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Cue   /kju/   Listen
Cue

verb
(past & past part. cued; pres. part. cueing)
1.
Assist (somebody acting or reciting) by suggesting the next words of something forgotten or imperfectly learned.  Synonyms: prompt, remind.



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"Cue" Quotes from Famous Books



... egg rolling, as it were, spontaneously over the ground? And not only one egg; for, as they continued to gaze a while, the whole lot, as if taking their cue from it, commenced imitating the movement, some with a gentle, others a more violent motion! Murtagh sprang back affrighted, and stood with his red hair on end, gazing at the odd and inexplicable phenomenon. ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... These words are the cue for those who are to represent the Violets to prepare to enter from different points on the right, and to make a soft, stirring sound before they come into view, ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher

... the danger to respectable persons of meddling with stolen property gave Mr. Bamber his cue. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... you walking with me in the Park last week and has been to my studio a half-dozen times begging me to take you to see him. Please, Mary dear, do this for my sake. I owe Gordon a debt I can never pay. He gave me the cue to the work that set me on my feet. He was big and generous and helpful when I needed a friend. He asked nothing in return but the privilege of helping me again if I ever needed it. You can do me an ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon

... wondered in my soul how many broken hearts were covered by those lace and velvet garments, and those smiling, superficial faces. The thought absorbed me so that I forgot everything and the prompter thought I'd forgotten my part entirely and gave me my cue." ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder

... words that were conceived hours or weeks before and hence are like champagne that has lost its fizz. The reading preacher's eyes are tied down to his manuscript; he cannot give the audience the benefit of his expression. How long would a play fill a theater if the actors held their cue-books in hand and read their parts? Imagine Patrick Henry reading his famous speech; Peter-the-Hermit, manuscript in hand, exhorting the crusaders; Napoleon, constantly looking at his papers, addressing the army at the Pyramids; or Jesus reading the Sermon ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... why we know him better than you do," protested Hiram, taking further cue from the glowering gaze of Cap'n Sproul. "You put him out there with the tape, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... Taking his cue from these words Noy, still ignorant of the truth, made answer: "Iss, I'll measure en all right. ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... at one another quite aghast, and then, taking their cue from Harry, started off full speed towards home, forgetting everything but the idea of getting back in time ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... Sogrange," the latter remarked, as he chalked his cue. "He has been a great friend of the governor's—he and his father before him. Our families have intermarried once ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... up his ears, the first indication of scent or sound imperceptible to the men. But with this cue they all, except Wilson, sat up attentively. Soon the crack of iron-shod hoofs on stone broke the silence. Riggs nervously rose to his feet. And the others, still excepting Wilson, one by one followed ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... while Graydon impatiently chalked his cue and waited for him to play was brief and ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... meal went off very well. Molly was absolutely silent; Nora, taking her cue from her, hardly spoke; and Linda, Terence, and Mrs. Hartrick had it all their own way. But just as dessert was placed on the table, Mr. Hartrick looked at Nora and motioned to her to change seats and to come to one ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... it left the men nothing to say. They fell in surlily on either side of her, and without any show of resistance she walked calmly back toward the house. Pudge lingered, uncertain of his cue. ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... looking now in its true setting against the wintry sky, Thomas Sylvester became acutely conscious of the return of a familiar sensation. It was, in fact, precisely the sensation which one Roger Merton had enjoyed when waiting for his cue to step from dim obscurity into the flare of the footlights on the first night of a new drama. Would his old acquaintances accept Mr. Hobhouse without question as an entire stranger? If he spied so much as one suspicious questioning glance, ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... the Freethinker as published at Northampton, clearly proves that he had never seen it; and his unctuous allusions to "public morals" and "decent members of society" are further evidence in the same direction. The Freethinker was accused of blasphemy, but until Sir William Harcourt gave the cue not even its worst enemies charged it with indecency. In a later stage of my narrative I shall have to show that the "Liberal" Home Secretary has acted the part of an unscrupulous bigot, utterly regardless of truth, ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... unexpected, monsieur," she said; "but it is a moment for quick decision, I suppose. What is the cue? To be desperate?" here she laughed softly, "or to take a chair? Monsieur has called to see his Grace. I regret exceedingly that a pressing business has called my husband to the town, and he is unlikely to be back for another hour at least. If monsieur—assuming desperation ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... overestimation of the outer enjoyments, and cultivate the appreciation of the lasting values, and our time of unrest will come to inner harmony. But do not believe that this can ever be done, if those who are called to be the leaders of the social group are not models and do not by their own lives give the cue for this new attitude and new valuation. As long as they outdo one another in the wild chase of frivolity and seek in the industrial work of the nation only a stronghold for their rights and not a fountain spring ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... father when he came home, and she hoped to warm him a little by the surprise of her arrival. But it was his cue to be deeply offended ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... glanced towards Mr Jonas, he found Mr Jonas glancing at him, which was a new source of embarrassment. It was but a short-lived one, though, for Mr Jonas soon began to whistle, whereupon Mr Pecksniff, taking his cue from his friend, began to hum a ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... by the Reviewer, let it be noticed, is, that the idea of Cotton Mather's taking a leading part in the witchcraft prosecutions of 1692, "originated" with me, in a work printed in 1831; and that I have given "the cue" to all subsequent writers on the subject. Now ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... originally by the parts. All philosophers, accordingly, have conceived of the whole world after the analogy of some particular feature of it which has particularly captivated their attention. Thus, the theists take their cue from manufacture, the pantheists from growth. For one man, the world is like a thought or a grammatical sentence in which a thought is expressed. For such a philosopher, the whole must logically be prior to the parts; for letters would ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James

... flock of pigeons shining in the sun. The gilded breast-plate rose and fell with the quick beating of her heart, the spear shook with the trembling of her hand, her lips were dry, her head dizzy, and more than once, as she waited for her cue, she was sorely tempted to run away ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... a lesson when the game is over," I remarked to my opponent; and, in effect, I had soon put away my cue, and, cornering the porker, fastened a piece of cord to his hind trotter. A large empty biscuit-tin and a bunch of Chinese crackers did the rest—the tin being secured to the other end of the line and the crackers ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... Dominick," said the other. "But when you took the men's part and laid down the law to him on the grub question you gave them their cue for general rebellion. Ten chances to one the padrone has done as he agreed. I reckon you scared him enough for that. Now they're probably around with knives looking for napkins and sparkling red wine. I tell you, ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day

... company," grinned Larry the Bat. "Youse keeps yer yap closed till youse gets de cue—savvy? Dat's all! If youse play fair, mabbe youse'll get a look-in on de rake-off; if youse throws me down, the first shot I fires won't miss youse. Go on now, get down ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... she was in hiding behind a piece of scenery, eagerly awaiting the cue for her own entrance; yet she was as keenly intent upon each detail of the acting taking place upon the stage as if tonight it were a ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook

... students in an effort to keep faith with their pioneer mycologist, have taken cue from the specific name, looking for something black, heedless that in Pennsylvania almost any delicate thing has 'dark looks' in the middle of the winter! Berlese in Saccardo Syll. VII., p. 350, regarding P. atrum as a synonym, writes for the black American specimens, P. reticulatum, ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride

... Colonel Nairne's garden and grotto. Here was a fine old plane tree. Unluckily the colonel said, there was but this and another large tree in the county. This assertion was an excellent cue for Dr. Johnson, who laughed enormously, calling to me to hear it. He had expatiated to me on the nakedness of that part of Scotland which he had seen. His Journey has been violently abused, for what he has said upon this subject. But let it be considered, that, when Dr. Johnson ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... stationed in the thicket who was directing the actions of the savages. It appeared to me that, as they fastened our arms behind us, their eyeballs rolled ever toward a certain myrtle-bush, as if they were waiting for a cue. ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock

... feeling, when he came to a consciousness that the men were laughing at him and not with him, that wrecked his life. He had gone from beer to whiskey, and from whiskey to brandy, by this time, at the suggestion of the men, and was making awkward lunges with a billiard cue, spurred on by the mocking applause of the others. One young fellow was particularly hilarious at his expense. His jokes became insults, or so they ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie

... trembled; the smile of placidity which it was a point of honor to preserve became a fixed grin. Several other young braves had come into the yard, and were idly tossing the lance at the great chungke-pole—as a billiardist of the civilized life of that day might pocket the balls with a purposeless cue after a match. Wyejah, too, had cast his lance aslant; then he idly hurled the chungke-stone with a muscular fling along the spaces of the white sand. His nerve was shaken, his aim amiss, his great strength deflected. The heavy discoidal quartz stone skimmed through the air above the stretch ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... incredulously. "You have a second advantage of me. You know my name"—I paused suggestively and she took the cue. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... cue from the paymaster any evening after mess, and you'll make no mistake—very florid about the cheeks; rather a lazy look in one eye, the other closed up entirely; snore a little from time to time, and don't be too much disposed ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... others are not up to the mark of THE BOTTLE IMP; but they each have a certain merit, and they fit in style. By saying 'a cue from an old melodrama' after the B. I., you can get rid of my note. If this is in time, it will be splendid, and ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... askance at the editor, as a prompter watches the actor to see if he is ready to take his cue. ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... wit appears In this mixed record of five hectic years, This tale of heroes, heroines—and others— Thank first "O. S." and then his band of brothers Who took their cue, with pencil and with pen, From the gay courage of our fighting men. Theirs be the praise, not his, who here supplies Merely the editorial hooks and eyes And, rich by proxy, prodigally spends The largess of ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... and Tom Cue, there were not then many employed, and really we used to have rather an enjoyable time than otherwise. Working regular hours, eight hours on and sixteen off, sometimes on the surface, sometimes below, with hammer ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... Dauntreys' she continued to lose at the Casino, often large sums, occasionally picking up a little, as if luck hovered near, awaiting its cue to return, only to be frightened away again. But after a few days' time, in which more than two hundred thousand francs slipped through her fingers, Lady Dauntrey suggested that Miss Grant should "rest" for a while, meantime letting Dauntrey play his system for her benefit ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... lift one. He was glad to be able to report that he had learned a few important facts in regard to Madame Duclos, but he equally hated to admit that for all his haste in following up the clue given him, he knew as little as ever of her present whereabouts; and hated even worse to have to give the cue which would lead to a surveillance, however secret, over a house which held a child of so sensitive and tremulous a nature as that of the little friend who had picked up his stick ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... remembered distinctly that, on several occasions, a handsome woman, answering to the description of Mrs. Wilmott, had wagered five or ten louis on Martinez and had shown a decided admiration for his remarkable skill with the cue. ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... just where he wants it. An Irish youngster named Malooney, a college chum of Dick's, was staying with us; and the afternoon being wet, the Captain said he would explain it to Malooney, how a young man might practise billiards without any danger of cutting the cloth. He taught him how to hold the cue, and he told him how to make a bridge. Malooney was grateful, and worked for about an hour. He did not show much promise. He is a powerfully built young man, and he didn't seem able to get it into his head that he wasn't playing cricket. Whenever he hit a ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... slang, which offers the line of least resistance to the Cosmic Law, we find that the cue has been given over and over again to those who are interiorly awake to receive it. "You are not in on this," has been said to one who was left out of some supposedly desirable thing; or "you are not in it," meaning ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... Taking the cue from Bigot, Le Gardeur responded madly to the challenges to drink from all around him. Wine was now flooding every brain, and the table was one scene of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... wantonly or openly unkind to his ward, and ungenerous persecution was utterly incompatible with the temper and habits of his lady wife, but between them they had contrived to make the girl's life very miserable. It was Winston's cue—adopted, let us hope, from the strict sense of duty he avowed had ever actuated him in his treatment of the charge bequeathed him by his father—to deport himself with calm, seldom-relaxed severity ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... till our first conversation was over—ashamed, I suppose, to be present at that part of it which was to restore her to her virgin state by my confession, after her wifehood had been reported to her uncle. But she took her cue, nevertheless, and listened ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... three pauses in his acting—the first, moderate; the second, twice as long; but his last, or "grand pause," as he styled it, was so long, that the prompter, on one occasion, thinking his memory failed, repeated the cue (as it is technically called) several times, and at last so loud as to be heard by the audience. At length Macklin rushed from the stage, and knocked him down, exclaiming, "The fellow interrupted me ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... time a lit-up cue ball talks to me, I refer the matter to higher authority. I decided on the spot that I was heading for the precinct house, no matter what ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl

... adventurer? This problem was long unsolved. The diplomatic salons, faithful to instructions, imitated the silence of the Emperor Nicholas, who held that all Polish exiles were virtually dead and buried. The court of the Tuileries, and all who took their cue from it, gave striking proof of the political quality which was then dignified by the name of sagacity. They turned their backs on a Russian prince with whom they had all been on intimate terms during the Emigration, merely because it was said that the Emperor Nicholas gave him ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac

... his estimation of Mr. Marston's importance did not deter him from going that night with three of his fellow-waiters to sing for that gentleman. Two of the quartet insisted upon singing fine music, in order to show their capabilities, but Silas had received his cue, and held out for the old songs. Silas Jackson's tenor voice rang out in the old plantation melodies with the force and feeling that old memories give. The concert was a great success, and when Marston pressed ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... before, they broiled each what he wished, and, carefully cleaning the others, Ben packed them with his kit. Then, stolid as an Indian, he cleared a spot of earth, and wrapping himself in his blanket lay down full in the sunshine, smoking his pipe impassively. Taking the cue, Tom Blair likewise curled up like a ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... cue pragmatism gets her general notion of truth as something essentially bound up with the way in which one moment in our experience may lead us towards other moments which it will be worth while to have been led to. Primarily, and on the common-sense level, the truth of a state of ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... leave his old friend. Doctor Mary's Paying Guest was of the house-party, not merely a dinner guest. She was asked over to spend three days and went, accompanied by Jeanne, who by this time was crying much less; crying was no longer the cue; her mistress, and not merely stern Doctor Mary, had plainly shown her that. Gertie Naylor had invited Cynthia to help her in entertaining the subalterns, though Gertie was really quite equal to that task herself; ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony

... shuffled an old, half-witted hag, with thin gray hair and pendulous lower lip. Her dress was patched and colorless. Her back was bent with age and rheumatism. Her feet were incased in a pair of man's brogans. She stared and snickered, and several children, taking the cue, giggled, but the men, save Tamarack himself, wore troubled faces, as though recognizing that their future chieftain had been discovered in some secret shame. They were looking on ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck

... then answered, "I've always wanted to play a vieux grognard du premier empire—un grenadier a grandes moustaches."... A grumpy grenadier of Napoleon's army—a grenadier with sweeping moustaches—with this cue the dramatist set to work and gradually imagined the character of Flambeau. He soon saw that if the great Napoleon were to appear in the play he would dominate the action and steal the centre of the stage from the soldier-hero. He therefore decided ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... to Max's taste, and, after Grant had been summoned to help light the lamps, Kenneth shut the door, chuckling to himself about the big beating he was going to give the Londoner, who, instead of taking a cue, was gazing round the handsome billiard-room at the crossed claymores, targes, and heads of red deer, whose antlers formed rests for spears and specimens of weapons from ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... knew out of his own heart; she had got into him somehow, so that he had no need to watch for his cue. ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... so concerned about snatching a little while at morning or evening, or at midday for that matter. Champagne was flowing like a river when Rouletabille was brought in by Matrena Petrovna. The general, whose eyes had been on the door for some time, cried at once, as though responding to a cue: ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux

... thought it would do no harm to study the dictionary a little, and taking her cue from what the little girls said, she remained in between sessions and began with "aperse," committing to memory as well as she could those words that looked to be "puzzlers." Before the day of the spelling-bee she believed that, ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson

... troop, bought them, though they were a part of the uniform prescribed in the books. Two officers who came to the regiment from the Second Michigan cavalry, and who had had over a year's experience in the field, gave the cue that feathers were not a necessary part of the equipment for real service and ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... was uneasy, but in spite of her efforts a queer, upsetting restlessness invaded her. Everything was all right, she knew it, but she seemed to be dodging a shadow that fell thinly across the brightness. That evening she played badly, missed a cue and had no snap. She realized it, saw it in the faces of her fellows, and knew she must do better or there ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... Kollander bawled: "He's an anarchist—a socialist!" Grant looked at the deaf old man in his blue coat and brass buttons adorned with many little flags, to advertise his patriotism. Taking a cue from John Kollander, Grant cried: "I am moving with the current of Heavenly love, I am a part of that love that is washing into this planet from the infinite source of life beyond our ken. I am moved, I know not how. I am inspired to act, I know not whence. I go I know not where—only ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... obsarved. The way they're born, that way they'll stay. Now look at them oxen! When they was young steers, hardly more'n calves, I began to train them critturs. An' from the very fust go-off they tuk their cue an' stuck to it. Star, thar, would lay out, and shake his head, an' pull for all he was wuth, as if there was nothin' in the world to do but pull; and Bright, he'd wait till Star was drawin' good an' solid, an' then he'd as much ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... Jeff. "I give you leave, but, mind you, I trust your discretion, too. You never can tell what these Willie-boys will do. Dignity's your cue. Be stern as an avenging fate, but don't get to cuffing him round and batting him with language just because ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... life; where Juliet's nurse interrupts the lovers leaning over the balcony of the Capulets, where princesses have no confidants, diminished reproductions of their own selves, invented to give them their cue; where sentiments are examined closely, with an attentive mind, friendly to experimental psychology; and where, nevertheless, far from holding always to subtile dissertations, all that is material fact is clearly exposed to view, in a good light, and not merely talked about. The vital parts ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... two hurried up the stairs just as the hall-door closed. The billiard-room was situated at the head of the front stairs. Warrington won the bank, and he ran a score of ten. While he was chalking his cue ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... so perish, the Zionists are not only furnishing the vision; but with back and arm, they are working to rebuild the Wall where men have wailed the centuries by. To the captious, the hostile, and the persistently heedless, their cue is to say with Nehemiah of old: "I am doing a great work, so that ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... an hour! Another smile? If you would sit thus by me every night I should work better, do you comprehend? I mean that I should earn more, give you more. See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 210 Come from the window, Love,—come in, at last, Inside the melancholy little house We built to be so gay with. God is just. King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, The walls become illumined, brick from brick ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... evening prayer-meeting, helped take up the collection, and was a constant recruiting force. Tilton was a reporter, and later an editorial writer on different New York and Brooklyn dailies. Beecher's Sunday sermon supplied Tilton the cue for his next day's leader. And be it said to his honor, he usually gave due credit, and in various ways helped the cause of Plymouth Church by booming the reputation ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... years—Annie was so at home in her new kitchen; the deft little maid, in her crisp white, fitted so perfectly into the picture. Perhaps the thing that T. A. Buck said, once the maid left them alone, might have given an outsider the cue. ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... a pat on the head haven't you got one for me? I need it enough, for if ever there was a poor devil born under an evil star, it is C. C. Campbell," exclaimed Charlie, leaning his chin on his cue with a discontented expression of countenance, for trying to be good is often very hard work till one gets ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... a library chair. The criminologist quietly awaited his cue. He lit a cigarette and the minutes drifted past with no word between them. The doctor's gaze lowered to the vellum-bound books on the carven table, then to the gorgeous pattern of the Kermansha at his feet. Once more he studied the ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... exuberant health and spirits, and more resolute unscrupulosity, had so carried the heart of the other by storm that it was Vanessa, the provincial termagant, who looked up to and worshipped her sister dare-devil of the Metropolis, and who watched her for her every cue. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... as boisterous as the boys proposed to make it. They had their frolic, to be sure, as Sid Parmalee or Tip Watson will tell you, but an incident occurred which took the edge off their enjoyment, and gave them the cue of soberness. ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... them, because they will not lose Their worldly wealth: or else we have one subtle practice more; That is, that Sensual Suggestion their outward man shall pose, Who can full finely in each cause his mind to them disclose. But if that neither of these twain can to my train them win,[35] Then at his cue to play his part doth Tyranny begin. As for the poor knaves, such a one as this is, We do not esteem him, but make short ado. If he will not come on, we do him not miss, But to the pot he is sure to go: ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... third letter of the Drapier. The report was published in the "London Journal" about the middle of August of 1724. Neither the "Gazette" nor any other ministerial organ printed it, which evidently gave Swift his cue to attack it in the merciless manner he did. Monck Mason thought it "not improbable that the minister [Walpole] adopted this method of communication, because it served his own purpose; he dared not to stake his credit upon such a document, which, in its published form, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... considered to be my cue, and three steps brought me within the room, and within as many feet of the kneeling gallant. The wretch was actually on his "marrow-bones," holding the girl by the wrist, and endeavouring to draw her towards him. She, on the contrary, was exerting all her women's strength to get away; which, ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... I was mistaken, for at the throttle was a uniformed soldier, and another comrade in his gray-green costume was shoveling coal into the furnace. One of the guards, seeing me plodding on, smilingly beckoned to me to jump aboard. When I took the cue and made a move in that direction he winked his eye and significantly tapped upon the barrel of his gun. The train was loaded with iron rails and timbers, and I speculated as to their use, but farther down the line I saw hundreds of men unloading ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... she gives me a job. 'Now, child,' says she, 'there is a rare opportunity, for the fire being so near that you may go to it before the street is blocked up with the crowd.' She presently gave me my cue. 'Go, child,' says she, 'to the house, and run in and tell the lady, or anybody you see, that you come to help them, and that you came from such a gentlewoman (that is, one of her acquaintance farther up the street).' She gave me the like cue to the next house, naming another name that was ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... referred to certain breaches of trust by bank officers and treasurers, which occurring within a short time of one another had startled the community. This last subject begot a somewhat doleful train of commentary and gave the lugubrious their cue. Complaints were made of our easygoing standards of morality, and our disposition not to be severe on anybody; of the decay of ideal considerations and the lack of enthusiasm ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... excitement, the glory of it. Estan would see the terrible cost of it, in lives and in patrimony. Luis loved action. Estan loved his big flocks and his acres upon acres of land, and his quiet home; had loved too his foster country, if he had spoken his true sentiments. So Starr took his cue and thanked his good fortune that he had come upon this tragedy while it was fresh, and while the shock of it was ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... have to reckon with her upon her throne of degrees, set up there like Hippolita, Duchess of Athens, to be propitiated and, if possible, diverted. For her sake, not for ours, her incomparable mother beckons from the wings character after character, and gives each his cue, having set the scene with her exquisite art. In a few cases her anxiety to please spoils the effects. As we should say, she "laboured" the Cardinal de Retz. The sour-faced beauty would have none of him. But that is ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... society to which his numerous millions entitled him; and though unused all his days to social amenities other than the out-hanging latch-string and the general pot, he had succeeded to his own satisfaction as a knight of the carpet. Quick to take a cue, he circulated with an aplomb which his striking garments and long shambling gait only heightened, and talked choppy and disconnected fragments with whomsoever he ran up against. The Miss Mortimer, who spoke Parisian ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... fan—"I am going to insult you, to betray one who is called my lover, and, if it pleases you to use the power I now put unreservedly into your hands, to ruin my dear self. O what a French comedy! You betray, I betray, they betray. It is now my cue. The letter, yes. Behold the letter, madam, its seal unbroken as I found it by my bed this morning; for I was out of humour, and I get many, too many, of these favours. For your own sake, for the sake of my Prince Charming, for the sake of this great principality that sits so heavy on your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Blake, his eyes flashing. "Watch me! Wait till you get your next bill for electric lights! You've given me my cue, Grif. I'm going to buck through this little proposition in one-two-three style, grab my fifty thousand, and plunge into the New York Four Hundred as Tommy Van Damdam. Clear out, you ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet

... the Slave Lake Indians taking the cue from their northern sisters, began to show an appreciation of the girl's efforts in their behalf. An appreciation that manifested itself in little tokens of friendship, exquisitely beaded moccasins, shyly presented, and a pair of quill-embroidered leggings ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... again to the window, leaned lightly upon the iron railing and studied the title of a book attentively. He was silently absorbed for a full minute, in which the man who had followed him waited. Taking his cue from Armitage's manner he appeared to be deeply interested in the bookseller's display; but the excitement still glittered in ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... terribly afraid of affording the San Pasqualians grounds for "talk." And as she waited the moon arose, lighting up the half mile of track that led past the Hat Ranch; and Fate, under whose direction all the dramas of life are staged, gave the cue to ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... clubs and takes a great and justifiable pride in them. He has many reasons for doing so. Golf clubs are not like most other implements that are used in sport. A man may go to a shop and pick out a cricket bat or a billiard cue with which he may be tolerably certain he will be able to play something approaching to his best game when he is in the mood for playing it. The acquaintance which is begun in the shop is complete a few days later. But a man ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... can do as you please, madame. Tell your husband whatever you choose; repeat our conversation word for word; add whatever your memory may furnish, true or false, that may be most convincing against me; then, when you have thoroughly given him his cue, when you think yourself sure of him, I will say two words to him, and turn him inside out like this glove. That is what I had to say to you, madame I will not detain you longer. You may have in me a devoted friend or ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... overthrown in the fraction of a second preceding his own onslaught. As he was in the act of gathering himself for a spring, Daylight was upon him, and with such fearful suddenness as to crush him backward and down. Olaf Henderson, receiving his cue from this, attempted to take Daylight unaware, rushing upon him from one side as he stooped with extended hand to help Doc Watson up. Daylight dropped on his hands and knees, receiving in his side Olaf's knees. Olaf's momentum carried him clear over the obstruction ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... applied to all—the test of linking their names with something utterly ludicrous and impossible, but published with all the solemn earmarks of verity. It was on the occasion of Mr. Stedman's visit to Chicago on its invitation to lecture before the Twentieth Century Club. This gave Field the cue to announce the coming event in a way to fill the visitor with consternation. About two weeks before the poet-critic was expected, Field's column contained the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... her way, and after one or two rapid glances at the subject of her cares and a moment's reflection on her introduction there, she took her cue. "Blushes like that are not for nothing," thought Arles; "and when Mr. Macintosh says 'Do your best'—why, it is easy ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... from a place of concealment, had not only seen what passed, but heard the conversation between Santander and the Senoritas. The words spoken by his young mistress, and the rejoinder received, were all he waited for. Giving him his cue for departure, they also gave him hopes of something more than the saving of his own life. That the last was endangered he knew now—forfeited, indeed, should he fall into the hands of those who had invaded the place. So, instead of returning to the stable-yard, from ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid

... cue. He rose, trembling a little. "Come, come," he said heartily, "it's all right, it's all right-my sister. Let us go and see the youngster. There, dry your eyes, and forget all about that woman. She is only envious of you. Come, for his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... We only had one thickness of matchboarding in between us and the elements, and, without looking out of the windows, I could generally ascertain through the slits what was going on in the way of weather. I had chosen my "cue" looking sea-ward because of the view and the sunsets, but then that was in far away Spring. Eva's was next door, and even more exposed than mine. When we happened to mention this state of affairs to Colonel C., he promised us some asbestos to line the outer wall if we could ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... could not help glancing at the Contessa, as she made this remarkable observation. It must be the cue, she thought, for the announcement of that which she had known so long.... In the space of a wink the clever Contessa saw that she had her attention, and spoke rather ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... the question gave the wily Prometheus his cue. He uttered a feeble moan, and studied to look as much sicker than he ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... gentleman, on a cue-ball horse, was coming slowly down the hill on tother zide of watter, looking at us in a friendly way, and with a long papper standing forth the lining of his coat laike. Horse stapped to drink in the watter, and gentleman spak to 'un kindly, and then they coom raight on to ussen, and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... in his mind—as the greatest general the world has seen confessed that he ever had—that he was never taken quite by surprise. Vincente smiled as he thought: a habit he had acquired on the field, where a staff, and perhaps a whole army, took its cue from his face and read the turn of fortune there. Then he looked up straight at ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... beyond her childish grasp. At barely eight years of age she was able to reel off without hesitation or effort anyone of an amazingly long list. With little prompting she could recite some of the longest narrative poems in Latin literature and she needed prompting only to give her the cue words at the beginning of each book and of ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... Cassocks, "And you, of your Cossacks. "So here's your health, my brave huzzar, "My exquisite old fighter— "Success to bigotry and war, "The musket and the mitre!" Thus prayed the minister of heaven— While York, just entering then, Snored out (as if some Clerk had given His nose the cue) "Amen." ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... table and took long and careful aim. I held my breath.... Still she aimed.... Then, keeping her chin on the cue, she slowly turned her head and looked up at me ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... to hide other odours of a less pleasant kind. When I left you last night, Dollops and I went down to the mummy-chamber, and a skeleton key soon let us in. The unpleasant odour was rather pronounced in there. But even that didn't give me the cue, until I happened to find in the fireplace a considerable heap of fine ashes, and in the midst of them small lumps of gummy substance, which I knew to result from the burning of myrrh. I suspected from that and from the nature of the ashes that a mummy ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... him his cue. You will remember, Voysey was attacked by the Lord Chancellor of the day—old Lord Hatherley—as a 'private clergyman,' who 'of his own mere will, not founding himself upon any critical inquiry, but simply upon his own taste and judgment' ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... past, his household in bed. The city slept round him; how long would it sleep? And when it awoke, how long dared he, how long would it be natural for him to ignore the first murmur, the succeeding outcry, the rising alarm? It was not his cue to do overmuch, to precipitate discovery, or to assume at once the truth to be the truth. But on the other hand he must ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... she knew too much for me to be able to deceive her, I took my cue directly and told her in detail the history of my amours. She shewed her satisfaction too openly not to be sincere. Before I left her she said her honour obliged her to get Capsucefalo assassinated, for the wretch had wronged her beyond pardon. By way ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... butter; two cups sugar; one cup milk; three cups flour; four eggs; cue pint nut meats; two teaspoons baking powder. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs well whipped, milk, flour with baking powder, and nut meats chopped fine. Bake in loaf. ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman

... mysteries to perform with his rigging in the coach-house, so I was left to do the parade single-handed. I found myself very much of a hero whether I would or not. The girls were full of little shudderings over the dangers of our journey. And I thought it would be ungallant not to take my cue from the ladies. My mishap of yesterday, told in an off-hand way, produced a deep sensation. It was Othello over again, with no less than three Desdemonas and a sprinkling of sympathetic senators in the background. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... command which could unite the dissevered political cliques. What was in his mind all this while can never be known, though no knowledge could be more interesting. Was he in a simple attitude of expectancy, awaiting the march of events, watchful for some one of them to give him the cue as well as the opportunity for action? Many believe that this was the case; and if it was, no other course could have been more intelligent. In due time events came which brought decision with them, the crisis shaped itself, and he was ready with ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... with a sickening blow across Jules's shoulders. She had planned a scene something like this while she worked away at the lantern that afternoon. Now she felt as if she were acting a part in some private theatrical performance. Jules's cry gave her the cue, and the courage ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston

... several voices at once, catching the cue from Piso. "You are the first in the world, Caesar the second! You are to rise to new glories, and Caesar is to ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... catches His doom's extremely hard - He's made to dwell In a dungeon cell On a spot that's always barred; And there he plays extravagant matches In fitless finger-stalls, On a cloth untrue With a twisted cue, And elliptical billiard balls! ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... man before me, wholly undisturbed by the pageantry of the occasion, calmly waiting to perform his part in the drama, just as an actor awaits his cue to appear on a stage. It was his first visit to Washington. He had never before seen the Capitol and knew absolutely nothing of the machinery of government. All was a mystery to him, but a stranger not understanding the circumstances would have imagined that the proceedings going on ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... said Triggs, "I woan't do that, 'cos they as I'se got here might smell un out; but I'll tell 'ee what: I knaws a chap as has in many ways bin beholden to me 'fore now, and I reckon if I gives un the cue he'll do ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... Dildine who did understand him. This thought might have been Cissie's cue to enter the stage of Peter's mind. Her oval, creamy face floated between Peter's eyes and the dog-eared primer. He thought of Cissie wistfully, and of her lonely fight for good English, good manners, and good taste. There was ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... slightly cool, but very polite. She supposed Miss Ray was some little country girl with whom Burton Winslow was carrying on a summer flirtation; respectable enough, no doubt, and must be treated civilly, but of course wouldn't expect to be made an equal of exactly. The other women took their cue from her, but the men were more cordial. Miss Ray might be shabby, but she was distinctly fetching, and Winslow ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the center of the universe, and the other planets are inhabited, the whole plan of salvation fails, since the inhabitants of the other spheres are without the Bible, and Christ did not die for them." This was the argument of Father Lecazre, and many others who took their cue from him. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... That was a plain cue for Harold Burbank to launch out on the story of his life; but, say, he didn't need any such encouragement. He was a willin' and ready converser, Harold was; and—my!—what a lot of classy words he did have on ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... very wide, and, being turned downward at the corners, they gave him a dolorous expression. His lower jaw was square and protruding, and a pair of prodigious white ears projected from beneath his sugar-loaf cap. He seemed to take his cue from the old man, for ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... first chance to ask what it meant, Of the people who shouted, what was their intent, When an elderly lady soon gave me the cue, Of what was the matter and what ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright

... equally ready to admit its supernatural character, considered the powers of hell rather than those of heaven to have been the prime instigators. In their eyes Jeanne was a witch, and it was at least their cue to exhibit her as such. They might have put her to death when she first reached Rouen. Some persons, indeed, went so far as to advise that she should be sewed up in a sack and thrown at once into the Seine; but this ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... daylight found him abroad thus? Suppose he succumbed to exposure and was discovered stiffly frozen in a doorway? Death by processes of congealment must carry an added sting if one had to die in a suit of pink rompers buttoning down the back. As though the thought of freezing had been a cue to Nature he noted a tickling in his nose and a chokiness in his throat, and somewhere in his system, a long way off, so to speak, he felt a sneeze forming ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... and exercise, partly to be near the Court, where dinners are to be found. I generally get a lift in a coach to town, and in the evening I walk back. On Saturday I dined with the Duchess of Ormond at her lodge near Sheen, and thought to get a boat back as usual. I walked by the bank to Cue (Kew), but no boat, then to Mortlake, but no boat, and it was nine o'clock. At last a little sculler called, full of nasty people. I made him set me down at Hammersmith, so walked two miles to this place, and got here by eleven. Last night I had another ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... the occasion of Punch's Jubilee, July, 1891, the "Times" remarked; 'May we be excused for noting the fact that he [Punch] has generally, in regard to public affairs, taken his cue from the "Times"?' ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... leisure; what next regarded and longed for especially, and what last will leave satisfaction, and (as it were) the sweetest memorial and belief of all that is passed in his understanding whom you write to. For the consequence of sentences, you must be sure that every clause do give the cue one to the other, and be bespoken ere it come. So ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... eyes asking if she really wanted him, or if politeness dictated the invitation. Hers gave no cue, so he did the simplest and most direct thing, which was to ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... subject which electrified the members present. It was on the action, both at a distance and by direct contact, of certain medicated or fermented substances on hypnotic subjects. The latter were all women who could not possibly have got their cue beforehand, and were being observed, while Dr. Luys operated, by a jury of scientists above all suspicion of having lent themselves to any trickery. Alcohol when put to the nape in a tube no larger than a homoeopathist's vial and hermetically sealed produced ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various

... had been neglected. It was an imperfect agent of the mind. Many of my faculties were lost. These circumstances stood between us like barriers. It was the beginning of each communication that troubled us, when our minds were working in different channels. Something was needed for a cue—a starting-point. Ten pregnant words of Sanscrit were all we needed. It ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller

... cue he had commenced beating for, swore to its truth profoundly, and straightway directed his statement to prove that his mistress had not been politically (or amorously, if the suspicion aimed at her in those softer regions) indiscreet or ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... curtain went up on the drama in hexameters. He waited in the wings, and spoke soothingly to Isabel Joy, who, looking juvenile in the airy costume of the Messenger, stood flutteringly agog for her cue.... He heard the thunderous crashing roar that met her entrance. He did not hear her line. He walked forth to the glazed balcony at the front of the house, where in the entr'actes dandies smoked cigarettes ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... and Bat was prompt to accept his cue. He moved towards the man smoking at the table, much in the fashion of a warder advancing to take possession of his prisoner after sentence ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... sensations under an attack are probably a happy compound of the united energies of these amiable animals, you may perhaps see what Marrall calls 'rare sport,' and some good tossing and goring, in the course of the controversy. But I must be in the right cue first, and I doubt I am almost too far off to be in a sufficient fury for the purpose. And then I have effeminated and enervated myself with love and the summer in these last ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... and looked down, thereby affording Mr. Nugent an opportunity of another signal to the perturbed steward, who sat with such a look of anxiety on his face lest he should miss his cue that the young man's composure was tried ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... she exclaimed, a note of alarm in her voice. "It isn't bad manners! Anyhow," she qualified, quick to catch her cue, "I didn't laugh much. I hardly laughed at all. I don't ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan



Words linked to "Cue" :   actor's line, stimulus, mark, cue stick, cue ball, evidence, prompting, remind, speech, words, pool stick, input, stimulant, sports implement, stock, sign, inform, stimulation



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