"Raffle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... covered with viands, rich china and silver plate, which had been discovered in the wall where the owner had hidden them, gave to the premises the appearance of a low tavern, where bandits are having supper after a successful raffle. The Captain, radiant, took hold of the women as of a familiar thing, appreciating them, embracing them, scenting them, estimating them at their value as instruments of pleasure; and as the three younger men wanted to take one each, he objected to it with authority, reserving to himself ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... playing cards, you might as well put all your money on the first turn, win or lose, as to try and play system. Systems don't work in faro, nor love affairs, nor any other game of chance. Be gone. Put your marker on the grand raffle. In other words take the first horse to town and get married. Ten chances to one Jonesy will have the laugh on you before the ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... up. "I'm willing to play fair, fellows. If you insist on town lots, I'll sell them to you, one hundred apiece, and you can raffle locations when the survey is made." With raised hand he stilled the movement of disgust. "Don't move, anybody. If you do, there'll be hundreds of you shoved over the ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... ain't far out of the way, with this time," interjected a voice; "bad blood more'n in this instance it's raised; the whole town's taking sides on it, and there was two fights yesterday. Why didn't they jest raffle the watch off decent ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... sent her by you more than two years ago. She says she sent you a similar one at the time, but of this I could tell her nothing, for I recollect nothing about it. She says her necessities now compel her to put her wreath up to raffle, and she desired to know whether I had any objection to her scheme, and whether I would head the list. All this, as you may imagine, is extremely agreeable to me, but I had to decline her offer of taking a chance ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... fires.(702) Their house is more than a good one; if they had not saved eighteen pence in every room, it would have been a fine one. I saw several of my acquaintance,(703) Volterra vases, Grisoni landscapes, the four little bronzes, the raffle-picture, etc. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... did their work as men. These men, these shambling carcasses at the windlass—I looked, and looked, and vainly I strove to conjure the vision of them swinging aloft in rack and storm, "clearing the raffle," as Kipling puts it, "with their clasp knives in their teeth." Why didn't they sing a chanty as they hove the anchor up? In the old days, as I had read, the anchor always came up to the rollicking sailor songs of ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... raffle—and saw it with pain— That those stylish Fitzwigrams begin to dress plain. Even gay little Sophy smart trimmings renounces— She who long has stood by me thro' all sorts of flounces, And showed by upholding the toilet's sweet rites, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... corner women sold tickets day after day, and, as the drawings were conducted under rigid government supervision, the lottery had come to be regarded as a sort of public institution, quite as reputable as an ordinary church raffle. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... trick, She will take the Faustus, and leave the Old Nick— But her future bliss to baffle, Amongst a score let her have a voice, And she'll have as little cause to rejoice, As if she had won the "Man of her choice" In a matrimonial raffle! ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... murmured, tenacious and tranquil; and I burst into a jarring laugh, remembering how he had stuck to the circus-rider woman—the depth of passion under that placid surface, which even cuts with a riding-whip (so the legend had it) could never raffle into the semblance of a storm; something like the passion of a fish would be if one could imagine such a ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... along,—before you left even. Sir Raffle Buffle had told me he was to go to the Income-tax Office. The chair is two thousand there, you know; and I had been promised the first seat ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... now the property of the Stamford family,—having been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir ——Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.' This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... we met wi' zome O' Mans'on vo'k, but jist a-come, An' had a raffle vor a treat All roun', o' gingerbread to eat; An' Tom meaede leaest, wi' all his sheaekes, An' paid the money vor the ceaekes, But wer so lwoth to put it down As if a penny wer a poun'. Then up come zidelen ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... must not forget cheap days. Messrs. Run and Raffle advertised a sale of old shop goods, with the catching words—cheap days! Everybody crowded to throw away their money on cheap days; and, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... slipped away in this innocent play, When up jumped the bold Montague: "Where's that specimen pin that I gayly did win In raffle, and gave unto you, Fortescue?" No word ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... a frame o' ribs, sir, an' the foremast hangin' over, so far as I can see; but 'tis all a raffle o' spars and riggin' close under her side. I'll tell 'ee better ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... property of the Stamford family,—having been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir—Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.' This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which here ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... His lordship won him in a raffle, and tied him to the leg of the table. If you will allow me, sir, I will go in and switch ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... raffles, the entries are constant,—"for glasses 20/," "for a Necklace L1.," "by profit & loss in two chances in raffling for Encyclopadia Britannica, which I did not win L1.4," two tickets were taken in the raffle of Mrs. Dawson's coach, as were chances for a pair of silver buckles, for a watch, and for a gun; such and many others were ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... hipodromo. Rack, hay fojnujo. Racket (noise) bruego. Racy sprita. Radiant radiluma. Radiate radii—igi. Radical (grammar) radiko. Radical Radikalo. Radicalism radikalismo. Radish, horse rafano. Radish rafaneto. Radius radio. Raffle ludloto. Raft floso. Rafter tegmenttrabo. Rag cxifono. Rag-picker cxifonisto. Ragamuffin bubo. Rage, to be in a koleregi. Rage kolerego. Ragged cxifona. Ragout spicajxo. Rail (to scoff) moki. Rail off bari. Rail (railway) relo. Raillery mokado. Railroad fervojo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... yellow-ochre buckskins, made by White, of Tarporley, in the twenty-first year of the reign of George the Third; they were double-lashed, back-stiched, front-stiched, middle-stiched, and patched at both knees, with a slit up behind. The coat he had won in a bet, and the breeches in a raffle, the latter being then second or third hand. His boots were airing before the fire, consequently he displayed an amplitude of calf in grey worsted stockings, while his feet were thrust into green slippers. "So glad to see you"! said he; "here's a charming morning, indeed—regular ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... usage in other hands than he had in mine. I had several good offers to sell him; but at the suggestion of some gentlemen in Sheridan, all of whom were anxious to obtain possession of the horse, I put him up at a raffle, in order to give them all an equal chance of becoming the owner of the famous steed. There were ten chances at thirty dollars each, and ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... the wall is the poet's rocker covered with a worsted afghan, presented to him one Christmas by a bevy of college girls who admired his work—is so thickly piled with books and magazines, letters and the raffle of a literary desk that there is scarcely an inch of room upon which he may rest his paper as he writes. A volume of Shakespeare lies on top of a heaping full waste basket that was once used to bring peaches to market, and an ancient copy of Worcester's Dictionary shares ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... had been with us on the platform when the Chinese teetotalers came here to protest against the public houses in England; she says that his backsliding will put back the cause a quarter of a century. Then there are the other churchwardens; they look on me as if I had been making a suggestion to raffle the sacred plate. George Holland has a run for his money, but I've had ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... have been the business manager of the jeweler firm, found his necklace as troublesome as the cobbler did the elephant he won in a raffle, and tried so perseveringly to induce the Queen to buy it, that he became a real torment. She seems to have thought him a little cracked on the subject; and one day, when he obtained a private audience, he besought her either to ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... said Oswald, with feelings of generous pride. 'I am very glad you've got him. He'll be a comfort to you, and make up for all the trouble you've had over our lottery—raffle, I mean.' ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... myself. My brother threw an insignificant figure; for myself I did the same; but, oddly enough, I refused to throw for my mother on finding that I had lost my chance, saying that I should wait a little longer—rather a curious piece of prudence for a child of thirteen. The raffle was with three dice; the majority of the chances had been thrown, and 34 was the highest. After declining to throw I went on throwing the dice for amusement, and was surprised to find that every throw was better than the one I had in the raffle. I thereupon ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... interposed Cedarquist, glancing at the women over his shoulder. "Didn't you know? They let 'em in twice a year, you remember, and this is a double occasion. They are going to raffle Hartrath's picture,—for the benefit of the Gingerbread Fair. Why, you are not up to date, Lyman. This is a sacred and religious rite,—an important ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Isaacs, we're holding a little meeting, so wait around. You're a sergeant already. But, Gordon, I'm offering you a chance. There aren't enough openings for all the good men, but.... Oh, bother the soft soap. We're still short on election funds, so there's a raffle. The two men holding winning tickets get bucked up to sergeants. A hundred credits a ticket. ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... miser," said Black Tom; "you'd sell your soul for sixpence, and you'd raffle your ugly ould body if you could get anybody to ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... leading, drew the door behind them, and on all fours embarked on a dark and dirty road full of plaster, odd shavings, and all the raffle that builders leave in the waste room of a house. The passage was perhaps three feet wide, and, except for the struggling light round the edges of the cupboards (there was one to each dormer), almost ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... day. On this occasion the squire was dining at Mrs Thorne's house; and there were three or four others there,—among them a Mr Harold Smith, who was in Parliament, and his wife, and John Eames's especial friend, Sir Raffle Buffle. The question was addressed to the squire, but the squire was slow to answer, and it was taken up ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... of rackets and reaction from morning till night, and Bath was the head-quarters of the first—the scene of the pump-room, the raffle, the public breakfast, the junketing at mid-day, the ball at ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... of harriers after her, sailing and sweeping in under their fire towards the doomed city. As the wind was very light, the blockading squadron now manned their boats, and some of them were coming fast, when a raffle of musketry from the small craft sent them to the right about, and presently the chase was safely at anchor under the battery of ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... at the station for some time. But even in death he was destined to prove the friend of the brigade. For, one of the engineers having committed suicide, the firemen determined to raffle him for the benefit of the widow, and such was his fame that he realized 123 pounds 10 shillings, 9 pence, or over $615 in ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... at it (attempt) 675; run the risk, run the chance, incur the risk, incur the chance, encounter the risk, encounter the chance; stand the hazard of the die. speculate, try one's luck, set on a cast, raffle, put into a lottery, buy a pig in a poke, shuffle the cards. risk, venture, hazard, stake; ante; lay, lay a wager; make a bet, wager, bet, gamble, game, play for; play at chuck farthing. Adj. fortuitous &c. 156; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... it somehow, hanging on to the mast-hoops, buffeted and now and then enveloped by the madly flogging canvas, floundering below amidst a raffle of fallen gear, while the bitter spray lashed them, and the broken boom held up by the clew ring banged savagely to and fro. After that they trimmed her fore-staysail over, and there was by contrast ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... and we have eaten up all we could lay our hands on, broken all Aunt Sally's pipes, and purchased all the china horrors and hideous pincushions we could find. They are all over there in the break. We are going to raffle them at Etretat ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... had come to and was leaning on her elbow and declaring herself to be all right. Then she got on her feet and, taking her seat on the side of the open hatch, looked about her at the dingy deck cumbered with a whale boat and all sorts of raffle. The slight swell of the bay rocked the barque to the creaking tune of block and cordage, whilst overhead the sea-gulls flitted mewing against the vast black cliff that rose three hundred feet ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... might bow with more facility, "I humbly crave pardon for the liberty, but if I understood right, you said something of a blank? pray, Sir, if I may be so free, has there been any thing of the nature of a lottery, or a raffle, in the garden? or the like ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... in this innocent play, When up jumped the bold Montague: "Where's that specimen pin that I gaily did win In raffle, and gave unto you, Fortescue?" No word spoke the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... idea occurred to me. I thought I would raffle it. At once I set to work to find a house where there might seem to be a likely lot. It cost me three or four whiskies—for I felt I didn't want any more beer, which is a thing that easily upsets me—but ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... had sold out his entire stock, and prevented bloodshed over his only bottle of hair-oil by putting it up at a raffle, in forty chances, at an ounce a chance. His stock of white shirts, seven in number, were visible on manly forms; his pocket combs and glasses were all gone; and there had been a steady run on needles and thread. Most of the miners were smoking new white clay pipes, while ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... of Sharper's love, When rival beauties for the present strove; At Corticelli's he the raffle won; Then first his passion was in public shown: 40 Hazardia blush'd, and turn'd her head aside, A rival's envy (all in vain) to hide. This snuff-box,—on the hinge see brilliants shine: This snuff-box will I stake; the ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... A raffle for souls will be held at this Church on January 1st, at which four bleeding and tortured souls will be released from purgatory to heaven, according to the four highest tickets in this most holy lottery. Tickets, $1.00. To be had ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... said he, to the Republicans, "and you are now in the situation of the man who had won the elephant at a raffle. You do not know what to do with the beast now that you have it; and one-half of you to-day would give your right arms if you had been defeated. But you succeeded, and you have to deal with facts. Our objection to living in this Union, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... At the moment of seizure I was standing in front of a large show-window, in which were a number of oil paintings, all of them very fresh and bright. "How would it do," thought I to myself, "to buy a picture at a moderate price and put it up at a raffle? People who are not willing to give money outright will often enter into a scheme of this kind. I will ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... 'conducting' a tramcar to his own immediate profit and was anxious. We were still six hands short, but, on the morning after a Yankee clipper came in from New York, we towed out—with three prostrate figures lying huddled among the raffle in the fo'cas'le. ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... things. After half an hour I found myself in possession of six bonnets made by Miss PENFOLD, three knitted waistcoats, four hand-painted screens, two tea-tables also hand-painted, a lady's work-basket, three fancy shawls, a set of glass studs and a double perambulator, which I won in a raffle. Mother got three dog-collars, a set of shaving materials (won in a raffle), two writing cases, five fans, two pictures by a local artist, four paper-knives, two carved cigar-boxes, a set of tea things, and five ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... subject, "we are a nation of gamblers from Wall Street, where gamblin' is done in the name of greed, down to meetin' houses, where bed-quilts and tidies are gambled for in the name of religion. From millionaires who play the game for fortunes down to poor backwoodsmen who raffle for turkeys and hens, and children who toss pennies ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... his clock forward till they marked twenty-five minutes to one, and said, "Now see if you can't keep right for a while —else I'll raffle you!" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... want to make myself in any way unpleasant, your ladyship," I said; "but this instrument was offered for raffle as being worth five pounds, and it's ...
— Eliza • Barry Pain
... such dreadful legends. It was there that Miss O'Grady, finding herself in misfortune, and reading of Lord Kew's arrival at the Hotel Bristol, waited upon his lordship and the Countess of Kew, begging them to take tickets in a raffle for an invaluable ivory writing-desk, sole relic of her former prosperity, which she proposed to give her friends the chance of acquiring: in fact, Miss O'Grady lived for some years on the produce of repeated raffles for this beautiful desk: many religious ladies ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he raffled dresses for the women. Under the pretext of being a pious institution, he established a society of women, called the Association of St. Joseph (Confradia de San Jose), upon whom he imposed the very secular duties of domestic service in the convent and raffle-ticket hawking. He had the audacity to dictate to a friend of mine—a planter—the value of the gifts he was to make to him, and when the planter was at length wearied of his importunities, he conspired with a Spaniard to deprive ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... I have been a little idle and unsettled of late, yet, when I do set about it, no Emmeline or Ethelinde of them all ever sent such loads of trumpery to market as I shall, or made such wealth as I will do. I dare say Lady Penelope, and all the gentry at the Well, will purchase, and will raffle, and do all sort of things to encourage the pensive performer. I will send them such lots of landscapes with sap-green trees, and mazareen-blue rivers, and portraits that will terrify the originals themselves—and handkerchiefs and turbans, with needlework ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... hold me greatly to blame were I to raffle them at our next rummage sale? I feel sure they would fetch a good price. Only yesterday Miss Tabitha Gingham remarked to her sister, Miss Mary, "We had a good long sermon from the Rector this morning." I was passing behind their laurel hedge at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... fastened to the bitts astern and then to the mizzen-mast. This done, the first hawser was cut at the bulwark forward, and the ship swung round almost instantly. As soon as she headed dead for shore the raffle that had so long served for their floating anchor was cut adrift and the try-sail was hoisted on the stump of the foremast, and with six good men at the wheel the vessel surged shorewards under the ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... the passageway. As it was, my forehead was wet with perspiration for fear De Noyan would lose what little stock of patience he possessed before we reached there, or that the Spaniard would begin to wonder at the surprising weight. Dropping the chest with good will amid the raffle littering up the floor space, we came forth together, the soldier to pick up his gun, while, mopping my face vigorously, I proceeded forth into the guard-room for the purpose of delivering up ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the interest of the crown, it was proposed that the members should raffle for employment; every man first taking an oath, and giving security, that he would vote for the court, whether he won or not; after which, the losers had, in their turn, the liberty of raffling upon the next vacancy. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... my ever-increasing debt, dragging at each remove a lengthening chain. We reached the Rue Racine; I found my friend; I wrung his hand. 'For Heaven's sake,' said I, 'help me to get rid of this Old Man of the Sea,—this elephant won in a raffle!' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... other hand, 'young dropsy's' legs and arms were like links of dried 'bolonas' in the garments which misfortune's raffle had drawn for him. Hats without rims—hats of fur, dreadfully plucked, with free ventilation for the scalp—caps with big tips like little porches of leather—caps without tips, or, if a tip still clung to it, it was by a single thread and dangled on the wearer's cheek like ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... baby," said Mrs. Costello, hurriedly. "Mother'll find you something to do. There now! How'd you like to have a raffle book on something,—a chair or a piller? And you could get all the names yourself, and keep the money ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... shipmates. But, unless I had a mind to join them, it was necessary I should speedily bestir myself. So after a minute's reflection I whipped out my knife, and cutting a couple of blocks away from the raffle on deck, I rove a line through them, and so made a tackle, by the help of which I turned the jolly-boat over; I then with a handspike prised her nose to the gangway, secured a bunch of rope on either ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... and instructive amusements were resorted to. We had a most excellent maggot race for a hundred; and then a handycap for a future poney race. We had pitching a guinea into a decanter, at which the young one lost considerably. We had a raffle for a gold snuff box, a challenge of fifty against Lord Lavender's Dusseldorf Pipe, and five hundred betted upon the number of shot to be put into a Joe Manton Rifle. We played at te-to-tum; and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... year ago I paid a visit to my hosier and haberdasher with the intention of purchasing a few things with which to tide over the remaining months of winter. After the preliminary discussion of atmospherics had been got through, the usual raffle of garments was spread about for my inspection. I viewed it dispassionately. Then, discarding the little vesties of warm-blooded youth and the double-width vestums of rheumatic old age, I chose several commonplace woollen affairs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... the gayest, most fashionable war-work yet, and has kept social circles in a flutter of pleasant, heroic excitement all through December. Everything beautiful or rare garnered in the homes of the rich was given for exhibition, and in some cases for raffle and sale. There were many fine paintings, statues, bronzes, engravings, gems, laces—in fact, heirlooms and bric-a-brac of all sorts. There were many lovely creole girls present, in exquisite toilets, passing to and fro through the decorated rooms, listening to the band clash ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... the weak point of his subjects, speaks to them in this way: "Slaves! I wish you well; my aim is to enrich you and render you all happy. Do you see these treasures? Well, they are for you! try to win them; let each one in turn take this box and these dice; whoever shall have the good luck to raffle six, will be master of this treasure; but I warn you that he who has not the luck to throw the required number, will be precipitated forever into an obscure cell, where my justice exacts that he shall be burned by a slow fire." ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... be done, Master Raffle," said Sam, cracking his whip; nor grapes nayther. Yer can't grow proper ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... If a committee of three are chosen to publish the proceedings and two of them write a farrago of nonsense which puts the whole together by the ears, in order to decide the quarrel and "speedily compose the public mind," let them raffle upon the question, and to see that every thing is fair, appoint the First Judge to hold the hat. Ancient history tells us of more important controversies than this, decided in ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... the sight that the unfortunate craft presented at that moment. Her foremast and jib-boom were under the bows, with all attached, and were hanging, a tangled mass of raffle, by the shrouds and stays, leaving about twenty feet of naked, jagged, and splintered stump of the lower-mast standing above the deck; and her main-topmast was also gone; but the wreckage of this had been cut away and ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... hat, like some giggling girl at a church fair. Poker is a science; the highest court in Texas has said so, and I want some little show for my interest in that speckled egg. What have I spent twenty years learning the game for, will some of you tell me? Why, it lets me out if you raffle it." The argument remained unanswered, and the play for it gave interest ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... unstable world. But he did not bring up against the rail where his fragile ribs might well have been broken. Instead, the warm ocean water, pouring inboard across the buried rail in a flood of pale phosphorescent fire, cushioned his fall. A raffle of trailing ropes entangled him as he ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... There is a wheel of fortune in it, but it is rusty and dusty, and never turns. A large doll, with moveable eyes, was put up to be raffled for, by five- and-twenty members at two shillings, seven years ago this autumn, and the list is not full yet. We are rather sanguine, now, that the raffle will come off next year. We think so, because we only want nine members, and should only want eight, but for number two having grown up since her name was entered, and withdrawn it when she was married. Down the street, there is a toy-ship of considerable burden, in the same condition. ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... understand," the Cap'n shouted back with just as much vigor—"it ain't any jack-pot, nor table-stakes, nor prize put up for a raffle. It's town money, and I'm ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... have been established in the former town—that they number one hundred men each. The subscription of each member is 1s. a-week. The money is spent in the purchase of fire-arms, the general price being about 12s. 6d. a-piece. Every night for the payment of subscriptions, a raffle takes place for the muskets, which the members are enabled to procure with the subscriptions. Several arrests have taken place; and it is hoped that the bold front displayed by the authorities will have the effect of preventing the contemplated outbreak. It may be stated here, as a circumstance ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... than to strike for Honolulu in the boats. Nothing else was notable on deck, save where the loose topsail had played some havoc with the rigging, and there hung, and swayed, and sang in the declining wind, a raffle of intorted cordage. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stage, by suspending, as if in triumph, the new portrait fastened on her bosom. The Englishman, wishing to retrieve his phaeton and horses, which he protested only to have lent his belle, found that she had put the whole equipage into a kind of lottery, or raffle, to which all her numerous friends had subscribed, and that an Altona Jew ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... had gone to the convent to see the Mother Superior about something; Mr. Mullarkey was at the Dooclone market; Peter was not to be found; but Oonah and Molly came, and also the old lady from Mullinavat, with a package of raffle tickets ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the property of the Stamford family,—having been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir —— Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.' This island is entirely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... Ourselves and friends with seaside walks and views, Or take a morning ride, a novel, or the news; Or, seeking nothing, glide about the street, And so engaged, with various parties meet; Awhile we stop, discourse of wind and tide Bathing and books, the raffle, and the ride; Thus, with the aid which shops and sailing give, Life passes on; 'tis labour, but we live. When evening comes, our invalids awake, Nerves cease to tremble, heads forbear to ache; Then cheerful meals the sunken ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... All but the goat. I draw the line at Shamus O'Brien. Ye see it's this way. Me man, Pat, won a turkey in a raffle, and it's as big as a billy-goat. Then on top of that me daughter Toozy, that's married and lives in the country, sent us two chickens and a goose. And there's only me and Pat ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... ends together, and securing a piece of wood to this line, threw it overboard, and let it drift to the boat. It was seized, a hawser made fast, and we dragged the great rope on board. By means of this hawser the lifeboatmen hauled their craft under our quarter, clear of the raffle. But there was no such rush made for her as might be thought. No! I owe it to my shipmates to say this. Two of them shinned out upon the mizzenmast to the body of the second mate, that was lashed eight or nine feet away over the side, and got him into the ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... happy thought struck me. In all my description of the watch I had merely described my own, a very cheap affair which I had won at a raffle. My visitor was deceiving me, though for what purpose I did not on the instant divine. No one would like to suspect him of having purloined his wife's tiara. Why should I not deceive him, and at the same time get rid of my poor chronometer ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... a dozen tickets you could keep the thirteenth for yourself, and as Murphy, on account of his charity, was so popular he must have sold hundreds. People seemed to have an idea that the raffle was for a gondola, and they thought it would look beautiful on the pond in front of the Town Hall. Unfortunately our local poetess confirmed this error by writing a poem about it called "Italy in Ireland," which was produced in The Ballybun Binnacle, with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... done as I would wish it: Now, brethren, at my proper cost and charges, Three days you are my guests; in which good time We will divide their greatest wealth by lots, While wantonly we raffle for the rest: Then, in full rummers, and with joyful hearts, We'll drink confusion ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... answer a voice hailed us over stern, and we hurried aft to find Billy Priske dragging himself towards the ship by the raffle of mizzen-rigging. We hoisted him in over the quarter, and he dropped upon deck ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... of gear—stay-sail, and jib-halyards, and other ropes, some of the ends swarming overboard. I hauled in one of these ends, but found I could not clear the raffle; but looking round, I perceived a couple of coils of line—spare stun'-sail tacks or halyards I took them to be—lying close against the foot of the bowsprit. I immediately seized the end of one of these coils, and flung it into the boat, telling them to drop clear of the wreck astern; and when ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. They never come back. Fleshpots ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... se rifa: Don Flix, who has no ready cash, raffles off his chain. He places on it a value of 2000 ducats, and announces that each of the five gamblers who are in funds must contribute 400 ducats to the raffle. The First Gambler, a heavy loser, does not engage in the play; and Don Flix, too, enters into this first transaction merely as a seller. The chain is to go to the player to whom he deals the ace of oros, and he himself will get the 2000 ducats. After this he will begin ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... excite, me, for I don't see no great Ma-dam yet, Too bad I was los all dat monee, an' too late for de raffle tiquette! W'en jus' as I feel very sorry, for come all de way from Chambly, Jeremie he was w'isper, "Tiens, Tiens, prenez garde, she's comin' ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... the raffle for the children's charity. You remember we took tickets? She donated this scarfpin, and this morning Jill Briggs came in and presented the trophy. My number was the ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... as he had any wish to watch. His bridge would stand what was upon her now, but not very much more; and if by any of a thousand chances there happened to be a weakness in the embankments, Mother Gunga would carry his honour to the sea with the other raffle. Worst of all, there was nothing to do except to sit still; and Findlayson sat still under his macintosh till his helmet became pulp on his head, and his boots were over ankle in mire. He took no count of time, for the river was marking the hours, inch by inch and foot by foot, ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling |
