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More "Prank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exchanging the "war extra" which the carrier left at the door for her, for the German paper served to Mrs. Schultz, her pet aversion on the floor below. Mrs. Rafferty upset the wash-tub in her rage at this prank. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... away!" but, instead of complying with my demand, he snatched his hat and hanger, and, assuming the looks, swagger, and phrase of Pistol, burst out into the following exclamation, "Ha! must I then perform inglorious prank of sylvan ape in mountain forest caught! Death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days, and lay my head in fury's lap—Have we not Hiren here?" This buffoonery did not answer his expectation, for, by this time, the company was bent on seeing him in a new character. Mr. Banter ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... who when at home manifested the most gentle and wide-reaching feelings; most of them could not by any possibility have slapped a kitten merely for the prank and yet all of them who had seen an unknown man shot through the head in battle had little more to think of it than if the man had been a rag-baby. Tender they might be; poets they might be; but they were all horned with a provisional, temporary, but absolutely essential callouse which was ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... doing an act of justice. I deserved what you said, but I didn't deserve what has followed. I meant no harm—it was a silly prank, and I have suffered for it as if it were a crime, and the consequences are not ended yet. I should think that, if there is a moral government of the universe, the Judge of all the earth would know when to hold his hand. And now ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the maids of the forest, to set out the bride in the most seemliest sort that might be; but howsoever she helped to prank out Aliena, yet her eye was still on Ganymede, who was so neat in a suit of grey, that he seemed Endymion when he won Luna with his looks, or Paris when he played the swain to get the beauty of the nymph Oenone. Ganymede, like a pretty ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... Symmes, everybody knows what century it is." She smiled at him glowingly, thinking she had caught him at a prank. It was nice, she thought, to have gotten through to him tonight, on the eve of the new year. That meant that she was living up to her motto the ...
— Life Sentence • James McConnell
... alone and unnoticed, suddenly went up to Pyotr Pavlovitch, took him unexpectedly and firmly with two fingers by the nose, and succeeded in leading him two or three steps across the room. He could have had no grudge against Mr. Gaganov. It might be thought to be a mere schoolboy prank, though, of course, a most unpardonable one. Yet, describing it afterwards, people said that he looked almost dreamy at the very instant of the operation, "as though he had gone out of his mind," but that was recalled and reflected upon long afterwards. In the ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... believe, would have fairly gone demented had I not broken the spell by a roar of laughter. When I explained the trick I had played, she too laughed heartily, and boxed my ears, saying it was just like me, and that I was always up to some prank or another. ...
— Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... well acquainted with them before. I would fain have gone into the mad House, and have seen them in their time of Purgatory, but the King would not suffer it, because, he told me, they would do me, or any other white Man, an Injury, that ventured in amongst them; so I desisted. They play this Prank with Girls as well as Boys, and I believe it a miserable Life they endure, because I have known several of them run away, at that time, to avoid it. Now, the Savages say, if it was not for this, they could never keep their Youth in Subjection, besides that it hardens them ever after to ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... "This prank might have easily proved fatal to our beautiful companionship, but it had been done merely to make our game exactly like ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... with you, Gwen! You're always thinking about yourself! You've done a silly, mad prank to-day, and I don't know what Mrs. Cass will say when she arrives. Really, at your age you ought to know better and remember your dignity. You're not a child now, though I'm sure you behave like one. Go and put that bucket and scrubbing-brush away, ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... had been no wrongdoing; not even a mischievous prank, except, perhaps, the breaking down of the ladder, and yet it seemed a pity that Stella should have suffered the most, when she never would have dreamed of staying at the tree-house after it began to look like rain, had it not ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... to explain to me how that Mistress Alison (which was her name) was a dear and bosom friend, and she it was that had been drest in the Court suit to play a prank for a wager with a certain young man who would be lover to her, an he might. And I then to come along, and so speedy to offence that truly I never saw her face plain, because that I was so utter jealous. And so the Lady Mirdath had been more ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... will, he calculates, be stronger than on him, and will bring her to better terms shortly. Dauphiness needs bread; one may have fine clipping at the skirts of her, if she try retreat. That Dauphiness would play the prank she did next morning, Friedrich had not ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... exists, and ought to exist, in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality of the Horner of Wycherley and the Careless of Congreve is as absurd as ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... fifteen minutes every evening with the best middleweight in the corps. There were times in his early cadet days when he was suspected of having an ugly temper, and perhaps with reason. Exasperated at some prank played at his expense by a little "yearling" toward the close of his first—the "plebe"—encampment, Loring actually kicked the offender out of his tent. The boy was no match for the older, heavier man, but flew at him like a wildcat then and there, and Loring suddenly found ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... at a safe distance from the bullets, his horse, Battle, took it into his head to play him a very shabby trick, and which my love for the truth of history constrains me to record. Wonderful then as it may seem to those experienced in war, this little prank of the faithful steed ended the term of his own life and, as if by a miracle, gave the victory to the allies. And it was done in this manner. A bountiful providence, as if foreseeing the sanguinary character of the struggle that was ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... This prank encouraged him very much indeed, for he then felt that now he had certainly escaped without any bad consequences; so he went on applauding his own ingenuity, and came to a farm where several little boys were at play. He desired leave to play with them, which they allowed him to do. But he ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... wilder, the reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... of the service I can do you, and the amount of my reward, and then you shall have my answer. With respect to Dawson, I will confess to you, that I did once know him well, and that we have done many a mad prank together, which I should not like the bugaboos and bulkies to know; you will, therefore, see that I am naturally reluctant to tell you any thing about him, unless your honour will inform me of the why and ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Escosura firmed his intimacy with the future poet. He describes graphically his first meeting with the youth who was to be his lifelong friend. He first saw Jos sliding down from a third-story balcony on a tin waterspout. In the light of later years Escosura felt that in this boyish prank the child was father of the man. The boy who preferred waterspouts to stairways, later in life always scorned the beaten path, and "the illogical road, no matter how venturesome and hazardous it was, attracted him to it by virtue of that sort of fascinating charm which the abyss exercises over ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... a thrill of alarm, for the first time, shot through Gard. It was not reassuring. He thought of Rudi. Was this some official prank young Bucher had set going? It would be like him. He must be a spy, as Anderson had insisted. Was the son trying to act with confederates far away over here ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... readers will remember the thrilling experiences of this boyish trio during the early trials of the new submarine torpedo boat, both above and below the surface. These readers will remember, also, for instance, the great prank played by the boys on the watch officer of one of the stateliest battleships ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... to believe it. There are two of us. That dinner! And out of an innocent prank comes this! Folly, always folly!" And as she remembered the piece of folly she was about to start out upon, she laughed. "Mad? Yes. Only, to your madness there is ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... waxed apace, and I followed them. At the same time, I was fully conscious that I was playing a mad prank without being able to stop myself. My disordered condition ran away with me; I was inspired with the craziest notions, which I followed blindly as they came to me. I couldn't help it, no matter how much I told myself that I was playing the fool. I made the most idiotic ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... the boat is gone! what prank next? Thou careless unthrift, ill-luck follows i' thy wake. She has slipped anchor, and the little Kitty is gone to the Manx herring-boats. I am ruined, thou limb of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... a love in us all, both old and young, of being courted and admired!—and so irresistible to their elderships to be flattered, that all power is not over with them; but that they may still class and prank it with their daughters.—It vexed me heartily to have her tell me of this proposal with self-complaisant simperings; and yet she affected to speak of it as if she had no ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... your time, dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little lobster ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... gloomy associations, the name of Venice will conjure up scenes of brilliant and wanton gayety, and that in the foreground of the brightest picture will be the Carnival of Venice, full of antic delight, romantic adventure, and lawless prank. But the carnival, with all the old merry- making life of the city, is now utterly obsolete, and, in this way, the conventional, masquerading, pleasure-loving Venice is become as gross a fiction as if, like that other conventional Venice of which I have but spoken, it had never existed. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... ebullition foaming white (Like other things I could relate) My heart of old would captivate. The last poor obol I was worth— Was it not so?—for thee I gave, And thy inebriating wave Full many a foolish prank brought forth; And oh! what verses, what delights, Delicious ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... that Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... of laughter persisted. The court, save for a page, who lay asleep on a bench in the gallery, was empty. Tignonville scanned the boy suspiciously; a male disguise was often adopted by the court ladies, and if Madame would play a prank on him, this was a thing to be reckoned with. But a boy it seemed to be, and after a while the young man went back ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... have been lost, if such an one had not been upon the Bench; nor a profligate Youth disinherited, if he had not got drunk every Night by toasting an outed Ministry. I remember a Tory, who having been fined in a Court of Justice for a Prank that deserved the Pillory, desir'd upon the Merit of it to be made a Justice of Peace when his Friends came into Power; and shall never forget a Whig Criminal, who, upon being indicted for a Rape, told his Friends, You see what a Man suffers for ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the Preacher's Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You are a ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... had occasion to punish her one day last week for a particularly mischievous prank, and after she had talked it over very solemnly sent the little girl up to ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... of, and wrote it too! Yet here, in judgment and discretion both, Ripe to the dropping, scorned and ridiculed. Oh, Jefferson, what mischief have you wrought— Confounding Nature's order, setting fools To prank themselves, and sit in wisdom's seat By right divine, out Heroding a King's! But I shall keep straight on—pursue my course, Responsible and with authority, Though boasters gird at ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... of Lake and placed them on a height of some 4000 feet at the north-west end of Lake Nyassa, deserves the highest place. Dr. Beke, in his guess, came nearer the sources than most others, but after all he pointed out where they would not be found. Old Nile played the theorists a pretty prank by having his springs 500 miles south of them all! I call mine a contribution, because it is just a hundred years (1769) since Bruce, a greater traveller than any of us, visited Abyssinia, and having discovered the sources of the Blue ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... these are the tribunes of the people, The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them; For they do prank them in authority, Against all ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... cannot navigate the ship, do you; and must needs try and take an observation yourself? Do you and your mates try that prank again, and I'll land you all on the first island we sight, where you may follow your own pleasure, if the savages don't knock you on the head and eat you; and if some one doesn't take you off, which is not very likely, there you will remain to ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" upon some historic issue, and the historian led him grotesquely astray. Who would not have accepted anything Gibbon said without criticism? Who would have expected this great personage capable of indulging in a school-boy prank? Goldsmith's writings prove him well instructed and widely read, and show his mind as curiously stored and equipped as its whole genius was charming and gracious. If he could not talk, but could only write, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... played this prank with the wig, you can't suppose that Pen could have been very ill upstairs; otherwise, though she had grown to care for him ever so little, common sense of feeling and decorum would have prevented her from performing any ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... all wet and so are you. Your bedding is—now what kind of prank is that? I came up ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... some brighter thoughts possess him, For the tears are dried the while. And the old, worn face is wrinkled In a reminiscent smile, From the middle of the forehead To the feebly trembling lip, At some ancient prank remembered ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... that they were glad he was going, and hoped he might never come back any more. Not a creature did anything but rejoice as the royal beggar was tumbled rudely out from his own father's gardens and left standing alone in the highway, already heartily sorry for his prank, and quite at his wits' end as to what to do with the Court which he ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... pretty good boy in the main, was a crafty one. I never knew, certainly, whether or not Halstead and Ellen had any previous knowledge as to the prank Addison played with the Vermifuge, but I rather think not. There was another large flask-shaped bottle in the same cupboard, about half full of elderberry wine, old and quite thick, which Gram had made years before. It was used only "for sickness," and was always kept ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... they get a shock, though, when they come to Eeny-Meeny?" In their mind's eye they could all see the sensation caused by the discovering of Eeny-Meeny possibly years hence at the base of the rock, and the prank appealed to ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... his fourth spouse With all the ceremonies of his rank, Who cleared her sparkling eyes and smoothed her brows, As suits a matron who has played a prank; These must seem doubly mindful of their vows, To save the credit of their breaking bank: To no men are such cordial greetings given As those whose wives have ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... precisely similar experience, but, also, of taking part in a ridiculous dream. At that instant Jervaise Hall, its owners, dependants and friends, had the air of being not realities but symbols pushed up into my thought by some prank of the fantastic psyche who dwells in the subconscious. I should not have been surprised at any incongruity in the ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... If I may be so bold, by your mistress-ship's license, As to speak and show my mind and sentence, I think of this you may the boy thank; For I know that he playeth you many a like prank, And that would you say, if you knew as much as we, That his daily conversation and behaviour see; For if you command him to go speak with some one, It is an hour, ere he woll be gone; Then woll he run forth, and play in the street, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... now laughed heartily at the puzzling the friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him; he's only pesthering you with bog-Latin; but, at any rate to do him justice, he's not a bad Scholar, I can tell you that.... Your health, Prank, you droll crathur—your health. I have only one fault to find with you, and that is, that you fast and mortify yourself too much. Your fasting has reduced you from being formerly a friar of very genteel dimensions to a cut of corpulency ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... to think that the boys ran away because of some childish prank put on by them the night before. They broke some windows in a couple of shanties down by the tracks, or, at least, the other boys say they did, and Joe thinks they ran away because of that. He accounts in that way for their not calling ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... him now, I do, skippin' along street fresh an' nimblelike, his eyne chock full o' mischief lookin' round fur to see some poor soul to play a prank on. It do feel strange-like to have him a-sittin' by my elbow today. Many's the tale I could tell o' his doin' an' our sufferin'. Why, I mind a poor lump of a 'prentice as I wunst had, a loon as ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... about Just's brave acknowledgment, where silence would have covered the whole thing, appealed to him. The thought of the way the absent father and mother had met every confession of his own that he could remember in a life of prank-playing softened the words which came next ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... behind him, the swirl of a petticoat, and the clang of a pewter plate as it fell noisily to the floor. His companion looked up swiftly, the smile on his face broadening to a snigger. Claude turned too as quickly as he could and looked, his face hot, his mind suspecting some prank to be played on him; to his astonishment he discovered nothing to account for the laugh. The girl appeared to be bending over the embers on the hearth, the men to be engaged with their meal; and baffled and perplexed he turned again and, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... the rare pleasure of seeing her leap over the Falls and emerge in little fragments and splinters of timber in the river below. Thousands had gathered on the Canadian shore, and on Goat Island, to witness a prank never matched in audacity since the British "guerrillas" from the other side, in the time of the Canadian rebellion, seized the steamer "Caroline" at Schlosser, set her on fire, and sent her down the Falls—an act which almost lit ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... my guards looked behind them—there lay the city, like Sodom and Gomorrah—the whole horizon was one mass of fire, brimstone, and smoke; and forty hills echoed and reflected the infernal prank far and wide. A panic seized them all—I take advantage of the moment, and, quick as lightning—my fetters had been taken off, so nearly was my time come—while my guards were looking away petrified, like Lot's wife, I shot off—tore through the crowd—and away! After running some sixty paces I throw ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... brains o' a cock spug," I heard him sayin' till himsel', "ye michta jaloosed they were to play ye some prank. You muckle, dozent gozlin'," he says; an' he took himsel' a skelp i' the side o' the heid wi' his open luif that near ca'd him on his back. In his stagger his feet tickled amon' his claes, an' he gaithered them up, an' lookit fair dumfoondered ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... and poured out their tale, to Mrs. Moss's great amusement, for she saw in it only some playmate's prank, and was not much impressed by ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... pomp and circumstance, The gauds in which we prank it? Germ ends for us our fine romance, Wrapped in a dingy blanket. We set out braggartly in mirth, World's bravest men and tallest, To do the mightiest thing on earth, And here we're lying, nothing worth, Succumbent ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... in his own day, but, one reads between the lines, he doesn't believe any of them. One error, he says, begets another, and everything is exaggerated in the hope of making converts to the talker's opinion. One miracle bruited all over France turned out to be a prank of young people counterfeiting ghosts. When one hears a marvel, he should always say, "perhaps." Better be apprentices at sixty then doctors at ten. Now witches, he continues, are the subject of the wildest and most foolish accusations. Bodin had proposed that they should be killed on ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... time for no more, for Wayne Wayland entered, followed by another gentleman, at the first sight of whom Emerson started, while his mind raced off into a dizzy whirl of incredulity. It could not be! It was too grotesque—too ridiculous! What prank of malicious fate was this? He turned his eyes to the door again, to see if by any chance there were a third visitor, but there was not, and he was forced to respond to Mr. Wayland's greeting. The other man had meanwhile stepped directly to Mildred, as if he had eyes for no one else, and was ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... probable that there was any real connection between these Gates, of Saracenic design, carved (it is said) in Himalayan cedar, and the Temple of Somnath. But tradition did ascribe to them such a connection, and the eccentric prank of a clever man in high place made this widely known. Nor in any case can we regard as alien to the scope of this book the illustration of a work of mediaeval Asiatic art, which is quite as remarkable for its own character and indisputable history, as for the questionable ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... ominously, sparks to fly out at the top, and soot and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if she ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... was speeding him into other experiences ere he reached his bed that night. Some of the consequences of his mischievous prank were to be immediate, others ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... love thee; but my mother—I could not trust her where she thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ways ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thing. If Ray Rose were an intimate friend of mine, I should resent her performance and make a fuss about it. But she is such a casual acquaintance,—why, probably I shall never see her again after I go away from Lakewood,—and so I consider it better judgment to ignore her silly prank, rather than stir up a ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... I'll jump when you do;" and Gus calmly sat down again, bound in honor to stand by his mate till the smash came, though rather dismayed at the audacity of the prank. ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... sovereign, that he was, therefore, quite innocent of any intention to inflict injury upon the person of the emperor, and that he, William, had, after all, got nothing but what he deserved for playing such a prank. Moreover, in order to show the citizen that he bore him no grudge, he sent him, by way of consolation for his arrest and the destruction of his hat, a portrait bearing the autograph signature of the kaiser, as well as the words: "In memory of Sylvester-nacht."—New ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... exclaimed. "Can't you see that I had no part in this, that the minx devised it all by herself expressly to thwart me? Don't let her have the satisfaction of outmanoeuvering both of us. Don't let a mere prank of a child spoil all our arrangements. She'll be a good wife ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... friend Mr. Carvel is far too wise to be upset by a boyish prank which deserves no notice save a caning. And that, my lad," he added lightly, "I dare swear you got with interest." And he called for a glass of the old Madeira when Scipio came with the tray, and departed with a polite inquiry after my Aunt Caroline's health, and a prophecy that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that he himself was a goody-goody—far from it; he was a terrible prank maker, and more than once narrowly missed suffering serious consequences. But when he really grew up and it came to an acquaintance with women, very few have even attracted him. I began to fear that he was becoming hardened and would never ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... way it could be done in the time," I said, calling to mind a prank related by a gay little friend—"clap ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... Cossacks; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbours looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... he went on to say, trying to take the thing as a joke. "Some kind friend sends me a solemn warning, and then neglects to sign his name. Do you think any of the fellows of the escadrille could be up to a prank?" ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... at hand, fairly startling her, it was so unexpected. "Zoe, what mad prank is this? Let me help you ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... others, is of short duration. Cave's superiority in literature exalted him to an invidious familiarity with boys who were far above him in rank and expectations; and, as in unequal associations it always happens, whatever unlucky prank was played was imputed to Cave. When any mischief, great or small, was done, though, perhaps, others boasted of the stratagem, when it was successful, yet, upon detection, or miscarriage the fault was sure to fall ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... brown men had gone below, where Barnay had immediately retired, tucking his beard in his collar and muttering sedition. If the two strange creatures were twin Robin Goodfellows perpetrating a monstrous twentieth century prank, if they were gigantic evolutions of Puck whose imagination never went far beyond threshing corn with shadowy flails, at least this very modern caper demanded respect for so perfectly catching the spirit of the times. At ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... launched as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank— For time at last sets all things even— And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... of this, he understood it. The teacher had a habit of spending an evening, now and then, at Dr. Lanham's, and the boys no doubt intended to play a prank on him in going or coming. There being now no moonlight, the village streets were very dark, and there was every opportunity for a trick. Riley's father's house stood next on the street to Dr. Lanham's; the lots were divided by an alley. This gave the triplets ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... have it that at that moment my father was struck with leprosy; and struck to the heart assuredly he was, nor was he ever the same man again. I always believed that those words made him harder upon every prank of poor Hal's, till any son save Hal would have become his foe! And see now, the old bedesman may be in the right; poor pretty Blanche has long been in her grave, Thomas is with her now, and Jamie,'—he lowered his voice,—'when men say that Harry hath more of Alexander in ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... silver, and dymonts, and what not. I dinna ken what spring the fairy played, but this I ken weel, that Wullie had nae great goo o' his performance; so he sits thinkin' to himsel': 'This maun be a deil's get, Auld Waughorn himsel' may come to rock his son's cradle, and play me some foul prank;' so he catches the bairn by the cuff o' the neck, and whupt him into the fire, bagpipes ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... scoffed, twisting his immense iron-grey moustaches with complacency. "I can't guess what prank you may be up to, but you are never starting for Venice in a ball-dress. You 're capable of a good deal, my dear, but you ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... being ouerheard it was brought in question before the heads of the Uniuersity: Dr. Cosens, being Vice Chancelor noe punishment is inioined him: but on Ash-wednesday next a recantation in regent house of some popish tenets Nicols let fall: I p'ceive by M^r Breercliffe some such prank vsed towards y^r sonne: I desire to know what y^u did therin: thinking I cannot doe god better seruice then bring it vppon the stage either in Parliament if it hold: or informing some Lords of the Counsail to whom I stand much oblieged ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... impudent and domineering, a bully but not a coward, good-natured when deferred to, the feared leader of a boisterous, imitative clique. Until Pauline came he had rarely noticed a girl—never except to play her some prank more or ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... Oddo repented his prank when he saw, in the flickering light behind the crowd of guests, who seemed to hang together like a bunch of grapes, the figures of his grandfather and Erica. The old man had come out in the cold for his sake; and Erica, ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... think about that picture over the altar. Of course, they would naturally have replaced it! I wondered who had found old de Wiggs up there; I wondered if he knew about it, and if he had any idea who had played that prank. I looked to his pew; yes, there he sat, rosy and beaming, bland as ever! I looked for old Peter Dexter, president of the Dexter Trust Company—yes, he was in his pew, wizened and hunched up, prematurely bald. And Stuyvesant Gunning, of the Fidelity National—they were all here, the masters of ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... derided. His theme, however, is not criticism of the Allies, but appraisement of Germany; and his arguments, simply but eloquently expressed, should be very closely regarded by those haphazard optimists who suppose this War to be the personal prank of a braggart Kaiser, doomed to an immediate failure for want of his subjects' support. I have devoured more pages of printed matter since this trouble began than I care to think about, but from the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons whom he met and ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Duras, you should have advanced the clock by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you deny this, my ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... too absurd view to take of the thing!' cried Urania, with an injured air. 'An innocent practical joke, not involving harm of any kind; a little girlish prank played on the spur of the moment. I thought you were more sensible than to be offended—much less seriously angry—at any ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... the river's trembling edge There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with white, And starry river-buds among the sedge, And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge With moonlight beams of their own watery light; And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green As soothed the ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... appreciate this way he's got of treating it like a spoiled kid's prank. I'm going to make him recognize the fact that I'm a man, by golly, and that I look at things like a man. He's got to be proud to have me in the family, before I come into the family. He ain't going to take me in as one more ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... 'Puck,' 'Bogle', are the same as the German 'Spuk' and the Danish 'Spogelse,' without the sibilant aspiration. These words are general names for any kind of spirit, and correspond to the 'pouk' of Piers Ploughman. In Danish 'spog' means a joke, trick, or prank, and hence the character of Robin Goodfellow. In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, 'at pukra' means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely. The names of these spirits seem to have originated in their boisterous temper—'spuken,' ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... her dress. Up to that point she seemed to be embarrassed, and did not know whether to resent such unconventional conduct or not. She asked if they were sailors; they replied in the affirmative. It then seemed to dawn upon her that it was merely a mischievous prank being played on her interrogator; but she was assured in a sailorly manner by both that they knew it was very funny, but they were in earnest all the same. She realized the true ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... at top speed through the forest, never minding the branches. They had seven horses. Such a mad-cap prank it was! The village rang with the hue and cry, and the forest aisles echoed. Presently the tumult died away. The blind course had plunged into a swamp, and the three mischief-makers were forced to halt uncertainly. They listened keenly. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... Miss Mischief had been up to some prank, which had turned out disastrously. But it must have been a serious one, and perhaps there were grave ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... for the love of it, and who in the dark listened to the troubadours below, also for the love of it. A great cavalry leader, he shone at his brightest in the chase, and, when there was no fighting to be done, his were the spirits of a boy, and he was as quick for a prank as any ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... had a great debate amongst 'em, Aunt Martha fin'lly admittin' it was just a little prank of Hadley's, her being roped down; but she was sure I had tried to murder him, just for nothing at all. Hadley says so too. In fact, he tells seven diff'rent yarns in as many minutes, each one makin' me ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... did not know what to do. The servants ran noisily about the house and yard, shouting and disputing. Natasha, with the ardor characteristic of all she did suddenly set to work too. At first her intervention in the business of packing was received skeptically. Everybody expected some prank from her and did not wish to obey her; but she resolutely and passionately demanded obedience, grew angry and nearly cried because they did not heed her, and at last succeeded in making them believe her. Her first exploit, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... about their school days. But, we think, we may safely venture to guess that, whenever Hastings wished to play any trick more than usually naughty, he hired Impey with a tart or a ball to act as fag in the worst part of the prank. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the dormitory, stopped for a moment and looked about at the sleeping girls. Then, satisfied that they were really asleep and that none of them suspected the prank, she followed the other girls out into the hall and closed ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... perhaps no less notable, commemorates a deplorable and unpardonable event. A number of medical students, mere boys, in the University of Havana, were charged with defacing the tomb of a Spanish officer who had been killed by a Cuban in a political quarrel. At its worst, it was a boyish prank, demanding rebuke or even some mild punishment. Later evidence indicates that while there was a demonstration there was no defacement of the vault. Forty-two students were arrested as participants, tried by court-martial, ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... week of fun and frolic it was a wonder if young Jack Billington did not play some prank on the Indians. He was the boy who fired off his father's gun one day, close to a keg of gunpowder, in the crowded cabin of ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... evident that the young Pole had been well discussed by the children. They watched him constantly to see what new prank he was preparing for their entertainment. He swaggered under their astonished gaze, and insolently made requests aloud without raising his hand for permission to speak. Just before recess, upon chancing to glance his way, the little girl caught him tossing ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... spectre, reflected from a turbid soul, sat moping in the prow of his boat, or kept step with him in the race. Like the Sun-god, he was buoyant and beautiful, careless, free, elastic, unfading. Years never cramped his bounding spirits, or dimmed the lustre of his soul. He was ever ready for prank and pastime, for freak and fun. Of all his loves at Elleray, boating was the chief. He was the Lord-High-Admiral of all the neighboring waters, and had a navy at his beck. He never wearied of the lake: whether she smiled or frowned on her devotee, he worshipped all the same. Time ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... qualities and Puritanic instincts, loved an adventure which promised fun, and finally entered into the scheme with a zest second only to his friend. The very idea of playing a prank on the captain of a man-of-war was enough to induce him to engage in almost any enterprise. They managed to escape the house without being detected by Sukey, who was puzzling his brain over deep questions in philosophy, and hastened down the street to a carriage which ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... taken to be sold at a good figure to some other museum; that it was taken to be sold back to the College; that it was a students' prank; or that it was done by girls being initiated into one of the ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... just one answer. The scheme is too grisly. Besides, we've nothing against the undertakers that should make us willing to waste their time. Moreover, Dan we're in the High School, and we're expected to be gentlemen. Now, does your scheme strike you as just the prank for ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... see! my roses Have blossomed over night; I bring you some To prank your study. Sister, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... obtuseness and arrogance of these creatures! No, my poor friend," continued he, addressing the Caterpillar, "disdain you as they may, and unpromising as your aspect certainly is at present, the time is at" hand when you will prank it with ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... it is, all right, Sadby," replied the policeman. "I know you. Well, if this is your brother, please take him off my hands—and welcome. You see, Miss Lowthry, it was nothing but the humorous prank of some boys. This ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... little merry with the bumpers, which made my mother very angry, my old grandmother to hold up her hands, and look at the ceiling through her spectacles, and my aunt Milly as merry as myself. Before I was eight years old, I had become so notorious, that any prank played in the town, any trick undiscovered, was invariably laid to my account; and many were the applications made to my mother for indemnification for broken windows and other damage done, too often, I grant, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... learn to write in a neighbouring town, made him at last a brave village notary. This fellow, having acquired such dignity, began to disdain their ancient customs, and to buzz into the people's ears the pomp of the other parts of the nation; the first prank he played was to advise a friend of his, whom somebody had offended by sawing off the horns of one of his goats, to make his complaint to the royal judges thereabout, and so he went on from one to another, till he had spoiled and confounded all. In the tail ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... at the word 'prank,' just like he'd never had one single advantage of foreign travel. 'He does indeed—one of those Hammersmith twin louts was with him—the speckled devil with the lisp, I gather—and praise God his bones, at least, are broke in ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... mantle with a hood, and appeared in a great hurry. To my surprise, however, he stopped and exclaimed quite cordially, "Ah, cousin, you are a stranger! I have not seen you for a long time. I was sorry to hear of Peleton's mad prank. Were you hurt?" ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... you'll see to remind you of to-night will be the rather worn looks of your companions. But what is one night's loss of sleep, anyway? I just know when you were at school you lost many a good night's sleep through some prank. Now, didn't you?" ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... Charlie Gordon was no more of a book-worm than he had been as a schoolboy. There was no piece of mischief, no wild prank, that that boy with the curly fair hair and merry blue eyes did not have a share in. But if he fairly shared the fun, Charlie would sometimes take more than his fair share of blame or punishment. He was never afraid to own up, and he was ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... noblest Saracens thronged amain, Seated the king on his throne again, And the Algalif said, "'Twas a sorry prank, Raising your weapon to slay the Frank. It was yours to hearken in silence there." "Sir," said Gan, "I may meetly bear, But for all the wealth of your land arrayed, For all the gold that God hath made, Would I not live ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... hang green on the garden wall With a nid, and a nod, and a niddy-niddy-o Then prank you, lads and lasses all, With a yea and ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... place. Then, ordering some rum and water and a pipe of tobacco, he composed himself to watch for the appearance of those witty fellows whom he suspected would presently come thither to see the end of their prank and to ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... last? They storm the types, they publish one and all, They leap the counter, and they leave the stall:— Provincial maidens, men of high command, Yea, baronets, have ink'd the bloody hand! Cash cannot quell them—Pollio play'd this prank: (Then Phoebus first found credit in a bank;) Not all the living only, but the dead Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' head! Damn'd all their days, they posthumously thrive, Dug up from dust, though buried when alive! Reviews record this epidemic crime, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the few times in his life, doubted his eyes. What trick were they playing him? For it was not a real, sharp figure that he saw; it was an indefinite one, shimmering and elusive, like a mirage. A prank of the strange light, perhaps. But Ku Sui ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... me into the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs, With a blow of his fist. Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin, And no children shall ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... Ford a spear's length behind them. Alleyne had lingered for an instant in the passage, and as he did so there came a wild outcry from a chamber upon the left, and out there ran Aylward and John, laughing together like two schoolboys who are bent upon a prank. At sight of Alleyne they slunk past him with somewhat of a shame-faced air, and springing upon their horses galloped after their party. The hubbub within the chamber did not cease, however, but rather increased, with yells of: "A moi, mes amis! A moi, camarades! A moi, l'honorable ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... did!" says he. "Just like Warrie to do that, though. But, if I know Miss Prentice at all, she will pay him back for that little prank." ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... gracious Lord, To chide at your extreames, it not becomes me: (Oh pardon, that I name them:) your high selfe The gracious marke o'th' Land, you haue obscur'd With a Swaines wearing: and me (poore lowly Maide) Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp: But that our Feasts In euery Messe, haue folly; and the Feeders Digest with a Custome, I should blush To see you so attyr'd: sworne I thinke, To shew ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... truth is that you are all on the wrong scent. I haven't thought up a blessed prank ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... ever be allowed to clip the wings of romance. But the painter who bade his subject sit under a sodium light would justly be deemed a lunatic, and any analysis of Spencer's character drawn from his latest prank would be faulty in ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... array of reasons and impulses which were leading me on, and gave to the matter an air of sport and adventure most potent in attraction for such a mood as mine. I was in rebellion against the limits of my position and the repression of my manner of life. To play a prank like this suited my humour exactly. When Victoria left me, I sent word of my intention to be present at Coralie's theatre that evening, and invited William Adolphus to join me in my box. I received the answer that he ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... ground to Margaret around here, for she had taken many rides with Gardley and Bud, and for the first part of the way every turn and bit of view was fraught with pleasant memories that brought a smile to her eyes as she recalled some quotation of Gardley's or some prank of Bud's. Here was where they first sighted the little cottontail the day she took her initial ride on her own pony. Off there was the mountain where they saw the sun drawing silver water above a frowning storm. Yonder was the group ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... majesty saluted his fourth spouse With all the ceremonies of his rank, Who clear'd her sparkling eyes and smooth'd her brows, As suits a matron who has play'd a prank; These must seem doubly mindful of their vows, To save the credit of their breaking bank: To no men are such cordial greetings given As those whose wives have made ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... shock it had come to the millionaire that he was not merely the disgruntled lover planning a little prank to tease the dearest girl in the world. He was the honored guest of a family who were rejoicing that it was in their power to give a lonely cripple a Thanksgiving dinner. His face grew red at ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... One prank which the boys played some years after Jane's death, I must relate, and then I have done. The eldest, whose name was Willie, took me, the evening before thanksgiving day, and, having dressed himself up in some of the cook's ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... at last, as if a bright thought had struck him, "I know what it must be, sir. You're up to a prank sometimes—in fact, rather often—and you've hidden away the yacht, for there's been no one else in the Cove but you; though where you can have put it I'm puzzled to say, seeing there's not a place fit to hide a walnut-shell I haven't looked in, not to say a schooner ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... was to laugh at his prayers, with a joke at the quality of his Latin. But Dieu protect you, Monsieur, if ever he gets whip-hand. A revengeful priest is more to be feared than a rabid dog. I stirred one of his breed once at the Cathedral by some wild prank, and carry the scar of it still. But come, it becomes dusk. Let's break our fast, and while eating consider the best plan for the night. Eloise, do you ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... old place until nearly noon, and then I went to town. The jailer met me with a doubtful shaking of his scheming head, and I knew that again he had received orders to be rigid in his discipline, but I was resolved that the old rascal's appetite for liquor should not play a second prank upon me; so when he hinted at another bottle I told him that I had spent so much of my life as a temperance lecturer that it was against my conscience to buy a favor with whisky. I looked steadily at him, and ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... it before you start. I made a visit to Arden, on the day after you performed the grand transformation scene in your brotherhood extravaganza. I should have been greatly amused by what was told me of this prank, if I had not seen that it had caused so much trouble. Sylvia was in a wretched way, and in an extremely bad temper. Marcia was almost as miserable, for she was acting the part of an extinguisher not only to ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... himself to cream and sifted sugar with leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business— Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on the ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... on it. And now we will say no more about that old story; luckily it is the only mad prank either of us has been guilty of, I am sure. I want thoroughly to enjoy the few days I shall stay here. You cannot think what a delightful walk we had this morning. Who would have believed that that little imp, who used to run about here and play angels' parts on ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... cool as an Englishman, and there are not any mean things told about him, though," Steven Strong continued, "and indeed sometimes he lives the simplest country life with his horses and dogs, and his own people worship him, I believe. But there is no wildest prank he is incapable of if his blood ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... the substance of what Anne had said in daffodil time, and saying it so pointedly and forcibly that her hearers found themselves feeling rather foolish and began to think that, after all, they were making too much of a childish prank. But in private Miss Cornelia allowed herself the relief of ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... form disappears. If this sequence has not been observed, continued observation tells the tale. The patient still has his ideas and may be seen smiling contentedly over them (not vacuously as does the schizophrenic) or he may break into some prank or begin to sing. Any protracted familiarity with the case leads to a conviction that the patient's mind is not a blank, but that his attention is merely directed exclusively inward. Then, too, when his ideas are discovered, it is found ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... set to laughing in the pleasant French way that shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become too big to prank on ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... night. The genius of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year. In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed outrage because a relation was involved. But if the scamps were not at Mere Cognette's every night, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... "I could not do that, of course. Mildred was my god-child, and I loved her dearly. But she was not allowed to see me for twenty-four hours, and I fancy those were very sad hours for her. Dear Mildred! that was her last prank; for the next time she came here she was a woman grown, and all the hoyden ways had been put off like a garment. And now, dears," added Miss Wealthy, rising, "we must let Martha take these dishes, or she will be late with her work, and ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... in the tilted mirror caught and held his attention. Could that harsh semblance of a man be himself? Various periods of his life flashed in separate pictures before him. Glimpses of his college days; this and that gay prank of irresponsible youth. Then came incidents of his first business ventures; his dealings with Jefferson Henderson stood out sharply. The old man's first intuitive fears of coming loss rang in his ears, followed by curses of helpless, astounded despair. One after ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... died long ago, and others have probably forgotten all about the naughty prank. I often longed to ask him how he knew the surest way to win a child's heart by the patience, sympathy, and tender little acts that have kept his memory green for nearly ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... that Peachy was in an exceedingly mischievous mood and ready for any prank which came to hand. She dodged with her followers successfully past the kitchen door, without attracting the hostile attention of Anastasia or any other of the servants. She was bent on exploring a patch of the garden which was only accessible from the rear of the scullery. She had observed ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... a mystery," he went on to say, trying to take the thing as a joke. "Some kind friend sends me a solemn warning, and then neglects to sign his name. Do you think any of the fellows of the escadrille could be up to a prank?" ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... was nothing to laugh at, though!" remarked Lawless; "she'd have been regularly cooked, if Prank Fairlegh hadn't put her out when he did, and I should have been tried for 'Unjustifiable Girl-icide,' or 'Maliciously setting fire to a marriageable female,' or some such thing; and I daresay the young woman wasn't insured anywhere: I should have got into a pretty mess; it would have been a ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... to prevent your sister from scattering bread in the church,' said La Teuse on coming in. 'It was last winter she hit upon that pretty prank. She said the sparrows were cold, and that God might well give them some food. You see, she'll end by making us sleep with all her ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... might easily read them though the master remained unaware of it; the wooden seats of the courtyard sawn off and carried round the basin like so many corpses, the boys marching in procession and singing funeral dirges. Yes! that had been a capital prank. Dubuche, who played the priest, had tumbled into the basin while trying to scoop some water into his cap, which was to serve as a holy water pot. But the most comical and amusing of all the pranks had perhaps been that devised by Pouillaud, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... know the character in which he acted on the English stage, and the scheme he would offer for their mutual emolument. At the same time he resolved within himself to keep such a strict eye over his future actions, as would frustrate any design he might hereafter harbour, of repeating the prank he had so successfully played upon him, in their journey from the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... drops her voice somewhat to disguise her feats of metathesis, about which she has doubts and which are involuntary: the "stand-wash," the "sweeping-crosser," the "sewing chamine." Genoese peasants have the same prank when they try to ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... was taken to be sold at a good figure to some other museum; that it was taken to be sold back to the College; that it was a students' prank; or that it was done by girls being initiated into one of the College ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... Fate played another prank upon her not long afterward and thrust into her hands a possible means of access to John Barron. A favorite resort of Joan's was the brook which ran down the valley beneath Drift and Sancreed. The little stream wound through a fair coomb between orchards, meadows, wastes of fern and heather. At ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the porch whose roof is seen Arch'd with the enlivening olive's green: Where Science, prank'd in tissued vest, 15 By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest, Comes, like a bride, so trim array'd, To wed with ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... slight movement of the eyes of the weeping and shuddering child informed the company that she had been frightened by an appearance at the window. At once they all faced the imperturbable window, and for a moment there was a silence. An astute lad made an immediate census of the other lads. The prank of slipping out and looming spectrally at a window was too venerable. But the little boys ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... gracious lord, To chide at your extremes it not becomes me; O pardon that I name them: your high self, The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured With a swain's bearing; and me, poor lowly maid, Most goddess-like prank'd up:—but that our feasts In every mess have folly, and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attired; sworn, I think To show myself ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... made him the object of tricks of all kinds; often in retaliation of some prank which he himself had played off. Unluckily these tricks were sometimes made at the expense of his toilet, which, with a view peradventure to please the eye of a certain fair lady, he had again enriched ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... monosyllables. He was in the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of the guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity at this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest fellow could have played such a prank on a policeman. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... green-moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the grass a streamlet fleeting by. The porch with palm or oleaster shade— That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring—their Spring!—to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool. And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and massy boulders fling— A line of stations for the halting wing To dry in summer sunshine, has it ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... frequently left its imprint on the thought of the time. The results of this special prank with the astrologer were: first, to cause the wits of the town to join in the hue and cry that Partridge was dead; second, to increase the contempt for astrologers; and, third, in the words of Scott: "The most remarkable consequence of Swift's frolic was the establishment ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... were occupied by houses or cultivated fields, so much the more fun for the river. For years it would flow peacefully in a well-known channel around some great bend, then decide to make a change, and in a single night cut a new channel straight across the loop of land. By such a prank not only were all the river pilots thoroughly bewildered, but a large slice of one State, with its inhabitants and buildings, would be transferred to another. If at the same time an important river-town could be stranded ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... more thought, "I have just one answer. The scheme is too grisly. Besides, we've nothing against the undertakers that should make us willing to waste their time. Moreover, Dan we're in the High School, and we're expected to be gentlemen. Now, does your scheme strike you as just the prank for a ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... Warden that some organised prank or protest was afoot. Dignity required that he should take no heed whatsoever. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, stately he approached the dais, his Fellows ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... people came into the tavern to hear him sing without paying their share of the reckoning—'if a maun, or ony maun, or ony other maun,' &c. &c.; you have both the same redundant eloquence. But why should you think any body would personate you? Nobody would dream of such a prank who ever read your compositions, and perhaps not many who have heard your conversation. But I have been inoculated with a little of your prolixity. The fact is, my dear R——ts, that somebody has tried to make a fool of you, and what ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... all," she said. "It was a prank one would expect you to play. Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't changed, Dick. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... aphoristic sentences twisted out of Greek and Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, Pandosto is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the real merit of the performance. It is better than Lodge's Rosalynd for ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if she ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... him was to put a "great divide" of distance between himself and her. This he had done—and to what purpose? Apparently merely to excite her ridicule!—and to prick her humor up to the mischievous prank of finding out where he had fled and following him! And she—even she—who had kept him aloof ever since that fatal moment on the seashore,—had discovered him on this lonely hill-side, and had taunted him with her ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... carefully closed the door and dipped the heads of the screws in vinegar to darken them. The whole looked rusty, and as we hoped when we had done no one would ever guess the game we had been up to. We swept up dust from the carpet, and pushed it under the bottom of the door, and I think our prank never was known. The old house is ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... and I followed them. At the same time, I was fully conscious that I was playing a mad prank without being able to stop myself. My disordered condition ran away with me; I was inspired with the craziest notions, which I followed blindly as they came to me. I couldn't help it, no matter how much I told ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... do, skippin' along street fresh an' nimblelike, his eyne chock full o' mischief lookin' round fur to see some poor soul to play a prank on. It do feel strange-like to have him a-sittin' by my elbow today. Many's the tale I could tell o' his doin' an' our sufferin'. Why, I mind a poor lump of a 'prentice as I wunst had, a loon as never could raise a keek: poor soul, he ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... will play a part in the pantomime, Mr. Ridge, let an Englishwoman suggest that you be the harlequin. How I loved the harlequin in the Drury Lane pantomimes at Christmas time! He was always the ideal lover to me, for there was no trick, no prank this bespangled hero could not play to success. He always went incognito, for he wore his narrow mask of black. He performed the most marvellous things for his Columbine,—and was she not a worthy sweetheart? No, no, Mr. Ridge:—not the fool, I pray. Please be the harlequin," ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... Saracens thronged amain, Seated the king on his throne again, And the Algalif said, "'Twas a sorry prank, Raising your weapon to slay the Frank. It was yours to hearken in silence there." "Sir," said Gan, "I may meetly bear, But for all the wealth of your land arrayed, For all the gold that God hath made, Would I not live and leave unsaid, What Karl, the mightiest king below, Sends, through ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... those that are for going to war choose evident destruction. What hinders you from slaying your children and wives with your own hands, and burning this most excellent native city of yours? for by this mad prank you will, however, escape the reproach of being beaten. But it were best, O my friends, it were best, while the vessel is still in the haven, to foresee the impending storm, and not to set sail out of the port into the middle of the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... that the young Pole had been well discussed by the children. They watched him constantly to see what new prank he was preparing for their entertainment. He swaggered under their astonished gaze, and insolently made requests aloud without raising his hand for permission to speak. Just before recess, upon chancing to glance his way, the little girl caught him ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... there since she died," Max asserted. "How do I know so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea while we were ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... not the first that had played away a few trifles, and of what use were birth and fortune if they would not admit some sallies and expenses?" His mamma was so much provoked by the cost of this prank, that she would neither palliate nor conceal it; and his father, after some threats of rustication which his fondness would not suffer him to execute, reduce the allowance of his pocket, that he might not be tempted by plenty to profusion. This method ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... Frankness toward himself, frankness toward others (though sometimes it went to the extreme of rudeness and ill-breeding) was his motto. The joyous nature which was his as a lad, and which was not at all averse to a merry prank now and then, underwent a change when he began to lose his hearing. The dread of deafness and its consequences drove him nearly to despair, so that he sometimes contemplated suicide. Increasing hardness of hearing gradually made him reserved, morose and gloomy. With the progress ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... Game. So warm they glow, Not seldom rise imperial quarrels; And not so many moons ago Jove boxed with zeal Apollo's laurels. The question ran, Was Arthur Mold Unfairly stigmatised by muffs, Or did he play a dubious prank? Venus herself began to scold, And Gods by dozens on a bank Profanely took ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... holocaust I made To God, befitting the new grace vouchsaf'd. And from my bosom had not yet upsteam'd The fuming of that incense, when I knew The rite accepted. With such mighty sheen And mantling crimson, in two listed rays The splendours shot before me, that I cried, "God of Sabaoth! that does prank them thus!" ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... shepherdling, The blushing apple, bashful pear, And shame-faced plum, all simp'ring there. Walk in the groves, and thou shalt find The name of Phillis in the rind Of every straight and smooth-skin tree; Where kissing that, I'll twice kiss thee. To thee a sheep-hook I will send, Be-prank'd with ribbons, to this end, This, this alluring hook might be Less for to catch a sheep, than me. Thou shalt have possets, wassails fine, Not made of ale, but spicd wine; To make thy maids and self free mirth, All sitting near ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... I appreciate this way he's got of treating it like a spoiled kid's prank. I'm going to make him recognize the fact that I'm a man, by golly, and that I look at things like a man. He's got to be proud to have me in the family, before I come into the family. He ain't going to take me in as one more kid to look after. ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Revolution of Sixty-eight—he meant of Six-and-eight— For the abolition of needless fees, and the stopping of useless jaw, Had capped the murder of Privilege by the massacre of Law: Order, this Spook went on to state, was the prey of police—less prank, All the real jam of life was lost with the abolition of Rank. Here he wept! Ah! can there be a sight a pitiful breast to thrill Like the Ghost of a Lawyer dropping a tear o'er the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... misunderstanding. He knew in what manner a good-natured, competent, lusty horse should be handled and trained. We didn't, and necessarily had to learn. He trained himself while we took hearty lessons in holding him. Once he decided to gallop with a sled. It was a mere whim—a gay little prank—but Tom couldn't stop him. He ran too, holding on to the reins at arm's length, contrary to my counsel, urged from discreet distance. Christmas ran faster, and by and by Tom sat down on his chin, and Christmas went on without him. He didn't quite remember ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... bide your time, dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little lobster ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... intimacy with the future poet. He describes graphically his first meeting with the youth who was to be his lifelong friend. He first saw Jos sliding down from a third-story balcony on a tin waterspout. In the light of later years Escosura felt that in this boyish prank the child was father of the man. The boy who preferred waterspouts to stairways, later in life always scorned the beaten path, and "the illogical road, no matter how venturesome and hazardous it was, attracted him to it by virtue of that sort of fascinating charm which the abyss exercises over certain ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... from my bosom had not yet upsteamed The fuming of that incense, when I knew The rite accepted. With such mighty sheen And mantling crimson, in two listed rays The splendors shot before me, that I cried, "God of Sabaoth! that dost prank them thus!" As leads the galaxy from pole to pole, Distinguished into greater lights and less, Its pathway, which the wisest fail to spell; So thickly studded, in the depth of Mars, Those rays described the venerable sign, That quadrants in the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... deliberate prank was played with the field artillery. These light pieces, being of the nature of cannon rather than muskets, obtained more deference, being recognized as of the same genus with the great guns which then constituted a ship's broadside. On one occasion they were incautiously ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... of that day contain accounts of many a mad prank which [Lord Warwick, Addison's step-son] played ... [like] the lawless freaks of the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... he nearly set fire to Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor's man that wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner party on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine, having toasted King James's health with open ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... deviltry I can always tell it on you—you look so incredibly meek and meechin', like a cat eatin' the canary," he remarked severely. "Thank you for a biscuit. And the sugar! Now what warlockry is this?" He jerked a thumb at the far-off fires. "What's the merry prank?" ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... because you succeed! And now I may say it, I hope without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter and larger than the ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... would I, might I choose, be honest-poor: For she that sits at Fortune's feet a-low Is sure she shall not taste a further woe, But those that prank on top of Fortune's ball Still fear a change, and, fearing, catch ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Lord, To chide at your extreames, it not becomes me: (Oh pardon, that I name them:) your high selfe The gracious marke o'th' Land, you haue obscur'd With a Swaines wearing: and me (poore lowly Maide) Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp: But that our Feasts In euery Messe, haue folly; and the Feeders Digest with a Custome, I should blush To see you so attyr'd: sworne I thinke, To shew my selfe ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... down the river into the rapids from Chippewa Creek, expecting to enjoy the rare pleasure of seeing her leap over the Falls and emerge in little fragments and splinters of timber in the river below. Thousands had gathered on the Canadian shore, and on Goat Island, to witness a prank never matched in audacity since the British "guerrillas" from the other side, in the time of the Canadian rebellion, seized the steamer "Caroline" at Schlosser, set her on fire, and sent her down the Falls—an ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... are linked to thee, By Romeo's ardour, Juliet's constancy He sets the peasant in the royal rank, Shows, under mask and paint, Kinship of knave and saint And plays on stolid man with Prospero's wand and Ariel's prank. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... into the man's eyes, his face flushed like the face of a schoolboy who had been caught in a foolish prank, and he returned the hat awkwardly ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... haen the brains o' a cock spug," I heard him sayin' till himsel', "ye michta jaloosed they were to play ye some prank. You muckle, dozent gozlin'," he says; an' he took himsel' a skelp i' the side o' the heid wi' his open luif that near ca'd him on his back. In his stagger his feet tickled amon' his claes, an' he ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... participation in the rude affrays, the catastrophe of which dramas was in general an almost universal flogging match. My admiration naturally led to its probable result, a desire to imitate—I firmly resolved to become a Peregrine. I soon promoted myself to be the leader of every mad prank that the wit of a spirit suddenly excited to activity could devise. In the first fortnight I got flogged for tying a huge mass of brown paper to the tail of the favourite cat of the master's lady, with which she rushed with an insane and terrifying distraction into the drawing-room. We owed a spite ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... as it were, from his petticoat days when he collected goose-eggs and tried to hatch them out by sitting over them himself. One might be inclined to dismiss this trivial incident smilingly, as a mere childish, thoughtless prank, had not subsequent development as a child, boy, and man revealed a born investigator with original reasoning powers that, disdaining crooks and bends, always aimed at the centre, and, like the flight of the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... Ray Rose were an intimate friend of mine, I should resent her performance and make a fuss about it. But she is such a casual acquaintance,—why, probably I shall never see her again after I go away from Lakewood,—and so I consider it better judgment to ignore her silly prank, rather than stir up a fuss ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... never regarded it as a prank in the least. I have ridden this way all my life and no one has ever commented upon it. Daddy Neil knows of it—he has ridden with me hundreds of times himself—and never said one word against it. And ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... "The Prisoner of Chillon." He finished the preparatory school with the first prize for composition and history, and entered the University, which he was soon compelled to leave, in company with a number of others, because of a foolish prank they had played on a professor. In those days, when every one was engrossed in thoughts of military service and a career, and when the few remaining paths which were open to a poor young man had thus been closed to him, but one thing was left for him to do—enter the army. Accordingly, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy. Even in the spring and play-time of the year That calls the unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prank their hair with daisies, or to pick A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook, These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarmed Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... from the northwest, they soon reached Duff Harbour, where Malcolm went on shore and saw Mr Soutar. He, with a landsman's prejudice, made strenuous objections to such a mad prank as sailing to London at that time of the year, but in vain. Malcolm saw nothing mad in it, and the lawyer had to admit he ought to know best. He brought on board with him a lad of Peter's acquaintance, and now fully manned, they set sail again, and by the time ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... served him well, and even shortened access to rosy lips and tender heart. But, alas! the fair one's nose was also of the fine imperial type, truly admirable in itself, but (under one of nature's strictest laws) coy of contact with its own male expression. Love, whose joy and fierce prank is to buckle to the plated pole ill-matched forms and incongruous spirits, did not fail of her impartial freaks. Mr. Mordacks had to cope with his own kin, and found the conflict so severe that not a breath of time was left him for anybody's ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... to Emma Jane that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank. "I do hate her ways," she exclaimed, "but I'm sorry I let her know we 'spected her; and so to make up, I gave her that little piece of broken coral I keep in my bead ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of breach of order, deviation or departure from rule, depressed him, though one would have thought it was no business of his. If one of his colleagues was late for church or if rumours reached him of some prank of the high-school boys, or one of the mistresses was seen late in the evening in the company of an officer, he was much disturbed, and said he hoped that nothing would come of it. At the teachers' meetings he simply oppressed us with his caution, his circumspection, and his characteristic ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Work and Play. The Schoolhouse in the Woods. Maple Sugar-making. The Orator of the Dawn. A Boyish Prank. Capturing the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Lo! here come Mimi and Musette With: "S'il vous plait, une cigarette?" Marcel and Rudolf, Shaunard too, Behold the old rapscallion crew, With flowing tie and shaggy head . . . Who says Bohemia is dead? Oh shades of Murger! prank and clown, And I will watch and write ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... to myself when I saw him come in the door at the heels of the policeman. No gypsy prank had thrust those tiny hoops of gold through the ears; no prairie winds had beaten that skin into wrinkled leather; nor had snow-drift and mountain-slope put in his walk that reminiscent roll. And in those eyes, when they looked at me, I saw the unmistakable sun-wash ...
— The Road • Jack London
... whistled and danced a hornpipe, and before they could recover from their amazement jumped out again. A few minutes later my father walked in at the door as sedately as though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much for his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But judging from his slight ability in later years, I fancy that he must have taken ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... off. They bore down upon a trolley-car and took a wild possession. They sang their songs and yelled themselves hoarse. People turned and watched and smiled, setting this down as one more prank of those ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... that some one on the deck of the submarine must be playing a prank on his friends. But Bill Witt, who was doing lookout duty forward, declared that the cry was right at hand and apparently from ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... night. He was the centre and the head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun. He multiplied himself, and in so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank he suggested was too wild for his followers, and all followed save those that developed into singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet never did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon that when Burning Daylight ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... rose to go to the billiard room. "I have one piece of advice to give you," he said. "This prank is harmless enough, but establish a definite understanding with this fellow that you are not to be liable in damages for personal injuries which his Indians may receive. Explain to him that it is not child's play and have him put ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... the brown shade to meet him, with such a shamefaced, boyish air of conscious delinquency. Conscious, indeed, that he was the author of a certain commotion, but very far, assuredly, from being conscious that he, Gifford Crayshaw, by means of this schoolboy prank, was taking the decisive step towards a change in the destiny of every soul then ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... who was watching Madge with startled eyes, worried as to the result of this mad prank on ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... ago there was a certain masquerade which fits here better than anything, and that I intend to make part of a prank I want to play on our fool. It all seems a little phony; but, with him, one can try anything, there is hardly any reason to be subtle, and he is the man to play his role marvelously and to swallow easily any fabrication ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... Shell is very easily taken possession of by Elementals, the semi-conscious forces working in the kingdoms of Nature, and may be used by them as a convenient vehicle for many a prank and trick. The etheric double of the medium, and the desire bodies emptied of their immortal Tenants, give the material basis by which Elementals can work many a curious and startling result; and frequenters of seances ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... the prow of his boat, or kept step with him in the race. Like the Sun-god, he was buoyant and beautiful, careless, free, elastic, unfading. Years never cramped his bounding spirits, or dimmed the lustre of his soul. He was ever ready for prank and pastime, for freak and fun. Of all his loves at Elleray, boating was the chief. He was the Lord-High-Admiral of all the neighboring waters, and had a navy at his beck. He never wearied of the lake: whether ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... the circumstances you'd better not mention this affair of the Fall to Gueldmar. It will only vex him. Sigurd won't try such a prank again." ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... together heard these words they were perplext as to their affair, and said one to other, "What shall we do? Indeed we are unable to sit out three days in this stead." Hereupon the Pieman said to them, "Nay, rather let us play a prank whereby we may escape," and said they, "What may be the device thou wouldest devise?" Quoth he, "Whatso I do that do ye look upon and then act in like guise," and so speaking he arose and taking his minced meat fell to sticking it ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... our insular method in popular history is perfectly shown in the treatment of Richard Coeur de Lion. His tale is told with the implication that his departure for the Crusade was something like the escapade of a schoolboy running away to sea. It was, in this view, a pardonable or lovable prank; whereas in truth it was more like a responsible Englishman now going to the Front. Christendom was nearly one nation, and the Front was the Holy Land. That Richard himself was of an adventurous and even romantic temper is true, though it is not unreasonably romantic for a born soldier to do ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... face. "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are just beginning to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... Egyptian antiquities which the savants of Napoleon's expedition had gathered and carefully packed, and even shipped preparatory to sending them to the Louvre. The feelings of these savants may readily be imagined when, through this sad prank of war, their invaluable treasures were envoyed, not to their beloved France, but to the land of their dearest enemies, there to be turned over to the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... and when he was one of the hares there was but little chance for the hounds. He was a capital swimmer, and one of the best boxers in the school. He had a reputation for being a leader in every mischievous prank; but he was honorable and manly, would scorn to shelter himself under the semblance of a lie, and was a prime favourite with his masters, as well as his schoolfellows. His mother bewailed the frequency with which he returned home with blackened ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... to prevent possible loss from some prank of mischievous boys or thieving negroes, Maurice had secured a long and stout chain, with a padlock, and at night this was so attached to the dinky that no one could sneak the stumpy little craft away without the use of a hatchet to chop out the staple; and while this was being done the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... at last, on the shores of England. [Margaret landed at Weymouth; Lady Warwick, at Portsmouth.] Come they for joy or for woe, for victory or despair? The issue of this day's fight on the heath of Gladsmoor will decide. Prank thy halls, O Westminster, for the triumph of the Lancastrian king,—or open thou, O Grave, to receive the saint-like Henry and his noble son. The king-maker goes before ye, saint-like father and noble son, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with levity, he drew down on himself the merited anger of his step-mother; and many punishments. To please Mrs. Newcome, his father whipped Tommy for upsetting his little brothers in the go-cart; but, upon being pressed to repeat the whipping for some other prank, Mr. Newcome refused, saying that the boy got flogging enough at school, with which opinion Master Tommy fully agreed. His step-mother, however, determined to make the young culprit smart for his offences, and one day, when Mr. Newcome was absent, and Tommy refractory as usual, summoned ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... meaning, I trow, that we should enter into solemn contract when we were of less tender age; but there never was betrothal; and before any fit time for it had come, I had the mishap to have the maid close to me—she was ever besetting and running after me—when by some prank, unhappily of mine, a barrel of gunpowder blew up and wellnigh tore her to pieces. My father came, and her mother, an unnurtured, uncouth woman, who would have forced me to wed her on the spot, but my father would not hear of it, more especially ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had sent them a piano, and many fine pictures ornamented the walls from famous persons. An old English lady who spends her summers up there seemed much amused at the prank of the girls, and evidently wondered what their ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... Hale is all wet and so are you. Your bedding is—now what kind of prank is that? I came up here ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... knavery, to the amount of two thousand louis. The strangest thing connected with this scandal is, that M. F——, who is an advocate by profession, has always enjoyed an enviable reputation for integrity; and, unfortunately, this prank cannot be attributed to a momentary fit of madness, for the fact that he had provided himself with these cards in advance proves the act to have been premeditated. One of the persons present was especially displeased. This was the Viscount de ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... small boy with red hair in the school, and he was called up and accused of the prank. He declared that he knew nothing about it,—that he never did it,—and began to cry when the teacher brought from his desk a long ruler which the boys knew too well, for when one broke the rules he was punished by being first lectured before the whole school, and then ordered to hold out his ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... all!" quoth he. "Now here's ill prank to play a poor hangman, may I ne'er quaff good liquor more, let me languish o' the quartern ague and die o' the doleful dumps if I ever saw the like o' this! For look 'ee now, if I set these three rogues free, how may I hang 'em as hang 'em I must, since I by hanging live to hang again, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... presentable when he left his chum's residence, after spending the evening there, but he was still burning for revenge against Andy and his cronies. He had half a notion to go to Andy's house and tell Mr. Foger how nearly serious the bully's prank at the sub marine had been, but he concluded that Mr. Foger could only uphold his son. "No, I'll settle with him myself," ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... grew wilder, the reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that the boy had disappeared, run away; the last ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... O think you, Friend with the musing eye Who watch us stepping by, With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you? Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... gives warning ahead that it is to be severe. It seems to be a meteorological prank in ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character that a ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... day, but, one reads between the lines, he doesn't believe any of them. One error, he says, begets another, and everything is exaggerated in the hope of making converts to the talker's opinion. One miracle bruited all over France turned out to be a prank of young people counterfeiting ghosts. When one hears a marvel, he should always say, "perhaps." Better be apprentices at sixty then doctors at ten. Now witches, he continues, are the subject of the wildest and most foolish accusations. Bodin had proposed that they should be killed on ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... to the door.] Thank you, my good woman. Next time you want to play a little prank like this, I beg that you will select your partner with more care. The name of Hooper is not a suitable one to toy with, ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... set apart To reillume the darkened heart, And rout the hosts of Dole. 'Tis night when Goblin, Elf, and Fay, Come dancing in their best array To prank and royster on the way, And ease the ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... take it easy, spending their time roaming the fields, helping to gather the fruit, of which there was great abundance, and in going fishing and swimming. But then Andy and Randy had found time growing a little heavy on their hands, and one prank had been followed by another. Some of the tricks had been played on Jack and Fred, and they, of course, had done their best to retaliate, and this had, on more than one occasion, brought forth a forceful, but good-natured, ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... "A boyish prank," Iras answered quickly, "but even a still greater misfortune is less than nothing so long as we are not conscious of it. This unpleasant occurrence must be concealed for the present from the Queen. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... own affairs that she looked upon the other occupants as she did the furniture. Without even a direct glance at the young people in the corner she swept up to a chair within a few feet of them and sat down to wait. Jimmy, in the midst of some tale about a prank that the High School Invincibles had played on a rival base-ball team, faltered, grew confused and finished haltingly. For all her spectacles and crape the golden haired stranger ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Sowell Street. But, lest the man might suspect there was in his actions something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant, tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there. Calling up the London office of the REPUBLIC, he directed that one of his assistants, ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little eyes of light. While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother, But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss, This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother, Who turns to greet the tidings ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... "Tales from Bohemia" collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Its actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... in the air, White daisies prank the ground; The cherry and the hoary pear Scatter their ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... possibly could; and a carpenter was set to work to make a covered box, for the rector's tythe-rats, with a lifting door. Hector Mowbray was consulted on the whole progress; and the fancies of father and son were tickled to excess, by the happy prank ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the racket soon transpired. A suspicion that they had been sold gradually dawned on the Rivermouthians. Many were exceedingly indignant, and declared that no penalty was severe enough for those concerned in such a prank; others—and these were the very people who had been terrified nearly out of their wits—had the assurance to laugh, saying that they knew all along it was only ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... had been artfully assumed so as to cause Toby to believe he was breaking his heart over the necessity of having to part company with his pet cub. It might be possible that Bandy-legs was not so averse to getting rid of the prank-loving bear as he ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... early manhood, the keenest relish of a funny prank, and one such he used to act over again in after life with the greatest vivacity of manner. Every one remembers the story told by Jefferson Hogg how Shelley got rid of the old woman with the onion basket who took a place beside him in a stage coach in Sussex, by seating himself ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... tulips prank their state Has drunk the life-blood of the great; The violets yon fields which stain Are moles of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm a man now. ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... talked, you may be sure. The Lunda boys were decidedly in favour of Yaspard's scheme—was there ever a boy who would have objected to any such prank? They saw no harm in it whatever, only ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... to us one day at Genoa, and enjoyed our dismay at it like a froward boy who has achieved what he considers some mischievous prank. He offered us a copy, but we declined to accept it; for, being in the habit of seeing Mr. Rogers frequently beneath our roof, we thought it would be treacherous to him. Byron, however, found others less scrupulous, and three or four copies of it ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... to think about that picture over the altar. Of course, they would naturally have replaced it! I wondered who had found old de Wiggs up there; I wondered if he knew about it, and if he had any idea who had played that prank. I looked to his pew; yes, there he sat, rosy and beaming, bland as ever! I looked for old Peter Dexter, president of the Dexter Trust Company—yes, he was in his pew, wizened and hunched up, prematurely bald. And Stuyvesant Gunning, of the Fidelity ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... me many a prank. When she is kind, oh, how I go it! But if again she's harsh,—why, then I am a very proper poet! When favoring gales bring in my ships, I hie to Rome and live in clover; Elsewise I steer my skiff out here, And anchor till the storm blows over. Compulsory virtue ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... surround us here. A clash of arms would be their excuse for immediate attack, and might mean death and torture to the whole garrison. Our only hope lies in being permitted to pass out without armed collision; and to do this requires that we ignore such hidden deeds. 'Twas a mad prank of yours last night, and might have involved us all in common ruin. Go this time free, except for these words of censure; for you are not directly under my orders. Another such attempt, subversive of all discipline, and the gates of Dearborn ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... placed in ice, For the young poet they display. Like Hippocrene it scatters light, Its ebullition foaming white (Like other things I could relate) My heart of old would captivate. The last poor obol I was worth— Was it not so?—for thee I gave, And thy inebriating wave Full many a foolish prank brought forth; And oh! what verses, what delights, Delicious visions, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... walk till the purple dieth, And short, dry grass under foot is brown; But one little streak at a distance lieth Green like a ribbon to prank ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... hid, and when she looked out he was gone: so she boldly began the dancing; but, in the midst of a lively caper, dolly went bounce into the garden below, for the string fell from Poppy's hand when she suddenly saw grandpa at the window opposite, laughing as heartily as any one at her prank. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... have been able to find of this Fairy prank is in a small book of prose poetry called Gweledigaeth Cwrs y Byd, or Y Bardd Cwsg, which was written by the Revd. Ellis Wynne (born 1670-1, died 1734), rector of Llanfair, near Harlech. The "Visions of the Sleeping Bard" were published in 1703, and in the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Behold! these are the tribunes of the people, The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them; For they do prank them in ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... could have a better time up north so they think they try it. But they found out that they wasn't no easy way to live away from Marster. He always took 'em back, didn't beat 'em nor nothin'. I run away once myself but I never went nowhere." Melvin's long body shook with laughter as he thought of his prank. He shifted in ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Egyptians could not do for him, he resolves to do for himself; in order then to take his Opportunity for what Mischief might offer, being defeated, and provok'd, I say, at the Slur that was put upon him, he resolves to follow them into the Wilderness, and many a vile Prank he plaid them there; as first, he straitens them for Water, and makes them murmur against GOD, and against Moses, within a very few Days, nay, Hours, of their great ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... I cannot navigate the ship, do you; and must needs try and take an observation yourself? Do you and your mates try that prank again, and I'll land you all on the first island we sight, where you may follow your own pleasure, if the savages don't knock you on the head and eat you; and if some one doesn't take you off, which is not very likely, there you will remain to the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, not ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... I give myself away, And abdicate on foolscap flimsy, Let me implore you, mark the day— Time-honoured feast of prank ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various
... able to stir themselves again. Doubtless there were many bumps, black and blue faces, and bloody noses: but the sight of all could not suppress the most extravagant merriment. All that had happened was looked upon as a prank of the fiddler, and many in their hearts felt that they had only received a just punishment for their coarse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... You left your door unlocked on a rainy half-holiday, when sixty or more girls were constantly passing and repassing; there are half a dozen girls, I am sorry to say, who might have been tempted by the open door to play some prank of the kind which seems so clever to children, and so ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... window on that Sunday afternoon when his prospects seemed to be so rosy. He never thought of that. He cursed every circumstance and person impartially and fluently, but he omitted from the Satanic litany the one girlish prank of tree-climbing that led Iris to spring out of sight amid the sheltering arms of an elm when her uncle and Captain Coke deemed the summer-house a suitable place for "a plain talk as man ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Danish 'Spogelse,' without the sibilant aspiration. These words are general names for any kind of spirit, and correspond to the 'pouk' of Piers Ploughman. In Danish 'spog' means a joke, trick, or prank, and hence the character of Robin Goodfellow. In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, 'at pukra' means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely. The names of these spirits seem ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... familiar road. He stopped so long to chat with Aunty Perkins, halted Bess so long under the big live-oak at the Frost Creek school, and, leaning on her neck, gazed wistfully at the scenes of many a boyhood prank, that it was late in the afternoon when he passed the spot fragrant with memories of "Aunt Eliza" and "Mary Jane," galloped down the long hill, raced the coach and six just in from Raymond with a lot of tourists up to ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... Krishna, however, is not to be deterred. Creating duplicates of every calf and boy he brings them home. No one detects that anything is wrong and for a year they live as if nothing has happened. Brahma has meanwhile sunk himself in meditation, but suddenly recalls his prank and hurries out to set matters right. He is astonished to find the original calves and children still sleeping in the cave, while their counterparts roam the forest. He humbly worships Krishna, restores the original calves and children and ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... woe betide those that he didn't take a fancy to. I can hear Sally Andrews now, when she found the frog in her desk. It jumped right into her face, and fell into her apron-pocket,—we wore aprons with big pockets then,—and she screamed so she had to be taken home. That was the kind of prank Solomon was up to, every day of his life; and fishing for schoolmaster's wig through the skylight, and every crinkum-crankum that ever was. Master Bayley used to go to sleep every recess, and the skylight was just over his head. Dear me, Sirs, how that wig did look, sailing ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality of the Horner of Wycherley ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... last, as if a bright thought had struck him, "I know what it must be, sir. You're up to a prank sometimes—in fact, rather often—and you've hidden away the yacht, for there's been no one else in the Cove but you; though where you can have put it I'm puzzled to say, seeing there's not a place fit to hide a walnut-shell I haven't looked in, not to say a schooner ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... pretty objects like this my prey!" Then, choosing his moment carefully, by a quick turn he confronted Sesostris sternly, and almost thundered: "You speak of my doing ill to this maiden? You speak—the slave of Pratinas, who is the leader in every vice and wild prank in Rome! Has the slave as well as the master learned to play the hypocrite? Do you want to be tortured into confessing your part in all your master's crimes when the hour of reckoning comes and he is brought to justice. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... our breath, for it seemed like a schoolboy's prank. Well, after the long toil in the fen, we were like boys just freed from school, though our game was the greatest of all—that of war—the game of Hodur's ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... throughout the American flotilla as "Kelly." He commands a mine-laying submarine, which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of Irish ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... of the solid wave, Prank'd with rude shapes by the fantastic frost, He stood in silence;—now keen thoughts engrave Dark figures on his front; and, tempest-toss'd, He fears to say that every hope is lost. Meanwhile the multitude as death are mute; ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... the hill without his purchase. So to-day Little John was chosen, and for sweet company's sake Robin went with him a part of the way until they came to the "Seven Does," the inn where Robin had recently played his prank upon Middle the tinker. Here they drank a glass of ale to refresh themselves withal, and for good luck; and Robin tarried a bit while Little John went ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... Majesty saluted his fourth spouse With all the ceremonies of his rank, Who cleared her sparkling eyes and smoothed her brows, As suits a matron who has played a prank; These must seem doubly mindful of their vows, To save the credit of their breaking bank: To no men are such cordial greetings given As those whose wives have made them fit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a mere boyish prank,' said the father of the young Raja, when the matter was reported to him, 'and moreover it is well that he should slay one or two with his own hand, else how should men learn to fear him?' And there the matter ended; but it should ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... says he. "Just like Warrie to do that, though. But, if I know Miss Prentice at all, she will pay him back for that little prank." ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... was the centre and the head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun. He multiplied himself, and in so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank he suggested was too wild for his followers, and all followed save those that developed into singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet never did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon that when Burning Daylight made a night of it, wrath and evil were forbidden. ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... laughed heartily at the puzzling the friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him; he's only pesthering you with bog-Latin; but, at any rate to do him justice, he's not a bad Scholar, I can tell you that.... Your health, Prank, you droll crathur—your health. I have only one fault to find with you, and that is, that you fast and mortify yourself too much. Your fasting has reduced you from being formerly a friar of very genteel dimensions to a cut of corpulency that smacks ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... higher the prisoners were in rank, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed an expression of countenance which he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me; but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul and La ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... George, I found Dorothy in close consultation with the queen and two of her ladies. I heard the name of Lord James Stanley spoken amid suppressed laughter, and I suspected Dorothy had on foot some prank touching that young man, to which her ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... side, too breathless to articulate, the two fat youths lay there gasping for breath, while those gathered about them made mock gestures of "first aid to the injured." Nobody had been hurt, however, and the victims of the prank took it in the way it ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... assault he had begun: but a cannon ball having wounded him in the foot, he was carried off, and the pandours retired. The corps of Nassau arrived next day to our aid; we quitted Kollin, and during the march the King said to me, "Your cousin had nearly played us a malicious prank last night, but the deserters say he is killed." He then asked what our relationship was, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little lobster of herself ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... in the beautiful cut drinking-glasses, and loosened the tongues and opened the hearts of the three old gentlemen. Old Spangenberg especially, who, though advanced in years, was yet brimming with freshness and vivacity, had many a jolly prank out of his merry youth to relate, so that Master Martin's belly wabbled famously, and again and again he had to brush the tears out of his eyes, caused by his loud and hearty laughing. Herr Paumgartner, too, forgot more than was customary with him the dignity of the Councillor, and enjoyed ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... recognized John ——-. Of all persons in the world to meet on top of the Rocky Mountains thousands of miles from home, he was the last one I should have looked for. We were school-boys together and warm friends for years. But a boyish prank of mine had disruptured this friendship and it had never been renewed. The act of which I speak was this. I had been accustomed to visit occasionally an editor whose room was in the third story of a building and overlooked the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Greek and Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, Pandosto is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the real merit of the performance. It is better ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... stretch forth her arms, and sway her body, as though she were really singing. The noise in the house redoubled in the attempt to drown her voice, but she serenely went on with her pantomime. This seemed to continue an interminable time, when the audience, tiring of its prank and in order to hear, suddenly stilled its clamor, and discovered the dumb show she had been making. For a moment all was silent, save for the orchestra, her lips moving on without a sound, and then the audience realized that it had been sold, and broke out afresh, this time with genuine ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... on a solium of the solid wave, Prank'd with rude shapes by the fantastic frost, He stood in silence;—now keen thoughts engrave Dark figures on his front; and, tempest-toss'd, He fears to say that every hope is lost. Meanwhile the multitude ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... said Groves at last, as if a bright thought had struck him, "I know what it must be, sir. You're up to a prank sometimes—in fact, rather often—and you've hidden away the yacht, for there's been no one else in the Cove but you; though where you can have put it I'm puzzled to say, seeing there's not a place fit to hide a walnut-shell I haven't looked in, not to say a schooner yacht drawing ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... the small river Bidassoa, the Rubicon of their journey. It formed the boundary between France and Spain. On reaching its southern bank they stood on the soil of the land of the dons, and the truant prince danced for joy, filled with delight at the success of his runaway prank. Gresley afterwards reported in England that Buckingham looked worn from his long ride, but that he had never seen ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... a hood, and appeared in a great hurry. To my surprise, however, he stopped and exclaimed quite cordially, "Ah, cousin, you are a stranger! I have not seen you for a long time. I was sorry to hear of Peleton's mad prank. Were ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... immense iron-grey moustaches with complacency. "I can't guess what prank you may be up to, but you are never starting for Venice in a ball-dress. You 're capable of a good deal, my dear, but you 're not capable ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... one,' said Slimak bitterly, 'there was no policeman to certify that it was we who saved you the hog, but when a boy plays a prank on you, you go ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... what sort of whim, prank, or perversity it was, that, after all these leave-takings, induced me to go to the pigsty, and take leave of the swine! There they lay, buried as deeply among the straw as they could burrow, four huge black grunters, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that had played away a few trifles, and of what use were birth and fortune if they would not admit some sallies and expenses?" His mamma was so much provoked by the cost of this prank, that she would neither palliate nor conceal it; and his father, after some threats of rustication which his fondness would not suffer him to execute, reduce the allowance of his pocket, that he might not be tempted by plenty to profusion. This method would have succeeded in a place where there ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... off a little prank upon this stranger,' thought Josephine to herself—'it will serve to amuse me.' And then she burst into a merry ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... capers every night. The genius of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year. In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed outrage because a relation was involved. But if the scamps were not at Mere Cognette's every night, they always met during the day, enjoying together the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... it. There are two of us. That dinner! And out of an innocent prank comes this! Folly, always folly!" And as she remembered the piece of folly she was about to start out upon, she laughed. "Mad? Yes. Only, to your madness there is some reason; ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... lower ebb in these modern days of quips and quodlibets than in the stirring times of my youth. Then, thank God, it was held more necessary for a page to know his seven points of horsemanship than how to tie a ribbon, or prank a gown, ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... lieutenant as he walked to and fro. "To think of the boy being missing like this.—Now you, sirs, in with that boat.—Where can he be? Not the lad to go off on any prank.—There, go below and get something to eat, my lads.—All comes of being sent into a miserable little boat like ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... joke, you have ordinary chicken for a meat course, whereas I had hoped to give you a real dainty, stewed wild rabbit. But our snares were left unbaited while we planned to come in first on Gilly and his proposed prank. I don't suppose you know a thing ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in a brush with half-breeds and Indians; as when he stood for the legislature; but he felt now for the first time that he had not made the most of himself, that there was something hurting to self-respect in this prank played upon him. When he came to that point his resentment went higher. He thought of Molly Mackinder, and he heard all too acutely the vague veiled references to her in their satire. By the time Gow Johnson spoke he had mastered himself, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... are the tribunes of the people, The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them; For they do prank them in authority, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... No merrier lad's Sweet laughter ever rang! But he is so generous and so frank, His wildest wit or his maddest prank Can ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... they thrived like weeds in their ancestral domicile, which was now sadly in need of repair. Occasionally some daring prank set the neighbourhood by the ears, but, for the most part, the twins behaved very well and attended strictly to their own affairs. They ate when they were hungry, slept when they were sleepy, and, if they desired to sit up until four in ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... poured out their tale, to Mrs. Moss's great amusement, for she saw in it only some playmate's prank, and was not much impressed by the mysterious ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... evening's gloom, I watched,—and would not thence depart— 230 My husband's unlamented tomb. My children knew their sire was gone, But when I told them,—'He is dead,'— They laughed aloud in frantic glee, They clapped their hands and leaped about, 235 Answering each other's ecstasy With many a prank and merry shout. But I sate silent and alone, Wrapped in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... him for making fools of us," said Prank, pettishly. "No, Mother, what you say may be very good, but I don't want to do such a thing ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... few champions, he estranged by exchanging the "war extra" which the carrier left at the door for her, for the German paper served to Mrs. Schultz, her pet aversion on the floor below. Mrs. Rafferty upset the wash-tub in her rage at this prank. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... the heart. Cupid played a prank on him that was the occasion of much merriment in the San Francisco newspapers, and of much grief to him. A widow was his enslaver and tormentor—the old story. She sued him for breach of promise of marriage. The trial made great fun for the lawyers, reporters, and the ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... dramas was in general an almost universal flogging match. My admiration naturally led to its probable result, a desire to imitate—I firmly resolved to become a Peregrine. I soon promoted myself to be the leader of every mad prank that the wit of a spirit suddenly excited to activity could devise. In the first fortnight I got flogged for tying a huge mass of brown paper to the tail of the favourite cat of the master's lady, with which she rushed with an insane and terrifying distraction into ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... turbid soul, sat moping in the prow of his boat, or kept step with him in the race. Like the Sun-god, he was buoyant and beautiful, careless, free, elastic, unfading. Years never cramped his bounding spirits, or dimmed the lustre of his soul. He was ever ready for prank and pastime, for freak and fun. Of all his loves at Elleray, boating was the chief. He was the Lord-High-Admiral of all the neighboring waters, and had a navy at his beck. He never wearied of the lake: whether she smiled or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... that it was only a prank. I knowed you weren't goin' to throw yourself away on no one here, when the woods are full of 'em out our way that would like to have you. Don't dodge, Sammy. Stand right up to your fodder, for you know it's a fact. It made mother powerful mad. She took it that you wanted ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... had found his tongue, and both children explained the affair so clearly, that the old magistrates looked rather foolish, and dismissed the case with a reprimand to Jonathan for wasting his time so foolishly. But some good came of the boy's prank after all. For his father, seeing how near Jonathan came being proved a witch, bestirred himself in favor of poor School-master Halleck, who was set free from prison ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... sultry, checking me, Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy. Even in the spring and play-time of the year That calls the unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prank their hair with daisies, or to pick A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook, These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarmed Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends His long love-ditty ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... not probable that there was any real connection between these Gates, of Saracenic design, carved (it is said) in Himalayan cedar, and the Temple of Somnath. But tradition did ascribe to them such a connection, and the eccentric prank of a clever man in high place made this widely known. Nor in any case can we regard as alien to the scope of this book the illustration of a work of mediaeval Asiatic art, which is quite as remarkable for its own character ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... oddest prank which this hummer performs is to dart up in the air, and then down, almost striking a bush or a clump of grass at each descent, repeating this feat a number of times with a swiftness that the eye can scarcely follow. Having done this, ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... asserted. "How do I know so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea while ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... crony at school was Alfred Batchelder, who had an extremely bad influence on him. Alfred was a genius at instigating mischief, and he and Halstead played an odious prank at the schoolhouse, as a result of which the school committee suspended ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... storm the types, they publish one and all, They leap the counter, and they leave the stall:— Provincial maidens, men of high command, Yea, baronets, have ink'd the bloody hand! Cash cannot quell them—Pollio play'd this prank: (Then Phoebus first found credit in a bank;) Not all the living only, but the dead Fool on, as fluent as an Orpheus' head! Damn'd all their days, they posthumously thrive, Dug up from dust, though buried when alive! Reviews record this epidemic crime, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... reckoning—'if a maun, or ony maun, or ony other maun,' &c. &c.; you have both the same redundant eloquence. But why should you think any body would personate you? Nobody would dream of such a prank who ever read your compositions, and perhaps not many who have heard your conversation. But I have been inoculated with a little of your prolixity. The fact is, my dear R——ts, that somebody has tried to make a fool of you, and what he did not succeed in doing, you have done for him and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... unknown of air, Out of all summer, from wave to wave, He'll perch, and prank his feathers fair, Jangle a glass-clear wildering stave, And take his ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... was laughing softly as a boy in the midst of a prank, and busily throwing off the robe of serge. Fumbling through the night he located the shirt and trousers he had seen hanging from a nail on the wall. Into these he slipped, and then went out under the ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... to rumble ominously, sparks to fly out at the top, and soot and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if she never told. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... All my family—my Polly Ann and all my sons and daughters, Dog and baby both included— All were swamped in seas of slickens, Buried fifty fathoms under, Where they lie, prepared to play their Gentle prank on geologic Gents that shall exhume them later, In the dim and distant future, Taking them for melancholy Relics antedating Adam. I alone got up ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You are ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... racket soon transpired. A suspicion that they had been sold gradually dawned on the Rivermouthians. Many were exceedingly indignant, and declared that no penalty was severe enough for those concerned in such a prank; others—and these were the very people who had been terrified nearly out of their wits—had the assurance to laugh, saying that they knew all along it was ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... grief delights to see Vex'd Nature wear a kindred gloom; Not that she smiled in vain to me, When gaily prank'd in summer's bloom Nay, much I loved, at even-tide, Through Brahan's lonely woods to stray. To mark thy peaceful billows glide, And watch ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Latin there; and you will remember there is no allusion to the classics in any of his writings. He was a handsome, curly-headed lad, full of animation and animal spirits, and probably was connected with every mischievous prank in the school. I do not think he came in for any of Mr. Jones's scourging propensity: in fact, together with myself, he was only a day-pupil, and with these there was a wholesome fear of tales being carried home to the parents. His personal ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... are beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which can't so well ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... he had the name without having had the game. More often, however, the search found him only too certainly to be the moving cause of the prank in question. His fourteen years of life had been full of stir and action, both for him and all connected with him, and nobody could complain of dullness when Teddy was around. Still, he was so frank and sunny-natured ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... the lady, and to tell the truth I really believe she would have been equal to such a prank some years back. There's a lurking spirit of mischief in her eyes to this day, though I know she has met with a great grief lately, for I heard all about poor little Joe," Paul said, after Darry ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... in mischief herself too often when at Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of the prank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympathetic understanding of their moods and actions which gave her so much influence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round her little finger, as Miles ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... the price of her dress. Up to that point she seemed to be embarrassed, and did not know whether to resent such unconventional conduct or not. She asked if they were sailors; they replied in the affirmative. It then seemed to dawn upon her that it was merely a mischievous prank being played on her interrogator; but she was assured in a sailorly manner by both that they knew it was very funny, but they were in earnest all the same. She realized the true situation ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... familiar entrance to Dean's Lane, on toward the Frost Creek road and Wawona. It was a very familiar road. He stopped so long to chat with Aunty Perkins, halted Bess so long under the big live-oak at the Frost Creek school, and, leaning on her neck, gazed wistfully at the scenes of many a boyhood prank, that it was late in the afternoon when he passed the spot fragrant with memories of "Aunt Eliza" and "Mary Jane," galloped down the long hill, raced the coach and six just in from Raymond with a lot ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... Avoid, Sathan! Thou art not of the light: That ruff of pride About thy neck, betrays thee; and is the same With that which the unclean birds, in seventy-seven, Were seen to prank it with on divers coasts: Thou look'st like antichrist, in that ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large male hands and nose, leering mouth) I tried her things on only twice, a small prank, in Holles street. When we were hard up I washed them to save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... spotted guinea pigs, declared that they were glad he was going, and hoped he might never come back any more. Not a creature did anything but rejoice as the royal beggar was tumbled rudely out from his own father's gardens and left standing alone in the highway, already heartily sorry for his prank, and quite at his wits' end as to what to do with the Court which he ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... that I have been able to find of this Fairy prank is in a small book of prose poetry called Gweledigaeth Cwrs y Byd, or Y Bardd Cwsg, which was written by the Revd. Ellis Wynne (born 1670-1, died 1734), rector of Llanfair, near Harlech. The "Visions of the Sleeping Bard" were published in 1703, and ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... the gang having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... mood for a ploy, and Margaret it was who scraped the little white powder from Helen's polished nail. "A wee tashte," she laughed, "old Betty would be saying, 'chust a wee tashte.'" And when the boys came in red-faced and with sparkling eyes (for I was watching the prank), "Now," said Margaret, "I will be giving poor Hugh his dram, and then everything will ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business— Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... made upon me by the story of the wicked miller's wife, who transformed herself at night into a cat, and how I consoled myself with the fact that in the end she did indeed receive due punishment for this wicked prank. The cat, namely, when once starting out on her nightly walk, had a paw chopped off by the miller's apprentice, who thought she looked suspicious, and the next day the miller's wife lay in bed with a bloody right arm minus ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... behind him, and he knew that he had been tricked. The little musketeer had vanished. For a moment he was disturbed. In vain he searched the gauntlet for some distinguishing sign. But as reason told him that no harm could possibly come from the prank, his fears subsided, and he laughed. On being relieved from duty, later, he sought her, to return the gauntlet. She was talking to Mademoiselle de Longueville. As she saw the Chevalier, she moved away. The Chevalier, determined on seeing the adventure to its end, followed her deliberately. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... door.] Thank you, my good woman. Next time you want to play a little prank like this, I beg that you will select your partner with more care. The name of Hooper is not a suitable one to toy ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... followed on up to the bank. Since Wunpost had lost in his bet with Eells and deposited all his money in the bank he was looked upon almost with pride as a picturesque asset of the town. He made talk, and that was made into publicity, and publicity helped the town. And now this mad prank upon which he seemed bent gave promise of even greater renown. So he had had a bad dream? That piqued their curiosity, but they were not kept long in doubt. Dismounting at the bank, he glanced up at the front and then made a plunge through ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... period must represent reaction from the tension under which he necessarily was through the grave anxieties pressing upon him. Humor he certainly had, but at this time it often showed itself in horse-play, so fantastic as to suggest some unusual exciting cause. Thus, for one such prank he seemed to draw his inspiration from the Sunday celebration of Divine Service. Upon its conclusion, he framed and published a new signal, for "all chaplains," the employment of which, however, was postponed to an occasion suited ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... was on her that his thoughts ran with a tiring persistency against which his common sense rebelled. A kiss! what was it after all? A Christmas forfeit, a prank of which even Val Stafford could have said no worse than that it was beneath the dignity of his six and thirty years: only too flattering for such a little country girl, sunburnt, simple, and occasionally tongue-tied. The lady of ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... rage, and given over to a more silent and less supportable torment, brought herself into a high fever, where she lay without so much as calling for aid in her extremity; not that she was afraid the cheat she had put on Octavio would be discovered; for she had lost the remembrance that any such prank was played; and in this multitude of thoughts of more concern, had forgot all the rest of that ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... had stuffed herself with sugar-plums, like any child of six years old, she thrust them by handfuls into the old woman's water-jar. 'That'll make sherbet for her,' she said. She smashed the yemas by throwing them against the walls. 'They'll keep the flies from bothering us.' There was no prank or wild frolic she didn't indulge in. I told her I should have liked to see her dance, only there were no castanets to be had. Instantly she seized the old woman's only earthenware plate, smashed it up, and there she was dancing the Romalis, and making the bits of broken crockery ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... Olympus to consult about the marriage of a Frankfort lawyer, and seriously enough, to be sure, as well became the festival of such an honorable man. Venus and Themis had quarrelled for his sake; but a roguish prank, which Amor played the latter, gained the suit for the former: and the gods decided in ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... through the mystic ringlets of the vale We flash our faery feet in gamesome prank; Or, silent-sandal'd, pay our defter court, Circling the Spirit of the Western Gale, Where wearied with his flower-caressing sport, 65 Supine he slumbers on a violet bank; Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream; Or where his wave ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the boys ran away because of some childish prank put on by them the night before. They broke some windows in a couple of shanties down by the tracks, or, at least, the other boys say they did, and Joe thinks they ran away because of that. He accounts in that way for their not ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... glide over to each other. Their eyes met. They were the butts of a prank that no doubt had been ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... all his staid qualities and Puritanic instincts, loved an adventure which promised fun, and finally entered into the scheme with a zest second only to his friend. The very idea of playing a prank on the captain of a man-of-war was enough to induce him to engage in almost any enterprise. They managed to escape the house without being detected by Sukey, who was puzzling his brain over deep questions in philosophy, and hastened down the street ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... meant of Six-and-eight— For the abolition of needless fees, and the stopping of useless jaw, Had capped the murder of Privilege by the massacre of Law: Order, this Spook went on to state, was the prey of police—less prank, All the real jam of life was lost with the abolition of Rank. Here he wept! Ah! can there be a sight a pitiful breast to thrill Like the Ghost of a Lawyer dropping a tear o'er the Ghost ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... this mad prank of Kelson's, Mr. Millinet invited Mary to walk out one lovely evening, to which she gladly assented. They took their way towards the "Whale's Head," a name given by the inhabitants of B—— to the high bluff already mentioned, that formed the eastern side of their harbor, from its ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... maid, witnessed this prank; and, not daring to laugh at the moment, made up for this by telling the story to her acquaintance, the widow, when sent for the ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... the standard of morality which exists, and ought to exist, in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of Study, Work and Play. The Schoolhouse in the Woods. Maple Sugar-making. The Orator of the Dawn. A Boyish Prank. Capturing ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... you—you look so incredibly meek and meechin', like a cat eatin' the canary," he remarked severely. "Thank you for a biscuit. And the sugar! Now what warlockry is this?" He jerked a thumb at the far-off fires. "What's the merry prank?" ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... we were to forgive him and pay the money. You know he would not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering money, making debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! Can you guarantee that this will be his last prank? As far as I am concerned, I have no ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... could be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... life, who was always ready to oblige anybody, to do anything he was told to do, so as to have'an easy time, a sufficiency of food, and a warm corner to crawl into! What could have persuaded fate to pick him for the victim of this cruel prank; to put him into this position, where he could not avoid suffering, no matter what he did? They wanted him to tell something, and Peter would have been perfectly willing to tell anything—but how could he tell it when he ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... punish her one day last week for a particularly mischievous prank, and after she had talked it over very solemnly sent the little ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... produced by aid of a revolving wheel. This wheel typifies the sun. Waving the "ring" in the Purim bonfires has obviously the same significance, and this apparently inexplicable feature does, I think, serve to link the ancient Purim prank with a long series of old-world customs, which, it need hardly be said, have nothing whatever ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... upsteam'd The fuming of that incense, when I knew The rite accepted. With such mighty sheen And mantling crimson, in two listed rays The splendours shot before me, that I cried, "God of Sabaoth! that does prank them thus!" As leads the galaxy from pole to pole, Distinguish'd into greater lights and less, Its pathway, which the wisest fail to spell; So thickly studded, in the depth of Mars, Those rays describ'd the venerable sign, That quadrants in the round conjoining frame. Here ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... yoke tied to the hair, to subject themselves to their husbands. If they would do so, they should be comely enough, clothe themselves with the silk of sanctity, damask of devotion, purple of piety and chastity, and so painted, they shall have God himself to be a suitor: let whores and queans prank up themselves, [5036]let them paint their faces with minion and ceruse, they are but fuels of lust, and signs of a corrupt soul: if ye be good, honest, virtuous, and religious matrons, let sobriety, modesty and chastity be your honour, and God himself your love and desire." Mulier recte olet, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... here, Franklin. I expect my students to have more common sense than that. Of course, it may have been nothing but a boyish prank, and if you can give me your word that the snowball which went down the stairs and hit Professor Duke was not aimed at him deliberately, I shall feel inclined to ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... to the Warden that some organised prank or protest was afoot. Dignity required that he should take no heed whatsoever. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, stately he approached the dais, his ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... it seemed that some one on the deck of the submarine must be playing a prank on his friends. But Bill Witt, who was doing lookout duty forward, declared that the cry was right at hand and apparently from the deck ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... proud of you. Won't you try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... dancing; but, in the midst of a lively caper, dolly went bounce into the garden below, for the string fell from Poppy's hand when she suddenly saw grandpa at the window opposite, laughing as heartily as any one at her prank. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... After this prank the Troyas commenced a conversation with their visitors about the people and the affairs of the town. The engineer, fearing that his exploit might be discovered while he was present, wished to go, which displeased the Troyas ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... sure Miss Mischief had been up to some prank, which had turned out disastrously. But it must have been a serious one, and perhaps there were grave consequences to ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... there came a day when the long-suffering wife revolted. Turner had come home extra drunk and in his most maudlin humor. Probably he attempted some drunken prank upon his over-taxed helpmate. Old Ike, the hired man, said that he thought Turner had rigged up some scare for her in the barn and that he had never heard anything so much like straight talking from his ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... mother, but the affectionate heart of Louis felt many a sad foreboding, as his subdued steps and hushed laugh plainly told. He was naturally joyous and gay, even to rudeness, always playing some good-natured but teasing prank on his little sister, and making the house ring with his merriment. Now, whenever that hollow cough rung in his ears, he would start as if a knife pierced him, and it would be a long time before his laugh would be heard again. He redoubled ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... and that was, having no hint from Moll the night before of this project, which then must have been fully matured in her mind, nor any written word of explanation and encouragement. For, thinks I, she being no longer a giddy, heedless child, ready to play any prank without regard to the consequences, but a very considerate, remorseful woman, would not put us to this anxiety without cause. Had she resolved to go to her friends at Elche, she would, at least, have comforted us with ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... English and Scottish terms, 'Puck,' 'Bogle', are the same as the German 'Spuk' and the Danish 'Spogelse,' without the sibilant aspiration. These words are general names for any kind of spirit, and correspond to the 'pouk' of Piers Ploughman. In Danish 'spog' means a joke, trick, or prank, and hence the character of Robin Goodfellow. In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, 'at pukra' means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely. The names of these spirits seem to have originated in their ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... others: John Ringo, Prank Stilwell, Zwing Hunt, the Clanton brothers, and Billy Grounds. They were "He Wolves." And there was Curly Bill, the worst of all. He might be ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... launching of the hoax in his paper; he did this with great editorial gusto while, at the same time, I attacked the authenticity of the poem in The Democrat. That diverted all possible suspicion from me. The hoax succeeded far too well, for what had started as a boyish prank became a literary discussion nation-wide, and the necessary expose had to be made. I was appalled at the result. The press assailed me furiously, and even my own paper dismissed me because I had given ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... sunbeam into the brown shade to meet him, with such a shamefaced, boyish air of conscious delinquency. Conscious, indeed, that he was the author of a certain commotion, but very far, assuredly, from being conscious that he, Gifford Crayshaw, by means of this schoolboy prank, was taking the decisive step towards a change in the destiny of every soul then ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... to really frighten her at first, for it apeared to be a boy dressed up as a bandit, and surely any such prank could mean nothing ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... clever nor funny, and is often very unkind. I beg whoever has done this thing to come forward at once and replace the pendant. She need have no fear, for she will not be punished or even scolded, though she must give me her word never to repeat such a prank." ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... they try it. But they found out that they wasn't no easy way to live away from Marster. He always took 'em back, didn't beat 'em nor nothin'. I run away once myself but I never went nowhere." Melvin's long body shook with laughter as he thought of his prank. He shifted in his chair ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... I'm sure, and make her quite forget my naughty prank of yesterday. Do you know I offended her dreadfully by peeping into the gold case she wears on her neck? She was asleep and I was sitting by her. In her sleep she pulled it out and said something about a letter and Papa. I wanted to see Papa's face, for I never did, because the big picture ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... Northumberland is not like to play that prank, or I err," answered Percy, who well knew that Lord Northumberland was not in all cases cognisant of the use made of his name by this very worthy cousin: "as to death, of course that may hap,—we are all prone to be tumbled out of the world at short notice. But what ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... suspense finally became so fearful that mute desperation was written in every line of his face, and to end the misery he was busily packing his suitcase ready to leave for Rugby, letter or no letter, the following morning and there upon his knees plead with his mother to forgive his boyish prank, when someone knocked on the door and when he opened it he found it was his landlady who handed him a letter, and he recognized it as being the same one he had addressed to his mother at Rugby, but there was this time written across its face: "Moved to Canada. ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Adam, clapping me on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly of ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... poet they display. Like Hippocrene it scatters light, Its ebullition foaming white (Like other things I could relate) My heart of old would captivate. The last poor obol I was worth— Was it not so?—for thee I gave, And thy inebriating wave Full many a foolish prank brought forth; And oh! what verses, what delights, Delicious visions, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... make him love thee; but my mother—I could not trust her where she thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ways ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my stroking hand, Startled eyes of hazel bland Kindling, growing larger, Up thou leapest with a spring, Full of prank and curveting Leaping like ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... sword. I might have braved the chevalier's accusations and the First Consul's suspicions (for, after all, neither had any evidence against me), but I could not bear her generous confidence in me, feeling that I had so miserably forfeited my right to it by indulging in a foolish boyish prank. I did not raise my head (where it had sunk in shame), but by reason of being so much taller I yet could see her turn toward me, see her look of implicit trust change slowly to doubt and fear. Then I heard ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... person, return to Sowell Street. But, lest the man might suspect there was in his actions something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant, tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there. Calling up the London office of the REPUBLIC, he directed that one of ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... competent, lusty horse should be handled and trained. We didn't, and necessarily had to learn. He trained himself while we took hearty lessons in holding him. Once he decided to gallop with a sled. It was a mere whim—a gay little prank—but Tom couldn't stop him. He ran too, holding on to the reins at arm's length, contrary to my counsel, urged from discreet distance. Christmas ran faster, and by and by Tom sat down on his chin, and Christmas went on without him. He didn't quite remember the width of ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... cried, unable to grasp the meaning of the prank. "Have you cut off your hair?" he added ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... a great debate amongst 'em, Aunt Martha fin'lly admittin' it was just a little prank of Hadley's, her being roped down; but she was sure I had tried to murder him, just for nothing at all. Hadley says so too. In fact, he tells seven diff'rent yarns in as many minutes, each one makin' me out worse ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... were privy to the matter,—"It is perhaps to do honour to our table," said one amongst them, "that you are so spruce to-day, in your new habit." Then, casting his eyes upon his clothes, he was much surprised to find himself in so strange an equipage. At length, being made sensible of the prank which they had played him, he told them, smiling, "That it was no great wonder that this rich cassock, looking for a master in the dark, could not see its way to somebody ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... thought a little more before this mad prank it would have been better for everybody," he said, "Well, she'll have plenty of time to think yet." He stepped to the kitchen door, and from the nail above took ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... and the wife and daughter of Lord Warwick, landed, at last, on the shores of England. [Margaret landed at Weymouth; Lady Warwick, at Portsmouth.] Come they for joy or for woe, for victory or despair? The issue of this day's fight on the heath of Gladsmoor will decide. Prank thy halls, O Westminster, for the triumph of the Lancastrian king,—or open thou, O Grave, to receive the saint-like Henry and his noble son. The king-maker goes before ye, saint-like father ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that it might be a hoax grew more and more implausible as he contemplated it. He was positive he knew no one capable of such a prank, and to suppose that any stranger had gone to so much trouble to play a trick ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... the entire front," she resumed. "After a year together in that school Sam and I went to the school taught by Mrs. Horr. It was then he used to write notes to me and bring apples to school and put them on my desk. And once, as a punishment for some prank, he had to sit with the girls and occupied a vacant seat by me. He didn't seem to mind the penalty at all," Mrs. Frazer added with another laugh, "so I don't know whether it was effective as a ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... their prank, they returned to the barracks and took place at the end of a line composed of poverty-stricken folk and tramps who were waiting for a meal. An old woman who had already eaten lent them a tin in which ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... but as to that I said not one word to myself, not admitting it, nor letting my heart know what my brain thought, nor my brain know what my heart surmised; but with a daft and mock-mistrustful under-look I would regard the darkling land, holding it a sentient thing that would be playing a prank upon ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... a soul. God gave to him Two daughters, he was wont to say—one mute, And one who spake, the oak tree and myself. A child, scarce older than my Bernard now, I nestled to the quaint, kind hermit's heart, And grew to girlhood with my hand in his. I loved to prank his wretched cell with flowers. Twisting bright weeds around his crucifix, Or trailing ivy wreaths about his door. One winter came when half my father's vines Were killed with frost; the valley was as white As yonder boldest mountain-top; the air Cut like a knife; the brooks were still ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious abode; ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... she thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... verdict was altogether favorable, with no mention of the possibility of any aggravating circumstances. An inevitable feverishness, and a great lassitude, which must be met with absolute repose for several days, would be the only consequences of this dangerous prank. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... deterred. Creating duplicates of every calf and boy he brings them home. No one detects that anything is wrong and for a year they live as if nothing has happened. Brahma has meanwhile sunk himself in meditation, but suddenly recalls his prank and hurries out to set matters right. He is astonished to find the original calves and children still sleeping in the cave, while their counterparts roam the forest. He humbly worships Krishna, restores the original calves and children ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... might easily be something in that; for though Evgenie was undoubtedly a man of wealth, yet certain of his affairs were equally undoubtedly in disorder. Arrived at this interesting point, Gania suddenly broke off, and said no more about Nastasia's prank of the ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... spanned impossible gaps, bore impossible weights, scaled unscalable heights, died incredibly heroic and unutterably tragic deaths, and who did these preposterous things as simply and unquestioningly as a child falling to sleep. The bitter humors of this prank of fate—the things shattered which should have been whole, the things preserved which no hand but that of error had ever created. The ruthless mixture of the farcical and the pathetic; the fire horse struck to earth by a falling wall, screaming in anguish—and the coal heaver, carrying ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... old mother when she'd tell about the long trip to Corpus Christi, and things that happened on the way. They stopped over at Camden as they went through, and one of the colored gals who hated her played a prank on her to take out her spite on mother: They had stopped at a dairyman's home near Camden, and she sent my mother in to get a gallon of buttermilk. After drinking all she could hold she grabbed mother by the hair of the head and churned her up and down in the buttermilk till it streamed down her ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... Won't you try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... prank of Kelson's, Mr. Millinet invited Mary to walk out one lovely evening, to which she gladly assented. They took their way towards the "Whale's Head," a name given by the inhabitants of B—— to the high bluff already ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... remember perfectly the impression made upon me by the story of the wicked miller's wife, who transformed herself at night into a cat, and how I consoled myself with the fact that in the end she did indeed receive due punishment for this wicked prank. The cat, namely, when once starting out on her nightly walk, had a paw chopped off by the miller's apprentice, who thought she looked suspicious, and the next day the miller's wife lay in bed with a bloody right arm ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... about that picture over the altar. Of course, they would naturally have replaced it! I wondered who had found old de Wiggs up there; I wondered if he knew about it, and if he had any idea who had played that prank. I looked to his pew; yes, there he sat, rosy and beaming, bland as ever! I looked for old Peter Dexter, president of the Dexter Trust Company—yes, he was in his pew, wizened and hunched up, prematurely bald. And Stuyvesant Gunning, of the Fidelity National—they were all here, ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... therefore convened all Olympus to consult about the marriage of a Frankfort lawyer, and seriously enough, to be sure, as well became the festival of such an honorable man. Venus and Themis had quarrelled for his sake; but a roguish prank, which Amor played the latter, gained the suit for the former: and the gods decided in favor ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... to go to the billiard room. "I have one piece of advice to give you," he said. "This prank is harmless enough, but establish a definite understanding with this fellow that you are not to be liable in damages for personal injuries which his Indians may receive. Explain to him that it is not child's play and have ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... grace vouchsafed. And from my bosom had not yet upsteamed The fuming of that incense, when I knew The rite accepted. With such mighty sheen And mantling crimson, in two listed rays The splendors shot before me, that I cried, "God of Sabaoth! that dost prank them thus!" As leads the galaxy from pole to pole, Distinguished into greater lights and less, Its pathway, which the wisest fail to spell; So thickly studded, in the depth of Mars, Those rays described the venerable sign, That quadrants in the round conjoining ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... year all his life, and perhaps, in his heart, regarded no honour as more to be prized than that of Dux and Randall scholar. Harry was in his room the next morning as soon as ever he was stirring, a welcome guest—teased a little at first, by his pretending to take it all as a sailor's prank to hoax him and Richard, and then free to pour out to delighted ears the whole history of the examination, and of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... It was true that he was usually in some scrape or other. It was not that he did mean or vicious things; Donald Hall was far too fine a lad for that. But he never could resist playing a prank, and whenever he played one he was invariably caught. Even though every other member of the crowd got away, Donald never contrived to. The boys declared this was because he was slow and clumsy. But the truth really was that he was wont, in unselfish fashion, to let every one else go ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... he does not talk so much about the workhouse. He was a great deal better, and I could have forgiven this mad, boyish prank—though what could have influenced ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that the boy had disappeared, run away; the last seen of him was boarding ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... known to have committed that crime—Francesco Paoli—escaped to New York. We are looking for him to-day. He is a clever man, far above the average—son of a doctor in a town a few miles from Naples, went to the university, was expelled for some mad prank—in short, he was the black sheep of the family. Of course over here he is too high-born to work with his hands on a railroad or in a trench, and not educated enough to work at anything else. So he has been preying on his more industrious countrymen—a typical ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... fairly pushed Rafael forward with a sort of maternal authoritativeness, much as a kindly woman might take her child in hand after he has done some naughty prank of which she is ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... an act of justice. I deserved what you said, but I didn't deserve what has followed. I meant no harm—it was a silly prank, and I have suffered for it as if it were a crime, and the consequences are not ended yet. I should think that, if there is a moral government of the universe, the Judge of all the earth would know when to hold his hand. And now the worst of it is to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... o'clock next morning when I reached the meeting-place. The Lady Alicia was somewhat long in coming, but when she arrived her face was aglow with girlish delight at the solemn prank ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Guild this morning and played hide and seek with them in the park—such a merry set of rascals! Teresa Helburn invented a new prank—she took all my MSS. and hid them in a tin box ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... any of it; but we can't afford not to run down every clew. I can't believe that my daughter is wilfully consorting with such men. She always has been full of life and spirit; but she's got a clean mind, and her little escapades have always been entirely harmless—at worst some sort of boyish prank. I simply won't believe it until I see it with my own eyes. If she's with them she's being ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... knew all about the attic," declared Janet Clarke. "She was always prowling about there for theatrical stuff; don't you remember, Jane, how she frightened the girls one night with some foolish prank when she was dressed like a ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... Sixty-eight—he meant of Six-and-eight— For the abolition of needless fees, and the stopping of useless jaw, Had capped the murder of Privilege by the massacre of Law: Order, this Spook went on to state, was the prey of police—less prank, All the real jam of life was lost with the abolition of Rank. Here he wept! Ah! can there be a sight a pitiful breast to thrill Like the Ghost of a Lawyer dropping a tear o'er the Ghost of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... whole five were soon eagerly planning as to their work for the day. First of all the two old boats which had served to carry them up to the forks of the Evergreen River must be securely hidden. This was mainly on account of those prank-loving boys who, under the leadership of the town bully, Ted Shafter, they half expected to follow them ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... excellent spinster took pains never to show that Henry had supplanted him; nevertheless, she showed it all the time. Tom's faults flourished and multiplied. There can be no question that he was idle, untruthful, and unreliable. In earliest youth he had been a merry prank; he was still a prank, but not often merry. His spirit seemed to be overcast; and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not 'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... had been purely personal. With a broader outlook and a better understanding she might have protested on behalf of a slighted neighborhood, or, indeed, of a misprized town. A finer vision might have seen in Truesdale's prank a good-natured, half-contemptuous indifference alike to place and people. "I don't know what the Warners over the way will think," she emitted, as if ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... prisoners were in rank, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed an expression of countenance which he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me; but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul and La ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... which he dealt with the occasional outbreaks in the college was very interesting. If it was a case of wanton defiance of the habitual order, there was a very slight probability of its being overlooked. A favorite prank of the stealing of the college bell was invariably punished, first by having a hand-bell rung a little earlier than regulation hours all through the sections; and, when his secret police had discovered the offenders, they were punished according to custom, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... thinking, Mr Terence, that Dan Hoolan, though he's mighty quiet just now, will be playing us some prank or other before long, if he can find a ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... So warm they glow, Not seldom rise imperial quarrels; And not so many moons ago Jove boxed with zeal Apollo's laurels. The question ran, Was Arthur Mold Unfairly stigmatised by muffs, Or did he play a dubious prank? Venus herself began to scold, And Gods by dozens on a bank Profanely took ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... up and went outside to look. There burned the light, diabolically like a signal fire on the peak, where no fire should be. I began to seek explanations, but the best of them were vague. Electricity playing a prank of some obscure kind,—that was as close as I could get to it, and even that did not satisfy as it should have done, perhaps because the high, barren mesas and the mountains of bare rocks are in themselves weird and sinister, and commonplace explanations of their ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... tried the same tactics upon a winter pear-tree, the consequences were more serious. Black Bruin not only got a good drubbing for the prank, but his master secured a dog-collar and chained him to a maple-tree in ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... the brains o' a cock spug," I heard him sayin' till himsel', "ye michta jaloosed they were to play ye some prank. You muckle, dozent gozlin'," he says; an' he took himsel' a skelp i' the side o' the heid wi' his open luif that near ca'd him on his back. In his stagger his feet tickled amon' his claes, an' he gaithered them up, an' lookit fair dumfoondered like. He put them a' on; an' gyne—what ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... they found out that they wasn't no easy way to live away from Marster. He always took 'em back, didn't beat 'em nor nothin'. I run away once myself but I never went nowhere." Melvin's long body shook with laughter as he thought of his prank. He shifted in his chair ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Mamma, I'm sure, and make her quite forget my naughty prank of yesterday. Do you know I offended her dreadfully by peeping into the gold case she wears on her neck? She was asleep and I was sitting by her. In her sleep she pulled it out and said something about a letter and Papa. I wanted to see Papa's face, for I never did, because the big picture ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... since she died," Max asserted. "How do I know so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... truthfulness than he did during his life. Frankness toward himself, frankness toward others (though sometimes it went to the extreme of rudeness and ill-breeding) was his motto. The joyous nature which was his as a lad, and which was not at all averse to a merry prank now and then, underwent a change when he began to lose his hearing. The dread of deafness and its consequences drove him nearly to despair, so that he sometimes contemplated suicide. Increasing hardness of hearing gradually made him reserved, morose and gloomy. With the progress of the malady ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... shaft, perhaps no less notable, commemorates a deplorable and unpardonable event. A number of medical students, mere boys, in the University of Havana, were charged with defacing the tomb of a Spanish officer who had been killed by a Cuban in a political quarrel. At its worst, it was a boyish prank, demanding rebuke or even some mild punishment. Later evidence indicates that while there was a demonstration there was no defacement of the vault. Forty-two students were arrested as participants, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be shot. Eight of them were shot at La Punta, ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which can't so well be written—how it set up for a fine Lady, and thought ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Thank you, my good woman. Next time you want to play a little prank like this, I beg that you will select your partner with more care. The name of Hooper is not a suitable one to toy with, let ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... can judge, are at a lower ebb in these modern days of quips and quodlibets than in the stirring times of my youth. Then, thank God, it was held more necessary for a page to know his seven points of horsemanship than how to tie a ribbon, or prank a gown, or read ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... sketches. The "Tales from Bohemia" collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons whom he met and the friends whom ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the stools and stirred his coffee. He held a dime novel with his other hand, reading; but Pie-Wagon Pete kept an eye on him. He knew Billy Getz and his practical jokes. If unwatched for a moment, the young whipper-snapper might empty the salt into the sugar-bowl, or play some other prank that came under ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... is not like to play that prank, or I err," answered Percy, who well knew that Lord Northumberland was not in all cases cognisant of the use made of his name by this very worthy cousin: "as to death, of course that may hap,—we are all prone to be tumbled out of the world at short notice. ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... was wearing a long mantle with a hood, and appeared in a great hurry. To my surprise, however, he stopped and exclaimed quite cordially, "Ah, cousin, you are a stranger! I have not seen you for a long time. I was sorry to hear of Peleton's mad prank. Were you hurt?" ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... till the purple dieth, And short dry grass under foot is brown, But one little streak at a distance lieth Green, like a ribbon, to prank ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... daughter of Lord Warwick, landed, at last, on the shores of England. [Margaret landed at Weymouth; Lady Warwick, at Portsmouth.] Come they for joy or for woe, for victory or despair? The issue of this day's fight on the heath of Gladsmoor will decide. Prank thy halls, O Westminster, for the triumph of the Lancastrian king,—or open thou, O Grave, to receive the saint-like Henry and his noble son. The king-maker goes before ye, saint-like father and noble ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... escapades in which Francesco, Giovanni, Garzia, and Ernando, the Duke's sons, were joined by young Malatesta de' Malatesti and other pages of the household. One such boyish prank, when the Court was at Pisa, in the winter of 1550, had a tragic ending. In the pages' common room the lads were playing with shot-guns, which were supposed to be unloaded. Picking up one of these, by mere chance, Malatesta aimed it jokingly ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... frugality, he had long limited his daily fare to an anchovy and half-a-dozen olives. As for Abbe Jouve, he never knew what he was eating, and his blunders and forgetfulness supplied an inexhaustible fund of amusement. Jeanne, meditating some prank in this respect, was even now stealthily watching him ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... of the people; The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them, For they do prank them in authority, Against all ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... his sports? No merrier lad's Sweet laughter ever rang! But he is so generous and so frank, His wildest wit or his maddest prank Can ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... day a spirit of mischief urged the Prince on to a gay prank, as also a wayward spirit urged him no longer to brook ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... there before. Reproach and scorn seemed to mingle in the stare she gave him. He blinked, and when he looked again she was examining the point of her pencil; he decided that his eyesight had played him a strange prank. ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... And as Arthur hesitated, 'I misdoubt greatly whether Burnside would give you a helping hand if you came fresh from colloguing with French Jacobites, though my father and all the rest of us at the Lynn aye told him that he might thank himself and his dour old dominie for your prank—you were but a schoolboy then—you are a man now; and though your poor mother would be blithe to set eyes on you, she would be sairly perplexed what gate you had best turn thereafter. Now, see here! There's talk of our ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dymonts, and what not. I dinna ken what spring the fairy played, but this I ken weel, that Wullie had nae great goo o' his performance; so he sits thinkin' to himsel': 'This maun be a deil's get, Auld Waughorn himsel' may come to rock his son's cradle, and play me some foul prank;' so he catches the bairn by the cuff o' the neck, and whupt him into the fire, bagpipes ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... steps to the little turret, and, when I am at last on top, I look out through the small window at the wide heavens and am not at all cold. It seems to me then as if I must give vent to all my pent-up tears, and the next day I am so cheerful and feel new-born, and I look with cunning for a prank to play. And—canst ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... really injuring the new girl; therefore she made no objection to what was done. Indeed, she helped haze Rhoda Hammond, but more for the sake of seeing that the Western girl was not taken advantage of in any way than for the fun of the prank. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... quality of his Latin. But Dieu protect you, Monsieur, if ever he gets whip-hand. A revengeful priest is more to be feared than a rabid dog. I stirred one of his breed once at the Cathedral by some wild prank, and carry the scar of it still. But come, it becomes dusk. Let's break our fast, and while eating consider the best plan for the night. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... had pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... himself was a goody-goody—far from it; he was a terrible prank maker, and more than once narrowly missed suffering serious consequences. But when he really grew up and it came to an acquaintance with women, very few have even attracted him. I began to fear that he was becoming hardened and would never find just what his fastidious taste could approve—not to ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... a green-moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the grass a streamlet fleeting by. The porch with palm or oleaster shade— That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring—their Spring!—to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool. And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and massy boulders fling— A line of stations for the halting wing To dry ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and more pansylike than ever, but she was much more talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... thought, that day of pain When, launched as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank— For time at last sets all things even— And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... connected with her own childhood. As it hung in her father's house, she used to be both annoyed and terrified at the manner in which the eyes of the portrait followed her about the room with persistent and, as she thought, reproving gaze. Especially when she had been guilty of some childish prank, the silent reproach in her grandfather's eyes was intolerable. One day she climbed upon a chair before the portrait, and with a pin attempted to blind the eyes. The pin pricks are ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... my gracious Lord, To chide at your extreames, it not becomes me: (Oh pardon, that I name them:) your high selfe The gracious marke o'th' Land, you haue obscur'd With a Swaines wearing: and me (poore lowly Maide) Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp: But that our Feasts In euery Messe, haue folly; and the Feeders Digest with a Custome, I should blush To see you so attyr'd: sworne I thinke, To ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Blanche Bay, and the islands in the Gulf, it came bounding, screaming, and buffeting. And all the way across that open sweep from Mermentau to Cote Gelee it was tearing the rain to mist and freezing it wherever it fell, only lulling and warming a little about Joseph Jefferson's Island, as if that prank were too mean a trick to play upon ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... was brought in question before the heads of the Uniuersity: Dr. Cosens, being Vice Chancelor noe punishment is inioined him: but on Ash-wednesday next a recantation in regent house of some popish tenets Nicols let fall: I p'ceive by M^r Breercliffe some such prank vsed towards y^r sonne: I desire to know what y^u did therin: thinking I cannot doe god better seruice then bring it vppon the stage either in Parliament if it hold: or informing some Lords of the Counsail to whom I stand much oblieged if a bill in Starchamber be meete To terrify ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... doing good business, and his expenses were light. He could afford to play tricks, but he played a foolish prank in trying to amuse Rabbit township. Rabbit was incapable of ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... navigate the ship, do you; and must needs try and take an observation yourself? Do you and your mates try that prank again, and I'll land you all on the first island we sight, where you may follow your own pleasure, if the savages don't knock you on the head and eat you; and if some one doesn't take you off, which is not very likely, there you will ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... after the third day.'" Now when the four men who were closeted together heard these words they were perplext as to their affair, and said one to other, "What shall we do? Indeed we are unable to sit out three days in this stead." Hereupon the Pieman said to them, "Nay, rather let us play a prank whereby we may escape," and said they, "What may be the device thou wouldest devise?" Quoth he, "Whatso I do that do ye look upon and then act in like guise," and so speaking he arose and taking his minced meat fell to sticking it upon his skin until he was like a leper covered with sores.[FN415] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... nature of the service I can do you, and the amount of my reward, and then you shall have my answer. With respect to Dawson, I will confess to you, that I did once know him well, and that we have done many a mad prank together, which I should not like the bugaboos and bulkies to know; you will, therefore, see that I am naturally reluctant to tell you any thing about him, unless your honour will inform me of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... believe that I was accessory to this mad prank of your brother's? Do not believe it ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... however, who more and more began to reckon herself as one of the grown people, and only very rarely took part in the conspiracies against the Candidate, shook her head at this prank of her brother and sisters, and looked out a new piece of dark silk from her drawer (Louise was a hoarder by nature), possessed herself secretly of the Candidate's hat, and with some little help from her mother, had then her secret pleasure also, and could laugh in her ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... two boats were hauled alongside to the davits, and while they were being hoisted on them, a third gun was fired. The ladies, delighted with the flash and thundering of the guns, begged me to linger a little longer, that another gun might be fired; but fearful that R—— would play some mad prank, and stand out of the fiord without me, I promised the fair dames, that the next time I came to Norway, I would comply with their request, and never leave ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... Wondering what asinine prank was in the young man's mind, but not wanting to disturb the monologuist by untimely controversy, Selwyn reached for the Sketch, and assumed a deep interest in the very latest picture of London's very latest stage favourite who could neither sing, ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... answer. The scheme is too grisly. Besides, we've nothing against the undertakers that should make us willing to waste their time. Moreover, Dan we're in the High School, and we're expected to be gentlemen. Now, does your scheme strike you as just the prank for a ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... when she found the frog in her desk. It jumped right into her face, and fell into her apron-pocket,—we wore aprons with big pockets then,—and she screamed so she had to be taken home. That was the kind of prank Solomon was up to, every day of his life; and fishing for schoolmaster's wig through the skylight, and every crinkum-crankum that ever was. Master Bayley used to go to sleep every recess, and the skylight was just ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... affairs that she looked upon the other occupants as she did the furniture. Without even a direct glance at the young people in the corner she swept up to a chair within a few feet of them and sat down to wait. Jimmy, in the midst of some tale about a prank that the High School Invincibles had played on a rival base-ball team, faltered, grew confused and finished haltingly. For all her spectacles and crape the golden haired stranger was fascinatingly young ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... hand in hand along the banks of the river, discoursing of their mutual fondness in the phrases of Julie and Saint-Preux; the good Jean-Jacques gave them the colours to paint and prank their ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... men who when at home manifested the most gentle and wide-reaching feelings; most of them could not by any possibility have slapped a kitten merely for the prank and yet all of them who had seen an unknown man shot through the head in battle had little more to think of it than if the man had been a rag-baby. Tender they might be; poets they might be; but they were all horned with a provisional, ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... the poles should frisk about And stand upon their heads! I hope I'm ready for the worst, Whatever prank betides." ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... really frighten her at first, for it apeared to be a boy dressed up as a bandit, and surely any such prank could ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... weatherbeaten face. "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are just beginning to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... saving sense of humor. Though such a driver for work—sometimes twenty hours a day seemed too short and they often worked all of twenty-four,—there was not unfrequently a jolly, prank-playing relaxation among the employees in the laboratory. If some fellow fell asleep and began snoring the others would get a record of it and play it later for the culprit or they would fix up a 'squawkophone' to outdo his racket. Most amusing was Edison's means of taking ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... make a spoon or spoil a horn, and—let me have my laugh out—you bid well for an archer," said Randal; and Robin counselling me to play the same prank on the French lad's sword as late I had done on his own, they took each of them an arm of mine, and so we swaggered down the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... which is brought to your attention of a sighting of a flying disc in order to ascertain whether or not it is a bona fide sighting, an imaginary one or a prank. You should also bear in mind that individuals might report seeing flying discs for various reasons. It is conceivable that an individual might be desirous of seeking personal publicity, causing hysteria, ...
— Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA Documents - Unidentified Flying Objects • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
... know, Carrie; I should think perhaps they might be, sometimes. At any rate, I think that they deserve a beating quite as much as a boy does, for neglecting to learn a lesson or for playing some prank—which comes just as naturally, to him, as mischief does to a kitten. For anything really bad, I would beat a boy as long as I could stand over him. For lying, or thieving, or any mean, dirty trick I would have no mercy on him. But that is a very different thing to keeping the cane always going, ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... you carve some fearful and wonderful things on that rock. Won't they get a shock, though, when they come to Eeny-Meeny?" In their mind's eye they could all see the sensation caused by the discovering of Eeny-Meeny possibly years hence at the base of the rock, and the prank appealed to ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... Daylight's night. He was the centre and the head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun. He multiplied himself, and in so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank he suggested was too wild for his followers, and all followed save those that developed into singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet never did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon that when Burning Daylight made ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... I've had an old woman in with me this morning,—one of those that are here in the house,—telling me some story about some other girl that you have made a fool of. It's nothing to me how much of that sort of thing you may have done, so that you do none of it here. But,—if you play any prank of that kind with me, you'll find that you've made ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... Tweedle-dee to Tweedle-dum, as the two comical figures drew unobtrusively into the rear of the group of girls now removing their masks under Mrs. Bonnell's half-amused, half-serious eyes, for she began to suspect that some sort of innocent prank had been played which, like many another would have harmlessly played itself out if let alone. She had always been opposed to the rigorous ban placed upon boys and their visits to Leslie Manor by Miss Woodhull, believing and justifiably too, that such arbitrary ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... been to his house, and finding he had left it in his usual health, it was feared some accident had happened. The congregation then dispersed, much concerned at the absence of the worthy pastor, who, however, atoned in the evening, by unwonted eloquence, for his unpremeditated prank of the morning. ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... de Jars kept his word, and about a month after the interview above related he sent word to Quennebert that the Chevalier de Moranges had left Perregaud's completely recovered from his wound. But the nearly fatal result of the chevalier's last prank seemed to have subdued his adventurous spirit; he was no longer seen in public, and was soon forgotten by all his acquaintances with the exception of Mademoiselle de Guerchi. She faithfully treasured up the memory of his words of passion, his looks ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Two libel suits mushroomed into view in as many days, provoked, as it were, out of conscious nothing; unimportant but harassing: one, brought by a ne'er-do-well who had broken a leg while engaged in a drunken prank months before, the other the outcome of a paragraph ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... laughing in the pleasant French way that shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become too big to prank on the commons. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... people separated, still singing and laughing; never dreaming of the storm brewing from their evening's prank. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... be done in the time," I said, calling to mind a prank related by a gay little friend—"clap it ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... a revolving wheel. This wheel typifies the sun. Waving the "ring" in the Purim bonfires has obviously the same significance, and this apparently inexplicable feature does, I think, serve to link the ancient Purim prank with a long series of old-world customs, which, it need hardly be said, have nothing whatever to do ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... serious peril now?" asked Miss Preston, half laughing as she recalled the previous evening's prank and her own very thorough enjoyment ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with the musing eye, Who watch us stepping by With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you! Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... to bring a dozen and more of your friends down on his place to commit some prank that will make him dislike boys more than ever. It's all wrong, I tell you, fellows, and for one I refuse to lend a hand," and Jack folded his arms as though his mind were made ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... theory of Bergson, the spontaneous as well as the mechanical and rigid may be comical. Sometimes the same object may be comical from both the points of view which we have specified; this is always true, as we shall see, in the most highly developed comedy. For example, we may laugh at the child's prank because it is so absurd from the point of view of our grown-up expectations as to reasonable conduct, and at the same time, taking the part of the child, rejoice at the momentary relief from them which it offers us. Our scorn is mixed with sympathy. And oftentimes the ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... began the Chief Guardian in an impressive voice, "I find that a serious offense has been committed, an offense that cannot be overlooked. A prank is allowable within reasonable limits, but any such trick as this borders on ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... greeted the returning pupils, and briefly sketched the plans for the school year then beginning. She was a quick, briskly-speaking woman, who impressed the most rattle-pated girl before her that she meant to be obeyed and that no wild prank would ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... rosebuds in a wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little eyes of light. While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother, But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss, This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother, Who turns to greet the tidings ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... livery will occupy us one evening, Mansoul's Magna Charta another, and her annual Feast-day another. Her Established Church and her beneficed clergy will take up one evening, some Skulkers in Mansoul another, the devil's last prank another, and then, to wind up with, Emmanuel's last speech and charge to Mansoul from his chariot-step till He comes again to accomplish her rapture. All that we shall see and take part in; unless, indeed, our Captain comes ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... coming to believe it. There are two of us. That dinner! And out of an innocent prank comes this! Folly, always folly!" And as she remembered the piece of folly she was about to start out upon, she laughed. "Mad? Yes. Only, to your madness there is some reason; ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... less; and in what I really sent the boy to you for, you have not improved him a bit; he has carried off and seduced neighbour Echecrates's daughter, and there would have been an action for assault, only Echecrates is a poor man; but the prank cost me a couple of hundred. And the other day he struck his mother; she had tried to stop him when he was smuggling wine out of the house, for one of his club-dinners, I suppose. As to temper and conceit and impudence and brass and lying, he was not half so bad twelve months ago as he is now. That ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... savages that surround us here. A clash of arms would be their excuse for immediate attack, and might mean death and torture to the whole garrison. Our only hope lies in being permitted to pass out without armed collision; and to do this requires that we ignore such hidden deeds. 'Twas a mad prank of yours last night, and might have involved us all in common ruin. Go this time free, except for these words of censure; for you are not directly under my orders. Another such attempt, subversive of all discipline, and the gates of Dearborn ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... play a part in the pantomime, Mr. Ridge, let an Englishwoman suggest that you be the harlequin. How I loved the harlequin in the Drury Lane pantomimes at Christmas time! He was always the ideal lover to me, for there was no trick, no prank this bespangled hero could not play to success. He always went incognito, for he wore his narrow mask of black. He performed the most marvellous things for his Columbine,—and was she not a worthy sweetheart? No, no, Mr. Ridge:—not the fool, I pray. Please be the harlequin," ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... amain, Seated the king on his throne again, And the Algalif said, "'Twas a sorry prank, Raising your weapon to slay the Frank. It was yours to hearken in silence there." "Sir," said Gan, "I may meetly bear, But for all the wealth of your land arrayed, For all the gold that God hath made, Would I not live and leave unsaid, ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... States declaimed bitterly against the folly that had sent these unfortunate men to perish miserably in the fathomless depths of the continent. They no longer treated it "as a philosophism," or wild prank, but as a wicked scheme to risk life and property in a search for the mysteries of the unknown ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... your practical jokes!" exclaimed the prince, imagining that some of his courtiers were playing a prank on him. ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... in a gratified voice, "that there was nothing to compel him to give me this paper and thus make himself known. It was a mere schoolboy prank on his part, which gave me the ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... turned up at that critical moment seemed a wilful prank on the part of fate. Sandy bit his lip and raged inwardly. He had a wild impulse to rush back to Ruth, seize her hand, and begin where he had left off. He might have done it, too, had not the promenade happened to land Dr. Fenton ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... could repair the damage as well as Van Dyck, who set about it, and soon he had painted in the smudged part so perfectly that when Rubens saw it, he did not for some time know that anything had happened to his picture. Later he suspected something, and when he learned of the prank and its outcome, he was so delighted with Van Dyck's work that he praised him instead of blaming him ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... little blot of ink to spurt from my fountain-pen on to the surface of the paper. I drew a deep breath. I was free again. And with the freedom came a resolve—that whatever portion of myself had been responsible for this prank should not repeat it if I could ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... they talked, you may be sure. The Lunda boys were decidedly in favour of Yaspard's scheme—was there ever a boy who would have objected to any such prank? They saw no harm in it whatever, ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... behind them. Alleyne had lingered for an instant in the passage, and as he did so there came a wild outcry from a chamber upon the left, and out there ran Aylward and John, laughing together like two schoolboys who are bent upon a prank. At sight of Alleyne they slunk past him with somewhat of a shame-faced air, and springing upon their horses galloped after their party. The hubbub within the chamber did not cease, however, but rather increased, with yells of: "A moi, mes amis! A moi, camarades! ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... take his pen away, That so feebly runs on paper; Keep him quiet, or he'll play Other trait'rous prank and caper. Why apologize for treason, Or ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... were, from his petticoat days when he collected goose-eggs and tried to hatch them out by sitting over them himself. One might be inclined to dismiss this trivial incident smilingly, as a mere childish, thoughtless prank, had not subsequent development as a child, boy, and man revealed a born investigator with original reasoning powers that, disdaining crooks and bends, always aimed at the centre, and, like the flight of the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... town. The jailer met me with a doubtful shaking of his scheming head, and I knew that again he had received orders to be rigid in his discipline, but I was resolved that the old rascal's appetite for liquor should not play a second prank upon me; so when he hinted at another bottle I told him that I had spent so much of my life as a temperance lecturer that it was against my conscience to buy a favor with whisky. I looked steadily at him, and he ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... shelter or other. I dare say that she climbed in at one of the windows of the house, though I could not make quite sure without asking more questions than I thought worth while. She came stealing in early in the morning, looking a little pale and wild, but she hasn't played such a prank since. I had a call to the next town and Marilla had evidently been awake all night. I got home early in the morning myself, and was told that it was supposed I had picked up Nan on the road and carried her with me, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of two months at one bound. Two big months! He would have guessed, at farthest, two weeks. "I have been two months in one shirt? Impossible!" he exclaimed. His serious idea (he cherished it for the support of his reason) was, that the world above had played a mad prank since he had been shuffled ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... debate amongst 'em, Aunt Martha fin'lly admittin' it was just a little prank of Hadley's, her being roped down; but she was sure I had tried to murder him, just for nothing at all. Hadley says so too. In fact, he tells seven diff'rent yarns in as many minutes, each one makin' me ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... high spirits at thought of her prank, while Droop closed the tight iron shutters at each window, thus confining every ray ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... curious production," said Holmes. "At first sight it would appear to be some childish prank. It consists of a number of absurd little figures dancing across the paper upon which they are drawn. Why should you attribute any importance to so grotesque ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... where he declined to learn, and where he only did harm by his riotous example. Indeed, I believe he nearly set fire to Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor's man that wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner party on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine, having toasted King James's health ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by his riotous example. Indeed, I believe he nearly set fire to Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor's man that wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner-party on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine, having toasted King James's health with open windows, and sung cavalier songs, and shouted ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... music seemed full of the vivacity, the vulgarity, and the irrational valour of the poor, who in all those unclean streets were all clinging to the decencies and the charities of Christendom. His youthful prank of being a policeman had faded from his mind; he did not think of himself as the representative of the corps of gentlemen turned into fancy constables, or of the old eccentric who lived in the dark room. But he did feel himself as the ambassador ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... quite sure Miss Mischief had been up to some prank, which had turned out disastrously. But it must have been a serious one, and perhaps there were ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... guard and the prince's tutor, under plea of the bath and stows them away in baskets which suggest Falstaff's "buck-basket." In Miss Stokes' "Indian Fairy Tales" the fair wife of an absent merchant plays a similar notable prank upon the Kotwal, the Wazir, the Kazi and the King; and akin to this is the exploit of Temal Ramakistnan, the Madrasi Tyl Eulenspiegel and Scogin who by means of a lady saves his life from the Rajah and the High Priest. Mr. G. H. Damant (pp. 357-360 of the "Indian Antiquary" ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... were doing an act of justice. I deserved what you said, but I didn't deserve what has followed. I meant no harm—it was a silly prank, and I have suffered for it as if it were a crime, and the consequences are not ended yet. I should think that, if there is a moral government of the universe, the Judge of all the earth would know when to hold his hand. And now the worst of it is to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... father's use of grotesque rhymes in teaching him; qualities he inherited from his mother; weak points in regard to health throughout his life; characteristics in early childhood; great quickness in learning; an amusing prank; passion for his mother; fondness for animals; his collections; experiences of school life; extensive reading in his father's library; early acquaintance with old books; his early attempts in verse; spurious ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... older readers will remember the thrilling experiences of this boyish trio during the early trials of the new submarine torpedo boat, both above and below the surface. These readers will remember, also, for instance, the great prank played by the boys on the watch officer of one of the stateliest battleships ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... he. "Just like Warrie to do that, though. But, if I know Miss Prentice at all, she will pay him back for that little prank." ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... gap in the array of reasons and impulses which were leading me on, and gave to the matter an air of sport and adventure most potent in attraction for such a mood as mine. I was in rebellion against the limits of my position and the repression of my manner of life. To play a prank like this suited my humour exactly. When Victoria left me, I sent word of my intention to be present at Coralie's theatre that evening, and invited William Adolphus to join me in my box. I received the answer ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... sixteen. I had graduated from the seminary and was pursuing my studies at the Preacher's Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You are a ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... don't mention it. I am only sorry that some one has played a mischievous prank on you—a servant, doubtless. Madame," sternly, looking at his step-mother. "I insist that you shall investigate the ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... was once official, and later, on being discarded by the authorities, was continued by the students as a kind of prank. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... the Warden that some organised prank or protest was afoot. Dignity required that he should take no heed whatsoever. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, stately he approached the dais, his ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... might I choose, be honest-poor: For she that sits at Fortune's feet a-low Is sure she shall not taste a further woe, But those that prank on top of Fortune's ball Still fear a change, and, fearing, catch ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... general an almost universal flogging match. My admiration naturally led to its probable result, a desire to imitate—I firmly resolved to become a Peregrine. I soon promoted myself to be the leader of every mad prank that the wit of a spirit suddenly excited to activity could devise. In the first fortnight I got flogged for tying a huge mass of brown paper to the tail of the favourite cat of the master's lady, with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... series of aphoristic sentences twisted out of Greek and Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, Pandosto is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the real merit of the performance. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... all simp'ring there. Walk in the groves, and thou shalt find The name of Phillis in the rind Of every straight and smooth-skin tree; Where kissing that, I'll twice kiss thee. To thee a sheep-hook I will send, Be-prank'd with ribbands, to this end, This, this alluring hook might be Less for to catch a sheep, than me. Thou shalt have possets, wassails fine, Not made of ale, but spiced wine; To make thy maids and self free mirth, All sitting near the glitt'ring hearth. Thou shalt have ribbands, ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... however, did not return to his hiding-place in the hold, though he was rather an incubus on board. Phlegmatic, methodic, and by no means communicative, he carefully avoided the seamen, who had always some prank to play off on him, and he kept to his own provisions. He was thin enough in all conscience, and his additional weight but imperceptibly added to the cost of navigating the Dream. If Seng Vou got a free passage it was obvious ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... morning,—one of those that are here in the house,—telling me some story about some other girl that you have made a fool of. It's nothing to me how much of that sort of thing you may have done, so that you do none of it here. But,—if you play any prank of that kind with me, you'll find that you've made ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... "I look on this in another way than ye do, for methinks it was a foolish prank — they were sure to bear in mind their griefs, even though they were not reminded of them anew; but those men who try others so heavily ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... he encountered with any of them upon the street, he would not never fail to put some trick or other upon them, sometimes putting the bit of a fried turd in their graduate hoods, at other times pinning on little foxtails or hares'-ears behind them, or some such other roguish prank. One day that they were appointed all to meet in the Fodder Street (Sorbonne), he made a Borbonesa tart, or filthy and slovenly compound, made of store of garlic, of assafoetida, of castoreum, of dogs' turds ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... he got accustomed to him, and then, boy-like, presuming upon acquaintance, began to tease him a bit when he would come in for a "bite and sup." More than once the idiot's eyes flashed dangerously at Bert's prank; but, fool though he was, he had sense enough to understand that any outbreak would mean his prompt expulsion and banishment, and so he would restrain himself. One memorable day, however, when Bert least expected or invited it, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... inconvenient in a youth of seventeen, and favour him and ourselves with a lecture accordingly. But such is the force of inveterate habit that our remonstrances upon this subject are usually so much gravity wasted upon him and upon ourselves. He, in the course of a day or two, comes forth with some fresh prank more amusing than before, and we (I grieve to confess such a ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford
... I tell Uncle Kit of the prank I played on the black tyrant. I also told him why I was so anxious to get away from St. Louis. That it was I feared Drake would discover me and take me back to his farm and the society of ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... A number of medical students, mere boys, in the University of Havana, were charged with defacing the tomb of a Spanish officer who had been killed by a Cuban in a political quarrel. At its worst, it was a boyish prank, demanding rebuke or even some mild punishment. Later evidence indicates that while there was a demonstration there was no defacement of the vault. Forty-two students were arrested as participants, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be shot. ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... in October 1713, Lord Berkeley of Stratton told Lord Strafford of "a fine prank of the widow Lady Jersey" (see Letter 29, note 3). "It is well known her lord died much in debt, and she, after taking upon her the administration, sold everything and made what money she could, and is run away into France without paying a farthing of the debts, with only one servant and unknown ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... intimate friend of mine, I should resent her performance and make a fuss about it. But she is such a casual acquaintance,—why, probably I shall never see her again after I go away from Lakewood,—and so I consider it better judgment to ignore her silly prank, rather than stir up a ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... just coming in again with a grin for another kick when Chris played his merry little prank. While the others sprang for the door Demetre sprang for Joe. He glided upon the horse's bare back like a snake and shouted something at him like the crack of a dozen whips. One of the firemen afterward swore ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... 'I do not see how we are to keep it from her; but you have certainly won her in a most remarkable way. You must promise me, Holly darling, that you 'll never play such a wicked prank again.' ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... despondently. He went all over the car again, but was forced to the first conclusion, that the reserve current had leaked away, in consequence of the meddling prank of the youth at the hotel. The situation was far from pleasant, and the delay would seriously interfere ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... them there since she died," Max asserted. "How do I know so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea while ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... they were perplext as to their affair, and said one to other, "What shall we do? Indeed we are unable to sit out three days in this stead." Hereupon the Pieman said to them, "Nay, rather let us play a prank whereby we may escape," and said they, "What may be the device thou wouldest devise?" Quoth he, "Whatso I do that do ye look upon and then act in like guise," and so speaking he arose and taking his minced meat fell to sticking it upon his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... in the best manner with extraneous ornament. I therefore convened all Olympus to consult about the marriage of a Frankfort lawyer, and seriously enough, to be sure, as well became the festival of such an honorable man. Venus and Themis had quarrelled for his sake; but a roguish prank, which Amor played the latter, gained the suit for the former: and the gods decided in favor ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... I was joking," the old rascal declared. "Wash and I always prank with each other. You can take a ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... were both here," he said when I finished. "Whatever mad prank took them away, it would look better if they were ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... so incredibly meek and meechin', like a cat eatin' the canary," he remarked severely. "Thank you for a biscuit. And the sugar! Now what warlockry is this?" He jerked a thumb at the far-off fires. "What's the merry prank?" ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... projects of vengeance, Commander de Jars kept his word, and about a month after the interview above related he sent word to Quennebert that the Chevalier de Moranges had left Perregaud's completely recovered from his wound. But the nearly fatal result of the chevalier's last prank seemed to have subdued his adventurous spirit; he was no longer seen in public, and was soon forgotten by all his acquaintances with the exception of Mademoiselle de Guerchi. She faithfully treasured ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... was au complet, and, after having made our bows to Mrs. Story, we took our places in the theater. Mr. Story was Shylock, and acted extremely well. Edith was very good as Portia. Waldo and Julian both took part. Mr. and Mrs. Prank Lascelles, of the English Embassy, both dressed in black velvet, played the married couple to the life, but did not look at all Italian. The whole performance was really wonderfully well done and most successful; the enthusiasm ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... Friend of mine took a chance; put down a well on his own. The usual thing happened; they broke him. It took a lot of doing, but they broke him. One little trick they did was to cock a bit and drop it in the hole. That prank cost him sixteen thousand dollars before he could 'side track' the tool. He quit, finally, less 'n a hundred feet from big pay. Then, having bought up solid for near nothing they came back and started business, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... may presume that a girl who previously, urged by love, had allowed the Duke to carry her off to Candia, could do no less for a man who showed her so much attention on the voyage back to France." More or less just as these inductions may be, it appears quite certain that this same prank of Mademoiselle Querouaille was the foundation of her fortunes. In giving his friends an account of the expedition in which he had taken part, the Marquis did not omit the episode of the Duke de Beaufort's ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... sleek, purry cat, or an absurd kitten, or a tigress, when you come home. Luckily, she did not tell Ned of her jealousy, and I have cautioned all in my family to hold their tongues, and I think they will. I infer that they suspect that I must have been guilty of some unbecoming elderly prank to bring about such a state of affairs, unless, possibly, Maria's husband and Billy are exceptions. I find that Billy, when Alice lets him alone, is a boy who sees with his own eyes. He told me yesterday ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... rakes they were as ever the world beheld—was attempting to play off a smart, witty jest upon him. Indeed, Miss Eliza Bolles, who was of a lively, mischievous temper, was not herself above playing such a prank should the occasion offer. With this thought in his mind Barnaby inquired of her with a good deal of particularity concerning the appearance and condition of the man who had left the note, to all of which Miss replied with so straight ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... good-natured, competent, lusty horse should be handled and trained. We didn't, and necessarily had to learn. He trained himself while we took hearty lessons in holding him. Once he decided to gallop with a sled. It was a mere whim—a gay little prank—but Tom couldn't stop him. He ran too, holding on to the reins at arm's length, contrary to my counsel, urged from discreet distance. Christmas ran faster, and by and by Tom sat down on his chin, and Christmas went on without him. He didn't quite remember the width of the sled. Consequently ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... came to the door to welcome them, and thought she should see Floribel's smiling face under the white bonnet; but O, there was only a dog's sharp nose. "What prank are you playing, children?" she said. "Where ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... A like prank vnder the like assumed names, and with like successe and boding, they plaied, when Octauius and Anthony were, with like meanes, to decide ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... bumpers, which made my mother very angry, my old grandmother to hold up her hands, and look at the ceiling through her spectacles, and my aunt Milly as merry as myself. Before I was eight years old, I had become so notorious, that any prank played in the town, any trick undiscovered, was invariably laid to my account; and many were the applications made to my mother for indemnification for broken windows and other damage done, too often, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... be frank wi' ye; Robertson is rather a cut abune me—a wild deevil he was, and mony a daft prank he played; but except the Collector's job that Wilson led him into, and some tuilzies about run goods wi' the gaugers and the waiters, he never did onything that came near our line ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... most French of all the Germans," and Galiani, the most nimble-witted of men, inexhaustible in story, inimitable in pantomimic narration, and yet with the keenest intellectual penetration shining through all his Neapolitan prank and buffoonery. Holbach cared most for the physical sciences. Marmontel brought a vein of sentimentalism, and Helvetius a vein of cynical formalism. Diderot played Socrates, Panurge, Pantophile; questioning, instructing, combining; pouring out knowledge and suggestion, full of interest ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... you and your ladies might visit the Duchess de Duras, you should have advanced the clock by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... distinct shock it had come to the millionaire that he was not merely the disgruntled lover planning a little prank to tease the dearest girl in the world. He was the honored guest of a family who were rejoicing that it was in their power to give a lonely cripple a Thanksgiving dinner. His face ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... To go and risk her good name thus. However, thank Heaven she has played this prank with an honest lad that will ne'er expose her folly. But oh, the perverseness! Could she not bestow her nauseousness on thee?" Denys sighed and shrugged. "On thee that art as ripe for folly ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... lord, To chide at your extremes it not becomes me,— O, pardon that I name them!—your high self, The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscur'd With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid, Most goddess-like prank'd up. But that our feasts In every mess have folly, and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attir'd; swoon, I think, To ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... the doctor, who had halted at the turning leading up to the rectory front door. "It is very curious, but I can't help thinking that it was all a prank played by some of the town lads to annoy the sexton. Well, Vane, my boy, ready for ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... this do the rules provide! This is scandal, this is a shame, This madcap prank in Our Lady's name. Out of the doors with him; back to the street: He has no place at Our ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... Laura played this prank with the wig, you can't suppose that Pen could have been very ill upstairs; otherwise, though she had grown to care for him ever so little, common sense of feeling and decorum would have prevented her from performing any tricks or ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... from the stain of simony, her hand clutched his, and doing a delicate cake-walk she compelled him along with her, announcing, "The Hornet and the Bumble-bee went walking hand in hand!" Fancying this prank not to have been without success, she next performed an improvised pas seul illustrative of the text, "The mountains shall ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... ignore. I let it go at that, but twice I got up and went outside to look. There burned the light, diabolically like a signal fire on the peak, where no fire should be. I began to seek explanations, but the best of them were vague. Electricity playing a prank of some obscure kind,—that was as close as I could get to it, and even that did not satisfy as it should have done, perhaps because the high, barren mesas and the mountains of bare rocks are in themselves weird and sinister, and commonplace explanations of their phenomena ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... ambition in life was to be taken seriously, but people steadily refused to. His art was a huge joke—except to himself. If he asked people to dinner, every one expected a frolic. When he married Bella Knowles, people chuckled at the wedding, and considered it the wildest prank of Jimmy's career, although Jim himself seemed to take ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... lest the man might suspect there was in his actions something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant, tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there. Calling up the London office of the REPUBLIC, ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... that gay, moonlit, lantern-decked, boat-thronged, water-lapped island in that far northern Canadian lake. Following the cheers there came stillness. Men looked sheepishly at each other as if caught in some silly prank. Then once more the Spectre drew near. But this time they declined not to look, but with steady, grave, appraising eyes they faced The Thing, resolute to know the worst, and in quiet undertones they ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... Mr Terence, that Dan Hoolan, though he's mighty quiet just now, will be playing us some prank or other before long, if he can find a chance," observed ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... at the puzzling the friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him; he's only pesthering you with bog-Latin; but, at any rate to do him justice, he's not a bad Scholar, I can tell you that.... Your health, Prank, you droll crathur—your health. I have only one fault to find with you, and that is, that you fast and mortify yourself too much. Your fasting has reduced you from being formerly a friar of very genteel dimensions to a cut of corpulency that smacks strongly ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... thickness was not vengeance-proof. They little thought that day of pain, When launched, as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, 410 With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank— For Time at last sets all things even— And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, 420 The patient search and vigil long Of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... of Bedford, despotic and rash, Tried to force her poor groom to shave off his moustache. Judge BAGSHAWE the wise, made her pay for her prank. This makes one inclined to sing, "I know a Bank," Where BAGSHAWE might bring common-sense, for a change; They're worse than the Lady of Goldington Grange, These Banking Bashaws with three tails, who must clip Nature's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various
... through the grave anxieties pressing upon him. Humor he certainly had, but at this time it often showed itself in horse-play, so fantastic as to suggest some unusual exciting cause. Thus, for one such prank he seemed to draw his inspiration from the Sunday celebration of Divine Service. Upon its conclusion, he framed and published a new signal, for "all chaplains," the employment of which, however, was postponed to an occasion suited to his lordship's ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... that could be wished. It occurs to me now that it was because his lordship was, how shall I say?—quite far gone in liquor at the time, so that I could without loss of dignity pass it off as a mere prank. Indeed, he regarded it as such himself, performing the act with a good nature that I found quite irresistible, and I am certain that neither his lordship nor I have ever thought the less of each other because of it. I revert to this merely ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... spoon or spoil a horn, and—let me have my laugh out—you bid well for an archer," said Randal; and Robin counselling me to play the same prank on the French lad's sword as late I had done on his own, they took each of them an arm of mine, and so we swaggered down the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... confuse the sheriff's brain a little. To the intense horror of the minister's wife, he related how her husband, grey-haired and strict as he now was, had been an unusually gay fellow in his youth, and how they had played many a mad prank together. ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... temptations that led me early into lawless habits. I associated with others friendless like myself; I formed them into a band, I was their chief and captain. All shepherd-boys alike, while our flocks were spread over the pastures, we schemed and executed many a mischievous prank, which drew on us the anger and revenge of the rustics. I was the leader and protector of my comrades, and as I became distinguished among them, their misdeeds were usually visited upon me. But while I endured punishment and pain in their defence with ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... is he to be refused for? Because he did not defend his betrothed? Allowing that was not very handsome on his part, still, he's a civilian, has not had a university education, and as a solid business man, it was for him to look with contempt on the frivolous prank of some unknown little officer. And what sort of insult was ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... before. Reproach and scorn seemed to mingle in the stare she gave him. He blinked, and when he looked again she was examining the point of her pencil; he decided that his eyesight had played him a strange prank. ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... door, which he laid on the floor lest it should play him the same prank over again, Joe Corney once more settled himself in the easy-chair and resolved to give his mind to meditation. Just then the City clocks pealed forth ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... own average experience,—that besides these gloomy associations, the name of Venice will conjure up scenes of brilliant and wanton gayety, and that in the foreground of the brightest picture will be the Carnival of Venice, full of antic delight, romantic adventure, and lawless prank. But the carnival, with all the old merry- making life of the city, is now utterly obsolete, and, in this way, the conventional, masquerading, pleasure-loving Venice is become as gross a fiction as if, like that other conventional Venice of which I ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... stepping forward through a narrow sunbeam into the brown shade to meet him, with such a shamefaced, boyish air of conscious delinquency. Conscious, indeed, that he was the author of a certain commotion, but very far, assuredly, from being conscious that he, Gifford Crayshaw, by means of this schoolboy prank, was taking the decisive step towards a change in the destiny of every soul then bearing ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... succeed! And now I may say it, I hope without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter and larger than the sun or the moon: A blazing star, I foretell, 'twill ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... soul, sat moping in the prow of his boat, or kept step with him in the race. Like the Sun-god, he was buoyant and beautiful, careless, free, elastic, unfading. Years never cramped his bounding spirits, or dimmed the lustre of his soul. He was ever ready for prank and pastime, for freak and fun. Of all his loves at Elleray, boating was the chief. He was the Lord-High-Admiral of all the neighboring waters, and had a navy at his beck. He never wearied of the lake: whether she smiled or frowned on her devotee, he worshipped all the same. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... shadow of the spruce. His rifle he discarded. In his un-mittened hand he held his revolver. With staring eyes he looked for Bram out where the wolves had passed. And then, all at once, came the shock. It was tremendous. The trickery of sound on the Barren had played an unexpected prank with his senses, and while he strained his eyes to pierce the hazy starlight of the plain far out, Bram himself loomed up suddenly along the edge of the bush ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... in early manhood, the keenest relish of a funny prank, and one such he used to act over again in after life with the greatest vivacity of manner. Every one remembers the story told by Jefferson Hogg how Shelley got rid of the old woman with the onion basket ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... at his prayers, with a joke at the quality of his Latin. But Dieu protect you, Monsieur, if ever he gets whip-hand. A revengeful priest is more to be feared than a rabid dog. I stirred one of his breed once at the Cathedral by some wild prank, and carry the scar of it still. But come, it becomes dusk. Let's break our fast, and while eating consider the best plan for the night. Eloise, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... Roche, a French captain, who was once prisoner here, being with his ship at Plymouth, hath played some freakes there, for which his men being beat out of the town, he hath put up a flag of defiance, and also somewhere there about did land with his men and go a mile into the country, and did some prank; which sounds pretty odd to our disgrace, but we are in condition now to bear any thing. But, blessed be God! all the Court is full of good news of my Lord Sandwich having made a peace between Spain and ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... helping hand if you came fresh from colloguing with French Jacobites, though my father and all the rest of us at the Lynn aye told him that he might thank himself and his dour old dominie for your prank—you were but a schoolboy then—you are a man now; and though your poor mother would be blithe to set eyes on you, she would be sairly perplexed what gate you had best turn thereafter. Now, see here! There's talk of our being sent to dislodge the Spaniards from Sicily. You are a likely lad, and the ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what century it is." She smiled at him glowingly, thinking she had caught him at a prank. It was nice, she thought, to have gotten through to him tonight, on the eve of the new year. That meant that she was living up to her motto the way she ought ...
— Life Sentence • James McConnell
... Alcudia, and brought the Infantes his sons-in-law from thence with him into the city to the Alcazar, that they might see their brides Doa Elvira and Doa Sol. Doa Ximena had her daughters ready to receive them in full noble garments, for since midnight they had done nothing but prink and prank themselves. Full richly was the Alcazar set out that day, with hangings both above and below, purple and samite, and rich cloth. The Cid entered, between the Infantes, and all that noble company went in after them; and they went into the chief hall of the Alcazar, where Doa Ximena was ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... puppet. And yet a thrill of alarm, for the first time, shot through Gard. It was not reassuring. He thought of Rudi. Was this some official prank young Bucher had set going? It would be like him. He must be a spy, as Anderson had insisted. Was the son trying to act with confederates far away ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... the river into the rapids from Chippewa Creek, expecting to enjoy the rare pleasure of seeing her leap over the Falls and emerge in little fragments and splinters of timber in the river below. Thousands had gathered on the Canadian shore, and on Goat Island, to witness a prank never matched in audacity since the British "guerrillas" from the other side, in the time of the Canadian rebellion, seized the steamer "Caroline" at Schlosser, set her on fire, and sent her down the Falls—an act which almost lit the torch of war so effectually ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... much more talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... porch whose roof is seen Arch'd with the enlivening olive's green: Where Science, prank'd in tissued vest, 15 By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest, Comes, like a bride, so trim array'd, To wed with Doubt ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... ought to exist, in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality of the Horner ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Barnesdale some time before, if you remember, only to be chased up the hill without his purchase. So to-day Little John was chosen, and for sweet company's sake Robin went with him a part of the way until they came to the "Seven Does," the inn where Robin had recently played his prank upon Middle the tinker. Here they drank a glass of ale to refresh themselves withal, and for good luck; and Robin tarried a bit while Little John went on ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... has met with foul play. I myself think it very unlikely—very unlikely indeed. The lack of motive, for one thing, and for another—Ah, well, a score of reasons! But Helen refuses to be comforted. It seems to me much more like a boy's prank—his idea of revenge for what he considered unjust treatment at his grandfather's hands. He was always a headstrong youngster, and he has been a bit spoiled. Still, of course, the uncertainty is very trying for ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... they were both here," he said when I finished. "Whatever mad prank took them away, it would look better if they were ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... host exclaimed. "Can't you see that I had no part in this, that the minx devised it all by herself expressly to thwart me? Don't let her have the satisfaction of outmanoeuvering both of us. Don't let a mere prank of a child spoil all our arrangements. She'll be a good wife as ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... two good reasons. First it would chill the water more speedily when in this condition; then again the chances of knocking one of the interlopers on the head with a heavy lump of ice falling quite some distance would be obviated. Hugh did not intend that this prank should end in a tragedy, if ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... nature to do things by halves; and thus I became, and in a brief space too, the most inveterate Tapageur of the whole regiment. There was not a wild prank or plot in which I was not foremost, not a breach of the discipline unaccompanied by my name or presence, and more than half the time of our march to meet the enemy, I passed in double irons under the guard ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... of horse play, but I must keep up the high key and act like the rest. Indeed for the most of the time I feel as they do, I suppose, but sometimes that sort of ribaldry and feelings of the ludicrous that made us joke, and prank, and cut up in genial companionships come over me, and I am suffocating with a glee out of place to this exalted society. Ah! it's good to feel you, my friend, so fresh and new from earth. It's promised here in the learned talk I have heard, that those who ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... familiar human figures seemed all departed. I looked in vain for sobered versions of the faces that had smiled, of old, around tables in comfortable cafA(C)s, in an atmosphere of youthful gaiety, where at any moment one might be enmeshed in a Florentine prank that Boccaccio could not ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... vinegar to darken them. The whole looked rusty, and as we hoped when we had done no one would ever guess the game we had been up to. We swept up dust from the carpet, and pushed it under the bottom of the door, and I think our prank never was known. The old ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... damped my spirits exceedingly, and that was, having no hint from Moll the night before of this project, which then must have been fully matured in her mind, nor any written word of explanation and encouragement. For, thinks I, she being no longer a giddy, heedless child, ready to play any prank without regard to the consequences, but a very considerate, remorseful woman, would not put us to this anxiety without cause. Had she resolved to go to her friends at Elche, she would, at least, have comforted us with the hope of meeting her again; whereas, ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... have ordinary chicken for a meat course, whereas I had hoped to give you a real dainty, stewed wild rabbit. But our snares were left unbaited while we planned to come in first on Gilly and his proposed prank. I don't suppose you know a thing about it, ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... stood and rapidly pondered the situation. She felt like laughing outrageously at the prank Cupid had played on them, but she dared not utter a sound of mirth because that might spoil everything. And there might be a possible chance of saving the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... joined in the fun of the thing, and wondered what the whole scene could mean. Perhaps it was but the prank of mischievous boys who were intent on taking ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... like rosebuds in a wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little eyes of light. While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother, But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss, This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother, Who turns to greet the tidings ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... placed them on a height of some 4000 feet at the north-west end of Lake Nyassa, deserves the highest place. Dr. Beke, in his guess, came nearer the sources than most others, but after all he pointed out where they would not be found. Old Nile played the theorists a pretty prank by having his springs 500 miles south of them all! I call mine a contribution, because it is just a hundred years (1769) since Bruce, a greater traveller than any of us, visited Abyssinia, and having discovered the sources of the Blue ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... didn't take a fancy to. I can hear Sally Andrews now, when she found the frog in her desk. It jumped right into her face, and fell into her apron-pocket,—we wore aprons with big pockets then,—and she screamed so she had to be taken home. That was the kind of prank Solomon was up to, every day of his life; and fishing for schoolmaster's wig through the skylight, and every crinkum-crankum that ever was. Master Bayley used to go to sleep every recess, and the skylight was just ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if she ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... if he might bring a guest of his own, a certain Monsieur LaChaise, who was one of the conductors at the Metropolitan and was to have the direction of the summer opera out here at Ravinia this year. Portia added with the falsely deprecatory air of a mother apologizing for a child's prank, that Pietro had in fact, already invited him to the dinner and had only just informed her of the fact. Lucile had assured her, of course, that this addition to the company would cause not the slightest inconvenience, served on the ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... situation; he helped himself to cream and sifted sugar with leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business— Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Jane that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank. "I do hate her ways," she exclaimed, "but I'm sorry I let her know we 'spected her; and so to make up, I gave her that little piece of broken coral I keep in my bead ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and Play. The Schoolhouse in the Woods. Maple Sugar-making. The Orator of the Dawn. A Boyish Prank. Capturing ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... in his own person, return to Sowell Street. But, lest the man might suspect there was in his actions something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant, tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... such is the force of inveterate habit that our remonstrances upon this subject are usually so much gravity wasted upon him and upon ourselves. He, in the course of a day or two, comes forth with some fresh prank more amusing than before, and we (I grieve to confess such ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford
... ears when he heard of the flight of two months at one bound. Two big months! He would have guessed, at farthest, two weeks. "I have been two months in one shirt? Impossible!" he exclaimed. His serious idea (he cherished it for the support of his reason) was, that the world above had played a mad prank since he had been shuffled ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter and larger than the sun or the moon: A blazing star, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... checking me, Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy. Even in the spring and play-time of the year That calls the unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prank their hair with daisies, or to pick A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook, These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarmed Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... head in the manacles, and his body firmly fastened to the pillar by the leather thong. Sometimes he had been left many hours thus secured, till he had been ready to drop with exhaustion. Sometimes he had been cruelly beaten by his stern sire in punishment for some boyish prank or act of disobedience. Even the gentle and timid Petronella had more than once been fastened to the pillar for a time of penance, though the manacles and the whip had been spared to her. The place was even now full of terrors for her—a gruesome spot, always dim and dark, ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ways ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wrong person. Later on you may leave court with honor; now you would leave in disgrace. Right or wrong, the king can do no wrong, and even were it known that he had kidnapped you, every one would laugh at you as the victim of a royal prank. Many would say that you were willing to be kidnapped, and the court hussies would ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... of Egyptian antiquities which the savants of Napoleon's expedition had gathered and carefully packed, and even shipped preparatory to sending them to the Louvre. The feelings of these savants may readily be imagined when, through this sad prank of war, their invaluable treasures were envoyed, not to their beloved France, but to the land of their dearest enemies, there to be turned over to the trustees ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... the prisoners happened to be, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed the expression of countenance he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me, but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul and La ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Phrinzy. Here is th' inconsistency of conduct that marks a disturbance of the reason: and, to tell the truth, I once knew a young fellow that played this very prank at a wedding, and the nixt thing we hard, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of thoughts as he watched the leaping flame. Its cheerful crackle, its bright color in the gloom was almost too good to be true. In these dark forests he had learned to be wary and on guard at too great fortune. Quite often it was only a prank of perverse forest gods, before they smote him with some black disaster. It seemed to him that there was a wild laughter, a Satanic mocking in the joyous crackle that was vaguely but fearfully ominous. The promise in the rainbow, the siren's song to the mariners, the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... his word, and about a month after the interview above related he sent word to Quennebert that the Chevalier de Moranges had left Perregaud's completely recovered from his wound. But the nearly fatal result of the chevalier's last prank seemed to have subdued his adventurous spirit; he was no longer seen in public, and was soon forgotten by all his acquaintances with the exception of Mademoiselle de Guerchi. She faithfully treasured up the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... had graduated from the seminary and was pursuing my studies at the Preacher's Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You are a boy ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... her down the river into the rapids from Chippewa Creek, expecting to enjoy the rare pleasure of seeing her leap over the Falls and emerge in little fragments and splinters of timber in the river below. Thousands had gathered on the Canadian shore, and on Goat Island, to witness a prank never matched in audacity since the British "guerrillas" from the other side, in the time of the Canadian rebellion, seized the steamer "Caroline" at Schlosser, set her on fire, and sent her down the Falls—an act which almost lit the torch of war so effectually ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... that Edie Ochiltree had observed Dousterswivel stand somewhat disconsolate and sad, looking into the open grave. Age had not dulled Edie's wit, nor caused him to relish less a boyish prank. His quick eye had caught some writing on the lid of the box of treasure, and while all were admiring the solid ingots of precious metal laid bare before them, Edie kicked the piece of wood aside without being observed by ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... lantern-decked, boat-thronged, water-lapped island in that far northern Canadian lake. Following the cheers there came stillness. Men looked sheepishly at each other as if caught in some silly prank. Then once more the Spectre drew near. But this time they declined not to look, but with steady, grave, appraising eyes they faced The Thing, resolute to know the worst, and in quiet undertones ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... a spirit of mischief urged the Prince on to a gay prank, as also a wayward spirit urged him no longer to ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... this merry squib, which doubtless celebrated some college prank, wrong conclusions should be drawn, I hasten to say that in college James Garfield ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... but did not alarm Jo, for she knew the irascible old gentleman would never lift a finger against his grandson, whatever he might say to the contrary. She obediently descended, and made as light of the prank as she could without betraying Meg or ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Terence, that Dan Hoolan, though he's mighty quiet just now, will be playing us some prank or other before long, if he can find a ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, The minister's son, caved my ribs into my lungs, With a blow of his fist. Now I shall never sleep with my ancestors in Pekin, And no children shall worship at ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... make frequent mention, Elijah Impey. We know little about their school days. But, we think, we may safely venture to guess that, whenever Hastings wished to play any trick more than usually naughty, he hired Impey with a tart or a ball to act as fag in the worst part of the prank. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nothing to laugh at, though!" remarked Lawless; "she'd have been regularly cooked, if Prank Fairlegh hadn't put her out when he did, and I should have been tried for 'Unjustifiable Girl-icide,' or 'Maliciously setting fire to a marriageable female,' or some such thing; and I daresay the young woman wasn't insured anywhere: I should have got into a pretty mess; it would ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... I, who was so vigorous and scornful, have come to this day of definite retrospect? How is it possible? But, I have done nothing; I have had no time; I have only been preparing myself—a mere apprentice to life. My brain is at some prank; I am suffering a momentary delusion; I shall shake myself, and return to common sense—to my schemes ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... the door, which he laid on the floor lest it should play him the same prank over again, Joe Corney once more settled himself in the easy-chair and resolved to give his mind to meditation. Just then the City clocks pealed forth the hour ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... surliness and asperity. "He was not the first that had played away a few trifles, and of what use were birth and fortune if they would not admit some sallies and expenses?" His mamma was so much provoked by the cost of this prank, that she would neither palliate nor conceal it; and his father, after some threats of rustication which his fondness would not suffer him to execute, reduced the allowance of his pocket, that he might not be tempted by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... the best thing was not to pay any attention to him, for if he did, as soon as the sot felt that eyes were upon him, he would take to making faces or launch out into a speech. Then Jean-Christophe would turn away, trembling with fear lest he should commit some outrageous prank. He would try to be absorbed in his work, but he could not help hearing Melchior's utterances and the laughter of his colleagues. Tears would come into his eyes. The musicians, good fellows that they were, had seen ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the word had made a great change in his attitude. It was plain that before that he had not taken them seriously, but had supposed them to be playing some prank. Now, however, he looked at ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... was some distance off. They bore down upon a trolley-car and took a wild possession. They sang their songs and yelled themselves hoarse. People turned and watched and smiled, setting this down as one more prank of those university fellows. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... you insist." Graham sank into a chair, looking like a small boy caught in a prank. "First, there are no more first-class citizens—no second-class citizens—not even third-class citizens. Everyone's a citizen again. Period." He threw his ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole
... beach, to-day seemed something of legal type; such a wonderfully merry time the colonists were enjoying. All the scouts were swimmers; Grace as usual was daring to the point of risk, Cleo quickly followed every prank she initiated, and the others found plenty of fun either attempting to follow, or originating ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... he was laughing softly as a boy in the midst of a prank, and busily throwing off the robe of serge. Fumbling through the night he located the shirt and trousers he had seen hanging from a nail on the wall. Into these he slipped, and then went out under ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... 'but what next?' And as Arthur hesitated, 'I misdoubt greatly whether Burnside would give you a helping hand if you came fresh from colloguing with French Jacobites, though my father and all the rest of us at the Lynn aye told him that he might thank himself and his dour old dominie for your prank—you were but a schoolboy then—you are a man now; and though your poor mother would be blithe to set eyes on you, she would be sairly perplexed what gate you had best turn thereafter. Now, see here! There's talk of our being sent to dislodge the Spaniards from Sicily. ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mirror caught and held his attention. Could that harsh semblance of a man be himself? Various periods of his life flashed in separate pictures before him. Glimpses of his college days; this and that gay prank of irresponsible youth. Then came incidents of his first business ventures; his dealings with Jefferson Henderson stood out sharply. The old man's first intuitive fears of coming loss rang in his ears, followed by ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... really sent the boy to you for, you have not improved him a bit; he has carried off and seduced neighbour Echecrates's daughter, and there would have been an action for assault, only Echecrates is a poor man; but the prank cost me a couple of hundred. And the other day he struck his mother; she had tried to stop him when he was smuggling wine out of the house, for one of his club-dinners, I suppose. As to temper and conceit and impudence ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... home, the four boys had been content to take it easy, spending their time roaming the fields, helping to gather the fruit, of which there was great abundance, and in going fishing and swimming. But then Andy and Randy had found time growing a little heavy on their hands, and one prank had been followed by another. Some of the tricks had been played on Jack and Fred, and they, of course, had done their best to retaliate, and this had, on more than one occasion, brought forth a forceful, but good-natured, pitched battle, and the fathers ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... staid qualities and Puritanic instincts, loved an adventure which promised fun, and finally entered into the scheme with a zest second only to his friend. The very idea of playing a prank on the captain of a man-of-war was enough to induce him to engage in almost any enterprise. They managed to escape the house without being detected by Sukey, who was puzzling his brain over deep questions in philosophy, and hastened down the street to a ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... took pains never to show that Henry had supplanted him; nevertheless, she showed it all the time. Tom's faults flourished and multiplied. There can be no question that he was idle, untruthful, and unreliable. In earliest youth he had been a merry prank; he was still a prank, but not often merry. His spirit seemed to be overcast; and the terrible fact came out gradually that he was not 'nicely disposed.' His relatives failed to understand him, and they gave him up like a puzzle. He was self-contradictory. For instance, though a shocking liar, ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... thronged amain, Seated the king on his throne again, And the Algalif said, "'Twas a sorry prank, Raising your weapon to slay the Frank. It was yours to hearken in silence there." "Sir," said Gan, "I may meetly bear, But for all the wealth of your land arrayed, For all the gold that God hath made, Would I not live ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... himself filled with a supernatural courage that came from nowhere. That jingling music seemed full of the vivacity, the vulgarity, and the irrational valour of the poor, who in all those unclean streets were all clinging to the decencies and the charities of Christendom. His youthful prank of being a policeman had faded from his mind; he did not think of himself as the representative of the corps of gentlemen turned into fancy constables, or of the old eccentric who lived in the dark room. But he did feel ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... complet, and, after having made our bows to Mrs. Story, we took our places in the theater. Mr. Story was Shylock, and acted extremely well. Edith was very good as Portia. Waldo and Julian both took part. Mr. and Mrs. Prank Lascelles, of the English Embassy, both dressed in black velvet, played the married couple to the life, but did not look at all Italian. The whole performance was really wonderfully well done and most successful; the enthusiasm was sincere and warmed the cold hands by the ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... ought to have been gravely upset by Sissie'a prank and he was merely amused. "Effect of too much sleep, no doubt," ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... informed the company that she had been frightened by an appearance at the window. At once they all faced the imperturbable window, and for a moment there was a silence. An astute lad made an immediate census of the other lads. The prank of slipping out and looming spectrally at a window was too venerable. But the little boys ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... childhood. As it hung in her father's house, she used to be both annoyed and terrified at the manner in which the eyes of the portrait followed her about the room with persistent and, as she thought, reproving gaze. Especially when she had been guilty of some childish prank, the silent reproach in her grandfather's eyes was intolerable. One day she climbed upon a chair before the portrait, and with a pin attempted to blind the eyes. The pin pricks are ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... listened to the troubadours below, also for the love of it. A great cavalry leader, he shone at his brightest in the chase, and, when there was no fighting to be done, his were the spirits of a boy, and he was as quick for a prank as any lad under ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... mystery," he went on to say, trying to take the thing as a joke. "Some kind friend sends me a solemn warning, and then neglects to sign his name. Do you think any of the fellows of the escadrille could be up to a prank?" ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... crisis his lordship had made a very proper and theatrical start. Captain Reud grasped the glass with both hands; and the severe, bright eye of Dr Thompson fell upon the prank-playing captain. The effect was instantaneous: he slunk away from his intended mischief; completely subdued. The fire left his eye, the grin his countenance; and he stood beside his lordship in a moment, the quiet and gentlemanly post-captain, deferentially polite in ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... to do?" said the stranger. "I don't think you can pull home in her. One doesn't know how much she may be damaged. She may sink in the lock, or play any prank." ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Sir Risdon excitedly. "No, no,—you must be mistaken. A boyish prank. No one about ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... Mirdath then to explain to me how that Mistress Alison (which was her name) was a dear and bosom friend, and she it was that had been drest in the Court suit to play a prank for a wager with a certain young man who would be lover to her, an he might. And I then to come along, and so speedy to offence that truly I never saw her face plain, because that I was so utter jealous. And so the Lady Mirdath had been more justly in anger than I supposed, because that I had ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... there is some truth in the story that Shakespeare came into unpleasant contact with the Lord of Charlecote, through a more or less serious boyish prank; but not all believe that there can be any truth in the statement that he was brought into the Great Hall by the forester who caught up with him at the "Tumble-down Stile." It may be, however, that Shakespeare was later on friendly terms with the Lucy family, and so ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... fighting or frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character that ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... good many in that place, and wild, mad rakes they were as ever the world beheld—was attempting to play off a smart, witty jest upon him. Indeed, Miss Eliza Bolles, who was of a lively, mischievous temper, was not herself above playing such a prank should the occasion offer. With this thought in his mind Barnaby inquired of her with a good deal of particularity concerning the appearance and condition of the man who had left the note, to all of which Miss replied with so straight a face ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... we are almost inclined to take the "Rondo form" as a new roguish prank. But we may find a form where the subjects are independent of the basic themes that weave in and out unfettered by rule—where the subjects are rather new grouping ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... such a love in us all, both old and young, of being courted and admired!—and so irresistible to their elderships to be flattered, that all power is not over with them; but that they may still class and prank it with their daughters.—It vexed me heartily to have her tell me of this proposal with self-complaisant simperings; and yet she affected to speak of it as if she had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... a spoon or spoil a horn, and—let me have my laugh out—you bid well for an archer," said Randal; and Robin counselling me to play the same prank on the French lad's sword as late I had done on his own, they took each of them an arm of mine, and so we swaggered down ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... gone back ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, rather than have accomplished such an idiotic prank as this." ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... apace, and I followed them. At the same time, I was fully conscious that I was playing a mad prank without being able to stop myself. My disordered condition ran away with me; I was inspired with the craziest notions, which I followed blindly as they came to me. I couldn't help it, no matter how much I told myself that I was playing ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... The last prank had been to give the hens bread soaked in rum, which made them tipsy and scandalized all the other fowls, for the respectable old biddies went staggering about, pecking and clucking in the most maudlin manner, while the family were convulsed ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... circumstance, The gauds in which we prank it? Germ ends for us our fine romance, Wrapped in a dingy blanket. We set out braggartly in mirth, World's bravest men and tallest, To do the mightiest thing on earth, And here we're lying, nothing worth, ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... brought home by his mother and sent to school at Taunton, where he stayed for five years. He is sure to have been liked by his schoolfellows, for he was a very lively, mischievous boy, constantly inventing some fresh prank, but never shirking the punishment it frequently brought. At Woolwich, which he entered as a cadet at fifteen, it was just the same. He was continually defying, in a good-humoured way, those who were set over him, and more than once he had a very narrow escape of having his career ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... mean things told about him, though," Steven Strong continued, "and indeed sometimes he lives the simplest country life with his horses and dogs, and his own people worship him, I believe. But there is no wildest prank he is incapable of ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... mere formality. He knew, also, that to find any one in Stamboul was only possible provided the person were free, or at least able to give some sign of his presence; and he began to believe that Alexander had fallen a victim to some rash prank. He had, perhaps, repeated his folly of the previous afternoon,—had wandered into the streets, had foolishly ventured to look too closely at a pair of black eyes, and had been spirited away by the prompt ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... lampoon to us one day at Genoa, and enjoyed our dismay at it like a froward boy who has achieved what he considers some mischievous prank. He offered us a copy, but we declined to accept it; for, being in the habit of seeing Mr. Rogers frequently beneath our roof, we thought it would be treacherous to him. Byron, however, found others less scrupulous, and three or four copies of it ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... down behind the log. Seizing the sleeves, he proceeded to tie the thin garment into hard knots. It was the old schoolboy trick. He had had it played on him many a time in swimming—and done the same by others; but he had never entered into the prank with half the zest as now. He tugged at the knots and ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... perfectly the impression made upon me by the story of the wicked miller's wife, who transformed herself at night into a cat, and how I consoled myself with the fact that in the end she did indeed receive due punishment for this wicked prank. The cat, namely, when once starting out on her nightly walk, had a paw chopped off by the miller's apprentice, who thought she looked suspicious, and the next day the miller's wife lay in bed with a bloody ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... thought, "I have just one answer. The scheme is too grisly. Besides, we've nothing against the undertakers that should make us willing to waste their time. Moreover, Dan we're in the High School, and we're expected to be gentlemen. Now, does your scheme strike you as just the prank for a lot ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... Master Nicholas played one prank that evening that was near to costing dear. My lady Temple made up a party for Temple Bow at the course, two other coaches to come and some gentlemen riding. As Nick and I were running through the paddock we came suddenly upon Mr. Harry Riddle and a stout, swarthy gentleman standing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... a good and holy hermit, sir, the pious clerk of Copmanhurst, that you wot of, who played many a prank with us in the days that we knew King Richard. Ah, noble sir, that was a jovial time and ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... another much in the same way as we used to do years before, when she had detected me in some boyish prank, and assumed the mentor while I felt a culprit. How really I felt a culprit at that ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... "You have your own pride; you have your own position here in The Corner. But I want you to notice that mine is different. You've spent a day for what you have in The Corner, here. I've spent ten years. You've played a prank, acted a part, and cast a jest for what you have. But for the place which I hold, brother mine, I've schemed with my wits, played fast and loose, and killed men. Do you hear? I've bought it with blood, and things you buy at such a ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... managed to ion glide over to each other. Their eyes met. They were the butts of a prank that no doubt had been the ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... flotilla as "Kelly." He commands a mine-laying submarine, which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of Irish shore-line, ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... her parents seemed to have any part in her life. She told of a prank played at midnight ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... whispered Tweedle-dee to Tweedle-dum, as the two comical figures drew unobtrusively into the rear of the group of girls now removing their masks under Mrs. Bonnell's half-amused, half-serious eyes, for she began to suspect that some sort of innocent prank had been played which, like many another would have harmlessly played itself out if let alone. She had always been opposed to the rigorous ban placed upon boys and their visits to Leslie Manor by Miss Woodhull, believing and justifiably too, that such arbitrary rules ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Lady Diantha Mainwaring was moderately the talk of the town, in those prim, remotely ante-bellum days—thanks to high spirits and a whimsical tendency to flout the late Victorian proprieties; something which, however, had yet to lead her into any prank perilous to ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... thence with him into the city to the Alcazar, that they might see their brides Doa Elvira and Doa Sol. Doa Ximena had her daughters ready to receive them in full noble garments, for since midnight they had done nothing but prink and prank themselves. Full richly was the Alcazar set out that day, with hangings both above and below, purple and samite, and rich cloth. The Cid entered, between the Infantes, and all that noble company went in after them; and they went into the chief hall of the Alcazar, where Doa ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... for who can reduce a fantasy to a formula? Nor should they ever be allowed to clip the wings of romance. But the painter who bade his subject sit under a sodium light would justly be deemed a lunatic, and any analysis of Spencer's character drawn from his latest prank would be faulty ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... his prank when he saw, in the flickering light behind the crowd of guests, who seemed to hang together like a bunch of grapes, the figures of his grandfather and Erica. The old man had come out in the cold for his sake; and Erica, who looked as white ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... that dull grief delights to see Vex'd Nature wear a kindred gloom; Not that she smiled in vain to me, When gaily prank'd in summer's bloom Nay, much I loved, at even-tide, Through Brahan's lonely woods to stray. To mark thy peaceful billows glide, And watch the sun's ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... world-famous Hamlet): the effects of hunger on the Dauphiness, so far from her supplies, will, he calculates, be stronger than on him, and will bring her to better terms shortly. Dauphiness needs bread; one may have fine clipping at the skirts of her, if she try retreat. That Dauphiness would play the prank she did next morning, Friedrich had not ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... demanded eagerly if there weren't any sober old minister out there, with whom he might be rusticated for his next college prank. ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the Game. So warm they glow, Not seldom rise imperial quarrels; And not so many moons ago Jove boxed with zeal Apollo's laurels. The question ran, Was Arthur Mold Unfairly stigmatised by muffs, Or did he play a dubious prank? Venus herself began to scold, And Gods by dozens on a bank ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... unjust, and he had the name without having had the game. More often, however, the search found him only too certainly to be the moving cause of the prank in question. His fourteen years of life had been full of stir and action, both for him and all connected with him, and nobody could complain of dullness when Teddy was around. Still, he was so frank and sunny-natured that ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... that I sought—a place where the coping was gone with sundry of the bricks, making here a gap very apt to escalade; and here, years agone, I had been wont to climb this wall to the furtherance of some boyish prank on many a night such as this. Awhile stood I staring up at this gap, then, seizing hold of massy brickwork, I drew myself up and dropped into a walled garden. Here were beds of herbs well tended and orderly, and, as I went, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... and Prank would play a tune on their flutes, which I had made out of reeds; and my wife, who had a sweet voice, would sing some of the old Swiss songs, that brought to our minds the joys ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... at the result of his prank, had quickly scrambled into his own saddle and drawn back from the scene of his ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... look crept into the man's eyes, his face flushed like the face of a schoolboy who had been caught in a foolish prank, and he returned the hat awkwardly to ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... piazza, heard a great cackling among the hens, and looked up to see the monkey swinging by his tail from a bough, holding the great cock-a- doodle by his splendid tail, while all the twenty hens clucked and cackled with wrath and fear at such a dreadful prank. ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... he must run it through a series of aphoristic sentences twisted out of Greek and Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, Pandosto is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the real merit of the performance. It is better than Lodge's ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... commotion, Grandma Sherwood came to the kitchen, and not unnaturally supposed it all the result of some new prank. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... day when the long-suffering wife revolted. Turner had come home extra drunk and in his most maudlin humor. Probably he attempted some drunken prank upon his over-taxed helpmate. Old Ike, the hired man, said that he thought Turner had rigged up some scare for her in the barn and that he had never heard anything so much like straight talking from ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... the child romping across velvety lawns, picking posies in the box-bordered garden, drinking water crystal clear drawn from the old well, and playing many a prank and game in the big, roomy home which housed such a lively flock of young people. Being the baby of the family, it was natural that Dorothy should be a great pet, not only of her brothers and sisters, but of their friends, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... of order, deviation or departure from rule, depressed him, though one would have thought it was no business of his. If one of his colleagues was late for church or if rumours reached him of some prank of the high-school boys, or one of the mistresses was seen late in the evening in the company of an officer, he was much disturbed, and said he hoped that nothing would come of it. At the teachers' meetings he simply oppressed us with his caution, ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... This was some odd prank. He had borrowed the tin trunk and was giving me a travesty on Tip Pulsifer fleeing over the mountain from his petulant spouse: for last night Tim and I had had a little tiff. For the first time I had ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... Shelley. What they say of him does not tell us much that is new, yet it deserves to be repeated. "Mr. Shelley," we read, "afterwards so celebrated, was half crazy. He began his career with every kind of wild prank at Eton. At University he was very insubordinate, always infringing some rule, the breaking of which he knew could not be overlooked. He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to about these and other irregularities, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... miles kept our fates apart! It seems uncharacteristic for this small world,—where meetings come about so far above the dreams of average—to have played us such a prank. ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... When he encountered with any of them upon the street, he would not never fail to put some trick or other upon them, sometimes putting the bit of a fried turd in their graduate hoods, at other times pinning on little foxtails or hares'-ears behind them, or some such other roguish prank. One day that they were appointed all to meet in the Fodder Street (Sorbonne), he made a Borbonesa tart, or filthy and slovenly compound, made of store of garlic, of assafoetida, of castoreum, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... which were leading me on, and gave to the matter an air of sport and adventure most potent in attraction for such a mood as mine. I was in rebellion against the limits of my position and the repression of my manner of life. To play a prank like this suited my humour exactly. When Victoria left me, I sent word of my intention to be present at Coralie's theatre that evening, and invited William Adolphus to join me in my box. I received the ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated him ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
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