"Poking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hair which stood straight up on end; his pointed nose, bright brown eyes, and cunning little ears, set in the frame work of bushy hair, gave him a most sagacious appearance. And just now he was brimful of curiosity, pattering all over the room, poking his nose into a great pile of "Idol-Breakers," sniffing at theological and anti-theological books with perfect impartiality, rubbing himself against Raeburn's foot in the most ingratiating way, and finally springing up on Erica's lap with the oddest ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... his minor weaknesses,—he would never quite admit that false notes were his own fault. "They COULDN'T be, you know!" he mildly argued, addressing the obtrusive neck of the 'cello, which had a curious, stubborn way of poking itself into his chin, and causing him to wonder how it got there, . . surely the manner in which he held it had nothing to do with this awkward occurrence! "I'm not such a fool as not to understand how to find the right notes, after all my practice! There's something wrong with the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... constraint of an unwelcome presence, or in the shadow of constant fear and dread. What I care to see is the natural life, the free, unstudied ways of birds who do not notice or are not disturbed by spectators. Nor have I any pleasure in going about the country staring into every tree, and poking into every bush, thrusting irreverent hands into the mysteries of other lives, and rudely tearing away the veils that others have drawn around their private affairs. That they are only birds does not signify to me; for me they are fellow-creatures; they ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... and poking old ladylike fun at all the more eccentric Pastels, and continue to enjoy ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... My very hair began to rise and to tingle. How had I dared to make this proposal to Dorothy? And as Dorothy was silent, and looked down as we walked, poking with her parasol at pebbles in the road, I was in a tense anxiety to know with what words she would break the oppressive pause between us. "I could see," she said, "that you liked me; and of course you wouldn't come so far to see ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... room. One member of the Board and one only failed to enter with his associates—a veteran captain who read much war literature and abhorred Canker. To the surprise of the sentry he walked deliberately over to the fence, climbed it and presently began poking about the wooden curb that ran along the road, making a low revetment or retaining wall for the earth, cinders and gravel that, distributed over the sand, had been hopefully designated a sidewalk by the owners of the tract. Presently ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... make a top-notch reporter out of you.' 'Thanks Boss,' said I, 'you couldn't graft that job on to me, with asphaltum and a buzz saw. I'm going to be on your front page 'fore you know it, but it's going to be a poetry piece that will raise your hair; I ain't going to frost my cake, poking into folks' private business, telling shameful things on them that half kills them. Lots of times I see them getting their dose on the cars, and they just shiver, and go white, and shake. Nix on the printing about shame, ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... happy elf! (But stop, first let me kiss away that tear,) Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite, With spirits feather light, Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin— (Good heavens! the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou little ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of the ground, and kept calling to one another across the gravel walk, "All a-growin' and a-blowin'," as the men who bring round the flowers. Two or three violets opened their little blue eyes, too, and poking at the dead leaves that were lying on them, kept trying to get a peep at the bright sun; for he had had a bad cold all through the winter, and had kept his head wrapped up in thick mists and clouds, only showing himself now and then; and when he did, his face looked all red, swelled, and inflamed, ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... that just before Easter a gentleman came with Dr. Redford, and they both went over the school, peeping and poking about in such a ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... from the right-hand corner, by a low, arched aperture, through which it seemed out of the question that a man could crawl, or even an ordinary boy of twelve. When they had first come to this place Masin had succeeded in poking in a long stick with a bit of lighted wax taper fastened to it, and both men had seen that the channel ran on as far as it could be seen, with no widening. At the other end of the chamber it ran out again by a similar conduit. What had at first surprised Malipieri had been that the water did ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... and higher, and then gradually contracted itself into a spinning black tube, which wavered about for all the world like a gigantic loch-leech held by the tail between the finger and thumb, while it was poking its vast snout about in the clouds in search of a spot to ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... to be heard, a promise to Saint Christopher of Paris—the monstrous statue in the great church there—that he would give him a wax taper as big as himself. 'Mind what you promise!' said an acquaintance that stood near him, poking him with his elbow; 'you couldn't pay for it, if you sold all your things at auction.' 'Hold your tongue, you donkey!' said the fellow,—but softly, so that Saint Christopher should not hear him,—'do you think I'm in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... something," said Mrs. Allen, now poking her night-capped head from beneath the blankets, and listening a moment attentively. "'Tis a sound of heavy carts drawn by oxen over frozen ground. Ay, I guess it is the new family, that bought out neighbor Williams, moving their goods. Just look out the window,—our yards ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... "There, Fan, you're poking fun now. Wait till I get through. Only for Tom, you would have found me at Ten Mile Gulch, hanging by the neck to the limb of that tree just in ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... She heard the voices raised in discussion, and, catching words here and there, felt that if these were the topics that occupied her charges, Isabel need not have inflicted upon her the abominable nuisance of poking in her nose where it was not wanted. Thus did Miss Coppinger summarise the duties of a chaperon; but it must be remembered that she had never been broken to the work, and in any case she had been out ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... loads drenched, no one hurt. The great room of the rough little inn was noisy and gay with the men drying their clothes and cooking their dinner, the centre of an interested throng of village folk. I sat among them on a low bench by the fire, watching the fun. Every one was heedful of my comfort, poking the fire, bringing a fan to screen my face from the heat, drying my shoes, rubbing Jack. The thoughtfulness and good will of my men during all the journey were unfailing, and I never found that friendliness on my part diminished in any way my ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... "Ensign Paul, Emilius, Theophilus, Arnoldi, is, I calculate, a pretty considerable strong active sort of fellow; and, to judge by Henry Grantham's half strangled look, his companion lacks not the same qualities. Why, in the name of all that is precious would you persist in poking your nose into the rascal's skins, Grantham? The ruffians had nearly ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... you young people, that sometimes one little thing can make even a 'dowdy' girl popular—then, if she has the right stuff in her, she can be a leader. What is it starts you all wearing these little black belts round your waists, or this mousetrap," poking the puffs of pretty silk hair that hid her ears; "it's a psychology that's beyond most of us! Maybe my Jerry will set a new ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... wherein his disturbed senses might feel more at home, and eventually finding a place in an overturned wastebasket wedged between a chair and a desk, both suction-cupped to the floor. Frightened and alone, with only his nose poking out of the burrow beneath the trash of the wastebasket, he blinked back at the silent camera through which Bessie observed him, and elicited from her ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... the boy, so that he could not see what this object might be. The man, however, put it into his breast, and then began to search hurriedly, as it seemed, for some hiding place for it. After looking at the pavement, and poking at the chinks of the wall, he suddenly went to the window, and forced up the stone which formed the sill. Under this he threw the object which the boy had seen him examine with so much perplexity, and then he readjusted the stone, and removed ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Mr. Hume, "in what branch of philosophy did you employ your researches? What books did you read?" "Books?" said Mr. White; "nay sir, I read no books, but I used to sit whole forenoons a-yawning and poking the fire." Boswelliana, p. 221. The French were more successful than Mr. Edwards in the pursuit of philosophy, Horace Walpole wrote from Paris in 1766 (Letters, iv. 466):—'The generality of the men, and more than the generality, are dull and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... this time the charcoal and much of the ore are burned away, and there is not much left but glowing embers in the bottom of the furnace. The smelter breaks a hole through the furnace, and, poking with his tongs into the ashes, draws out a little red-hot ball of iron, scarcely as large as a cricket ball, which has been formed from the ore, partly by the heat of the fire, and partly by the help of the red-hot charcoal which has acted chemically ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... by searching, miss," replied Tiffles. Then he glided about the room in his own nimble fashion, looking behind the two vases on the mantelpiece, raking over the littered burden of the table in the corner, and peering and poking into every place where there was the least likelihood of finding a stray pair of scissors; Miss Wilkeson all the while ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... "poking" away amid splinters, and bits of broken wood, when he suddenly uttered an exclamation, and held up something. "Look!" he cried. ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... the dandy fashion; there are no clear-starched jack-towel neckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. There are no caricatures, now, of effeminate exquisites so arrayed, swooning in opera boxes with excess of delight and being revived by other dainty creatures poking long-necked scent-bottles at their noses. There is no beau whom it takes four men at once to shake into his buckskins, or who goes to see all the executions, or who is troubled with the self-reproach of having once consumed a pea. But is there dandyism in the brilliant and distinguished ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... with much difficulty—their hands, despite all the clothes, being half-frozen—they again put the nartas in condition to proceed. Sakalar had not stopped, but was seen in the distance unharnessing his sledge, and then poking about in a huge heap of snow. He was searching for the hut, which had been completely buried in the drift. In a few minutes the whole six were at work, despite the blast, while the dogs were scratching holes for themselves in the soft snow, within which they soon lay snug, their noses only ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... ground, there was Chatterer scurrying around and poking under the fallen leaves, but he hadn't found a single nut. Happy Jack couldn't stop to quarrel any more, because you see he was afraid that Chatterer would find the biggest and fattest nuts, so he began to scurry around and hunt ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... neighbours, on whom our standards must react, to judge their lives? We can tell who has gone through a legal ceremony and who refuses to do so. That is a nice convenient rule by which we can judge and condemn such people. But we cannot go poking into people's lives and studying their motives and judging their fundamental moral standards! No, you cannot. Why should you? This little set of iron rules makes it very easy to judge, does it not? But why do you desire it to be easy to judge? You and I know how infinite are the gradations ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... for woman is in the sacred precincts of home, 'far from the madding crowd's ignoble throng.' The madame and I," with a flourish of his cane, "came to that agreement early, eh, my dear, eh?" he asked, poking her masterfully with his cane. And Molly Brownwell, wistful-eyed and fading, smiled and assented, and the incident passed as dozens of other incidents passed in the Ridge, which made the women wish they had Adrian Brownwell, to handle for just one day. But the angels in that department ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... turn out to be a very disappointing person—a little wizened old gentleman with a cold in his head, a red nose and a comforter round his neck, whistling o'er the furrow'd land or crooning to himself as he goes aimlessly along the streets, poking his way about and loitering continually at shop-windows and ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... was the charge that the unlucky Burl had barely time to thrust out his gun against the chief assailant, when he found himself completely beset. Wielding his unloaded rifle as he would a pike—poking, pushing, punching therewith at the infuriated dam, in throat and breast and ribs—he contrived for a time to keep himself clear of the terrible claws continually making at him in such fierce, unwelcome greeting. But the odds were against the black hunter. Swift to obey their ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... poking his head out cautiously to investigate, he walked straight from the hollow trunk into the very jaws of the fox. There was a sharp click of teeth, and Bumper felt a terrible pain in one of his long ears. He must have leaped five feet in the air, and another five feet sideways. The fox had missed ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... yourself. I told the wife it was only a lover's quarrel most like. She's been worrying about you; but she didn't like to ask you what was the trouble. She ain't one of them unfortunate folks who can't be happy athout they're everlasting poking their noses into other people's business. But what kind of a rumpus was kicked up at the Gordon place, ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Felicia Ropps Always handles things in shops! Always pinching, always poking, Alwyas feeling, always stroking Things she has no right to touch! Goops like that annoy ...
— The Goop Directory • Gelett Burgess
... to fix the fire, poking it unnecessarily. He was confident that Evelyn's father would not recognize him with his crop of whiskers and sunburnt face. His mind was full of ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... the Indian shrugged his shoulders and went on poking the fire. Then, of a sudden, there came a crash like a salvo of artillery. A crushing, grinding mass shot by them, snuffing out ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... buncombe. "Above all things," says Bagehot, "our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it." [Footnote: The English Constitution, p. 127. D. Appleton & Company, 1914.] For poking about with clear definitions and candid statements serves all high purposes known to man, except the easy conservation of a common will. Poking about, as every responsible leader suspects, tends to break the transference of emotion from the individual mind to the institutional ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... on the stern bitts as the Maggie came abreast the Point Montara fog signal station, when Mr. Gibney observed a long telescope poking out the side window of the pilot house. "Hello," he muttered, "Scraggsy's seein' things," and following the direction in which the telescope was pointing he made out a large bark standing in dangerously close to the beach. In fact, the breakers were tumbling ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... instead of standing on one leg when he found it a failure. Perhaps he was thinking the thing over. He did not think to much purpose, for day after day for more than a week back came the adjutant to walk like a soldier on duty up and down, up and down, poking his head through the bars each time. Sometimes he did it a score of times, sometimes only two or three. After ten days he disappeared. Where is he? Has he gone to find a blacksmith among the adjutants? or have his brother adjutants had him shut up ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... way, she suddenly unbound her hair, platted it, tied both ends together to keep it out of her way, and then stepping out into the middle of the hut, began to make the most hideous faces that can be conceived, by drawing both lips into her mouth, poking forward her chin, squinting frightfully, occasionally shutting one eye, and moving her head from side to side as if her neck had been dislocated. This exhibition, which they call ayokit-tak-poke, and which is evidently considered an accomplishment that few of them possess ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... emotion in Peter subsided slowly. He began to study the moss at his feet, poking at it with ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a bit doubtful. But no, he wasn't poking fun. And after a pause, he asked, as one putting himself to ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... was just poking his rim above the western horizon and the chilly damp of early dawn lay over the island. The sea, as calm almost as a lake, lay sullen and gray, scarcely heaving. Behind the sleeping camp a few shreds of mist—the ghosts of the vapors of the night were arising like smoke among the dim trees. At ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... he answers, with self-conscious stiffness, looking down and poking about the little dark pebbles with his cane; "nothing that you would ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... poking about in as much of the ruins as I could penetrate, I stepped out through a gap in one of the walls and found myself again on the path by which I had entered. I noticed that it still ran on farther north, as having a destination beyond. So leaving ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... was sitting on his bench by the window in very high spirits, sewing away most diligently, and presently up the street came a country woman, crying, "Good jams for sale! Good jams for sale!" This cry sounded nice in the Tailor's ears, and, poking his diminutive head out of the window, he called, "Here, my good woman, just bring your jams in here!" The woman mounted the three steps up to the Tailor's house with her large basket, and began to open all the pots together before him. ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... gained the level ground of the fairway. Then, over a wide expanse of golf links, the fog had lifted clear. The Wildcat saw the two Blue Fezant Nobles poking around near the Chinese tomb in search of the ball which had been ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... seized a hat and overcoat, and next minute was buried in a stuffy limousine with Venetia's sharp elbow poking him in ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... of your business, Harry—but still, I don't mind saying that Miss Emory wrote me and said that if I was still—oh! I say!" he roared, turning suddenly and poking a finger into my ribs, "if you haven't got on ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... Smails' presence, but they scented the heretic, and with forward-stooping delight they sat and tried to drag out her ludicrous concepts for their amusement. They were like the Sunday-afternoon mob starting at monkeys in the Zoo, poking fingers and making faces and giggling at the resentment of the more ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... this morning to view them, as you'd do a piece of perspective, in at a key-hole; and there we might see Sogliardo sit in a chair, holding his snout up like a sow under an apple-tree, while the other open'd his nostrils with a poking-stick, to give the smoke a more free delivery. They had spit some three or fourscore ounces between 'em, afore we ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... large hunting-whip under his arm, stood poking his great round face over the shoulder of the homme d'affaires, it is unnecessary to say anything. That thin-looking oldish person, in a most correct and gentleman-like suit of mourning, is Mac-Casquil, formerly ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... himself from under the load, until at last he was clear of it; then, heaving a deep sigh of relief he lay quiet for awhile to recover his breath. He knew there was a hole somewhere if he could only find it and he kept poking his nose here ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... large, round stones in the fire, heating them to a point that caused them to sizzle when a drop of water came in contact with them. Poking three of these heated stones from the fire Harriet rolled them in one of the gray army blankets. She did the same with other blankets; then, passing from one to another, watched closely for the odor of burning cloth. Only one blanket had to be opened to permit the stones to ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... out—same as us," said Overland, poking a half-burned root into the fire. "And they're gettin' about as far along at it, too. Like most folks does in a crowd—jest howlin' all together. Mebby it sounds good to 'em. I ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... and in five minutes I had the gruff old fellow stumping along at my side and pointing out the various notable-features of his wonderful creation. His suppressed excitement was quite wonderful to see. He would point his hickory stick with a poking motion, and, when he looked up, instead of throwing back his big, rough head, he bent at the hips, thus imparting an impression of ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... not really any thought among us of poking fun at Edmund; we respected and admired him far too much for that; nevertheless, catching the infection of banter from Jack, we united in demanding, in a manner which I can now see must have ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... light grew clearer, lift himself a little, take another peep at the sky, and crow again, turning his head to hear those weird, mocking roosters of the timber-land. Then, shortly, I would hear my father poking the fire or saying, as he patted the rooster: "Sass 'em back, ye noisy little brat! Thet 's right: holler. Tell D'ri it's time t' bring some wood fer ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... the handsomest clipper-ship that money could build," he said. "But when I married you, little woman, I got something better than a clipper-ship; and when you know sailorman's natur' better, you'll know what that compliment means. Yes, Providunce sent me here," continued the Cap'n, poking down his tobacco with broad thumb. "There I was, swashin' from Hackenny to t'other place, livin' on lobscouse and hoss-meat; and here you was, pinin' away for some one to love you and to talk to you about something sensibler than dropped stitches ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... (But stop—first let me kiss away that tear) Thou tiny image of myself? (My love, he's poking peas into his ear) Thou merry laughing sprite! With spirits feather-light, Untouched by sorrow and unsoiled by sin— (Good heavens! the child ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... secure another. He knew where the mineral waters were kept—in a small cupboard next to the wine-cellar. He sallied forth and descended the back stairs very quietly, in order not to disturb anyone. After poking about for a few moments he found what he wanted. There was nothing to open it with, however. Where was the thing kept? Ah, of course, in the sideboard, ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... have all the looks of a serving wench, mistress. She be tramping over the yard with naught but a white handkerchief over the head of she and a poking into most of the styes and a-calling ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... this at the time. He told it, however, afterwards to his master, a hunting man; and, on a subsequent occasion, when the same incident occurred again, one of the whips dismounted and went into the water, and, poking about the roots of the willows, dislodged Reynard, concealed under the hollow bank, and immersed under water, except his nose and mouth, by which he was hanging suspended from a fang of the tree roots. ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... all about that," said the other, with a whistle, and an uplifting of his eyebrows. "If we go poking around Thunder Mountain, and Peg is there, with a couple of the tough cowboys he has trailing after him most of the time, Spanish Joe and Nick Jennings, perhaps we'll run up ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... Monsieur le Cure?' he growled. 'Just fancy, this rascal is always poking his nose into the graveyard. I don't know what he can be up to here. I ought to let go of him and let him smash his skull down there. It would ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... there was a young fellow came poking around here not so long ago with a little hammer pecking at the rocks. I didn't pay much attention to him, though. He never stayed but one day, and I was a-cutting clover hay, and too busy to notice him much 'cept to ask him in to dinner. He couldn't seem to manage his ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... all dried up," he said at length, when the stone stopped. Without thinking what he was doing, he put his hand into the trough, and began poking his fingers into the sediment which had collected at the bottom. In the soft mud was something hard, and he picked it out. The boy glanced carelessly at the bit of metal, and was about to throw it away when its shape struck ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... so much room, that I was afraid there would be trouble. And sure enough, he had hardly dropped down Before there was a great crackling of paper, and he jumped up again and called out, 'Bless me! what is that?' And then he began poking, and poking, and just as he had poked out the whole bundle, and was putting on his spectacles to see what it was, ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... powerful enough to counteract the fitful moonlight, which touched the dark floor and furniture of the smoke-blackened cottage with luminous points. The little boy had lifted his pretty head inquisitively, and above it two cows were poking their rosy muzzles and brilliant eyes through the holes in the stable wall. The big dog, whose countenance was by no means the least intelligent of the family, seemed to be examining the strangers with as much curiosity as the ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... look into your room;" and the soldiers, entering, began poking about with their bayonets, running them under the bed, and through the bedding, in a way likely ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... mean. You don't expect me to stay behind, I hope! Me—to spend a long endless day here, poking in Grannie's bedroom, and picking up her stitches, and being scolded for every mortal thing I do and don't do, while you are off on a lovely jaunt! Not I! You're very much mistaken if that is what you expect. Will Mrs. Ferris send ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... know what you call a good thing, you old fluter. I'm obliged to sit on my hip bones—I can't go to a lecture—all the tutors think I am poking fun at them, and put me on directly. I haven't been able to go to lecture ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... sky. And the river sweeps on red and angry-looking under the sunset, with the rank grass and vegetation on its shelving banks. Rats are scampering along among the wet stones, and then a vagrant dog poking about amid some garbage howls dismally. What is that black speck on the crimson waters? The trunk of a tree perhaps; no, it is a body, with white face and tangled auburn hair; it is floating down with the current. People are passing to and fro ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... having disposed of their cigars, arose. The former, poking the muzzle of his revolver close to ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... for I like dreams, and have a great many curious ones myself. But they don't keep me from being tired of Christmas," said Effie, poking discontentedly among the sweeties ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... roadster did pass us, going slowly, and the Frog kept his eyes riveted on Nyoda all the while. She never looked at him. She had unbuttoned the roof over the engine and was poking her fingers down into the dragon's mouth, but undoubtedly the trouble wasn't there. There was a repair shop not far away—all of the towns along the touring routes which have an eye to business have some sort of one—and Nyoda repaired thither and fetched a man who tinkered ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... young man declared, confidentially. "The late Earl was a great traveller in the East, as you may have heard, and he was always poking about in some ruined city or other in the desert, and picking up things and making discoveries. Well, last time he came home from abroad, he brought with him an old Egyptian or Arab,—I don't know which he was, but he was brown,—settled him down in this ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fool going, is Jenkins," was the complimentary retort of Jenkins's wife. "After he had helped to ring out the bell, he must needs go poking and groping into the organ-loft, hunting for matches or some such insane rubbish. He might have known, had he possessed any sense, that candles and matches are not likely to be there in summer-time! Why, if the organist wanted ever so much to stop in after dark, when the college is locked ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... drawled Cooper, poking out the stem of his pipe with a stalk of grass. "He can hold out till something gives way. That's what he's in the habit o' doin', I'm thinkin'; an' he ain't goin' to ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... door I will send a bullet through your black heart!" was Enoch's reply, poking the muzzle of his rifle through the loophole beside ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... then, "it had come at last. Hilary, poking among her possessions, had somehow discovered her real name. Oh, poor Eleanor! What ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... black as e'er was crow; Gloves, as sweet as damask roses, Masks for faces and for noses; Bugle-bracelet, necklace amber, Perfume for a lady's chamber; Golden quoifs and stomachers For my lads to give their dears; Pins and poking-sticks of steel,— What maids ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... warm ashes, and groping, in mean misery, with a stick, for some charred nothing she would cheat the Spoiler of, there was a dangerous quality in Pintal's look, as, with folded arms and vacant eyes, he seemed to stare upon, yet not to see, the shocking scene. Presently the woman, poking with the stick, found something under the ashes. With her naked hands she greedily dug it out;—it was a tin shaving-case. Another moment, and Pintal had snatched it from her grasp, torn it open, and had a naked razor in his hand. I wrested it from him, as he fairly foamed, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the act of choosing a soft chop from the dish—an act accompanied by a great deal of prying and poking with that gentleman's own fork. My disillusioned compatriot had pushed away his plate; he sat with his elbows on the table, gloomily nursing his head with his hands. His companion watched him and then seemed to wonder—to do Mr. Simmons justice—how he could least ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... in the holidays—a clerk, he was, at the bank—and he used to put notes to her under the cushions at church; but one unlucky Sunday, Louie had a cold and didn't go, and she told Mabel Blisset to bring it, and Mabel didn't understand the right place, and went poking about, so that Miss Dormer found it out, and ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "He was blackballed in the club the other day, and he don't feel good. Let's go ashore again, and wait till he sheers off, for I don't want to see him. He will be sure to go on board of the yacht if we are there, for he is always poking his nose in where he is ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... the baby wailed unceasingly up in the distant nursery, and Harold and Daisy, having nearly finished Charlotte's sweeties, and made themselves very uncomfortable by repeated attacks on the rich plum-cake, were now, with very flushed cheeks, alternately playing with their toys and poking their small fingers into the still unopened brown-paper parcels. They had positively refused to go up to the nursery, and, though the gas was lit and the blinds were pulled down, the spirit of disorder had most manifestly got into ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... moment had disappeared down through the scuttle hole. I had no disposition to follow him, but was rather annoyed than otherwise at the disturbance. Getting the direction of the sound, he went picking his way over the rough, uneven ground, and, when he got where the light failed him, poking every doubtful object with the end of his gun. Presently he poked a light grayish object, like a large round stone, which surprised him by moving off. On this hint he fired, making an incurable wound in the "porcupig," which, nevertheless, tried harder than ever to escape. ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... wake him for a moment with the compliments of the season. But it was not even a momentary disturbance; for when I finally found him in his hollow gum, he was sound asleep, and only half realized that some one was poking him gently in the ribs and wishing ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... something left to discover," she continued plaintively. "It's so discouraging to think that there's nothing more for explorers to do in this country. What fun it must have been for La Salle and Pere Marquette and Lewis and Clark to find those big rivers that no white man had ever seen before, and go poking about in the wilderness. That was the great and only sport; everything else is tame and flat beside it. I'll never get done envying those early explorers; how I wish I ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... poking at a bit of brown crust in his basin of milk. "Ike brought him to me grinning, and he said, 'Here's another cat ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... Saxton's manner and manners. The hot day had turned into a cold night. Jeff tucked the knitted robe about Claire's shoulders, when she returned to the fire. He moved quietly and easily. He kept poking up the fire, smiling at Claire as he did so. He seemed without difficulty to maintain two conversations: one with Mr. Boltwood about finances, one with Claire about mysterious persons called Fannie and Alden and Chub and Bobbie and ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... mind of one burden, at least," he said. "I like Reggie. He's a nice boy. But I haven't any humor to find him poking around in these bushes with a shotgun." "Oh, there's no danger of that," she replied demurely, oblivious of his humor. ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... fish-wife, than his description of Lochner's picture of the Virgin: "The neck of a heifer, and flesh like cream or hasty-pudding, that quivers when it is touched;" or of the picture of St. Ursula's companions, by the same hand: "Their squab noses poking out of bladders of lard that did duty for their faces;" not to speak of the characterization of a "Sacred Heart" too revolting to reproduce? Surely when, after having reviled M. Tissot almost personally, he describes his works as painted ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... full in the face, as if to say, "What do you think of it?" It was useless to argue with him; so I only shook my head. He nodded his in a very mysterious manner, and fell to poking the fire with redoubled activity; and I bade him good night, and left ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... that evening was to revisit the garret, but the slipper had gone. Cecilia had been there and had found it carefully folded up in the drawer. She pulled it out, snipped and tore it into fifty pieces, carried them downstairs, threw them on the dining-room fire, sat down before it, poking them further and further into the flames, and watched them till every vestige had vanished. Frank did not like to make any inquiries; Cecilia made none, and thence-forward no trace existed at Waltham Lodge ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... appetizing sight. But with one exception they afford the only example of unofficial effort toward the betterment of sanitary conditions, that I witnessed in Charleston. The other came from a policeman, patiently poking with his club at the vent of one of the antediluvian sewers, which had—as usual—become blocked. Yet, despite public indifference and opposition, Dr. Green, without any special training or brilliant ability as a sanitarian, is, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... explain," Jesson begged. "I spent the last three years poking about Europe, and so far as the United States is concerned, there's nothing doing. My reports aren't worth much more than the paper they are written on, and while I'm drawing my money from Washington, it's not my business to collect information that affects other countries. That's why I've sent ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... she was still in Salisbury; but I felt ashamed of questioning on, and, during the pause that ensued, my informant gave one more general polishing to the table, pushed one or two chairs out of their places, poked the fire, which did not want poking, and with a side bow left the room. My curiosity was so strongly excited, that I could not refrain from asking Mrs. Hatton if she knew anything of the Mrs. Tracy, who, in old times, had been my aunt's maid, but she ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... word, and let married people have fallen ever so wide asunder, the thought, "my child's mother," "my baby's father," must in some degree bridge the gulf between them. When Peter Ascott was seen stooping, awkwardly enough, over his son's cradle, poking his dumpy fingers into each tiny cheek in a half-alarmed, half-investigating manner, as if he wondered how it had all come about, but, on the whole, was rather pleased than otherwise—the good angel of the household might have stood by and smiled, trusting that the ghastly skeleton ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... Cassy, poking her head in at him, threw him a kiss and returned to the Tamburini with whom, a little later, she was praying among the worshippers that thread the sacred and silent way where Broadway ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... close up that tiresome trunk at once Betty Ashton, or I am going home," Polly scolded. "It bores me dreadfully to have you and Mollie poking in there ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... was that of praising God, on the sole qualification of good bass and tenor voices, were coming chattering through the choir gates; and behind them a group of small boys were suddenly transforming themselves from angels into sinners, by tearing off their white surplices, and pinching and poking each other noisily as they passed us, with as little reverence as ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... The poking efforts accomplished little. Occasionally the 'coon made a little dash or scramble, but never went far. There was a great deal of talking, shouting, ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... new bed, and, after curiously sniffing and poking into all the nooks and corners of it, she curled up and began to purr herself ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... from the floor in corners and wall angles, and could be shut or opened by means of lids over their upper ends. These were more to Hewitt's mind, and he went about from one to another, groping under the lids, and poking down into the flues with a walking-stick. There was a wire-grating, or diaphragm, it seemed, in each of them, two or three feet down, and we could hear the end of the stick raking on this at each investigation. One after another of these ventilators Hewitt examined, till he had examined ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... meditatively poking the fire. "If you marry her, Blake," she said, "you will have to be enormously good to her. She isn't the sort of girl to be satisfied with anything but ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... taking their places in the quadrille, she had given him the sweetest of assignations for the morrow, during the hunt. Our great Queen Catherine, who from political motives fermented these loves and stirred them up, like pastrycooks make the oven fires burn by poking, glanced at all the pretty couples interwoven in the quadrille, and ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Dave Darrin, poking Hazelton in the side. As Dave sauntered over to the desk Harry followed. Tom Reade seemed interested in the scene. Greg Holmes and Dan Dalzell strolled over, ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... the captain to that old worthy, who was just poking his head up out of the forecastle,—"Trull, is ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... And a thousand more things I shall ne'er have by rote, I can scarce tell the difference, at least as to phrase, Between beef a la Psyche and curls a la braise.— But in short, dear, I'm trickt out quite a la Francaise, With my bonnet—so beautiful!—high up and poking, Like things that are put to ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... around and find out. Right now I'd rather be in old Gid's house, sitting with somebody on a bench—and I'm going back to-morrow. What fun is there in poking about this way like a couple of gawks? You even pull me away from the supper table to tramp up and down these streets. Hang it, I don't want to see people. Every face ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... stood on the brink of the stream and after poking about this as usual, the German stood upon tiptoe, apparently looking down into it, then kneeled at its base while Tom watched from ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to Las Animas yesterday, Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Cole, and I, to do a little shopping. There are several small stores in the half-Mexican village, where curious little things from Mexico can often be found, if one does not mind poking about underneath the trash and dirt that is everywhere. While we were in the largest of these shops, ten or twelve Indians dashed up to the door on their ponies, and four of them, slipping down, came ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the soul of speech, it gives it its feeling and truth. Emphasis deceives less than words; perhaps that is why well-educated people are so afraid of it. From the custom of saying everything in the same tone has arisen that of poking fun at people without their knowing it. When emphasis is proscribed, its place is taken by all sorts of ridiculous, affected, and ephemeral pronunciations, such as one observes especially among the young ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... through your journey, and like those French people and the rest. So now, if you were there, you won't be cross, and if you were not, and don't understand what I am saying, it isn't worth bothering about. In any case, you had no right to—I mean, be cross. It is I who should be cross with you for poking about in a London square so late and not coming forward to say how do you do and be introduced to the knight. That is all I have to say about the business, so don't write and ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... to spend so much time poking about in the Roman Baths, for though there are good enough sights to see there, for those who love that sort of thing, one does get such cold feet, and there are such a lot of steps up and down, one's dress is soon dusty ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... he exclaimed, "I've always been drawn toward that kind of life. A musket will be a little heavier than a gun, that's all; then I shall see different countries, and that will change my ideas." He tried to appear facetious, poking around the kitchen, and teasing the magpie, which was following his footsteps with inquisitive anxiety. Finally, he went up to the old man Vincart, who was lying stretched out in his picture-lined niche. He took the flabby ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... presented myself at Rogers' dinner last night I had not heard of the letter, and Gassiot began poking fun at me, and declaring that your absence was due to a quarrel between ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... and if any one comes out and tells you that the golden hare is not here, don't believe it, but hold him fast." So she crept into the hole again and began to beat for game, and out came an old woman, who said to the youth, "What art thou poking about there for?"—And he said to her, "For the golden hare."—She said to him, "It is not here, for this is a snake's hole," and when she had said this she went away. Presently the girl also came out and said ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... care much for it at fust, but he didn't raise no objection; and when the gal got up to go he stopped the bus for 'er by poking the driver in the back, and they all got off together. Ted went fust to break her fall, in case the bus started off too sudden, and Charlie 'elped her down behind by catching hold of a lace collar she was wearing. When she turned to speak to 'im about ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... bare, rather pinkish bone standing erect on the ground. Just because it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. As she came nearer, she perceived that it was a streak of barked trunk; a branch had been torn off a pine tree and the bark stripped down to the root. And then came another, poking its pinkish wounds above the snow. And there were chips! This filled her with wonder. Some one had been cutting wood! There must be Indians or trappers near, she thought, and of a sudden realized that the wood-cutter could be ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... and keeps poking with his elbows. Keep your hands to yourself! Though you are a head constable, you have no sort of right to make ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... mustn't expect that there will be people to talk to you. You'll have to play about and look after yourself. You'll be told what rooms you can go into and what rooms you're to keep out of. There's gardens enough. But when you're in the house don't go wandering and poking about. Mr. Craven ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Dust of strange feet in the familiar rooms. People she would never have dreamed of admitting there pulling about her carpets, poking her feather-beds, turning up their noses at the breakfast-room chair-covers which were shabby, there was no good in denying it; and with her not by to explain they preferred them so. No more expensive ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... Shore I'll use my feet, you yaller dog!" yelled the prostrate man, and his boot heel sank into the stomach of the offending Mr. Stevenson with sickening force and laudable precision. He drew it back slowly, as if debating shoving it farther. "Call me a thief, hey! Come poking 'round kicking honest punchers an' calling 'em names! Anybody want the other boot?" he ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... leaning over the table poking gingerly with the tip of his forefinger at the centre stone in the setting, revolving it gently to and fro in the light—a very large stone, whose weight would hardly be less than fifteen carats. Jimmie Dale lowered his head for a closer examination—and ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... look at them soon," said Irene, poking it into her basket again. "Come and have tiffin, qui-hi, I've got to look ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... by-street of the town, with as many smells as Cologne. I found the place when I was poking about one afternoon—a dingy little shop kept by a Jew who marvelously resembled Cruikshank's Fagin. He resurrected this picture from a rusty old safe, and I saw its value at once. It had been in his possession for several years, he told ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... "By poking their noses into things that don't concern them," he asseverated, "things they wouldn't know anything about if they weren't damned nasty-minded. There's that fanatical Lady Fulda Guthrie, and Mrs. Orton Beg, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... is not an ill-looking person: she has good eyes, and would be very well if she had not a habit of stretching and poking out her neck. Her shape is horrible; she is quite crooked; her back is curved into the form of an S. I observed her one day, through curiosity, when the Dauphine was ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... really a finer life to chatter at dinner-parties and tea-parties, and occasionally to inspect an orphanage? Perspiration was not the only evidence of godliness. Why, was it to be supposed that one could not live worthily unless one was always poking one's nose into one's neighbour's concerns? He said that you might as well say that it was refined selfishness to have a rose-tree in your garden, unless you cut off every bud the moment it appeared and sent it to a hospital. If the critic really believed ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... you recognized the necessity of building up your father's family. (The Duke was listening. If you knew, Renee, what flattery lies for him in these words.) I have watched you during the whole winter, poking your little nose into all that goes on, forming very sensible opinions about men and the present state of society in France. And you have picked out the one Spaniard capable of giving you the splendid position of a woman who reigns supreme in her own house. My little girl, you treated ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... the blows, so that he was not struck or touched. But all about they thrashed enough, and raised an uproar in the room with their clubs, like a blind man who pounds as he goes about his search. While they were poking about under the beds and the stools, there entered one of the most beautiful ladies that any earthly creature ever saw. Word or mention was never made of such a fair Christian dame, and yet she was so crazed with grief that she was on ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... breeches and cloak, with which the "Estudiantinas Espagnoles" have familiarised us, only in this case the Spanish cocked hat and spoon was replaced by a sort of black Phrygian cap. To our astonishment, these young gentlemen, instead of poking fun at us, got off the parapet on which they had been sitting, pulled off their caps to us, and welcomed us with the most kindly politeness. They knew, perhaps, that we too had worn our breeches out upon school benches, and thus ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... answered he, 'but I ask it not for your sake but for mine. I know you; although you are a perfect friend, you are very lively, a little fond of poking fun, and you would perhaps make a very amusing story of what has just happened between us, at my expense, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... who play about like the sunbeams that come down through the branches. Women are washing in open spaces, and long lines of whitened clothes are extended from tree to tree, fluttering and gambolling in the breeze. A pig, in a sty even more extemporary than the shanties, is grunting and poking his snout through the clefts of his habitation. The household pots and kettles are seen at the doors; and a glance within shows the rough benches that serve for chairs, and the bed upon the floor. The visitor's nose takes note of the fragrance of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various |
