"Prank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a mystery," he went on to say, trying to take the thing as a joke. "Some kind friend sends me a solemn warning, and then neglects to sign his name. Do you think any of the fellows of the escadrille could be up to a prank?" ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... was nothing to laugh at, though!" remarked Lawless; "she'd have been regularly cooked, if Prank Fairlegh hadn't put her out when he did, and I should have been tried for 'Unjustifiable Girl-icide,' or 'Maliciously setting fire to a marriageable female,' or some such thing; and I daresay the young woman wasn't insured anywhere: I should have got into a pretty mess; it would have been a ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... to prevent your sister from scattering bread in the church,' said La Teuse on coming in. 'It was last winter she hit upon that pretty prank. She said the sparrows were cold, and that God might well give them some food. You see, she'll end by making us sleep with all her ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... might easily read them though the master remained unaware of it; the wooden seats of the courtyard sawn off and carried round the basin like so many corpses, the boys marching in procession and singing funeral dirges. Yes! that had been a capital prank. Dubuche, who played the priest, had tumbled into the basin while trying to scoop some water into his cap, which was to serve as a holy water pot. But the most comical and amusing of all the pranks had perhaps been that devised by Pouillaud, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... know the character in which he acted on the English stage, and the scheme he would offer for their mutual emolument. At the same time he resolved within himself to keep such a strict eye over his future actions, as would frustrate any design he might hereafter harbour, of repeating the prank he had so successfully played upon him, in their journey from the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... drops her voice somewhat to disguise her feats of metathesis, about which she has doubts and which are involuntary: the "stand-wash," the "sweeping-crosser," the "sewing chamine." Genoese peasants have the same prank when they try to ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... was taken to be sold at a good figure to some other museum; that it was taken to be sold back to the College; that it was a students' prank; or that it was done by girls being initiated into one of the College ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... Fate played another prank upon her not long afterward and thrust into her hands a possible means of access to John Barron. A favorite resort of Joan's was the brook which ran down the valley beneath Drift and Sancreed. The little stream wound through a fair coomb between orchards, meadows, wastes of fern and heather. At ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the porch whose roof is seen Arch'd with the enlivening olive's green: Where Science, prank'd in tissued vest, 15 By Reason, Pride, and Fancy drest, Comes, like a bride, so trim array'd, To wed with ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... slight movement of the eyes of the weeping and shuddering child informed the company that she had been frightened by an appearance at the window. At once they all faced the imperturbable window, and for a moment there was a silence. An astute lad made an immediate census of the other lads. The prank of slipping out and looming spectrally at a window was too venerable. But the little boys ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... gracious lord, To chide at your extremes it not becomes me; O pardon that I name them: your high self, The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured With a swain's bearing; and me, poor lowly maid, Most goddess-like prank'd up:—but that our feasts In every mess have folly, and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attired; sworn, I think To show myself ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... made him the object of tricks of all kinds; often in retaliation of some prank which he himself had played off. Unluckily these tricks were sometimes made at the expense of his toilet, which, with a view peradventure to please the eye of a certain fair lady, he had again enriched ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... monosyllables. He was in the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of the guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity at this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest fellow could have played such a prank on a policeman. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... laughing in the pleasant French way that shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become too big to prank ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... green-moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the grass a streamlet fleeting by. The porch with palm or oleaster shade— That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring—their Spring!—to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool. And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and massy boulders fling— A line of stations for the halting wing To dry in summer sunshine, has it ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... frequently left its imprint on the thought of the time. The results of this special prank with the astrologer were: first, to cause the wits of the town to join in the hue and cry that Partridge was dead; second, to increase the contempt for astrologers; and, third, in the words of Scott: "The most remarkable consequence of Swift's frolic was the establishment ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... were occupied by houses or cultivated fields, so much the more fun for the river. For years it would flow peacefully in a well-known channel around some great bend, then decide to make a change, and in a single night cut a new channel straight across the loop of land. By such a prank not only were all the river pilots thoroughly bewildered, but a large slice of one State, with its inhabitants and buildings, would be transferred to another. If at the same time an important river-town could be stranded ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... more thought, "I have just one answer. The scheme is too grisly. Besides, we've nothing against the undertakers that should make us willing to waste their time. Moreover, Dan we're in the High School, and we're expected to be gentlemen. Now, does your scheme strike you as just the prank for a ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... Warden that some organised prank or protest was afoot. Dignity required that he should take no heed whatsoever. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, stately he approached the dais, his Fellows ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... people came into the tavern to hear him sing without paying their share of the reckoning—'if a maun, or ony maun, or ony other maun,' &c. &c.; you have both the same redundant eloquence. But why should you think any body would personate you? Nobody would dream of such a prank who ever read your compositions, and perhaps not many who have heard your conversation. But I have been inoculated with a little of your prolixity. The fact is, my dear R——ts, that somebody has tried to make a fool of you, and what ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... all," she said. "It was a prank one would expect you to play. Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't changed, Dick. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... aphoristic sentences twisted out of Greek and Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, Pandosto is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the real merit of the performance. It is better than Lodge's Rosalynd for ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if she ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... him was to put a "great divide" of distance between himself and her. This he had done—and to what purpose? Apparently merely to excite her ridicule!—and to prick her humor up to the mischievous prank of finding out where he had fled and following him! And she—even she—who had kept him aloof ever since that fatal moment on the seashore,—had discovered him on this lonely hill-side, and had taunted him with her ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... carefully closed the door and dipped the heads of the screws in vinegar to darken them. The whole looked rusty, and as we hoped when we had done no one would ever guess the game we had been up to. We swept up dust from the carpet, and pushed it under the bottom of the door, and I think our prank never was known. The old house is ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... and I followed them. At the same time, I was fully conscious that I was playing a mad prank without being able to stop myself. My disordered condition ran away with me; I was inspired with the craziest notions, which I followed blindly as they came to me. I couldn't help it, no matter how much I told ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... do, skippin' along street fresh an' nimblelike, his eyne chock full o' mischief lookin' round fur to see some poor soul to play a prank on. It do feel strange-like to have him a-sittin' by my elbow today. Many's the tale I could tell o' his doin' an' our sufferin'. Why, I mind a poor lump of a 'prentice as I wunst had, a loon as never could raise a keek: poor soul, he ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... will play a part in the pantomime, Mr. Ridge, let an Englishwoman suggest that you be the harlequin. How I loved the harlequin in the Drury Lane pantomimes at Christmas time! He was always the ideal lover to me, for there was no trick, no prank this bespangled hero could not play to success. He always went incognito, for he wore his narrow mask of black. He performed the most marvellous things for his Columbine,—and was she not a worthy sweetheart? No, no, Mr. Ridge:—not the fool, I pray. Please be the harlequin," ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... Saracens thronged amain, Seated the king on his throne again, And the Algalif said, "'Twas a sorry prank, Raising your weapon to slay the Frank. It was yours to hearken in silence there." "Sir," said Gan, "I may meetly bear, But for all the wealth of your land arrayed, For all the gold that God hath made, Would I not live and leave unsaid, What Karl, the mightiest king below, Sends, through ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... those that are for going to war choose evident destruction. What hinders you from slaying your children and wives with your own hands, and burning this most excellent native city of yours? for by this mad prank you will, however, escape the reproach of being beaten. But it were best, O my friends, it were best, while the vessel is still in the haven, to foresee the impending storm, and not to set sail out of the port into the middle of the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... that the young Pole had been well discussed by the children. They watched him constantly to see what new prank he was preparing for their entertainment. He swaggered under their astonished gaze, and insolently made requests aloud without raising his hand for permission to speak. Just before recess, upon chancing to glance his way, the little girl caught him ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... there since she died," Max asserted. "How do I know so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea while we were ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... not the first that had played away a few trifles, and of what use were birth and fortune if they would not admit some sallies and expenses?" His mamma was so much provoked by the cost of this prank, that she would neither palliate nor conceal it; and his father, after some threats of rustication which his fondness would not suffer him to execute, reduce the allowance of his pocket, that he might not be tempted by plenty to profusion. This method ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... Frankness toward himself, frankness toward others (though sometimes it went to the extreme of rudeness and ill-breeding) was his motto. The joyous nature which was his as a lad, and which was not at all averse to a merry prank now and then, underwent a change when he began to lose his hearing. The dread of deafness and its consequences drove him nearly to despair, so that he sometimes contemplated suicide. Increasing hardness of hearing gradually made him reserved, morose and gloomy. With the progress ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... Game. So warm they glow, Not seldom rise imperial quarrels; And not so many moons ago Jove boxed with zeal Apollo's laurels. The question ran, Was Arthur Mold Unfairly stigmatised by muffs, Or did he play a dubious prank? Venus herself began to scold, And Gods by dozens on a bank Profanely took ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... holocaust I made To God, befitting the new grace vouchsaf'd. And from my bosom had not yet upsteam'd The fuming of that incense, when I knew The rite accepted. With such mighty sheen And mantling crimson, in two listed rays The splendours shot before me, that I cried, "God of Sabaoth! that does prank them thus!" ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... shepherdling, The blushing apple, bashful pear, And shame-faced plum, all simp'ring there. Walk in the groves, and thou shalt find The name of Phillis in the rind Of every straight and smooth-skin tree; Where kissing that, I'll twice kiss thee. To thee a sheep-hook I will send, Be-prank'd with ribbons, to this end, This, this alluring hook might be Less for to catch a sheep, than me. Thou shalt have possets, wassails fine, Not made of ale, but spicd wine; To make thy maids and self free mirth, All sitting near ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... earth's vast unknown of air, Out of all summer, from wave to wave, He'll perch, and prank his feathers fair, Jangle a glass-clear wildering stave, And take his ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... I appreciate this way he's got of treating it like a spoiled kid's prank. I'm going to make him recognize the fact that I'm a man, by golly, and that I look at things like a man. He's got to be proud to have me in the family, before I come into the family. He ain't going to take me in as one more kid to look after. ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Revolution of Sixty-eight—he meant of Six-and-eight— For the abolition of needless fees, and the stopping of useless jaw, Had capped the murder of Privilege by the massacre of Law: Order, this Spook went on to state, was the prey of police—less prank, All the real jam of life was lost with the abolition of Rank. Here he wept! Ah! can there be a sight a pitiful breast to thrill Like the Ghost of a Lawyer dropping a tear o'er the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... misunderstanding. He knew in what manner a good-natured, competent, lusty horse should be handled and trained. We didn't, and necessarily had to learn. He trained himself while we took hearty lessons in holding him. Once he decided to gallop with a sled. It was a mere whim—a gay little prank—but Tom couldn't stop him. He ran too, holding on to the reins at arm's length, contrary to my counsel, urged from discreet distance. Christmas ran faster, and by and by Tom sat down on his chin, and Christmas went on without him. He didn't quite remember ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... bide your time, dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little lobster ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... intimacy with the future poet. He describes graphically his first meeting with the youth who was to be his lifelong friend. He first saw Jos sliding down from a third-story balcony on a tin waterspout. In the light of later years Escosura felt that in this boyish prank the child was father of the man. The boy who preferred waterspouts to stairways, later in life always scorned the beaten path, and "the illogical road, no matter how venturesome and hazardous it was, attracted him to it by virtue of that sort of fascinating charm which the abyss exercises over certain ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... from my bosom had not yet upsteamed The fuming of that incense, when I knew The rite accepted. With such mighty sheen And mantling crimson, in two listed rays The splendors shot before me, that I cried, "God of Sabaoth! that dost prank them thus!" As leads the galaxy from pole to pole, Distinguished into greater lights and less, Its pathway, which the wisest fail to spell; So thickly studded, in the depth of Mars, Those rays described the venerable sign, That quadrants in the ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... deliberate prank was played with the field artillery. These light pieces, being of the nature of cannon rather than muskets, obtained more deference, being recognized as of the same genus with the great guns which then constituted a ship's broadside. On one occasion they were incautiously ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... of that day contain accounts of many a mad prank which [Lord Warwick, Addison's step-son] played ... [like] the lawless freaks of the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... he nearly set fire to Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor's man that wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner party on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine, having toasted King James's health with open ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... deviltry I can always tell it on you—you look so incredibly meek and meechin', like a cat eatin' the canary," he remarked severely. "Thank you for a biscuit. And the sugar! Now what warlockry is this?" He jerked a thumb at the far-off fires. "What's the merry prank?" ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... because you succeed! And now I may say it, I hope without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter and larger than the ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... would I, might I choose, be honest-poor: For she that sits at Fortune's feet a-low Is sure she shall not taste a further woe, But those that prank on top of Fortune's ball Still fear a change, and, fearing, catch ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Lord, To chide at your extreames, it not becomes me: (Oh pardon, that I name them:) your high selfe The gracious marke o'th' Land, you haue obscur'd With a Swaines wearing: and me (poore lowly Maide) Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp: But that our Feasts In euery Messe, haue folly; and the Feeders Digest with a Custome, I should blush To see you so attyr'd: sworne I thinke, To shew my selfe ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... down the river into the rapids from Chippewa Creek, expecting to enjoy the rare pleasure of seeing her leap over the Falls and emerge in little fragments and splinters of timber in the river below. Thousands had gathered on the Canadian shore, and on Goat Island, to witness a prank never matched in audacity since the British "guerrillas" from the other side, in the time of the Canadian rebellion, seized the steamer "Caroline" at Schlosser, set her on fire, and sent her down the Falls—an ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... are linked to thee, By Romeo's ardour, Juliet's constancy He sets the peasant in the royal rank, Shows, under mask and paint, Kinship of knave and saint And plays on stolid man with Prospero's wand and Ariel's prank. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... into the man's eyes, his face flushed like the face of a schoolboy who had been caught in a foolish prank, and he returned the hat awkwardly ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... haen the brains o' a cock spug," I heard him sayin' till himsel', "ye michta jaloosed they were to play ye some prank. You muckle, dozent gozlin'," he says; an' he took himsel' a skelp i' the side o' the heid wi' his open luif that near ca'd him on his back. In his stagger his feet tickled amon' his claes, an' he ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... participation in the rude affrays, the catastrophe of which dramas was in general an almost universal flogging match. My admiration naturally led to its probable result, a desire to imitate—I firmly resolved to become a Peregrine. I soon promoted myself to be the leader of every mad prank that the wit of a spirit suddenly excited to activity could devise. In the first fortnight I got flogged for tying a huge mass of brown paper to the tail of the favourite cat of the master's lady, with which she rushed with an insane and terrifying distraction into the drawing-room. We owed a spite ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 274, Saturday, September 22, 1827 • Various
... as it were, from his petticoat days when he collected goose-eggs and tried to hatch them out by sitting over them himself. One might be inclined to dismiss this trivial incident smilingly, as a mere childish, thoughtless prank, had not subsequent development as a child, boy, and man revealed a born investigator with original reasoning powers that, disdaining crooks and bends, always aimed at the centre, and, like the flight of the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... Ray Rose were an intimate friend of mine, I should resent her performance and make a fuss about it. But she is such a casual acquaintance,—why, probably I shall never see her again after I go away from Lakewood,—and so I consider it better judgment to ignore her silly prank, rather than stir up a fuss ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... never regarded it as a prank in the least. I have ridden this way all my life and no one has ever commented upon it. Daddy Neil knows of it—he has ridden with me hundreds of times himself—and never said one word against it. And ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... "The Prisoner of Chillon." He finished the preparatory school with the first prize for composition and history, and entered the University, which he was soon compelled to leave, in company with a number of others, because of a foolish prank they had played on a professor. In those days, when every one was engrossed in thoughts of military service and a career, and when the few remaining paths which were open to a poor young man had thus been closed to him, but one thing was left for him to do—enter the army. Accordingly, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy. Even in the spring and play-time of the year That calls the unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prank their hair with daisies, or to pick A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook, These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarmed Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... from the northwest, they soon reached Duff Harbour, where Malcolm went on shore and saw Mr Soutar. He, with a landsman's prejudice, made strenuous objections to such a mad prank as sailing to London at that time of the year, but in vain. Malcolm saw nothing mad in it, and the lawyer had to admit he ought to know best. He brought on board with him a lad of Peter's acquaintance, and now fully manned, they set sail again, and by the time ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... served him well, and even shortened access to rosy lips and tender heart. But, alas! the fair one's nose was also of the fine imperial type, truly admirable in itself, but (under one of nature's strictest laws) coy of contact with its own male expression. Love, whose joy and fierce prank is to buckle to the plated pole ill-matched forms and incongruous spirits, did not fail of her impartial freaks. Mr. Mordacks had to cope with his own kin, and found the conflict so severe that not a breath of time was left him for anybody's ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... to Emma Jane that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank. "I do hate her ways," she exclaimed, "but I'm sorry I let her know we 'spected her; and so to make up, I gave her that little piece of broken coral I keep in my bead ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of breach of order, deviation or departure from rule, depressed him, though one would have thought it was no business of his. If one of his colleagues was late for church or if rumours reached him of some prank of the high-school boys, or one of the mistresses was seen late in the evening in the company of an officer, he was much disturbed, and said he hoped that nothing would come of it. At the teachers' meetings he simply oppressed us with his caution, his circumspection, and his characteristic ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Work and Play. The Schoolhouse in the Woods. Maple Sugar-making. The Orator of the Dawn. A Boyish Prank. Capturing the ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Lo! here come Mimi and Musette With: "S'il vous plait, une cigarette?" Marcel and Rudolf, Shaunard too, Behold the old rapscallion crew, With flowing tie and shaggy head . . . Who says Bohemia is dead? Oh shades of Murger! prank and clown, And I will watch and write ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... to myself when I saw him come in the door at the heels of the policeman. No gypsy prank had thrust those tiny hoops of gold through the ears; no prairie winds had beaten that skin into wrinkled leather; nor had snow-drift and mountain-slope put in his walk that reminiscent roll. And in those eyes, when they looked at me, I saw the unmistakable sun-wash ...
— The Road • Jack London
... whistled and danced a hornpipe, and before they could recover from their amazement jumped out again. A few minutes later my father walked in at the door as sedately as though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much for his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But judging from his slight ability in later years, I fancy that he must have taken ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... off. They bore down upon a trolley-car and took a wild possession. They sang their songs and yelled themselves hoarse. People turned and watched and smiled, setting this down as one more prank of those ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... that some one on the deck of the submarine must be playing a prank on his friends. But Bill Witt, who was doing lookout duty forward, declared that the cry was right at hand and apparently from ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... night. He was the centre and the head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun. He multiplied himself, and in so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank he suggested was too wild for his followers, and all followed save those that developed into singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet never did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon that when Burning Daylight ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... rose to go to the billiard room. "I have one piece of advice to give you," he said. "This prank is harmless enough, but establish a definite understanding with this fellow that you are not to be liable in damages for personal injuries which his Indians may receive. Explain to him that it is not child's play and have him put ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... the brown shade to meet him, with such a shamefaced, boyish air of conscious delinquency. Conscious, indeed, that he was the author of a certain commotion, but very far, assuredly, from being conscious that he, Gifford Crayshaw, by means of this schoolboy prank, was taking the decisive step towards a change in the destiny of every soul then ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... who was watching Madge with startled eyes, worried as to the result of this mad prank on ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... ago there was a certain masquerade which fits here better than anything, and that I intend to make part of a prank I want to play on our fool. It all seems a little phony; but, with him, one can try anything, there is hardly any reason to be subtle, and he is the man to play his role marvelously and to swallow easily any fabrication ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... Shell is very easily taken possession of by Elementals, the semi-conscious forces working in the kingdoms of Nature, and may be used by them as a convenient vehicle for many a prank and trick. The etheric double of the medium, and the desire bodies emptied of their immortal Tenants, give the material basis by which Elementals can work many a curious and startling result; and frequenters of seances ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... the prow of his boat, or kept step with him in the race. Like the Sun-god, he was buoyant and beautiful, careless, free, elastic, unfading. Years never cramped his bounding spirits, or dimmed the lustre of his soul. He was ever ready for prank and pastime, for freak and fun. Of all his loves at Elleray, boating was the chief. He was the Lord-High-Admiral of all the neighboring waters, and had a navy at his beck. He never wearied of the lake: whether ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... the circumstances you'd better not mention this affair of the Fall to Gueldmar. It will only vex him. Sigurd won't try such a prank again." ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... together heard these words they were perplext as to their affair, and said one to other, "What shall we do? Indeed we are unable to sit out three days in this stead." Hereupon the Pieman said to them, "Nay, rather let us play a prank whereby we may escape," and said they, "What may be the device thou wouldest devise?" Quoth he, "Whatso I do that do ye look upon and then act in like guise," and so speaking he arose and taking his minced meat fell to sticking it ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... our insular method in popular history is perfectly shown in the treatment of Richard Coeur de Lion. His tale is told with the implication that his departure for the Crusade was something like the escapade of a schoolboy running away to sea. It was, in this view, a pardonable or lovable prank; whereas in truth it was more like a responsible Englishman now going to the Front. Christendom was nearly one nation, and the Front was the Holy Land. That Richard himself was of an adventurous and even romantic temper is true, though it is not unreasonably romantic for a born soldier to do ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... face. "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are just beginning to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... Egyptian antiquities which the savants of Napoleon's expedition had gathered and carefully packed, and even shipped preparatory to sending them to the Louvre. The feelings of these savants may readily be imagined when, through this sad prank of war, their invaluable treasures were envoyed, not to their beloved France, but to the land of their dearest enemies, there to be turned over to the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... pomp and circumstance, The gauds in which we prank it? Germ ends for us our fine romance, Wrapped in a dingy blanket. We set out braggartly in mirth, World's bravest men and tallest, To do the mightiest thing on earth, And here we're lying, nothing worth, Succumbent to ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... and when he was one of the hares there was but little chance for the hounds. He was a capital swimmer, and one of the best boxers in the school. He had a reputation for being a leader in every mischievous prank; but he was honorable and manly, would scorn to shelter himself under the semblance of a lie, and was a prime favourite with his masters, as well as his schoolfellows. His mother bewailed the frequency with which he returned home with blackened ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... to prevent possible loss from some prank of mischievous boys or thieving negroes, Maurice had secured a long and stout chain, with a padlock, and at night this was so attached to the dinky that no one could sneak the stumpy little craft away without the use of a hatchet to chop out the staple; and while this was being done the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... at last, on the shores of England. [Margaret landed at Weymouth; Lady Warwick, at Portsmouth.] Come they for joy or for woe, for victory or despair? The issue of this day's fight on the heath of Gladsmoor will decide. Prank thy halls, O Westminster, for the triumph of the Lancastrian king,—or open thou, O Grave, to receive the saint-like Henry and his noble son. The king-maker goes before ye, saint-like father and noble son, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with levity, he drew down on himself the merited anger of his step-mother; and many punishments. To please Mrs. Newcome, his father whipped Tommy for upsetting his little brothers in the go-cart; but, upon being pressed to repeat the whipping for some other prank, Mr. Newcome refused, saying that the boy got flogging enough at school, with which opinion Master Tommy fully agreed. His step-mother, however, determined to make the young culprit smart for his offences, and one day, when Mr. Newcome was absent, and Tommy refractory as usual, summoned ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... meaning, I trow, that we should enter into solemn contract when we were of less tender age; but there never was betrothal; and before any fit time for it had come, I had the mishap to have the maid close to me—she was ever besetting and running after me—when by some prank, unhappily of mine, a barrel of gunpowder blew up and wellnigh tore her to pieces. My father came, and her mother, an unnurtured, uncouth woman, who would have forced me to wed her on the spot, but my father would not hear of it, more especially ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had sent them a piano, and many fine pictures ornamented the walls from famous persons. An old English lady who spends her summers up there seemed much amused at the prank of the girls, and evidently wondered what their ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... Hale is all wet and so are you. Your bedding is—now what kind of prank is that? I came up here ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... knavery, to the amount of two thousand louis. The strangest thing connected with this scandal is, that M. F——, who is an advocate by profession, has always enjoyed an enviable reputation for integrity; and, unfortunately, this prank cannot be attributed to a momentary fit of madness, for the fact that he had provided himself with these cards in advance proves the act to have been premeditated. One of the persons present was especially displeased. This was the Viscount de ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... small boy with red hair in the school, and he was called up and accused of the prank. He declared that he knew nothing about it,—that he never did it,—and began to cry when the teacher brought from his desk a long ruler which the boys knew too well, for when one broke the rules he was punished by being first lectured before the whole school, and then ordered to hold out his ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... all!" quoth he. "Now here's ill prank to play a poor hangman, may I ne'er quaff good liquor more, let me languish o' the quartern ague and die o' the doleful dumps if I ever saw the like o' this! For look 'ee now, if I set these three rogues free, how may I hang 'em as hang 'em I must, since I by hanging live to hang again, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... presentable when he left his chum's residence, after spending the evening there, but he was still burning for revenge against Andy and his cronies. He had half a notion to go to Andy's house and tell Mr. Foger how nearly serious the bully's prank at the sub marine had been, but he concluded that Mr. Foger could only uphold his son. "No, I'll settle with him myself," ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... grew wilder, the reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that the boy had disappeared, run away; the last ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... O think you, Friend with the musing eye Who watch us stepping by, With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you? Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... gives warning ahead that it is to be severe. It seems to be a meteorological prank in ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character that a ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... day, but, one reads between the lines, he doesn't believe any of them. One error, he says, begets another, and everything is exaggerated in the hope of making converts to the talker's opinion. One miracle bruited all over France turned out to be a prank of young people counterfeiting ghosts. When one hears a marvel, he should always say, "perhaps." Better be apprentices at sixty then doctors at ten. Now witches, he continues, are the subject of the wildest and most foolish accusations. Bodin had proposed that they should be killed on ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... to the door.] Thank you, my good woman. Next time you want to play a little prank like this, I beg that you will select your partner with more care. The name of Hooper is not a suitable one to toy with, ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... set apart To reillume the darkened heart, And rout the hosts of Dole. 'Tis night when Goblin, Elf, and Fay, Come dancing in their best array To prank and royster on the way, And ease the ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... take it easy, spending their time roaming the fields, helping to gather the fruit, of which there was great abundance, and in going fishing and swimming. But then Andy and Randy had found time growing a little heavy on their hands, and one prank had been followed by another. Some of the tricks had been played on Jack and Fred, and they, of course, had done their best to retaliate, and this had, on more than one occasion, brought forth a forceful, but good-natured, ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... "A boyish prank," Iras answered quickly, "but even a still greater misfortune is less than nothing so long as we are not conscious of it. This unpleasant occurrence must be concealed for the present from the Queen. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... own affairs that she looked upon the other occupants as she did the furniture. Without even a direct glance at the young people in the corner she swept up to a chair within a few feet of them and sat down to wait. Jimmy, in the midst of some tale about a prank that the High School Invincibles had played on a rival base-ball team, faltered, grew confused and finished haltingly. For all her spectacles and crape the golden haired stranger ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Sowell Street. But, lest the man might suspect there was in his actions something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant, tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there. Calling up the London office of the REPUBLIC, he directed that one of his assistants, ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little eyes of light. While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother, But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss, This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother, Who turns to greet the tidings ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... "Tales from Bohemia" collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Its actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... in the air, White daisies prank the ground; The cherry and the hoary pear Scatter their ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... possibly could; and a carpenter was set to work to make a covered box, for the rector's tythe-rats, with a lifting door. Hector Mowbray was consulted on the whole progress; and the fancies of father and son were tickled to excess, by the happy prank ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the racket soon transpired. A suspicion that they had been sold gradually dawned on the Rivermouthians. Many were exceedingly indignant, and declared that no penalty was severe enough for those concerned in such a prank; others—and these were the very people who had been terrified nearly out of their wits—had the assurance to laugh, saying that they knew all along it was only ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... had been artfully assumed so as to cause Toby to believe he was breaking his heart over the necessity of having to part company with his pet cub. It might be possible that Bandy-legs was not so averse to getting rid of the prank-loving bear as he ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... now laughed heartily at the puzzling the friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him; he's only pesthering you with bog-Latin; but, at any rate to do him justice, he's not a bad Scholar, I can tell you that.... Your health, Prank, you droll crathur—your health. I have only one fault to find with you, and that is, that you fast and mortify yourself too much. Your fasting has reduced you from being formerly a friar of very genteel dimensions to a cut of corpulency that smacks strongly of penance—fifteen ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... early manhood, the keenest relish of a funny prank, and one such he used to act over again in after life with the greatest vivacity of manner. Every one remembers the story told by Jefferson Hogg how Shelley got rid of the old woman with the onion basket who took a place beside him in a stage coach in Sussex, by seating himself ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... tulips prank their state Has drunk the life-blood of the great; The violets yon fields which stain Are moles of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm a man now. ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... the mystic ringlets of the vale We flash our faery feet in gamesome prank; Or, silent-sandal'd, pay our defter court, Circling the Spirit of the Western Gale, Where wearied with his flower-caressing sport, 65 Supine he slumbers on a violet bank; Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream; Or where his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... talked, you may be sure. The Lunda boys were decidedly in favour of Yaspard's scheme—was there ever a boy who would have objected to any such prank? They saw no harm in it whatever, only ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... to us one day at Genoa, and enjoyed our dismay at it like a froward boy who has achieved what he considers some mischievous prank. He offered us a copy, but we declined to accept it; for, being in the habit of seeing Mr. Rogers frequently beneath our roof, we thought it would be treacherous to him. Byron, however, found others less scrupulous, and three or four copies of it ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... to think about that picture over the altar. Of course, they would naturally have replaced it! I wondered who had found old de Wiggs up there; I wondered if he knew about it, and if he had any idea who had played that prank. I looked to his pew; yes, there he sat, rosy and beaming, bland as ever! I looked for old Peter Dexter, president of the Dexter Trust Company—yes, he was in his pew, wizened and hunched up, prematurely bald. And Stuyvesant Gunning, of the Fidelity ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... me many a prank. When she is kind, oh, how I go it! But if again she's harsh,—why, then I am a very proper poet! When favoring gales bring in my ships, I hie to Rome and live in clover; Elsewise I steer my skiff out here, And anchor till the storm blows over. Compulsory virtue ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... surround us here. A clash of arms would be their excuse for immediate attack, and might mean death and torture to the whole garrison. Our only hope lies in being permitted to pass out without armed collision; and to do this requires that we ignore such hidden deeds. 'Twas a mad prank of yours last night, and might have involved us all in common ruin. Go this time free, except for these words of censure; for you are not directly under my orders. Another such attempt, subversive of all discipline, and the gates of Dearborn ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... placed in ice, For the young poet they display. Like Hippocrene it scatters light, Its ebullition foaming white (Like other things I could relate) My heart of old would captivate. The last poor obol I was worth— Was it not so?—for thee I gave, And thy inebriating wave Full many a foolish prank brought forth; And oh! what verses, what delights, Delicious visions, ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... walk till the purple dieth, And short, dry grass under foot is brown; But one little streak at a distance lieth Green like a ribbon to prank ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... hid, and when she looked out he was gone: so she boldly began the dancing; but, in the midst of a lively caper, dolly went bounce into the garden below, for the string fell from Poppy's hand when she suddenly saw grandpa at the window opposite, laughing as heartily as any one at her prank. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... have been able to find of this Fairy prank is in a small book of prose poetry called Gweledigaeth Cwrs y Byd, or Y Bardd Cwsg, which was written by the Revd. Ellis Wynne (born 1670-1, died 1734), rector of Llanfair, near Harlech. The "Visions of the Sleeping Bard" were published in 1703, and in the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Behold! these are the tribunes of the people, The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them; For they do prank them in ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... could have a better time up north so they think they try it. But they found out that they wasn't no easy way to live away from Marster. He always took 'em back, didn't beat 'em nor nothin'. I run away once myself but I never went nowhere." Melvin's long body shook with laughter as he thought of his prank. He shifted in ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Egyptians could not do for him, he resolves to do for himself; in order then to take his Opportunity for what Mischief might offer, being defeated, and provok'd, I say, at the Slur that was put upon him, he resolves to follow them into the Wilderness, and many a vile Prank he plaid them there; as first, he straitens them for Water, and makes them murmur against GOD, and against Moses, within a very few Days, nay, Hours, of their great ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... I cannot navigate the ship, do you; and must needs try and take an observation yourself? Do you and your mates try that prank again, and I'll land you all on the first island we sight, where you may follow your own pleasure, if the savages don't knock you on the head and eat you; and if some one doesn't take you off, which is not very likely, there you will remain to the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, not ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... I give myself away, And abdicate on foolscap flimsy, Let me implore you, mark the day— Time-honoured feast of prank ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various
... able to stir themselves again. Doubtless there were many bumps, black and blue faces, and bloody noses: but the sight of all could not suppress the most extravagant merriment. All that had happened was looked upon as a prank of the fiddler, and many in their hearts felt that they had only received a just punishment for their coarse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... You left your door unlocked on a rainy half-holiday, when sixty or more girls were constantly passing and repassing; there are half a dozen girls, I am sorry to say, who might have been tempted by the open door to play some prank of the kind which seems so clever to children, and so ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... window on that Sunday afternoon when his prospects seemed to be so rosy. He never thought of that. He cursed every circumstance and person impartially and fluently, but he omitted from the Satanic litany the one girlish prank of tree-climbing that led Iris to spring out of sight amid the sheltering arms of an elm when her uncle and Captain Coke deemed the summer-house a suitable place for "a plain talk as man ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... Danish 'Spogelse,' without the sibilant aspiration. These words are general names for any kind of spirit, and correspond to the 'pouk' of Piers Ploughman. In Danish 'spog' means a joke, trick, or prank, and hence the character of Robin Goodfellow. In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, 'at pukra' means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely. The names of these spirits seem ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... familiar road. He stopped so long to chat with Aunty Perkins, halted Bess so long under the big live-oak at the Frost Creek school, and, leaning on her neck, gazed wistfully at the scenes of many a boyhood prank, that it was late in the afternoon when he passed the spot fragrant with memories of "Aunt Eliza" and "Mary Jane," galloped down the long hill, raced the coach and six just in from Raymond with a lot of tourists up to ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... Krishna, however, is not to be deterred. Creating duplicates of every calf and boy he brings them home. No one detects that anything is wrong and for a year they live as if nothing has happened. Brahma has meanwhile sunk himself in meditation, but suddenly recalls his prank and hurries out to set matters right. He is astonished to find the original calves and children still sleeping in the cave, while their counterparts roam the forest. He humbly worships Krishna, restores the original calves and children and ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... woe betide those that he didn't take a fancy to. I can hear Sally Andrews now, when she found the frog in her desk. It jumped right into her face, and fell into her apron-pocket,—we wore aprons with big pockets then,—and she screamed so she had to be taken home. That was the kind of prank Solomon was up to, every day of his life; and fishing for schoolmaster's wig through the skylight, and every crinkum-crankum that ever was. Master Bayley used to go to sleep every recess, and the skylight was just over his head. Dear me, Sirs, how that wig did look, sailing ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality of the Horner of Wycherley ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... last, as if a bright thought had struck him, "I know what it must be, sir. You're up to a prank sometimes—in fact, rather often—and you've hidden away the yacht, for there's been no one else in the Cove but you; though where you can have put it I'm puzzled to say, seeing there's not a place fit to hide a walnut-shell I haven't looked in, not to say a schooner ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... pretty objects like this my prey!" Then, choosing his moment carefully, by a quick turn he confronted Sesostris sternly, and almost thundered: "You speak of my doing ill to this maiden? You speak—the slave of Pratinas, who is the leader in every vice and wild prank in Rome! Has the slave as well as the master learned to play the hypocrite? Do you want to be tortured into confessing your part in all your master's crimes when the hour of reckoning comes and he is brought to justice. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... our breath, for it seemed like a schoolboy's prank. Well, after the long toil in the fen, we were like boys just freed from school, though our game was the greatest of all—that of war—the game of Hodur's ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... throughout the American flotilla as "Kelly." He commands a mine-laying submarine, which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of Irish ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... of the solid wave, Prank'd with rude shapes by the fantastic frost, He stood in silence;—now keen thoughts engrave Dark figures on his front; and, tempest-toss'd, He fears to say that every hope is lost. Meanwhile the multitude as death are mute; ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... the hill without his purchase. So to-day Little John was chosen, and for sweet company's sake Robin went with him a part of the way until they came to the "Seven Does," the inn where Robin had recently played his prank upon Middle the tinker. Here they drank a glass of ale to refresh themselves withal, and for good luck; and Robin tarried a bit while Little John went ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... Majesty saluted his fourth spouse With all the ceremonies of his rank, Who cleared her sparkling eyes and smoothed her brows, As suits a matron who has played a prank; These must seem doubly mindful of their vows, To save the credit of their breaking bank: To no men are such cordial greetings given As those whose wives have made them fit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a mere boyish prank,' said the father of the young Raja, when the matter was reported to him, 'and moreover it is well that he should slay one or two with his own hand, else how should men learn to fear him?' And there the matter ended; but it should ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... says he. "Just like Warrie to do that, though. But, if I know Miss Prentice at all, she will pay him back for that little prank." ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly of me ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol |
