"Prank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... connected with her own childhood. As it hung in her father's house, she used to be both annoyed and terrified at the manner in which the eyes of the portrait followed her about the room with persistent and, as she thought, reproving gaze. Especially when she had been guilty of some childish prank, the silent reproach in her grandfather's eyes was intolerable. One day she climbed upon a chair before the portrait, and with a pin attempted to blind the eyes. The pin pricks are still visible upon ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... should have turned up at that critical moment seemed a wilful prank on the part of fate. Sandy bit his lip and raged inwardly. He had a wild impulse to rush back to Ruth, seize her hand, and begin where he had left off. He might have done it, too, had not the promenade happened to land Dr. Fenton before ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... you are watching him. Then he's off to play some prank or another. That boy always seems to me as if he must be doing something ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... entire front," she resumed. "After a year together in that school Sam and I went to the school taught by Mrs. Horr. It was then he used to write notes to me and bring apples to school and put them on my desk. And once, as a punishment for some prank, he had to sit with the girls and occupied a vacant seat by me. He didn't seem to mind the penalty at all," Mrs. Frazer added with another laugh, "so I don't know whether it was effective ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... was once official, and later, on being discarded by the authorities, was continued by the students as a kind of prank. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... "Kelly." He commands a mine-laying submarine, which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of Irish shore-line, always leaving behind them a placard ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbours looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... I went to speak to her on the subject; and it was so far from my power to make a proper impression on her of the enormity that had been committed, that she made me laugh, in spite of my reason, at the fantastical drollery of her malicious prank on ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... those manly arts, which, so far as I can judge, are at a lower ebb in these modern days of quips and quodlibets than in the stirring times of my youth. Then, thank God, it was held more necessary for a page to know his seven points of horsemanship than how to tie a ribbon, or prank a ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... clear to the Warden that some organised prank or protest was afoot. Dignity required that he should take no heed whatsoever. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, stately he approached the dais, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... herself upon it, and obstructed his passage. He got through at length with some difficulty, and not without a sound kick, and an admonition to pay more attention to the next aged gentlewoman whom he met. "But this," says John Dunton, "was a petty and inconsiderable prank to what she played in her son's house and elsewhere. She would at noonday appear upon the quay of Mynehead, and cry, 'A boat, a boat, ho! a boat, a boat, ho!' If any boatmen or seamen were in sight, and did not come, they were sure to be cast away; and if they did come, 'twas ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... young man, who was a relative of Marston, and who had come to the city fresh from college, just in the nick of time for the latter, felt, now that the excitement of his wild prank was over, a great deal more sober about the matter than he had expected to feel. Reason and reflection told him that he had no right to trifle with any one as he had trifled with Arabella Jones. But it was too late to mend the matter. No great ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... buying it all in, cheap—through dummies. Double-crossed the farmers, see? Friend of mine took a chance; put down a well on his own. The usual thing happened; they broke him. It took a lot of doing, but they broke him. One little trick they did was to cock a bit and drop it in the hole. That prank cost him sixteen thousand dollars before he could 'side track' the tool. He quit, finally, less 'n a hundred feet from big pay. Then, having bought up solid for near nothing they came back and started business, laughing ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... days in places widely different and far remote from that gay, moonlit, lantern-decked, boat-thronged, water-lapped island in that far northern Canadian lake. Following the cheers there came stillness. Men looked sheepishly at each other as if caught in some silly prank. Then once more the Spectre drew near. But this time they declined not to look, but with steady, grave, appraising eyes they faced The Thing, resolute to know the worst, and in quiet undertones they ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... she said. "It was a prank one would expect you to play. Though it's a very long time since I saw you, you haven't changed, Dick. Now take that ridiculous cloak off and come ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... manhood, the keenest relish of a funny prank, and one such he used to act over again in after life with the greatest vivacity of manner. Every one remembers the story told by Jefferson Hogg how Shelley got rid of the old woman with the onion basket who took a place beside him in a stage ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... esteem in which the Radziwills were then held by the Polish nobility. But it is questionable whether these arguments are sufficiently convincing to strip the Saul Wahl legend of all semblance of truth. Polish historians are hardly fair in ignoring the story. Though it turn out to have been a wild prank, it has some historical justification. Such practical jokes are not unusual in Polish history. Readers of that history will recall the Respublika Babinska, that society of practical jokers which drew ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... door, which he laid on the floor lest it should play him the same prank over again, Joe Corney once more settled himself in the easy-chair and resolved to give his mind to meditation. Just then the City clocks pealed forth the hour of ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... experience,—that besides these gloomy associations, the name of Venice will conjure up scenes of brilliant and wanton gayety, and that in the foreground of the brightest picture will be the Carnival of Venice, full of antic delight, romantic adventure, and lawless prank. But the carnival, with all the old merry- making life of the city, is now utterly obsolete, and, in this way, the conventional, masquerading, pleasure-loving Venice is become as gross a fiction as if, like that other conventional Venice of which I have but spoken, it had never existed. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... fourth spouse With all the ceremonies of his rank, Who cleared her sparkling eyes and smoothed her brows, As suits a matron who has played a prank; These must seem doubly mindful of their vows, To save the credit of their breaking bank: To no men are such cordial greetings given As those whose wives have made ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... activity diminishes until finally expression in any form disappears. If this sequence has not been observed, continued observation tells the tale. The patient still has his ideas and may be seen smiling contentedly over them (not vacuously as does the schizophrenic) or he may break into some prank or begin to sing. Any protracted familiarity with the case leads to a conviction that the patient's mind is not a blank, but that his attention is merely directed exclusively inward. Then, too, when his ideas are discovered, it is ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... no disturbance. Pray don't mention it. I am only sorry that some one has played a mischievous prank on you—a servant, doubtless. Madame," sternly, looking at his step-mother. "I insist that you shall investigate the matter, and ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... my gracious Lord, To chide at your extreames, it not becomes me: (Oh pardon, that I name them:) your high selfe The gracious marke o'th' Land, you haue obscur'd With a Swaines wearing: and me (poore lowly Maide) Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp: But that our Feasts In euery Messe, haue folly; and the Feeders Digest with a Custome, I should blush To see you so attyr'd: sworne I thinke, To shew my selfe ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... see! my roses Have blossomed over night; I bring you some To prank your study. Sister, Don Tommaso ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... have served him well, and even shortened access to rosy lips and tender heart. But, alas! the fair one's nose was also of the fine imperial type, truly admirable in itself, but (under one of nature's strictest laws) coy of contact with its own male expression. Love, whose joy and fierce prank is to buckle to the plated pole ill-matched forms and incongruous spirits, did not fail of her impartial freaks. Mr. Mordacks had to cope with his own kin, and found the conflict so severe that not a breath of time was left him for anybody's ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... wind from the northwest, they soon reached Duff Harbour, where Malcolm went on shore and saw Mr Soutar. He, with a landsman's prejudice, made strenuous objections to such a mad prank as sailing to London at that time of the year, but in vain. Malcolm saw nothing mad in it, and the lawyer had to admit he ought to know best. He brought on board with him a lad of Peter's acquaintance, and now fully manned, they set sail again, and by ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly of me ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... the chesnut, as a plain acknowledgment in him, that the chesnut was originally his—and in course, that it must have been the owner of the chesnut, and no one else, who could have played him such a prank with it: What greatly confirmed him in this opinion, was this, that the table being parallelogramical and very narrow, it afforded a fair opportunity for Yorick, who sat directly over against Phutatorius, of slipping the chesnut in—and consequently that ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... Bohemia" collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are just beginning to ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... played this prank with the wig, you can't suppose that Pen could have been very ill up-stairs; otherwise, though she had grown to care for him ever so little, common sense of feeling and decorum would have prevented her from performing any tricks or trying ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have dreamt that he would be bonneted by his sovereign, that he was, therefore, quite innocent of any intention to inflict injury upon the person of the emperor, and that he, William, had, after all, got nothing but what he deserved for playing such a prank. Moreover, in order to show the citizen that he bore him no grudge, he sent him, by way of consolation for his arrest and the destruction of his hat, a portrait bearing the autograph signature of the kaiser, as well as the words: "In memory of Sylvester-nacht."—New ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... till the purple dieth, And short dry grass under foot is brown, But one little streak at a distance lieth Green, like a ribbon, to prank ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... Party. A bad Cause would not have been lost, if such an one had not been upon the Bench; nor a profligate Youth disinherited, if he had not got drunk every Night by toasting an outed Ministry. I remember a Tory, who having been fined in a Court of Justice for a Prank that deserved the Pillory, desir'd upon the Merit of it to be made a Justice of Peace when his Friends came into Power; and shall never forget a Whig Criminal, who, upon being indicted for a Rape, told his Friends, You see what a Man suffers for sticking ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... only natural for Thad to jump to this conclusion, because of the evil reputation enjoyed by the boy he mentioned. Nick Lang had been the bully and the terror of Scranton for years. There was seldom a prank played (from stealing fruit from neighboring farmers, to painting old Dobbin, a stray nag accustomed to feeding on the open lots, so that the ordinarily white horse resembled the National flag, and created no end of astonishment as he stalked around, prancing at a lively rate when the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... brains o' a cock spug," I heard him sayin' till himsel', "ye michta jaloosed they were to play ye some prank. You muckle, dozent gozlin'," he says; an' he took himsel' a skelp i' the side o' the heid wi' his open luif that near ca'd him on his back. In his stagger his feet tickled amon' his claes, an' he gaithered them up, an' lookit fair dumfoondered like. He put them a' on; an' gyne—what think ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... that Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)—that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... not be easily seen by anyone coming into the place. Then, ordering some rum and water and a pipe of tobacco, he composed himself to watch for the appearance of those witty fellows whom he suspected would presently come thither to see the end of their prank and to ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... prosperity which depends upon the caprice of others, is of short duration. Cave's superiority in literature exalted him to an invidious familiarity with boys who were far above him in rank and expectations; and, as in unequal associations it always happens, whatever unlucky prank was played was imputed to Cave. When any mischief, great or small, was done, though, perhaps, others boasted of the stratagem, when it was successful, yet, upon detection, or miscarriage the fault was sure to fall ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... into the man's eyes, his face flushed like the face of a schoolboy who had been caught in a foolish prank, and he returned the hat awkwardly to ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... a good and holy hermit, sir, the pious clerk of Copmanhurst, that you wot of, who played many a prank with us in the days that we knew King Richard. Ah, noble sir, that was a jovial ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... red-handed. Thieving from a comrade was a serious offence, entailing severe punishment and public disgrace; but Schumann knew Niederlein was only thoughtless and greedy, and it had been more a stupid prank than a crime, for the money which lay near the sausage was untouched. So he had held the boy across the table and given him five-and-twenty strokes with his leather belt. He was not quite clear in his mind whether this had been entirely in order—it might have been ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... what sort of whim, prank, or perversity it was, that, after all these leave-takings, induced me to go to the pigsty, and take leave of the swine! There they lay, buried as deeply among the straw as they could burrow, four huge black ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "Ye may trust me anywhere, John, if ye leave Grimond in charge. If I wanted to do wrong I should not be able." "Ye would be wise, Jean," Graham would reply, "to keep your eye on Grimond if ye are minded to play a prank, for his bite is as quick as his bark." They laughed together over this jest, for they trusted each other utterly, as they had good reason to do, but the day was at hand when that laughter was to be bitter ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... little about their school days. But, we think, we may safely venture to guess that, whenever Hastings wished to play any trick more than usually naughty, he hired Impey with a tart or a ball to act as fag in the worst part of the prank. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The horse stopped and stretched out his head, sniping. Prank and Allen came to the tent opening. "Keep back!" called Will, in even tones. "I think I ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... morality which exists, and ought to exist, in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality of the Horner of Wycherley and the Careless of Congreve is ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ruefully. "Heaven knows how it will end," he said, "or if it is but a new impudent prank—or what she will do next—but the whole country is agog with the story. She bade her father invite his rapscallion crew to her birthnight supper, and says 'tis that they may see her in breeches for the last time, for she will wear them ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... see no harm was done, and ran upon deck with my hair stiff on my head; nor could I conceive less than that some subtle spirit had done this prank merely to ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... prank vnder the like assumed names, and with like successe and boding, they plaied, when Octauius and Anthony were, with like meanes, to ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... since she died," Max asserted. "How do I know so much about it? I was down there last summer with Frank Sustis. His father sent him out to look the place over, with a view to buying it himself for a summer home. You should have heard Prank jeer at the idea while ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... not in my nature to do things by halves; and thus I became, and in a brief space too, the most inveterate Tapageur of the whole regiment. There was not a wild prank or plot in which I was not foremost, not a breach of the discipline unaccompanied by my name or presence, and more than half the time of our march to meet the enemy, I passed in double irons under the guard of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... able to stir themselves again. Doubtless there were many bumps, black and blue faces, and bloody noses: but the sight of all could not suppress the most extravagant merriment. All that had happened was looked upon as a prank of the fiddler, and many in their hearts felt that they had only received a just punishment for their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... in a neighbouring town, made him at last a brave village notary. This fellow, having acquired such dignity, began to disdain their ancient customs, and to buzz into the people's ears the pomp of the other parts of the nation; the first prank he played was to advise a friend of his, whom somebody had offended by sawing off the horns of one of his goats, to make his complaint to the royal judges thereabout, and so he went on from one to another, till he had spoiled and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the lifeless element of Vitruvian tradition had been demonstrated by the genius of one who was a mighty amateur in building. In other words, the Barocco manner had begun; the path was opened to prank, caprice, and license. It required the finer tact and taste of a Palladio to rectify the false line here initiated, and to bring the world back to a sense of seriousness in its effort to deal constructively and rationally with the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... buttons of his coat. Samuel, assisting the young colored slave girl in removing the breakfast dishes, glanced at his father from time to time a little nervously, although he could not recall any prank or misdeed on his part that might have angered him. But his mother, after watching her husband for a few moments from her low chair at the window where she sat dressing the chubby two-year-old Rebecca, broke the ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... hear Sally Andrews now, when she found the frog in her desk. It jumped right into her face, and fell into her apron-pocket,—we wore aprons with big pockets then,—and she screamed so she had to be taken home. That was the kind of prank Solomon was up to, every day of his life; and fishing for schoolmaster's wig through the skylight, and every crinkum-crankum that ever was. Master Bayley used to go to sleep every recess, and the skylight was just over his head. Dear me, Sirs, how that wig ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... this mad prank of Kelson's, Mr. Millinet invited Mary to walk out one lovely evening, to which she gladly assented. They took their way towards the "Whale's Head," a name given by the inhabitants of B—— to the high bluff already ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... wet and so are you. Your bedding is—now what kind of prank is that? I came up here for a ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a year. In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious: sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused to share in some proposed outrage because a relation was involved. But if the scamps were not at Mere Cognette's every night, they always ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... proceeds, I wander; neither mist, Nor freezing sky, nor sultry, checking me, Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy. Even in the spring and play-time of the year That calls the unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prank their hair with daisies, or to pick A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook, These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarmed Sits cooing in the pine-tree, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... learn, and where he only did harm by his riotous example. Indeed, I believe he nearly set fire to Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college, which Sir Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a proctor's man that wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave a dinner party on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within a fortnight of his own, and the twenty young gentlemen then present sallied out after their wine, having toasted King James's health with open windows, and sung cavalier songs, and shouted, "God save the King!" in the great ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... yours ... But I dare not bring you to these houses. Russian manners are coarse, and often simply inhuman manners. I'm afraid that you will be insulted by some pungent, unseemly word, or that a chance visitor will play some senseless prank before ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... but my mother—I could not trust her where she thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... They little thought, that day of pain When, launched as on the lightning's flash, They bade me to destruction dash, That one day I should come again, With twice five thousand horse, to thank The Count for his uncourteous ride. They played me then a bitter prank, When, with the wild horse for my guide, They bound me to his foaming flank: At length I played them one as frank— For time at last sets all things even— And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... as though I had driven my friend into a corner from which he would find it difficult to extricate himself. But I did him an injustice and shall therefore do everything in my power to right it. My memory, as it so frequently does, played me a prank. At the same time that I answered him, I was in active correspondence with one of the delegates to the Chicago Parliament of Religions, at which the love of God and one's neighbour had been adopted, as a sort of article of agreement which the followers of any ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller
... as we muffled ourselves for our tramp—"God's life, Hamish, he's queer names for things, that uncle o' yours; there's nae prank in my heid this night—a queer prank it would be no' tae warn McGilp,"—and as we tramped through the kitchen where the lassies were coorieing over the fire telling bawkin stories, and edging closer ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... the prank was not in itself so bad as the stuff which a cunning anecdotist could make out of it. Edbury invited my father to a dinner at a celebrated City tavern. He kept his guests (Jennings, Jorian DeWitt, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had been in mischief herself too often when at Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of the prank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympathetic understanding of their moods and actions which gave her so much influence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round her little finger, as Miles ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... reward him for making fools of us," said Prank, pettishly. "No, Mother, what you say may be very good, but I don't want to do such a ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... if there weren't any sober old minister out there, with whom he might be rusticated for his next college prank. ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... and Lige that it was only a prank. I knowed you weren't goin' to throw yourself away on no one here, when the woods are full of 'em out our way that would like to have you. Don't dodge, Sammy. Stand right up to your fodder, for you know it's a fact. It made mother ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... room on either side the boom-poles clamped in their peavies, and, using these implements as handles, carried the booms some distance back into the woods. Then everybody tramped back and forth, round and about, to confuse the trail. Orde was like a mischievous boy at a school prank. When the last timber had been concealed, he lifted up his deep voice in a roar of joy, in which ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... reduce a fantasy to a formula? Nor should they ever be allowed to clip the wings of romance. But the painter who bade his subject sit under a sodium light would justly be deemed a lunatic, and any analysis of Spencer's character drawn from his latest prank would be faulty in ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... turret, and, when I am at last on top, I look out through the small window at the wide heavens and am not at all cold. It seems to me then as if I must give vent to all my pent-up tears, and the next day I am so cheerful and feel new-born, and I look with cunning for a prank to play. And—canst thou believe ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... shame—these gilded stones (O heaven!) were very blood and bones Of those whom Christ did come To save—vile grin of slaves who sold Celestial rights for earthy gold, Marketing grace with merchant's measure, To prank with Europe's pillaged treasure The pride ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... would be guilty of such an outrage, Frank only remembered that Peg was in a white heat of indignation, and fully capable of doing some madcap prank in order to frighten off the two saddle boys. He was also not a little worried about the rustlers, supposed to be ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... hunger on the Dauphiness, so far from her supplies, will, he calculates, be stronger than on him, and will bring her to better terms shortly. Dauphiness needs bread; one may have fine clipping at the skirts of her, if she try retreat. That Dauphiness would play the prank she did next morning, Friedrich ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... were doing an act of justice. I deserved what you said, but I didn't deserve what has followed. I meant no harm—it was a silly prank, and I have suffered for it as if it were a crime, and the consequences are not ended yet. I should think that, if there is a moral government of the universe, the Judge of all the earth would know when to hold his hand. And now the worst of it is to come yet." She caught Verrian's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to go to the billiard room. "I have one piece of advice to give you," he said. "This prank is harmless enough, but establish a definite understanding with this fellow that you are not to be liable in damages for personal injuries which his Indians may receive. Explain to him that it is not child's play and have him ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... been purely personal. With a broader outlook and a better understanding she might have protested on behalf of a slighted neighborhood, or, indeed, of a misprized town. A finer vision might have seen in Truesdale's prank a good-natured, half-contemptuous indifference alike to place and people. "I don't know what the Warners over the way will think," she emitted, as ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... silenced—crushed—in a moment, by the stroke of a knife. He had been killed by a jealous woman—because of his supposed love for another woman, whose abhorrence, in truth, he had earned in a few short weeks. There was something absurd mingled with the horror—as though one watched the prank of a demon. ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mamma, I'm sure, and make her quite forget my naughty prank of yesterday. Do you know I offended her dreadfully by peeping into the gold case she wears on her neck? She was asleep and I was sitting by her. In her sleep she pulled it out and said something about a letter and Papa. I wanted to see Papa's face, for I never did, because the big picture ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... to leave the dormitory, stopped for a moment and looked about at the sleeping girls. Then, satisfied that they were really asleep and that none of them suspected the prank, she followed the other girls out into the hall and closed ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... poured out their tale, to Mrs. Moss's great amusement, for she saw in it only some playmate's prank, and was not much impressed by the mysterious sneeze ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... be done in the time," I said, calling to mind a prank related by a gay little friend—"clap it on ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... a curious production," said Holmes. "At first sight it would appear to be some childish prank. It consists of a number of absurd little figures dancing across the paper upon which they are drawn. Why should you attribute any importance to so grotesque ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... linked in order bright, Cheek after cheek, like rosebuds in a wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little eyes of light. While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother, But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss, This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother, Who turns to greet the tidings ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping to hide ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... gentle—has a dramatic sense of slang, of which she makes no secret. But she drops her voice somewhat to disguise her feats of metathesis, about which she has doubts and which are involuntary: the "stand-wash," the "sweeping-crosser," the "sewing chamine." Genoese peasants have the same prank when they try to ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... wilder, the reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that the boy had disappeared, run ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... sons-in-law from thence with him into the city to the Alcazar, that they might see their brides Doa Elvira and Doa Sol. Doa Ximena had her daughters ready to receive them in full noble garments, for since midnight they had done nothing but prink and prank themselves. Full richly was the Alcazar set out that day, with hangings both above and below, purple and samite, and rich cloth. The Cid entered, between the Infantes, and all that noble company went in ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... after noon when they rode away, the men on the ranch watching, and perhaps each feeling in his heart a little twinge, as though he'd like to be a kid again, and up to some such boyish prank. Whitey was on Monty, Injun on his pinto, leading a pack-horse laden with their few belongings. From the corral the intelligent eyes of the iron-gray colt regarded them with interest; the colt that was to be trained for racing, and that Whitey ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... appeared to him, to give the lie to the thought. A more intelligent view concerning that fleeting likeness was that the two women were nearly related to one another, the younger in charge of the elder; and that the younger, who had for some purpose or prank played about in the waters near his home, must have lived in some house there, must have means of communication with the place, and must have acquainted Madame Le Maitre with his position when the need of a physician ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... delights to see Vex'd Nature wear a kindred gloom; Not that she smiled in vain to me, When gaily prank'd in summer's bloom Nay, much I loved, at even-tide, Through Brahan's lonely woods to stray. To mark thy peaceful billows glide, And watch the sun's ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... himself was a goody-goody—far from it; he was a terrible prank maker, and more than once narrowly missed suffering serious consequences. But when he really grew up and it came to an acquaintance with women, very few have even attracted him. I began to fear that he was becoming hardened and would never find just what ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... one,' said Slimak bitterly, 'there was no policeman to certify that it was we who saved you the hog, but when a boy plays a prank on ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... Lord Warwick, landed, at last, on the shores of England. [Margaret landed at Weymouth; Lady Warwick, at Portsmouth.] Come they for joy or for woe, for victory or despair? The issue of this day's fight on the heath of Gladsmoor will decide. Prank thy halls, O Westminster, for the triumph of the Lancastrian king,—or open thou, O Grave, to receive the saint-like Henry and his noble son. The king-maker goes before ye, saint-like father and noble son, to ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... sifted sugar with leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business— Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on the table, he and his father-in-law were discussing ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Grandma Sherwood came to the kitchen, and not unnaturally supposed it all the result of some new prank. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... at top speed through the forest, never minding the branches. They had seven horses. Such a mad-cap prank it was! The village rang with the hue and cry, and the forest aisles echoed. Presently the tumult died away. The blind course had plunged into a swamp, and the three mischief-makers were forced to halt uncertainly. They listened ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... he did this with great editorial gusto while, at the same time, I attacked the authenticity of the poem in The Democrat. That diverted all possible suspicion from me. The hoax succeeded far too well, for what had started as a boyish prank became a literary discussion nation-wide, and the necessary expose had to be made. I was appalled at the result. The press assailed me furiously, and even my own paper dismissed me because I had given the 'discovery' ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... from Puck to Will-o'-the-wisp, are apt to play practical jokes and knock people about whom they meet after sunset. A dozen tales of such were rife, and folks were more amused than amazed by Lob Lie-by-the-fire's next prank. ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... will remember the thrilling experiences of this boyish trio during the early trials of the new submarine torpedo boat, both above and below the surface. These readers will remember, also, for instance, the great prank played by the boys on the watch officer of one of the stateliest battleships of ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham |
