is all natural enough, but one wearies of the same process being applied an impossible number of times, just as Flaubert was often so intolerable in real life, because he ran a joke to death, and never knew when to put it down. The result in Bouvard et Pecuchet is a lack of proportion and subordination. It is like one of the early Pre-Raphaelite pictures, in which every detail is painted with minute perfection. It was all there, no doubt, and it was ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... declared Lettice Talbot. "I only wish I could go instead. Everyone on our landing is envying you. I shall be rather sorry to lose Paddy—I think she's a joke." ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... good doctor is mighty rare, and after all, it's a good deal more in his encouraging talk than his medicine. You never knowed old Doc' Felix Simpson—he was away before your time and practiced in the country four miles above Skarrow. Doc' Simpson would have his joke, and to hear him laugh would cure 'most any case of ailment. Lawse! how I used to love to hear him tell about old P'silly Orton and the time she played dead. Doc' Simpson said that aunt P'silly took a notion that she wanted her old ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... and speechified, and everybody gullied, The tavern-keepers diddled, and the magistracy bullied; Like puppets were the townsfolk led in that show they call a raree; The Gotham sages were a joke to those of Canterbury. With my coal-black ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... explained Bulchester, "if that man is really a parson, they have not much of a set of witnesses to prove that the ceremony was a joke. Harwin minus, though he has left his confession; Waldo interested in proving it a real marriage; Mistress Katie interested the other way, and the Eveleigh,—you have not seen ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... Afterwards there was a dinner at the house of the States-General, in honour of the stadholder, to which the Admiral of Arragon was likewise bidden. That arrogant but discomfited personage was obliged to listen to many a rough martial joke at his disaster as they sat at table, but he bore the brunt of the encounter with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... treatment, until some one came to rescue her. Then puss crept softly away to the farther end of the room, and hid under a chair, where she began to lick her wounded tail, while Poll laughed and chuckled over the joke. ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... serious, and no joke, I assure you, if you were actually obliged to listen to my whistling," was the curt reply, and he turned once more to scan the ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... some other perfect stranger had just called out a particularly hateful, horrid joke about something you were not in the least to blame for! If you hadn't said what you did, I shouldn't have said what I did, Tilly Mack. As it was, I—I just couldn't help it; I ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... subject. They wish the Governor to order out the militia at once, and take possession of the territory with the strong hand. There was a British army-captain at the Mansion-House; and an idea was thrown out that it would be as well to seize upon him as a hostage. I would, for the joke's sake, that it had been done. Personages at the tavern: the Governor, somewhat stared after as he walked through the bar-room; Councillors seated about, sitting on benches near the bar, or on the stoop ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... meanwhile calmly promenaded about in a state of nature in the open air, protesting that this novel form of exercise would do him good. We occupied the interval in discussing the important problem of Beethoven's theme construction, until, by way of a joke, I told him that I could see Councillor Carns of Dresden coming up behind him with a party, which for a moment quite frightened him. Thus with light hearts we reached the Reuss valley near Attinghausen, and in the evening wandered on as far as Amsteg, and ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... beginning to play tricks on him, and he didn't like it, and thought he hadn't deserved it, and would like his discharge at our next port. I told him he was a d——d fool, of course, to begin with; and that men were more apt to try a joke with a chap they liked than with anybody they wanted to get rid of; unless it was a bad joke, like flooding his bunk, or filling his boots with tar. But it wasn't that kind of practical joke. The doctor said that the men were trying to frighten him, and he didn't like it, and ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... had been setting men, it seems, by the ears; and the drollest little atrocities they do certainly report. Not but we have seen better in the Nenagh paper, so far as Ireland is concerned. But the pet little joke was in La Vendee. Miss Famine, who is the girl for our money, raises the question—whether any of them can tell the name of the leader and prompter to these high jinks of hell—if so, let ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... proceeded. With the constant bandying of compliment, joke, and repartee, among the merry and self-satisfied lordlings who assumed the right of engrossing the conversation, course after course came and passed in rapid succession, till a sufficient variety of viands and other substantial ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... frightfully cruel," said Emile, laughing. "You are rich now," he went on gravely; "very well, I will give you two months at most before you grow vilely selfish. You are so dense already that you cannot understand a joke. You have only to go a little further to believe in ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... and the unreality thereof has been cleared up by Vollmer, as will be duly shown. The squabble of the medieval savants has also given rise to the story that Apicius is but a joke perpetrated upon the world by a medieval savant. This will be refuted also later on. Our book is a genuine Roman. Medieval savants have made plenty of Roman "fakes," for sundry reasons. A most ingenious hoax was the ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... this old hooker is haunted I'll never play another joke," he chuckled. "Get in and show ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... not want to get angry, he at least got red, and the joke seemed to him in bad taste. But when Fougas announced that he had loved the grandmother in her youth, grandfather Langevin no longer hesitated to fling a bottle at his head. The Colonel's son, his splendid grandchildren, and even the bride all jumped up in high dudgeon and there was a ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... my experience o' life, that there are some constitootions as don't agree with jokin'; an' yours is one on 'em. Now, if you'd take the advice of a plain man, you'd never try it on. You're a grave man by natur', and you're so bad at a joke that a feller can't quite tell w'en you're a-doin' of it. See, now, I do declare I wos as near drivin' you right over the stern o' your own boat as could be, only by good luck I seed the twinkle in your ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mr. Peter McMunn, who, falling off a motor-cycle, landed in that quiet Scots village and proceeded to turn it, by a series of stunts, into a well-known watering-place. He undertook the job, I gather, partly for a joke and partly for the bright eyes of Evelyn Kirbet, whose father put up the money for the purposes of publicity and propaganda. The transformation of a hamlet into a seaside resort has been treated as a sort of psychological romance by Mr. OLIVER ONIONS in Mushroom ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... labouring under temporary specialities, he for the time had faith in nothing else, and was not content that any one near him should have any other faith. They called him Viscount Papua and Baron Borneo; and his wife, who headed the joke against him, insisted on having her title. Miss Dunstable swore that she would wed none but a South Sea islander; and to Mark was offered the income and duties of Bishop of Spices. Nor did the Proudie family set themselves against these little sarcastic quips with any overwhelming severity. ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... she is to be about our pleasant, cheerful home snubbing me and putting on airs—why, I'll have none of it. Let her go, Victoria, I say—let her go if she wants to; but if she comes to me she must come in a cheerful spirit, and joke with me, and take my fun, and be as agreeable as you ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... rereading some of those imaginary letters to Bill that have been dancing in our head. They are full of all sorts of fine stuff. If Bill ever gets them he will know how we love him. To use O. Henry's immortal joke, we have days of Damon and Knights of Pythias writing those uninked letters to Bill. A curious thought has come to us. Perhaps it would be better if we never saw Bill again. It is very difficult to talk ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... refused to be sworn in a special constable, that he might be free to assume the post of President of the Republic at a moment's notice." And those who knew Lord Houghton best suspect that he himself originated the joke at his own expense. The assured ease of young Milnes's social manner, even among complete strangers, so unlike the morbid self-repression and proud humility of the typical Englishman, won for him the nickname of "The Cool of the Evening." His ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... ahead; so she trotted up alongside, but she could not get ahead. The young people were giggling. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy doesn't like to be the joke all the time. Suddenly she leaned over toward them and said: "Will ye tell me something?" Oh, yes, they would. "Then," she said, "which of you are Tea ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... look just that-wise that I knew not whether I to need to kiss her, or to shake her; and truly, how should I know; for my heart did ache that I have her to mine arms; but my brain to say that she did go over-far in the joke; and truly you to see that I did not be unreasonable, neither to be lacking of grace; for indeed I do think that I was swayed all-ways, because that I saw all the dear way that her pretty nature did work; and to conceive of her mood and to understand and be stirred; but yet ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... comprehended something of the nature of the joke, and, hearing steps and smothered laughter above, turned back and slipped into a closet at the end of the hall, where she shrank into a corner and waited with eager ears and ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... little incidents occurred to his memory, and each one brought on a fresh explosion. Even his own proposal to Zillah was remembered. He wondered whether Windham had proposed also, and been rejected. This only was needed to his mind to complete the joke. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... to Augustine [*QQ. in Genes., qu. cxlv], when Joseph said that there was no one like him in the science of divining, he spoke in joke and not seriously, referring perhaps to the common opinion about him: in this ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... It was a favorite joke of Cuthbert's to compare himself with that wonderfully humorous character of Spanish literature, who took himself so solemnly even while he furnished merriment for everybody—Don Quixote, the Knight of La Mancha—this wild expedition ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... reach him in respectable time, was the think inside me," Jane fach answered. "What other design have I? Stay here I will. A boy, dear me, for a joke was Shacob with me. Heaps of gifts he made me; enough to fill a ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... just give this accursed drunkard a good lesson that he may keep his throat dry and listen a little more to old people!"—Immediately twelve henchmen leaped out of his drum and began giving the man a sound thrashing. Then the man saw that it was no joke and begged for mercy. "Dear old father Wind," cried he, "be merciful, and let me get off alive. I'll not come to thee again though I should have to wait till the Judgment Day, and I'll do all thy behests."—"Into ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... book. When this idea took definite and permanent shape it caused a reaction. There was a revolt against it, for the hero thus engendered had qualities which the national sense of humor could not endure in silence. The consequence is, that the Washington of Weems has afforded an endless theme for joke and burlesque. Every professional American humorist almost has tried his hand at it; and with each recurring 22d of February the hard-worked jesters of the daily newspapers take it up and make a little fun out of it, sufficient for the day that is passing over them. The opportunity ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... confident all along, and now, when he reckoned on shaking off his opponent and getting a clear lead, he found out he was destined to do just the reverse. What long faces the "sixers" pulled as their man began to puff and slacken pace! A half-mile race is no joke, believe me; and so Chesney began to find out. Before half the distance back was covered he showed unmistakable signs of going to pieces, and—a very ominous sign—took to changing from one side to another at ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... tales of exiles and travellers. The aspect of the great river of the Naharaim, which could be compared with the Nile for the volume of its waters, excited their admiration. They were, however, puzzled by the fact that it flowed from north to south, and even were accustomed to joke at the necessity of reversing the terms employed in Egypt to express going up or down the river. This first Syrian campaign became the model for most of those subsequently undertaken by the Pharaohs. It took the form of a bold advance ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... in this line, and yet not involve myself, but I cannot. I would say, in a general way, that the Indian is a plausible being, and one needs to be wary with him, and not too loth to suspect him of meditating some dire practical joke, which shall issue in the utter confusion and discomfiture of its victim, whilst its author shall appropriate the main comfort and jubilation. Though the Indian, perhaps, does not conceive these in the determinedly hostile spirit with which the Mohometan who seeks to compass the Christian's undoing ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... it's a great joke," she said. "Anything that makes trouble for me is a joke to you. She can't join. What do you suppose Annette and Mrs. Lake and the rest would say if I proposed my servant girl as a member? Do stop being silly, if you can. What are you grinning ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... playfully spread a plan of Paris on the table, and had stuck a pin in it, saying at the same time: "When you find me a suitable house there, in this situation and at that distance from you, I promise to take it." It was considered as a joke, but Mary now affirmed that the Villa Clematis was at the exact distance from the Rue de la Tour (where she lived) that her father had mentioned. Moreover, the roads in the avenues leading from Clematis to Passy ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... my joke to Tom. Instead of smiling, he said: "That's not the way to get on in England. ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... that I could have an orchestra of soft-toned instruments, and enlisted men to sing, but that all was to be under my guidance. I must select the music, be present at all practicings, and give my advice in any way needed. At first I thought it simply a very unpleasant joke, but when it finally dawned upon me that those two men were really in earnest, I was positive they must be crazy, and that I told them. The whole proposition seemed so preposterous, so ridiculous, so everything! I shall always believe that Bishop Brewer suggested church music by ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... It was a family joke to call the chipmunk's burrow by that name, and though the puppies did not understand the pun ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... was not asleep, had a great inclination to laugh, but checked himself, in order not to spoil the joke. As he had proposed and arranged, he spread his noose where he wished, that is to say round the spot where the ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... laughed, but as a matter of fact I cursed. Deep in my soul I cursed. Her little joke, her pretty bit of acting, had left a stinging sense of loss. As suddenly as this ruthless comet swept into my orbit it had swung out and on; for one delicious moment we had touched across the infinite, but now my harmony was shattered, the strings of my ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... young lancer, 'I should be devilish sorry to charge or be charged with him.' And here they all chuckled at this puppy's silly joke, and I drew ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... stroke the gentleman With our naked sword, Wherewith we shear meadows and fields. We shear princes and lords. Labourers are often athirst; If the gentleman will stand beer and brandy The joke will soon be over. But, if our prayer he does not like, The sword has ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
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