"Bad luck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... some ordinary veal-fed princeling that outmaneuvered me!" He shook his head. "That other pup had better watch out for you, if you ever cross his path again. I lost him in the rocks with ease to spare. Bad luck your shot smashed my fuel tanks, or I'd be halfway home by now." The rolling voice grew low and bitter. "No sense waiting to pick up my men. Not enough of 'em left ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... act of changing his place to be nearer the Colonel, when Potts adroitly forestalled him. The others drew off a little and made desultory talk, while Potts in an undertone told how he'd had a run of bad luck. No doubt it would turn, but if ever he got enough again to pay his passage home, he'd put it in the bank and ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... impostor. Had it been, there would have been more about his rights, more brotherly affection, a greater anxiety to appear in good colours. As it was, the writer wrote in the reckless vein of a man who knows he is detested and expects little; who owes a grudge to fortune for his bad luck, and being hard up for money, appeals not to his rights, but to the good nature of ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... the channel of the Missouri with but slight detention till we got within fifty miles of Fort Buford. Here we struck on a sandbar with such force of steam and current as to land us almost out of the water from stem to midships. This bad luck was tantalizing, for to land on a bar when your boat is under full headway down-stream in the Missouri River is no trifling matter, especially if you want to make time, for the rapid and turbid stream quickly ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... subsequently found out that the purser, seeing the ship in danger, had quietly transferred the safe's money to himself and when he landed had vanished and so all the hard work of raising the safe was in vain. Paul laughed at their bad luck, while the captain swore picturesquely in several languages. Preparations were again made for the voyage to the islands which had been postponed on account of this misadventure. One evening the "Foam" stood away to the east. Three o'clock ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... beyond a doubt that we're here," said Boyd. "They must have heard the stamp of a horse or a mule. It's bad luck, but we've had so much of the good that we've got to look for a little of the bad. What more do you see through ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... present to nobody. I'd got my eye on a splendid ivory junk, for Blanche's wedding present, at Canton, but I couldn't even speak to send any one after it. You have uncommon bad luck for a sailor's relatives.' ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heard more bad music at temperance meetings," says Dr. SALEEBY, "than I knew the world could contain." The temperance people are certainly having persistent bad luck. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... and Froggy sometimes gives one half a crown, but the old beast hasn't lately, just because I wanted it—nor Travis either, bad luck to him! quoth this grateful young man. 'I put them all off, making sure of him; and now he's cut and never tipped me at all! It's an abominable sell, and ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but that double distilled traitor and villain, the Red Rapparee, and bad luck to him. You see, then, that if you attempt to go near your own house you're a lost man, as ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... "if this was in a novel I'd say that the lorry cut across my path deliberately. But as this is in real life and the lorry belongs to a firm of respectable grocers it can't be anything else but just my own darned bad luck." ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... fisherman's half-sister was a silly old woman. She had come to help nurse his wife, who was ill. This half-sister took it into her head that the poor seal would bring bad luck to the family. She told her brother that he ...
— The Nursery, April 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 4 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... bride's first baking, which they call Madonnas. The musicians, it seems, were in the same state as the bridegroom, for, in escorting her home, they all fell down in the mud. My wrath against the bridegroom is somewhat calmed by finding that it is considered bad luck if he does not get tipsy ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... very little of it, and very cold and choice. In America you have so far had no real conservative class at all. Fortunate continent! You cast out your Tories, and you were left with nothing but Whigs and Radicals. But our peculiar bad luck has been to get a sort of revolutionary who is a Tory mandarin too. Ruskin and Morris, for example, were as reactionary and anti-scientific as the dukes and the bishops. Machine haters. Science haters. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... penitentiary at Stillwater, along with all the rest of the prisoners confined at the time. I am sincerely very grateful to you for your generous offer in your letter and fully appreciate your kindness. But notwithstanding my bad luck I have still "a shot in the locker," about $200, which will put me out of ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... crew were keeping strictly away from the compartment on the lower deck from which came the strange sound. In addition, a run of small accidents broke out which seemed to the minds of many of the crew to assure that the ship was doomed to bad luck. ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... would say never read another line in it but just believe it and stick to it. And yet these people really think that there is something miraculous about the book. They regard it as a fetish—a kind of amulet—a something charmed, that will keep off evil spirits, or bad luck, stop bullets, and do a thousand handy-things for ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... what Dick said. It floated right along abreast, now, and didn't gain any more. It was about twenty foot off. Some was for having it aboard, but the rest didn't want to. Dick Allbright said rafts that had fooled with it had got bad luck by it. The captain of the watch said he didn't believe in it. He said he reckoned the bar'l gained on us because it was in a little better current than what we was. He said it would leave ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... too, have the sorrow that such bad luck has come to your father. We are the lucky ones, because you have come back to us," Adrienne ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... powerful, jealous fellow-actresses, ill health, bad luck! Behind the glamour and the glitter of the stage, what a world of carking care, of littleness, meanness, jealousy, and intrigue she had found herself called upon to ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... to-day; she worked from six in the morning till dark for eight sous. Out of that she wanted to put some by for a dress for the fete on Saint-Remi's day.—Ah! that's the way it is with us: there are many who live on two potatoes a day for six months so as to have a new dress for that day. Bad luck fell on us on all sides. My father died. We had to sell a small field, and a bit of a vineyard that yielded a cask of wine every year. The notaries don't work for nothing. When my brother was sick there was nothing to give him to drink but lees ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... prophet, who did not leave the shore till the boats were a mile or so away from land. Paao answered his thunderous hail by an equally thunderous refusal to return, as to go back after starting was bad luck, but added, "There is room for you, if you will fly to us." Putting all his strength into his arms and legs, the prophet swam through the air and reached the ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... commenced to beg me to comply with his appetite. A whore had already vacated her cell for an as, and he had laid hands upon me, and, but for the fact that I was the stronger, I would have been compelled to take my medicine." (While Ascyltos was telling me of his bad luck, who should come up again but this same very respectable looking person, in company with a woman not at all bad looking, and, looking at Ascyltos, he requested him to enter the house, assuring him that there was nothing to fear, and, since he was unwilling to take ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... down, in January 1915, I selected Wilson as his successor; but, owing to his candid expression of opinion in the Irish embroglio, he had many enemies, and his appointment was vetoed. It was this bad luck alone which prevented his valuable services then being used for his country's benefit in the best direction, and in a position for which he was better qualified ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... man who is, according to popular prejudice, a victim of bad luck, and I will show you one who has some unfortunate crooked twist of temperament that invites disaster. He is ill-tempered, or conceited, or trifling; lacks character, enthusiasm, or some ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Dodge, "there's an old superstition among sailors that they bring bad luck. I had almost forgotten it, but as soon as you said that Sam suspected Petersen I remembered that he is a Finn and that Sam would probably ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... watched the crowds which gather round a temple festival, buying queer little plants for their homes and farthing toys for their children, crowding to the fortune-teller's booth for news of good luck and bad luck, throwing their penny to the god and clapping their hands to attract his attention? Have you seen anything of this without a feeling of deep pleasure and a wonder as to how these people live and think, what we have got in common ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Rnine did not move. Hortense was stirred to the very depths of her being. The life of an innocent man hung trembling in the balance. An error of judgment, a little bad luck ... and, twelve hours later, Jacques Aubrieux would be put to death. And together with a horrible anguish she experienced, in spite of all, a feeling of eager curiosity. What was Prince Rnine going to do? What would ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... mounds, which are from ten to twenty feet in height, are now supposed to have been the burial places of the ancient Celts. The peasantry can with difficulty be persuaded to open any of them, on account of a prevalent superstition that it will bring bad luck. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... little one grows out of babyhood without any neighbour knowing that it has cut its top teeth first, or is in some other way marked for misfortune, the secret may none the less leak out some day. And then the poor little bringer of 'bad luck' will quietly disappear, or will sicken and die of poison, administered by ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... interval to collect her thoughts, stooped over Monna Paula's frame and observed, in a half whisper, "You were just so far as that rose, Monna, when I first saw you—see, there is the mark where I had the bad luck to spoil the flower in trying to catch the stitch—I was little above fifteen then. These flowers make me an old ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Mrs. O'Callaghan said: "As for the rist, you'll all go to school but Larry, an' him I'll take with me when I go a—washin'. I know I can foind thim in the town that'll help a poor widow that much, an' that's all the help I want, too. Bad luck to ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger
... when sometimes they buried children, or for other fantastic reasons. Thus, there is the legend of the Gravso, meaning the buried sow. The reason for its having been buried alive is lost. The sow is supposed to appear in the streets of towns, and when it appears is an omen of bad luck or death. Sometimes it is said that it runs between people's legs, and takes them on its back, and ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... it; and there we was told we women must bide while the men went vor against the French. And then I began to think that the bad luck of which the old Betsy had a-spoke was come at last. It was two days before Christmas, I mind well, and we wondered what ever Christmas Day would bring. But the very next day the news come that the French was ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... good deal about good or bad luck or chance in the matter of love. I do not deny that fortuitous circumstances often determine the happiness of an individual in his love affairs. But it is all the more deplorable that what is called the good manners of society make it so difficult ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... Let us go. Panurge had no sooner done speaking than Epistemon with a loud voice said these words: It is a very ordinary and common thing amongst men to conceive, foresee, know, and presage the misfortune, bad luck, or disaster of another; but to have the understanding, providence, knowledge, and prediction of a man's own mishap is very scarce and rare to be found anywhere. This is exceeding judiciously and prudently deciphered by Aesop in his Apologues, who there affirmeth that every man ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... that she was going to the grocery shop. She met Yan around the corner and they made for the lot. Utterly regardless of property rights, she showed Yan how to chip off the bark of the Black-cherry. "Don't chip off all around; that's bad luck—take it on'y from the sunny side." She filled a basket with the pieces and ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... mark how Misther St. Mark stares at Miss Morgianna?" asked Terrence that evening. "Bad luck to his ill manners, if he wasn't so ould, I'd think he was in love ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned. That ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the day before the capture, a little bird came into Mrs. Cunningham's cabin and fluttered around the room. Ever afterwards, she grew frightened whenever a bird would enter her house. The fear that such an occurrence would bring bad luck to a household, was an old and widely-spread ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... of 'em can go along the coast north'ards, and the other can go south'ards, and we might have a look round the rocks out yonder, tomorrow, as soon as it's light. But if the gentleman went out there, and had the bad luck to fall into that Devil's Spout, why, then, sir, I'm afraid all the searching in the world'll do no good. And the queer thing is, gentlemen, if I may express an opinion, that nobody ever saw the gentleman after he had ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... heavy sigh and withdraw, murmuring something about his bad luck in being cut away from the starn like this. But it was not over yet. When supper-time came and they sat down together, she took upon herself to reprove him for what he had said to ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... don' have no bad luck no mo'. But he wuz allays perlite aftah dat, an' he don' say nothin' disrespectfu' 'bout ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... poor man, sir," he said. "I have had bad luck whenever I've made a try to start at anything. I thought there seemed a chance for me here. I went to Sir Timothy ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... greatest difficulty was having no hat. Coming, however, to a river, I saw a bridge that crossed it a little below me. I went on it, and stood leaning over its wall, till I saw a traveller coming the other way. As soon as he approached me, I told him, with much concern, that I had met with bad luck; for I had just been looking over the wall when my hat fell off, and went rapidly down the stream, the sides of which were so dangerous I could not possibly get it again:—would he be so kind as to tell me where I could buy another? He told me he would conduct me to a store; ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... fortunate the whole night. I had thrown with constant bad luck. He had pocketed some hundreds; I had lost more than I could pay. I asked him for a temporary loan of fifty pounds, to make good what I owed, and stake the small remaining sum for the chance of retrieving all. He refused me. It was the first time he had ever done so. But he not only ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... bad luck for you," said Henri Verbier to the girl with a laugh, "and I quite understand that the magistrate thought it ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... mischievous exercises of the day, were snoring as we have described them before; when Teddy, whom no quantity of liquor could affect beyond a mere inveterate hardness of brogue and an indescribable effort at mirth and melody, exclaimed—"Fwhy, dhen, dat's the stuff; and here's bad luck to him ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Chester's quiet response. "We have had our share of bad luck in the last few days. Fortune must smile ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... laws, and before he philosophized. He began living simply and automatically; he adopted various "taboos" which to him were omens of bad luck, and certain charms, incantations and the like, which made him immune ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... and here is just where she failed. What was the cause of it? She was not too old—not near so old as Miss Longface, whom the youthful parson Barker lately wedded. "And besides," said she, in a soliloquy, "when I was young, it was just the same bad luck. Is it that men are less numerous than ladies? There might be something in that, for she had seen it stated in their newspaper, 'The Home Journal,' that female births exceeded that of males by forty thousand annually in certain European kingdoms. The number of Popish priests ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... were writ on the faces of the two tramps. Maget was struck with pity for the unfortunate peon, who seemed to be suffering the tortures of the damned. He was not a bad man, was Maget, but rather a weakling who had a run of bad luck and was under the thumb of Durkin, a really hard character. Durkin, while astounded at the actions of Juan, showed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... to eat for a whole day at a time; he said a 'nigger and a mule hadn't any feeling.'" He described his stature and circumstances somewhat thus: "Houston is a very small man; for some time his affairs had been in a bad way; he had been broke, some say he had bad luck for killing my brother. My brother was sick, but master said he wasn't sick, and he took a chunk, and beat on him, and he died a few days after." John firmly believed that his brother had been the victim of a monstrous outrage, and that he too was liable ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... "Bad luck to my memory, then! It's getting not worth a button. Here, Master Arthur. The postman gave it me at the door, just as I had caught sight of the fly turning the corner with the master and missis. I slipped it into my ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... pronounces Seagriff, his eyes fixed upon them as eagerly as were those of Tantalus on the forbidden water, "an' every skin of 'em worth a mint o' money. Bad luck!" he continues, in a tone of spiteful vexation. "A mine o' wealth, an' no chance to work it! Ef we only had the ship by us now, we could put a good thousan' dollars' worth o' thar pelts into it. Jest see how they swarm out yonder! An' tame as pet tabby cats! ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... time of his herder, and again in front of the post-office, where another group of loiterers had to be listened to; and finally, having made his escape when he felt that it was high time to go, he had the bad luck to run into Judge Tillotson, whose propensity to talk was such that he could not be denied a hearing without ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... know her when I lived there," replied Nellie. "Her husband used to be well off, I fancy, but had bad luck and got down pretty low. There was a strike on at some building and he went on as a laborer, blacklegging. The pickets followed him to the house, abusing him, and made him stubborn, but I got her alone that night and talked to her and explained ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... say, of hazard, for I hate all card games,—even faro. When macco (or whatever they spell it) was introduced, I gave up the whole thing, for I loved and missed the rattle and dash of the box and dice, and the glorious uncertainty, not only of good luck or bad luck, but of any luck at all, as one had sometimes to throw often to decide at all. I have thrown as many as fourteen mains running, and carried off all the cash upon the table occasionally; but I had no coolness, or judgment, or calculation. It was the delight of the thing that ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... another attempt ended in the same way. Cilla sprang to her, followed by the guide, imprecating bad luck to the slippery stones. Herself standing in the water, Lucilla drew her cousin upright, and with a good deal of help from the guide, and much suffering, brought her up the high bank, and down the rough ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... But then he's good company—he amuses you—you don't need to be on your p's and q's with him. Why wouldn't she have taken up with him? As far as money goes they could have rubbed along. He's not the man to starve when there are game-pies going. It's just bad luck." ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the gift of a man—a rough boor of a man—who was atrociously rude to me once. I don't even value it enough to pick it up.' Whereupon every one—quite rightly, too!—would cry shame on the man who had dared to insult so charming a lady—probably adding that if bad luck befell him it would be no more than he deserved! . . . And I've no doubt he'll get his desserts," he ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... her it was true, but that it was before I had seen the light. (I'd had an infernal run of bad luck.) I told her I had not tasted liquor since, nor turned a card. I told her that the roof would be repaired at once, by Christian carpenters selected by her from the congregation. But she was filled with the thought of a great revival that Ebenezer Naismith could preach—she was a dear ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... a young lassie, what shall a young lassie, What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man? Bad luck on the pennie that tempted my minnie To sell her poor Jenny for siller an' lan'! Bad luck on the pennie that tempted my minnie To sell her poor Jenny for siller ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... known herself she had done wrong. In the book it is the disobedient child that is tossed by the bull. The child that has been sent with the little basket to visit the sick aunt may be right in the bull's way. That is a bit of bad luck for the bull. The poor bull is compelled to waste valuable time working round carefully, so as not to upset the basket. If the wicked child had sense (which in the book does not happen), it would, while the bull was dodging to get ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... had after all, in spite of his daily murmurings against his bad luck, no help but ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... spirits as she dressed the children. She had received a pair of new kid gloves 'from a gentleman friend,' and 'of course,' she said to the children, 'it would be very bad luck not to have something ...
— Bulbs and Blossoms • Amy Le Feuvre
... his father's demeanour, which, while not such as to make it credible that he ever had moods of positive gay roguishness, was almost tolerable, considering his headache and his nausea. Letters occasionally were lost in the post, or delayed. Edwin thought it would be just his usual bad luck if that particular letter, that letter of all letters, should be lost. And the strange thing is that he could not prevent himself from hoping that it indeed was lost. He would prefer it to be lost rather than delayed. He felt that if the postman ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... I'm sorry for you, after all your efforts at conciliation. It's bad luck that you should have stumbled upon an unforgivable offence. I'm afraid that there is no doubt that you will be turned out of the inn, neck and crop. Not to-day, perhaps, as she won't send out the trap, but certainly ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... it would be a good idea to arm ourselves against bad luck," she replied, gently moving aside the clover heads ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... of bad luck lately, or perhaps I ought to suspect that not being in good case my work was weak. Manuscript after manuscript has been returned on my hands. Surely this was discouraging. There on the table is a roll of which I had better hopes, and I found ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Wade Swygert. Used to train dogs in England. He's been out of the game a long time—rheumatism. He wants to get back in. He's all right now. I know he never made a big name, but there never was a straighter man than him. He's had bad luck——" ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... them, and that's sadder still. I was a major after Waterloo; the Bourbons put me aside on half-pay. My friends got me back into service again in 1822, but I had bad luck, and lazed around in garrisons at Lille, Grenoble, and Strasburg, without getting ahead any. My second epaulette did not reach me till 1830; then I took a little turn in Africa. I was made brigadier-general at Isly, got home again, and banged about from ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... tea, and listened to the babel of voices talking and speculating of nothing but the fight, and how Williams would have given in after another fall (which he didn't in the least believe), and how on earth the Doctor could have got to know of it—such bad luck! He couldn't help thinking to himself that he was glad he hadn't won; he liked it better as it was, and felt very friendly to the Slogger. And then poor little Arthur crept in and sat down quietly near him, and kept looking at him and the raw beef with ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... with a dish of hot sausages; but though a relief, it was not a diversion; the conversation proceeded. Two persons did not like it; Freeborn, who was simply disgusted at the doctrine, and Reding, who thought it a bore; yet it was the bad luck of Freeborn forthwith to set Charles against him, as well as the rest, and to remove the repugnance which he had to engage in the dispute. Freeborn, in fact, thought theology itself a mistake, as substituting, as he considered, worthless intellectual notions ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... him a pretty little note, asking him to a reception for that night. It was just the little note which a thorough woman of the world would write to a man whom she liked, and who had struck a streak of bad luck. Most of Drake's acquaintances who were in town would be there; and it would be a good opportunity of facing the situation and accepting more or less sincere sympathy with a ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... firing, had imagined that she had been one of their own cruisers. The captains of the guns had dropped their lanyards in disappointment, and the silence which had been maintained as the two vessels met was just breaking up in various ways of lamentation at their bad luck, when the broadside was poured in, thundering in their ears, and the ripping and tearing of the beams and planks astonished their senses. Many were carried down below, but it was difficult to say whether indignation at the enemy's ruse, or satisfaction at discovering that they were not called ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... here, or I'd be out a-dhraggin' yez inside. Don't raise yer hid, Mr. Loveland—don't now, me dear, as ye love yer life, or fust ye know she'll go a-bowlin' of it 'roun' that yard as if it was a billiard bawl. She's got no more heart in her brist than that. Och! bad luck ter ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... like an oriental fatalist, and having seen her dreams all fade away and her hopes crushed, she would sometimes hesitate a whole day or longer before undertaking the simplest thing, for fear she might be on the wrong road and it would turn out badly. She kept repeating: "Talk of bad luck—I have never had any luck ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... "It's the brute, bad luck to her," replied his comrade. "She's on the wrong scent. Why they're over the ford by this, and we shall have the bloody thief-catchers here before we can open the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... wasn't that awful!" sighed poor Tommy, when they were finally clear of the school portal. "Don't I always have bad luck? How could I know we were going to walk smack into that ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... "Humph! bad luck to them," muttered Mike Brady; "it's not the first time that my windpipe has been pretty near spiflicated by the knives o' ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... vibrations, something which awoke an answer in the heart of the listener. At last, after a very difficult and perfectly executed passage, D'Harmental could not help clapping his hands and crying bravo! As bad luck would have it, this triumph, to which she had not been accustomed, instead of encouraging the musician, frightened her so much, that voice and harpsichord stopped at the same instant, and silence immediately ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... that. But whatever you do, do it earnestly, for a failure in one line does not argue success in another direction. In business it is well to beware of men who have failed. They bring bad luck. Without success there may be vanity, but there can be but little pride, ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... the Irishman, looking up at his employer with the most profound encouragement in his wink, "if it's anny help to you, sor, I'll say that I've niver found bad luck to be annything but timporary. And, believe ME, I've had plinty of it. Mary was dom near three years makin' up her mind to say ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... withered cheek. 'There is nothing that my mistress could say that she would wish to keep from me. I have been with her all her life. As a baby she slept in my bosom, and I loved her as my own child. Ah, it was an ill day for Miss Olive when she took up with that good-for-nothing Matthew O'Brien; bad luck ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... I shall feel more comfortable about you if I know that you are well provided with cash, whatever may happen. My advice is, Terence, get fifteen or twenty pounds in gold sewn up in your boot; have an extra sole put on, and the money sewn inside. If it is your bad luck to be taken prisoner, you will find the money mighty useful in ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... He tossed the purse and the earrings to them. "Take 'em. Keep 'em. I take no shares wid a crew like ye—not this time, anyhow, ye cowardly, unthankful, treacherous swabs! Aye, count the gold, damn ye! an' stow it away in yer pockets. I bes makin' rich men o' ye—an' at a turn o' bad luck ye all be ready to knife me. D'ye think I kilt them t'ree dead fools? Nay, they kilt themselves wid fear of a poor drownded woman! T'ree more would ha' bin stunned and drownded but for me. Holy saints above! I bes minded to leave ye to fish an' starve—all o' ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... it," said Captain Horn. "If your schooner should meet with head winds or any other bad luck, and the Finland should leave before I got there, there would be a pretty kettle of fish, and if she touched here and found no one in charge, I don't believe she would take ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... scrofulous wraith of a man with green eyes and straight, fair hair. He whined complaint of his boss, the ranch, his bad luck, his dog's life. ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... he's going to get a First. He might have been in the Eleven, if he'd kept his temper, and they say he's going to be a magnificent tennis player. And a lot of other tiresome distinctions. I believe he speaks at the Union, and speaks well—bad luck ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... them unrestrained, but their mothers so dislike their being kept in the house, that they usually break them; their presence may be tolerated for a few days, but by the ensuing Sunday they are frequently destroyed, under the idea that they bring bad luck, or prevent the coming of good fortune, as if in some way offensive to the domestic deity of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... shalt have, Jack," said Jeremy Stickles suddenly, while I was all abroad with myself as to being a liar or not; "five pounds, and I will take my chance of wringing it from that great rogue Spank. Ten I would have made it, John, but for bad luck lately. Put back your bits of paper, lad; I will have no acknowledgment. John ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... boys understand thoroughly. He comes earlier and stays later than she. Besides, we never let anybody meet on the stairs. The waiters cry out, 'You must go back; it is bad luck!' if any of them seem in danger of running into each other. They are as safe from discovery here as if they were in places a ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... lawn towards them, a big, heavy-shouldered man, with one of those strong, clean-shaven, ugly faces which can never quite be called plain. "Bad luck on Cayley," said Bill. "I say, ought I to tell him how sorry I am and all that sort of thing? It seems so ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... of transit seemed to us, however, out of the question, and we were lamenting our bad luck in having to return without having reached the summit, when H. came up. Without a moment's hesitation, and merely remarking "rather an awkward place," he crossed the pole, while it swayed and oscillated with every ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... is bad luck, isn't it?" He spoke very gently, studying her little face the while. "But don't lose heart—this pain won't last long, it will soon run away. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the small villages. Anyhow, they do not fare altogether badly. Therefore one can never feel certain that one is safe from them, even when travelling over tracks where travellers seldom pass. Still, we may very well hope that we shall not have the bad luck to ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... Petro's wonderfully modeled nest of clay, broken to bits on the ground and spoiled, oh, quite spoiled. There is a saying that it brings bad luck to do harm to a swallow. What bad luck, then, had the hand of That Boy brought to the ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... him, his brokers dissolved partnership, and neither of them would carry over his account. So it was closed down just at the wrong time, with the result that he lost everything, and finally came to the streets. He never drank or did anything wrong; it was, as he said, 'simply a matter of sheer bad luck.' ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... out on his foot once and how Buck had bathed it and bound it up in dirty rags, doing double duty with the newspapers for several days to save his friend from stepping. There was a bitter cold night way back as far as he could remember when he had had bad luck, and came among the others supperless and almost freezing. Buck had shared a crust and found a warm boiler-room where they crawled out of sight and slept. There were other incidents, still more blurred in his memory, but enough to recall how loyal the whole little gang had been to ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... in Tipperary, we had full and plenty. There was a bite and a sup for every stranger who came to the door, and no one talked of money, nor thought of it neither. The land yielded a good crop, and the potatoes—oh, dear! oh, dear! that was before the famine. The famine brought us a lot of bad luck, ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... suffered from a severe overdose of C.B. So did his cobber Smoky. They had had the awful misfortune to be detected at an early hour one morning making their way to their lines. It had been sheer bad luck that had done it. If Smoky had not insisted on appropriating from the supply depot some "tinned cow" and a few small jars of beef extract, all would have gone well. Creaking boards had started the trouble, and a conscientious sentry had put the ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie |
