"Joke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was an infamous, a grotesquely horrible idea, a thought which sprang as much from his inexperience of the world and his habitual suspiciousness of all humor as anything else! It was that the letter was a brutal joke of Slinn's—a joke perhaps concocted by Mamie and himself—a parting insult that should at the last moment proclaim their treachery and his own credulity. Doubtless it contained a declaration of their shame, and the reason why she had fled from him without a word of explanation. And the ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... were working on the mountain, their parents were at home. By and by they began to wonder how the children were getting along. Of course it was only a joke about their planting a forest, but it might be amusing to see what they were ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... call "expected surprise" (as dropping a rattle and exploding with laughter when it bangs on the floor, and keeping this up time after time), and this element can still be detected in various forms of joke that are effective mirth-provokers in the adult. But why the child should laugh when tickled, at the same time trying to escape, is a poser. Many students of humor have subscribed to the theory that what makes us laugh is a sudden sense of ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... head a slight backward toss, and, with great dignity, extended his right paw to Darrell, which the latter, instantly entering into the spirit of the joke, took, saying, with ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... Lahoma and me taking different ways—they liked Lahoma first time they see her, as a matter of course. And so, that Miss Sellimer, she gets separated from all the rest, and I shows her a dandy hiding-place where nobody couldn't find her, and I shows her what a good joke it would be to pretend to be lost. So I leaves her there to go to tell her crowd she dares 'em to find ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... such a lot of sugar over them. I do think one should be real, and not try to cover up things. And Mr. Dare so pleasant. Quite sorry to go he seemed. I often wonder whether it will be you or Mabel in the end. He ought to be making up his mind. I expect I shall have a little joke with him about it before long. And such an interest he took in the scrap-book. I asked him to come ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the reply, as all the East Anglians present knew that 'hull' meant 'throw,' and 'dickey' is Suffolk for 'donkey,' but some of the Cockney visitors present were for a while quite unable to enjoy the joke. ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... it is to other qualities that one must look for final victory in a war of exhaustion. The Englishman does not look into himself; he does not brood; he sees no further forward than is necessary, and he must have his joke. These are fearful and wonderful advantages. Examine the letters and diaries of the various combatants and you will see how far less imaginative and reflecting, (though shrewd, practical, and humorous,) the English are than any others; you will gain, too, a profound, a deadly conviction ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... filled with the smoke of shell-bursts that it was sometimes difficult to discern the balloon itself. It was late in the evening and the last we saw of the "sausage" it was still traveling eastward, apparently unhit. The joke of the whole thing is that the balloon was never hit and, the wind veering during the night, it returned and came down inside our lines within a few miles ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... her house. After all she was right when she said he had never loved her. He was disappointed, irritated even, but his vanity was more affected than his heart. He knew that himself. And presently he grew conscious that the gods had played a very good practical joke on him, and he laughed at himself mirthlessly. It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being amused at one's ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... be expected, was the soul of the enterprise. By his mechanical genius, he contrived methods to lighten the labor of transporting the stones, so that one boy, under his directions, would perform as much as half a dozen if left to themselves. Whenever their spirits flagged he had some joke ready, which seemed to renew their strength, by setting them all into a roar of laughter. And when, after an hour or two of hard work, the stones were transported to the water- side, Bell Franklin was the engineer to superintend ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... you in carrying your luggage! A good joke! But I see you are not quite what I took you for; and if you'll stand a nobbler or two, I don't mind calling a porter for you, and showing you to a slap-up inn to suit you," said the man, his manner ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... and lest he be lonely, took his mother along." There is laughter here, indeed, but the soul here laughs with a bleeding, torn, agonized heart. It is the same laughter which was roused among the disciples of Christ when they heard their Master utter the grim joke, "Verily, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Such laughter is Gogol's in "Dead Souls." Gogol had now learned to comprehend the words of his friend ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... ran down the open way, the remark seemed less and less of a joke. The gale poured over the hills, and struck the boat like the buffet of a great hand. She heeled over alarmingly, bumped upon a submerged stump, righted, heeled again, this time shipping a little sea, and then the ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... victor at Hastings, snatching the crown of England and setting it on his own brow, destroying homesteads that he might have a larger game forest, making a Doomsday Book by which he could keep the whole land under despotic espionage, proclaiming war in revenge for a joke uttered in regard to his obesity. Harvest fields and vineyards going down under the cavalry hoof. Nations horror-struck. But one day while at the apex of all observation he is riding out and the horse put his hoof on a hot cinder, throwing the king so violently against ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... gentlemen gave M. Soyer a dinner and a snuff box before he left, and so his Irish mission was brought to a close; but his name was not forgotten, for Sawyer's soup was long a standing joke with a certain class of the Dublin people. Had the word come into popular use at the time, there is little doubt that M. Soyer's undertaking to feed the starving Irish would have ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... go on, dear Clifford; because when Eustace is here we shall have to play games—'Happy Families' or something—and I sha'n't have another chance. I believe he's got some joke on. I hear you've ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... going with her usual circle to a party, either at the Duc de Duras's or the Princesse de Glumenee's. The hand of the clock was slily put forward to hasten the King's departure by a few minutes; he thought bed-time was come, retired, and found none of his attendants ready to wait on him. This joke became known in all the drawing-rooms of Versailles, and was disapproved of there. Kings have no privacy. Queens have no boudoirs. If those who are in immediate attendance upon sovereigns be not themselves disposed to transmit their private habits to posterity, ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... mean?" cried Captain Weston indignantly. "If this is a joke, you're carrying it too far. If you're in earnest, let me warn you against interfering ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... showing her dislike by all sorts of petty annoyances. He bore them all with wonderful equanimity, perhaps for Kitty's sake, perhaps because he despised their author. Sometimes, when he came on deck after dining in the cabin, he would burst into a fit of laughter, as if enjoying a good joke, and would continue to smile when Kitty appeared with a look of vexation and pain on her countenance, supposing he must ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... two lying on the lower shelf," announced Harry, "he got only one automatic! That's a joke on him." ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... All these, and a thousand other pranks, the fast fellows play upon their slow brethren, not in the hackneyed fashion which low people call "gagging," and genteel people "quizzing," but with a seriousness and gravity that heightens all the joke, and makes the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... perceived," said Mr. Turnbull, who was better at a speech than a joke. "A very respectable young ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... moment the women had a decisive word in public affairs, they instituted communism as the only rational political and social condition from the standpoint of their own sex. Aristophanes little dreamed how he hit the truth while meaning to joke. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... 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, and asked, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... tocsin, and each house would become a fortress, the streets would be barricaded with iron chains, every quarter would pour forth men by hundreds well versed in the arts of civic warfare. Charles gave way, covering with a bad joke the discomfiture he felt: Ah, Ciappon, Ciappon, voi siete un mal Ciappon! The secretaries beat down his terms. All he cared for was to get money.[1] He agreed to content himself with 120,000 florins. A treaty was signed, and in two ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... shouted our guide, rolling over on the grass and splitting himself with laughter; for Makarooroo, like the most of his race, was excessively fond of a joke, no matter how bad, and was always ready on the shortest notice to go off into fits of laughter, if he had only the remotest idea of what the jest meant. He had become so accustomed at last to expect something jocular from Peterkin, that he ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... purer or sweeter than you are. No doubt—because he did not understand you—he thought you had run away with someone. The trader you spoke about: he disliked your father, didn't he? Well, he probably played your father a horrible practical joke." ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... when she wins. It brings out the natural wolf in her like nothing else does. It was being proved this night all you'd want to see anything proved. If the men got near enough and won a bet they'd think it was a good joke and stick round till they lost it. Not so my own sex. Every last one of 'em saw herself growing rich on Cousin Egbert's money—and let the Belgians look ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... about to venture upon some misplaced joke on the subject, when a small scrap of parchment fell out of the leaves. Like a hungry man snatching at a morsel of bread the Professor seized it. It was about five inches by three and was scrawled over in ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... passed from quiet appreciation of the joke to undisguised mirth and pleasure. His utterance of the name 'Mr Fadge' sufficiently intimated that he had some cause of personal discontent with the ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... Sir Tiglath at the Colley Cibber Club, and though Sir Tiglath, who was of a freakish disposition and much addicted to his joke declined to speak to him, on the ground that he (Sir Tiglath) had lost his voice and was unlikely to find it in conversation, the Prophet was greatly impressed by the astronomer's enormous brick-red face, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... thing possible, but it was a cause of great embarrassment to the courtiers, who had got into such a habit of laughing at little noses that they sometimes found themselves laughing at hers before they had time to think; but this did not do at all before the Prince, who quite failed to see the joke, and actually banished two of his courtiers who had dared to mention disrespectfully the Dear Little ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... then Nell boldly followed suit; one by one, ending with Susy, the other five dropped down in the cool rippling water, which seemed to laugh, as if it saw the joke. ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... declaration, and begged me to explain myself; upon which I mentioned what I had overheard him say of me to Wagtail in the coffee-house. He laughed, and made an apology for his freedom, assuring me, that my appearance had very much prepossessed him in my favour; and what he said was only intended as a joke on the doctor's solemnity. I was highly pleased at being undeceived in this particular, and not a little proud of the good opinion of this wit, who shook me by the hand at parting, and promised to meet me the next ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... not reply. His great body circled about her, with shoulder and elbow buffeting off the surging crowd. Thus far the whites had taken the proceedings as a joke. Then a white ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... camel in the eye of a needle is a joke to it. If a fellow is eighteen, and has had a first-rate education and a good private coach, that is, a tutor, he may pass through his examination either for the army, or the civil service, or the Indian ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... never fails to enrich his discourse with allusions to eating and drinking, but we never see him at table. He carries his own larder about with him, and he is himself 'a tun of man'. His pulling out the bottle in the field of battle is a joke to show his contempt for glory accompanied with danger, his systematic adherence to his Epicurean philosophy in the most trying circumstances. Again, such is his deliberate exaggeration of his own ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... correspondence with the people in Washington who were interested in his electrical patent. The circular glass incubator was finally completed, and Bauer had experimented on it to such satisfaction that it was a common joke with the boy that Bauer's electrical chickens were so thick they ate up all the ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... understand; we thought this was some new kind of joke—which it was, but not to us. We asked for explanations; all that we wanted was to know how we were to get these things up to the Kaipara. Our colonial friend sighed deeply, and proceeded mournfully to expound the position. He told us that we could not afford to ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... the cone got so narrow he could go no further, and answered back in the darkness:—"I see nothing at all!" Shortly after he came down, covered with dust and cobwebs, and we all descended the chimney quicker than we went up. The old priest considered it a good joke, and laughed till his fat sides shook. We asked the sacristan why he sent us up, and he answered:—"To see ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... in the Harvard Divinity School once began a lecture on Comedy by saying that the study of the comic had made him realize for the first time that a joke was one of the most solemn things in the world. The analysis of humor is no easy matter. It is hard to say which is the more dreary: an essay on humor illustrated by a series of jokes, or an exposition of humor in the technical terms of ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... welcome, boys," he remarked, grimly. "Feels better already, Thad, and if the stuff will only do the business I don't care what happens. Besides, the fellows must have their fun. But they wouldn't think it a joke if any of them had climbed up, looking for a honey pot, and dropped through the rotten stuff that covered the hole in ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... watch over the letter rack, which was already becoming a standing joke in the hotel, was rewarded. An envelope bearing an English stamp and postmark, and addressed in a handwriting as familiar to me as my own, stared me in the face. To take it out and break the seal was the work of a moment. It was only ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... was a well-known gambler, and the one who looked like a farmer was a ship captain who had become a wealthy merchant. Clarence thought he understood now why the latter had asked him if he came off a voyage, and that the nickname of "Commodore" given to him, Clarence, was some joke intended for the captain's understanding. He missed them, for he wanted to talk to them about his relative at Sacramento, whom he was now so soon to see. At last, between sleeping and waking, the end of his journey was unexpectedly ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... man let go, and stepped back to look up, there he sat, to all appearance as unconcerned as if nothing had happened. Not to be so easily beaten, the man grasped the trunk again, and shook it harder than before; and this time Collurio seemed to think the joke had been carried far enough, for he took wing, and flew to another part of the Garden. The bravado of the butcher-bird is great, but it is not unlimited. I saw him, one day, shuffling along a branch in a very nervous, unshrikely fashion, and ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... one reason I'm pretty well known in the State. And there may be other reasons, too." He lets out a little chuckle at that; not loud, you know, but just as though he was swallowin' some joke or other. It was a specialty of his, this smothered chuckle business. "Of course," he goes on, "you needn't tell ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... men of talent were more prominent, and it was easier to command an audience. It was known to all that Mr. —— was coming, and guests repaired to the feast, not to talk, but to listen, as we should now to a public reading. The greatest joke and treat was to get two of such men, and set them against each other, when they had to bring out their best steel; although it sometimes happened, that both refused to fight. We need scarcely say that the humour which was produced in such quantities to supply immediate demand was not ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hand, is bought and muzzled, wrenches off his muzzle, blazes into a fierce attack on the wrongs which he is weary of witnessing, the hypocrisy which he is tired of sharing, makes his will, sets his house in order, plays one last practical joke by inventing the story of the ghostly warning, surrounds himself with dissolute company, and at midnight on November 27 deliberately fulfils his own prediction, and dies by his own hand. It is a tale creditable to Coulton's fancy. A patrician of genius, a wit, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... all a 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
... love of rice-pudding! will you get down to brass tacks and strike a trial balance? What are you talking of, anyhow? Is it a joke?" ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... angry. "I don' listen to no woman be joke 'bout, you hear? Dis boy spik true. He was in Linderman las' night, for I seen him on top of Chilkoot yesterday myse'f, wit' pack on his back so ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... in the English house of commons, in the early part of the year, which damaged the prestige of Smith O'Brien, and although O'Connell exerted himself in parliament on his behalf, the event gave the arch-agitator satisfaction. He had many a private joke at the expense of O'Brien, and few men could wound with a brighter point than O'Connell in his best moods of satire. Mr. O'Brien was nominated on a committee, and refused to serve, alleging that the affairs of his country were so neglected that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... by," uttered Greg fretfully, "You'll tell me the meaning of this joke, and why Mr. Unwine should ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... your part, Captain Frere. A capital joke, I have no doubt; but permit me to say I do not like jesting on such matters. This poor fellow's letter to his aged father to be made the subject of heartless merriment, I confess I do not understand. It was confided to me in my sacred character as ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... moonlit, vapory enchantments touched ground, the contact "precipitated the whole solution." In 1813 Scott had printed "The Bridal of Triermain" anonymously, with a preface designed to mislead the public; having contrived, by way of a joke, to fasten the authorship of the piece upon Erskine. This poem is as pure fantasy as Tennyson's "Day Dream," and tells the story of a knight who, in obedience to a vision and the instructions of an ancient sage "sprung from Druid sires," enters an enchanted castle and frees the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... he is not impudent, but is perfectly obedient. I cannot make him out, however. He performs everything smilingly, as though it were an excellent joke. I ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... say how much I am worth, but I am worth more than any sum you have mentioned." "Then," said the clerk, "you are even a greater fool than I took you for, to work as hard as you do." The old man would tell this story with great glee, for he always liked a joke. ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... Such a man might have strange fancies, and a belief in approaching death might bring its own fulfilment. The hypothesis of a premeditated suicide, with the story of the ghost as a last practical joke, has no corroboration. It occurred to Horace Walpole at once, but he laid no ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... bottom up, sir," suggested the fat cook as he passed at the moment with a tray of meat. Mizzle could not resist a joke—no matter how unsuitable the time or dreadful ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Southwark; the alley it had occupied having been purchased and [the tenements] thrown down by Mr. Thrale to make an opening before the windows of our dwelling-house. When it lay desolate in a black heap of rubbish, my mother one day in a joke called it the Ruins of Palmyra; and after that they had laid it down in a grass-plot Palmyra was the name it went by.... But there were really curious remains of the old Globe Playhouse, which though hexagonal in form without, was round within." In ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... made me feel bad t' think o' what she'd been wantin' all them years; an' then I wished I'd been kinder t' Liz.... An', 'Tumm,' thinks I, 'you went an' come ashore t' stop this here thing; but you better let the skipper have his little joke, for t'will on'y s'prise him, an' it won't do nobody else no hurt. Here's this fool,' thinks I, 'wantin' a wife; an' he won't never have another chance. An' here's this maid,' thinks I, 'wantin' a baby; an' she won't never have another ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... the windows of their lodging, but nothing could damp for long her high spirits and girlish gaiety. We are told (not by herself, but by the arch-gossip, old Aubrey) that in the company of Lady Isabella Thynne, brightest star of the Stuart Court, "fine Mistress Anne" played a practical joke on Dr. Kettle, the woman-hating President of Trinity, who resented the intrusion of petticoats into his garden, "dubbed Daphne by the wits." The lady in question aired herself there in a fantastic garment cut after the pattern of the angels, with her page and singing boy wafting ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... declared Archie. "Well, at Bridgeport they take me as a joke, see? That's all right; I'll show them, some day. They voted me a nuisance at the shops and shut me out. Wouldn't let me come near their engines. I had to find out some things necessary to my inventions, so I came on to Stanley Junction. Rode in a coach ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... is enjoying a good nap," he chuckled. "Drummer certainly has turned the joke back on Unc' Billy this time, and I guess it ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... are grown; the peasants of Ireland hardly ever eat anything besides potatoes. When they have enough of them to eat, and a little whiskey to drink, the poor people are exceedingly jovial and merry; they laugh, sing, and joke; and go to weddings, fairs, dances, and what are called in Ireland "wakes," which, among the poor, is a kind of laying in state before funerals;—but sometimes the crops of potatoes fail, and then the unfortunate peasants die by hundreds from hunger. ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... shouted. "Out with your blankets, men," to our gunners and the infantry behind, and in an instant the chosen sons of Cork were bounding out of their lines and down the hill, and belabouring the fire with blankets and ground-sheets and sacks. They seemed to think it a fine joke, and raised a paean of triumph when it was got under. "Wan more victory," I heard ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... King was angry before, he was furious now. His horses had cost a great deal of money; and to be tricked by a Blackbird is a poor joke. ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... out.' We were confronted with dearth, danger, and death. . . . They, who had formerly been our despair, were now our glory. Their spirits effervesced. Their wit sparkled. Hunger and thirst could not depress them. Rain could not damp them. Cold could not chill them. Every hardship became a joke. . . . Never was such a triumph of spirit over matter. . . . If it was another fellow that was hit, it was an occasion for tenderness and grief. But if one of them was hit, O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... half in joke and half in all seriousness, wound up in debates and disputes, and as a result two groups were formed in the house; that of the Sensible folk, comprised by the three criminals and the landlady, and that of the Foolish, in which were ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... said, half in joke, half in earnest, 'O William Dewsbury! O William Dewsbury! thou hast much to answer for! If I had never met thee I should never have undertaken this voyage in my little boat!' If he said this, I think a very tender, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... is completed. Any unusual design runs through two years, after which it can be obtained only from the factory. A dozen of each is a good number to aim at, for there will be many occasions which will call out one's whole dish brigade and keep it actively engaged. The old joke about having to wash dishes between courses, and sending the ice cream afloat on a warm plate, really loses its amusing aspect when it becomes an actual experience. Unless the mistress prefers to serve her ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... my little joke on Ito; illustrated to him, I fondly thought, the absurdity of indiscriminately dragging in the word "honourable" in and out of season. How would ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... and because of it thousands of slaves met a cruel death as the direct result of the effort to save them from slavery. Many stories are told of these wholesale drownings. The captain of the British cruiser "Black Joke" reports of a case in which he was pursuing ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... Laura Clay of Kentucky and Miss Kate Gordon of Louisiana. The advisability of attempting to have a woman suffrage measure introduced in the next session of the Legislature was considered. Two men besides the host appeared at this conference, a reporter, who regarded the meeting as something of a joke, and the Hon. R. H. Thompson of Jackson, an eminent lawyer, who came to offer sympathetic advice. Visits were made to the Governor, James K. Vardaman, and other State officials; to the Hinds county legislators who had recently ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... could laugh and joke about it like you do, squire," said Shaddy sadly, as he peered about. "It's serious, my lad. Something very ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... years I've lived on the bank. You sure have struck it this time. Right this way," he is staggering under the load of our paraphernalia; "rig's all ready and Molly's got the kettle on at home, waiting breakfast for you.... Just as fat as you were last year, ain't ye?" a time-proven joke, for I weigh one hundred and eight pounds. "Try to pull you out, though; try to." And his great laugh drowns the roar ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... A joke was a rare thing in those dull, waiting days, and George Washington McKinley Jones was delicious. The Colonel smoothed the smiles from his mouth as best he could. But not a quiver of mirth ruffled the dirt-stained countenance of the child. His severe stare ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... Bernard was borne upstairs again by Felix, who found Clement in the nursery comforting the little girls, and preventing them from following the example of their valiant pioneer. Felix, now thoroughly entering into the spirit of the joke, entertained for a moment the hope of entrapping Clement; but of course Bernard could not be silenced from his bold and rather doubtful proclamation, that 'The funny boy made Felix black his own face, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your sides I guess, to see the stupid stare of the devils, as startin' out of their sleep, they saw a pistol within three inches of each of'em. 'Ugh,' says they, as if they did'nt know well whether to take it as a joke or not. 'Yes, 'ugh' and be damn'd to you,' say's I: you may go and 'ugh' in hell next—and with that snap went the triggers, and into their curst carcasses went the balls. The one I killed outright but t'other the Delaweer chief, was by a sudden ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... experienced all the sensations of the criminal on his trial, sitting on a narrow bench confronted by a stern and penetrating judge. 'Why, it's a cross-examination!' he murmured to himself dejectedly. Maria Nikolaevna kept laughing all the while, as though it were a joke; but Sanin felt none the more at ease for that; and when in the course of the 'cross-examination' it turned out that he had not clearly realised the exact meaning of the words 'repartition' and 'tilth,' he was in a ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... I might go on and tell How all the joke at last leaked out, And how the youngsters raised the yell And rode the happy groom about Upon their shoulders; how the bride Was kissed a hunderd times beside The one I give her,—tel she cried And laughed untel she like to died! I might go on and tell you all About ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... my love, very true. Exactly so, indeed—quite unheard of—but some ladies say any thing. Better pass it off as a joke. Every body knows what is ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... it," said Jessie, icily, though there was a twinkle in her eye. "Not having a mirror, I'm afraid I can't join in the joke." ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... brutality of the brokers; should sell the iron at my own price, and have the sweet satisfaction of seeing our great people shamefully mystified. That would teach them to proclaim themselves perpetually the harbingers and promoters of progress in Europe. Oh! it would be a capital joke, ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... good-natured laughter at Reddy's expense. His red hair was as common a subject of joke as ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent, and I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke invite me to lecture on Optics before them, for which they pay me, and laugh at me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Mildred, more disappointed at the failure of her joke than at the too substantial fare that awaited her. 'Poor Harold,' she thought, 'is the best of fellows, but, like all of them, he can't see a joke. The cooking I can alter, but he'll always remain boiled ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... of Webb's, with whom we used to joke, and of whom a story (whereof I myself was the author) was got to be believed in the army, that he was eldest son of the hereditary Grand Bootjack of the Empire, and the heir to that honor of which his ancestors had ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... swiftness, he smote me a buffet on the head. I was knocked backward fully a dozen feet before I fetched up against the ground, and I remember, half-stunned, even as the blow was struck, hearing the wild uproar of clucking and shrieking laughter that arose from the caves. It was a great joke—at least in that day; and right heartily the ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... 'It hath been said, O king, that it is not sinful to lie on the occasion of a joke, in respect of women sought to be enjoyed, on occasions of marriage, in peril of immediate death and of the loss of one's whole fortune. Lying is excusable on these five occasions. O king, it is not true that he is fallen ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... is," laughed Mr. Carlyle, willing to joke the subject and his sister into good-humor. "Would you wish to ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... a joke, or it's the black rabbit getting in his work," answered Bud. "It's from an ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... is the same as with me," pursued he. "We've both spent our time with the young married set, where marriage is regarded as a rather stupid joke. You ought to have stuck to the market-place until your business ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... 'oh! the apothecary's daughter, Wilhelmina. You must have heard of Mr. Turner. Rupert has made a standing joke of him, ever ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Academy years ago. Yes, there she is. Mrs. Muir, you know." She clapped her hands and her laugh became a delighted giggle. "And my Robin is playing on the grass near her—with a boy! What a joke! It must be THE boy! And I wanted to see the pair together. Coombe said couldn't be done. And more than anything I want to speak to ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... through Logan's coat-sleeve, scratching the skin, and struck Colonel Taylor square in the breast; luckily he had in his pocket a famous memorandum-book, in which he kept a sort of diary, about which we used to joke him a good deal; its thickness and size saved his life, breaking the force of the ball, so that after traversing the book it only penetrated the breast to the ribs, but it knocked him down and disabled ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... 'And it was no joke holding him tight,' said Mr. Romfrey, 'I 'd as lief snap an ash. The fellow (he leaned round to Colonel Halkett) must be a fellow of a fine constitution. And he took his punishment like a man. I've known worse: and far worse: gentlemen by birth. There's the choice of taking it upright ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of sixty years of age, noble-looking, loving a good joke, an antiquarian, and a good astronomer. I picked up many an anecdote from him, and many ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... senseless joke About a soldier, wherever made, Would make us ashamed.... For now we choke Whenever the Colors and you parade! Wherever that O. D. uniform Shall gladden the eyes of we useless men We can't forget who is meeting the storm— That some of you won't come home again! You went.... We talked.... ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... said she, treating it as a joke. "So we shall be starved to death, and covered up by birds, like the ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... depicting the charm and attractiveness of Jane Austen's character must be quite incomplete if it fails to take into account the special manner in which she showed these qualities as an aunt. She herself says in joke to a young niece that she had always maintained the importance of aunts; and she evidently felt, in all seriousness, the responsibility of that relationship, though she would have been one of the last to display her sense ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... solemn mien. When Rose, however began to deliver a pompous little speech, treating her brother's betrothed like some foreign princess, whom she had orders to welcome in the name of the king, her father, the young couple began to laugh, and even prolonged the joke by responding in the same style. The railway men looked on and listened, gaping. It was a fine farce, and the Froments were delighted at showing themselves so playful on that ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... the best joke of our lives, over which we will often laugh at our fireside hereafter. Come now, cousin, make the best of it; it is the best for you as well as for me. You know I always intended to marry you, and I have the hearty sanction of all the ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... I was as innocent as you. I had a good mother then. If she had lived, perhaps I would have turned out different. Why, it seems a great joke, doesn't it? I attended Sunday-school till I ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... a joke on me. Ed and Jimmy joined the Captain in laughing, and I felt rather put down. But we soon had something else to think of, for we went on another tack to enter Sandy Island River. A bridge crossed this river, not far from the mouth, and the ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... joke," Mr. Crow said. And he laughed loudly. "These young fellows here have been trying to tell one another why you're called Sandy. One of 'em says it's because you like to dig in the sandy soil; and another says it's because of your color; and still another ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... florins on detto Herr Cheese. You must know that, though I only saw Herr Herzog once, I could not resist asking him to send me a draft on Herr Schmalz, or to Herrn Butter, Milk, and Cheese, or whom he would—a ca! This joke has succeeded; it is no good making ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... looked frankly into the captain's as he continued. "I have been making a fool of myself, Captain. Got into some mischief with a crowd of fellows at school. Of course, I got caught and had to bear the whole blame for the silly joke we had played. The faculty has suspended me for a term. I would have got off with only a reprimand if I would have told the names of the other fellows, but I ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... pleasant to Nekhludoff to recall all that; it was pleasant to recall how he came near quarreling with the army officer who attempted to make a bad joke of it; how another comrade sided with him, which drew them more closely together; how merry and successful was the hunt, and how happy he felt that night returning to the railroad station. A long file of sleighs moved noiselessly in pairs at a gentle trot along the narrow ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... bell," and sure enough there came a ring. Up I went without shoes, like a shot to my bedroom, began to smell my fingers, found they were sticky, and the smell not the same. I recollect thinking it strange that her cunt should be so sticky, I had heard of dirty cunts,—it was a joke among us boys, and thought hers must have been so, which was the cause, that the smell and ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... joke, gentlemen,' I said to them, 'that you played on my father. To send that good man to prison, and to go home with the price of his honor and his liberty jingling in your pockets. It was a capital joke; and you will now feel the finest point of ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... 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 person [Footnote: Spectator 2, 359.] ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... only wanted to know the worst. Silly joke about the fertility of curates—you've met ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... enormous policeman in the quaint attire of the 'forties—top hat, tail coat, tight trousers, just as I had so often seen portrayed in old books. He was riding stiffly, as if unaccustomed to the saddle, and kept looking rigidly in front of him. Thinking it was someone doing it either for a joke or a wager, I was greatly tickled, and kept saying to myself, 'Well, you are a sport, an A1 sport.' I tried to catch him up, to see how he made up his face, but could not, for although the horse never seemed to quicken its pace—a mere crawl—and I ran, it nevertheless ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... seen the proofs of this little volume says it should be entitled "Jokes Old and New''; but I find that he seldom acknowledges that a joke is new, and I hope, therefore, my readers will transpose the adjectives, and accept the old jokes for the sake of the new ones. I may claim, at least, that the series of answers to examination questions, which Prof. Oliver Lodge has so kindly supplied ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... a wilder jest, and I'll not spoil the joke. He has us on his toasting-fork. He shall have the honour ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and with the citoyennes Elodie, Rose, and Julienne crowding round him, Desmahis looked at Philippe Dubois—he did not like the man and suspected him of having played him a practical joke—with a wry smile, and towering above him ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... a joke. I was salted on the 'See Saw' property. Our pipe dream is defunct. Have gone over to lay out remains. If you find any oldtimers who have just discovered some lost bonanza, take them into camp. Don't get drunk, get busy. Be back ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... fond as ever of its little joke, having written my C.O. a solemn letter to say they couldn't entertain the idea of my promotion seeing that under the Double Coy. system the establishment of Captains is reduced to seven and so on, and having thereby induced him to offer ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... when the letter of Guilbert seems a joke or a hoax. One does not like to think that she said, "The true comedian finds his success in himself, and can do without the dramatic author. He easily utilizes his own comic or tragic gifts, as is ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... attention to the impending disaster. I cannot divide things easily; I am an indivisible man. But one night I went for a bicycle ride with my wife. She was a Bantam of delight, I can tell you, but she rode very badly. It was starlight, and I was attempting to explain the joke in the paper called, if I recollect aright, Punch. It was an extraordinarily sultry night, and I told her the names of all the stars she saw as she fell off her machine. She had a good bulk of falls. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the people went to ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... while the lively chit-chat within—the humorous joke—the joy-excited laughter, all of which only aroused his indignation to greater fierceness. But at that moment, when ready to put his threats into execution the right hand of his soul arrested suddenly the uplifted weapon of ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... young folks pull the chair from under some one "for fun," and the result was pain and perhaps permanent injury to the object of the joke. ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... has made in almost every branch of industry is most extraordinary, yet none is so striking as the advance which has been effected in cutlery, as I well remember when I first came to France, it was a common joke amongst the English, when speaking of the rarity of an object, to observe that it was as scarce as a knife in France that would cut, its appearance also was as dull as its edge, soon however their cutlery, with their ideas, began to brighten, and to sharpen; but even as recently as 1830, they ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... home we return, we'll sit down to feast, Our friends shall behold us with pleasure; She'll sip with my lord—I'll drink with the priest, We'll laugh and we'll quaff without measure. The toast and the joke shall go joyfully round, With love and good humour the room shall resound. The slipper be hid—the stocking let fall, And rare blindman's-buff shall keep up the ball; Whilst the merry spinette, and the sweet tambourine, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... exceedingly, as though the most splendid joke had been made, and before we had done we were out of the village and in the open country beyond, and could see my house and garden far away behind, glittering in the sunshine; and in front of us lay the forest, ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... anything about the war, she persuaded him to visit the King of Scyros. There, under pretext of a joke, he was induced to put on girl's clothes, and to pretend ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... to joke about the arts, but Milly didn't expect to see much of the Reddons once they were launched in the fascinating life of Paris. She was becoming a little bored with them already, with their sloppy unconventionality and with ship life in general. Most of the first-cabin passengers, she discovered, ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... about his neck, oho—aha! Tom Button—big Tom, fighting Tom so loud o' tongue and ready o' fist—Tom as have cowed so many—there is he fast by the neck and a-groaning, see ye, gossips, loud enough for six, wish I may die else! And the best o' the joke is—the key be gone, as I'm a sinner! So they needs must break the lock to get him out. Big Tom, as have thrashed every man for miles." But here merry voice and laughter ceased and a buxom woman thrust smiling face from the window, and face (like ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... aristocracy of prosperity, and apparently there is also an aristocracy of the ins as opposed to the outs, and I am with the outs. So the ranks grow daily, here. Plainly there are all kinds of castes here and only one that I belong to, the outcasts." But he couldn't even smile at his small joke, although he was obliged to confess that he had a rather good opinion of it. He was feeling so defeated and miserable by this time that he could no longer look with philosophical complacency on the horseplay ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
