"Ace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eyes flashed angrily. "It's too neat, Frank. It's clever, and it's powerful, whatever we've run up against. But I think we've got an ace in the hole. ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... turned, backed in, and, seizing the right moment, the men jumped on to the rock just as the water was only ankle-deep, had a good search round, and came back, to be picked up again safely, though the boat was within an ace of being capsized. ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... Euchre Buck, giving his neighbor Dan a nudge in the ribs to call attention to this wonderful piece of girlish innocence. "Square a deal es George Washington mought ha' made." Then, as the greasy pasteboards were turned up, and his neighbour was handed the ace of clubs, he raised his voice and yelled out, "Bully for you, Dan! Cut away an' clar ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... Lyons included the Lyons electric light and gas plant. On this side trip we met an entire regiment of Algerian soldiers, black as the traditional ace of spades, but fine specimens of manhood. Their uniforms were almost identical with the uniform worn by our soldiers in the Civil War. They wore light blue overcoats, such as Governor Tod furnished the first ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... it. And then we'll go to Rochester and buy heaps and heaps of things. Look here, let's each take as much as we can carry. But it's not sovereigns. They've got a man's head on one side and a thing like the ace of spades on the other. Fill your pockets with it, I tell you, and come along. You can talk as ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... discoursed learnedly on the beauties of the edifice and the pity of its decay. "That's a vile job you have in hand, my friend— a bit of sheer vandalism," said the tourist; "but I suppose the Parson who employs you knows no better." Parson Jack had been within an ace of revealing himself, but now changed his mind and asked humbly enough what was amiss. Whereupon the tourist pulled out a pencil and an old envelope, and explained. "But there," he broke off, "it would take me a week to go into these matters, and you a deal longer to understand. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... steed along the coast. She proved a very "wicked" animal, and a few yards prancing and capering made me heartily wish that I was safely on terra firma. Suddenly a volley was fired, and as suddenly the horse gave such a lurch that I was within an ace of being pitched where I wanted to get—though not quite so precipitately. Volley after volley was fired, and I lost all command over the snorting steed, which was flitting along at the rate of so many miles an hour. Had it not been for a heavy guard-cloak which I was ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... supper of hashed mutton which she has cooked with her own hands, and denying herself a glass of white wine to save the paltry sum of sixpence, "while her Husband was paying a Debt of several Guineas incurred by the Ace of Trumps being in the Hands of his Adversary"—a scene which it is impossible to read aloud without a certain huskiness in the throat,—the visits to the pawnbroker and the sponging-house, the robbery by the little servant, the encounter at Vauxhall, and some of the pretty vignettes of the ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... are written up," Bluff put in, "be sure and put in that another of our gallant band came within an ace of being terribly bitten by a savage ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... seeing a light in the radiant being's window. The pretty girls of the household vanished with murmured excuses, leaving us at the mercy of the boy, who sighed grievously, dropped a sugar bowl, and spilled coffee within an ace of ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the box beside him. It seemed a true and honest die, for it came up now an ace, now trey; now six, now deuce. He rolled it, rolled it, thinking of Hun Shanklin and Hun's long, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... make it immortal, because some botcher had tried his hand upon it before, and left it for stone-dead? Because he could not help throwing sizes, was he to avoid the dice which for others would only come up ames-ace? ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... abyss, and there beheld the glowing lava boiling as if in a huge caldron. A thick mist coming on, he unwarily advanced to within a few feet of the rapid slope descending into the crater, and was within an ace of toppling over into the fiery gulf beneath. What a pity it would have been had he fallen in! We should have had no ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... William, I can tell you frankly, Father, is displeased," von Wedel said to Rasputin reprovingly. "Only by an ace has the whole of our arrangements with your Empress, and with yourself as our agent, been suppressed from Downing Street. And that by steps taken by our friend here, Monsieur Azef. But we are not yet safe. I tell you quite frankly that though you are a good servant of ours, yet your habit of ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... looking for these last six months, but I'm pretty sure of it. Last February two men and a woman tried to smuggle a lot of diamonds through the customs at New York. I'll not go into details now further than to say they landed from one of the big ocean liners and came within an ace of getting away with the job. The woman was the leader. She was nabbed with one of the men at a hotel. The other man got away. He was on the passenger list as George Ritchie, of Cleveland, Ohio. The woman had half a dozen photographs of him in her ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... immense effort he got command of himself. Somehow he must conquer this sudden insanity. The loyalty that had hung trembling in the balance reasserted itself and a self-disgust seized him. He had been within an ace of betraying the man who had been for twenty years nearer to him than a brother. She belonged to his friend, and now he had not even the right to question the ethics of the Sheik's possession of her. The calm that he had lost came back to him. The wound would ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... bring him to your Majesty's feet!" [Footnote: "Volat" is an expression used in tarok to denote that no tricks have been made by an opponent. This is another term in the game, when the player announces beforehand that he will make the last trick with the Ace of Trumps.] ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... altogether, I fancy I should take a hand in the business. The Germans deliberately forced on the war. They knew perfectly well that when they put up a German Prince as candidate for the throne of Spain it would bring on a war with France. Why, we ourselves were within an ace of going to war with France when Guizot brought about the Spanish marriage, although it was comparatively of slight importance to us that Spain and France should be united. But to the French this thing was an absolutely vital question, for ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... put 'em along faster, as it is—" His sentence remained unfinished, the sleigh bumped and lifted on to one runner. It was within an ace of overturning. There was no ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... in keeping down there, and the brick floor being cold on my feet, I returned upstairs and sat in his chair by the fire. It was burning low, and scarcely thinking, I put on a little coal. The noise of this brought him up at once, and he stood aglare. He peered about the room and was within an ace of touching me. Even after that examination, he scarcely seemed satisfied. He stopped in the doorway and took a final inspection before he ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... An' th' sooner a man lear-rns, th' bether ut is fer um, that all women know more thin they let on—an' they've always an ace fer a ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... bound to put on flesh up here. To get thrown out of a canoe in the morning and to come within an ace of making a three hundred foot dive in the afternoon is just about enough excitement to make any one lose weight. I bet I lost five pounds in that minute and a half when Bob had me by the coat, and I was wondering whether he could hold on to my elephantine form; whether ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... and we could not see the land. But they had such confidence in the correctness of their chart that they determined to enter it. Instead of the port, we came to the white caps, dashing against the rocks almost mountains high, and we came within an ace of being dashed to pieces against them. If the engineer had not reversed the movement of the engine the instant he did, we would have been wrecked. The captain was now completely befogged. In a short time he came to me with a paper to sign agreeing ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... car into a small wood, and destroying my genuine license and hiding the genuine number-plate, I took the next train to Winchester, and thence by express to Waterloo after a very wild and adventurous night. That I had been within an ace of capture ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... from her father, that it is very agreeable to him not to see her pale, wretched-looking face again till morning.—Now, my son, pay attention, and you, Trude, do not presume to interrupt us again. Leberecht, play out my ace of hearts." ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... you again," she went on. "You came within an ace of being my husband. I might have belonged to you and counted your washing. It's queer, isn't ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... the Rueful Countenance; "though it may be in the dice that we may throw deuce-ace instead of sixes; but all will ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... coming, for even by this token I knew him for knight of mine. It was Sir Madok de la Montaine, a burly great fellow whose chief distinction was that he had come within an ace of sending Sir Launcelot down over his horse-tail once. He was never long in a stranger's presence without finding some pretext or other to let out that great fact. But there was another fact of nearly the same size, which he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... very generous towards my parents; and a capital way it is to encourage liberality in children. I gave mamma a very neat brass thimble, and she gave me a half-guinea piece. Then I gave her a very pretty needle-book, which I made myself with an ace of spades from a new pack of cards we had, and I got Sally, our maid, to cover it with a bit of pink satin her mistress had given her; and I made the leaves of the book, which I vandyked very nicely, out of a piece of flannel I had had round my neck for a sore throat. It smelt a little of ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... America, by Father Charlevoix, vol. ii. 107.) Heckewelder affirms, that "Habitual devotion to the Great First Cause, and a strong, feeling of gratitude for the benefits which He confers, is one of the prominent traits which characterise the mind of the untutored Indian."—(Heck. Hist. Ace. p. 84.) Loskiel says, (History of the Mission of the United Brethren, p. 33) "The prevailing opinion of all these nations is, that there is one God, or, as they call Him, one Great and Good Spirit, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... minding cool for the Limericks but he was up with the forwards half the time and shouting like mad. I never will forget that day. One of the Crokes made a woeful wipe at him one time with his caman and I declare to God he was within an aim's ace of getting it at the side of his temple. Oh, honest to God, if the crook of it caught him that time he ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... the chief announced that this time a Kookwes—a burly, beastly villain, not two points better than his cousin the Chenoo—was coming to play at rough murder with them. And, verily, by this time the Micmac began to believe, without bating an ace on it, that all of these tall people were like the wolves, who, meeting with nobody else, bite one another. So they were bound and bundled up as before, and put to bed like dolls. And again they heard the horrible shout, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... I nor no man else saw him die. And we know that these Spanish tombs do sometimes open and give up the dead. I'll throw for size-ace." ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... journey of more than forty miles before us. The bridle-path was barely visible in the darkness, but we continued ascending to a height of probably 5,000 feet above the sea, and thus met the sunrise half-way. Crossing the llano of Ace faraya, we reached a tremendous natural portal in the mountains, from whence, as from a door, we looked down on all the country lying between us and the sea. The valley of the River Velez, winding among the hills, pointed out the course of our ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... spake an elder mon, That held the Spade its Ace— "God save the lad! Whence comes the licht "That wimples ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... Gods; not all the noise of Vulcan's hammers could silence the clamours of that outrageous whore his Goddess; nay, even Jupiter himself led such a life with a termagant wife, that once, they say, Juno out-scolded the noise of all his Thunders, and was within an ace of brawling him out of Heaven. But to return ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... time to look about and admire whatever bits of scenery happen to come in view. There are few spots in the "Golden State" from which views of more or less beauty are not to be obtained; and ere I am a baker's dozen of miles from Oakland pier I find myself within an ace of taking an undesirable header into a ditch of water by the road-side, while looking upon a scene that for the moment completely wins me from my immediate surroundings. There is nothing particularly grand or imposing in the outlook here; but ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... gardener, and that gardener is black—as black as the Ace of Spades or the King of Ashantee. He dwells in a corner of the Rakata Cottage, but is addicted to spending much of his spare time in the Krakatoa one. He is as strong and powerful as ever, but limps slightly on his right leg—his "game" leg, as he styles it. He is, of course, an immense ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... reef,' that a few days more at sea must have terminated the existence of many of them. This stoppage, however, had likewise been nearly productive of fatal consequences to the whole party. In fact, another mutiny was within an ace of breaking out, which, if not checked at the moment, could only, in their desperate situation, have ended in irretrievable and total destruction. Bligh mentions, in his printed narrative, the mutinous conduct of a person to whom he gave a cutlass to defend himself. This affair, as stated in ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... before this date he had been still the nominal owner of a small freehold farm between Pengarth and Carlisle, bordering on the Threlfall property. But he was then within an ace of ruin, and irreparable ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in for it. I had expected perhaps ten Companies, not three against 97, give or take a few out on other jobs. It gave me a chill. Not the odds, but if Council was that worried maybe there was bad danger. But I'd given my word and a Companion keeps his word. We had one ace in the hole, a small one. If the other Companies were not here in Menelaus yet, they must have rendezvoused at Galaxy Center. It was the kind of "follow-the-book" mistake United would make. It gave us a day and a half. We would ...
— Dead World • Jack Douglas
... in hearts; the hearts all lay between himself and Sylvie; the colonel won her ace, though it was ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... sometimes. It means a superior aviator, who has brought down five adversaries, in fair air-fight. The bringing-down business, at least so far as the exact number is concerned, is not always applied, I guess. They just call a man an Ace when he is a real graduate flyer, and gets the habit of bringing down his Boche ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... pardon," he said a little stiffly. The idea of stooping to such assistance had long been revolting to him. He was within an ace of breaking away ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... short without either rule or reason before a Consonant or two, with e after, as ace, acre, able, unstable, father, with A long, and solace, massacre, constable, gather, with ...
— Magazine, or Animadversions on the English Spelling (1703) • G. W.
... right. Don't you worry any about me. I got a ace in the hole if the weather gets wet. But I wanna tell you this: If yo're bound to go on playin' the fool, keep a-movin' and walk round a lighted window like it's ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... to thyself a world of needless miseries. I call them needless, because thou hadst more than enough before. Thou hast set thyself against God in a way of contending; thou standest upon thy points and pantables:15 Thou wilt not bate God an ace, of what thy righteousness is worth, and wilt also make it worth what thyself shalt list. Thou wilt be thine own judge, as to the worth of thy righteousness; thou wilt neither hear what verdict the word has passed about it, nor wilt thou endure, that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to recall what I had heard of cannibals. I was within an ace of calling for help. But the mere fact that he was a man, however wild, had somewhat reassured me, and my fear of Silver began to revive in proportion. I stood still, therefore, and cast about for some method of escape; and as I was so thinking, the recollection of my pistol flashed into my mind. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had a dining-room waiter, who, one day, was such a luckless wight as to be very impertinent to me. He was an "exquisite," (in his way), although as black as the "ace of spades;" wore a stiff shirt collar, that looked snow-white, from the contrast, and combed his hair so nicely that it appeared as fleecy as zephyr-worsted. He had, however, a habit of going off, without anybody's knowing where, and staying a long time, neglecting his work, ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... "I came within an ace of shooting," said Joe, "before I thought of what you had said. I pulled the trigger with all my might before I remembered that you said I musn't shoot till you told me, but as good luck would have it, my musket ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... "you're within an ace of being a prig. It's only the freckles on your little unpowdered nose, and the yellow lights in your eyes, and the way your hair curls up at the ends that save you. Remember, please, that three-and-twenty with a perfect complexion has no ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... drying at the fire—a slow process and disagreeable in all circumstances, but especially so when connected with impatience and headstrong obstinacy. Then he put his foot on a plate of sandwiches, and was within an ace of sitting down on a jam tart, much to his own consternation, poor boy, for had he destroyed that, the chief source of his own prospective felicity would have been ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... at Lucy's didn't know anythin' a-tall about Mrs. Macy's troubles. We had our own, Heaven help us, an' they was enough, for the very first thing of all Mr. Dill caught his pocket on the corner of Mrs. Dill an' come within a ace of pullin' her off her easel. That would have been a pretty beginnin' to Lucy's weddin' day if her father had smashed her mother to bits, I guess, but it couldn't have made Lucy any worse; for I will say, Mrs. Lathrop, as I never ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... 'ace,' with eleven air victories officially to his credit. He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre and the American Distinguished Service Medal for extraordinary heroism on August 9, 1918, when he went to the assistance of a French aviator who ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... Coldstream country in a bitter temper, for the job was far beneath his professional dignity as he looked at it, and he knew that in the meantime others would get better work to which he considered himself entitled. Indeed, he had come within an ace of resigning, and had insisted, as a condition, on a definite promise of something very good ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... you against my wish," she said in a firm voice, "but I have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-hours, and that you never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... had despoiled him of all a man values—broken his faith, destroyed the ideals that had once been his. Moreover, she had seen clear down into his soul that day at Berrier Cove, when Ann had come within an ace of death, and she knew that on the ruins of the old love a new love ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... my skill and the method of its operation to the assembled company. Then the whole party would follow me to an open space, and I would call for a pack of cards, and possibly—for I was a good shot in those days—pink the ace of hearts at fifteen paces. At any rate my performances usually called forth plaudits, and this involved a further interchange of compliments and explanations, and the production of my sketch-book, which soon procured me the acquaintance of ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... far back from the street, and he did not see me. The glaring gaslight gave him a deeper paleness and cut the lines of his face to a sharper edge. He was talking with great animation, his hands moving constantly in eager gesture. I was within an ace of springing forward to greet him—so my heart went out to him—but the sight of his companion restrained me, and I sat chuckling and wondering in my corner. There they were, large as life, true to Varvilliers' description; the big ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... the war. When Lord Roberts's army swept on from Bloemfontein, the Boers in a measure swept back, and our host was for months persecuted by his own people, finally made a prisoner, and was within an ace of being shot; in fact, it was only the peace that ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... from administering something very like a lecture to his hostess. His last words were an invitation to me to get into the carriage and start with him. When I suavely declined, he told me that I should regret it. It comforts me to think that his prophecy, though more than once within an ace of the most ample fulfillment, yet in the end was set at naught by ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... principal romance. He had one day met her by chance in the gardens of the Palazzo Corsini, and since that day, they had had secret meetings. But the captain had now been transferred to Terni, and tragedy had begun. Letters were constantly within an ace of being intercepted, they committed imprudences without count. He read aloud to us, without the least embarrassment, the letters of the lady. The curious thing about them was the moderation she exercised in the expression of her love, while at the same time ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... in the opposite direction. Lord De Roos, long suspected of cheating at cards, would never have been convicted but for the resolution of an adversary, who, pinning his hand to the table with a fork, said to him blandly, "My Lord, if the ace of spades is not under your Lordship's hand, why, then, I beg your pardon!" It seems to us that a timely treatment of Governor Letcher in the same energetic way would have saved the disasters of Harper's Ferry and Norfolk,—for disasters they were, though six months of temporizing had so ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... might have been, we have only to turn away from the mission counties to the foothills of the Sierras, where the mining-camps of the Anglo-Saxon bear such names as Fiddletown, Red Dog, Dutch Flat, Murder Gulch, Ace of Spades, or Murderer's Bar; these changing later, by euphemistic vulgarity, into Ruby City, Magnolia Vale, Largentville, Idlewild, and the like. Or, if not these, our Anglo-Saxon practically gives us, not Our Lady of the Solitude, nor the City of ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... to poor Bess, and, unaccountable as it may seem to you, I was profoundly touched at parting from her in such a way. I embraced her neck and kissed her on the forehead. As I tore myself away from her I believe I was within an ace of shedding tears. Yet, not a thought of compunction on your account penetrated my selfish soul. I picked my way through the swamp to the fourth concession, and then struck out across unfrequented fields for Harborough station, ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... which was a wain-load of cotton bales, and upset it, cannoning off that cushion so swiftly as to come within an ace of scattering his four passengers across the landscape; and discerning, with a swift strategic eye that would have done credit to the dashingest cavalry general, that that rout was complete and nothing could be gained by adding to it, he headed for ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... warned at the outset we might very well fail in our design; yet never dreamed of what proved to be the fact, that we should be left four-and-twenty hours in suspense and come within an ace of ultimate rejection. Captain Reid had primed himself; no sooner was the king on board, and the Hennetti question amicably settled, than he proceeded to express my request and give an abstract of my claims and virtues. The gammon about Queen Victoria's son might do for Butaritari; it was out ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Khnathaiti, and the like. Astibaras is perhaps "great of bone," from Zend agta (Sans, asthi), "bone," and bereza, "tall, great." Harmamithres, if that is the true reading, would be "mountain-lover" (monticolus), from hardam, ace. of hara, "a mountain," and mithra or mitra, "fond of." If, however, the name should be read as Armamithres, the probable derivation will be from rama, ace. of raman, "pleasure," which is also the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... queer happened to one of the soldiers.... He called ace of diamonds, lost his reckoning and dropped his cards. He started and ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... thinking of Maria Dolores? revolving still her cryptic valediction?), all at once, as his eye rested on the shimmer at the valley's end which he knew to be the lake, lifted up his hand and clapped his brow. "By Jove," he muttered, "if I wasn't within an ace of clean forgetting!" The sight of the lake had fortunately put him in mind that he was engaged to-day to lunch with ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... before him and gasped. The second seemed an age. The lower fan of the aeropile passed within an ace of touching the people, who yelled and screamed and trampled ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... true, to marry is a Custom I' the world; for look you Brother, Wou'd any man stand plucking for the Ace of Harts, With one pack of Cards all dayes ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... cried a lieutenant whose losses had nearly reached three thousand. Tyeglev approached the table in silence, took up a pack, cut it, and saying "the six of diamonds," turned the pack up: the six of diamonds was the bottom card. "The ace of clubs!" he said and cut again: the bottom card turned out to be the ace of clubs. "The king of diamonds!" he said for the third time in an angry whisper through his clenched teeth—and he was right the third time, too ... and he suddenly turned crimson. ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... granted as we do shoes and clothes, because money is an essential factor in the social fabric and the form in which it comes to us seems as inevitable as the moon or our ten fingers; humanity has gone on for hundreds of years considering the knave of greater value than the ten-spot and the ace of higher worth than all the rest of the pack, because it is content to believe that the rules that have been handed down apportioning these values are the best that could be devised. With a hundred other elements and details of our daily ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... when you wake up to find that your racket has just smashed a lob on the bounce from near the back-net, scoring a clean ace between your paralyzed opponents, you ought to know that the racket was guided by that superior sportsman; and if you are truly modest, you will admit that your miraculous stop wherewith the team whisked the baseball championship out of the fire in ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... that the Querist deals or has had much to do with a Man of fair skin and light type, of good temperament. Influenced by an Ace of like suit, one notably unselfish. By Knave, a Lover, Husband, Friend. By a Queen, a Love-match. By a Diamond, a Man of Wealth or artistic nature. By a high club, a Man of Energy withal; by a low club, one of Prudence. By a Spade, a man of some defect of ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... he went home again, Because he lost his Place, Sir; For playing of a Game at Whisk, And turning up an Ace, Sir; Ye Soldiers all, Both great and small, A Foot-man or a Trooper; When you behold, A Wench that's bold Remember ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... it is impossible not to criticise the rash and over-confident policy which sent such a weak and ill-equipped force on so hazardous an enterprise. The action of Gedaref, as has been shown, was, through no fault of the officers or men of the expedition, within an ace of being a disaster. But there were other critical occasions when only the extraordinary good fortune which attended the force saved it from destruction. First, the column was not discovered until ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... of us to hold this paper in readiness. The man who was to show the pass sat by the window. Of all our worthless passes our rule was always to show first the one of least value. If that failed we brought out a higher card, and continued until we had reached the ace. If that proved to be a two-spot, we all went to jail. Whenever we were halted, invariably there was the knowing individual who recognized us as newspaper men, and in order to save his country from destruction clamored to have us hung. It ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... ocular demonstration of the fact that I can put a bullet through the ace on a card five times running at thirty-five paces," he said, "that won't take away your appetite, I suppose? You look to me to be inclined to be a trifle quarrelsome this morning, and as if you would rush on your death like ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... wilt thou do? Thou hast created to thyself a world of needless miseries. I call them needless, because thou hadst more than enough before. Thou hast set thyself against God in a way of contending, thou standest upon thy points and pantables; thou wilt not bate God an ace of what thy righteousness is worth, and wilt also make it worth what thyself shalt list: thou wilt be thine own judge, as to the worth of thy righteousness; thou wilt neither hear what verdict the word has passed about it, nor wilt thou endure that God should throw it out in ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... some accidents happened. The king pointed out to the prince the impropriety of his conduct. Radziwill added, that the bears were not cross, as whip, gold, and patience can put in order every thing; He added also, that, sometimes the ace beats the king at cards, and paid liberally the damages. After some time, he gave a splendid party, to which he invited all the ambassadors, and all the leading personages in Poland, and displayed extraordinary ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... here are dyce, and ile begin to ye. Have at your head, Sir John! dewce ace[206]; a doggs-head![207] The devill turnd this ace up. Farwell, velvet gowne! Thou hast mist the luckiest hand ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... yer boots I am safe tew win, Es the chap thet's able tew smilin' smack The ace he's been hidin' up his sleeve Kerslap on top of a feller's jack! Es I wus sayin', the night wus dark, The lightnin' skippin' from star to star; Thar wa'n't no clouds but a thread of mist, No sound but the coyotes ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... moment after, Peggy appeared with a salamander—that is a huge poker, ending not in a point, but a red-hot ace of spades—which she thrust between the bars of the grate, into the heart of a nest of brushwood. Presently a ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... pulse is quite normal now, thank you. Listen. This is where we call the first showdown on cold hands—and the dealer slips himself an ace." He drew a key from his pocket and put it in Pale Face Harry's hand. "That's the key of the small trunk in my room at the hotel—front room, right hand side of the hall. There's a check-book in the tray—and I'll ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... its meaning was not comprehended at first—brought the other boys to Clay's assistance. That is to say they paddled toward the dangerous spot and were within an ace of getting in the same fix, when ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... other four watching her with eager, anxious eyes, while the man at her side looked on with tolerant scorn. And then she cut—the ace of spades. Her grandmother threw up her hands. "Death, I ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... to much, For old Oom Paul was quick on the ball, and headed it back to touch; And the whole first flight led off with the right, as The Saint took up the pace, And drove it clean to the putting green and trumped it there with an ace. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in a case, Representatives true of the rattling size ace; To the heights of the law, though I hope you will rise, You will never be judges ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... only by a look: and turn me suddenly from free into a slave, the property of another, who is master of her body and her soul. And yet, only this very morning did I learn, how nearly I had lost thee: since thy servant that saw me in the wood, and was the cause of thy coming, came within an ace of perishing himself, before he ever got away to tell. And Atirupa said: How? And Aranyani told him. And then she said: And now I fear for thee also: for should Babhru chance to see thee, his reason will desert him. And I tremble to ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... sprang upon the old mouse and squeezed him to death. Glorious death! for the hero died in the thick of the grain, and was canonised as a martyr. The shrew-mouse took him by the ears and placed him on the door the granary, after the fashion of the Ottoman Porte, where my good Panurge was within an ace of being spitted. At the cries of the dying wretch the rats, mice, and others made for their holes in great haste. When the night had fallen they came to the cellar, convoked for the purpose of holding a council to consider public affairs; to which meeting, in virtue of the Papyrian and other ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... to Sambo Should take his place and fight; An' it's betther to have a naygur's hue Than a liver that's wake an' white; Though Sambo's black as the ace o' spades His finger a thrigger can pull, An' his eye runs sthraight on the barrel sight From under its thatch o' wool. So hear me all, boys, darlins! Don't think I'm tippen' you chaff, The right to be kilt I'll divide wid him, An' give ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... I've got a big proposition to offer you. One that will beat Mascola's like an ace beats a deuce. Because this one ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... clusters of leaves, lozenge-like in shape and bottle-green in color. In the center rose a rod at whose end a varnished ace of hearts swayed. As though meaning to defy all conceivable forms of plants, a fleshy stalk climbed through the heart of this intense vermilion ace—a stalk that in some specimens was straight, in others showed ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... friend, with whom he had made a pedestrian tour in France and Switzerland, during his last Cambridge vacation; then, in November of 1791, he crossed to France, ostensibly to learn the language, made the acquaintance of revolutionaries, sympathized with them vehemently, and was within an ace of throwing in his lot with the Brissotins, to give them the steady direction that they needed. When it came to this his relatives cut off his supplies, and he was obliged to return to London toward the close of 1792. But still he resisted all pressure ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... reader with Bob's experiences during the next few hours. In the letter he wrote to me about them, he gave but few details. Nevertheless, he told me enough to make me realise that for hours he was within an ace ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... most particular interesting! Heard of Gilderoy, that was hanged for forgery? Gad, my daughter's got a brooch with a lock of his hair in it, which he gave me himself—a client of mine; within an ace of getting him off—flaw in the indictment—found it out myself—did, by gad! Come along, and I'll get Dora to show it to you!" and, putting Titmouse's arm in his, and desirous of withdrawing him from Gammon, he led him up to ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... report went echoing over the gorge and the Indian, with one convulsive spring, fell back upon the ground writhing in the agonies of death. In striving to drag the body of his comrade back behind the rock another Tonto ventured to show head and shoulder, and came within an ace of sharing his fate, for Pike's next shot whistled within an inch of the flattened nose, and Apache number two dodged back with wonderful quickness, and did not ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... and, burying her face in the cushion, lay trembling. She would have begged for death upon her knees rather than suffer this horror. She felt Vauquier's fingers lingering with a dreadful caressing touch upon her shoulders and about her throat. She was within an ace of the torture, the disfigurement, and she knew it. She could not pray for mercy. She could only lie quite still, as she was bidden, trying to control the shuddering of her ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... stiff little birch, that, growing recklessly in the thin soil over a rock, had been willing to yield to the persuasion of a child and come up by the roots. And then, Margaret pushing her best, and Aladdin prying and grunting, the log was moved to within an ace of launching. Until now, for she was too young to understand about daring and unselfishness, Margaret had considered the log-launching as a game invented by Aladdin to while away the dreary time; but now she realized, from the look in the pale, set, freckly, almost comical face of the boy, that ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris |
