"Deuce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me, very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often. But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it be from? Pooh! it's ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... was called at six o'clock; and in waking and yawning she heard him muttering to himself: 'What the deuce is this that's been crackling under me so?' Imagining her asleep he searched round him and withdrew something. Through her half-opened eyes she perceived it ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... in all vital Chaos, there is new Order shaping itself free: but what a faith this, that of all new Orders out of Chaos and Possibility of Man and his Universe, Louis Sixteenth and Two-Chamber Monarchy were precisely the one that would shape itself! It is like undertaking to throw deuce-ace, say only five hundred successive times, and any other throw to be fatal—for Bouille. Rather thank Fortune, and Heaven, always, thou intrepid Bouille; and let contradiction of its way! Civil war, conflagrating ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... was Burlington, with his old loves and his new dances. He wondered how the deuce that fellow could be amused with such frivolity, and always look so serene and calm. Then there was Squib: that man never knew when to leave off joking; and Annesley, with his false refinement; and Darrell, with his petty ambition. He felt quite sick, and took a solitary ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... got her way, and they all approached the bungalow together. It was in utter darkness, and the men had to rap loud and long before any response came from within. At last Saxby's voice was heard inquiring who the deuce, and what the deuce, etc., etc., at that time of the night—followed by his appearance in the doorway ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... deuce was Bibi? She might be a baby. Or—who could tell?—she might be a poodle? On this point, however, I was left uninformed; for my unknown friend, who, luckily, seemed fond of talking and had a great deal to say, launched off into ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... I not told you? He does with us what he pleases. He does as he likes in the house, he does not believe anything, and he is ambitious as the deuce. He is already a professor in the University, and now he wishes to be a member of parliament. Do you hear?—he will be a member of parliament! But I would not be a Starogrodzki if I had permitted it. ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... the deuce, gin ye like it better," said he. "An' he was gaun to question him where the treasure was, but he had eneuch to do to get him laid without deaving him wi' questions, for a' the deils cam' about him, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... Platters' business reminds me of the 'Searcher' Case, which I have sometimes thought might interest you. It was some time ago, in fact a deuce of a long time ago, that the thing happened; and my experience of what I might term 'curious' things was ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... meanwhile to increase the tension? Why send broadcast a story that would only arouse international hatred? That's their method. Ours—I mean our government's—is to give hatred a chance to die down. If our papers got hold of the Bundesrath story they'd make a deuce of a noise, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... How the deuce do their children look so fat and rosy? By eating dirt-pies, I suppose. I saw a couple making a very nice savory one, and another employed in gravely sticking strips of stick betwixt the pebbles at the house-door, and so making for herself ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... and as Carlotta did not know what to make of it, I with my own hands cleansed Carlotta. She screamed with delight, thinking it vastly amusing. Her emotions are facile. I cannot deny that it amused me too. But I am in a responsible position, and I am wondering what the deuce I ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... want publicity, and publicity is what this job must shun. What I am working on now is big stuff across the border. I can get the news, all right—I am in touch with some of the big men over there—but the deuce of it is the going back and forth. This embargo business that has been framed lately is interfering with my work. I could get a passport, yes. Perfectly simple. I could go across, and I could get the news I want. But the bother of it, and the ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... too easy to get hold of liquids out there, that's the worst of it," the pilot went on. "But for that any booby could manage a ship. He's only got to keep well to the right of Mads Hansen's farm, and he's got a straight road before him. And the deuce of a fine road! Telegraph-wires and ditches and a row of poplars on each side—just improved by the local board. You've just got to wipe the porridge off your mustache, kiss the old woman, and climb up on to the bridge, and there you are! ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... "Why, what in the—deuce is the matter with you, old boy?" demanded the young sailor, on seeing the grave aspect ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... so much beauty and so much misfortune. But as for giving any opinion on her conduct, saying that she was good or bad, or indifferent, goodness forbid! We have agreed we will not be censorious. Let us have a game at cards—at ecarte, if you please. You deal. I ask for cards. I lead the deuce ...
— English Satires • Various
... strive with Godunov. Or play false with the Jesuits of the Court, Than with a woman. Deuce take them; they're beyond My power. She twists, and coils, and crawls, slips out Of hand, she hisses, threatens, bites. Ah, serpent! Serpent! 'Twas not for nothing that I trembled. She well-nigh ruined me; but I'm resolved; At daybreak I will put ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... into the deuce of a mess with your confounded coolness," said the Duke after a pause, during which he had in vain searched all his pockets for his cigar-case. Barker had watched him, and pushed an open box of Havanas ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... a tidy little battle, while it lasted," he stated, "but it ain't deuce high alongside this fight we've got on our hands right now. For he's just as near over as I'd care to see a man, unless it was someone I'd a little prefer dead! It ain't that scratch on the head that's got him slippin', either." Joe paused and turned ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Graham to himself, 'that make-the-best-of-it-view seems to be the gist of Christianity. What the deuce is the good of laying a too weighty burden on any back, when you've got to strengthen it to bear it? Well, bishop,' he added aloud, 'I have no right to ask for a glimpse of your skeleton. But can I ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... declared. "He expects me to be a sort of wet-nurse to the Government of India and do all their dirty work for them. They know local conditions, and they have ample powers if they would only use them, but they won't take an atom of responsibility. How the deuce am I to decide for them, when in the nature of things I can't be half as well informed ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... off in a taxi to Charing Cross in the deuce of a hurry after getting a telegram." His eye fell on the letter in Julius's hand. "Oh; she left a note for you. That's all ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... of Ste.-Foy Murray sent the frigate "Racehorse" to Halifax with news of his defeat, and from Halifax it was sent to England. The British public were taken by surprise. "Who the deuce was thinking of Quebec?" says Horace Walpole. "America was like a book one has read and done with; but here we are on a sudden reading our book backwards." Ten days passed, and then came word that the siege was raised and that the French were gone; upon which Walpole wrote ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Arctic heroes of the first water received a sad downfall when we were first asked by a kind friend, what the deuce we came home for? We had a good many becauses ready, but he overturned them altogether; so we had resort to the usual resource of men in such a position: we said, "There was a barrier of ice across Wellington Channel in 1850." Our friend said, "I deny it was ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... he cried, "where the mischief have you been for the last two days, and what have you been doing with yourself? I heard that you got back from Point Levi—though how the deuce you did it I can't imagine—and that you'd gone off on horseback nobody knew where. I've been here fifty times since I saw you last. Tell you what, Macrorie, it wasn't fair to me to give me the slip this way, when you knew my delicate position, and all that. I can't spare you for a single ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... Hun, I'm a Dutchman!" said Tommy to himself. "And running the show darned systematically too—as they always do. Lucky I didn't roll in. I'd have given the wrong number, and there would have been the deuce to pay. No, this is the place for me. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... muddled it!" Porfiry slapped himself on the forehead. "Deuce take it! This business is turning my brain!" he addressed Raskolnikov somewhat apologetically. "It would be such a great thing for us to find out whether anyone had seen them between seven and eight at the flat, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "The deuce you do," Cuthbert exclaimed; "what on earth put such an idea into your head? Why, man, the idea is absurd! If it was a forgery it must have been done by Brander, and what possible motive could he have ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... strewed around their fires. One of the gamblers, (it is a serious truth) though shot dead, still held the cards hard gripped in his hands. Led by curiosity to inspect this strange sight, a dead gambler, we found that the cards which he held were ace, deuce, and jack. Clubs were trumps. Holding high, low, jack, and the game, in his own hand, he seemed to be in a fair way to do well; but Marion came down upon him with a trump that spoiled his sport, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... certain lassitude, an indifference, almost, which made him much more tractable). "Why do you want my wings short?" (also he was conscious of a feeling of aspiration amidships, of aspiration for something else than pine-nuts). "Don't you want me to fly well? What the deuce is the matter?" ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... meet her again, I wonder? I will stay here a week or a month if—What nonsense! I must have distinguished myself, staring at her like a gawk. When she said she was the Queen of Sheba, I ought instantly to have replied—what in the deuce is it I ought to have replied? How can a man be witty with a ton of sole-leather pressing on ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the deuce are you doing here?" one asked angrily. "Don't you know nobody is allowed to pass through ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... you the second kiss from Arthur. Come, better late than never." She knelt before him and put out her forehead instead of her lips. "There," said the general, "that kiss is from Arthur Wardlaw, your intended. Why, who the deuce is this?" ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... be sure, on the one occasion when Philip had visited the Rhine and Switzerland, he had grumbled most consumedly from Ostend to Grindelwald, at those very decimal coins which the stranger seemed to admire so much, and had wondered why the deuce Belgium, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland could not agree among themselves upon a uniform coinage; it would be so much more convenient to the British tourist. For the British tourist, of ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... they should not be interrupted in the chase for any reason whatever. My great-grandfather was born while his father was following a fox, and Jean d'Arville did not stop the chase, but exclaimed: "The deuce! The rascal might have waited ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... "What the deuce does this mean?" he burst out, in an angry tone. "I wrote both the Superintendent and McIntyre last week that it was a piece of folly to plant a man here, that we didn't require and didn't want a man. The community is well supplied already with ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... your nerves play the deuce with you, Jerry," he said lightly. "Make way for my crowbar and we'll get ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... company," returned the other, giving Arthur's hand a close grasp. "This is the only day, you know, that a clerk has to himself, and I always make it a point to have a deuce of a time to begin the ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... MAN, "You must be in a deuce of a mess after the tornado. Just help yourself to a set of my dry things. The shirts are in the bottom drawer, the trousers are in the box under the bed, and then come over here to the sing-song. My leg is dickey or ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... words," went on the Vere calmly. "Eat 'em up with sauce for dinner. The 'admired actress well known at the Brilliant,' has nothing to do with the Bruce-Errington man,—not she! He's a duffer, a regular stiff one—no go about him anyhow. And what the deuce do you mean by calling me an offending dama. Keep your ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... a fool I was! What should I do with a wife I could not kiss? I wonder if Blanche will speak to me again? Maybe all this was a dodge, women have so many; but she looked in earnest. I might have frightened her by being so sudden, but why the deuce should women be frightened at proposals, when they pass their lives in trying to get them? So Mrs. Stunner said. Poor birdie!, what a soft hand she has! Maybe some women are modest: I will ask Hardcash about it. She may not have known what she was saying—agitated, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... and suddenly ran his fingers through his hair with a distraught gesture. "I'm in the deuce of a jam—! Aunt Ocky, when is ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... knew of his secret project) and grinned with a sort of amused tolerance for the sentimental side of his nature. "I'm a silly ass to have even dreamed of finding her as I passed along, and if I had found her what the deuce could I have done about it anyway? This isn't the day for mediaeval lady-snatching. I dare say I'm just as well off for not having found her. I still have the zest for hunting farther, and there's a lot in that." Then aloud: ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and smiled and stepped toward the tea-table. His head once turned, the smile took on a wry twist. He was no squire of dames, no frequenter of afternoon receptions. Why the deuce had he come to this one? Why had he yielded so readily to the urgings of the professor of mathematics?—himself urged in turn, perhaps, by a wife for whose little affair one extra man at the opening of the fall season counted, and counted hugely. Why must he now expose himself to the boundless ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... to me more than once, David, and to say the truth, I've liked you none the less for it. But, then, what the deuce should a fellow like you want to do in a pulpit? I respect the cloth as much as any man, I hope, but leaving theory aside, and coming down to practice, aren't there fools and knaves enough in the world to carry on that business, without a fellow ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... time there was a photographer. He was a splendid photographer; he did profiles and full-faces, three-quarter and full-length portraits; he could develop and fix, tone and print them. He was the deuce of a fellow! But he was always discontented, for he was a philosopher, a great philosopher and a discoverer. His theory was that the world was upside down. It was plainly proved by the plate in the developer. Everything that was on the right side ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... reached Okehampton the roads were like a bog. Here it was that the anguish began, and of course to Dan'l, who found himself for the first time in his life sitting in the chaise instead of in the saddle, 'twas the deuce's own torment to hold himself still, feel the time slipping away, and not be riding and getting every ounce out of the beasts: though, even to his eye, the rider in front was no fool. But at Launceston soon after daybreak he met with a misfortune indeed. ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Deuce take it! Was not this passion for similarity enough to madden one? Must everything be tainted by this damned, regular, grinding drill, this parade-march sort of principle? Must things everywhere run smoothly and according to rule, just in order that the authorities might be convinced ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... a class of men belonging to these soul-forsaken years: Third-rate canvassers, collectors, journalists and auctioneers. They are never very shabby, they are never very spruce — Going cheerfully and carelessly and smoothly to the deuce. Some are wanderers by profession, 'turning up' and gone as soon, Travelling second-class, or steerage (when it's cheap they go saloon); Free from 'ists' and 'isms', troubled little by belief or doubt — Lazy, purposeless, and useless — knocking round and hanging out. They will ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... Bigelow you're up in the air about? [He gives a low whistle—then frowns angrily.] The deuce you say! ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... Steele! I thought for sure the code message was a fake." He stepped back and looked Bart over from head to foot, whistling. "Raynor Three is a genius! Claws and everything! What a deuce of a ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... town For thinking ill of his Placilla:[4] And deuce take London! if some knight O' ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... mule more pleased at getting loose from a fastening than was that she-mule Jeanette; and never did a mule make better use of the heels that had been left her. She galloped over the prairie, as if the very deuce had been after her. But if he was not, the javalies were; for on came the whole drove, scores of them, grunting ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... dear, soft touch, and her lips ready to kiss, and the sweet smell of her hair mounting to his brain like wine. Something pricked his arm: something that felt like the needle of a syringe; something that . . . But anyway, what the deuce was she doing? Then suddenly he recalled that pin at the back of her dress, where he'd pricked his wrist so badly the first time he'd ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... loved another I loved Richard. And yet if I hadn't been so cursedly keen about the horse all this might never have happened. Oh! if you only knew how often I've wished myself dead since that ghastly morning. You must hate me, Kitty. You've cause enough. Yet how the deuce could I foresee what ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... your tongue? What the devil do you mean by giving your opinion, when nobody wants it? Upon my soul I begin to think you're getting a little cracked. You've been meddling and bothering lately, so that I don't know what the deuce has come to you! I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Basil," he continued, turning snappishly round upon me, "you had better stop that fidgetty temper of yours, by going to the party yourself. The old lady told me she wanted gentlemen; and would be ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... and went afar to find the witch, and pay her severely for all her wickedness. And on that very [true] day the lady Trinali heard how Merlin was [is] a great, powerful wizard, and said, "What sort of a man is this? I will punish him or he shall kill me, deuce help me! I will bewitch him. Let us see who has the most cleverness and who is the most knowing." And then Merlin went on the road all day alone, always in sunshine; and Trinali went in the forest, always in the shade, the darkness, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... fair unknown can take care of herself. I don't see her picked up and dropped. Probably it would be the deuce and all to meet her. I think my plan is best. You can rouse any woman's curiosity, and no one has more than Mrs. Oglethorpe. That would be the wedge. You'd meet her and then you could give her a ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... "The deuce take it!" replied Yourii, angrily, yet unable to account for his anger, as he remembered Semenoff's words. "What good will it do? It won't stop executions and robberies and violence; they will go on just as before. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... the deuce is Mr. Hudson?" asked Rowland. But he was absorbed; he lost her immediate reply. The statuette, in bronze, something less than two feet high, represented a naked youth drinking from a gourd. The attitude was perfectly simple. The lad was squarely ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... be given this evening, and will be forced—if it does not succeed—to leave this marvellous scenery, these rich stuffs at a hundred francs the yard, unpaid for. His fourth failure is staring him in the face. But, deuce take it! our manager has confidence. Success, like all the monsters that feed on man, loves youth; and this unknown author whose name is entirely new on the posters, flatters the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the lass is not right!" grunted the squire, when he had got on his glasses. "What the deuce do they here?" ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... what I say; so long as you are comfortable, every one else may go to the deuce;" and P—— snapped his finger, and walked to the window. "Besides that," he added, "I am your guest, and entitled to look for a little ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... should think so; how the deuce should they be forgotten, when one is bored with them morning, noon, and night, for everlasting, by old Sam, and all the other pastors and masters in the kingdom? Hang me, if I can read this trash; the only poetry that ever was written worth ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... a whisper. "He will hear you. Ha!" he continued after a short pause, during which they moved on towards the mess-room, "you begin to find out his amiable military qualities, do you! But tell me, Ronayne, what the deuce has put this Quixotic expedition into your head? What great interest do you take in these fishermen, that you should volunteer to break your shins in the wood, this dark night, for the purpose of seeking them, and that on the very day when your ladye faire honors ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... in this old Town. What business had he there, if he's an honest man? I can't tell you because I don't know. But it was foul—that's certain. Else why need he have incited Red and his followers to drug Peter Kenny into forgetfulness? Peter found him there before I did. It was only after the deuce of a row that I ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... drew the lone nine of Clubs from the dummy, to place beside Carolyn's Ace, but Penny's fingers were quite steady as she followed with the deuce of Clubs, to which Karen added, with a trace ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... a block of traffic near the Mansion House, and rain began to fall. The two occupants of the car watched each other surreptitiously, mutually suspicious, like dogs. Scraps of talk were separated by long intervals. Mr. Prohack wondered what the deuce Softly Bishop had done that Angmering should leave him a hundred thousand pounds. He tried to feel grief for the tragic and untimely death of his old friend Angmering, and failed. No doubt the failure was due to the fact that he had not seen Angmering for ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... "Why the deuce did you refuse him? Why did you let him take that little——" He did not fill up the blank, but Mrs. Houghton quite understood that she was to suppose everything that was bad. "I ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... saintliness and magnanimity. Confusion of pagan gods and Christian saints. 26. Church in North Europe. Thonar, etc., are devils, but Balda gets identified with Christ. 27. Conversion of Britons. Their gods get turned into fairies rather than devils. Deuce. Old Nick. 28. Subsequent evolution of belief. Carlyle's Abbot Sampson. Religious formulae of witchcraft. 29. The Reformers and Catholics revive the old accusations. The Reformers only go half-way in scepticism. Calfhill and Martiall. 30. ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... only had a king then! If I had but had another trump! I did not dare give the lead because I thought that Don Pedro—Why could not this three of hearts have been three of diamonds? With the deuce of spades this trick was ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... deuce are you?" he ejaculated in short, jerky accents after a pause, evidently puzzled for the nonce, and, in his agitation, another fistful of snuff got arrested half-way between his waistcoat pocket and expectant nose, the consequence ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... alas! my dear James, there is my sister—you won't do it—no one would under the circumstances. What the deuce made you speak to me? You put us both in an awkward position. You became responsible for a duty you can't fulfil. I am really most sorry for you. It was a bit of ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... "What the deuce does it matter? If you want to know, I proposed to him to exchange my coverts over by the Scrubs, which work in with his shooting, for the wood down by the Home Farm. It was an exchange made year after year in my father's time. When I spoke to the keeper, I found it had been ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 'The deuce he would!' The Englishman looked critically at the boy as Mahbub headed towards the barracks. Kim ground his teeth. Mahbub was mocking him, as faithless Afghans will; for he ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... pamphlet. I have sent a long letter to Bickerstaff:(4) let the Bishop of Clogher smoke(5) it if he can. Well, I'll write to the Bishop of Killala; but you might have told him how sudden and unexpected my journey was though. Deuce take Lady S—-; and if I know D—-y, he is a rawboned-faced fellow, not handsome, nor visibly so young as you say: she sacrifices two thousand pounds a year, and keeps only six hundred. Well, you ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Lowder had there said to him as if she really despised ideas—which she didn't; "and I've taken up with my own, which is to give her her head till she has had enough of it. She has had enough of it, she had that soon enough; but as she's as proud as the deuce she'll come back when she has found some reason—having nothing in common with her disgust—of which she can make a show. She calls it her holiday, which she's spending in her own way—the holiday to which, once a year or so, as she says, the very maids in the ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... happenin' at table, nor whether she was on her head or her heels. . . . All I can tell you, sir, is that me and Battershall"— Battershall is the vicarage gardener, stableman, and factotum—"was waitin' in the stables, wonderin' when in the deuce the Bishop would turn up, when we heard the whistle blown from the kitchen: which was the signal. Out we ran; an' there to be sure was the Bishop comin' down the drive in a hired trap. But between him and the house— slap-bang, as you might say, in ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... deuce was the matter with you this evening on the Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... anything that I don't know about till he goes to bed," Fred promised. "But how the deuce did he know that you had ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... great wisdom, I wish you would explain to me why the deuce we let all this crew come over here instead of sending a shipload of perfectly normal, dignified, and right-minded gentlemen. These thug reformers!—Baker will be here in a day or two and if I can remember it I am going to suggest to him that he round them all up and put ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... The sceptres of three of the first kingdoms in Europe are swayed by female hands. The first writer of young France is a woman. The first astronomer of young England, idem. Mrs Trollope played the Chesterfield and the deuce with the Yankees. Miss Martineau turned the head of the mighty Brougham. Mademoiselle d'Angeville ascended Mont Blanc, and Mademoiselle Rachel has replaced Corneille and Racine on their crumbling pedestals. I might waste hours of your precious time, sir, in perusing a list of the eminent women ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... me. Picture to yourself two tall, slender Italian ladies, dressed fantastically and in bright colours, quite up to the latest fashion, meeting my uncle with the freedom of professional artistes, and yet with considerable charms of manner, and addressing him in firm and sonorous voices. What the deuce of a strange tongue they speak! Only now and then does it sound at all like German. My uncle doesn't understand a word; embarrassed, mute as a maggot, he steps back and points to the sofa. They sit down, talk together—it sounds like music itself. At length ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... front, in the best part of Boulevard Malesherbes, to cook onions in. I don't know what he didn't say to me in his effervescent state. For my part, I was naturally vexed to be spoken to in that insolent tone. The least one can do is to be polite to people whom one neglects to pay, deuce take it! So I retorted that it was too bad, really; but, if the Caisse Territoriale would pay what they owe me, to wit my arrears of salary for four years, plus seven thousand francs advanced by me to the Governor to pay for carriages, newspapers, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... continued, after a minute's interval, "it's bad business for you to run off like that. Suppose you played hide and seek with me till a storm wiped out your track? You'd be in a deuce of a fix." ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... with literature, I am sick of it; who the deuce cares if Gustave Kahn writes well or badly. Yesterday I met a chappie whose views of life coincide with mine. "A ripping good dinner," he says; "get a skinful of champagne inside you, go to bed when it is light, and get up when you are rested." ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... days. Lionella was a lady born, as it were, in the purple. Command sat lightly on her; she had never been disobeyed. She now grew querulous, exacting, suspicious, moody, sometimes petulant, sometimes beseeching. It gave Angioletto the deuce's own time now and then; but he might yet have weathered the rocks—for his tact was only equalled by his good temper—if the Countess had not precipitated matters. There came a day, and an hour of a day, when she spoke to him. She had spoken before; her ambitions had always been verbal—but ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... rented a house and set up a woman in it, and nobody knows who she is, and he won't let out a word about her. If she's an honest wife or his sister or a reputable friend, why the deuce doesn't he say so? Jack Sidmore says there isn't any doubt but that the woman is Falconer's mistress, to speak in plain English. Hang it! Gertrude can't ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... ready for riding, but no spurs. "Where the deuce have I put them?" he is evidently saying. "All ready but that. Can't find 'em anywhere!" A picture which quite tells ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... thorns under a pot; but the latter is an idea, and abideth. I never before saw swine upon sattin. And then that pretty strawy canopy about him! he seems to purr (rather than grunt) his satisfaction. Such a gentlemanlike porker too! Morland's are absolutely clowns to it. Who the deuce painted it? ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... things. They are always telling us how things are done in England. They carry frills! Don't you know the story of the Englishman who lost his way and was found half-dead of thirst beside a river? When he was asked why he didn't drink, he said, "How the deuce can I without ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... liked me until she got tired of me and she died o' drink—not many like that nowadays." He gazed at the photograph whilst his eyes twinkled. "Legs—by Heaven! what legs!" He chuckled. "Wouldn't do for Clare to see that; she was shaking my pillows this mornin' and I was in a deuce of a fright—thought ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... all he can for me, I know; there's no better cadet in the institute; old Brown says that himself. I find that George was right when he told me long ago that I had too many thoughts in my head about the girls. Deuce take the thoughts! but they are there. My very proper and punctilious mother, too, has been scoring me lately. Somehow she found out my fancy. Whew! how she did scold me! Said she would like to know if I had forgotten the blood that flowed in the Le Grande veins! If I were ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... the world talks of? And do you know who it is written by? . . . Then Eliot Warburton has written an Oriental Book! Ye Gods! In Shakespeare's day the nuisance was the Monsieur Travellers who had 'swum in a gundello'; but now the bores are those who have smoked tschibouques with a Peshaw! Deuce take it: I say 'tis better to ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... "what an awful thing! How the deuce did you see, old man, that my breeches were laced at ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... the deuce should I repine, And be an ill foreboder? I'm twenty-three, and five feet nine, I'll ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... has apparently taken her cue from that unspeakable Mrs. Van Dieman, and is acting like the deuce toward Shiela Cardross. Couldn't you find an opportunity to discourage that sort of behaviour? ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... his hand, and then passed on with a quick step. Larry was displeased; but the other was so thoroughly a gentleman,—one of the Mortons, and a man of property in the county,—that he didn't even yet wish to quarrel with him. "What the deuce have I done?" said he to himself as he walked on—"I didn't tell her not to go up to the house. If I offered to walk with her what was that to him?" It must be remembered that Lawrence Twentyman was twelve years younger than Reginald Morton, and that a man of twenty-eight is apt to regard a ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... "Deuce take it, Joseph, you must know that there are ten years between my two children. Mademoiselle Chevrel was no beauty, still she has had nothing to complain of in me. Do as I did. Come, come, don't cry. Can you be so silly? What is to be done? It can be managed perhaps. ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... advance no pretension to compete with the claim of that "literary man" who became immortal by dint of one dinner with a bishop, and in right of that last glass poured out for him in sign of amity by "Sylvester Blougram, styled in partibus Episcopus, necnon the deuce knows what." I do not propose to prove my perception of any point in the character of Hamlet "unseized by the Germans yet." I can only determine, as the Church Catechism was long since wont to bid me, "to keep my hands ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and tugged till the rope that held him grew slacker and slacker, and then he went dancing round and round the pillar at a furious rate, with the rope chafing his hands and feet all the time. At last he could endure it no longer, and bawled to Ivan to stop. "The deuce is in thee!" cried he. Then Ivan stopped playing, put his fife into his breast-pocket, and went and lay down to sleep. But the parson said to his wife, "We must turn away this Ivan to-morrow, for he will be the death of ourselves and our cattle!" ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... it. What the deuce is a fellow to do when a woman goes on in that way. She told me down there, upon the old race course you know, that matrimonial bonds were made for fools and slaves. What was I to suppose that she meant by that? But to make all sure, I asked her what sort of a fellow the ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... "The deuce!" cried Sir Tancred, and catching up his Daily Telegraph, he read again the Marmalade Millionaire's ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... "'The deuce it is!' said the old fellow, taking an awful lot of snuff, Mr Jones remarked," as if I were not acquainted with this habit of the ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... scholar-peasant. But even in him you could see that the mind had begun a little to affect the frame. They who task the intellect must pay the penalty with the body. Ill, believe me, would this work-day world get on if all within it were hard-reading, studious animals, playing the deuce with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Rocksworth. "Stop this beastly noise! What the deuce do you mean, sir, permitting these scoundrels to raise the dead like this? Confound 'em, I stopped them once. Here! You! Let up on that, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... of his Orbit and beyond his Ken, the same as Tatting or Biology. His conception of a keen and sporty game was Pin Pool or Jacks Only with the Deuce running wild. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... pains to make him understand my purpose. The rude brute kept rolling his head, and turning first to one side and then to the other, shifting himself upon his legs, and twirling his enormous moustachios; then he drew his cap down over his eyes and roared out: "Zounds! deuce take it! I can make nothing of this rigmarole." At last the animal became so tiresome that I said: "Leave it then to me, who do understand it," and turned my shoulders to go about my business. ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... things were going on, champagne corks flying, the sun shining, toasts resounding, and a perfect hubbub in full activity on all sides, Jack Stuart drew me aside towards the carriage, and said, "'Pon my word, it must be a cross. How the deuce could one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... "The deuce he is!" came the answering roar, and down came Mr. Allardyce, pipe in hand, with his wife and Mistress Lucy close ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... the people of Furseborough were devoted to the good cause, but I never expected such enthusiasm as they have displayed to-night;" i.e., Why the deuce don't they cheer all together, instead of clapping here and clapping there? Must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 12, 1890 • Various
... truth, dad," he said, "I was mighty afraid you'd play the deuce with me, because all's over between me and Martha Deane. You seemed so ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... second set that the real struggle took place. In spite of all my efforts, Miss Sugden won game after game, until the game stood at 5/1 against me and 30 all; but by good luck I snatched that game and the two following. At 5/4 and my service we had deuce quite ten or twelve times, but in the end I managed to win and took the set at 7/5. After that I felt better, and with renewed confidence and steadier nerves I won the final ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... father found out that I was telling him falsehoods. He stopped my 100 francs a month, and invited me to return and plough the land with him. I then tried to paint pictures on religious subjects which proved bad business. As I could plainly see that I was going to die of hunger, I sent art to the deuce and sought employment. My father will die one of these days, and I am waiting for that event to live and ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... his glass and glanced at him over the rim. "That's the devil. Does she, now?" He sipped. "She hasn't been herself for a day or two—this explains it. I thought it was change of air she wanted. She's in the deuce of a rage, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the fiend, "not so;—the deuce a bit. He sayeth; but, alas! not meaneth it: Ask him thyself, if thou believ'st not me; Or else be still ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... it got to do with you, the man I chose for my son's father? Chose—God help us! That's how we women gammon ourselves. Deuce kens The almighty lot choice has to ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... ace, backed by ten and deuce. Here it is. All ready?" He turned them down, in order; methodically, even listlessly moved them to and fro, yet with light, sure, well-nigh bewildering touch. Suddenly lifted his hands. "All set. A dollar you don't face up the ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... "Why the deuce should I bore you with myself, when you're hot and tired? I've been a confounded fool; if not worse, and the devil's in the luck wherever ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... great, large, quiet, orderly young man about—shrieking calls for hot water—bullying Jeames because the boots are not varnished enough, or ordering him to go to the stables, and ask Jenkins why the deuce Tomkins hasn't brought his pony round—or what you will. There is mamma rapping the knuckles of Pincot the lady's-maid, and little Miss scolding Martha, who waits up five pair of stairs in the nursery. Little Miss, Tommy, papa, ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... them to his wife against the King's wedding—thunder go to the Tower guns, and behold, Broglie and Soubise are totally defeated; if the mob have not much stronger heads and quicker conceptions than I have, they will conclude my Lord Granby is become nabob. How the deuce in two days can one digest all this? Why is not Pondicherry in Westphalia? I don't know how the Romans did, but I cannot support two victories every week. Well, but you will want to know the particulars. Broglie and Soubise ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... courteous individual called Billali, spoke of her as "She-who-is-everlasting." What the deuce could he mean by that, I wondered? Probably that she was very old and therefore disagreeable to look on, which I confessed to myself ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... an hour. Would they come out and get away, after all, before the coming of the other vehicle? What kept him so long? (He had been gone about half a minute!) Had there been, for once, no carriage in waiting at the livery? or had Harding concluded to go to sleep on the road? And what the deuce did it all mean—the half-dozen persons, and one a woman almost completely stripped, whom he had seen in that moment's glance into that upper chamber? And the red woman!—aye, the red woman!—that bothered ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... swore to lodge me in Chesholm jail if I ever presumed to come back. And I swore to pay you off if I ever had a chance. To-night the chance has come, thanks to the girl who jilted me. You're a young man of uncommonly high stomach, my baronet, proud as the deuce and jealous as the devil. I'll give your pride and your jealousy a chance ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... "What the deuce is the matter?" he puffed. "Oh! it is you, Giles, is it? What are you doing, sir, looking like that, all covered with blood and mud? Has a poacher shot ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... the least. Only, I'm in a deuce of a mess," frankly and directly. "Innocently enough, I've stuck my head into the ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... when he had gone, 'what an unholy rag! This suits yours truly. Poor old Jim, though. I wonder what the deuce has ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... Master Plenippo," said Treenail. "But, Splinter, my man, now since the enemy have occupied the dike in front, how the deuce shall we get back into the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Thither no coxcomb comes. (Valre again bows to him). What the deuce!... (He turns and sees Ergaste bowing on the other side). Another? What ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... be a little old-fogyish, thinks we are too young for any definite engagement, and wants me to be permanently established in some business before we are married, and all that; when I can't see what in the deuce is the difference so long as I have plenty of stuff. So the upshot of it all was that he and his wife took Grace to Europe, and they're not coming back until the holidays, and if, by that time, we have neither of us changed our minds, and I am settled in business ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... worked backwards, keeping well in view the idea of 'restraint.' But that quality which is little sister to restraint, and is yet far more repulsive to the public mind than vehemence, emerged to misguide my pen. Irony, in fact, played the deuce. I found myself writing that a nation which, in its ardour for beauty and its reverence for great historic associations, has lately disbursed after only a few months' hesitation L250,000 to save the Crystal Palace, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... "The deuce you are!" exclaimed the latter, who owing to several sharp feats performed upon some members of the club, ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... empty houses? Your Parliament House? Bah! It's a bauble shop. While your members are fighting amongst themselves like cats and dogs, the country is going to the deuce." ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... Mais vous etes Camille Francois? Non? Quel dommage! Dix mille pardons. Adieu. ... Deuce of a lot of 'milles,' aren't there? I wonder if there'll be many passengers. And will she come first-class, or before the mast? You know, this is a wild mare's chest, and that's all there is to it. We shall insult several hundred women, miss the cook, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... the deuce should I know her dog from another? I caught the big thief in the very act of devouring the eggs from under your sitting hen, and I shot him dead without another thought. But I will bury him, and she will ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... weakens all the others. Why the deuce do you want this thing known? Why do you want to put your head ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... lifted his shoulders indifferently, and ascended to discover a wide footpath running inland between dark walls of shrubbery, but quite deserted. He stopped with a whistle of vexation, peering to right and left. "What the deuce!" he said aloud. "Is this another ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... "The deuce they do!" said Mousqueton; "I think I should like the siege of Rochelle better than this ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... how the deuce do I see you here? You ought to be up at the fort. But, say, old man, I'm glad you broke out. That thirty-day term smelled to heaven when the old man gave it. ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... glow departed and the darkness gathered, if there was one lonely boy in the world, languidly despairing, it was I. Many times I found myself uttering aloud such slang expressions as: "Oh, my hat! If only I had told the beastly truth for the third time! Dash it, why didn't I? Why the deuce didn't I?" I addressed myself as: "You blithering, blithering fool!" And my temples began to ache and now and then to hammer. For, always in these my early days of puberty, excitement and worry ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the tavern, but De Forest stood for fully two minutes, seemingly deprived of the power of motion. He then darted eagerly toward the door, determined to have an explanation, but was met by Josh., who said: "You have done something that has raised the d——l in Mrs. Maroney, and she will play the deuce with you if you don't clear out. If you try to speak to her, she will pistol ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... a round score of men—in case of natives, buccaneers, or the odious French—and I had the worry of the deuce itself to find so much as half a dozen, till the most remarkable stroke of fortune brought me the ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her, lo! the Captain, Gallant Kidd,[4] commands the crew; Passengers their berths are clapt in, Some to grumble, some to spew. "Hey day! call you that a cabin? Why't is hardly three feet square! Not enough to stow Queen Mab in— Who the deuce can harbour there?" "Who, sir? plenty— Nobles twenty Did at once my vessel fill."— "Did they? Jesus, How you squeeze us! Would to God they did so still! Then I'd 'scape the heat and racket Of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... heart; some massacre of liberty. I behold here a pair of eyes that seem to be very naughty boys, that insult liberty, and use a heart most barbarously. Why the deuce do they put themselves on their guard, in order to kill any one who comes near them? Upon my word! I mistrust them; I shall either scamper away, or expect very good security that ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... What on earth has the prince got to do with it? Who the deuce is the prince?" cried the general, who could conceal his wrath ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... anything like your housemaid, I'm glad I didn't, or I should have been chucked into the road. I had the deuce of a job to reach the lawn. Had I ordered dinner I might now have been in the ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... usage is the best, I don't deny, Thou'st fee'd the keeper, and he likes to feed us, But, then the situation I decry, But crying's useless—who the deuce will heed us? Then, reader would you listen to my wail, Come, and but see me, "I'll unfold ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... deprecating movement; he had been identified with a gentleman; not for a good deal of money now would he be classed with manufacturers. But his innate distrust of general principles revived. What the deuce was the good of talking about regularity and self-respect? It looked to him as if ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in each other's arms. But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees, they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie-knife.... And pulseless and cold, with a derringer by his side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... luck!" said the Captain, turning over the leaves of Juliet's portfolio. "What the deuce does the girl mean? She has scribbled over all the paper. I hope she don't ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... forbid! and keep me from being so silly as to go and make myself lean with any such grief. Your heart guarantees your fidelity; besides, I have too good an opinion of myself to believe that any other could please you after me. Where the deuce could you find any ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... sure!" says he, "King of Dublin, you are in luck. There's the Danes moidhering us to no end. Deuce run to Lusk wid 'em! and if any one can save us from 'em, it is this gentleman with the goat-skin. There is a flail hangin' on the collar-beam, in hell, and neither Dane nor ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... light hand, preaching, as I have already shown, in the most manly and emphatic style—which could have been emulated with advantage in other Episcopacies in my country. MacCarthy was a bookworm from Maynooth, who played the deuce with the diocese, allowing all the priests to run wild, and by his laxity becoming criminally responsible for much of the terrible condition of Kerry. Higgins was the nominee of a friend of Moriarty, and he worked hard to suppress outrages, by which course ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... The deuce! This fellow Is no fool, I see. No greenhorn In his business is this devil. I give him my bond! No, truly, Though my lodgings wanted a tenant For the space of twenty ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... "Why do I whisper? Deuce take it!" cried Dmitri at the top of his voice. "You see what silly tricks nature plays one. I am here in secret, and on the watch. I'll explain later on, but, knowing it's a secret, I began whispering like a fool, when there's no need. Let us go. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
