"Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are the chief carriers. As to dogs, they are born and bred in the streets and are the property of the town, and in the day-time He by dozens in the streets, young and old, are always under the feet of the traveller, and he must constantly poke them out of the way with his stick; by night they are furious. The shops present a jumble of all kinds of wares; and the Turks sit cross-legged in the window, or work ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... lift his hands, but jest sets with his mouth open, he gits mostly flies. The old birds, with a nest full o' howlin' young ones, might go on, I s'pose, pickin' up grasshoppers till the cows come home, an' feedin' 'em, but they don't. They jest poke 'em out o' the nest, an' larn 'em to fly an' pick up their own livin'; an' that's what makes birds on 'em. They pray mighty hard fur their daily bread, I tell ye, and the way the old birds answer is jest to poke 'em out, and let 'em slide. I don't see many ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... day, an' I guess they'll enjoy comin'," said Belinda. Paulina Maria gave her a poke with a hard elbow, that hurt her soft side, and she looked ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... hickory-nuts and chestnuts for sale to patient parents, building wigwams in the woods, and sometimes playing Indians in too realistic manner by staining ourselves (and incidentally our clothes) in liberal fashion with poke-cherry juice. Thanksgiving was an appreciated festival, but it in no way came up to Christmas. Christmas was an occasion of literally delirious joy. In the evening we hung up our stockings—or rather ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the Hamelin people Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple; "Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles! Poke out the nests and block up the holes! Consult with carpenters and builders, And leave in our town not even a trace Of the rats!"—when suddenly, up the face Of the Piper perked in the market-place, With a "First, if you ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... feet. "Holloa," he exclaimed; "only half a man answered that ringing; that is too little." Then the ringing began afresh, and a roaring and howling was heard, and the other half fell down. "Wait a bit," said he; "I will poke up the fire first." When he had done so and looked round again, the two pieces had joined themselves together, and an ugly man was sitting in his place. "I did not bargain for that," said the youth; "the bench is mine." The man tried to push him away, but the youth would not let him, and giving ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... nearly ready to give up when he happened to poke his head in the hollow end of a tree whose roots were pinioned down by the huge rock. The small heart of the trunk had decayed, offering an entrance just large enough for a rabbit to ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... while—I suppose John thought he'd surprise you, Gertie. And now you're goin' to clear out and leave him, just on account of that—that Chapter of yours. You never used to be crazy about Chapters. You used to poke fun at 'em. You did and you know it. But since you've got here to Scarford—I can't help it, Serena; I'm mad clean through. Can't YOU tell that girl to stay to ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... from his head to his toes and tingled through every inch of him. Helen should sit in the chair when she pleased; Mary should be allowed to dress and undress the large woollen dog, known as "Sulks," his own especial and beloved property, so often as she wished; Jampot should poke the twisted end of the towel in his ears and brush his hair with the hard brushes, and he would not say a word. Aunt Mary should kiss him (as, of course, she would want to do), and he would not shiver; he would (bravest deed of all) ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... have become at once both older and younger than in former days. He had all the hilarious good spirits evinced by nine out of ten of the boys who came home on leave—the cheery capacity to laugh at the hardships and dangers of the front, to poke good-natured fun at "old Fritz" and to make a jest of the German shells and the Flanders mud, treating the whole great adventure of war as though it were ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... der Franzose Look down mit blitzen eye; Von second at de brucké, Den toorn him round to die. Vhile mit out-ge-poke-te lanze, Like ter teufel shot from hell, Rode der ploonder-shtarvin ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... hour he moved through the black, stenchful passageways, up and down ramshackle stairs, from human warren to human warren, pausing here to question, there to peer and sniff and poke with an exploring cane. Out on the street again he drew full, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... never lifted their feet, but pushed them along like skates. The women were dressed in gray polka-dot dresses with huge poke bonnets that almost hid their fat, sleepy, wide-mouthed faces. Most of them had pet snails on strings, and so slowly did they move that it looked as though the snails ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... from the air drawing in the flaps of the nostrils in inspiration, and all feed is taken in by the teeth, as the lips are useless. In both there is a free discharge of saliva from the mouth during mastication. This paralysis is a frequent result of injury, by a poke, to the seventh nerve, as it passes over the back of the lower jaw. In some cases the paralysis is confined to the lid, the injury having been sustained by the muscles which raise it, or by the supraorbital nerve, which emerges from ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... them, all right," said Roger, chuckling. "They come in and out. To-morrow I'll show you how my stock is arranged. It'll take you quite a while to get familiar with it. Until then I just want you to poke around and see what there is, until you know the shelves so well you could put your hand on any given book in the dark. That's a game my wife and I used to play. We would turn off all the lights at night, and I would call out the title of a book and see how near she could come to finding ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... at once, "It's—so much nearer Christmas than it was half an hour ago! Are you sure everything will keep? All those big packages that came yesterday? That humpy one especially? Don't you think you ought to peep? Or poke? Just the teeniest, tiniest little peep or poke? It would be a shame if anything spoiled! A—turkey—or a—or a fur ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... present in possession of the field, poke fun at these new-fangled schemes. A parody in Esperanto verse, entitled Lingvo de Molenaar, and sung to the tune of the American song Riding down from Bangor, narrates the fickleness of Pan-Roman and how it changed into Universal. It is said that a group of Continental Esperantists, at ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... lid back and began to poke about the lining of it with the tips of his fingers, and presently he turned to his companion ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... on the beach, to receive their money from the government. French and savages shouldered one another, the multitude of them making a great hubbub and a gay show of clothes like a fair. Every voyageur was sparring with every other voyageur. A challenge by the poke of a fist, and lo! a ring is formed and two are fighting. The whipped one gets up, shakes hands with his conqueror, and off they go to drink together. Owen despised such fighting. His way was to take a club and break heads, and see some blood run on the ground. ...
— The Cobbler In The Devil's Kitchen - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... think it'll matter less here than anywhere. Oxford, my dear—or some of it—pursues 'the good and the beautiful'"—said Nora, taking a flying leap on to the window-sill again, and beginning to poke up some tadpoles in a jar, which stood ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and Coburn said awkwardly: "I owe you an apology, and the privilege of a poke in the nose besides. But it was a situation—I was in ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... to meet him, by Jove, I'd like to meet him. He has been teaching his wife to poke fun at ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... a man farther from my thought than him when I seed un poke up his carrot head under the moon. I was 'pon my awn affairs an' comed to see you. I wanted straight speech an' straight hitting; an' I got 'em, for that matter. An' fightin' 's gude for the blood, I reckon—anyway for my ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... women rose and went to the dining-room as mechanically as though they had just been discussing the last "poke" bonnet or Mother Hubbard mantle, in the most usual way imaginable. However, a new tie bound them together now, and though no direct allusion, was afterwards made by either party to the strange narrative, yet their sympathy so strong, though new-born, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... portion of the graveyard is set apart as a sort of potter's-field, where negroes, Indians, and stranger-paupers are buried. This region is bordered by a little jungle of poke-berry and elder-bushes, sumachs and brambles, so dense and thrifty that they overtop and hide the fence; and there is a tradition among the school-boys, that somewhere in the copse there is a black-snake hole, the abode of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... eat them Christmas. They put a little one on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out the fattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to the smoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysters come from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, where she lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies and plum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia says when she was a little girl Mammy Malaprop always gave her some ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... that this was the whole truth, fell weeping upon Sidonia's neck, and asked forgiveness for her suspicions. "There, that will do," said Sidonia,—"that will do, old preacher; only be more cautious in future. What! am I to poke under my bed to see if any one is hiding there? You may go, for I suppose you have often hidden a lover there, your eyes turn to it ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Arter I poke de holes in de scoundrils, I was 'bleeged to bolt. When I come back, de ole house was in flames, an' eberybody gone—what wasn't dead. I hollered—ay, till I was a'most busted—but nobody reply. Den I bury de dead ones, an' I've hoed ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... money, except what falls due by the Books; none;—if an extraordinary case for payment arise, consult my Wife, and she must sign her order for it. Generally in matters of any moment, consult my Wife; but her only, "except her and the Privy Councillors, no mortal is to poke into my affairs:" I say no mortal, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... the front door and ran up stairs. She tolled her hostess up to the attic to show her some ancient gowns and poke bonnets that she hadn't seen since she was a little girl in which she and Mark used to dress up and play ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... Bell again, and 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 got ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... but light, and the feet and legs should be kept warm and dry. To put on their stockings, turn the toe in a little way, and poke the toes into the end, then pull over a little at a time, instead of putting the foot in at the knee of the stocking. Put the left stocking on the right foot next day, so as to change them ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... begged leave to ask Monipodio in what way two persons so old, grave, and formal as those he had just seen, could be of service to their community. Monipodio replied, that such were called "Hornets" in their jargon, and that their office was to poke about all parts of the city, spying out such places as might be eligible for attempts to be afterwards made in the night-time. "They watch people who receive money from the bank or treasury," said he, "observe where they go with it, and, if possible, the very place ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... pharisaical. I ventured to pity my less fortunate neighbors, bound hand and foot to the slavery of mothers-in-law. I attempted to joke them, and poke them severely in the ribs with my knuckles, when the magic name was mentioned. So often did I congratulate myself on the shrewd stroke of genius displayed, that I fear even her respectability became sadly ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... often as they had walked together, for he had observed that she never walked arm-in-arm with Seth, and he thought, perhaps, that kind of support was not agreeable to her. So they walked apart, though side by side, and the close poke of her little black bonnet hid ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... one without threatening blows. Town returned to the forge; Frank and the young ladies made their way across the green. At the corner of Southdown Road they found the General, the schoolmaster, and a retired farmer ardently gossiping; Mrs. Horlock, prim in her black gown and poke bonnet, waited with admirable patience, and Angel, the blind pug, in horrible corpulence, waddled and sniffed the grass. The story of Town's impertinence was told. The General was shocked—it was surprising. What are we coming ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... up her mind that the moment had not come in which she must apprise Alice of Mr Grey's intended visit. As Alice had questioned her at the breakfast table she would say nothing about it then, but waited till the teacups were withdrawn, and till the maid had given her last officious poke to the fire. Then she began. She had Mr Grey's letter in her pocket, and as she prepared herself to speak, she pulled it out and held it on the little table ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... 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 over ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... unknown and unknowable, yet undeniable something'? {233b} Why, this is the sentiment of modern Germany, and perhaps of the Indian sages of a cultivated period! A troglodyte would look for a 'possum in the tree, he would tap the trunk for honey, he would poke about in the bark after grubs, or he would worship anything odd in the branches. Is Mr. Muller not unconsciously transporting a kind of modern malady of thought into the midst of people who wanted to find a dinner, and who might worship a tree if it had a grotesque shape, that, for them, had ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... big, knows 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 ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... wasn't a forest after all, it was just a sell-nothing but mud and weed, only Fergus would go and poke in it, and there were horrid great rough stones and rocks too, and ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in her task, her pencil flying over her slate, squeaking madly, when right in the midst of "irresponsible" with one "r" and several other letters wanting, she paused. It was a poke from Rosie that disturbed her. Elizabeth was accustomed to being poked by Rosie, for her seat-mate always attracted one's attention this way; but her pokes were always eloquent and this one betokened alarm and urgency. For a moment or more Elizabeth had been vaguely ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... property; therefore when we of the cabin returned to the deck after a hasty meal, which we had bolted in less than a quarter of an hour, all hands were on deck, ready and waiting for orders. Accordingly no sooner did the skipper poke his head out of the companion and bellow the order to loose all fore-and-aft canvas than the group on the forecastle split itself up into sections, one section actually running aft to cast loose the mainsail, while a second attacked the foresail, a ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... any use of your going down there at all," Ebenezer went on, turning to poke the fire. "It doesn't look well after the things ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... he burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and not to do ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Bob Cabot rose from his leather chair and going to the fireplace gave the blazing logs a vicious little poke. ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... school to-day that he would like to tie the Kaiser to a tree and set cross dogs to worrying him," said Bruce gravely. "And Emily Flagg said she would like to put him in a cage and poke sharp things into him. And they all said things like that. But Mrs. Blythe"—Bruce took a little square paw out of his pocket and put it earnestly on Anne's knee—"I would like to turn the Kaiser into a good man—a very good man—all at once if I could. That is what I would do. Don't ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Draper had a parrot. It was one of the few things she loved. And the parrot seemed to love her in return. Miss Dorothy would hang the cage outside of her window every sunny day. Sometimes an idle boy would come along, and poke a stick between the wires; and then the old lady would say, "Boy, ...
— The Nursery, October 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... created itself there for the two that remained. They sought each other's eyes with the pleasantest sense of being together in reality for the first time, and though Janet marked it by nothing more significant than a suggestion that Kendal should poke the fire, there was an appreciable admission in her tone that they were alone and free to talk, which he recognized with great good-will. He poked the fire, and she on her low chair, clasping her knee with both hands, looked almost pretty in the ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... and I then made a secret pact that we'd devote part of to-morrow to Hawthorne's Boston; that we'd pretend to find the house of "The Blythedale Romance" in Tremont Street; that we'd poke about for the lost site of Hester Prynne's lonely hut on the Back Bay (huts there are neither cheap nor lonely now), and search for various other story landmarks. With this happy prospect before us, and having slyly shaken off ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... and the boys to their out-door work till half-past nine, when a bell called them to prayers. Then books and slates were got out, and school commenced. All were kept steadily at work till twelve, the cook girls only occasionally getting up to poke the fire or peep into the pots. Dinner was at half-past twelve, pork, beans, turnips, potatoes, and bread; and then there was intermission until half-past two, when they assembled ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... an old mutton bone and a few potatoes go metaphorical miles. The knowledge would be a great comfort to him when his little "darlikins'" feet-of-clay began to show through her silk stockings. As it is, marriage to him is little but a supreme example of buying a pig in a poke, followed by an immediate slump in his own ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... General Hughes introduced the commanding officers, and Lord Roberts spoke graciously to them. Some of the officers' horses behaved badly as the big grey car came up to them and some seats were lost that day, but my big charger behaved splendidly. She looked into the big car and wanted to poke her nose into it to see if the driver had any candy or apples. General Hughes, the Minister of Militia, sat in the seat beside Earl Roberts. Age had dealt very kindly with the veteran of Kandahar and South ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... 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 on the ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... to show't; it shines by its own light. It's plain enough you get into the wrong road i' this life if you run after this and that only for the sake o' making things easy and pleasant to yourself. A pig may poke his nose into the trough and think o' nothing outside it; but if you've got a man's heart and soul in you, you can't be easy a-making your own bed an' leaving the rest to lie on the stones. Nay, nay, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... thick-lipped, yellow, and coarse, with his fez over his eyes and a poke in his neck, is filling the glass of Baroness Huchenard and saying, 'How disgusting in these Westerns to bring their women into society, when they are as dilapidated as this! I had rather be impaled right off than exhibit that fat creature as my wife.' The Baroness is thanking His Excellency with ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... and saw one boy run up to the hive, give it a quick poke, and then scamper away. With every poke at the hive, a number of bees would fly out of the opening and ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... course, my pet," she said; "but I do declare that stupid driver is taking us wrong. Oh, if he goes up that way it will be such a round that I shall be late for Jasper's dinner. Poke your parasol through the little window in the roof, Judy, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... for her foot had become painful, and so she was cross, and neither returned answer, nor paid heed to the warning. For when we are cross, all our other faults grow busy, and poke up their ugly heads like maggots, and the princess's old dislike to doing any thing that came to her with the least air of advice about it ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... said Molly; "stop talking and put the two bikes on the tender, and poke up your old fires or what ever it is you do to make ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham
... say that you are the sole judge of the conditions of the purchase. I don't wish any more than you do to buy a pig in a poke. If to-morrow you authorize me, I won't say to buy, but to let these people know that you may possibly make the purchase, I'll confer with one of them on your behalf, and you may be certain that I'll stand up for your interests as ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Nay then, old rebel, but I'll stop your treble, With a poke, poke, poke: Take this from my rudder—(dashing at the frogs)—and that from my oar, And now let us see if you'll trouble us more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... fluff; one can lean with safety on the tables. But everywhere the eye is satisfied. My bed is beautiful, French I fancy, yet it is comfort itself. The lamp beside my bed is a dull bit of bronze which does not poke itself into your sleepy eye, yet you know that it fits the need, not only for light but for satisfaction to the eyes after the light comes. And the bath tub—may I speak of a bath tub in a bread-and-butter ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... you with another stair, or lets you through: in other words, you are never safe from a whimsical allusion or a twist in the thought. The narrative extends no thread which you may take in one hand as you poke along: it frequently disappears altogether, and it seems as if you had another book ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and nuzzles round among muscles as those horrid old women poke their fingers into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls at the Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something or other. Victuality, (organ at epigastrium,) some ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... missionaries, also poke offering to associate themselves ] changed to: [ both missionaries, also spoke offering ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... little doggies gaed to the mill, This way and that way, and this way and that way; They took a lick out o' this wife's poke, And a lick they took out o' that wife's poke, And a loup in the lade, and a dip in the dam, And hame they cam' wallopin', ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... gave voice to them in one simple, bitter sentence. "Just why the hell," he muttered, "did I ever join the Navy?" The silence offered no reply, and McKegnie, desperate from his cramped position, ventured to poke his head around the instrument panel. The faint emergency lights showed the control room to be empty. He decided to come out, and did so, worming his way back ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... large book,—so numerous the list of his adventures; and this adventure seems to me the most characteristic of all. Y is the most curious figure in Martinique folk-lore. Y is the typical Bitaco,—or mountain negro of the lazy kind,—the country black whom city blacks love to poke fun at. As for the Devil of Martinique folk-lore, he resembles the travailleur at a distance; but when you get dangerously near him, you find that he has red eyes and red hair, and two little horns under his chapeau- Bacou, and feet like ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... environment; after all, he might force the conversation to soar far above the mere materialities. His hobbies began to poke forth their noses, to whinny, to neigh; but some force stronger or more dexterous than himself seemed to be guiding the talk, and the name of Medora Giles began to mingle with the click of silver on china and to weave itself into ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... Being the heavier and clumsier of the two, the climb was harder for him. "You're so spry, s'pose you just pack this poke!" He unslung a heavy leather sack from his belt ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... of operations that go into an article before the consumer buys it—no, there is no reason why use and want should make us callous and indifferent to the hows and wherefores. Never was there such an age. Let's poke behind the scenes ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... hopped about in her flat slippers and piped indignantly, Jacobus towered over her and murmured placidly in his throat; I joined jocularly from a distance, throwing in a few words, for which under the cover of the night I received secretly a most vicious poke in the ribs from the old woman's elbow or perhaps her fist. I restrained a cry. And all the time the girl didn't even condescend to raise her head to look at any of us. All this may sound childish—and yet that stony, petulant sullenness had an ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... justify this War. Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony; And children here will thrust and poke, Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke, With bows and arrows and wooden spears, Playing at ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... baby kangaroo. There is something wrong about some birds that think themselves musical," she continued: "they are well behaved and considerate enough in the day, but as soon as it is a nice, quiet, calm night, or a bit of a moon is in the sky, they make night hideous to everyone within earshot—'Mo-poke! mo-poke!' Oh! it gives me ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... as all pets are, and no one will dare to check them, for they must not be struck. Near Calcutta, they often break into gardens, put their noses into pastrycook's and fruiterer's shops, and have not the least hesitation, when they are affronted, in going up to the offenders and giving them a poke with ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... light fuel upon the top of the piles was burned up, and there remained great glowing heaps of embers, and logs of wood still flaming. These the boys began to poke about with long poles that Jonas had cut for them, to make them burn brighter, and to see the sparks go up. Presently they ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... and was surprised to find a stranger, who beckoned him to come. On going near he saw a tall man with dark skin and straight black hair that was streaked with gray—undoubtedly an Indian. He held up a bag and said, "I got coon in that hole. You hold bag there, I poke him in." Rolf took the sack readily and held it over the hole, while the Indian climbed the tree to a higher opening, then poked in this with a long pole, till all at once there was a scrambling noise and the bag bulged full and heavy. Rolf closed its mouth triumphantly. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... man in the party is sent up the tree, and given a stick wherewith to frighten or poke or pry the cornered animal out of his castle. Compelled to leave the hole, it creeps out upon a limb, and squatting down, snarls at the stranger, who tries to shake loose its hold. But this is a vain attempt. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... burning up some old papers, They do make a good deal of smoke: That's right, Dolly, open the window; They'll blaze if you give them a poke. I've got a lot more in the closet; Just look at the dust! What a mess! Why, read it, of course, if you want to, It's ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... chicken,' said the woman, at the same time giving me a gentle poke in the ribs. Fearing she might, in the exuberance of her joy at the sight of the money, proceed to some more decided demonstration of affection, I hastily stepped into the wagon, bade ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... buy that timber for an investment if I offered it cheap enough," Donald explained. "Besides, I owed you a poke. You wanted to be certain you hadn't reared a jackass instead of a man, so you gave me a hundred thousand dollars and stood by to see what I'd do with it—didn't you, old Scotty?" Hector nodded a trifle guiltily. "Andrew ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... on Secret Service that day, but did the observing from the windows of their house, as my Familey was at home and liable to poke into my room ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... will poke about a little, and call some more; and then, if nobody comes, we will hide under the bushes, like Hop-'o-my-thumb and ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... poke the fire, Martin Rattler," said the school-master, "and put on a bit of coal, and see that you don't send the ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... sometimes the shortest way home, hey, Ed?" and Frank gave him a playful poke that nearly sent him ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... waist-line. As he tripped doubtfully forward, with mincing steps, he continually and mournfully wagged his head. He seemed to be saying: "This water is much too cold for me." The mamma bear was dressed in a poke bonnet and white apron, and resembled the wolf who frightened Little Red Riding-Hood, and Ikey, the baby bear, wore rakishly over one eye the pointed cap of a clown. To those who knew their vaudeville, this was indisputable evidence that Ikey would furnish the comic relief. Nor did ...
— The Nature Faker • Richard Harding Davis
... hold of me, I did all I could to get a peep within the room. I had been bringing the meals, that were not enough to keep a kitten alive, to the crack she would open to take them in. Believe me, that the very first time I tried to poke my head around where I could see, that practice stopped, and my mistress, in a dull and heavy voice, told me to leave everything on the floor and go away. It seemed that she had grown suspicious. It seemed ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... that some day I would myself sail those adventurous seas in a vessel of my own, that I would poke the nose of my craft up steaming tropic rivers, that I would drop anchor off towns whose names could not be found on ordinary maps, and that I would go ashore in white linen and pipe-clayed shoes and a sun-hat to take tiffin with sultans and rajahs, and to barter beads and brass ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... of quiet gray. With the widow's ready aid Polly Candage had made her own attire presentable once more. When they walked down to the shore she smiled archly at Mayo from under the brim of a very fetching straw poke. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... rock is called the Skerryvore, and it's not far from where we suffered 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 that think aye the worst of things; and for greater security, he stuck his dirk ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you had a birthday due most any minute and your head was full of the presents you hoped to receive, and you saw three bundles on the shelf in your grandma's closet, you know you would probably do just what Brother did; poke your finger into the top bundle. Brother poked. Then he prodded. The top bundle slipped and carried the other two with it. Brother was brushed off the chair and three bundles and one boy landed in a ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... yard, to the lean long-eared pigs that try to gobble up everything that comes within their reach, to the hens that flutter over our beds and shake the dust of ages from the barn-roof at dawn, to the noisy little children with the dirty faces and meddling fingers, who poke their hands into our haversacks, to the farm servants who inspect all our belongings when we are out on parade, and even now we have become accustomed to the very rats that scurry through the barn at midnight and gnaw at our equipment and devour our rations when they get hold ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... leaning at a slight angle, so that his back touched the wall behind him. He was not tall—five nine—and his face and body were thin. His tanned skin seemed to be stretched tightly over this scanty padding, and in places the bones appeared to be trying to poke their way through to the surface. His ears were small and lay nearly flat against his head, and the hair on his skull was so sparse that the tanned scalp could be easily seen beneath it, although there was no actual bald spot anywhere. Only his large, luminous brown eyes showed that Nature ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... white horse and black horse clattering alternately hoofs that would gladly have remained longer in repose. The soldier saluted. The driver grinned. We waved to the old woman with the poke bonnet, and lifted our glasses to several pretty girls who appeared at the coach door for the first time in order that they might glare at us. I am afraid I must record that it was to glare. Our friendly ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... a brave man, and fear neither man nor beast. I am your servant, and for you am ready to give my life. I have brought with me two long bamboos, and with them I shall go and poke in the drain, rouse the ferocious beast, and as he jumps out you will kill him. If I shall lose my life, which I am ready to do for you, please think ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... she said, emphasizing every word with a poke. 'He's too smooth and handsome, his eyes ain't true, and his tongue's too ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... at him, slack-jawed. He glanced furtively behind him at Swan, and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it on ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... amazed and horrified multitude a miniature thunder-clap, which, being absolutely new to their experience, shook them to their spinal marrow. Several boys of unusually inquisitive disposition, taking advantage of the pre-occupation of the tribe, ventured to poke about the sledge which had just arrived, and discovered the fire-spouter of the Indian. With awe-stricken countenances they proceeded to examine it. Of course, when they came to the trigger it went off. ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... of knowledge and observation in any direction. If parties will walk into matrimony blindly, without observing or attempting to discover the signs of character, the result is likely to prove disastrous. It is the old story of 'buying a pig in a poke,' to use an ancient Irish expression. In matrimony, as in everything else, the best plan is to make your transaction with your eyes open, and if your eyes are not sufficiently educated to discern the signs of human character, then to avail ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... for a whole night in bed. Not that this means we are having many nights up, but that when the load doesn't require two Sisters at night, two go to bed and the other two divide the night. After unloading we had a poke round the little fishing village, and of course the church. A company of Canadian Red Cross people unloaded us. The hospital has not been open very long. It was all sand-dunes and fir-trees on the way, very attractive, and ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... Sanger's speed, Roger did his best to poke out a safety, and would have succeeded only for a surprising one-handed stop by Roberts, who got the ball to first for an ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... of me!" he exclaimed. "You must be sure to tell Miss Farmond—and Lady Cromarty too if she hears of this—that I came solely to enquire about the shootings and not to poke my nose into their library! Make that ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... excited neither anger nor resentment among the other boys, who yelled with delight at his discomfiture, but it made them more careful in approaching the cage, and though they continued to poke the prisoners with sticks they did not venture again to thrust a hand through the bars. At sunset the guards again came round, lifted the cage and carried it into a shed. A platter of dirty rice and a jug of water were put into the cage; two ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... appointed him to the responsible office of brakesman at the Dolly Pit. For convenience' sake, he took lodgings at a small farmer's in the village, finding his own victuals, and paying so much a week for lodging and attendance. In the locality this was called "picklin in his awn poke neuk." It not unfrequently happens that the young workman about the collieries, when selecting a lodging, contrives to pitch his tent where the daughter of the house ultimately becomes his wife. This is often the real attraction that draws ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... fussy and pragmatical— But that's because sheer moonshine always hates the mathematical. I'm not content to "play the King" with an imperial pose in it— Whatever is marked "Private" I shall up and poke my nose ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... bear walk along, poke around, dig into the ground, go behind trees, come out again, and finally stand up on his hind feet and apparently reach for berries or something on a bush. R.C. bethought himself of his field-glass. After ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... from between half-lowered lashes. "I mean—money," she said softly; and gave Mrs. Milo a playful little poke. ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... Jersey jacket, with gloves buttoned to her elbows, and an immense hat, with two feathers on the back; Mr. Browne in a long ulster, and soft hat, with gloves, which his wife made him wear; and Mrs. Browne, in a Paris dress, fearfully and wonderfully made, and a poke bonnet, so long and so pokey that to see her face was like looking down a ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... found himself in a perfect hornet's nest, surrounded by vicious young secessionists, so perfectly nullified in the growth that they were all ready to shoulder muskets, pitchforks, and daggers, and to fire pistols at poor old Uncle Sam, if he should poke his nose in South Carolina. The picture presented was that of an unruly set of children dictating their opinions to a hoary-headed old daddy-accusing him of pragmatism, and threatening, if he was twice as old, they'd whip ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... reason, or, if they do, they either draw correct inferences from wrong premises, or wrong inferences from correct premises; and they always poke the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... Anne? Just let me show you how to poke it—see the sparks? I did it for you, Anne, 'cause I was so glad ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... all three are lovely, and what with them and papa and other things my cup is running over tremendously. I have just heard that a poor woman I have been to see a few times, died this morning. I always came away from her crestfallen, thinking I was the biggest poke in a sick-room there ever was, but she sent me a dying message that quite comforted me. She had once lived in plenty, but was fearfully destitute, and I fear she and her family suffered for want ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... continued, "what is it that 'fetters' the heels of a young country, and hangs like 'a poke' around its neck? What retards the cultivation of its soil, and the improvement of its fisheries? The high price of labour, I guess. Well, what's a railroad? The substitution of mechanical for human and animal labour, on a scale as grand as our great country. ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... canes, umbrellas and parasols—before allowing people to enter an art-gallery is necessary; although it is a peculiar comment on humanity to think people have a tendency to smite, punch, prod and poke beautiful things. The same propensity manifests itself in wishing to fumble a genius. Get your coarse hands on Richard Mansfield if you can! Corral Maude Adams—hardly. To do big things, to create, breaks down tissue awfully, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... trying to taunt Reynolds. "You're tiresome, Jig," Reynolds said without heat. "Somebody's going to poke you sometime..." ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... purchases: I have neither room for any thing more, nor 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 ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... down, sit ye down. Fire's welly out,' said he, giving it a vigorous poke, as if to turn attention away from himself. He was rather disorderly, to be sure, with a black unshaven beard of several days' growth, making his pale face look yet paler, and a jacket which would have been all the ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... was our lily pond. We had to walk all round that, poke in with a pole to see how deep it might be, and wonder if there was any fish in it. On beyond was some trees—apple and pear and cherry, accordin' to Vee, and 'way at the ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... him, regarded this as a wholly insane proceeding. Was he going to attempt to poke a hole through a wall ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... however naughty she might be she was a companion with whom conversation was possible, and a walk alone with Nanna and Margaretta would be dull. She was relieved, therefore, at three o'clock to find that Sophia Jane was ready to go too, dressed in a very unbecoming poke bonnet and black cape. They might be out one hour and a half, Aunt Hannah said, but there was a little delay at starting because each of the elder girls wished to go in a different direction. Nanna preferred the ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... it do it?" A few days later the cook arrived. She is not all I could wish, being also Irish, and having the most extraordinary notions of the use, or rather the abuse, of the various kitchen implements: for instance, she will poke the fire with the toasting fork, and disregards my gentle hints about the poker; but at all events she can both roast mutton and bake bread. "Meary" has been induced to wash her face and braid up her beautiful hair, and now shines forth as a very pretty good-humoured girl. She is ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... far imitate a vulgar clown as to smack a friend on the back, poke him in the ribs, or by clapping his hand upon his shoulder. It is equally bad taste to use a familiar shout, or "Hullo, old boy!" or any other "Hail fellow, well ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... Curll is well. They have not touched either of the Secretaries to hurt them, and if aught have been avowed, it was by Monsieur Nau, and that on the mere threat. Do you see old Will yonder, Cicely, just within Mr. Secretary's call—with the poke ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Friday, and on the Saturday following David did his first startling act—he offered marriage to Hope Marlowe, the only Quaker girl in Framley who had ever dared to discard the poke bonnet even for a day, and who had been publicly reproved for laughing in meeting—for Mistress Hope had a curious, albeit demure and suggestive, sense of humour; she was, in truth, a kind of sacred minuet in grey. Hope had promptly accepted David, at the same ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... words with scorn and appeal. 'You have kept your head on your shoulders and the rent from your lands in your poke. But oh, sir, it is certain that, being a man, you love either the new ways or the old; it is certain that, being a spurred knight, you should love the old ways. Sir, bethink you and take heed of this: that the angels of God weep ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... the painter. There was nothing of the Bohemian about him. He looked like a heavy cavalry officer as he stood in the centre of the room talking to a small, sharp-featured old lady in a poke bonnet. ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... and other one-shelled molluscs, poke their heads out of the shell when feeding or moving. Oysters and their two-shelled cousins cannot do this, for the simple reason ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... you?" he said roughly, when, a few hours later, he and Rateau parted in the street outside the Cabaret de la Liberte. "Who are you, I would like to know, to try and poke your ugly nose into my affairs? How do I know where you come from, and whether you are not some crapulent spy of one of ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... 2nd of September, 1814, an armed brig appeared on the coast, opposite the famous pass to the home of the rangers of the sea. She fired a gun at a smuggler, about to enter, and forced her to poke her nose into a sand-bar; she then jibed over and came to anchor at ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... Bess, "don't poke fun. It would be awful if anything should happen so that we couldn't go to Rose Ranch ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... he ordered. "We're into a hot spot sure enough, though I can't just figure out the how of it. But we'll tame it, Smithy. Send down the drill. Clean it out. Then we'll poke around down there and get the ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... nothing about tables and chairs, and that he would accept, in the way of a lodging, with his eyes shut, anything that Tristram should offer him. This was partly veracity on our hero's part, but it was also partly charity. He knew that to pry about and look at rooms, and make people open windows, and poke into sofas with his cane, and gossip with landladies, and ask who lived above and who below—he knew that this was of all pastimes the dearest to Tristram's heart, and he felt the more disposed to put it in his way as he was conscious that, as regards ...
— The American • Henry James
... on the stupid dear face at the end of the coil of wire. After all, words must be very different after they've trickled round and round a long wire coil. Whatever becomes of them! And I, who am a bit deaf myself, and may in the end have a deaf-machine to poke at my friends, it ill becomes me to be so unkind, yet that's how I feel. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... a fox out into the open. He approached the hole where he had previously seen the fox, and sat down, and began to play vigorously on his concertina, and to sing at the top of his voice, "The Bells go a-ringing for Say-rah! Say-rah! Say-rah!" Presently he saw a huge Fox poke his nose out of the hole. He was delighted! He sang and played with renewed energy, and began to walk ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... not; with the result that her talk was a sort of continuous, blurred expectoration, out of which would emerge, at rare intervals, those sounds and syllables of which she felt positive. Swann supposed himself entitled to poke a little mild fun at her in conversation with M. Verdurin, who, however, was not ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... 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 upon the landing.' ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the lines, Peter Glynn ran out and called to him to stop, and he set at work on the shoes then and there.' He even ventured to poke a little satire at a priest sometimes. 'He went into the chapel at Kilchreest one time, and there was some cabbage after being stolen from a garden, and the priest was speaking about it. Raftery was at the ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... rooms, placed the cutting- board and knife beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. "Ah, if I could but shudder!" said he, "but I shall not learn it here either." Toward midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one cornier, "Au, miau! how cold we are!" "You simpletons!" cried he, "what are you crying about? If you are cold, come and take a seat ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... surprised her. Did he, too, believe in the fatal omen, though he was trying to mislead her and poke ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... period by railway and canal. 'Carrying coal to Newcastle' proved a successful speculation on September 25, 1765, when, on account of a strike among the pitmen, 'several pokes of coal were brought to this town by one of the common carriers, and sold on the Sandhill for 9d. a poke, by which he cleared 6d. a poke.' About the same time, wheat was selling in Darlington and Richmond for 4s. and 4s. 6d. per bushel, after having been nearly double that price only two or three weeks previously. In the number for June 25, 1766, we have ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... cried Briggs, with an air of defiance, "what can do, eh? poke me into a family vault? bind me o' top of an old monument? tie me to a stinking carcase? make a corpse of me, and call it one of ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... suspicious, the boy did not learn enough to form a basis for action. 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 ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... toil in the factories—very likely, but certainly not by far so hard as up here, where often in May the frost killed the budding grain and potatoes froze as early as September. Will Stoker had had nothing further to do down there than poke fires. He had been fireman, night fireman in the factory; but during the day he had nothing to do but sleep, earning sure money by a lazy life—merely ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... chum for an hour; and chancing to poke his head into the forward turret, he was surprised to see Jack working like a Trojan with the members of ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... banquet. She 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 revenged ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... low-necked dresses and 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 ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... playing in the street, one old dog is watching by a newly-painted door. A few ladies of middle age move noiselessly along the pavement, returning home to tea: they wear white muslin dresses, green spencers a little faded, straw poke bonnets with green or coffee-coloured gauze veils. By twos and threes they have disappeared within the thresholds of small neat houses, with little railings, inclosing little green plots. Threshold, house, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the sun, and an open book lying on its face upon his waistcoat to keep the place, and otherwise quite immovable, and very like other young gentlemen, Bill did not feel much the wiser for looking at him. He had a better view of him soon, however, for Master Arthur began to poke his friend's legs with the donkey-headed stick, and to exhort him to ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... up painting? Oh, no! I daub a little in oils, slop a little in watercolors, sketch now and then, and poke about the studios when ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... inaccessible except to birds and the climbing wicked boys of the neighbourhood, who sometimes at the risk of their lives contrive to get upon it from the frightfully steep northern bank, and snatch a fearful joy, as, whilst lying on their bellies, they poke their heads over its sides worn by age, without parapet to prevent them from falling into the horrid gulf below. But from the steps in the hollow the view of the Devil's Bridge, and likewise of the cleft, is very slight and unsatisfactory. ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... men went hungry, and so did their wives and children and their old mothers. Tiger-Face said they could become guards if they wanted to, and many of them did, and thereafter they did no work except to poke spears in the men who did work and who grumbled at feeding so ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... Museum, and were shown SHAKSPEARE'S jug, a rather ordinary concern; the identical dial which one of the clowns in his plays drew out of a poke, and a ring with W. S. engraved on it, found in the churchyard some years ago, and, no doubt, dropped there by the poet himself, while absorbed in the composition of his famous ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... most unfortunate moment. Everything was just beginning to get into shape. I had just bought a cinema for the men; our gunners were working better every day; there was a chance of my becoming a general, and Dundas was teaching me jazz. And then the politicians poke their noses in and go and make peace, and Clemenceau demobs Aurelle! Life's just one damned ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... were also a numerous family of luthiers, as were the Guarnieri, but I have not been able to poke into their private affairs, though he who called himself "Jesus," was addicted to imprisonment, and is said to have made violins out of bits of wood brought him by the jailer's daughter. She sold the fiddles ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... beauty. I say apparent, because Nature is a champion faker. You have only to rake about in these bushes and you'll find snakes galore, whilst under pretty nearly every stone are centipedes. Like both of you, who never by any chance poke your noses outside the city, I fancied snakes and centipedes were confined to the prairies. But I know better now. Besides, where do you think I found the toads? Why, in ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... 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 off the vases or upset furniture, or did other mischief. He would like to see this ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... to the Victoria at once. I'll do anything in reason for you, old top; but no pig in a poke. Enschede's daughter. Things happen out this way. That's a ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... were on their way from Sitka to the Copper River. Mr. Strong was on the United States Geological Survey, which Ted knew meant that he had to go all around the country and poke about all day among rocks and mountains and glaciers. He had come with his father to this far Alaskan clime in the happiest expectation of adventures with bears and Indians, always dear to the ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet |
