"Trick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glance jerk to it, then froze. His eyes caught the sight of a hand pointing behind him, and he knew it was too crude a trick to bother with. But he paused, shocked to see the girl he'd seen on Mother Corey's stairs gazing at him in well-feigned warning. In spite of his better judgment, she caught his eyes and drew them down over curves and swells ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... This may strike many readers of his history as a limited and even trivial inquiry, with little of the heroic or the romantic in it; but it was none the less carried to the finest point by our impassioned young men. Nick suspected Nash of exaggerating his encouragement in order to play a malign trick on the political world at whose expense it was his fond fancy to divert himself—without indeed making that organisation perceptibly totter—and reminded him that his present accusation of immorality was strangely inconsistent ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... ahoy!" sure enough, growled Sennit; "some gentleman's back will pay for this trick. The 'man overboard' is nothing but a d——d paddy made out of a fender with a tarpaulin truck! I suspect your ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... that—leave the whole to me. I'll show him the foretopsail, I will. If so be your shipmates are jolly boys, and won't flinch, you shall see, you shall see; egad, I'll play him such a salt-water trick I'll bring him to the gangway and anoint him with a cat-and-nine-tails; he shall have a round dozen doubled, my lad, he shall—and be left lashed to his meditations." We were very proud of our associate, who immediately went to work, and ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... taking their sins away, and making those of them who will take his lesson good and righteous men instead. It may be a very terrible lesson of vengeance and fury, as Isaiah says. It may unmask many a hypocrite, confound many a politic, and frustrate many a knavish trick, till the Lord's salvation may look at first sight much more like destruction and misery; for his fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather the wheat into his garner: but the chaff he will burn ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... 69. Trick-Madame, Sedum minus, Stone-Crop; is cooling and moist, grateful to the Stomach. The Cimata and Tops, when young and tender, dress'd as Purselane, is a frequent Ingredient ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... his own house warm, and was astounded at the amount of coal it took to render his family comfortable, while the "other fellow" kept himself warm at his neighbor's expense nearly a whole winter before the trick was discovered. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... When the long trick's wearing over and a spell of leave comes due The most'll go back to Blighty to see if their dreams are true; There's some that'll make for the Athol glens and some for the Sussex downs, There's some that'll cling to the country and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... down upon a bed to nap, having drunk too freely, he heard some people drinking and talking in the next room of the great confusion there was in all the sea-ports in the west of England, occasioned by a trick put on the king's officers by one Bampfylde Carew, and that this news was brought to Poole by a Devonshire gentleman, who accidently came that way. Mr. Carew hearing this, rightly judged Poole was no proper place to make a longer stay ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... allowance for his levity. However, the never-quite-comprehended affair of the leather bed-cover,(306) has in some degree intimidated her ever since, as she constantly apprehends that, if he were provoked, he would play her some trick. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... after, takes no notice of that second piece of mine, but speaketh only to the first). Meanwhile, let him not believe that his big looking title can, like Gorgon's head, blockify or stonify rational men, so as they shall not perceive the want or weakness of argument. It hath ever been a trick of adversaries to calumniate the way of God and his servants, as being against authority, but I will, by God's assistance, make it appear to any intelligent man, that the reverend brother hath pleaded very much against magistracy, and so hath fallen himself into the ditch which he hath digged ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... returned to the camp and furnace, three miles across the rocky ridge. But what was his astonishment on arriving to find the place deserted of man, mule, and camp equipage. Concho called aloud. Only the echoing rocks grimly answered him. Was it a trick? Concho tried to laugh. Ah—yes—a good one,—a joke,—no—no—they HAD deserted him. And then poor Concho bowed his head to the ground, and falling on his face, cried as if his ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... donation, was duly put before me. Being warned beforehand I knew what to give, and I was not to be moved even though my attention was called to much larger sums given by other visitors; but I had also been told of the trick practised here of altering the figures as served their purpose, so I was not moved even ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... way. The men on foot looked behind and broke into a run, coming on in a disordered mob. But it was not a charge—it was more like a panic. For with wild cries of frantic terror they fled past the defenders who, fearing a trick, fired their last cartridges into them, dropping several, some of whom tried to rise and drag themselves on in dread ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... those unfortunates whose tendencies are to bald-headedness. It is a prompt and potent tonic and invigorant of body and mind, and then there is no end of fun in getting acquainted with its peculiarities. A first bath in it is always as good as a circus, the bather being his or her own trick mule. The specific gravity is but a trifle less than that of ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... freeway and reached her whole left arm further across her body and laid the dart gun on the concrete and drew back her hand from it about six inches. At the same time looking at me hard—fiercely angrily, you'd say—across her left shoulder. She had the experienced duelist's trick of seeming to look into my eyes but actually focussing on my mouth. I was using the same gimmick myself—it's tiring to look straight into another person's eyes and it can ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... house—it's a mere trick—I'll not eat anything, just to spite them," said the Englishman, still more crusty at the prospect of being so ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... before my eyes by the children or the police—I mean Gill, Halfpenny, and Miss Vincent. Then I scold, or I punish, and that I think maintains the principle, without danger to truth or forbearance. At least, I hope it does. I am pretty sure that if I punished Wilfred for every teasing trick I know, or guess at, he would—in his present mood—only become deceitful, and esprit de corps might make Val and Fergus the same, though I don't think Mysie's truth could be shaken any more than ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beneath the boughs of the tree, and was riding on toward the village. Now he had vanished in the vague light and shadow, and a moment later Edith began to doubt whether her senses had not played her a trick. A superstitious horror fell upon her; what she had seen was a spirit, not living flesh and blood. She knelt down by the stone, and remained for a long time with her face hidden upon her arms, and her hands clasped, sometimes praying, sometimes wondering and fearing. At last ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... Everybody has said over and over again that this war is the most tremendous war ever waged. Nobody has said that this new treaty is the most tremendous blank cheque we have ever been forced to sign by our Parliamentary party trick of striking moral attitudes. It is true that Mr. J.A. Hobson realised the situation at once, and was allowed to utter a little croak in a corner; but where was the trumpet note of warning that should have rung throughout the whole ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... ideal; in a word, the imagination should have full sway. The great dramatist is a creator; he is the sovereign, and governs his own world. The realist is only a copyist. He does not need genius. All he wants is industry and the trick of imitation. On the stage, the real should be idealized, the ordinary should be transfigured; that is, the deeper meaning of things should be given. As we make music of common air, and statues of stone, so the great dramatist ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... and at length found his beloved in the same bed with her Glasgow cousin who had acted as bridesmaid. "You sly and malevolent imp," said the laird; "you have played me such a trick when I was fast asleep! I have not known a frolic so clever, and, at the same time, so severe. Come ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... sometimes have a trick of pulling the fingers to cause the knuckles to "crack." This is a very foolish and harmful practice. It weakens the joints and causes them to grow ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... bridle and escaping from the stable of patience, she acted as if she were mad, cutting capers in the air and grinning like an ape. At this strange spectacle Zoza burst into such a fit of laughter that she well-nigh fainted away. But when the old woman saw herself played this trick, she flew into a passion, and turning a fierce look on Zoza she exclaimed: "May you never have the least little bit of a husband, unless you take ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... and Randy have been up to another trick right on top of this water-hose nonsense, I'll give them a tanning they won't forget in a hurry," added Tom Rover; and then he and Sam followed Dick up the back porch ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... please not go near the gypsies. I stole your horse. Just for fun, you know. And wretched fun it was. I saw him standing there, and the temptation to play a trick upon you was too much for me. I meant to let him go and send him back when I got to our gate. I did it sooner than I expected, because I heard you coming and knew in a minute that you must be on Wildfire, and that Snap stood no chance of ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... trick Fate played on her that Wally's offer had come to her the first week she was in New York, when the terror of the Big Town had just laid hold of her. New York, contemplated from Vermont, was the city of all opportunity; but New ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... At the Red clubs no crime is more denounced than that of charity. It is the 'fraud against Egalite'—a vile trick of the capitalist to save to himself the millions he ought to share with all by giving a sou to one. Meanwhile, take my advice, M. Duplessis, and quit Paris with your young daughter. This is no place for rich ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was concerned—for delegates pledged to him were chosen. Cleveland's supporters, however, denounced the "snap convention" and a factional quarrel arose between the "snappers" and the "anti-snappers"; outside of New York it was so obvious that the snap convention was a mere political trick that the Hill cause was scarcely benefited by it. Delegates were chosen in other parts of the country who desired the nomination ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... poetical to those of musical rhythm, as there is in our great epic poet. The sound of his lines is moulded into the expression of the sentiment, almost of the very image. They rise or fall, pause or hurry rapidly on, with exquisite art, but without the least trick or affectation, as the occasion ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... trick; an artifice or stratagem for the purpose of deception. Used often with come; as, "to ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... then Joe introduced something new in the way of a trick, for he still kept up his sleight-of-hand practice, not knowing when it might be useful. He could not do much of that under water, but what he did do was novel in effect. Lizzie, too, was very teachable, and she and ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... travels as before. We may see here foreshadowed various features of Ibsen's more mannered work. Here is his favorite conventional tame man, since, among the shouting heroes, Gunnar whimpers like a Tesman. Here is Ibsen's favorite trick of unrequited self-sacrifice; it is Sigurd, in Gunnar's armor, who kills the mystical white bear, but it is Gunnar who reaps the advantage. It is only fair to say that there is more than this to applaud in The Vikings at Helgeland; ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... result for her when the trick was discovered (as it ought not to be until Ourieda had got out of Algeria) would be simple. She was the daughter of Ben Raana's friend, a soldier of importance in the eyes of France. Colonel DeLisle had entrusted her to the Agha's care, and she could ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... excitement, that at last Dr. Johnson, Dr. Douglas (afterwards Bishop of Salisbury), and one or two other gentlemen, undertook an investigation of the affair, which proved beyond all doubt that it was a trick, though they could not discover how it was performed, nor could they make the girl confess; and Johnson wrote an account of their investigations and verdict, which was published in The Gentleman's Magazine and the newspapers of the day (Boswell's ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... for instant reply; Mr. Crossbin was allowing the aroma to mount to the innermost recesses of his nostrils. It had only been a few years since he had performed this same trick with a gourd suspended from a nail in his father's back kitchen, overlooking a field of growing corn; but that fact was not public property—not here in ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... sharp as two sticks," replied Ethel, "but they never let on. There is only one who makes the boast that she has never been deceived by any girl, and we've all been just wild to play her some trick, only we've never yet hit upon a ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked on the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty FEW, to lead the undiscerning MANY; or at most, as an uncertain obscurity which mankind can never know anything of, and with which they are fools if they give themselves much to do. Nor would I quarrel ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... had been playing a trick on him. She hadn't been going up after packages. She had gone up those ...
— The Last Place on Earth • James Judson Harmon
... coat. He looked utterly foolish. Bill was the first to recover, and inquired with apparent nonchalance: "What are you gentlemen after?" In the meantime he had noticed that the two men at the door wore soldiers' caps with broad peaks, and he construed this as a new holdup trick. ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... Christopher mendaciously; "only I can not let you be taken in by a stuck-up fool without trying to open your eyes; I shouldn't be your friend if I could." And he actually believed that this was the case. He forgot that it is not the trick of friendship, but of love, to make "a corner" in affection, and to monopolize the whole stock of ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... and looked out. The sun was setting, and the river appeared to be a long shimmering ribbon of gold. He let his eyes wander along it slowly. A large oblong thing, which rested near the water's edge about three-quarters of a mile below him, caught his attention. At first it seemed a mere trick of the shadows; then, as he watched it more closely, he wondered if it could be a flatboat, drawn out of the water. He sat gazing at it anxiously. The minutes passed and he forgot that he was ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... year, on account of this cocaine business—told me that he met a lot of clever fellows from all parts of the world; up to every dodge they were, and one of them instructed him in the way of killing a man stone dead—and not leaving a spot on him! I believe it's some little trick with the head, where it joins the spine. This chap confessed that he had tried it on several with success, and it wouldn't surprise me if he had ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... sure that Ferdinand was going to do the trick in precisely this way with my ouananiche. Just at the right instant he made one quick, steady swing of the arms, and—the head of the net broke clean off the handle and went floating away with the ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... 'Well, I've done the trick!' said Cuningham, coming out jauntily, his hands in his trousers pockets; then, with a jerk of the head towards the studio, and a lowered voice, 'He's writing ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the easy-chair by the fireplace. "You know, I never thought of that," he goes on. "He's been shut up in that basket for over an hour, and if by any chance he'd managed to get his head entangled in the clothes—I'll never do such a fool's trick again!" ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... contents. Picard, after reading an act of a new play, was asked by the lady of the house to read this poetic worship of the Emperor of the French. After the first two lines he stopped short, looking round him confused, suspecting a trick had been played upon him. This induced the audience to read what had been given them, and Madame de Talleyrand with the rest; who, instead of permitting Picard to continue with another. scene of his play, as he had adroitly begun, made the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... the poor young wife. If she had not been thus guarded, what distress might not this day of joy to Berenger have brought to Lucy! Indeed, Lady Thistlewood was vexed enough as it was, and ready to carry her incredulity to the most inconsistent lengths. 'It was all a trick for getting the poor boy back, that they might make an end of him altogether. Tell her they thought him dead.—'Tilley-valley! It was a mere attempt on her own good-nature, to get a little French impostor on her hands. Let Sir Duke look well to it, and take care that her poor boy was not decoyed ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... publishers were allowed to exchange copies by mail. Washington wrote an indignant letter to John Jay about this action which was doing mischief by "inducing a belief that the suppression of intelligence at that critical juncture was a wicked trick of policy contrived by an aristocratic junto." As soon as Washington could move in the matter, Hazard was superseded by Samuel Osgood, who as a member of the old Congress had served on a committee to examine the post-office accounts. There was no Secretary of the Treasury at that ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... sunset certainly is a glorious poem; but if a woman describes it, in high-sounding words, for the benefit of matter-of-fact people, is she not ridiculous? There are pleasures which can only be felt to the full when two souls meet, poet and poet, heart and heart. She had a trick of using high-sounding phrases, interlarded with exaggerated expressions, the kind of stuff ingeniously nicknamed tartines by the French journalist, who furnishes a daily supply of the commodity for a public that daily performs the difficult ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... ALL woman's work? That's another trick the men have played, since we force ourselves into the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... premature death to be traced to their use. But alas! I am afraid that there never was a time when many of the gay and fashionable of my sex did not make themselves both contemptible and ridiculous by this disgusting trick. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... old trick that we learn early in diplomacy, Adam—to fight on ground of your own choice. It is true that she suggested the place on this occasion; but by accepting it we make it ours. Moreover, she will not be able to ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... sympathy and pleasure in being the first to impart important news. "He's cleared out, the book-agent has,—got all the money he could of folks without giving 'em any books; and folks say he got some of you. He's been in jail for playing the same trick before; and folks think ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... "I know Ethan sent the letter. He wouldn't play no sech trick on me. Them mail folks ought to look out for things ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... feature and the unspoken mystery of expression. Can she tell me anything? Is her life a complement of mine, with the missing element in it which I have been groping after through so many friendships that I have tired of, and through—Hush! Is the door fast? Talking loud is a bad trick in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... the trick of paddling in unison. Each had his own side of the craft on which to paddle. Dick, alone, as steersman, paddled on either side at will, according as he wished to ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... very extraordinary,' said Montoni, suddenly rising. 'This is not to be borne; here is some deception, some trick. I will know ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... knew one Jack Chase who was a lumberman on the Illinois, and when steady and sober the best raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick twenty-five years ago to take the logs over the rapids, but he was skillful with a raft, and always kept her straight in the channel. Finally a steamer was put on, and Jack—he's dead now, poor fellow!—was made captain of her. He always used to take ...
— Luke Walton • Horatio Alger
... meaning of this double incident, that resembled a conjurer's trick? Having looked at her companions, and seen only her own surprise reflected, Zoe Vizard fixed her eyes, like burning-glasses, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... shame," the Walrus said, "To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!" The Carpenter said nothing but "The butter's spread ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... 1819, vol. vi., p. 93., with a Life of John Gilbert Cooper, to whom Campbell attributes the authorship, stating that he was born in 1723, and died in 1769; he was, consequently, only three years old when the poem was printed, which would settle the question, even if his disclaimer had been merely a trick ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... glancing toward the door, "meet me at seven thirty to-morrow night, on the 'rep' track near the round-house, an' I'll show you a trick." ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... is to prevent someone—McNabb, for instance—from buying up that land and starting operations above us? Even if they didn't put in a dam they could raise the devil with us by driving their stuff through. John McNabb knows every trick of the logging game, and when he finds out what has happened he'll go the ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... any directions about the flowerpots," said Young. Then the whole board broke forth. "How dare you say so? We all remember it." Still the knave stood up erect, and exclaimed, with an impudence which Oates might have envied, "This hiding is all a trick got up between the Bishop and Blackhead. The Bishop has taken Blackhead off; and they are both trying to stifle the plot." This was too much. There was a smile and a lifting up of hands all round the board. "Man," cried Caermarthen, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... way embarrassed by affectation; and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost in every movement. He seized the moment of passion with the greatest truth; like a faithful clock never striking before the time; never anticipating or leading you to anticipate. He was totally destitute of trick and artifice. He seemed come upon the stage to do the poet's message simply, and he did it with as genuine fidelity as the nuncios in Homer deliver the errands of the gods. He let the passion or the sentiment do its own work ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... frown on his face, for the foot of the wily Tamdka had tripped him. Far ahead ran the brave on the route, and turning he boasted exultant. Like spurs to the steed to DuLuth were the jeers and the taunts of the boaster; Indignant was he and red wroth, at the trick of the runner dishonest; And away like a whirlwind he speeds —like a hurricane mad from the mountains; He gains on Tamdka,—he leads! —and behold, with the spring of a panther, He leaps to the goal and succeeds, 'mid the roar ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... he said despairingly. "I'll try the disappearing trick and then get off. I'm done here." He turned back to ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... attention to the feet directly in front, the pacemakers can follow the army sergeant's example and say very softly "left, left!" At the end the bride counts eight beats before she and the father put "left foot" forward. The whole trick is starting; after that they just walk naturally to the beat of the music, but keeping the ones in front as nearly as possible ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... half a score dinars and discovered to him my case, whereupon quoth he to me, "O my brother, get thee empty calabashes, and when thy mistress cometh, give me to know of her and I will contrive the trick." ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... the Empress, 'there is none. I have heard that the priests of the temples play many a trick upon ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... heart, I didn't swallow any pins!" declared the little dressmaker, smiling. "It's a bad trick, though, and I always mean to break myself of it. There, Dot, I've taken every one out of my mouth. And now walk over by the door, Meg, and let your mother see if that is ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Oak Hill School • Mabel C. Hawley
... the hope of ever meeting my beloved ones again in another life. Oh, to meet their too dimly remembered forms in this, just as they once were, by some trick of my own brain! To see them with the eye, and hear them with the ear, and tread with them the old obliterated ways as in a waking dream! It would be well worth going mad to become such ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... was; that something had happened to you since last season; that you were married, or dead, or gone abroad. By George, I've lost the trick after all! I hate dummy like the devil. I never hold a card in dummy's hand. Yes, I know; that's seven points on each side. Vavasor, come and cut. Upon my word if any one had asked me, I should have ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... as I put on to get away from them. You must know, continu'd the Knight with a Smile, I fancied they had a mind to hunt me; for I remember an honest Gentleman in my Neighbourhood, who was served such a trick in King Charles the Second's time; for which reason he has not ventured himself in Town ever since. I might have shown them very good Sport, had this been their Design; for as I am an old Fox-hunter, I should have turned and dodg'd, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Geoffrey invited it forthwith, by attempting to state the circumstances, and by involving them in the usual confusion. Sir Patrick waited until he had thoroughly lost the thread of his narrative—and then played for the winning trick. ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... opinion that you're trying to play a beastly trick on me! It isn't like my owners to send a message to me off the coast of South America. If they wanted to send me a message, it would have been waiting for me at Kingston. I don't know what sort of a trick you are trying to play on me, but you can't do it. I know ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... so much purchase, on land, with things to git hold on to; he's jest as like as not to twist his leg clean off, an' git away. If it's one of his fore legs, which is small an' slight, ye know, he's most sure to twist it off. An' sometimes he'll do the trick even with a hind leg. I've caught lots of beaver as had lost a fore leg, an' didn't seem none the worse. The fur'd growed over it, an' they was slick an' hearty. An' I've caught them as had lost a ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the boatswain what he proposed doing. "We ought to punish those Lascars, for they have played us that trick," I observed. ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... exchange presents, I was officially supplied with some red cloth and beads: these, as well as Dr. Campbell's present, should only have been delivered during or after the audience; but our wily friend the Dewan here played us a very shabby trick; for he managed that our presents should be stealthily brought in before our appearance, thus giving to the by-standers the impression of our ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... don't know what you are talking about!" Wilbur cried out, in a choked way; then, his voice steadying, he rushed on: "Listen! I am a ruined man, absolutely ruined. And Markel has ruined me—I did not see through his trick until too late. Listen! For years, as a mining engineer, I made a good salary—and I saved it. Two years ago I had nearly seventy thousand dollars—it represented my life work. I bought an abandoned mine in Alaska for next to nothing—I was certain it was rich. A man by the name of Thurl, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... towering up yet six inches higher; then letting out a loud churrr-churrr, his best attempt at a roar, he sprang five feet forward and landed on the Cat's head, driving in his sharp hind nails, and the old Tom fled in terror from the weird two-legged giant. This trick he had tried several times with success, but twice it turned out a sad failure: once, when the Cat proved to be a mother whose Kittens were near; then Jack Warhorse had to flee for his life; and the other time was when he made the mistake of landing ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... every government, every widespread business organization, every agency of publicity, every resource of national psychology, to throw the world into a panic for the sake of getting still more power over the world. An old gambling trick used to be for the gambler to cry "Police!" when a lot of money was on the table, and, in the panic that followed, to seize the money and run off with it. There is a power within the world which cries "War!" and in the confusion of the nations, the unrestrained sacrifice which ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake of a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the door and saw - a slaughter house. Pieces of meat, a floor streaming with blood, men slaughtering, a disgusting stench - horrible! a demon trick to hinder me. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... and those assembled shook their heads. "It is the Sarayashiki of the Bancho[u], the well that of the old Yoshida Goten, whence ghosts issue; unless by good fortune the vision be a trick of fox or badger. Honoured Sir, have prayers said to avoid ill fortune." But a merry, foul, cynical old fellow—peasant turned townsman—twinkled in his laughter. "Then O'Kiku San has favoured the shugenja and his spouse with feast and ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... the head, the changeful expressiveness of every feature, and her whole air of mingled dignity and impulse, gave her a commanding charm. Especially characteristic were two physical traits. The first was a contraction of the eyelids almost to a point,—a trick caught from near-sightedness,—and then a sudden dilation, till the iris seemed to emit flashes;—an effect, no doubt, dependent on her highly-magnetized condition. The second was a singular pliancy of the vertebrae and muscles of the ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... be. I say no more; but draw not the weight of others' burdens.' According to another, and not very likely, story, told by Sir Anthony Welldon in his Court of King James, Cobham subsequently stated that Waad had induced him by a trick to sign his name on a blank page, which afterwards was thus filled in. The paper alleged a request by Ralegh to obtain for him a pension of L1500 for intelligence. 'But,' it ambiguously proceeded, 'upon this motion for L1500 per annum for ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... and masterly trick, for the sharp elbow caught Creviss' ally full in the nose, and he dropped like a limp rag to the ground, with a howl ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... chess-board into a drawer or a romance under the papers,—well-known tricks of youth which we have all been guilty of. There is a curious evidence, however, in Lockhart's Life, less known than the usual tales of frolic and apparent idleness, of the professional trick of Scott's handwriting, which showed how steadily he must have laboured even in his delightful, easy, innocently irregular youth. "I allude particularly to a sort of flourish at the bottom of the page, originally, I presume, adopted in engrossing as a safeguard against the intrusion of a forged line ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... things they do in books, you know, and that one never thinks people really do outside them. He sneers insolently. I watch him sometimes, to see how it's done. He curls his upper lip, too, when he's feeling contemptuous; that's another nice trick that I should like to acquire. Oh, he's quite an interesting study really. You've taken him wrong, you know. You've taken him seriously. He's ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... on the part of his gypsy-sister and her friend. He was stretched on the floor in the embrasure of the dormer window, nursing his face in his hands, his near-sighted eyes fairly boring into the pages. He was a lanky, sober-faced boy with a trick of twisting a lock of hair as he read that resulted in its perpetually hanging down in his eyes to his great annoyance. The boy liked to be ship-shape and he made manful attempts to let it alone. He plastered it down with bay-rum till the family ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the maple, the oak, the buttonball are all better. The poplar shoots up quickly, to be sure, but again it sheds its leaves early in the season. Its life is not as long as the oak's. There are more reasons, too. But if you must have quick results, here is a trick. Plant first a poplar then a maple or some other tree and so on. Later the poplars may be cut out and you have left the fine sturdy, long-lived trees. At the same time the poplars have tided over that in-between ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... could not grasp the full significance of what had happened—that Slimmy Jack, his sleeve catching on the hinge of the safe as he had finally succeeded in jerking his revolver from his pocket, had, a grim, ironical trick of fate, accidentally shot himself! Mechanically, automatically, Jimmie Dale's hands went to his pockets and produced his own flashlight and revolver—but he did not move. His eyes now were on Birdie Lee, who, like a man dazed and terror-stricken, had lurched ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... painted the scene (a picture recently purchased by the Lenox Library), yet this is one of the myths men call history, and amuse themselves in believing. This tale of blind Milton dictating "Paradise Lost" to his daughters, is a trick[210] designed to play upon our sympathies. Old Dr. Johnson said of Milton, that he would not allow his daughters[211] even to learn to write. Between Milton and his wives, we know there was tyranny upon one side and hatred on the other. He could not gain the love of either ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Thanks to dear Greenow,"—here the handkerchief was again used—"Thanks to dear Greenow, I shall never want. Of course I shan't let any of the money go into his hands,—the Captain's, I mean. I know a trick worth two of that, my dear. But, lord love you! I've enough for him and me. What's the good of a woman's wanting to keep it all ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... of the story is that the trick was played for pure mischief in the initiation ceremonies of some lodge or college fraternity, with the horrifying result that death ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... folks putting on their best things and going out, but never coming back again, when they owed money. It's a mean trick, but it's sometimes done by them you wouldn't think it of," she said, with an aggravating ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... a very excitable person, rolled out these verses in his rich sweet voice, which trembled with emotion whilst our young poet spoke. He had a trick of blushing when in this excited state, and his large and honest grey eyes also exhibited proofs of a sensibility so genuine, hearty, and manly, that Miss Costigan, if she had a heart, must needs have softened towards him; and very likely ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... conversation. The last of the gold seekers' dug-outs had left in a hurry, and was disappearing up-stream. And here were he and his partners, stranded at the very beginning of their journey across to the Pacific! That had been a mean trick by the long-nosed man. ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... they wanted, but not certain enough for a decision. He saw the shoulder-twitch that meant that the second one's hidden hand jerked in a moment of uncertainty, and he thought he saw something glitter under the first one's arm—the old trick of shooting from under a ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... a frame up!" shouted Katz. "It's a dirty trick to get us out of the state without arresting this fugitive ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... of enjoyment, and the author who would confer pleasure must possess the art, or know the trick, of destroying for the time the reader's own personality. Undoubtedly the easiest way of doing this is by the creation of a host of rival personalities—hence the number and the popularity of novels. Whenever a novelist fails his book is said to flag; that ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... had been one of the studies of his life, "and have measured his stride. I think I know what pace means. Of course I'm not going to answer for the 'orse. He's a temper, but if things go favourably, no animal that ever showed on the Downs was more likely to do the trick. Is there any gentleman here who would like to bet me fifteen to one in hundreds against the two events,—the Derby and the Leger?" The desired odds were at once offered by Mr. Lupton, and the bet ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... as you wish; but I should like to tell you one thing. When a man plans a startling trick of this kind and has the courage to accomplish it entirely of his own accord, he must have the courage to accept the sole responsibility of the blunders he may commit. You are too clever; you want to discover some means by which you ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... out, I had a little moist red paint in the palm of my hand. I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick." ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... monny a chap 'at's considered rayther soft, he worn't all soft, an' one bit ov a trick he did is worth tellin. He'd been aght one day tryin to sell some red yearin, but it seemed as if noabdy wanted owt o' that sooart that day, an' as he wor commin back, a lot o' chaps wor stood at th' corner o' th' fold, an' one on 'em stop'd him an says, "Ha is it tha'rt bringin thi yearin back ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... successful." She hurled Madge's ball back over the water, but Roy Dennis's small yacht had gone some distance from the group of mischievous mermaids and he did not turn back. "If I find out who did that trick, I surely will get even with them," muttered Roy. "I don't like to be made a ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... said to herself that the simple and unlooked-for method of her escape was one of those coincidences which only appear to support faith, that her deliverance had been of no unearthly sort, but brought about by means doubtfully righteous—consent to trick the boy and to say little on hearing the Mormons falsely accused. When she had told herself this, the impression that underneath her folly a guiding hand had impelled and saved her, in spite of her small ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... has sound of good fortune," I thought, revolving rapidly a sudden inspiration from his answer, "yet it will prove a desperate trick to try." ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... liked even by people of whom I have no very high opinion and from whom I do not want anything besides. But I was not popular. There was no disguising that, and in the gymnasium or the riding-hall other men would win applause for performing a feat of horsemanship or a difficult trick on the parallel bars, which same feat, when I repeated it immediately after them, and even a little better than they had done it, would be received in silence. I could not see the reason for this, and the fact itself hurt me much more than anyone guessed. Then as they would not signify ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... an inspector of the insurance company who it was that had helped him to double up the body sent from New York and pack it into the trunk. He replied that he had done it alone, having learned the trick when studying medicine in Michigan. The inspector recollected that the body when removed from Callowhill Street had been straight and rigid. He asked Holmes what trick he had learnt in the course of his medical studies by which it was possible to re-stiffen a body once the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... sitting on benches near the bar, or on the stoop along the front of the house; the Adjutant-General of the State; two young Blue-Noses, from Canada or the Provinces; a gentleman "thumbing his hat" for liquor, or perhaps playing off the trick of the "honest landlord" on some stranger. The decanters and wine-bottles on the move, and the beer and soda-founts pouring out continual streams, with a whiz. Stage-drivers, etc., asked to drink with the aristocracy, and mine host treating and being ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... remains to do, especially in the case of children in whom teething is not over, is to examine the mouth and ascertain the state of the gums, since some ailments are caused and others are aggravated by teething. A wise mother or an intelligent nurse will teach the child when well the little trick of putting out its tongue and opening its mouth to show its teeth when told to do so; and though it may sometimes indulge rather out of place in these performances when wished to behave especially prettily before strangers, ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... printed in the Eagle, he built a structure of sacrifice and slaughter from which he alone arose supreme. It was a dramatic dissertation and contained red-blooded sentiments that would have done credit to a man who had actually played the giant game, swapped trick for trick with death, and won out ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... companions had some little Texian history to relate, which they declared to be the most rascally, but smartish trick in the world. One of the lawyers was once summoned before a magistrate, and a false New Orleans fifty-dollar bank-note was presented to him, as the identical one he had given to the clerk of Tremont ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... dismissed him for some petty fault the previous week, and it took him several days to find him again. Meantime his anger grew and when he finally came face to face with the lad, he accused him of the suspected trick with so much vehemence that the inevitable happened, and the boy confessed. This is what he acknowledged. He had taken the reference off the file, but only to give it to Wellgood himself, who had offered him money for it. ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... the bloom of Love's boyhood is o'er, He'll turn into friendship that feels no decay; And, tho' Time may take from him the wings he once wore, The charms that remain will be bright as before, And he'll lose but his young trick of flying away. Then let it console thee, if Love should not stay, That Friendship our last happy moments will crown: Like the shadows of morning, Love lessens away, While Friendship, like those ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... produce the total effect. In Rienzi the bass often remains the same for bars together, while in an upper part a florid tune flourishes its tail, so to speak, for the public amusement. An ugly trick he indulged in at this time was giving to the voice the notes of the instrumental bass—a remnant of the eighteenth-century way of writing for ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... extent, and, fully expecting to see the dragon swinging wide-mouthed in the air over her head, drew a little closer to Mark, who, on his part, wondered what Bradford was at, and whether he was not playing some trick ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... be imposed without the common counsel of the kingdom"); that, of course, is the principle we have discussed above, first put in writing in the charter of John. The barons claimed it as part of the unwritten law. But Henry III in his charter cannily dropped it out—which is a trick still played by legislatures to-day. This Magna Charta was confirmed and ratified something like thirty times between the time of its adoption under John and the time it got established so completely that it wasn't necessary ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... then!" She lifted her hand, as if taking an oath. "They'll pay for this trick—every man, woman, and child of them'll bleed for what ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... ready trick and fable, Round we wander all the day; And at night, in barn or stable, Hug our doxies on the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... ones), "look here, and listen to what I'm going to tell you. I know what I'm talking about. You're going to learn to say your lines before to-morrow's rehearsal, so that Mr. ... So that Galbraith won't stop you once." (This was a trick of speech that came hard to Rose, but she was gradually learning it.) "We're going up to my room now, and I'm going to teach you. We've got lots of time. Rehearsal to-morrow isn't till twelve o'clock. You're ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... one and the same time, and further to encourage their growth, he would order that two thousand kowries worth of butter, (about twelve pounds weight,) should be diligently rubbed into the skin of the animal. This was, however, an arch trick on the part of the sultan, for he was indebted to the Landers in a considerable sum for some buttons, which he had purchased of them, and this butter affair was intended as a kind of set-off, as the sultan said he did not approve of paying for the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... more apparent that their interests were opposed. Some one who knew both men, and said that the one was as cold and selfish as a pike, and the other was a most unscrupulous dare-devil, believed that Mavick had attempted some sort of a trick on Ault, and that it was the kind of thing that the Spaniard (his complexion had given him this nickname) ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... please don't take any chances. You know what he's tried to do to you before, and I'm certain this is only some new trick. He's probably tickled to death to think that you didn't turn ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... won the duel by lassoing his adversary, riata and all," was the answer. "It is not an uncommon thing for them to settle their differences by such a fight, and I have heard of the trick of ringing the other man's rope, but if that man can catch an antelope one hundred feet away, by the foot or any other way, he is a better riata man than I ever encountered. In the first place mighty few men are strong enough ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... Monsieur Crapaud," answered Paul; "but I'm not the fellow to take a man's life in cold blood. Howsomdever, there's one thing I'll take, and that is, good care you don't attempt to play us such a trick again. Here, Billy, hand me that coil of rope. We'll keep him out ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... histeericks. She sed, "You go 'way from me you painted critter," and that clown he jist up and yelled to beat thunder—sed Nancy stuck a pin in him. Wall, everybody laffed, and Nancy she jist sot and giggled right out. Wall, they brought a trick mule into the ring, and the ring master sed he'd give any one five dollars what could ride the mule; and Ruben Hoskins alowed he could ride anything with four legs what had hair on. So he got into the ring, and that mule ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... our curate did tricks with cards. He asked us if we had ever seen a game called the "Three Card Trick." He said it was an artifice by means of which low, unscrupulous men, frequenters of race-meetings and such like haunts, swindled foolish young fellows out of their money. He said it was a very simple trick to do: it all depended ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... well we followed your suggestion," one of the traders said to Gerald. "I had no suspicion of the honesty of my clerk, and had we not made this discovery he would doubtless have played me a similar trick upon some other occasion. I will ride back at once, friends, for if he hears of the failure of the attack he may take the alarm and make off with all he can lay his hands upon. Our venture was to be in common. I will leave ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... up," said he; "and even if it was, a healthy, able-bodied sparrow could knock the whole thing to pieces with two pecks. No; when there are any disputes as to proprietorship between sparrows and martins, the martins have a trick of waiting till the sparrow is out, and then narrowing down the entrance so that the sparrow will have a job to get in decent nest material. When a live sparrow is in possession, he very soon lets callers know ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... as coffee has, but was, from the small amount of it, so entirely unnoticed, that, when I wrote my chapter on coffee in the "Experiences of a Planter," more than twenty-two years ago, I had never heard of it, nor, I am sure, had any of my neighbours. A trick, however, I once played on Mr. Graham Anderson's cousin about thirty years ago, enables me to trace it backwards so far with certainty. On coming through his plantation on one occasion, I picked oft a very large yellow coffee leaf, and placed it below the first of several ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... from Italy, telling him that a thousand men were waiting for him to lead them in an insurrection that was to dethrone an unrighteous king. It was the trick of a scoundrel who has since been paid the price of a hero's blood. I heard of ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... ever win him to do all those falls on the trick spurs, and get the close-ups of them? Didn't he know ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... that I've played a trick on them! And what a terrible sight they are! I've never seen any company that looked the least bit ...
— The Tale of Ferdinand Frog • Arthur Scott Bailey
... until her mind could be changed on that point she would help him but her heart wouldn't be in it. And the only thing that would convince her that she was human would be a child—a child of his begetting. He could perhaps trick her with an artificial insemination of Lani sperm. There were drugs that could suspend consciousness, hypnotics that would make her believe anything she was told while ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... the river is so swollen that the underground call upon its resources fails to drain it, and it foams above the fissures in full volume, so wild and deep that a passer-by would never guess of the curious trick of nature which is here being played. But the season being exceptionally dry, I was able to show my find, and from the spot of the stream's disappearance I led my acquaintance to the cavern. Here prowling about in a light-footed and adventurous ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... the trick, kept flying after him, desirous that the sinner might escape, to have a quarrel. And, when the barrator had disappeared, he turned his talons on his fellow, and was clutched with him above the ditch. ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... out of the cave. Then, raising himself to his full height, he strode over the sodden trail toward White's cabin with the lightest, purest heart he had carried for many a day. But Fate had an ugly trick in store for him. He was half way to White's when he heard steps. Habit was strong. He promptly climbed a tree. The moon came out just then and disclosed the follower. "Blake's dawg," muttered Lawson and, as the big hound took his stand under the tree, he understood matters. Blake was his worst ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... quite enough of this insolence from him!" thinks he. "Suppose I make use of a little diplomacy, and play him some sort of a trick!" ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... contain a fine assortment of medicines for the use of Van Dorn's army. Thus under the pretense of a first-class funeral, they had carried through our guards the very things we had tried to prevent. It was a good trick, but diminished our ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... he said, approaching him; "you once did me a good turn by picking me out of the water. I should probably otherwise have served for a dinner to a hungry shark close at my heels; but you counterbalanced that by the scurvy trick you endeavoured to play me at Liverpool. However, as no harm was done, except that my brother was not quite so affectionate as he might have been, I'll overlook that, and I tell you I don't wish to have your blood or ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston |
