"Hoax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... twelve o'clock came round. I was hungry, and there was nothing in the house. The cook had eaten the last bit of bread. This could not go on. It did, however, until two, when my sensations were terrible. After all, I began to think the document very absurd. Perhaps it might only be a gigantic hoax. Besides, some means would surely be found to keep my uncle back from attempting any such absurd expedition. On the other hand, if he did attempt anything so quixotic, I should not be compelled to accompany him. Another ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... know very well that Mr. Westonhaugh cares nothing about it, one way or the other. The little plan for 'amusing brother John' is a hoax. The thing cannot be done. You might as well try to amuse an undertaker as to make a man from Bombay laugh. The hollowness of life is ever upon them. No. It was Kildare; he called and said that Miss Westonhaugh had never seen a tiger, ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... rejoined Feng Tzu-ying smiling. "You're all far too credulous! It's a mere hoax that I made use of the other day. For so much did I fear that you would be sure to refuse if I openly asked you to a drinking bout, that I thought it fit to say what I did. But your attendance to-day, so ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... lady in almost stentorious accents, "or is this an unmanly hoax?" Suddenly she stopped in undeniable consternation. "Good heavens," she muttered, "if Abner should believe this. He is SUCH a fool! He has lately been queer and jealous. Oh dear!" she said, turning to Polly Jenkinson with the first indication ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... old historical quarter of the town, whose hoax and overshadowed precincts I always sought by instinct in melancholy moods, I wandered on from street to street, till, having crossed a half deserted "place" or square, I found myself before a sort of broker's shop; an ancient place, full ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... thigh oats hoax shrewd threat fight boat oath shrift throng light oak coach shrike throve flight foal float shrunk thrust fright goat poach thrill throat ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... young officers looked hard at Desmond, to discover if he was speaking seriously, for his tone was so quiet, and matter of fact, that they could scarce credit that he had passed through such an exciting adventure; and the three were so accustomed to hoax each other, that it struck them both as simply an invention on the part of their comrade, so absolutely improbable did it seem ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... of his misery. Intensely agitated, poor little Fresh is hurried by pretended friends into a carriage, and driven off; and it is not till a week afterwards that he learns he has been the victim of a hoax. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... like to keep it. If I can't get rid of it, I'll bring it back. It's a hoax or an endless chain device or something of the sort. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... own feelings consulted I should print it verbatim, but I won't hoax you, else I love a Lye. My biography, parentage, place of birth, is a strange mistake, part founded on some nonsense I wrote about Elia, and was true of him, the real Elia, whose name I took.... C.L. was born in Crown Office Row, Inner Temple in 1775. Admitted ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... those who gathered around Mrs. Paxton were inclined to think the note a hoax, but Mrs. Dainty, coming forward, lifted her handsome head, and looking at the men who were lounging comfortably in the large rockers, or sitting upon the piazza railing, spoke the word that ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... cataract of long years: And if there be sublimity in tears, Those shall be precious which the adventurer shed When his frail star gave way, and waked his fears, Lest, by the ungenerous crowd it might be said, That he was all a hoax, or ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... and on the mucous membrane was not to soothe it, but plough it and harrow it; "and did not that open her eyes?" He then reminded her that all these doctors in consultation would have contrived to agree. "But you," said he, "have baffled the collusive hoax by which Dox arrived at a sham uniformity—honest uniformity can never exist till scientific principles obtain. Listme! To begin, is ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... a hoax," he went on; "I cannot believe it. What does this stuff about beating a tiger with a ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... disguises. There is a party of masqued and dominoed ladies: genuine whites all—you can tell it by the shape of their gloveless hands and the transparent pink of their finger-nails—endeavouring to hoax a couple of swains in false noses and green spectacles, both of whom have been already recognised. The perplexed youths try their hardest to discover their fair interlocutors by peeping at their profiles ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... talked love affairs over muffins and a cup of excellent congou. Then what a variety of jams and jellies! I never returned without a disordered stomach, and wishing Highland heather-honey at the devil. Yet, after all, to prove a hoax!—for even when I was on the point of popping the question, and had fastened my silk Jem Belcher with a knowing leetle knot to set out for that purpose, I learned from Francie, the stable-boy, that she had the evening ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... a little severe towards Brittany, not towards the Bretons who seem to me repulsive animals. A propos of Celtic archaeology, I published in L'Artiste in 1858, a rather good hoax on the shaking stones, but I have not the number here and I don't ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... take immediately, was to get my guests together. As I have said, I knew nothing of them and for a moment thought it not improbable that even if I did manage to get hold of their names and addresses they might when they received the letter think it was a hoax. However, the thing had to be done, so it was no use to waste time by foreseeing difficulties. My first step was to get the help of my friend, Sir Harry Brittain (then Mr. Brittain). I wrote to him, asking for the names and addresses of all the correspondents of American ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... have seen that this paper was a practical joke." Then it burst all of a sudden on Stephen. And all this about "Mr Finis", "Oh, ah," and the rest of it had been a cruel hoax, and no more! ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... hard work. Laboring in relays of divers, every box that had been locked in the purser's safe was brought out on the submerged cabin table, broken open, and the contents examined. The hoax was even worse than indicated at first. For after the front section of boxes had been taken out none of the others remaining contained any gold at all. There ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... newspapers say; but though they call King Cheese a hoax, he was hardly that. And the poor he fed, as you see, after all; For who is so poor as a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... him, almost compassionately and with unwonted gentleness, as from the mood in which his reminiscence had left him: "You suspected a hoax? She had died suddenly the night before while she and my cousin were getting things ready to welcome my uncle home in the morning. I'm sorry you're disappointed," he added, getting ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... that the gigantic reflector of Lord Rosse, and the exquisite fifteen- inch refractors of the modern observatories, eliminate from the chaotic rubbish-heap of the surface of old Thornbush much smaller objects than such a circle as I have named. If you have read Mr. Locke's amusing Moon Hoax as often as I have, you have those details fresh in your memory. As John Farrar taught us when all this began,—and as I have said already,—if there were a State House in Thornbush two hundred feet long, the first Herschel would have seen it. His magnifying ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... was not so difficult as might be imagined. He was made to see, gently and by degrees, that it was obviously impossible to court-martial the whole Regiment and equally impossible to proceed against any subaltern who, in his belief, had any concern in the hoax. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... again. A rise behind the barn was about a mile from a similar rise on Sam Atkins' place. They communicated across that distance in all the ways, including various kinds of codes, that Fenwick could think of to find some evidence of hoax. Afterwards, they returned to the laboratory and sawed in two the crystals they had just used. Then they showed him the tests they had devised to determine the nature of the radiation ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... be spoken of in his presence. Such an air of reality was given to the narrative by incidental references to actual persons and occurrences that many believed it true, and some were found who remembered Philip Nolan, but had heard different versions of his career. The author of this clever hoax—if hoax it may be called—was Edward Everett Hale, a Unitarian clergyman of Boston, who published a collection of stories in 1868, under the fantastic title, If, Yes, and Perhaps, indicating thereby that some of the tales were possible, some of them probable, and others might even be regarded ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... admired the very presumption of the theory, and finally told him to call the next day on my agent, Mr. Schenck, at such a number (Martin Baum's) in Maine Street, to whom, in the mean time, I transferred the hoax, and duly informing Schenck of the affair; and I do not recollect, at this time, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... some of the betters that an Irishwoman on the forward deck had a ticket which she offered to sell for two shillings; but when, on being asked what the number was, he answered 99, they laughed at him, supposing that somebody had been putting a hoax upon the poor Irishwoman, as there was no such number ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... me, and you shall have, without a hem or haw, sirs, A Canterbury pilgrimage, much better than old Chaucer's. 'Tis of a hoax I once played off upon that city clever, The memory of which, I hope, will stick to it for ever. With my coal-black beard, and purple cloak, jack-boots, and broad-brimmed castor, Hey-ho! for ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... right to speak," Anitchkoff replied with dignity. "He was my master and I can admit no imputation on his memory. Besides, your guess is as good as mine. Whether he bought the picture in his precritical days, keeping it as a warning and imposing it upon his followers as a hoax—this I can merely conjecture. As for Brooks, the case is simple; he couldn't resist a Giorgione at a bargain. But since you will, you may as well hear the rest of the story—at least ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... creek and call upon his Majesty, King Olomba; but, upon interviewing that potentate, through the medium of Cupid, who acted as interpreter, it at once became evident that our worthy skipper had been made the victim of an elaborate hoax—even more elaborate, indeed, than we at the moment expected; for the king not only vigorously disclaimed any propensity toward slave-hunting or slave-dealing, but went the length of strenuously denying that the river was ever used at all by slavers; also he several times endeavoured ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... not more likely to die than you are, from all I hear." At this time rumors of Mr. Scarborough's improved health had reached the creditors in London. Mr. Tyrrwhit had begun to believe that Mr. Scarborough's dangerous condition had been part of the hoax; that there had been no surgeon's knives, no terrible operations, no moment of almost certain death. "I don't believe he's been ill at all," ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... for he had caught her hands in an eager, boyish clasp. "Olga, don't—there's a dear!" he begged with headlong ardour. "I don't love you any the less because I didn't do it. I believe myself it's a beastly hoax, and I'm just as furious as you are. But, I say, can't we found a partnership on it? Is it asking too much? Pull me up if it is! I don't want to be premature. Only I won't have you sick or sorry about it, anyhow so far as I am concerned. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... fallacy. Some of the biggest pecan trees I have ever seen were growing at 900 feet elevation down in Georgia. This was on clay hills. I have seen the same thing in Raleigh. That alluvial soil business is a hoax. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... Pitt and Coburg of each year; interrupt a conversation with a pun, turn into ridicule science and the savant; despise all things which they do not know or which they fear; set themselves above all by constituting themselves the supreme judges of all. They would all hoax their fathers, and be ready to shed crocodile tears upon their mothers' breasts; but generally they believe in nothing, blaspheme women, or play at modesty, and in reality are led by some old woman or ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... throughout the country. Celebrations which included virtually every American, made the country a gala place for twenty-four hours. The American people with characteristic good nature laughed at the hoax next day and settled down in patience to await the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... cobbler who, learning that a tailor had advertised for "frogs," catches a bagful and carries them to him, demanding one dollar a hundred. The testy tailor imagining himself the victim of a hoax, throws his shears at his head, and Timothy, in revenge empties the bag of bull-frogs upon the clean floor of Buckram's shop. Next day Timothy's sign was disfigured to read—Shoes Mended and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... room surrounded by the President of the United States, the ambassadors of France, Germany, Great Britain, and Russia, and Professor Thornton. The faces of all wore expressions of the utmost seriousness, except that of Von Koenitz, who looked as if he were participating in an elaborate hoax. Several of these distinguished gentlemen had never seen a wireless apparatus before, and showed some excitement as Hood made ready to send the most famous message ever transmitted through the ether. At last he threw over his rheostat and the hum of ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... of millions of money; and they were in operation at so late a period, that the present generation paid heavy taxes for the purpose of carrying them out—taxes paid for nothing better than the success of a practical hoax. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... this appears to me very like a hoax, there is such a weight of negative testimony against it. Dr. Whitaker, the learned historian of Whalley, describes Hurstwood Hall as a strong and well-built old house, bearing on its front, in large characters, the name of "Barnard Townley," its founder, and that it was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... that he could not force an entrance, even though he kept his foot firmly in the aperture. The woman still regarded him with a pitying amusement; yet gradually curiosity got the better of her common sense, which told her that he was the victim of some hoax, and ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... opening it, by the window, found powder, nails, etc., so arranged that, if opened in the ordinary way, the whole would have been fired, and two barrels discharged different ways. No doubt a box so packed was received, but whether anything serious was intended, or whether it was a hoax, cannot be said with any certainty. The Earl of Oxford is said to have met allusions to the subject with a smile, and Swift seems to have been annoyed at the reports which ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... very preface, we have an evidence of her having been the victim of as well concerted and admirably conducted a hoax, as was ever played off upon any one—it surpasses that which was put upon poor Malvolio in "Twelfth Night." After making the remark upon which we have already commented, that a second work on France from her ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... not in the house at all, and could not then have been stolen. It may very probably have been so. Nothing more probable. Mr. Camperdown and the managers of the Eustace estate had gradually come to a belief that the Carlisle robbery was a hoax,—and, therefore, another robbery is necessary to account for the diamonds. Another robbery is arranged, and this young and beautiful widow, as bold as brass, again goes before the magistrate and swears. Either the diamonds were not stolen, or else again she ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... authorized to state that the received message was friendly and appears to represent a sincere attempt by another race of intelligent beings to contact the people of Earth. A reply message is being formulated.' Officials further explained that the possibility of the signal's being a hoax has been thoroughly investigated and that there is no doubt whatsoever that the message is a genuine interspatial communication from intelligent beings on Ganymede. Ganymede is one of twelve moons of the planet Jupiter, and is larger than the ...
— Master of None • Lloyd Neil Goble
... settlement of the Russian problems is more than any one, however well informed, could vouch for, but I had some grounds for believing the move to be genuine and the promises overdone. No reasonable motive suggested itself for a vulgar hoax. Moreover, the overture disclosed two important facts, one of which was known at the time only to the Bolshevist government—namely, that secret pourparlers were going forward between Berlin and Moscow for the purpose of arriving at a workable understanding ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... when Sturtevant sweated a 'confession' out of poor Winston, the bank got a message that the robbery would be repeated this morning and dared them to prevent it. Rogers thought it was a hoax, but he telephoned me and I worked the Bureau men night and day to get my camera ready in time for him. I am afraid that I can't do much to prevent the robbery, but I may be able to take a picture of it and thus prevent other cases of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... the cheaper evening papers, which rushed out edition after edition on the strength of it, until the St. James's Gazette put an end to the excitement by publishing a telegram from the Mayor of Liverpool denouncing the report as an insane and criminal hoax. ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... utmost endeavours of the party to make him drunk proved ineffectual; he was restless and uncomfortable, and he could not help fancying by the visible efforts to do him up, that some mischief was brewing, or some hoax was about to be played off. He had his master-key in his pocket, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... no more, but his heart sank like a lump of lead in his breast. The talk of a ship being in sight must be a hoax, unless Crabtree referred ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of the poor cat—syne the robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish ne'er-do- weels, who paid so sweetly for their pranks—and lastly, the hoax, the thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... a hoax," said Johnston, "and a cursed uncomfortable one for us. But here comes these fellows, just as they went, it seems. Well, boys, no ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... which we kept under our pillow for thirteen days and nights, was beginning to worry us. After all, might it not be a literary hoax, we thought, and might not this Khalid be a myth. And yet, he does not seem to have sought any material or worldly good from the writing of his Book. Why, then, should he resort to deception? Still, we doubted. And ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... pursued Danglars with one of his sinister smiles, "an order for unlimited credit calls for something like caution on the part of the banker to whom that order is given. I am very anxious to see this man. I suspect a hoax is intended, but the instigators of it little knew whom they had to deal with. 'They laugh best ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sneaked up to the camp, and were preparing to throw their spears, when they were seen by Charley, who immediately gave the alarm. We got up instantly, but they had disappeared, and no one but Charley saw anything of them. I should have been inclined to consider it a hoax, had I not heard their distant cooees as late as 9 o'clock, when I silenced them by ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... such a place. It surely is not a hoax," said Amy, although at first she had thought it was a joke. "And there is ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... colors.... What defence can be made against this new crime of giving color to ideas?" As for trifling with the House by presenting a petition which in the course of debate had become pretty well known and acknowledged to be a hoax designed to lead Mr. Adams into a position of embarrassment and danger, he disclaimed any such motive, reminding members that he had given warning, when beginning to present his petitions, that he was suspicious ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... had seized on Laing's champagne and was pouring it out. He stopped now, and looked at Dora. A sudden gleam of intelligence glanced from her eyes. Rushing up to him, she whispered, "You did it all? It was all a hoax?" ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... at our house we call 'Paddy': She's not 'goody-goody', but 'baddy'; She loves practical jokes, Or to play us a hoax, Though we tell her such tricks are ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... want to discover what lends Such terror to all timid folks— That serpent whose mystery tends To make one believe it a hoax. ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... the negative, and said he had better go and see who it was; for looks of alarm had been exchanged between him, the Squire, and Murphy, lest any stranger should enter without being apprised of the hoax going forward; and Dawson had just reached the dining-room door on his cautionary mission, when it was suddenly thrown wide open, and in walked, with a rapid step and bustling air, an active little gentleman dressed in black, who was ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... observed, in a loud, confidential aside to Stephanie; "this studio ought to be full of young men in velvet coats and bunchy ties, singing, 'Oh la—la!' and dextrously balancing on their baggy knees a series of assorted soubrettes. It's a bluff, a hoax, a con game! Are you going to stand for it? I don't see any absinthe either—or even any Vin ordinaire! Only a tea-pot—a tea-pot!" he repeated in unutterable scorn. "Why, there's more of Bohemia in a Broad Street Trust Company than there is in ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... conduct requires no defense. But it may be well again to explain our position. These people, whose camp-fire glowed so brazenly against the opposite cliff, had for purely mercenary motives committed a cruel hoax. They had posed as bandits, and as bandits they deserved to be treated. They had held up our own clergyman, of a nervous temperament, on a mountain pass, and had taken from him a part of his stipend. It was heartless. It was barbarous. ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was so intense, as we saw the way to Solomon's treasure chamber thrown open at last, that I for one began to tremble and shake. Would it prove a hoax after all, I wondered, or was old Da Silvestra right? Were there vast hoards of wealth hidden in that dark place, hoards which would make us the richest men in the whole world? We should know in a minute ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... to himself, as the perfect calm reigning over the whole establishment struck him anew. But before he had decided that he had been made the victim of a hoax, a movement took place in the area under the stoop, and an officer stepped out, with a countenance expressive of sufficient perplexity for Mr. Gryce to motion him back with the hurried inquiry: "Anything wrong? Any blood shed? ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... ——'s there are in the world, with minds ductile as wax, ready to receive any impression one wishes to give them! Yet I reproached myself for assisting to hoax her, when I saw the smiles excited by ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... one imagine, because M. Reybaud has happened to say heedlessly yes and no to a question of which he does not seem to have yet formed a clear idea, that I class him among those speculators of socialism, who, after having launched a hoax into the world, begin immediately to make their retreat, under the pretext that, the idea now belonging to the public domain, there is nothing more for them to do but to leave it to make its way. M. Reybaud, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... what fantasy had seized him to lead him to hoax me in this manner, since for many years I had never opened my mouth concerning the life he led, whilst he, on his side, had said not a word to me relating to it. Yet it is true that sometimes being ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... therefore seldom spoke to anyone, but talked to himself as he went along, marking with a sudden stop and a shake of the head the end of an anecdote and the inevitable phrase, 'That's a thing that I have seen.' But he still carried himself upright, and was as fond of a hoax as in the days of the Directory. It was his amusement to impose abstinence from wine, abstinence from meat, and every ridiculous variety of regimen upon cits enamoured of life, crowds of whom wrote to him daily, asking by what diet he had so miraculously extended his. He would prescribe sometimes ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... sermons, and his sermons jokes; But both were thrown away amongst the fens; For wit hath no great friend in aguish folks. No longer ready ears and short-hand pens Imbibed the gay bon-mot, or happy hoax: The poor priest was reduced to common sense, Or to coarse efforts very loud and long, To hammer a horse laugh from the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... you," said his wife, meaning that now he would not be made to suffer for attempting to hoax her. But she was too intensely interested to pursue that matter further. "What in the world do you ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... why should David be made Honorary President of the company? Was Robert Westcote, the stranger, the cause of it all? He had not heard from him since the day of their visit to Mrs. Bean's, and but for the cheque which he had received he would have been inclined to consider the whole thing as a hoax. ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... game practised on him; still the deep spell on his judgment continues unbroken: and now the very shame and grief of his past failures and punishments seem to co-operate with his palsy of reason in preparing him for a third hoax even more gross and palpable than ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... lies in the pond, and looks as if a hundred feet wide. A much more marvellous story has been published of an engraved meteoric stone falling in an obscure portion of Georgia near Clayton Court-house, which is a hoax, and has been so pronounced by the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... him over once more; Tavernake certainly had not the appearance of one attempting a hoax. ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left eye with a finger and barks hoarsely) Hoax! Beware of the flapper and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. (More genially) Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item number three. There is plenty ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... crowd of foot-passengers and carriages by which the street was thronged from dawn till midnight; while Hook and a friend enjoyed the confusion from a room opposite.[B] Lockhart, in the "Quarterly," states that the hoax was merely the result of a wager that Hook would in a week make the quiet dwelling the most famous house in all London. Mr. Barham affirms that the lady, Mrs. Tottenham, had on some account fallen under the displeasure of the formidable trio, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... gazed stupidly, unable for the time to understand that he had been made the victim of a hoax. While this was slowly dawning upon him, the door burst open and, with a yell of laughter, the crowd rushed into ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... slightly, and was rather afraid of him. It was not difficult to read between the lines of his successful hoax. In a chastened mood she rapped once ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... the church—you say, It's likely, for they're always there. Not Sunday? No? A funeral? Who? Who, Harry? how you shake and stare! All well, you say, and all were out. What ails you, Hal? Is this a hoax? Why don't you tell me like a man: What is the ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... been told of the reception awaiting him at Guir House before leaving New York, he would doubtless have considered it a hoax. As it was, he was astounded. The odd character of the house and its inmates had already given him much ground for thought, even amazement; but to suddenly find himself face to face, tete-a-tete with a bewitching ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... Mr. Hyde." Other conscience stories are "The Man of the Crowd"; "The Tell-Tale Heart," also depicting insanity; and "The Black Cat," of which the atmosphere is horror. "The Adventures of One Hans Pfaal" and "The Balloon Hoax" are examples of the pseudo-scientific tales, which attain their verisimilitude by diverting attention from the improbability or impossibility of the general incidents to the accuracy and naturalness of details. In "The Descent into the Maelstrom," scientific reasoning is ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Douglas, in the Star, in his half-playful and suggestive way, chose to put it as though he regarded the article in the Pall Mall Magazine as a hoax, perpetrated by some clever, unscrupulous writer, intent on provoking both Mr Henley and his friends, and Stevenson's friends and admirers. This called forth a letter from one signing himself "A Lover of R. L. Stevenson," which is so good that ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... known that, contrary to common report, Francis Bacon was not arrested for debt in 1598; but that, during the time he was supposed to have been in prison, he was actually engaged in building up in his own behalf the greatest hoax in history. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... young people. It may be said that all five were concerned in a complicated hoax on Mr. Gurney. Nor would such a hoax argue any unusual moral obliquity. Surtees of Mainsforth, in other respects an honourable man, took in Sir Walter Scott with forged ballads, and never undeceived his friend. Southey played off a hoax with ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... house without being recognized. His motive and his personality still remain matters of conjecture. Whether the whole affair was a figment of Shelley's brain, rendered more than usually susceptible by laudanum taken to assuage intense physical pain; whether it was a perilous hoax played upon him by the Irish servant, Daniel Hill; or whether, as he himself surmised, the crime was instigated by an unfriendly neighbour, it is impossible to say. Strange adventures of this kind, blending fact and fancy in a now inextricable tangle, are of no unfrequent occurrence in Shelley's ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... well as John Bull. A Chinese botanist came here, and bethought him of trying his skill as a doctor. Everybody became mad to consult him; no street was ever so crowded as the one he lived in, since Berners-street on the day of the hoax. He got a barrel of flour, or some other innocuous powder, packed up in little paper parcels, and thus armed he received his patients. On entering, he felt the pulse with becoming silence and gravity; at last ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Gammon, yet less than it could have done at an earlier stage of their acquaintance. He had abandoned the hope of explaining Greenacre's mysterious circumstances, and the attempt to decide whether his stories were worthy of belief or not. Half suspecting that he might be the victim of a hoax he telegraphed an acceptance, and thought no more of the matter until evening approached. Part of his day was spent in helping a distracted shopkeeper on the verge of failure to obtain indulgence from certain of his creditors he also secured a place as errand boy for the son of ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... have been more struck with the little embarrassment which she could not perfectly control, but at the moment he was not quite himself either. That impudent Doady Donne had played a shameful hoax on him, had actually had the audacity to declare that she had seen his wife—Nina, Mrs. Dacres—in Teddy Vere's hansom! He hadn't taken what she said very pleasantly, for the bare notion made him furious, and—though telling himself all the while that he didn't believe it—until he had found ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... trick. A prelate publicly denounced the imposture, and an Abbe Deleon, priest in the diocess of Grenoble, printed a work called 'La Salette a Valley of Lies.' In this publication it was maintained, with proofs, that the hoax was gotten up by a Mademoiselle de Lamerliere, a sort of half-crazy nun, who impersonated the character of the Virgin. For the injury done to her character by this book she sued the priest for damages to the tone of twenty thousand ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... coincidence of circumstances. They will find this easier. Uncompromising deniers of facts, rebels against evidence, may be all the more positive, and may declare that the writers of these extraordinary narratives are persons fond of a joke, who have written them to hoax me, and that there have been persons in all ages who have done the same thing to mystify thinkers who have taken up ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... queer thing occurred when every one of the pursuing planes opened up their machine-guns almost simultaneously upon the first. And even this might have been considered a well-designed hoax, were it not for the unmistakable evidence that the first aeroplane, ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... purporting to be written by Cranstoun, from which it was inferred that the fugitive was lying concealed "either here in London or in the North." A similar "menacing letter" signed W.H.C. had been received by Dr. Lewis on 23rd November, which, like the other, was probably a hoax. Cranstoun, being then safe in France, would not ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... were crying 'to arms! to arms!' and we thought the war had commenced, sure enough; but it didn't just then. However, there was about thirty thousand men on the march to Boston, and they wouldn't turn back until they found the report was a hoax. Soon after, the Provincial Congress met, and they ordered that a large body of minute-men should be enrolled, so as to be prepared for any attack. The people of our province took the matter into their own hands, and organized a body of minute-men without ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... Germany at the beginning of the 17th century, dating from the Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Honourable Order of the Rosy Cross, a pamphlet published in 1610, by a Lutheran clergyman, Valentine Andreae, were part of a hoax designed perhaps originally as means of establishing a sort of charitable masonic society of social reformers. Missing that aim, the Rosicrucian story lived to be adorned by superstitious fancy, with ideas of mystery and magic, which in the Comte de Gabalis were methodized into ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... a hoax!" cry I, scornfully, standing scarlet and deeply ashamed, facing them all; "it is real, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... himself there. In Boswell's record we have a character called Mudge, an "out of the way" name; and in Pickwick we find a Mudge. George Steevens, who figures so much in Boswell's work, was the author of an antiquarian hoax played off on a learned brother, of the same class as "Bill Stumps, his mark." He had an old inscription engraved on an unused bit of pewter—it was well begrimed and well battered, then exposed for ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... Hall reported, twenty minutes later, to Commander Jephson, commandant of midshipmen. "I had a fight party right under my hands when that call of fire sounded. It was so natural that I bolted away and lost my party before I discovered that it was a hoax." ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... squib (A description of a carnivorous plant supposed to subsist on human beings.) quite gravely, and when I found it stated that Felis and Bos inhabited Madagascar, I thought it was a false story, and did not perceive it was a hoax till I came to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... confessions to listen, And bells to christen, And altars and dolls to dress; And fools to coax, And sinners to hoax, And beads and bones to bless; And great pardons to sell For those who pay well, And small ones for those ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... a letter reached a person in Kensington, who happened to possess some knowledge of a lady of the S. family, married to a solicitor practising with great success and distinction in London. When the letter came to hand, she at first doubted whether it might not be a sort of grave hoax, intended to excite expectation for the pleasure of witnessing its disappointment. However, the English solicitor, accustomed to the incidents of life, thought there would at least be no harm in replying to the letter from Charleston, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... Rainsford and Holloway—we'll even accept the designation they've coined for them—but we'll make it very clear that while highly intelligent, the Fuzzies are not a race of sapient beings. If Rainsford persists in making any such claim, we will brand it as a deliberate hoax." ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... madcap brother of the Duke of. Buccleugh, gallop up the street bareheaded, waving his hat above his head and shouting "The Queen, the Queen!" The listeners looked at each other and laughed. How well the hoax was gone about; but who would presume to play such a trick, it was too much even from Lord John—did not somebody say it was Lord John? On the line of route too! What were ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... cousin,—Mademoiselle, destined for the throne,—Mademoiselle, the only fit match in France for Monsieur [the King's brother];—there's a piece of information for you! If you shriek,—if you are beside yourself,—if you say it is a hoax, false, mere gossip, stuff, and nonsense,—if, finally, you say hard things about us, we do not complain; we took the news in the same way. Adieu; the letters by this post will show you whether ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Darblay, the name of Fanny Burney's husband, is a variant. From au(l)ne, alder, we have aunai, whence our Dawnay. So also frenai has given Freeney, chenai, Chaney, and the Norm. quenai is one origin of Kenney, while the older chesnai appears in Chesney. Houssaie, from hoax, holly, gives Hussey; chastenai, chestnut grove, exists in Nottingham as Chastener; coudrai, hazel copse, gives Cowdrey and Cowdery; Verney and Varney are from vernai, grove of alders, of Celtic origin, and Viney corresponds to the ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... illuminated by electricity or candle, and the followers of Catholicism absolutely worship this mechanism of man, and it has proven a great drawing card, and you can rest assured that Catholicism is pushing the scheme along good and hard, and "The St. Anthony Bread Box" hoax is another scheme that is not very old, but which the Catholic Church has found to be another great paying investment, and they are working "St. Anthony" for ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... say; but there it is. Now don't say that revenge isn't sweet. . . . I've done you what justice I can; but if you pose as an angel from heaven, it's asking too much." While Ruth considered this, she added, "I don't know if you can put yourself in mamma's place for a moment; but if you can, the hoax ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... that character by the tremendous "rises" which he took out of Cromek about those remains of Nithsdale and Galloway song—a case in point so far as principle goes, but differing somewhat in the intellectual rank of the victim to the hoax. The temptation to commit such offences is often extremely strong, and the injury seems slight, while the offender probably consoles himself with the reflection that he can immediately counteract it by confession. Vanity, indeed, often joins conscientiousness in ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and take no heed of it. And if the person should say anything to you, be civil to him or her, as if you did not mind it—so you'll take the clever person's laugh away." In speaking his eyes became fixed upon ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... A cowardly hoax was recently perpetrated in Paris, where a number of politicians consented to assist in raising a statue to Hegesippe Simon, the educator of the Democracy and author of the famous epigram, "The darkness vanishes when the sun rises," only to discover later ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... the others. Gently she pushed it right and left, then up and down, but her pressure was so slight and nervous that it did not stir the heavy wood. She breathed a great sigh of relief, and beginning now to believe herself the victim of some cruel hoax, she dared a firmer pressure. The panel responded—moved—slid slowly behind its fellow—revealing the steel muzzle of a safe let into the solid masonry. It seemed the result of some evil witchcraft; her blood chilled. Yet, with renewed eagerness, she turned the combination. She did not need to ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... venerandae antiquitatis. Lucii Cuspidii Testamentum. Item contractus venditionis antiquis Romanorum temporibus initus. Lugduni apud Gryphium (1532).' Pomponius Laetus and Jovianus Pontanus were apparently authors of the hoax. ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... Lord Alfred sternly, "if any explanation is possible, of the extraordinary hoax which you've seen fit to play on ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... were quite as cordial as could be expected, as soon as he fully understood that no hoax was intended. "Well, old man," he said, "I am glad. I really am, you know. To think of a prize like that coming to you the very first time! And you don't even know how this Mr. Wackerbath came to hear of you—just happened to see ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... the building was the scene of the famous hoax known as England's Joy, perpetrated upon the patriotic citizens of London by one Richard Vennar.[269] Vennar scattered hand-bills over the city announcing that at the Swan Playhouse, on Saturday, November 6, a company of "gentlemen and gentlewomen ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams |
