"Prank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Prywell, and so we shall eat of that bread and drink of that cup. Emmanuel's livery will occupy us one evening, Mansoul's Magna Charta another, and her annual Feast-day another. Her Established Church and her beneficed clergy will take up one evening, some Skulkers in Mansoul another, the devil's last prank another, and then, to wind up with, Emmanuel's last speech and charge to Mansoul from his chariot-step till He comes again to accomplish her rapture. All that we shall see and take part in; unless, indeed, our Captain comes in anger before ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... circumstance, The gauds in which we prank it? Germ ends for us our fine romance, Wrapped in a dingy blanket. We set out braggartly in mirth, World's bravest men and tallest, To do the mightiest thing on earth, And here we're lying, nothing ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... had observed Dousterswivel stand somewhat disconsolate and sad, looking into the open grave. Age had not dulled Edie's wit, nor caused him to relish less a boyish prank. His quick eye had caught some writing on the lid of the box of treasure, and while all were admiring the solid ingots of precious metal laid bare before them, Edie kicked the piece of wood aside without being observed ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... brighter thoughts possess him, For the tears are dried the while. And the old, worn face is wrinkled In a reminiscent smile, From the middle of the forehead To the feebly trembling lip, At some ancient prank remembered Or some long ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... received as a part of the conqueror's spoils a collection of Egyptian antiquities which the savants of Napoleon's expedition had gathered and carefully packed, and even shipped preparatory to sending them to the Louvre. The feelings of these savants may readily be imagined when, through this sad prank of war, their invaluable treasures were envoyed, not to their beloved France, but to the land of their dearest enemies, there to be turned over to the trustees of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... green-moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the grass a streamlet fleeting by. The porch with palm or oleaster shade— That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring—their Spring!—to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool. And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and massy boulders fling— A line of stations ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gang 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 ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... doubt that Peachy was in an exceedingly mischievous mood and ready for any prank which came to hand. She dodged with her followers successfully past the kitchen door, without attracting the hostile attention of Anastasia or any other of the servants. She was bent on exploring a patch of the garden which was only accessible from the rear of the scullery. She had observed ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Adam, clapping me 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 ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... I've had an old woman in with me this morning,—one of those that are here in the house,—telling me some story about some other girl that you have made a fool of. It's nothing to me how much of that sort of thing you may have done, so that you do none of it here. But,—if you play any prank of that kind with me, you'll find that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... on the garden wall With a nid, and a nod, and a niddy-niddy-o Then prank you, lads and lasses all, With a yea and a nay ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... be ways. A man can't be allowed to ruin his life—to ruin two lives—for a prank. We'll just have to think. If you made it worth while for her to take you, you can make it worth while for her to let you go. She'll ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... Frost Creek road and Wawona. It was a very familiar road. He stopped so long to chat with Aunty Perkins, halted Bess so long under the big live-oak at the Frost Creek school, and, leaning on her neck, gazed wistfully at the scenes of many a boyhood prank, that it was late in the afternoon when he passed the spot fragrant with memories of "Aunt Eliza" and "Mary Jane," galloped down the long hill, raced the coach and six just in from Raymond with a lot of tourists up to the Wawona ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... to laughing in the pleasant French way that shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become too big to prank on the commons. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... seemed that some one on the deck of the submarine must be playing a prank on his friends. But Bill Witt, who was doing lookout duty forward, declared that the cry was right at hand and apparently from the deck ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... go here, Franklin. I expect my students to have more common sense than that. Of course, it may have been nothing but a boyish prank, and if you can give me your word that the snowball which went down the stairs and hit Professor Duke was not aimed at him deliberately, I shall feel inclined ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... this I ken weel, that Wullie had nae great goo o' his performance; so he sits thinkin' to himsel': 'This maun be a deil's get, Auld Waughorn himsel' may come to rock his son's cradle, and play me some foul prank;' so he catches the bairn by the cuff o' the neck, and whupt him into the ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... dancing; but, in the midst of a lively caper, dolly went bounce into the garden below, for the string fell from Poppy's hand when she suddenly saw grandpa at the window opposite, laughing as heartily as any one at her prank. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... lieutenant as he walked to and fro. "To think of the boy being missing like this.—Now you, sirs, in with that boat.—Where can he be? Not the lad to go off on any prank.—There, go below and get something to eat, my lads.—All comes of being sent into a miserable little boat like this to ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... full of horse play, but I must keep up the high key and act like the rest. Indeed for the most of the time I feel as they do, I suppose, but sometimes that sort of ribaldry and feelings of the ludicrous that made us joke, and prank, and cut up in genial companionships come over me, and I am suffocating with a glee out of place to this exalted society. Ah! it's good to feel you, my friend, so fresh and new from earth. It's promised here in the learned talk I have heard, that those ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... said Prank, "give them to me, I'll put them past; an' do you bring us out the gun. I've the powdher an' shot here; we may as well bring her, an' have a slap at them. One o' the officers in the barracks of —— keeps me in powdher an' shot, besides givin' me an odd crown, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... half way through The wall which parted her from two Friends, and that small prank made her rue? ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... all his staid qualities and Puritanic instincts, loved an adventure which promised fun, and finally entered into the scheme with a zest second only to his friend. The very idea of playing a prank on the captain of a man-of-war was enough to induce him to engage in almost any enterprise. They managed to escape the house without being detected by Sukey, who was puzzling his brain over deep questions in philosophy, and hastened down the street to a carriage which ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... merrier lad's Sweet laughter ever rang! But he is so generous and so frank, His wildest wit or his maddest prank ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... excitedly. "No, no,—you must be mistaken. A boyish prank. No one about here would ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... myself away, And abdicate on foolscap flimsy, Let me implore you, mark the day— Time-honoured feast of prank and whimsy. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 1, 1893 • Various
... shade to meet him, with such a shamefaced, boyish air of conscious delinquency. Conscious, indeed, that he was the author of a certain commotion, but very far, assuredly, from being conscious that he, Gifford Crayshaw, by means of this schoolboy prank, was taking the decisive step towards a change in the destiny of every soul then bearing a ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... the First Consul's suspicions (for, after all, neither had any evidence against me), but I could not bear her generous confidence in me, feeling that I had so miserably forfeited my right to it by indulging in a foolish boyish prank. I did not raise my head (where it had sunk in shame), but by reason of being so much taller I yet could see her turn toward me, see her look of implicit trust change slowly to doubt and fear. Then I heard her ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... answer. The scheme is too grisly. Besides, we've nothing against the undertakers that should make us willing to waste their time. Moreover, Dan we're in the High School, and we're expected to be gentlemen. Now, does your scheme strike you as just the prank for ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... young men were performing their cowardly prank, a man was intently watching all that was taking place. He had been observing the blind violinist and the timid girl for several minutes. In his eyes was an expression of sympathy, which changed at once to intense anger at the act of the two heartless fops. ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... Theatre Guild this morning and played hide and seek with them in the park—such a merry set of rascals! Teresa Helburn invented a new prank—she took all my MSS. and hid them in a tin box for ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... 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 away; the last seen of him was boarding ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... incredibly meek and meechin', like a cat eatin' the canary," he remarked severely. "Thank you for a biscuit. And the sugar! Now what warlockry is this?" He jerked a thumb at the far-off fires. "What's the merry prank?" ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... But the oddest prank which this hummer performs is to dart up in the air, and then down, almost striking a bush or a clump of grass at each descent, repeating this feat a number of times with a swiftness that the eye can ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... but I was joking," the old rascal declared. "Wash and I always prank with each other. You can take ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... will find a sleek, purry cat, or an absurd kitten, or a tigress, when you come home. Luckily, she did not tell Ned of her jealousy, and I have cautioned all in my family to hold their tongues, and I think they will. I infer that they suspect that I must have been guilty of some unbecoming elderly prank to bring about such a state of affairs, unless, possibly, Maria's husband and Billy are exceptions. I find that Billy, when Alice lets him alone, is a boy who sees with his own eyes. He told me ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... save after the third day.'" Now when the four men who were closeted together heard these words they were perplext as to their affair, and said one to other, "What shall we do? Indeed we are unable to sit out three days in this stead." Hereupon the Pieman said to them, "Nay, rather let us play a prank whereby we may escape," and said they, "What may be the device thou wouldest devise?" Quoth he, "Whatso I do that do ye look upon and then act in like guise," and so speaking he arose and taking his minced meat fell to sticking it upon his skin until he was like a leper covered with sores.[FN415] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... granted, and he does not talk so much about the workhouse. He was a great deal better, and I could have forgiven this mad, boyish prank—though what could have influenced him, ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... of the possibility of any aggravating circumstances. An inevitable feverishness, and a great lassitude, which must be met with absolute repose for several days, would be the only consequences of this dangerous prank. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... their prank, they returned to the barracks and took place at the end of a line composed of poverty-stricken folk and tramps who were waiting for a meal. An old woman who had already eaten lent them a tin in which to ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... an thou prank or adorn thyself: I have translated literally, but the couplet strongly ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... students sing and shout, The nimble garcons dart about; Lo! here come Mimi and Musette With: "S'il vous plait, une cigarette?" Marcel and Rudolf, Shaunard too, Behold the old rapscallion crew, With flowing tie and shaggy head . . . Who says Bohemia is dead? Oh shades of Murger! prank and clown, And I will ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... at the puzzling the friar gave Father James. 'James,' says he, 'never heed him; he's only pesthering you with bog-Latin; but, at any rate to do him justice, he's not a bad Scholar, I can tell you that.... Your health, Prank, you droll crathur—your health. I have only one fault to find with you, and that is, that you fast and mortify yourself too much. Your fasting has reduced you from being formerly a friar of very genteel ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... a heath, Those that are nearest 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 ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... Gwen! You're always thinking about yourself! You've done a silly, mad prank to-day, and I don't know what Mrs. Cass will say when she arrives. Really, at your age you ought to know better and remember your dignity. You're not a child now, though I'm sure you behave like one. Go and put that bucket and scrubbing-brush ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... such a love in us all, both old and young, of being courted and admired!—and so irresistible to their elderships to be flattered, that all power is not over with them; but that they may still class and prank it with their daughters.—It vexed me heartily to have her tell me of this proposal with self-complaisant simperings; and yet she affected to speak of it as if she had no ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little lobster of ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... as every one in Paris knows, the daughter of Samuel Bernard and Madam Fontaine. There were three sisters, who might be called the three graces. Madam de la Touche who played a little prank, and went to England with the Duke of Kingston. Madam Darby, the eldest of the three; the friend, the only sincere friend of the Prince of Conti; an adorable woman, as well by her sweetness and the goodness of her charming character, as by her agreeable ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... reverend gentlemen with levity, he drew down on himself the merited anger of his step-mother; and many punishments. To please Mrs. Newcome, his father whipped Tommy for upsetting his little brothers in the go-cart; but, upon being pressed to repeat the whipping for some other prank, Mr. Newcome refused, saying that the boy got flogging enough at school, with which opinion Master Tommy fully agreed. His step-mother, however, determined to make the young culprit smart for his offences, and one day, when Mr. Newcome was absent, and Tommy ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... soon as the sot felt that eyes were upon him, he would take to making faces or launch out into a speech. Then Jean-Christophe would turn away, trembling with fear lest he should commit some outrageous prank. He would try to be absorbed in his work, but he could not help hearing Melchior's utterances and the laughter of his colleagues. Tears would come into his eyes. The musicians, good fellows that they were, had seen that, and were sorry for him. They would hush their laughter, and only talk ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... return to his hiding-place in the hold, though he was rather an incubus on board. Phlegmatic, methodic, and by no means communicative, he carefully avoided the seamen, who had always some prank to play off on him, and he kept to his own provisions. He was thin enough in all conscience, and his additional weight but imperceptibly added to the cost of navigating the Dream. If Seng Vou got a free passage it was obvious that his carriage ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... singing. The noise in the house redoubled in the attempt to drown her voice, but she serenely went on with her pantomime. This seemed to continue an interminable time, when the audience, tiring of its prank and in order to hear, suddenly stilled its clamor, and discovered the dumb show she had been making. For a moment all was silent, save for the orchestra, her lips moving on without a sound, and then the audience realized that it had been sold, ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... Shortly after 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 mentioned, that formed ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... have willingly praised what he has somewhat hastily derided. His theme, however, is not criticism of the Allies, but appraisement of Germany; and his arguments, simply but eloquently expressed, should be very closely regarded by those haphazard optimists who suppose this War to be the personal prank of a braggart Kaiser, doomed to an immediate failure for want of his subjects' support. I have devoured more pages of printed matter since this trouble began than I care to think about, but from the whole lot I have had less enlightenment than from this half-crown volume; I have learnt exactly what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... Furthermore, Lady Diantha Mainwaring was moderately the talk of the town, in those prim, remotely ante-bellum days—thanks to high spirits and a whimsical tendency to flout the late Victorian proprieties; something which, however, had yet to lead her into any prank perilous to ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... spring and play-time of the year, . . . . the little ones, a sportive team, Gather king-cups in the yellow mead, And prank ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... volumes. I had been working at it for more than a year every evening after the hellish torture of the day's teaching, and all day every holiday, but now I had a good rest while it was playing its boomerang prank of returning to me once a month. The only gleam of hope came from Bentleys, who wrote to say that they could not make up their minds to reject it; but they prevailed upon themselves to part with it ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the 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
... them there 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 we ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... to time Luc would mention a name, or allude to some boyish prank which would give them food for plenty of thought. And the home country, so dear and so distant, would little by little gain possession of their minds, sending them back through space, to the well-known forms and noises, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... far above the others: John Ringo, Prank Stilwell, Zwing Hunt, the Clanton brothers, and Billy Grounds. They were "He Wolves." And there was Curly Bill, the worst of all. He might be said to ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... be sold at a good figure to some other museum; that it was taken to be sold back to the College; that it was a students' prank; or that it was done by girls being initiated into one of the ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... kept step with him in the race. Like the Sun-god, he was buoyant and beautiful, careless, free, elastic, unfading. Years never cramped his bounding spirits, or dimmed the lustre of his soul. He was ever ready for prank and pastime, for freak and fun. Of all his loves at Elleray, boating was the chief. He was the Lord-High-Admiral of all the neighboring waters, and had a navy at his beck. He never wearied of the lake: whether she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... Stephens began writing stories and sketches. The "Tales from 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 ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... just coming in again with a grin for another kick when Chris played his merry little prank. While the others sprang for the door Demetre sprang for Joe. He glided upon the horse's bare back like a snake and shouted something at him like the crack of a dozen whips. One of the firemen afterward ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... salons a very pretty little stage; the fashionable world was au complet, and, after having made our bows to Mrs. Story, we took our places in the theater. Mr. Story was Shylock, and acted extremely well. Edith was very good as Portia. Waldo and Julian both took part. Mr. and Mrs. Prank Lascelles, of the English Embassy, both dressed in black velvet, played the married couple to the life, but did not look at all Italian. The whole performance was really wonderfully well done and most successful; the enthusiasm was sincere ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... either fighting or frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... imprint on the thought of the time. The results of this special prank with the astrologer were: first, to cause the wits of the town to join in the hue and cry that Partridge was dead; second, to increase the contempt for astrologers; and, third, in the words of Scott: "The most remarkable consequence ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... seriously, but people steadily refused to. His art was a huge joke—except to himself. If he asked people to dinner, every one expected a frolic. When he married Bella Knowles, people chuckled at the wedding, and considered it the wildest prank of Jimmy's career, although Jim himself seemed to ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Duras, you should have advanced the clock by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you deny this, my ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... at one bound. Two big months! He would have guessed, at farthest, two weeks. "I have been two months in one shirt? Impossible!" he exclaimed. His serious idea (he cherished it for the support of his reason) was, that the world above had played a mad prank since he had been shuffled off ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had been doing good business, and his expenses were light. He could afford to play tricks, but he played a foolish prank in trying to amuse Rabbit township. Rabbit was incapable ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... Infantes his sons-in-law from thence with him into the city to the Alcazar, that they might see their brides Dona Elvira and Dona Sol. Dona 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 after them; and they went into the chief hall of the Alcazar, where Dona Ximena was ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... refused for? Because he did not defend his betrothed? Allowing that was not very handsome on his part, still, he's a civilian, has not had a university education, and as a solid business man, it was for him to look with contempt on the frivolous prank of some unknown little officer. And what sort of insult was it, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... I should think perhaps they might be, sometimes. At any rate, I think that they deserve a beating quite as much as a boy does, for neglecting to learn a lesson or for playing some prank—which comes just as naturally, to him, as mischief does to a kitten. For anything really bad, I would beat a boy as long as I could stand over him. For lying, or thieving, or any mean, dirty trick ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... 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, ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... crowned. About the cart, hear how the rout Of rural younglings raise the shout; Pressing before, some coming after, Those with a shout, and these with laughter. Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves, Some prank them up with oaken leaves: Some cross the fill-horse, some with great Devotion stroke the home-borne wheat: While other rustics, less attent To prayers than to merriment, Run after with their breeches ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... a short time. The sympathy that is capable of entering into the impression of the comic is a very fleeting one. It also comes from a lapse in attention. Thus, a stern father may at times forget himself and join in some prank his child is playing, only to check himself at once in order to ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... side, too breathless to articulate, the two fat youths lay there gasping for breath, while those gathered about them made mock gestures of "first aid to the injured." Nobody had been hurt, however, and the victims of the prank took it in the way it had ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... sentences twisted out of Greek and Roman lore. In this respect, he is apt to remind one of his fellow-dramatist, Thomas Lodge, whose Rosalynd contributed so much to the Poet's As You Like It: for it was then much the fashion for authors to prank up their matter with superfluous erudition. Like all the surviving works of Greene, Pandosto is greatly charged with learned impertinence, and in the annoyance thence resulting one is apt to overlook the real merit ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... revolver. With staring eyes he looked for Bram out where the wolves had passed. And then, all at once, came the shock. It was tremendous. The trickery of sound on the Barren had played an unexpected prank with his senses, and while he strained his eyes to pierce the hazy starlight of the plain far out, Bram himself loomed up suddenly along the edge of the bush ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... 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
... is the same. The men who stared so at dinner are gay students perhaps, and ready for any prank. Don't tell uncle, but let us see what will come of it. I begin to enjoy myself heartily now—don't you?" said Amy, laying her glove ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... objects like this my prey!" Then, choosing his moment carefully, by a quick turn he confronted Sesostris sternly, and almost thundered: "You speak of my doing ill to this maiden? You speak—the slave of Pratinas, who is the leader in every vice and wild prank in Rome! Has the slave as well as the master learned to play the hypocrite? Do you want to be tortured into confessing your part in all your master's crimes when the hour of reckoning comes and he is brought to justice. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Symmes, everybody knows what century it is." She smiled at him glowingly, thinking she had caught him at a prank. It was nice, she thought, to have gotten through to him tonight, on the eve of the new year. That meant that she was living up to her motto the way she ...
— Life Sentence • James McConnell
... 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 time ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... Oddo repented his prank when he saw, in the flickering light behind the crowd of guests, who seemed to hang together like a bunch of grapes, the figures of his grandfather and Erica. The old man had come out in the cold for his sake; and Erica, who ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... did not have to delay for its passenger when next afternoon Prank, with a clean blouse and his cap at exactly the right tilt, called to deliver goods and ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... of his own, a certain Monsieur LaChaise, who was one of the conductors at the Metropolitan and was to have the direction of the summer opera out here at Ravinia this year. Portia added with the falsely deprecatory air of a mother apologizing for a child's prank, that Pietro had in fact, already invited him to the dinner and had only just informed her of the fact. Lucile had assured her, of course, that this addition to the company would cause not the slightest inconvenience, served on the contrary to bring it up to the number that ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... 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 ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • 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 have him. Prince! ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... Art went to Larry's, where he understood that Phelim was on the missing list. This justified his suspicions of the Squire; but by no means lessened his bitterness against him, for the prank he had intended to play upon him. With great simplicity, he presented himself at the Big House, and met its owner on the lawn, accompanied by two other gentlemen. The magistrate was somewhat surprised at ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... 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 ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... joking. This was some odd prank. He had borrowed the tin trunk and was giving me a travesty on Tip Pulsifer fleeing over the mountain from his petulant spouse: for last night Tim and I had had a little tiff. For the first time I had forgotten the ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... had come to the millionaire that he was not merely the disgruntled lover planning a little prank to tease the dearest girl in the world. He was the honored guest of a family who were rejoicing that it was in their power to give a lonely cripple a Thanksgiving dinner. His face ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... not answer for a moment. He looked like a naughty schoolboy caught In a foolish prank. The confession came out ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... had 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 if that ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... good thing those in charge of Washington Hall could not see the pupils just then. If they had the prank would have cost the participators dear. But, after all, as Jack said, it was in a good cause. On they went until their leader held ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... that same afternoon that she felt ashamed of her prank. "I do hate her ways," she exclaimed, "but I'm sorry I let her know we 'spected her; and so to make up, I gave her that little piece of broken coral I keep in my bead purse; ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "I look on this in another way than ye do, for methinks it was a foolish prank — they were sure to bear in mind their griefs, even though they were not reminded of them anew; but those men who try others so heavily must look ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... Arnold. Everybody who has had experience of school-life knows that the average boy spends a great deal of his time in cheating the masters, lying to the authorities, and playing every sort and kind of mischievous or disreputable prank that comes into his head. But it is better to have this fact testified to by a man who has been in a position to observe large numbers of boys over a very extended period. The accusation of exaggeration or hasty generalization cannot then be ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... A like prank vnder the like assumed names, and with like successe and boding, they plaied, when Octauius and Anthony were, with like meanes, to decide ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... the girl's face as she caught Sherm's glance. "Oh, dear, and he had told her only that morning that girls should be different!" She liked Sherm—she didn't want him to think she was a bold, awful girl. Some way their prank seemed to need excusing. She replied to the look in Sherm's eyes rather ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... met me with a doubtful shaking of his scheming head, and I knew that again he had received orders to be rigid in his discipline, but I was resolved that the old rascal's appetite for liquor should not play a second prank upon me; so when he hinted at another bottle I told him that I had spent so much of my life as a temperance lecturer that it was against my conscience to buy a favor with whisky. I looked steadily at him, and ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... her; especially if I might hear from her mouth a chapter of the great philosopher. Never did Greek, always music, seem so like somewhat more divinely harmonious than anything of earth, as when it came through her lips. Yet, by Hercules! she played me many a mad prank! 'Twould have been better for her and for letters, had I chastised her more, and loved her less. Condescend, noble Piso, to name me to her, and entreat her not to fall away from her Greek. That will be a consolation under all losses, and ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... man could possibly be he had not the remotest idea. He tried to recall who of his acquaintances might be guilty of playing such a joke on him. To the mind of Janus the incident could have been only a prank, though he questioned the good taste of any such interference between himself ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... very familiar to me, as I have often received a scolding for some boyish, and therefore not very wise or orderly prank, in these terns:—"One would think you were not altogether gradely," or, as it was sometimes varied into, "You would make one believe you were not right in your head;" meaning, "One would think you had not ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... of the solid wave, Prank'd with rude shapes by the fantastic frost, He stood in silence;—now keen thoughts engrave Dark figures on his front; and, tempest-toss'd, He fears to say that every hope is lost. Meanwhile the multitude as death are mute; So, ere the tempest on Malacca's coast, Sweet ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... 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 ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... their rights." This is the baldest nonsense, as they know very well who utter it. The Pinkerton men are mere mercenaries and have no right place in our system, but there have been no instances of their attacking men not engaged in some unlawful prank. In the fight at Homestead the workmen were actually intrenched on premises belonging to the other side, where they had not the ghost of a legal right to be. American working men are not fools; they know well enough when ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... consistently to live up to the reputation given to him by a fool, who had been talking at random to please an avid mother. Mr. Bembridge knew that the boy was no good at work, wanted to say something nice about him, and had once noticed him playing some absurd but very ordinary boyish prank. On this supposed hint of character the master spoke. Mrs. Lane listened. Eustace acted. A sudden ambition stirred within him. To be known, talked about, considered, perhaps even wondered at—was not that a glory? Such a glory came to the greatly talented—to the mightily ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... and they'll be so proud of you. Won't you try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm a ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... town, amidst loud exclamations of indignation and sorrow, I will not say of the loyalists—for I rather think there are none—but of simply every human being. That madman runs riot: thinks after this mad prank of nothing short of murdering his opponents: canvasses the city street by street: makes open offers of freedom to slaves. For the fact is that up to this time, while trying to avoid prosecution,[402] he had a case, difficult indeed to support, and obviously ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... weatherbeaten face. "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 ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... terms. Equally, of course, Vedius Caspo at Villa Vedia and Satronius Dromo at Villa Satronia, regularly found some transparent pretext for declining my invitation, each fearing that, if he accepted, the other might by some prank of the gods of chance accept also, and they might encounter ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Phutatorius's head: He considered this act of Yorick's in getting off his chair and picking up 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 he did it. The look of something more than ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... shelter or other. I dare say that she climbed in at one of the windows of the house, though I could not make quite sure without asking more questions than I thought worth while. She came stealing in early in the morning, looking a little pale and wild, but she hasn't played such a prank since. I had a call to the next town and Marilla had evidently been awake all night. I got home early in the morning myself, and was told that it was supposed I had picked up Nan on the road and carried her with me, so the blame was all ready for my shoulders unless we had both ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... word 'prank,' just like he'd never had one single advantage of foreign travel. 'He does indeed—one of those Hammersmith twin louts was with him—the speckled devil with the lisp, I gather—and praise God his bones, at least, are ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... 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
... didn't take a fancy to. I can 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 ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... through his eyes; another day it was Christ healing the sick, which he saw through his imagination. You can imagine the healthy, full-blooded Rembrandt of this portrait painting the Carcase of a Bullock at the Louvre, or that prank called The Rape of Ganymede, or that delightful, laughing picture of his wife sitting upon his knee at Dresden, which ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... at once, the nature of the service I can do you, and the amount of my reward, and then you shall have my answer. With respect to Dawson, I will confess to you, that I did once know him well, and that we have done many a mad prank together, which I should not like the bugaboos and bulkies to know; you will, therefore, see that I am naturally reluctant to tell you any thing about him, unless your honour will inform me of the why and ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... himself to cream and 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 the mysteries of the last ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey |
