"Joke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... doctor; "I don't want you to be quiet; it isn't natural for young things. Yes, my child; come and stay as long as you like, and make as much noise as you like. I was only teasing you, but you didn't like my little joke," laughing. ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... were taken down. It is no joke to go down a strange church-tower in the dark, but the keeper helped them - only, Cyril had to be independent because of the soda-water syphon. It would keep trying to get away. Half-way down the ladder it all but escaped. Cyril just ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... in bed and stared down at the telegraph form. What on earth did this mean? But for the fact that she knew it to be out of the question, she would have suspected a foolish and vulgar practical joke. ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... twin. "Now for the other!" says merry mother, And quickly dips him in. Jim and Jerry, with lips of cherry, And eyes of the selfsame blue; Twins to a speckle, yes, even a freckle— What can a mother do? They wink and wriggle and laugh and giggle— A joke on mother is nice! "We played a joke,"—'twas Jimmie who spoke,— "And you've washed ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... strong, hearty, clean, and good-natured lot were these Swedes. How helpful, sympathetic, and jolly withal. It was easy for them to see the clear, bright side of everything, and to turn an innocent joke on themselves occasionally; for one told on another is never so effective and enjoyable as a joke on oneself; but there were often those with tears in their eyes, and a homesick feeling at their heart upon bidding farewell ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... I am such a different girl when—when I am with you," she said to him one day. "I even make little jokes. I never should think of making even the tiniest joke before grandmamma. Somehow, she never seems quite to understand jokes. She never laughs at them. You always laugh, and I am sure it is very kind of you to encourage me so; but you must not encourage me too much, or I might ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... here ashore and sober for," he asked finally, "so I won't talk, that's why, and I won't talk, so there's the end of it. It's just that I have to have my little joke, that's all, or I wouldn't have said anything about the ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... to many Browning is only a joke, Whitman an eccentric, Dante insane and Turner a pretender. These have all sought to express things which the many can not feel, and consequently they have been, and are, the butt of jokes and jibes innumerable. "Except ye become as little children," ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Michael? What is the joke? Tell us, that we may laugh too; for you know we must laugh. It is our ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... favourable part of the affair was that Leonora was able, because of her favouritism, to find out much about the prisoners; but on the other hand, she was in danger of discovery. Although the situation was tragic, there was considerable of a joke in Marcelline's devotion to the youth Fidelio, and in ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... Thomas, quite enjoying Frank's joke, "that'll be another of old Stroker's kids when it's born. He did it when she went up to be taught her confirmation lesson. I'm told he confirmed seven girls in fucking, this examination. He's a regular ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... He is even said to have threatened the Duke of Montrose in his own residence at Buchanan. His enterprises were, however, not always contrived for a serious end, but sometimes partook of the love of a practical joke, which is a ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... with equivoques, either in important or in mean matters. If you find good occasion for a joke, be careful not to bite, still less to tear, like a dog. Witticisms and repartee should be to the point, and should have elegance and appropriateness without exciting the indignation of any. Do not let your pleasantries degenerate into ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... latter. Every one in the saloon was supplied with at least one thin slice from the prize pig which, roasted whole and holding an ear of corn in its teeth, was gaily decorated with the flags of England and the United States. It was held high for inspection before the carving began, and many a joke ran around, from table to table, upon the fine appearance of ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... to go and thank him," said Jo, by way of a joke, for the idea of the child's really going never ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... not for worlds have his bride catch him tippling. He put out the lamp and went to the bedroom, chuckling to himself like a man about to play a particularly clever and extremely good-humored practical joke. His preparations for the night were, as always, extremely simple merely a flinging off of his outer clothes and, in summer, his socks. From time to time he cast an admiring amorous glance at the lovely ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... sort of a silly joke," said Steve bewilderedly. "Would you mind telling me why you—why you ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... and how bitterly she had spoken to me about it—I had thought it best to prepare him for the absurd story that I felt sure Aunt Hannah would proceed to pour into his ear directly she met him. To my relief he had laughed, appearing to treat the matter of her annoyance and suspicion as a joke, though the sending of the telegram he looked upon, naturally, as a very grave matter. Consequently, upon our arrival at Holt, instead of inquiring for his sister, and at once consulting her upon the subject of the day's events, as he would, I knew, have done under ordinary circumstances, ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... would make a polite speech, or give a shrug of the shoulders, as the means of getting out of an embarrassing position, Lincoln raised a laugh by some bold west-country anecdote, and moved off in the cloud of merriment produced by the joke. When Attorney-General Bates was remonstrating apparently against the appointment of some indifferent lawyer to a place of judicial importance, the President interposed with: "Come now, Bates, he's not half as bad as you think. Besides ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... a while, till catching sight of their long fleecy necks, bending like the necks of birds, and ending in long flexible lips (it was the lips that gave him the clue he was seeking), he said, "The Nonconformists of the four-footed world," and he told his joke to his dragoman, without, however, being able to make ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... I'll dash down here on my pony with her behind me. Then we'll slip through the fence and get on the hand-car, and be out of sight around the curve before the rest get here. They won't know where on earth we've gone, and it will be the best joke on them. It's down grade all the way to the section-house, so I can push it easily enough by myself, but I'll need your help coming back, maybe. S'pose you cut across lots to the section-house as soon as I start to the barn, and meet me there. ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... (1) Cicero's joke on a senator who was the son of a tailor: "Thou hast touched the thing sharply" (or with ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... need not deny it!" said The Chobb. "I hate roundabout stories. I am a gentleman. Was it a joke or not? Will you pay me a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... exclaimed the Scotsman, "it's the best joke ever I heard or saw. Come and look at your black-fellow ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... under the law an' liable to hangin' an' imprisonment, an' that kind o' guff don't go nohow. We're willin' to admit that mebbe we've been a little mite familiar an' forward, bankin' on the natural leanin' of friend for friend that you take it all for the joke it's intended to be, but when you go to carryin' the joke too far, we got to protect ourselves. Scraggsy, I'm willin' to dig in an' help out in a pinch, but it's gettin' so me an' Mac can't trust you no more. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... three days. Then, as there was no further word from him, she became a little alarmed. But it was not in her to write all she felt, and so she sought to break the tension with something in the way of a joke. ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... dangers. For example, on your first voyage out you hardly believe the stories of fever told by the old Coasters. That is because you do not then understand the type of man who is telling them, a man who goes to his death with a joke in his teeth. But a short experience of your own, particularly if you happen on a place having one of its periodic epidemics, soon demonstrates that the underlying horror of the thing is there, a rotting ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... womankind, he tries to work out the problem of love without regard to the distinctions of nature. And full of the evils which he recognized as flowing from the spurious form of love, he proceeds with a deep meaning, though partly in joke, to show that the 'non-lover's' love is better ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... a funny country; something of a joke of a country when you come to think of it. Instead of setting out trees that will become both useful and beautiful, in accordance with the old Greek ideal of combining beauty and utility we set out Norway ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... his "insulting you with Latin and Greek at your own table." He would have suited Sir Roger capitally for a chaplain, I often tell him; and though he hasn't a notion who Sir Roger may be, he thoroughly enjoys the joke. ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... I know a few guys once, tried playing the legit. Got kicked around, see? Low pay. Staffman hammering on 'em all the time. Big joke when they try to ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole
... a joke. And one thing I have to tell you. I reserve to myself the right of thrashing you, if I feel in the ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... worse roarer in my life, and that was a roan: it belonged to Pegwell, the corn-factor; he used to drive him in his gig seven years ago, and he wanted me to take him, but I said, 'Thank you, Peg, I don't deal in wind-instruments.' That was what I said. It went the round of the country, that joke did. But, what the hell! the horse was a penny trumpet to that roarer ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... is John, but they call him Demi-John, because his father is John too. That's a joke, don't you see?" said Tommy, kindly explaining. Nat did not see, but politely smiled, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... said shortly; "but if you can laugh and joke like that there's no need for me to feel anxious about ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... patted her on the shoulder. "Father? father? H'm—that's not a thing any one can be so sure about. Hahaha!" And "hahaha" echoed the old man, still sitting with the awl in his hand. This was the sort of joke he ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... pay a visit to the New Wimbledon—and being nothing if not loyal, I chose the day when the shooting for the "Queen's" commenced. My escort informed me with an inane smile, that the Camp had experienced "Bisley weather;" the feebleness of which joke so annoyed me, that I am half inclined to put his name in the pillory of public print—(what a glorious expression for our own Midlothian Mouther)—but I refrain, for reasons ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various
... to tell you the truth, we don't quite know, he will joke about it so—at first he said it was "Sleeping Sickness" and then "Creeping quickness" or pneu-somnia or something or other—one comfort, he doesn't seem to mind ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward
... in 1831 a Scottish member declared that Scots could never assemble without drawing blood; and one of their champions, Lord Cockburn, made the quaint admission: "The Scots are bad mobbers. They are too serious at it. They never joke, and they throw stones." It did not occur to that generation that the cure for this bloodthirsty seriousness was frequent public meetings, not no meetings at all. That a high-spirited people should so long have remained in political childhood seems ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... mountains, and he was frightfully overworked; short of company officers. He came to me about an insect he said had got into his ear; buzzed, and bothered him day and night. The story got to the men's quarters. They joked about the colonel's 'bug.' I knew it was no joke. I condemned him for duty, but the Sioux were out. They thought at Washington no one but Addison could handle an Indian campaign. He was on the ground, too. So they sent him up higher where it was dry, with a thousand men in his hands. I knew he'd be a ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... returned he with a smile, 'if you had your joke, I had my answer: I'll leave it to all the company if mine were not as good as yours. To say the truth, I know no body whom I am disposed to be angry with at present but the fellow who so frighted my little girl here. ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... added, looking at La Briere. "It could not be otherwise. Madame de La Bastie is German. She has never adopted our etiquette, and I let my two women lead me their own way. I have always preferred to sit in the carriage rather than on the box. I can make a joke of all this at present, for we have not yet seen the Duc d'Herouville, and I do not believe in marriages arranged by proxy, any more than I believe in choosing my ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... "Why, it's no joke, Jim; this discussion about the country will wind up in some sort of a revolution. I have been talking around lately among the plain people, and a lot of them declare straight up and down that the country is going to peter out like the water in the tap here in ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... into the heart of the world. When you knelt to pray at nights you could only cry and cry. The courage of the men who grappled in the slime with the horrors was the one thing that kept one from despair. And the fact that they could laugh. You know about the dying man who told his nurse some joke and finished, 'This is the ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... his voice, and drew his well-knit, slim figure upright. He called to mind all his friends in England, with their rigid manners, their impassiveness in the face of trying situations. There was Lord Tony, for instance, always ready with some boyish joke, with boyish impertinence always hovering on his tongue. Armand tried to emulate Lord Tony's manner, and to borrow something of ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... no, doctor!" rippled out Miss Langham's voice, in willing accompaniment of the joke; "I'm sure you ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Bailie Nicol Jarvie of one of the Terryfications (though not by Terry) of Scott's Rob Roy having made a formal affidavit that he was a real "Edinburgh Gutter Bluid," we suspect some of our readers themselves suspected a joke. The affidavit itself has, however, been printed in the Athenaeum, accompanied by an amusing commentary, in which the document is justly pronounced "a very curious one." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... "No work is any joke; but I just put it to you: Simply as work, without taking in the question of reward, would you dream for a minute of swapping your work with the work of one of your workmen? No. Well, neither would a Malloring with one of his Gaunts. So that, my boy, for work which is intrinsically ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... gentleman is finely shown up for his condemnatory predilections and inability to discern or appreciate beauties. The cream of the joke against him is, that being sent by Apollo to choose a lily in a flower-garden, he brings back a thistle as all he could find. The picture is a humorous one, but we are at a loss to conjecture who can have sat for it in America, where the tendency is all the other way, reviewers ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... now talking about cutting throats," said the man. "You brought it on yourself," said Belle; "you suspected us, and he wished to pass a joke upon you; he would not hurt a hair of your head, were your coach laden with gold, nor would I." "Well," said the man, "I was wrong—here's my hand to both of you," shaking us by the hands; "I'll go with you where ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... invited in, and were in such numbers that the room would scarcely hold them all. More cigars, more punch, more giving of thanks. About three o'clock the crowd began to disperse, and at length, after those Spanish leave-takings, which are really no joke, had ended, Captain E——, C—-n, and I, all three excessively cold and shivering, having passed the night at the open windows, consoled ourselves with hot chocolate and punch, and went to dream of sweet-sounding harmonies. Altogether, it was ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the Jew, whose name was Fagin, and the boys crowded around him, putting their hands into his pockets, which he thought a queer joke. Fagin grinned horribly as he shook hands with him and told him he was very welcome, which did not tend to reassure him, and then the sausages were passed around. The Jew gave Oliver a glass of something to drink, and as soon as he drank it he became ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... afraid of that," said Macgreggor and George in the same breath. Hare was not likely to relate a joke so much at his own expense as their clever escape had proved. Even if he did, they reasoned, the chances of capture were now rather slim, whatever they might have been when the three fugitives ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... Gibraltar, or from Fort Gibraltar to the Athabasca. Two days after our arrival, Cuthbert Grant, with a band of Bois-Brules, had gone to Fort Douglas to arrest Captain Miles McDonell for plundering Nor'-West posts. The doughty governor took Grant's warrant as a joke and scornfully turned the whole North-West party out of Fort Douglas. On the stockades outside were proclamations commanding settlers to take up arms in defense of the Hudson's Bay traders and forbidding natives to sell furs ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... I raised a hand against you during all these years? No! And now I came here only to have a look at you, and it was enough to burst your bubble. Have I uttered a single reproach? Have I moralised or preached sermons? No! I played a joke or two on your dear consort, and nothing more was needed to finish him.—But there is no reason why I, the complainant, should be defending myself as I am now—Tekla! Have you nothing at all to reproach ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... eccellenza is pleased to joke; we men of Capri think little of the nights at this season of the year—still, as it seems to be your wish, I will honor ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... joke. Nelly Custis said, "I have sometimes made him laugh most heartily from sympathy with my joyous and extravagant spirits," and many other instances of his laughing are recorded. He himself wrote in 1775 concerning the running away of some ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... repulsion? What could it be, this strange power which gave him the preeminence over her—which taught her, without her knowing it, the mystery that causes man to rule and woman to obey; Very thoughtful—even unmoved by Harrie's loud laughter at the "excellent joke"—Mrs. Harper suffered herself to be led on by ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to-day. Probably Noah was the butt of gossip and ridicule, quite possibly of scandal and reproach, year after year, by the whole race; and he would feel it, and feel it for his family's sake. That boat and its dreaming builder were the standing joke of the time. He was regarded as a fool, a fanatic, a poor, unbalanced enthusiast, building his gigantic boat on dry land! Perhaps some regretted that he brought the cause of religion into reproach by being ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... town buying presents for Miss Katie Peck. Tommy Postmaster had paid high for a necklace of elk-tushes the government scout at McKinney sold him. Too bad Miss Peck did not enjoy good health. Shorty had been in only yesterday to get her medicine again. Third bottle. Had I heard the big joke on Lin McLean? He had promised her the skin of a big bear he knew the location of, and Tommy ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... faith or fortune did seem to befriend Mrs. Beauchamp at last. It was just after they had knocked at the second closed door, and had received a very short negative to their inquiry, which the maidservant evidently considered to be an ill-timed joke, that a door on the opposite side of the road opened suddenly, and a great stream of ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... the ear of Ernest. Meantime joke followed jest, among Polydore and the rest of the gay youths, in riotous and ribald succession, which, however characteristic of the rude speakers, may as well be omitted here. Their effect was to shake in some degree the fortitude of the Saxon maiden, who had some difficulty in mustering ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the first day. Somebody mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck, and I asked if she was a Freshman. That joke has gone all over college. But anyway, I'm just as bright in class as any of the others—and brighter than ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... eh? Tell me that! Didn't you just plead with me to make a fool of myself, and to save you pain I consented. I suppose I'll never hear the end of that fool joke," ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... MASSACRE OF CUSTER'S COMMAND. Buffalo Bill's Adventures continued—Hunting at Fort McPherson—Indians steal his Favourite Pony—The Chase—Scouting under General Duncan—Pawnee Sentries—A Deserted Squaw—A Joke on McCarthy—Scouting for Captain Meinhold—Texas Jack—Buckskin Joe—Sitting Bull and the Indian War of 1876—Massacre of Custer and his Command—Buffalo Bill takes the First Scalp for Custer—Yellow Hand, Son of ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... maintain that many animals possess a sense of the humorous, and it looked as though the sluggish Bowser enjoyed the joke as much as did the victims; for, when the latter made their way back to the camp fire, they saw the hound stretched out close to the warm blaze with his head between his paws and apparently asleep; but, watching him closely, he was seen to open one of his eyes, just a ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... was an ex-burglar," he said, plunging into the new subject with alacrity. "First-rate fellow, too. Last I heard of him, he had a position as chauffeur with a rich old lady who lived alone up in Detroit. She had two burglar-alarm systems, but the joke of it was she made him sleep in the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... moved the shadows three inches before Jim had reached the conclusion that this world was all a practical joke, of so low an order that no sensible man would even laugh at it, and he drew a letter from his pocket in proof thereof. It was a thin letter, written on delicate paper in a delicate hand, and it showed much wear. He read ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... impossible to find it; and then, after making her companions hunt for it for an hour, till their patience was quite tired, and they gave out; she would burst out in a loud laugh! and say she only did it for fun. But, for my part, I never could see any joke in such kind of things: the meanness, the baseness, the dish on our (sic), which attendedit always, in my opinion, took off all degree of cleverness, or pleasure ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... sirs, that being a jester by profession, it is my business to make jokes. I am all the readier, therefore, to present myself, feeling convinced it is a better joke to come to dinner thus unbidden than by ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... want me to show you how much of a joke it is by giving you in charge here and now for kidnapping my housekeeper, Mary Bride?" said the Honourable ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... height. Such a banquet as Herod had often witnessed in the shameless court of Tiberius, and in which luxury and appetite reached their climax, was in mid-current. The strong wines of Messina and Cyprus had already done their work. The hall resounded with ribald joke and merriment. Towards the end of such a feast it was the custom for immodest women to be introduced, who, by their gestures, imitated scenes in certain well-known mythologies, and still further inflamed ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... vacation, that the blow fell. We did not know it at the time; we had not yet learned to school our minds to such awful possibilities. Mr. Hale opened the letter, read it, and tossed it upon my desk with a laugh. When I had looked it over, I also laughed, saying, "Some ghastly joke, Mr. Hale, and one in very poor taste." Find here, my dear John, an exact duplicate of ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... said the king, who now thought that Felix was a jester who had put a trick upon him. "But your joke is out of joint; I will teach such fellows to try tricks on us! Beat him out ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... have done, have done! [Offers vdka to the Tramp] Drink. [To his wife] And what are you slobbering for? Mayn't a fellow have his joke? There you are [gives her money], put it away. Here are two three-rouble ...
— The Cause of it All • Leo Tolstoy
... that her hot dinners are neither delicious nor well served. She's an inefficient, lazy old termagant, and I know why she doesn't like me. She imagines that I want to steal away the doctor and oust her from a comfortable position, something of a joke, considering. But I am not undeceiving her; it will do the old thing good to worry a little. She may cook him better dinners, and fatten him up a trifle. I understand that ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... Would a long country walk have been more virtuous? It would at least have been more wholesome; but that was all that could be said. My mind did not dwell on Morphew's communication. It seemed without sense or meaning to me; and after the excellent joke about his superior interest in his master to mine in my father, was dismissed lightly enough from my mind. I tried to invent some way of telling this to my father without letting him perceive that Morphew had been finding faults in him, ...
— The Open Door, and the Portrait. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... not meant as a joke, Cecilia. Seeing that we are parting in a spirit of perfect understanding, why shouldn't such an arrangement ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... don't joke, for there is no joy in that mad laughter. It is horrible, maddening, even to the hearer. Let us get to work. The father of the girl I love may even now be sinking to his death. We must determine the nature of this deadly stuff, ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... was bound apprentice to a shipmaster engaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea. The ship young Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell into the hands of a fisherman, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him about." ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... discipline of Mrs. Wix; yet she none the less held it under her father's roof a point of superiority that none of his visitors were ladies. It added to this odd security that she had once heard a gentleman say to him as if it were a great joke and in obvious reference to Miss Overmore: "Hanged if she'll let another woman come near you—hanged if she ever will. She'd let fly a stick at her as they do at a strange cat!" Maisie greatly ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... obituary appeared Cibber crawled out of the house, sick-faced but convalescent, and read the notice with keen interest. Whether he was amused thereat, or dubbed the joke a poor one, is a matter which he does not record, but he tells us that he "saw no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead before his time," and "therefore had a mind to see whether the town cared to have him ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... sufficient," he said. "Immortality by syndicate is too modern, and this is an ancient art." He tapped the case." Turkey and the Mongol lands have kept the old cult going. In England, it's only for the dog!" He laughed freely but noiselessly at his own joke. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that he was throwing into the town a number of curious trophies which collectors were eager to buy on the spot for five pounds each, with the certainty of being able to sell them again if they cared to at an enormous profit some day. After wasting some ammunition for the sake of this practical joke, our enemies began a bombardment in earnest. Most of this was directed at the defenceless town. One shell burst in a private house, wounding slightly the owner, Mrs. Kennedy, whose escape from fatal injuries seemed miraculous, for the room in which ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... know to be true than those disinterested supporters of that noble lord, who had the advantage of hearing him and cheering him night after night, when he first became premier—I mean that he did officially and habitually joke, at a time when this country was plunged in deep disgrace and distress—I say, that noble lord, when he wondered so much that the man of this age, who has, by his earnest and adventurous spirit, done the most to distinguish himself and it, did not blush for the tremendous audacity of having so come ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... annoyed by the mosquitos in any part of America as in Skenesborough, for that they used to bite through the thickest boot." When this anecdote appeared in print, good old Dr. Dwight, shocked at the taradiddle, and fearing its evil influence on Washington's fame, spoiled the joke by explaining in a book that "a gentleman of great respectability, who was present when General Washington made the observation referred to, told me that he said, when describing those mosquitoes to Mr. Weld, that they 'bit through his stockings above the boots.'" Whoever invented ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... to Sara one day: "My father used to say that when he was a boy the phrase, 'American workman' stood for the highest efficiency in the world, but that even in his day the phrase had become a joke. How could you expect this rabble to know that there might be such a thing as an American ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... And he who can suggest any thing laughable is a great benefactor to his comrades; for then the monotony is broken, and we enjoy a little sprinkling of variety, which is truly said to be "the spice of life." A good joke, that runs through the command like a bubbling brook along the flowering meadows, is worth more to us than a corps of nurses with cart-loads ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... joke. It's hardly worth while talking to a man like me. Yet for that very reason men have been known to take ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... joke of his in the far away days, that Christine would never marry until she found a perfect man. She had always had such quaintly romantic fancies behind the seriousness ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... intimate record of his soul's doings as an exercise in cosmic irony; but the idea of publishing it could hardly have lived for a moment in the lambent flame of his own sardonic humor. He could be perverse, but perversity could not well go the length of perpetrating so pointless a joke ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... That's it!" he bellowed. "Even my own bull turns on me. Haw! Haw!" His hollow, hoarse, and unmirthful laughter echoed among the pines. "Great joke! Haig will like that. And the ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... a standing joke with Australian rabbits—about the only joke they have out there, except the memory of Pasteur and poison and inoculation. It is amusing to go a little way out of town, about sunset, and watch them crack Noah's Ark rabbit jokes about ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... agreeable to walkin' 'ome all the way on my feet," said our guest. "I wouldn't go to any railway station. It 'ud be just the proper finish to our little joke." He laughed nervously. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... try them games, mate, for you was never cut out for the work. He thinks that's a joke, Mr Lane, sir. But do you want ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... did not know and love as if it had been his child, though there were so many thousands that he alone could keep strict count of them. He insisted gravely upon the superlative value of the least significant in appearance, but he could joke a little about other things than coins. There was an old mosaic which we admired, with a faded God of Love riding ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... it was a nasty practical joke," cried Tom Long, "and—I beg your pardon, Roberts," he said, suddenly changing his tone, and holding out his hand. "I ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... joke, and in that hot weather, and in that dull world, anything was good enough to laugh at: the third man smiled, but the first ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner
... given to James Barrie in London. One of the speakers sprung the usual joke about how when the Scotch leave Scotland they never go back. When Barrie arose to reply he said: "Perhaps it is true that the Scotch, when they leave their native land, seldom return. If so, there is surely precedent. In ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... was engaged to be married to Adolphus Crosbie,—to Apollo Crosbie, as she still called him, confiding her little joke to his own ears. And to her he was an Apollo, as a man who is loved should be to the girl who loves him. He was handsome, graceful, clever, self-confident, and always cheerful when she asked him to be cheerful. But ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... rhetoric, with none of the external signs of energy and intrepidity, making no parade of the immovable purpose, iron nerve, and silent, penetrating intelligence God has put into him, his tranquil greatness is hidden from superficial scrutiny behind a cigar, as President Lincoln's is behind a joke. When anybody tries to coax, cajole, overawe, browbeat, or deceive Lincoln, the President nurses his leg, and is reminded of a story; when anybody tries the same game with Grant, the General listens and—smokes. If you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... a misfortune that few of Gardiner's stood to witness, I believe, sir—ha! ha! ha! I beg your pardon; but a soldier's wife loves a joke.' ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... husband, Monica was in a sportive mood, with occasional fits of exhilaration which seemed rather unnatural. She had declared to Mildred her intention of inviting Miss Nunn to the wedding, and her mind was evidently set on carrying out this joke, as she regarded it. When the desire was intimated by letter, Rhoda replied with a civil refusal: she would be altogether out of place at such a ceremony, but hoped that Monica would accept her heartiest good wishes. Virginia was then dispatched to ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... age in soft wrinkles, ripples that had caught on fire in the sunset. Collins felt the twilight stealing under the arms of his tee-shirt. The overdue hair on the back of his rangy neck stood up in attention. It was a joke, but the first one Collins had ever ...
— The Last Place on Earth • James Judson Harmon
... this was all right for a joke, but it wouldn't bear repeating. From now on, you're the gardener's boy, and you'll not forget ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... country, [Footnote: Spectator 122.] who will not own to a mere citizen among his ancestors, [Footnote: Spectator 109.] and 'very frequently' [Footnote: Spectator 125.] repeats his old stories—Sir Andrew, with his joke about the sea and the British common, [Footnote: Spectator 2.] and his tenderness for his old friend and opponent [Footnote: Spectator 517.]—the volatile Will Honeycomb, whose gallantry and care of his ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... that I could munch it up and see you starving," answered Ben. "Come, that would be a good joke. I shan't get hungry, for you must know that I have more than once been three days without putting a morsel of food between my teeth—and wasn't much the worse for it, either. I shouldn't mind a drop of grog, I will allow; but what we can't get we must do without—and, as Mr Boxall says, 'Trust ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Devilish incomprehensible! They must know we're here. Been waiting fifteen minutes now, begad! Getting beyond a joke—deuced exasperating, Perry, y' know. Dammit, man, why can't you say something, do something, instead of sitting there so devilish calm and serene, staring before ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... hurt his hand. He replied that when he dived for the turtle it caught him by the thumb, and if his friends hadn't gone to his aid he might have drowned. He told it as though it would have been a great joke on him. We were all pretty well acquainted by this time, and everybody threw in remarks. Then our boys removed the presents, chose what we would take with us—only a small portion—and the rest was returned to the village for the feast. On state occasions the men ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... said, "Oh, kiss poor Rose"; and when he got to Rose he flung his arms around her neck, too, and kissed her, once only. That was the distinction that he made. And as he ran he laughed, he laughed as if love were the biggest joke in ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... suited to the comprehension of the child, they made little impression upon Helen's mind. When I subsequently talked with her she said: "I have something very funny to tell you. A. says God made me and every one out of sand; but it must be a joke. I am made of flesh and blood and bone, am I not?" Here she examined her arm with evident satisfaction, laughing heartily to herself. After a moment she went on: "A. says God is everywhere, and that He is ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... be quite sure that every fat and comfortable citizen (himself probably an official of some sort) on whom this argument may be pressed will take it as a joke in bad taste: "Horrible! disgusting!" Yet that same citizen, stirring the contents of his morning newspaper into his muddy brain as he stirs his sugar in his coffee, will complacently absorb all the news of the day, so many hundred thousand men killed, ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... a matter of fact, I thought of taking Therese out somewhere. She's a bit frayed out, poor girl; she thought it might help her to sleep if she got away for a couple of hours. Rotten shame about your father. Typhoid's no joke at ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... psalms to the ears of the villagers, were more than suspected to be his own composition; often gave a poetic and semi-religious colouring to his conversation, which accorded rather with his dignity in the church, than his post at the Spotted Dog. Yet he disliked not his joke, though it was subtle and delicate of nature; nor did he disdain to bear companionship over his own liquor, with guests less ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him to a seat, and held him there, Despite his anger, while the hideous joke Was tossed from hand to hand. Franz poured with care A brimming glass of whiskey. "Here, we've broke Into a virgin barrel for you, drink! Tut! Tut! Just hear him! Married! Who, and when? Married, and out on business. Clever Spark! Which lie's the likeliest? ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... Mr. Merton tried to look grave; in his capacity of a gentlemanlike, liberal fellow, he gave up the attempt, and laughed pleasantly at the joke ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... fiery shafts upon the side of the cliff. Will had usually found it cold at such a height, but now the beams struck directly upon him and his face was soon covered with perspiration. He was assailed also by a fierce, burning thirst, and a great anger lay hold of him. It was a terrible joke that he should be held there in the hole of the cliff by an invisible warrior who used only arrows against him, perhaps because he feared a shot from a rifle would bring ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... "Will you deny that shells have been found on the mountains? What put them there, if not the Deluge? They are not accustomed, I believe, to grow out of the ground of themselves alone, like carrots!" And this joke having made the assembly laugh, he added, pressing his lips together: "Unless this be ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... waiting could hardly think him serious, and vowed that his Majesty always loved a joke. However, mortal or not, the sight of that sharp spire wounded his Majesty's eyes; and is said, by the legend, to have caused the building of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... shock which had caused his dismay was past, and as he went his way, solemnly escorted by his loving sister and his devoted friend, he was suffering much more from suppressed laughter than from anything else. Everything was a joke, and the narrowness of his escape that morning was a greater joke than all. "By Jove! what a laugh we will have over it one of these days!" thought Lisle as he put ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... aloud at the stupendous joke, as he drew her arm within his, and led her into the thronged rooms, as some favored subject may once in his life lead ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... were people of high birth or not. King Hrorek's mood was very different at different times. Sometimes he would sit silent for days together, so that no man could get a word out of him; and sometimes he was so merry and gay, that people found a joke in every word he said. Sometimes his words were very bitter. He was sometimes in a mood that he would drink them all under the benches, and made all his neighbours drunk; but in general he drank but little. King Olaf gave him plenty of ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson |
