"Old Nick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... small stones, which lay littered in front of the cave, and commenced a fusillade. It had such good results, that a few seconds later, the three horses were plunging off along the bottom of the gully as if Old Nick himself ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... thet thar scare That cum on Spense—tho', reely, I'll allus hold it was a shine Of thet thar pooty Deely: Thar's them es holds thro' thin an' thick, 'Twas a friendly visit from Old Nick. ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... mean the little mouse flying in the air, The ladies so fear that may get into their hair, But the dangerous brick bat, so much worse than that, Nobody can wear it that isn't a "flat," And then don't forget it is one of Old Nick's Diabolical methods of playing his tricks On foolish young men who become "perfect bricks;" He don't give the hint until after ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... a sign they take no more care of their souls than of their country, and so both one and t'other go to old Nick." ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... came Henry Delance, who grew up with me here and went to Pittsburg in his early twenties and made a fortune in the coal and iron business. His grandfather was old Nick Delance, a blacksmith; and his father owned a farm on the hills and made a bare living for himself and a large family. They had been simple, hard-working, honest people. I helped Henry to buy the old place, and, as we stood together on the hilltop, ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... along here soon. That's his team tied there on the side street. If he happens to be in good humor, he'll take your things, and as like as not give you a place to camp in his woods. Hiram Bartlett's his name. And, talking of the old Nick himself, here he is. I say, Mr. Bartlett, this gentleman was wondering if you couldn't tote out some of his belongings. He's ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... our way through old Nick's Valley. It'll bring us right out near the old creek bed. Then we can follow that right down to the river. That's the way Skinny did, but I guess he just stumbled through that way. Ever ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... as mad as Old Nick by a little mistake of mine. While I was hitchin' up the wagon Old Bay bit a whoppin' big gap out'n my straw hat, and it was so comical-lookin' that Ma told me not to wear it. That was easy enough to say, but I didn't want to go bareheaded, ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... dryly. "These varmint are on and off like shadows, and as cunning as Old Nick. We two will walk on quite unconcerned like, and as soon as ever the varmint are at our heels you give us the office; and we'll pepper ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... know Whate'er we want from his hands will flow! "Ah, what do you say?-'that won't be fair'? You're conscientious, I do declare! I thought so once, when I was a boy, But since I have been in this employ I've practised it, and many a trick, By the advice of my friend, Old Nick. I thought 't was wrong till he hushed my fears With derisive looks, and taunts, and jeers, And solemnly said to me, 'My Bill, If you don't do it, some others will!' "If I don't sell it, some others will; So bottles, and pitchers, and mugs I'll fill. ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... one of the leading files, as the detachment, preceded by its dead and wounded, now moved along the moat in the direction of the draw-bridge, "how did you like the grip of them black savages?—I say, Mitchell, old Nick will scarcely know the face of you, it's so much altered by fright.—Did you see," turning to the man in his rear, "how harum-scarum he looked, when the captain called out to him ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... two hoots if her dad was old Nick himself. I'm going to marry her—if she'll have me. Ah, the glorious creature!" He waved his long arms despairingly. "O Lord, send me a cure for freckles. Bryce, you'll speak a kind word for me, won't you—sort of boom my stock, eh? Be a ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... parchment case of your conscience, and I'll whisk the devil like a whirligig among you. Now let me ask you a question seriously. Did you ever see any body eat any hasty-pudding? What faces they make when it scalds their mouths! Phoo, phoo, phoo! What faces will you all make when old Nick nicks you? Now unto a bowl of punch I compare matrimony; there's the sweet part of it, which is the honey-moon: then there's the largest part of it, that's the most insipid, that comes after, and that's the water; then there's the strong spirits, that's the husband; then there's the sour spirit, ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... since I'll know him first. Me, I'll be only fifteen den. Dat's long time 'go, eh? Well, for sure, I ain't so old like what I'll look. But Old Man Savarin was old already. He's old, old, old, when he's only thirty; an' mean—bapteme! If de old Nick ain' got de hottest place for dat old stingy—yes, ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... up and outs with the shutter, ready to let slip among 'em. And what do you think it was?—Hundreds and hundreds of them nasty, dirty, filthy, ugly, black devils of rooks, located in the trees at the back eend of the house. Old Nick couldn't have slept near 'em; caw caw, caw, all mixt up together in one jumble of a ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... his fur coat closer round him. "Well!"—Redmond watched the sombre profile—"as I was saying . . . I 'muckered'. . . . Since then, with the years, I guess I've been climbing down the ladder of illusions till I'm right in the stoke-hole, and Old Nick seems to grin and whisper: 'As you were! my cashiered Sub.—As you were!' every time I chuck a brace and try to climb up again. How's that for a bit of cheap cynicism?"—the low, bitter laugh was not good to hear—"Man!"—the brooding ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... where he is? It's like your impudence to mention him to me. Why don't you ask me where Old Nick is, and how he does? I'd rather own acquaintance with him than with Richard Hare, if I'd my ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the recollections of the chief gods of this mythology. Mara (the nightmare) still torments the sleep of the English-speaking people; and the Evil One, Nokke (so says Laing), is the ancestor of Old Nick. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... blooming bad luck as we have," Ed observed, "they're probably in jail somewhere! I don't think I ever saw anything in a worse mess! The very Old Nick seems to be ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... continued, passionate temperaments like that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law into their own hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they carry in the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally. My wife is, so to ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... these here women folks continually emergin' from their aliment and mixin' into other spheres? They're well enough ashore, but on soundin's and blue water they beat old Nick. And aboard a contrabandista, too! It's enough to make a Quaker kick his grandmother. Howsomdever, Morris is just soft-headed fool enough to like it, and think it all fine fun. I shouldn't wonder if he was ass enough to get spliced one of ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... a pleasing study to watch the countenance of Old Nick. This party had joined us at Fort Benton, whither he had come on a steamboat, up the Missouri. This was his maiden venture upon the plains, and his habit of querulous faultfinding had, on the first day out, secured him the sobriquet of ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... Old Nick, who taught the village school, Wedded a maid of homespun habit; He was as stubborn as a mule, She was as playful as ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... catching rheumatism, he had recourse to his patent tent. But here's where Old Nick interfered! This tent was of so very ingenious a construction that he could not manage to open it. In vain did he toil over it and perspire an hour through—the confounded apparatus would not come unfolded. There are some umbrellas which amuse themselves under torrential ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... day Capt. Mark Hammar came driving up with Conboy to take Deolda out. Mark was his real name, but Nick was what they called him, after the "Old Nick," for he was a devil if there ever was one, a big, rollicking devil—that is, outwardly. But gossips said no crueller man ever drove a crew for the third summer into the Northern Seas. I didn't ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... why? Because she ate when she was hungry, And drank when she was dry. Ran, tan, ran, tan, tan; Hurrah—hurrah! for this good wo-man! He beat her, he beat her, he beat her indeed, For spending a penny when she had need. He beat her black, he beat her blue; When Old Nick gets him, he'll give him his due; Ran, tan, tan; ran, tan, tan; We'll send him there in this old frying-pan; ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... of your old landlord. Do you think, because you're poor and ignorant and half-crazy with toiling and moiling morning noon and night, that you'll be any less greedy and oppressive to them that have no land at all than old Nick Lestrange, who was an educated travelled gentleman that would not have been tempted as hard by a hundred pounds as you'd be by five shillings? Nick was too high above Patsy Farrell to be jealous of him; but you, that are only one little step above him, would die sooner than ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... miserable liqueur—glass; but this one was the exception. He supped down that vermouth, pannikin after pannikin; and as he got more drunk, so did I get more eloquent. I believe at my strongest then I could have blarneyed Old Nick into giving me a ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... sounded the 'assembly,' when all the boys below came rushing up the hatchway near us, trooping onwards by the ladder above to the upper deck. They jostled and shoved past each other, I thought, as if Old Nick were after them, none wishing to occupy the unenviable position of last ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... you could 'a' been allowed To jest look on and see it all,— And heerd the girls and women bawl And wring their hands; and heerd old Jeff A-cussin' as he swung hisse'f Upon his hoss, who champed his bit As though old Nick had holt of it: And cheek by jowl the two old wrecks Rode off as though they'd break ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... day's run than Cap'en Jarvis! He stood a trifle taller than me, and had a jolly bearded face with merry blue eyes; but with all that and his good-humoured manner when everything was up to the nines and all plain sailing, he had old Nick's temper and could show it when he liked! We left Mobile short-handed; and when you leave port to cross the Atlantic short-handed at this time of the year, I guess, mister, you've got your work cut out for you, you have! There was ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... When he's cross he pulls his eyebrows together so there's a little lump between them. You want to pinch it. And when he smiles he's got the sweetest expression around his mouth, Kate! As if he was just so full of the old nick he couldn't behave if he tried. You know—little quirky creases at the corners, and a twinkle in his eyes—oh, good night! He's just so good looking, honestly, it's a sin. But his disposition is spoiled. He gets awfully grouchy ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... he argued, "them hain't no natural, ordinary 'eathen, indeed not, sir. They are the very h'old Nick 'isself, sir." ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... affects me as well as the boy. Nicodemus is a long name to write at full length, and Nick is vulgar. Besides, as there will be two Nicks, they will naturally call my boy young Nick, and of course I shall be styled old Nick, which ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... day-light." Amidst an uproar of voices the majority of the crew rushed below; stove in the brandy-casks; drank every thing they could find; and paid no sort of regard to the clamorous outcries of the passengers for help! help! except that here and there a voice replied—Help? There is no help: Old Nick will swallow us all; so let us swallow ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... padded cell in the Tombs, is different. He maintains that the two cats are one and the same, and that the body of the beast is occupied by that ubiquitous spirit who is variously known as Satan, Hornie, Cloots, Mephistopheles, Pluto, and Old Nick. ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... respectable parties, such as Messrs. Sharp and Salmon of Dublin, had been treated there. This was a hit at me; but there are certain situations in which people can't dictate their own terms: and, 'faith, I was so pressed now for money, that I could have signed a bond with Old Nick himself, if he had come provided with a good ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... overlooked in so good a man, but they became at length so serious that he lost his billet. He had for some time been spoken of by his friends and admirers as "Mr. Nicholas," but after his last mistakes had been discovered, he began to be known merely as "Old Nick the Lawyer," or "Old Nick the Liar," which some ignorant people look upon as convertible terms. I think Lizard Skin, the cannibal, was a better Christian than old Nick the lawyer, as he was brave and honest, and scorned to ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... the detective, "I remember. But, you see, this is serious business. Here's a murder on our hands, and from all I can learn it's on account of your confounded schemes. We've got to know where we stand, or there will be the Old Nick to pay. The papers will get hold of it, and then—well, you remember that shake-up we ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... it seems thus clearly; and anecdotes change their value; and in that proportion honesty, as regards one or the other, changes the value of its chances. But what has all this to do with 'Old Nick'? Stop: let me consider. That title was placed at the head of this article, and I admit that it was placed there by myself. Else, whilst I was wandering from my text, and vainly endeavouring to recollect ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Scandinavian sea-sprite, whence some derive our "Old Nick" in preference to St. Nicholas, the modern patron ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... "God help us if we have to look to law for justice; go to law with Old Nick, and the court held in the low countries! Besides, we are going to be attacked and butchered in our beds by night. You know Mr. Lofin's men are all up and armed every night, firing rounds, and shouting till our wives and children are almost scared ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... of Old Nick," said Lady Castlemaine. "Who the deuce wants to remember anything, except what cards are out ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... a moment of silence. Leila looked up. "Oh, my dear Aunt Ann, if you were on the side of old Nick, Mr. Rivers wouldn't care a penny less for you, and I never could see why to differ in talk about politics is going to hurt past anything love could accept. Aunt Helen and Uncle Charles both talk politics and they do love one another, although Aunt ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... is nearly two hours and a half late—won't be here until three, and at Denver it'll miss the 'Frisco Express; won't be another for a day. So Billy, who's in a hurry to get to the coast—the old Nick's got into him, I reckon—is goin' by the express on the B. P.; the train on the branch line that goes out there at two-ten connects with it, and so does the accommodation freight at two-forty. It's hard on ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... not believe yuh. No one'll believe yuh. No one! An' if yuh don't want somethin' turrible to happen, yuh'll say nothin', but yuh'll behave yerself like a decent married woman an' go to church an' say yer prayers against trouble. That woman with the cards says whatever th' old Nick puts ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... man has got any heart, doesn't he want to see an old friend, Nick?—I must call you Nick—we always did call you young Nick when we knew you meant to marry the old widow. Some said you had a handsome family likeness to old Nick, but that was your mother's fault, calling you Nicholas. Aren't you glad to see me again? I expected an invite to stay with you at some pretty place. My own establishment is broken up now my wife's dead. I've no particular attachment to any spot; I ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot |
