"Poke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as sensitive as a skinned eel, is Layman, and he winced at that poke at his soft sawder like any thing, and puckered a little about the mouth, but he didn't say nothin', he only bowed. He was a Unitarian preacher once, was Abednego, but he swapt preachin' for politics, and a good trade he made of ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... was the whole truth, fell weeping upon Sidonia's neck, and asked forgiveness for her suspicions. "There, that will do," said Sidonia,—"that will do, old preacher; only be more cautious in future. What! am I to poke under my bed to see if any one is hiding there? You may go, for I suppose you have often hidden a lover there, your eyes turn ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... down in the fields the sounds of struggling life can be heard rustling, murmuring, restless; labouring not to perish. The down-trodden existence of the whole insect world is astir for yet a little while. They poke their yellow heads up from the turf, lift their legs, feel their way with long feelers and then collapse suddenly, roll over, and turn their bellies ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... it the more worried he became; more earnest became his efforts to shut out the chilly dampness. It occurred to him that it would be wise to crawl out and poke up the fire in the next room. Then he remembered that there was a gas grate in his bedroom, behind the bureau. Of course, it would be quite a task to move the bureau and even then he might find that the gas pipe was not connected with the burner. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... just in time to see a big shaggy beast emerging from the surrounding darkness. I gave a poke to the fire with my foot, it made some dry leaves burst into a flame, and then Dan and I both shouted at the top of our voices. The bear, who had again scented us out, might in another instant have caught Dan or me in his unfriendly embrace; but he stopped short, ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... only to be confronted with the well concocted story that his wife, having just become the mother of a sturdy son, must on no account be disturbed. On this point apparently a compromise is effected, the search to be executed on tip-toe, for the shepherds do somewhat poke and pry about, yet under so sharp a fire of abuse as to render them nervous of pressing their investigations too closely. Thus they pass the cradle by, and all would have gone well with Mak but for that same warm-heartedness ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... on them, and gave an occasional poke with his cold nose to be sure they were there as they drove through the bustling streets of New York to a great house with an inscription over ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... feet high and apparently in a good state of health. They are leisurely growing, which may be a good thing. Trees like the Manchurian walnut which grow 6 to 8 feet of new wood in a year, seem to freeze back and start over more frequently than the trees which poke along but harden their wood before cold weather. In 1946, a few more seedlings from D. C. Snyder, Center Point, Iowa, were set out and most of them have survived the first winter. Carl Weschcke reports that chestnuts do best for him at River Falls, Wisconsin, in sandy soil with an acid reaction. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... poke, Which out of it sent such a smoke, As ready was them all to choke, So grievous was the pother; So that the knights each other lost, And stood as still as any post; Tom Thumb nor Tomalin could boast Themselves ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... or mahogany tree, but a soft, pulpy, squashy squash that one could poke his finger into, nourished through a soft, succulent vine that one could mash between finger and thumb. A good idea of the harness is given by the illustration. The squash was confined in an open harness of iron and wood, and the amount lifted was indicated by weights ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... My father had died and I had got to be a man. Done better then than I do since I got old. I had one cow and my mother let me have another. I made enough money to buy a pair of mules and a wagon. My wife was willing to work. She would go out and git some poke greens and pepper and things and cook them with a little butter. Night would come, we'd go out and cut a cord of wood. Got 'long better then than ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... when the Three Bears discovered the Enchanted Land where bears may walk without fear of harm, and may safely poke their noses into any man's tent if they choose, from that day, Little Bear teased to ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... had been deluding Mark! Then Lady Fotheringham asked us, and—it was dull enough to be sure, and poor Pelham was always in the way—but they were kind comfortable folks. Lady Fotheringham is a dear old dame, and I was in dull spirits just then, and rather liked to poke about with her, and get her to tell me about your brother ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... conclave sat, Their noses into this to poke To poke them into that - In awful conclave sat they, And swore a solemn oath, That snuff should make no Briton sneeze, That smokers all to smoke should cease, They ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... As they drove hastily back they met a new, strange sight in Deadwood. A man in a sort of military uniform was marching along carrying a big drum which he pounded rhythmically; behind him were a dozen men and women in poke bonnets and blue skirts. Above them was a flag inscribed "Salvation Army." They stopped to sing a hymn, and were soon surrounded by a crowd of people who made scoffing remarks. The leader prayed, and all joined in a warlike hymn punctuated by ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... eat them Christmas. They put a little one on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out the fattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to the smoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysters come from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, where she lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies and plum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia says when she was a little girl Mammy Malaprop always gave her some of the Christmas ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... mutter little rigmaroles before stupid little Krishnas and Sivas and Vishnus, doing their little wooden best to look solemn, mounted on little bulls or snakes, under little canopies; where little Brahminee bulls, in all the little insolence of their little sacred privileges, poke their little noses into the little rice-baskets of pious little maidens in little bazaars, and help their little selves to their little hearts' content, without "begging your little pardons," or "by your little leaves"; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... something to say to you," said La Cibot. "M. Pons' heirs are about to make a stir; they are capable of giving us a lot of trouble. God knows what might come of it if they send the lawyers here to poke their noses into the affair like hunting-dogs. I cannot get M. Schmucke to sell a few pictures unless you like me well enough to keep the secret—such a secret!—With your head on the block, you must not say where the pictures come from, nor ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... find his trail all cluttered up with folks in here,' thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool nose into this bake-oven. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... to be mum now, no givin' orders to your poor overworked hired help in your brick-fields, not lettin' 'em have even a straw that they begged for to lighten their burden. The descendants of them folks you driv round can stand here and poke fun at you all day and you've got to keep your mouth shet. Yes," sez he, "you've got to a place now where you can't be yellin' out your orders, you've got to be ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... in his own profession stood upon a plane entirely by himself—among those qualified to speak, no one yet had ever questioned the Wowzer's claim to the distinction of being the most dexterous and finished "poke getter" in the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... play jokes on the Colonel, Billy," said Jack, when he heard the whole story and laughed over it. "There are some persons at whom it is not safe to poke fun ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... poke him in the cheek, very gently, and say: "Why, I never! What a rum little beggar he is! He's got some tremendous joke against us, ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... farthing honestly." "Charles Hawermann, Charles Hawermann," said Braesig, wiping his eyes, and blowing his imposing nose, "you're—you're an ass! Yes," he continued, shoving his handkerchief into his pocket with an emphatic poke, and holding his nose even more in the air than usual, "you're every bit as great an ass as you used to be!" And then, as if thinking that his friend's thoughts should be led into a new channel, he caught Lina and Mina by the waist-band and put them on Hawermann's knee, saying "There, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... any money that evening. The son passed the father's doorstep—the worn stone step, ground by the generations of customers—he saw the light behind the blind in the little room where Grandfather Iden sat—he might, had he paused and listened, have heard the old man poke the fire, the twenty-thousand-guinea-man—the son passed on, and continued his lonely walk home, the home that ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... shouldn't poke their noses into the middle of a fight. War is war. If Rivarez had put a bullet into His Eminence, instead of letting himself be caught like a tame rabbit, there'd be one honest man the more ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... motion rubbed the delicate skin against the prickly burr. He gave a vicious rattle and started to move away from the troublesome thing. He struck at one side of the hedge, then another. He grew more and more angry. He would try to poke his nose between the burrs, but on being pricked by the sharp points, he would draw back and try in another place. At last, overcome with anger and mortification, he drove his poisonous fangs into his own body and ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster
... holes in my box-lid. I was carried up the steps into the sleeping-car, and for the next quarter of an hour it seemed to me that my box changed position every two minutes. The porter was getting us settled for the night He was about to poke the box that held me under the berth where little Elsie and her nurse were to sleep, when Stuart called him from the berth above, into which he had just climbed. So I was tossed up as if I had been an ordinary piece of baggage, the porter little knowing what was strapped ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... her, of course. She can help Leota, I daresay, and I'll give her a few dollars a month. But why isn't she dressed in the usual flaming style of your other pupils—skirt, blouse, brown paper-soled boots, and a sixpenny poke bonnet with artificial flowers, and otherwise made up as one of the 'brands plucked from the burning' whose photographs glorify the parish magazines in the ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... don't write." Pay out no money, except what falls due by the Books; none;—if an extraordinary case for payment arise, consult my Wife, and she must sign her order for it. Generally in matters of any moment, consult my Wife; but her only, "except her and the Privy Councillors, no mortal is to poke into my affairs:" I say no ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... plentiful—often so much so as to become a serious nuisance. They were of the large brown variety, and were not at all bad eating. I may say here that the women-folk were responsible for the catching of the rats, the method usually adopted being to poke in their holes with sticks, and then kill them as they rushed out. The women, by the way, were responsible for a good many things. They were their masters' dressers, so to speak, in that they were required to carry supplies of the greasy clay or earth with which the blacks ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... sought advice, acting upon which he slit the cows' ears, cut their tails half off to bleed them, and poured pints of "pain killer" into them through their nostrils; but they wouldn't make an effort, except, perhaps, to rise and poke the selector when he tried to tempt their appetites with slices of immature pumpkin. They died peacefully and persistently, until all were gone save a certain dangerous, barren, slab-sided luny bovine with white eyes and much ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... neither speak to him nor lean over him, so shalt thou keep thine oath and thy silver, and no harm whatever shall befal thee." And she ceased not to persuade me and importune me and make light of the matter till evil entered into my mind and I put my head in the poke[FN344] and, declaring I would ne'er consent, consented. So I veiled my eyes and held up the edge of my mantilla between me and the people passing and he put his mouth to my cheek under the veil. But while kissing me he bit me so hard a bite ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Whene'er I poke Sarcastic joke Replete with malice spiteful, The people vile Politely smile And vote me quite delightful! Now, when a wight Sits up all night Ill-natured jokes devising, And all his wiles Are met with smiles, It's hard, there's no ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... indeed there was such a curious variety of draughts, that one was scarcely missed; every door and window in the room sent in its current of air, to search under the table, flare the candles, bear in in triumph the smell of burnt fat from the kitchen, and poke into the tender places of rheumatic patients; while, in spite of all these, the room was so close and redolent of dinner, that fish, flesh, and fowl were breathed in every breath. A scant and well-worn carpet covered the space on which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... form, nor a cow staring blandly across an old rail, nor a sheep with a pectoral cough behind a hedge, nor a rabbit making rustle at the eyebrow of his hole, nor even a moot, that might either be a man or hold a man inside it, whom or which those active fellows did not circumvent and poke into. In none of these, however, could they find the smallest breach of the strictest laws of the revenue; until at last, having exhausted their bodies by great zeal both of themselves and of mind, they braced them again to the duty of going, as ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... with extreme disfavor, and finally ventured to poke it with her slipper toe; one lone bug scuttled out and away in the tall weeds. With the piece of board she turned it over, stared hard at the yellowed grass beneath, discovered nothing so very terrifying ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... and were ready to welcome them heartily—"you two, Henri and Jules, here is a loophole for each of you. You see the parapet of the trench is strengthened with logs cut from the forest, and if you are careful not to poke your heads up above the parapet you have little to fear from enemy bullets. Look away down below you; the ground slopes gradually, and there is nothing to obstruct your fire but the stumps of trees which were cut ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... rascals!" he roared, and began to poke at the monkeys with a sharp stick. But two of them caught the stick and, watching their chance, jerked it away ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... sake," he said naively. "It is because I don't want people to poke fun at me, even if I ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sometimes the shortest way home, hey, Ed?" and Frank gave him a playful poke that nearly sent him off ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... opportunity for looking about the garden, for Mr Solomon led the way at once to the stoke-holes down behind the glass-houses, rattled open the doors, and gave a stoke here with a great iron rod, and a poke there where the fires were caked together; while, without waiting to be asked, I seized upon the shovel I saw handy and threw ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... sheep as far off as you can see 'em," he persisted, "by their short legs and long noses. Short legs to bring 'em near the grass, and long noses to poke under the rocks ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... day with a rake—sometimes leaning on it, sometimes working with it. The beds are always beautifully kept. Only the most hardy annual would dare to poke his head up and spoil the smooth appearance of the soil. For those who like circles and rectangles of unrelieved brown, ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... the cards at rouge-et-noir, of the rattle of the ball as it dances into its pigeonhole at roulette, of the monotonous chant of "Make your game, gentlemen," or "The game is made." The croupiers rake in their gains or poke out the winnings with the passive regularity of machines; the gamblers sit round the table with the vacant solemnity of undertakers. The general air of the company is that of a number of well-to-do people bored out of their lives, and varying their ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... seemed suspicious, the boy did not learn enough to form a basis for action. Presently the men went away, and after waiting until he considered it safe, Whitey left the bunk house, followed by the faithful Bull. Whitey decided not to tell Bill Jordan what he had heard. Bill probably would only poke fun at him and hand him one of those arguments ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... moment would have been slow to admit a suspicion that any of the human race, which he regarded as on its knees before him, was venturing to poke fun at him. Drunk as he now was, the openest sarcasm would have been accepted as a compliment. After a gorgeous dessert which nobody more than touched—a molded mousse of whipped and frozen cream and strawberries—"specially sent on to me from Florida and costing me a dollar apiece, ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... never had the slightest anxiety to penetrate the secrets of the Moslem household, and I consider the man who would wish to poke his nose into its seclusion no better than Peeping Tom of Coventry—an insolent, lecherous cad. I would not traverse the street to-morrow to inspect the champion wives of the Sultan of Turkey and Shah of Persia amalgamated; and I deserve no credit ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... vanished up-stairs, leaving Arthur to poke the fire and chuckle quietly over this truly ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... not have to tote so many logs of wood to keep up our fires. Down on the river flats, where vegetation showed sooner than it did on the hills, green things began to shoot up. Dandelions, sheep sorrel, poke leaves and such, though not used in civil life, were welcome to us, for they were much better than no salad at all. The men craved something green. The unbroken diet of just bread and meat—generally ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... not fear. I heard from Will Cavendish last night that Mr. Curll is well. They have not touched either of the Secretaries to hurt them, and if aught have been avowed, it was by Monsieur Nau, and that on the mere threat. Do you see old Will yonder, Cicely, just within Mr. Secretary's call—with the poke ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... surprised at the sudden fierceness of the other's tone. Nicolovius instantly sprang up and went over to poke the fire; he came back directly, smiling easily and pulling at his ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... won't see my trail for smoke when I get a gait on for God's country, my wad in my poke and the sunshine in my eyes. Say! How'd a good juicy tenderloin strike you just now, green onions, fried potatoes, and fixin's on the side? S'help me, that's the first proposition I'll hump myself up against. Then a general whoop-la! for a week—Seattle or 'Frisco, I don't ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... the service has come to when midshipmen take such liberties with their superiors, eh, Captain Sourcrout?" he exclaimed, giving a poke in the ribs with his elbow to a stiff, old, martinet style of post-captain, who sat next to him, and had looked utterly horrified at ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... like a fairy dream. Furniture of white enameled wicker, with pink satin cushions. Everywhere the most exquisite appointments of silver, crystal and embroidered fabrics, and a bed fit for a princess. It seemed profanation for the little detective to poke and pry around in wardrobes and cupboards, though I knew it must be done. He was not only looking for Vicky, but noting anything that might bear on ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... nor venture to recklessly take one step more than I ought to, you know very well which of the women servants, in charge of the menage in our household, is easy to manage! If ever I make the slightest mistake, they laugh at me and poke fun at me; and if I incline a little one way, they show their displeasure by innuendoes; they sit by and look on, they use every means to do harm, they stir up trouble, they stand by on safe ground and look on ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... But even a slow-poke who keeps right on doing a thing without wasting any time always gets somewhere sooner or later, very often sooner than those who are naturally quicker, but who waste their time. So it was with Old Mr. Toad. He kept right on, hop, hop, ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... therefore when we of the cabin returned to the deck after a hasty meal, which we had bolted in less than a quarter of an hour, all hands were on deck, ready and waiting for orders. Accordingly no sooner did the skipper poke his head out of the companion and bellow the order to loose all fore-and-aft canvas than the group on the forecastle split itself up into sections, one section actually running aft to cast loose the mainsail, while a second attacked the foresail, a third laid out to loose the jibs, and the ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... coffee for lunch, in his own little cell, looking out on the olive woods; then he tells me stories of conversions and miracles, and then perhaps we go into the Sacristy and have a reverent little poke out of relics. Fancy a great carved cupboard in a vaulted chamber full of most precious things (the box which the Holy Virgin's veil used to be kept in, to begin with), and leave to rummage in it at will! Things that are only ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... spank it out of a baby, but if you oust it from a man thar ain't nothin' but skin an' bones left behind. An' natur's a ticklish thing to handle without gloves, bless yo' soul, suh. It's like a hive of bees: you give it a little poke to start it, an' the first thing you know it's swarmin' all over both yo' hands. It's a skeery thing, suh, an' Bill Fletcher's got his share of it, sho's ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... was not fast, nor cared to be. An easy five or six knots contented her; for the whole ocean was her hunting ground, and though there were certain more favored areas, you might meet whales anywhere. Give her time, and she would poke that blunt nose of hers right 'round the world, and come back with a net profit anywhere up to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... us open the packet and look it through ourselves before we decide. What the devil business is it of anybody else's. He was my brother and your husband. These people weren't even his friends. They've no right to poke their noses into our affairs. You tell them so; sister-in-law. Give me the packet. Come away with me somewhere where we can look it through quietly. I'm fair and straight. It shall be halves, I swear. I say, sister-in-law Agnes, you don't want ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tin peddler come with his pack of shiny cook vessels in a shiny black oilcloth poke on his back. The fellow wore red-topped boots and a red flannel shirt, for all it was summer. His breeches had more patches than a scarecrow and his big felt hat had seen its best days too. He kept at Levicy ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... which the train crawls on the way down from Rumania, are speckled with sheep. Sometimes even in Sofia you will meet a shepherd patiently urging his little flock up a modern concrete sidewalk and stopping now and then for some passer-by to pick up a lamb, "heft" it, poke it, and feel its wool before deciding whether or not he should take it ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... "Almost any horse could do that. Did you ever see such an old poke as we have, and such a bouncy, jolting rattletrap of a carriage? It ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks— till she is swallowed up. But suppose that day after ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... falling upon them on the slightest occasion, or on no occasion at all, with the fullest measure of her wrath. Among other useful inventions which she practised upon this class of offenders and bequeathed to posterity, was the art of inflicting an exquisitely vicious poke or dig with the wards of a key in the small of the back, near the spine. She likewise originated a mode of treading by accident (in pattens) on such as had small feet; also very remarkable for its ingenuity, and previously ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... dangers—when these queer people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, and a couple hanging from each brawny arm, sent the spectators into shrieks of amusement, and they there and then christened him "The ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... gobble up everything that comes within their reach, to the hens that flutter over our beds and shake the dust of ages from the barn-roof at dawn, to the noisy little children with the dirty faces and meddling fingers, who poke their hands into our haversacks, to the farm servants who inspect all our belongings when we are out on parade, and even now we have become accustomed to the very rats that scurry through the barn at midnight and gnaw at our equipment ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... campaign: And safely hope to quit the dreadful field Delug'd with ink, and sleep behind my shield; Unless dire Codrus rouses to the fray In all his might, and damns me—for a day. As turns a flock of geese, and, on the green, Poke out their foolish necks in awkward spleen, (Ridiculous in rage!) to hiss, not bite, So war their quills, when ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... ha on 2 high plaises were we can clime up there arnt no steps nor lader and we hav to clime up poles its bully Thee theres four cats heer and one lets me nuss her the others is all wild and run under the barn we can hunt them wild ones Ive got 2 long poles to poke under the barn but I wont hunt the cats till you come. I get lots of aigs up on the ha when it arnt rainin I got four yesterda and sukt 2 and took 2 to mother the 2 I sukt was elegant but one of mothers had ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... eccentric shops, upon one that seemed that of a broker of all sorts of old decorations, armor, china, furniture. I entered the shop; it was dark, dusty, and low. The proprietor was busy scouring a piece of inlaid armor, and allowed me to poke about his shop, and examine the curious things accumulated there, just as I pleased. Gradually I made my way to the farther end of it, where there was but one window with many panes, each with a bull's eye in it, and in the dirtiest Possible state. When I reached this window, I ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... harum-scarum way, is even more typical of Dickens in its spirit of fun and laughter. He had been engaged, as we have noted, to furnish a text for some comic drawings, thus reversing the usual order of illustration. The pictures were intended to poke fun at a club of sportsmen; and Dickens, who knew nothing of sport, bravely set out with Mr. Winkle on his rook-shooting. Then, while the story was appearing in monthly numbers, the illustrator committed suicide; Dickens was left with Mr. Pickwick on ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... "Oh, they didn't do that! They didn't poke fun at my feast, that I ordered so carefully for them! And my little Chinese costume that I was so happy making—I made it secretly, to surprise them. And they've been ridiculing it, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... said the trustful young man, "I'm perfectly confident that you would never ask me to do anything that I couldn't do with profit to myself. Buy a pig in a poke? From you, without a moment's hesitation. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... meadow, and woodland the most foreign note of the landscape was a spot of crimson in the crotch of a high staked and ridered fence on the summit of a little hill, and that spot was a little girl. She had on an old- fashioned poke-bonnet of deep pink, her red dress was of old- fashioned homespun, her stockings were of yarn, and her rough shoes should have been on the feet of a boy. Had the vanished forests and cane-brakes of the eighteenth century covered the ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... Thomas Pitt John Pittman W. Pitts Nathaniel Plachores Elton Planet Etena Planett John Platte William Plemate Francis Plenty John Ploughman Thomas Plunkett James Plumer John Plumstead Thomas Plunkett Motthew Poble Henry Pogan Daniel Poges Salvador Pogsin Michael Poinchet Gilman Poirant William Poke John Poland John Pollard Peter Pollard Jonathas Pollin Elham Poloski Samuel Polse William Polse Charles Pond Pennell Pond Peter Pond Culman Poni Fancis Ponsard Hosea Pontar Joseph Pontesty Robert Pool ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... there was nothing particularly elegant, neither was there anything that could be called vulgar in it. But this was a decidedly villainous scrawl—in fact it was written as a self-educated butcher might pen a bill. There was nothing impressed on the wafer, but a poke of something like the ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... smoking-caps attested that we had no business, and suggested that their owners were in all probability the "party" finishing off their dinner in our bespoken apartment, which gave me an inclination to toss all the things in the room about, and poke the smoking-caps into the india-rubber shoes; but I didn't. What innumerable temptations I do resist! I assured Miss Roberts I was very ill-tempered, and proceeded to make assurance doubly sure by blowing her up sky-high, to which she merely replied with a Welsh ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... brush fastened to his right foot; and, after a rehearsal or two, she made him wait at table. Didn't he bang the things about: and when he brought a lady a dish, and she did not instantly attend, he gave her elbow a poke to attract attention: then she squeaked; and he grinned at her double absurdity in minding a touch, and not minding the real business of ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... howsoever, it would not do, nohow, to buy a pig in a poke, you know. And s'pose I shouldn't ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... lowly subjects by stopping with them. Her dignity even overtopped the fact that her auburn wig was on crooked and a long lock of snow-white hair had straggled from its moorings and crept from the confines of the purple quilted-satin poke bonnet. The beauty which had been hers in her youth was still hers although everybody could not see it. Uncle Billy could see it and Jeff Bucknor glimpsed it, as his old cousin stepped from her dingy coach. He had never realized before that ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... and dressed he broke occasionally into a whistle of sheer exuberant joy of life. He intended to surprise the folks by walking down and taking his place with the others when the dinner bell rang. Daisy Ellington would clap her hands and sparkle in her enthusiastic way. Shorty would begin to poke fun at him. Mrs. Seymour would probably just smile in her slow, motherly fashion and see that he got one of the choice steaks. And Ruth—would she flash at him her swift dimpled smile of pleasure? ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... full first names as well as their fathers' names, exactly as they were spelled in their passports, "with the end in view of averting possible misunderstandings." The object of this ordinance was to enable the Christian public to boycott the Jewish stores and, in addition, to poke fun at the names of the owners, which, as a rule, were mutilated in the Russian registers and passports to the point ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... Bridges. We was raised up children together and married. I had five sisters. My brother died here in Oklahoma about two years ago. He was a Fisher. Mary Russell, my sister, she lives in Parish, Texas; Willie Ann Poke, she lives in Greenville, Texas; Winnie Jackson, lives in Adonia, Texas, and Mattie White, my other sister, lives in Long Oak, ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... doesn't do to be too proud, Felicity," he remarked, giving her a poke. "You'd better not say too much about ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pot, if there's nothing to cook? no fire, coal or wood to cook with? Blast my eyes, Mr. Boatswain, if I disgrease myself so much, I have had the honour, damn me (tho' I say it that shou'dn't say it) to be chief cook of a seventy-four gun ship, on board of which was Lord Abel-Marl and Admiral Poke-Cock. ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... silver threads in the smooth hair under her poke bonnet her dear face was still the face of a child, and never before had it seemed to ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... but all you have to do is to refuse to talk about it. I never knew any good come of arguing on such matters, especially amongst young people. You can say a prayer for Miss Eva, and that's all you have to say,' she said, and turned to poke ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... com round and him not believe in it. Religions is to Doc jist like teethin' is to babies; they got to teethe, and seem like Doc's got to catch new religions. He ain't never real happy when he ain't got no queer fandango to poke his nose into. But ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... but with dim eyes. The stanch devotion of this gentle, kindly scholar was a thing she found very touching. "Dear old Slow-poke!"—she used the name she and her livelier companions had given him in the days when he was the dull and quiet one among her followers. "So you are going to play sponsor ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... Mr. De Vere. "If you breathe too deeply of those fumes, you'll be killed. Get a boat hook, poke them out of the locker, spear them with the sharp point, and thrust them up through the ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... War days than it did those of the boom times of silver mining, she seemed prettier than ever to Robert Fairchild, more girlish, more entrancing. The big eyes appeared bigger now, peeping from the confines of a poke bonnet; the little hands seemed smaller with their half-length gloves and shielded by the enormous peacock feather fan they carried. Only a moment Fairchild hesitated. Maurice Rodaine, attired in a mauve frock suit and the inevitable accompanying ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... of purpose in the succession of events] Chance — N. chance &c 156; lot, fate &c (necessity) 601; luck; good luck &c (good) 618; mascot. speculation, venture, stake, game of chance; mere shot, random shot; blind bargain, leap in the dark; pig in a poke &c (uncertainty) 475; fluke, potluck; faro bank; flyer [Slang]; limit. uncertainty; uncertainty principle, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. drawing lots; sortilegy^, sortition^; sortes^, sortes Virgilianae^; rouge et noir [Fr.], hazard, ante, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo [U.S.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... for him, he has plastered it up with sand and mud (Heaven alone knows how), just as a wry-neck plasters up a hole in an apple-tree when she intends to build therein, and has left only a round hole, out of which he can poke his proboscis. A curious thing is this proboscis, when seen through the magnifier. You perceive a ring of tentacles round the mouth, for picking up I know not what; and you will perceive, too, if you watch it, that when he draws it in, he turns mouth, tentacles and all, inwards, ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... three-mile limit I want you to remember, Mike, that the good ship Narcissus is under the American flag. The Narcissus needs all her space for cargo, Mike. There is no room aboard her for a feud. Don't ever poke your nose into Terence Reardon's engine-room except on his invitation or for the purpose of locating a leak. Treat him with courtesy and do not discuss politics or religion when you meet him at table, which will be about the ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... du Maurier thought that it would look pretty if every little lady in the land were to wear black stockings; and every little lady did: as unfalteringly as when Miss Kate Greenaway imposed upon them smocks and poke-bonnets, or when Mrs. Hodgson Burnett clad mothers' darlings in black velvet Fauntleroy suits, with bright-coloured sashes wound round their middles. As the volumes are examined, the reader becomes aware of the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... telling the fortune of a young man who went to sea, and had many adventures. The English nautical terms were employed continually in describing his life on the ship, but the man seemed to feel that they were not in their place, and stopped short when one of them occurred to give me a poke with his finger and explain gib, topsail, and bowsprit, which were for me the most intelligible features of the poem. Again, when the scene changed to Dublin, 'glass of whiskey,' 'public-house,' and such things ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... chiefs were wise fellows!" Don Jorge pursued. "They seemed to know that greedy vandals like myself would some day poke around in their last resting places for the gold that was always buried with them—possibly to pay their freight across the dark river. And so they dug their graves in the form of an L, in the extreme tip ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... continent which seems to have been drinking,—but still it was up and ready to try a step or two if necessary. But now the dog, who had been keeping a sharp eye on every move, became so personally interested that he gave it a poke with his nose; and over it went. This must have been discouraging. The lamb, dazed for a moment, waited for the spirit to move it, and up it came again, a little groggy but still in the ring. It staggered, got its legs crossed and dug its nose in the dirt, but by using that for an extra support ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... young father arrived with food, which he did frequently, his spouse stepped to the nearest twig and looked on with interest, while he leaned over and filled one little mouth, or at any rate administered one significant poke which must be thus interpreted. He did not stay long; indeed, he had not time, for this way of supplying the needs of a family is slow business; and although there were but three mouths to fill, three excursions and three hunts were required ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... comes into a press-gang's net—'cept us, Master Aleck. They wouldn't take a young gent like you, and I should be no good to 'em now, sir," continued the poor fellow, with a ring of sadness in his voice, which gave place to a chuckle as he added, "unless they kep' me aboard the man-o'-war to poke my pins down the scupper holes to keep 'em from being choked. These here two bits o' thin board I'll nail in close together, and then we'll let the water come up all round and harden the pitch. Just you rake them ashes together, ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... revive That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury. A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Hunts an old ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... state of bliss he was rudely awakened by a roughish poke in the back. The poke was accompanied by a snuffing sound which caused the blood of the poor man to curdle. Could it be ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... ex-overseer, who, with his clothes torn in shreds, and his face covered with blood, looked like the battered relic of a forty years' war. A red bandanna pinioned his arms to his sides, and a strong man at each elbow spurred his flagging footsteps by an occasional poke with a pine branch. Ally followed at a few paces, looking about as dilapidated as the culprit himself. To him evidently belonged the glory ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Oswald!' the old lady put in, almost with alacrity, for she had herself seen the announcement of Harry Oswald's election in the 'Times' a few days before. 'No occasion to trouble yourself, I'm sure; I daresay you may be right, and at any rate it's no business of mine, thank heaven. I never want to poke my nose into anybody else's business. Well, talking of Oxford, Mrs. Oswald, there's a very nice young man down here at present; I wonder if you know where he's lodging? I want to ask him to dinner. He's ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... sugar-plums and make feasts and weddings. I won't have that sort of thing. I hope I know my duty at my time of life! I certainly sha'n't take lessons from my daughter, or from anybody else. I shall do for my nephew what it is proper to do, and you have no need to poke your nose into it. As for you, Eugenie," he added, facing her, "don't speak of this again, or I'll send you to the Abbaye des Noyers with Nanon, see if I don't; and no later than to-morrow either, if you disobey me! Where is that fellow, ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... be met upon the highways. It was said that people had to toil in the factories—very likely, but certainly not by far so hard as up here, where often in May the frost killed the budding grain and potatoes froze as early as September. Will Stoker had had nothing further to do down there than poke fires. He had been fireman, night fireman in the factory; but during the day he had nothing to do but sleep, earning sure money by a lazy ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... rebel, but I'll stop your treble, With a poke, poke, poke: Take this from my rudder—(dashing at the frogs)—and that from my oar, And now let us see if you'll trouble us more With your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... poke in the general direction of Barcelona and found that the mental noise was too much to stand. I withdrew just a bit and closed down the opening until the racket was no more than a mental rumor, and I waited. I hunched that Barcelona ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... becoming to me," she said quite simply. "But often I stick a few pins into a dress to tuck it up here and there, or if I give a hat a poke somewhere to make it crooked, they are much more becoming. People are always asking me how I do it but I don't know how. I bought a hat from Cerise last week and I gave it two little thumps with my fist—one in the crown and one in the brim and they made it wonderful. The maid of the most grand ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... an interest in snakes, and used to poke amongst logs and brush-fences in search of rare specimens. Whenever he secured a good one he put it in a cage and left it there until it died or got out, or Dad threw it, cage and all, ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... ship-wreck. Well, it seems the man cried so sore, if he could just see his little bairn before he died! that at last the king of the Good People took peety upon him, and sent one flying that brought back the bairn in a poke* and laid it down beside the man where he lay sleeping. So when the man woke, there was a poke beside him and something into the inside of it that moved. Well, it seems he was one of these gentry that think aye the worst of things; and for greater security, he stuck his dirk throughout ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dialect, purporting to come from the "Lost Townships," and signed by "Aunt Rebecca," who called herself a farmer's widow. It is hardly necessary to say that Mary Todd was one of the culprits. The young ladies originated the scheme more to poke fun at the personal weaknesses of Shields than for the sake of party effect, and they embellished their simulated plaint about taxes with an embroidery of fictitious social happenings and personal allusions to the auditor that put the town on a grin and Shields ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... papa, He snaps when I offer him his offspring, Just as he snaps when I poke a bit of stick at him, Because he is irascible this morning, an irascible tortoise Being touched with love, ...
— Tortoises • D. H. Lawrence
... burst out; "You hardhearted old ruffian! I come here for sympathy, and the first thing you do is to poke fun at me out of your wretched classics. I've a good mind to clear out and not to ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... said she, after surveying me, in great apparent astonishment, for some moments—"Vell, Monsieur?—and vat den?—vat de matter now? Is it de dance of de Saint itusse dat you ave? If not like me, vat for vy buy de pig in the poke?" ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... ain't deputy sheriffs enough in this county to round us up once we get acrost the Poquette divide! There ain't a deputy sheriff that will dare to poke his nose within ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... my meal-poke, then," exclaimed the Lord Turntippet, "and your hand aye in the nook of it! I had set that down for a bye-bit between meals ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... have made a special trip to the Connecticut tract before deciding to purchase; for it was not in the nature of them to "buy a pig in a poke," as it were. And such a journey of nearly a hundred miles, mainly through a wilderness, was no child's task in those days. In after-years General Israel Putnam made many a longer journey, through wilds swarming with hostile Indians, too, and thought ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... poke their cutlasses in between the packages, and would undoubtedly have run any one through who had been inside them. While they were thus employed, three or ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... "I'll hold your legs so you won't fall in, and you can fish for it with a stick." She ran for a stick to poke with, while Jan bravely mounted the box again, and, firmly anchored by Marie's grasp upon his legs, he soon succeeded ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... hand a large book, he drew his sword with the other. "In the sight of God," he cried, "you are as guilty as if you stabbed your slaves to the heart, as I do this book!" suiting the action to the word, and piercing a small bladder filled with the juice of poke-weed (playtolacca decandra), which he had concealed between the covers, and sprinkling as with fresh blood those who sat near him. John Woolman makes no mention of this circumstance in his Journal, although he was probably ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... open, and also that the man with the stick can readily get out of the way, which he cannot do in the case of every cave. The native with a long pole, or rather stick, usually commences with a quiet nervous sort of poke, which awakes the bear out of his midday slumbers and causes him to rush at the stick with a furious growl. But this is merely a demonstration, and the experienced native does not expect a charge, though ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... much," Shack replied, with scorn; "I on'y knocked me fin against a tree when I was smackin' that setter a whack. He ducked too quick for me, yuh see, an' I lost him, worse luck; but second time I gives him a poke that ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... swallows had lived when we first came there. Then, as it grew dark, we sat on the little veranda while we smoked our cigars—that is, Gregory Wilkinson and I smoked: all that Susan did was to try to poke her finger through the rings which I blew towards her—and I told why we had come down there, and what a good start we had made towards finding my great-great-great-uncle's buried money. And when ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... doggies gaed to the mill, This way and that way, and this way and that way; They took a lick out o' this wife's poke, And a lick they took out o' that wife's poke, And a loup in the lade, and a dip in the dam, And hame they ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... reaching down into a very deep pocket and dragging to light a long leather pouch, with a draw-string of home-cured deer skin. "And if you are short, Bob, we'll go down into this poke and ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... mischief. It won't be only me; it will be my father as well. He will appear at The Dales, and if I go straight to Miss Tredgold, he will go straight to Mr. Dale. Now, what do you think of that? I am determined to have you for reasons of my own, and I shall poke up my father to do no end of mischief if you don't appear. Now don't be a goose. Get up a little dash of courage and a little dash of your old spirit and everything will ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... much for my agreeable contemporaries, but I sometimes let myself be carried away by my argument. If any one is ashamed to be seen wearing a leathern apron or handling a plane, I think him a mere slave of public opinion, ready to blush for what is right when people poke fun at it. But let us yield to parents' prejudices so long as they do not hurt the children. To honour trades we are not obliged to practise every one of them, so long as we do not think them beneath us. When the choice ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... sit by my Christmas fire I now and then give it a poke with a bayonet. It is an old-fashioned British bayonet which has seen worse days. I picked it up in a little shop in Birmingham for two shillings. I was attracted to it as I am to all reformed characters. The hardened old sinner, having had enough of war, ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers |
