"Joke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his foot should be taken off, not his head," giggled Betty; but no one but herself laughed at her joke. ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... monotonous scenery and depressing conditions of official life in Bengal (Resort to Simla was the exception, not the rule, in these days!) to the cheerfulness and unconstraint of Burma, with its fine landscapes and merry-hearted population. "It was such a relief to find natives who would laugh at a joke," he once remarked in the writer's presence to the lamented E. C. Baber, who replied that he had experienced exactly the same sense of relief in passing ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... me to tie Pugh I did it," Glass continued. "Then he dropped a loop over me, and that's all there is to tell. The joke's on us just now." ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... wrong to women is, depend upon it, Eusebius, the "brute of a husband," called, by courtesy, in higher life, "Sir John Brute." Horace says wittily, that Venus puts together discordant persons and minds with a bitter joke, "saevo mittere cum joco;" it begins a jest, and ends a crying evil. We name the thing that should be good, with an ambiguous sound that gives disagreement to the sense. It is marry-age, or matter o' money. And let any man who is a euphonist, and takes omens from names, attend the publication ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... of Caracalla. The selection was most appropriate. Only the old, decrepit, and broken-down were taken,—the younger and sturdier were left. Ruined men were in harmony with the ruined temples. Such a set of laborers was never before seen. Falstaff's ragged regiment was a joke to them. Each had a wheelbarrow, a spade, or pick, and a cloak; but the last was the most important part of their equipment. Some of them picked at the earth with a gravity that was equalled only by the feebleness of the effort and the poverty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... blank at this, and, suddenly realising that they were not very familiar with American coins, Patty explained the joke. They saw it, of course, but seemed to think it not very good, and Sinclair whimsically insisted on calling it, "a shilling to Bob," which he said ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... and that the Japanese cannot be acquitted of guilt in this context, grave pundits in Tokyo, London and New York gravely rebuke them for following their own senses in preference to the official returns of the Residency General. It is a poor joke at the best! Nor is it the symptom of a powerful cause that the failure of the Japanese authorities to 'pacify' the interior is ascribed to 'anti-Japanese' writers like Mr. McKenzie."—From "Peace ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... choice; he was obliged to pass thro' the ceremony of dying either in jest or in earnest; and we shall not be surprized at the event, when we remember his propensities to the former.—Life (and especially the life of Falstaff) might be a jest; but he could see no joke whatever in dying: To be chopfallen was, with him, to lose both life and character together: He saw the point of honour, as well as every thing else, in ridiculous lights, and began ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... you are joking. And yet—perhaps the joke is not far off. You are less solvent than your father and he was less solvent than his father. Perhaps your son will no longer be solvent. It becomes too troublesome for the planet to support even the industries that still exist, though they are toothpicks to the oak trees ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... is turning the whole thing into piffle. You fellows seemed to want to chivvy him, so I agreed just for the joke. But it isn't likely that we shall recognise ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... stock wandered at will in the open. But with the gathering and the calf-branding he knew that the number had shrunk woefully. Of the calves he had left with their mothers in the fall, scarce one remained; of the cows themselves he could find not half, and the calf-branding was becoming a grim joke ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... the benefit of the New York Observer I will state that a despatch sent round the world in a spiral direction westward 1,200 times, would not really arrive at its destination four years before it started. It is only a joke ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... choir stalls and miserere seats was a natural ebullition of the humourous instinct, which had so little opportunity for exploiting itself in monastic seclusion. The joke was hidden away, under the seat, out of sight of visitors, or laymen: inconspicuous, but furtively entertaining. There was no self-consciousness in its elaboration, it was often executed for pure love of fun and whittling; and for that ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... dear," replied Lady Ingleby, "is a little joke of the duchess's. This concert is arranged for the amusement of her house party, and for the gratification and glorification of local celebrities. The whole neighbourhood is invited. None of you are asked to perform, but local celebrities are. In ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... been a good joke in France then; it is so now,—wonderfully fresh and new,—defying time and endless repetition. American eyes do not see much fun in it; they rather turn away in disgust. But on the risible organs of the French purgative medicines ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... turn humorous author, and aim at the countenance of the men. Except as a humorist he certainly never will get it, for your American, when he is not making money, or trying to do it, is making a joke, or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... compliments—as, indeed, they probably imagined that they were. All this was magnificent, but it was not business. Dunstable and Linton felt that the whole attitude of the public towards the new enterprise was wrong. Locksley seemed to regard the Trust as a huge joke, and its prospectus as a ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... then an unfortunate incident. Some one had said something about England: there had been a joke then about "sportsmen," some allusion was made to some old story connected with myself, and I had laughingly taken up the challenge. Suddenly Semyonov leaned across the table and spoke to Trenchard. Trenchard, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... out his whole instinct was against it: against war. He had not the faintest desire to overcome any foreigners or to help in their death. He had no conception of Imperial England, and Rule Britannia was just a joke to him. He was a pure-blooded Englishman, perfect in his race, and when he was truly himself he could no more have been aggressive on the score of his Englishness than a rose can be aggressive on the ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... moustaches, the blushing consciousness of his good luck?—They call him THE FOURTH CHAPTER of the Duchess's memoirs. The little Marquise d'Alberas is ready to die out of spite; but the best of the joke is, that she has only taken poor de Vendre for a lover in order to vent her spleen on him. Look at him against the chimney yonder; if the Marchioness do not break at once with him by quitting him for somebody else, the poor fellow will ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lay of the land. But Curly acted indifferent, and never even offered to call on Miss Sallie. Us fellows joked him about his girl going to marry another fellow, and he didn't seem a little bit put out. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the sudden turn as a good joke on himself. But one morning, two days before the wedding was to take place, Miss Sallie was missing from her home, as was likewise Curly Thorn from the neighborhood. Yes, Thorn had eloped with her and they were married the next morning in Nacogdoches. ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... given, as a rule, to smiling at any man who did his best. On any other day he would have very likely exchanged a joke with the bullock-man who labored so unavailingly to get the road cleared in a hurry. But to-day, since his thoughts were of Ranjoor Singh, he paid the man no attention; he had not even formed a mental picture of him by the time ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... and vigorous for the work of the coming winter. She was anxious to know whether the reports of the Senate debate had been franked and sent out as promised and, to her inquiry, Senator Blair answered with his usual little joke: "I have had the speeches, etc., attended to and trust that the mails will do you justice if the males do not. But remember that men naturally fight for their lives, and on the same ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... Mrs. Ledward she confided at least once a week, generally when she paid her rent, her settled intention to go and find work of some kind in the course of the next two or three days; till at length this had become a standing joke with the landlady, who laughed merrily as often as the subject was mentioned. Lotty had of late let her thoughts turn to her father, whom she had never seen since their parting. Not with any affection did she think of him, but, in her despairing moments, it seemed to her impossible ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... while being hurried into dry clothes, Minnie more coherently explained her mishap. Wishing to play a joke on Giles, she had slipped away from the fireside company of him and Sarah to put a match to his fagots on the pond, run back with word that they were burning, and laugh with Sarah while Giles should plunge out to find the incendiaries. But she had forgotten how frail good ice may be ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... piled with snowdrifts up to the first-floor windows. The streets through which our friends had to go to their work were all unpaved and full of deep holes and gullies; in summer, when it rained hard, a man might have to wade to his waist to get to his house; and now in winter it was no joke getting through these places, before light in the morning and after dark at night. They would wrap up in all they owned, but they could not wrap up against exhaustion; and many a man gave out in these battles with the snowdrifts, and lay ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... feel that the other world was the good place I think it if I did not believe I could laugh there too." She once said to me, in the midst of a storm of acute suffering, that pain seemed to her a strange sort of a joke. I hardly knew what she meant, but it shows the reigning mood of one who used to better ends a life half pain than most of us use the untroubled health of existence. Very irritable in youth, her clear brain and strong sense of duty overcame it in proportion ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... shouted, in a scornful tone. "The joke is a good one. Let us accept the name; we will contend with the abominable Inquisition till compelled to wear the beggar's ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... closely under the lee of fact that they were not strictly divisible. Moreover, Sarah Winch, whom Chumley Potts drew into conversation, said, he vowed, she came up West from Whitechapel. She said it a little nervously, but without blushing. Always on the side of the joke, he could ask: 'Who can doubt?' Indeed, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that I was studying their personal peculiarities for my own advantage and for the public amusement. Some thought the thing a good joke; some objected to it, and quarreled with me. Liberality in the matter of liquor and small loans, reconciled a large proportion of the objectors to their fate; the sulky minority I treated with contempt, and scourged avengingly with the smart ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... most exclusive nation of the world, watched the assembly before him and there occurred to him the thought of conquering it single-handed. That is what it came to. Of course his reference is in the nature of a joke. It could hardly be otherwise. But it was a joke which has ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... Having had some horses stolen, he sternly called on the city authorities to pay him their full value. They did so without a murmur—in Confederate money. He pocketed it with a grim smile, evidently appreciating the joke. He boasted greatly of his humanity and his respect for private property, but if the local papers are to be believed, it must be chronicled to his everlasting disgrace that he seized a great many negroes, who were tied and sent South as slaves. Black children were ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... says he. "It's a light matter, I suppose, prowling around private grounds and pilfering? I ought to be taking it as a joke, eh? Don't ye know, you two, I could have you ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... fruit had scored a similar success, for once she had said to Georgie Pillson, "Ah, my gardener has sent in some early apples and pears, won't you take one home with you?" It was not till the weight of the pear (he swiftly selected the largest) betrayed the joke that he had any notion that they were not real ones. But then Georgie had had his revenge, for waiting his opportunity he had inserted a real pear among those stony specimens and again passing through with Lucia, he picked it out, and with lips drawn ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... to form any just idea as to how their representatives are conducting the public business. He said: "I may make a most careful speech on any important subject before Congress and it will not be mentioned in the New York papers, but let me make a joke and it will be published all over the United States. Yesterday, on a wager, I tried an experiment: I made two poor little jokes during a short talk in the House, and here they are in the New York papers ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... the boy's parents and they were very grateful. The boy had grown dizzy while standing on the bank and had fallen in. They said they would get the order of the French Legion of Honor for me if they could. That would be a good joke. ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... don't think I can call you so. You are too old. It would not be respectful." She meant it half in joke, and had no idea he would take the allusion to his age so seriously as he did. He rose up, and coldly, as a matter of form, in a changed voice, wished her "Good-bye." Her heart sank; yet the old pride was there. But as he was at the very door, some ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Portulak," said a little common duck, who was witty; and all the other common ducks considered the word Portulak quite a good joke, for it sounded like Portugal; and they nudged each other and said "Rapp!" It was too witty! And all the other ducks now began to notice the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... But I have a horrible feeling that you farmers think you have caught a city ignoramus and that it is your duty to stuff me with the tallest stories you can invent. Please set me right. If you are stuffing me the joke is certainly on me, for these incredible tales seem true: if they are true the joke is doubly on me. As I am the butt, either way, don't be too hard on me: ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... and I thought it not a bad lookout. He was perfectly well-mannered, and at a hotel where we stopped for tea he took his coffee at our table unbidden, like any American fellow-man. He and the landlord had their joke together, the landlord warning me against him in English as "very bad man," and clapping him affectionately on the shoulder to emphasize the irony. We did not demand too much social information of him; all the more we valued the ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... that word "alone" so much, that at last we began to joke about it in the reception-room; outriders and footmen tossed it from one to another when a new guest entered: "Alone!" And we laughed and enjoyed ourselves. But M. Nicklauss, with his extended knowledge of society, considered that the almost universal abstention of ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... last. Now I know why your name seemed so familiar. Last fall a Miss Seaton was staying at the hotel with her mother. She dictated a letter to me, the carbon copy of which I am enclosing. She told me that she was having the letter typed for a joke and asked me to sign it 'Jane Allen.' I knew that wasn't her name, because I had heard a bell-boy page her several times and knew who she was. She said that you were her cousin and that she was only sending the letter for ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... bit his nails. He was a lean creature, unshaven and sidelong, and he had the furtive and self-conscious air of one who perpetrates a practical joke. Miss Gregory watched him with some impatience; she had yet to learn that a Portugee of the Coast will even lose money to inconvenience an ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... men looked sheepish and hurriedly explained the joke, looking over in the direction of the two strangers. As their welcome was considered a huge joke the men laughed loudly. Mr. Brewster (for it was the rancher) frowned when he saw the pale girls almost fainting from fear. Then he turned to ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... compliment to the Canadians, though my appreciation can't be worth very much. But I don't feel in a mood to joke. In fact, there's a feeling of depression abroad to-night; even your father seems affected. I'd expected a pleasant talk with him, but ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... floor, stopping at one door after another, where dirty, frowzy women and children opened at the sound of his cheery whistle. He handed in the loaves, or the measures of hominy with a gay word or a joke that more than once banished a frown from a woman's worn face, or checked the tears of a tired, hungry child. Children were getting to be fond of the boy ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... paralysed with wonder, sank into a chair in a perfect ecstasy of laughter, and offered to lay twenty pounds that it was that droll dog Griggins. He had no sooner said this, than the majority of the company and all the children of the house burst into a roar of laughter too, as if some inimitable joke flashed upon them simultaneously, and gave vent to various exclamations of—To be sure it must be Griggins, and How like him that was, and What spirits he was always in! with many other commendatory ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... He'll joke with you in sun or show'r, And keep you laughing by the hour. Some zanies are a trifle mad: Now we ...
— Little People: An Alphabet • T. W. H. Crosland
... zenith of his fame and influence. When the reserve of the first few days had worn off, he was simply splendid to me. When anything I said struck him as being to the point, he pressed my hands with all the ardour of youth, and he applauded every joke I attempted ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... conjecture why Shakespeare should have introduced this ludicrous scroll, which answers no one purpose, either propulsive, or explicatory, unless as a joke on etymology. ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... talkin' disconnected until about midnight, first tellin' some devilish deed he'd seen or took part in, an' then tellin' o' some joke or some act o' kindness. Just at midnight he took my hand, an' the' came a look into his eyes like as if he was about overcome by some beautiful vision; but in a moment he cohered down an' he gripped my hand till it hurt. "Happy," he gasped, "I allus loved ya, Happy. You won't ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... that is more than I expected. Well, now I'm satisfied that's a joke; and I shall find nothing in ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... parents in infancy; but it would be interesting to learn the origin of this quaint custom from someone who has had a chance to study this tribe. Probably the girl's poverty furnishes the key. The whole thing seems like a practical joke raised to the dignity of an institution. The perversion of all ordinary rules is consistently carried out in this, too, that "if the old people refuse they can be beaten into compliance!" That the loss of female ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... trifling matter as this." And thus they held him by the clothes and in parley, until all that were in the court perceived that he had lost his breeches. However, after a while, Matteuzzo dropped the breeches, and slipped off, and out of the court, without being observed, and Ribi, deeming that the joke had gone far enough, exclaimed:—"By God, I vow, I will appeal to the Syndics;" while Maso, on the other side, let go the robe, saying:—"Nay, but for my part, I will come here again and again and again, until I find ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... well as the value of all his early training in the arts of the politician. Always ready to listen, and to give men free chance to relieve their minds in talk, he never directly antagonized their opinions, but, deftly embodying an argument in an apt joke or story, would manage to switch them off from their track to his own without their exactly perceiving the process. His innate courtesy often made him seem uncertain of his ground, but he probably had his own way quite as frequently as Andrew Jackson, and without that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... 10,000 Kentishmen had enrolled as Volunteers, and 1,040 in the Army of Reserve, exclusive of Sea Fencibles serving on gunboats. For the whole of Great Britain the totals were 379,000 and 31,000 respectively.[659] Pitt's joke at the expense of a battalion which laid more stress on privileges than drills, has become historic. Its organizers sent up a plan containing several stipulations as to their duties, with exceptions "in case of actual invasion." Pitt lost patience at this Falstaff-like ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... always on his return he would be closeted immediately with one or other of the partners, who in turn seemed to consider him important too, and would sometimes treat him almost like one of themselves, actually condescending to laugh with him now and again over some joke, evidently as mysterious as all the rest. This Mr. Perkins seldom noticed the juniors in his department, though occasionally he would select one of them to accompany him on one of his missions to clients of the firm; and they ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... that was only a little joke. A fellow is in such high spirits when he comes ashore again. But out at sea it's—thrash the others, or they'll thrash you! Well, that's all right, but one ought to be good to the women. That's what I've told the old man ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... it; and began anew the task of living down his name. Always, when introduced or introducing himself, he saw in the eyes opposite his own that maddening glimmer of amusement. Then he gritted his teeth and waited for the joke. There were fourteen possible forms that it might take. Tempted often to return to that rocky Connecticut hillside, he nevertheless stuck it out, and, as time passed, found he didn't mind so much. He even reached the ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... burst out laughing, for it was always a great joke between them, his liking for her noodle soup. Old Grandpa laughed loudest of all, circling them, and pounding the floor with his cane. "What say?" he demanded. "What say?" Altogether the restoration ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... {0e} To that "very small circle" we have no reason to suppose that Manningham belonged, despite his remarkable opinion that Twelfth Night resembles the Menaechmi. Consequently, it is NOT "extremely remarkable" that Manningham wrote "Shakespeare's name William," to explain to posterity the joke about "William the Conqueror," instead of saying, "the brilliant author of the Twelfth Night play which so much amused me at our feast a few weeks ago." {0f} "Remarkable" out of all hooping it would have been had Manningham written ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... for a long time, and the girls had almost forgotten their joke in a game of Letters, when "Tingle, tangle!" went the bell, and the basket came in heavily laden. A roll of colored papers was tied outside, and within was a box that rattled, a green and silver horn, a roll of narrow ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the story as she felt she knew it. Union Square, the discharged shopgirl, John's quixotic conduct. And John watched Mary with a lover's eye. He had not intended that she should be involved. A moment of her displeasure, even upon mistaken grounds, was no part of his idea of a joke. ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... seas!" he answered, "I must tell you about that. It's a great joke on me. I left America thinking the freedom of the seas the most important issue of the Peace Conference. When I got here I found there was no such issue. You see the freedom of the seas concerns neutrals in time of war. But when we have the League of Nations there ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... thousand simple mouths to grin! As the jaded Merryman uttered them to the old gentleman with the whip, some of the old folks in the audience, I daresay, indulged in reflections of their own. There was one joke — I utterly forget it — but it began with Merryman saying what he had for dinner. He had mutton for dinner, at one o'clock, after which "he had to come to business." And then came the point. Walter Juvenis, Esq., Rev. Doctor Birch's, Market Rodborough, if you read this, will you ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... them. In the Devil's name! I never in my life was so near choked; swimming in this mother of Dead Dogs, and a long spell of it still ahead! I profoundly pity myself (if no one else does). You shall hear of me again if I survive,—but really that is getting beyond a joke with me, and I ought to hold my peace (even to you), and swim what I can. Your little touch of Human Speech on Burns'* was charming; had got into the papers here (and been clipt out by me) before your copy came, and has gone far and wide since. ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... And to think you went and walked about in the mud and the east wind! Well, if that isn't the best joke I ever heard! I'll have a rare laugh over this story with ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... but he added, "No, my shoes must spend the night among the feathered people, for that is what they are used to. So I would rather hang them on the perch in the hen-house." The farmer laughed at the joke, and ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... said Bob. "I fancied from your letters that life with the she-dragon was one huge joke, and that Papa was nice and companionable, and the kids, sweet little darlings who ate from your hand. And all the time you were just the poor ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Have 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 ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... and thank him," said Jo, by way of a joke, for the idea of the child's really going never entered ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... flattered him and praised his strength, and finally persuaded him to let himself be bound with this chain, "just for a joke." You may be sure, however, that they said nothing about its being the strongest chain that could ever ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... affair at L'Abbaye had been managed, finding no just cause to suspect anyone there of criminal complicity in the plans of the Pack: a forged order for a table to the maitre-d'hotel, ten francs to the carriage-porter and twenty more to the dancing woman to play parts in a putative practical joke—and the thing had been arranged without ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... do you? I suspected them at once. Still I pretended to turn Martha's whole story into a joke, and tried to explain to her how the darkness made us liable to have all kinds of optical illusions; so that when I left, and a servant was sent with a candle to light me on my way, the countess was quite sure that I had ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... not a ruffian," he cried. Then, returning to his usual tone: "I didn't even have to conceal a smile. Somehow it didn't look a smiling matter. No, it was not funny; it was rather pathetic; he was so representative of an the past victims of the Great Joke. But it is by folly alone that the world moves, and so it is a respectable thing upon the whole. And besides, he was what one would call a good man. I don't mean especially because he had offered up a ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Commendatore, briefly. "You must have your joke." And his hand instinctively made for his moustaches. "Well, I am sorry. I can never hope to find you a ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... that his behavior, as I could see, had already begun to demoralize the objects of his misplaced politeness. At first the servants stared and resented it, as if it were some tasteless joke; but in an incredibly short time, when they saw that he meant his courtesy in good faith, they took it as their due. I had always had a good understanding with the head-waiter, and I thought I could safely smile with him at the ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... murdered that boy just as surely as if she had cut his throat; and the worst of it is that she can't be held legally guilty—morally, yes, guilty as sin; but legally—" He shook his head. "The laws that man makes for mankind are a joke." ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... you Goths are of a joke," said Erik, with a laugh. "You have a way of saying one thing when you mean another. But I can guess what brings you. Gothland is little and its revenues are small and you have many people to keep and feed. Food is now scarce in Gothland, and you have come ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... and thunder. Up started both in wonder, Looked around and saw that the sky was clear, Then laughed "Confess you believed us, Dear!" "I saw through the joke!" the man ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... standing near turn round and scowl; and one of them, stepping forward, orders the offender, in a tone of authority, to go home at once if she cannot behave herself. Crestfallen, the culprit retires, and the youth who is the cause of the merriment makes the incident the subject of a new joke. Meanwhile the deliberations have begun. The majority of the members are chatting together, or looking at a little group composed of three peasants and a woman, who are standing a little apart from the others. Here alone the matter in hand is being really discussed. The ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... "What a capital joke!" shouted his listeners, and amid roars of laughter, claimed the bet of fish, and wine. It was duly paid; but Tokutaro never allowed his hair to grow again, and renounced the world, and became a priest ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... universally spoken, not having yet degraded into petr'l, a future squire will not be disqualified from airing his wit to his visitors by saying, as he points to his old stables, 'that is where I store my petrel', and when the joke had been illustrated in Punch, its folly would sufficiently distract the patients in a dentist's waiting-room for years to come, in spite of gentlemen and chauffeurs continuing to say petrol, as they do now; nor ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... own head mason. The mason happened to be thinking about nautical affairs when the grey cob swept down upon him, and just as the Squire cleared him he cried "Ship ahoy." This occurrence supplied the Squire with a joke which lasted nearly ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... water, The work of fishermen, the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher; I come with my clam-rake and spade, I come with my eel-spear, Is the tide out? I Join the group of clam-diggers on the flats, I laugh and work with them, I joke at my work like a mettlesome young man; In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot on the ice—I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice, Behold me well-clothed going gayly or returning in the afternoon, my brood of tough boys accompanying ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... were to send a letter addressed to Mrs. Lecount at Aldborough, inclosed in another letter addressed to one of your friends abroad? And suppose you were to instruct that friend to help a harmless practical joke by posting Mrs. Lecount's letter at Zurich? Do you know any one who could be trusted ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... would now be singing 'Britannia Rules the Wave!' No, I insist that he is an American traveling Incog. I suspect that I have Caught him with the Goods. While sitting here, I have had my Sherlock Holmes System at work. A few Moments ago he read a Joke in a Comic Paper, and the Light of Appreciation kindled in his Eye before ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... see anything particularly sad in the matter. A man may get through the world very creditably without knowing what's o'clock. Yet, upon the whole, it is no bad thing to know what's o'clock—you, of course, do? It would be too good a joke if two people were to be together, one knowing Armenian and the other Chinese, and neither knowing what's o'clock. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... moment. Then, trying to look as if the finding of the bully drifting in the harbor was rather a joke, ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... provisions enough to load down a mule, would be all the better appreciated if one had just been released from the hands of the Philistines with nothing but his clothes - and buttons - and the bicycle. With these things left to him, one could afford to regard the whole matter as a joke, expensive, perhaps, but nevertheless a joke compared with what might have been. The Constantinople papers have advertised me to start on Monday, August 10th, "direct from Scutari." I have received friendly warnings from several Constantinople gentlemen, that a band of brigands, under ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... and with him obtained some knowledge of "the strange and eccentric places of London." When Arden burst out laughing one day Borrow said he would, perhaps, have joined if it were ever his wont to laugh, and his friends said that, though he enjoyed a joke, he did not seem to have the power of laughing. But in Borrow we expect contrarieties, so we find him saying that when he detected a man poking fun at him in Welsh he flung back his head, closed his eyes, and laughed aloud; and later on, walking in Wales with the rain at his back, he flung ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... to be married," she announced coldly. "It's Payson Osborne this time, and I'm really going to see the thing through. It's rather a joke on me, because it commenced this way. I was sick of lovers, and some of the last had been so unpleasant, not to say rude, when I threw them over, that I thought I would take a vacation. So when I met Payson, I said, 'What do you say to a Platonic friendship?' It sounds harmless, you know, ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... who did not know that the Countess Narona had borrowed money at Homburg of no less a person than Lord Montbarry, and had then deluded him into making her a proposal of marriage, was a man who had probably never heard of Lord Montbarry himself. The younger members of the club, humouring the joke, sent a waiter for the 'Peerage'; and read aloud the memoir of the nobleman in question, for the Doctor's benefit—with illustrative morsels of ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... buried in his knotty hands, his little eyes blinking under stress of the inner fire he had. So it befell that La Testolina saw him, and said something shrill and saucy to her neighbour. The wind tossed him the tone but not the sense. He saw the joke run crackling down the line, all heads look brightly up. The joke caught fire; he saw the sun-gleam on a dozen perfect sets of teeth. Vanna's head was up with the rest, sooner up and the sooner down. Even from that height the little twinkling beacons ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... and with the greatest glee, screamed, "Mr. ——!" utterly forgetting ——'s relationship, which I had elaborately impressed upon him. The effect was perfectly irresistible and uncontrollable; and the little woman's way of humouring the joke was in the best taste and the best sense. While I am upon Genoa I may add, that when we left the Croce the landlord, in hoping that I was satisfied, told me that as I was an old inhabitant, he had charged the prices "as to a Genoese." They certainly ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... gravely; "you shouldn't joke upon such serious subjects. Good by, children. Your house is full of company, and I didn't come to stay. Here's a bag of thoroughwort I've been picking for your grandmother; you may give it to her with my love, and tell her my side is worse. I shall ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... ungracious on 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 ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... moment Mrs. Brown did not know whether to laugh at Bunny for playing a joke or to tell him he must not do such things when there were visitors at the house. But Bunny looked so serious that his mother thought perhaps he did not mean ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... 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, with its vistas of pines stretching away into infinity, ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... evening there was a supper, and Santeuil was always the life of the company. One evening M. le Duc diverted himself by forcing Santeuil to drink champagne, and passing from pleasantry to pleasantry, thought it would be a good joke to empty his snuff-box, full of Spanish snuff, into a large glass of wine, and to make Santeuil drink it, in order to see what would happen. It was not long before he was enlightened upon this point. Santeuil was seized with ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... and refinement? Oh, let 'em go home and eat coke. These fussy old footlers whose 'air stands on hend at a row-de-dow joke, The song of the skylark sounds pooty, but "skylarking" song's better fun, And you carn't do the rooral to-rights on a tract and ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... about to present the reader with a right merry scene, one, too, if he has any fun in his composition, or loves a good joke, must warm the cockles 320of his heart. Who would ever have thought, in these moralizing times, when the puritans are raising conventicles in every town and village, and the cant of vice societies has spread itself over the land, that in one ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... impartially, with a small pout of haughtiness. "It is true that he used to complain. But I soon put him straight. What an idea! He knows there are things upon which I do not joke. It is not he who will quarrel a second ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... sat lost in an armchair a little way off, her tiny foot beating time. Rose stopped talking, started, tried to listen. But Lady Charlotte had had enough music, and so had Mr. Longstaffe, who was endeavouring to joke himself into the good graces of the Duke of Sedbergh's sister. The din of conversation rose at the challenge of the piano, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... enjoyed 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
... breakfast in my bed, I'll rise at half-past ten, When all the world is nicely groomed and full of golden song; I'll smoke a bit and joke a bit, and read the news, and then I'll potter round my peach-trees till I hear the luncheon gong. And after that I think I'll doze an hour, well, maybe two, And then I'll show some kindred soul how well my roses thrive; I'll do the things I never ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... as expressive of the views of Her Majesty's Government at home. 'But what about the missionaries?' enquired the Boers. 'You may do as you please with them,' is said to have been the answer of the Commissioner. This remark, if uttered at all, was probably made in joke: designing men, however, circulated it, and caused the general belief in its accuracy which now prevails all over the country, and doubtless led to the destruction of three mission stations immediately after. The Boers, 400 in number, were sent by the late Mr. Pretorius to ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... for them, all three; and when John Petersham went in, after lunch, to the kitchen, he assured his fellow servants that it was as much as he could do to keep from crying with joy, at the sight of the squire's happy face, and to hear him laugh and joke, as he had not done for eight ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... fell fast asleep, And dreamed she heard them bleating; When she awoke she found it a joke, For they still ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... shooting without him. I was received by an old servant, Narkiz Semyonov, who had had notice of my coming. This old servant was not in the least like 'Savelitch' or 'Caleb'; my friend used to call him in joke 'Marquis.' There was something of conceit, even of affectation, about him; he looked down on us young men with a certain dignity, but cherished no particularly respectful sentiments for other landowners either; of his old master he spoke slightingly, while his own class he simply ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... seem unconscious of it. She was both amused and annoyed at his very evident desire to remind her of certain sentimental passages in the last year of their girl- and boy-hood, and to change what she had considered a childish joke into romantic earnest. Rose had very serious ideas of love and had no intention of being beguiled into even a flirtation with her ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... a level gaze. He had not expected this so soon after what had been told him. He was not one to be very much interested in the practical joke or the surprise, but this pleased him—the sudden realization that he was free. Still, he had anticipated it so long that the charm of it had been discounted to a certain extent. He had been unhappy here, and he had not. The shame ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... eight days to establish a perfect understanding with your mistress; so that, take eight and eleven from thirty-one days, the time between the 28th of one month and the 29th of the next, there remains twelve, more or less!' This joke was followed by ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... will be no need of sleep again," he said. The next day at noon, punctual to the minute, he entered his lecture theatre, put his hat on the end of the table as his habit was, and carefully selected a large piece of chalk. It was a joke among his students that he could not lecture without that piece of chalk to fumble in his fingers, and once he had been stricken to impotence by their hiding his supply. He came and looked under his grey eyebrows at the rising tiers of young fresh faces, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... black, grinning as if it were a fine joke. "Mumkull now?" he continued, with his eyes beginning to look wild, as he turned them questioningly ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... beautiful and artistic scroll pattern, in rich velvet across his haunches. While we stood admiring this work of art, the master within laughingly warned us that the ass kicked if anyone came near him. Perhaps the elaborate decoration was a practical joke! ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... and even earlier. For the most part the erewhile wanderers are now settled in their destined homes, but the Anglo-Saxon race—the People of the Corner-Stone—are still the pioneers among the nations, and there is something esoteric in the old joke that when the North Pole is reached a Scotchman will be found there. And not least in the chain of evidence is the link afforded by a tribe who are wanderers still, the Gipsies with their duplicate of the Pyramid in the pack of cards—a volume which has been called "The Devil's ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... Verkan Vall grinned. "I only heard a little talk about the 'Flying Saucers', and all of that was in joke. In that order of culture, you can always discredit one true story by setting up ten others, palpably false, parallel to it—Wasn't that the time-line the Tharmax Trading Corporation almost lost their ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... only look astonishment. Then I considered it wise to take his remark as a joke; accordingly I laughed, and asked, ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... aroused by a man who stood in the middle of the street, bareheaded, and in evening costume, and who offered him such an enormous sum, thought it was a practical joke attempted by a drunken man, ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... deal in history, This Sunday scene was a downright mystery; And God knows where might have ended the joke, But, in trying to stop the fiddles, he woke, And the odd thing is (as the rumor goes) That since that dream—which, one would suppose, Should have made his godly stomach rise. Even more than ever 'gainst Sunday pies— He has viewed things ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... to call on him; and even if they had hoped to be able to laugh at him they could not do so, when each of them had drawn one of the pictures himself. A good many called on me, and some were a little severe in their remarks, saying that although it might be a very pretty joke, I must have used up nearly all the money that they had given for the good of the Association, for, of course, none of them cared for ...
— Amos Kilbright; His Adscititious Experiences • Frank R. Stockton
... 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," ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... racecourse, and was used as a nickname for rascaldom. "Gentlemen," I said, "I have been unexpectedly called upon my legs—" Then I stammered an apology for using the word in that company, and the laughter was unbounded. Next morning all the sporting papers reported it as an excellent joke, although the last person who saw the joke ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Nibelungen in course of performance at the Walhalla-Roszavolgyi has royally amused me. [A joke of Mihalovich, who had nicknamed several mutually known people with the names and characters out of the Nibelungen] I wish that Wagner may find in Messrs. Betz, Scaria, Niemann, etc., interpreters ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... being returned, Susan began to feel alarmed, but the young ladies told her not to be frightened, as they knew it was only one of Eliza's pranks. But, alas! too soon were they convinced it was no joke, but some dreadful misfortune ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... friends, after trying her sewing-machine, then still something of a novelty, ordered duplicates. Guy suggested as a joke that she ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... my caress and exhibited to me this fourth jewel in her crown, noticed that I was agitated, and with the smile and the intention of calming me with a joke, said, "Darling, are not two pair a pretty good hand"? We neither of us play poker, but I could appreciate ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... her uncle because Beth hesitated to. "For my part, I think it was fun, and harmless fun, at that; but Beth was scared out of a year's growth. I admit feeling a little creepy at the time, myself; but it was all a joke and really we ought not to mind ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... Terry all over; he himself was utterly devoid of nerves, and he could not appreciate the part they played in a man of normal make-up. My being threatened with nervous prostration he regarded as a joke. His pleasantries rather damped my interest in deep-sea fishing, however, and I cast about for something else. It was at this juncture that I thought of Four-Pools Plantation. "Four-Pools" was the somewhat ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... prisoners followed the migration, and the officer ascended to the deck, unconscious of the number and variety of the recruits he had obtained without the formality of an enlistment. The captain of the ship, suspecting that some joke had been practised, or some mischief perpetrated, from the noise below, met the officer at the head of the gangway, and seeing the vermin crawling up his shoulders, and aiming at his head, with the instinct peculiar to them, exclaimed, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... pate runs upon this lady as much now she's dead as it did when she was living. For, I suppose, Jack, it is no joke: she is certainly and bona fide dead: I'n't she? If not, thou deservest to be doubly d—d for thy fooling, I tell thee that. So he will have me write for ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... body and spirit, wrathful at the fate that robbed him of a share of the glory he felt sure awaited his comrades at Manila, Stuyvesant was in no humor for a joke and plainly showed it. He gave it distinctly to be understood that he needed no coddling of any kind and preferred not to see the ladies, no matter what they belonged to. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Mr. Stuyvesant said he ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... regent. The king, when he granted him an audience to take leave, did not omit to call him to account for his behavior to Granvella, and alluded particularly to the livery invented in derision of the cardinal. Egmont protested that the whole affair had originated in a convivial joke, and nothing was further from their meaning than to derogate in the least from the respect that was due to royalty. "If he knew," he said, "that any individual among them had entertained such disloyal thoughts ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... teachers, and servants were questioned, but nobody admitted anything. The lamp, indeed, proved to be one which Miss Duckworth had missed from her bicycle several days before. It was known that she had been lamenting its loss. Whether the light had been put as a signal or as a practical joke it was impossible to say, but if it had been noticed by a special constable it would have placed Brackenfield in danger of an ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... yesterday, And scratched the paper on the wall; Ma's rubbers, too, have gone astray— She says she left them in the hall; He tugged the table cloth and broke A fancy saucer and a cup; Though Bud and I think it a joke Ma scolds a lot about ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... in there to-night, old hoy," he said. "I don't like what you've found in the west wind. It may he a—thunder-storm!" He laughed at his joke, and buried himself in a clump of stunted banskians thirty paces from the tent. Here he rolled himself in his blanket, ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... 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 a ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... it. The conversation died abruptly; the friendly priest relapsed into silence. He looked hurt and disappointed. This was more than a joke. He had done his best to be civil to a suffering foreigner, and this was his reward—to be fooled with the grossest of fables. Maybe he remembered other occasions when Englishmen had developed a queer sense of humour which he utterly failed to appreciate. A liar. Or possibly a lunatic; one of ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... a wire. That isn't the joke, though. You see he got into a hopeless muddle about which side of the veil he had come out on; and he went off with the other ones, and they wouldn't have him, and he got lost in the veil, running up and down it, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... privilege to run himself down; he usually does it with his tongue in his cheek. But for the ten years preceding the outbreak of hostilities, the prophets of Fleet Street certainly carried their privilege beyond a joke. Pessimism was no longer an amusing pose; it was ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... fell fast asleep, And dreamt she heard them bleating; When she awoke, she found it a joke, For ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... he was at his wits' end for what to do; so he said to him in soft, low accents, "Verily, you tribe of foxes are the most pleasant people in point of tongue and the subtlest in jest, and this is but a joke of thine; but all times are not good for funning and jesting." The fox replied, "O ignoramus, in good sooth jesting hath a limit which the jester must not overpass; and deem not that Allah will again give thee possession of me after having once delivered ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... interrupted them. "Did you ever think you might run yourself, Jim?" he asked. On concluding the sentence he laughed as if he had meant to aim a joke. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... French mind lead easily to ignorance and self-satisfaction. To be frank, the complacent aberrations of French taste, with its passion for Poe and its pathetic confidence in Kipling and Chesterton, have become a standing joke abroad. There is no great reason why the French should know anything of foreign thought and literature; but there is every reason why, knowing nothing, they should refrain from comment. And how many Frenchmen do know anything? ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... furs and feathers with which to bedeck herself. Instead of spending the five thousand on herself she would be obliged to put it on the backs and into the stomachs of her three brats! He chuckled vastly over this bit of good fortune! It was really a splendid joke on her, this smash of his. No doubt the children also hated him the more because of his failure to remain on his feet down in Wall Street, but he consoled himself with the thought that they would sometimes long for the old days when father did the providing, and wish that ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... when his lips were silent. He would say queer, droll, unexpected things which passed for humour; but, save for that gleam in the eye, he could not have said them with more seeming innocence of intentional joke if he had been a monk of La Trappe looking up from the grave he was digging in order to ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 witnessed in Shakespeare, Moliere, and a hundred ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... only that which they say a Scotchman must have done before a joke can be got into his head. But I don't belave it at all; folks are such ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... look at us agin. I never wisht I had on them Injun duds so hard before in my life. But I couldn't think of nothing bright to say, so I jest reads the name of that book over to myself agin, kind o' grinning like I got a good joke I ain't going to tell ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... me practising at Cairo, which I mention only because it was here that first I met Ptolemy Higgs, who, even then in his youth, was noted for his extraordinary antiquarian and linguistic abilities. I remember that in those days the joke about him was that he could swear in fifteen languages like a native and in thirty-two with common proficiency, and could read hieroglyphics as easily as ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... a grave man, Bladud was by no means destitute of a sense of humour, or disinclined on occasion to perpetrate a practical joke. After contemplating the sleepers for a moment he retired a few paces and concealed himself in the long grass, from which position he pitched one of the huge birds into the air, so that it fell on ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... Harry, greatly amused at carrying on what he considered as a pleasant joke to while away ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the men of this tribe are somewhat reserved, but frank; while the women appeared more cheerful, and more inclined to laugh and joke at our peculiarities. Although the first Europeans they had ever seen, we were by no means annoyed by their curiosity: and their honesty is to be praised; for, though opportunities were not wanting, they never ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... repletion; she has a boulimia, and hardly has bolted down one state than she calls for two or three more. There is a good deal of wit in all this; but it seems to me (with all respect to the author) to be carrying the joke a great deal too far. I cannot yet think that the armies of the Allies were of this way of thinking, and that, when they evacuated all these countries, it was a stratagem of war to decoy France into ruin,—or that, if ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mind that the man was selling me a packet," continued Newson. "And, if you'll believe me, I was that upset, that I went back to the coach that had brought me, and took passage onward without lying in the town half-an-hour. Ha-ha!—'twas a good joke, and well carried out, and I give ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... interest, was busily engaged in braiding a watch-chain from her splendid, Titian-red hair. These chains were the fashion of the hour, and the old family doctor, friend as well as physician, paused after a visit to the boy's mother, to joke her about it: "You're making a keepsake ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... in a dry, laughing, sort of a way, which showed that Mr. Sennit was fully aware he was making a request a little out of rule, to ask a man to aid in carrying his own ship into port, as a prize; but I took it, as it was meant, for a rough joke that had convenience at ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... was taken, with the possible exception of that letter. Mallowe asks me, openly, if I knew of an ulterior motive which any one might have possessed in acquiring it, and even remarks that he is thinking of putting you, Mr. Blaine, on the mysterious attempt at robbery. That would be a joke, wouldn't it, if it wasn't really, in my estimation at least, a covert threat. Why should he, Mallowe, take me into his confidence about an affair which took place in his private office? He did not make the excuse of pretending to retain me as his ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... an average, two dollars twenty-five. The news of the dealing, however, had got about, and although derision was the chief sentiment amongst the brokers, the price steadily mounted. A dozen telegrams were sent out to the mine, and on receipt of the replies, the dealing became the joke of the day. The mine was still deserted, and no fresh inspection had been made. The price dropped a little. Then Wingrave bought a thousand more by telephone, and it rose again to four. A few minutes before closing time, he threw every share of which he was possessed upon the ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... made most deferential bows, and, greatly appreciating the joke, Patty invited them to join their party, and offered them ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... made the fellow. He—why, he is my joke, the biggest scream I ever put over—my joke, understand? And now this adumbrated ass of a Quigley, who's been sent on here from St. Louis to take the city desk, he falls for Virgie as a genuine personage. Not only that, but picks me out to cover ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... old soldier of the regiment, "Atkins, how dare you expose yourself unnecessarily? Your wife used to do my washing in Tidshot. Me? Oh, I'm only an old bachelor. It doesn't matter about me. There's nobody to care what happens to me." And, well pleased with his joke, the Colonel passed down the line, proud of his ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... and lets it go. It finds its way down, without any of the boy's help, you may depend upon it. He has to guide it a little with his feet, though. If he did not, he might come in contact with another boy's sled, or a rock, perhaps; and that would be rather a serious joke, when the sled was going like the ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... The old neighbours have been in, making a deal o' fuss over me, but I tells 'em to keep their pity for them that wants it more, and I've one less leg for the rheumaticks to get hold of,' and the old sailor laughed at his own joke like a storm of ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... occasion for sneering," said the Anglo-Indian judge, with abrupt authority. "It doesn't make it look better for you that you can joke ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton |
