"Croaker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with his mouth open and the flies buzzing about him looks to me like a Krooboy. Well, upon my word, old Croaker, they do look—I say, do you see ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... get in the way of metal ones, lest, if they rashly encounter them, they be ignominiously smashed in the shock." But Herode, relying upon the support and countenance of the Baron de Sigognac and the Marquis de Bruyeres, laughed at his fears, and called him faint-heart, a coward, and a croaker. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... ours is enchanting," said the doctor, when assailed by a chorus of doubts. "But it carries its deceptive smiles too far. The very beauty of the Cordillera is a sign of storm. I am sorry to be a croaker; yet we are running ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... what if it is? There's no reason for it to be tight, and it's not goin' to keep OUR money tight! You're always runnin' to the woodshed to hide your nickels in a crack because some fool newspaper says the market's a little skeery! You listen to every street-corner croaker and then come and set here and try to scare ME out of a big thing! We're IN on this—understand? I tell you there never WAS better times. These are good times and big times, and I won't stand for any other kind o' talk. This country's on its feet as it never was before, and this city's on its ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... at length, it seems, ministers are to be allowed to throw out their grappling hooks after English fugitives from the tyranny of Lord Londonderry. If a man runs to the North Pole, I suppose Lord Londonderry and Ally[1] Croaker will soon be after them: and that, by the way, is the meaning of all these polar voyages.—I see that even the ministerial gentlemen present cast down their eyes and look ashamed. No man has a word to say ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... a croaker, Tom," and he smiled down at me again, "but indeed I see many chances of failure. Even should we reach Fort Duquesne in safety, we will scarce be in condition to besiege it, unless the advance is conducted with rare ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... sure of you, my dears, from the first," he said. "The Major's an old croaker, but he'd go, too, if it were not necessary for him to stay in New York and attend to business. But we mustn't lose any time, if we're going to direct the politics of the Eighth District ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... an audience of seven frogs, listening to a speaker, or croaker, in the middle; and Bewick has set himself to show in all, but especially in the speaker, essential frogginess of mind—the marsh temper. He could not have done it half so well in painting as he has done ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... not bate an inch of confidence and courage. "You think too much," she said to Endymion, "of trade and finance. Trade always comes back, and finance never ruined a country, or an individual either if he had pluck. Mr. Sidney Wilton is a croaker. The things he fears will never happen; or, if they do, will turn out to be unimportant. Look to Lord Roehampton; he is the man. He does not care a rush whether the revenue increases or declines. He is thinking of real politics: foreign affairs; maintaining ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... tavern-keepers was skilled in catching them, and I fancy supplied them to his father's table; the important fact was his taking them, which he did by baiting a cluster of three hooks with red flannel, and dropping them at the end of a fish-line before a frog. The fated croaker plunged at the brilliant bait, and was caught in the breast; even as a small boy, my boy thought it a cruel sight. The boys pretended that the old frogs said, whenever this frog-catching boy came in ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... young skipper. "What a gammy old croaker you are. They won't start to-day, anyhow. But here, take her a minute, while I go aloft for one more look before sundown to ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... perpetual complaints of evil, and awakening those considerations of danger and distress, which are, for the most part, lulled into a quiet oblivion. This he has done very strongly in his character of Suspirius[636], from which Goldsmith took that of Croaker, in his comedy of The Good-Natured Man[637], as Johnson told me he acknowledged to him, and which is, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... in the great houses, because of their uniforms, who would never have been permitted even to come to the front door in other days, for all are potential heroes. Every woman carries her knitting, and it is seldom that you hear a croaker even among the most luxurious class. Well, the dinner is over by half past ten, and I go home to an hour and a half's work, which has been sent from the office, and fall at last into a more or less troubled sleep. This ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... down on de ground. Take sticks en make chimney cause dere won' no bricks en won' no saw mills to make lumber when I come along. Oh, my white folks live in a pole house daubed wid dirt too. Us just had some kind of home-made bedstead wid pine straw bed what to sleep on in dem days. Sew croaker sack together en stuff em wid pine straw. Dat how dey make dey mattress. Didn' get much clothes to wear in dat day en time neither. Man never wear no breeches in de summer. Go in his shirt tail dat come down to de knees en a 'oman been glad ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... an old croaker, I know," Harry confessed. "I've got a blue streak on to-night. Or else it's a fit of apprehension about something or ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... be a croaker, or a death's head at this gay party, but you mark my words, if you carry this fight against Sam to the limit it will mean a heap of trouble for the school. And, more than that, the Sophomore ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... thought that you were a croaker before," Field said, "except just before the last fight; but certainly things have gone very badly lately. Three disasters in seven or eight days are a facer; but I cannot think that we shall not succeed next time. When Warren's division ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... self-poisoning. But, on the other hand, democracy is a kind of religion, and we are bound not to admit its failure. Faiths and Utopias are the noblest exercise of human reason, and no one with a spark of reason in him will sit down fatalistically before the croaker's picture. The best of us are filled with the contrary vision of a democracy stumbling through every error till its institutions glow with justice and its customs shine with beauty. Our better men shall show the way and we shall follow them; so we are brought round again to the mission ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... o' yourn," Romescos shouts at the top of his voice. "You're only a green croaker from the piny woods, where gophers crawl independent; you ain't seen life on the borders of Texas. Fellers, I can whip any man in the crowd,—can maker the best stump speech, can bring up the best logic; and can prove that the best frightenin' man is the best man in the nigger business. Now, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... "you're an old croaker, saying that the change would possibly be for the worse! Why, the glass is rising, man, rising steadily; and, I've no doubt we'll have a splendid breeze ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... joyously. "It's you, Croaker, sure pop. My eyes did not deceive me. I thought they had, Croaker. I thought I must be laboring under a mental strain. When I saw you coming up the street I says to myself, 'That's The Croak.' Then I took another look, and says, 'No, it can't ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... you croaker, presence of mind' cried Jonas with a harsh loud laugh. 'Was he struck, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... "What a croaker you are, Dave," said Mr. Gordon lightly. "Don't lose sleep about any section. A night's rest is far too valuable to be squandered. These young folks want to see the sights, and I'll take them around for an hour or so. Then I'll go over that bill of lading with you. Come, Betty ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... that ninety per cent of the energy that there is in coal is lost in the present method of converting it into a usable force. May I, without being considered a croaker, say that almost the same amount of spiritual power goes to waste in our average church life? One is startled at times as he notes the manifestations of fervor and warmth in the devotional meetings of the present day, ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... croaker, Reuben, but I knows what I knows. I have been through a job like that I am telling you of, once; and I don't want to do it again. I will tell you about it, some day. I ain't saying as I expect any such thing will happen, on board the Paramatta. God forbid. She's a tight ship, ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... Foulmire Fen, in Cambridgeshire, although properly belonging to a continental race. It differs from our common frog in wanting a dark mark that runs from eye to shoulder, and in having, instead of it, a light mark—a streak—from head to tail along the centre of the back. The male is a more portentous croaker than our own familiar musicians, by virtue of an air-bladder on each cheek, into which air is forced, and in which it vibrates powerfully during the act of croaking. This kind of frog is always in or near ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Sholto," said Earl Douglas, "and it ill becomes a young knight, let me tell you, to be so chicken-hearted. The next time I will leave you at home to hem linen for the bed-sheets. Malise is a licensed croaker, but I thought better of you, Master ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the first time since the disaster, the note of the croaker was heard. Each and every boat contained at least one individual who knew exactly what ought to be done in a crisis ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon |
