"Poking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seated himself upon an upturned stool. A few of the Girl Scouts clustered about him; the others unwilling to give up, were still poking about in ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... provincial town. In fact, he really is a very clever man, and might do much in London, I dare say. He often comes over to dine and sleep, returning the next morning. His energy is wonderful—and contagious. Can you imagine that he has actually stirred up the flame of my vanity, by constantly poking at the bars? Metaphor apart, I find myself collecting all my notes and commonplaces, and wondering to see how easily they fall into method, and take shape in chapters and books. I cannot help smiling when I add, that I fancy I am going to become an author; and smiling more when ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a little curious that, in poking about among the garden plots on the west bank of the stream, fronting (as nearly as I could judge) Anne Tyson's cottage, to seek for remains of the ash tree, in which so often the poet—as he lay awake on summer ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... was a musical clinking. 'Now then, all of you, you 'op it. You're all bin poking your noses in 'ere long enough. Pop off. Get on with that tram, conductor.' Psmith and Mike settled themselves in a seat on the roof. When the conductor came along, Psmith gave him half a crown, and asked after his wife and ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... Now, poking its large nose out of that garage was a gray motor (but not so nice a gray as ours) conducted by a wisp of a chauffeur. He was driving two passengers, and I bounced on the springy back seat of our car with surprise as I recognized ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... large-sized and ragged suits of clothes, a woman's straw hat, four pairs of men's gloves and the biggest top-hat that I could find. These I put apart in a heap with one of the balls of cord. From the other ball I cut off some eight fathoms of cord, and, poking it out through the opening of the window, let it drop on the leads beneath. Then I conveyed my spoil in one or two journeys across the murderers' room, passed it through the opening, and ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... an old-timer, jumped up with his gun poised, ready for business. "Why, he's daid!" he exclaimed, poking the lion with the ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... had turned to take Ned's hat, apologising for neglecting to think of that before. Ned saw the girl's other hand move quickly up to where the gas bracket met the wall and then the light went out altogether. "That's for poking fun," he heard her say. The door slammed, a key turned in it and he heard her ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... you on that aeroplane, Yermilich!... You'd be quite handy at it, wouldn't you!" the soldiers were poking fun at ...
— The Shield • Various
... go, but I called him back. "Please!" I begged. "I'll only keep you one minute. I'm sure you're joking, big brother, about being an ass, or poking fun at me. But I don't care. I need some advice so badly! I've no one but you to give it to me. I know you won't desert me, because if you were like that you wouldn't have come to stop at this hotel to watch over your new sister—which ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... a spender, a spender and a speeder too! How much money had he, that chap? And damn him, what had he in his past? How Roger hated the very thought of poking into another man's life! Poking where nobody wanted him! He felt desperately alone. To-night they were dancing, he recalled, not at a party in somebody's home, but in some flashy public place where girls of her kind and fancy women gaily mixed ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... dress; you came down with it changed; but only by an effort could you recall the fact that a viewless but supremely efficient valet had been concerned in the transaction. The coal fire in the grate needed poking; you glanced away for a moment; when you looked at the fire again it had been poked—had, to all appearance, poked itself. And so in all relations; to desire was to get; to picture a condition was to realize it. You were shielded on every ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Manchester is riddled with Germans. They have been robbing our trade right and left, and even here in Brunford Germans are poking their noses. I am about sick of them. Thirty years ago we hardly ever saw a German, and now they have nobbled our best-paying lines. If I had my way, all Germans should be driven out of the country; they are a ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... my land!" the man said fiercely, heedless of the blood which trickled freely from his fingers. "What have you to do here? By your dress you should be one of those cursed clerks who overrun the land like vile rats, poking and prying into other men's concerns, too caitiff to fight and too lazy to work. By the rood! if I had my will upon ye, I should nail you upon the abbey doors, as they hang vermin before their holes. Art neither man nor woman, ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... praised for his generalship in the cotton corner, able to entertain sumptuously, he was again a Southern gentleman of the older school, and so in his envied element. Yet today he frowned as he stood poking absently with his ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... you're poking fun now. Wait till I get through. Only for Tom, you would have found me at Ten Mile Gulch, hanging by the neck to the limb of that tree just ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... which the "Estudiantinas Espagnoles" have familiarised us, only in this case the Spanish cocked hat and spoon was replaced by a sort of black Phrygian cap. To our astonishment, these young gentlemen, instead of poking fun at us, got off the parapet on which they had been sitting, pulled off their caps to us, and welcomed us with the most kindly politeness. They knew, perhaps, that we too had worn our breeches out upon school benches, and thus saluted ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... me, poking his cigar-butt at me with each sentence in a way he used to have, "George Harris cannot leave England tomorrow. I find I shall want him where he is. And I want Bunner where he is. But somebody has got to go by that boat and take certain papers to Paris. Or else my plan is going to fall ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... mind with something else that will crowd it out. Say to yourself, 'There's that sorrow poking his head up again, and I must push him down.' Then go at something hard. Study your spelling, or go on a picnic, anything to ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... Tyndall, poking his head in past the flap of the tent and viewing the recumbent lads. "All here? That's good. I'm a committee of one, sent over here by the Gridley folks at the hotel. They're ordering a supper and they want you boys ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... for a moment, senor," answered Dominguez; "we must creep far enough away that the flapping of the canvas may not wake our friend yonder, or we shall lose him." Then, poking his head through the open skylight, he called softly, ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... and see who it is. I don't want any strangers poking around here, especially with the plans of my new gyroscope lying ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... prospector, sailing his little schooner boldly across dangerous reaches of ocean, through the intricate lovely waterways of Alaska's Inland Sea, poking her prow into hidden crescent coves, trying his luck with a gold-pan on unknown streams, always sure that the next shift of the gravel in the pan would reveal a fortune—all this made life fascinating for Shane Boreland. No matter how far short realization fell, he was always ready ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... many other things," answered Foy, "every one of them true, for I am a miserable sinner. Well, all right, there is a mistake, and it is," he added, with an air of radiant innocency that somehow was scarcely calculated to deceive, "that I was merely poking a stick into Adrian's temper. I never saw him talking to Black ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... have been expected. All began to shout out exclamations and orders, and to give directions how to proceed to recover the lost oar. The boys whose oars were still left, thrust them confusedly into the water, and began pushing, poking, and paddling with them, in order to get the boat out to where Joseph's oar was floating. All this time Forester remained on the bank, laughing at this specimen of nautical ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... satisfied and grateful for her silent existence and her amorous repose. I breakfasted, went down into the donga with a black boy, poor Jim-jim, who was afterwards, as I said, to perish by an awful fate, otherwise he would testify to the truth of my plain story. I began poking among the rocks in the dry basin of the donga, {23} and had just picked up a pebble—I knew it by the soapy feel for a diamond. Uncut it was about three times the size of the koh-i- noor, say 1,000 carats, and I was rejoicing in my luck when I heard the scream ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... To F. W. Cobden: There is another fit of apprehension about the Corn Bill, owing to the uncertainty of Peel's position. I can't understand his motive for constantly poking his coercive bill in our faces at these critical moments. The Lords will take courage at anything that seems to weaken the government morally. They are like a fellow going to be hanged who looks out for a reprieve, and is always hoping for a lucky escape ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... except that he walked slowly round the tank instead of standing on one leg when he found it a failure. Perhaps he was thinking the thing over. He did not think to much purpose, for day after day for more than a week back came the adjutant to walk like a soldier on duty up and down, up and down, poking his head through the bars each time. Sometimes he did it a score of times, sometimes only two or three. After ten days he disappeared. Where is he? Has he gone to find a blacksmith among the adjutants? or have his brother ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... traitor! Turn, miscreant, and defend thyself! Stand, tyrant, coward, ruffian, royal wretch, till I cut thy ugly head from thy usurping shoulders!' And, with his fairy sword, which elongated itself at will, His Majesty kept poking and prodding Padella in the back, until that ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... never touched and which the janitor had orders not to disturb in their disorder. Above Field's desk for some time hung a sheet of tin, which he used as a call bell or to drown the noise of the office boy poking the big globe stove which was the primitive, but generally effective, way of heating the whole floor in winter. That it was not always effective, even after steam was introduced, may be inferred from the following ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... slamming the stove door open, and poking in among the ashes and cinders with wrathful haste, "if this abominable fire hasn't gone out; I never did in all my life! burnt up a bushel of kindling, too, dear me; water in the tea-kettle stone cold, not a blessed thing cooking; no more stuff ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... table and the food will be perfectly clean and wholesome, but that you will enjoy eating it a great deal more. And when you enjoy your food, you remember, your stomach can secrete the juice that is needed to digest it, very much faster and better than when, as you say, you are just "poking it down." ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... married people have fallen ever so wide asunder, the thought, "my child's mother," "my baby's father," must in some degree bridge the gulf between them. When Peter Ascott was seen stooping, awkwardly enough, over his son's cradle, poking his dumpy fingers into each tiny cheek in a half-alarmed, half-investigating manner, as if he wondered how it had all come about, but, on the whole, was rather pleased than otherwise—the good angel of the household might have stood by and ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... extreme simplicity; but their easy grace and composure, and the refined sentiment of their gentle faces, told at a glance they belonged to the high nobility. Publicola divined them at once, and involuntarily raised his hat to so much beauty and dignity, instead of poking it with a finger as usual. On this the ladies instantly courtesied to him after the manner of their party, with a sweep and a majesty, and a precision of politeness, that the pup would have laughed at if he had heard of it; but seeing it done, and well done, and ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... with them has been due to the fatuous conduct of the penguins. Groups of these have been constantly leaping on to our floe. From the moment of landing on their feet their whole attitude expressed devouring curiosity and a pig-headed disregard for their own safety. They waddle forward, poking their heads to and fro in their usually absurd way, in spite of a string of howling dogs straining to get at them. 'Hulloa,' they seem to say, 'here's a game—what do all you ridiculous things want?' And ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... fine smooth brogue; his learning was extensive, and his wit brilliant. He was tall and thin, with, a long, pale, and pleasant visage, smiling and expressive. His dress was an entire suit of brown, of the old shape; a narrow stock, tight about his neck; his wig amply powdered, with a high poking foretop. In the year, 1791, my son Tottenham and I met him in St. James's Park, (London,) at the narrow entrance near Spring Gardens. A few minutes after, we were joined accidentally by Jemmy Wilder, well known in Dublin—once the famous Macheath, in Smock Alley—a worthy and respectable ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... foster-mother of the future brood. Fifteen eggs, fair and fresh, reserved for the purpose, I counted out and put into her nest; and there she sat day after day and all day long, with a quietness, a silent, patient persistence, which I admired, but could not in the least imitate; for I kept continually poking under her and prying her up to see how matters stood. Many hens would have resented so much interference, but she knew it was sympathy, and not malice; besides, she was very good-natured, and so was I, and we stood on the best possible footing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... asked the old gentleman, who wouldn't let Phronsie get down out of his arms, under any circumstances; so there she lay, poking up her head like a little bird, and trying to say she wasn't in the least hurt, "where's everybody been not to know she'd gone?" he exclaimed, "where's Polly—and ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... to his own trestle. She found another shaving within reach of her parasol, and began poking that with it, and trying to follow it through its folds. Corey watched ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of him," answered the small boy, readily. "But then you see, Frank knows I just can't keep awake to save me. And what good is a sleepy guard, I'd like to know. Hope I've got it fixed now so I won't feel the ribs of this blessed Oldtown canoe poking me in my slats tonight. They kept me uneasy last night to beat the band. Aw! I'm awful sleepy, Larry; and I guess I'll ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... to your having a good education in Denver? And look at the way he dresses you, Polly! I don't want you to think I am poking fun at you, 'cause I'm not, but the way you slick back your hair into two long braids and the baggy skirts you wear are simply outlandish. If I had that wonderful curly chestnut hair I'd make so much of it that ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with regard to Duncan there ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... as if dreading a surprise, he commenced turning over and over the rubbish in one corner. At last, he clutched a calabash, stained black, and with the neck broken off; on one side of it was a large hole. Something seemed to be stuffed away in the vessel; and after a deal of poking at the aperture, a musty old pair of sailor trousers was drawn forth; and, holding them up eagerly, he inquired how many pieces of tobacco I would give ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... and mother. "What do you know about 'the Sacred Duties of Wife and Mother'?" she jeered, increasing her pace as her passion waxed. "Wait until you're a wife and mother yourself, and then perhaps you'll be able to give an opinion; and, meanwhile, attend to your own 'Sacred Duties.' You will come poking your nose into the Sphere where it's not wanted"—she shook her fist at him—"with your theories." She exclaimed: "You meddling priest! What you're afraid of is that there won't be slaves enough in the world to make money for you; or poor enough to bear witness to your Christian charity! ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... store-houses and stores up cone seeds, acorns, nuts, and corn when he can get it. He builds a nest of leaves and strips of bark, sometimes in a hollow tree and sometimes high up in the branches of an evergreen tree. He is a good jumper and jumps from tree to tree. He is a busybody and always poking his nose in where he has no business. He steals my stores whenever he can ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... in the Black Bear put on all speed, traveling nights as well as days, and before long began watching the heavens, for an aeroplane. But the lads on the Nelson were not looking for a boat poking her nose toward the Andes—"a relief expedition," ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... presently, and a basket of fruit there. Poking about he contrived to disinter from various tins and ice-boxes some cold chicken and biscuits and a bottle of claret. These he wrapped hastily in a napkin which he found there, placed them in the basket of fruit, and came out into the ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... were passing away the time between shearings, and we were having a sort of fishing and shooting loaf down the river in a boat arrangement that Jake had made out of boards and tarred canvas. We called her the Jolly Coffin. We were just poking up the bank in the slack water, a few hundred yards below the billabong, when Jake said, 'Why, there's a horse or something in the river.' Then he shouted, 'No, by God, it's a man,' and we poked the Coffin out into the stream for all she was worth. 'Looks like two men fighting in the ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... pleasant to discover that one has unwittingly bought the bill of expense this type of replacement means. "Let the buyer beware" generally rules in the selling of old places, and the purchase of a knife and an hour or two of poking its point into the principal timbers may ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... put him out to learn this trade or that, but Halvor could stay nowhere; for, when he had been there a day or two, he ran away from his master, and never stopped till he was sitting again in the ingle, poking about in the cinders. ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... had fallen to poking the green contents of the gutter with a stick, and seemed to find the present more fascinating to ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... with his covert rebellion, and had now been guilty of a much greater offence. An appeal to a goodness which is not in him is to a sensitive and vain soul a stinging insult. Doctor Prescott could have administered corporal punishment to this boy, who seemed to him to be actually poking fun at his dignity, and yet ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to confess, I couldn't help resenting Otoo's poking his nose into my business. But I knew that he was wholly unselfish; and soon I had to acknowledge his wisdom and discretion. He had his eyes open always to my main chance, and he was both keen-sighted and far-sighted. In time he became my counselor, until he knew more of my business ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... that Northern pine-walled silence, he blundered down to the lake-front and found a canoe. There were no paddles in it but with a board, sitting awkwardly amidships and poking at the water rather than paddling, he made his way far out on the lake. The lights of the hotel and the cottages became yellow dots, a cluster of glow-worms at the base of Sachem Mountain. Larger ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... curled herself up into Mrs. Trigg's chair, and sat watching the others while they played. Pincher, Maud's dog, who had come with them, was very troublesome, and would hunt after the slipper as eagerly as the boys did, poking his nose into their faces, and sometimes even licking their ears with his tongue; and as they had their hands tucked under them, they could not stop him. Then, when Herbert flung the slipper over to the other side, and Harry made a grasp ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... A musket barrel came poking round my bastion, but I was balanced like a fly on the seaward side. Then Torode's dark eyes met mine as he peered cautiously round the corner. He fired instantly, and my footing was too precarious to let me even duck. My left arm tingled and went numb, but before he could draw a pistol I stepped ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... lower edge of his yard the farmer hunted, with the whimpering, cowed terrier to guide him, poking in dark corners with the muzzle of his shotgun for the unseen intruder whose coming had aroused the household. In a brushpile just over the fence to the east Mr. Trimm lay on his face upon the wet earth, with the rain beating ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... there ain't any danger in a lock, is there?" respond the querists. "Danger!" exclaims a deaf old lady, poking up her head; "what's the matter? There hain't nothin' burst, has there?" "No, no, no!" exclaim the provoked and despairing opposition party, who find that there is no such thing as going to sleep till ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that," said Cephalus. "But he is splendid for fetes. Shows off beautifully in the dark. I'll prod him again and just you note the prismatic coloring of his flames. Get up there, Fido," he added, poking the dragon with his stick a second time. "Wake up, and give ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... you jolly well make an ass of yourself. We find ourselves in this predic.; either we've got to shut up about this valuable find, or have the police poking about the island when they're ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... half sorrowful: "He didn't know—that's true. But she knows what she's after, very well. Don't tell me!" To Lydia, at this moment, it seemed as if every girl must be seeking what she sought. "And I call it very bold of her to come poking herself where she isn't wanted—running after a young man. I'd be ashamed." A longing to scratch Miss Lisle's face was mixed with a longing to have a good cry, for she was honestly suffering the pangs of unrequited ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... to stir with a long instrument, JD. Comb.: pout-staff, anet fastened to two poles, used for poking ...
— A Concise Dictionary of Middle English - From A.D. 1150 To 1580 • A. L. Mayhew and Walter W. Skeat
... these material aspects cares the historian, however, as he skips gayly from one past generation to another, waving his phantoms off the stage of memory with a sweep of his cane, and poking others on to make their bow to the man with the crowbar, who thus, piecing the narrative out with his own detective work in wood, rebuilds the story. It was but a little house which began with two rooms on the ground floor and two attic chambers, built for Stoddard ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... time the charcoal and much of the ore are burned away, and there is not much left but glowing embers in the bottom of the furnace. The smelter breaks a hole through the furnace, and, poking with his tongs into the ashes, draws out a little red-hot ball of iron, scarcely as large as a cricket ball, which has been formed from the ore, partly by the heat of the fire, and partly by the help of the red-hot charcoal which has acted chemically upon the ore. This little ball of iron is well ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... After poking around in the family cupboard under the window seat, I routed out a bag of popcorn. I lighted the gas stove and popped about three quarts, and then boiled some sugar and water to crystallize it. When you are starving, have you ever eaten popcorn buttered for a first ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... with, and we had canned things, and biscuit and cheese and coffee, and lots of nice things to eat. Then I washed the dishes (I'm real glad now, that I learned at home, for the professor said I did it as neatly as a girl), and then he went off, poking around with his hammer, and I fished. You don't know much about fishing with a jack-light, do you? It's good fun. I caught enough for breakfast, nice little perch they were, and then we lay down on our blankets, stretched over pine-boughs in the tent, ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... however, appeared to have a greater interest and importance in the Maharajah's eyes than their intrinsic value could have commanded for them, and, during the marching past of "The Army," he kept continually poking his finger at them, and pointing them out to the courtiers who were gathered about his chair. The general, at the same time, was employed in explaining how many thousands the British Army consisted of, and how vastly superior it ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... course you won't. Good night. [He slips out hurriedly through the street-door as KATHLEEN throws off her bonnet, and the curtain falls quickly. As it rises again, she is seen strenuously poking the fire, illumined by ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... he's making a joke, which isn't much in his line, says Railsford's engaged to his sister; and on that account the young beggar and his precious chum get leave to have Sykes' study and do what they like. They may, for all I shall interfere. If it's a family affair, you don't catch me poking my nose ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... by searching, miss," replied Tiffles. Then he glided about the room in his own nimble fashion, looking behind the two vases on the mantelpiece, raking over the littered burden of the table in the corner, and peering and poking into every place where there was the least likelihood of finding a stray pair of scissors; Miss Wilkeson all the while deprecating ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... noticed it," I said, sitting down on a fallen tree and looking up at her as she stood, tall and lithe, against an old pine, with her eyes averted. "I shouldn't have supposed you'd want an old fogy like myself poking about and spoiling the idyllic ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "We found him poking about the woods by himself, sir," said Long Jerry, privately, to Mr. Cameron. "He says there's been a boy staying with him for a while back, and that he started out hunting just before the storm. The old hermit was looking for ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... snow-clouds; down on the coast there was a bright sun; the sunshine, the sea, the bustle of the little port on the Adriatic seemed to do me good. I came back to Urbania another man. Sor Asdrubale, my landlord, poking about in slippers among the gilded chests, the Empire sofas, the old cups and saucers and pictures which no one will buy, congratulated me upon the improvement in my looks. "You work too much," he says; "youth requires amusement, theatres, promenades, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... fork and began poking contemptuously at the tomato, and Anthony expected her to begin flinging the stuffings in all directions. He was sure that she was approximately as angry as she had ever been—for an instant he had detected a spark ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... perhaps by a dream that its eggs were broken; but otherwise all was still. Kathie was sleeping soundly, and Laura closed her own eyes again, but again was aroused, and this time by a cold something poking in her hand. ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... up with a start. Was it possible that Hubbard was poking fun at him? The mere notion was incredible and indeed Hubbard shuffled with so much meekness from the room that Mr. Hazlewood dismissed it. He went across the hall to the dining-room, where he found ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... such as those," said the Viscount, who was poking under the wall of the first terrace; "but here is a stone that one may call a stone. Who will send this into the fish-pond? It will make a ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... that Stella was in the right about this. 'But they are not private, Stella; they are only furniture, and she meant to be kind, and she has got all this nice breakfast ready. I think she is in the kitchen, for I can hear some one poking the fire. Do let's go and thank her, and please be nice and smile at her, ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... and went to the kitchen for a moment, coming back with a plate of minced rabbit for her father-in-law. "Voila, papa," she said gently, and the old man stopped poking at the flies in his cider with his ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... dear. Where have you been so long?" asked Phebe, poking the fire as if anxious to get some color into ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... can't expect a leaf to stay turned over, unless you want to stand and hold it in place. And that would be a great waste of time—especially for one as hungry as I am." And poking his drill-like snout into the earth, he drew forth a huge angleworm, which quickly ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the Regent then to remember that he had told me several times he never had been able to speak to the King in private, or even in a whisper before others; that when he had tried, the Marechal de Villeroy had at once come forward poking his nose between them, and declaring that while he was governor he would never suffer any one, not even his Royal Highness, to address his Majesty in a low tone, much lest to speak to him in private. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... boy through. He's with the show now," bellowed Mr. Sparling, poking his head from ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the stump, she picked up a stick, and began poking in the earth at her feet. As she did so, there was a rumbling sound beneath her, and the world seemed to be slipping from her. This was followed by a rush of earth and a clatter of stones, and Stella went down ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... to be ashamed! She mouths and whines, una caricatura! She ought to represent Merope or Clytemnaestra—something grand, tragic—and she apes some wretched German woman! I can do that ... merz, kerz, smerz,' he went on in a hoarse voice poking his face forward, and brandishing his fingers. Tartaglia began barking at him, while Emil burst out laughing. The old man turned ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... as a reserve." The bargain was accordingly concluded; we took our purse and counted out 700 sapeks to the merchant, who counted them over himself, under our very eyes, pronounced the amount correct, and once more laid the coin before us. He then called out to his companion, who was poking about in the court-yard: "Here, I have sold these capital boots for 700 sapeks." "Nonsense," cried the other; "700 sapeks! I wont hear of such a thing!" "Very well," said we; "come, take your boots, and be off with you!" He was off, and so quickly, that ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... in broken sentences, and with visible effort, for the surgeon was all the while poking and probing at the leg in a most uncomfortable manner, and De Berg was pale from pain and loss of blood. Oakley looked on with an expression of regret, and showed no disposition to the hasty ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... the thing to pieces," I said, "see here!" and lifting my stick, which I had been poking at the baby after the irrelevant fashion of old bachelor friends, I hit out aimlessly at the side of the fireplace and struck one of the bricks a smart blow on one end. It turned slightly and slipped out of its place, and as I shouted triumphantly and pulled ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... having routed a marauding band of juniors who were poking inquisitive fingers into the baskets, the members of VA. returned to the form-room, closed the door, and gave themselves up to festivity. The four girls from the hostel need have had no fear of scarcity, ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... at his ease in a deck-chair on the broad Atlantic, was smoking a most excellent cigar. Mr. Mangles was a tall, thin man, who carried his head in the manner curtly known at a girls' school as "poking." He was a clean-shaven man, with bony forehead, sunken cheeks, and an underhung mouth. His attitude towards the world was one of patient disgust. He had the air of pushing his way, chin first, doggedly ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... She was slowly poking over the things in her lap, when mamma came back, bringing a pot of yeast to set by the open fire-place, where a small fire burned leisurely on this cool May morning. She put a little tin plate on the top of the pot, kissed the precious ...
— The Nursery, December 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... and if any one comes out and tells you that the golden hare is not here, don't believe it, but hold him fast." So she crept into the hole again and began to beat for game, and out came an old woman, who said to the youth, "What art thou poking about there for?"—And he said to her, "For the golden hare."—She said to him, "It is not here, for this is a snake's hole," and when she had said this she went away. Presently the girl also came out and said to him, "What! hast thou not got the hare? Did nothing come out then?"—"No," ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... and unmanageable—all of us indeed reeling about like drunken men—Nelson ordered his helm a-starboard, and in a jiffy there we were, all three hugging each other, running in one another's guns, smashing our chain-plates, and poking our yard-arms ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... and delight. But Marcella did not, somehow, give it the attention it deserved. She sat down absently on the bench by the fountain, and presently, as George and Hallin were poking among the goldfish, she turned to her companion ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Miss Palliser had wandered off together to inspect the pumps. Vetchen, always inquisitive, had discovered a coy manatee in one tank, and was all for poking it with his walking-stick until he saw its preposterous countenance emerge from ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... but if we keep a stiff upper lip we're bound to have the rebels whipped. I reckon they're whipped already in spite of Lee. I've heard of a turtle that an old nigger man decapitated. Next day he was amusing himself poking sticks at it and the turtle was snapping back. His master comes along and says to him, 'Why, Pomp, I thought that turtle was dead.' 'Well, he am dead, massa,' says Pompey, 'but the critter don't know enough ter be sensible ob it.' I reckon the Confederacy's dead, ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... stumped along in front of her into the parlor, and motioned her to a seat. "Mrs. North," he said, his face red, his eye hard, "some jack-donkeys have been poking their noses (of course they're females) into our ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... a number of triangles, with their uppermost extremities about five or six inches from the ground. From these, strings are suspended with slip nooses, and when a sufficient number are set, the natives go away, to let the ducks come up to feed. This they soon do; and whilst poking their heads about in every direction a great many push them through the snares and ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... that it should be dismounted; and the citizens of the valley, intensely disgusted with the boasting and swaggering that had characterized the arrival of the "Laurel Brigade" in that section, baptized the action (known to us as Tom's Brook) the "Woodstock Races," and never tired of poking fun at General Rosser about his precipitate and inglorious flight. (When Rosser arrived from Richmond with his brigade he was proclaimed as the savior of the Valley, and his men came all bedecked ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... to know that the little circuit in this rear basement had escaped the general slaughter. He had even tried turning on the light at one time when poking about curiously. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... without poking our noses outside the gates!" mourned Bess. "How are we ever going to ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... said the landlady, after she thought the veteran had got the logs arranged in the most judicious manner, give over poking, for its no good yell be doing, now that they burn so convaniently. Theres the glasses on the table there, and the mug that the doctor was taking his cider and ginger in, before the fire here just put them in the bar, will ye? ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... here?" No answer. Louder still, "Is there any one here?" Perhaps a distant cough answers from some dark recess, and the steward and I begin a search. Then we go round systematically, climbing over on the barrels, searching under sacks, and poking into recesses, and after all occasionally missing one or two in our search. It seems a peculiarity about the men, that though they will lie up, they will not always say anything about it. The holds were very damp ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... of his neighbours was looking out of window at the time, and seeing Casem poking about the earth in his garden, he ran to the Cadi, and told him that his old friend had discovered a treasure. Nothing more was requisite to excite the cupidity of the Judge. He allowed the miser to aver, as loudly as he pleased, that he was burying his slippers, ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... over what had happened, and speculate as to the probabilities of the future. It may seem strange to some persons; but, with all my comforts about me, I felt more homesick than I did when I was lying on the ice in my bearskin, or when I was poking about in the bowels of the earth, trying to see how I could get out. There was nothing to occupy my body; and that, I suppose, was one reason why my mind worked as it did. At about ten o'clock, I went to bed, and, after tossing about uneasily for ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... well on fire, cover with about six inches of coal, the smaller, or nut-coal, being always best for stove use. When the coal is burning brightly, shut up all the dampers save the slide in front of the grate, and you will have a fire which will last, without poking or touching in any way, four hours. Even if a little more heat is needed for ovens, and you open the draughts, ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... Villa Beau Sejour. Madame was delighted to receive him, but Claire Gifford told her mother resentfully that she considered Mr Judge's behaviour "very cool." How did he know that it would be pleasant for them to have him poking ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that I don't think riches, or travel, or great gifts and achievements bring a greater happiness than ours. I think a king, dying," smiled Nancy, trying not to be too serious, "might wish that, for a while at least, he had been able to wear shabby shoes for the woman he loved, and had had years of poking about a great city with her, and talking and laughing and experimenting and working over their ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... Green and his hired man coming across the fields. They were headed straight for the pasture. And Mr. Woodchuck began to complain so loudly about his rest being disturbed, and how mean it was of Farmer Green to come poking about other people's dooryards, that Mrs. Woodchuck came to her door to see what ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey
... he had wandered off in search of a livelier game. He decided to join Miss Jones; he could do what he pleased, he could amuse himself with her ineffectual attempts to keep him in order, and he could irritate Mary; so he danced along, with his tail in the air, barking at imaginary rats and poking his nose ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... head bending forwards—"poking," she termed it—upon the massive, bowed shoulders; the white face, square too, with its short, blunt, hooked nose and grim, determined mouth and jaws, showing the bluish grain of the strong beard and moustache ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... liked. I was told that in civil life he was a professional agitator! Now he confined his energies to making trouble between the different nationalities. He was always hanging about where he wasn't wanted, poking his nose into other people's business, and what was even more suspicious, he appeared to be on the best of terms with the Germans. He wore a long row of medals, which were inclined to change from day to ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... wet. A servant helps him remove his coat. Then he comes to the window and sinks into a leather chair and stares at the rain and the umbrellas outside. The great financier has been abroad. His highly specialized mind has been, poking among columns of figures, columns of reports. He desired to find out if possible what conditions abroad were. For six months the great financier closeted himself daily with other great financiers and talked and ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... hear something," said Mrs. Allen, now poking her night-capped head from beneath the blankets, and listening a moment attentively. "'Tis a sound of heavy carts drawn by oxen over frozen ground. Ay, I guess it is the new family, that bought out neighbor Williams, moving their goods. Just look ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... tracking him to his den, it was only to wake him for a moment with the compliments of the season. But it was not even a momentary disturbance; for when I finally found him in his hollow gum, he was sound asleep, and only half realized that some one was poking him gently in the ribs and wishing him a ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... rarely. With the seventy-five foot main-boom sheeted in to her rail, with the thirty-seven-foot spike bowsprit poking a lane in the sea when she dove and a path among the clouds when she lifted, with her midship rail all but flush with the sea and the night breeze to sing to her—of course she liked it, and she showed her liking. She'd tear herself apart now before she'd let anything in the fleet go by ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... see if any of the neighbors were up, he felt an earthquake strike him a little below where he had his suspenders tied around his body. Mr. Crossman repeated a portion of the beautiful Easter service and climbed up on an ash barrel, where he stood poking the goat on the ear with the cistern pole, when Mr. Crombie, who lives hard by. and who had come out to split some kindling wood, ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... to-day? They have put away that wheat stuff, and now give us good meat and potatoes. Oh, isn't it good?" A woman, leaving prison, gave us an account of the warden's scolding, that Councillor —— "was about poking his nose into everything." This, if true, gave signs of a determination to know and remedy matters. But they had to work under difficult circumstances. They did not begin ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... to you, Godfrey," I said: "if you go on poking about with the fingers of both hands, as you've been doing, you are just as apt to get struck on the left ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... witnesses, and I won't have 'em, confound it. This is between us as man to man; and don't you try to bring in no law on this, because you know law books. This is our own business and nobody else's. I'd knock my best friend out of the door if he come poking into my private matters. Why, man alive! this is sacred. That's it—an affair of the heart. Now be careful." His voice was high and angry and his self-control ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... round the fire when she reached it. An old gypsy woman was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and occasionally poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an odorous steam; two small shock-headed children were lying prone and resting on their elbows something like small sphinxes; and a placid donkey was bending his head over a tall girl, who, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... near the fire, arranging her dress very carefully, patting her hair beneath her hat, poking her shoes out from beneath her skirts, then withdrawing them again. "Well, what do ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... may as well get along," said Ransom, discontentedly. "There is no occasion that we should keep poking on behind this concern." ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... oh, dear! the poor creature, what will become of it?" answered Judy. She was down on her hands and knees again, poking and examining, but poking and ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... rapiers, sword and buckler are disused.' In The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, a comedy, printed in 1599, we have a pathetic complaint: 'Sword and buckler fight begins to grow out of use. I am sorry for it; I shall never see good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking fight of rapier and dagger will come up; then a tall man and a good sword and buckler man will be spitted like a cat or rabbit.' But the rapier had upon the Continent long superseded, in private duel, the use of sword and shield. The masters of the noble science of defence were chiefly Italians. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... busy times in Uncle Toby's cabin at Crystal Lake. Aunt Sallie and the three girls got ready the supper, while the boys opened boxes and bundles. Skyrocket ran about here and there, poking his nose into everything, and Trouble was almost as bad, for he, too, wanted to see everything that was ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... debris of all descriptions infest the metropolitan river, floating about, washing onto the shores, poking up stolidly here and there out of mudflats. Most items in a dreary inventory that might be compiled would turn out to be something that was discarded somewhere it didn't belong by someone who did not want to go to the trouble to put it where it did belong. Therefore, ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... of face and neck caused by this chance remark. He vaguely recollected the manner in which the lines from "Maud" came to his lips after the episode of the letter. Was it possible that he had unknowingly uttered them aloud and Iris was now slily poking fun at him? ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... it prettily. Don't like to see a girl feed. We hard-working men need it, and, by Jove, I mean to get some more of that meringue if it's not all gone. Here, waiter! bring along that dish over there, and be lively,' commanded Stuffy, poking a young man in a rather shabby dress-suit, who was passing ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... sunset before attacking you. They pricked horribly, like pins your maid has stuck in the wrong places; and they had a horrid penchant for your ankles. I was sorry I had on clocked stockings! And I apologised heartily to Potter for poking fun at ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Mr. Carter?" said Mr. Townsend, proceeding to help himself for a second time, and poking about round the edges of the delicate creature before him for some relics of the glutinous morsels which he loved so well. He was not, however, enjoying it as he should have done, for seeing that his ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... this at the time. He told it, however, afterwards to his master, a hunting man; and, on a subsequent occasion, when the same incident occurred again, one of the whips dismounted and went into the water, and, poking about the roots of the willows, dislodged Reynard, concealed under the hollow bank, and immersed under water, except his nose and mouth, by which he was hanging suspended from a fang of the tree roots. Surely Reynard’s clever ruse deserved a better fate than ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... some warning note. Then there is a great cackling, a pause, and a council. After holding this noisy parliament, the army resumes its course, or changes it, according to the news brought. When the swans reach the lake, they do not swoop down till the captain has made a careful search around, poking among the reeds, flapping over the surface, and even taking a sip of the water, to make sure that nothing has happened to make the lake dangerous for swans since the last time he was there. All being well, he signals to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... more, it cast a slur upon our memory which he knew we had done nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle, therefore, he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay while you, you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking—often very near it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never see the light; but he was afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy such a document, even with his great generous motive, might be an offence at law. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... there," thundered "Poker" John, and Jacky heard a thud as of a fist falling upon the table. "You've taken the unwarrantable liberty of poking your nose into my affairs, and, because of our old acquaintance, I have allowed it. But now let me tell you this is no d——d business of yours. There's no make with Jacky. What she does, she ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... could build," he said. "But when I married you, little woman, I got something better than a clipper-ship; and when you know sailorman's natur' better, you'll know what that compliment means. Yes, Providunce sent me here," continued the Cap'n, poking down his tobacco with broad thumb. "There I was, swashin' from Hackenny to t'other place, livin' on lobscouse and hoss-meat; and here you was, pinin' away for some one to love you and to talk to you about something sensibler ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... that the way to assist me? What good can you do me by poking off out there in the woods? Well, you may for a while. Three days a week for a time, eh? All right. You are as hard to break in as a steer. What about those stories you told at the General's house. ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... the hole was choked up with rotten leaves, dead animals, birds, and all imaginable sorts of filth. On poking a stick down into it, seething bubbles aerated through the putrid mass, and yet the natives had evidently been living upon this fluid for some time; some of the fires in their camp were yet alight. I had very great difficulty ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... top of the ladder, he might have curved the hollow of his hand gently upon the rounded outside of the nest and, waiting quietly, have watched the building birds. He might have seen Eve come flitting home with her tiny load of clay, poking it out of her mouth with her tongue and bunting it smooth in her own cunning way. He might have laid his head against the ladder and heard their cosy voices as they squeaked pleasantly together over the home-building. ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... herd, quite willing to change the subject. "Actually when a beef reaches the edge of the herd, this horse swells up and his eyes pop out like door-knobs. You can feel every muscle in him become as rigid as ropes, and he touches the ground as if he was walking on eggs. Look at him now; goes poking along as if he ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... toward the hiding-place, and exerting all his mentality toward "guiding" Hanlon to it. At no time was he nearer than two feet, though once, making a quick turn, Hanlon nearly bumped into him. Finally, Hanlon, poking about in the ashes with his right foot, kicked against something. He picked it up and it proved to be only a bit of wire. But the next moment he struck something else, and, stooping, brought up triumphantly the hidden penknife, which he ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... Alps into the valley of the Po, falls on the massy foliage of the mulberry and the orange. On the table were some six or eight books, among which was a copy of the Psalms of David. "It is very fine," said my friend Mr Bonar, glancing up at the gilded canopy and silken hangings of the bed, and poking his hand at the same time into its soft woolly furnishings, "but nothing but ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... these things over when we decided to build in the suburbs, for Sarah is very nervous about burglars, and makes me get up at the slightest noise and go poking about. Only the fact that no burglar had ever entered our flat at night had prevented what might have been a serious accident to a burglar, for I made it a rule, when Sarah wakened me on such occasions, to waste no time, ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... Collins said, poking at the pile of letter disks. "I suppose about half of it is threats, abuse and obscenities, and the other half is from long-winded bores with idiotic suggestions and ill-natured gripes. I'll use that old tag line, again—'hoping you appreciate our brevity ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... a wretched, squalid by-street of the town, with as many smells as Cologne. I found the place when I was poking about one afternoon—a dingy little shop kept by a Jew who marvelously resembled Cruikshank's Fagin. He resurrected this picture from a rusty old safe, and I saw its value at once. It had been in his possession ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... Numerous anti-aircraft guns were poking their noses upward in anticipation of just such a call. Their crews commenced to shower the shrapnel around and below the bird of passage, whose mission, whatever it might prove to be, could mean only evil to the ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... had stood with his back turned, fiercely poking at his lazzarone; but at Mr. Leavenworth's last words he ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... Macartney was poking at his wounded arm, and he winced. "Hurry up, will you? I can't stop this silly blood. Of course I have Thompson's cards; I can't help it if you think I'm an ass. I liked the old man, and I didn't fancy the Billy Joneses playing cribbage with the only thing in the world he cared ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... O'Neill exposed himself and was instantly killed. How could he avoid it? How could it have been otherwise? What can keep an Irishman down in the ditch when bullets are flying in air, "murmuring dirges" and "shells are shrieking requiems?" You may readily imagine an Irishman on the firing line, poking his head above the ground, exclaiming: "Did yez see that? And where did that Dago pill come from now? Shure it spoke Spanish, but it did not hit me ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... all dried up," he said at length, when the stone stopped. Without thinking what he was doing, he put his hand into the trough, and began poking his fingers into the sediment which had collected at the bottom. In the soft mud was something hard, and he picked it out. The boy glanced carelessly at the bit of metal, and was about to throw it away when its shape ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... the more meekly as he perceived the stiff black legs of a turkey poking out from under my grandmother's apron while she was delivering it. To be exhorted and told of his shortcomings, and then furnished with a turkey at Thanksgiving, was a yearly part of his family program. In time he departed, not only with the turkey, but with us boys ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... of minutes later and you'd have made me blunder against the fellow poking about here ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... any timid poking about, any feeble attempts to reach their honey, are sure to be quickly resented. The popular notion that bees have a special antipathy toward certain persons and a liking for certain others has only this fact at the bottom of it; they will sting a person who is afraid ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... exhortation or entreaty, to banish from the room, so great is their amusement and curiosity at my outlandish modes of proceeding. This morning, upon my entreating them not to persist in waiting upon us at breakfast, they burst into an ungovernable titter, and withdrawing from our immediate vicinity, kept poking their woolly heads and white grinders in at the door every five minutes, keeping it ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... day, it was my fortune to make a discovery of some little interest. Poking and burrowing into the heaped-up rubbish in the corner, unfolding one and another document, and reading the names of vessels that had long ago foundered at sea or rotted at the wharves, and those of merchants never heard of now on 'Change, nor very readily decipherable on ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and talk, since I have had the good luck to meet you," answered Lord Redin, resting his elbows on his knees, and idly poking the green carpet with the end of his stick. "I went to your house, and they told me that you would ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... without thinking. Then, poking his head out, "What are we to do, sir, please? We can't find our books. Everything is changed. It's worse than a spring cleaning. Won't you ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... a bit fit to make a figure in the world, and a regular little parsoness. That's the deuce of it. It would be mere misery to her to be taken to London and made to go into society; so I want to have it settled, for if she could come here and go poking into cottages and schools, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bears are caught among the hills, and are thus imprisoned for the amusement of the hotel guests. "Them Southerners," said my friend, "are jist as one as that 'ere bear. We feeds him and gives him a house, and his belly is ollers full. But then, jist becase he's a black bear, we're ollers a poking him with sticks, and a' course the beast is a kinder riled. He wants to be back to the mountains. He wouldn't have his belly filled, but he'd have his own way. It's jist so ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... have written about her myself. However slight their literary merit may be, they express what I feel better than any casual words can. [He produces a packet of hotel bills scrawled with manuscript, and kneels at the fire to decipher them, poking it with a stick to make ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... she was in the room. I liked to play with the fire as well as she did, and when I was a boy just in my teens I used to do it. After she'd corrected me half a dozen times I got into my foolish pate that it was my duty to cure her of her whim. So I set to poking the fire ostentatiously until she lost her temper and ordered me out of the house. Then she burned up the will in my favor and made a new one, giving all her money to ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... a tablespoonful of borax in the water, rung out her cloth, and washed out all the inside of the great box, poking a little stick into the corners, and scrubbing the shelves thoroughly, as well as the sides and bottom. Then she wiped them dry and the food was put in again neatly. There had been a small pan of charcoal in one corner, and this was emptied on a paper and the ...
— A Little Housekeeping Book for a Little Girl - Margaret's Saturday Mornings • Caroline French Benton
... compare notes with the rest of the regiment at Van Buren, they found that they had fared very well. The bulk of Price's army had passed on ahead of them, going down into cellars and up into garrets, and poking about in hay-mows and stacks in search of provender that had been hastily concealed by the anxious citizens, and Rodney often wondered how McCulloch's men, who brought up the rear, managed to keep ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... peered out into the tent, went to the ha-ha, and satisfied herself that at any rate the youngsters were amusing themselves, spoke a word to Mrs. Greenacre over the ditch, and took one look at the quintain. Three or four young farmers were turning the machine round and round and poking at the bag of flour in a manner not at all intended by the inventor of the game; but no mounted sportsmen were there. Miss Thorne looked at her watch. It was only fifteen minutes past twelve, and it was ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... gardening, of flowers, of husbandry, of hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing, planting, and, in short, of every thing, with regard to which we had something to do. One would be trying to imitate a bit of my writing, another drawing the pictures of some of our dogs or horses, a third poking over Bewick's Quadrupeds and picking out what he said about them; but our book of never-failing resource was the French MAISON RUSTIQUE, or FARM-HOUSE, which, it is said, was the book that first tempted DUQUESNOIS ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... I am free to confess, I resented Otoo's poking his nose into my business. But I knew that he was wholly unselfish, and soon I had to acknowledge his wisdom and discretion. He had his eyes open always to my main chance, and he was both keen-sighted and far-sighted. In time he became my counselor, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine |
