"Joke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dear to the youthful mind but which so often seems to be weak and flabby to their elders. His ushers or assistants in the school fell in with his views implicitly, and were content to accept compensation in the shape of personal civilities. It was much better to go shares with the Doctor in a joke than to have to ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... the fun," he snarled impatiently. "This is no joke, let me tell you, and we'll both find it out if Beauregard ever learns the truth. What did ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... order at once," came the telegram to the factory. The owner perpetrated the only new joke in the millennium. His telegram in reply read: "Your order cannot be cancelled at once. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... wore a wig, went out to hunt. A sudden puff of wind blew off his hat and wig, at which a loud laugh rang forth from his companions. He pulled up his horse, and with great glee joined in the joke by saying, "What a marvel it is that hairs which are not mine should fly from me, when they have forsaken even the man on ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... not," said Dick, "for this bight is quite twelve miles long, by the look of it, and it will be no joke for four of us to be obliged to pull this heavy boat the greater ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... or not. King Hrorek's mood was very different at different times. Sometimes he would sit silent for days together, so that no man could get a word out of him; and sometimes he was so merry and gay, that people found a joke in every word he said. Sometimes his words were very bitter. He was sometimes in a mood that he would drink them all under the benches, and made all his neighbours drunk; but in general he drank but little. King Olaf gave ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... here all night, even if you thought we was. I'm dashed if the jumping rain wouldn't make anybody think they was drunk. Hey, Jack—does rain-water wash the sense in, or does it wash it out?" And he laughed to himself at the joke. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... am or not. It's no kind of use for me to take a rich man's son like you before the court. Your father would pay your fine, and you would laugh in your sleeve, and call it a good joke." ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... interesting," said Miss Spight. "Do let me know what the joke is about ladies in half-mourning, Mr Lorton—something romantic, I've no doubt." She was always keen to scent out what might be disagreeable to other people, was ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... in poor heart now," said he, "a good deal of it; it has been wasted; it wants first-rate management to bring it in order and make much of it for two or three years to come. I never see an Irishman's head yet that was worth more than a joke. Their hands are all of 'em ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... is stronger and the other weaker. But if women are to have the same employments as men, they must have the same education—they must be taught music and gymnastics, and the art of war. I know that a great joke will be made of their riding on horseback and carrying weapons; the sight of the naked old wrinkled women showing their agility in the palaestra will certainly not be a vision of beauty, and may be expected to become a famous jest. But we must not mind the wits; ...
— The Republic • Plato
... confidence, that shed light on his life work. Parsimonious of all he observed, he never related a typical anecdote, or offered a suggestive remark. Praise, even, did not move him, and if by chance he became animated it was to tell some practical joke, some atelier hoaxes, as if he had given himself up to the pleasure of ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... up (and she has them all) has got the dropsy too, and is swollen and bloated hideously. The other actors never looked at one another, but delivered all their dialogues to the pit, in a manner so egregiously unnatural and preposterous that I couldn't make up my mind whether to take it as a joke or an outrage." And then came allusion to a project we had started on the night of the reading, that a private play should be got up by us on his return from Italy. "You and I, sir, will reform this altogether." ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Attorney Toole considered everything amusing until it had been proved serious, and he considered the Colonel and Skinner, and the whole Citizens' Party they had been instrumental I organizing, as parts of the same joke. They would stand until he was ready to lazily push out his hand and topple them over. It was almost time to topple them, now, and he was glad to see the Colonel; he motioned him to a seat, ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... scherzo (lit. musical joke) is a fanciful instrumental composition. It was used by Beethoven as the third movement of the sonata instead of the more limited minuet, but is also often found ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... to run himself down; he usually does it with his tongue in his cheek. But for the ten years preceding the outbreak of hostilities, the prophets of Fleet Street certainly carried their privilege beyond a joke. Pessimism was no longer an amusing pose; it was becoming ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... they are part of a far larger group of like-minded human beings, and they feel a common thrill in anticipation of the pleasure of the sport. They feel the stimulus that comes from obedience to a common impulse. A shout or a joke arouses a sympathetic outburst from hundreds. When they came together at first most of them were strangers, but common interests and emotions have produced a group consciousness. The game is called, and hundreds in unison fix their attention on the men in action. A hit is made, in breathless suspense ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... approach to each other, an alteration began to be observable, not in the purposes, but in the presentiments of Antigonus. For whereas in all former campaigns he had ever shown himself lofty and confident, loud in voice and scornful in speech, often by some joke or mockery on the eve of battle expressing his contempt and displaying his composure, he was now remarked to be thoughtful, silent, and retired. He presented Demetrius to the army, and declared him his successor; and what everyone thought stranger ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... nature of the Negro soldier is remarkable. He is always fond of a joke and never too tired to enjoy one. Officers have wondered to see a whole company of them, at the close of a long practice march, made with heavy baggage, chasing a rabbit which some one may have started. They will run for several hundred yards ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... impossible that the man should have come to her with such a lie in his mouth as that. Though the words astounded her, though she felt faint, almost as though she would fall in a swoon, yet in her heart of hearts she did not believe it. Surely it was some horrid joke,—or perhaps some trick to divide her from the man she loved. 'Felix, how dare you say things so wicked as ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... was revelry and boisterous mirth (or what the Auld Lichts took for such) in Tibbie's kitchen. At eleven o'clock Davit Lunan cracked a joke. Davie Haggart, in reply to Bell Dundas' request, gave a song of distinctly secular tendencies. The bride (who had carefully taken off her wedding-gown on getting home and donned a wrapper) coquettishly let the bridegroom's father hold her hand. In Auld Licht circles, when one of the ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... prowess of his late conqueror to venture on a rescue. He had once been tempted to do so, and had made the noise which had disturbed Hatchie. The blackleg, without much sympathy for his confederate, had rather regarded the whole scene as a good joke than as a serious affair; and, as he approached the lawyer, his merriment and keen satire were not relished ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... regulations and lay aside the guitar on which he had been softly strumming—also contrary to regulations; would pick up the neglected calculus or mechanics; get interested in the work of explanation, and end by having learned the lesson in spite of himself. This was too good a joke to be kept a secret, and by the time the last year came Billy had found it all out and refused ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... she returned my caress and exhibited to me this fourth jewel in her crown, noticed that I was agitated, and with the smile and the intention of calming me with a joke, said, "Darling, are not two pair a pretty good hand"? We neither of us play poker, but I ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... DAVID FRASER," replied the foreman, "we all guess who you are. You have had your week's joke out; and now, I suppose, we must give you your week's wages, and let ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... the officers looked straight before them. Yet it was a valuable lesson. Only a few days before I had read in the newspapers of how the Kaffirs had jeered at the Boer prisoners when they were marched into Pietermaritzburg, saying, 'Where are your passes?' It had seemed a very harmless joke then, but now I understood how a prisoner ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... silence ensued, unbroken by raps or sounds of any sort. When this had continued for some five minutes, Josephine spoke urgently: "Jarvis Burnside, open that door! It's all right to joke, but things do happen, and it's not right to ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... than in its immediate processes that the "artistic" imagination differs from the inventor's or scientist's or philosopher's imagination. We no longer assert, as did Stopford Brooke some forty years ago, that "the highest scientific intellect is a joke compared with the power displayed by a Shakespeare, a Homer, a Dante." We are inclined rather to believe that in its highest exercise of power the scientific mind is attempting much the same feat as the highest type of poetic ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... Lieutenant Pink wondered in noble disgust whether the expedition was going to end in moonshine after all, and Thomas Jones, sergeant, remarked hourly to his fellow-privates, 'The 17th 'aint come two 'undred miles for this kind of a joke. The bloomin' Maharajer 'ull think we've ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... begun more abruptly than I meant, and already felt I was stepping on dangerous ground. I thought for an instant I would turn it aside in a joke, then Clara's pale face rose ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... will, and who was to be heir to his "property." As the poor fellow in reality possessed no property—his whole effects consisting of a few tattered rags of dress, a tin platter, with an old knife, fork, and spoon—the joke was all the more piquant, and the fellows laughed ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... century, which is given in the Mercurius Rusticus, there is an anecdote which will give a reply to the Query of your correspondent K. The commander of the Parliamentarian forces was Sir Walter Erle; and it was a great joke with his opponents that the pass-word of "Old Wat" had been given (by himself I believe) on the night of his last assault on the castle. The chronicler informs us that "Old Wat" was the usual notice of a hare being found sitting; and the proverbial ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... forgotten that she had ever been an invalid, had indeed, sometimes, to be reminded of that fact. She had quite discarded the little "company" fiction, except now and then, by way of a joke. "Who'd want to be company?" she protested. "I'd rather be one of the family ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... send it?" asked General Waller. "If someone has been playing a joke on me it will not be well for him!" and ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... /n./ Written-only abbreviation for "April Fool's Joke". Elaborate April Fool's hoaxes are a long-established tradition on Usenet and Internet; see {kremvax} for an example. In fact, April Fool's Day is the *only* seasonal holiday consistently marked by customary observances on Internet ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... carry it away for a short distance; and then squatting down with it on the ground close before him, will wait until his master comes quite close to take it away. The dog will then seize it and rush away in triumph, repeating the same manoeuvre, and evidently enjoying the practical joke. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... "A devilish good joke, I call that," laughed Lord Farquhart. "And they say, too, that the poor old bishop is actually afraid to use the money for fear it—why, I really believe he is afraid that his Satanic majesty did have some ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... jolis yeux bleus!" and if the parlor were brightly lighted so that all from the street might see us, and be invisible to us themselves, I always nodded my head to the outer darkness and laughed, no matter who was present, though it sometimes created remark. You see, I knew the joke. Coming from a party escorted by Mr. B——r, Miriam by Mr. T——t,[1] we had to wait a long time before Rose opened the door, which interval I employed in dancing up and down the gallery—followed ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... that she should speak with the tongues of men and angels; for a while together by the fire happens more frequently in marriage than the presence of a distinguished foreigner to dinner.... You could read Kant by yourself, if you wanted; but you must share a joke with some one else. You can forgive people who do not follow you through a philosophical disquisition; but to find your wife laughing when you had tears in your eyes, or staring when you were in a fit of laughter, would go some way towards ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to be baffled thus. The moment he stopped ironing and began to count the flies on the ceiling, the goose seemed to carry his hand up with it—irresistibly—to the end of his nose, and gave it a good scorching! This was no joke, I can tell you, and in a very short time Bartlemy began so to dread the visits of his two enemies that he never left working a minute, and his needle dashed along like magic. By sunset the coat was done, and sewed in a manner vastly superior to the other tailors, who ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... look like that, you poor darling boys! Peter, little dear Peter ... you must try and understand! You're good at understanding, you know. Oh, take it easy, my dear! Take it easy, and see how it's nothing to matter, how it's all one great joke after all!" Her arm was round his shoulders as he sat on the table's edge; she was comforting him like a child. To her he was always about Illuminato's ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... favorite joke of Cuthbert's to compare himself with that wonderfully humorous character of Spanish literature, who took himself so solemnly even while he furnished merriment for everybody—Don Quixote, the Knight of La Mancha—this wild expedition into the depths of the Northwestern Unknown ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... can still joke, Mr. Macdonald, after such a terrible experience. All I can say is that I hope Wally isn't permanently injured. He hasn't your fine constitution, and one never can tell about internal injuries." Mrs. Selfridge sighed ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... continued she. "Well, I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am and a witch I'm likely to be and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the joke's sake." ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... I still thought he was mocking me; but the people gathered about me and all of them said, 'Sell to him, and if he buy not, we will all up and at him and drub him and thrust him forth the city.' So quoth I to him, 'Wilt thou buy or dost thou jest?'; and quoth he, 'Wilt thou sell or dost thou joke?' I said, 'I will sell if thou wilt buy;' then he said, 'I will buy it for thirty thousand dinars; take them and make the bargain;' so I cried to the bystanders, 'Bear witness against him,' adding to him, 'But on condition that thou acquaint ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... Interpreter in 1916, Monsieur Bunge, a native of Le Havre, was a pleasant, lively sort of person, always ready for a joke and an admirer of the British. With him I got on very well; and I learnt one or two things of the French from him. One of them was how sensitive they are in small matters of conversation. If in your heavy English way you did not respond at once with ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... perfectly familiar. The Japanese servant bows low and kneels to her mistress, and addresses her always in the tone of voice used by an inferior to a superior, yet she will join in a conversation between her mistress and a caller, and laugh with the rest at any joke which ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... extraordinary circumstance," said the Baron Manutoli, "that they were jeering at the Conte Leandro at the Circolo just now, about the way the Diva had snubbed him and his verses, and accusing him in joke of having been her murderer. And, as sure as I am now speaking to you, Signor Fortini, he looked in a way then that I—a—a—in short that I thought very odd—turned all sorts of colours. But then, you know, he is always such ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... thermometer this morning I looked and looked again, but unmistakably the temperature was 33 deg.F., above freezing point (out of the sun's direct rays) for the first time since we came down here. What this means to us nobody can conceive. We try to treat it as a huge joke, but our wretched condition might be amusing to read of it later. We are wet through, our tents are wet, our bags which are our life to us and the objects of our greatest care, are wet; the poor ponies are soaked and shivering far more than they would be ordinarily in a temperature fifty degrees ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the fellow has thrown me into!" he thought to himself, while many a dire and forceful aspiration passed through his mind. Indeed, the expressions to which he gave vent were most inelegant in their nature. But what was to be done next? He was a Russian and thoroughly aroused. The affair had been no joke. "But for the Superintendent," he reflected, "I might never again have looked upon God's daylight—I might have vanished like a bubble on a pool, and left neither trace nor posterity nor property nor an honourable name for my future offspring to inherit!" (it seemed that our hero ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... say that!" cried Pierre Labarre in terror. "Say that it was a joke, my lord, or a misunderstanding. You did ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... had handled too many rebellious captains in his time; they all had a protest of some kind—it was either the crew, or the grub, or the coal, or the way she was stowed. Then he added softly, more as a joke than anything else: ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... idea," Mr. Molesworth mused, "that Moyle was an angler. It would be a fair joke, anyway, to borrow his rod and fill up the time.— How long before the relief comes down?" he asked, intercepting the station-master as he came rushing out from his office and ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... first opened upon the just mentioned poem, in a careless tone I said to Mary as if putting a riddle "What is good for a bootless bean?" to which with infinite presence of mind (as the jest book has it) she answered, a "shoeless pea." It was the first joke she ever made. Joke the 2d I make you distinguish well in your old preface between the verses of Dr. Johnson of the man in the Strand, and that from the babes of the wood. I was thinking whether taking ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... princess had a great dislike for snakes. Once, by way of a joke, young Sia put a small snake into a parcel, which he gave her and told her to open. She turned pale and reproached him. Then Sia-Kung-Schong also took his jest seriously, ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... daughter's husband, a jovial young man, given to jesting. On going to rest he fancied he should be thirsty at night and called Leo to set a pitcher of hydromel by his bedside. As the slave was setting it down, the Frank looked slyly from under his eyelids, and said in joke, 'Tell me, my father-in-law's trusty man, wilt not thou some night take one of those horses, and run away to thine ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Ward's father, the renowned minister at Ipswich, whose book of "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam," was much admired. Mr. Ward said that some of the witty turns therein did give much offence at the time of its printing, but that his father could never spoil his joke for the sake of friends, albeit he had no malice towards any one, and was always ready to do a good, even to his enemies. He once even greatly angered his old and true friend, Mr. Cotton of Boston. "It fell out in this wise," said Mr. Ward. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... that govern the dative. He could not bear to have the other pupils think, for a moment, that he took these people seriously; he must convey to them that he considered it all trivial, and was there only by way of a joke, anyway. He had autograph pictures of all the members of the stock company which he showed his classmates, telling them the most incredible stories of his familiarity with these people, of his acquaintance with the soloists who came to Carnegie Hall, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... we have one of the reasons why Dr. Franklin, who was universally confessed to be the ablest pen in America, was not always asked to write the great documents of the Revolution. He would have put a joke into the Declaration of Independence, if it had fallen to him to write it. At this time he was a humorist of fifty years standing, and had become fixed in the habit of illustrating great truths by grotesque and familiar similes. His jokes, the circulating medium of Congress, were ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... cried a merry voice, and another student clapped the fun-loving Rover on the shoulder. "I do believe you would rather joke than eat!" ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... and made a grimace in imitation of one of them. I laughed and shuddered expressively, whereon they all burst out laughing too, and chattered hard to one another. I could make out nothing of what they said, but I think they thought it rather a good joke that I had come past the statues. Then one among them came forward and motioned me to follow, which I did without hesitation, for I dared not thwart them; moreover, I liked them well enough, and felt tolerably sure that they had no intention of ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... which could be compared with the Nile for the volume of its waters, excited their admiration. They were, however, puzzled by the fact that it flowed from north to south, and even were accustomed to joke at the necessity of reversing the terms employed in Egypt to express going up or down the river. This first Syrian campaign became the model for most of those subsequently undertaken by the Pharaohs. It took ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... then, before John could speak, he went on to give the answer to his question. "Because they don't know how to get their stuff over the footlights. That's why! They had good stuff to work with, but they didn't know what to do with it. I could have told 'em. Do you remember that joke about the dog that swallowed the ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... oppression—but, no more. What say'st thou of this Italy? John Milton Loves well to speak romantic lore of Rome— A poet, though a great and burning light. I would have knowledge of it to confound him; A sober joke, a piece of harmless mirth. What think'st thou then of Rome ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... Lord of Session, 'as this gibbet is built to break people's craigs, and is not uniform without another, I must e'en hang you upon the vacant beam.' And straightway the Lord of Session swung in the moonlight, and Gilderoy had cracked his black and solemn joke. ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... be there, and Reddy started off to find out where Bowser was. Blacky told everyone he met how Reddy Fox had promised to fool Bowser the Hound, and every time he told it he chuckled as if he thought it the best joke ever. ...
— The Adventures of Reddy Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... requisite to avoid the falls by slinging them on poles tied on diagonally. They place these on their shoulders, and, setting about the work with good humor, soon accomplish the task. They are a merry set of mortals; a feeble joke sets them off in a fit of laughter. Here, as elsewhere, all petitioned for the magic lantern, and, as it is a good means of conveying instruction, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... ha! that is a good joke!" retorted the soldier, while his companions laughed immoderately. "A Jew without money! I'll wager there is gold and silver in every closet. I know you ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... movement, then you say (or you hear say) what is true, and not much more than what is true. Only about that word picturesque we demur a little: as a chirurgeon, he certainly is picturesque; for Howship upon gunshot wounds is a joke to him when he lectures upon traumacy, if we may presume to coin that word, or upon traumatic philosophy (as Mr. M'Culloch says so grandly, Economic Science). But, apart from this, we cannot allow that simply to say [Greek: Zakunthos nemoessa], woody Zacynthus, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... first violin is left playing by himself. The origin of this singular piece is thus accounted for. It is said that Haydn, perceiving his innovations were ill received by the performers of Prince Esterhazy, determined to play a joke upon them. He caused his symphony to be performed, without a previous rehearsal, before his highness, who was in the secret. The embarrassment of the performers, who all thought they had made a mistake, and especially the confusion of the first violin, when, at the end, he found he was playing ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... We managed to make a joke of last night—but what that push had in mind was plain murder. I would dearly like," said John Wesley, "to visit Las ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... a moment, and then laughed, deciding boldly that this was a new and elaborate game—a joke, perhaps—which she was too little to understand, but which politeness and good-fellowship alike required her at least to appear to appreciate. They were great friends already, these two. Children always recognised an ally in the man who made so few friends among his peers, and ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... within sight, as we steered to the S.W., of the spot where, for forty-seven days, we had had nothing but ice! ice! ice! Let us hurry on. The West Water (as usual with the water at this season of the year) was covered with fog: in it we steered. The "Resolute," as a capital joke, in return for the long weary miles we had towed her, set, on one occasion, all studsails, and gave us a tow for four hours. When off the mouth of Lancaster Sound, the "Prince Albert" was cast off; and she departed ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... entertains right nobly the lords and ladies of his court in honour of his nephew, for whom all courteous knights and lovely ladies were in great grief. Nevertheless they spoke only of mirth, and, though joyless themselves, made many a joke to cheer the good Sir Gawayne (ll. 536-565). Early on the morrow Sir Gawayne, with great ceremony, is arrayed in his armour (ll. 566-589), and thus completely equipped for his adventure he first hears mass, and afterwards ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... growing. We have a splendid exhibit here from our parks and one that I am very proud of and we have a man here, Mr. Dunbar, that we are very proud of; he is a wonder; I confess that I didn't know there were so many nuts to be found in the parks myself—that is no joke. It is a wonderful thing, it is a revelation to me, I never dreamed that you could find such things growing around this part of the country at all. I fancy that most people don't know anything about nuts at all, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... cap with feathers, too; And I march beside the drummer boy on Sundays at review. But now our 'bacca's all give out, the men can't have their smoke, And so they're cross—why, even Ned won't play with me and joke. And the big colonel said to-day—I hate to hear him swear— He'd give a leg for a good pipe like the Yanks had over there. And so I thought when beat the drum, and the big guns were still, I'd creep beneath the tent and come out here across the hill And beg, good Mister Yankee men, you'd give ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... tell a lie," he confessed honestly, "and it was too good to keep to myself. I'm the most generous fellow you ever saw, when it comes to passing along a good story that won't hurt anybody's digestion. You don't care, do you? The joke ain't on you." ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... each paving-stone was clearly marked out. Mary then saw Katharine raise her eyes again to the moon, with a contemplative look in them, as though she were setting that moon against the moon of other nights, held in memory. Some one in the room behind them made a joke about star-gazing, which destroyed their pleasure in it, and they looked back ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... resentment against the Romans should be felt in every honest heart. At last it found expression. During his visit to Jerusalem in May 66 Florus laid hands upon the temple treasure; the Jews allowed themselves to go so far as to make a joke about it, which he avenged by giving over a portion of the city to be plundered, and crucifying a number of the inhabitants. He next insisted upon their kissing the rod, ordering that a body of troops which was approaching should ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... fine supply of bags. This necessitated a redistribution of dug-outs, and a line of them was constructed sufficient to take a section of bearers. The men christened this "Shrapnel Avenue." They called my dug-out "The Nut," because it held the "Kernel." I offer this with every apology. It's not my joke. ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... was our king declared, To ease the nation's grievance, With his new wind about I steer'd, And swore to him allegiance: Old principles I did revoke, Set conscience at a distance; Passive obedience was a joke, And pish for non-resistance. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... see what he does!" cried Randy, who could never let any portion of a joke get away from him, and he hurried down the ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... boarder here whose face looks like a chapel and every time she opens her mouth you're afraid it's going to be the Lord's Prayer. She wears a wide ruching which makes her look excited; distributes tracts, and can't see a joke. She says she's Miss and leaves envelopes around with "Mrs." written on them in red ink—modest writing fluid ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... unprofitable, the whole thing. At first, to be besieged and bombarded was a thrill; then it was a joke; now it is nothing but a weary, weary, weary bore. We do nothing but eat and drink and sleep—just exist dismally. We have forgotten when the siege began; and now we are beginning not to care ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... set mysteriously on the shoulders of that familiar person, in that brown dress, under that hat she knew so well. It made her lose all her hold on reality. She told Mrs. Fyne: "I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know that I was frightened. If she had told me it was a joke I would have laughed. If she had told me to put on my hat and go out with her I would have gone to put on my hat and gone out with her and never said a single word; I should have been convinced I had been mad ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... easily," and sent one of them to examine the house. The messenger found everything quiet, went into the kitchen to light a candle, and, thinking the cat's shining fiery eyes were live coals, he held a match to them to light it. But the cat did not understand the joke, flew in his face, spat at him, and scratched. He was dreadfully frightened, ran away, and was going out of the back door; when the dog, who was lying there, jumped up and bit him in the leg. As he ran through the yard, past the dunghill, the donkey ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... full-blooded and have already had two strokes; it's hard for me to dance, but, as they say, if you're in Rome, you must do as Rome does. I've got the strength of a horse. My dead father, who liked a joke, peace to his bones, used to say, talking of our ancestors, that the ancient stock of the Simeonov-Pischins was descended from that identical horse that Caligula made a senator.... [Sits] But the trouble is, I've no money! A hungry ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... be so fiery! Sure you know of old, that Jack will have his joke, and means no harm. Besides, he's ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... similar expressions, were heard from the seamen, while now and then a broad joke or a loud laugh burst from the lips of the more excited among them. But there was no Dutch courage exhibited. One and all showed the most determined and coolest bravery. The officers whose duty it was to ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... establish a perfect understanding with your mistress; so that, take eight and eleven from thirty-one days, the time between the 28th of one month and the 29th of the next, there remains twelve, more or less!' This joke was followed by ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... have seen Mr. Ellsworth laugh. All the time he knew something was wrong, I guess, but he never bothered with things like that. "Settle your own disputes," that's what he always said. The only fellow that didn't take it as a joke was Connie Bennett and just for that reason you'll have to hear ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... say so in the beginning?" said Garth, wondering if this was a joke. "When will you ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... then, including Peter, who was especially uproarious, and who had an idea he had made the joke himself, else why ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... men to tire of all this burlesque of politics and this solemn joke of calling it "great statesmanship," that is breeding these ungainly toadies—squat and warty. A country is great only as her political institutions are good and wise—not merely when it is strong in numbers, large in acres, and swarming with politicians and parasites that are worshipped as great ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... cut off one skirt of his long coat. This excited peals of laughter. When the poor Londoner saw that this was done by a roguish American, at the instigation of his own countrymen, the tear stood in his eye. Even our jolly, big bellied captain, enjoyed the joke, and ordered the boatswain's mate to cut off the other skirt, who, after viewing him amidst shouts of laughter, damned him for a land lubber, and said, now he had lost his ring-tail, he looked ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... day, they had been sent a-fairing for a treat. They swarmed in like small bee-angels, just escaped from some upset celestial hive; they crowded around the booths, buying little toys, chattering, bargaining, and laughing, when my eye caught theirs, as though to be noticed was the very best joke in the whole world. They soon found out the Sensation of the Age, and the mammoth steam bicycle was forthwith crowded with the happy little creatures, raptured in all the glory of a ride. The cars looked like baskets full of roses. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... There were legends in the place that he did not so much as know the popular heroes and heroines by sight, and that the low comedian had 'mugged' at him in his richest manner fifty nights for a wager, and he had shown no trace of consciousness. The carpenters had a joke to the effect that he was dead without being aware of it; and the frequenters of the pit supposed him to pass his whole life, night and day, and Sunday and all, in the orchestra. They had tried him ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... shower last nite. we all got up and lit lamps and set round in our nite sherts. we lit all the lamps we cood find so we coodent see the litening. father kept telling funny stories, but mother and Aunt Sarah was scart and told him he hadent aught to joke when enny minit he mite be struck by litening. father he said he dident beleave the litening wood strike him enny quicker for not being scart of it then it wood if he gumped and holered o lord every time it litened. well after a while it only litened way of ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... to ask him as they walked through the woods. Why was it all over? Why shouldn't they go on being good friends and comrades? Couldn't he see that she had only tried to make a little joke to ease the strain? Didn't he know that she really had a wonderful admiration for his talents and a large ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... Tarantula dance; Maestro Paolo foots it bravely! Diavolo, what fury! the Tarantula has stung them all. Dance or die; it is fury,—the Corybantes, the Maenads, the—Ho, ho! more wine! the Sabbat of the Witches at Benevento is a joke to this! From cloud to cloud wanders the moon,—now shining, now lost. Dimness while the maiden blushes; ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... knew everything and of every sort; this was the more pitiable in that it had got into his head with his promotions, and was less presumption than stupidity, and still less vanity, of which he had none. The joke is, that the mainspring of the king's great affection for him was this very incapacity. He confessed it to the king at every step, and the king was delighted to direct and instruct him; in such sort that he grew jealous for his success as if it ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the products of his own subjective and somewhat peevish intelligence. "I like," says Sydney, "to tell you these things, because you never do so well as when you are humbled and frightened, and, if you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty, you would charm everybody; but remember my joke against you about the moon: 'D—n the solar system! bad light—planets too distant—pestered with comets—feeble contrivance; could make a better with ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... they will talk the matter over, and discuss which way we went. How the men in each ship will say that the others cannot have used their eyes or exerted themselves, else we must have been overtaken. Messer Francisco, I am indebted to you, not only for having saved the ship, but for giving me a joke, which I shall laugh over whenever I think of it. It will be a grand story to tell over the wine cups, how we cheated a whole Genoese fleet, and carried off the Lido from under their noses. What a tale it will be to relate to a Genoese, when we meet in some port after the war is over; ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... behind the hills, with the broad smile of a tyrant who fully enjoys the joke, when Desmond drew up before his own verandah ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... time at Homburg, and Clancey had given him to understand that he had some sort of vague diplomatic appointment. He had drifted across Bobby's life afterwards in a shadowy way, seeming to have nothing special to do, but to know a great many people and to take life as a sort of a joke. He talked lightly and cynically about serious things, and used foreign expressions with great ease and fluency. It was characteristic of him that since the War he made frequent use of German idioms, and when conversation turned upon passing events he professed ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... discoursing with Lady Jane. The latter did not understand them, to be sure, but it was mortifying to remain silent; still more mortifying to know that you had nothing to say, and hear that little audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing on from subject to subject, with a word for every man, and a joke always pat; and to sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and watching all the men round ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... perfectly true. If it had got about that any one was going to invest thirty thousand pounds—or pence—in Wildcat Reefs, the market would certainly have been convulsed. The House would have rocked with laughter. Wildcat Reefs were a standing joke—except to the unfortunate few who still held any of ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... consent, another serious question,—and she should take the notion to fly her retirement, and appear inopportunely at some social function clothed as she is now! I fancy her blanket would be a wet one in such a case—if you will pardon the little joke." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in the Texan's eyes. "General, general! I didn't know 't was you! Give you my word, sir, I thought it was just anybody! We've had orders every morning to say, 'I don't know'—and it's gotten to be a joke—and I was just fooling. Of course, sir, I don't mean that it has gotten to be a joke—only that we all say 'I don't know' when we ask each other questions, and I hope, sir, that you'll understand that I didn't know that 't ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... ha! Excellent! By the way," rejoined the other, "talking of Brussels, do you know who has the glory of that famous joke practised there upon the statues in the park? They give the credit of it to the English, but on what ground, except the celebrity they have acquired in such feats, I could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... "A bad joke," Frank replied. "If you'd quit studying up slang and read the best authors you wouldn't ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... used to be, Whenever the minister came for tea, 'At they sat up straight in their chairs at night An' put all their common things out o' sight, An' nobody cracked a joke or grinned, But they talked o' the way that people sinned, An' the burnin' fires that would cook you sure When you came to die, if you wasn't pure— Such a gloomy affair it used to be Whenever the minister came ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... spoke of her as "one of the family" and she turned out his gas and locked one of his own doors in his face. If it was a secret society, well and good, no matter how desperate its plan. But why did they laugh and joke and play tricks? He was not in the humour. For the time his soul abhorred what seemed to him frippery. He sought intuitively to find relief in action and he began impatiently to look ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... you mean it. I won't pose as a self-sacrificing patriot only. I confess that I am ambitious. You fellows used to call me 'little Strahan.' YOU are all right now, but there are some who smile yet when my name is mentioned, and who regard my shoulder-straps as a joke. I've no doubt they are already laughing at the inglorious end of my military career. I propose to prove that I can be a soldier as well as some bigger and more bewhiskered men. I have other motives also;" and his ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... "That's a joke!" exclaimed the rich brother. "Without a ruble in thy pockets, stupid fellow! Thou evidently desirest to imitate rich people," and then the rich brother laughed and laughed at him. But at the same time he got ...
— Folk Tales from the Russian • Various
... you, you was anything but welcome.'— 'And why wasn't I welcome?' I said. 'I couldn't help it, you know. I'm very sorry to hear I intruded,' I said, still making game of it, you see; for I always did like a joke. 'Well,' she said, 'you certainly wasn't wanted. But I don't blame you, Samuel, and I hope you won't blame me.'—' What do you mean, auntie ?' I mean this, that it's my fault, if so be that fault it is, that you're sitting there now, and not lying, in less bulk by ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... conversing with a circle of gentlemen, and favored me with a gracious nod. As I stood wondering whether this was the end of my introduction, a mustached dandy came between us and said, "Miss Williams, permit me to relate the joke of the season." To my horror he began the story of the cloak. My first impulse was to knock him down, my second to run away; on my third I acted. Interrupting the recital I said: "Begging your pardon, sir, but Miss Williams, I am ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... myself and brooding away in the city." The lad's bright, clear eyes looked frankly into the captain's as he continued. "I have been making a fool of myself, Captain. Got into some mischief with a crowd of fellows at school. Of course, I got caught and had to bear the whole blame for the silly joke we had played. The faculty has suspended me for a term. I would have got off with only a reprimand if I would have told the names of the other fellows, but I couldn't do that, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... does exist, as I and a few others very well know it does; what a fine joke it would be to see it fly into Paris! But, no. Idle dream! Still, I shall wait and watch. And now, suppose we pay a visit to Berlin and use blunt facts in place of diplomacy? It will ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... is good-hearted, he is also occasionally deplorably trivial. His language is rarely elevated, and his expressions are almost always vulgar. On occasion he does not dislike a joke or a touch of humour. Thus we have seen that he mischievously persisted in addressing Professor Lodge as "Captain." On another occasion he is a long time in finding a person's name—Theodora. Then ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... to ask for a window in the breast, it was an allegorical joke, and we cannot even imagine such a contrivance to be a possibility; but it would be quite possible to imagine that the skull and its integuments were transparent, and then, good heavens! what differences should we see in the size, the form, the quality, the movement of the ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... had an old mother like mine up-stairs, Milton, eating out her heart and her days and her weeks and her months over a husband's grave somewhere in Siberia and a son's grave somewhere in Kishinef, you wouldn't see the joke neither." ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... anxiously, "can't you take a joke? I wouldn't drive anything but the old mair for love or money. And your cameo pin is so beautiful and so ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... said we had taken 700 prisoners yesterday; another rumour puts the number at 2000. I heard at dinner that eighty had come in. Mention was laughingly made of "the lost regiment". I could not imagine at the time that we had lost a regiment and thought it was a joke of the General's, but to-day I find that a whole battalion of K.O.S.B.'s are amissing. Those must be prisoners in the hands of the Turks. They had lost so heavily before that they could not have been at anything like full strength. The curious thing is the officers are ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... sire provoke, By jest and jeer at better folk, A' solemn thought wad end in smoke, Sae wad his teachin', And fun wad fly in jibe an' joke ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... not strictly divisible. Moreover, Sarah Winch, whom Chumley Potts drew into conversation, said, he vowed, she came up West from Whitechapel. She said it a little nervously, but without blushing. Always on the side of the joke, he could ask: 'Who can doubt?' Indeed, scepticism poisoned ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "I've never heard you make a joke before. The idiot of the regiment, and you're his keeper! Man, that's fine. What has come ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... as getting into the hands and mouths of all the devils of hell; and braying spread from one town to another in such a way that the men of the braying town are as easy to be known as blacks are to be known from whites, and the unlucky joke has gone so far that several times the scoffed have come out in arms and in a body to do battle with the scoffers, and neither king nor rook, fear nor shame, can mend matters. To-morrow or the day after, I believe, the men of my town, that is, of the braying town, are ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Prussian, enchanted. "What a night that will be, my friend!... But now, it is too bad, I really must ask you to step below. Such are my silly orders. I am made responsible for you. What do you think of that for a joke, eh?" ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... Libanius suggests the form of a persecuting edict, which Theodosius might enact, (pro Templis, p. 32;) a rash joke, and a dangerous experiment. Some princes would ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... him in his livelier London days, A brilliant diner-out, though but a curate, And not a joke he cut but earned its praise, Until Preferment, coming at a sure rate, (O Providence! how wondrous are thy ways! Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate?) Gave him, to lay the Devil who looks o'er Lincoln,[800] A fat fen vicarage, and nought ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... say, to preserve woods, for I take it to be the chiefest part of the business of a Lt. Governor of that province to preserve the woods for the king's use." The protest was ignored; and for thirty years, while the Board of Trade fell almost to the level of a joke, the colonies were managed by a Secretary of State who was likely to be less interested in preserving the woods for the king's use than in advancing the interests of the Whig oligarchy which ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... so different from the crowd he had seen at Wilkins' barn and down at Mike's, that he could not joke her; he could only play the gallant, and he rather ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... walking. The extreme tenuity of his frame, I suspect, set him upon it. It was a trial of poising. Twopenny would often rally him upon his leanness, and hail him as Brother Lusty; but W. had no relish of a joke. His features were spiteful. I have heard that he would pinch his cat's ears extremely, when any thing had offended him. Jackson—the omniscient Jackson he was called—was of this period. He had the reputation of possessing ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... not understand; we thought this was some new kind of joke—which it was, but not to us. We asked for explanations; all that we wanted was to know how we were to get these things up to the Kaipara. Our colonial friend sighed deeply, and proceeded mournfully to expound the position. ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... There it is, my child. You will be a man when you come back, and be ashamed to love your mother. Promise me now,' said Lady Armine, with extraordinary energy, 'promise me, Ferdinand, you will always love me. Do not let them make you ashamed of loving me. They will joke, and jest, and ridicule all home affections. You are very young, sweet love, very, very young, and very inexperienced and susceptible. Do not let them spoil your frank and beautiful nature. Do not let them lead ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... have the character of being somewhat inconsiderate at times, and, as I am clothed in a sober, solemn character, a jest or practical joke ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... him, and he said this for it.) He doesn't like to go to church at all, why I never understood, until just now, he told us the other day that he couldn't bear to hear any one talk but himself, but that he could listen to himself talk for hours without getting tired, of course he said this in joke, but I've no dought it was founded ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... them,) was actually mounted on the wooden horse without a saddle, with his face to the tail, while he was plied by four servants of the household with syringes and squirts, till he had a thorough wetting. "He was a waggish fellow," says Lewis, "and would not lose any thing for the joke's sake when he was putting his tricks upon others, so he was obliged to submit cheerfully to what was inflicted upon him, being at our mercy to play him off well, which we did accordingly." Amid much such nonsense, Lewis's book shows that this poor child, the heir of the British ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... pet joke of Gabriel's did not dissipate the constraint and disappointment left upon the company by Uncle Sylvester's unsatisfying performance and early withdrawal, and they separated soon after, Kitty and Marie being glad to escape upstairs together. ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the prisoners followed the migration, and the officer ascended to the deck, unconscious of the number and variety of the recruits he had obtained without the formality of an enlistment. The captain of the ship, suspecting that some joke had been practised, or some mischief perpetrated, from the noise below, met the officer at the head of the gangway, and seeing the vermin crawling up his shoulders, and aiming at his head, with the instinct peculiar ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... talking. If it is true that to be slow in words is a woman's only virtue, then, indeed, is my state pitiable, for talk I must, and G. is a delightful person to talk to. She listens to my tales of Peter and the others, and asks for more, and shouts with laughter at the smallest joke. I pass as a wit with G., and have a great success. She is going to stay with a married sister for the cold weather. Quite like me, only I'm going to an unmarried brother. I think we are both getting slightly impertinent to our elders. They tease ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... sensible if they did," replied Croly, who had too much self-conceit to see the point of a joke that was aimed ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... The gaunt Norwegian, the owner of this humble dwelling, made such comical grimaces, and winked his little eyes so frequently and eruditely, in endeavouring to fathom their mirth, that I could not restrain myself, and took a conspicuous part in the joke. After arranging, through King, who had come with us, as forming one of the boat's crew, where and how we should sleep, we went into the open air, and R—— and P——, lighting their cigars, again entered into conversation with the Anglo-Norwegian regarding the sports of the country. ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross |
