"Joke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... almost hysterical at his apparent failure to make himself understood. "You wouldn't let any harm come to me. Oh, no. You've only made me the greatest joke in Chicago," he shouted. "You've only made me such a laughing stock that I have to leave it. That's ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... which he played may have been comic ones, but he was a serious man. Indeed, his gravity was so well known in his lifetime that it was reckoned the height of wit, when he was dead, to father off upon him a Jest Book! This joke, bad as it was, was better than any joke in the book. It made him famous, so famous that for the next hundred years every little bon mot was laid at his door, metaphorically speaking, the puniest youngest brat of them being ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... AND DECISIONS.—The prattle of children may be grateful music to our ears when we are in one mood, and excruciatingly discordant noise when we are in another. What appeals to us as a good practical joke one day, may seem a piece of unwarranted impertinence on another. A proposition which looks entirely plausible under the sanguine mood induced by a persuasive orator, may appear wholly untenable a few hours later. Decisions ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... before herd of sich a order on sich a ocasion, and he had only one bottel with him, and when I took it to the himpashent Gent, and told him so, he fairly roared with larfter, and told it all round as a capital joke! I wunders where ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... joke!' I said, putting in my oar. 'You looked at the trees, and you will at once tear them down. You fell on the fruit like a wolf. You saw the garden, and at once wanted to buy. Now you want the ring, and will exchange for it your wares. What sort of tomfoolery are you talking to us? You are ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... to introduce you to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer.' The Sunderland shipowner was a little taken aback at first, but he soon recovered his self-possession, and enjoyed the joke quite as ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... don' listen to no woman be joke 'bout, you hear? Dis boy spik true. He was in Linderman las' night, for I seen him on top of Chilkoot yesterday myse'f, wit' pack on his back so ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... rollicking fun, and quaintly sudden turn of word and idea were transporting his readers, as he somewhere says, "from Dull-age to Grin-age." His humour was effervescent, continuous, and effortless—not like Jerrold's wit, intermittent flashes called up at need—but overflowing in a rich stream of joke, pun, hit, crank, and quip, covering a field far wider ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... figurin' on any help from me, you got to work for it first. If you'd waited, I'd kind of made things easy for you. Now, I'm goin' to hand you the meanest job I can think of. It won't be an insult and it won't be a joke, but maybe you'll take it ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... more grave could hardly keep the more hilarious in order. The curtain was ready to go up on what they promised themselves would be the most absurd scene. The stranger who fought no duels, yet thought that a lesson or two would make him a match for a dead-hand like Payton—was ever such a promising joke conceived? The good feeling, even the respect which the Colonel had succeeded in awakening for a short time the evening before, were forgotten in the prospect ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... th' doctor lained ovver him as if he wor examinin his heead, an' Bessy stood wi' her apron up to her face as if shoo wor cryin, but shoo wor laughin fit to split, for shoo could enjoy a joke at th' owd man's expense as weel ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... scientist of the company laugh. But Blaine Asher did not laugh. Serious, his rather thin face grave at he leaned his tall, muscular body above a torsion machine he was adjusting, there was nothing to indicate he had the faintest idea of a joke. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... watched the men making their way to the trains. Splendid young fellows most of them were. The cream of England's manhood. They were almost without exception ruddy with health, and as hard as nails: straight, muscular men, who laughed at hardships, and who seemed to look at the whole business as a joke. They might have been going to a picnic, so merry were they. And yet, as Bob looked more closely, it was easy to see by the compressed lips, and the steely looks in their eyes, that they ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... cheap pathos, or laugh at secondhand humour, or shudder at sham cynicism any longer—desperate escapes and rescues moved her not, and she had wearied of beautiful wicked fiends and effeminate golden-haired guardsmen, who hold a Titanic strength in reserve as their one practical joke, but the liberty she had enjoyed had done her no particular harm, even if many mothers might have thought it their duty to restrict it, which Mrs. Langton was too languid or had too much confidence in her ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... The real interstate joke on Puritanism is that the flapper, who flaps because Puritanism has driven her to it, will automatically bring about its cure. The whole vitality of Puritanism rests on the unswerving principle of letting not thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth, if thy left hand is doing something it shouldn't. ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... My horse is a fine fellow, and I'm very particular about him." The Squire spoke soberly, but there was a twinkle in his eye, and Mrs. Moss tried not to smile; for the Squire's horse was a joke all over the town, being about twenty years old, and having a peculiar gait of his own, lifting his fore-feet very high, with a great show of speed, though never going out of a jog-trot. The boys used to say he galloped before and walked behind, and made ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... The brain, desiring children, made demands upon the body and the body responded to its desire by tricking the brain. Lani were fairly subject to its probably because they had better imaginations. He would run a few tests when they went down to the hospital, and once she realized the practical joke her body was playing everything would be all right. No wonder she ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... interested him much more for itself than for what he could make out of it. Make something to be sure he must—so long as he was only a law clerk on a meagre salary—and it was this necessity that had much to do with the production of the manuscripts. It was a joke on Philip in his club—by-the-way, the half-yearly dues were not far off—that he was doing splendidly in the law; he already had an extensive ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the truth, Major John Ross and the military men with whom Ned conferred at Manila treated the employment of the boy by the authorities at Washington as a good deal of a joke, as a whim. They were not discourteous to Ned, but they took no interest in his suggestions. For some hours after his departure, his employment on the case was the subject ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... not retain that profit he made at my expense. 'Twas just a joke with him. He put the money into bonds and sent them to you with instructions to place them in my vault for my account." Mr. Daney nodded and The Laird resumed. "Take those bonds to the Sawdust Pile, together ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... an old joke of the pleasant Du Maurier, a drawing representing two fashionable ladies discussing the afternoon's occupation. One says: "It's quite too dull to see colours at Madame St. Aldegonde's; suppose we go to the Old ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... turned abruptly up the mountain-side, by a zigzag trail so steep that even the interpreter was forced to walk. As I toiled wearily upward, I looked back to find my dog riding comfortably in my chair. Tired and hot, he had barked to be taken up. The coolies thought it a fine joke, and when I whistled him down they at once put him back again, explaining that it was hard work for short legs. At one of the worst bits of the trail we met some finely dressed men on horseback, who stared in a superior way at me on foot. The Chinese sees no reason for walking if he has ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... girl. "Okay, Jan. Now, to carry on where Scotty left off, if we assume the ghost is man-caused, we have to assume it isn't a practical joke, or that ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... accident, Higgins, I was passing in my car with a party of friends. Just for a joke I thought I'd steal up to the house and see how you were behaving yourselves. By chance—again— I happened to see this light through the library windows." And Maitland, putting an incautious hand upon the bull's-eye on the desk, withdrew it instantly, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... his respect for my lord and his dislike of that particular type of joke—only replied with a ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... cannot be expressed in words and taught. This was what I, even as a young man, sometimes suspected, what has driven me away from the teachers. I have found a thought, Govinda, which you'll again regard as a joke or foolishness, but which is my best thought. It says: The opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... relieved, and in his relief began to joke. "I was thinking you must have lost your wits, and thought you'd ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... of us the other night, did they?" grinned Billy. "We're one trick ahead." All the boys except George laughed heartily over some little joke of ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... theory; for the same old man said to me, in a low, mysterious voice, "What becomes of them when you go on to the sea?" "Why, they are all packed up in boxes," said I "What did you think became of them?" "They all come to life again, don't they?" said he; and though I tried to joke it off, and said if they did we should have plenty to eat at sea, he stuck to his opinion, and kept repeating, with an air of deep conviction, "Yes, they all come to life again, that's what they do—they all ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... practical joke, I shuppothe," said the dark man. "Our gardening friend wanth a liththon: and I'll thee ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... the bravest girl on earth— For all she never was hale and strong She'd have her fun! With her voice clean lost She'd laugh and joke us that when she crossed To father, we'd ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... deceased; and my guide said that a great many skulls and bones had been dug up here. No doubt a vast population has been deposited in the course of a thousand years. I saw two white skulls, in a niche, grinning as skulls always do, though it is impossible to see the joke. These crypts, or crypts like these, are doubtless what Congreve calls the "aisles and monumental caves of Death," in that passage which Dr. Johnson admired so much. They are very singular,—something like a dark shadow or dismal repetition ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... understood this sort of thing, and wished to take it all as a joke. He made believe that his offense was not serious, since it lay in words alone, and protested that he was perfectly willing to ask her pardon, provided he might kiss the girl afterward. Finally, he proposed that they go and drink a pint ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... critical discrimination, whilst they only uttered vapid and blatant nonsense. What other language can be used when we find that they called the sun l'aimable eclairant le plus beau du monde, l'epoux de la nature, and that when speaking of an old gentleman with grey hair, they said, not as a joke, but seriously, il a des quittances d'amour. A few of their expressions, however, are employed even at the present time, such as, chatier son style; to correct one's style; depenser une heure, to spend an hour; revetir ses pensees d'expressions ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... dark stranger may have taken the child, and where no clew is, one may follow any track that presents itself. So the old man goes, and sits patiently in the hot, noisy place. At first the merry-makers, who are not of a high degree of refinement, make fun of him, and cut many a joke at the expense of his blue coat and brass buttons, his nankeen trousers and old-fashioned stock. But he heeds them not; and once he begins to play, they forget all about his looks, and only want to dance, dance, and say there never was such music for dancing. When a pleasant- looking ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... keys; she explored, studied, inventoried, examined the accounts, worked out careful tables and estimates. "I wish Mother were here!" she said to herself. "She's a regular genius for accounts. I can do it—but it's no joke." ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... though his spirits rose at his answer. "I thought to take my cousin by surprise, scare her with my ghost, maybe. So I came skulking through the park and ran on this good sir, who nabbed me." He indicated Halfman with a wave of the hand. "I explained to him, so that my joke should not spoil, and he smuggled me in here to surprise you. Where ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the sight as inconceivably superb of these large burning ships, crammed with every imaginable explosive and soaked from their mast-heads to their water-line in pitch and tar. It was no new thing, however, to the gallant sailors, who treated the matter as a joke, grappling fearlessly with the hissing, spitting demons, and towing them ashore. "Damme, Jack," they shouted, "didst ever ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... any young man should marry you, Say nothin' about the joke; That iver ye slep' in a sinthry-box, Wrapped up in a ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... air with other boys listening to Teddy's fun or Paddy's latest joke his face lost the pinched and anxious look it ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... like the joke. He said, using the word "funny" solemnly: "It's funny to see light putting out light. The stars will be there all day, but we won't be able to see 'em for ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... principal officers of his army, at the Abbey of Ferrieres, and witnessed a fight between a lion and a bull. The bull was of enormous size and extraordinary strength, but nevertheless the lion overcame him; whereupon Pepin, who was surnamed the Short, turned to his officers, who used to joke him about his short stature, and said to them, "Make the lion loose his hold of the bull, or kill him." No one dared to undertake so perilous a task, and some said aloud that the man who would measure ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... prisoners against our will," said Bill, laughing, as if Pierre could only be in joke. "Come, call your mother and father and Jeannette, and let me wish them good-bye. I haven't many minutes to stop, and I've got something to tell them, which I've ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... effect upon the European fighting man's psychology if he found that an army transport had conveyed him to a land where one man's privilege is every man's right! Learning this, it is not a joke to say, but is a statement of the probable fact, that the invading soldiery would not want to fire its first volleys, but would want to file its first papers. They would not ask for cartridges, but ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... exclaimed genially; "here are pretty goings on. Doctor and patient giggling like a pair of schoolgirls! What's the joke?" ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... Blair,'" she cried, laughing merrily as at a tremendous joke. "It is only one of my aliases. I am better known as Slippery Sue, and the Countess of Plantagenet, and the Sly American, ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... something to bestow upon others not so well supplied. It was the practice of some of this class to knock at the doors of those thought to be better off, on the evening before, begging "something for Thanksgiving;" and, by way of a joke, the children of comfortable neighbors and friends would often array themselves in cast-off bizarre habiliments, and come in bands of three or four to the houses of those whom they knew, preferring the same request. Ordinarily, the disguise was readily detected. Sometimes the little ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... Budd is also a very religious man. Indeed, he is warden at the Parish Church. 'He is a small, sleek-headed bachelor of five and forty, whose scandalous life has long furnished his more moral neighbors with an afterdinner joke.' But a very religious man is Mr. Budd! Mrs. Linnett is a very religious woman. She dotes on religious biography. 'On taking up the biography of a celebrated preacher, she immediately turns to the ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... I found that it also alleged the same complaint, I lost all patience, and let the doctor know that was quite enough for one day. When this question of certificates was discussed at the council, I suggested in joke that no certificate should be accepted unless it was signed by three old women, as a guarantee of good faith. The system had indeed been carried to such lengths, and certificates had been issued right and left in such ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... back panting with joyful excitement, and brought with him the citizen, who knew already of the joke. The poor boy looked at his picture and then rubbed his eyes. What had happened? Where were his angels? The picture must be bewitched, for instead of his angels he saw only eight citizens in ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... well established that one evening at the Prefecture, Mr. Tournel, a writer of fables and songs, a biting and fine wit, a local literary glory, having proposed to the ladies' whom he saw rather drowsy, to play a game of "L'oiseau vole," (the bird steals—flies) the joke flew through the salons of the Prefect and from there, reaching those of the town, made all the jaws of the Province laugh for ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... I mean it metaphorically. You see we live a gay life over there, we have a joke about everything, and the wit that runs out of our mouths—why, it's like flashes of lightning. Oh, we have a good time in the old country, and when you come and stay with me at Castle Malone you'll say so for yourself. Now, then, what do you want ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... asked for information, and offered Nevis a tow, but he replied with a joke and declined the proffered assistance. Then it developed that, in going in to anchor, he had observed two other small Spanish boats near the wreck of the Santo Domingo, and had resolved to capture them, too. He knew it was hazardous work, ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... deep debt of gratitude." "Why do you say that?" "Because you have caused me to discover in myself a talent which I did not know that I possessed."—A certain citizen, who wanted a mortar, went to a sculptor and asked him to make one. The fellow, suspecting some practical joke, pointed out Buonarroti's house, and said that if he wanted mortars, a man lived there whose trade it was to make them. The customer accordingly addressed himself to Michelangelo, who, in his turn ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Night Moth's attention. He picked up his new gun and while all were petrified with fear of being the target, he shot the blind man so that his body fell into the oven in which the pig had been baked. The people could only laugh loudly, if not heartily, as if pleased by the joke. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... write a dozen funny rhymes, Need a dozen "Cantabs" write about it to the Times? Need they write, at any rate, a generation after, Stating cause and date of joke and ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... expressed, however, to anyone—was to get into the eleven. Had it been known it would have been thought the very height of absurdity, and have become such a standing joke that its realisation would have been rendered well nigh impossible. It proved that Buller had sound sense that he was able to see this. He did not much expect to succeed, but he meant to try all he knew, ever ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... really quite durable; now and then comes the lucky happenstance when the fearful accident does no more than raise a slight bruise. I've read the story of the man whose parachute did not open and who lived to return it to the factory in person, according to the old joke. But now, Mr. Cornell, have you ever considered the utter impossibility of running any sort of secret organization in this world of today. Even before Rhine it was difficult. You'll be adding to your tale next—some sort of secret sign, ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... like myself, and he was up against it. I know what that is, and I'd wanted to jolly him along a bit. When he said his name was Mount Dunstan, and the place belonged to him, I guessed he thought he was making a joke. So I got on my wheel and started off, and then he got mad for keeps. He said he wasn't such a damned fool as he looked, and what he'd said was true, and I could go ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Ambassador that this meant war. A few days later when the German Ambassador was again at the White House, the President asked if the Kaiser had changed his mind. The Ambassador seemed to think that it was a joke. The Kaiser change his mind at the bidding of a Yankee President! It ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... If you don't mind my saying so, you're making a prodigious ass of yourself and of Jerry. If I were the boy, I'd pack you out bag and baggage. Imagine it! Put yourself in his place. Would you like any meddling in your little affairs of gallantry?" And he laughed aloud at his joke. I scowled at him, but passed the absurd ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... without this husk of a virtue? I wonder the women of the town do not form an association, like the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for the support of what may be called the 'King, Church, and Constitution' of their order. But this subject is almost too horrible for a joke.—[SHELLEY'S NOTE.]) ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... as if half in jest, for liberty to return to Cortes; but De Oli said he was too happy to have the company of so brave a man, and could not part with him. "Then" said Las Casas, "I advise you to take care of me, for I shall kill you one of these days". De Oli considered this as a joke, but measures were actually concerted for the purpose; and one night after supper, when the servants and pages had withdrawn to their own apartment, Las Casas, Avila, Juan de Mercado, and some other ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... do not think I ought to change the title of the story. [Footnote: "A Dreary Story."] The wags who will, as you foretell, make jokes about "A Dreary Story," are so dull that one need not fear them; and if someone makes a good joke I shall be glad to have given him the occasion for it. The professor could not write about Katya's husband because he did not know him, and Katya does not say anything about him; besides, one of my hero's chief characteristics is that he cares far too little about the inner life ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... opened his lips and waited, but Jimmy Preston, thinking the joke had gone far enough, obstinately refused ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... repeated the glowing word ... "his wife!" For a moment he could not go on with their careless talk; then he was practical again. That word "protect" was too robust for sentimentality. "As for being jealous, that, about me, is a joke! And if you were, it would only mean that you loved me—so I would be flattered. I hope you'll be jealous! Eleanor, promise me you'll be jealous?" They both laughed; then he said: "I've made up my mind to one thing. I ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... give me any more!' cried Lord Findon. 'It's no joke, Eugenie, this sipping business—Where were we? Oh, well, of course I knew we should have to take it—and I don't say I'm not pleased with it. But ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... women of the village regarded the Sawyers' large family as a serious problem, but the men treated it as a huge joke. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... they loathed the tedious preparations and costly sacrifices which prudence demanded for self-defence. They now revolted from a strain upon their energies, of the necessity of which they were not convinced! Joyous at the temporary defeat of Tostig, men said, "Marry, a joke indeed, that the Norman will put his shaven head into the hornets' nest! Let him come, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Libanius suggests the form of a persecuting edict, which Theodosius might enact, (pro Templis, p. 32;) a rash joke, and a dangerous experiment. Some princes ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... This stupid joke was to be fatally punished in Croustillac, who followed his guide with renewed ardor, for was he not ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... recalled, Junot was ordered to enter Spain and to march on Portugal, while the terms of partition were settled at Fontainebleau with Charles's minister, Izquierdo, in a compact which Napoleon must have looked upon as the great practical joke of his life. For fear he should be too quickly found out, he positively inhibited Charles from communicating it to his ministers. The French ambassador at Madrid was also kept in ignorance of its terms. Under it the King of Spain ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... have a piece of your leg, if I can reach it," retorted Keo; and then he laughed at his own joke: "Guk-uk-uk-uk!" ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... lady began to chat and joke with me, saying, "What think you of my appearance and my beauty, do you judge me worthy of your affection? shall I be your partner and you mine?" When I had heard these words, I replied, "How, dear lady, dare I presume, who am not worthy to be ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... of the west coast. After ballasting his ship with silver from the rich Potosi mines, and rifling even the churches, he hastened onward in pursuit of a richly laden galleon nicknamed Cacafuego—a name discreetly translated Spitfire, but which, to repeat a joke that greatly amused Drake's men at the time, it was proposed to change to Spitsilver, for when overtaken and captured the vessel yielded 26 tons of silver, 13 chests of pieces of eight, and gold and jewels sufficient to swell the booty to half ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... earned it, if there's anything to it. Put it away for your dowry, dear," and he snatched the paper from Reuben's hands and tossed it into Draxy's lap. He did not believe what he said, and the attempt at a joke brought but a faint smile to any face. The paper fell on the floor, and Draxy let it lie there till she thought her father was looking another way, when she picked it up and put it ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... accents mild, And words of sober sense, Declare her woman more than child, Yet mark her innocence. But I've heard her repeating the quip or the joke, While merriment shone in her eyes as she spoke, As, with skill that is seldom excelled on the stage, She worthily mimicked the actor ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... made at different times, and all that was of value in the country pledged as security for the repayment of the loans. Bonds were issued on these securities, but owing to the impoverished condition of the country they were of very little value, and at one time the Turkish bonds were the joke of the stock market. Still, the bonds existed, and their holders hoped at some time to get ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 48, October 7, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Mr. Gusher escorted a woman of such ponderous circumference. Mattie followed, her roguish smiles indicating that she enjoyed what she considered a joke played at Mr. Gusher's expense. The picture presented by the meeting of such extremes was ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... only a complete and well-contested race, but a trial of strength, to determine which should drown the other. The only feeling short of ecstasy that came across us in these enraptured moments were caused by hearing the laugh and joke going on with our friends, as if no such thrilling strains had been flowing. But if Tim's eye chanced to fall on them, it instantly retreated upwards again in mild indignation. To his honour be it mentioned, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... on us, but they only meant it as a joke," persisted Brady. "We must pay them back in joke, and then it'll ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... along, drawing all manner of remarkable figures, which he jumbled up in such a way that he actually forgot the key to the combinations; and had to get Allan's help in solving some of them, which the others considered a rich joke. ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... these the less welcome for the violence of their introduction among a people glad to be set burning rather briskly awhile by the most unexpected of digs in the ribs. Dan Merion, to give an example. That was Dan Merion's joke with the watchman: and he said that other thing to the Marquis of Kingsbury, when the latter asked him if he had ever won a donkey-race. And old Dan is dead, and we are the duller for it! which leads to the question: Is genius hereditary? And the affirmative and negative are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... knew him most intimately, and his chronicles of visits to the little gamboge-colored house in Enfield are charming pencillings of memory. When Lamb and his sister, tired of housekeeping, went into lodging and boarding with T—— W——, their sometime next-door neighbor,—who, Lamb said, had one joke and forty pounds a year, upon which he retired in a green old age,—Procter still kept up his friendly visits to his old associate. And after the brother and sister moved to their last earthly retreat in Edmonton, where Charles died in 1834, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... with his generals and the officers of his household. "I see from this spot," said he, "the fright I shall give the Bourbons, and the embarrassment of all those who have turned their backs upon me." Then, continuing to joke on the same subject, he defined, with his wonted sagacity, the characters of the marshals and great personages, who had formerly served him; and was much amused with the endeavours they would make ""to save appearances, and prudently await the moment for ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... is the GOOD-NATURED MAN, a being generally without benevolence, or any other virtue, than such as indolence and insensibility confer. The characteristick of a good-natured man is to bear a joke; to sit unmoved and unaffected amidst noise and turbulence, profaneness and obscenity; to hear every tale without contradiction; to endure insult without reply; and to follow the stream of folly, whatever course it shall happen to take. The good-natured man is commonly the darling of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... think, sir, that I could munch it up and see you starving," answered Ben. "Come, that would be a good joke. I shan't get hungry, for you must know that I have more than once been three days without putting a morsel of food between my teeth—and wasn't much the worse for it, either. I shouldn't mind a drop of grog, I will allow; ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... should say not; and that's the reason why you want to ring the changes upon Charles Holland's name. Do you see the joke, admiral?" ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... for many years, and because of it thousands of slaves met a cruel death as the direct result of the effort to save them from slavery. Many stories are told of these wholesale drownings. The captain of the British cruiser "Black Joke" reports of a case in which he was pursuing ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... to affright. I have always respected the mystery of those humiliations, but I was fully aware this morning that they were practically the reason why she had come to me. Therefore when she said with the flush of a bold joke in her kind, coarse face "What I feel is, you know, that you could settle me if you only would." I knew quite well what she meant. She meant that of old it had always appeared to be the fine blade, as some one had ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... small person, and pinched pale face looked out perhaps with greater dignity than they could have achieved unadorned. Her chilliness, her small self-indulgences, including an inordinate love of cakes and all sweet things, were the standing joke of the twins when they discussed the family freely behind the closed doors of the 'Den.' But no one disliked Alice Gaddesden, though it was hard to be actively fond of her. She and her husband were quite good friends; but they were no longer of any real importance to each other. He was a good deal ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bureau drawer!'—'I wouldn't wonder,' says Martha, stooping lower and lower over Thomkins's blue cotton shirt that she's trying to cut down into rompers for the baby. 'And, Martha,' I says, 'that letter is just a joke. One of the boys sure put it up on him!'—'Why, of course,' says Martha, with her mouth all puckered up crooked, as though a kid had stitched it on the machine. 'Why, of course! How ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... a lover of childish tricks; and knowing that, your friendship, at least, should have restrained your tongue and pen when, through the former, on Wednesday, you accused me of perpetrating a trifling, and to you excessively embarrassing, practical joke—a charge which, at the moment, I was too overcome to refute; and through the latter, on Thursday, you reiterated the accusation, coupled with a demand for an explanation of my conduct satisfactory to yourself, or my immediate resignation ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... friendship on the altar of their several disillusioned and immolated affections. In the present day we are not overtroubled by any scruples of reverence for either old widowhood or old spinsterhood; and the 'Sisters Gemini' had become a standing joke with the self-styled 'wise and witty' of London restaurants and late suppers. Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby were their actual names, and they were happily unconscious of the unfeeling sobriquet bestowed upon ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... that I am such a different girl when—when I am with you," she said to him one day. "I even make little jokes. I never should think of making even the tiniest joke before grandmamma. Somehow, she never seems quite to understand jokes. She never laughs at them. You always laugh, and I am sure it is very kind of you to encourage me so; but you must not encourage me too much, or I might forget, and make a little joke ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... when he wrote it. In that paper breathes the sentiment of a patriot, and it stands out in bold contrast with the miserable slang by which he was pursued this morning. It may serve the purposes of a man who little regards the Union to perpetrate a joke on the hazard of its dissolution. It may serve the purpose of a man who never looks to his own heart to find there any impulses of honor, to arraign everybody, the President and the Supreme Court, and to have them impeached and vilified ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... always at one's post, and sleeping with one eye open. They had a hard time to contend with, our ten comrades, and the calm way in which they took everything was extraordinary. They were always in a good humour, and always had a joke ready. It was the duty of the sea party to bring up all the provisions and outfit for the wintering party from the hold, and put them on the ice. Then the land party removed them. This work proceeded ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... condition, got him into a charity school, whence he was bound apprentice to a shipmaster engaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea. The ship young Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell into the hands of a fisherman, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him about." ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... come to the Gap—a cleft in the Cumberland Mountains—to prepare two young Blue Grass Kentuckians for Harvard. The railroad was still thirty miles away, and he had travelled mule-back through mudholes, on which, as the joke ran, a traveller was supposed to leave his card before he entered and disappeared—that his successor might not unknowingly press him too hard. I do know that, in those mudholes, mules were sometimes drowned. ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... in joke; but faix they took me up in arnest, an' run up the price to twinty dollars—four pounds, as sure as me name's Larry—before I know'd where I wos. I belave I could ha' got forty for it, but I hadn't the heart to ax more, for it wasn't worth a ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... who was supercilious, self-confident, and without any regard for the world below, that the natural consequence was that she soon completely won the hearts of the lower classes. Even the whole number of waiting-maids would also for the most part, play and joke with Pao-ch'ai. Hence it was that Tai-yue fostered, in her heart, considerable feelings of resentment, but of this however Pao-ch'ai had not ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... that passed through her at the sight of this was only inferior to that which she had felt on the eventful evening itself. Hitherto in all her gloom and grief she had regarded it as a mere mockery—a brutal kind of practical joke, devised out of pure malignity, and perhaps instigated or connived at by Wiggins. She had never cared to think much about it. But now, on being thus confronted with a formal notice in a public newspaper, the whole affair suddenly assumed a new character—a character which was at once terrible ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... is finely shown up for his condemnatory predilections and inability to discern or appreciate beauties. The cream of the joke against him is, that being sent by Apollo to choose a lily in a flower-garden, he brings back a thistle as all he could find. The picture is a humorous one, but we are at a loss to conjecture who can have ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... symphonies of the time—the "Toy" Symphony and the more famous "Farewell." The former is a mere jeu d'esprit, in which, with an orchestral basis of two violins and a bass, the solo instruments are all of a burlesque character. Mozart attempted something of a kindred nature in his "Musical joke," where instruments come in at wrong places, execute inappropriate phrases, and play abominably out of tune. This kind of thing does not require serious notice, especially in the case of Haydn, to whom humour in music was a very different matter from the handling of rattles and ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... clad in lavender, appeared in the doorway. They also bent over the blue and white bundle. They also said something about the darling coming to see his aunties. Then there ensued the softest chorus of lady-laughter, as if at some hidden joke. ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... surprised by its sudden rising from behind the mountain wall, slink in its increasing glow, watch it furtively from the cover of near-by brush, unprepared and half uncertain of its identity until it rode clear of the peaks, and finally make off with all the air of one caught napping by an ancient joke. The moon in its wanderings must be a sort of exasperation to cunning beasts, likely to spoil by untimely risings some fore-planned mischief. But to take the trail again; the coyotes that are astir in the Ceriso of late ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... possibly the insight, piquancy and calm wisdom of Omar Khayyam are two-thirds essence of FitzGerald. If so, the joke is on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... girl who looked almost like her, but was not tall enough and wore a different dress. Then he spotted her. She was dancing with one of the Conforms, a frail-looking man a few inches shorter than she, with regular, handsome features. She laughed at some sly joke, and ...
— The Happy Unfortunate • Robert Silverberg
... mad?' said Nixon, who now saw he had miscalculated in supposing Nanty's wild ideas of honour and fidelity could be shaken even by resentment, or by his Protestant partialities. 'You shall not go back—it is all a joke.' ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... I reach him in respectable time, was the think inside me," Jane fach answered. "What other design have I? Stay here I will. A boy, dear me, for a joke was Shacob with me. Heaps of gifts he made me; enough to ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... terms, as to one whom it is dangerous to trust. For discriminations of character she has no names: all whom she mentions are honest men and agreeable women. She smiles not by sensation, but by practice. Her laughter is never excited but by a joke, and her notion of a joke is not very delicate. The repetition of a good joke does not weaken its effect; if she has laughed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... cessation of business for a few minutes. Some of the old farmers who knew the deceased recount their connection with him, how he worked for them, and how his family has lived in the parish as cottagers from time immemorial. A reminiscence of a grim joke that fell out forty years before, and of which the deceased was the butt, causes a grave smile, and then to business again. The master possibly asks permission to punish a refractory inmate; punishment is now very sparingly given in the house. A good many cases, ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... this is our candidate? So!" he exploded. "I am glad, Mr. McGowan, to shake your hand, and perhaps we'd better do it now, for we might not so desire when the grilling is over. So!" He laughed vociferously at his rude joke, and offered ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... journey. Chaucer is himself the great poetical observer of men, who in every age is born to record and eternize its acts. This he does as a master, as a father and superior, who looks down on their little follies from the Emperor to the Miller, sometimes with severity, oftener with joke ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... capital joke; but I doubt if Dotty Dimple appreciated it. She looked at the hollow crust, and then at the purple-crested dove, and thought a hotel dinner was even more peculiar than she had supposed. Did they have "live pies" every day? How did they ...
— Dotty Dimple Out West • Sophie May
... at all," he said, standing his ground with his back to the fire. "I don't understand it, by heaven I don't. Because I said some stupid thing about Boulogne, all in joke—" ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... wound,' I should have got into a deuce of a scrape over that affair. As it was, it only cost me a hundred rupees to satisfy the man's family and send them back to their native village. That was for years a standing joke against me, Miss Hannay; except your uncle and the Colonel, there is no one left in the regiment who was there, but it was a sore subject for a long time. Still, no doubt, it was a useful lesson, and my rule has been ever since, never amputate except as a forlorn hope, and even then don't amputate, ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... toss; noise, smells, cold. Broken sleep by day, woe in every variety by night; food and drink a delusion and a snare; society an affliction; life a burden; death a far-off blessing not to be had at any price. Slowly, slowly the victims emerge from the lower depths of gloom, feebly smile, faintly joke, pick fearfully but wistfully at once-rejected dishes; talk about getting up, but don't do it; read a little, look at their sallow countenances in hand-glasses, and speculate upon the good effects of travel ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... as though it might be a joke. Asa was so used to others suspecting his honesty of purpose that he never seemed to get offended when they doubted his word. Another boy might have shown temper, but Asa never did this. He might grit his teeth behind a fellow's back, and vow to get even for an insult; ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... been a janitor at Boxwood Hall when Ned, Bob, and Jerry attended there. He had been a good friend to the three chums, and, as mentioned, had assisted them in performing what they were pleased to term a "joke." ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... whole thing was the greatest joke imaginable, Rewa Gunga fell into stride beside King and led him away in the direction ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... to give a man an extra arm when he needs a leg, Mr. Jefferson. Can't you see to it that I am spared being made a monstrosity of?" Mr. Morris had said, whimsically. "I can hear Segur or Beaufort now making some damned joke about the unequal distribution of my members," and Mr. Jefferson had made a formal request to the master of ceremonies to allow Mr. Morris to be presented to His Majesty without a sword. With that exception, however, he was in full court costume and stumped his way about ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... big man of the village who owns the mill, and the gardener from Lord So-and-So's estate, and the lord himself, for that matter, the groom taking his "bitter" from the side window, with one eye on his high stepper polished to a piano finish. All have a word or a good-morning or a joke with the barmaid. She isn't at all the kind of a girl you think she is. Try it some day and you'll discover your mistake. It's Miss Nance, or Miss Ellen, or whatever else her parents fancied; or Miss Figgins, or Connors, or Pugby—but it is ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... feet that I wept in despair, And vow'd that no angel was ever so fair? How could you believe all the nonsense I spoke? What know we of angels? I meant it in joke, I meant it in joke; What know we of angels? I meant it ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... work, and even then he would outwit them by dashing off a witty parody or a bit of impromptu verse. Among his literary jeux d'esprit was an examination paper on 'Pickwick,' prepared as a Christmas joke in exact imitation of a genuine "exam." The prizes, two first editions of Pickwick, were won by W. W. Skeat, now famous as a philologist, and Walter Besant, known to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... were ten or a dozen boarders there; but they were honest foremen or commonplace clerks from the stores, of a very different calibre from the young Irishman. Of an evening when they gathered together his joke was always the readiest, his conversation the brightest, and his song the best. He was a born boon companion, with a magnetism which drew good humour from all ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... joke about him. I am not superstitious, but I fear that man, and would have you be on your guard against him. It was to warn you about him that I risked coming ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... reads as if it were wit, but it is not. What poor, poor stuff, about the little blackguard boys! what flimsy ecstasies and silly "smacking of lips" about the plovers. Is this the man who writes for the next age? O fie! Here is another joke:— ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that heathen Siren? Plagues on her! I shall end by falling in love with her.... I don't know that I have not got a barb of the blind boy in me already. I felt absurdly glad the other day when that fool told me he dare not accept her modest offer. Ha! ha! A delicious joke it would have been to have seen Orestes bowing down to stocks and stones, and Hypatia installed in the ruins of the Serapeium, as High Priestess of the Abomination of Desolation!. And now.... Well I call all heaven and earth to witness, that I have fought valiantly. ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... mother, uncertain whether to take it as a joke or to feel hurt. Mrs. Smith smiled and shook her head almost imperceptibly and Dorothy understood that it was ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... I thought the joke had been carried far enough, and that it was time to interfere. I accordingly went next day to Boston, and, calling on the publisher of a then somewhat flourishing weekly newspaper, now extinct, called "The Boston ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... the New York Observer I will state that a despatch sent round the world in a spiral direction westward 1,200 times, would not really arrive at its destination four years before it started. It is only a joke which ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... has termed the "maximum and minimum" clause as "the highest practical joke of the whole bill." Little has been said of this clause except in connection with the "minimum." It must be remembered that there is also a "maximum," and it does not augur well for the consumer. Suppose a foreign nation ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... appeared with a plate of toothpicks, and to the question of Marforio, what he was doing with them, he replied, "I am taking them to Alexandrino, Medicis, and Rusticucci," the three cardinals who had been most active in securing the Papacy for the new Pope. The point of the joke was plain to the Romans: it meant that his adherents, instead of gaining anything by their efforts, had been deceived, and would have nothing to do now but to pick ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... queer. As for Alice's incredulous attitude towards the revelation of his identity, he did not mentally accuse her of treating him as either a liar or a madman. On reflection he persuaded himself that she regarded the story as a bad joke, as one of his impulsive, capricious ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... such a malicious grin that Joe, whose face was still smarting, had no hesitation in connecting his sudden awakening with the hot bowl of the man's pipe. It was a joke Joe had often seen played on drunken men in Islington public-houses ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... "Just a joke!" Pike pleaded. "Merriwell, I didn't mean anything, only to have a bit of sport. That is honest. I didn't ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... after the race was over just to limber up his legs—he was so cramped from sitting around waiting for the dogs. So it came about that Johnny, in his poor, foolish little heart, thought dogs were just a joke. ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... confused when my housekeeper's little servant came up and gave me a letter which the wretched widow had sent her by an express. She had opened it, and found an enclosure addressed to me inside. I put it in my pocket, saying I would read it at my leisure. On Madame saying in joke that it was a love-letter, I could not laugh, and made no answer. The servant came to tell us that dinner was served, but I could touch nothing. My abstinence was put ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... "That's what he is—good joke, Nell. Where'd it happen?" She seated herself in a chair and slid until her head rested on the back, ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... said the Kangaroo, as she returned to the cave, "the 'possum made that unlucky joke of telling the Nightjar it has a touching voice, and can sing: everyone has to suffer for that joke of the 'possum's. It doesn't matter to him, for he is awake all night, but it is too bad for his neighbours who ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... leisure to be intimate with my passengers. The most of them were then in their berths sea-sick; however, in going among them, telling them what was good for them, persuading them not to be there, but to come up on deck and feel the breeze, and in rousing them with a joke, or a comfortable word, I made acquaintance with them, perhaps, in a more friendly and confidential way from the first, than I might have ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... right just now, when you said that the un-average man would love Mary Ballard. Porter Bigelow loves her, and he tops all the other men I've met. And he'd never love me. He will laugh with me and joke with me, and if he wasn't in love with Mary, he might flirt with me—but I'm not his ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... she thinks you have swallowed it, she will not fail to attempt transforming you into some animal, but she shall not succeed; when she sees that she has failed, she will immediately turn her proceeding into pleasantry, as if what she had done was only out of joke to frighten you; but she will conceal a mortal grief in her heart, and think she has omitted something in the composition of her cake. As for the other cake, you shall make a present of it to her, and press her to eat it; which she will not refuse to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... quarrelsome old fellow that had ever come across my path. Oh, how often I've laughed to see you scolding the children, as they ran after you in the street whenever you appeared behind your master with the medicine-chest. The minute I saw you too I remembered a joke which the king once made in his own way, as you were both passing by. 'The old man,' he said, reminds me of a fierce old owl followed by a flight of small teasing birds, and Nebenchari looks as if he had a scolding wife, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that the miserable policy of these people was to starve the troops into the supposed necessity of evacuating the position, and returning to Khartoum. I represented to Allorron the danger of trifling with a hungry lion, at which he grinned, as a good joke, and immediately replied: "If you want cattle, I will give you some of my people as guides, and you can attack a neighbour of mine, and capture his herds, which will last you for a long time." I replied, that I could not injure any one who had ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker |
