"Wager" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the notion of her stately Esclairmonde being the lady-love of King James's little white-visaged cousin; but if he could bring it about she had no objection, she should be very glad that the demoiselle should come down from the height and be like other people; but she would wager the King of Scots her emerald carcanet against his heron's plume, that Esclairmonde would never marry unless her hands were held for her. Was she not at that very moment visiting some foundation of bedeswomen—that was all she heard of at yonder ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "I will wager that next month they will invent another tale. That is one reason why they lock their doors when they have a rabbit. They think people might say, 'If you can eat rabbits you can give five francs to your mother!' How mean they are! ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... off the weights, got a bucket, and set off, and the next moment he was out of sight. But they waited and waited and still he did not return. At last it wanted but three minutes to the time and the king became as pleased as if he had won a big wager. ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... magnetic pole. In 1821 'he tried, but failed, to realise this result in the laboratory of the Royal Institution. Faraday was not present at the moment, but he came in immediately afterwards and heard the conversation of Wollaston and Davy about the experiment. He had also heard a rumour of a wager that Dr. Wollaston would ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... that bit of work should be well paid for it," some one in the crowd said, sufficiently loud for Hardy to hear, and the latter looked triumphantly toward Chris Snyder. "I'll wager it came ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... I replied, "and, furthermore, I'll wager you that he hasn't the sort of clothes shop that will enable ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... in his bosom and inspired him with a fierce longing to be present at the conflict, to put an end to it. Were they to pass by that battle, so near almost that they could stretch forth their arm and touch it with their hand, and never expend a cartridge? It must be to decide a wager that some one had made, that since the beginning of the campaign they were dragged about the country thus, always flying before the enemy! At Vouziers they had heard the musketry of the rear-guard, at Osches ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... not to pick and choose thy fare! I wager, if the maiden there above Had given thee but a glance, thou'dst be aflame. I love it not, this folk, and yet I know That what disfigures it, is our own work; We lame them, and are angry when they limp, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the hand which was weighted with the heavy ring, "I am so sure, that I will make a wager with fortune, that the day will come when this ring shall be our betrothal ring, I'll give you others, Mary, but this shall be the one which shall bind you ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... fascinated by her. "She took a seat upon the same stage with him at the York races. While bets were making upon different horses, she selected a small horse that was in the rear of the coursers as the subject of a trifling wager. Upon being asked the reason for doing so, she said 'the race was not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.' Mr. Sterne, who stood near to her, was struck with this reply, and turning hastily toward her begged for the honor of her acquaintance. They soon became ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... queen's and the duchess's maids of honour, and a hundred others, bestow their favours to the right and to the left, and not the least notice is taken of their conduct. As for Lady Shrewsbury, she is conspicuous. I would take a wager she might have a man killed for her every day, find she would only hold her head the higher for it: one would suppose she imported from Rome plenary indulgences for her conduct: there are three or ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... challenged the birds to a great ball play. The wager was accepted, the preliminaries were arranged, and at last the contestants assembled at the appointed spot—the animals on the ground, while the birds took position in the tree-tops to await the throwing up of the ball. On the ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... dozen, all of which he would have sworn were real, and set about thrashing with the gallantry of a true Irish gentleman, Mr. O'Toole proposed that the major become a citizen of New York, when he would wager any amount of money to make him next mayor ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... his carelessness in regard to his personal appearance. A wager was once laid among his friends in Richmond that he could not dress himself without leaving about his clothing some mark of his carelessness. The Judge good-humoredly accepted the wager. A supper was to be given ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... afraid the first week that he might, by sheer Irish luck, have escaped the storm and be turning up here—but it's too late now. I'll wager you're ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... to be. There is in the existing state of our knowledge a rational probability of two to one against white; a probability fit to be made a basis of conduct. No reasonable person would lay an even wager in favor of white against black and red; though against black alone or red alone he ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... will do," observed Ned, as he daubed a bit of pine gum on a small crack. "I'll wager it doesn't leak a drop. The paddle is better than when you first made the ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... tutte,' his next work, was produced at Vienna in January, 1790. It has never been so successful as its two predecessors, chiefly on account of its libretto, which, though a brisk little comedy of intrigue, is almost too slight to bear a musical setting. The plot turns upon a wager laid by two young officers with an old cynic of their acquaintance to prove the constancy of their respective sweethearts. After a touching leave-taking they return disguised as Albanians and proceed to make violent love each one ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... loftier tone of moral indignation than he. The thought that he might lose so much of Halleck's money through the machinations of a parcel of carpet-bagging tricksters filled him with a virtue at which he afterwards smiled when he found that people were declaring their bets off. "I laid a wager on the popular result, not on the decision of the Returning Boards," he said in reclaiming his money from the referees. He had some difficulty in getting it back, but he had got it when he walked homeward at night, after having been out all day; and there now ensued in his soul a struggle ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... and holding a sheet in the fishermen's smacks with a stiff norther after us, to studying our catechism or making Hebrew letters. We were both expert and fearless swimmers, with good wind and strong limbs. In after years I remember well a wager which I lost at Honolulu to remain under water as long as a famous Kanacka diver: I rose just four seconds before him. When I was thirteen I could cast a line, manage a spritsail, pull an oar or handle a tiller as well as any ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... travel in canoes hereabouts?" said the man, after a moment's silence; "for, if not, there's someone about to pay us a visit. I would wager my best gun that I hear the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... hostilities, and while both were in command of the very frigates now crippled on the sea. The Macedonian had gone into Norfolk with despatches; while Decatur was in that port. Then they had laughed and joked over their wine, and a wager of a beaver hat was said to have been made between them upon the event of the hostile ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... he added. "And you've got to come. And I want to say right now that Ann makes me tired. She's as notional as a lunatic. She planned this rig and now she doesn't like it. And if I don't look like a highwayman you can wager your last sou I feel like one, and that's sufficient. The whole trouble is that Ann's been so busy with hair-dressers and manicurists and corsetieres and dressmakers and the Lord knows what not ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... fames canina is to be met with amongst schoolboys, which affects the juveniles most when most in health. We remember a gentleman offering a wager, that a boy taken promiscuously from any of the public charity-schools, should, five minutes after his dinner, eat a pound of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... there were barbarous forest laws, there were ruthless oppression and insolent robbery of the poor, there were black ignorance and a terror of superstition, there were murderous laws against witchcraft, there was savage persecution of the Jews, there were "trial by wager of battle," and "question" of prisoners ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... reassure himself with the tones of his own voice; he must play his part to exaggeration, he must out-Herod Herod, insult all that was respectable, and brave all that was formidable, in a kind of desperate wager ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... good as mine the moment the money was posted," nodded Silence. "As long as we can't make a little wager, I'll move along and pay off the gentleman who is waiting for me. See you ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... wager anything that Treadwell is sore with me," murmured Dave to himself. "However, Belle is the one ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... name; for he was all Goodwill together. No kind of pilgrim ever came wrong to Goodwill. He never found fault with any. Only let them knock and come in and he will see to all the rest. The way is full of all the gatekeeper's kind words and still kinder actions. Every several pilgrim has his wager with all the rest that no one ever got such kindness at the gate as he got. And even Feeble-mind gave the gatekeeper this praise—"The Lord of the place," he said, "did entertain me freely. Neither objected he against my weakly looks nor against my feeble mind. But he ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... Lispenard. "I may not think very highly of the young men of to-day, but my opinion of them is not so low as that. Come, now—I am an old gentleman and the model of reticence—I will never tell. I'll wager you a box of roses against anything you like that you had a proposal no later than last week. Perhaps you even came to ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... which only succeeded in making her laugh. The conversation proceeded something as follows: "I am charmed that I have fallen to your Highness." "Equally charmed," I replied; "but my rank does not admit the adjective you do me the honor to apply." "No?" was the answer. "Well, I'll wager you anything that when the butler pours your wine in the first course he will call you Count, and in the next Prince. You see, they become exhilarated as the dinner progresses. But tell me, how many wives have you in China, you look very ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... stove one of the passengers said to me, "Buck, what have you got there?" "Opodeldoc, sir," I replied. "I should think it's opo-DEVIL," said a lanky swell, who was leaning back in a chair with his heels upon the back of another, and chewing tobacco as if for a wager; "it stinks enough to kill or cure twenty men. Away with it, or I reckon I will throw ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... is for such as them absent From Love's Court by yeares long and fele.* many I lay* my life ye shall full soon repent; *wager For Love will rive your colour, lust, and heal:* *health Eke ye must bait* on many a heavy meal: *feed *No force,* y-wis; I stirr'd you long agone *no matter* To draw ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... was obliged abruptly to bid him leave the box. The occurrence stung him to the quick, though he strove to hide his chagrin;—no wonder. Taken at disadvantage, and in a moment of weakness, the old pleader was obliged to perceive that the wager of mental duel between himself and the witness had been decided against him; and to feel that, in an unsought encounter and fair affray, he had been publicly worsted. To add to his mortification, the witness walked from ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... from the first that she can be floated. She is not a rusted old iron rattletrap. Of course, she's got a hole in her, and we can see now that she's planted mighty solid. But she is sound and tight, I'll wager, in all her parts except where that wound is. I suppose most men who came along here now would guess that she can't be got off whole. I'm going into this thing and try to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... indeed his reason fled for joy when he saw the gold in possession of Al-Abbas. The folk flocked about them, to divert themselves with watching the play, and they called the bystanders to witness the wager and after the stakes were duly staked, the twain fell a-playing. Al-Abbas forebore the merchant, so he might lead him on, and dallied with him a full hour; and the merchant won and took of him the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Peter Wager, and John T. Sullivan, of Philadelphia, and Hugh McEldery, of Baltimore, to be directors in the Bank of the United ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... let her alone," interposed Captain Yorke. "'Tain't no case for the law, 'sposin' her folks don't like it; an' I'll wager they do." ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... day; and one evening, when Antony playfully blamed her wastefulness, and said that it was not possible to fare in a more costly manner, she told him that the dinner of the next day should cost ten thousand ses-tertia, or three hundred thousand dollars. This he would not believe, and laid her a wager that she would fail in her promise. When the day came the dinner was as grand and dainty as those of the former days; but when Antony called upon her to count up the cost of the meats and wines, she said that she did not reckon them, but that she should ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... joke played off by Saunders or Gregson, or some other of Walter's giddy and not over-considerate companions? He almost thought it must be so, and that his brother had put them up to the joke for some wild piece of fun, or to win some senseless wager. Rather vexed at the thought, and not feeling over amiable towards the missile, if such it was, which had come so unseasonably and so unceremoniously into his chamber, he was half inclined at first to throw it ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... necessary for me to stand up in defence of that principle. I should have thought it as much a waste of the public time to make a speech on such a subject as to make a speech against burning witches, against trying writs of right by wager of battle, or against requiring a culprit to prove his innocence by walking over red-hot ploughshares. But I find that I was in error. Certain sages, lately assembled in conclave at Exeter Hall, have ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... meet," writes Lamb to Miss Wordsworth, then visiting some friends in Cambridge, "who is the biggest woman in Cambridge, and I'll hold a wager they'll say Mrs. ——. She broke down two benches in Trinity Gardens,—one on the confines of St. John's, which occasioned a litigation between the societies as to repairing it. In warm weather she retires ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... with profound stupidity," answered Hugh; "a stupidity, in fact, quite worthy of the folly of the preceding wager." ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... Arion. "It is I who am king. Did not your majesty stake your crown against my lute, and can the royal word be broken? Back, guards! I claim my wager." ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... your watch," challenged Lucile. "I'll wager a pound of my home-made fudge against a pound of Huyler's that we'll be back before the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... hope of ever getting out of the army when I was summoned to appear before the Travelling Medical Board. You can wager I lost no time ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... going to win my wager," she said to her brother. "And it won't be with a striped yearling, either; it will be with the biggest, shaggiest, fiercest, tuskiest boar that ranges the Gilded Dome. And that," she added, looking ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... to that," declared Thad. "I've heard several farmers tell how they lost a fine swarm, no matter how much racket they kicked up with dishpans and all sorts of tin buckets. There are lots of bee trees in this region I'd be willing to wager now. And if we could find one, it would be great. I like honey about as well as the next fellow, don't ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... six o'clock and lasted for two hilarious hours. Yense Nelson had made a wager that he could eat two whole fried chickens, and he did. Eli Swanson stowed away two whole custard pies, and Nick Hermanson ate a chocolate layer cake to the last crumb. There was even a cooky contest among the children, and one thin, slablike Bohemian boy consumed ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... standpoint—obtain in nearly all the accepted modes of killing a man. Even the use of venom a second time possesses the disadvantage of a certain alertness against the very thing on the part of the victim. Werner was a dope fiend, fully aware of the potency of a tiny skin puncture. I'll wager he was on constant guard against any ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... mark no real advance and offer no genuine solution to spiritual enigmas. The saving force each of them invokes is merely some remnant of that natural energy which animates the human animal. Faith in the supernatural is a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes; it is as far as possible from being the source of that normal vitality which subsequently, if his fortunes mend, he may gradually recover. Under the same religion, with the same posthumous alternatives and mystic harmonies ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... that there should be found 200,000 souls,—200,000 of the innumerable multitude with a natural taste for the bathos,—to hold it, and 20,000 rifles to defend it. And again, of another religious organisation in America: "A fair and open field is not to be refused when hosts so mighty throw down wager of battle on behalf of what they hold to be true, however strange their faith may seem." A fair and open field is not to be refused to any speaker; but this solemn way of heralding him is quite out of place unless ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... country towards Plympton early that morning and raided an orchard under the trees of which grew a fine crop of columbines, seeded from a neighbouring garden. Also I jingled together in my pocket no less a sum than two bright shillings, which Mr. Trapp had magnificently handed over to me out of a wager of five he had made with an East Country skipper that I could dive and take the water, hands first, off the jib-boom of any vessel selected from the shipping then at anchor in Cattewater. I knew that Miss Plinlimmon wanted a box to hold her skeins, and I also knew the ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in answer spake the chief of Cretans: "Aias, master of railing, ill-counselled, in all else art thou behind other Argives, for thy mind is unfriendly. Come then let us wager a tripod or caldron, and make Agamemnon Atreus' son our umpire, which mares are leading, that thou mayest ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... worse, the little reptile, if he hadn't been pulled up short," said Cleek in reply. "He'd have hanged you for it, if it had gone the way he planned. You look in your boxes; you, too, Captain Travers. I'll wager each of you finds a phial of Ayupee hidden among them somewhere. Came in to put more of the cursed stuff on the ninth finger of the skeleton, so that it would be ready for the ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... you're a brick, so look sharp with that splendid breakfast you promised us last night. I'll wager a million pounds that you had forgotten ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... behind closed doors. "I honestly think"—she stopped abruptly—"What if——" she began again, then excitedly kissed me. "You little wonder!" she said. "There's no one in the whole family to match you. I'll wager you could become a veritable gateway for us all to pass into New York society if you wanted to. You're a marvel—you are! Tell me about it." Her eyes sparkled as she gazed upon me. I realized in a flash just what the splendid thing was that ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... he didn't require to be told twice. Meantime I was making a circle round, so as to approach the beast in the rear; for, as you all know, I am a first-rate swimmer, and I never heard of the man who could keep up with me. Why, I once swam from Dover to Calais, and back again, for a wager, and danced a hornpipe on the top of Shakespeare's cliff, to the astonishment of all who saw me—but that's neither ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... never get any sympathy," said the captain, laughing himself. "And yet I'll wager Miss Linton was 'house-proud' in that 'Home for Tired People' of hers, and she ought to sympathize with a tidy man. You should have seen my wife's face when she came aboard once at Liverpool, and saw the ship; and she's never ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... way, if you like - that I know my own character, that I'm looking forward (with great pleasure, I assure you) to a long visit from you, and that I'm taking precautions at the first. I see the thing that we - that I, if you like - might fall out upon, and I step in and OBSTO PRINCIPIIS. I wager you five pounds you'll end by seeing that I mean friendliness, and I assure you, Francie, I do," ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "I'd wager a year's pay against a Confederate five-dollar note," said Sergeant Whitley to Dick, "that the man who laid that ambush was Slade. He'll keep watch on us all the way to Grant, and he'll tell ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... neither of these noble gentlemen was particularly worthy of credit, and they both swore very hard on this occasion, it is impossible to decide which (if either) was telling the truth. The decision finally arrived at was that both the accusers should settle their quarrel by wager of battle, for which purpose they were commanded to meet at Coventry in the ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... confess that I felt all my anger melting away when I saw the skill and coolness of the young acrobat. Certainly, Sumichrast appealed to my own reminiscences, and offered to lay me a wager that I had climbed many a poplar without the advantage of such superintendence as l'Encuerado's. At last the two gymnasts reached the lowest branches, and ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... since I was thirty-nine years old. I want at least as much more of life. If in the meantime I should trouble my thoughts with a matter so far from me as death, it were but folly. Of those renowned in life I will lay a wager I will find more that have died before they came to ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... renewed their acquaintance. Mr. C. kept his word religiously; he not only refrained from giving Turpin into custody, but made a boast that he had fairly won some of his money back again in an honest way. Turpin offered to bet with him on some favourite horse, and Mr. C. accepted the wager with as good a grace as he could have done from the best gentleman in England. Turpin lost his bet and paid it immediately, and was so smitten with the generous behaviour of Mr. C. that he told him how deeply ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... I'm looking for. That's about all anybody goes to college for anyway, that and making a lot of friends. Believe me, it would be a beastly bore if it wasn't for that. Al Cloud used to be a lively one. I'll wager he's into everything. See much of the college people down in town—do you?" He eyed his companion patronizingly. "S'pose you get in on some of ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... I would lay a wager that all of that side of the planet is not equally level. Remember the vast plains of Russia ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... They may be here any moment. It will go hard with you poor folk when they come. If only I could have a talk with Augusta, it would be so much better for you all. But do tell him not to be afraid of me. I have no instructions concerning him. I will wager my neck for that," he said, putting his finger to his throat. "I am willing to give my ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... puzzled, but some instinct of reserve withheld him from further questions. The hunchback, however, had no such scruples. "They do say, though," he went on, "that her Highness has her eye on him, and in that case I'll wager your illustrious mamma has no more chance than ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the best Trouler, for a Pike, in this Realme: he laid a wager, that he would take a Pike of four foot long, of Fish, within the space of one Moneth, with his Trouling-Rod; so he Trouled three weeks and odde days, and took many great Pikes, nigh the length, but did not reach the full length, till ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker
... may unharness Pier and turn him out in the pasture for the night! And I'll wager I shall be back with a full milk-pail before you've even so much as fed the pig, let alone the other chores—men are so slow!" She waved her hand gayly and disappeared behind the pasture ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... would have to take both her name and her blazon, which bore for device the glorious answer made by the elder of the five sisters when summoned to surrender the castle, "We die singing." Worthy descendant of these noble heroines, Laurence was fair and lily-white as though nature had made her for a wager. The lines of her blue veins could be seen through the delicate close texture of her skin. Her beautiful golden hair harmonized delightfully with eyes of the deepest blue. Everything about her belonged to the type of delicacy. Within that ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... an undergraduate laid his companion long odds that the Dean was smoking at that instant. Away they hastened; and, being admitted to the Dean's study, stated the occasion of their visit. The Dean replied, in perfect good humor, to the layer of the bet, 'You see, sir, you have lost your wager; for I am not smoking, but filling my pipe.' But—my cigar has reached its last dying speech, and there is but a ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... reconciled to each other. Many were almost convinced that Ivan Nikiforovitch would not come. Even the chief of police offered to bet with one-eyed Ivan Ivanovitch that he would not come; and only desisted when one-eyed Ivan Ivanovitch demanded that he should wager his lame foot against his own bad eye, at which the chief of police was greatly offended, and the company enjoyed a quiet laugh. No one had yet sat down to the table, although it was long past two o'clock, an hour before which ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... that of the Devil's wager with the architect of the cathedral. The Evil One was much irritated at the good progress made in the erection of the building and resolved, by means of a cunning artifice, to stop that progress. To this end he ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... But William kept the buck, I will wager marks a score, Though the tale is new to me; and, worse luck, You made me give back ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... in his best manner. "It is a Guido, sir, and in his very best manner," replied Le Brun, with warmth; and all the critics were unanimous. Mignard then spoke in a firm tone of voice: "And I, gentlemen, will wager three hundred louis that it is not a Guido." The dispute now became violent: Le Brun was desirous of accepting the wager. In a word, the affair became such that it could add nothing more to the glory of Mignard. "No, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... and said: "Here he is. I will wager that this is he." Down the lane towards us a little old man with a white beard and a large hat was descending, leaning on a cane. He dragged his feet along, and his ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... country-women, provoked Posthumus by seeming to doubt the constancy of his so highly praised wife; and at length, after much altercation, Posthumus consented to a proposal of Iachimo's that he (Iachimo) should go to Britain and endeavor to gain the love of the married Imogen. They then laid a wager that if Iachimo did not succeed in this wicked design he was to forfeit a large sum of money; but if he could win Imogen's favor, and prevail upon her to give him the bracelet which Posthumus had so earnestly desired she would keep as a token of his love, then the wager was to terminate with ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Every word of it is true," he said as she passed him. He added in a low tone—"I would almost even venture to wager a pair of gloves that at some time or other your husband has had a finger ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... and voice are all right," was the Dean's mental comment. "There's good blood in his veins, I'll wager." ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... we loafed along, having a good time, other pedestrians went staving by us with vigorous strides, and with the intent and determined look of men who were walking for a wager. These wore loose knee-breeches, long yarn stockings, and hobnailed high-laced walking-shoes. They were gentlemen who would go home to England or Germany and tell how many miles they had beaten the guide-book every day. But I doubted if they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said he, very coolly, very politely; "yours is the choice of the wager. And you reject it, the others must be ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Aramis, "I may have done some good; so, my lord, deign to receive my most respectful homage! I will lay a wager that 'twas that Saint Christopher, Porthos, who performed this feat! Apropos! I forgot——" and he gave some orders in a low voice to one ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tribesmen of Europe), was gambling, pure and simple, despite the sentimental character that its proponents sought to impress upon some forms of it for the greater prosperity of their dealings with its dupes. Essentially, it was a bet between the insurer and the insured. The number of ways in which the wager was made—all devised by the insurer—was almost infinite, but in none of them was there a departure from the intrinsic nature of the transaction as seen in its simplest, frankest form, which we ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... see me, eh?" questioned the Captain, with one of his quizzical chuckles. "You didn't see me, I'll wager." ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a wager on it," said the Englishmen. "We'll wager you a ton of coined gold, a hundred pounds ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... in society, as the basis for one's programme for human nature, is the sense it gives that things really can begin again—begin anywhere—where a man is. One single human being, deeply believed in, glows up a world, casts a kind of speculative value, a divine wager over all the rest. I confess that most men I have seen seem to me phantasmagorically walking the earth, their lives haunting them, hanging intangibly about them—indefinitely postponed. But one does not need, ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... him high outside Lancaster jail. He was for Prince Charlie, and cut down single-handed two of King George's dragoons carrying a warrant for a friend's arrest when the Prince's cause was lost. His wife, she poisoned herself. Those are the spurs Mad Harry rode Hellfire on a wager down Crosbie Ghyll with, and broke his neck doing it, besides his young wife's heart. The women who married the Thurstons had an ill lot to grapple with. Even when they settled down to farming, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... wise]. No, no, I won't tell you what is in my mind, and I won't tell you what is in my bag. You might steal away my thoughts. I met a bodach on the road yesterday, and he said, "Teigue, tell me how many pennies are in your bag; I will wager three pennies that there are not twenty pennies in your bag; let me put in my hand and count them." But I pulled the strings tighter, like this; and when I go to sleep every night I hide the bag ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... warmth, asked the reason of this attack, the squire replied in these words: "The devil, God bless us! mun be playing his pranks with Gilbert too, as sure as I'm a living soul—I'se wager a teaster, the foul fiend has left the seaman, and got into Gilbert, that he has—when a has passed through an ass and a horse, I'se marvel what beast a will get into next." "Probably into a mule," said the knight; "in that case, you will be in some danger—but I can, at any ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... proceeded Fledgeby, when he had had his laugh out, 'you'll buy up these lots that I mark with my pencil—there's a tick there, and a tick there, and a tick there—and I wager two-pence you'll afterwards go on squeezing those Christians like the Jew you are. Now, next you'll want a cheque—or you'll say you want it, though you've capital enough somewhere, if one only knew where, but you'd be peppered ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... The husband said before all, 'Marie, repeat after me what I shall say.' 'Willingly, sire.' 'Marie, say, "One, two, three!"' But by this time Marie was out of patience, and said, 'And seven, and twelve, and fourteen! Why, you are making a fool of me!' So that husband lost his wager. ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... else; makes them learn all about insects and flowers, and birds and beasts, and astronomy, and teaches them to do all sorts of things besides, but nothing that is of any use in the world that I know of. Now I'll wager young Hopeful has never played football or cricket in his life, and couldn't if he was to try. Those sort of fellows, in my opinion, are only fit to keep tame rabbits ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... its imprint on the roadside? Why should the man explain the filling of a flask at a public house? Why should he talk of a runaway match to the woman at that cottage? He was laying a trail. Miss Wilkinson's handkerchief was found in that car, but I wager she was never ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... the wager shook hands, and the agreement was perfected. Then, with an air of confidence, assumed to confound the witnesses of this strange scene, Ivan wrapped himself in the fur coat which, like a cautious man, he had spread on the stove, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and everywhere—books, accounts, and letters, even into their own private secrets. It was believed that he knew every page in the ledger, and that he could quote intricate accounts, column by column, and if there was even the slightest irregularity to be found anywhere, they would wager that it could not escape the young Consul's eye. The general conviction was, that if every creditor of the firm, or even the devil himself, should some day take it into his head to come into the office, there would not be found even the slightest error in one of the ponderous ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... am not jealous of the rest, least of all, of your young bride. I will wager with myself against all her gold for your life, and I shall win—I have won already! Am I not trying to persuade you that you ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... book—a copy of which is in the British Museum, date 1560—and entitled, "The longer thou livest more fool thou art," W. Wager, the author, ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... her course, southwest by west; and still the mystery of her destination remained unsolved. Little was hopeful, while Ibbotson was despondent. Mr. Fluxion planked the quarter-deck as industriously as though he were walking on a wager, or had the dyspepsia, which could only be cured by ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... perfect self-possession in all the ordinary affairs of life. But, morally, I am convinced that he is a dangerous monomaniac; his mania being connected with some fixed idea which evidently never leaves him day or night. I would lay a heavy wager that he dies in a prison ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... that was offered by the Stock Exchange, he says, "I heard of it the day it was printed, two or three days after this transaction happened. I remember a club at Dartford, called the hat club; I was there;" and then there is some foolish story about his laying a wager there; but as there is no evidence brought to impeach his testimony upon the grounds to which the cross-examination went, it is unnecessary to pursue that part of the examination further; he says "Lambeth Marsh is not far from the Asylum. I went there for the purpose of getting a coach; that he ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... o'clock we allowed ourselves to be persuaded into taking some soup. When supper-time came and we were still playing, people began to think that the affair was getting serious, and Madame Saxe urged us to divide the wager. D'Entragues, who had won a hundred louis, would have gladly consented, but I would not give in, and M. de Schaumburg pronounced me within my rights. My adversary might have abandoned the stake and still found himself with a balance to the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... p. 114, note 6. The meaning here is obscure. I can only conjecture that the party made a wager of some kind with the pastrycook's man for his cakes. See p. 114, ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... are inclined to enter it, and the whole province flocks together as to a general festivity. On this occasion young Bluster exhibited the first tokens of his future eminence, by shaking his purse at an old gentleman who had been the intimate friend of his father, and offering to wager a greater sum than he could afford to venture; a practice with which he has, at one time or other, insulted every freeholder within ten ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... eternally, but it could not affect the value of this house as the home of refined people as long as it was possible to hitch up a team of horses to the front stoop and tow it into a better locality. I'd like to wager every man at this table that Mrs. Pedagog wouldn't take five minutes to make up her mind to tow this house up to a spot near Central Park, if it were a canal-boat and the streets were water instead of a mixture of water, ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... a bit of a fight. In short, Harney was heard to say, 'I'll have every horse from Spring Bank before to-morrow morning; and if that Yankee miss appears to dispute my claim, as I trust she will, I'll have her, too;' and then the bully laid a wager that 'Major Alice,' as he called you, would be his prisoner ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... think so too: yet, viewing the matter so philosophically, it was rather inconsistent to spring from my seat as if an adder had stung me, and begin striding up and down the room as though I were walking for a wager. In the course of my rapid promenade, my coat-tail brushed against and nearly knocked down an inkstand, to which incident I was indebted for the recollection of my unfinished letter to Oaklands, and, my own thoughts being at that moment no over-pleasant companions, I was glad of any ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... "I have done fifty, without food, over the roughest and mossiest mountains. I lived on what I shot, and for drink I had spring-water. Nay, I am forgetting. There was another beverage, which I wager you have never tasted. Heard you ever, sir, of that eau de vie which the Scots call usquebagh? It will comfort a traveller as no thin Italian wine will comfort him. By my soul, you shall taste it. Charlotte, my dear, bid Oliphant fetch glasses and hot water ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan |
