"Ace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... came back with a long, stiff little birch, that, growing recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, from the look in the pale, set, freckly, almost comical ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... all. Hordes of Persian cavalry charged him through the mist, but they were beaten off, and Clive forced his way through the enemy's camp until he came near the Nawab's own tents, pitched in Omichand's garden. Sirajuddaula himself was within an ace of being captured. His troops made but a poor stand against the British, and by midday the ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... (and thinking of Maria Dolores? revolving still her cryptic valediction?), all at once, as his eye rested on the shimmer at the valley's end which he knew to be the lake, lifted up his hand and clapped his brow. "By Jove," he muttered, "if I wasn't within an ace of clean forgetting!" The sight of the lake had fortunately put him in mind that he was engaged to-day to lunch with ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... with tender care, but would not allow it to be tied with a rope for fear of breaking more of the edges. He insisted on carrying it himself too, and did so for the larger part of the way to Santa Brigida, and it was only when he was within an ace of dropping himself with sheer tiredness that he condescended to let me take my turn. He was tolerably ungracious about it too. "I suppose you may as well carry the stuff," he snapped, "seeing that after ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... voice softened by the vapors of his steaming dinner, "that friend of yours with the whiskers all over him is ace-high over here in this end of the dump! And say, friend, they could keep me here for life if they'd send purty girls like that one down here to see me once in a while. You're in right, friend; you certainly ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... whist. To play a banal game of whist with Liszt seemed a sacrilege, but we played, all the same. I was very distraite, seeing Grieg and his wife (who do not play cards) wandering restlessly around the room, and sometimes I put on an ace when a two would have done ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... the depravity buried in the depths of Valerie's heart, and still believed himself the victim of some practical joke. As they crossed the Pont Royal, life seemed to him so blank, so utterly a void, and so out of joint from his financial difficulties, that he was within an ace of yielding to the evil prompting that bid him fling Crevel into the river ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... "Come on, you black-hearted ace thief!" shouted Calamity Jane, thrusting the muzzle of one of her plated revolvers forcibly under the gambler's prominent nose—"come on! slide in if you are after squar' up-an'-down fun. We'll greet you, best we know how, an' not charge ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... the one predominant thought that filled her mind. With an immense effort he got command of himself. Somehow he must conquer this sudden insanity. The loyalty that had hung trembling in the balance reasserted itself and a self-disgust seized him. He had been within an ace of betraying the man who had been for twenty years nearer to him than a brother. She belonged to his friend, and now he had not even the right to question the ethics of the Sheik's possession of her. The calm that he had lost came back to him. The wound would heal though it might always throb, but ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... desk in the corner of the office and approached on tip-toe. Henry Denvil had drawn a card, the ace of diamonds, on the back of his ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... "Come on," said his friend, playing a queen. "Shove on your king, Pennell; everyone knows you've got him. What? Hiding the old gentleman, are you? Why, sure it's myself has him all the time"—gathering up the trick and leading the king. "Perhaps somebody's holding up the ace ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... We arrived at Ship Island at noon and found about the most God forsaken, miserable hole, man ever got into. The sand was ankle deep everywhere. And such a lot of Negroes; shiftless, lazy dogs, black as the ace of spades and twice as natural. But the little "nigs" kill me outright, they looking so much like a lot of monkeys, I know of nothing so comical. I could sit half the morning watching ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... husband, if no one got drunk, or gambled, or smoked, or hunted, in a word if we had neither vices, passions, nor maladies in France, the State would be within an ace of bankruptcy; for it seems that the capital of our national income consists of popular corruptions, as our commerce is kept alive by national luxury. If you cared to look a little closer into the matter you would see that all taxes are based ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... his cards). There! I done yer. Yer a child at cards, Patch. How ain 't it that yer never learnt? Did n't yer ever play black-ace at the Rusty Anchor down Greenwich way? Crack me hook, I 've played with ol' Flint hisself, settin' in the leetle back room. With somethin' wet and warmin' now and then, jest ter keep the stomich cozy. Never stopped till Phoebus's fiery eye ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... played a couple of games recently with a wide-faced young man who grew very playful and threw the parlor furniture at me because I trumpeted his ace. I fancy I must have did wrong. The fifth time I trumpeted his ace the young man arose, put on his gum shoes, and skeedaddled out of the house. Is it not considered a breach of etiquette to put on gum shoes in the presence ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... wag an ace farther: the whole world shall not bribe me to it; for my conscience will digest these gross enormities ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... oriental type of Issachar, and it is within an ace of being a grand impersonation. What that ace exactly is, it is somewhat difficult to say, but what is wanting is wanting in his great scene with his daughter. If the dramatist had given him such another final chance as I have already ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... name, and, what is very remarkable in it, (as appears from a most ancient account of the family, wrote upon strong vellum, and now in perfect preservation) it had been exactly so spelt for near,—I was within an ace of saying nine hundred years;—but I would not shake my credit in telling an improbable truth, however indisputable in itself,—and therefore I shall content myself with only saying—It had been exactly ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... my failure, but dodged the next instant as I tried it again, the lash this time coming within an ace of taking him ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... "The ace of spades; we always choose that gloomy card in secret societies. There is something deadly and suggestive about it," I ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... the road pass out of the stockholders' control into a receiver's hands. Yet as bonds could have been sold more easily than stock, it increased the difficulty of finding the necessary capital. Even so, it came within an ace of succeeding. ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... "The ace is high!" cried Jim. He caught up die and box, lifting the cupped cube high above his head. His eyes were bright with excitement, his cheeks were flushed, ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... the appearance presented by a central plate in the cuirass of the Pterichthys. It is of a lozenge form, and, occupying exactly such a place in the nether armature of the creature as that occupied by the lozenge shaped spot on the ace of diamonds, it comes in contact with four other plates that lie around it, and represent, so to speak, the white portions of the card. And Sir Philip now found, that instead of lying over, it lay under, the four contiguous ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... gently with the back of her hand to hide the fact that she was sleepy, and nudged her father's elbow. "You shouldn't have put the deuce there," she said, "you should have used it to build with on the ace." ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... school before I got through with it. Hal told his mother and she took it to the school board. I was a pretty tough little rascal in those days I guess and no doubt needed some lickings myself occasionally. But I remember I almost lost my nerve when I got back to school that day and came within an ace of stuffing the rose in my pocket instead of throwing it on your desk. I never dreamed the rose would be anything to you. It was only my way of paying tribute to you. You seemed to me something like a rose yourself, just dropped down out of heaven you know, you were so little and ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... feel I have not got it quite right. Added to which it was not my partner who played the two of clubs, it was Dummy. If I had only remembered this, and had concluded from it—as I ought to have done—that my partner had the ace of diamonds—as otherwise why did he pass my knave?—we might have saved the odd trick. I have not the head for bridge. It is only an ordinary head—mine. I have no ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... 80. Mr. Bass sailed close round the cape in his whale boat, but did not ace any island ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... Possible to retire?" Chilcote broke into a loud, sarcastic laugh. "You don't know what the local pressure of a place like Wark stands for. Twenty times I have been within an ace of chucking the whole thing. Once last year I wrote privately to Vale, one of our big men there, and hinted that my health was bad. Two hours after he had read my letter he was in my study. Had I been in Greenland the result would have been the same. No. Resignation is a meaningless word to ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... beef, pork, mutton, and veal.[**] Beef and pork were ordered to be sold at a halfpenny a pound; mutton and veal at a halfpenny half a farthing, money of that age. The preamble of the statute says, that these four species of butcher's meat were the food of the poorer sort. This ace was afterwards repealed.[***] ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... interest. There were five dice; each dice with its six surfaces had six different numbers. While he beamed into the veiled eyes of the old Mexican he was figuring upon the various combinations possible and the likelihood, the theory of chances, of a six or an ace upon the second throw. From the jump the game fascinated him; it is to be questioned, however, if ever before a man knew just the sort of fascination which enthralled him. No matter who won or lost, when the rolling cubes behaved in conformity with the mathematical ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... the aviator. "I have seen nearly two years' active service. I rank as an ace. I bear three wounds and have been cited several times. I have the Distinguished Service Cross. What more ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... moment the vessel struck the dock and lurched William out of his reverie, coming "within an ace" of pitching the poet into the harbor ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... of crowded disappointment, it was as well that Mavis was ignorant of the way in which her prospects had been prejudiced by the trend of events at Melkbridge House since Mrs Devitt had replied to Miss Mee's letter. To begin with, Mavis's visit had been within an ace of being indefinitely postponed; it was owing to Harold's expressed wish that the original appointment had been allowed to stand. The reason for this indifference to Mavis's immediate future was that, the day after the schoolmistress ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... motion without some noise being heard abroad. There rose in the Court, I know not what confused murmurs, the origin of which could not be pointed out, publishing that either the State or Chamillart must perish; that already his ignorance had brought the kingdom within an ace of destruction; that it was a miracle this destruction had not yet come to pass; and that it would be madness to tempt Providence any longer. Some did not blush to abuse him; others praised his intentions, and spoke with moderation of faults that many people reproached him bitterly ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... France and Switzerland, during his last Cambridge vacation; then, in November of 1791, he crossed to France, ostensibly to learn the language, made the acquaintance of revolutionaries, sympathized with them vehemently, and was within an ace of throwing in his lot with the Brissotins, to give them the steady direction that they needed. When it came to this his relatives cut off his supplies, and he was obliged to return to London toward the close of 1792. But still he resisted all pressure to enter any of the regular ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... sequence in hearts; the hearts all lay between himself and Sylvie; the colonel won her ace, though it was ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... where I used this stroke a great deal. Owing to its success—my opponent never even attempted to reach it—I won ace after ace. At the end of the match my opponent indignantly upbraided me. "I cannot admire your length," she protested. Neither did she think it was "fair to play sneaks," adding, "Anybody could win if they cared to play like that." In her opinion it wasn't ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... the forecastle looked like spectres, and they shrunk together, and whispered when it began to roll slowly along the spar where the boatswain was sitting at my feet. At this instant something slid down the stay, and a cold clammy hand passed around my neck. I was within an ace of losing my hold and tumbling overboard.—"Heaven have mercy on me what's that?" "It's that sky-larking son of a gun, Jem Sparkle's monkey, sir. You Jem, you'll never rest till that brute is made shark's bait of." But Jacko vanished up the stay ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... from her father, that it is very agreeable to him not to see her pale, wretched-looking face again till morning.—Now, my son, pay attention, and you, Trude, do not presume to interrupt us again. Leberecht, play out my ace of hearts." ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... leaving had discarded a black alpaca jacket, light as a pocket handkerchief, which had fallen so softly as to recall by contrast the noise made by the revolver in the pocket of the cloak. The lad was promptly seized with a strong desire to recover his property; he was within an ace of doing so, the cloak containing it being actually in his hands and only dropped as Baumgartner returned to announce that ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... noticed there before. It was about the size of a wafer when she first observed it, but it speedily grew as large as the palm of her hand, and then she could perceive that it was red. The oblong white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance of a gigantic ace ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... territorial organization, could it not have had it as well without as with a repeal? Iowa and Minnesota, to both of which the Missouri restriction applied, had, without its repeal, each in succession, territorial organizations. And even the year before, a bill for Nebraska itself was within an ace of passing without the repealing clause, and this in the hands of the same men who are now the champions of repeal. Why no necessity then for repeal? But still later, when this very bill was first brought in, it contained ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... and a capital way it is to encourage liberality in children. I gave mamma a very neat brass thimble, and she gave me a half-guinea piece. Then I gave her a very pretty needle-book, which I made myself with an ace of spades from a new pack of cards we had, and I got Sally, our maid, to cover it with a bit of pink satin her mistress had given her; and I made the leaves of the book, which I vandyked very nicely, out of a piece of flannel I had had round my neck for a sore throat. It smelt ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is figured that the Querist deals or has had much to do with a Man of fair skin and light type, of good temperament. Influenced by an Ace of like suit, one notably unselfish. By Knave, a Lover, Husband, Friend. By a Queen, a Love-match. By a Diamond, a Man of Wealth or artistic nature. By a high club, a Man of Energy withal; by a low club, one of Prudence. By a Spade, ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... eyes flashed angrily. "It's too neat, Frank. It's clever, and it's powerful, whatever we've run up against. But I think we've got an ace in the hole. ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... before the wedding, and, being curious by nature, took his niece aside for a quiet talk. He advised her to find out from her husband the true story of the affair of honour, whose claim, so imperative and so persistent, had led her to within an ace of tragedy. "It is right that his wife should be told. And next month or so will be your time to learn from him anything you want to ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... the enemy were within an ace of victory. He had flooded Belgium and Luxembourg with his armies, and, at the first clash of arms, had hurled everything before him in a manner which to the civilian must have appeared terrible in its completeness. Several ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... hire it. And then we'll go to Rochester and buy heaps and heaps of things. Look here, let's each take as much as we can carry. But it's not sovereigns. They've got a man's head on one side and a thing like the ace of spades on the other. Fill your pockets with it, I tell you, and come along. You can talk as we go—if you ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... Treaties of armed alliance can have no likelihood of American sanction, but we believe in respecting the rights of nations, in the value of conference and consultation, in the effectiveness of leaders of nations looking each other in the face ace before resorting ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding • Warren Harding
... I am safe tew win, Es the chap thet's able tew smilin' smack The ace he's been hidin' up his sleeve Kerslap on top of a feller's jack! Es I wus sayin', the night wus dark, The lightnin' skippin' from star to star; Thar wa'n't no clouds but a thread of mist, No sound but the ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... mit de boledics of dis land, Dat his friendts could barely keep him from trowin' oop his hand, Vhen he held shtraight-flush mit an ace in his poot- vitch phrase ish all de same, In de science of pokerology, ash if he got ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... seven miles there and back, when you wouldn't think she could walk seven hundred yards, and as likely as not had lain there on the dewy grass, looking up at the sky, as he had come on her sometimes. Poor Alicia! And once he had been within an ace of marrying her! A life spoiled! By what, if not by love of beauty! But who would have ever thought that the intangible could wreck a woman, deprive her of love, marriage, motherhood, of fame, of wealth, of health! And yet—by ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... was a deep, deep river, death a blue sky, life was a house, death a wisp of hay, a flower, a tower, life and death were anything and everything, except this ordered insanity, where the king takes the queen, and the ace the king. Ah, no; there was beauty and adventure behind, such as the man at her feet had yearned for; there was hope this side of the grave; there were truer relationships beyond the limits that fetter us now. As a prisoner looks up and sees stars beckoning, so she, from the turmoil and horror of ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... the General, his face as black as the ace of spades, (which, by the way, is blue.) "I might go to Nova Zembla for a quiet smoke, and some sneaking politician would crawl out from the ice with a petition. I went fishing in Pennsylvania, and I found twenty of those fellows to every trout. However, I don't mind ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... go abroad, and, as ace of trumps, you should take your wife with you. Now for the excuse: I would sit down and write such a letter as you alone can write to The Times. You should set forth how you have been insulted by the Marquis of Queensberry, and how you went naturally to the ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... or event out of the order of nature and unaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace with ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... full words, seems to me to point most clearly to the whole key of the situation. Anything which cannot be brought into such a simple number series, for instance, a colour impression, can never be transmitted. If the mother looks at the ace of diamonds, Beulah says that she sees the red of the diamond before her in her mind, but if the mother looks at the picture of a blue lake, this blue impression can never arise in Beulah's mind, but only the ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... playing jack pots with a stripped deck, the joker going as a fifth ace or to fill a straight or a flush. Several hands were dealt without any stayers. The slender Mexican was dealing when the sensation of ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... Tracy sat looking on, though with no apparent interest in the matter. He had joined in the game because his wife told him he must, and had borne meekly her sarcastic remarks when he trumped her ace and ordered up on nothing. His thoughts were not with the cards, but up stairs with Maude, who seemed to be much better, and for whom there was constantly a prayer ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... mine. I am chief owner. I'll stake me share of the ship on the next game against all that I have lost.' 'Done!' said I, and shuffled, cut, and dealt. He went four on three highest trumps, and an ace, and I held four small trumps. 'It's a bad job for my creditors,' he said, as he threw his hand down. Ged! I started on that vyage a poor captain, and I came into port very fairly well off, and sailing in me own ship, too! What ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Ship's Company of the Shannon, 16 June 1796.] in which there was conveyed a threat that afterwards, when the mutiny at the Nore was at its height, under the leadership of a pressed man whose coadjutors were mainly pressed men, came within an ace of resolving itself in action. That threat concerned the desperate expedient of carrying the revolted ships into an enemy's port, and of there delivering them up. Had this been done—and only the Providence that watches over the destinies of nations prevented ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... wash-stand. Chippendale furniture ain't in it with this kind. I reckon the king of England's is ace high against a straight flush when it bucks ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... within an ace of blazing away at you, but I happened to recognize your figure and step just in the nick ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... beaten; and this is his tale of how it was. He and some farm hands were playing at cards in a small cabin that stood against the end of a big barn. A wicked woman had once lived in this cabin. Suddenly one of the players threw down an ace and began to swear without any cause. His swearing was so dreadful that the others stood up, and my friend said, "All is not right here; there is a spirit in him." They ran to the door that led into the barn to get away ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... of ombre the ace of spades, spadille, ranks as the best trump card, and basto, the ace of clubs, ranks as the third best trump card. (For a description of ombre, see Pope's Rape of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... manliness is the characteristic of sea-faring men. This often gives an appearance of want of feeling, and even of cruelty. From this, if a man comes within an ace of breaking his neck and escapes, it is made a joke of; and no notice must be taken of a bruise or a cut; and any expression of pity, or any show of attention, would look sisterly, and unbecoming a man who has to face ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the circumstances thoroughly," he said. "The young Marquis of Beckenham went ashore with you, I think, and came within an ace of being ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... exercised upon them. Among the most beautiful of such cards we take the set designed and engraved by Virgil Solis, the celebrated Nuremberg artist and engraver, in which the suit signs are Lions, Peacocks, Monkeys, and Parroquets. In Fig. 7 we have the Ace of Peacocks. The aces are lettered with the distinctive suit-titles of the German cards, viz., "Grun," "Eicheln," "Schellen," and "Herzen." The pack consists of fifty-two, divided into four suits of thirteen cards each; the date of these cards is between ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... into the corners.| |He was like a cat on his feet, quick and sure, never| |making a false move. There were times when he | |nipped the best drives that the Comet sent over, and| |turned them back for passes. Repeatedly McLoughlin | |overhanded the ball for what to him seemed a certain| |ace, so that he relaxed and dropped his racquet to | |rest, as if the point were finished. Johnston made | |his recovery, however, and sending the ball back | |found McLoughlin off his guard and so scored the | |point. | | | |The cross volleys ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... folks had him put in jail a heap of times, because he was a rogue and stole everything he could get his hands on. Nearly everybody was afraid of him; he was a great big double jointed man, and was black as the ace of spades. No, mam, I never saw any slaves sold, but my father's mother and his sister were sold on the block. The white folks that bought 'em took them away. After the war was over my father tried to locate ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... when I was within an ace of starving to death," and then come out with Grub Street reminiscences of the most appalling kind. Unfortunately, I have always had ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... he had completed. Even in the first winter after Hallam's death, he wrote a few lines in the manuscript book which he kept by him for the purpose during the next fifteen years, and which he was within an ace of losing in 1850, just when the poem was completed and ready for publication. As a statesman turns from his private sorrow to devote himself to a public cause, so the poet's instinct was to find comfort in the practice of his art. Under the stress of feelings aroused ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... dear, brave, blessed ace of hearts in a world where hearts are trumps! If you ain't one of the right old girls, then they don't ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... my lord," said Philip in a low tone, "and I will show you something droll." Morcerf entered, and in place of the usual target, he saw some playing-cards fixed against the wall. At a distance Albert thought it was a complete suit, for he counted from the ace to the ten. "Ah, ha," said Albert, "I see you were preparing for ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... railing before him and gasped. The second seemed an age. The lower fan of the aeropile passed within an ace of touching the people, who yelled and screamed and trampled one ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... had worked, all right. You see, when Mike was doin' his heavy courtin' I'd planted my ace in the hole; I'd took off the outer soles of his runnin'-shoes and filed the spikes almost in two, close up to the plate. When I sewed the leather back on, it never showed, but the minute he struck his gait they broke with him and he begin to ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... come to you against my wish," she said in a firm voice, "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry my ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... the ups and downs of the war. When Lord Roberts's army swept on from Bloemfontein, the Boers in a measure swept back, and our host was for months persecuted by his own people, finally made a prisoner, and was within an ace of being shot; in fact, it was only the peace that saved ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... exactly what we'll do. I go for the doctor. Savvy? Well, I bring back the minister at the same time. Angevine, he loses the Jersey cow over in the cane-break, and uncle and Angevine go hunting her, for not even Loys is ace high in uncle's mind alongside that ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... Hsia or Gloomy Mountain Gorge, particularly nasty during mid-river season. Just about here, in 1906, the French gunboat Olry came within an ace of destruction by losing her rudder. Immediately, like a riderless horse, she dashed off headlong for the rocky shore; but at the same instant her engines were working astern for all they were worth, and fortunately succeeded in taking the way off her just as her nose grazed ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... erupting everywhere. A carrier suddenly came charging out of the brush to his left. While Ed dealt with that one, the Harn played its ace in the hole. The two special units it had been developing to deal with Ed were not quite done yet, but they were done enough to work for the few minutes the Harn needed them. Ed heard a coughing grunt behind him and spun around to ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... scout for at least a week to show that you are not an infant, another was not to row, and the last was not to play cards all day and night. My brother's an odd kind of chap, the sort of man who doesn't know the ace of spades by sight, but it's as easy to shout as it is not to row. Your name's Marten, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... chevalier de la Morliere; I only warn you, when the day comes for him to be hanged, not to ask me to pardon him." "Be assured," replied I, "that I will never deprive the Place de Greve of one so formed to do honour to it." In fact, the chevalier was within an ace of reaching it before his friends anticipated; for, very shortly after this conversation, he was guilty of the most detestable piece of knavery I ever heard of. He learned that an unfortunate young man from the country, into whose confidence he had wormed himself, was to receive 15,000 ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Mount Caucasus, which divides India from the provinces of Tartary in the north. This kingdom of the Moguls now reaches to the mountainous regions of Parveti and Bagous which they call Angou [199]. As in this dominion there ace great mountains, so there are likewise very large and fruitful plains, watered by five rivers which compose the Indus. These are the Bet, Satinague, Chanao, Rave, and Rea[200]. The cities of this country are numerous and, the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... even more ridiculous couple than their kind usually are. And, when the gentleman squeezed the lady, she laughed so foolishly that Archie Pennybet was within an ace of forgetting himself and heartily laughing too. It was worse still, when they began the pernicious practice of "rubbing noses." For the operation was so new and unexpected, and withal so congenial to Archie, that he risked discovery by craning forward to study it. He watched with jaws parted ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... both the parties agreed, That the peasants should dance German waltzes, And drink to the future mix'd long-and-short breed Of the Donderdronckdickdorffs and Quoltzes. To the church, then, on foot, went the ace with his size— "What's this crowd for?" cries one of the people. "For a baron, who's taking," an arch wag replies, "A morning's walk under the steeple." How I should ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... throughout all Salerno that Ruggieri had been taken a thieving in the house of the usurers. Whereat the lady and her maid were all amazement and bewilderment, insomuch that they were within an ace of persuading themselves that what they had done the night before they had not done, but had only dreamed it; besides which, the peril in which Ruggieri stood caused the lady such anxiety as brought her to the verge of madness. Shortly ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and 62, And forty and 900 too; Then, if to this sum you place Seven hundred and an ace, You will surely find the year When they ought to disappear— Both a Certain Holy 'un And the last NAPOLEON. And darkness will come wholly on The Sun. Day, natheless, will glow Down ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... didn't understand him at boarding-school; perhaps I didn't pay enough attention to him. At any rate, the first thing I knew his whole nature seemed to have changed. He got into scrape after scrape at Harvard, and later he came within an ace of marrying ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... not only a special divan but with it a special slave, the Slave of the Bed.... "Dat fat feller" had one of the prisoners perform his corvee for him. "Dat fat feller" bought enough at the canteen twice every day to stock a transatlantic liner for seven voyages, and never ace with the prisoners. I will mention him again apropos the Mecca of respectability, the Great White Throne of purity, Three rings Three—alias Count Bragard, to whom I have long since ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... Christmas. Claire played very well and, at five cents a point, he had to watch the game. On a specially big hand she piqued and repiqued. "That," she declared, "will pay you for caputting me." The jargon of their preoccupation, "A point of six; yes, to the ace; paid; and a quatorze, kings," was the only sound until Fanny rose, decidedly. "I am going to bed." She hesitated at the door. "I hope you'll be comfortable, Claire: I had some club soda and rye put in your room, since you like it so well. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... otherwise the renowned Billy Button, the son and heir to the honours, fortune, and shopboard of the late Billy Button of Bedford-street, Covent Garden. The latter property he appears to have transferred to the front of the old brown landau, where the aged coachman, with nose as flat as the ace of clubs, sits, transfixed and rigid as the curls of his caxon, from three till six every Sunday evening, urging on a cabbage-fed pair of ancient prods, which no exertion of the venerable Jehu has been able for the last seven years to provoke into a trot from Hyde park ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... use stirring up a dirty scandal to hurt his reputation for honest dealin' in New York. Even as it is, the story has got around about the mystery of Black Rock. No use makin' talk. That's why I want you. You stand ace high with the old man. He'll listen to you and we'll work the game all ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... long as I can stand for it. I'm a crook—like yourself, my lady, but with more backbone and some pride in being at the head of my profession. I'm wanted in a dozen places; I'll spend the rest of my days in the pen, if they ever get me. Twice today I've been within an ace of being nabbed—kindness of you and your Maitland. Now—I'm desperate ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... pleasure in exhibiting my skill and the method of its operation to the assembled company. Then the whole party would follow me to an open space, and I would call for a pack of cards, and possibly—for I was a good shot in those days—pink the ace of hearts at fifteen paces. At any rate my performances usually called forth plaudits, and this involved a further interchange of compliments and explanations, and the production of my sketch-book, which soon procured me the acquaintance of some ladies and ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... principle with all of them. They can justify themselves seven ways to the ace. Keep an eye on him, or let ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... announces that each of the five gamblers who are in funds must contribute 400 ducats to the raffle. The First Gambler, a heavy loser, does not engage in the play; and Don Flix, too, enters into this first transaction merely as a seller. The chain is to go to the player to whom he deals the ace of oros, and he himself will get the 2000 ducats. After this he will begin to gamble on his own account. The game of parar ceased upon the ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... false beard. It was whispered, and disbelieved. I alone knew it for a fact; for night after night had I pulled the rope up after him when the rest of the dormitory were asleep, and kept awake by the hour to let it down again on a given signal. Well, one night he was over-bold, and within an ace of ignominious expulsion in the hey-day of his fame. Consummate daring and extraordinary nerve on his part, aided, doubtless, by some little presence of mind on mine, averted the untoward result; and no more need be said of a discreditable incident. But I cannot ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... were in for it. I had expected perhaps ten Companies, not three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a half. We would ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... of his race, and the majority of mankind for that matter, he was intensely superstitious. Three times in succession he cut and dealt the cards, and three times the ace of hearts, the luckiest card in the pack, turned ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... what makes strong men yield, struggled and suffered, until there came to him one day a man of color. Black as the conventional ace of spades was this man, and most impudent of expression, but he bore a note from Her. She had known him formerly but as a serving man in a boarding-house, but he had told to another servant, in her hearing, of how he had been engaged for ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... ball must land short of the service line, it is obviously not possible to overpower your opponent for a service ace—as contrasted to the services in Squash ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires
... guerilla who led the jayhawkers and chased Redpath up and down the country, and, in turn, was chased by Redpath. By grace of the chances of war, the two men never met in the field, though they several times came within an ace of it. ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... his fist through a brick wall—all night long. And Pop Monroe knows all there is to know and some he makes up himself. They'd be a tough pair to beat. Our big ace is that they have to beat us. We ...
— Vital Ingredient • Gerald Vance
... as unsteadily. All the while the unfortunate tender plunges high and low, and is roared at. Then the Queenstown passengers are put on board of her, with infinite plunging and roaring, and the tender gets heaved up on the sea to that surprising extent that she looks within an ace of washing aboard of us, high and dry. Roared at with contumely to the last, this wretched tender is at length let go, with a final plunge of great ignominy, and falls spinning ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... newcomer of promise, amounting to genius: and Lilamani Sinclair, daughter of Rajputs, had only escaped becoming the craze of the moment by her precipitate withdrawal to Antibes, where she had come within an ace of losing all, largely through the malign influence of Jane—her evil genius during those wonderful, difficult, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... cards war drawed!" rang out the voice of the masked youth. "Look—hyar they be! One is ther ace o' spades, an' ther other is ther nine ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... talents rich and rare, Lies at this spot at finish of his race. Alike to him if it is here or there: The one spot that he cared for was the ace. ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... like I had an ace full, can't I? Anybody can play poker when he's got a mitt full of big ones. Show me the man that can make two pair back an all-blue hand ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... back on; the world has known nothing. But with a more or less famous man the public is thoroughly informed. Why look there! What an example you have close at hand! You are sitting back to back with the Comtesse Marie Vandenesse, who was within an ace of committing the utmost folly for a more celebrated man than Lousteau—for Nathan—and now they do not even recognize each other. After going to the very edge of the precipice, the Countess was saved, no one knows how; she neither left her husband nor her house; but as a famous man ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... come into port, and it was known that the old lady had received a good deal of the prize-money on their account, yet none of it was ever discovered. It is a very remarkable circumstance that some few years ago, I think about ten or twelve, but I forget exactly when, a quantity of money in spade-ace guineas was found in a cavity by the shore, not far from Mother Redcap's. It has always been a firm belief with me that some day a rich harvest will be in store for somebody—a case of treasure trove like that which some years ago was known as "the Cuerdly Find." Mother Redcap's was the ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... 'a' begun to lay it out by then that I held a straight flush to his ace high, for he sits down on the edge of the sidewalk an', being some winded, too, he just ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... the ship. The government had been very shy of providing instruments of any kind for Confederate cruisers. Poor Ethan had traded off two compasses only the day before for whalebone spears and skin breeches, neither of which knew the north star from the ace of spades. And this thing proved of more importance than you will think; it really made me feel that the stuff in the books and the sermons about the mariners' needle was not ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... you on board the Liffy frigate, which, by a combination of circumstances, is now lying in Cork Harbour,—fortunate for us, but which might have proved disastrous to her gallant officers and crew, for she was dismasted in a gale, and was within an ace of being driven on shore. But a miss is as good as a mile; and when under jury-masts she scraped clear of the rocks, and got into port in safety. Here my letter, after wandering about for many a day, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... cards to make the highest point possible, but Henri, by their absence from his own hand, could measure the peril that menaced him. So, surveying the number of cards that remained in stock, he guarded carefully three aces of trumps which might help him to avert disaster. But, playing the only ace that would allow him to score again, Paul Landry announced coldly, laying on the table four queens of spades ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... tell nothing. She had an awful temper. She would throw a knife from the table at the waiting ladies, and if anything vexed her she would maybe work upon the floor. A thousand dresses she left after her. Very superstitious she was. Sure after her death they found a card, the ace of hearts, nailed to her chair under the seat. She thought she would never die while she had it there. And she bought a bracelet from an old woman out in Wales that was over a hundred years. It was superstition made ...
— The Kiltartan History Book • Lady I. A. Gregory
... power they had conferred on Rome by passing the words Legatis proponentibus.[43] The principle involved in this phrase continued to be hotly disputed all through the sessions of the Council. But Pius knew that so long as he stuck fast to it he always held the ace of trumps, and nothing would ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... a good thing to have," Alexander said idly. "It's a useful ace in the hole. Besides, you have had three other job offers—all of which are good even though they don't pay fifteen ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... and Squire, in hot dispute, Within an ace of falling out, Are parted with a sudden fright Of strange alarm, and stranger sight; With which adventuring to stickle, They're sent away in nasty ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler |
