"Joker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... assisted by his entire force of uniformed men. He evidently did not intend that any boy, with a mind that turned to practical joking, should have a chance to exercise his evil propensities unchecked. Should such a thing be attempted the joker would find himself up against a snag immediately; and, as those posters announced, he was going to be harshly dealt with up to the "extreme penalty ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... ran hot and cold. But Monsieur showed neither amusement nor annoyance, only a perfectly gracious endurance. Yet how could I know what instant his forbearance might give way, or what serpent's eggs the joker's inanities might in the next day or hour turn out to be, laid in the hot heart of the Creole gentleman? Then it was that this slender little German seamstress-wife shone forth like the first star ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... made against any Person in the Ship.* (* This history of Mr. Orton's misadventure is omitted from the Admiralty copy. It is an illustration of the times to note that the fact of Orton having got drunk does not seem to call for the Captain's severe censure. In these days, though the practical joker receives punishment, the drunkard would certainly come in for ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... moderate reflection upon the laws of speech and the method of Genesis would have restrained Huxley from sneering at the 'marvelous flexibility' of the Hebrew tongue in the word 'day,' and a New York audience from laughing at the joke rather than the joker. Some tinge of ethical knowledge should have withheld Max Muller from finding the grand distinctive mark of humanity in the power of speech. The merest theorist needs some range of reality for the framework of his theories, and the man of ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... that, with our species upon the edge of extermination or appalling degradation, with no clear prospect before us but the chance of a horrible death, we could sit following the chance of this painted pasteboard, and playing the "joker" with vivid delight. Afterwards he taught me poker, and I beat him at three tough chess games. When dark came we decided to take the risk, ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... careful — you bet! I'm only too anxious to get back with Orry and see more of you two girls. I say, Senator," to the father now looking approvingly on, "this lost pilot is one of our best. He's a turnip — a real joker! We ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... see how much chance you'll have if I fire at you." The pop of the revolver sounded, and then Hindhaugh went forward, pulling the Scorpion with him. "Do you see that hole, you image? How would you like if that was your gizzard? Now, no games, my joker." ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... went on Mrs. Jane Jukes Jopp. "What practical joker ever lured you into appearing in ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... it has been surveyed and declared agricultural land; but they can't go in and get title till it is surveyed and passed. But you can plaster the railway scrip where it is unsurveyed. That's the little joker somebody tucked in when the scrip railway act was passed. I guess by the time they have red-taped and trapesed round and wrangled those two tangles of title out, the logs will be safe down the River; and I guess that will ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... pals!" cried the Chourineur, addressing those prisoners who ranged themselves on his side; "you have hearts; you will not see a man murdered who is half dead; only cowards are capable of such conduct. Skeleton is no bad joker; he is condemned in advance; that is the reason why he urges you on. But if you aid him to kill Germain, you will be roughly treated. Besides, I have a proposition to make. Skeleton wants to finish this young man. Well! let him come and take him, if he can: it will be a match between ourselves; ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... then silver; and if you break anything, I'll bash in your fool head. There's going to be some style to this dishwashing. I used to slide 'em all in together and let her go. But that ain't the way here. She knows four aces and the jolly joker better than that. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... entertainment, but he was a man more generally known than our worthy President, James K. Polk. That man was the famous Captain Riley! whose "narrative" of suffering and adventures is pretty generally known, all over the civilized world. Captain Riley was a fine, fat, good-humored joker, who at the period of my story was the representative of the Dayton district, and lived near that little city when at home. Well, Captain Riley had amused the company with many of his far-famed and singular adventures, which being mostly ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... to see if they are not thieves. If a lover, a thief, or you—I make no comparisons—could get the better of this first wicket, well, in the first hall, which is shut by a glazed door, you would run across a butler surrounded by lackeys, an old joker more savage and surly even than the porter. If any one gets past the porter's lodge, my butler comes out, waits for you at the entrance, and puts you through a cross-examination like a criminal. That has happened to me, a mere postman. He took me for ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... put it that way, and since I know you are gentlemen, I will confide in you. It was like this: One day I was standing at a street corner wondering where my next meal would come from, when a swell joker comes along, and says to me: 'Do you want to earn a bob?' 'Rather, sir,' says I, 'how?' 'By just follering me and carrying this parcel.' 'Right!' says I, and I started off after him, pleased as anything at earning a bob so easily; but I had not gone far ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... this space joker, Sinclair," commented Connel, "was the way he had everyone fooled. I couldn't figure out how he was able to get around so quickly until ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... said Mr. Griscom, "I am ready to do a little joking myself. I'm just enough of a joker to want to see whoever it was in jail. My house is my house—it is my castle, as the saying is—and I don't want strangers wandering in and out of it, whether they come to take away my property, or leave property that is not mine. Is there, or ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... letter with it to anybody without receiving a request by return mail that I would not only describe the machine, but state what progress I had made in the use of it, etc., etc. I don't like to write letters, and so I don't want people to know I own this curiosity-breeding little joker." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... very nicely so long as the poor cowboy was willing to catch and brand him for his employer, but it proved a 'joker' when he woke up and said to his fellows: 'Why brand these mavericks at five dollars per head for this or that outfit when the law says it belongs to the ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... "His idea of a Bible is fifty-two cards and a joker. He does his praying with one ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... perfectly sure that the voices that spoke to us last night were a subtle delusion, an emanation from our own bodies—or the work of a joker. My reason repels ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... simply wouldn't listen to me; told me he'd send it back freight if I did; and I had to believe him, though, it seemed unnatural. But they wouldn't let me go look at their blame trenches. I tried to get this General joker to pass me in, but he wouldn't fall for it. 'No, no,' he gurgles and splutters. 'A Benevolent Neutral in the trenches! Never do, never do. We'll have to put some new initials on the Mechanical Transport,' he says, 'B.N.M.T. Benevolent Neutral! I must tell Dallas ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... political opinions, but from personal aversion to Canning. Perhaps his satirical temper has partly occasioned this; but I rather consider emulation as the source of it, the head and front of the offending. Croker no longer rhymes to joker. He has made a good coup, it is said, by securing Lord Hertford for the new administration. D.W. calls him their viper. After all, I cannot sympathise with that delicacy which throws up office, because the most eloquent man in England, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... grotesque, alarming, apparently the design of a joker. But tread not on the domain of the scientist, for he will prove to you that each separate queerness is only a trick of nature to fit its owner to the necessities of his habitat. The parrot-fish are screamingly fantastic. There are not even in the warm California or Florida ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... all took after the king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine; but certain it is that a lean joker is a rara ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... one subject to another," resumes Mr. Smallweed. "'To promote the conversation,' as a joker might say. To pass, Mr. George, from the ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Representatives Grant of Newport and Whittington of Hot Springs introduced an equal suffrage resolution in the House. It was not initiated by the suffragists and apparently not introduced to advance woman suffrage, as it was said to contain a "joker." Nevertheless, when it became known that the bill had been introduced they appealed to Representative Hearst of Fayetteville, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for a hearing. On the day and hour that it had been promised Mrs. Chester Jennings, Mrs. J. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... which will give to the child that familiarity which will breed contempt for the work itself; the atrocious picture book modeled after the comic supplement and telling in hideous daubs of color and caricature of line the tale of the practical joker who torments animals, mocks at physical deformities, plays tricks on parents, teases the newlywed, ridicules good manners, whose whole aim, in short, is to provoke guffaws of laughter at the expense of someone's hurt body or spirit. There will be collections ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... trembled upon Deacon's lips. So here was the joker held in reserve by the rival crew! Had Baliol anything left? Had he anything left? Grave doubt was mounting in his soul. Away swept the Shelburne boat inches at a stroke until the difference in their positions was nearly a length. Three miles and a half! ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... old joker," observed Duff. "Hillo, here comes old Monsieur Collet with his cargo of ginger-beer. Let's go and get some; for ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... grimly. Yet had he told the entire truth he would have said he had administered such a beating to the practical joker, upon learning where he had sent Bob, as Fairfax had never seen given by ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... thinking over 'The Seven Hunters.' It might be, probably was, a blind, or the kidnappers, having touched there, might have departed in any direction—to Iceland, for what he knew. But the name, 'the Seven Hunters,' was not likely to have been invented by a practical joker in London. If not, the conspirators had really captured and kept to themselves Mr. Macrae's line of wireless communications. How could that have been done? Merton bitterly regretted that his general information ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... It's the strongest gum ever made, it can hold a horse. I have hard work to get it to dissolve nights with pure alcohol." This while the guilty one was writhing with that malicious joy known in its fulness to the practical joker alone. ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... had gone, I suppose, and my brain had been very active the while, when something occurred to me which placed a new complexion upon this second summons. I thought of the falsity of the first, of the improbability of even the most hardened practical joker practising his wiles at one o'clock in the morning. I thought of our recent conversation; above all I thought of the girl who had delivered the message to Eltham, the girl whom he had described as a French maid—whose personal charm had so completely enlisted his sympathies. Now, to this ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... continually loaded with shot, under the direction of one Mr. Hatchway, who had one of his legs shot away while he acted as lieutenant on board the commodore's ship; and now, being on half-pay, lives with him as his companion. The lieutenant is a very brave man, a great joker, and, as the saying is, hath got the length of his commander's foot—though he has another favourite in the house called Tom Pipes, that was his boatswain's mate, and now keeps the servants in order. Tom is a man of few words, but an excellent ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... by George!" said John. "It seems to me that I've fallen into a pretty soft thing here. There'll be a joker in the deck somewhere, I guess. There always is in these good things. But I don't see it yet. You can count me in ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... handsome roomy mansion on the same site. The visitor at Kirk Ella, after paying his devoirs to the youthful Chatelain and Chatelaine, can admire at leisure Mr. Levey's numerous and expensive stud: "Lollypop", "Bismark," "Joker," "Jovial," "Tichborne," "Burgundy," "Catch-him-alivo," a crowd of fleet steeds, racing and trotting stock, surrounded by a yelping and frisky pack of "Peppers," "Mustards," "Carlos," "Guys," "Josephines," "Fidlers;" Mastiffs, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... three-card monte, nap, penny-ante, poker, reversis^, squeezers, old maid, fright, beggar-my- neighbor; baccarat. [cards: list] ace, king, queen, knave, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, trey, deuce; joker; trump, wild card. [card suits: list] spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds; major suit, minor suit. bower; right bower, left bower; dummy; jackpot; deck. [hands at poker: list] pair, two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, full-house, four of a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dark, expressive eyes, and I believe was only once beaten in the show ring. He died some few years ago at a ripe old age, but a great many of the best-known Poodles of the present day claim relationship to him. One of his most famous descendants was Ch. The Joker, also black corded, who was very successful at exhibitions. Another very handsome dog was Ch. Vladimir, again a black corded, belonging to ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... a little inclined to think that Josh would have backslid if he hadn't been a practical joker, and a critter of that breed is about as afraid of a laugh on himself as a raw colt of a steam roller. So he stuck it out, and began to take an interest in meal time. Kicked because it didn't come eight or ten times a day. The first thing he knew he had fatted ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... replied, with an explosive laugh, "He says that if he did it was all blown out of him!" I will only comment on this reply, that it was quite in accordance with the character of my brother to joke on the most serious subjects—he was an inveterate joker. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... 1789, as in "A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America," published by Christopher Colles in that year, the inn is put down as Dusenbury's Tavern. The author of this old-time road book may have been something of a joker, or he may have had a small grudge against the Presbyterians, as among the symbols he used, the one indicating a church of that denomination is so noticeably like a windmill as to call forth a gentle ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... "The joker was not to be discerned; the mate therefore took no notice. Some one brought a pannikin of cold water, and after a little the man came to, by which time the watch below had returned to their hammocks, and ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... cards, ripped off the covering, tossed aside the joker (though, really, I ought to have retained it!) and began shuffling the shiny pasteboards. I dare say that those around me sat up and took notice. It was by no means a common sight to see a man gravely shuffling ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... inquire of any stupid joker, for he will idly say that there is no such man there, because, forsooth, a certain single woman who was sent to the moon came back again, which she would never have done if a man had been there with whom she could have married and ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... he watched the miserable crowds afoot and reflected upon them, was neither remorseful nor triumphant. He simply noted an interesting fact—a commonplace fact—of the methods of that sardonic practical joker, Life. Because the scheme of things was unjust and stupid, because others, most others, were uncomfortable or worse—why should he make himself uncomfortable? It would be an absurdity to get out of his ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... smoke away from his face and eyed Bland with lofty tolerance. "And where do you expect to come in? You needn't kid yourself into hoping I'll take you for a self-forgetful martyr person. What's the little joker, Bland?" ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... desperate. It was to suppress the inventor and his labor. They bought the sole rights from the inventor, promising him glittering royalties. The joker was that the invention was suppressed. None were ever manufactured. Hence there were no royalties and the corporations went on undisturbed while Brent and Balcom collected huge retainers for ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... A merry country party, A drive, and then croquet, A quiet, well-cooked dinner, Three times at billiards winner,— The evening sped away; When Brown, the dear old joker, Cried, "Come, my worthy broker, The hour is growing late; Your room is cool and quiet, As for the bed, just try it, Breakfast at ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... to be signed up for attending courses of lectures on certain subjects. This was simply a matter of tipping the beadle, who marked you off. I personally attended only two botany lectures during the whole course. At the first some practical joker had spilled a solution of carbon bisulphide all over the professor's platform, and the smell was so intolerable that the lecture was prorogued. At the second, some wag let loose a couple of pigeons, whereupon every one started either to capture them or stir them up with pea-shooters. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... a verse on that extremely stylish person Who insists upon the hat of emerald hue; I have made a lot of fun of things that honestly were none of My blanked business—and I knew that it was true. At the shameless subway smoker I have been a ceaseless joker—— For that nuisance daily gets me in a huff— But the one that makes me maddest is that pestilential faddist Who is carrying his ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... stun us. But this restless gaiety too often grows fatiguing, as the rollicking fun begins to pall upon us, as the jokes ring hollow, and the wit gets stale by incessant reiteration. We know how much in real life we get to hate the joker who does not know when to stop, who repeats his jests, and forces the laugh when it does not flow freely. Something of the kind the most devoted of Dickens's readers feel when they take in too much at one time. None but the very greatest can maintain for long one incessant outpour of drollery, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... old man who pretended to be dead in the ancient days when nobody really died. But the Lord of the Sun, who held the threads of all human lives in his hand, detected the fraud and in anger cut short the thread of life of the practical joker. Since then everybody else has died; the door for death to enter into the world was opened by the folly of that silly, though humorous, old man.[95] The natives about the Murray River in Australia used to relate how the first man ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... father, Ephraim Barnum, was a captain in the War of the Revolution, and was distinguished for his valor and for his fervent patriotism. His mother's father, Phineas Taylor, was locally noted as a wag and practical joker. His father, Philo Barnum, was in turn a tailor, a farmer, a storekeeper, and a country tavernkeeper, and was not particularly prosperous ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... "That cleverly unobtrusive joker clause about 'reasonably satisfactory service,'" replied Chalmers angrily. "By the way, have you investigated the cause of those accidents very thoroughly? Whether there was anything ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... light, and water to quench all the domestic furnaces that required lighting or quenching; and never since at Azay has been such vicar seen! A handsome vicar was he, square-shouldered, fresh coloured, always blessing and chuckling, preferred weddings and christenings to funerals, a good joker, pious in Church, and a man in everything. There have been many vicars who have drunk well and eaten well; others who have blessed abundantly and chuckled consumedly; but all of them together would hardly make up the sterling worth ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... stated that the cardinal of Ragusa had given her as a present an article, which this holy joker called in articulo mortis. It was a tiny glass bottle, no bigger than a bean, made at Venice, and containing a poison so subtle that by breaking it between the teeth death came instantly and painlessly. He had received it from Signora ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... musical leanings, Harrigan was a practical joker, and on one occasion he was exercising his humorous talents in the forecastle to the considerable discomfort of one of the crew. Ultimately the sailor, unable to rid himself of his persecutor in any other way, resorted to the use of ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... had that little joker in reserve, did you?" asked Frank grimly. "Well, my answer is just the same. We've got those prisoners, and we're going to keep them. We started to take them into camp, and we're going to take ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... turned those dreaming eyes upon him, and suddenly he laughed and stretched his arms wide as one awaking. The steadfast look went out of his eyes; they danced with gaiety. "Hullo, you old joker! Well, let's dress then and ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... thought in politics, had agreed in threatening me with many ludicrous misadventures, and with sudden death in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, robbers, above all the nocturnal practical joker, were daily and eloquently forced on my attention. Yet in these vaticinations, the true, patent danger was left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered by the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me, in two words, relate ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the hunters. An' he's found out they ain't got enny pistols. He's got one, an' shows 'em how straight he shoots, jest in case there should be enny trubble between 'em. Plays both ends to the middle, does Carlsen. Slick! But he ain't won the pot. They's a joker in this game. Mebbe he holds it, ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... he wished it, but found himself sadly thimble-rigged, the little joker being under the wrong cup. The Romans beat him, and most ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... "What a joker you be for a man that's had so much responsibility!" smiled Mrs. Tobin, after they had done laughing. "Ain't you never 'fraid, carryin' mail matter and such valuable stuff, that you'll be set on an' robbed, 'specially ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... society in the Zouave was as cheerful as it was diverse. There were some officers on their way to rejoin their units, a bevy of tarts from Marseille, a rich Mahommedan merchant, returning from Mecca, some strolling players, a Montenegran prince, a great joker this, who did impersonations.... Not one of these people was sea-sick and they spent the time drinking champagne with the captain of the Zouave, a fat "Bon viveur" from Marseille, who had an establishment there and another in Algiers, and who rejoiced in the name of Barbassou. Tartarin hated ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... and 't will shave you itself," retorted the joker, and this allusion to the steady depreciation of the colony paper money called ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... mast-head; that bandages and a plentiful application of tarwater had made him, in three days, able to use his leg as well as ever. While this communication was under grave discussion—it must be remembered that many then thought tarwater had extraordinary remedial properties—the joker contrived that a second letter should be delivered, which stated that the writer had forgotten, in his previous communication, to mention that the leg was a wooden leg! Horace Walpole told this story, I suppose for the first time; he is good authority for ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... imagines to be a strange bird. Then he indulges in a fit of merriment at his own jokes—'chatter-chatter-chat-chat-chat-chat-chat' he says, calling his own name as he slips away to the security of a catbrier or barberry bush. Large and vigorous and strong of beak as he is, this practical joker is wise, and does not often show his conspicuous yellow breast ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... more anxious he became. But Fate, the practical joker,—the fickle, the ruthless, the forever mocking,—was only waiting to lay his enemy ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... for a pony, dear boy," grinned Beaumanoir. "There was a deuce of a shindy when three fat johnnies tried to pull me out of my compartment. I told 'em I didn't give a tinker's continental for their bally frontier, and then the band played. I slung one joker through the window. Good job it was open, or he might have been guillotined, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... pretty; you seem to see the pallor of the saint's face, the circles under her eyes, the relaxation of all her muscles. Then the angel is a little joker who stands there smiling at the ecstasy of ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... great palace of the Archbishop, and it was guarded by English soldiery; but no matter, there was never a dark night but the walls showed next morning that the rude joker had been there with his paint and brush. Yes, he had been there, and had smeared the sacred walls with pictures of hogs in all attitudes except flattering ones; hogs clothed in a Bishop's vestments and wearing a Bishop's miter irreverently cocked ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... a reserve party was about to carry off their baggage. They ran to secure it. The reserve party, however, galloped by, whooping and yelling in triumph and derision. The last of them proved to be their commander, the identical giant joker already mentioned. He was not cast in the stern poetical mold of fashionable Indian heroism, but on the contrary, was grievously given to vulgar jocularity. As he passed Mr. Stuart and his companions, he checked his horse, raised himself in his saddle, and clapping his ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the recesses of their intellectual kitchen, you would see the days of careful preparation which have been given to these spontaneous utterances. The after-dinner speaker needs to find somewhere some unworked joker's quarry, where some jokes have been left without a label on them; he needs to acquire the art of seeming to pluck, as he goes along in the progress of his speech, as by the wayside, some flower of rhetoric. He seems to have passed it and to have ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... community. Naturally they were eager to try their arts on big game, and that was what the Governor was. But they were not able to score. They made several efforts, but the Governor defeated these efforts without any trouble and went on smiling his pleasant smile as if nothing had happened. Finally the joker chiefs of Carson City and Virginia City conspired together to see if their combined talent couldn't win a victory, for the jokers were getting into a very uncomfortable place: the people were laughing at them, instead of at their proposed victim. They banded themselves together to ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... smiling pallidly, "the little joker that James inserted in the contract, about your getting fifty thousand in the event of a favorable report. I told him it didn't look well—but he said it would test you. He would be funny, though, no matter how serious the business. But you showed ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... moment after, ready to fly into each other's embraces. And I have dreaded, when our Belvidera was to take her farewell kiss of her Jaffier, lest she should bite a piece out of his cheek. Our tragedian was a rough joker off the stage; our prime clown the most peevish mortal living. The latter used to go about snapping and snarling, with a broad laugh painted on his countenance; and I can assure you that, whatever may be said of the gravity ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... current in America, which is often circumstantially narrated, of some individual wearing a fine beard or 'whiskers,' and who is said to have sold them to a vulgar practical joker, who had one shaved off, but suffered the other to remain for a long time on the face of his victim, annoying him meantime with inquiries as to 'my whisker.' It is the true type of a great number of stories which originated in the Southern ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... himself for a party or a reception or something, and a practical joker put a tack in a chair and he sat down on it and had a blow-out. The thought is not a pretty one, yet ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... the old joker has done them, is it? Quite right too. The lad doesn't know his own mind yet. Let Fanny wait if she really wants him—and if she can keep hold of him. ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... moment later, for the crustacean caught him by the left ankle in a firm grip, and held on, while the would-be joker danced about on one leg, holding the other up in the air with the lobster dangling from, it. The tables were ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... listener chuckled, and the words broke the spell of supernatural terror which had hung over Andy; he knew, by the words of the speaker, it was the bully joker of the election was present, who browbeat O'Grady and out-quibbled the agent about the oath of allegiance; and the voice of the other he soon recognised for that of Larry Hogan. So now his giants were diminished into mortal ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... 'Don't you run that risk with fifty men a day! Would your father know you? Did I know you? Ecod! You were another figure when I saw you first. Ha, ha, ha! I see the rents and patches now! No false hair then, no black dye! You were another sort of joker in those days, you were! You even spoke different then. You've acted the gentleman so seriously since, that you've taken in yourself. If he should know you, what does it matter? Such a change is a proof of your success. You know that, or you would not have ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... only Bellefont, farther down the valley, has cut us out. Then we had the cinnabar mines—you may see them along the slope to northward, right over the west end of the town. They went well for about sixteen months; and then came the stampede. A joker in the Bellefont Sentinel wrote that the miners up in Eucalyptus were complaining of the 'insufficiency of exits'; and he wasn't far out. Last there were the 'Temperate Airs and Reinvigorating Pine-odours of ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Hundreds of soldiers were idling about the station. They had no idea what was taking place. They thought either that the locomotive had been carried up the track to take on or leave a freight car, or that some practical joker was playing a prank. They showed their enjoyment of the situation by laughing and cheering loudly when Captain Fuller, followed by Engineer Cain and Mr. Murphy, started after the ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... content with a golden popularity, he cannot refrain from sneering at genuine artists. Thus, to the interviewer, he referred to Stephane Mallarme as a "fumiste." No English word will render exactly this French slang; it may be roughly translated a practical joker with a trace of fraud. There may be, and there are, two opinions as to the permanent value of Mallarme's work, but there cannot be two informed and honest opinions as to his profound sincerity. It is indubitable that he had one ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... a born joker, and felt conceit in his powers as a satirist. In the present instance his irony was ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... be naive, Lieutenant. Whoever does it, is going to need little integrity. You don't win in a sharper's card game by playing your cards honestly. The biggest sharper wins. We've just found a joker somebody dropped on the floor; if we don't ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... descended. Sir Meeson heard her cry out: 'Is it you!' and up stood the pretentious lout in the German sack, affecting the graces of a born gentleman fresh from Paris,—bowing, smirking, excusing himself for something; and he jumped down to the young lady, he talked intimately with her, with a joker's air; he roused the admiral to an exchange of jokes, and the countess and Miss Fakenham more than smiled; evidently at his remarks, unobservant of the preposterous figure he cut. Sir Meeson Corby ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the island of Drangey, which rises up sheer from the midst of Skagafirth like a castle; he goes to his father's house, and bids farewell to his mother, and sets off for Drangey in the company of his youngest brother, Illugi, who will not leave him in this pinch, and a losel called "Noise," a good joker (we are told), but a slothful, untrustworthy poltroon. The three get out to Drangey, and possess themselves of the live-stock on it, and for a while all goes well; the land-owners who held the island in shares, despairing of ridding themselves of the outlaw, give their shares ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... "Yes, I guess I do. I can't help it. I'm no joker; no time for that. Jokers don't get anywhere. Never saw one that did. It's the fellow who keeps thinking about his job and banging away at it who ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... was to be expected. He might very easily have met a Mme. Maubel and forgotten her. He found a Maube and a Maubec, but no Maubel. "Of course, that proves nothing," he said, closing the directory. He went out and threw his letter into the box. "The joker in this is the husband. But hell, I am not likely to take his wife away ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... and capricious, not that he was given to a facetious turn of thought or to a "sportive" exercise of the imagination. When he talks in "The Taming of the Shrew" of "her mad and head-strong humor" he doesn't mean to imply that Kate is a practical joker. It is interesting to note in passing that the old meaning of the word still lingers in the verb "to humor." A woman still humors her spoiled child and her cantankerous husband when she yields to their capriciousness. By going hack a step further in history, to the late fourteenth ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... joker too, it seems," roared the other, but he laughed nevertheless, and the volume of it shook the windows. "There's no offence in ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... tell me I am a party man. I hope I shall always be so, when I see my country in the hands of a pert London joker[43] and a second-rate lawyer.[44] Of the first, no other good is known than that he makes pretty Latin verses; the second seems to me to have the head of a country parson and the tongue of an Old Bailey barrister. ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... inthrajoocin' th' American joke in England. Hogan says th' diff'rence between an American joke an' an English joke is th' place to laugh. In an American joke ye laugh just afther th' point if at all, but in an English joke ye laugh ayether befure th' point or afther th' decease iv th' joker. Th' ambassadure hopes to inthrajooce a cross iv th' two that ye don't laugh at at all that will be suited to th' English market. His expeeriments so far ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... with the trotter for a moment. The racer is incidentally useful, but essentially something to bet upon, as much as the thimble-rigger's "little joker." The trotter is essentially and daily useful, and only incidentally a tool ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... in the father of what, all through life, was the pre-eminent characteristic of Eugene, the inveterate painstaking, mirth-compelling practical-joker. But in Brattleboro, Newfane, and throughout Vermont everybody says, "That's jest like his uncle Charles Kellogg. There was never such another for jest foolin'. He'd rather play a hoax on the parson that would embarrass him in ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... a citizen of prodigious Van Horne had here a character in a setting far more unusual. The eminent soldier as head of a university. One of the last surprises of the war; almost as it seemed then a joker in the pack; when men had to remember how this man leaped from an almost bankrupt real estate office in Victoria to what he was ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... hand of a woman; tremble, thou great Gaul, from whose head an armed Minerva leaps forth in the hour of danger; tremble, thou scourge of God, a pleasant man is come out against thee, and thou shall be laid low by a joker of jokes, and he shall talk his pleasant talk against thee, and thou shall ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... slapped Eddie on the shoulder and explained the result of what he called "the little joker" in Uncle Loren's will, Eddie did not rejoice, as Tim had ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... to live dangerously is to become a practical joker. Should you have any doubts about it ...
— This is Klon Calling • Walt Sheldon
... begin to hope the old man finds something that's been afire up there, Grannis," said the joker of the house. "If he don't, you've cooked ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... lady was coming aboard. He answered me, but as I didn't see him coming, I went down the gangway myself to help her alight. She jumps out excitedly without touching my arm, or as much as saying "thank you" or "good morning" or anything, turns back to the cab, and then that old joker comes out slowly. I hadn't noticed him inside. I hadn't expected to see anybody. It gave me a start. She says: "My father—Mr. Franklin." He was staring at me like an owl. "How do you do, sir?" says I. Both of them looked funny. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... they continue to imprison those whom they know to be unable to pay them; one will answer, that his debtor once lived better than himself; another, that his wife looked above her neighbours, and his children went in silk clothes to the dancing-school; and another, that he pretended to be a joker and a wit. Some will reply, that if they were in debt, they should meet with the same treatment; some, that they owe no more than they can pay, and need therefore give no account of their actions. Some will ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... very big "bag," such a very small "cat"! Popularity Budget? It can't be called that! The Budget that was to have been such "good biz," And have caused the Election to go with a "whizz," Fizzles out in—reducing the duty on Fizz! Ah, JOKIM, my joker, you've hardly the knack Of holding the Bag, so we'll ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... "This joker," cried Sally, "will take a ticket if something wins a Lincoln, and he doesn't know which." She stood in the doorway, her arms akimbo. "People are very busy here," she snarled, when a woman tried ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... the General Staff conception; surprise, if the Commander can bring it off, is worth all K. can say of it; the energy and rapidity of the chosen troops will exploit that surprise for its full value—bar, always, Luck—the Joker; and Wish to Fight and Will to Win are the surest victory getters in the pack. The more these factors are examined, the more sure it is that everything must in the last resort depend upon the executive Commander; and here, of course, I am ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... none of the risk, I should be well enough—as well as I want to be. Here is no lack of my best friend,'—touching his case-bottle;—'but, to tell you a secret, he and I have got so used to each other, I begin to think he is like a professed joker, that makes your sides sore with laughing if you see him but now and then; but if you take up house with him, he can only make your head stupid. But I warrant the old fellow is doing the best he can for ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... punished. One morning my eye happened to light upon a minor paragraph in a newspaper—a list of the "small bills yesterday approved by the governor." In the list was one "defining the power of sundry commissions." Those words seemed to me somehow to spell "joker." But why did I call up my lawyers to ask them about it? It's a mystery to me. All I know is that, busy as I was, something inside me compelled me to drop everything else ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... the best you could say for him the rest of the time was a hope that he wasn't dead. And now coming at us with the airy persiflage, the first regular breath he's drawed. Fat! It was me he meant to indicate, wasn't it? He was joshin' me! Say, Steve, ain't he the merry little joker? Me—fat! Now that's real funny—I'll leave it to you if ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... smartly cut, brown, bobtailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for a length of time unknown, had kept his desk and corner in the bar-room, and was still puffing what seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty years before. He had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less on account of any intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor of brandy-toddy and tobacco-smoke, which impregnated all his ideas and expressions, as well as his person. Another well-remembered, though strangely altered, face was that ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... greeted him with a kind of constrained civility; certain cautious souls hurried by without seeing him; all turned and looked after him; and a few followed him at a respectful distance. A somewhat notorious practical joker and recognized wag at the Ferry apparently awaited his coming with something of invitation and expectation, but, catching sight of Ruth's haggard face and blazing eyes, became instantly practical, and by no means jocular in his greeting. At the top of ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... his illegitimate sphere in Her Majesty's Navy, an' it was just then that Old 'Op, our Yeoman of Signals, an' a fastidious joker, made remarks to me about ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... wicked joker had hidden his hat, he was not able to leave the room with the dignity befitting the occasion; but eighteen supporters answered to his call; and the face of John Wesley was seen in the Fetter Lane Society no more. The breach was final; the wound remained open; and Moravians ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... he made the poor butt suffer. On one occasion the kingly joker had a brace of bear cubs laid in Gundling's bed, and the drunken historian tossed in between them, with little heed of the danger to which he exposed the poor victim of his sport. On another occasion, when Gundling grew sullen and refused to leave his room, the king and his boon companions ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... first English gentleman, and let no joker add "and the last." Yet it is needless and quite irrelevant to say that civilized people are not always civil; nor are gentlemen always gentle—so little do words count. Many ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... his death, this simple Western attorney, who according to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had laid on the hearts and ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... over this unexpected letter. Reflection inclined me yet more strongly to believe that it was the work of a practical joker. My adventure was well known. The newspapers had given it in full detail. Some satirist, such as exists even in America, must have written this threatening letter to ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... Mynheer," said a rough joker in the crowd, half-laughing, half-scowling. "What they need inside yonder is some more Dutch prudence. When they have heard him they will vote to go into winter quarters and fight ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... to-morrow—to-morrow —to-morrow. Let's teach 'em to do things to-day. Let's show 'em what business means. Two million dollars went into that experiment, but Manana won. We had good hands, but it had the joker. After five years I left, with a bald head at twenty-nine, and a little book of noble thoughts—Tips for the Tired, or Things you can say To-day on what you can do to-morrow. I lost my hair worrying, but I learned to be patient. The Dagos wanted to live in their ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... because Judd allowed the students to think him dead and let the affair gain such prominence. Since the incident Benz's popularity had decreased fully fifty percent. He was greeted with taunts and jeers and nicknamed, "The Impractical Joker." Life had grown exceedingly unpleasant. Benz avoided everyone that he could, imagining that the whole college was turned against him. He remained close within the seclusion of his room during idle moments; practiced football somewhat indifferently; scarcely ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... for accommodation. For my part, I do not know which is the less desirable, the tenant or the tenement There are dogs that submit to be kissed by women base enough to kiss them; but they have a secret, coarse revenge. For the dog is a joker, withal, gifted with as much humor as is consistent ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... from a theatre pit, guffawing at coarse jests, one of a music-hall crowd? In the community it is the lowest always leads. You spoke just now of all the world inviting Samuel Johnson to its dish of tea. How many read him as compared to the number of subscribers to the Ha'penny Joker? This 'thinking in communities,' as it is termed, to what does it lead? To mafficking and Dreyfus scandals. What crowd ever evolved a noble idea? If Socrates and Galileo, Confucius and Christ had 'thought in communities,' the ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... by," said the Major, shaking a discouraging head. "Another joker with another name, who turned up a hundred miles off! Harrisson, I fancy—yes, Harrisson. It was only my idea they were the same. I came away, and don't know how they ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... could call Major Flint, with his bawlings and his sniffings, the least mysterious. He laid all his loud cards on the table, great hulking kings and aces. But Miss Mapp felt far from sure that Captain Puffin did not hold a joker which would some time come to light. The idea of being Mrs. Puffin was not so attractive as the other, but she occasionally gave ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... to the other end of the corridor, where Fred Farnsworth, Eben Sampson, and Albion Small were standing together. In contrast with the others, these men were laughing. Albion was "consid'able of a joker," Mr. ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... much of you, Sir Charles Grandison: but I am quite mistaken in you: I expected to see a grave formal young man, his prim mouth set in plaits: But you are a joker; and a free man; a very free man, I do ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... He wasn't accustomed to taking orders from some joker that barged in and shot an unauthorized landing. He was the one who should be giving the orders. He started to ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... Where's the joker? You, is it? Here's hot news You've brought us; all the valley's hissing aloud, And makes as much of you falling into it As a pail of water would ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... says Scraggs, still perfectly polite and uninterested. "'Have you?' says he, removin' his pipe and spitting carefully outdoors again. And then he slid the joker a'top of Smithy's play. 'Well, I have been a ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... nod to one or two of the dozen attracted towards him was the only notice he took of them, seeming not to hear the question and comments of Tinker. His silence tempted old Cal, the small joker ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... those uniforms are dear, aren't they?" "I don't know. I heard my brother Ned say they were quite cheap," went on Jane, who was something of a joker. ...
— The Young Firemen of Lakeville - or, Herbert Dare's Pluck • Frank V. Webster
... puzzle intended to have a joke at the expense of the person who discovered it. What was to be the nature of the joke is more than I can say at present, but I should like to have a bet with you that the man who compounded that puzzle was an ingenious practical joker. I may be wrong, Pugh; we shall see. But, until I have proved the contrary, I don't believe that the maddest man that ever lived would throw away a diamond worth, apparently, shall we say ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... were seen very often, and a great deal of time was devoted to the study of their movements. In the silence of the night a practical joker would rush out with a field-glass in his hand and shout "balloon!" at the top of his voice. The desired effect—of bringing the whole street out of bed to see the balloon—was easily produced. The star-gazers would thus spend an hour or so minutely examining all the stars ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... case I am quite willing to accept. Mr. Hadow is no joker, like that man who has recently written an appreciation of Xantippe, showing that the wife of Socrates was one of the most patient women who ever lived, and only at times resorted to heroic means in order to drive her husband out into the world of thought. She ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... cried the sailor, thrusting all the money into his breeches pocket. "That's what you'll learn to do, my joker, before you've been ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... because I didn't recognize the joker, and emptied the contents of my water pitcher on him just as he broke the bottle," Dick smiled. "Poor old Tom. ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... were constantly coming and going, the question was peculiar. The young guardian of the portal seemed to find it so. He regarded Mr. Bangs with the puzzled stare of one not certain whether he has to do with a would-be joker or an imbecile. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... with a chuckle; "you play a mighty safe game, don't you? You're not takin' any chances on the cards. I believe you reckon I've got the joker up my sleeve, hey? But you're wrong, 'cos me sleeves is rolled up. But you've got a tidy twist on ye for mutton, all the same, an' I reckon it's lucky for you I killed that staked ewe. Now, how d'ye like plain damper? Just see how ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... and they both hauled for all they were worth. "Ah! he's a fine, glistening fish; it'll be grand to get fresh fish for dinner!" At last the fish appeared over the rail; but, alas! it was seen to have no head. It was an ordinary stockfish, about three-quarters of a yard long, that some joker had hung on the line during the night. That we all had a hearty laugh goes without saying, the fishermen included, as they took ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... question. In the stillness of the night he made a business of patrolling that portion of the principal Government edifice, and, sure enough, the footsteps followed along behind him. He cornered them; it was surely some trickster! There was no possibility for the joker to get away. But, a moment later, the steps were heard in another part of the hall; they had evaded him successfully. Similar experiments were tried on other nights, but they all ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... that the others have not." So he tied a pumpkin to his right leg and, thus decorated, entered the town. A young wag, perceiving the simpleton, made friends with him, and induced him to spend the night at his house. While he was asleep, the joker removed the pumpkin from his leg and tied it to his own, and then lay down again. In the morning, when the poor fellow awoke and found the pumpkin on his companion's leg, he called to him, "Hey! get up, for I am perplexed in my mind. Who am I, and who are you? If I ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... was making one joker very sick of his contract. When we took our arms down at last, they were aching with cold and fatigue, and when we went sneaking off, the dread I was in that the time might not yet be up and that we would feel bullets in a moment, was not sufficient to draw all my ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the talk mainly to himself, and he thought that anything not obscene was tame. By the way, these abrupt and insolent remarks are characteristic of public-house wit. A favourite joke is to ask a friend a serious question. When he fails to answer, then the joker shouts some totally irrelevant and indecent word, and the questioned man is regarded as "sold." I cannot repeat the interlude with which Billy Preston favoured us, but it was very spicy indeed, and referred ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... Francisco. The immediate cause of his going was a duel—a duel elaborately arranged between Mark Twain and the editor of a rival paper, but never fought. In fact, it was mainly a burlesque affair throughout, chiefly concocted by that inveterate joker, Steve Gillis, already mentioned in connection with the pipe incident. The new dueling law, however, did not distinguish between real and mock affrays, and the prospect of being served with a summons made a good excuse for Clemens and Gillis to go to San Francisco, which ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... reg'lar cyclone up thar by to-morrow!" called a joker after him; "look out fer us! There'll be an unholy mob on hand, and they'll ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... mirth seized upon his friends. They doubled up with glee. They wept tears of joy. They howled down his anguish with approving acclaim while they did a double hop around him as a vent to their enthusiasm. The biter had been bit. The joke had been turned against the joker, and in the most primitive and direct way. This was the most humorous event in the history of the Rio Blanco Utes. It was destined to become the stock ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... not really want any honey. All he wanted to do was to play a joke on his friend, but it very often happens that the practical joker gets the worst of it in the end. And as Coonie stepped up to the hive and pretended to knock, he put his paw right down on top of the Queen Bee, whom he did not see ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous |
