"Ace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was as well that Mavis was ignorant of the way in which her prospects had been prejudiced by the trend of events at Melkbridge House since Mrs Devitt had replied to Miss Mee's letter. To begin with, Mavis's visit had been within an ace of being indefinitely postponed; it was owing to Harold's expressed wish that the original appointment had been allowed to stand. The reason for this indifference to Mavis's immediate future was that, the day after the schoolmistress had written, Harold had been seriously ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... a little mad; but, after all, it is only a little madness. When hundreds of high-minded men had fought duels about a jostle with the elbow or the ace of spades, the whole world need not have gone wild over my one little wildness. Plenty of other people have killed themselves between then and now. But all England has gone into captivity in order to take us captive. All England has turned into a lunatic asylum in order to ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... the boast. It was such a pitiful, ghastly bluff—for the cards were all against him, and he knew it. A man in Gilroy, Ohio, would take the trick which decided the game. Hearts were trumps, and Dr. Cecil Granthum had the ace. ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... it on the box beside him. It seemed a true and honest die, for it came up now an ace, now trey; now six, now deuce. He rolled it, rolled it, thinking of Hun Shanklin ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... a knack, when he shuffled the cards, of slily inclining the painted sides upwards. He had another knack of leaving an honour at the bottom. He made a false cut with fair dexterity for an amateur. He could, when occasion seemed to make it profitable, discard with a fair air of unconsciousness. An ace dropped out of sight a hand or two earlier, was followed by a valueless card dropped openly. The ace was taken to supply its place with a perfect smiling effrontery. But Mr. Barter's favourite trick came out when he had a weak hand. Then he smiled across at his opponent, breathed ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, from the look in the pale, set, freckly, ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... home, but Rodwell stopped to tell her we had come as he went down with the cart, and she exclaimed, "Pray day come for me go see Miss Hayiut." In the morning she came early into my chamber, bright and eager. I knew Robert was black as the ace of spades, but they both of them did look blacker than anything I ever saw before, but it was ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... could escape that way!... Once closed on the person concealed within, the chair looked empty. A most ingenious hide-hole! Juve now knew the answer to the riddle of the bandit's disappearance. Within an ace of arrest, he had seized the chance offered by Juve's interchange of glances with the king, and with an acrobat's agility had slipped inside this chair! No sooner was the chair abandoned in the gallery than de Naarboveck-Fantomas had slipped out and away. When leaving his magnificent house ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... her lips gently with the back of her hand to hide the fact that she was sleepy, and nudged her father's elbow. "You shouldn't have put the deuce there," she said, "you should have used it to build with on the ace." ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... made the slightest effort to unseat me, and from then on his education was rapid. No horse ever learned more quickly the meaning of the rein and the pressure of the knees. I think he soon learned to love me, and I know that I loved him; while he and Nobs were the best of pals. I called him Ace. I had a friend who was once in the French flying-corps, and when Ace let himself out, ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... who commanded the garrison with great gallantry, was one of the few victims to yellow fever last year. The Yankees attacked the fort three times with much bravery and determination, and actually reached the superior slope of the parapet before they were driven back. They were within an ace of being successful; and although they deserved great credit for their behaviour on that occasion, yet it is understood that the officer who organised the attack has either been dismissed ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... I was within an ace of drawing a pistol and shooting the young slave dead upon the spot. But God was pleased to give me patience to bear up under that heavy cross; for which I have since very heartily thanked him a thousand times and more. And indeed, on thinking over the matter, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... the parties agreed, That the peasants should dance German waltzes, And drink to the future mix'd long-and-short breed Of the Donderdronckdickdorffs and Quoltzes. To the church, then, on foot, went the ace with his size— "What's this crowd for?" cries one of the people. "For a baron, who's taking," an arch wag replies, "A morning's walk under the steeple." How ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... seven at the latest," I said to myself, holding my breath and starting in terror at every noise. Once a great noisy bee was within an ace of waking her, but I caught him with inspired dexterity, and he buzzed around her head ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... had expected perhaps ten Companies, not three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a half. We ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... and fiercer day by day, and Mr. Kruger's threat to "stagger humanity" was by some declared to be within an ace of being fulfilled. The Boer is inherently as tough as the Briton, and as obstinate: he was now well equipped for warfare, well led, and the chances of a terrific and bloody struggle seemed hourly to become more and more certain. Fortunately, each day brought our ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Scotty told them. "I talked it over with Tony, and came within an ace of diving after you, although I doubt that I could have reached bottom and found you. But we watched, and we couldn't see any bubbles at all. It was too dark, and we were right where ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... shouted, and the crew sprang to the rail. A dark form seemed to lift out of the fog, like a core of blackness, and clouds of sea-birds wheeled overhead with harsh clamour. They were come unawares to Greenland the White, and within an ace of breaking up ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... mighty white about the gills, 'this ship that we are in is more than half mine. I am chief owner. I'll stake me share of the ship on the next game against all that I have lost.' 'Done!' said I, and shuffled, cut, and dealt. He went four on three highest trumps, and an ace, and I held four small trumps. 'It's a bad job for my creditors,' he said, as he threw his hand down. Ged! I started on that vyage a poor captain, and I came into port very fairly well off, and sailing in me own ship, too! What d'ye ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "you're within an ace of being a prig. It's only the freckles on your little unpowdered nose, and the yellow lights in your eyes, and the way your hair curls up at the ends that save you. Remember, please, that three-and-twenty with a perfect complexion has ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... Fanny Assingham's lips for the moment to reply that this was, on the contrary, exactly what she didn't see; she came in fact within an ace of saying: "You strike me as having quite failed to help his idea to work—since, by your account, Maggie has him not less, but so much more, on her mind. How in the world, with so much of a remedy, comes there to remain so much of what was to be obviated?" But ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... am safe tew win, Es the chap thet's able tew smilin' smack The ace he's been hidin' up his sleeve Kerslap on top of a feller's jack! Es I wus sayin', the night wus dark, The lightnin' skippin' from star to star; Thar wa'n't no clouds but a thread of mist, No sound but the ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... hand," Marks Pasinsky said as he flipped out the cards three at a time. "Why didn't you lead it out the ace of Schueppe right at the start? What did you expect to do with it? ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... rider's head into concussion with the lamp which hangs within the gateway; whereupon, the hat falls off, and our hero is within an ace ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... without either rule or reason before a Consonant or two, with e after, as ace, acre, able, unstable, father, with A long, and solace, massacre, constable, ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... cable George was enabled to swing his boat close enough to the big craft to allow of Josh seizing hold; and while he thus held on clumsy Nick managed to crawl aboard, though he came within an ace of taking a bath, and would have done so, only that Herb gave ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... difficulty on to the rock, and dangling over from it, seized the skirt of the scrivener's gown and pulled him up, for he was still submerged beneath the surface. He had drunk his bellyful of water, and was within an ace of being drowned. I then, beholding him out of danger, congratulated the man upon my having been the means of rescuing his life. The fellow to this answered me in French, that I had done nothing; the important things to save were his writings, worth many scores of crowns; and these ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... ace of it. Luckily for himself, the governor found out how few of us there were in the party before we got our ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... into his smug face, and I was within an ace of striking him. Then I controlled myself, and my ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... can smile if you want to, but you'll have to admit, just the same, that it's helped you stay sane once or twice yourself, figurin' whether or not I had an ace in the hole. Lonesomeness like what we've both seen ain't so very different from what he was fightin' at that very moment—not if the thing you're lonesome for and the thing you're thirsty for are things ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... country in a bitter temper, for the job was far beneath his professional dignity as he looked at it, and he knew that in the meantime others would get better work to which he considered himself entitled. Indeed, he had come within an ace of resigning, and had insisted, as a condition, on a definite promise of something very good in the ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... pell-mell onslaughts and hand-to-hand struggles. Twice we were within an ace of being driven from our stronghold, when General Harris and his staff leapt recklessly upon the ramparts and hurled the besiegers heels over ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... radiant being's window. The pretty girls of the household vanished with murmured excuses, leaving us at the mercy of the boy, who sighed grievously, dropped a sugar bowl, and spilled coffee within an ace ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... be a fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and the woman is old and black as the ace of spades. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... one of us to hold this paper in readiness. The man who was to show the pass sat by the window. Of all our worthless passes our rule was always to show first the one of least value. If that failed we brought out a higher card, and continued until we had reached the ace. If that proved to be a two-spot, we all went to jail. Whenever we were halted, invariably there was the knowing individual who recognized us as newspaper men, and in order to save his country from destruction clamored to have us hung. It was for this ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... outside were the waving elm boughs and a clear sky. He was aroused by a knock on his door, and, as he jumped out of bed, Big Abel, the Major's driver and confidential servant, came in with the warm water. He was a strong, finely-formed negro, black as the ace of spades (so the Major put it), and of a singularly ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... idea of adding, 'dote upon you.' But, happening to meet the half-closed eye, as it twinkled upon him over the turned-up collar of the cape, which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt it such an unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on, that he substituted, 'that she don't ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... at the insinuation. He was within an ace of seizing Lynch by the collar, and expelling him in a summary way from his premises, a feat which he was able to perform; and willing also, for he was sick of his client; but he thought of it a ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... I cut, and he dealt me an ace, king, queen, jack, ten and deuce of spades. He shuffled again and dealt me the ...
— Goodbye, Dead Man! • Tom W. Harris
... Davie, ace o' hearts! [note] (To say aught less wad wrang the cartes, [cards] And flatt'ry I detest) This life has joys for you and I; And joys that riches ne'er could buy; And joys the very best. There's a' the pleasures o' the heart, The lover an' the frien'; Ye hae your Meg, your dearest part, And I my ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... Walter then demanded the ace of diamonds, and on its face let him the house and premises on a repairing lease for three years, rent L5 a year: which was a good bargain for both parties, since Percy was sure to lay out a thousand pounds or two on the property, and to bind Julia more closely to him, who was ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... "a man cannot gallop after a lady without ceremony, and command her to stand and deliver as if he were a highwayman. Yet I was within an ace of doing it—within an ace. I have beheld her! I had best ride ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... pedestrian tour in France and Switzerland, during his last Cambridge vacation; then, in November of 1791, he crossed to France, ostensibly to learn the language, made the acquaintance of revolutionaries, sympathized with them vehemently, and was within an ace of throwing in his lot with the Brissotins, to give them the steady direction that they needed. When it came to this his relatives cut off his supplies, and he was obliged to return to London toward the close of 1792. But still he resisted all pressure to enter any of the regular professions, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... sahib, within an ace of being too late. They had left them in a valley bottom with a guard of but twenty or thirty men, who mistook us at first for Kurds, I suppose, for they took no notice of us. I have spent much time wondering whence they expected mounted Kurds to come; but it is clear they ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... throughout all Salerno that Ruggieri had been taken a thieving in the house of the usurers. Whereat the lady and her maid were all amazement and bewilderment, insomuch that they were within an ace of persuading themselves that what they had done the night before they had not done, but had only dreamed it; besides which, the peril in which Ruggieri stood caused the lady such anxiety as brought her to the verge of madness. Shortly ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... still playing cards, and whether he was winning or losing, the old historians do not tell us, but very suddenly a newcomer took a hand in the game. This was Peter the Great, and he played the ace of trumps. With a great pistol in his hand, he called upon the Spanish captain to surrender. That noble commander glanced around. There was a savage pirate holding a pistol at the head of each of the officers at the table. He threw up his cards. The trick was won ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... the highest point possible, but Henri, by their absence from his own hand, could measure the peril that menaced him. So, surveying the number of cards that remained in stock, he guarded carefully three aces of trumps which might help him to avert disaster. But, playing the only ace that would allow him to score again, Paul Landry announced coldly, laying on the table four queens of spades ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... like the Ace of Diamonds when we had finished with him.... Move on there! Keep on ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... from the first, remember that I, who was concerned in it, say confidently that it really trembled in the balance, and that this handful of resolute peasants with their pikes and their scythes were within an ace of altering the whole course of English history. The ferocity of the Privy Council, after the rebellion was quelled, arose from their knowledge of how very close it had been ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... so heavy disgootet mit de boledics of dis land, Dat his friendts could barely keep him from trowin' oop his hand, Vhen he held shtraight-flush mit an ace in his poot- vitch phrase ish all de same, In de science of pokerology, ash if ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... And as to the girl, since I cannot find her (which, on penalty of being threshed to a mummy, you will take care not to let out), I would agree to leave Mr. Darrell free to disown her. But are you such a dolt as not to see that I put the ace of trumps on my adversary's pitiful deuce, if I depose that my own child is not my own child, when all I get for it is what I equally get out of you, with my ace of trumps still in my hands? Basta!—I say again Basta! It is evidently an object to Darrell ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ourselves. It would have paralyzed all growth and development in this country for twenty years if he had thought it 'nasty,'" said Job. "Foreigners can't be too particular how they express their opinions about us. Over and over again we have come within an ace of putting up the shutters and confessing that it was no use pretending that we could go on independently having a country of our own, with distinct institutions, peculiarities, customs, manners, and even productions. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... miles of each other. People of the same origin have three political allegiances. In half an hour your automobile will traverse the territories of three nations. Italians and French fight under different flags and were within an ace of being lined against each other in the war. Monegasques do not fight at all. Taxes and tariff boundaries, schools and military obligations, make the differences between the three peoples. Put them all under the same dispensation and where would ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... had always been trying to tell him—that love and happiness were not for him. He was consecrate to great causes: His Will, entangled with that of others, grew feeble, fruitless. Women were truly enfants du diable. He had been within an ace of abandoning his historical mission. Now he would arise, strong, sublime: a mighty weapon forged by the gods, and tempered by ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... coadjutor; And, as you in commission sit, To rule the dairy next to Kit;[4] In each capacity I mean To sing your praise. And first as Dean: Envy must own, you understand your Precedence, and support your grandeur: Nor of your rank will bate an ace, Except to give Dean Daniel[5] place. In you such dignity appears, So suited to your state and years! With ladies what a strict decorum! With what devotion you adore 'em! Treat me with so much complaisance, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the boat, and the boat must make three trips. The skipper and the first hand had been on deck all night. There remained four, or rather three, for the baker's assistant had ceased to count—Willie Weeks, Deakin, and himself, not a great number to choose from. He felt that he was within an ace of a panic, and not so far, after all, from that whimperer his neighbour. Two men to row the boat—two men! His hands clutched at the iron bar of his hammock; he closed his eyes tight; but the words were thundered out at him overhead, in the whistle of the wind, and slashed ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... as if the enemy were within an ace of victory. He had flooded Belgium and Luxembourg with his armies, and, at the first clash of arms, had hurled everything before him in a manner which to the civilian must have appeared terrible in its completeness. Several times ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... Italian card-game ("the little Calabrian game") for three players. All the tens, nines and eights are removed from an ordinary pack; the order of the cards is three, two, ace, king, queen, &c. In scoring the ace counts 3; the three 2; king, queen and knave 1 each. The last trick counts 3. Each separate hand is a whole game. One player plays against the other two, paying to each ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... an even more ridiculous couple than their kind usually are. And, when the gentleman squeezed the lady, she laughed so foolishly that Archie Pennybet was within an ace of forgetting himself and heartily laughing too. It was worse still, when they began the pernicious practice of "rubbing noses." For the operation was so new and unexpected, and withal so congenial to Archie, that he risked discovery by craning forward to study it. He watched with jaws ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... been the loadstone to my magnet, or the candle to my moth), Jack finally consented to grant my request. He told me clearly what to do, and I did it, or some inward servant of myself did, whenever the master was within an ace of losing his head. I pressed down the clutch-pedal, pulled the lever affectionately towards me, and very gradually opened the throttle, so as not to startle it. In spite of my caution, however, I thought for an instant ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... mouse and squeezed him to death. Glorious death! for the hero died in the thick of the grain, and was canonised as a martyr. The shrew-mouse took him by the ears and placed him on the door the granary, after the fashion of the Ottoman Porte, where my good Panurge was within an ace of being spitted. At the cries of the dying wretch the rats, mice, and others made for their holes in great haste. When the night had fallen they came to the cellar, convoked for the purpose of holding a council to consider public affairs; ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... lieutenant, quietly looking at Rouleau's cards. "Ah, a straight flush, queen high." Coolly he laid his cards on the table. "Thought you might have had the ace," he said, languidly, leaning back in his chair. He, too, held a straight flush, but with ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... smiled. The sound was louder now, but it still did not catch his attention. He was remembering that encounter in the polar forests of Mars; the day he found little Nicko crouching under a bush; how he'd come within an ace of putting a bullet into the hideous creature's brain. But some vagrant touch of compassion had stayed him. The little monster seemed so lost, so pathetic, so helpless. He'd taken Nicko back to camp, the Martian infant's parentage and ancestry a mystery ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... territorial organization, could it not have had it as well without as with a repeal? Iowa and Minnesota, to both of which the Missouri restriction applied, had, without its repeal, each in succession, territorial organizations. And even the year before, a bill for Nebraska itself was within an ace of passing without the repealing clause, and this in the hands of the same men who are now the champions of repeal. Why no necessity then for repeal? But still later, when this very bill was first brought in, it contained no repeal. But, say they, because the people had demanded, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... would not leave them in peace. For anon the chief announced that this time a Kookwes—a burly, beastly villain, not two points better than his cousin the Chenoo—was coming to play at rough murder with them. And, verily, by this time the Micmac began to believe, without bating an ace on it, that all of these tall people were like the wolves, who, meeting with nobody else, bite one another. So they were bound and bundled up as before, and put to bed like dolls. And again they heard the horrible shout, the moderate ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... with this story, and said, "O Hercules, you have been within an ace of making me forget my hereditary hatred to Anytus for his behaviour to Socrates and philosophy,[116] since he was so mild and noble to his love." "Be it so," said my father, "Love also makes peevish and gloomy persons kind and agreeable ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... standing beside her, in the one predominant thought that filled her mind. With an immense effort he got command of himself. Somehow he must conquer this sudden insanity. The loyalty that had hung trembling in the balance reasserted itself and a self-disgust seized him. He had been within an ace of betraying the man who had been for twenty years nearer to him than a brother. She belonged to his friend, and now he had not even the right to question the ethics of the Sheik's possession of her. The calm that he had lost came back to him. The wound would heal though it might always throb, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... hand in the business. The Germans deliberately forced on the war. They knew perfectly well that when they put up a German Prince as candidate for the throne of Spain it would bring on a war with France. Why, we ourselves were within an ace of going to war with France when Guizot brought about the Spanish marriage, although it was comparatively of slight importance to us that Spain and France should be united. But to the French this thing was an absolutely vital question, for with ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... re-establish his sister's injured reputation, went out with Sir Kit as his second, and carried his message next day to the last of his adversaries: I never saw him in such fine spirits as that day he went out—sure enough he was within ames-ace of getting quit handsomely of all his enemies; but unluckily, after hitting the toothpick out of his adversary's finger and thumb, he received a ball in a vital part, and was brought home, in little better than an hour after the affair, speechless on a hand-barrow to my ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... eyes flashed angrily. "It's too neat, Frank. It's clever, and it's powerful, whatever we've run up against. But I think we've got an ace in the hole. We have ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... none of my doings," protested the salesgirl; though the result of the experiment was so funny she had not the heart to laugh. The doll with the beautiful blue buckles on her shoes had now a mop of darky wool, and a face as black as the ace of spades. ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... tongue, a dish of anchovies, a dish of Prawns and cheese. His company seven men (Captain Fenner and both Sir Williams among them) and seven women and all reasonable merry. But I beseeching Sam'l privately to eat and Drink sparingly for the pain in his Toe, he do so becall me that it was ten to an Ace that I did hurle the Spit and the birds withal into the fire. Yet knowing he would pay dear next day, I said the less and so continued on, bidding him take his own way and pay for his liking. But indeed great company and the Dinner well cooked and served and they did drink my health ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... to Uncle Billy. He turned up Jack of clubs. He also turned a little redder as he took up his cards, looked at them, and glanced hastily at his partner. "It's no use playing," he said. "Look here!" He laid down his cards on the table. They were the ace, king and queen of clubs, and Jack of spades,—or left bower,—which, with the turned-up Jack of clubs,—or right bower,—comprised ALL the ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... accidents happened. The king pointed out to the prince the impropriety of his conduct. Radziwill added, that the bears were not cross, as whip, gold, and patience can put in order every thing; He added also, that, sometimes the ace beats the king at cards, and paid liberally the damages. After some time, he gave a splendid party, to which he invited all the ambassadors, and all the leading personages in Poland, and displayed extraordinary luxury. The dancing was kept up ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... solve. If her first husband was at the bottom of it, no matter how indirectly, and if she had been married for the dead man's sake, to give his widow a home, then Rachel felt that the last affront had been put upon her, and she would leave this man as she had been within an ace of leaving his friend. So ran the wild and unreasonable tenor of her thoughts. He had not married her for her own sake; it was not she herself who had appealed to him, after all. Curiosity might consume her, and a sense of deepening mystery add terrors of its own, but ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... into a small wood, and destroying my genuine license and hiding the genuine number-plate, I took the next train to Winchester, and thence by express to Waterloo after a very wild and adventurous night. That I had been within an ace of capture was ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... to himself would he quit that attitude. He was striving desperately to keep his self-control. He had been within an ace of losing it, as the blood that oozed over his closed fist testified; but, for the sake of that manhood which he was seeking to assert, he made a ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... of sight among the other crowders of the quay till the bowler hat came bobbing up the gangway. Then he smote its owner so jovially on the shoulder that his monocle shot the full length of its cord and the hat came within an ace of tumbling overboard. ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... Bucharia, or Bactria borders upon Quiximir or Cashmire and Mount Caucasus, which divides India from the provinces of Tartary in the north. This kingdom of the Moguls now reaches to the mountainous regions of Parveti and Bagous which they call Angou [199]. As in this dominion there ace great mountains, so there are likewise very large and fruitful plains, watered by five rivers which compose the Indus. These are the Bet, Satinague, Chanao, Rave, and Rea[200]. The cities of this country are numerous and, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... at full length, towards the spring, which he reached at last so exhausted, that he had barely put his lips to it and swallowed a mouthful, when his head dropped, and he almost fainted. He was within an ace of being drowned, but with a violent effort he drew his face out of the spring, and lay there in a half unconscious condition for some time, with the clear cool water playing about his temples. ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... in hearts; the hearts all lay between himself and Sylvie; the colonel won her ace, though it was protected by ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... the party consisted of a gentleman and two old ladies. The gentleman (a plump, black-whiskered elderly Cupid, with a vast expanse of shirt-front like an immense white ace of hearts, and a rose in his button-hole) was standing on the hearth-rug in a graceful attitude, with one hand resting on his hip, and the other under his coat-tails. Of the two old ladies, who seemed as if expressly created by nature to serve ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... sailor. "They've let me know as much a'ready. There be two captains to their crew; one's the smoke-dried old sinner as brought yer in; the other a big nayger, as black as the ace o' spades. You saw the swab? He's inside the tent here. He's my master. The two came nigh quarrelling about which should have me, and settled it by some sort o' a game they played wi' balls of kaymal's ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... least a week to show that you are not an infant, another was not to row, and the last was not to play cards all day and night. My brother's an odd kind of chap, the sort of man who doesn't know the ace of spades by sight, but it's as easy to shout as it is not to row. Your ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... short of the service line, it is obviously not possible to overpower your opponent for a service ace—as contrasted to the services in ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires
... of paper wrapped round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in London earlier than had been arranged. Of course he set off for ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... makes a thoroughly oriental type of Issachar, and it is within an ace of being a grand impersonation. What that ace exactly is, it is somewhat difficult to say, but what is wanting is wanting in his great scene with his daughter. If the dramatist had given him such another final chance as I have already ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... Hare, we may as well throw up our cards," said the keen clear voice of Lord Vargrave: "you have played most admirably, and I know that your last card will be the ace of trumps; still ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IV • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... do not kill me, after having overcome me and taken me prisoner: that would never bring thee praise or glory. If thou shouldst touch me more, thou wouldst do great villainy. Take here my sword; I yield it thee." Erec, however, does not take it, but says in reply: "I am within an ace of killing thee." "Ah! gentle knight, mercy! For what crime, indeed, or for what wrong shouldst thou hate me with mortal hatred? I never saw thee before that I am aware, and never have I been engaged in doing thee any shame or wrong." Erec replies: "Indeed you have." "Ah, sire, tell me when! For ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... got some once from a croaker uptown and fed 'em to his girl in soda water. From the very first dose he was ace-high and everybody else looked like thirty cents to her. They was married in ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... to recall what I had heard of cannibals. I was within an ace of calling for help. But the mere fact that he was a man, however wild, had somewhat reassured me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in proportion. I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method of escape, and as I was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol flashed into ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... marry is a Custom I' the world; for look you Brother, Wou'd any man stand plucking for the Ace of Harts, With one pack of ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... looked like an ideal Meg Merrilies, and I wished I had her picture. It was very strange that I made the wish at that instant, for just then she was within an ace of having it taken, and therefore arose and went away to avoid it. An itinerant photographer, seeing me talking with the gypsies, was attempting, though I knew it not, to take the group. But the keen eye of the Romany saw it all, and she went her way, because she was of the real old kind, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... time I look up and catch that kid's vacant eye, I suffer agonies. I tell you, Bertie, sometimes when he gives me a patronizing glance and then turns away and is sick, as if it revolted him to look at me, I come within an ace of occupying the entire front page of the evening papers as the latest murder sensation. There are moments when I can almost see the headlines: 'Promising Young Artist Beans ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... smiling frankly at him; "and besides I hold all the trumps. Ace, King, Queen; and Ace, Knave and Queen of ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... whispered, and disbelieved. I alone knew it for a fact; for night after night had I pulled the rope up after him when the rest of the dormitory were asleep, and kept awake by the hour to let it down again on a given signal. Well, one night he was over-bold, and within an ace of ignominious expulsion in the hey-day of his fame. Consummate daring and extraordinary nerve on his part, aided, doubtless, by some little presence of mind on mine, averted the untoward result; and no more need be said of a discreditable incident. But I cannot ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... of it," responded the Creole. "I was making seve'al i'onies ad those fwen' of mine juz now. We was 'unning a 'ace. An' thass anotheh thing I am fon' of. I would 'ather 'un a 'ace than to wuck faw a livin'. Ha! ha! ha! I should thing so! Anybody would, in fact. But thass the way with me—always making some i'onies." ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... matter? What's the matter? Oh...." the worried voice of the System's ace newscaster ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... has more than once challenged fortune, but always with the same result; it fared no better under Tigranes in the Roman epoch, than under Sharduris in the time of the Assyrians; it has been within an ace of attaining the goal of its ambitions, then at the last moment its strength has failed, and it has been forced to retire worsted from the struggle. Its position prevented it from exercising very wide influence; ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... pal'ace, a splendid dwelling, as of a king. par take', share; take part in. patch, small piece of any thing, as of ground. paus'es, short stops; rests. pave'ments, coverings for streets, of stone or solid ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... (small number) 103; meanness, insignificance (unimportance) 643; mediocrity, moderation. small quantity, modicum, trace, hint, minimum; vanishing point; material point, atom, particle, molecule, corpuscle, point, speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace; minutiae, details; look, thought, idea, soupcon, dab, dight[obs3], whit, tittle, shade, shadow; spark, scintilla, gleam; touch, cast; grain, scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau[obs3], screed, smack, tinge, tincture; inch, patch, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... my lad; just at present. But I know my countrymen. They are not as light hearted and fickle as those of Genoa; but they are easily led, and will shout 'Abasso!' as easily as 'Viva!' Time will show. I was within an ace of being defeated today; and you may not be close at hand to come to my rescue next time. And ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... stealing, with events of startling bravery and hair-breadth escapes connected with it. We refer to the great railroad raid in Georgia during the year 1862, when a handful of intrepid heroes invaded a hostile country, deliberately stole a locomotive, and came within an ace of getting it safely delivered into the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... night there was an alarm, and out we went to the front, half seas over! We did catch it, I can tell you, when Aleksei Petrovich came to hear about us! Heaven save us, what a rage he was in! He was within an ace of having us court-martialled. That's just how things happen! You might easily spend a whole year without seeing a soul; but just go and have a drop ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... alive? Adeline! Why Miss Maud," (addressing Mrs. Eisele, for whom she works—and who sat nearby to help in the interview) "Miss Maude, I tell you Adeline's WHITE, she's white clean through!" (see interview with Adeline Blakeley, who incidentally is as black as "the ace of spades"—in pigmentation.) "Miss Maude, you never knew anybody like Adeline. She bossed those children and made them mind—just like they was hers. She took good care of them." (Turning to the interviewer) "You know how the Hudgins always was about their children. Adeline thought every ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration |
