"Joke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the great chief of these parts, came to call on Mohamad: several men got up and made some antics before him, then knelt down and did obeisance, then Muabo himself jumped about a little, and all applauded. He is a good-natured-looking man, fond of a joke, and always ready with a good-humoured smile: he was praised very highly, Mpweto was nothing to Muabo mokolu, the great Muabo; and he returned the praise by lauding Tipo Tipo and Mpamari, Mohamad's native name, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... appearance of being absorbed in each other's talk, and all-sufficient for each other's happiness. It seemed to Clarissa that she had never seen them so united before. Had he been laughing at her last night? she asked herself indignantly; was that balcony scene a practical joke? He had been describing it to Lady Geraldine perhaps this afternoon, and the two had been laughing together at her credulity. She was in so bitter a mood just now that she was almost ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the unusual that he considered this staggering possibility with equanimity—if the time coefficient was at fault, then how to account for the picture of the professor, in that leaf? Had they both been the victims of a ghastly cosmic joke? ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... of forgetting persons, or pretending to do so, for nobody ever knew when the lapses of recognition were due to intention or absent-mindedness, often tempted other artists to play pranks upon him. He was a man who resented a joke at his own expense, except on a few occasions, and this trait was often turned ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... summons, and I told Ed Tootle to serve it on you at your orgy—you had no business to expect me to enter any free-for-all inebriates' competition—you know that, 'Gene! It may have been a little extreme as a joke; but if you'd laughed it off as you always do, nobody would have thought anything of it except to chaff you about it. But what do you do? You make as serious a thing of it as if you hadn't been trotting with our crowd for five years or ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... consequent icy discomfort for twenty-four hours and more. And as for the unfortunate ration-parties and men bringing up heavy trench stores, their task was really one of frightful labour, for, for two men to cross a large and slippery muddy series of fields carrying a 100 lb. box between them was no joke. First one would slide up and skate off in one direction whilst the other did his best to hold on, generally resulting in dropping his end of the box or finding himself on the flat of his back. Then the parts would be reversed, ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... he said, laughing, "even you could not make it rise to-night. Heigho, Ned! coming to kiss good-night? I say, Ned, tell us what mamma has for Amy's stocking. What a good joke it is, to be sure I We all had the impression you were a little girl, you know, and selected our gifts accordingly. Burt actually bought you a doll. Ha! ha! ha! Maggie had planned to have you hang up your stocking with the children, and ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... performance of most of Shakspere's plays, as these have been accumulated in the theater itself. Perhaps this book might be able to tell us why it is that tradition warrants the same rather trivial practical joke in the performance of the 'Merchant of Venice,' and in the performance of 'Romeo and Juliet,'—the business of embarrassing a servant by repeated bows of mock courtesy and ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... or in bottles; and, whether these were rats, vipers, snails, or frogs, by some strange fatality they were certain to get loose and turn up among his fellow-passengers in car or diligence. To twine snakes around the necks and arms of young ladies playing quadrilles was another harmless joke. "Don't be afraid," he would say: "they won't hurt you. And do be a good girl, and don't make a fuss." He possessed an easy gift of adapting scientific theories and deductions to popular interest and comprehension, and his "Curiosities in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... the baker's daughter (with whom he is in love) how to inveigle him into the snare; that it was I that enacted the ghost, that knocked him down, and cudgelled him till he roared again. If I had only not carried the joke too far, but I wished to cool his love a little for my sweetheart. 'T was a ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... from burla, a joke, fun, playful trick), a form of the comic in art, consisting broadly in an imitation of a work of art with the object of exciting laughter, by distortion or exaggeration, by turning, for example, the highly rhetorical into bombast, the pathetic into the mock-sentimental, and especially by a ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... shoulder holster back inside his unbuttoned waistcoat. "He'll most likely be down round Gafford's stable. Whut's Old Peep been doin', Judge—gettin' himself in contempt of court or somethin'?" He grinned, asking the question with the air of one making a little joke. ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... and perhaps a little more. He was the magistrate all over, from head to foot, and from the gaiters on his ankles to the light blonde whiskers on his face. Although he was quite young, yet no one had ever seen him smile, or heard him make a joke. He was so very stiff that M. Daubigeon suggested he had been impaled alive ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... duty. The Pathans and Gurkhas were quite at home at such work, and not only able to take care of themselves, but when stalked by the enemy were equal to a counter-stalk, often most successful. The enemy used to joke with Brownlow's and Keyes's men on these occasions, and say, 'We don't want you. Where are the lal pagriwalas? [as the 14th Sikhs were called from their lal pagris (red turbans)] or the goralog [the Europeans]? They are better shikar [sport]!' The tribesmen soon discovered that the ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... and accepted through the telephone. However, one is subjected to frequent annoyances from wrong connections at the Central Office, and sometimes grave errors are made. Once, through a serious blunder, or a mischievous joke, I lost a dinner in my Legation in Washington. My valet received a telephone message from a lady friend inviting me to dine at her house. I gladly accepted the invitation, and at the appointed time drove to her home, only to find that ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... treasure had lain there, and all the rest of it cankered with rust. Whether this sciencer was some obscure Roger Bacon, and had discovered the use of a volatile anaesthetic centuries ago, or whether he was enjoying a solitary practical joke at the expense of two simpletons, is impossible to say. "It is at your choice to believe either or neither," as Westcote says of the two foregoing stories. "I have offered them to the shrine of your judgment, and what truth soever there is in them, they ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... house; in making sketches for the furniture, and arranging the decorations. You took a real delight in this task, although you were annoyed that you had no personal knowledge of your client. You remember that I said to you sometimes in joke: "Plan it as though it were for me"; and I cannot forget what you replied one day: "I hate the idea of a stranger living in the house which I planned with you ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... this is not a hoax," said James, severely. "I presume that you know too well what is due to learned counsel to attempt to make one of their body the victim of a practical joke?" ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... impudence he hath carried out his trial; but that last night, when he brought him newes of his death, he began to be sober and shed some tears, and he hopes will die a penitent; he having already confessed all the thing, but says it was partly done for a joke, and partly to get an occasion of obliging the old man by his care in getting him his things again, he having some hopes of being the better by him in his estate at his death. Home to dinner, and after dinner my wife and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... in usual ante-Derby Day fashion; beginning to draw picture of his leading WILFRID LAWSON by hand over Epsom Downs. Members opposite snorted disapproval; GRICE-HUTCHINSON abruptly shut up; like the unfinished window in Aladdin's Tower, his carefully-prepared joke unfinished must remain. With this awful warning, ELCHO rose unperturbed and unabashed. Was a success from first moment; SPEAKER artlessly contributed to it; GEDGE had something to say; been popping up whenever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... together—good. "Two more early risin's, and then duff and bruise," is said to be a Thursday remark of the fishermen. The Pelican came in to-day. Stole in in fog, and whistled before flag was up. Good joke on Post. Big day. Pelican goes from here to York, stopping at Ungava on way out and comes back again. Brings supplies. Captain Gray came on shore. Has been with company thirty years, in northern waters fifty years. Jolly, cranky, old fellow. "You'll never ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... thing was the greatest joke imaginable, Rewa Gunga fell into stride beside King and led him away in the ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... listen to their little gossip with interest. They had been setting men, it seems, by the ears; and the drollest little atrocities they do certainly report. Not but we have seen better in the Nenagh paper, so far as Ireland is concerned. But the pet little joke was in La Vendee. Miss Famine, who is the girl for our money, raises the question—whether any of them can tell the name of the leader and prompter to these high jinks of hell—if so, let ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... apartment houses, in office buildings. And we never see children in New York because the janitors won't let the women who live in elevators have children! Don't talk to me! New York's a Little Nemo nightmare. It's a joke. It's an insult!" ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... said. Then he nodded toward Gimp Hines. That the others would also pick Gimp was evident at once. There were bravos and clapping, half for a joke. ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... earnestness, and her action in catching hold of Tom's arm to enjoin silence was so pronounced that, though he had at first regarded the matter in the light of a joke, he soon thought otherwise. He glanced from the girl's face to the dense underbrush on either side of the ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... call a practical joke,' were the words of the minister. Do you regard this as a joke, Mr. Stoute?" said the ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... crossed the rail in safety, and instantly turned it over, so that his pursuer would step upon it when the cut side was downward. It immediately snapped under his pressure, and precipitated him into the stream, while the young rogue stood by almost killing himself with laughter. But this joke also came very near having a melancholy termination; for the master was floated down several rods into deep water, and with difficulty ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Being, altogether, a creature of impulses, he certainly could not be ever employed in doxologies, or engaged in the logomachy of churchmen; but he had the sentiment which at a tamer age might have made him more ecclesiastical. There was as much truth as joke in the expression, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... no wiser Law revoke The Edict that foredestined me to Smoke, My stump to be a Byword and a Jest? - But if a Jest I fail to see the Joke." ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... "Don't joke about it, brother dear. Why are they all so angry with you? Can't you humour them? Why put ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... asked the Calico Clown. "I didn't tell a joke or ask a riddle, did I?" For that is what he sometimes did to make the toys ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... them on, and as there was ample room for all, and as each new comer increased individual and general security, there was little room for that envy, jealousy, and hatred which constitutes a large portion of human misery in older societies. Never were the story, the joke, the song, and the laugh better enjoyed than upon the hewed blocks or puncheon-stools around the roaring log-fire of the early western settler. The lyre of Apollo was not hailed with more delight in primitive Greece than the advent of the first fiddler among the dwellers of the wilderness, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... it would be a capital joke on the Princess Volga," mused Beverly reflectively. He did not know what she meant, but regarded her soft smile as the clear title to ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... for a dime apiece. As soon as I rescue Lloyd I'll dash down here on my pony with her behind me. Then we'll slip through the fence and get on the hand-car, and be out of sight around the curve before the rest get here. They won't know where on earth we've gone, and it will be the best joke on them. It's down grade all the way to the section-house, so I can push it easily enough by myself, but I'll need your help coming back, maybe. S'pose you cut across lots to the section-house as soon as I start to the barn, and meet me there. It isn't half as far that way, so you'll ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... fine,' he answered. He refrained from saying what his heart said: 'It is my last morning; it is not yours. It is my last morning, and the sea is enjoying the joke, and you are ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... Supply to-night on Vote for Houses of Parliament. TONY LUMPKIN turned up again. Last Session, in moment of inspiration, TONY spluttered forth a joke; likened new staircase in Westminster Hall to SPURGEON'S Pulpit. It is just as like the River Thames or Finsbury Park; but that's where the fun lies. Incongruity is the soul of wit. Everybody laughed last Session when TONY, ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... fliers went out they could learn nothing because they dared not land even at Breslau; high-firing guns threatened them everywhere. All they could report was that the streets were full of armed women, which, of course, the General Staff took as an unseemly joke. But toward night a soldier who had managed to escape from Breslau came staggering into Great Headquarters with information that penetrated even that composite Prussian skull: the women of Germany had risen en masse and effected a revolution. ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... it was so amusing. I don't know when I've enjoyed such a hearty joke. How did you come to ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... ill wind that blows nobody any good. The prim man in the cloth boots, who had been unsuccessfully attempting to make a joke during the whole time the round game lasted, saw his opportunity, and availed himself of it. The instant the glasses disappeared he commenced a long story about a great public character, whose name he had forgotten, making a particular happy reply to another eminent and illustrious individual whom ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... thus describes the reception of the news. "On the 5th of February 1886, a very extraordinary thing happened [503]—it was a telegram addressed 'Sir Richard Burton!' He tossed it over to me and said, 'Some fellow is playing me a practical joke, or else it is not for me. I shall not open it, so you may as well ring the bell and give it back again.' 'Oh no,' I said, 'I shall open ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... scientist of the company laugh. But Blaine Asher did not laugh. Serious, his rather thin face grave at he leaned his tall, muscular body above a torsion machine he was adjusting, there was nothing to indicate he had the faintest idea of a joke. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... he, "when you know the town better you will soon see through tricks of this sort; a sick husband and five small children are complaints so stale now, that they serve no other purpose in the world but to make a joke." ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... sharply piercing eyes. What did she think of men and women and things? That was something that Denis had never been able to discover. In her enigmatic remoteness Jenny was a little disquieting. Even now some interior joke seemed to be amusing her, for she was smiling to herself, and her brown eyes were like ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... easily pacified, and, indeed, regarded his rough treatment by two of his own colleagues as a joke rather than otherwise. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "Now don't you jump at conclusions. Yes, she pulled up, and I went out to see her. She gave me her hand in the old way, and said; 'Isn't this a joke. The Captain ordered it from Chicago. He saw a picture in one of my magazines of a girl driving one of these things, and here I am. You don't think they'll charge me a special license, do you?' Oh, she's all right. Don't you worry about her. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... that word "alone" so much, that at last we began to joke about it in the reception-room; outriders and footmen tossed it from one to another when a new guest entered: "Alone!" And we laughed and enjoyed ourselves. But M. Nicklauss, with his extended knowledge of society, considered that ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... you'd been brought up by my mother, sir, you'd know better than to joke about her. What I'm telling you is the truth; and I wouldn't tell it to you if I could see my way to get out of the fix I'll be in when my mother comes here this day to see her boy in his glory, and she after thinking all the time it was against ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw
... travels, handed him dish after dish in rapid succession, from all of which he helped himself, entirely unconscious of what he was doing. Finally his plate was full to overflowing, perceiving which he became very angry, and it was some time before he could be appeased. A practical joke made no appeal to ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... 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
... West India Colonies to enforce the lex talionis, and institute quarantines, which they might do with the same or better reason, against the importation of pleurises and catarrhs from the colder regions of Europe; a practical joke of this kind has been known to succeed after reason, argument, and evidence, amounting to the most palpable demonstration, ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... to us, and every other lecturer too, just before the Finals, was Do not spend time trying to figure what the examiner was after but answer the question as set; I am more than halfway decided this is some mysterious Oriental idea of a joke but I get busy thinking ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... old Dame Trot with a basket of eggs, He used his pipe, she used her legs. She danced, he piped, the eggs were all broke; Dame Trot began to fret, Tom laughed at his joke. ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... laughing at John, whose appetite made a standing joke among them. But John only laughed with them and went on with his supper. "There can't anybody bluff me out of a good meal," said he, "not ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough
... singularly imbued with petty royal pride. He would rather be amiable and familiar with his tailor than agreeable and friendly with the most illustrious of the aristocracy of Great Britain; he would rather joke with a Brummell than admit to his confidence a Norfolk or a Somerset. The Regent was always particularly well-bred in public, and showed, if he chose, decidedly good manners; but he was in the habit very often of addressing himself in preference to those whom he felt he could patronise. His ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... I could think of such a thing! My dear Scaramouche, you amuse yourself. I beg that you will never, never allude to that little joke of mine again." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... Santa Claus one time Told this joke on himself in rhyme: One Christmas, in the early din That ever leads the morning in, I heard the happy children shout In rapture at the toys turned out Of bulging little socks and shoes— A joy at which I could but choose To listen enviously, because I'm always just "Old Santa Claus,"— But ere ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... such was his denseness, that even then, the yokel could not see the point of the joke and the steward had ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... imp!" she said to Quenrede. "But she's a very accomplished imp. I'll tell you the joke afterwards, not now! Lispeth little knows where her string comes from, and she's wrapping up that parcel so placidly! Isn't the Snark looking quite pretty this afternoon? Never saw her with such a color! Well, if you're ready, Queenie, we'll go over to the hostel and get my things. We ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... himself in an abortive effort to insert his foot into the unfilled leg of his pantaloons. "Ha, ha, that's a good un," he exclaimed; "trip yourself up in getting into your own trousers, will you, Deacon Tubman?" and he laughed long and merrily to himself over his little joke. ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... the Professor, and he playfully answered the look by saying, "We really don't want any bear meat to-day, do we?" George thought it was a good joke on the hunters, but Harry was angered. "Let us finish him. See him break ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... some new crazy thing to say. When he found it he shouted it out, and rolled about with laughing, with his face still buried in the earth. He received no answer. Surprised by the silence, he raised his head, and began to repeat his joke. He saw Gottfried's face lit up by the last beams of the setting sun cast through golden mists. He swallowed down his words. Gottfried smiled with his eyes half closed and his mouth half open, and in his sorrowful face was an expression of sadness and unutterable melancholy. Jean-Christophe, with ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... dispiritedly. "People would take it for a joke instead of a scientific treatise if I did," ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... enterin' into the sperit of the hoax, an' deemin' it a splendid joke; 'be you-all the maverick who's on that quarter-section ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... up at him with a nervous laugh. Secretly she was wondering how far he was going to carry the joke. ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... grave man, Bladud was by no means destitute of a sense of humour, or disinclined on occasion to perpetrate a practical joke. After contemplating the sleepers for a moment he retired a few paces and concealed himself in the long grass, from which position he pitched one of the huge birds into the air, so that it fell on the captain's upturned visage. The snore changed at once into a yell of alarm, as the mariner sprang ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... is. You mustn't slight my good stories in that way. She meant just what she said. I believe the Porter family own, or did own, Goat Island, and, I suppose, the other bank, and, therefore, the American Fall. The joke—I do dislike to have to explain jokes, especially to you cool, unsympathising Bostonians—is the ridiculousness of any mere human person claiming to own such a thing as the Niagara Falls. I believe, though, that you are quite equal to ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... spread all sail; also, beyond discretion, or at all hazards. In galley-slang, to joke a person even to anger; ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... "No joke at all, Crozier; a testimonial of esteem,"—and three gentlemen helped one another to ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... Llano County, where he had recently acquired another ranch with an extensive stock of cattle. It therefore behooved me to keep my reputation unsullied, a rather difficult thing to do when our escapade at Sherman was known to three other trail foremen. They might look upon it as a good joke, while to me it ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... "Pray don't joke in that way before any one else," said Angela. "It is rather horrid, don't you think? No doubt Mr. Hilliard will be delighted to have you 'play' with him, if you see enough of each other to make it ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... he'd pet 'n' paw the moke; He'd tickle him, 'n' flatter him, 'n' try him with a joke; 'N' presently that neddy sobers up, 'n' sez "Ive course, Since you puts it that way, cobber, I ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... attracted by his looks; and, being a close observer, she soon noted that, though he talked about laboratory matters with Morton, and was ready to joke or sing with Molly and the two older young ladies present, yet every time Sara addressed him, he turned to answer with an eagerly respectful air, different from the rather careless ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... the artist, "and injured my ankle to boot. That's a joke. Look here, Will; you could help me to get my arm free. It's—it's painful; that's ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... not a brave man, but this demand, in his impecunious condition, instead of terrifying him, struck his sense of humor as an exceedingly good joke. ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... from Quisante's group; he had made some joke and they all applauded him. Tillman stood for a moment longer before him, then gave a queer jerk of his head, and turned sharp round on his heel. He came back towards where she stood. She took a step forward and thus crossed his path, Marchmont and the Dean ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... my shoulders. There was nothing to be gained by getting angry. If Terry chose to regard the solving of a murder mystery in the light of a joke, I had nothing to say; though I did think he might have realized that to me, at least, ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... replied the other, reddening; "very well, Syl, let them do so; I can bear a joke, or give a blow, as well as another; so divil may care, such as they give, such as they'll get—only this, let there be no attempt to make me drink whiskey, or else there may be harder hittin' than some o' them 'ud ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... and deeper in the bore, The drop of blood, I lured from him of yore— O'erjoyed to own such specimen unique Were he who objects rare is fain to seek—; Here on its hook hangs still the old fur cloak, Me it remindeth of that merry joke, When to the boy I precepts gave, for truth, Whereon, perchance, he's feeding now, as youth. The wish comes over me, with thee allied, Enveloped in thy worn and rugged folds, Once more to swell with the professor's pride! How quite infallible ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... it. He couldn't talk about anything without it seeming there was a great joke in it somewhere. . . Now, says he, I know you are a moral citizen, George. Morality is mostly funk, and I think you're the funkiest man I ever came across in my travels. Why, you are afraid to speak to your brother. Afraid to open your mouth ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... friend Pope; it was after the publication of the Dunciad. "Of Nonsense there are celebrated professors; Mr. Pope grows witty like Bays in the 'Rehearsal,' by selling bargains (his subscriptions for Homer), praising himself, laughing at his joke, and making his own works the test of any man's criticism; but he seems to be in some jeopardy; for the ghost of Homer has lately spoke to him in Greek, and Shakspeare resolves to bring him, as he has brought Shakspeare, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... as in the case of a nervous girl whose brother entered her room, covered with a sheet, as a "ghost", a "joke" that was followed by a fit ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... chair that held the little stockings. Santa Claus put a pair of boots on it. They were copper-toed, with gorgeous front pieces of red morocco at the top of the leg. Then, as if he had some relish of a joke, he took them up, looked them over thoughtfully, and put them in the sack again, whereupon the boy Paul burst into tears. Old Santa Claus, shaking with silent laughter, replaced ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... consideration of his youth, beauty, and innocence." The laughter that followed this sally was of the sort which in poetic phraseology is called inextinguishable; and one of the wedding guests who heard the joke and the laughter, assures this writer that the storm of mirthful applause was chiefly due to the delicacy and sweetness of the intonations by which the speaker's facile voice, with its old and once familiar art, made the audience realize the charms of youth, beauty and innocence—charms ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... his joke. He alone seemed to feel no disappointment at Perrichet's oversight. Ricardo was a little touchy on the subject of his personal appearance, and bridled visibly. Hanaud turned ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... to be 'dited, and sent to the Reform School or State's Prison this very night," said she, in her wrath. Prudy thought precisely the same; also Miss Dimple, who looked upon the whole affair as a joke, intended ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... elicited a host of criticisms and panegyrics on his life and character, for the most part flattering, except that in the 'Times,' which was very able but very severe, and not less severe than true. As soon as it was discovered that he was not dead, the liveliest indignation was testified at the joke that had been played off, and the utmost anxiety to discover its origin. General suspicion immediately fixed itself on Brougham himself, who, finding the bad impression produced, hastened to remove it by a vehement but indirect denial of having had any share in, or ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... kettle boils, the young man jumps up, whips the cap off his head, and uses it for a kettle-holder. Who nowadays but looks on with indifference when the barber of the village, if he be near the fire, shakes the loose hair off his cloth into it, and the joke and the laughter goes on as if no sacred operation had just been concluded. Food is consumed on places which, in bygone days, it dared not even ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a shrill laugh escaped him. He had mistaken The Grinner for another monster of the deep. It was the last joke of life, and ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... A poor joke, though they both laughed. There Mr. Brotherson passed on, and Sweetwater listened till he was sure that his too attentive neighbour had really gone down the three flights between him and the street. Then he took ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... trying to induce the peasants of the neighbouring villages to found schools, and he had wonderful ideas about the best method of teaching children. These and similar facts make many people believe that he has very advanced ideas, and one old gentleman habitually calls him—half in joke and half in earnest—"our ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... played a joke on you, that's all. Serves you right for fooling with him. That is the ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout
... people towards the revival of art, which are so obviously out of joint with the tendency of the age that, while the uncultivated have not even heard of them, the mass of the cultivated look upon them as a joke, and even that they are now beginning ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... ride. On one of these occasions, he brought the animal back reeking; when Tommy Mitcheson, the bank horse-keeper, a rough-spoken fellow, exclaimed to him: "Set such fellows as you on horseback, and you'll soon ride to the De'il." But Tommy Mitcheson lived to tell the joke, and to confess that, after all, there had been a better issue to George's horsemanship than that which ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... hot cakes. 'But,' said I, 'surely your one watchman can't look after thirty-seven different places.' 'No,' said Bobby, 'but they think he does.' I laughed and commended his ingenuity. 'But the best part of the joke,' said he, 'is that I haven't got any watchman ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Link Merwell! I know his handwriting almost as well as I know my own," he declared. "He always makes those funny little crooks on his capital letters. I guess that shows what kind of a crook he is," and Phil grinned at his little joke. "What are you going ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... front place; and that is the appearance they offer to their commercial God!' He gazed along the miles of 'English countenance,' drearily laughing. Changeful ocean seemed to laugh at the spectacle. Some Orphic joke inspired his exclamation: 'Capital!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... joke. I dare say the barber did not gap his razor when he shaved you. I always feel better after I have been shaved," added Mr. Wittleworth, as Andre laid a brush full of lather ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... villain!" muttered Horatio. "Ask Miss Kellerton; she knows him. But, villainy aside, what a stupendous joke it is to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... there, but I'll thank you for his passage-money, then, Master Tom," said he, laughing at his joke and I too joining in, our wonderful good fortune having restored all ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... I felt that the joke, after all, had been a severe one. Lord Porthoning seemed almost on the point of collapse. His eyes never once left the ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that the war fever in 1895 was stronger in the West than in the Eastern States. A traveller crossing the United States at that time would have found the idea of hostilities with England being treated as something of a joke in cultivated circles in New York, but among the people in general to the West of Buffalo and Pittsburg it was terrible earnest. A curious point, moreover, which I think I have never seen stated in England, is that ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... England I found a strong disposition on the part of the British manufacturer and dealer to create a market for his own car as soon as the war is over. Some even talked of a large output of low-priced machines to meet the competition of the familiar car that put the automobile joke on the map. The only American comeback to this growing prejudice is to build factories or assembling plants within the British Isles. This will save excessive freight rates, keep down the costly-tariff "overhead," and get the benefit ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... mouse. Ridiculous misfits in the presents made the distribution all the funnier, and the rejoicing was great when Roger, who didn't believe in washing his hands without being told to do so, drew a wee cake of soap. He took it good-naturedly and considered as an added joke, Estelle's hasty and shocked assurance that it was not meant especially ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... that those who know, that those who care, are so idolatrously infatuated with Rufus Daniel Isaacs as to tolerate such risk, let alone such ruin? Are we to set up as the standing representative of England a man who is a standing joke against England? That and nothing else is involved in setting up the chief Marconi Minister as our chief Foreign Minister. It is precisely in those foreign countries with which such a minister would have to deal, that his name would be, and has been, a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... been circulated in the office, and Harold felt somewhat apprehensive. It was on an occasion very similar to this that George Barstead, formerly in the employ of the New Asiatic Bank in the capacity of messenger, had been rash enough to laugh at what he had taken for a joke of Mr Bickersdyke's, and had been instantly presented with the sack for ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... his settled gloom for the whole of that evening. We used to begin our drinking day at the same well of German damnably defiled, and we paced the same colonnade to the blare of the same well-fed band. That wasn't a joke, Bunny; it's not a thing to joke about; mud-poultices and dry meals, with teetotal poisons in between, were to be my portion too. You stiffen your lip at that, eh, Bunny? I told you that you never would or could have stood it; but it was the only ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... inverted order, himself above, and Rollin, Voltaire, and every other author of reputation, below." When Cooper complained of this, and of some severer language, to Warburton, through a friend, Warburton replied that Cooper had attacked him, and that he had only taken his revenge "with a slight joke." Cooper was weak and vain enough to print a pamphlet, to prove that this was a serious accusation, and no joke; and if it was a joke, he shows it was not a correct one. In fact, Cooper could never comprehend how his head was like a camera obscura! ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... philosophical joke intended to typify the endless and useless arguments of philosophers; I mean the joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not sure that properly understood, it is so futile an inquiry after all. I am not concerned here to enter on those deep ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... thus rebuked him: 'My son,' stirring his cup with energy, 'Do you allow your squaw thus to trifle with your father?' Perceiving at the same time, by the giggling of the children, that they had entered into the joke, he continued, 'And do you allow your children to make sport of their chief?' Jones and his wife thereupon apologized, and the latter made the amende honorable, by handing him the sugar-bowl, which he took, and with half angry sarcasm filled the ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... 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
... sent to bring Fresh water from the neighb'ring spring; The matter pressed, no time to waste, Jane took her jug, and ran in haste The well to reach, but in her flurry (The more the speed the worse the hurry), Tripped on a rolling stone, and broke Her precious pitcher,—ah! no joke! Nay, grave mishap! 'twere better far To break her neck than such a jar! Her dame would beat and soundly rate her, No way could Jane propitiate her. Without a sou new jug to buy! 'Twere better far for her to die! O'erwhelmed ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... under her chair and dropped into the pail a hot baked brick. The hot brick caused steam to rise from the water and enveloped the child, producing sweating. This was done frequently, and the child considered it a joke, but it relieved her of the bloat. It was in the country and these crude means produced the desired result. By attaching a rubber tube to a steaming kettle and introducing the steam under the covering the same result can ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... is exalted to the skies! Gen. Lee telegraphed that the enemy had disappeared from his front, probably meditating a design to cross at some other place. Such were his words, which approach nearer to a practical joke, and an inkling of exultation, than anything I have seen from his pen. He has saved the capital. Before the enemy could approach Richmond from "some other place;" Lee would be between him and the city, and if he could beat him on the Rappahannock he ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... Mitchell, "it's a sin to keep as good a joke as this in the family! We must drive her around town until the night falls down or ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... of pork or fetch the cake of maple sugar from the cupboard. When she wearied of these strange table-manners and bade him help himself in the usual fashion, he smoothed her ruffled temper with good-humoured excuses, "Quite right. Quite right. I won't do it again; but you always loved a joke, Azalma. When you have youngsters like me at dinner you must ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... later, Goethe had in reality anticipated the anatomist. A passage occurs in a letter to a friend, of a date in 1790, which admits of no doubt. "By the oddest happy chance, my servant picked up a bit of an animal's skull in the Jews' cemetery at Venice, and, by way of a joke, held it out to me as if he were offering me a Jew's skull. I have made a great step in the formation of animals." It is an interesting trait in Huxley's character, to find him zealous in defence of ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... certain that his conduct had been pure, Because a foolish or imprudent act Would not alone have made him insecure, But ended in his being found out and sack'd, And thrown into the sea.—Thus Baba spoke Of all save Dudu's dream, which was no joke. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... now, holding a grand family council around the centre-table, and Dolly was the principal feature, as usual; and, embarrassing as the subject of said council was, not one of them looked as if it was other than a most excellent joke that Dolly, having been invited into the camps of the Philistines, should find she had nothing to put on to grace the occasion. And as to Dolly,—well, that young person stood in the midst of them in her shabby, Frenchy little hat, slapping one pink palm with a shabby, shapely ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... so heavily upon his son's arm that he was compelled to remain. "Say it is a jest, Charles," he cried, in an excited voice. "It is not possible for my son, the brother of my six hero-boys, to speak thus! It is merely a jest, Charles. You wished to joke with your old father. It is not true that you have deserted the flag of our king; put an end to this cruel jest, Charles Henry, and show me your leave of absence which every honest soldier obtains before leaving his regiment. Do you hear, Charles Henry? Show it ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... endowed with courage and self-sacrifice has been proved in these last six months; it is to other qualities that one must look for final victory in a war of exhaustion. The Englishman does not look into himself; he does not brood; he sees no further forward than is necessary, and he must have his joke. These are fearful and wonderful advantages. Examine the letters and diaries of the various combatants and you will see how far less imaginative and reflecting, (though shrewd, practical, and humorous,) ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the prince blushed at this innocent joke, like a young girl, I should think that he must, as an honourable man, harbour the noblest intentions," said the old toothless schoolmaster, most unexpectedly; he had not so much as opened his mouth before. This remark provoked general mirth, and the old ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and deserted Moses and her little Linda!" In what way her mother had deserted Mr. Feldt she failed to understand. Of course he wanted to marry them—the comprehensive phrase was his own—but that didn't include him in whatever they did. Principally it made a joke for their private entertainment. Mrs. Condon would mimic his eager manner, "Stella, let me take you both home where you'll have the best in the land," And, "Ladies like you ought to have a loving protection." Linda would laugh in ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... attention to the impending disaster. I cannot divide things easily; I am an indivisible man. But one night I went for a bicycle ride with my wife. She was a Bantam of delight, I can tell you, but she rode very badly. It was starlight, and I was attempting to explain the joke in the paper called, if I recollect aright, Punch. It was an extraordinarily sultry night, and I told her the names of all the stars she saw as she fell off her machine. She had a good bulk of falls. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... astonishment when I saw what I had taken for his ghost slowly carry his hand to the corner of his hat and raise it without bending the fraction of an inch, I started back a yard or two; and this movement, which Arthur thought was a joke on my part, only increased his merriment. The weasel-hunter was by no means disconcerted; perhaps in his judicial gravity he was thinking that this was the usual way to greet people on the ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... less merry at the expense of the earlier efforts of the student of a strange tongue; but it has been reserved to our own time for a soi disant instructor to perpetrate—at his own expense—the monstrous joke of publishing a Guide to Conversation in a language of which it is only too evident that every word is utterly strange to him. The Teutonic sage who evolved the ideal portrait of an elephant from his "inner consciousness" was a commonplace, matter-of ...
— English as she is spoke - or, A jest in sober earnest • Jose da Fonseca
... 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 the only ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... justify this War. Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony; And children here will thrust and poke, Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke, With bows and arrows and wooden spears, Playing at ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... space, and weakly swayed from one side to the other. Then he brushed away the frozen tears that gemmed his lashes. It was a joke. Malicious chance was having its laugh at him. Even John Thompson, with his heaven-aspiring whiskers, ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... choice), have, generally speaking, a certain heaviness of character. There are many flashes of wit; but the author has beaten his flint hard ere he struck them out. It is almost essential to the success of a jest, that it should at least seem to be extemporaneous. If we espy the joke at a distance, nay, if without seeing it we have the least reason to suspect we are travelling towards one, it is astonishing how the perverse obstinacy of our nature delights to refuse it currency. When, therefore, as is often the case in Dryden's comedies, two persons ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... "I wish you wouldn't be so blame keerless with your figures of speech. There won't be any ice water for the wicked, it says in the Book, and, anyway, it ain't a fit subject to joke about. ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... also to be caught through many of the humorous passages in Shakspeare. Dromio says of an excessively fat and greasy kitchen wench, "If she lives till doomsday she'll burn a week longer than the whole world!" And Falstaff, cracking a kindred joke on Bardolph's carbuncled nose, avows his opinion that it will serve as a flaming beacon to light lost souls the way to purgatory! Again, seeing a flea on the same flaming proboscis, the doughty knight affirmed it was "a black soul burning in hell fire." In this element of mediaval ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... is a complicated piece of mechanism with numerous cogged wheels fitting into each other; but there is nothing to prove that they can be set in motion. Even supposing "Freiland societies" were to come into existence, I should look on the whole thing as a joke. ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... about 'No one could mind;' and therewith Annaple cried, 'Oh, if you don't mind, we can have our laugh out!' and the rippling laughter did set Nuttie off at once. The peal was not over when May herself was upon them demanding what was the joke. ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Severn laughed hysterically, as If what the doctor had said was a joke. "Hurt me? It's what's going to put me on my feet, doc. I know it now, I been too much alone this last winter, with nothin' but my dogs to talk to when night come. I ain't never been much of a talker, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... He took a dugout canoe from the old board landing. His friend, Mr. Draper, was with him. It was below the Falls where the river had rapids and rocks. They tipped over and were so soaked that St. Paul had to get along that day without them. It was considered a great joke to ask the dominie if he was converted to immersion, ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... mayor, who an uncommon thing (Because 'twas generous) had done, was sent With a petition to his gracious King,[9] And reach'd St. James's wondrously content. His Majesty found him quite eloquent, Fond of a dinner, fonder of a joke But, needing matter For converse with his stranger worship, spoke Of Norfolk hospitality, and geese; Of turkeys, game, and fowls, that take a lease Yearly to smoke on many a cockney platter, Forgetting not, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... brothers-in-law of our hostess. They had all served in Forrest's cavalry as commissioned officers, and were courteous and elegant gentlemen. We would all sit down together at the table of Mrs. House, with that lady at the head, and talk and laugh, and joke with each other, as if we had been comrades and friends all our lives. And yet, during the four years just preceding, the Union and the Confederate soldiers thus mingled together in friendship and amity had been doing their ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... the least, Miss Rhys," the little doctor said in his cheeriest tones, "only Alexia and I had a little joke all by ourselves." And as he waited coolly for the maiden lady to return to her seat, she soon found herself back there. Then he went over to Mamsie, and said something in a ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... "Now you're making a joke," Meta said serenely as she fed a figure into the calculator. "I've seen old ladies on some planets. They are wrinkled and have gray hair. I don't know how old they are, I asked one but she wouldn't tell me her age. But I'm sure they must be older than anyone on Pyrrus, no one looks ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... individuals have always been considered a joke, but you are a joke no longer. Instead of being looked upon with friendly tolerance and amusement, you are now viewed with distrust, suspicion, and even aversion! How dare you hoard fat when our ...
— Diet and Health - With Key to the Calories • Lulu Hunt Peters
... half a joke, but if she had laughed—laughed in the wrong way—the chances were that he would have turned on his heel and left her without so much as a good-night. For he was strung up to an abnormal, cruel sensitiveness. Whatever else they ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... her entreaties to mine, although she knew it was only a joke on my part. Smith could not leave Paris without danger of losing his position and replied that he regretted being obliged to deny himself the pleasure of accompanying us. Nevertheless, I continued to press him, and, ordering another bottle of wine, I repeated my invitation. After dinner, I went ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... its outer signs, the universe over our heads—with its cunning little stars in it—is the height of absurdity, as a self-expression. The sky laughs at us. We know it when we look in a telescope. Time and space are God's jokes. Looked at strictly in its outer language, the whole visible world is a joke. To suppose that God has ever expressed Himself to us in it, or to suppose that He could express Himself in it, or that any one can express anything in it, is not to see ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... mischievously up into his radiant face, and then hung her pretty head half shyly, saying, "Oh, you know—his name is—Jones!" She turned away her blushing face after this, and Guy, who never felt so happy in all his life before, laughed merrily over her little joke, then stooping to the pretty lips, yet sweet with their delicious confession, he stole the first long kiss of love! A very strong mark of his affection, if we believe, like Byron, that "a kisses strength, we think, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... "Were you in Palestine?" And the wife spoke quick: "He didn't get there, that's the joke of it." And the husband said: "It wasn't such a joke. You see it was this way, myself and the bishop, He lived in Springfield, I in Pleasant Plains, Had planned to ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... away and Pud ran along after them for nearly a mile. Finally the horses were stopped and Pud at last came up puffing, blowing and sweating. Mr. Waterman had cautioned every one to be quite serious and not give the joke away. ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... joke had been carried far enough, and that it was time to interfere. I accordingly went next day to Boston, and, calling on the publisher of a then somewhat flourishing weekly newspaper, now extinct, called "The Boston Museum," I described to him the situation and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... perhaps, was because of Jose and Jose's hostile attitude, standing crosswise of the trail like that, and scowling while he waited, with the fingers of his right hand fumbling inside his sash—for his dagger, perchance! Teresita smiled wickedly, in appreciation of the joke on them both. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... expected in boys and girls of that age. She said, however, that the Society was making a point of telling people how nicely and how advantageously all of the children had been reared by the late Mr. Bingle. She smiled when she said the "late Mr. Bingle," for it was a capital joke and she had every intention of ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... the song and joke passed from boat to boat, and the lights from the different fires were reflected in the water, the scenery was equally pleasing; but later still, when the lights were out, there being no moon, and the banks overhung ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... those girls are planning some practical joke upon me for Tuesday evening!" Katherine said to herself, as she went ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... part, Captain Frere. A capital joke, I have no doubt; but permit me to say I do not like jesting on such matters. This poor fellow's letter to his aged father to be made the subject of heartless merriment, I confess I do not understand. It was confided to me in my sacred character as ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... strange? I'm glad anyhow that I'm of use in protecting the helpless." The people said if she would perform the operation they would agree, and she sent to Bende for lymph, and was busy for days. It was a difficult task, the people were suspicious, and she had to banter and joke and coax when she herself was at fainting point. Apart from this she doctored men and women for the worst diseases, nursed the sickly babies, and generally acted her old part ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... be a joke on Paul—so I thought—if he or his friends should sneak out to the sloop where she was moored, intending to do her some harm, and find me there all ready for such a visitation. I chuckled to myself while I wended my way to the shore, carrying a ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster |
