"Deuce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deuce is the matter with the dog?" growled Holmes. "They surely would not take a cab, or go ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... them.' Of a third it was written that his discourses had some resemblance to an hour-glass, because, the longer time they ran, the shallower they grew. Of yet another orator we read that his reasoning was really deep, his argument profound, 'for deuce a bit could anybody see the ground.' Nor have certain historical personages been able to escape the lash. When Admiral Vernon was appointed to take charge of the ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... looking forward to it," said his friend heartily. "And now, haven't you anything to tell me? Are you alone here? Then, what the deuce do you ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... medal-ribbon was an inch or so too low down. Fixing the man with his eye, the admiral asked: "Did you get that medal for eating, my man?" On the man replying "No, sir," the admiral rapped out: "Then why the deuce do you wear ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... don't suppose Micky cares for that old thing he has married! That was what I was trying to save him from. He'd have had to be the deuce of a lot worse than he is ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... down his saucer without tasting its contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil—" when he stops, seeing that Phil is counting ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Louchard. "You are in love, you want to discover the object of your passion; you are getting as yellow as a lettuce without water. Two physicians came to see you yesterday, your man tells me, who think your life is in danger; now, I alone can put you in the hands of a clever fellow.—But the deuce is in it! If your life is not worth a ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... usage is the best, I don't deny, Thou'st fee'd the keeper, and he likes to feed us, But, then the situation I decry, But crying's useless—who the deuce will heed us? Then, reader would you listen to my wail, Come, and but see me, "I'll ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... "What the deuce are you afraid of?" said Everett. They had then come up the greater part of the length of the Birdcage Walk, and the lights at Storey's Gate were just visible, but the road on which they were then walking was very dark. The trees were ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Harry illustrated the idiom, lifting an imaginary glass to his mouth. "Oh, it's notorious. But what the deuce can we do? Kick him out?—not so easy; and, besides, he'd die under a hedge. You're hard on him, Clem. He has his notions of duty. Why"—the Baronet laughed—"I've seen him on the roof with a tar-bucket, caulking the leaks for dear ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... evident that I was looked upon as an interloper, for whom, small as I was, room must be found. I was received with a chorus of exclamations, such as, 'What the deuce does the little fellow want here?' 'Surely there are enough of us crammed into this beastly little hole!' 'Oh, I suppose he is some protege of the captain's,' ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... "The deuce! the deuce! a bad business!" said Jacquet, examining the letter as a usurer examines a note to be negotiated. "Ha! that's a gridiron ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... mightily surprised to hear a civilian walking side by side with the captain of his troop remark, as he passed up the stable, "Why, there's old Smut!" When the officer and civilian had passed out he turned to the next man, and asked who the deuce the bloke was in the brown hat. "Why, that's Captain Baden-Powell," said the man; and then he added with great pride, "I was his batman once." The young soldier had heard of Baden-Powell before, and was furious that he had not looked longer at him as he passed. An odd circumstance, by the way, ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... "The deuce!" said Velmont, "that looks bad. But it doesn't seem to be a sufficient reason for sending ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... like the deuce," Blair told her anxiously; and David blurted out, "Elizabeth, you can't walk home; you're a perfect object!" Elizabeth, through the mud trickling over her eyes, flashed ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... little friend on her way back, running like the deuce, to tell the doctor," he said. "I have something under an hour before ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... But the deuce of it is, public opinion says that we must raise a garden. It is no use to hire a man to do it for us. However badly we may do it, patriotism demands that we monkey around with a garden of our own. We may get bitten ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... have you been to-day? Things have been all going to the deuce. Why didn't you hinder these boys from sweein' the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... and the whole earth Of man the wonderful, and of the stars, And how the deuce they ever could have birth; And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars, How many miles the moon might have in girth, Of air-balloons, and of the many bars To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies;— And then he thought ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Engine Go." It took us close on half a day To read through all the guff; The engine goes all right, but don't Keep goin' long enough. It's very good to understand What makes the engine go. But why the deuce the d—- thing stops Is what we want to know. So now we're making this request, While tears and curses drop, Please send along a booklet on What Makes the Engine Stop. The folk around here all await With interest your reply: To them the reasons ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... handsome, grizzled head. Where did he come from—with whom had he studied—what were his plans? Had he ever been abroad? No. Strange! The artists nowadays neglected travel. 'But you go! Beg your way, paint your way—but go! Go before the wife and the babies come! Matrimony is the deuce. Don't you agree with me, Philip?' He laid a familiar hand ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... young man, and suddenly ran his fingers through his hair with a distraught gesture. "I'm in the deuce of a jam—! Aunt Ocky, ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... off on a trip and she'd talked the thing over with all the old women in the neighborhood before I got back." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Explain! Well, she thinks it's a mighty slim story, and the deuce of it is that she's right. Any dam fool could make up a ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... fidgeted, over the prompt and perhaps a trifle incoherent offer of cigars, cordials, ashtrays, over the question of his visitor's hat, stick, fur coat, general best accommodation and ease; and how the deuce, accordingly, had charm, for coming out so on top, Mark wondered, "squared" the other old elements? For the short interval so to have dealt with him what force had it turned on, what patented process, of the portentous ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... the last remark was lost, "will you have the goodness to explain what the deuce you mean by ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... of Watch Committees, live in Garden Cities, and have to account for every half-crown they spent, and every half-hour of their time; the horse, too, would be an extinct animal, brought out once a year at the lord-mayor's show. He hoped—the deuce—he might not be alive to see it. And suddenly he added: "What do you think happens after ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... good sort of man, besides being very well got up), it is an act of obedience to the laws to rid society of a criminal, however virtuous he may be. Once a thief, always a thief. Suppose he were to take it into his head to murder us all? The deuce! We should be guilty of manslaughter, and be the first to fall victims ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... deuce is in it,' muttered Pancks, tracing out a line in her hand with his clumsy finger, 'if this isn't me in the corner here! What do I want here? What's ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... I?" returned Mr. Connor. "I have a picture of myself letting you go. And where the deuce is Jim?" He turned impatiently toward the building across the lawn, then somewhat relaxed his frown. "Oh, well, I can take an orchestra chair," observed Mr. Connor. ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... the deuce is the old boy up to?" he thought to himself. Miss Pierce hesitated. She wanted to go, but something in Peter's voice made it very difficult. "I had no idea he could speak so decidedly. He's not so tractable as I thought. I think Watts ought to do what he asks. Though ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... "The deuce!" said the Dandy, who did not clearly comprehend the bent of the observation of his much pondering and philosophic friend, but was touched ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... go!" said the bewildered Dempsey to himself, as he walked towards his bicycle. "Mistake be damned! She was Mrs. Delane, and what's she up to now with my captain? And what the deuce was she ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "The deuce you be!" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to cover Christian's whole surface and a great deal more; Grandfer Cantle meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... nice. What a fool I was! What should I do with a wife I could not kiss? I wonder if Blanche will speak to me again? Maybe all this was a dodge, women have so many; but she looked in earnest. I might have frightened her by being so sudden, but why the deuce should women be frightened at proposals, when they pass their lives in trying to get them? So Mrs. Stunner said. Poor birdie!, what a soft hand she has! Maybe some women are modest: I will ask Hardcash about it. She may not have known what she was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... bye, old man. If you hear of any thing good out your way to drop a couple of hundred thousand in, let me know—better wire me. Politics have played the deuce with my Utahs. Julia sends her love, and wants me to enclose you yards of newspaper clippings about the party. Ha! Ha! Not by a damn sight! It's enough that I was bored to death by it! The "young'un" often speaks of you. She is getting togged out to go with her mother and do the town in the way ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... said Sir Terence: 'Haven't I been at my wits' ends for myself or my friends ever since I come to man's estate—to years of discretion, I should say, for the deuce a foot of estate have I! But use has sharpened my wits pretty well for your service; so never be in dread, my good lord for look ye!' cried the reckless knight, sticking his arms akimbo 'look ye ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... employing A deuce of a knout For to bang her about, To a sensitive lover's annoying." Said the bagman, ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... was the answer, as they shook hands. "That wretched climate played the deuce with me, and they graciously gave me a step and allowed me to retire upon it. The very deuce, I assure you, Philip. Beg pardon, ma'am," he added seeing the lady ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... was an unusual request from a native, for his offer to be set down in writing. "You might take a note of this, Hamilton," he said aside, "though why the deuce he wants a note of this made I cannot for the life of me imagine. Go on, messenger," he said more mildly; "for as you see my lord ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... though, she's so consummate filial, and he so bloated up with honour. They'll never wed, I'm clear, unless the governor's by to bless 'em; and as to managing that, and the cutting-adrift scheme too, one kills the other. How the deuce to do it? Eh—do I ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... decent citizenship to try it. It ain't neighborly. Think of the lean years we've known. You can't do it. This war won't last forever—" Mr. Doolittle's voice was tinged with regret—"and it will be time enough to go in for playing the deuce with business when business gets slack again. That's the time for reforms, ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... one in the pincushion on my table," she said; "but I think it's a black one. I dont know where the deuce all the pins go to." Then, casting off the subject, she whistled a long and florid cadenza, and added, by way of instrumental interlude, a remarkably close imitation of a violoncello. Meanwhile the man went into her ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... older man, cordially taking note of Zaidos' sunny smile and fearless eyes, "I'm thinkin' that we need such as you. We can't hope those fellows over there beyond will keep still much longer, and we will have the deuce of a time to hold our position, I believe. Of course we will do it, but it will mean a lot of work for us in here, ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... "What the deuce am I doing up here in this dusty garret painting bad pictures while the whole world ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... over and over distastefully. What the deuce did the old chap want now? he wondered. He gave a sigh of resignation, and broke ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... get a nosegay was, she said, her aim; And Nicaise presently her steps pursued, Who, when the turf within the bow'r he viewed, Exclaimed, oh la! how wet it is my dear! Your handsome clothes will be spoiled I fear! A carpet let me instantly provide? Deuce take the clothes! the fair with anger cried; Ne'er think of that: I'll say I had a fall; Such accident a loss I would not call, When Time so clearly on the wing appears, 'Tis right to banish scruples, cares, and fears; Nor think of clothes nor dress, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... "That's the deuce of it. I should think she got enough of the imps last autumn, when the Riflemen left her at our house; but that's the Injin, especially the Shawnee part of it. If there's any chance to get scalps with long hair, they're bound to do it. However, boys, it ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... entertainment in the world is a lounge in London streets. Theatres, concerts, seances, Albert Halls, museums, galleries, are but set and formal shows; a great weariness, for the most part, and who the deuce would care to go and gaze at them again who could ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... "The deuce he is!" cried Mr. James. "Well, a good hiding would do Hilary a world of good," he added in a vengeful tone. "Teach him not ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... the Captain, turning over the leaves of Juliet's portfolio. "What the deuce does the girl mean? She has scribbled over all the paper. I hope she don't ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... will find some who have neither husband nor lover. Certain females have a lover and no husband. Ugly women have a husband and no lover. But to meet with a woman who, having one husband and one lover, keeps to the deuce without trying for the trey, there is the miracle, you see, you greenhorns, blockheads, and dolts! Now then, put the true character of this virtuous woman on the tablets of your memory, go your ways, and let me ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... thought to see again... The deuce... why reopen old wounds? Life is short. Enjoy it while we can. We must drink, sing, laugh, as we may, ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach
... suddenly exclaimed, "D-n me, I must read prayers this morning at All-Souls!" D-n me is an abbreviation of G-d d-n me; which, in England, does not seem to mean more mischief or harm than any of our or their common expletives in conversation, such as O gemini! or, The deuce take me! ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... you know who it is written by? . . . Then Eliot Warburton has written an Oriental Book! Ye Gods! In Shakespeare's day the nuisance was the Monsieur Travellers who had 'swum in a gundello'; but now the bores are those who have smoked tschibouques with a Peshaw! Deuce take it: I say 'tis better ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... "Who the deuce asked you for your opinion?" rapped out the "senor" savagely. "And what are you doing in here, anyhow? If we want the service of a vet., we're quite capable of getting one for ourselves without having him shove his ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... in again from the right with a lighted lantern, stops in astonishment). The deuce, Miss Clara! You're up to the business. I do say, the world must come to an end, in grand style! (He puts down ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... for the dramatist, and to deprecate adverse opinion. Originally, indeed, the prologue-speaker was either the author himself in person, or his representative. In his prologue to his farce of "The Deuce is in Him," George Colman, after a lively fashion, points out the distinction between the classical and the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... What the deuce were they at? and what was a "tink-an"? I dragged the filly nearer, and discovered that a hound puppy was the central point of the tumult, and was being contended for, like the body of Moses, by Miss Trinder ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... talk me into obedience. He wants me to stand for the county—as a Liberal, of course. I intend to stand for the borough as a Conservative, and I have told them so down at Silverbridge. I am very sorry to annoy him, and all that kind of thing. But what the deuce is a fellow to do? If a man has got political convictions of his own, of course, he must stick to them." This the young Lord said with a good deal of self-assurance, as though he, by the light of his own reason, had ascertained on which side the ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... 'Pooh, pooh! Deuce take it, Mr Richard, how dull you are!' cried Brass, relaxing into a smile. 'Did he say anything about ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a whisper. "He will hear you. Ha!" he continued after a short pause, during which they moved on towards the mess-room, "you begin to find out his amiable military qualities, do you! But tell me, Ronayne, what the deuce has put this Quixotic expedition into your head? What great interest do you take in these fishermen, that you should volunteer to break your shins in the wood, this dark night, for the purpose of ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... tale related duly, And little resembling the fable, truly! Hoarders of farthings, I know, deuce take it. It isn't the story as you would make it! Crook-fingers, big-bellies, what do you say, Who govern ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... which greatly afflicted this previous tribunal. Being assembled the day after its performance, there was a general silence; but the lady, who had first given her favourable suffrage, spoke at length and said—"The piece, however, was not hissed." "How the deuce could it?" replied a stranger, who happened to be present; "people cannot gape and hiss both ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... was in the swim, as they call it, for a year or two. I might have stayed there, I suppose, for I could always tell a story, and I wasn't afraid of the big-wigs. But I couldn't stand it. Dress-clothes are the deuce! And besides, talk now is not what it used to be. The clever men who can say smart things are too clever to say them. Nobody wants 'em! So let's 'cultivate our garden,' my dear, and be thankful. I'm beginning a new picture—and ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... fixed, glazed eyes in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... one side in bed, with the Memoirs of ——— on the pillow beside him, when Tom, who had only entered a few minutes before, on looking at the walls of the apartment, exclaimed, "What the deuce is this, my lord? Are you aware that your father will be here in a couple of hours from this time?" and he ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the deuce should I repine, And be an ill foreboder? I'm twenty-three, and five feet nine, I'll go ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... bound to idealise to the extreme limit of nature's sufferance. Such a trick would be hardly honest to Dick Benyon, but Morewood would plead his art with unashamed effrontery, and, if more were needed, tell Dick to take his cheque to the deuce and go ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... believes so. And yet—how the deuce did that sack get where it was? I was standing alongside the McCaskeys when Courteau went up to pay his check, and I'm sure they had no ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... men belonging to these soul-forsaken years: Third-rate canvassers, collectors, journalists and auctioneers. They are never very shabby, they are never very spruce — Going cheerfully and carelessly and smoothly to the deuce. Some are wanderers by profession, 'turning up' and gone as soon, Travelling second-class, or steerage (when it's cheap they go saloon); Free from 'ists' and 'isms', troubled little by belief or doubt — ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... Fortsch [How the deuce did Fortsch teach these things?]; Hermeneutics and Polemics with Walch [editor of—Luther's Works,—I suppose]; Hebraics with Dr. Danz; Homiletics with Dr. Weissenborn; PASTORALE [not Pastoral Poetry, but the Art of Pastorship] and MORALE with Dr. Buddaeus.' [There, your Majesty!—what ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... conscience, my fancy was busy putting together the scraps I had gleaned. The field of speculation was so vast and unbounded that I knew not where to stop. The starting-point was easy. Curiosity began by asking, Why the deuce, Albert Pride was so carefully hiding himself away in the city of Mexico? He must be a fellow-countryman; because an Englishman, no matter how branded at home, by fraud or dishonor, could boldly strut about New-Orleans or New-York, without ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "Oh, the deuce! I did n't mean to show that one; it 's the other." And Tom took up a second paper, looking half angry, half ashamed at his own mistake. "I don't care, though; every one will know to-morrow; and perhaps you 'll be good enough to keep ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... replied. "You see, we only got the report in from France quite late. I sent your man to watch her while I went to see Froelich. I was sure he was all right, but I wanted to satisfy myself. By the time I reached our place I found the chief in the deuce of a stew. Your man had got back, and reported that she'd gone. They'd kicked up the devil's delight at Headquarters, and the chief was out for blood. He was determined to arrest somebody, and I suggested Ramsey, but he got purple ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... perfectly satisfied. We've killed a lot of Huns and only lost a few kilometres of ground ... You're going to your division? Well, it's up Peronne way, or was last night. Cheyne and Dunthorpe came back from leave and tried to steal a car to get up to it ... Oh, I'm having the deuce of a time. These blighted civilians have got the wind up, and a lot are trying to clear out. The idiots say the Huns will be in Amiens in a week. What's the phrase? "Pourvu que les civils tiennent." 'Fraid I must ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... DIMPLE. The deuce! Has he heard of those bills! Nay, then, all's up with Maria, too; but an affair of this sort can never prejudice me among the ladies; they will rather long to know what the dear creature possesses ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... the other day what the President of the United States thought about English battue-shooting. Seemed to think we shot pheasants perched in the trees, and went on to say that wasn't the sport for him; he liked to go after his game, and find it for himself. Who the deuce cares if he does? If he can't talk better sense than that, no wonder CLEVELAND beat him in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... "The deuce, my young fellow!" cried the usurer, fiercely. "But, bah!" he added, twirling his black moustache caressingly between his fingers, "I have proved my bravery scores of times—I, an old soldier, perforated with bullets, can pass such words unnoticed. My dear client, the name and address ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... successful cartoons of recent years. The topic of the week was the Parish Councils Bill, which was then before the Lords, and was receiving severe handling in that House. In the course of discussion came an "aside" from Mr. Arthur a Beckett, to the effect that "Gladstone is having a deuce of a time." "Like the cockatoo," assented Mr. Lehmann, referring to the story of the unhappy bird which was left for a short while alone with a monkey, and which, when the owner returned to the room and found his bird clean plucked of its feathers by ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... "What the deuce has got into them all?" wondered Haynes, though his heart sank, for, much as he wanted to ignore the meaning, it was ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... the deuce you have!" said Aiken. His tone was now one of respect, and he regarded me with marked interest. He was not a gentleman, but he was sharp-witted enough to recognize one in me, and my words and bearing had impressed him. Still his next ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... he had better have apprenticed her," added Mr. Childers, "Now, he leaves her without anything to take to. Her father always had it in his head, that she was to be taught the deuce-and-all of education. He has been picking up a bit of reading for her, here—and a bit of writing for her, there—and a bit of ciphering for her, somewhere else—these seven years. When Sissy got into the school here," he pursued, "he was as pleased as Punch. I suppose ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... which appears to me essentially founded upon the soul. For this reason, Priestley's 'Christian Materialism' always struck me as deadly. Believe the resurrection of the body, if you will, but not without a soul. The deuce is in it, if after having had a soul (as, surely, the mind, or whatever you call it, is) in this world, we must part with it in the next, even for an immortal materiality; and I own ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... throughout for the benefit of foreigners! Though, to be sure, on the one occasion when Philip had visited the Rhine and Switzerland, he had grumbled most consumedly from Ostend to Grindelwald, at those very decimal coins which the stranger seemed to admire so much, and had wondered why the deuce Belgium, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland could not agree among themselves upon a uniform coinage; it would be so much more convenient to the British tourist. For the British tourist, of course, is ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... surely, it must be Molly herself, with her dear, soft touch, and her lips ready to kiss, and the sweet smell of her hair mounting to his brain like wine. Something pricked his arm: something that felt like the needle of a syringe; something that . . . But anyway, what the deuce was she doing? Then suddenly he recalled that pin at the back of her dress, where he'd pricked his wrist so badly the first time he'd ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... "The deuce they have!" Neil muttered and hailing a cab he too drove to the theater, and securing the best seat he could at that late hour, looked over the house till he found the party he was searching for, Archie, in his threadbare ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... "The deuce!" said Montfanon, familiarly, "the affair looks bad, very bad.... You see, a second is a confessor. You have had a discussion in the street with Monsieur Gorka, but about what? You can not reply? What did he say to you to provoke you to the point of wishing to strike ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... said Treenail. "But, Splinter, my man, now since the enemy have occupied the dike in front, how the deuce shall we get back into the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... and I'm married, and I'm in a deuce of a stew because my spuds is drying up on me and no way to get water on 'em without I carry it to 'em in a jug," disclaimed Andy Green hastily. "All I know about punchers I learned from seeing picture shows when I go to town. Now, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... must explain. I can alter my will yet, let me tell you. I'm of sound mind—can reckon compound interest in my head, and remember every fool's name as well as I could twenty years ago. What the deuce? I'm under eighty. I say, you must contradict ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... by me he prays you (I don't know whether I shall speak to please you), He prays—O bless me! what shall I do now? Hang me if I know what he prays, or how! And 'twas the prettiest prologue as he wrote it! Well, the deuce take me, if I han't forgot it. O Lord, for heav'n's sake excuse the play, Because, you know, if it be damned to-day, I shall be hanged for wanting what to say. For my sake then—but I'm in such confusion, I cannot stay ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... "The deuce!" cried Schaunard. There was such an air of melancholy disappointment in his ejaculation, that the possessor of the books was moved to the soul by it. He broke down the pile of old works which formed a barrier between him and Schaunard, and putting the dish in the centre ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... though she earns a sight of it, I know, at that shop of her'n, and keeps Joe like a king. Wine, and all the rest of it, she's got for him, since he was ill. 'There's a knife and fork for ye, whenever ye like to come,' she says to me, in her tart way. But deuce a bit of money will she give. If it weren't for one and another friend giving me an odd sixpence now and then, Master Bywater, I should never ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... I guess there's nothing to prevent.... Boy, you be careful of those boxes! What the deuce do you think you're trying to do? There, that's a little better. Try to show some sense about your work, even if you ain't got any." Edward Pilkings's voice crackled like ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... lady named Jane Who sat on a fence at Schoharie. A rooster came by And crew like the deuce But Jane never ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... "The deuce!" said the Englishman. "You are the man that killed the fox." A terrible scowl had darkened his face. The jealousy of sportsmen is a base passion. He hated me, this Englishman, because I had been before him in transfixing the ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... turned quickly. "Then it would be a pack, monsieur, in which you would be about equal to the deuce," he said. ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... deuce is he, Cairn?" pursued Sir Elwin. "You must know all the circumstances of his adoption; you were with the late Sir Michael in Egypt at the time. The fellow is a mystery to me; he repels, in some way. I was glad to get away from ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... wanted old snub-nose to carry us off?" said M. Lambert, in his half-joking, half-scolding way. "What the deuce of a hurry we were in! It was necessary to hold you back with both arms ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... examined the mummy, for such it was, and, without any haggling, paid the price he asked. But the next day, a friend of Humboldt, Professor Hirtz, told me the history of this shred of a man, which had been lying around the shop for more than ten years, and never belonged to Humboldt at all. Where the deuce has Gothon stowed it? Ah! Mlle. Clementine is sitting ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... the exports and imports for the current half-year, had prevented the drain of gold, had made all that matter right about the glut of the raw material, and had restored all sorts of balances with which the superseded noblemen and gentlemen had played the deuce - and all this, with wheat at so much a quarter, gold at so much an ounce, and the Bank of England discounting good bills at so much per cent.! He might be asked, he observed in a peroration of great power, what were his principles? His principles were what they always had been. His principles ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... hotfoot. Although his power for a short exertion was great, Steve was in no kind of training, having allowed himself to fatten up, and being an inordinate user of tobacco. Per contra, the deer felt freshened and invigorated by exertion. That's the deuce of it with an animal—he ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... mule more pleased at getting loose from a fastening than was that she-mule Jeanette; and never did a mule make better use of the heels that had been left her. She galloped over the prairie, as if the very deuce had been after her. But if he was not, the javalies were; for on came the whole drove, scores of them, grunting and ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... knows what distant lake. From the grass arose, with measured sweep, a gull, and bathed luxuriously in blue waves of air. And now she has vanished on high, and appears only as a black dot: now she has turned her wings, and shines in the sunlight. Deuce take you, steppes, how ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... Jimmy. Then Gibson offered to do it, and with a very similar result. With suaviter in modo, sed fortiter in re, I informed him that I did not consider him a sufficiently crack shot to enable him to win a Wimbledon shield; and what the deuce did he—but there, I had to shoot the poor miserable creature, who already had two rifle bullets in his carcass, and I am sure with his last breath he thanked me for that quick relief. There was not sufficient flesh on his bones to cure; ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... too great a deuce of a hurry to satisfy that curiosity, dear man," Poppy put in. "You must contrive to exercise patience for a little while yet, please; always remembering that it is entirely superfluous to run to catch a train which is bound not to start until ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... began to fall. The two occupants of the car watched each other surreptitiously, mutually suspicious, like dogs. Scraps of talk were separated by long intervals. Mr. Prohack wondered what the deuce Softly Bishop had done that Angmering should leave him a hundred thousand pounds. He tried to feel grief for the tragic and untimely death of his old friend Angmering, and failed. No doubt the failure was due to the fact that he had ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... deuce is this? Is he bringing up the old sea-serpent again? It ought to be cooked into a jelly for him, and he be made to ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... reached her, lo! the Captain, Gallant Kidd,[4] commands the crew; Passengers their berths are clapt in, Some to grumble, some to spew. "Hey day! call you that a cabin? Why't is hardly three feet square! Not enough to stow Queen Mab in— Who the deuce can harbour there?" "Who, sir? plenty— Nobles twenty Did at once my vessel fill."— "Did they? Jesus, How you squeeze us! Would to God they did so still! Then I'd 'scape the heat and racket Of the good ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... the deuce did she come to use that stereotyped response?" he wondered; then said, aloud, "Then undo that roll of gauze bandage and tear off a piece about six feet long ... be careful! Don't let it touch ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... nearly a month, and the old man wants to buy a new drag from Calcutta,—solid silver railings and silver lamps, and trifles of that kind. I've tried to make him understand that he has played the deuce with the revenues for the last twenty years and must go slow. He ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... blow'd! if he hadn't put his cloas into bed an hung hissen ovver th' cheer back. Awm sure aw connot tell where all this marchin' is likely to lead us to at last, but aw hooap we shall be all reight, for aw do think ther's plenty o' room to mend even yet, but the deuce on it is,' ther's soa monny different notions abaat what is reight wol aw'm flamigaster'd amang it. Some say drink is the besetting sin; another says 'bacca is man's ruination. One says we're all goin' to the devil becoss we goa to church, an' another says we'st niver goa to heaven if we ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... deuce is all this about that Mallaby woman?" he asked. "I should think you'd listen to ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... they're having tea," said the First Lieutenant. "But how the deuce they're going to get ashore the Lord knows. I'll have to hoist in the boats if it gets any worse. Keep an eye on the compass and see we aren't dragging." The Captain came ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... bien (very well) but how the deuce can you be funny in the Baltic? Why call it Baltic? For days and nights at sea, sometimes up, more often down, and a sense of inability coming over me in the middle of the boundless deep. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... movement; he had been identified with a gentleman; not for a good deal of money now would he be classed with manufacturers. But his innate distrust of general principles revived. What the deuce was the good of talking about regularity and self-respect? It looked to him as if the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... madame, this precious made-up sheet. But does the waste sheet in which the Duchess forgets her gloves in the arbor belong to the fourth volume? Well, deuce ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... afraid that this wretched war will play the very deuce with our foreign friends. If you Germans do not give that crowned swindler, whose fall I have been looking for ever since the coup d'etat, such a blow as he will never recover from, I will never forgive you. Public opinion in England is not worth much, but at present, it is entirely ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... Peter had explained, "it'll be a very deuce of a time before we'll want everyone to know. There's any number of things to do. So perhaps it's just as well if people ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... have them thrust upon them—I've had this place thrust upon me. I don't know why they want a doctor, but they do. They balked at Rodgers from the village. They want somebody here at night. Mr. Jennings has the gout and there's the deuce to pay. Some ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he, musing; "but the postmark is Plymouth. How the deuce—!" The two first lines of the letter were read, and the old man's countenance fell. Susan, who had been all alive at the mention of McElvina's name, perceived the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... like Cairo, was, after all, the only way to keep my name before the public. Now, that brings me to my tip for Lord Ernest. He asks what there is we don't know, and want to know. I'll answer for us all, being used to feel the pulse of crowds. We want to know what the deuce Ancient Egyptians really believed about death and religion. Had they any sense, or ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... "Oh, come. I guess you wouldn't care." His eyes rested for a moment on the fine flare of jewels presented by Flora's clasped hands. "Besides,"—his voice dropped to a graver level—"the deuce of it is—" he paused, they, both rather breathless, looking at him. He had the air of a man about to give information, and then the air of a man who has thought better of it. His voice consciously shook off its gravity. "Well, there'll be such ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... said, leaning back and puffing at his cigar,—"what England wants is a war. (Another whisky and soda, waiter.) We're getting flabby. All this pampering of the poor is playing the very deuce with the country. A bit of a scrap with a foreign power would do us all the good in the world." He disposed of his whisky at a draught. "We're flabby," he repeated. "The lower classes seem to have no ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... know any more than the deuce,' says Mrs Pipchin. 'He never does me the honour to speak to me. He has his meat and drink put in the next room to his own; and what he takes, he comes out and takes when there's nobody there. It's no use asking me. I know no more about him than ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... blackmailed? and was Morris the man to do it? Grave considerations. "It's not that I'm afraid of him," Morris so far condescended to reassure himself; "but I must be very certain of my ground, and the deuce of it is, I see no way. How unlike is life to novels! I wouldn't have even begun this business in a novel, but what I'd have met a dark, slouching fellow in the Oxford Road, who'd have become my accomplice, and known all about how to do it, and probably ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "The deuce they do!" Sebastian cried. However, he had such confidence in Nurse Wade's judgment that he bought a couple of hawks and tried the treatment on them. Both birds took considerable doses, and, after a period of insensibility extending to several hours, woke up in the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... round of eight and twenty days. Lionella was a lady born, as it were, in the purple. Command sat lightly on her; she had never been disobeyed. She now grew querulous, exacting, suspicious, moody, sometimes petulant, sometimes beseeching. It gave Angioletto the deuce's own time now and then; but he might yet have weathered the rocks—for his tact was only equalled by his good temper—if the Countess had not precipitated matters. There came a day, and an hour of a day, when she spoke to him. She had spoken before; her ambitions had always been verbal—but now ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... "What in the deuce does it matter?" returned Will desperately. "It was the only quiet night I've had for three weeks: I slept like a log straight through until the breakfast-bell. Then I was late, of course, and he threatened to take an hour's time from my day's wages. By the way, ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... "The deuce you can't!" A cold steel revolver pressed down on Dr. Morton's stomach. In the other hand the master ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... that worthy, 'Morris and Levison would never have given you such a deuce of a tick unless they knowed your resources. Trust Morris and Levison for that. You done up, sir! a nob like you, that Morris and Levison have trusted for such a tick! Lord! sir, you don't know nothing about it. I could afford to give them fifteen shillings in the pound for their debt myself and ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... card for trumps; if the trump turned up is the same suit as the last, the dealer must give another three cards until a different suit turns up trumps. In playing this game the ace is the highest card and the deuce (the two) is ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... deuce has kept you, Ned, my boy?' he said. 'Fair Hebe,' he went on, 'I beg your pardon. Jacob, you can go on decanting. It was very careless of you to forget it. Meantime, Hebe, bring that bottle to General Jupiter, there. He's got a corkscrew in the tail ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... hotly contested deuce set, and ended in favor of Dorothy and Alice just as Katie appeared with tray ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... then she's obliged to fight for something?—it's Harry in her. That's why, as I said to George at breakfast, I don't want him to marry her. She's a good girl, and I like her, but who in the deuce wants to marry a fighting wife? Look at that fellow mauling his horse, Ben. It makes me sick to see 'em do it, but it's no business of mine, ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... well of the prior, and to let the world go as it lists. It must go well, for most people are content with it. If I knew history enough, I should prove to you that evil has always come about here below through a few men of genius, but I do not know history, no more than I know anything else. The deuce take me, if I have learnt anything, or if I find myself a pin the worse for not having learnt anything. I was one day at the table of the minister of the King of——, who has brains enough for four, and he showed as plain as one and one make two, that nothing was more useful to people than ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... they had begun to warm to it, and to forget everything else, when a succession of lusty hollos from the Squire brought them suddenly to themselves, and to a dead stop. When they looked round, he was making up to them with choleric strides. "What the deuce do you mean, sir, by having telegrams sent here?" cried Mr Wentworth, pitching at his son Frank an ominous ugly envelope, in blue and red, such as the unsophisticated mind naturally trembles at. "Beg your pardon, Gerald; but I never can keep my temper when I see a telegraph. I daresay it's something ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... that the weaker sex is coming it amazingly strong. The sceptres of three of the first kingdoms in Europe are swayed by female hands. The first writer of young France is a woman. The first astronomer of young England, idem. Mrs Trollope played the Chesterfield and the deuce with the Yankees. Miss Martineau turned the head of the mighty Brougham. Mademoiselle d'Angeville ascended Mont Blanc, and Mademoiselle Rachel has replaced Corneille and Racine on their crumbling pedestals. I might waste hours of your precious time, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... very careful how we use the police, James. It seems simple, but it is not. I can't explain the reasons, but we usually pit spy against spy, and keep very clear of the police. Otherwise," she added, smiling, "there would be the deuce to pay among the embassies and legations." She added: "It's a most depressing situation; I don't exactly know what to do.... I have letters to ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... "Outside? What the deuce—Of course it was outside!" He paused, and seemed to read the priest's thought. "Oh, for God's sake, man—" Hurrying into the passage, and along it to the hall, he called up, "Walter! Walter!" from the foot of the staircase. "There, ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... put down Fenianism with no light hand, preaching, as I have already shown, in the most manly and emphatic style—which could have been emulated with advantage in other Episcopacies in my country. MacCarthy was a bookworm from Maynooth, who played the deuce with the diocese, allowing all the priests to run wild, and by his laxity becoming criminally responsible for much of the terrible condition of Kerry. Higgins was the nominee of a friend of Moriarty, and he worked hard to suppress outrages, by which course he certainly did not add ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... restlessly in his chair. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know what the deuce there is I can do. Certainly father's idea of my going back to college and then to medical school afterward, is just plain, rank nonsense. I'd be a doddering old man before I got through—thirty years old. I should think that even he would see that. It will have to be business, ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... How the deuce do their children look so fat and rosy? By eating dirt-pies, I suppose. I saw a couple making a very nice savory one, and another employed in gravely sticking strips of stick betwixt the pebbles at the house-door, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... on a bed, the neck underneath a plank. The scene then shifted to the infernal regions. The most agile of the troop, wrapped in white sheets, played spectres. There was a young avocat from Bordeaux, a man named Dubosc, short, dark, one-eyed, humpbacked, bandy-legged, the very black deuce in person, who used to come all horned and hoofed, to drag the Pere Longuemare feet first out of his bed, announcing to the culprit that he was condemned to the everlasting flames of hell and doomed past redemption for having made of the Creator of the Universe a jealous ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... and an infernally daring one,' said Mr Rattenbury; 'in Lealand Cove, not half an hour ago. And the deuce of it is we had warning ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "Shrewd the deuce! He's an old blockhead. He has stumbled into the possession of some property which I am ready to pay him a fair price for. He took it for a cow-pasture. It isn't worth anything. It would only be a convenience to us to ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... "The deuce!" cried Sir Tancred, and catching up his Daily Telegraph, he read again the Marmalade Millionaire's ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... before," said Holmes staring down the dimly lighted street. "Now, I wonder who the deuce that could have been?" ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... afraid she did not know of what. Certainly not of the man who had been so kind to her, and who she wished was sitting in front of her, instead of the one who did not speak at all, except to ask Sam how the deuce they were to know when they reached ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... increase its number. For the other nine hundred people, being able to pick and choose, are likely to feel a deep indifference to the question of joining any segregation at all. If group No. 2 says, "Come into my crowd, I understand they don't want you in No. 1," the individual replies: "What the deuce do I care about No. 1 or you either? Here are Nos. 4, 5, 6, and 7 all begging for me. If you and No. 1 keep on in your conceit you'll find yourselves left out ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... he looked shrewdly about, with a narrow-eyed, puckered gaze. He was plainly a little flabbergasted. He seemed taken aback by the greatness of Philadelphia's voice. He said something to himself. On his lips it looked like "What the deuce," or something of similar purport. He sat down on a chair beside Governor Sproul. Not more than four feet away, amazed at our own audacity, we peered over the floor of ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... "What the deuce is all this?" muttered I, as I watched her retreating figure. "Albert said that he had an appointment, but he did not make me his confidant. It appears that something which has occurred this night occasions him to require my assistance. Well, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... the captain to his mate. "I wonder how the deuce he got to the Bonins and where he came from. He's not a runaway convict, anyway—you can see that by the look in his eye. Seems a decent, quiet sort of a man, too. What d'ye ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... called his car, Best of our battered bunch by far, Branded with many a bullet scar, Yet running so sweet and true. Jerry he loved her, knew her tricks; Swore: "She's the beat of the best big six, And if ever I get in a deuce of a fix Priscilla will pull ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... the niceties of handwriting. He suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me, very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often. But this must have been a long, long time ago. Whom the deuce can it be from? Pooh! it's only somebody ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... very badly off, as far as its doctor is concerned," said Mr. Jelliffe, slowly. "The other chap will come and undo this thing, and hurt me a lot more. I'm inclined to let things slide. This practice of yours ought to be a great thing for a stout man needing a reducing diet. How the deuce do you keep ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... vermilion, crimson, Costlier than diamond or ultramarine— A deuce of a theme to chant lyrics or hymns on, Or rummage for orotund ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... What the deuce was I to do? I wrote to Mrs. Perkins; and that kind lady replied, that she would receive the Mulligan, or any other of my friends, with the greatest cordiality. "Fancy a party, all Mulligans!" thought I, with ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... good and square, yet is it forged longer, vppon the Cater, and Trea, then any other way: And therefore it is called a Langret. Such be also cal'd bard Cater treas, because commonly, the longer end will of his owne sway drawe downewards, and turne vp to the eie, Sixe, Sincke, Deuce or Ace. The principall vse of them is at Nouum, for so longe a paire of Bard cater treas be walking on the bourd, so longe can ye not cast fiue, nor nine, vnles it be by greate chance, that the roughnes of the table, ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... to me more than once, David, and to say the truth, I've liked you none the less for it. But, then, what the deuce should a fellow like you want to do in a pulpit? I respect the cloth as much as any man, I hope, but leaving theory aside, and coming down to practice, aren't there fools and knaves enough in the world to carry on ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... who sometimes when unguarded meet an artful serenader, that is a cloaked bandit, and is provoked by their performances, and knows anthropologically the nature behind the devious show; a sciential rascal; as little to be excluded from our modern circles as Eve's own old deuce from Eden's garden whereupon, opportunity inviting, both the fool and the cunning, the pure donkey princess of insular eulogy, and the sham one, are in a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Benniger such a lecture, and taken the money ad depositum. But, good heaven! that fellow is a wild ferocious beast. He says, it is a bargain; that the receiver is the thief, and not the bidder. He insists on having the patent for the monopoly dispatched; if not, he swears he will play the deuce. ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland |
