"Wager" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mistresses, love and honour, ay, their very clothes, and go home naked through the streets; for the streets of Paris saw strange things in those days. But life? Well, even that they had seen men stake in effect, once, twice, a hundred times; but never in so many words, never on a wager as novel as this. So with an amazement which no duel, fought as was the custom in that day, three to three, or six to six, would have evoked, they gathered round the little table under the candles and waited ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... than other in thys maner. This preest thought that one myght nat by felynge knowe one from a nother in the darke. John Dawe his parysshone, [being] of the contrary opinyon, layde with his curate for a wager xl pence; whervpon the parysshe preest, wyllynge to proue his wager, wente to this John Dawes house in the euenynge, and sodenly gate hym to bedde with his wyfe; where, whan he began to be somwhat busye, she felynge ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... stood still almost. The thought flashed through my brain that that wager meant hundreds of hours of shame and slavery and horror to those girls in the shanties down on Peoria street, some mother's girl, every one of them. I sat still for a little while and watched the feverish anxious throng about me. My heart kept going faster and ...
— Chicago's Black Traffic in White Girls • Jean Turner-Zimmermann
... After this, I shewed the king a curious picture I had of a friend of mine, which pleased him much, and he shewed it to all his company. The king sent for his chief painter, who pretended he could make as good, which I denied, on which a wager of a horse was made between Asaph Khan and me in the king's presence, and to please him, but Asaph afterwards retracted. After this, the Mogul fell to drinking some Alicant wine which I had presented him, giving some of it to those about him, and then sent for a full bottle, and drinking a cup, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... not ask you to come into the house, because I am obliged to go to the sale of the Ronces woods, in order to speak to the men who are cultivating the little lot that we have bought. I wager, Monsieur de Buxieres, that you are not yet acquainted with ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... "I wager anything you like of it." But it was of no use; unconditional assent failed to pacify her. So she went on for hours; and it cost me untold pains to earn the brunette's permission to offer her an ice, or ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... lamp, and all your papers. And what, else could you expect, pray? Here he's been trying to make you stop and speak to him, every time you have gone by the table, for the last half hour, and holding out his little arms to you; while you have been walking to and fro as if you were walking for a wager, with your eyes rolled up in your head, muttering to yourself—mutter, mutter, mutter—and taking no more notice of him, poor little fellow, than if he was a rag-baby, or belonged ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... looked on with evident interest, hoping that this time the scales would turn in their favor; but the people, expert in contests of this kind, had already picked the Castilian bull as the winner and had begun to wager their small coin as to the probable duration of the fight. The people were right, the Roman toro was promptly slain, and once more the cause of Spain was triumphant. But the queen was persistent, and in spite of the fact that the result of each of these ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... has business in a case like this," said Abernethy, "and I'll wager a thousand pounds if you hadn't gone out the accident wouldn't have happened. It was nothing else than the fear that you'd get aboard before them that made the men think of boarding the barque in such a hurry, and so far out. I knew the men well, poor fellows, and they were all decent men ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... watch," challenged Lucile. "I'll wager a pound of my home-made fudge against a pound of Huyler's that we'll be back before the five minutes ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... was next to mine; on the other side slept—and soundly, too, I would wager—her aunt. Indeed, our rooms connected by a door, always locked and without a key, of course. By a sudden impulse I took out my bunch of keys. Fortune favored me; an old key, that of my room at College, not only fitted perfectly, ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... princess? Faith, I'll wager the next Elphberg will be red enough, for all that Black Michael will ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... "I'll wager he and his father have had a row with Captain Langless," observed Dick. "Otherwise he wouldn't be half ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... the senate ordered the temples of Isis constructed within the ring-wall to be pulled down, no labourer ventured to lay the first hand on them, and the consul Lucius Paullus was himself obliged to apply the first stroke of the axe(704); a wager might be laid, that the more loose any woman was, the more piously she worshipped Isis. That the casting of lots, the interpretation of dreams, and similar liberal arts supported their professors, was a matter of course. The casting of horoscopes ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... and see what they've run you about, for you won't escape, I'll wager," laughed Peggy as merrily as though it were broad ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... you it is possible to love several times with all one's heart and soul. You quote examples of persons who have killed themselves for love, to prove the impossibility of a second passion. I wager that if they had not foolishly committed suicide, and so destroyed the possibility of a second experience, they would have found a new love, and still another, and so on till death. It is with love as with drink. He who has once indulged is forever ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... just to his country, he alone has a mind unwarped by section, and a memory unparalyzed by fear, who warns against precipitancy. He who could hurry this nation to the rash wager of battle is not fit to hold the seat of legislation. What can justify the breaking up of our institutions into belligerent fractions? Better this marble Capitol were levelled to the dust; better were this Congress struck dead in its deliberations; better an immolation of every ambition ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... stone pile, which they intended to use as a base for their lantern, is disturbed, and pulled apart," went on the assistant lighthouse keeper, as he flashed his torch on it. "I'll wager, boys, that when you saw it, with that contrivance atop by which they hoped to fool some vessels, this stone pile was ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... is about Miss Williams and, by the bye, I dare say it is, because he looked so conscious when I mentioned her. May be she is ill in town; nothing in the world more likely, for I have a notion she is always rather sickly. I would lay any wager it is about Miss Williams. It is not so very likely he should be distressed in his circumstances now, for he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must have cleared the estate by this time. I wonder what it can be! May be his sister is worse at Avignon, and has sent ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... a Blue Book for him or anybody, and he would either have to dance with me at once or go to some one else with his questions. I never knew any one who could bring in the names of as many smart people in one short remark as Bobbie can. If you happen to ask him what time it is, you could make a wager that, in his answer, in a perfectly natural way, he will mention familiarly three smart society women (calling one at least by her first name). Of course he does get asked a great deal, because he's little more than a snub-cushion—holds ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... humor. Even when his yarns had point, he did not recognize it. One dreary afternoon, in his slow, monotonous fashion, he told them about a frog—a frog that had belonged to a man named Coleman, who trained it to jump, but that failed to win a wager because the owner of a rival frog had surreptitiously loaded the trained jumper with shot. The story had circulated among the camps, and a well-known journalist, named Samuel Seabough, had already made a squib of it, but neither Clemens nor Gillis had ever happened to hear it before. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to plot mischief, I wager!" remarked the nobleman, jocosely; for he was in a capital humor, having just partaken of an epicurean dejeuner a la fourchette at ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Martial; "but she does not cry because she is left there without a partner; her grief is not of to-day. It is evident that she has beautified herself for this evening with intention. I would wager that she is in ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... (for lack of a more exact expression) a prophet, he occupies a curious and prominent position. Whether he may greatly influence the future or not, he is a notable symptom of the present. As a sign of the times, it would be hard to find his parallel. I should hazard a large wager, for instance, that he was not unacquainted with the works of Herbert Spencer; and yet where, in all the history books, shall we lay our hands on two more incongruous contemporaries? Mr. Spencer so decorous - I had almost said, so dandy - in dissent; and Whitman, like a large shaggy dog, just ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... strongest man down," said Alessandro to Juan Can one day. "Do you think I should anger them if I asked them to let me bring Senor Felipe out to the veranda and put him on a bed of my making? I'd wager my head I'd put him on ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the boat had never seen anything so exciting in their lives. They were expecting you to give out any minute and so much afraid that if you did you would go under before they could get hold of you. When you won the wager they were so proud and happy that they were ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... do," observed Ned, as he daubed a bit of pine gum on a small crack. "I'll wager it doesn't leak a drop. The paddle is better than when you first ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... great way down from the burg-gate, anigh to the hallowed field, There lieth a lake in the river as round as Odin's shield, A black pool huge and awful: ten long-ships of the most Therein might wager battle, and the sunken should be lost Beyond all hope of diver, yea, beyond the plunging lead; On either side its rock-walls rise up to a mighty head, But by green slopes from the meadows 'tis easy drawing near To the brow whence the dark-grey ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... welcome in Old England; but, instead, they had the cold chill of doubt. Many of their sufferings in both these ways were directly due to their own and their friends' mismanagement, the stupid construction of their cabin, the foolish three-masted rig of their boat, the boastful wager of the boat's builder, and their imprudence in painting up the boat on her arrival, and tarring the ropes; and, lastly, in allowing a mutilated paper to be issued ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... what is Atlantic City? It is a refuge thrown up by the continent-building sea. Fashion took a caprice, and shook it out of a fold of her flounce. A railroad laid a wager to find the shortest distance from Penn's treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: it dashed into the water, and a City emerged from its freight-cars as a consequence of the manoeuvre. Almost any kind of a parent-age ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... penurious man. He is said to have scolded his servant for lighting four candles in his tent, when Prince Eugene called upon him to hold a conference before the battle of Blenheim. Swift said of the Duke, "I dare hold a wager that in all his compaigns he was never known to lose his baggage." But this merely showed his consummate generalship. When ill and feeble at Bath, he is said to have walked home from the rooms ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... not like this priest. "Now I will wager, sirs," Jurgen continued, a trifle patronizingly, "that you gentlemen have not read Gowlais, or even Stevegonius, in the light of Vossler's commentaries. And that is ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... Oriana, "and let us have a race over this beautiful plain. Look! 'tis as smooth as a race-course, and I will lay you a wager, Captain Haralson, that my Nelly will lead you to yonder ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... hoarded in a monarch's treasures? Was it a gift of peace, or prize of war? Did the great Khalif in his "House of Pleasures" Wager and lose it ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... of France, by his "establishments," suppresses the wager of battle and provides for a regular administration ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... his songs and his getup upon the stage. One night this actor was at supper with some friends, when dispute arose as to whether his mimicry was overdone or not. It was agreed to settle it by an appeal to the mob. A forty-shilling supper at a famous coffeehouse was to be the wager. The actor took up his station at Essex Bridge, a great haunt of Moran's, and soon gathered a small crowd. He had scarce got through "In Egypt's land, contagious to the Nile," when Moran himself came up, followed ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... up, and there was a crisis—neither could have said how long it lasted—during which they were reduced, for all interchange, to looking at each other on quite an inordinate scale. They might at this moment, in their positively portentous stillness, have been keeping it up for a wager, sitting for their photograph or even enacting ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... was sent to Aztalan. In 1844 the charge was again divided and Watertown charge was formed, Brother Jones being transferred to the new charge. Rev. Asa Wood was now sent to Aztalan, and remained one year, when he was succeeded by Revs. C.N. Wager and S. B. Whipple. At the Conference of 1854 the honors and emoluments of Aztalan circuit passed over to the keeping of Lake Mills, which charge at this writing holds a respectable rank ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... you might hunt up some butternuts and stir them in; I'll recommend the result and will wager you'll think it as good as anything you ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... supported by numerous partisans. The contest took place on the race-ground at Newmarket, and attracted all the fashionables of the period. Lord March, thin, agile, and admirably qualified for exertion, was the victor. Still more celebrated was his Lordship's wager with the famous Count O'Taafe. During a conversation at a convivial meeting on the subject of 'running against time,' it was suggested by Lord March, that it was possible for a carriage to be drawn with a degree of celerity previously ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... wood-cutter. "I wager you have been wasting your time under its branches. I shall certainly cut the tree ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... "It is I who am king. Did not your majesty stake your crown against my lute, and can the royal word be broken? Back, guards! I claim my wager." ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... but if I were I'd wager a pretty large sum that whatever the Archdeacon does he won't ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... iron. She has fooled the guessers by sticking where she is. It has been my hope from the first that she can be floated. She is not a rusted old iron rattletrap. Of course, she's got a hole in her, and we can see now that she's planted mighty solid. But she is sound and tight, I'll wager, in all her parts except where that wound is. I suppose most men who came along here now would guess that she can't be got off whole. I'm going into this thing and try ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... of summer, the time at which the Warren looked its best. The sunshine, which scarcely got near it in the darker part of the year, now penetrated the trees on every side, and rushed in as if for a wager, every ray trying how far it could reach into the depths of the shade. It poured full into the drawing-room by one window, so that Minnie was mindful at all times to draw down that blind, that the carpet might not be spoiled; and of course all ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... men and horses were in all stages of easiness, and the carbine-buckets flopping against their sides urged the horses on. Men were shouting and cursing, and trying to pull clear of the Band which was being chased by the Drum-Horse whose rider had fallen forward and seemed to be spurring for a wager. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... played his game of dice in sombre silence. Over and over, losing almost steadily, he named a larger wager and Garcia and Kootanie George met his offer. He bet fifty dollars and lost, a hundred and lost, two hundred on a single cast and lost. In three throws over half of his money was gone. Three hundred and fifty dollars; he had two hundred and ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... carelessly. "You are in love with love—as all men are—and not particularly in love with me. Men, my dear Euan, are gamblers. When first you saw me in tatters, you laid a wager with yourself that I'd please you in silks. A gay hazard! A sporting wager! And straight you dressed me up to suit you; and being a man, and therefore conceited, you could scarcely admit that you had lost your wager to your better senses. Could you? But now you shall admit that in this frowsy, woollen ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... length he troubled himself very little about the matter, but, riding carelessly along, used to amuse himself with observing how adroitly the dog acquitted himself of his charge. At length, so convinced was he of his sagacity, as well as fidelity, that he laid a wager that he would intrust the dog with a number of sheep and oxen, and let him drive them alone and unattended to Alston market. It was stipulated that no one should be within sight or hearing who had the least control over the dog, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... then," answered Sakr-el-B ahr, who was but delaying to gain time. "The keener test. A hundred philips, Marzak, that thou'lt not hit me that head in three shots, and that I'll sink him at the first! Wilt take the wager?" ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... marriage-day is paid, Or hour of death, the bet is laid; And all the rest of better or worse, Both are but losers out of purse. For when upon their ungot heirs 585 Th' entail themselves, and all that's theirs, What blinder bargain e'er was driv'n, Or wager laid at six and seven? To pass themselves away, and turn Their childrens' tenants e're they're born? 590 Beg one another idiot To guardians, e'er they are begot; Or ever shall, perhaps, by th' one, Who's bound to vouch 'em for his own, Though ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... towards or into Hudson's Straits. He was then to penetrate to the westward until he should reach Repulse Bay, or some other part of the shores of Hudson's Bay to the north of Wager River, or some portion of the coast which he should feel convinced to be a part of America. Failing this, he was to keep along the line of this coast to the northward, examining every bend or inlet which should appear likely to afford a practicable ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... was at Lovaina's," I interposed. "He was at the bar all the time, quoting Pope and Dryden and himself. He said he was going around the globe on a wager of a fortune. He was a poisonous bore, and always popped up for a drink. By the way, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... an extemporaneous production, on a wager with Mr. Hamilton, that I would not produce a poem on the subject in ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... chicken—heart, I'll wager a thimbleful of grog, that such a tailor as you are in the water can't for the life of you swim ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... auditor's work. Besides, a delicate and confidential mission for an official. Wake up! you've struck a higher rung on the ladder, and I'll wager ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... wants to overpower his voice with her own, raises it to a yell. It was as if they had a wager which could bring on the other a lung disease or a stroke of apoplexy. It is doubtful who will win; but Brazovics always stops his ears with wool, and Frau Sophie invariably has a ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... no steps in the matter, and it is unlikely in the extreme that we shall ever know who did it. I shall pay you all winning money, for that you did not win was no fault of yours. One thing I will wager, though I am not a betting man, and that is, that the next time we meet the Phantom we shall beat her, by as much as we should have done ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... he cried, "a naval code, evidently the very one they used to communicate with those boats. I'll wager the Washington people even haven't a copy of it. That's a great find. Come on, we've got ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... (Life, p. 440) says that 'Reynolds and some other of his friends, who were more concerned for his reputation than himself seemed to be, contrived to entangle him by a wager, or some other pecuniary engagement, to perform his task by a certain time.' Just as Johnson was oppressed by the engagement that he had made to edit Shakespeare, so was Cowper by his engagement to edit Milton. 'The consciousness that there is so much ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... die at her feet: but this,' said he, 'Philander thought an indignity to his good parts, and told me, he believed he was the only man happy in her favour, and that could be so: on this I ventured a wager, at which he coloured extremely, and the company laughed, which incensed him more; the Prince urged the wager, which was a pair of Spanish horses, the best in the Court, on my side, against a discretion on his: this odds offered by me incensed him ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... spaces of the air, as dust in the splendor of a summer day. It broke upon the hills in a shower of flame and dissolved above the still waters of the lake in tremulous flakes of light. The sight was worth going far to see, and yet I am willing to wager my to-morrow's dinner that not one-fiftieth of the folks for whom I write, saw it, or would have left their supper to ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... substitution. And if you see such a doll, though held quite close to you, being made by a Japanese mother to reach out his hands, to move its little bare feet, and to turn its head, you would be almost afraid to venture a heavy wager that it was only a doll. Even after having closely examined the thing, you would still, I fancy, feel a little nervous at being left alone with it, so perfect the delusion ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... incidentally being of service to you. And you're bound to admit that that's a fair offer in this world of greed and selfishness. The great trouble with most of us is that the flavor so soon wears out of the chewing-gum. Do you remember the last time you had a good, hearty laugh? I'll wager you don't!" ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... once a consul at ——, who indicated his office-hours by the legend on his door, 'In from ten to one.' An old ship-captain, who kept coming for about a week without finding the Consul, at last furiously wrote, in the terms of wager, under this legend, 'Ten to one ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... presumptive evidence, collateral evidence, constructive evidence; proof &c. (demonstration) 478; evidence in chief. secondary evidence; confirmation, corroboration, support; ratification &c. (assent) 488; authentication; compurgation[obs3], wager of law, comprobation|. citation, reference; legal research, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... moment a shade of perplexity passed over the brow of the British captain; then he recollected the wager of a year or two before, and all was clear again. Unfortunately, the veracious chronicler who has handed this anecdote down to modern times has failed to state whether the debt ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... must confess, I was to blame," said his brother. "They did clear out of the yard in a strange fashion, certainly, and I might have questioned a little closer. But never mind, 'tis all straight road. I would lay any wager they will ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nothing that I want for myself I'll bid it up as high against them as I can. For, of course, they've pooled their funds for whatever they want to get. They can't put in more than a quarter apiece, so a dollar and a half is all I have to beat. I'll wager they already suspect that I'm here just to make things come higher for them. I hope they ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... Oh, come now, sweetheart, I could wager he didn't see, and suppose he did? We've nothing to conceal. I'm for telling ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... the same typical inconsequence, the same freedom from the pedantry of logic. Eliza Doolittle's ambition is to become fitted for the functions of a young lady in a florist's shop. Henry Higgins, professor of phonetics, undertakes for a wager to teach her the manners and diction of a duchess—a smaller achievement, of course, in Mr. SHAW'S eyes, but still a step in the right direction. And he is better than his word. After six months she has acquired a mincing speech, from which she is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... we read: "What is this world? A wager between Christ and the Demon. Thousands of years ago he challenged God, and when the great game began, they played with great loose rocks from the hills, at quoits, and if any one is unwilling to believe this, let him go to Mount Leberon ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... arm, partly on the end of the settle, one small, bare foot pressing the ground, the other, with the part of the person which is supposed to require stockings, extended in a horizontal direction,—reclined, not Huldy, but her Southern cousin, who, I will wager, was decidedly the prettier and dirtier of the two. Our entrance did not seem to disconcert her in the least, for she lay there as unmoved as a marble statue, her large black eyes riveted on my face ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... What would Hester say on hearing that I had gone to America? It would be very grand to write her from New York that I had been suddenly called abroad on important business. Would she care? Of course she would care, and I was willing to wager a sixpence with myself that she would cry bitterly, too, on receiving the letter. Ah, what a punishment that would be ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... 'that you never have a confederate or partner in YOUR juggling; you would deceive everybody, even those who practise the same art; and have a way with you, as if you—he, he, he!—as if you really believed yourself. I'd lay a handsome wager now,' said the old man, 'if I laid wagers, which I don't and never did, that you keep up appearances by a tacit understanding, even before your own daughters here. Now I, when I have a business scheme in hand, tell ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... gift of realising literature, not much less than the effect of actually taking part in one, with no danger of headache or indigestion after, and without the risk of being playfully corked, or required to leap the table for a wager, or forced to extemporise sixteen stanzas standing on the mantelpiece. There must be some peculiar virtue in this, for, as is very well known, the usual dialogue leaves the reader more outside of it than almost ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... till the sweat came out on his forehead and the blood that had flushed his face ran back and left him pale with dread. And at last there remained only one gold piece. He hesitated, holding it poised for the wager, while the owner of the game rattled the dice loudly and looked up at ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... men stay in. He whom we speak of advanced with hurried strides. He was strangely dressed for walking at such an hour. He wore a coat of embroidered silk, a sword by his side, a hat with white plumes, and no cloak. The watchmen, as they saw him pass, said, "It is a lord walking for a wager," and they moved out of his way with the respect due to a lord and to ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... to man first-along in the shape o' duties—like church-goin'. Look here, Cap'n, I'll lay a wager with 'ee. . . . Soon as you begin to walk about this town a bit, you'll notice a terrible lot o' ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... day of the intervening week but sundry small cockle-shells—things the ladies had already begun to designate as the "wager-boats," each containing a gentleman occupant, exercising his arms on a pair of sculls—might be seen any hour passing and repassing on the water; and the green slopes of Hartledon, which here formed the bank of the river, grew to be tenanted with fair occupants. Of course they ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... wager you You could not tell me why you like it. Well? You see how true I know you! How you stare! What see you in my face to ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... whatever task his beloved Boss saw fit to set him next. He wanted to be ready to meet every device that Wessner and Black Jack could think of to outwit him. He recognized their double leverage, for if they succeeded in felling even one tree McLean became liable for his wager. ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... her the round trip to Hong-Kong, to break off some love-affair at home, I believe. But if she's as canny as she's bonny, I'll wager she'll outwit him before ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... something stronger) Sir Walter! You are a witty man; but I will wager that you cannot tell me the weight of the smoke ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... of seeing him here!" exclaimed the worthy Primate. "The same gay dog as ever! What can he have been doing at Roumelia? Affairs of state, indeed! I'll wager my new Epiphany scarf, that, whatever the affairs are, there is a ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... "Thou wager'st thine honour Unless we do battle; Before the cock croweth, Thy head on a spit! Cuchulain of Cualnge, Mad frenzy hath seized thee All ill we'll wreak on thee, ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... doors; he is fixed, he is dumb with astonishment and delight—he goes mad. Well, Lieber Herr, this is exactly what happened to one of your English nobility. Milor arrived in Vienna; and as he had made a wager that he would see every notability in the city and its environs in the course of three days, which was all the time he could spare, he hired a fiaker at the Tabor-Linie, and drove as fast as the police would let him from church to theatre; from museum to wine-cellar; till chance and the ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... should all prove a jest, a piece of mummery got up by Vankarp, or some such worthy! I wish you had run all risks, and cudgelled the old burgomaster, stadholder, or whatever else he may be, soundly. I would wager a dozen of Rhenish, his worship would have pleaded old acquaintance before the ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... because of my boyish freaks that I knew the easiest way to reach the summit of the rock. One day I had laid a wager with Wilfred that I could climb to its summit, and so I had carefully examined it when the tide was low, and after once climbing it, I had often gone thither to hunt for the nests ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... on us feels like this—as it wouldn't be English to let a lot o' lubbers o' niggers, who arn't got half a trouser to a whole hunderd on 'em, lick us out of the place. 'Sides, we arn't half seen the island yet, and 'bout ten on us has got a sort o' wager on as to who shall get up atop o' the mountain first and ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... "making a market," and it had the expected effect on that bright May morning which followed the closing day of the Amalgamated flotation. I was not offered a share; in fact, there was a loud guffaw, and it was a hundred to one wager that as I passed on to another group each listener tumbled over his neighbor to get in first. "110! That's a good joke! I wonder if he takes us for children! Evidently he is out early this morning to catch any stray worms napping! 110 for ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... men will torment us, we must be able to pay them back." She took Blanka's arm and returned with her to the other room. "Woe to him who invades my kingdom!" she continued. "He is bound to lose his reason. Do you wish to wager that I can't drive all Rome crazy over me? If I took a notion to dance the 'Gitana' on the opera-house stage for the benefit of the wounded soldiers, all Rome would go wild with enthusiasm, and the people would half ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... said he, with a bow and a wave of the hand, 'was unfortunate enough to lose a wager made between us. The terms of the bet were that the loser was to buy a new hat for one of the dining-room girls at our hotel. As we are leaving town to-morrow, we have just dropped in to see if you ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... artist had been carried off to the country to lunch with his friend Jan Six, and as they sat down at the table, Six discovered there was no mustard. He sent his boy, Hans, for it, and as the boy went out, Rembrandt wagered that he could make an etching before the boy got back. Six took the wager, and the artist pulled a copper plate from his pocket—he always carried one—and on its waxed surface began to etch the landscape before him. Just as Hans returned, Rembrandt gleefully ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... might expect, but passable. And—I know men. There's not a man will look at their gowns for looking at their faces, though the suits are well enough when all's said. I vow, Madam, you have so long lived beside the two that you forget what beauties they are. I wager my next benefit to a China orange that you'll have no more care once they are seen, but all the women mad with jealousy and the men with love. Indeed, your young madams are what one reads of in romances, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... her course, southwest by west; and still the mystery of her destination remained unsolved. Little was hopeful, while Ibbotson was despondent. Mr. Fluxion planked the quarter-deck as industriously as though he were walking on a wager, or had the dyspepsia, which could only be cured by plenty ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... Kennedy to him afterwards. "I was annoyed when Bonteen offered the wager. I felt sure, however, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... with some warmth, asked the reason of this attack, the squire replied in these words: "The devil, God bless us! mun be playing his pranks with Gilbert too, as sure as I'm a living soul—I'se wager a teaster, the foul fiend has left the seaman, and got into Gilbert, that he has—when a has passed through an ass and a horse, I'se marvel what beast a will get into next." "Probably into a mule," said the knight; "in that case, you will be in some danger—but I can, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Gorges died, she left the house and grounds to her daughter by will, and the Stanleys lived there until 1691, when the last male descendant died. At this time the present house was built. The Arundels occupied it first, and after them Admiral Sir Charles Wager, and then the Countess of Strathmore. It was purchased from her by a Mr. Lochee, who kept a military academy here. Among the later residents were Sir William Hamilton, who built a large hall to contain the original casts of the Elgin Marbles. These casts ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... both swore very hard on this occasion, it is impossible to decide which (if either) was telling the truth. The decision finally arrived at was that both the accusers should settle their quarrel by wager of battle, for which purpose they were commanded to meet at Coventry ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... Ned! Glad to see you both! Busy, as usual, I'll wager. Bless my check book! I never saw you when you weren't busy at some scheme or other, Tom, my boy. But I won't take up much of your time. Tom Swift, let me introduce my friend, Mr. Dixwell Hardley. Mr. Hardley, shake hands with Tom Swift, ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... Westaby Jones, to consult in a matter of business. Mr. Westaby Jones is a member of the Stock Exchange and, amongst other trivial failings, he possesses one which is not altogether unknown in his profession. He cannot resist a small wager. On several occasions he has gambled with me and shown himself to be a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... voiced in a key of feigned mirth, Sandy said with simple dignity that it was going to be a darned good sweater for the boys in the trenches. Mr. Devine offered to bet his head that it wasn't going to be anything at all—at least nothing any one would want round a trench. Mr. Sawtelle ignored the wager and asked me if I knew how to do this here, now, casting off. I ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... host who begged them to be still, Nor injure his good name, "Max, no offence," They blurted, "you may leave now if you will." "One moment, Max," said Franz. "We've gone too far. I ask your pardon for our foolish joke. It started in a wager ere you came. The talk somehow had fall'n on drugs, a jar I brought from China, herbs the natives smoke, Was with me, and I thought merely to ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... to you; things seem to look really hopeful. I have arranged with Bull and Macwitty that on the evening before the attack is likely to take place we will watch all night at this end of the bridge. The bishop won't leave until the last thing, but I would wager any money he will do so that night. He won't go farther than Villa Nova, so as to be ready to cross again at once if the news comes that the French have been beaten off. No doubt he will make the excuse that as an ecclesiastic he could take no active part ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... place. Your jewels, (heart-jewels I suppose you call 'em,) seem to me like diamonds on the bosom of a calicoed and untidy chambermaid. That sentimental chapter with 'The Dead Hope' caption, is quite as good as your blank verse, and I would wager a copy of Griswold's 'Poets of America,' against a doubtful three-cent piece, that you wrote it in rhyme—it's not very difficult, you know, to turn your poetry into prose. You needn't stare. In a word, your book is as tame as a sick kitten—I hate kittens: ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... smacks with a stiff norther after us, to studying our catechism or making Hebrew letters. We were both expert and fearless swimmers, with good wind and strong limbs. In after years I remember well a wager which I lost at Honolulu to remain under water as long as a famous Kanacka diver: I rose just four seconds before him. When I was thirteen I could cast a line, manage a spritsail, pull an oar or handle a tiller as well as any boy on the north ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... been enow," spoke a voice nigh at hand, though the speaker was invisible owing to the thick growth of bushes. "If that sound were caused by aught but a rabbit or wildcat, I wager the hardy traveller has taken to his heels and fled. But I misdoubt me that it was anything human. There be sounds and to spare in the forest at night. It is long since I have been troubled by visitors to this lone spot. The pixies and I have the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... penal code, there was slavery, there were barbarous forest laws, there were ruthless oppression and insolent robbery of the poor, there were black ignorance and a terror of superstition, there were murderous laws against witchcraft, there was savage persecution of the Jews, there were "trial by wager of battle," and ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... brushing the dirt from his clothes, "I am sorry they did not let us have the wrestle out—though you are a quick hitter, my lord, and powerful strong in the arms. I wager you showed James more stars ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... brother, laughed at him in society; he unceasingly outraged by his clumsiness his sister's sense of discretion. One day, in a gaming-house, seeing the table covered with gold, the Marshal exclaimed at the door: "I will wager that D'Aubigne is here, and makes all this display; it is a ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... who did not wager all the cash he had or could by any means get. There was not an officer who was not dragged in by the growing power of the craze. And daily, parties of Indians came to the Fort to put up cash, or peer around to get ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... pushing in his cup for more tea. "He wasn't always like that. Sure, when I first know'd Bunco he was scarlet—pure scarlet, only he took a fancy one day, when he was in a wild mood, to run his canoe over the falls of Niagara for a wager, an', faix, when he came up out o' the wather after it he was turned brown, an's bin that same ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... fuel. It is easily cut and split, is lighter to tote than most other woods, and is of so dry a nature that even the green wood catches fire readily. It burns with clear flame, and lasts longer than any other free-burning wood of its weight. On a wager, I have built a bully fire from a green tree of white ash, one match, and no dry kindling. I split some of the wood very fine and 'frilled' a few of the little sticks with ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... joking Stallings about the speed of Flood's brown, even going so far as to intimate that he didn't believe that the gelding could outrun that old bay harness mare which he was driving. He had confessed that he was too hard up to wager much on it, but he would risk a few dollars on his judgment on a running horse any day. He also said that Stallings had come back at him, more in earnest than in jest, that if he really thought his harness ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... over, some day. Well—well, maybe I'll see you again before I get out of town. I'm kind of planning to stick around here for a day or two. I'll talk over the suggestion with Mrs. Appleby. Me, I could probably call off my wager; but she is really the one that you'd have to convince. She's crazy for us to hike out and tramp clear down into Mexico and Central America. Doesn't mind bandits and revolutions no more than you and I would ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... not disputed that Kurzbold accepted the money from Roland last night, spent it to-day, and now comes penniless amongst us, quite unable to refund the amount when his unjust remarks produce their natural effect. He is like a man who makes a wager knowing he hasn't the money to pay should he lose. If Roland retires from this guild, I retire also, ashamed to keep company with men who uphold a trick ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... started. She was radiant—shaking hands with everybody— waving her handkerchief from the deck—distributing bows and smiles like an empress. If ever a woman got what she wanted just in the nick of time that woman did. She'll be Lady Trevenna within a week, I'll wager." ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... replied the time-honored beauty; "she tried to profit by it. But husband, here, has offered her a wager of a bonnet against a hat that the rector will upset her new schemes. Her idea now is to make work for those whom ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... said, "it was rather dark and we were so mixed up on the ground that I couldn't see, but I would be willing to wager a whole lot that it wasn't a German who gave me this crack over the eye. ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... toward morning—one or two o'clock. One man boasted that it did not make any difference what time he went home, his wife cheerfully opened the door, and provided an entertainment if he was hungry when he got home. So they laid a wager. They said: "Now, we'll go along with you. So much shall be wagered. We'll bet so much that when you go home and make such a demand she will resist it." So they went along at two or three o'clock in the morning and knocked at the door. The door opened, and the man said to his wife, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... it; don't let me keep you from it. Some charmer, I'll wager. Here I pour all my adventures into your ear, and I on my side never so much as get a hint of yours. Go ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... duchess's maids of honour, and a hundred others, bestow their favours to the right and to the left, and not the least notice is taken of their conduct. As for Lady Shrewsbury, she is conspicuous. I would take a wager she might have a man killed for her every day, find she would only hold her head the higher for it: one would suppose she imported from Rome plenary indulgences for her conduct: there are three or four gentlemen who wear an ounce of her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... him a relict, and including his mother, Cousin Martha, he now has either seven or nine female charges, depending on the sex of Sallie Carruthers's twin babies, which I can't exactly remember, but will wager is feminine. ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... taken from men's running for a wager. A very apt similitude to set before the eyes of the saints of the Lord. "Know you not that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain." That is, 'Do ...
— The Heavenly Footman • John Bunyan
... let her alone," interposed Captain Yorke. "'Tain't no case for the law, 'sposin' her folks don't like it; an' I'll wager they do." ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews |
