"Prank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over the prank that had first earned him the title,—the holding up of the coach that ran between Byestry and Kingsleigh, Nick at the head of a band of half a dozen young scapegraces clad in black masks and huge hats, and armed with old pistols purloined from the historic gun-room of the old Hall! It had been ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... plum, all simp'ring there. Walk in the groves, and thou shalt find The name of Phillis in the rind Of every straight and smooth-skin tree; Where kissing that, I'll twice kiss thee. To thee a sheep-hook I will send, Be-prank'd with ribbons, to this end, This, this alluring hook might be Less for to catch a sheep, than me. Thou shalt have possets, wassails fine, Not made of ale, but spicd wine; To make thy maids and self free mirth, All sitting near the glitt'ring hearth. Thou shalt have ribbands, roses, ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... that Comet came home in disgrace—a coward expelled from college, not for some youthful prank, but because he was yellow. And he knew he was disgraced. He saw it in the face of the big man Devant, who looked at him in the yard where he had spent his happy puppyhood, then turned away. He knew it because of what he saw in ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... was your great-grandfather, and Judas your father; and you have trod in their steps (2 Kings 5:20; Matt. 26:14, 15; 27:1-5). It is but a devilish prank that thou usest; thy father was hanged for a traitor, and thou deservest no better reward. Assure thyself, that when we come to the King, we will do Him word of this thy behaviour. Thus they went ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbours looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom Bones was ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... A like prank vnder the like assumed names, and with like successe and boding, they plaied, when Octauius and Anthony were, with like meanes, ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... rest only for a short time. The sympathy that is capable of entering into the impression of the comic is a very fleeting one. It also comes from a lapse in attention. Thus, a stern father may at times forget himself and join in some prank his child is playing, only to check himself at once in order to ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... appreciate this way he's got of treating it like a spoiled kid's prank. I'm going to make him recognize the fact that I'm a man, by golly, and that I look at things like a man. He's got to be proud to have me in the family, before I come into the family. He ain't going to take me in as one more ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... of the door, which he laid on the floor lest it should play him the same prank over again, Joe Corney once more settled himself in the easy-chair and resolved to give his mind to meditation. Just then the City clocks pealed forth the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... his immense iron-grey moustaches with complacency. "I can't guess what prank you may be up to, but you are never starting for Venice in a ball-dress. You 're capable of a good deal, my dear, but you 're ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... midst of a lively caper, dolly went bounce into the garden below, for the string fell from Poppy's hand when she suddenly saw grandpa at the window opposite, laughing as heartily as any one at her prank. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... enormous quarto volumes. I had been working at it for more than a year every evening after the hellish torture of the day's teaching, and all day every holiday, but now I had a good rest while it was playing its boomerang prank of returning to me once a month. The only gleam of hope came from Bentleys, who wrote to say that they could not make up their minds to reject it; but they prevailed upon themselves to part with it at last, though not without asking to see Mr. Bell's next book. At last it was accepted ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... submarine, which pays frequent visits to the district patrolled by the American destroyers. When he has finished his task of distributing his mines where they will do the most harm, he generally devotes a few minutes to a prank of some sort. Sometimes, it is a note flying from a buoy, scribbled in schoolboy English, and addressed to his American enemy. On other occasions Kelly and his men leave the submarine and saunter along a desolate stretch of Irish shore-line, always ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... instance which is brought to your attention of a sighting of a flying disc in order to ascertain whether or not it is a bona fide sighting, an imaginary one or a prank. You should also bear in mind that individuals might report seeing flying discs for various reasons. It is conceivable that an individual might be desirous of seeking personal publicity, causing hysteria, ...
— Federal Bureau of Investigation FOIA Documents - Unidentified Flying Objects • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
... in return, suspected Augustus Scarborough. The creditors suspected him. Mountjoy suspected him. The squire did not suspect him, but he suspected the squire. He never could again feel himself to be on comfortable terms of trusting legal friendship with a man who had played such a prank in reference to his marriage as this man had performed. Why, then, should he still be concerned in a matter so distasteful to him? Why should he not wipe his hands of it all and retreat? There was no act of parliament compelling him to meddle ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... in October 1713, Lord Berkeley of Stratton told Lord Strafford of "a fine prank of the widow Lady Jersey" (see Letter 29, note 3). "It is well known her lord died much in debt, and she, after taking upon her the administration, sold everything and made what money she could, and is run away into France without paying a farthing of the debts, with only one servant and unknown ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... raids against cattle-stealers, and in a brush with half-breeds and Indians; as when he stood for the legislature; but he felt now for the first time that he had not made the most of himself, that there was something hurting to self-respect in this prank played upon him. When he came to that point his resentment went higher. He thought of Molly Mackinder, and he heard all too acutely the vague veiled references to her in their satire. By the time Gow Johnson spoke he had mastered himself, however, and had made up his mind. He stood ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... were soon eagerly planning as to their work for the day. First of all the two old boats which had served to carry them up to the forks of the Evergreen River must be securely hidden. This was mainly on account of those prank-loving boys who, under the leadership of the town bully, Ted Shafter, they half expected to follow them ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... This prank encouraged him very much indeed, for he then felt that now he had certainly escaped without any bad consequences; so he went on applauding his own ingenuity, and came to a farm where several little boys were at play. He desired leave to play with them, which they allowed him to ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... dear, and not be so impatient. Papa promised to give you a chance before the season is over, and he always manages things nicely. That will be better than any queer prank of yours,' answered Bess, tying her pretty hair in a white net to match her suit, while Josie made a little ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... through the small window at the wide heavens and am not at all cold. It seems to me then as if I must give vent to all my pent-up tears, and the next day I am so cheerful and feel new-born, and I look with cunning for a prank to play. And—canst thou believe it?—all ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the tribunes of the people, The tongues o' the common mouth. I do despise them; For they do prank them in authority, Against all ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... of slang, of which she makes no secret. But she drops her voice somewhat to disguise her feats of metathesis, about which she has doubts and which are involuntary: the "stand-wash," the "sweeping-crosser," the "sewing chamine." Genoese peasants have the same prank when they ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... dear, granted, and he does not talk so much about the workhouse. He was a great deal better, and I could have forgiven this mad, boyish prank—though what could have influenced him, I ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... their grandfather's home, the four boys had been content to take it easy, spending their time roaming the fields, helping to gather the fruit, of which there was great abundance, and in going fishing and swimming. But then Andy and Randy had found time growing a little heavy on their hands, and one prank had been followed by another. Some of the tricks had been played on Jack and Fred, and they, of course, had done their best to retaliate, and this had, on more than one occasion, brought forth a forceful, but good-natured, pitched battle, and the fathers and the others present ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... Laura played this prank with the wig, you can't suppose that Pen could have been very ill upstairs; otherwise, though she had grown to care for him ever so little, common sense of feeling and decorum would have prevented her from performing any tricks ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... told by Master Hugo Gottfried here (whose acquaintance I made at my father's house on the day after his foolish boy's prank of the White Swan) that in the Red Tower of the Wolfsberg dwelt one of mine own age, like myself a maid solitary among men. So to-day I have come to solicit her acquaintance, and to ask her to be kind ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... on the shoulder, "and there spake the man that is my friend! Never doubt it, comrade—he shall live. And look'ee, Martin, if I have been forced to play prank on ye now and then, think as kindly ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... the cart, hear how the rout Of rurall youngling raise the shout. Pressing before, some coming after, These with a shout, and those with laughter. Some blesse the carte, some kisse the sheaves, Some prank them up with oaken leaves; Some cross the fill-horse, some with great Devotion stroake ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... Slimak bitterly, 'there was no policeman to certify that it was we who saved you the hog, but when a boy plays a prank on you, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... and soot and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, swept up the rubbish, and ran off, thinking no one would discover her prank if ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... ought to exist, in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or immorality of the Horner of Wycherley and the Careless of Congreve ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... aid to the aspiring mind. Improvement, stark, blatant Improvement, advertised itself from that culturous and reeking compartment. But just below—Io was tempted to rub her eyes—stood Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy"; a Browning, complete; that inimitably jocund fictional prank, Frederic's "March Hares," together with the same author's fine and profoundly just "Damnation of Theron Ware"; Taylor's translation of Faust; "The [broken-backed] Egoist"; "Lavengro" (Io touched its magic pages with tender fingers), and a fat, faded, reddish volume so ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution; it persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the time either fighting or frolicking with each other, and I scarcely knew which mood was least troublesome. If they quarrelled, everything went wrong; and if they were friends, they were continually playing off some confounded prank upon each other, or upon me; for I had unhappily acquired among them the character of an easy, good natured fellow, the worst character that a manager ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... that it was only a prank. I knowed you weren't goin' to throw yourself away on no one here, when the woods are full of 'em out our way that would like to have you. Don't dodge, Sammy. Stand right up to your fodder, for you know it's a fact. It made mother powerful mad. She took it that you ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... pondered the situation. She felt like laughing outrageously at the prank Cupid had played on them, but she dared not utter a sound of mirth because that might spoil everything. And there might be a possible chance of saving ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Hobbs the chapman, so that he lay for seven days betwixt life and death in our infirmary, saved only by Brother Peter's skill in the pharmacies of herbs; but to put pike in the Abbot's pond—why should he play such a devil's prank?" ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Paoli—escaped to New York. We are looking for him to-day. He is a clever man, far above the average—son of a doctor in a town a few miles from Naples, went to the university, was expelled for some mad prank—in short, he was the black sheep of the family. Of course over here he is too high-born to work with his hands on a railroad or in a trench, and not educated enough to work at anything else. So he has been preying on his more industrious countrymen—a typical ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... the spontaneous as well as the mechanical and rigid may be comical. Sometimes the same object may be comical from both the points of view which we have specified; this is always true, as we shall see, in the most highly developed comedy. For example, we may laugh at the child's prank because it is so absurd from the point of view of our grown-up expectations as to reasonable conduct, and at the same time, taking the part of the child, rejoice at the momentary relief from them which it offers us. Our scorn is mixed with sympathy. And oftentimes the child himself will hold both ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... windows into the apartment, whistled and danced a hornpipe, and before they could recover from their amazement jumped out again. A few minutes later my father walked in at the door as sedately as though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much for his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But judging from his slight ability in later years, I fancy that he must have taken many ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... beneath the dignity of epistolary communication, but which, seated about our fire at night, (the winter hands of pork have begun) gesture and emphasis might have talked into some importance. Something about Rickman's wife, for instance: how tall she is and that she visits prank'd out like a Queen of the May with green streamers—a good-natured woman though, which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted with a bachelor. Some things too about MONKEY, which can't so well be written—how it ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... love the Game. So warm they glow, Not seldom rise imperial quarrels; And not so many moons ago Jove boxed with zeal Apollo's laurels. The question ran, Was Arthur Mold Unfairly stigmatised by muffs, Or did he play a dubious prank? Venus herself began to scold, And Gods by dozens on a bank Profanely ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... reprimands of the faculty more severe. At last came the final prank, which had resulted in his disgrace and expulsion. Even then, she and mother was ready to forgive and had written him to come home. No answer from Richard had ever been received. Instead, came the news that the boy had disappeared, ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... linger over the unpacking of the great basket, to listen to the fun as the simple presents and absurd jokes came to light, one after another, while Jean now wiped away a tear or two over Katharine's dainty gift, now laughed convulsively over some ridiculous prank of Alan's plotting? And all the time, the chorus went on, now explaining, now joking, but always bringing to Jean the welcome assurance that her friends did not forget her even ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... fellows, the truth is that you are all on the wrong scent. I haven't thought up a blessed prank ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... 'Puck,' 'Bogle', are the same as the German 'Spuk' and the Danish 'Spogelse,' without the sibilant aspiration. These words are general names for any kind of spirit, and correspond to the 'pouk' of Piers Ploughman. In Danish 'spog' means a joke, trick, or prank, and hence the character of Robin Goodfellow. In Iceland Puki is regarded as an evil sprite; and in the language of that country, 'at pukra' means both to make a murmuring noise and to steal clandestinely. The names of these spirits seem to have originated in ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... insular method in popular history is perfectly shown in the treatment of Richard Coeur de Lion. His tale is told with the implication that his departure for the Crusade was something like the escapade of a schoolboy running away to sea. It was, in this view, a pardonable or lovable prank; whereas in truth it was more like a responsible Englishman now going to the Front. Christendom was nearly one nation, and the Front was the Holy Land. That Richard himself was of an adventurous and even romantic ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... to come. Two libel suits mushroomed into view in as many days, provoked, as it were, out of conscious nothing; unimportant but harassing: one, brought by a ne'er-do-well who had broken a leg while engaged in a drunken prank months before, the other the outcome of a paragraph on a little, ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... this fragrant spring is clad, And mantled round in sweet nymph Flora's robes: Here grows th'alluring rose, sweet marigolds And the lovely hyacinth. Come, nurse, gather: A crown of roses shall adorn my head, I'll prank myself with flowers of the prime; And thus I'll ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... the expedition I recognized John ——-. Of all persons in the world to meet on top of the Rocky Mountains thousands of miles from home, he was the last one I should have looked for. We were school-boys together and warm friends for years. But a boyish prank of mine had disruptured this friendship and it had never been renewed. The act of which I speak was this. I had been accustomed to visit occasionally an editor whose room was in the third story of a building and overlooked the street. One day this editor gave me ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. "Bob" Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the higher in rank the prisoners happened to be, the prouder he felt. Aramis assumed the expression of countenance he thought the position justified, and said, "Well, dear Athos, forgive me, but I almost suspected what has happened. Some prank of Raoul and ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... because you succeed! And now I may say it, I hope without blushing, That you have got twins, by your violent pushing; Twin battles I mean, that will ne'er be forgotten, But live and be talk'd of, when we're dead and rotten. Let other nice lords sculk at home from the wars, Prank'd up and adorn'd with garters and stars, Which but twinkle like those in a cold frosty night; While to yours you are adding such lustre and light, That if you proceed, I'm sure very soon 'Twill be brighter and larger ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... himself all this heart-burning and misery by looking through the dining-room window on that Sunday afternoon when his prospects seemed to be so rosy. He never thought of that. He cursed every circumstance and person impartially and fluently, but he omitted from the Satanic litany the one girlish prank of tree-climbing that led Iris to spring out of sight amid the sheltering arms of an elm when her uncle and Captain Coke deemed the summer-house a suitable place for "a plain talk as man ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... games of hide-and-seek just at dinner-time, is she?" asked Arthur, laughing. "I am never surprised at anything Peggy does. She has some little prank on hand, depend upon it, and will turn up in good time. It's her own fault if ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... Then, laughing at their prank, they returned to the barracks and took place at the end of a line composed of poverty-stricken folk and tramps who were waiting for a meal. An old woman who had already eaten lent them a tin in ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... you want to bring a dozen and more of your friends down on his place to commit some prank that will make him dislike boys more than ever. It's all wrong, I tell you, fellows, and for one I refuse to lend a hand," and Jack folded his arms as though his mind were made up once ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... he left his chum's residence, after spending the evening there, but he was still burning for revenge against Andy and his cronies. He had half a notion to go to Andy's house and tell Mr. Foger how nearly serious the bully's prank at the sub marine had been, but he concluded that Mr. Foger could only uphold his son. "No, I'll settle ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... Phrinzy. Here is th' inconsistency of conduct that marks a disturbance of the reason: and, to tell the truth, I once knew a young fellow that played this very prank at a wedding, and the nixt thing we hard, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the fact that Max had ventured to propose such a solution to the strange mystery of the night assault seemed to give the victim more or less comfort. He could stand being made an object of attack on the part of prank-loving boys, but the very thought of having been seized by a hungry man-eating panther gave him ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... Colonel declared, getting excited. "Suppose we were to forgive him and pay the money. You know he would not give up leading a dissipated life, squandering money, making debts, going to our tailors and ordering suits in our names! Can you guarantee that this will be his last prank? As far as I am concerned, I have no ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... I played many a prank here in my boyhood. But you, sir, who are you? An adjutant of the Colonel's, or a ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... will make a spoon or spoil a horn, and—let me have my laugh out—you bid well for an archer," said Randal; and Robin counselling me to play the same prank on the French lad's sword as late I had done on his own, they took each of them an arm of mine, and so we swaggered down the ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... I found Dorothy in close consultation with the queen and two of her ladies. I heard the name of Lord James Stanley spoken amid suppressed laughter, and I suspected Dorothy had on foot some prank touching that young man, to which her ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... to prevent possible loss from some prank of mischievous boys or thieving negroes, Maurice had secured a long and stout chain, with a padlock, and at night this was so attached to the dinky that no one could sneak the stumpy little craft away without the ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... they ever be allowed to clip the wings of romance. But the painter who bade his subject sit under a sodium light would justly be deemed a lunatic, and any analysis of Spencer's character drawn from his latest prank would be ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... should frisk about And stand upon their heads! I hope I 'm ready for the worst, Whatever prank betides! ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... the air, White daisies prank the ground; The cherry and the hoary pear Scatter their ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... the attic," declared Janet Clarke. "She was always prowling about there for theatrical stuff; don't you remember, Jane, how she frightened the girls one night with some foolish prank when she was dressed like a bear ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... graduated from the seminary and was pursuing my studies at the Preacher's Synagogue exclusively, as an "independent scholar." I was overborne with a sense of my dignity and freedom. I seemed to have suddenly grown much taller. If I caught myself walking fast or indulging in some boyish prank I would check myself, saying in my heart: "You must not forget that you are an independent scholar. You ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... in early manhood, the keenest relish of a funny prank, and one such he used to act over again in after life with the greatest vivacity of manner. Every one remembers the story told by Jefferson Hogg how Shelley got rid of the old woman with the onion basket who took a place ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... indicated, Judge Enderby in his unprofessional hours had an elfish and prank-some love ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... amain, Seated the king on his throne again, And the Algalif said, "'Twas a sorry prank, Raising your weapon to slay the Frank. It was yours to hearken in silence there." "Sir," said Gan, "I may meetly bear, But for all the wealth of your land arrayed, For all the gold that God hath made, Would I not live and leave unsaid, What Karl, the mightiest ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... were doing an act of justice. I deserved what you said, but I didn't deserve what has followed. I meant no harm—it was a silly prank, and I have suffered for it as if it were a crime, and the consequences are not ended yet. I should think that, if there is a moral government of the universe, the Judge of all the earth would know when to hold his hand. And now the worst ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... rules provide! This is scandal, this is a shame, This madcap prank in Our Lady's name. Out of the doors with him; back to the street: He has no place at ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... men could be so stupid was unbelievable, and Wally, seeing himself the object of a senseless prank, was roused to anger. ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... mad prank of Kelson's, Mr. Millinet invited Mary to walk out one lovely evening, to which she gladly assented. They took their way towards the "Whale's Head," a name given by the inhabitants of B—— to the high bluff already mentioned, that ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... Mischief had been up to some prank, which had turned out disastrously. But it must have been a serious one, and perhaps there were grave ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... rag-time and working-class songs, and pass judgment on the world's music? She was vexed with him, and as she walked beside him she had a vague feeling of outrage. At the best, in her most charitable frame of mind, she considered the statement of his views to be a caprice, an erratic and uncalled-for prank. But when he took her in his arms at the door and kissed her good night in tender lover-fashion, she forgot everything in the outrush of her own love to him. And later, on a sleepless pillow, she puzzled, as she had often puzzled of late, as to how ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... said, "I look on this in another way than ye do, for methinks it was a foolish prank; they were sure to bear in mind their griefs, even though they were not reminded of them anew; but those men who try others so heavily must ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... life, who was always ready to oblige anybody, to do anything he was told to do, so as to have'an easy time, a sufficiency of food, and a warm corner to crawl into! What could have persuaded fate to pick him for the victim of this cruel prank; to put him into this position, where he could not avoid suffering, no matter what he did? They wanted him to tell something, and Peter would have been perfectly willing to tell anything—but how could he tell it when ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... been cutting up the greatest prank you ever heard of. She almost deserves to be shut up for daring to do it. Can't you guess what ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... into the girl's face as she caught Sherm's glance. "Oh, dear, and he had told her only that morning that girls should be different!" She liked Sherm—she didn't want him to think she was a bold, awful girl. Some way their prank seemed to need excusing. She replied to the look in Sherm's eyes rather ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... do not see how we are to keep it from her; but you have certainly won her in a most remarkable way. You must promise me, Holly darling, that you 'll never play such a wicked prank again.' ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... thought the honour of our house concerned. It shall not be for long. Thou know'st we are to make peace with the Kaiser, and then will I get me employment among Kurfurst Albrecht's companies of troops, and then shalt thou prank it as my Lady Freiherrinn, and teach me the ways ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into her tent—and then, eloquent in urging her own defence, the Queen was far more so in pressing upon Richard the charge of unkindness, in refusing her so poor a boon as the life of an unfortunate knight, who, by her thoughtless prank, had been brought within the danger of martial law. She wept and sobbed while she enlarged on her husband's obduracy on this score, as a rigour which had threatened to make her unhappy for life, whenever she should ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... roses Have blossomed over night; I bring you some To prank your study. Sister, Don ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... family priest, a commander of the guard and the prince's tutor, under plea of the bath and stows them away in baskets which suggest Falstaff's "buck-basket." In Miss Stokes' "Indian Fairy Tales" the fair wife of an absent merchant plays a similar notable prank upon the Kotwal, the Wazir, the Kazi and the King; and akin to this is the exploit of Temal Ramakistnan, the Madrasi Tyl Eulenspiegel and Scogin who by means of a lady saves his life from the Rajah ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Lord, To chide at your extreames, it not becomes me: (Oh pardon, that I name them:) your high selfe The gracious marke o'th' Land, you haue obscur'd With a Swaines wearing: and me (poore lowly Maide) Most Goddesse-like prank'd vp: But that our Feasts In euery Messe, haue folly; and the Feeders Digest with a Custome, I should blush To see you so attyr'd: sworne I thinke, To shew my ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... his word, and about a month after the interview above related he sent word to Quennebert that the Chevalier de Moranges had left Perregaud's completely recovered from his wound. But the nearly fatal result of the chevalier's last prank seemed to have subdued his adventurous spirit; he was no longer seen in public, and was soon forgotten by all his acquaintances with the exception of Mademoiselle de Guerchi. She faithfully treasured ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... making fools of us," said Prank, pettishly. "No, Mother, what you say may be very good, but I don't want to do ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... might I choose, be honest-poor: For she that sits at Fortune's feet a-low Is sure she shall not taste a further woe, But those that prank on top of Fortune's ball Still fear a change, and, fearing, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... closed the door and dipped the heads of the screws in vinegar to darken them. The whole looked rusty, and as we hoped when we had done no one would ever guess the game we had been up to. We swept up dust from the carpet, and pushed it under the bottom of the door, and I think our prank never was known. The old ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... light, Its ebullition foaming white (Like other things I could relate) My heart of old would captivate. The last poor obol I was worth— Was it not so?—for thee I gave, And thy inebriating wave Full many a foolish prank brought forth; And oh! what verses, what delights, Delicious ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... one of the salons a very pretty little stage; the fashionable world was au complet, and, after having made our bows to Mrs. Story, we took our places in the theater. Mr. Story was Shylock, and acted extremely well. Edith was very good as Portia. Waldo and Julian both took part. Mr. and Mrs. Prank Lascelles, of the English Embassy, both dressed in black velvet, played the married couple to the life, but did not look at all Italian. The whole performance was really wonderfully well done and most successful; the ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... great debate amongst 'em, Aunt Martha fin'lly admittin' it was just a little prank of Hadley's, her being roped down; but she was sure I had tried to murder him, just for nothing at all. Hadley says so too. In fact, he tells seven diff'rent yarns in as many minutes, each one makin' me out ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... Caprice. — N. caprice, fancy, humor; whim, whimsy, whimsey[obs3], whimwham[obs3]; crotchet, capriccio, quirk, freak, maggot, fad, vagary, prank, fit, flimflam, escapade, boutade[Fr], wild-goose chase; capriciousness &c. adj.; kink. V. be capricious &c. adj.; have a maggot in the brain; take it into one's head, strain at a gnat and swallow a camel; blow hot and cold; play fast and loose, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... green-moss'd pool, with well-spring nigh, And through the grass a streamlet fleeting by. The porch with palm or oleaster shade— That when the regents from the hive parade Its gilded youth, in Spring—their Spring!—to prank, To woo their holiday heat a neighbouring bank May lean with branches hospitably cool. And midway, be your water stream or pool, Cross willow-twigs, and massy boulders fling— A line of stations for ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a wreath; And those more distant showing from beneath The others' wings their little eyes of light. While see! among the clouds, their eldest brother, But just flown up, tells with a smile of bliss, This prank of Pluto to his charmed mother, Who turns to greet the tidings ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... deliberately indulged by a man of mature age and strong understanding, is almost invariably the sign of a bad heart—a taste for severe practical jokes. If a courtier was fond of dress, oil was flung over his richest suit. If he was fond of money, some prank was invented to make him disburse more than he could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, he was made to believe that he had the dropsy. If he had particularly set his heart on visiting a place, a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the few times in his life, doubted his eyes. What trick were they playing him? For it was not a real, sharp figure that he saw; it was an indefinite one, shimmering and elusive, like a mirage. A prank of the strange light, perhaps. But Ku Sui nevertheless! ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... his bureau. The reflection of his face in the tilted mirror caught and held his attention. Could that harsh semblance of a man be himself? Various periods of his life flashed in separate pictures before him. Glimpses of his college days; this and that gay prank of irresponsible youth. Then came incidents of his first business ventures; his dealings with Jefferson Henderson stood out sharply. The old man's first intuitive fears of coming loss rang in his ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... his weatherbeaten face. "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... Wales had sent them a piano, and many fine pictures ornamented the walls from famous persons. An old English lady who spends her summers up there seemed much amused at the prank of the girls, and evidently wondered what ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... arrested in a province to which he had been banished. He was accused of many wicked things, and; amongst others, of coining. Charnace was a lad of spirit, who had been page to the King and officer in the body-guard. Having retired to his own house, he often played off many a prank. One of these I will mention, as being full ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... were being hoisted on them, a third gun was fired. The ladies, delighted with the flash and thundering of the guns, begged me to linger a little longer, that another gun might be fired; but fearful that R—— would play some mad prank, and stand out of the fiord without me, I promised the fair dames, that the next time I came to Norway, I would comply with their request, and never leave them, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... write in a neighbouring town, made him at last a brave village notary. This fellow, having acquired such dignity, began to disdain their ancient customs, and to buzz into the people's ears the pomp of the other parts of the nation; the first prank he played was to advise a friend of his, whom somebody had offended by sawing off the horns of one of his goats, to make his complaint to the royal judges thereabout, and so he went on from one to another, till he had spoiled and confounded ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Oddo repented his prank when he saw, in the flickering light behind the crowd of guests, who seemed to hang together like a bunch of grapes, the figures of his grandfather and Erica. The old man had come out in the cold for his sake; and Erica, who looked as white as the snow, had no doubt come ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... was to laugh at his prayers, with a joke at the quality of his Latin. But Dieu protect you, Monsieur, if ever he gets whip-hand. A revengeful priest is more to be feared than a rabid dog. I stirred one of his breed once at the Cathedral by some wild prank, and carry the scar of it still. But come, it becomes dusk. Let's break our fast, and while eating consider the best plan for the night. Eloise, do ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... which the savants of Napoleon's expedition had gathered and carefully packed, and even shipped preparatory to sending them to the Louvre. The feelings of these savants may readily be imagined when, through this sad prank of war, their invaluable treasures were envoyed, not to their beloved France, but to the land of their dearest enemies, there to be turned over to the trustees of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... master had been arrested, as well as of his own behaviour, and the disaster he had received on that occasion. His lordship never doubted that Pickle had brought this calamity upon himself by some unlucky prank he had played at the masquerade; when he understood that the young gentleman had drunk freely in the afternoon, and been so whimsical as to go thither with a man in woman's apparel; and he that same day waited on the French minister, in full confidence of obtaining his discharge; but ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... fearful and wonderful things on that rock. Won't they get a shock, though, when they come to Eeny-Meeny?" In their mind's eye they could all see the sensation caused by the discovering of Eeny-Meeny possibly years hence at the base of the rock, and the prank ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... good mother; she loved him excessively, and thereby spoiled him. The boy became very fastidious and sensitive. He was eleven years old when his mother noticed that she could not command his obedience. Once the child played some prank, a mere trifle; how can a child of eleven years commit any great offence? His mother thought she must rebuke him. The boy laughed at the rebuke; he could not believe his mother was angry; then, in consequence, his mother ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... was joking. This was some odd prank. He had borrowed the tin trunk and was giving me a travesty on Tip Pulsifer fleeing over the mountain from his petulant spouse: for last night Tim and I had had a little tiff. For the first time I had forgotten the post-prandial pipe, and undismayed by the horrors of the famine ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... been frightened by an appearance at the window. At once they all faced the imperturbable window, and for a moment there was a silence. An astute lad made an immediate census of the other lads. The prank of slipping out and looming spectrally at a window was too venerable. But the little boys were all ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... own day, but, one reads between the lines, he doesn't believe any of them. One error, he says, begets another, and everything is exaggerated in the hope of making converts to the talker's opinion. One miracle bruited all over France turned out to be a prank of young people counterfeiting ghosts. When one hears a marvel, he should always say, "perhaps." Better be apprentices at sixty then doctors at ten. Now witches, he continues, are the subject of the wildest and most foolish ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... that there was any real connection between these Gates, of Saracenic design, carved (it is said) in Himalayan cedar, and the Temple of Somnath. But tradition did ascribe to them such a connection, and the eccentric prank of a clever man in high place made this widely known. Nor in any case can we regard as alien to the scope of this book the illustration of a work of mediaeval Asiatic art, which is quite as remarkable ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... lest the man might suspect there was in his actions something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant, tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there. Calling up the London office of the REPUBLIC, he directed ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... never shall," he answered. "The joke is that you're always ready to bring the whole place about your ears with some mad prank, and then when a cartload of bricks does fall on your head, you say, 'It's ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... with him into the city to the Alcazar, that they might see their brides Doa Elvira and Doa Sol. Doa Ximena had her daughters ready to receive them in full noble garments, for since midnight they had done nothing but prink and prank themselves. Full richly was the Alcazar set out that day, with hangings both above and below, purple and samite, and rich cloth. The Cid entered, between the Infantes, and all that noble company went in after them; and they went into the ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... was Alfred Batchelder, who had an extremely bad influence on him. Alfred was a genius at instigating mischief, and he and Halstead played an odious prank at the schoolhouse, as a result of which the school committee suspended them ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Daylight's night. He was the centre and the head of the revel, unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun. He multiplied himself, and in so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank he suggested was too wild for his followers, and all followed save those that developed into singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet never did trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... mean you no harm, my pretties, and it's no affair of mine telling the good ladies at Lavender House what I've seen. You cross my hand, dears, each of you, with a bit of silver, and all I'll do is to tell your pretty fortunes, and mum is the word with the gypsy-mother as far as this night's prank is concerned." ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... George Gaylord said: "Allow me, Miss Fenwick, to introduce to you my friend and college chum, Fillmore Flagg: for a peculiar purpose of his own he wishes to regain possession of that flighty paper which, fortunately for him, the prank playing wind carried to your ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... in mischief herself too often when at Phil's age not to feel sympathy with him on the score of the prank he had played that afternoon. It was this same sympathetic understanding of their moods and actions which gave her so much influence with the boys, enabling her to twist them round her little finger, ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... they thrived like weeds in their ancestral domicile, which was now sadly in need of repair. Occasionally some daring prank set the neighbourhood by the ears, but, for the most part, the twins behaved very well and attended strictly to their own affairs. They ate when they were hungry, slept when they were sleepy, and, if they desired to sit up until four in the morning, reading, they ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... one another much in the same way as we used to do years before, when she had detected me in some boyish prank, and assumed the mentor while I felt a culprit. How really I felt a culprit at that moment she ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... O think you, Friend with the musing eye Who watch us stepping by, With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you? Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... mentions Rees's Cyclopaedia—such was the wealth of a boy of genius in those days—but among the eight hundred books it is certain that the bulk of English literature was contained. He practiced writing somewhat, though he had given up poetry; and he played a prank by sending to a Boston paper a fabricated account of one of those destroying insects which visit that region from time to time, with notes on ways of exterminating it,—all for the benefit of his uncle, who took the paper; but no other trace of his composition ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... more talkative and animated than she used to be. Very little of the old superior bearing remained, and the looks that she bent upon Nyoda were those of an humble and adoring slave. Proof positive of the change that had taken place in her was the prank she had played upon them that night in masquerading as the cook—she who had once refused to help prepare one of the famous suppers in the House of the Open Door, disdainfully remarking that cooking was work for servants, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... the leaping flame. Its cheerful crackle, its bright color in the gloom was almost too good to be true. In these dark forests he had learned to be wary and on guard at too great fortune. Quite often it was only a prank of perverse forest gods, before they smote him with some black disaster. It seemed to him that there was a wild laughter, a Satanic mocking in the joyous crackle that was vaguely but fearfully ominous. The promise in the rainbow, the ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... now able to stir themselves again. Doubtless there were many bumps, black and blue faces, and bloody noses: but the sight of all could not suppress the most extravagant merriment. All that had happened was looked upon as a prank of the fiddler, and many in their hearts felt that they had only received a just punishment for their coarse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... gang having one night challenged a fellow-student and received no answer, fired, and took such good aim that the poor young man fell dead on the pavement. Horrified and amazed at the fatal result of his mad prank, the student fled, hoping ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... O think you, Friend with the musing eye, Who watch us stepping by With doubt and dolorous sigh? Can much pondering so hoodwink you! Is it a purblind prank, O think you, Friend with the ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... it. But they found out that they wasn't no easy way to live away from Marster. He always took 'em back, didn't beat 'em nor nothin'. I run away once myself but I never went nowhere." Melvin's long body shook with laughter as he thought of his prank. He shifted in his chair ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... oh, take his pen away, That so feebly runs on paper; Keep him quiet, or he'll play Other trait'rous prank and caper. Why apologize for treason, Or for stealing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... One prank which the boys played some years after Jane's death, I must relate, and then I have done. The eldest, whose name was Willie, took me, the evening before thanksgiving day, and, having dressed himself up in some of the cook's dirty old clothes, and ...
— The Talkative Wig • Eliza Lee Follen
... laughing in the pleasant French way that shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become too big to prank on the commons. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... separated, still singing and laughing; never dreaming of the storm brewing from their evening's prank. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... too absurd view to take of the thing!' cried Urania, with an injured air. 'An innocent practical joke, not involving harm of any kind; a little girlish prank played on the spur of the moment. I thought you were more sensible than to be offended—much less seriously angry—at ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... of course. So long as you can be always off on some prank or another with Braine's unbroken colt. It suits you, you lazy ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... turns up quite permiskus, and always upon the full trot; He seemed mixed up with Portias, and Doges, smart gals, and the dickens knows wot. All kep waving their arms like mad semy-phores, doin' the akrybat prank, As if they was swimming in nothink, or 'ailing ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... woman in with me this morning,—one of those that are here in the house,—telling me some story about some other girl that you have made a fool of. It's nothing to me how much of that sort of thing you may have done, so that you do none of it here. But,—if you play any prank of that kind with me, you'll find that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope |
