"Duffer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dollars ter learn dis, an' sign a 'greement dat I wouldn't give it erway. Jem Mace tort me dis trick w'en I sparred wid him in Liverpool. He says ter me, says he: 'Buster, ye're a boid, dat's wot ye are. If you knowed der trick of breakin' a bloke's wrist dere ain't no duffer in der woild dat can do yer. I'll show yer der crack fer sixty pound.' He wouldn't come down a little bit, an' I paid him wot he asked. Since dat time I've knocked roun' all over der woild, an' it's saved ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... a duffer. You behaved as if you expected the poor child to propose to you herself. I've been trying to make you see it for the last three and a half years, and you wouldn't. There never was such a chap for not seeing what's under ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... the artist, with a glance about the little room. He was thinking what a dear old duffer the man was—with his curious, impracticable philosophy of life and his big, kind ways. "You'll die poor if you don't ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... half a chance—" began Barton, and then didn't know at all how to finish it. "Why, you're so plucky—and so odd—and so interesting!" he began all over again. "Oh, of course, I'm an awful duffer and all that! But if we'd had half a chance, I say, you and I would have been ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... duffer I am to be sure!" I said to myself. "If I begin to get notions like this in my head there is no knowing where I may end. As if any girl would ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... "Old duffer! you are one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow: there's no knowing how to tyke you. You're such a sinful old 'ypocrite, that you play-act before yourself, I do believe. What is it you do mean? You myke anyone sick of you; your incense and your burnt sacrifices are an offence ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... quite see Davy as strong," said Jim, "though he is paying his debts. But Dick certainly is getting to be a conceited duffer. The ayes," he sighed, "seem to have it. The next question is ways and means. Old Bixby's method in St. X looks good to me. A conditional ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... truth in his brother's eyes. He smiled weakly, the anger gone. "Same old blind duffer you always were. I wrote an answer to her letter. In that letter I told her ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... mean the old duffer who lived up Wildcat Canyon?" demanded Penhallow. "Woman had a stroke—they found her up there dead. Their name was 'Gasca' or 'Gomez' or ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... farewell. The growing light of early morning transfigured his face, and to Philip it suddenly seemed to be most remarkably like the face of That Man, Mr. Peter Graham, whom Helen had married. He was just telling himself not to be a duffer when Lucy cried out in a loud cracked-sounding voice, 'Daddy, ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... interested me. It was not the letter of a duffer or a swindler—the sort of thing you can tell by its ornate pompousness; and it just caught me when I was somewhat bored by things, so that I rather welcomed it as an excitement. I expected to find you lodging in some miserable cottage—a Chatterton in a garret. I came to ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... believe in the other automatically—I'm not a bit clever, Louis. I never was. Always I get puzzled, always I realize how utterly unlearned I am. Always father called me an idiot and threw things at me for it. But in spite of being a duffer I'm sure ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... Mr. Vane with a joyous thump on the shoulder-blade. "I say, old man, Miss Harding has turned out to be the most fearful doubting Thomas—thinks the whole scheme quite mad and all that sort of thing. I'm far too great a duffer to convert her, but perhaps ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... been regarded as slightly double. For the rest I was strong and fairly well—not much inclined to exercise, to be sure, but able, if occasion offered, to wield a tennis racket or a driver with a vigor and accuracy that placed me well out of the duffer class. ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... minutes went swinging by. "And that's something to be thankful for. One likes novelty, especially if it's feminine. Well, I'm out for the sole purpose of saving a million or so for old Wharton, and to save as much of her reputation as I can besides. With the proof in hand the old duffer can scare her out of any claim against his bank account, and she shall have the absolute promise of 'no exposure' in return. Isn't it lovely? Well, here's Albany. Now for the dinky road up to Fossingford ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... deep. "Really I—I've never thought of marrying anyone. Why, how could I? And besides I shouldn't know how to go about it,—proposing, and all that. Oh, I couldn't! You—you can't understand. I'm such a duffer at ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... impressed upon me that I am such a duffer," Captain Jones began, a little haughtily, "I naturally hesitate to make many inquiries, but I cannot quite get it through my stupid and impossible head just why 'Ann' is hidden away ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... able to stand it all, and not get soured in temper and feeling against the Mongols. I must have patience. Some knowledge of camel's flesh also would help me not a little. As it stands, I feel an incompetent "duffer."' ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... amiably rubbing his hands together. "Anyhow, I won't, which means about the same thing. Where's the little duffer?" ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... my justification. My mediumship, I can assure you, is a particular instance of the general assertion. Were I not of a profoundly indolent, restless, adventurous nature, and horribly averse to writing, I would make a great book of this and live honoured by every profound duffer in ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... say the Female and the Duffer strut On sacred Greens where Morris used to put; Himself a natural Hazard now, alas! That nice hand quiet now, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... no means thorough. There is no record of his having distinguished himself academically in the slightest degree. It is related of him, on the contrary, that he was such a duffer at classics as to be incapable of grasping the rule that 'ut' should be followed by the subjunctive mood. The following account of Disraeli's schooldays, given by one of his school-fellows, is quoted by Sir ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... consulting his memory. "Let me see. I took supper about seven at Duffer's; I went to Glauber's drug-store next and got a glass of soda water; if they don't know me, they'll remember my breaking a glass; then I made a visit at Mr. Matchin's on Dean Street; then I went to the Orleans theatre; I come out between the acts and got a cup of coffee at Mouchem's—then I went ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... make my fists talk to anybody who thinks I'm a duffer," answered Dol, squaring his shoulders as if to make the ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... him. He had been a very second-rate helmsman while alive, but now he was dead he might have become a first-class temptation, and possibly cause some startling trouble. Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at the business. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... about talking to them? I can see you are a duffer still"—and one needed to see and near him to appreciate the profound, immutable contempt which echoed in this remark. He had been grown-up now two years, and was in love with every good-looking woman that he met; yet, despite the fact that he came ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... Dolly; 'stupid little duffer. We won't have him this time. And, mother darling, I want to dance all the time; and it's my own party. Dancing is enough—it is really,' she pleaded in a pretty frenzy of impatience. And Dolly got her own ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... is too rediklus for anythink. Look at the kiddish kick-up along o' the visit of the Hempress! Why, if we 'ad that duffer, DEROULEDE, on Newmarket 'Eath, we should just duck him in a 'orsepond, like a copped Welsher. Here they washup him, or else knuckle under to him, like a skeery Coster's missus when her old man's on the mawl, and feels round arter her ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... matters that most apprentices ignore. One night Jones heard them rotting about 'Great Circle sailing,' and 'ice to the south'ard of the Horn,' and subjects like that, when, properly, they ought to be criticising their Old Man, and saying what an utter duffer of a Second Mate they had. Jones was wonderfully indignant at such talk, and couldn't sleep at night for thinking of all the fine sarcastic remarks he might have made, if he had thought ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... (whom I've nicknamed "Stewey") remembered that there was a ball going on, and that he was the host. So he and the other duffer pottered away, leaving the coast clear and the door wide open. It was just my luck (which is always bad and always has been) that a pair of flirting idiots, for whom the conservatory, or our "den," or the stairs, wasn't secluded ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... it at all, laughed himself, peaceably. "It would take a great deal more than a little of Vincent's fun," he thought, "to make me feel anything but peaceable here." He was quite used to having people set him down as a harmless, worn-out old duffer, and he did not object to this conception of his character. It made a convenient screen behind which he could carry on his own observation and ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... might have gone safely by the path, for one bullock was saying to another: "There's that little duffer going all that long way out of his course just for fear of us. What do you say to trotting down to the gate ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... I never came across! But it's clear if you can't shoot with that drilled arm of yours you can't play the concertina. Wish I could knock a tune out of the thing, Leash, for your sake—enough to make a Boer put his head up. But I'm a duffer at musical instruments—always was. What do ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... consequence of cables fouling the anchor stock, or flukes, thereby pulling it out of the ground and causing it to drag. It was also the occasion of many bitter quarrels between master and mate. The former may have been a duffer at the manoeuvre himself, but that did not bother him now that the position had changed. Even a consciousness of the mate's knowledge of his fallibility did not qualify his hostile remarks; indeed, the recollection of it never ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... "Nobody but a duffer pays fare," said the other. "There'll be a freight along pretty soon, and she stops at the water tank just below here. Why don't you ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... "Fiddlesticks, you duffer! I can get up right enough on my own cheek," I said with a titter, though my mouth was full of the brackish water into which I had plunged at first head and ears over, while my teeth were chattering with cold, the frosty November air being chilly. "I shall fancy I'm ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... else on my mind. In case I became satisfied that the two teams were pretty evenly matched, I had a little plan through which I felt confident I could make it a dead sure thing for Barville. I was not off my base, either, and it would have worked out charmingly if that big duffer, Lander, hadn't dipped in and ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... to it fast enough, I warn 'e. To think after years an' years he didn't knaw the duffer'nce 'twixt a bullock an' a sheep! Well—well! Of coourse us knawed times was tight, but Jack-o'-Lantern be to the end of his dance now. 'T is ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... lost, you big duffer," said Bill. "Why, you were the one that got lost. We've been looking ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... of the "Not Really a Duffer" type, where the nervous new boy, who has been found crying in the boot-room over the photograph of his sister, contrives to get an innings in a game, nobody suspects that he is really a prodigy till he hits the Bully's first ball out of the ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... what?" she cried. "Parliament?—after that? You boy! you sentimentalist! you—you duffer! Do you think I'd let you do it for your own sake even? Do you think I want you—spoilt? We should come back to mope outside of things, we should come back to fret our lives out. I won't do it, Stephen, I won't do it. End this if you like, break ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... afraid, mother. If I get into a chest, you may depend I shall know how to get out of it. That girl in the poem was a duffer for not having made more row; and her lover was a beastly sneak for not ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... duffer!" said Charley laughing; "you are incorrigible. But do come along with me, Tom. We haven't landed now for two days, and I can't stand the ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... "Why, you duffer, of course he could get out any time he liked. It's only a latch on the door; any one can open it from inside. He could easily get down to the river in the night, and have a tub, and fetch up ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... ol' duffer," he went on, as he pointed at the stern features of grandpa Smead. "Wouldn't ye think he'd smile now an' then. Maybe he'll cheer up ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... rectified in London, you know. Some English spirit will perhaps be mixed. But I must not tell you the secrets of the trade till you join us. That Bios is distilled from the bark of the Duffer-tree is ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... sure," I said, assuming an enthusiasm I did not feel. Put on the gloves with this strapping, skillful boxer? Not I! I was firmly resolved to stop while my record was good. In a scientific clash with the gloves he would soon find out what a miserable duffer I was. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... on a pedestal. They think that they lose dignity if they are not able to answer every question that a child puts to them. One result is that the child develops a dangerous inferiority complex. I knew one boy who was a duffer at mathematics. His weakness was due to the inferiority he felt when he saw the learned mathematical master juggle with figures as easily as a conjurer juggles with billiard balls. The little chap lost all ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... him fast by either shoulder, at arm's length, and shaking a reproving head at his friend. "You big duffer!" he said. "Did you think for a minute I'd let you ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... should have known more what the world was like, I should have depended more upon other people, I should have made friends. As it was, I left school entirely innocent, very solitary, very modest, thinking myself a complete duffer, and everyone else a beast. It got a little better at the end of my time, and I had a companion or two—but I never dreamed of telling anyone what I was ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... always on the watch to take him down a peg when he was pleased with himself—to hold him cheap and overpraise some duffer in his hearing—so that I might save my own self-esteem; to pay him bad little left-handed compliments, him and his, whenever I was out of humor; and I should have been always out of humor, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... you young duffer,' said Oswald, who could now smell the coffee. 'All that isn't History it's Humbug. ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... been for Willy Horse I should not have got the property at all. That chief with the iron toes is a shrewd old duffer. He has owned the property for some years, and all that time the Hiram Dusenbery Company has been trying, by fair means or otherwise, to buy it of him, but Old Iron-Toe put the price so high that they ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... Phil said regretfully. He had been "a regular duffer" at climbing at school, and the bigger boys had often dragged him up a fairly tall tree and left him there, clinging helplessly to the boughs, until they were tired of jeering at him. He shivered now as he thought of it; then squared his ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... slave by nature, if we are Athenians who wish to have no qualms. If we have told our friends that we do eighteen holes of golf in 95, we tell them after doing the course in 110, that we are not ourselves to-day. That is to say, we are not acquainted with the duffer who foozled ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... your nose out of this business, an' don't speak to me again till after I'm dead. Do ye mind that, ye big duffer?" ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... jargon means. From Aristotle to William James, I have dipped into quite a lot of them—Descartes, Berkeley, Kant, Schopenhauer (the thrice besotted Teutonic ass who said that women weren't beautiful), for I hate to be thought an ignorant duffer—and I have never come across in them anything worth knowing, thinking, or doing that I was not taught at my mother's knee. And as for her, dear, simple soul, if you had asked her what was the Categorical Imperative ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... one of my hostesses come to round me up to do my duty," he confessed. "I'm a duffer at dancing, so I've taken cover in here. I see you don't remember me, but we've met before—at Red Ridge Barrow. My ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... when we were practising at an empty brandy bottle outside Adams' bar, he took up a friend's pistol and hit it plumb in the centre at twenty-four paces. There were few things he took up that he could not make a show at apparently, except gold-digging, and at that he was the veriest duffer alive. It was pitiful to see the little canvas bag, with his name printed across it, lying placid and empty upon the shelf at Woburn's store, while all the other bags were increasing daily, and some had assumed ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wears the Panama? I wonder if anyone would think of haste in connection with that duffer. It took him just one hour to buy three soft crabs from some kids at the dock yesterday," said Walter. "I wouldn't like to be his messmate. But I don't like his eye; it's made on ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... has told us all about you. Excuse my rig—we are short of men on the farm, and I took hold. I'm glad of the chance, for I get precious little exercise since I left college. You came from East Branch by morning stage, I suppose? Oh, is that your trunk dumped out in the road? What a duffer I was not to know. Wait a minute—I'll bring it in," and he sprang ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the scornful. "I say, you are a duffer to suppose that clever men like schoolmasters bother their heads about such rot as the colour of a ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... The King is determined that she shall wed Prince Ernst. He would take away her principality but for the fact that there would be a wholesale disturbance to follow any such act. If I ever meet that watch dog of hers, the Count von Walden, the duffer who gave me my conge, there will be trouble. The world isn't large enough for two such men as we are. By the way, I played roulette at the Casino last night and won 3,000 francs. Well, au revoir or adieu as the case may be. They sell the worst whiskey ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... N. bungler; blunderer, blunderhead^; marplot, fumbler, lubber, duffer, dauber, stick; bad hand, poor hand, poor shot; butterfingers^. no conjurer, flat, muff, slow coach, looby^, lubber, swab; clod, yokel, awkward squad, blanc-bec; galoot^. land lubber; fresh water sailor, fair ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was time to make my position clear. 'I'm an utter duffer at sailing,' I began. 'You'll have a lot to teach me, or one of these days I shall be wrecking you. You see, there's always been a crew—'Crew!'—with sovereign contempt—'why, the whole fun of the thing ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Stannard, in words meant for his fellows, but in tones that went farther. "There'll be conflict of authority now or I'm a duffer!" ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... returned Malcolm loudly; his eyes were bright with excitement. "It was the loveliest thing you ever saw, Anna. The princess was a beauty, and no mistake; even Charles thought so, and he has seen princesses by the score. I am glad I went; the boys won't think me such a duffer when I tell them. Don't shake your head, Anna; you are a girl, and you don't understand how much one has to put up with from the fellows. They call me the Puritan, and ask if I wear pinafores at home. But I stopped that," and here Malcolm doubled up his fists ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... on which occasion it was remarked that as he did not come on Saturday there must be something wrong. A clerk, with Saturday half-holidays, ought not to be away from his work on Mondays and Tuesdays. Mrs. Duffer, who was regarded in Paradise Row as being very inferior to Mrs. Demijohn, suggested that the young man might, perhaps, not be a Post Office clerk. This, however, was ridiculed. Where should a Post Office clerk find ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... in the one department in which he has been brought up to consult his own honor. As a Sportsman (and war is fundamentally the sport of hunting and fighting the most dangerous of the beasts of prey) he feels free. He will tell you himself that the true sportsman is never a snob, a coward, a duffer, a cheat, a thief, or a liar. Curious, is it not, that he has not the same confidence in other ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... given it to the old duffer for a birthday present—hundredth anniversary!" he scoffed. "That would be taking his turn at doing knight-errands. Let's go right on and not disturb the poor ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... instinct of self-protection. The pinnated grouse, sage grouse, Bob White quail and ptarmigan exercise but little keen reason in self-protection. They are easy marks,—the joy of the pot-hunter and the delight of the duffer "sportsman." ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... at Mount Duffer are not literary. So very remote from this condition are they, that they regard men of letters as "awful men," in the Shakspearian sense of the word. Consequently, since those papers began to appear, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... they are not all exactly like Levick," said Philip, who was a little ashamed of himself for having frightened his little brother; "but I was only joking when I said that about the policeman in Borsham, Dan. What a little duffer ...
— The Gap in the Fence • Frederica J. Turle
... does he! Well, let me tell you that whatever Henry T. Thompson thinks—about morals, I mean, though course you can't beat the old duffer—" ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... amusement is considered an interminable bore, the game of Football has, of course, no charm. There is too much hard work for him, and the training required to put one in condition, fraught with all that is called self-denial, he could never endure. The musty old duffer, too, looks upon the game in the light of a deadly sin, which can never be associated in his mind with anything short of idiocy and the most virulent fanaticism. To some of his young men he remarks—"And you call that a grand game, running about a field ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... word of what they've told you, Mr. Snelling," laughed Robert Morton. "Our friends are always over-indulgent to our faults. When I begin work under you, a thing I am greatly anticipating, you will find out what a duffer I ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... ask," Anthony threw back. "It's let to a duffer, of course. None but a duffer would be ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who seemed to be the master of it, and was proud to be so. 'Young woman, don't you please to stand like that, or every duffer in the parish will be here, and the boys that come hankering after it. You be off!' he cried out to a boy who was calling some more round the corner. 'Now, young woman, we must come in if you please, and the ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... looking for you everywhere! How many dances can you give me? I've kept my programme as free as I could till I found you. I thought the pixies must have spirited you away! What did you say? I ought to ask Gwen? It isn't necessary in the least. You know I'm a duffer at it, and I should probably tread on her toes and she'd hate me for evermore. May I ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... crossed his long legs, and jerked a speckled thumb toward the outer office. "I was sane when I came in here, but the eyes of the girl outside—oh, yow, them eyes! I must be introduced to her. And you're scolding me for coming around here in broad daylight. Why, you duffer, if I come at night, d'ye suppose I'd have ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... broke out again. "I'll go t'ump hell outa deh mug what did her deh harm. I'll kill 'im! He t'inks he kin scrap, but when he gits me a-chasin' 'im he'll fin' out where he's wrong, deh damned duffer. I'll wipe up deh street ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... interested no more but thet tha' ole Dopped ganger, the Wild Hunter, the spooky old critter, has been seen agin. i wuz on the top of the painted Butte yesterday squinten one i in the valley look'n for elk and look'n up with tother i for Big horn on the mountain, when i staged the old duffer snoop'en along in one of the parks an' he had the same long hair and long rifle he uster have. He sure is a ghost or else he's a nut or an old timer gone locoed. He sends the chills down my backbone every time i sots ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... sounded a little awed. He had a great respect for Fallacy Street. "Oh, they won't have any room for me," said Harry, laughing. "I'm an awfully stupid old duffer. I haven't read anything at all, except a bit of Kipling—'Barrack-room Ballads'—seems a waste of time to ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... it were diamonds or pearls or rubies, all well and good. But a string of glass beads! The old duffer is ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... and FIFE tootle praise, His two thousand hearers raise cheering—raise cheering. Of wild would-be Scuttlers he proves the mad craze, And of Governments prone to small-beering—small-beering. Sullen Boers may prove bores to a man of less tact, A duffer funk wiles Portuguesy—tuguesy; But Dutchmen, black potentates, all sorts, in fact, To RHODES the astute come quite ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... you, Strachan, though it does not concern you personally. You both know all about the will and its mysterious disappearance, so I need not recapitulate that. Well, I have been to Ireland and seen the lawyers—Burrows and Fagan. I could not make much of Burrows, who is a duffer; but Fagan has his wits about. He had never had to do with that branch of the business, but now the credit of the firm was at stake he busied himself in making searching and pertinent inquiry. A sharpish boy-clerk was certain that the will ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... divide the proceeds. The first thing, then, is for each man to peg off his claim. That done, you can work the properties conjointly under the supervision of a committee, pay the gross takings into a common account, and divide the profits. In this way the owner of a duffer claim participates equally with the owner of a rich one. In other words, there is less risk of failure—I might say, no risk at all—but also much temptation. Such a scheme would be quite impossible except amongst gentlemen, but I ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... the uplifted shovel with which his proposal had been greeted. Yet there was no well-defined jealousy between them. Mr. Walking Delegate Dennis Quigg, confidential agent of Branch No. 3, Knights of Labor, had too good an opinion of himself ever to look upon that "tow-headed duffer of a stable-boy" in the light of a rival. Nor could Carl for a moment think of that narrow-chested, red-faced, flashily dressed Knight as being able to make the slightest impression on ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Behind him a dog yelped with pain, and above the noise someone shouted: "Here, you kids, let up on that! Shame on you! Let him alone! Call off your dogs, there! Poor little duffer, let him go. Get ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... in the Mount Margaret district, and we shared the opinion of everybody there that it was a "duffer," and after events had proved what that opinion was worth. Travelling and prospecting as we went, we at last succeeded in finding a reef which ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... you," said he, "but I'm afraid I should show myself such a duffer. I used to be a pretty fair trout-fisher when I was a lad," he went on to say; and then it suddenly occurred to him that the offer of her companionship ought not to be received in this hesitating fashion. "But I shall be delighted to try my hand, if you will let me; and of course you must ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... generally. The riding capacities of the Australians are well known. Nearly every one born in the colonies learns to ride as a boy, and not to be able to ride is to write yourself down a duffer. Horseflesh is so marvelously cheap, that it is not taken so much care of as at home. In outward appearance, the Australian horse has not so much to recommend him as a rule, but his powers of endurance rival those fabled of the Arabian. A grass-fed horse has ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... There's a duffer in your district Whose sheer cussedness is such He has neither pride nor manners— No, nor gumption, overmuch. 'Twould be great to up and tell him Where to go. But be resolved— He's no foeman to be fought with, Just a ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... deeper, more worthy of the great Demiurgus than that which pictures him telling a priest how to carve his pantaloons or sacrifice a pair of pigeons, than standing idly by with his hands under his coat-tails, while some drunken duffer beats the head of his better half with a bootjack, or a bronze brute rips the scalp from a smiling babe. If that's the kind of a hairpin who occupies the throne of Heaven, I don't blame Lucifer for raising a revolution. I would have taken a fall out of ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... however learned, who has practised for twenty years in the Divorce Court? I know him," went on Eustace, vindictively—"I know him. He will fall in love with you himself. Why, he would be an old duffer if ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... a competition in Latin verses open to both forms. Latin verse was the one thing in which I was strong. There is a sort of knack, you know, in stringing them together. A fellow may be a duffer generally and yet turn out Latin verse better than fellows who are vastly superior to him on other points. It was regarded as certain that I should gain that. No one had intended to go in against me, but at the last moment he put his name down, and, to the astonishment ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... Though I really can't say that he actually cried, At least had a tear in his eye! As much as can well be expected, perhaps, From "very young fellows," for very "old chaps." And if he had said What he'd got in his head, 'Twould have been, "Poor old Duffer, he's certainly dead!" The morning dawned—and the next—and the next And all in the mansion were still perplexed; No knocker fell, His approach to tell; Not so much as a runaway ring at ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... I believe it would have pleased him better if I had been killed outright. He wouldn't have had the humiliation of it always before his eyes. If it had been any sort of a decent accident, I believe I could bear it better, but to be knocked over in a football match, like the precious duffer that ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... Dangloss in unravelling this matter. And I'll go up to that Witch's hole before I'm a day older to have it out with her. I'll find out where the smoke came from and I'll know where that eye went to." He sighed without knowing it. "By Jove, I'd like to do something to show her I'm not the blooming duffer ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... duffer, are you going to do your share? You're not O'Roon, but it seems to me if you'd lean to the right you could reach the reins of that foolish slow-running bay—ah! you're all right; O'Roon couldn't have done it ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... had seen us once before. It was you she wanted, not me. Why didn't you go, you duffer? I only ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... chair—so incongruous with his little feet and mincing gait! It was as though as much as possible of his body were seeking to escape that all-devouring tension in relapse. How familiar it all was! Even during those months at camp the picture would recur and Joe would laugh softly to himself. Poor old duffer! He was a product of the plant just as much as ploughs and tillage implements were. How soon would he begin to show the ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... suns beat down upon it His head is sheltered by a bonnet; And though it makes him look a duffer, He hasn't half the ...
— A Horse Book • Mary Tourtel
... life than any one I have ever met. I feel an awful duffer when I am with you, Lord Illingworth. Of course, I have had so few advantages. I have not been to Eton or Oxford like other chaps. But Lord Illingworth doesn't seem to mind that. He has been awfully good to ...
— A Woman of No Importance • Oscar Wilde
... single thing in the whole kit of it. And first and foremost, 'tain't a bit likely the old man 'ud ha' been sich a duffer." ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... first time, I got an inkling of who and what he is. I saw him performing an operation upon a horse, in the yard of a livery stable. He is a VETERINARY SURGEON! He consorts with BUTCHERS! Put that and that together, Mr. PUNCHINELLO, and see what you can make of it. And the duffer always eats mutton, too, or fish. I never yet heard him call for beef. He knows all about nag, and likes it alive, but he is not to be nagged into eating it. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... think what I please," said Scaife, curtly; "and so can you." He laughed derisively. "Thinking what they please is about the only liberty allowed to new boys. Even the Duffer learned to hold his tongue during ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... believe thoroughly that no sane woman has ever actually muffed a chance. Now and then, perhaps, a miraculously fortunate girl has two victims on the mat simultaneously, and has to lose one. But they are seldom, if ever, both good chances; one is nearly always a duffer, thrown in in the telling ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... replied Miss Florence, in a sharp, clipping voice; and the next minute Bessie heard her call one of her sisters a duffer for missing ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Gus threw a moody glance skyward. "Some duffer's got ahead of us. We've been scooped, ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... "O ma! there was such a precious guy at the ball last night, and I had no end of a lark with him. Good gracious! here comes the duffer himself." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... the least; take your time. Let me see what the tickets look like. That 's all right—say, Masters, before you go, do you know that big duffer with a black beard ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... of fleecin'," taunted Braden. "Why, you been skinned clean's a whistle! And by a' old fool duffer from Texas!" ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... lying about loose) in a motor-car for a week, passing through the loveliest country in the world, and can't make her forget for his sake some other fellow she's known only a few hours longer, must be a born duffer. This I dinned into ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... coming shell, and what the officer didn't say to Hambone for trotting, which was a violation of orders, would not be worth repeating. He bellowed at him to go and search for it, and with wicked delight we watched the duffer going back over the route, peering from side to side of the road in his ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... man I talked against was a duffer, but this has been a great day," he said. "This place ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... of Mr. DUFF, M.P., to be Governor of New South Wales is a "positive" good, seeing that they might have appointed "a comparative Duffer." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... hear it. I'm probably boring you to death with my troubles! You wouldn't hardly think I was an old duffer; I ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... a kissing bee with the rest of them, so as to assure himself that he was the true old friend, the genuine Codlin, while the other man was Short. "Marjorie," he said, as that fishing young lady clung to him, "there's a duffer of a dude, with an eye-glass, up at the house, who says he's an old friend of your cousin Marjorie; do you know any old friend of hers?" Marjorie stopped to think, and, after a little pause, said: "It can't be Huggins." "Who is Huggins, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... some naive and almost childish passages of humour omitted—a richer, terser, purer, or more perfect style than that of the whole narrative. Nowadays, the fashion in criticism has changed, and the feeblest duffer amongst us receives welcome ten times more enthusiastic and praise less measured than was bestowed upon 'The Cloister and the Hearth' when it first saw the light. Think only for a moment—think what would happen if such a book should suddenly ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... and no more mysterious than a window-pane. She had whimsical little theories that she had deduced from life, and that fitted the maxims of Epictetus like princess gowns. I wonder, after all, if that old duffer wasn't rather wise! ...
— Options • O. Henry
... a bigger duffer than you are, Flo. You can't help being a girl, I know; but I'm willing to help you all I can out of a girl's foolishness. Only a girl would talk of ringing the bell, and making a row, because she can't have all her own way. Come now, I want to talk to you about ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... expedition into the plains that I proved the great qualities of my dog. There we had nobler game to follow—wildebeest and hartebeest, impala, and now and then a koodoo. At first I was a complete duffer, and shamed myself in Colin's eyes. But by-and-by I learned something of veld-craft: I learned how to follow spoor, how to allow for the wind, and stalk under cover. Then, when a shot had crippled the ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... looked at Teeny-bits' new friends with a kindly twinkle in his eyes and told them that they were all "lucky boys to go to such a fine school" and advised them to "study hard so as to be smart men." If he had not been Teeny-bits' father, they might have thought he was a queer old duffer. ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... resemblance to Colihan's own think-machine. Wilson, the oldest employee of General Products, had been the operator of the maintenance Brain. He had been a nice old duffer, Wilson, always ready to do Colihan a favor. Now that he had been swept out in Colihan's own purge, the Personnel Manager had to deal with ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... duffer! I'll bet he was disappointed," came sympathetically from Christopher. "Think of his having to stay at home and miss the fun of seeing how ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... DUDDERS. Cheats who travel the country, pretending to sell smuggled goods: they accost their intended dupes in a whisper. The goods they have for sale are old shop-keepers, or damaged; purchased by them of large manufactories. See DUFFER. ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... a few days after we left New York, and wrote to his friends to get his discharge," said "Bill." "Got it and quit two weeks after we left New York, the duffer," added "Hay." ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... almost a subject for sal volatile and burnt feathers, Mr. Ramsay saying good-naturedly, "What a fellow you are for chaffin', Ketchum! Just you hook it out of this, will you, and let us get on with this? One and two and a kick, you say, Miss Brown? I am such a duffer I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... result is so convincing. We do not intend to quote that musty flower of rhetoric which was a favourite with our grandfathers. It was the fashion then to say that Nature—capitalised—took the brush from the hand of the painter, meaning some old duffer who saw varnish instead of clear colour, and painted the picture for him. Sorolla is receptive; he does not attempt to impose upon nature an arbitrary pattern, but he sees nature with his own eyes, modified by the thousand subtle experiences ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... Do as you're told. And don't look at me like that, you old duffer. It's a mean advantage to take of a sick man. Steady now, steady! Go slow! You mustn't slam a creaking gate. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... trying to be a Pomeranian—the dog Balthasar between whom and old Jolyon primal aversion had changed into attachment with the years. Close to his chair was a swing, and on the swing was seated one of Holly's dolls—called 'Duffer Alice'—with her body fallen over her legs and her doleful nose buried in a black petticoat. She was never out of disgrace, so it did not matter to her how she sat. Below the oak tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched to the fernery, and, beyond that refinement, became fields, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... crazy duffer had gone about over the desert for years digging wells, but at last he struck water. A few miles ahead was a well flowing like an artesian well. There would be plenty of water for every one, even the cattle. Next morning we could ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... I did get you and that half-sister mixed up a bit, but just the same you were the one I really wanted. Hope's all right; she's a mighty fine girl, but you are the one for me, Christie. Could you—could you care for such a duffer ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... "you are a duffer. I see the solution at a glance. Here you are! These two jump on ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... a duffer in matters connected with the turf," he explained. "A friend of mine—a ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... look in at one of the doors of Liberal Arts hall. While he was standing there two dapper young men came walking hastily by. One caught sight of Uncle and quickly uttered a low whistle. His companion stopped short as the first one said: "Der's de old duffer; let's work him." ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... vowed James Stuart proudly. "I was a duffer at it till she showed me what she was after. I wanted to buy brocaded silk furniture, like that in her home—while my money held out. But she would have nothing but this sort of thing. ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... duffer, you're as white as a ghost!" I exclaimed. "If the stone had slipped I should have jumped back. The path isn't really so narrow. It only gives that effect because it's steep, and hangs over the edge of a precipice. Still, many ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... getting on? No worse than usual, I hope?' Then she added, regarding him with her head slightly aside, 'We must have a talk about your case. I've been going in a little for medicine lately. No doubt your country medico is a duffer. Sit down, sit down, and make yourself comfortable. I don't want to disturb any one. About teatime, isn't it, mother? Tea very weak for me, please, and a slice of lemon with it, if you have such a thing, and just a mouthful of ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... Two sick men sent on board our ship which made our number 40. James Duffer died at 4 o'clock p.m. with Hectic fever. Many of the men are very low. Bellew and Collins were sent to our ship which augments our number to ...
— Journal of an American Prisoner at Fort Malden and Quebec in the War of 1812 • James Reynolds
... up yellow if he got in a scrap. His face is pale and sickly, he's weak of arm and knee; if trouble came he'd quickly shin up the nearest tree. No hale man ever loves him; he stirs the sportsman's wrath; the whole world kicks and shoves him and shoos him from the path. For who can love a duffer so pallid, weak and thin, who seems resigned to suffer and let folks rub it in? Yet though he's down to zero in fellow-men's esteem, this fellow is a hero and that's no winter dream. Year after year he's toiling, as toiled the slaves of Rome, to keep the pot a-boiling in his ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... dollars, and if I felt I had grown worthy of you, I might come to you and say—two and two are four—let us go into partnership. But then, you see," he went on briskly, "the odds are I may never even have two thousand. Perhaps I'm as much a duffer in music as in other things. Perhaps you'll be the only person in the world who has ever heard my music, for no one will print it, Mary Ann. Perhaps I shall be that very common thing—a complete failure—and be worse off than even you ever ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... dead; shortly after, my other comrade was badly wounded, and I lay down and hid the whole day till dark, when I got back to the laager." This would go to prove that, comparing him with the Boer, the British infantry soldier is not such a duffer with his weapon as some of those in authority were in the habit ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... History Museum in London; all of them were cracked and just stuck together like a mosaic, and bits missing. Mine were perfect, and I meant to blow them when I got back. Naturally I was annoyed at the silly duffer dropping three hours' work just on account of a centipede. I hit him ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... "You duffer! I didn't mean them—pudding raisins I meant, about sixpence. I say, you'd better take them back, ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... a note of cheer written by a somewhat dolorous duffer who spent last night in pain, but this morning is rather ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... the head of the herd, "yer could slap that old duffer across the face with your hat, and ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... receive augmentation. No one felt alarm at their absence. The inhabitants of Foss River were a self-reliant people—accustomed to look to themselves for the remedy of a grievance. Besides, Horrocks, they said, had shown himself to be a duffer—merely a tracker, a prairie-man and not the man to bring Retief to justice. Already the younger members of the settlement and district were forming themselves into a vigilance committee. The elders—those ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... Angler," and represents himself, by a graceful fiction, as all unskilled in the art. An instance of similar modesty is found in Mr. Andrew Lang, who entitles the first chapter of his delightful ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no fisherman's library is complete), "Confessions of a Duffer." This an engaging liberty which no one else ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... lady!'—he turned upon her a glowing countenance—'and you fitted it exactly. You laid hands on what has proved to be your job, and Chicksands, I expect, has been telling you how marvellously you're doing it, and begging you not to let this duffer'—the Squire pointed to his leather waistcoat—'get hold of ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... writing-man. It's finished. [Hanging his head.] I'm sorry to break faith with her people; but she may take me, if she will, on her own terms—a poor devil who has proved a duffer at his job, and who is content henceforth to be nothing but her humble ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... then I say No matter where you stray, You will never be impounded any more; For you’re running, running, running on the duffer’s piece of land, Free selected ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... like the very devil? I'll tell you straight, Polson,' said De Blacquaire, in his old-mannered drawl, 'I'd have seen you damned and done for before I'd have reached out a finger to save you. And I think that you are the blamedest kind of an ass and a duffer to have pulled me out. And yet I don't know—I'm not so cursed certain ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... the megaphone asked for me, and when I requested the name of 'the party speaking,' as Clarke says, it replied with an oily chuckle, exactly like the old duffer, 'It's old Loggy.'" ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... that's little Duffer, I know! We've seen him before! Wouldn't mind giving him a chase to-day, just for exercise, ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... never done with my own hands. I was always a lazy beggar, I'm afraid, and it was better fun to smoke and watch my man Collet making or fitting in a new part than to bother with it myself. This will be my first long trip 'on my own,' you see, and I don't want to be a duffer, especially as I myself proposed going down into Dalmatia, where we may get into no ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... those words," went on the Vere calmly. "Eat 'em up with sauce for dinner. The 'admired actress well known at the Brilliant,' has nothing to do with the Bruce-Errington man,—not she! He's a duffer, a regular stiff one—no go about him anyhow. And what the deuce do you mean by calling me an offending dama. Keep your oaths to ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Then soon after: "Everything's strange. That's the trouble," he confessed. "It's only in little things that don't matter, but a fellow feels such a duffer." ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... solemnly. "Granny Cronk used to talk about him. He's the Man what's a sleepin' in the grave with the kid with the same name as that bright-eyed duffer who don't like ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... performed in the last act, ‘Ouf! I’m glad to get here. I‘ve been dining with a stupid old Senator. They told me he would be amusing, but I’ve been bored to death.’ Which reminded me of my one visit to England, when I heard a young nobleman declare that he had been to ‘such a dull dinner to meet a duffer called “Renan!” ’ ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... associates, spending lavishly, "treating" with boyish ostentation on all occasions, living quite en grand seigneur, for he seemed to have a little money outside his pay,—"a windfall from a good old duffer of an uncle," as he had explained it. His father, a scholarly man who had been summoned to an important under-office in the State Department during the War of the Rebellion, had lived out his honored life in Washington and died poor, as such men must ever die. It was his wish that his handsome, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... hardly be said that in my long term of service with the Honourable George, beginning almost from the time my mother nursed him, I have endeavoured to keep him up to his class, combating a certain laxness that has hampered him. And most stubborn he is, and wilful. At games he is almost quite a duffer. I once got him to play outside left on a hockey eleven and he excited much comment, some of which was of a favourable nature, but he cares little for hunting or shooting and, though it is scarce a matter to be gossiped of, he loathes cricket. Perhaps I have disclosed enough ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson |
