"Duffer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to what?" she cried. "Parliament?—after that? You boy! you sentimentalist! you—you duffer! Do you think I'd let you do it for your own sake even? Do you think I want you—spoilt? We should come back to mope outside of things, we should come back to fret our lives out. I won't do it, ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... chin, which might by a hostile eye have been regarded as slightly double. For the rest I was strong and fairly well—not much inclined to exercise, to be sure, but able, if occasion offered, to wield a tennis racket or a driver with a vigor and accuracy that placed me well out of the duffer class. ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... breakfast," he said ecstatically, "and real food the other two meals! Gee, but it's fine to eat something some other poor duffer has cooked! Say, Joe, what is it that pigs have that kills them off in ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... oh good! that's little Duffer, I know! We've seen him before! Wouldn't mind giving him a chase to-day, just for exercise, ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... and phenomenal absence of the most natural instinct of self-protection. The pinnated grouse, sage grouse, Bob White quail and ptarmigan exercise but little keen reason in self-protection. They are easy marks,—the joy of the pot-hunter and the delight of the duffer "sportsman." ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... business to look so sound. I thought to myself—well, if this sort can go wrong like that . . . and I felt as though I could fling down my hat and dance on it from sheer mortification, as I once saw the skipper of an Italian barque do because his duffer of a mate got into a mess with his anchors when making a flying moor in a roadstead full of ships. I asked myself, seeing him there apparently so much at ease—is he silly? is he callous? He seemed ready to start whistling a tune. And ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... that the client has. Indeed, there are three golden rules in the profession, of which the first has already been hinted at—namely, thoroughly terrify your client. Second, find out how much money he has and where it is. Third, get it. The merest duffer can usually succeed in following out the first two of these precepts, but to accomplish the third requires often a master's art. The ability actually to get one's hands on the coin is what differentiates the really great criminal ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... "you are a duffer. I see the solution at a glance. Here you are! These two jump on ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... I get into a chest, you may depend I shall know how to get out of it. That girl in the poem was a duffer for not having made more row; and her lover was a beastly sneak for not ferreting out ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... the head of the herd, "yer could slap that old duffer across the face with your hat, and ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... get posted in the show business of old times, do you? When Pa said Dan was saved from the jaws of the lions because he prayed three times every day, and had faith, I told him that was just what the duffer that goes into the lions den in Coup's circus did because I saw him in the dressing room, when me and my chum got in for carrying water for the elephant, and he was exhorting with a girl in tights who was going to ride two horses. Pa said I was mistaken, cause they never ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... point of view regarding a certain duffer aged fifty-two was nearer the truth than the duffer himself realized. Second childhood! As if the drums of jeopardy would ever again see light, after that tempest of fire and death—that ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... badly in the spring, certainly, and why? Because we feel. And because that man is a duffer who thinks the creative artist is allowed to feel. Every genuine and sincere artist smiles at the naivete of this bungler's error—sadly perhaps, but he does smile. For what one says must of course never be the first consideration, but the ingredients, indifferent in themselves, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... had finished his story and leant back in his chair. Both the matter and the manner of his narration had, as time went on, impressed me favourably. He was an old duffer and pedant, but behind these things he was a country-bred man and gentleman, and had showed courage and a sporting instinct in the hour of desperation. He had told his story with many quaint formalities of diction, but also with a very ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... fishes alone should have him. He had been a very second-rate helmsman while alive, but now he was dead he might have become a first-class temptation, and possibly cause some startling trouble. Besides, I was anxious to take the wheel, the man in pink pyjamas showing himself a hopeless duffer at ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... become of that duffer?" said Tom Holtum, when the Laulie arrived at the geo and no Yaspard appeared ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... practising at an empty brandy bottle outside Adams' bar, he took up a friend's pistol and hit it plumb in the centre at twenty-four paces. There were few things he took up that he could not make a show at apparently, except gold-digging, and at that he was the veriest duffer alive. It was pitiful to see the little canvas bag, with his name printed across it, lying placid and empty upon the shelf at Woburn's store, while all the other bags were increasing daily, and some had assumed quite a portly rotundity of form, for the weeks were slipping by, and it was ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... far less advanced than she is if the passionate desires of individuals to get their own faiths confirmed had been kept out of the game. See for example the sagacity which Spencer and Weismann now display. On the other hand, if you want an absolute duffer in an investigation, you must, after all, take the man who has no interest whatever in its results: he is the warranted incapable, the positive fool. The most useful investigator, because the most sensitive observer, is always he whose eager interest in one ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... play golf himself, but he consented to walk over the course and watch the representative's strokes. The representative was rather a duffer. Teeing off, he sent clouds of earth flying in all directions. Then, to hide his confusion he said to his guest: "What do you think of our links ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... awfully smart; and the other is a sort of buffy; one zephyr, the other cotton, and the skirt is a sort of mixey pepper and salt with lumps in the weaving—you know how I mean, something like our prawn dresses only lighter and much more refined. The duffer is going to join the tennis-club—he was at the Pooles' dance. I was simply ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... to think Santa a pretty jolly old duffer, who made lots of sport for the infants, but I'm ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... will never be, dear. Perhaps if I also made two million dollars, and if I felt I had grown worthy of you, I might come to you and say—two and two are four—let us go into partnership. But then, you see," he went on briskly, "the odds are I may never even have two thousand. Perhaps I'm as much a duffer in music as in other things. Perhaps you'll be the only person in the world who has ever heard my music, for no one will print it, Mary Ann. Perhaps I shall be that very common thing—a complete failure—and be worse off than even you ever were, ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... by Mr. Vane with a joyous thump on the shoulder-blade. "I say, old man, Miss Harding has turned out to be the most fearful doubting Thomas—thinks the whole scheme quite mad and all that sort of thing. I'm far too great a duffer to convert her, but perhaps ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... who wish to have no qualms. If we have told our friends that we do eighteen holes of golf in 95, we tell them after doing the course in 110, that we are not ourselves to-day. That is to say, we are not acquainted with the duffer ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... beat down upon it His head is sheltered by a bonnet; And though it makes him look a duffer, He hasn't half ...
— A Horse Book • Mary Tourtel
... die poor," said the artist, with a glance about the little room. He was thinking what a dear old duffer the man was—with his curious, impracticable philosophy of life and his big, kind ways. "You'll die poor if you don't look out," ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... take your time. Let me see what the tickets look like. That 's all right—say, Masters, before you go, do you know that big duffer with a black ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... exclaimed. "Green again! Can you make anything of it at all, Garnesk? I'm sorry I'm such a duffer as to faint at the critical moment, when I might have been of some assistance to you. What in God's name can it ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... odds of forty to one against them, these are the animals of which I was in search, not the hackneyed favourites of the Press and the Public. This, I think you will find, is usually the attitude of the Duffer, who, in my time, was known, I cannot say why, as the "Juggins." I liked to bring a little romance into my speculations. Often I have backed a horse for his name, for something curious, or literary, ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... verra unpleasant, Tonald," said Dougall, with a humorous glance from the corners of his small grey eyes, "but I duffer with ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... me. You see Ross will have to read the letters, and how can you say in every other line you love me, with that duffer reading it out loud?" ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... them at table with his pitiful and unconvincing story. The Badger's caustic, not to say brutal, remarks may be imagined, and therefore passed over; but it was painful to the Rat that even the Mole, though he took his friend's side as far as possible, could not help saying, "You've been a bit of a duffer this time, Ratty! Toad, too, of ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... see Davy as strong," said Jim, "though he is paying his debts. But Dick certainly is getting to be a conceited duffer. The ayes," he sighed, "seem to have it. The next question is ways and means. Old Bixby's method in St. X looks good to me. A conditional contribution—what ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... "Poor old duffer! I'll bet he was disappointed," came sympathetically from Christopher. "Think of his having to stay at home and miss the fun of seeing ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... in the Mount Margaret district, and we shared the opinion of everybody there that it was a "duffer," and after events had proved what that opinion was worth. Travelling and prospecting as we went, we at last succeeded in finding a reef which we thought ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... up with my poor game, I should enjoy playing immensely. But," she added smiling confidently and regarding him with her large, steady brown eyes, "I don't intend to remain a duffer at it long. I see," she continued after a moment, "from your expression, Mr. Randall, that you doubt this. I could tell from the corners ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... sick men sent on board our ship which made our number 40. James Duffer died at 4 o'clock p.m. with Hectic fever. Many of the men are very low. Bellew and Collins were sent to our ship which augments our ...
— Journal of an American Prisoner at Fort Malden and Quebec in the War of 1812 • James Reynolds
... to Heaven you've doped out a good one," Savage interrupted fervently. "In the cold grey dawn it doesn't look so good to me. But then I'm only a duffer. Perhaps it's just as well; if I'd been a good liar I might have married to keep my hand in. As it is, I never forget to give thanks, in my evening prayers, for my ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... enough!" Phil said regretfully. He had been "a regular duffer" at climbing at school, and the bigger boys had often dragged him up a fairly tall tree and left him there, clinging helplessly to the boughs, until they were tired of jeering at him. He shivered now as he thought of it; then squared his shoulders. His grey eyes flashed; he would not ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... most apprentices ignore. One night Jones heard them rotting about 'Great Circle sailing,' and 'ice to the south'ard of the Horn,' and subjects like that, when, properly, they ought to be criticising their Old Man, and saying what an utter duffer of a Second Mate they had. Jones was wonderfully indignant at such talk, and couldn't sleep at night for thinking of all the fine sarcastic remarks he might have made, if he had thought of them at ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... provoke the tear of sentiment. Other Confessors have never admitted that they are Social Duffers, except Mr. MARK PATTISON only, the Rector of Lincoln College; and he seems to have Flattered himself that he was only a Duffer as a beginner. My great prototypes, J.J. ROUSSEAU, and MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF, never own to having been Social Duffers. But I cannot conceal the fact from my own introspective analysis. It is not only that I was always ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 23, 1892 • Various
... pippin, and no more mysterious than a window-pane. She had whimsical little theories that she had deduced from life, and that fitted the maxims of Epictetus like princess gowns. I wonder, after all, if that old duffer wasn't rather wise! ...
— Options • O. Henry
... "Nobody but a duffer pays fare," said the other. "There'll be a freight along pretty soon, and she stops at the water tank just below here. ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... whole business was that the little duffer in the bus, who was attached to that troop, thought that Tyson was the hero of the occasion. He was strong on troop loyalty if on nothing else. So far as he was concerned (and he was very much concerned) Tyson had saved the lives of every ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... money to pay the old duffer for one night's work, Mark," muttered Jim. "Strikes me ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... fifty by a long chalk, and I've been mining since I was fifteen; mining, I say—earning every slab of damper and pannikin of tea I've swallerd, not to mention 'bacca and sometimes a bender on rum, by as tough a share of graft as a man wants whose muscles ain't flabby. Fifty times I've struck a duffer on one field or another; twenty times I've struck a good show that petered out in a week; three times I struck it rich—rich enough to set me up if I'd stuck to the find, but always I've been had—had by darned dirty I-talyans ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... year he was offered the post of secretary to our Ambassador at Vienna. From him and the others I acquired a second-hand knowledge of life, which was sufficient to keep me from being regarded as a duffer or utterly "green," though in all such "life" I was practically as innocent as a young nun. Now, whatever I heard, as well as read, I always turned over and over in my mind, thoroughly digesting it to a most exceptional degree. So that I was somewhat like ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... he, "but I'm afraid I should show myself such a duffer. I used to be a pretty fair trout-fisher when I was a lad," he went on to say; and then it suddenly occurred to him that the offer of her companionship ought not to be received in this hesitating fashion. "But I shall be delighted ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... makes me feel sort of glad, Miss Helen. You see, I'm not such a duffer really. I think an awful lot, and it don't come hard either. But folks have always told me I'm such a fool, that I've kind of got into the way of believing it. Now, when I saw that pine and the valley I felt sort of queer. It struck me then it was sort of mysterious. Just as though ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... man of yours is a duffer," she said sharply, pointing a very earthy trowel at the unconscious figure of the gardener, who was busy in the middle distance digging potatoes. "A man," she continued, "who calls a plain, every-day squash a vegetable ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... the proceeds. The first thing, then, is for each man to peg off his claim. That done, you can work the properties conjointly under the supervision of a committee, pay the gross takings into a common account, and divide the profits. In this way the owner of a duffer claim participates equally with the owner of a rich one. In other words, there is less risk of failure—I might say, no risk at all—but also much temptation. Such a scheme would be quite impossible except amongst gentlemen, but I should imagine that where ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... always on the watch to take him down a peg when he was pleased with himself—to hold him cheap and overpraise some duffer in his hearing—so that I might save my own self-esteem; to pay him bad little left-handed compliments, him and his, whenever I was out of humor; and I should have been always out of ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... he said briskly. "Keep your eyes sharp for footprints. Wynne must have struck off here into the Fens, it's the most direct course. He wouldn't have been such a duffer as to walk too far out of his way—if he was bent upon going there at all.... Hello! Here's the squelchy mark of a ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... fiction, as all unskilled in the art. An instance of similar modesty is found in Mr. Andrew Lang, who entitles the first chapter of his delightful ANGLING SKETCHES (without which no fisherman's library is complete), "Confessions of a Duffer." This an engaging liberty which no one else ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... vowed James Stuart proudly. "I was a duffer at it till she showed me what she was after. I wanted to buy brocaded silk furniture, like that in her home—while my money held out. But she would have nothing but this sort of thing. Homelike, ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... Panama? I wonder if anyone would think of haste in connection with that duffer. It took him just one hour to buy three soft crabs from some kids at the dock yesterday," said Walter. "I wouldn't like to be his messmate. But I don't like his eye; ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... this man yere," pointing with his cigar to Mr. Kemble, who was listening with a deeply-troubled face, "knows 'bout me too, yet wants to ast questions. I don' keer ef I do say it, I had better times with the Johnnies that call me Yankee Blank than I ever had sence. Well, ole duffer [to Mr. Kemble], ast away and git yer load off'n yer mind. I don't like glum faces roun' en folks jes' ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... "Really I—I've never thought of marrying anyone. Why, how could I? And besides I shouldn't know how to go about it,—proposing, and all that. Oh, I couldn't! You—you can't understand. I'm such a duffer at most things." ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... saddle! Why don't he jump proper? Well, you go on. I don't know that I'm a duffer. Duffer, indeed! My word!" Heathcote had turned to the left, leaving the track, which was, indeed, the main road toward the nearest town and the coast, and was now pushing on through the forest with no pathway at all to guide him. To ordinary eyes the attempt to steer ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... talk, do you?" he said a little sadly. "Well, I don't see but what I shall have to do it, then. Still, I should think a nice little lady like you might find lots nicer people to talk to than an old duffer like me." ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... their ponies in front of the saloon door, "We 've got them fellers roped and tied, gents, and they simply won't be ace-high with the ladies of this camp after our fandango is over with. We're a holdin' the hand this game, an' it simply sweeps the board clean. That duffer McNeil's the sickest looking duck I 've seen in a year, an' the whole blame bunch of cow-punchers is corralled so tight there can't a steer among 'em get ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... folks. Ah didn't shoot, but Ah was goin' t'. Some other duffer fired the shot that hit Lum. You-all kin look at mah gun." He held it out with the muzzle ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... scouted the mule-skinner's person for evidence of hardware. Observing none, he said fiercely "You mutton- headed duffer!" and for the first time within the memory of the citizens of San Pasqual he had recourse to his hands. He clasped Mr. O'Rourke fondly around the neck and choked him until his eyes threatened to pop out, the while he shook O'Rourke as a terrier shakes a rat. Then, after ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... standing invitation to pay him a visit (given to me when he had met our party at Scares Creek), I suggested that we should go there and spell for a few days. So there we went and C——— made us heartily welcome; and he also told us that the new rush on the Don River had turned out a "rank duffer," and that we would only be wearing ourselves and our horse-flesh out by going there. He pressed us to stay for a week at least, and as we now had no fixed plans for the future we were glad to do so. He was expecting a party of visitors from Charters Towers, and as he wanted ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... old man and the jockey had made a sneak from the grounds when Ted was having his fun with the big fellow, and I got my bronc and followed them. I came up with them a ways back, and made the old duffer halt, but the jock potted me and ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... you to, you little duffer. But the kids used to call you 'colonel,' and now he keeps crying for you. Perhaps if you order him to take ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... Quigg forgotten the uplifted shovel with which his proposal had been greeted. Yet there was no well-defined jealousy between them. Mr. Walking Delegate Dennis Quigg, confidential agent of Branch No. 3, Knights of Labor, had too good an opinion of himself ever to look upon that "tow-headed duffer of a stable-boy" in the light of a rival. Nor could Carl for a moment think of that narrow-chested, red-faced, flashily dressed Knight as being able to make the slightest impression ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I catch my death of cold; I've got to go on a Christmas dance when I deposit you on your doorstep," grumbled Sidney. "Catch! There, you duffer! It's gone into the mud. Sure you won't jump in? Plenty of room. Addie can sit on my knee. Well, ta, ta! ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... ashamed of himself. To be "sech a duffer" as to return that money, when by means of a little strategy he might have kept it, made him feel both humiliated and indignant. A hundred and forty dollars; When would he have a chance to get such a windfall again? Pah! he was a fool—to copy ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... rig—we are short of men on the farm, and I took hold. I'm glad of the chance, for I get precious little exercise since I left college. You came from East Branch by morning stage, I suppose? Oh, is that your trunk dumped out in the road? What a duffer I was not to know. Wait a minute—I'll bring it in," and ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to horses generally. The riding capacities of the Australians are well known. Nearly every one born in the colonies learns to ride as a boy, and not to be able to ride is to write yourself down a duffer. Horseflesh is so marvelously cheap, that it is not taken so much care of as at home. In outward appearance, the Australian horse has not so much to recommend him as a rule, but his powers of endurance rival those ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... popular authors. Marion was charmed with your heroine [Dick rather likes Marion; and doesn't think Jack treats her with the consideration she deserves], and I have no doubt women in general will admire her, but your hero—you know I always speak my mind—is rather a duffer. You should go into the world more, and sketch from life. The Vice-Chancellor gave me great pleasure by speaking of your early poems very highly the other day, and I assure you it was quite a drop down ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... not a little sad, as I stood on the bank of the river near Duffer's Drift and watched the red dust haze, raised by the southward departing column in the distance, turn slowly into gold as it hung in the afternoon sunlight. It was just three o'clock, and here I was on the banks of the Silliaasvogel river, left behind by ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... liveliest manifestations of appreciation. "Coming back to-night—that's what made me late—Jim Turner, who's poormaster now, called me in. Said he had something to tell me. It seems there was a queer old duffer spent one night there a while back —Jim thought it must have been a month ago. He has a secondhand bookshop in Washington, and he came to the poorhouse to look at some old books they have there—thought they might ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... interested me. It was not the letter of a duffer or a swindler—the sort of thing you can tell by its ornate pompousness; and it just caught me when I was somewhat bored by things, so that I rather welcomed it as an excitement. I expected to find you lodging in some miserable cottage—a Chatterton ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... always manage to find out such things?" remarked the other, reflectively. "By Jove!" he added, "Hester is the name of that major duffer whose message to Sir Jeffry caused my delay; I wonder if ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... him as the tone in which they are called. Now and then the cry comes in a way that makes him feel he is acquitting himself well. But sometimes it sends a cold shiver down his back; the speaker might just as well have added the word "Duffer!" — there is no mistaking his tone. It is no easy matter to go straight on a surface without landmarks. Imagine an immense plain that you have to cross in thick fog; it is dead calm, and the snow lies ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... seen her since I was a little duffer three years old. This room and these wild crags and trees come back to me now—just a glimpse of them here and there. I've always remembered them. I thought I'd ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... for his friend. Twice Lord Hampstead had come down in an omnibus from Islington; on which occasion it was remarked that as he did not come on Saturday there must be something wrong. A clerk, with Saturday half-holidays, ought not to be away from his work on Mondays and Tuesdays. Mrs. Duffer, who was regarded in Paradise Row as being very inferior to Mrs. Demijohn, suggested that the young man might, perhaps, not be a Post Office clerk. This, however, was ridiculed. Where should a Post Office clerk find his friends except ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... of Liberal Arts hall. While he was standing there two dapper young men came walking hastily by. One caught sight of Uncle and quickly uttered a low whistle. His companion stopped short as the first one said: "Der's de old duffer; let's ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... Mount Duffer are not literary. So very remote from this condition are they, that they regard men of letters as "awful men," in the Shakspearian sense of the word. Consequently, since those papers began to appear, sometimes, in the pages of Mr. Punch, I have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... known more what the world was like, I should have depended more upon other people, I should have made friends. As it was, I left school entirely innocent, very solitary, very modest, thinking myself a complete duffer, and everyone else a beast. It got a little better at the end of my time, and I had a companion or two—but I never dreamed of telling anyone what ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a bigger duffer than you are, Flo. You can't help being a girl, I know; but I'm willing to help you all I can out of a girl's foolishness. Only a girl would talk of ringing the bell, and making a row, because she can't have all her own way. Come now, I want to talk to you about the new boy, and we ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... the horse took it well enough!' Then I have no 'hands,' I am told. Certainly, whenever I take up the rudder-lines to put his head for any particular course the brute takes it as a personal affront, and begins to fret, go sideways, and bore and all but tell me what a duffer he thinks me. There's my cousin Kate, who will spoon with me by the hour in a greenhouse, and dance as often as I like to ask her, but at the cover-side she is so ashamed of me she shuns me like the plague; and then, of course, next ball it is, 'Dear Harry, do introduce me to Major Rattletrap,' ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... a chance—" began Barton, and then didn't know at all how to finish it. "Why, you're so plucky—and so odd—and so interesting!" he began all over again. "Oh, of course, I'm an awful duffer and all that! But if we'd had half a chance, I say, you and I would have been great ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Republick is too rediklus for anythink. Look at the kiddish kick-up along o' the visit of the Hempress! Why, if we 'ad that duffer, DEROULEDE, on Newmarket 'Eath, we should just duck him in a 'orsepond, like a copped Welsher. Here they washup him, or else knuckle under to him, like a skeery Coster's missus when her old man's on the mawl, and feels round arter her ribs with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... broke out again. "I'll go t'ump hell outa deh mug what did her deh harm. I'll kill 'im! He t'inks he kin scrap, but when he gits me a-chasin' 'im he'll fin' out where he's wrong, deh damned duffer. I'll wipe ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... can have a girl of eighteen to himself (not counting a few chaperons lying about loose) in a motor-car for a week, passing through the loveliest country in the world, and can't make her forget for his sake some other fellow she's known only a few hours longer, must be a born duffer. This I dinned ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... D. Ah, I saw how it was done—but it would take too long to explain it now. I have seen it so well performed that you couldn't spot it. But this chap's a regular duffer! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... then I say No matter where you stray, You will never be impounded any more; For you’re running, running, running on the duffer’s piece of land, Free selected ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... rumbled lowered. Round and round The court-house paced he, followed stealthily By Bengal Mike, who jeered him every step: "Come, elephant, and fight! Come, hog-eyed coward! Come, face about and fight me, lumbering sneak! Come, beefy bully, hit me, if you can! Take out your gun, you duffer, give me reason To draw and kill you. Take your billy out. I'll crack your boar's head with a piece of brick!" But never a word the hog-eyed one returned But trod about the court-house, followed both By troops of boys and watched by all the men. All ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... that duffer, Dominie Graves, myself," answered Longman. The speaker turned a serious face to the third member of the party. "Ner you nuther, ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... what the officer didn't say to Hambone for trotting, which was a violation of orders, would not be worth repeating. He bellowed at him to go and search for it, and with wicked delight we watched the duffer going back over the route, peering from side to side of the ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... awed. He had a great respect for Fallacy Street. "Oh, they won't have any room for me," said Harry, laughing. "I'm an awfully stupid old duffer. I haven't read anything at all, except a bit of Kipling—'Barrack-room Ballads'—seems a waste of time ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... running alone. Behind him a dog yelped with pain, and above the noise someone shouted: "Here, you kids, let up on that! Shame on you! Let him alone! Call off your dogs, there! Poor little duffer, let him go. ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... on earth can he know about English? [Greek text] is a Cormorant: [Greek text] is a Skinflint; and your tutor is a Duffer. Hush! keep dark now! here he comes." And he went hastily to meet Edward Dodd: and by that means intercepted him on his way to the carriage. "Give me your hand, Dodd," he cried; "you have saved the university. You must be stroke of the eight-oar after ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... whichever you believe in first, you'll believe in the other automatically—I'm not a bit clever, Louis. I never was. Always I get puzzled, always I realize how utterly unlearned I am. Always father called me an idiot and threw things at me for it. But in spite of being a duffer I'm ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... I said, assuming an enthusiasm I did not feel. Put on the gloves with this strapping, skillful boxer? Not I! I was firmly resolved to stop while my record was good. In a scientific clash with the gloves he would soon find out what a miserable duffer I was. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... believe a word of what they've told you, Mr. Snelling," laughed Robert Morton. "Our friends are always over-indulgent to our faults. When I begin work under you, a thing I am greatly anticipating, you will find out what a duffer ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... he replied. Then soon after: "Everything's strange. That's the trouble," he confessed. "It's only in little things that don't matter, but a fellow feels such a duffer." ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it sooner, you duffer? You stood still there like a stuffed monkey, and wouldn't move till the man ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... "Well, you duffer, are you going to do your share? You're not O'Roon, but it seems to me if you'd lean to the right you could reach the reins of that foolish slow-running bay—ah! you're all right; O'Roon couldn't have ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... least idea who the poor old duffer is myself. They've put me in as caretaker—an excellent arrangement: avoids all argument ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... exactly a Duffer. He was what might be called a sub-Duffer, or Varnish, which means that the Committee was ashamed to ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... duffer!" remonstrated Nancy, with a flare in her mild eyes. (How I wish I might have seen her as she defended me!) "He's the dearest fellow in the world, and I love him with all my heart!" (How do you like ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... Bigglethorpe's arms, and with their arms about his neck. Coristine indulged in a kissing bee with the rest of them, so as to assure himself that he was the true old friend, the genuine Codlin, while the other man was Short. "Marjorie," he said, as that fishing young lady clung to him, "there's a duffer of a dude, with an eye-glass, up at the house, who says he's an old friend of your cousin Marjorie; do you know any old friend of hers?" Marjorie stopped to think, and, after a little pause, said: "It can't be Huggins." "Who is Huggins, Marjorie?" asked the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... kill you, you duffer! Do you think my father would return to England without thanking the man who was kind to his dear lad? And you would give the whole snap away. Yes; I'll call upon him as Cartwright, the administrator of the late Tudor Crisp's estate. If ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... One likes novelty, especially if it's feminine. Well, I'm out for the sole purpose of saving a million or so for old Wharton, and to save as much of her reputation as I can besides. With the proof in hand the old duffer can scare her out of any claim against his bank account, and she shall have the absolute promise of 'no exposure' in return. Isn't it lovely? Well, here's Albany. Now for the dinky road up to Fossingford Station. I have an hour's wait here. She's coming on the afternoon ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... a deficiency as if it were a gift. The G.E. was apparently a duffer at arithmetic, but she tells you so in a way that makes you admire her for it. All the same I wish I had been one of those factory-girls that she used to reclaim in their dinner-hour; I am fundamentally honest, but I never could miss a chance when ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... difficulties . . . I can't put it plainer—and I'm thinking of applying for a Staff appointment. My uncle in the Secretariat would give me a helping hand, if you'd forward the thing with a decent recommendation. But if you think me too much of a duffer for Staff work, I must try—for ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Don't despise me. I have it. I'll, yes—I'll do it—I'll break into his desk. There's no help for it. I know the drawer where he keeps his plunder, and I can buy a chisel on my way home. He will be terribly upset, but, you know, the dear old duffer really loves me. He'll have to get over it—and I, too. Kirylo, my dear soul, if you can only wait for a few hours-till this evening—I shall steal all the blessed lot I can lay my hands on! You doubt me! Why? You've only to ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... th' officials of the train were tars; Told them to "Coil that rope and clean the scuppers, And then go down below and get your suppers." This must be changed, or my good name will suffer, And folks will say, JIM FISK is but a duffer. To feel myself a fool and lose my head, Too, takes the gilding off the gingerbread; And makes me ask myself the reason why On earth I have so many fish to fry? The fact is, what I touch must have a risk Of failure, or it wouldn't suit JIM ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... ghost stories at night," came McKnight's voice from the doorway. "Really, Mrs. Klopton, I'm amazed at you. You old duffer! I've got you to thank for the worst day ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... excel, at Lord's, on the river, on the Moors, in the forests, in Society, on the Links, bitter personal experience and the remarks of candid friends, tell me that the doom has come upon me. I am "an all-round Duffer," as my youngest nephew, aetat. XI., freely informed me, when I served twice out of court (once into the conservatory, the other time through the study window). I was a Duffer at marbles, also at ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... note of cheer written by a somewhat dolorous duffer who spent last night in pain, but this morning ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... help it," Agnes grumbled. "You fascinate me. I should have thought you were clever if I had only heard you talk, and not known what a duffer ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... show the possibility that many a duffer was led toward the production of the homunculus by erroneous interpretation of the procreation symbolism occurring in the alchemistic writings. It was merely necessary, in their limitations, to take literally one or another of the methods. ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer |
