"Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Egyptian bondage and made them slaves to Himself, outside the gates were people who were not expected to obey the law of Moses; so that while he might not touch the fire—nor even the candlesticks which had held fire—from Friday evening to Saturday night, the Fire-woman could poke and poke at the logs to her heart's content. She poked her way up from the ground-floor through all the seven stories, and went on higher, a sort of fire-spirit poking her way skywards. She had other strange privileges, this little old woman with the ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... bit! he's ist so fat an' tame, We on'y chain him up at night, to save the little chicks. Holler "Greedy! Greedy!" to him, an' he knows his name, An' here he'll come a-waddle-un, up fer any tricks! He'll climb up my leg, he will, an' waller in my lap, An' poke his little black paws 'way in my pockets where They's beechnuts, er chinkypins, er any little scrap Of anything, 'at's good to eat—an' he ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... nimble Dick, And dries it in the sun, And rolls it up all neat and tight. "My lads," says he, in fun, "I mean to cook this precious weed." And then from out his poke With burning-glass he lights the end, And quick blows ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... him and all his works— Even from these he means to pouch, Roughly, his six per cent. of perks; This thought has left me singularly moody; I fail to join in George's joke; So strongly I resent the extra 2d. Pinched from my modest poke. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... objected to having her picture taken she said, "all right, but don't you-all poke fun at me because I am ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... we go! Now it's up to the guy what examines us. You'll breeze through—not a nick in you. Me—well, they're fussy about teeth, I'm told, and, of course, I had to have a swift poke in the mush that dented my beak. They may try to put the smother ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... the poker she seized. While her man shut the door, and against it he squeezed, As Betty then laid on the grizzly her blows. Now on his forehead, and now on his nose, Her man through the key-hole kept shouting within, "Well done, my brave Betty, now hit him agin, Now poke with the poker, and' poke his eyes out." So, with rapping and poking, poor Betty alone At last laid Sir Bruin as dead as ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... propensity to poke fun. "I have been detailed for that service for more than two years. Moreover, I was a good enough scout to pass within the lines of your army to-night, and to travel the whole ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... ensemble,—to borrow one of the most picturesque terms of the art of painting; all is discord, even the external decoration. The cabajoutis is to Parisian architecture what the capharnaum is to the apartment,—a poke-hole, where the most heterogeneous articles ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... across an old rail, nor a sheep with a pectoral cough behind a hedge, nor a rabbit making rustle at the eyebrow of his hole, nor even a moot, that might either be a man or hold a man inside it, whom or which those active fellows did not circumvent and poke into. In none of these, however, could they find the smallest breach of the strictest laws of the revenue; until at last, having exhausted their bodies by great zeal both of themselves and of mind, they braced them again to the duty of going, as ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... poke the fire. "About that card," said he. "I've often wondered just how many poor chaps it's been responsible ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... the kinder of Weston to do his best about the bridge, because he was not much of a cricketer himself. He said he was too short-sighted, and that it suited him better to poke in the hedges for beetles. He had a splendid collection of insects. Bustard used to say that he poked with his nose, as if he were an insect himself, and it was a proboscis but he said too that his father said it was a pleasure to see Weston make a section of anything, ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... of knitting, might be called a stocking-machine incessantly at work; the phenomenon would have been had they stopped. From time to time Mademoiselle du Guenic took a long knitting needle which she kept in the bosom of her gown, and passed it between her hood and her hair to poke or scratch her white locks. A stranger would have laughed to see the careless manner in which she thrust back the needle without the slightest fear of wounding herself. She was straight as a steeple. Her erect and imposing carriage ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... If she'd been a woman like the kind they was used to—the Cape kind, I mean—I don't s'pose they'd have paid any attention to her; but she was diff'rent from anything they'd ever run up against, and the first thing you know, she had 'em both poke-hooked. 'Twas all in fun on her part first along, I cal'late, but pretty soon some idiot let out that both of 'em was wuth money, and then the race was on ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... already intelligent, should be allowed to go and come freely from the time they were born, just as dogs do in a family where they are pets, or something to that effect. They should have full liberty to poke their noses in their master's face, or lay their heads on his shoulder at meal-time, receiving their treat of lettuce or sugar or bread, only they must understand that they would be punished if they knocked ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... astonishin' part either," he observed. "While those bills were in the dark at the bottom of that crack they must have sprouted. They went in there nothin' but tens and twenties. These you just gave me are fives and twos and all sorts. You'd better poke astern of those boards again, Jed. The roots must be down there yet; all you've scratched ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... bishop said, "'Tis true for war thou art meant; "And reasoning—bless that dandy head! "Is not in thy department. "So leave the argument to me— "And, when my holy labor "Hath lit the fires of bigotry, "Thou'lt poke them with thy sabre. "From pulpit and from sentrybox, "We'll make our joint attacks, "I at the head of my Cassocks, "And you, of your Cossacks. "So here's your health, my brave huzzar, "My exquisite ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... only a few ships, perfectly sure the others would follow me, although it was nearly dark and they might have had every excuse for not doing it, yet they all in the course of two hours found a hole to poke in at. If,' he added, 'I had taken a fleet of the same force from Spithead, I would sooner have thought of flying than attacking the French in their position, but I knew my captains, nor could I say which distinguished himself most.'" Yet to Lady Minto he revealed the spirit he was of. "I told ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... is sometimes the shortest way home, hey, Ed?" and Frank gave him a playful poke that nearly ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... them. And in this same parlour at Arbitt Lodge had that little Marmaduke learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in his time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table, which made him sneeze just exactly as—ah! but I am forgetting—never mind, I may as well finish the sentence—just exactly as it made ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... who was really a capital fellow, used to join in the laugh himself, but still grinnin' is no proof a man enjoys it; for a hyena will laugh, if you give him a poke. So what does he do, but practise in secret every morning and evening at pistol-shooting for an hour or two, until he was a shade more than perfection itself. Well, one day he was out with a party of them same coons, and they began to run the old ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... you're outside the three-mile limit I want you to remember, Mike, that the good ship Narcissus is under the American flag. The Narcissus needs all her space for cargo, Mike. There is no room aboard her for a feud. Don't ever poke your nose into Terence Reardon's engine-room except on his invitation or for the purpose of locating a leak. Treat him with courtesy and do not discuss politics or religion when you meet him at table, which will ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... old hearty, the first thing for you to do is to poke out your manifest, and any other little matters of vallew ye may have stowed away; and be quick, mind ye, for you haven't much time to sail in this 'ere craft. Howsoever, I s'pose ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... nose and chin both were high in the air, not on account of any obnoxious odor, but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might have forgotten, she should give notice ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Mis' Tolman's, to spend the day. I'm in hopes she's got b'iled dish. You look here!" She opened the bag, and searched portentously, the while Letty, in some unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it; and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious imitation of an actor's make-up, and then powdered it with soot from the kettle. "I believe to my ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... pleasure has these motives: it points at the folly and absurdity of other people's conduct, thought, logic and customs. It gives a feeling of superiority, and that is why all races love to poke fun at other races: certain characteristics of Jew, Irishman, Yankee, Scot, etc., are presented in novel and striking fashion, ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... only in presence. When distant, or supposed to be distant, we can call him hard or tender names, nay, even poke our poor fun at him. Mr. Punch, on one occasion, when he wished to ridicule the useful-information leanings of a certain periodical publication, quoted from its pages the sentence, "Man is mortal," and people were found ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... night. And Friday, too, dragged itself out of existence without a sign from Nellie or the dreaded officers of the law. You may be sure he did not poke his nose outside the door all that day. Somehow he was beginning to relish the thought that she would be gone on Sunday, gone forever, perhaps. He loved her, of course, but distance at this particular time was not likely to affect the enchantment. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... and the young ladies obtained the melons from a farmer," explained Tom Reade, giving Dan an unseen poke in the small of ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... hardened disagreeably. It was an outrageous thing that an Irishman, a mere civilian, who apparently had no right to wear a uniform of any kind, should poke fun at the Imperial navy. He wished very much to make some reply which would crush Gorman and leave him writhing like a worm. Unfortunately it is very difficult to make that kind of reply to a man who insists ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... ancestors in the form of a tank, in which a lot of loathsome crocodiles are kept for the amusement of people who like that sort of thing. They are looked after by a venerable, half-naked old Hindu, who calls them up to the terrace by uttering a peculiar cry, and, when they poke their ugly noses out of the water and crawl up the steps, teases them with dainty morsels he has obtained at the nearest slaughter-house. It ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... small ladyship usually was, on this occasion, seeing determination written on Joey's small countenance, she rebelled. "Angel yants to stay here," the young lady declared, continuing to poke at the ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... Pitkin's first remark. Sometimes he was talkative and would insist on giving his opinion of things in general. At other times he preferred to be left alone to bury himself and his wrath in his books. Since he had failed to poke the fire, though the room was very warm, I had decided that he would dive into his books and be heard no more until a half hour past his suppertime, but I had made a mistake. Today he was in a talkative mood, and knowing that work was impossible, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... the buyers found themselves habitually cheated by made-up goods, they would find the remedy themselves, by insisting on seeing them, and declining, according to a Scottish saying, to buy 'a pig in a poke.' Another clause of the same act seems equally gratuitous: 'Provided always, that after the merchants have bought the same clothes to carry, and do carry them out of the realm, they may tack them and fold them at their pleasure, for the more ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... solid stone vaults, with open fronts grated with huge iron bars—our ancestors, whatever were their faults, did not err in the direction of flimsiness. Between two of these bars, then, Tom, having procured a long pole, proceeded to poke at the beast; but he soon found that the pole thickened too rapidly towards the end he held, to pass through the bars far enough to reach him. Thereupon, in utter fool-hardiness, backed by the groom, he undid the door a little way, and, his companion undertaking to prevent it from opening too far, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... pigeon-house, where the meaner fry of houseless M.P.'s live, each in his one pair, two pair, three pair, as the case may be, and give a postman's knock at every door in rapid succession. In a twinkling, the "collective wisdom" of Manchester Buildings and the Midland Counties poke out their heads. Cobden appears on the balcony; Muntz glares out of a second floor, like a live bear in a barber's window; Wallace of Greenock comes to the door in a red nightcap; and a long "tail" of the other immortals of a session. You may enjoy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... and a rifle, we scoured the Fiord for many miles round. No sooner did we fire at one seal that rose on the gig's bow, than another would poke his rat-like head above the water, at the stern, and a third and fourth on either beam. The report of our guns was incessant; and the multitudes of crows, wild geese, ducks, eagles, and gulls that croaked, and screamed, and whirled about ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... is of great importance. When the young father arrived with food, which he did frequently, his spouse stepped to the nearest twig and looked on with interest, while he leaned over and filled one little mouth, or at any rate administered one significant poke which must be thus interpreted. He did not stay long; indeed, he had not time, for this way of supplying the needs of a family is slow business; and although there were but three mouths to fill, three excursions and three hunts were required ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... this time there was a tear in her eye. Sanders was little better than an "orra man," and Sam'l was a weaver, and yet—But it was too late now. Sanders gave the pig a vicious poke with a stick, and when it had ceased to grunt, Bell was back in the kitchen. She had forgotten about the milk, however, and Sam'l only ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... trappers undertake any considerable stream, their mode of proceeding is, to hide their horses in some lonely glen, where they can graze unobserved. They then build a small hut, dig out a canoe from a cotton-wood tree, and in this poke along shore silently, in the evening, and set their traps. These they revisit in the same silent way at daybreak. When they take any beaver they bring it home, skin it, stretch the skins on sticks to dry, and feast ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... and they would never have been discovered if they hadn't gone to sleep and snored. But they did, and a fire boss happened to be passing at the time, so he located their hiding-place. Of course he couldn't see who was there, but he tried to poke them out with his stick. They soon woke up, but Barney whispered, "To hell with him, Mac, we won't go," so they lay still. Finally the fire boss went for help, and as soon as he left the boys came out. But they had to come out one at a time. Barney got down first; and he beat it to locate another ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... bring his lead soldiers. They were heavy to carry and it was a very cold morning, so cold that although he kept his hands in his pockets, his fingers were red and stiff when he pulled off his mittens. He had had to stop all along the way to poke the box further up under his arm, and once he had dropped it. But, never mind, now he had something to show ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... now with a final k and now with a final ch; out of this variation two different words have been formed; with, it may be, other slight differences superadded; thus is it with 'poke' and 'poach'; 'dyke' and 'ditch'; 'stink' and 'stench'; 'prick' and 'pritch' (now obsolete); 'break' and 'breach'; to which may be added 'broach'; 'lace' and 'latch'; 'stick' and 'stitch'; 'lurk' and 'lurch'; ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... grumbling mass of irritable beasts was urged forward by the white drover and his boys. It was a ticklish job, and the whips were kept quiet at first, except to flick up one or another which tried to poke out of the mob. All went well till the leading cattle came to the wing of the yard. Those iron rails frightened them. They had only seen a yard once before in their lives, and the rails of that one were ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... firewood into camp. With every armful he seemed to be saying, 'There, that's going to help cook our supper to-night! And we're going to have fried onions, and potatoes and ham omelette!' I had half a notion to ask Billy to come along with us on this trip, but somehow I hated to think of the fun he'd poke at me in case my wonderful invention turned out to be a fizzle, like so many of them have in the past. I knew you wouldn't give me away, Hugh, if that happened,—-and if I lived to tell the tale! Well, I hope I can get my pack on my back again ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... startled fear at each gust, the roaring log fire in the open fireplace made an uncertain twilight and innumerable ghostlike shadows. The wind whistling down the chimney, making that eerie sound known locally as the voice of William Henry, came and went fitfully. Poke Drury, the cheerful, one-legged keeper of the road house, swung back and forth up and down on his one crutch, whistling blithely with his guest of the chimney and lighting the last of his ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... his face, and there was a singing in his ears. He turned right round and stared down the aisle at her retreating form, and was only roused to a sense of mundane things by a violent poke in the small of his back, and his aunt's voice buzzing in an irritated whisper: "Go on, my boy, do you want ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... answered, laughing a little. "A man the other night told me he was going to make inquiries concerning the fortunes of his beloved one. He said he had no idea of buying a pig in a poke. That was graceful, ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... up the string of his poke and slipped to one side, as noise reached the group at the bar of a commotion at the other end ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... ride?" he exclaimed; and before Jerry suspected what was going to happen he found himself seated on the monster's tail! "There you go, on the back of a sea-elephant," exclaimed Mr Kilby, giving the beast a poke with his stick. "Hold on tight, ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... She says when Gran'ma Mullins realized as he wouldn't come down she most went mad over the notion of her only son's spendin' the Christmas Eve to his own weddin' sleepin' on the floor o' the attic and she wanted to poke the cot up to him but Mrs. Macy says she drew the line at cot-pokin' when the cot was all she'd have to sleep on herself, and in the end they poked quilts up, an' pillows an' doughnuts an' cider an' blankets, an' Hiram made a bed on the floor an' they all got to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... that was right astern, rolling now and again with a stiff lurch to port and then to starboard, and diving her nose down one moment with her stern lifting, only to rise again buoyantly the next instant and shake the spray off her jib-boom as she pointed it upwards, trying to poke ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Three Bears discovered the Enchanted Land where bears may walk without fear of harm, and may safely poke their noses into any man's tent if they choose, from that day, Little Bear teased ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... flowed on like Caesar's Arar, incredibili lenitate, or like linseed out of a poke. You can easily fancy the spiritual and bodily contrast of these men, and can fancy too, the kind of engagements they would have with their own proper weapons on these Friday evenings, in the old manse dining-room, my ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... ROBERT was called in because he knew the disease of the patient. He had his remedy about him. The pills and the draught were in his pocket—yes, in his patriotic poke; but he refused to take the lid from the box—resolutely determined that the cork should not be drawn from the all-healing phial—until he was regularly called in; and, as the gypsies say, his hand crossed with a bit of money. Well, he now swears with such vigour to the excellence of his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... me, Mr. Maclin, to get stirred up and set going by a pig in a poke." Aunt Polly's voice was thin and sharp. "I always see the pig before I get excited, maybe it would be best kept in the poke. Now, Peter and me have a real feeling about the Point—it belonged, ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... landlord. "You will have a chopine of ale, Baldy," said he to the old wreck; "sometimes it's all the difference between hell-fire and content, and—for God's sake buy the bairn a pair of boots!" As he spoke he slipped, by a motion studiously concealed from the company, some silver into the beggar's poke. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... it won't eat us," he ventured at last. "We'll just run it down and perhaps poke a hole in it." So saying, he cantered along the road which skirted the spruce trees, crossed the little stream and swung up the ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... punctured her tire—that would delay her fifteen or twenty minutes. Don't worry, my dear boy. I showed her how to fix a punctured tire all right. It's simple enough—you take the rubber thing they give you and fasten it in that metal thingumbob, glue it up, poke it in, pull it out, pump her up, and ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... inclination for them, as I reckon every thing very dear when One has so little time to enjoy it. However, I cannot say but the plates by Rubens do tempt me a little—yet, as I do not care to, buy even Rubens in a poke, I should wish to know if the Alderman would let me see. if it were but one. Would he be persuaded? I would pay for the carriage, though I ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... flowers have begun to set their seed, by the kind aid of the bees, the whole stem bends downward, automatically, of its own accord; the little corkscrews then worm their way into the turf beneath; and the pods ripen and mature in the actual soil itself, where no prying ewe can poke an inquisitive nose to grub them up and devour them. Cases like this point in certain ways to the absolute high-water-mark of vegetable ingenuity: they go nearest of all in the plant-world to the similitude of ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... heads can't take it in. I'll tell you what—she goes slick through the water, a-head or a-starn, broadside on, or up or down, or any way; and all you have to do is to poke the fire and warm your fingers; and the more you poke, the faster she ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the careful farmer must contend are the wild garlic, tribby weed, dog fennel, two varieties of the common daisy, oxeye daisy, St. John's wort, blue thistle, common thistle, pigeon-weed, burdock, broad and narrow-leaved dock, poke-weed, clot-bur, three-thorned bur, supposed to have been introduced from Spain by the Merino sheep, Jamestown or "jimson" weed, sorrel, and, in favorable seasons, a heavy growth of lambs ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... Maria, sit still and don't disturb the little ones. Imogene, that lesson must be learned before I come back, you know. Now, dear, that was very, very naughty. When Mamma tells you to do things you mustn't pout and poke Stella with your foot in that way. It isn't nice at all. Stella is younger than you, and you ought to set her samples, as Nursey says. Look at Ning Po Ganges, how good she is, and how she minds all I say, and yet she's ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... eager to excel Elihu Burritt in linguistic attainments even if I must yield to him as a disciple of Vulcan. If I can learn a language and read the literature of that language each year, possibly some college may be willing to grant me a degree for work in absentia. If not, I shall poke along the best I can and try to drown my grief in more copious drafts ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... inches long, and shaped like a pickaxe, was held perfectly level. But the wonder was that he did not struggle or make the slightest movement. We had a tortoise-shell cat, an old Tom of great experience, who was so fond of lying under the stove in frosty weather that it was difficult even to poke him out with a broom; but when he saw and smelled that strange big fishy, black and white, speckledy bird, the like of which he had never before seen, he rushed wildly to the farther corner of the kitchen, looked back cautiously and suspiciously, and ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... big cane-bottomed chair close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of the wooden leg with this cane, and ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... lest his followers should rescue him if daylight found him uncondemned, even at the cock crowing was he led before Caiaphas. Then was he led before Pilate. By Pilate was he sent to Herod. A raw joke, this that Pilate did poke at Herod in ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... They walked upstairs together, and Mr. Woodstock asked his companion to be seated. He himself stood, and began to poke ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... pig was brought in and placed in front of the chiefs. Then one of the head men from a neighbouring village took a lighted piece of wood and singed a few of the bristles of the pig, giving it a poke with his hand at the same time, as if to attract its attention, and calling in a loud voice to the supreme being, "Bali Penyalong." Then, talking at a great rate and hardly stopping for a moment to take breath, he asked that, if any one had evil intentions, the truth might be revealed before ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... you come to the marble building with the pearls over the door," he said; and gave the Princess a poke with the handle of his sword, that pushed her through the gate, almost before she had time to draw ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... he got back to camp. One of the patrol leader's lips was puffed. Tim looked away quickly. A cup of hot coffee would have put the early morning chill to route, but not for anything would he have suggested a fire. He pretended to poke through his things, trying to kill time, trying not to look at his companion, trying to figure out how they were going to get through breakfast. That Don was sore on him for keeps ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... did not wish to go, but he took her by the arm and led her into the midst of the festival. Imagine how the poor woman felt at that ball, dressed as she was, and with the pot of broth! The king began to poke his sword at her in jest, until he hit the pot, and all the broth ran on the floor. Then all began to jeer her and laugh, until poor Stella fainted away from shame, and they had to go and get some vinegar to revive her. At last the king's mother came forward and said: "Enough; you have ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... observed talking with great affability to two men in seal-skin caps and fustian, who formed her cortege. The Bridge Way began to have a presentiment of something in the wind. Phib Cook left her evening wash-tub and appeared at her door in soap-suds, a bonnet-poke, and general dampness; three narrow-chested ribbon-weavers, in rusty black streaked with shreds of many-coloured silk, sauntered out with their hands in their pockets; and Molly Beale, a brawny old virago, descrying wiry Dame Ricketts peeping out from her ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the thinnest of slippers in the street, our heads being about the only part that was completely covered. I was particularly proud of a turban surmounted with a bird of paradise, but Lady B—- affected poke bonnets, then just coming into fashion, so large and so deep that when one looked at her from the side nothing was visible except two curls, ‘as damp and as black as leeches.’ In other ways our toilets were absurdly unsuited for every-day wear; we wore ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... make up the dough. The gentleman that showed you around—old Sate, we call him—had his eyes on the preacher for a long time. When we got him, we had a barrel of liquor and carried him around on our shoulders, until tired of the fun, and threw him in the furnace yonder. We call him “Poke,” for that was his favourite game. Oh, Poke,’ shouted my friend, ‘come here; here's a gentleman who wants to see you—we'll give you five drops of water, and that's more than ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... busy this morning; you poke about and see what you want done and we'll do it," he said, and made a hasty retreat to his office, a little brick building at the other side ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... slept upon a bedstead after he growed up a hard boy-chap—never could get one long enough. When 'a lived in that little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet poke out ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... answers, all her attention absorbed in the button which is just half in the button-hole, one little poke and 'there it's done,' ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... a boy and at Christchurch, Oxford, afterwards as a young man. He was a Captain in the Genadier Guards, and he was aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. It seemed quite impossible that an Irish dispensary doctor could be trying to poke fun at him. He supposed that Dr. ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... they didn't do that! They didn't poke fun at my feast, that I ordered so carefully for them! And my little Chinese costume that I was so happy making—I made it secretly, to surprise them. And they've been ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... small and wretched that they creep along the ground. They live on the heath, or high up in the mountains, or in the cold arctic regions. In the winter, they are quite hidden under the snow; in the summer, they just poke up their noses above the tops of ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... to them as to a pair of children. But I got used to them gradually. And I got to like them, especially the woman. I even formed the habit of forgiving her things offhand without being asked to—Oh, my dear parents, I am only trying to poke a little fun at you! And you weren't middle-aged when you came to live with me. I only imagine that you must have seemed so to a baby whose eyes had only just come undone. Thirty-five years have rolled by—bringing, ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... at the "Vittoria" is not in use just now. We take our meals in two smaller rooms adjoining each other, one of which leads into the kitchen where privileged guests may talk secrets with the cook and poke their noses into saucepans. At a table by herself sits the little signorina who controls the establishment, wide awake, pale of complexion, slightly hump-backed, close-fisted as the devil though sufficiently vulnerable to a bluff masculine protest. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... that sneaking Mabel not to come in and poke about," she explained grimly. "I know she wants ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... heard. Doubtless he felt as heavy as he looked, for the afternoon was warm, and luncheon—well, at any rate, he remained neutral and inactive. Something might happen to divert philosophical inquiry into other channels; a rat might poke its nose above the pond; a big fish might jump; an awfully rare butterfly come dancing; or Maria, as on rare occasions she had been known to do, might stop discussion with a word of power. The chances were in his favour ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... set for torpedo," and my helper and I each grabbed a stanchion. A couple of seconds later it seemed as though King Neptune himself had given the ship a poke in the nose; my hands were almost jerked loose from their hold. Then she swung slowly, nosing up and down, and finally ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... tell you, you'd better sit quiet. And not poke your nose into what's not your business. You've been hired to row, and you'd better row. But if you can't keep your tongue from wagging, it will be a bad lookout for you. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... the slightest anxiety to penetrate the secrets of the Moslem household, and I consider the man who would wish to poke his nose into its seclusion no better than Peeping Tom of Coventry—an insolent, lecherous cad. I would not traverse the street to-morrow to inspect the champion wives of the Sultan of Turkey and Shah of Persia amalgamated; and I deserve no credit for it, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... take her long to get ready!" muttered Miss Terry, giving the fire a vicious poke. She was alone in the house, on Christmas Eve, and not a man, woman, or child in the world cared. Well, it was what she wanted. It was of her own doing. If ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks— till she is swallowed up. But suppose that day after day you were to watch for her face and it didn't come back? Suppose it were to drop out ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... Rire" was a caricature (if such a thing were possible) of the English female traveler of that period. Coal-scuttle poke bonnets, short and scanty skirts, huge splay feet arrayed in indescribable shoes and boots, short-waisted tight-fitting spencers, colors which not only swore at each other, but caused all beholders to swear at them—these were the outward and visible ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... you to, all by yourself, Just," Huge told him. "Poke the end of it down here, and keep a good stiff grip on the butt. Then we'll hold on, and find places to set our feet. Inch by inch, and foot by foot, we'll manage to climb up. You can help a little by keeping the stick ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... the vine trees. If you pursue him he is off like lightning for a second; then he stops suddenly short. You return to the charge, and he starts afresh, but only to stop again. At the fourth or fifth attack he is quite out of breath; you poke him with the stick with which you have been hunting him, but in vain; there he lies motionless, in spite of his alarm. A few steps have brought him to the end of his powers, like a man whose heart is diseased and who cannot ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... trunk, with its rusty lock and broken hinges, brings to mind a rosy-cheeked girl in a poke bonnet, who went a-visiting in the stage-coach. Inside is the bonnet itself—white, with a gorgeous trimming of pink "lute-string" ribbon, which has faded into ashes of roses at the touch of the ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... wrong with Grabow too, eh? I s'ppose that's the reason he's livin' in his new house this day.—I wish there'd be somethin' like that wrong with you onct in a while. But if somebody don't pull an' poke at you, you'd grow fast to the stool you're ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... collar; a hawk for her wing, not for her gesses and bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year: all these are about him, but not in him. You will not buy a pig in a poke: if you cheapen a horse, you will see him stripped of his housing-cloths, you will see him naked and open to your eye; or if he be clothed, as they anciently were wont to present them to princes to sell, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... on the head somewhere," answered George, "but he'll come out of that all right, in time. I wasn't rejoicing because your chum got a poke on the belfry," George went on, whimsically, "I was shouting because the man who stole the code message ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... the poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, As ready was them all to choke, So grievous was the pother; So that the knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post; Tom Thumb nor Tomalin could boast ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... landlady, "then thou must pickle in thine ain poke-nook, and buckle thy girdle thine ain gate. But take my advice, and hide thy gold in thy stays, and keep a piece or two and some silver, in case thou be'st spoke withal; for there's as wud lads haunt within a day's walk from ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... wild honeysuckle, yarrow, wild roses, coreopsis, golden rod, wild pea, larkspur, woodbine, early crocus, elderberry, sweet flag, (great patches of it,) poke-weed, creeper, trumpet-flower, sun-flower, scented marjoram, chamomile, snakeroot, violets, Solomon's seal, clematis, sweet balm, bloodroot mint, (great plenty,) swamp magnolia, wild geranium, milk-weed, wild heliotrope, wild daisy, (plenty,) ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... whittle nicely, made some little canoes, and when Billy was looking through the hose for savages, it was Teddy's part to poke the canoes with a long stick like a fish-pole, so they would float right in front of Billy's hose. Then Billy would scramble down the wall, and come running to us 'round behind the chimney, and tell us to ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... pan of vegetables more vigorously, and tried not to hear the taunting words, though she knew from the sound of their steps that the boys were circling nearer and ever nearer, and would soon jerk off her hair-ribbon or poke her in ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... and poke the turnip down," said Sammie after a while, and they did so, but Buddy accidentally came within half a dozen steps of going too near the trap, and ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... I poke the fire, I snugly settle, My pipe I prime with proper care; The water's purring in the kettle, Rum, lemon, sugar, all are there. And now the honest grog is steaming, And now the trusty briar's aglow: Alas! ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... his mind was "impelled to concern itself with all the needs of mankind, impelled to poke its nose into every pot where the good God cooks the future." The theatre offered for a time another form of dissipation than his religious hysteria. He hated concerts, and compared himself to a conjurer or a clever trick poodle; he took up with the Revolution of 1830; Saint-Simonianism ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... ship-wreck. Well, it seems the man cried so sore, if he could just see his little bairn before he died! that at last the king of the Good People took peety upon him, and sent one flying that brought back the bairn in a poke* and laid it down beside the man where he lay sleeping. So when the man woke, there was a poke beside him and something into the inside of it that moved. Well, it seems he was one of these gentry ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a hall at the doors of which stood women in poke-bonnets, very sweet-faced, earnest-looking women. Their countenances seemed to strike Oro, and he motioned me to follow him into the hall. It was quite full of a miserable-looking congregation of perhaps a ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... to poke them softly together she caught sight of a scrap of paper lying in the grate. It looked like part of a torn letter, and without thinking June picked it up—the one word "dearest" stared up at her in ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... poke at a poor fire puts it out, dear. And make a murderess of me, you call mother! Oh! as I love the name, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Bowser brothers that they would soon be there to whip them. The brothers prepared to meet them. They cut a hole in the front side of the house, through which they could poke a gun. Night came on, and true to their word the 'Nigger Rulers' came. Samuel Bowser fired when they were near the house and one man fell dead. All of the rest fled to the cover of the neighboring woods. Soon they cautiously returned and bore away their dead comrade. ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... proceed due east at a break-neck toddle, while an excitable big sister is roaring for them to follow her in a westerly direction, is most amusing—except, perhaps, for the big sister. They walk round a soldier, staring at his legs with the greatest curiosity, and poke him to see if he is real. They stoutly maintain, against all argument and much to the discomfort of the victim, that the bashful young man at the end of the 'bus is "dadda." A crowded street-corner suggests itself to their minds as a favorable spot for the discussion of family affairs at ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... Presently the men went away, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left the bunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tell Bill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at him and hand him one of those arguments he ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... turned his head so that his face was almost hidden against his hand upon the wall. Charlie's big eyes were full of tears, and I am sure I distinctly felt my ears poke forwards on my head with anxious curiosity to catch what Mr. Wood would tell us about that dreadful time of which he ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... continued to poke about in the darkness as he was speaking. In another corner he had discovered ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... his eye on them, and gave an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they were there as they drove through the bustling streets of New York to a great house with an inscription ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the fact that, in this neighborhood, an eagle should be chained for a plaything. When a child, I used often to stand at a window from which I could see an eagle chained in the balcony of a museum. The people used to poke at it with sticks, and my childish heart would swell with indignation as I saw their insults, and the mien with which they were borne by the monarch-bird. Its eye was dull, and its plumage soiled and shabby, yet, in its form and attitude, all ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the most discreet among them quite content to leave the house; others, with their curiosity inflamed anew, to poke about and peer into corners and curtained recesses while the opportunity remained theirs and the man of whom they stood in fear sat lapsed in helpless unconsciousness. A few, and these the most thoughtful, devoted all their energies to a serious quest for the woman and child whom they ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... extravagance and gay neglect, while to a penetrating eye none of these wretched veils suffice to keep the cruel truth from being seen. Poverty is hic et ubique," says he, "and if you do shut the jade out of the door, she will always contrive in some manner to poke her pale, lean ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... There is a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least. And that is where they would poke and pry. Working in this suit will be tough. How about my trying to ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... I doubt not, I've had it o'er long in my keeping. Even now disaster may be a-brewing; and is there not a richly-freighted ship on its passage with silks and spices? I'll put it out of her reach this time anyhow. No! I'll hide it where never a witch in Christendom shall poke ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... a subtribe of the warlike Masai; and on the west is the large forest-wilderness of Mgunda Mkhali. Ugogo, lying under the lee side of the Usagara hills, is comparatively sterile. Small outcrops of granite here and there poke through the surface, which, like the rest of the rolling land, being covered with bush, principally acacias, have a pleasing appearance after the rains have set in, but are too brown and desert-looking during ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... excellent taste in the matter of attire. He was universally voted "a swell dresser," and not a few of the older fellows set themselves to a modest emulation of his style. There remained, however, many unregenerate youths who continued to poke fun at "The Conqueror," and of these was ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... this his most solemn and kingly mood, and with a friend's privilege told him not to be so simple as to buy a pig in a poke. The lady, he said, had not been to court, consequently she had not been seen by those best able to judge of her reputed beauty. Her fame rested wholly on the report of the people of her own country, who were great as every one knew ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... heart. But what could she do? Say to Mr. Graham that it was her mother and her name was Middleton? Then she would have to tell Cousin Julia everything, and she would send her away, send her off to poke and fret in Enderby, and serve tea in a conventional parsonage drawing-room. And she would never be an actress, and the true Elsie Marley would be dragged on ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... handkerchief and the "full" of his shirt, until he was bulbing and sprouting all over, and could carry no more. He was taking them to the boat to analyze and compare at leisure. Then he began to requisition my receptacles. I stood it while he stuffed my pockets, but rebelled when he tried to poke the prickly, scratchy things inside my shirt. I had not yet attained that sublime indifference to physical comfort, that Nirvana of passivity, that Muir ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... a Santa Fe caravan was a noble sight: the enormous hooded wagons, flaring like poke bonnets, each drawn by twelve and sixteen oxen or mules, lumbering on in a long double file or sometimes four abreast; the booted teamsters trudging beside the fore-wheels, cracking their eighteen-foot ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... bureau in one corner, or rather one of those structures that went by the name of Davenports in the days of our fathers. Phyl went to it and raised the lid. She did so without a second thought or any feeling that it was wrong to poke about in a place like this and pry into secrets. Juliet seemed to belong to her as though she had been a sister, her own likeness to the dead girl was a bond of attraction stronger than a family tie, and Juliet's mournful love ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... with his clothes torn in shreds, and his face covered with blood, looked like the battered relic of a forty years' war. A red bandanna pinioned his arms to his sides, and a strong man at each elbow spurred his flagging footsteps by an occasional poke with a pine branch. Ally followed at a few paces, looking about as dilapidated as the culprit himself. To him evidently belonged ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... cut and cut and cut: great purple-bodied poke, strung with crimson-juiced seed; great burdock, its green burrs a plague; great milkweed, its creamy sap gushing at every gash; great thistles, thousand-nettled; great ironweed, plumed with royal purple; now and then a straggling bramble prone with ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... at need, and sometimes washing his dishes in water that seemed to have cleansed the whole world beforehand—the draining of gutters, or caught at sink-spouts. In the cessations of labor, the Irishmen in the hold would poke their heads through the open space into the cabin and call "Cook!"—for a drink of water or a pipe—whereupon Cook would fill a short black pipe, put a coal into it, and stick it into the Irishman's mouth. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... countryman who used to sit in the chimney-corner all evening and poke the fire, while his wife sat at ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm |
